Re: Mayflowers: Jack & Max
[Jack hadn't forgotten about Dhaka. It had been first in his mind when he saw her and wondered at how relaxed she seemed, how at ease with her fate in the flower shop. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was finally time for her to hang up the gun, after what she had been through there.
He took in the news about Brandon being involved in something problematic enough that Amanda needed a new name and a separate roof. It was starting to make a little more sense now, why she'd offered Jack a place in a flower shop. His own feelings about Thomas Brandon as a man weren't important, but the risk he posed to Max and to Amanda, that was.
For his own part, Jack had stayed away long enough to feel confident no one was looking for him. The Avengers seemed to have forgotten or turned over quickly enough that people killed before their tenure didn't matter to them. The police had no leads. He could work in the flower shop, and stay under the radar, prepared for when things hit the fan. And they would, inevitably. They always did.
It was easy for him to forget that Max was older now, the years between them. He didn't notice them on her as much as she did, but she was right. There came a time when you couldn't keep plunging blindly ahead like you did when you were twenty.] Then I'm glad you found your calling in flowers. [It came with a small smile, but it was true. If this really would fill in the places where her old vocation had been, give her the chance she deserved to step away, then she should buy as many flower shops as she needed to. Everyone deserved their patch of quiet, and nobody he knew deserved it more than Max did.
Revenge, or time away? He had to think about it for a moment.] Both. [No smiles there. He'd been gone a few months, but he hadn't forgotten. No even close.] I sleep better. [No more wondering what Norman Osborn might be doing to another group of mutants, locked in a lightless cabinet underground. No more nightmares about screaming drills and needles. Well, not as often.] And it was good, putting some distance between me and everything. [The facility, Osborn's corpse, months of pain. He had known better than to think leaving would offer him a new beginning somewhere else. He'd tried that before, and there weren't any fresh starts for him. Distance, though, granted its own kind of settling, stirred silt resting neatly, thickening down, growing still.
He knew the shadows at the edges of her grin better than his own. She leaned in, slotting in against him, knee against knee and her head tucked down. He had known Max longer than he ever knew Helen. He thought about that sometimes.
Her hands were warm through his shirt after the cold outside. He slid a hand across her arm, toward her waist, fingers finding purchase there. She leaned back, but he left his hand, looked up at her grinning.] Was there ever any doubt?