Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I used to have a sister, Meg. Meghan, but we never called her that. She was three years younger than me. She got sick when I was eleven.” 

He is eleven years old and at the hospital, alone with her. He spends nearly every night there with her, every second he can spare. She is asleep in his arms, he is dozing off. He has a hard time falling asleep with all the beeping and machinery. Something starts beeping louder, he assumes it is the blood pressure cuff or IV. The heart monitor is not his first thought. 

“I was… I was there at the end.”

Then it is a thought. He shoots up, looking for the source, his heart sinking as his fears are confirmed. He shakes her harder than he means to and she wakes up suddenly, gasping for breath. The beeping does not stop. She looks around frantically and meets his eyes. The nurses rush in, push him away from her. He keeps her hand in his. His mind is blurred with exhaustion but fear pierces through. Her chest heaves with the effort of breathing as they place an oxygen mask over her face. He is once again stunned by how small she looks in this bed. 

“She was only eight.”

They put things he doesn’t recognize on her, shout things he doesn’t understand at each other. He pushes through them, fights his way back to her, pulls her into his arms, not registering that the nurses have left her behind entirely to talk to a doctor. She clutches at him with tiny shaking hands, clammy fingers balling around his sweater. He wraps her body in his, faces inches apart as they whisper desperate prayers to each other. 

“Meg, Meg, you’re okay, it’s okay, just- just stay with me, okay? Please, please , Meg-”

“Steve- I don’t- I’m scared, please-”

They are both crying, the heart monitor is beeping louder, the nurses have gone silent. He turns to them. 

“Please, do something! Help her, please! ” 

He has more desperation in his chest than he can carry. They remain silent. They do not know how to tell a child that death is inevitable, death is cruel. They know he will learn that tonight regardless. He turns back to her, he cannot spare these precious moments on them. Her breathing is shallow and labored, her eyelids threatening to slip shut, her hands falling from his chest. He holds her face. 

“NO, no, no, no- Meg, just- please, Meg, please just hold on-”

His voice is cracking and wavering and he pulls her closer into himself, hunching over her as if he can protect her from this. He cannot, he knows this already, he hates himself for it already. She is slowly going limp, frantically clawing at his arm. It is all of him she can hold fast to from where her hand has fallen. 

“Steve, Steve, please, Steve- hold my hand, please-”

He leaves one hand to support her head, her fragile little body, and grabs her hand with the other. It’s cold and that scares him deeply. 

“I’m so scared, Steve- I don’t- I can’t- Steve-”

She pleads with him until the struggle to breathe sucks away any ability she had to form words and she chokes on air, fighting to stay awake.

“Meg, no, Meg , please don’t go- I love you so much, please just stay with me, please, please- Meg-”

Her hand goes limp in his.

“It was just me and her, right at the end. I was holding her.”

Time stands still for a moment. The only sound is a long beep. He thinks he might be dead (too, though this word is not added at the time. It has only been a moment, he has not accepted it yet). At the end of this moment he screams. It is the sob of a child, is is the howl of a wounded animal, it is all the grief he will ever feel in one sound. He screams and he crumbles and he caves in. He clutches her to his chest and he wails. 

“They took her away and left me alone.”

There are hands on him, prying him off of her. He fights them, he flings himself away, back to her, but he is not strong enough to break free. All he can do is watch. They tear her gown open, electrify her chest, and she spasms. The beep does not stop. They pound on her chest and he hears something inside her snap. The beep does not stop. He is dragged away and he screams his defiance, he hits and kicks and screams until he is outside of her room and the beep fades as he is dragged farther and farther away. He was supposed to protect her, he’s letting them hurt her. He is deposited in some chair somewhere in an empty dark room and he falls apart. 

“My parents weren’t even there.”

He shuts his eyes and sees her being electrocuted, sees her body shake. He clamps his hands over his ears and hears her chest break, hears the unending beep. He digs his fingers into his hair and feels her cold flesh, feels her hand go limp. He throws up in a trashcan, retching and sobbing as it all plays over and over and over again. He doesn’t know how much time passes. His mother walks in and he looks up from the messy pile he’s become on the floor. 

“Mom-” 

It’s a whimper from the back of his chest, croaked over burning bile and a throat worn raw. It is a plea for her to fix this. To the part of him that knows she cannot, it is a plea for her to hold him, a plea for comfort, a plea for refuge in her arms from the storm that is grief and self hatred and guilt. She looks down at him with red eyes and disdain and she slams the doors. He is hollow again, devoid of any hope. 

“That’s when they got… the way they are now.”

She returns some time later (he has no idea how much) with his father. He jerks his head towards the door. He is led to the car, he is driven home in silence, save his mother’s weeping and his stifled sobs. He ends up in his room, in their room, the one they share. He is in her bed without meaning to be but he doesn’t know where else to go. He buries his face in the blankets, they smell like her. Not like the hospital, not like she smelled now. Just like Her. He falls asleep restlessly, awoken by his mother entering. She looks disgusted by his being there. 

“They kinda blamed me.”

His father does not speak to him for days, even then only in single words, noncommittal grunts. His mother does not look him in the eye, only side eying him when she thinks he will not notice. He does. They start taking her things away, he steals her favorite stuffed animal. It stops smelling like her a few days after the funeral. It is open casket and he’s nauseous when he sees her. He knows that her chest is broken. He is the only one here who knows. He doesn’t remember much of the rest of it. He doesn’t think, if he thinks he cries. If he cries he is berated. He doesn’t think much at all those first few weeks, he doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t think he lives in his body anymore. He has to, though, once his parents are gone. 

“Guess they couldn’t stand how empty the house felt, so they just... left me entirely alone in it.”

He eats only scrambled eggs and canned soup for days until he is out of eggs. He finds some cash and orders pizzas after that. By the time he runs out of soup he can’t stand the empty house either. He goes back to school and doesn’t speak but he’s back in his body. He doesn’t go back to basketball, if he does he’ll miss the bus. He does, a few times, and walks home. He doesn’t make it back until long after dark. He finds out what frostbite is that day, his fingers gone white and painfully numb. That’s the first time he cries in weeks. He is so horribly small and weak and alone and helpless. There is no one here to pick up his broken pieces, no one here to hold him, no one here to take care of him. He decides, right then, that he’s done expecting people to. He knows now that if he doesn’t fend for himself, no one else will. 

“I mean, it wasn’t- it wasn’t that bad once I figured shit out, you know? Like- I wish it was different, but like- I don’t know, it’s fine.” His voice cracks and he hates himself for it. He is still too weak.

“Steve…”

He finally meets Robin’s eyes and they’re brimming with tears. 

“Yeah?” 

She hugs him forcefully, holding him tight. He has not been held like this in a very long time. She holds him like she truly wants to hold him , like he is the one being comforted. Something breaks free inside him and he can’t even fight the tears down. Within seconds he’s crying- truly crying, not just stifled weeping- in front of someone for the first time in years. He starts apologizing, trying to pull back and beat himself back down into submission again but she doesn’t let him. She hushes him, cupping the back of his head in her hand and pulling him into the crook of her neck.

“It’s alright, let it out. It’s okay to cry.” 

This is the final blow he needed. He feels as though he’s betraying his morals, letting down his mantra that kept him safe, albeit alone and miserable all those years. But Robin is not his parents. She is not Tommy H. and Carol, she is not Nancy. Robin is his friend . She’s his best friend and she has proven that she’s not going anywhere, she’s proven that she loves him. He completely shatters in her embrace, clinging to the back of her shirt as she soothes him, rubbing his back and whispering comfort. He grieves fully and uncontrollably, sobbing as he shakes and whimpers in her arms. She holds him as he grieves this loss he buried with her, she stays there with him as he falls apart. It is more than he ever dared hope for, it is enough to make him feel loved.