log, marvel: luke/wren Who: Luke & Wren What: Running off to get powers is not okay. (1/3) Where: An empty apartment. When: After her ~visit with Loki. Warnings/Rating: None.
It was a mistake. She knew that now, but it was too late to do anything about it, and Wren knew she was at least a half hour late. Maybe more, because she hadn't looked at the time, and she'd gotten used to living without a watch in Gatsby, where time seemed much less important than it was here. But she knew it was a mistake, and she knew she was already late, but she still ducked into a store near the address for the apartment Luke had given her. She bought jeans and a blue shirt with sleeves to her wrists, and she changed in the handicap stall in the store's bathroom, soap scrubbed against her knees, elbows and palms, and then paper held there until the red and grass-green were gone.
She smelled scorched. A strange and bitter smell that was controlled burns and fireplaces at Christmas, but she couldn't do anything about it, not even when she stripped everything off in that bathroom stall and used that scratchy soap all over. Dry again, and she didn't know how late she was now. She only knew that she was really, really late.
Slippers back on her feet and her ruined dress in the trash, left behind in that bathroom stall, and she rushed the rest of the way. She knew the clothing was off, was wrong; she only wore clothes from the 20s now, and her closet was dresses and hats and shoes that she'd taken from work. She knew he might be able to smell that commercial soap from the bathroom on her skin, nothing like the vanilla and honey she normally used. But there wasn't time to go back, and she really just wanted to see him, to get to him, to touch him.
She didn't hurt, not anymore, but the memory of pain was still with her, and it made bile rise up whenever she thought about it for too long. Non, she wouldn't think on it. Non. She'd made it out fine. She was fine, unchanged, and she assumed that was why the man with the red hair and the green eyes had disappeared. Whatever the man tried hadn't worked, and she really, really believed that.
She kind of needed to believe that.
She looked up, up to check the building's number, and she ran inside, flushed cheeks from rushing and her curls a mess with bits of grass that she hadn't noticed. Her lips were blood-bitten, but that was nothing strange, and she forced herself to stop and breathe. Stop, breathe, and she was at the door now, her slipper-covered toes almost touching the wood. Breathe, and she knocked once, softly. She didn't like that he had an apartment that he went to without her. He had secrets now, and she was still aching from whatever happened at the party, and she was raw from her own stupidity, and she thought she might cry. But she didn't. She blinked, and she didn't cry.
Luke hated himself for letting her go. An hour, she’d said, and like a complete idiot he had agreed; he regretted it the moment the clock started ticking. He had no idea where she was going, no idea who she was going to see, no idea why. All he could do was wait, and he hated waiting. It was inactivity, passive, and he’d never been good at staying still. But there was nothing he could do, so he decided to give her the hour. Just that, nothing more. He was angry, yeah, was he ever, and he was determined not to let her wear him down this time. Pulling shit like this was not okay, and he was going to make sure he made that very clear. How the hell was he supposed to tell her about Brielle if he couldn’t trust her not to run off and do something stupid? He trusted her with his life, with the kids’ lives, but her own… not so much.
The apartment was just space, really, an empty shell he took advantage of for his own purposes. He was still with SHIELD, officially, but when he wasn’t at home, wasn’t with Wren or the kids, he was at the Mansion; he liked it there. But sometimes he wanted to be alone, sometimes he didn’t want to hone his abilities with other people around. Whoever had lived here once was long gone, and for whatever reason it had never been fixed up or rented out again; there were a couple of empty shelves, an old discarded mattress, a couch he’d clawed up in varying degrees, but that was it. He didn’t live here. It wasn’t a home away from home, it was just space to practice. To train. Targets drawn in marker on the walls, punching bags hung from the ceiling--one still whole, the others torn to shreds--and he’d begun constructing a sort of mini obstacle course in what had once been the kitchen, but it was half finished.
And so, with no other choice, he waited, and apartment didn’t fare very well because of it. By the time the hour was up there were multiple holes in the walls, deep claw marks gouged in the floors and plaster, the couch was barely a couch at all and his target-wall was dotted with small throwing knives. While his anger grew so did his worry, and the latter was stronger.
An hour came and went. She was late, and he started to panic.
Ten minutes, and he went out looking for her. He had to. He started with the park closest to their house and went from there, hoping desperately that he might pick up some scent, but there was nothing. Twenty minutes (an hour and a half in total) and he was desperate, but he headed back to the apartment in the hopes that maybe, maybe, she was there. Maybe she was okay. Maybe she wasn’t hurt somewhere, or dead, somewhere he couldn’t find her because she hadn’t told him anything. Stupid, stupid, and when he climbed back through the window to see that it was still very much empty, his heart dropped. He couldn’t breathe.
Then, the knock at the door.
He’d never moved so fast. In an instant he had it open, and when he saw her he exhaled in relief, oh god, and he didn’t know whether to kiss her or yell at her or some combination of both. Little things filtered through, like the scent of commercial soap and, beneath that, something scorched, the clothes she wore that weren’t her usual outfits, the bits of grass in her hair. His claws dug into the wood of the door and he tried really, really hard to stay calm, but it wasn’t working so well, and he ended up tugging her inside and slamming the door shut behind her so hard that the walls actually shook.
“You’re late.” He inhaled deep, deep, and his voice wavered. “You’re late, Wren.”
She held her breath when he opened the door. It made her chest hurt, but she did it, and she looked at his face first. She exhaled, and she looked past his shoulder at the mattress in the center of the space. It was a ruined thing among ruined things, but it was a mattress, and she had grown up on sex the way other girls grew up on milk and cookies, and she immediately wondered if he had used it for anything. Secrets, and he had another life now, and all those thoughts slipped through her mind like water into a drain. Seconds, just seconds, because he was grabbing her and tugging her inside then, and the door shook like a reckoning.
She didn't lean back against the wood, not even with the claws that she could see at the ends of his fingers, not even with the slam that made the world shake. She could see the apartment now, the shambles of holes and filling, and she still didn't lean back against the door.
She'd known she was late. She'd known he was going to be angry.
She didn't fear the way other people did. She was too broken for it, too glued together to realize it, but she didn't fear. And she especially didn't fear him. He could strangle her right there, right then, and she wouldn't fight him, and there wouldn't be even a glint of fear before the life went out of her. And she'd known he was going to be angry. She'd known.
She bit a lip that was already layers of raw, and she looked at him. "I know I am," she admitted, and her voice was a whisper, barely sound, and yet still somehow raw, somehow pained. But she was good, and she kept that pain off her face. It wasn't anywhere, and maybe she was just hoarse. "I got here as fast as I could." Which wasn't entirely true, because she'd stopped to buy clothes, to wash up, to change. But it was for the best, and she couldn't tell him that, not without telling him why. Why couldn't happen, it couldn't. She wouldn't lie; she wouldn't. But she couldn't let him chase a man with the kind of power that she'd felt as she screamed in anguish.
"I'm sorry," she said, and she took a step forward, closer to that anger that radiated off him in waves. "I'm sorry," she repeated, fingers reaching for his face, and the tips of her toes almost touching his feet. "I'm sorry," and the jeans and shirt she wore were thicker than she wanted as she leaned against him, and she couldn't feel his heat through the fabric. She stretched, and she kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry."
He had no idea what she was thinking. The mattress was just a mattress, left behind by the apartment’s previous occupants, old and ripped up and useless; he hadn’t done a thing with it. He didn’t realize, either, that she thought he had secrets, that this place was just another piece of a life she thought he was keeping from her. And, truthfully, he wasn’t thinking about any of those things just then anyway. He was anger and worry and he knew something had happened, he knew, because the smells were wrong and so were her clothes and she’d promised only an hour. She wasn’t one to break promises easily. He looked at her when she admitted that she knew she was late, and he sucked in a breath when she said she’d gotten here as fast as she could; he didn’t believe her. He could smell the soap. And those clothes, they weren’t what she usually wore.
Lies, and that just made him angrier, because if she was trying to hide something from him then it must have been bad.
But he started to falter when she apologized. It showed in his expression, even as he shook his head and tried to cling to his anger. “I was worried,” he insisted, even as she moved forward. Another apology, and he knew he was lost when her fingers touched his face; he tried regardless. “You said an hour, and you didn’t tell me anything,” and his voice broke despite his best efforts. He moved forward when she leaned against him, or at least he tried, an unthinking desire to get closer. It was so, so hard to stay angry when she was this close, when he could feel her against him, and his arms went around her when she kissed his cheek. “What happened? Where did you go?” Quiet questions and god, he wanted to kiss her, but he wanted answers, too.
She didn't realize how transparent she was. She thought she was still good at lies, and while she knew he could tell things now, that he could smell things on her skin, she still thought she could pull it off, at least a little. Just enough to make it all seem small, and he would be angry with her for putting herself in danger, but if it was tiny he wouldn't go after the man with the red hair; that was all that mattered.
"I'll explain. I promise," she said, and she thought she could. But he was so close, and she could still feel that agonizing pain rising up through her if she thought about it. And she thought she'd gotten herself killed. She'd thought she would never come here, to this apartment she hadn't known existed, and that began to really settle in her belly now. Now that she was there. Now that she realized how much she'd almost lost. "But first, please?" and she tugged on his shirt, and there was the blossoming of belated fear on her skin, even though she didn't fear anything, she didn't. But it was there, beneath the cheap soap and the clothes that still smelled like store. She tugged on his shirt, and she used one hand to shove at the button and zipper of the offensive jeans she wore, because they were too thick, and she couldn't get close enough, and maybe that was all in her head.
"Please? I promise, but can we just sit?" She glanced at the mattress again, and envy was bitter against her tongue, and she wondered, and she knew it was just a confluence of everything. He wouldn't bring anyone there, he wouldn't, but there was a question in her eyes when she looked back at him, a quiet kind of worry beneath the grey that had nothing to do with what had happened to her.
She began to shove the jeans to the floor, and then she remembered why she was wearing them in the first place. And sometimes she was stupid, and maybe she had been afraid, so she let the jeans sit open on her hips, and she tugged him toward the mattress. "Just for a few minutes?" And then she'd tell him. She would.
He loved her so, so much, but he didn't know if he believed her when she said she'd explain. Oh, she might tell him half truths, bits and pieces of what had really happened, but he wasn't sure if she'd explain everything. And he knew, too, that sometimes he did the same. He left out certain details to protect her. For her own good, and so he couldn't be that angry, not when he understood. It was a hard habit to break, but he was trying; he just wanted her to try too.
"Okay," he said, finally, wanting to trust her, and he looked down when she tugged at the hem of his shirt. He thought of the night before, briefly, and his cheeks flushed with heat. Just a little, and the scent of fear that hit him suddenly, sharp and spreading, made him look back up at her. He hated her fear; he always wanted to make it better, to find what had frightened her and destroy it. "It's okay," he said without thinking, the instinct to soothe overriding everything, "you're safe now. I'm here. It's okay." He pulled his shirt over his head obligingly and tossed it aside, and he watched as she shoved at her jeans. He couldn't tell her no. He always capitulated, no matter how angry he was, and he knew he probably wouldn't be able to hold onto it. He'd get distracted. He'd forget.
When she promised to tell him some of the tension left his shoulders, and he nodded in response to her please. He started to speak, but then he followed her gaze to the mattress and the question in her eyes puzzled him. It took a couple of seconds to click, and then he took her face in his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. "No," he said simply. "You're the only person I've brought here. The only one I ever would. I use this place to..." He trailed off with a sigh. "To test what I can do. To push myself. When we went to save Jack, Max said I was violent when she saw what I was capable of. I don't want other people saying the same." He thought the destruction visible around them was proof enough of that.
Why she stopped shoving at her jeans, he had no idea, but he didn't want her to stop. He reached for them himself, but then she was tugging him towards the mattress and he let himself be led. "Okay," he echoed quietly, and when they reached the mattress he sat first, tugging her down onto his lap a second later. It wasn't the most comfortable of seats but it was definitely better than the floor. His arms went around her, and he held her close, and then, then he gave into his desire to kiss her. It started off slow, chaste and warmth, but then he coaxed her mouth open with his and made it deeper, a way to convey how worried he'd been without needing words at all.
He was smart not to trust her to tell him everything at the beginning, but she always ended up telling him, because he always pushed, and she kind of needed that. But right then, she was just planning on telling him a tiny version, something small that didn't scare him. She thought she could do that, and she knew it would be better for him.
She caught that flush to his cheeks when he agreed to take the shirt off, but she didn't understand it, not right away. She'd been too worried about his anger when he found out what she'd done, too panicked over the fact that she'd almost gotten herself killed, and embarrassment hadn't wound its way around her yet. She looked at him for a long second, a little confused, but then his shirt was off, and her hands were on his chest, and she'd missed him. She might have caught it then, in the still of her hands on his chest and his heartbeat a steady thump under her fingers, but he began to tell her it was okay, and she looked up with confusion in her eyes. "I know," she said of being safe, her voice still a rasp. She knew. "I'm safe wherever you are," she whispered trustingly, and her hand skimmed down his chest and came to rest at his hip. She really, really wanted to just lean into him, to just let him take all the bad things away. Bad things that he must be able to smell on her skin, and she'd almost forgotten. Or, really, she'd just thought she could fib her way through it. She was made of contradictions, and that should have been an indicator that she really, really wasn't okay. But it wasn't. She was too focused on making this okay for him, and she wasn't really looking inward.
When he pressed his forehead to hers, she was an instinctive sway against him, scratchy denim and cheap blue, and she didn't close her eyes. She bit her lip, and she stared, and she wanted to believe him. She wanted even the tiniest doubt to be gone, but of course embers remained. That was just who they were, and she still hated the mattress for what it maybe had the potential to represent. But she believed him, she did, and she nodded a tiny bit, and then her expression changed from something that had recently been terrified to something angry. "You aren't violent," she insisted, throat screaming from the force of making the words sound like more than a hush, and now it was her turn to cup his cheeks in her hands. "You're not. She's wrong. I know you better than anyone, and she's wrong." She didn't care about the destruction in the room; he'd die before hurting someone who didn't deserve. And if that was a slippery slope, well, it was one she'd never been good at seeing.
She waited for him to sit and tug her down, and then she straddled his thighs in that denim, and she was used to bare thighs under skirts and less between them. She whimpered into the kiss, and she pressed herself against him and tangled her fingers in his hair. The kiss was mine and fear, and she kept kissing him until the breath was gone from her lungs. It hurt, that, and she sobbed for just a second, letting him swallow the sound. Her arms slid down, and she clung to him, cheek against his shoulder and wordless for just a second, letting the fear of her own stupidity pass in the safety of his arms.
He knew she would try to minimize whatever had happened for his sake. He knew, and because he knew he anticipated it; he was prepared to push. Secrets and lies only ever hurt them in the end, after all, and no matter how hard the truth seemed it was always, always better. And the way she looked at him, that confusion, made him feel incredibly stupid-- there were more important things to worry about, and she clearly wasn't even thinking about the previous night. So yeah, maybe letting it go was for the best, and he flushed a little deeper and tried to focus on the present, on the feel of her hands on his chest, instead of thinking back. He loved that she knew he'd keep her safe, and he remembered what it felt like, that knowledge; he wanted her to have that, always. "I'll always, always keep you safe," he told her, a whispered vow. "Whether you let me or not." Because she didn't always make it easy. Sometimes she made it really, really hard, like now, but he'd never stop fighting to protect her.
They were close enough that he could read every line and nuance in her expression, and he didn't smell doubt or fear on her-- not fear that he was cheating, at least. She was afraid, but not of that. Oh, he knew he could never wipe every last trace of her doubt away, but she believed him. That was enough. "You're biased, baby," he said gently, when she insisted that Max was wrong. "I am violent. I can be. Before, I... I knew what I was capable of. I knew how far I could go and I knew how to stop myself. Now, I'm learning my limits all over again, and here--" He gestured with a tip of his chin. "Here, I can't hurt anyone if I lose control."
Her jeans were thicker than the dresses and skirts she usually wore, and he decided he didn't like the extra fabric between them. He would've taken them off, but that would require moving and he didn't want to move just then; he liked the way she pressed against him, liked the feel of her fingers in his hair, and he splayed his hands out over jean-covered thighs instead. He could taste her fear but he could taste the claim in the way she kissed him, too, and his anger ebbed away bit by bit until the flames were small, the roaring fire from before dimmed. He kissed her without care for breathing, and he swallowed down her sob with the desperate desire to make her pain go away, if only he could take it in himself instead. "It's okay. Whatever happened," he whispered, "it's okay now. I'll fix it." He let her cling, and he slid his hands beneath her shirt, seeking to soothe through touch, to reassure. "But don't do this again. Please. I can't lose you." For nearly two hours, he'd thought he had, and he didn't want to go through something similar ever again.
She didn't understand that she'd made him feel badly, or she would have backtracked and forgotten everything else in an effort to make him not feel that way. But she didn't know, and there was only his whispered vow to keep her safe, and that did bring back the evening before. She shook her head, and she knew this would lead into what happened if she let it. She knew it was a bridge, and maybe she wondered if it was even him, or if it had just been a trick of the hotel, and maybe this was a way to be sure. She bit her lip, and held back the argument for just a minute, just one, because she wanted to prevent the inevitable. She didn't want him to let go of her, and she thought he would, that he might. He might pull away, and she might not ever, ever get him back, and she couldn't live with that.
But he was arguing with her about his own violence before she could begin talking, and part of her was grateful. That part wasn't as big as the part of her that was just angry that someone had made him feel bad, and that was anger on her skin and lots of it. More than any anger that had been there recently, and she could get so, so dangerously angry on his behalf. It was just true, and the anger she would never feel for herself, she could feel it in spades when someone hurt him. "I'm not biased," she insisted hoarsely. "You're not bad. I won't let you think you're bad." Because she wouldn't, and maybe that was out of her control, but she wasn't going to just let him think it, non. She looked around the room, at what he was using as proof of his own violence, and she looked back at him. She shook her head. "Non. What I see here is you learning how to do what you can do now. It doesn't mean you're violent." She was quiet by necessity, but there was nothing quiet in the intensity of her stare.
His kiss was peace, and she forgot the man with the red hair for a span of moments, and she breathed easier. And maybe it would be okay, maybe he wouldn't react badly. But then he said he would fix it, and she shook her head. "Non. You have to promise you won't do anything. I'm fine. I'm fine, so you can't do anything. Promise, and I'll tell you, but you have to promise. And I won't do this again. I swear. I swear, but you to promise me." She pressed her fingers to his jaw, and she made him look at her. "Please, Luke? Please? I did something stupid, but I don't want you to get hurt because of it. Please?" Her eyes were damp, and her lip trembled. "Please?"
The way she shook her head made him frown, just a little, because after what she'd done he really didn't want her arguing about whether or not he should keep her safe. Clearly, he needed to. All that the night before about her needing to keep him safe was laughable; no, she was the one who needed to be kept safe. He couldn't trust that she'd do it herself, not when she was so damn selfless, so of course he had to look out for her. "Don't," he said quietly, when there was still time, seconds before the question of whether or not he was violent became an issue. "I will keep you safe. I have to." This was proof enough of that, wasn't it?
Even though her anger had a scent, he found her determination to defend him hopelessly endearing. He smiled; he couldn't help it. "You are biased," he insisted softly, "but I'm not saying I'm bad." Not this time, at least. "Hey. I'm not. But I have the potential to be violent, Wren. I. have been violent. That's just fact." He knew, by the intensity of her stare, that this wasn't an argument he was going to win, and he kissed her before she could say anything else. "I just wanted you to understand what this is, that's all. It's yours as much as it is mine, because everything I have is, but..." He ducked his head sheepishly. "I don't know how interested you'd be in watching me climb walls and claw up punching bags." And, okay, he was a little worried about accidentally hurting her, but he didn't want her thinking he was trying to shut her out or anything.
He knew it was bad when she started demanding that he promise her he wouldn't do anything. Someone, he concluded, had hurt her, and she didn't want him going after this someone. He had no idea why she'd gone to this person but that didn't matter; all that mattered was his certainty that someone had harmed her. His hackles rose, and a growl rumbled in his throat. "You're fine? Really? Or are you just saying that?" He wasn't sure, and he looked down, away, when she kept insisting. He wanted to know but he couldn't promise her that, how could he? His hands on her back stilled, pressure against skin, and he was reluctant when her fingers pressed against his jaw, resisting at first until he finally looked at her. He knew he'd just upset her if he didn't promise, and he'd never find out the truth. He hesitated, torn, and then he sighed. "Okay," he relented. "I promise. Now tell me what happened."
She frowned at that don't, but she couldn't argue, not without filling in blanks, and she was terrible and procrastinating, putting off the inevitable for as long as she could. "I want to keep you safe too," she said, a guilty whisper, because she didn't want him to blame himself for any of this, and she worried that he might. "I'm allowed to want to keep you safe too." And she might have told him then, just like that, words tumbling out, but no, he kept insisting he was violent and that was so much more important. "You're not violent," she repeated, willing him to believe it, and the potential to be violent, that didn't mean he was violent. "You're the gentlest person I know, and just because you have it in you to be violent, that doesn't mean you are. Violence isn't what defines you, and I'm not biased." That last bit came with a sulk, because she expected him to disagree, and she didn't want him viewing himself like that. She wanted him to see himself the way she saw him. She saw someone wonderful when she looked at him, someone selfless, someone who wanted to help other people, regardless of the cost to himself. Those things were so much more important than what he could do with his new claws. She didn't realize he was worried about hurting her, because he wouldn't, not ever. She kissed him, soft and gentle, the antithesis of the violence he claimed lived in him. "I'm interested in everything you do. I'm kind of your biggest fan."
She shook her head when he growled. Non, non, she didn't want him angry, and her fingers pressed against his jaw with a little more force, just a little. "I'm fine. I promise. I'm fine. It didn't work." She bit her lip, because that was the genesis of an admission. But she waited, and she waited, and she didn't say anything until he relented. She wanted to say it, have it done, and then she wanted to move on. She pressed her lips to his jaw, and she drew a line of kisses along his skin, and maybe she wasn't knowingly trying to distract him. "I asked on the journals if anyone could give me powers," she said sheepishly. Her lips were near his ear now, along his neck. "A few people said yes, so I went to meet the person who replied fastest. He tried, but it didn't work, and he didn't do anything I didn't ask him to do, okay?" She was at his collarbone now, breath against skin, and she wanted him to just say it was okay. That's all she wanted, and she pressed a kiss there. "Nothing bad happened, but I shouldn't have gone. I just wanted a way to keep you safe."
Her words were echoes of so many conversations past, and he held her a little tighter. "You are allowed to want to keep me safe," he admitted, because it would be hypocrisy to deny her that. "You are, and I know you want to, but you're my top priority. I want you safe, always. I can't just step back and let you put yourself at risk for me." It was the dilemma of their lives, maybe, that they were both too self-sacrificing. And even then he didn't think that she'd gone to see some stranger because she wanted to keep him safe; it hadn't clicked in just yet. It wouldn't, not until she told him, because she was insisting again that he wasn't violent and be still had no clue how he'd gotten lucky enough to find someone who looked at him like he could do no wrong. He didn't deserve it. His lips twitched, as he regarded her with a tip of his head as he contemplated arguing further. "You are biased," he repeated. "And maybe violence doesn't define me anymore, but it used to. That won't happen again." He sighed when she kissed him, a warm, pleased sound, and his smile was bright and hopeful when she said she was his biggest fan. "Yeah?" He beamed. "I like the sound of that."
It was too late to soothe allhis anger away, but the feel of her lips along his jaw was a pretty good distraction. He tried to stay calm, he did. He tried to keep quiet, tried to let her talk, but he flinched when she admitted that she'd gone on the journal and asked for powers. Asked, like it was no big deal, and his jaw clenched painfully tight; he had to keep quiet. He had to, at least, let her finish. He closed his eyes as she continued, and it became increasingly obvious that he was fighting to keep calm. Maybe she wanted him to say it was okay and just let it go, but he couldn't. Hell no. The more he thought about it, about her going to meet some guy who said he could give her powers, the angrier he became. And how could he trust her when she said it hadn't worked? What if she was lying about that too?
"You wanted a way to keep me safe?" Finally, he managed to find words, and he pulled back to look at her. "That's why you did this? To keep me safe?" His fingers found her jaw, took hold, because he didn't want her looking away. No, he wanted her looking at him. "I can keep myself safe, Wren! I don't need you taking risks for my sake-- I don't need it, and I don't want it!" He was angry, yeah, but most of that anger was based in worry, in the fear of losing her, and it was audible in the way his voice trembled. "I can't believe you would do something so stupid. Do you have any idea what could've happened to you, huh? You could've been tortured, or killed, and I didn't even know where you were--" He broke off with a sharp inhale, and he shook his head. "Jack was kidnapped because of his powers. What if the person you met was the one who did that, Wren? Huh? Did you think about that? Did you think at all?" His volume was rising and he knew he had to calm himself down, he knew, and he forced himself to take deep breaths, in and out. "Do you mean it? Did it really not work, or are you lying to me?"
She shook her head while he spoke, wanting to explain that it wasn't fair that she was safe and he wasn't. But she waited. She forced herself to wait, because she'd just repeat it all once he knew. She knew that she would have to, so she shook her head, and she waited. She didn't say anything until he insisted that she was biased, that violence had defined his life once, and then she couldn't stay quiet, she couldn't. "It never defined you. You were always more than what you did. Always, Luke. Always, and I won't ever agree otherwise." She was stubborn, and she meant what she said. She would argue and argue and argue, and she would never ever stop. Her voice was still shards, but she found volume to get that across. "You're selfless, and you're wonderful, and you're the kindest man I know." She smiled when he beamed, and she didn't want to tell him anything bad. She wanted to live in that moment when he was smiling, and she never wanted to move, not ever. "I think you're beautiful. All of you. Inside, and out." And she almost told him that his gender didn't matter, but that seemed like cheating when she was about to make him scream at her. She waited.
She noticed the very second that his jaw clenched, and wings fluttered in her belly and nervousness kissed her skin. "I can't live without you," she explained as his fingers found her jaw. She didn't fight the hold. She didn't look away. She knew that he deserved to be angry; she would be angry if their roles were reversed. "I know you're mad, and I would be too, but I can't help it. I can't live without you, and you have this new life that doesn't have anything to do with me," she explained with a desperate little cry of frustration. It was all quiet, because her voice just wasn't there, and she didn't flinch when his voice climbed. "Don't- Don't," she said, because his voice was trembling, and she fought the grip on her jaw to press her lips against his cheek. "Don't- I'm okay. Nothing happened. I'm fine. I promise." She sat back when he shook his head, and that sharp inhale of his hurt in her chest. She was honest, and she shook her head when he asked if she'd considered that the person who was offering the powers might have been the person who took Jack. "I didn't think of that," she admitted. "But I made him meet me somewhere public," she offered, her version of a soothing balm.
She looked down when he asked if she'd thought at all, and her hands were in her lap now, and she twisted her fingers. "It didn't work. We went into the woods, and he did this weird magic thing. It hurt a lot, but then I fell, and he left. Nothing happened."
The look he gave her was impossibly fond, and he brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. "I know," he told her. "I know you'll never agree. I kind of love that you won't." Maybe he didn't always believe the things she said about him, but that didn't mean he didn't like hearing them. He did. He ducked his head when she said he was selfless and wonderful and kind, sheepish, but he didn't think he'd ever get tired of hearing her say those things. Not ever, and he couldn't not kiss her when she said be was beautiful, inside and out. "So are you," he whispered adoringly, before the anger, before he felt like he couldn't breathe from how close he'd come to losing her-- and for what?
He shook his head because he couldn't live without her either, didn't she understand that? He'd never want to live at her expense. Never, never, and her insistence that he had some whole new life that didn't include her stung. "That's not true! You are my life, dammit! Don't-- don't say that. Don't ever say that. You're everything to me," he insisted. "You're my whole world, and I've told you over and over, these-- these powers, this ability, it doesn't mean I'm different. It doesn't mean I have some-- some new life!" She might have been frustrated, but he was too, and keeping calm wasn't working very well. He took a deep, shuddering breath when her lips found his cheek, and no, no, none of this was fine. "Stop. Stop saying nothing happened-- that doesn't make this okay, Wren. So many things could have gone wrong." He wasn't the least bit surprised when she admitted that she hadn't thought of the person who'd kidnapped Jack contacting her; clearly not a lot of thinking had been happening, period. And his expression turned incredulous when she said she'd met him in public, like that was supposed to make anything better. "Yeah, Wren, that makes me feel a lot better. You met him in public," and maybe the sarcasm was harsh, but what the hell. That didn't make this okay, and he wasn't so easily soothed.
Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. He groaned and covered his face with his hands when she explained what had happened, the 'weird magic thing' and the pain, and god, she really was going to be the death of him. "Something happened. He hurt you, and you don't know what-- what side effects there might be, you don't know!" He took her face in his hands, seized by a desperate desire to make her understand. "I can't live without you either, don't you see? I'd do anything to keep you safe, anything, but you can't do things like this. You can't. You have to give a damn about your own life, Wren, because I need you. I do." He was rambling now, unthinking words falling past his lips and running together. "Kyle, he said he ran into whoever had Brielle's body last night, and she has some-- some fire ability, and I need to know you won't go do anything stupid when I tell you things. Please," he begged. "Please, please, I need you to promise me you won't. I'll say whatever you want, but just promise me that."
"I won't agree because it isn't true," she said of his imagined violence. Imagined, because she thought everyone had it in them to be violent. To be really, really violent, you had to be different. And he'd told her once that it was kind of like an addiction, a compulsion, but she just didn't see him that way. She would always justify everything he did, and there was nothing he could do about it. "I could say I'm violent too," she told him. "I could say I'm worse than you, because it doesn't bother me to hurt people." Years ago, she couldn't have told him that, she wouldn't have told him that. But she trusted him with everything she was now, even if a lot of that was bad, and even if it meant that he couldn't put her up on a pedestal like he'd done once.
She didn't expect him to react so strongly to the comment about a life that didn't involve her, and nervousness made it harder to think and say things that weren't wrong. "You're not different," she said quickly, insistently. "You aren't I don't- that isn't what I meant. I meant you have a life that doesn't involve me now. It's not like Seattle, where I was part of it. I'm not part of this, and you spend a lot of time at the Mansion, and now Evie's there too, and I'm with the kids, and it's just not anything I know about. And it's not like work. It's not like SHIELD or Gatsby. It's something about you, about your life now, and I'm just not part of it." She sounded mournful, and maybe she would have kept that all to herself, but he was yelling, and she was nervous. She thought the kiss to his cheek would help, but yelled at her to stop, and she pulled back and looked down. The sarcasm just made her retreat more into herself, and she bit her lip and waited for a pause. "You're right. I'm sorry."
She was scooting back when he groaned, because she was pretty sure he didn't want her sitting on him anymore, but he took her face in his hands, and she didn't want to wrest herself away. "He didn't do anything. Luke, I promised him I wouldn't tell you. I promised. You can't do anything or say anything, you promised me," she said, and now she was panicking. Damp eyes, and he was rambling, and she didn't follow what he was saying at first. "What- Brielle?" And then she did stand. She stumbled to her feet, jeans down around her hips and curls a riotous halo of blonde. "See? She could hurt you. That's why I needed to do something. That's why. Imagine if it was reversed. Forget that I'm a woman, okay? For just a minute, forget. What if I had powers, and I was off learning to use them and being with other people like me, and you knew I was going to go out and try to save the world. And you couldn't be there, and you couldn't do anything to help. Imagine what that feels like, Luke, and then imagine someone from my past could set people on fire and wanted to hurt me!" Her voice was raw, but she was almost screaming now. Looking down at him, and incredulity on her tear-damp face.
No, she wouldn't agree because she was biased. She was so, so biased, but he didn't repeat himself. He liked that she was biased. He liked her endless faith in him, because it meant she was the one person who would always, always believe in him, even when no one else did. "You could," he told her, "but I wouldn't agree either, and then we'd just end up telling each other we're wrong for hours." No matter what she said of herself, he would never see her as violent. She had every right, he thought, to want to hurt men, to not care about hurting them, and so he didn't see it as wrong. Nothing about her could ever be wrong in his eyes.
Maybe she was right. Maybe, but he didn't want to admit it and so he stayed defensive. "It's not like that," he protested. "I'm not-- I'm not trying to exclude you, I don't want to, it's just--" He didn't know how to explain, and his inability to do so frustrated him. "This is something bigger than me now, and yeah, I'm a part of it, but it doesn't mean I-- it doesn't mean you and the kids don't matter. Maybe you're not directly a part of it, but I'm not... I don't..." He had no idea what to say. He couldn't justify himself, couldn't find the words to do so, but he hadn't meant to shut her out. He hadn't realized he'd been spending so much time at the Mansion, and he hadn't realized she'd felt this way either. Guilt gnawed at him, worse after she pulled back and apologized; he'd done that. He shouldn't have lost his temper, shouldn't have yelled, but he was just so angry.
"I know I promised you," he said, frustrated, because he hated that this guy got to go free, unpunished, after doing who the hell knew what to her and taking off like a coward. "But that doesn't make what he did right, and you're trying to make it sound like it's not a big deal when it is." And he hadn't actually meant to mention Brielle, but the words had slipped out and there wasn't any taking them back now. "I won't let her hurt me," he began, but then she was talking, pushing forward, and he fell silent. He listened. He didn't want to, but he listened, and he tried to put himself in her position. He imagined what it would be like if she was the one with powers, if she was off spending time with mutants and training and planning to save the world while he hung back and watched, unable to do anything. He imagined someone having the power to hurt her, like Brielle, and he imagined the helplessness that would come with not being able to protect her.
The realization was like a slap to the face, but he deserved it. That, and so much more. Because she was right, she was. He'd feel exactly the way she did were their roles reversed. He looked up at her, guilt and new knowledge suffusing his features, and this was his fault. He'd driven her to seeking powers from strangers. Him, him, him, and he moved forward, onto his knees, fingers winding in the hem of her shirt. "You're right," he admitted, shaky and quiet. "You're right. I didn't-- I didn't think about what it might be like for you. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He thought it right that he kneel, that he beg for her forgiveness like this. "I'm sorry," he repeated, and his arms went around her waist, and he clung, cheek against her belly. "I'm sorry."
She knew he wouldn't agree about his lack of violence, she knew, just like she knew he would be mad about what she'd done. And she hadn't meant for this to turn into her being upset about something she hadn't even let herself voice. And she wasn't, not really, she wasn't upset. It wasn't that. She knew this was bigger than her. She understood that, and she didn't argue with him about it. "I know we matter," she said quietly, not fighting the silence in her own voice. She did know. She knew she mattered, and she knew the kids mattered. It wasn't that. And it wasn't even that he spent too much time away. Normal people did that, she knew. Normal couples, they spent time apart, and she knew she was selfish about wanting to see him too much. So she didn't argue with him, because he was right. She knew he was right. "I know it's something bigger than me."
But she shook her head quickly when he started talking about the man who'd tried to help her. "He didn't do anything. He didn't come after me, Luke. He didn't. I asked for something publicly, and he just offered to help me. He told me from the beginning that it was about me, that it would only work if there was something in me that made it work. I'm not heroic. I should've known it wouldn't work at all. I won't try again. I promise. But he didn't do anything wrong. He told me when it would hurt before it did, and he was nice to me." And all of that was true. This wasn't the fault of the man with the green eyes and the red hair. He'd tried, and he'd done it without asking anything in return, and she couldn't fault him for that.
She was contrite well before he moved toward her on his knees, and it took a second for her to react to the fingers winding in the hem of her shirt. It was too quick, that move from anger to not, and she just looked at him, wondering if the anger was going to come back, giving it a chance to if he needed it to. "No, don't apologize. Don't apologize." She tried to tug him up for just a second, because she hadn't said everything she'd said for him to feel bad. "I just wanted you to understand why I did it. You're not doing anything wrong, Luke. Normal wives are okay with their husbands not coming right home after work. You're not doing anything wrong." And he wasn't, and she was starting to feel really, really sorry that she'd said anything at all. She should've just let him yell, but his arms were around her waist now, and her fingers slid through his hair in apology. "I just look at this room, at it's time you chose not to spend with me, and that's not a normal reaction for me to have. It's not okay, and I shouldn't make you feel bad about it."
She wouldn't be able to force him to stand, not if he didn't want to, but she could kneel herself. And so she did, breaking free just enough to drop down in front of him. She sat back against her heels, and she looked at him. "It's okay. Please don't apologize. You didn't do anything wrong. I did something stupid. I was stupid. It's not okay for me to feel like that, and you're not going to change anything. Promise, promise you won't change anything you're doing." She gave him a little smile, something that was understanding and damp with tears. "I know you're part of something bigger now. I'm just having a little trouble getting used to it."