stephanie nashton does it all (forthem) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-09-19 03:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *log, eddie nigma, stephanie brown |
nashtons - old gotham run-in.
Stephanie Nashton hadn't seen much of her husband over the past few days. Cursory conversations here or there, and maybe they woke up with the other next to them the next morning if they were lucky. It was almost mutual avoidance, in an sense that they kept themselves wildly busy to stay away from home. Eddie, with his repairs and his mentoring and his Justice League duties, and Stephanie with the clinics, searching for nursing schools, and patrolling on and off. Typically? When one was in the apartment, the other was gone. Mutual avoidance. It was easier than addressing the conversation that happened between them or the litany of problems that hung between the still technically newlyweds. (They were still newlyweds? Somedays, it felt like they'd lived through twelve years of marriage already.)
She missed her husband desperately, but she knew he probably needed space. And sure, she was a little cranky, too. But, that didn't mean that she didn't love him, didn't want him around, didn't want to show that she could be sweet, too. Maybe not in the grand, bombastic way that Eddie was, but in measured, little ways. Leaving him lunch or dinner or even just a warm cup of coffee. Making sure the pets were walked or fed. Leaving sticky notes with hearts or their symbol on the them stuck to his keys or the bathroom mirror or the front door. No, she was never really good at planning outlandish dates that he would love, but she tried in other ways. She tried so hard.
On this particular day, she had finished checking in on the clinics fairly early, so she decided to take a walk through their neighborhood to kill some time before coming home and to keep her head clear, too. She greeted familiar faces with a vacant smile, and she stared into storefront windows to see the tired, puffy-eyed reflection of that blonde she didn't even recognize some days anymore. Eyes bruised purple underneath covered by make-up and hair in her face to distract, a permeating sadness for the family she still didn't know she could have, a fatigue for everything that was going on. But, she was still happier than she'd been in a while. She wasn't whole, but there were flickers of hope.
The weather was cooling down, and she walked down the street looking ready for fall, purple engagement ring glinting against the monochromatic colors of her clothes. When she passed a vintage record store a few blocks down from the place where the girls from the building had their drag shows, she stopped in her tracks, pondering for just a moment before going inside. She stepped out about ten minutes later with two records tucked underneath her arm: a vinyl with their wedding song on it, and another of Elvis. Of course. She would make Eddie dinner tonight and play those records, and maybe, just maybe she'd be lucky enough that he'd come home before she fell asleep.