Work Text:
It’s late.
The kind of quiet that settles deep, where even the city outside feels like it’s sleeping. The only sound in the apartment is the faint rustle of pages as you flip them, the spine of the book creaking softly in your hands. You’ve read the same paragraph three times now. Not because it’s uninteresting—just hard to focus. You glance at the clock. He’s late, but not unusually so.
You’re just starting the sentence over again when you hear it.
Not the door. The window.
A muted thud, then the soft scuff of boots against wood. No dramatic entrance. No teasing quip. Just the kind of quiet that tells you everything.
When you turn your head, he’s already halfway across the room.
He doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t say a word.
His shoulders are stiff, his steps slow—like every joint in his body is made of stone. One of his gloves is off, tucked under his arm. There’s a smear of something dark across the edge of his jaw. His suit is intact, but it looks wrong somehow. Heavy.
He crosses to the wall and sinks down to the floor without a word, back pressed to the cool surface, legs bent loosely in front of him. One hand rests on his knee, the other hangs limp at his side. His head tips back, eyes drifting somewhere above the ceiling.
The silence now is different.
Thicker.
You close the book slowly, watching him from across the room. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move, doesn’t even seem to register your presence.
You don’t say anything.
Not yet.
The quiet stretches, filling every corner of the room. You can hear the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the occasional buzz of traffic from outside. But inside these four walls, everything feels still.
He hasn’t moved since he sat down.
His hand flexes once, then again—slow, restless, like his body’s trying to work through something it can’t name. His fingers tremble. Not enough to be obvious, but you notice. You always do.
There’s a smear of something on his gauntlet. You can’t tell if it’s dirt or blood.
You set the book aside and ease off the couch. The floor is cool beneath your feet. You walk to him without a word, each step deliberate, careful not to startle the silence.
You lower yourself to the floor beside him. Not too close. Not yet. Just enough that he knows you’re there.
He still doesn’t look at you. His eyes are locked on the floor like he’s trying to see through it.
Eventually, he speaks.
“It’s done.”
His voice is hoarse. Rough around the edges, like it scraped its way out.
You nod once, not pushing.
“We stopped them.”
A pause.
“Mostly.”
That word lands different.
He finally looks at you.
There’s something in his eyes that wasn’t there before. Not anger. Not fear. Just this tired, brittle sort of grief that doesn’t quite know where to go.
You don’t ask.
But he tells you anyway.
“There was a kid,” he says, quietly. “Too close to the blast. I saw him—just a second too late.”
He doesn’t blink.
“He’s alive. Barely. But… it shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t have even been there.”
He exhales, sharp and shaky, like the breath hurts on the way out.
“I had him in my line of sight. I had time.”
You know what he’s doing. You’ve seen it before—how he replays it all in his head, over and over, looking for the moment he failed. The moment it became his fault.
“I had time.”
You shift, just slightly closer. Close enough that your shoulder brushes his. He doesn’t lean away.
“I could’ve gotten to him.”
The words catch there, right at the edge of something deeper. You see it—how close it is to breaking. His throat bobs once, jaw clenched. His hands curl into fists against his legs.
And then he stops speaking entirely.
You wait.
There’s nothing else to do. No words to offer that wouldn’t sound like noise. So you sit there, shoulder to shoulder, as the silence thickens and the weight in his chest presses harder.
He tilts his head back against the wall again. His eyes close.
And then, quietly—
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The words fall flat, like he’s already convinced himself they don’t matter.
“I keep thinking it’ll feel different someday. Like I’ll wake up and finally feel like I’m… enough for this. For any of it.”
He huffs a breath—sharp, bitter.
“But I don’t. Not really. Some nights, I feel like I’m just wearing someone else’s skin. Saying the lines. Playing the part.”
His hands are open now, palms up against his legs. You glance down. The gloves are off. His fingers are scraped, knuckles bruised.
“I thought if I kept trying, I’d get there eventually. That maybe it would all start to make sense.”
A pause.
“It doesn’t.”
You turn toward him slowly. His voice is steadier now, but there’s something fragile in it—like it’s holding itself together by instinct alone.
“I’m not like him,” he says. “I’m not some unshakable force of nature. I can’t see three steps ahead. I don’t build things. I just… jump and hope I land in the right place.”
His jaw tightens, throat working against the next words.
“I don’t feel like a symbol. Or a leader. Or a hero. Some nights—”
His voice falters.
“Some nights, I don’t even feel like I’m helping. Just... showing up. Getting in the way.”
His hands drop into his lap. He still hasn’t looked at you.
“I don’t know if I make anything better.”
That’s when his voice cracks—not loud, not dramatic. Just enough to slip through the edges of the mask he hasn’t taken off.
You shift closer, slow and deliberate, until your leg presses gently against his. He still doesn’t look at you, but he doesn’t move away either. That’s enough.
You reach out, fingers brushing the back of his hand—just a light touch, enough to say I’m here without forcing anything. His hand is cold. Tense. But after a long, trembling pause, he turns it palm-up and lets you take it.
You hold him like that for a while. No pressure. No questions. Just silence and contact.
When you finally speak, it’s soft. Barely more than a breath.
“You don’t have to be unshakable.”
He flinches, just slightly, like he wasn’t expecting you to say anything at all.
“You don’t have to be perfect. Or right. Or enough for the whole world.”
You squeeze his hand, gentle and steady.
“You were there. That matters.”
He says nothing, but you feel the way his thumb twitches against yours.
You keep going, just as quiet.
“You show up. You fight for people. You care when it hurts. That’s not failure.”
His eyes are still fixed on the wall, but his breathing is changing—slower, deeper, like he’s trying to absorb your words without shattering.
“For everyone who’s still standing because of you... you’re not just anything.”
That gets through.
You see it in the way his shoulders sag, like the words chipped away at something heavy he’s been carrying too long. His head drops forward, face shadowed. His hand tightens around yours. Not urgently—just to hold on.
You don’t fill the space with more talking. You shift your other hand up, brushing back the hair from his forehead, fingers slow and careful. Then down to the edge of his mask. You wait.
He nods once.
You peel it off with quiet care. The skin beneath is damp with sweat, eyes rimmed red. His gaze finally finds yours.
There’s nothing performative in it. No distance. Just exhaustion and raw honesty, written across every line of his face.
“Come here,” you whisper.
He lets you help him to his feet, movements sluggish, like the floor is trying to keep him. You guide him out of the suit one piece at a time. He doesn’t speak. Just lets you work, lets you care.
There are bruises blooming across his ribs, a cut along his side. You clean what you can in the dim light. He winces once, then presses his forehead to your shoulder.
You run your hand up his back.
“Let’s lie down.”
You lead him to the bed. He follows, slow and pliant. You pull the blanket up over both of you and bury your hand in his hair, he curls toward your warmth like gravity finally makes sense again.
He says nothing. But he doesn’t let go of your hand.
The room settles into a fragile calm.
His breathing evens out, slow and steady against your side. You can feel the tension in his body loosen bit by bit, like the weight pressing down on him is finally shifting.
You don’t rush it.
Your fingers trace slow, absent movements through his hair. The soft brush of skin against skin, the quiet rhythm of two bodies finding stillness—it all feels like a quiet promise.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time.
Then, very softly, he murmurs, “Can I just stay here?”
You tighten your hold without a word, pulling him closer.
He nestles into you, forehead resting against your collarbone, hand still entwined with yours.
You lie there like that, letting the dark fill the room and the silence stretch between you—safe, unspoken, together.
Outside, the city carries on.
But here, in this quiet space, for this moment, there’s nothing more important than this—holding him, steady, without needing to fix anything.