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It was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment that something within him shifted, but you knew that something had.
It wasn’t as though you were under the impression that things were ever easy for Parker, because you knew that they weren’t. You’d known him for long enough to remember how his life changed after his mother died, how he pulled away from just about everyone to the point that you had to force him to let you stay in his life. Then, one day, he was gone. He was gone from school, gone from the receiving end of your land-line, just… gone. Like he had vanished.
After about a week, he had turned up on your family porch looking for a place to stay, and it was just his luck that your parents saw a twelve year old boy with no where to go and agreed to let him stay in the spare room. You didn’t bother telling them about some of the more nefarious things that he had been getting into, how he had been getting in trouble at school and around Chicago just because he wanted his father’s attention. You knew that telling them that would only spell trouble, it would make things more difficult.
You knew Parker Robbins extremely well, because he lived with you for years. He was your best friend, the one person who you could trust with anything. But he was also someone who you experienced a lot of things with, a lot of things that went beyond the bounds of friendship. It was one thing when he held hands with you on rooftops when you were fourteen, and another when he took you to homecoming when you were sixteen. But when you still hadn’t gone on a date at eighteen, when you got no where near kissing anyone, he was the first person do to that for you, too. He kissed you, he took you on a date, and he did a whole lot more than that even though you never put a label on anything.
Realistically, maybe you should have. Maybe it would’ve stopped things from becoming as bad as they had become.
John, his cousin, was the one who found him. You were both old enough that it was about time that your parents wanted Parker to try looking for a place. He was having trouble finding work, and he didn’t know who else to turn to. So, he turned to John. He was making money, but you didn’t know where he was getting it for the longest time. But when you found out, all those conversations ever ended in were arguments. Arguments about how this was a terrible idea, about how he absolutely didn’t need to be doing this. You wanted to help him, you loved him. And maybe if you could ever work up the courage to tell him that second part, he would’ve listened.
Something went wrong, you knew that.
Coming to his apartment after classes had become normal for you since you entered your second year of grad school. You’d text Parker, let him know you were using his spare key, and surprise him with dinner. If you were in a committed relationship, maybe it would’ve been domestic. But you weren’t. And today, it was anything but domestic.
He came home incredibly late. Shaken up, wearing some leather-looking cloak with a hood on it. He started by asking you to check out his back, to ask him if there was something on it. Sure enough, there was some sort of road-rash that definitely hadn’t been there the last time that you had seen him without a shirt on. But he also seemed… different, and you didn’t think it had something to do with the wound.
Parker refused medical attention, and he refused to let you even get close to touching his hood. He was almost just keeping you at arm’s length. Insisting to you, over and over again, that things had changed for the better and that he was going to be making a better life for himself, for both of you.
Admittedly, he had more pep in his step after that. But it only went downhill from there.
His operations were expanded, his jobs were more dangerous and large-scale. You just couldn’t bring yourself to be a part of it anymore, so you went no-contact with him. You had no real desire to do this, you wanted to keep him in your life, but you couldn’t keep watching him destroy himself. Even with the crimes aside, he was changing. Every aspect of his personality was changing, and you just weren’t sure if it was something that you were even remotely comfortable with.
That’s how things remained for a while. You stopped speaking to Parker, and after a few months, he stopped reaching out to you.
It was better for you both. It was easier for you than watching him destroy himself for something that he wouldn’t even open up to you about.
That’s what made it absolutely baffling to you when you opened the door to your apartment, finding Parker Robbins standing before you with a black hoodie covering his face. He had everything framing his face in a particular way, trying to cover himself. But you could see it.
He had that veiny looking rash on his face, and a desperate look in his eyes.
“What have you done to yourself, Parker?” You asked him, your voice almost exasperated as you opened the door. He came in, but he didn’t say anything, he didn’t know what he could possibly say to you. “Let me see.”
Parker pulled his head back as you tried to push his hood down, his lips parting like he was about to say something. Like he was about to say no. But he stopped himself, letting his face move to where it had been before. “It’s not… it’s not pretty.”
“Just met me see you.”
After a moment, you pushed his hood down once he nodded, your fingers pushing his hair behind his ears before your hands cradled his cheeks. The rash was all over his face, covering a bit of those cute freckles that you had always adored.
“Is it all over?” You asked him, your voice quiet.
“Not my entire body, but most of it.”
He sounded a bit ashamed, and you hated that. You wanted to help him, but you needed to be sure that he wasn’t going to turn around and refuse any sort of help again, because that wasn’t beneficial for either of you and you knew it.
“I’m sorry.” He said after a moment, and you were almost sure that you hadn’t heard him right. “I’m sorry for not being honest with you, I’m sorry for cutting you out.”
Even though you had been the one to cut him off, he had been the one who withdrew emotionally. He withdrew, and he put himself in danger, and he wouldn’t listen to reason. You argued, and argued, and then one day you decided that you couldn’t anymore. And now, here he was, telling you that he was sorry. And all you could do was wrap your arms around him, a hand pressing into his curls as his head rested against your shoulder. He seemed so broken, so defeated by something you couldn’t figure out.
“John died.” He mumbled, his voice muffled by your body as he let himself cry. Your arms stayed around him, holding him tighter. “It’s my fault, I put him there. He didn’t want to go on that job, and I made him. He died because of me.”
Finally, you pulled back from the hug so you could make him look at you. “Hey, you can’t think about that. Okay? Don’t think about that. I’m sorry, Parker, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all I can think about.” He responded, his voice was quiet and a bit shattered. You helped him sit down with you on the couch, keeping yourself close to him as your fingers brushed delicately through his hair. “I fucked everything up with everyone, with my team, with my own cousin, and with you, and-”
“Parker,” Your voice was firm, forcing him to look over at you as you spoke even without you doing anything physically. You needed him to understand, you needed him to stop spiraling because you knew him well enough to know how these spirals went. “I don’t know what happened to you, and you’re going to need to tell me if you want me to. But I forgive you, so you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Why? I don’t deserve you, and I definitely don’t deserve you forgiving me.”
“You do, you made mistakes but you do.”
Even now, even with him opening up, you still found yourself too scared to tell him that you loved him. Instead, you let him spend hours going into detail about the cape, the cape that you knew from the very beginning had some sort of bad energy. The scars that were now littering his body, that he seemed to wish that he could find a way to remove. The magical element of it, and the man who had taken something from him in exchange for him being able to use the cape for what he wanted. It sounded to you like he was describing the devil himself, but you didn’t want to have to say that to him.
Your arm wrapped around him after a while, letting him rest his head on you while he spoke. But he seemed to be getting more and more exhausted, maybe it was because he hadn’t been letting himself rest. Maybe it was something else. You couldn’t be too sure. All that you knew that that you needed to be there for him, that he could keep speaking for as long as he wanted and you could listen, even if everything that he was saying sounded insane. Even if you were sure that he had definitely done a lot of things that were messed up. You couldn’t stop it, you could never stop it.
He was being so honest, so forthright. Everything that he never wanted to tell you before was coming out, and you knew that you had to be honest with him, too when the time felt right, and you knew from the way that this conversation was going that the time would feel right pretty soon.
“I should go.” Parker said, his head lifting so he could look at you, but you kept your arm around him.
“Where? Where can you go?” You had a point and he knew it. Everywhere he went would be lonely and painful, and he would probably end up staying at a hotel in the state he was in. “You should stay, Parker.”
“I don’t deserve to stay here, I just told you about all th-”
“Please stay, I don’t care what you did. I mean, I care, but- it’s complicated, and I get that, and we have to work through it. But I’m telling you that I forgive you for what I can forgive you for, okay. What involves me, what’s mine to forgive.” You ran your hand from his cheek to his face, your thumb brushing over his skin. He leaned his cheek into your touch, and a fluttering filled your stomach as you looked at him. “I love you Parker, I’ve loved you for a long time. And I want to be here for you, please let me this time.”
Parker nodded after a moment, his gaze lingering on your face. “I love you too.” His voice was quiet, like he was afraid of speaking any louder. But you heard him, you understood him. You understood that you needed to give him room and patience, that you couldn’t force him to come out of his shell before he was ready. You needed him to understand that you would be there for him, though, that nothing would change that.
After a brief moment, you let him lean forward to kiss you, his hand coming to rest on the back of your neck. You leaned into him, kissing him back like it was the only thing that mattered to you. In that moment, it was the only thing that mattered to you. You wanted nothing more than to keep kissing him, to remind him just how much you cared about him. How much you loved him, how much you would always love him.
Once he pulled back, your forehead was pressed against his as you held him close, your eyes still closed. “How about we get you to bed and talk more about this in the morning, okay?”
“Okay, yeah. That sounds good.”
It was difficult getting Parker to sleep that night. But that night, just like every other following, you would be there to help him, to have the relationship that you never had the chance to have before because neither of you wanted to be open with each other, not in any way that counted. Things were far from perfect, but you understood him now, and that was all that mattered.