log: steph/eddie - patching up (2/2) WHO The Nashtons. (2/2) WHAT Eddie comes back all bloodied and bruised from a mission. WHEN Recently. WHERE Their apartment in the Citadel. WARNING treating wounds, shirtless Eddie and Steph, lots of talking~
“I like stern. I can’t have a shrink who lets me dance around stuff.” Eddie already had Jack, but he knew that he was just too much work for that guy and it was way too easy to avoid what he needed to talk about. Coleman would see him every week, he wouldn’t let Eddie bullshit and that’s what he needed more than anything. His heart thumped a little nervously, though, since letting someone else into his life was hard and trusting them to make a good decision about his mental health was tougher. Steph thought it was a good idea and he trusted that. He thought that at least he wasn’t going to get locked up for being a crazy person.
He hummed appreciatively when she told him she loved him and repeated the words back with one changed variable, “I love you, Stephanie Nashton.” And, oh god did he love saying her full name. Nashton and it meant something good. So good he couldn’t stop holding onto it. Eddie pushed into the kiss, glad it didn’t take her long to deepen it and let himself just have that moment. The buzz of the booze and her body against him made his head spin like he spent too much time going on carnival rides. He didn’t feel under water anymore. He didn’t feel like he was battling to keep his head above crashing, angry waves. She dragged him to shore and reminded him that he was alive. That he was more than a computer programmed differently than everyone else he ever met.
When she started closing up his wounds, he leaned his elbow back on the bar and watched. He wasn’t grossed out by anything, really. Rogues didn’t make it very far if they were squeamish. “Have you been practicing?” Eddie asked and then hissed out some pain, kissing her shoulder as she worked. “Your threading is spot on. It’s been months since you’ve had to do anything like that.” He bit into her as she tugged the skin closed and whined, lightly banging his forehead into her shoulder to fight off the pain.
Stephanie couldn’t help smiling brightly when he said her full name. She would never, ever get sick or tired of him saying Stephanie Nashton. She thought about the first time he told her his real name. Not Nigma, but Nashton. From then on, that was the name she used, even as her family members still clung to his Riddler identity. Stephanie saw beyond that, saw the man underneath the question marks and lines of code, and here she was, more than six years later as his wife. She was a Nashton now, too, and their babies would be Nashtons. A whole gaggle of Nashtons in the world to prove that her man could be so much more than just a Gotham rogue.
She stopped when he bit her skin, screwing her face up at the sudden, sharp pain, but she didn’t chide him. She knew how much that shit hurt, and she wasn’t going to tell him to start acting like it didn’t. Humming thoughtfully, she pressed a kiss to the skin around the wound she had just closed and moved onto the next one. “Yeah,” she started cautiously, not looking up at him as she quickly threaded the stitches through skin. There were a couple of seconds of silence before she continued. “I’ve been thinking -- and it’s just something I’m thinking about right now, it’s nothing serious. But...I’ve been thinking of going to nursing school.” Her cheeks burned up just a bit, and she tied off that row of stitches as well.
He kept his teeth in her like a dog carefully carrying a duck back to his hunter owner. No sharp marks, not until something hurt and he gave a nerdy little grumblegrumble as he bit into her. When she kissed his wound, he kissed the place he bit, all delicate love and then leaned back to look at her. Eddie watched her hands, watched how there wasn’t any clumsiness or fear when she worked and he knew that she was onto something special. “Nursing school would be great for you.” Eddie agreed without thinking and then it struck him that she might mean in Gotham and he knew there was just no escaping that place. Did he even want to at the end of the day?
Eddie’s face screwed up in pain, but he kept his eyes on her to prove he wa taking it seriously. “You’d do it there, then?” He asked cautiously. “I don’t want to end up like Dick and Babs. We’re not even allowed to talk about space when we hang out with them. That can’t happen to us.” He wasn’t saying space or nothing at all. If anything, it was a request to find some middle ground. He knew he was going back to Gotham eventually. She knew it, too. He only needed to be careful about it.
Steph inhaled sharply when he sunk his teeth into her shoulder, but she didn’t let it deter or distract from her work. She was steadfast in her movements, much like she had been as bombs went off overhead and gunfire rained from above and she had to stitch up one of their teammates before they bled out on the ground. As the last wound was finally closed up, she leaned over to the first aid kit, grabbing the gauze, medical tape, and bacitracin. Squeezing out a dab onto her index finger, she looked up at him and smiled when he agreed. “Yeah?” But then she frowned when he continued, carefully dabbed the bacitracin on the wound on his side.
“We aren’t going to end up like them, baby. I promise that. I wouldn’t want to do anything to make things that tense between us. To make us have to fight over which door to raise our kid in because we can’t live in the same one.” She shook her head. She loved Dick, and she really appreciated Babs, but if this was going to be an ongoing problem, it wouldn’t be good for their baby. She knew that just as well as she was sure they did. Shrugging, she placed the gauze on the stitches and taped it to his skin before doing the same procedure with the next one. “It’s just something I’m thinking about. I haven’t done anything about it yet. I don’t know if I will, and if it’ll even be in Gotham. Maybe I’ll do it here. Maybe I’ll do it in Marvel. Maybe there’s another door that needs nurses.” Another shrug, and she leaned to kiss his chin affectionately before going back to work. “I don’t want to drag you back to Gotham. I’m waiting until you’re ready.” She hummed thoughtfully, chewing on the inside of her cheek, and it was clear she wanted to say something but filtered herself.
Eddie didn’t like that frown and he resisted the urge to just drop all this space bullshit and follow her back home. Whatever she wanted, he felt the urge to give to her. And, Stephanie wanted Gotham, so who was he to take it from her? He murmured her name gently and pushed her fingers away from his wounds, pulling her into him. He kissed her bare skin, that tattoo, that scar and the edge of her jaw. “You’re waiting?” A kiss to the edge of her mouth and then a press for another. His dark eyes trailed up to look at her bright blues and he waited for her to look back at him.
“Just say it, baby.” He asked, a frown twitching the edges of his mouth. “You promised not to keep this shit to yourself. You promised me.” Eddie knew that she was trying to protect him and if the tables were turned he’d be doing the same damn thing. But, he thought he could take it. He thought he could carry a lot on his shoulders, even if that wasn’t quite true.
“Eddie,” she protested quietly as he pulled her into him with his good arm, but she didn’t fight the embrace itself. She kissed his hair as he peppered her skins with his lips, sighing deeply and eyes closing as she rubbed his hair. She was such a goddamn sucker for him in the same way he was for her. She should be focusing on getting him patched up, or trying to make him feel better, but it was so hard to concentrate when his mouth was all over her body. “I’m waiting.” She returned the kiss, then stole a few more before he pulled away.
“I’m not, baby. I promise.” She rubbed his arm soothingly, his good one. She shook her head, like she didn’t want to upset him, like she was protecting him because she kind of was. Her hand slid from his dark hair to trace down his jawline, and her blues caught his browns. “Damian thinks this is me sacrificing myself, but I don’t feel like that. Not yet, not now.” Steph fell silent for a moment. “Honestly?” she continued quietly, almost at a whisper. “I’m scared I could eventually. But, if I do start to feel like that I’ll tell you. I promise I will. Right now I’m just thinking about nursing school, it’s nothing serious.” She leaned forward until her forehead was against his, hand cradling the back of his head and thumb rubbing his hair. “I’m here with you all the way. I’m here for you for as long as you need it, baby. Promise. I swear on…,” she smirked, “swedish meatballs that I’ll talk to you if there’s something to talk about.”
Eddie couldn’t stop the hurt that etched into his face. The lines fanning out on the edges of his eyes, those circles under his dark browns. All of the wear and tear from not sleeping well became suddenly apparent. “Sacrificing?” He hated that word because it implied something he didn’t think they were. Eddie hadn’t allowed himself to think that he sacrificed anything while she was in the hospital. If anything, they were both hurting at the same time and she was doing more work than anyone to get better. Sacrificing. The word made him want to sell the fucking apartment and leave Mass Effect for her. Maybe he could find himself in the DC door. Maybe he could let Machina take him out to space.
“If it feels right, I want you to do it.” Eddie told her and closed his eyes as her fingers threaded through his hair. “I don’t want to get in the way of you and your happiness. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t need to be here, I don’t.” He gestured around the apartment. “What else did he say? Is that it? That you’re sacrificing? What else?”
She could see the exhaustion in his face, and she immediately regretted opening her mouth. Here he was in pain and so tired he was about to collapse, and she was telling him about her baby brother’s opinions on the whole matter. But, she’d promised him she wouldn’t hide shit, right? And they shared practically everything they had at this point. Her fingers ran across that streak of gray before dragging down his jawline, and then she finally sighed. Stepping back, she pulled that tablet phone journal out of her back pocket, and silently looked for her recent conversation with Damian. Once she found it, the one she’d had while she and Eddie were on their honeymoon, she held the phone out to him.
“Now, let me finish this. Okay?” Most of the stitches were dressed, and now the matter was going to be setting that shoulder right. So, she finished with the bacitracin and gauze quickly and stepped away to grab the ace bandage. “It’s gonna hurt, baby. Okay?” He could take that to mean the shoulder she was about to set or the conversation he was about to read, even if she did just mean the shoulder. Steph knew that Eddie was just trying to find himself. It had nothing to do with going back into rogue status like that.
Walking around to his back, she slowly kneaded her fingers to check the joint. “Don’t move.” Without further warning, she popped the shoulder back the rest of the way in, and then she peppered kisses down his neck and across his jaw, on his ears, to his cheek. She told him to hold the arm there, and she tried to work as quickly as possible to construct a makeshift sling to support his shoulder. She kept apologizing, looking up constantly to make sure he was okay.
Eddie almost faulted her once he saw when the conversation took place, but he let it go. Why ruin the honeymoon? Still, he gave her a look like he felt bad for her having to keep this in the back of her head for so long and started reading. Eddie knew that the Bat Family didn’t trust him and barely tolerated him. He knew he was lucky they let him even marry Stephanie without having to run away with her. And, yet, he was still pretty hurt by one of her brothers talking this way about him. There was no trust in the bat family for him, not even when it came down to Stephanie.
He grinded his teeth and looked at his shoulder as she warned that it’d hurt. “Do it.” Eddie didn’t fear pain. He kept reading to distract himself and then hit the part where Damian accused him of playing supervillain again right as she popped the shoulder back in place. He gave a loud yell, something hoarse and angry and shaky. The pain was blinding like a red, hot poker being jabbed into his shoulder socket. His hand shook to set the journal down so her could hold onto her and he gave another low, wounded noise, gasping for air.
“We can’t stay here.” Eddie said through his teeth, fists clenched as he worked through the pain. “I can’t be that guy. I won’t.” He waited for the sling to be done and then he pushed away from the bar, walking up the stairs slowly to their room.
Steph hadn’t intentionally gotten into a discussion on her husband’s current occupation with her brother on her honeymoon, and that was partially why she hadn’t shared it with Eddie sooner. She didn’t want him to feel a certain kind of way about himself or how he had to find himself, especially when they were out there celebrating their marriage. So, she kept it to herself for a time, and it was fine. Because she didn’t see herself as sacrificing, not really. Even the small piece of herself that might agree would argue that he had done the same for her during that month she’d been in the hospital.
She rubbed his back as he worked through the pain, finishing the sling as quickly as humanly possible, and she let him walk away from her for just a moment. A handful of seconds as a head start before she trailed behind him. “Baby,” she said softly, shaking her head. “If you need to be here, we’re gonna be here. Don’t listen to what he said to me. He doesn’t get it.”
Eddie stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look at her. “No. I said we were going to be here without asking. I left you to go on missions. All for what? Because I don’t know what Riddler means anymore? Because I don’t know what I want to do?” He hadn’t been this mad at himself in a long time. Not since they first got back, hell not since Lucha died on Earth-3. “He’s right. He’s absolutely right. I’m a grown ass man making you chase me around because I’m having an identity crisis. Because I can’t be strong for you anymore and it makes me fucking sick. Grayson needs you at home just as much as your brother and what do I do? Take you away.”
He winced and held his arm. His whole body hurt and it was starting a throbbing headache he didn’t know how to get rid of. Maybe he should have gone to a doctor. Maybe asking Stephanie to be the one to patch him up wasn’t really fair to her. Eddie turned and went into the bedroom of pristinely clean sheets and a sleek modern decor. He struggled to get his boot off, unlacing it with one hand at a snail’s pace.
She stopped mid-step, rocking on her feet for a second as if she was debating rushing up the stairs to him before stopping altogether as he spoke. Her eyes grew wide as he continued, and she did finally go up one step, but she was at a loss for words. She hadn’t even thought about how they got here, not really. There had been the apartment and his need to leave Gotham, and that was it. She didn’t think of it as him forcing her hand (even if that was, technically, what he did), or her sacrificing herself. Just needing to be there for her man like he had been there for her unwaveringly while she was in the hospital. Damian didn’t get it; this was how Eddie worked. And Stephanie knew that he needed to find himself, otherwise it was going to bring the both of them down, down, down, and then all that talk of children and forevers would seem moot even now as they were married.
She slowly followed him up the stairs, letting him say his piece and leave her, heart hammering in her chest a little. Swallowing hard, she stepped into the room and kicked off her flats (now also covered in a smattering of blood), and shook her head as he tried to untie his boot. “Go sit on the bed. C’mon.” She waved him towards those pristine sheets and that large bed she was still getting used to calling their own, and when he obliged, she knelt down in front of him and slowly unlaced his boot. “I didn’t think of it that way,” she said quietly, finally, of him and all his ideas on why they were here. She started to work on the next boot. “I really didn’t. I took my time trying to fix what was going on with me, and now you’re doing what you need to do the same. Damian doesn’t get it. I love him, but he doesn’t get it.”
Pulling each boot off slowly, she tossed them to the side before running her hands up his dirty pants. “Eddie.” She looked up at him with honest blue eyes. “You need to figure out how to move on from Earth-3 just as much as I do. I’m working on that now, and it’s only fucking fair that you get to do the same. And if this is how you need to do it? I’m here. After all the goddamn sacrifices and bullshit you had to go through over the past couple of months, you’re allowed this. I promise.”
Eddie whined when she followed him up the stairs and helped him with his boot. He didn’t want her to let him go, he’d be hurt if she did, but that didn’t keep him from that mild, flimsy protest. “It’s not fair, I’m not being fair.” Eddie knew when he was cheating and this was absolutely one of those cases. Even if he didn’t see it before, it was plain as day now. “You want to go have a home in Gotham, get ready for our kid and start nursing school. And, I’m here without knowing what the fuck I’m doing with my life.”
He ran his hands through her hair, pulling on the blonde locks desperately before letting her go and flopping back on the bed. Eddie put his hands over his face and let out a sigh. Something messy and upset. “When I proposed to you, I thought I had everything figured out. I thought we could start building the foundation for something. I didn’t promise you any of this. He’s right. I’m being ridiculous.”
She relaxed a little as he tangled his hand in her hair, leaning away from the pulls just like he did when she pulled on his dark locks. And when he flopped back, she stood up and slid between his legs dangling off the edge of their bed. It might have been a funny sight, the two of them almost half-naked and arguing about purpose, but Steph didn’t even realize it. All she saw was her man, her husband in an existential crisis that he felt guilty for. She bit back a whine, and instead wiggled out of her jeans so she was just in her bra and panties before sliding next to him in bed. It wasn’t about seduction, not right then. Just about comfort.
“You want to go have a home in Gotham, too,” she murmured, running her hand up his bare chest and carefully avoiding stitches and bruises. “But you aren’t ready yet. I don’t care if you don’t think this is what you promised when you proposed. Guess what? When I married you, less than a month ago I might add, I promised I’d be with you no matter what. This is part of the no matter what.” She stretched to press a kiss to his stomach on a just purpling bruise. “We’re both fucking messes after everything that’s happened to us. And it’s okay.” She huffed out a laugh against his skin, peppering his stomach and chest with more kisses to calm him down. “And if you think I actually have everything figured out myself, you’re sorely mistaken, Nashton.”
He turned to look at her, dark eyes scanning from her toes all the way to her blue eyes and he smiled automatically. Despite everything, Stephanie down to her skivvies always made him fucking smile. Eddie opened his arm for her, tugging her body close as she traced around the bruises and cuts. His body was dirty, bloody and beaten. He smelled like chemicals, vodka and fire instead of his city slicker cologne, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he did when she first walked through that door.
“You need to tell me if you’re miserable, Stephanie.” Eddie said seriously, wiggling the fingers of his arm in the sling so she’d hold them for a second. “I’m not going to spend another second here if you’re miserable. What I need doesn’t matter. I can manage it. I always have.” He thought he could have some freedom in this door. He thought it’d be a good place for him to work out what was right and wrong. At the end of the day, though? Eddie was a lot stronger than people thought he was. He could give up all of that if he needed to. He was sure of it.
She smiled back at him, slightly hesitant but pleased that she could still pull that reaction out of him, and she moved into his arm without a second thought. Her mouth traced bruises and wounds like they were the painkiller he was seeking. She still wished with all of her that she could take away his pain -- all of it. The insecurities, the physical, the emotional maelstrom of trying to find himself. But it never worked out that way, did it? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t take his pain away. She could only offer temporary solutions until he could figure it out himself.
“I don’t want you to manage it,” Steph responded, taking his fingers and running her thumb over his knuckles. She hesitated on his ring finger, on that wedding band that he made, and she played with it as she spoke. “I’m not miserable right now. Do you trust me to tell you if I ever am?” Though they both knew that she would push herself as long as she needed to in order to get him better. “What’s not going to be fair is if we go home, and we pretend like we’re okay, and what? When we finally start having kids, you’re still running off trying to find yourself because I didn’t let you before?” Leaning forward, careful not to place any weight on him, she pressed a kiss to his fingers, then trailed them up to his neck before nipping at the corner of his jaw. “I can’t have that. That’s unfair. And I love you, baby. I just want you to feel like yourself again. Whatever that means.”
Eddie looked down at their hands, at her fingers moving his ring against his skin. He didn’t know why marriage was so complicated already. Why he couldn’t just be better for her. “I feel pressure, especially after reading something like that. I feel like I need to be better than what anyone expects of me.” Eddie admitted and turned to press a kiss to her head and ran his other hand along the curve of her hip. A slow climb of his palm up and then back down as if he was trying to soothe himself just by touching her. “After the Dark Knight left, I felt like I was alone. That I had to keep Gotham alive through my own cleverness. So I had the League move in. I pulled out of all my mob connections. I felt like if I had let the city burn, even by accident, it would have been all my fault. That your family would say ahah he’s not the man for you. He can’t keep Gotham above water.”
His words came out slow and methodical, like he was drawing her a maze from point A to point B. His heart beat steady with the occasional jump. “I don’t know who I am. But, I feel like I need to be this guy that you can be proud of. That does heroic things and fights crime and saves Gotham.” Eddie left to his own devices wasn’t that guy. He liked to help, he liked harmony, but he wasn’t a hero. Not by a fucking long shot.
Her eyes drifted shut as he pressed that kiss to her head and ran his hand across her skin. The tightness in her chest started to dislodge, and yet she was still left with a sharp taste of concern in her mouth. Nothing she was saying was really helping, was it? All of her assurances and promises weren’t going to solve this problem of him feeling inadequate. It was a long, drawn out story in the tales of their relationship. Him feeling like he need to be something different, something her family approved of. Hadn’t she told him hundreds and hundreds of times that he was more than good enough? Times like these made her resent them a little, for making Eddie think that he wasn’t good enough for her. She loved her brothers, but goddammit, she loved Eddie more. And maybe that wasn’t fair, but it was true.
“But you don’t have to be anything they expect you to be, baby. You don’t have to be anyone but you.” And maybe that was easier said than done in a place like Gotham, after five years at war and coming home to a city that didn’t feel like home right now. “You’re a good man to me. You’re going to be a good man. Being good doesn’t mean being a hero, baby. I learned that a long, long time ago.” Her palm slid up his chest, circumventing bruises as best she could. “Goddammit, Eddie, I fucking love you for you. I just want you to find who you are. I want you to be who you’re supposed to be. That’s not what I want, or what my fucking family wants, or what any of goddamn Gotham wants. That’s what you want.”
Eddie sighed and closed his eyes. He knew he was enough for her, that he was good for her and there really wasn’t anything he wasn’t willing to do for his wife. But, that didn’t make him a good man. He said so in his vows. He wasn’t a good man, not when it came down to it and that fact was going to cause problems with her family until the grave. It was why they acted so somber at the wedding, right? “I’ve got this fear that one day what they say about me is finally going to get through to you. I don’t know if even getting married is going to shake all of that.” Eddie was a confident man, a person willing to take risks and find out what he needed to. But, the judgement from the good side of Gotham caged him in. It made him feel like fraud, just like he did when he stood in the company of so many members of the Justice League. Fraud.
“So, look. I’m never going to take advantage of you. And, I’m not fucking keeping you here if it hurts you. We’ll go back the second you need to. My problems- my stuff I can figure out anywhere. Maybe if they pump me with enough meds I’ll lose all this crazy for good.” And, Eddie wondered if that really was the last step to all of this? Taking out all the parts that made him Riddler.
Steph smiled over at him a little fondly, attempting to break the tension just a tiny bit. “Eddie, baby. If you think what they think is going to dictate something, you must have forgotten how goddamn stubborn I am.” She loved her family, sure, and they would always weigh on her, but they hadn’t really influenced her decisions in years, had they? Not as heavily as the riddled man lying next to her did ever since the aftermath of that Halloween party. Even before that. She was just too stubborn to let them influence her too much. If she wanted something? Whether it was the cowl, or a part of the family, or her husband? Well, she got it. “I know you’re worried about that, but I promise that it’s never going to be like that.” Her hand slid up his neck, across his jaw to tangle into his hair carelessly. “They aren’t going to take you away from me no matter what they say. I’m not leaving. You’re stuck.”
She shook her head slightly, leaning forward to press a feather-light kiss to his injured shoulder. “I don’t want you to use meds to fix yourself. That’s not it. Therapy is going to help, and the medication is just to help that along. You need to talk to someone. Someone who isn’t me, who isn’t biased, to help you figure everything out. I really think that’s going to be good.”
“You say that now while our romance is still young and we’re not tired with a billion kids.” Eddie said and there was finally a lightness in his voice again. “Who’s to say you won’t finally snap at some Christmas ten years from now? When I teach our kids how to cheat at cards or I’m late because I got into some trouble? One of the bats will shake their heads disapprovingly and you’ll ask Santa for a better husband.” He made it sound like it was all very possible, even though Stephanie had been living with him for the past five and a half years. She knew exactly what kind of guy he was. What trouble he got into and what shade of grey he was. Eddie was the kind of guy who would play ball with gangs to get what he needed, the kind who blew stuff up and hacked computers. She knew better than anyone else could guess. And, yet, she was still here.
He turned his head and scooted down so they were nose to nose. Her blonde hair strewn about, blue eyes serious and mature. He focused on her nose, on her lips and then looked back up at her eyes. “If I figure this stuff out my way, you have to tell me. You have to promise me that you’ll say something if it’s hurting you.” Eddie could figure his mind out, he always did, but it took time and it took getting beat up once and while. “And, I won’t keep you from Gotham. We can have date nights there or go look for houses in the suburbs outside of the city. Okay? Don’t let me take advantage. That’s not what I fucking want.”
Stephanie couldn’t help but laugh. “First off, we aren’t having a billion kids. Are you trying to kill me?” She smirked up at him, rolling her eyes at the idea that his scenarios would happen. They were both good at that, at dreaming up those pesky little what ifs that never really meant anything at all in the end. Or if they did, it only fed into the here and now. The two of them, curled together on their bed in a city neither were born in and longing to find a sense of purpose in a world both were still a little surprised they got to wake up in every day. After half of a decade away, sometimes she still woke up next to him and wondered if this life was just some dream she cooked up in her head. If this was just another what if. But, she knew it was real. All the pain they suffered made it real, and it made the good things all the sweeter. “I’d probably ask Santa to get you a comfy couch to sleep on, but I wouldn’t ask for a new husband.”
She smiled softly as he moved to her level, and her hand let his go finally to cup his cheek. Her leg draped over his lap, and she pulled herself as close as humanly possible to him without hurting him too much. “I promise I’ll say something if it’s hurting me.” She reached to catch his lips with hers in a gentle, loving kiss. “We can do date nights and searching for houses now though. I wouldn’t be mad at that.” Her thumb grazed across his cheekbone, and she rubbed her nose against his.
Eddie grinned and gave a hoarse, quiet laugh and took the kiss gratefully. He was honestly sometimes amazed that she could be so tender with him despite all the shit he did, all the things wrong in his head and all the stuff he said to get under her skin. When they first started dating he felt so lucky to be with someone that accepting. Now, it wasn’t so idolizing. It was more like they had showed each other the monsters under their bed and it didn’t matter. They’d build blanket forts, they’d shine flashlights in the dark. She was just the right combination for him. The purple to his green.
“Okay, that sounds good.” Eddie exhaled and he finally let himself feel tired. His limbs got heavy in her arms and he sank deeper into the bed. “I love you, Stephanie B-Nashton. Nashton.” He grinned at the almost Brown and kissed her again. “I better get some sleep. I have to go blow up some alien bases tomorrow.” He teased, eyes heavy with exhaustion. No, Eddie wasn’t going on any missions anytime soon. But, he’d find peace at the Citadel. He’d find something to turn his mind back on. And, that was something.