Don’t Look Back
By Cosmic
Domino and Cable belong to Marvel. However, this story belongs to me. Feedback would be loved and worshipped. If you’d like to archive, just ask and ye shall receive. Special thanks to Lyssie, my great and wonderful beta’er, without whose help this ficling wouldn’t have been finished.
He called. I came. It always used to be that simple with us. It isn’t simple anymore. And I don’t know what to do.
I can’t just leave, it has to be more than that. I’ve left before. Dozens of times. This time, though, it seems different, final. This time. It seems strange to try to justify leaving him. He brought it on himself.
I can’t stand it anymore. Waiting for him to come home from one of his idiotic missions, not sure if he’ll come home. Waiting for him to tell something, anything. Waiting for him. I’m always waiting. I can’t wait any longer. Wait for somebody to tell me he died on one of those fucking missions of his. I can’t lose him like that.
I asked him. I asked him to stop. I asked him to not to go this time. This time and countless times before. He didn’t listen. He never listens. So, now, he’s lying in the med. lab, fighting for his life. And I’m leaving him. Running away when he needs me the most.
Running away. I’m good at that.
**
She’s leaving. I know she is. She’s looking at me through that window, long and hard, as if trying to etch this image in her mind. This image of me, lying here, being connected to all these tubes and machines. She’s looking at me with such finality. That’s how I know for sure. She’s leaving for good this time.
Before I left, she asked me not to go. Asked me and I didn’t listen. Asked me and I didn’t even reply. That was the final test and I failed. I failed miserably. But with this I won’t fail.
**
He could’ve died on that mission. He still might die, if Henry can’t cure that infection. Every mission he goes on, I worry if he’ll make it. Every deliberate stunt he pulls. Every mind-play he does. I worry if I’m not by his side in battle. And now, I worry if I am. He’ll get hurt one of these days and then won’t get up again. And I don’t want to see that.
I hate this. I hate doing this to him, causing him pain. But this hurts me much more. It’s a gnawing, endless pain that hounds me day and night, hounds me in my dreams. Just another demon. Just another voice in my mind, yelling at me to stop.
I’m tired of old ghosts haunting me, of old ghosts reappearing and causing havoc in my life. I’m tired of running myself ragged, trying to prove myself to people whose dream I don’t share. I’m tired of being down-played and second-guessed all the time. I’m just tired.
I’m getting old and it’s starting to show in my work. That’s why I’m leaving.
**
She’s leaving. I know she is. And I’m letting her. I’m letting her walk out of my life, for good this time. In fact, I’m helping her. That’s why I’m still lying here in bed in the med. lab, pretending to be asleep (that and the fact Henry threatened to put more cold instruments in uncomfortable places), so she won’t have to face me, so this doesn’t end in argument where we’d say things we didn’t mean – or worse, things we did mean, so she doesn’t leave this place in anger, vowing never to return, so she might come back someday. That’s why I’m not upstairs, begging, arguing and asking her not to go. Maybe I should be. But I’m not.
She wants to leave. She wants away from this. And if I asked her, she would stay. If I told her I needed her, she would stay. If I told her I loved her, she would stay. But she’d hate me if she stayed. Flonq, I would hate myself for it. She’d hate herself for it.
She’d die, if she stayed. Her heart’s not in this anymore. She is dying. Her heart… that’s all I got from the link before it clamped shut. She has only a few years left, at best, if she stays, and that’s not nearly enough. So she wants to make the most of them. Try living a normal life for a change. She’ll hate it, of course, but she’ll try. That might even keep her alive.
**
I love him. I love him so much it hurts sometimes. That’s why I’m leaving. That kind of love is dangerous, the kind that is both pleasure and pain, the kind that makes you do crazy things without once questioning yourself. When you know you’re in over your head and you’re going to get hurt but you still hold on because letting go would hurt so much more, because there isn’t a thing you could to let to, a thing you’d want to do.
I love him. That’s why I’ve stayed as long as I have, but I can’t anymore. I can’t miss the feeling I have every time I watch him go, the sense of loss I feel if he’s not around. I can’t be dependant on him, nor can he be on me. That’s never good in our line of work.
I’ll go crazy not being with him, not doing what I’ve done for most of my life. Can I live a normal life? Do I even want to? Do I want a husband with a normal job, a house in the suburbs and two kids?
I don’t know if I can live through that, but I want to try. I want to try living a life where I don’t have to save the world with my team at least once a month. But I don’t want to watch from the sidelines, either. And I can’t stay around anymore. It hurts too much.
I love him but he never shares his feelings. There’s a distance between us. He doesn’t share. Not his life, his work, his love or his secrets. Not that I’m any better. I guess we’re two of a kind that way. Two of a kind. Living a semblance of a life together. He won’t tell me his feelings for me, he can’t. He can barely give me a promise of loving me, of staying with me. I need more than that. I need a commitment, love, a family, maybe kids someday. He can’t give me any of those things.
So I’m letting him go, leaving him and it hurts so much, but I have to, because losing him would hurt much, much more. I love him, that’s why I’m leaving.
But I still have to say goodbye.
**
She has tears in her eyes, now. Her knuckles are white and a few drops of blood drop from her hands. She opens the door, coming in with a deep sigh, as I close my eyes tightly shut.
Her hand brushes my cheek and through my hair. By the Goddess, I want to open my eyes and look at her. To kiss her. I can hardly even hear her breathe.
“Oh, Nate,” she whispers, so quietly it strains me to hear it. “I have to go and I won’t be coming back. It’s not like you won’t see me ever again. I’ll be here. Some day. But...” she pauses and I could picture the bittersweet smile on her lips. The smile I heard in her voice. She continues, with a catch in her voice. “I’ll be home for Christmas.” She pauses again, gathering her strength. She quickly brushes her lips with mine and walks away. She stops at the door, and I close my eyes again, hoping she didn’t notice the movement. She continues in that barely audible tone of hers, sounding oddly wistful. “You can count on me.”
**
I walk. I walk away, out of the med. lab, out of the house, towards the cab that’s already waiting. And I feel something, someone looking at me, but I don’t turn around. If I turn around, I’ll stay and never leave. If I turn around all will be lost. I squeeze my bags tightly, needing them for their weight and protection, to buffer me.
I feel like I’m in a daze as the driver takes my bags and opens the door for me and I sit down, shutting the door behind me. Then I feel it again, the sensation of someone watching me and slowly I turn my head, to look out of the window and I see mismatched gray eyes, staring back at me. I see him, standing in the window, looking at me, but not seeing me, for the cab’s darkened windows. His eyes, calm but sad, tell me everything I ever wanted or needed to know, of him, of his feelings, and then it hits me.
He knew. He knew I was leaving. He knew and he let me. He knew I had to do this. He knew. A new sense of relief comes over me and I motion the driver to start the car and drive off, without any second thoughts, as a new batch of tears well up in my eyes. Thank you, Nathan Dayspring Summers. Thank you.
-fin