Work Text:
Stephen pulled a small blanket over America’s sleeping form, his hand lingering slightly on her stomach, watching her breathe, reassuring himself that she was safe before he slowly pulled away and crossed the few steps to the large motel bed pushed against the wall of the small room. Wong was huddled on the right side of the end, pillow pulled to his chest, and breathing evenly. To anyone else, it would look like he was already asleep, but Stephen knew that Wong was wide awake, blankly staring at the blinking AC beneath the fluttering curtains covering the window.
For one, Wong preferred to sleep with the lights off, and the lamp on his side of the bed was switched on, the dim glow helping Stephen find his way across the otherwise dark room. For another, Wong preferred to sleep on his back, Stephen tucked under his arm and pressed against his chest, only turning over on his side deep in sleep when Stephen would move away from Wong's warmth.
“Wong,” Stephen murmured, slipping under the covers and pressing himself against the warmth of Wong’s back, one arm supporting Stephen’s head on the firm pillows and the other curling over Wong’s shoulder and bicep. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
For a moment, Wong didn’t move. If Stephen didn’t know his husband as well as he did, he might have thought that Wong really had fallen asleep on him.
“I’m sorry,” Wong finally spoke into the empty room.
“What for?” Stephen asked. He felt like he already knew, especially considering the silence of their drive after Stephen woke up about four hours in, somewhere in Ohio and about 100 or so miles from the Indiana boarder, but he wanted to hear it from Wong, wanted to understand instead of guess.
“Everything.” Wong breathed. They sat in silence for a few moments, just breathing. Stephen could feel Wong's heart under his palm, beating in time with the slow breathing of America; the snuffling of a sleeping Bats and the soft purring of Levi filling the otherwise silent room. Stephen pressed his lips to the back of Wong’s neck, rubbing his arm, thumb brushing beneath the hem of Wong's sleep shirt and tracing the sleeve of flower tattoos covering the marks of the Ten Rings as he waiting for him to speak. “You... you had friends." Wong finally whispered, "People you loved. A job you loved, a house you loved and now it’s… gone. Just like that.”
“It is." Stephen admitted softly. "And it will hurt. But friends can be found again, and a house is only a building. We’ll restart. Together.”
Wong turned his head slightly, just enough that Stephen could catch a glimpse of tears shining on his cheeks. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
Stephen let out a short breath. That’s where Wong's words were coming from, not as much regret for leaving, but the pain over the hurt he had potentially inflicted on Stephen, the fear of having damaged the most important person in Wong’s life. “You never have, Wong,” Stephen murmured, “and you never will. I chose this life; I chose to run with you. I chose a life that hurt myself every time the Ten Rings came. You did not force me into anything. You have not and will not hurt me. On the contrary, you’ve saved me, countless times. You are the sun to my world, not the scalpel to my skin.”
“If you… if you wanted to, you could turn back. Take the car and America and go back to your friends, your job. Your life. I can keep going, keep them away from you. Keep you safe.” Wong said softly, voice barely audible and breaking with grief.
Stephen had to swallow his own tears before he responded. “Wong. Look at me. Please.”
Wong obeyed, shuffling until he had turned over, pillow folded beneath his neck and his tear-stained face inches from Stephen's. Stephen pressed a hand to Wong’s cheek, thumb wiping at the tears sliding down his face. “You and America are my whole world. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for the two of you. You know that. You also know that it would absolutely destroy me to turn my back on you and leave you alone. What you’re suggesting, returning to our old lives with America, leaving you to fend for yourself? That would kill me. I wouldn’t be able to last a single day without you by my side, even if that means putting myself in danger." Stephen paused for breath, pressing a finger to Wong's chin and lifting his face, blue eyes searching the pain in Wong's brown eyes. "I would willingly give myself up to the Ten Rings and let them torture me into a killer if it meant I could keep living with you. Keep running with you. I would rather break my oath as a doctor to do no harm, every single day, for the rest of my life, than leave you alone in exchange for the life I could have led as a single, suburban dad with a mediocre job and a white picket fence if I hadn't met you. I chose this and I do not regret a single second of it. Understand?”
Tears still dripped from Wong’s eyes, sliding onto the pillow beneath them, but he nodded slightly, a small, jerking thing. Wong pressed his face into Stephen's shoulder, quiet sobs wracking his body.
Stephen wrapped a hand around Wong’s neck, fingers threading through his short hair as he felt Wong’ tears drip onto his shoulder. His other hand moved to one of Wong’s hands curled between them and guided it to Stephen’s exposed chest, right above his heart, and letting it rest there. The warmth of Wong’s palm blanketed the three black and white monarch butterflies tattooed on Stephen’s pectoral, just above his left fourth rib and a few inches beneath his collarbone. He had another four; a cluster of blue morpho butterflies spanning across his right hip -- a tribute to the family he had lost when he was younger -- but Wong didn’t need the reminder of just how much grief Stephen had suffered in his forty years of life, not then. Instead, Stephen let Wong feel the slightly raised skin under the tattoos, feel the warm ink and flesh of Stephen's body, feel the steady thumping of Stephen’s heart.
“This is my family,” Stephen murmured, hand clasped around Wong’s knuckles, their fingers intertwined. “A butterfly for you, a butterfly for America, and a butterfly for me. I hold you dear to my heart, forever and always. This is where I belong. This is where you belong. This is where America belongs. It was all or nothing for me when I married you, and it’s all or nothing right here. Right now. I'm either with you or without you, and I plan on being with you for as long as we live, the same way that you will forever and always be right here, with me. Okay?”
Wong nodded, softer this time. “Okay,” he whispered into the junction between Stephen’s neck and shoulder, tears slowly drying. “Okay.”
“Good.” Stephen murmured, scratching softly at Wong’s scalp. “I love you, Wong. So much.”
“I love you, too.” Wong croaked out.
Stephen hummed softly, holding Wong’s head still as he stretched out over Wong's form to click off the light before settling back against his pillow as the room fell dark. Stephen pulled the motel duvet over the two of them, then pulled Wong closer to him. Wong stayed buried in Stephen’s chest, one hand still on Stephen's tattoo, the other wrapped around Stephen's smaller frame. One of Stephen’s hands kept Wong’s head close, his other arm slung around Wong’s torso, tracing the lines and patterns of the vines and flowers tattooed on Wong’s back until they fell asleep together.
In the morning, they’d wake up just before dawn. Stephen would buckle a still sleeping America into her car seat while Wong checked then out of their hotel, paying in cash under their new identities. After a few hours on the road, Wong would find a payphone in some remote, rural town where no one knew them and Stephen would call Tony, a close childhood friend of Stephen's that he knew he could trust as well as the best hacker and spy on the Eastern seaboard. Stephen would ask for a favor and Tony would agree, wiping all evidence of their stay from the cheap motel logs, placing grainy security footage, credit card statements, and a paper trail in the opposite direction of their escape. There would be itinerary plans placed on Wong's phone, agents sent to their house in the dead of night to create the story of a family on vacation, including the paper receipts of three flights to Europe out of LaGuardia Airport.
At their next stop, just inside the bustle of Chicago, Stephen and Wong would trade their car in for a different one with new plates, Montana registration, and their new identities. They’d find pet food and carriers at a local thrift store and continue across the country. Tony would get in contact with Stephen again and inform him of Eugene, Summer, and Lei Chen's visit to Illinois to fulfill Summer's birthday wish of seeing the Cloud Gate statue in Chicago, the history of their new lives thoroughly documented a world away.
Tony would also inform him of his scheduled days off from the hospital, text messages on Wong’s phone between him and a 'coworker' from Tony's stash of undercover agents discussing a surprise anniversary trip to Europe, complete with TSA and boarding records of their tickets and passports, a few eye witness accounts of Stephen and Wong happily playing with a brown-haired toddler in the airport, and a tragic plane crash in some far off location coinciding with the timeline of Stephen and Wong's escape that killed everyone on board, along with the small family. A loss that would affect much of the community that Stephen and Wong had come to love and contributed to, obituaries written and scheduled for a release in the local newspaper for the happy toddler, warm librarian, and soft-hearted doctor a week or so after the accident.
By then, they’d be hidden in Billing, Montana with new names, new histories, and new lives, anonymous in the bustle of the city. The deaths of Wong, Stephen, and America Strange would be devastating to those who knew them, but they would move on. The Ten Rings may not be fooled as easily as everyone else in their tiny section of Buffalo, but they would renew their search for them half a world away. A gamble, certainly, but a gamble that would buy them a handful of years before they had to run again.
In the morning, they’d begin their lives again, with nothing but each other, the marks on their bodies, and the tiny family they had created for themselves. Until then, however, they slept, curled in each other's arms and secure in the love they shared.