Who: Eddie and Death What: Friends meeting as a break from the craziness (literally) of Vegas Where: Gotham (Eddie's apartment -> Park) When: Now-ish Warnings/Rating: Nothing? Some talk of sadness, but nothing bad!
Eddie was having a rough week back and it showed. He didn’t bother wearing a suit, sticking with jeans and a black shirt that proclaimed “Snitches Get Stitches” with a Golden Snitch from Harry Potter crying woefully between the scrolled out words. His curly black hair spiraled from the top messily and practically unbrushed. His violet glasses glowed a wall between him and the rest of the world. Matilda was on her leash, waiting patiently for the walk he promised her, pulling a little to say hello to neighbors passing by in the hallway. Eddie tried to tell himself he wasn’t stressed out. He didn’t know how this whole situation with Kara was going to pan out. And though his loyalties were with the batfamily first, he was dedicated to trying to keep the destruction and power levels down of superheroes. Just like Ollie and Steve, he didn’t believe that Superman should be allowed to sacrifice some for the many. He had a Gotham philosophy that there was good in the bad. That darkness was worth keeping no matter what the shining sun gods had to say.
Still, Kara was in custody. Scared and alone. Eddie couldn’t let that go.
He checked his watch, a present Stephanie gave him for his birthday that showed all the gears and then he waited for the hallway to clear before he pushed his front door open to reveal the Passages hotel. This whole scheduled meeting thing seemed so out of place for him and Muerte, who would go from having an idle conversation over the journals to hanging out in a snap. He wondered how long Iris would be like this. If she was really just as alone as her doctor made her sound to be. But, when Muerte stepped through he smiled brightly at her, some of the tired from the night before fading.
“You wanna take a walk with us, Muerte?” Eddie asked, taking his violet glasses off as Matilda wagged her whole body at Death.
Though the effort to actually leave the facility was more than Iris thought she had in her, the insistent prodding of Death in the back of her mind caused her to work with and through her current level of medication and slip into another outfit of oversized clothes, things that hung on her frame and only emphasized how slight she’d become, even under the mealtime supervision of medical professionals. The red marks of her own nails were still stark on her arms. She’d barely said much since those conversations with Sam and Ian, and any bit of spirit she’d regained before or during that had been stripped away again. She moved where and when she had to, at the point that those caring for her began to threaten action if she didn’t. It didn’t mean that she wanted to.
But she knew that none of what was happening in her own life was the fault of who she carried in her mind. Death had brought none of this on herself, and it was another slice of cruelty to keep her locked away when there was an opportunity to let her back through the door. If it was up to Iris, if there was no way to end herself on the Vegas side of the door, she would just as soon have slipped through to the other side and let Death be there always. She’d done it before, and no one had noticed her absence. If she didn’t have a chaperone, if Dr. Fischer wasn’t going to be waiting in the hotel at a specific time, she would maybe have thought of doing it again.
But he’d escorted her from the facility, told her about times and limits and about how Eddie had promised to care for her and her Alter and send them back through safely. It was those words that made both her and Death realize that he really didn’t know much at all about who was being visited door-side. A very scant number of people would likely have turned someone over to The Riddler for safe-keeping. Iris wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.
The door was already open when she shuffled down the hallway, and even the quality of the light flooding through said “Gotham”. She was glad that Dr. Fischer had stayed back enough to not see through - to not (yet) discover the secret of who she carried on the other side. She was certain that would earn another attempted conversation of questions. Those thoughts were chased away by the sound of jingling dog collar and ID tags, and (as only happened so rarely) Death took the next steps in Iris’ feet, more certain to carry them over the threshold, not giving anyone on the other side more than a momentary glimpse of broken blonde woman.
There was a swooping moment of disorientation that Death had never been certain if everyone felt, or if it was just her - the essence of what she was, slotting itself back into the greater universe. It was even more severe now that her times embodied were more human than they’d ever been before. It was a swift drop from Las Vegas, through the universal awareness of omniscience, and back down into something much more contained, compact, and vulnerable. There was a moment of lag as she worked through it, a stuttered delay before her boots hit the floor with a quiet thump.
She looked better than Iris. Though that wasn’t high praise at the moment. Her standard black more than emphasized pale skin - it washed her out. Clothes that normally fit perfectly (because why would they not?) seemed looser than they should, and were she truly human, the circles under her eyes would betray sleepless nights. But she wasn’t human; it was only the strange reaction to being in Iris’ mind (and body) through everything that had happened. She smiled though, when she saw Eddie and Matilda, and that at least helped to chase some of the shadows away. She waited just long enough to take the two of them in, for Eddie to remove his glasses, and then she was stepping forward with a scuff of boot on carpet.
The hug was nearly too tight, slim arms slipping over Eddie’s shoulders and pulling him close. She closed her eyes and hid them against the soft cotton of his shirt, one hand resting on the back of his neck. Stephanie and Selina and anyone else that had ever given their unwanted opinions on what she did or didn’t feel could all be standing there, and it wouldn’t have stopped her embrace. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice roughly unused, though she didn’t say what for. It didn’t matter. She let out a sigh, breath warm and shaky against his shoulder. “Just... just a second. I’ll ask you what’s wrong in a second.” And she continued to cling.
Eddie gave a surprised noise when she hugged him, not expecting any kind of close embrace after the last time they saw each other. It wasn’t that Eddie was a guarded guy, in fact most of his friends who happened to be ladies had the tendency to hug and kiss him because he was so goddamned cute. No, the last time he saw Muerte she didn’t want to be touched and everything was so on edge for the both of them that he wasn’t sure if they were going to repair as much as they needed to. The hug alleviated some of that doubt in his mind and at the very least allowed him to relax a little more.
“Hey.” He said softly, smiling through the surprise and then wrapped his arms tightly around her. Eddie leaned his head down, pressing the side of his face against her head before leaving a small kiss in the tentacles of her hair. He liked that she didn’t mind showing weakness in front of him. That she could cling shaky to his geeky t-shirt until she felt better. It was such an uncommon thing in this city. “Wait, who said anything is wrong?” Eddie mused, voice brightening in a goofy kind of way that proved he not only had the worst poker face in Gotham, but he appreciated that she could at least tell he was feeling a little low.
She still remembered the way she’d felt the day after the party, but it was so separated from the present by a whirl of painful emotions that she had to live within. It was enough to cause her to look for something good to replace it with, and the tightening of friendly arms around her was enough to do it. She was still too vulnerable, still aware of the way her heart beat in her chest and the way her breath shook in her lungs. But she was able, for the first time since the party, to relax in her own body, and everything went a little softer. She kept her eyes closed and leaned into the press of kiss to her hair and slowly, softly, breathed out. Her hand still rested on the back of his neck for a second before it moved down to curl fingers in the collar of his shirt.
“Don’t lie. I felt it on the way in,” she whispered, still holding tight to him before sighing again and slowly pulling away. She rested her hands on his shoulders for a few seconds before patting them both lightly and giving him a smile as she finally stepped back more. She looked at him, shadows still under her eyes, but her focus on him instead of her. The moment hung until Matilda pushed forward and demanded her own attention, and Death knelt down to say hello. She murmured soft things to the dog, and with her fingers still buried in fur, looked back up at Eddie, eyebrows lifted in question.
Eddie wasn’t looking for weakness in Muerte’s face. He knew it was there. He had a pretty good idea what it was like being stuck on the other side of the door in the mind of someone so desperately alone like Iris. It must have felt like Arkham’s chill. It must have felt like banging your head on the stone brick walls that lined your cell. He couldn’t imagine being stuck in a place like that now. He was too vibrant, happy and desperate for those few moments of normality like walking the dog or making Stephanie dinner. And he knew that Muerte, as ironic as it was, celebrated plenty of living things and customs even before she got so damned human.
“Don’t tell her things, Matilda, we talked about this!” Eddie exclaimed as Muerte bent down to greet the copper colored dog. Matilda ignored him, nuzzling her nose into the palm of Death’s hand and whining for pets and attention. It honestly wasn’t all that different from how Eddie begged and needled for attention, except she was a lot better at it than he’d ever be. He put his hands on his hips and snuck a smile in when neither of them were looking. No one knew the emotional lows Eddie could reach better than his dog, who had a knack for trotting in with her tennis ball when he was just about to give up on everything. She kept the panic attacks away, the OCD from acting up and taught him patience that years of being a supervillain tried to erase. It was fair to say Eddie needed that dog just as much as she needed him.
When Muerte looked back up at him he sighed and tugged the leash a little. “Come on, I’ll tell you once we get going.” Eddie made his way down the stairs, saying quick hellos to the in and out drag queens that he lived with. The old building was only three stories and was built sometime before Eddie was born, but the security had been upgraded significantly. The front doors were reinforced. There were working alarms. There were cameras with little green question marks on the side. And, if Eddie wanted to, he could put the whole building on lockdown. He could have only secured his apartment. A year ago that’s what he had done, but Eddie wasn’t that guy anymore. If you were part of his family, his circle, he got protective. Everyone in Gotham figured that out by now.
Outside, the Gotham air was cool and a little muggy. A smog sunset in bright oranges and pinks crawled behind the skyline until the Arkham wall erased everything from view. “We like the park a couple blocks from here by the nice senior center.” Eddie told Muerte, though she probably already knew that. When Eddie first got Matilda, he had to only take her out for walks when Gotham was quiet (which was very, very early in the morning) at the only park that didn’t have very many stabbings or loud teenagers. Eddie was a live fast and loud kind of guy with a soft spot for a couple things out there that were slow, quiet and thoughtful. He couldn’t help it, the big softie that he was.
“Do you remember Kara?” Eddie asked Muerte after a little walking. “Stephanie’s best friend here. Real sweetheart. She dropped into Gotham and something happened...a mugging with a lot of scared citizens watching. So, Oliver Queen showed up, put some kryptonite in her and locked her up. It’s a mess and I got myself in the middle of it.”
“Matilda can tell me anything she wants,” Death smiled a bit up at Eddie, giving the dog one last, good scratch under her collar before whispering “thank you” and standing to walk next to Eddie. She didn’t say much as he said his hellos to the fellow residents of his apartment, though enough of them had known her, at least in passing. Friends they had that were no longer there, a moment in their own lives that she had touched and passed. Some of them ignored her, some only stared, one leaned down to kiss her cheek. She smiled at all of them, but didn’t linger, keeping up with Eddie as they pushed out of the building.
She was quiet as they walked, only nodding at the confirmation of where they were going. Matilda had told her, but she wasn’t going to let Eddie know that. Matilda had told her other things, too. Things like how Eddie had been gone more than usual (for a long, extended time), and yelling at his machines and the voices that came from them. Even a little at the voice that Matilda knew was Eddie’s mate. That, combined with the fact that Eddie was in a t-shirt and jeans, was more than enough to let her know that things weren’t quite right. The tense look around his eyes only solidified the confirmation.
“I know Kara,” she finally replied with a nod. Not well, because so many other things had been going on in her own existence since the Kryptonian girl had arrived in Gotham. But she knew in the abstract way that she knew so many other things about the universe. She was quiet again through the retelling of things, and slipped her hands in her pockets as they walked, letting out a little sigh as she shook her head. “Well that sounds... complicated.” She frowned slightly. “And why are you in the mid-- oh.” It took a moment, but everything slotted into place. “Right.”
Eddie let the leash rest around his wrist, occasionally allowing Matilda pull him towards an interesting smell. He liked the leisurely pace, the pause between speaking and the chance to get some fresh air (well as fresh as Gotham could get). It was a big difference between the heated JLA comm and the rambling he and Stephanie tended to fall into when they missed each other. The night before wound him up tight like a pile of wires behind a television set. And, a very wound up Eddie wasn’t good for anyone. “Stephanie really cares about her.” Eddie said thoughtfully and gave Muerte a look that said if someone was important to Stephanie they were automatically important to him. Especially someone he approved of like Kara. “And, even though Steph likes to pretend she’s fine on her own, she needs a friend like Kara around. I can’t let anything bad happen to her. It really can’t be my fault if something does.”
He knew he was a low level member of the JLA and Eddie wanted to keep it that way, but he didn’t see a problem with trying to negotiate things. “I’m- and you’ll have to excuse my old man jargon, a hustler. I make deals. I avoid conflict by making everyone happy in their own way. This Arrow guy doesn’t think about consequences. He just bullies his way through everything and then is surprised when people get hurt.”
Death watched Matilda explore, following along when Eddie was pulled one direction or another. She knew (from Matilda’s explanatory snuffling) how many interesting smells there were in Gotham, and only smiled slightly at the constant hunt for more “good sniffs”. She gave a quiet hum of acknowledgement at the description of how important Kara was. To Stephanie and, by extension, to Eddie. “It’s not your fault,” she finally said, soft enough that it began to mix with the sound of traffic from outside the park. She looked at him, really looked, the way she sometimes did - or at least used to. In a moment that was less human and more knowing, she really looked. The traffic faded and the jingle of Matilda’s tags was muted. And it stretched. Stretched. Until she blinked and shook her head, things snapping back into time and place again. “It’s not. You didn’t volunteer to join. You didn’t force Oliver to do what he did. You didn’t provide the arrows. It’s not your fault in the same sort of way that it’s not Stephanie’s fault when Jason kills someone.”
She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and watched her steps for a bit before she shook her head again. “You don’t always get to make everyone happy, Eddie. Hustler or not. You do the best to cover yourself, but there’s always someone working on their own agenda. You can’t sway someone from their own path. Not when they’re that set on it.”
Eddie liked those deep, thoughtful looks she got (though recently they had been scarce after the toxin ordeal) and when he caught them, he gave a goofy, squinty stare back like he was seeing rips through time, too. She could claim up and down that he wasn’t anything special, that he didn’t have any great powers besides a staggering IQ, but that didn’t keep him from pretending like he wasn’t almighty. When she blinked back he smiled at her, booping her nose with his fingertip and then walked deeper into the park with Matilda. “You know the rules, girl.” He told the dog, who was already looking up at him in anticipation. He knelt next to her, wagging his finger right at her snout. “No knocking over old geezers. No sniffing purses.” Matilda tried to still her body as best she could as if to prove she was going to obey all the stipulations and after a moment of consideration, Eddie let her off the leash to go explore on her own.
He looked up to Muerte and then shuffled over to the nearest bench to sit down. “I spent my whole life thinking us rogues were the unreasonable ones. The irresponsible ones. But, honestly? Working with Joker and Scarecrow was leagues easier than any of this. These heroes are so rash. None of them besides the Dark Knight take a moment to think things through. It’s infuriating. And, Stephanie does it too. Did you know the second she saw that footage of Kara she threw her batsuit on? I mean really, Muerte.” Eddie leveled an unimpressed look at his friend, draping his arms around the back of the bench as he watched Matilda investigate the trees and bushes around them.
His goofy squint earned a smile from her, pleased and fond at the same time, and she shook her head. She was about to say something, but then he reached out and actually booped her on the nose, and she was left startled and blinking until she made a face and rubbed the feeling away with the back of her wrist. She wrinkled it at him when she was done, the phantom sensation still there, though fading. Watching the interaction between him and Matilda, she smiled at the dog’s promises, even knowing that mischief would definitely be had, if it presented itself properly.
She sat next to him on the bench, far at the end, but pulling her legs up so that she could fold them and turn sideways to sit, facing him as he spoke. She nodded slightly, admitting that it was true - nearly all the people in this world that were good were responders. Something happened and they jumped in to stop it, to help. She didn’t know if that was simply part of being one of the “good guys”, or if they could change. “I know,” she finally said, hands folded in her lap and nodding. “They have to help, Eddie. It’s as much a part of them as your riddles are for you. I’m not sure that they can stop to think. Not when someone needs them.”
Eddie rested the side of his head on the palm of his hand and crossed his legs, turning a little to look at her. “If Stephanie rushed in there she would have gotten killed. That’s what she wanted to do. She wanted me to open the gates for her and didn’t even think twice about what would happen if I did.” Eddie was all for heroics and sometimes he was simply in awe of how fast she could think on her feet, but there was a place for planning. There was a place for being thoughtful and patient, though it was becoming more obvious to him that he was the only one like that trying to fight the good fight.
He gave a thoughtful hum, his leg shaking a little like the gears of a watch tick tocking along with his brain and heart and he turned his head to push his mouth into the palm of his hand. “I’m not cut out for this.” Eddie said and it was an echo of what he had told the Cat when he had an almost breakdown. “But, I can’t stop. That’s the worst thing. I want to help Kara. I betrayed Crane because I was mad at him. Who does that?” Eddie made a bewildered gesture with both hands like he was confusing himself every second he looked back on his own actions. “I’ve had Ivy literally put me in a coma, I’ve had her turn me homeless and I didn’t care. Now, I’m putting Crane behind bars and playing nice guy between Mr. Government Green Arrow and the rest of the heroes. I don’t know how I fit anymore. It used to be so simple.”
Death’s expression went serious, another reflection of too many eons seen. “She would have, yes.” There was no refuting that fact - if Stephanie had rushed in, there would have been no rushing out again. “And she would have seen it as a fair trade-off. You fell in love with a bat, Eddie. The ‘other person’ will always be more important to save.” She leaned to the side to rest her shoulder on the back of the bench and tried to give him a smile. But sitting there, talking, brought out the grey, creeping exhaustion again. Not that she paid it any attention, ignoring it in favor of pulling out his problems and laying them out to see.
“You’re not a simple man, you know. You never were, and you especially aren’t now. There’s more in your life than just you now. It makes you think differently about things.” She could see it in him, compare it to what she knew of his past. She could read more than just Stephanie’s influence in his life, could see the affection for Gotham, his love for Matilda, knew the way he’d fortified his entire apartment building. Even little things, like having a favorite restaurant for tacos. “You don’t fit. That’s the point. There’s no one little mousehole for you to fit into.”
Eddie rolled his eyes, an expression that was once only Stephanie’s but slowly transferred over to him after spending so much time with her. “It’s not a fair-trade off. They’re crazy. It’s like thinking running into a brick wall is going to move any mountains.” And, this was probably why Riddler had been obsessed with Batman and his crew for so long. No other superhero would play the game. Would even want to play the way his Batman did. But, those years felt long behind him now and all Eddie wanted to do was be the voice of reason once and awhile. “She let me talk her down, but I can hear it in her voice. She wants to run in there. She wants to storm the impossible castle.”
He sounded annoyed, but anyone could pick up on that lift of fondness for the blonde bat. That even though she was so very guilty of being stupid brave, he admired something about it. Almost like from afar.
“I’m a square peg in a sea of round holes.” He said after a little while, eyebrows up and sort of delighted by the idea that he was so unique. Even if it did get frustrating. A couple feet from them, Matilda saw a squirrel. She pressed her stomach to the ground, ears up and tail slowly wagging in the dirt as the fat, bushy tailed rodent zipped around the branches. Eddie watched, amused and then looked back to Muerte. “You going to tell me how you’re feeling or do you want to keep pretending that everything with you and Iris is fine?”
“They’re the good guys. They dress up and run out to save people at the cost of their own skin. Of course they’re crazy. A different kind of crazy, but it’s a fitting description all the same.” She raised an eyebrow as she watched the thoughts move over Eddie’s face, the concern and affection for Stephanie most of all. “She always will. It’s part of who she is, and you don’t want her to be any other way. But it makes things difficult, I’ll give you that.” Another pause as she shifted, bringing one knee up and wrapping her arms around it. “And it’s why she needs you.” Likely Stephanie and the other Bats, not that any of them would admit it at this point. “Because you can and do think before you leap. Sometimes the leaping is right, but sometimes it’s not. It’s a balance.”
“Square peg,” she repeated, smile on her face. “As you’re so fond of saying, it’s why we get along.” She turned her head to watch Matilda, knowing that she wasn’t going to catch the squirrel, but it was fun to watch. And she kept watching, even after Eddie’s question. The squirrel moved from branch to branch, thinking of the winter and smugly out of reach of the dog far below. She let her thoughts rest there for a long, quiet moment before she sighed. “Better than being slowly eaten by the Pit. But not great.” She turned her face back toward Eddie and sighed, letting down what little guard she’d had. “It’s exhausting. And harsh. I can follow her thoughts, but I can’t do anything about them.” She paused, then softer. “I’ve taken people who have been hurting far less. It’s all...” Pause, turn away, her profile outlined sharply and a hollowness to it that wasn’t usually there. “She has nothing left. Every day hurts more and pushes her farther from anyone she loves. The facility she’s in watches her constantly, but if they didn’t, she would try again. And with something that would be more guaranteed the second time around.” Her voice was quiet, serious, and calmly accepting. Like she’d been using the time to come to terms with her own strange sort of mortality.
Eddie didn’t know the first thing about suicide and it showed as he tried very hard to control confusion. It just wasn’t programmed into anyone from Gotham. If things got bad, ending it all never even came to mind. No, when things got bad the best solution for everyone, bats and rogues, was to get weird. Anyone at the lows Iris felt now would have snapped and developed something vibrant and dangerous. Eddie barely understood how Iris hadn’t turned into someone like the gallery. “It’s a different kind of world.” He said after a moment. There weren’t riddles, clowns, flowers or bats over in Vegas. People got sad, they got scared and they lashed out in small, vicious ways.
He was just a old time cartoon character having a conversation about true desperate lows with the Saint of Death. How could either of them find a solution? “I like talking to her. She reminds me a little of an pyschic that used to work at the boardwalk. When she wasn’t pretending to see the future.” Eddie said, turning his body towards the park and crossing his arms thoughtfully over his chest. “But, she’s made you look like a ghost. Or maybe you haven’t completely phoenix’d back yet?” That was a sore subject and Eddie didn’t have the foresight to hide it from his features. He pressed his lips together, dark eyes off somewhere else. “I don’t know. I think you oughta spend more time here.”
“It’s definitely not Gotham,” she replied, and tipped her head to rest on her raised knee. It didn’t even look particularly comfortable, but she didn’t appear to mind. “Though she has noticed the fact that other than her doctor and the people at the facility, the only one that talks to her any more is you. Gotham villain, even if you’re playing for the good side now.” A pause as she wondered how much to tell Eddie. How much to lay on his plate when she knew he already had so much knocking at his door. “It’s good for her,” she finally went with, “to know there’s someone out there that would be affected by her absence. Even if she thinks it only has to do with me.”
The darkness to his expression actually drew a small smile to her lips as she watched him shift and frown. She reached out, an echo of how comfortable things used to be with them, and laid her hand on his elbow. “Hey. I’m doing okay. It’s tough, but okay. I’m still phoenixing a little, “she smiled at that, “but time on the other side makes it... tough.” She didn’t go into how Iris was only doing the barest, required-of-her minimum to keep herself alive. Her fingers squeezed his elbow slightly, trying to pull him back from his sulk, but her next words didn’t help that much. “I don’t know how much that... this... is going to happen. If her doctor will agree to a lot of it.”
“I’m a big softie, what can I say?” Eddie smiled with a tiny shrug. “I- and this is between you and me because you’re an all knowing God anyhow- I spent hours talking to one of the bats. I met her at the party and she wasn’t doing well. Misses people from her world that didn’t show up yet. Hours, Muerte. I’m never going to talk to that bat again and I spent hours trying to make her feel better.” He shot a look that was a perfect mirror to the judgemental gaze about the superheroes before. “I’m a big, old softie that worries about people and tries to keep everyone from jumping into danger because I’m so goddamned sick and tired of playing the same games over and over. This is my life now.” His smile was sad for only a moment. Maybe he saw a piece of the past. That riddled spandex brightness that was simple, easy and effortless. The closer he got to it, the more he realized it was only a relic. A mannequin set on a stage without any wants or needs or loves to complicate the matters. He never wanted to go back.
He appreciated her smile, remembered the comfort she used to bring him when he was feeling stressed out and Eddie closed his eyes. “At least once a week. Make it a usual thing at the same time every week on the same day. Doctors love that. And, if something goes wrong on this side, it’s my responsibility. You have Iris tell him that.” Eddie opened his eyes to look over at Muerte. “We’ll go on walks, play pinball and have tacos. And, you’ll get better. You’ll get better.”
She smiled again at his description of her. It was never quite right, but it was close enough, she supposed. It was a viable working definition for anyone she encountered to use. “You are a softie. It’s not a bad thing.” Her own smile went softer, more subtle, and she nodded. “You’re not who you used to be. And I don’t think you’d even want to be, again. Not even if everything fell apart.” She looked at him, the study once again obvious on her face, and she looked. She couldn’t tell the future, but she could read possibilities. All of them, for everyone. it wasn’t hard to follow those of someone she knew. Some were good, some were simply futures, some were very very bad. The possibilities haunted her eyes for a moment as they lingered on him, and she finally shook her head to clear them away. Her voice was softer when she spoke again, something quietly somber. “You’re not who you were once.” He needed to remember that, no matter what else happened.
“I’ll try to get Iris to ask. She’s more likely to do something if it’s for someone else.” She said nothing about his claiming responsibility for possible wrongs. “She might do it for us. The doctor might agree.” She paused, finally finding a smile again, small as it was. “I might get some time.” She liked the sound of walks and tacos and pinball, and nodded. It was good, the warmth that seeing her friend gave her, and she hoped that it would somehow spread to Iris. Even just a little. Even if it was just the responsibility of letting someone else have that sort of warmth. It might just help. She moved slowly, shifting forward toward Eddie, and with careful fingers on his jaw to keep him from turning, kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered before moving back again, away. “It might work,” she continued, not explaining more than that but hoping he would understand. “I have time for tacos now...” she offered with a sturdier smile.
He smirked at her very methodical, careful show of affection, eyes glancing over to her while his jaw was still locked in her fingers. Eddie appreciated this new boundary that could not be crossed after the Crane toxin and to him it was a sign that she was just as invested in their friendship and making things right with Stephanie as he was. Plus, the little green man always liked earning a good kiss on the cheek from one of his lady pals. It was like a pat on the head. Good dog.
Matilda wandered back over to them and unceremoniously flopped her head down on the bench between them. Big, brown eyes up at the two of them like are you done yet. “Yeah, yeah.” Eddie said back to her, rubbing behind her ears and smiling brightly. “Alright, Muerte. Matilda wants to show you a really nice flower patch. I have no idea what it is about it that she likes. But, she will want to show you it.” Eddie got to his feet and didn’t even bother trying to leash Matilda. She, too, was a good dog.
She made a face at his smirking, but knew that they both realized why. Why the care taken with a gesture that used to be so easy. But the satisfaction of being comfortable enough for the affection to return. A tricky line, but one worth tiptoeing along as she pulled her hand away.
Matilda’s expression earned a laugh and a good two-handed scritching - under collar, behind ears, all the good places that she liked, bumping hands against Eddie’s and not caring because Matilda deserved the love. “Flower patches are much more important than tacos,” she told both of them seriously, but stage-whispered to Matilda as Eddie stood: “You haven’t told him about the chipmunk family?” Of course that was what was so important about the flower patch, and she grinned as she stood and walked with them. She had hours until she was required back, and she wanted to make the most of them.