Work Text:
There is nothing quite so peaceful to Scott Free as watching his wife sleep.
Barda used to have insomnia. She told him this the same way she shares anything about her past under Granny Goodness – without drama and without any real intention to reveal something that might be considered a weakness. She’d laughed when Scott asked if Thaddeus’s couch was too short or too uncomfortable when she just got to Earth. No shorter than those in the orphanage – and far easier to sleep the night on. And Scott understood – he, too, grew up on Apokalips. There were more Paratroopers than Female Furies so perhaps it was easier for him to slip under the radar – but you could never guarantee that one of your fellows wouldn’t take umbrage with something you had said or did, that someone hadn’t followed you when you deviated an iota from training to look out at the sky and wonder if there is something besides eventually dying for Darkseid. And if someone were to kill you in your sleep, at the very worst they’d be punished for depriving Darkseid of a resource that could be exploited. Most likely, your death would be a testament to your own weakness, your own inadequacy.
Scott had tried to explain it to Oberon at one point, just to let him know how dangerous resisting Darkseid could be. Oberon had seemed confused, asking what the punishment was for anti-social violence, how order was kept, but even stripping the language of human-typical morality – this is good or evil or right or wrong – could still not encapsulate the experience. There is no anti-social violence on Apokalips, Scott explained. Violence is pro-social . Or more of – the only social order existed through, on, and because of violence.
It’s no surprise, then, that even when she considered herself a loyal Female Furie, Barda liked Earth. She loved a good fight, and it’s one ways Scott imagined she survived Apokalips with her heart intact. But cruelty was not something Barda could enjoy, not even when it was her job to dispense it as leader of the Female Furies. She wanted something fair, she wanted something fun. And on Earth, she got that. She got a team where she could yell at someone for making a mistake without having to ‘teach them a lesson’, she got to spar with friends where the loser wasn’t going to lose status and appear weak, she got to enjoy little things they never got to enjoy on Apokalips – the beauty that was so threatening to Darkseid it had to be stamped out immediately, lest the whole house of cards come down when people realize they’re killing and torturing and maiming and dying for nothing.
To Scott, Barda was that beauty. She would disagree, of course – not out of any sense of insecurity or modesty, she simply didn’t apply that word to herself. Beauty was for people who dreamed of escape, of life outside Apokalips, for people Barda considered in need of her protection, like Scott and Auralie. The idea of needing protection herself would be more than laughable to Barda – it would be insulting. And, back when she was on Apokalips, it would’ve been dangerous .
But here, on Earth, Barda can sleep unworried not because someone is watching her back – though Scott is watching her back – or because she’s strong enough to defeat any attackers who would surprise her – though she is . She can sleep unworried because it is incredibly unlikely that she’s in any danger at all, and Scott can lean his head against her chest, as she breathes in a slow and calming rhythm, like the waves of oceans he had not known until adulthood, and let himself drift off for the same reason.
And he’s at peace, watching her sleep.