[Quietly, Jack couldn't have agreed with her assessment more. Slowing everything to a stop, finding a harbor, burying his head in the sand, all of it sounded like a relief where it would have once felt like a betrayal. It was true, too.] Not a real peace, but a good one. [It was the closest he was ever likely to get. She was right about that, and he had already come to terms with it.] O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. [He smiled a little, looking down at his hands. Poetry felt like a vestigial piece of him, something he had cared about so much. He found it hard to care about anything beyond the immediate moment anymore, its needs, the needs of the people around him. He'd watched as the things that had mattered to him, things like being a person who was involved in the world in ways other than wiping people out of it, slowly sank out of sight.]
It could be. [He watched her right back. His dark eyes were tired, but animated, and he reclined with the same lupine curve and smoothness that he moved with these days. He didn't know it, himself, but if anything was likely to drag him to his feet once he'd wiped Norman Osborn off the face of the planet, it was his the new energy that he struggled to vent appropriately, the drive to move and keep moving even when his head said no.] I think I'm going to start small, and see if I can stay interested. [It was a bare, honest statement. He wanted it. He wanted to have something real and good and be satisfied. But he couldn't promise anyone he would be.]