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You let yourself into the flat you share with Matt, smiling to yourself as you think of how surprised your boyfriend will be when he returns home and finds that you have come back from your trip early. You haven’t been away for long—four days to be accurate—and you had managed to extract a promise from Matt before leaving that he will not get himself too badly injured while you’re away.
He had acknowledged the necessity for caution in your absence with a smile because you are the one who patches him up when his fights go south and equally as important is his knowledge of how much you will worry about him while you are away. You know he will try his hardest to keep his word and so the thought of trouble doesn’t even cross your mind until you flick the light switch on and then it hits you with all the force of an onrushing train.
The place is a wreck- almost all the furniture is broken, debris litters the floor and there is not a living soul in sight. You brace yourself, taking a swift mental inventory of the contents of your bag to figure out if there is anything in it that you can use as a weapon.
“____?” Matt’s voice reaches you from the direction of the bedroom, saving you the effort, and you nearly sag with relief- he is still alive, whatever it is that has happened in here, your Matt is still alive. And you know immediately that whatever caused all of the damage to the house, the danger, has passed because otherwise your lover would be telling you to run.
“Matt, are you alright?” you call back, dropping your bags by the door and rushing down the stairs as fast as you can go without stumbling. You pick your way through the wreckage and find Matt seated on his bed, still in his vigilante costume, as you call it. He is facing the doorway, his shoulders tense, head hanging, and his entire posture speaks of defeat.
“I’ve had worse.”
You slow down as you approach him, surveying the scene around you as you go.
“What happened?”
“An old friend showed up, and we… disagreed” He pauses for a moment, as if weighing his words. “It was Stick. He seemed the same, goading me and telling me I was making a mistake by surrounding myself with soft things.”
Even as he is speaking you know that that is not all, this visit of Stick’s has affected Matt more than he is letting on.
“Tell me,” you urge him, moving closer and stopping right in front of him. He reaches out and takes your hands before speaking.
“He killed someone ___, a boy- no more than ten. I thought I had saved him and then he told me that he had finished the job. That I didn’t understand what the boy was capable of.”
“Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry.” You drop his hands to draw him into an embrace and he tugs you into his lap, arms encircling your waist. He buries his head in the crook of your neck for a few moments, as if gathering his strength and then he presses a kiss to your jawline, and begins to tell you about everything that has happened in the time you were away.
You continue to hold each other long after he has finished speaking and your hands find their way into his hair, carding your fingers through it and pressing the occasional kiss to the top of his head or his temples, or his forehead. You do not know quite what to say to him except that you are sorry for what he has had to go through, and you know he cannot see your expression, so you settle for showing him you care through your touches.
You stay that way for a long time and then he breaks the silence with a question that you can tell has been on his mind even before Stick came.
“You’re always so gentle with me,” he whispers and your hands still, coming to rest on his shoulders, “why is that?”
You pull away from him with a sigh, take a deep breath, slide off of him, and withdraw your hands into your lap, feeling the sting of rejection for some inexplicable reason. Or perhaps it’s completely understandable, you are one of those soft things that he said Stick spoke off earlier. And you are worried that he has decided to follow his old mentor’s advice and remove all distractions from his life.
He seems to sense your doubts and soon your hands are in his and he has drawn them up to his lips, pressing a kiss to the palm of one hand followed by the other.
“I’m not complaining ___. I’m just curious.”
You blush, and smile a little, this isn’t him agreeing with Stick’s notions and preparing to push you away- and you find it in yourself to banter with him like you are so used to doing.
“You mean I need another reason apart from the fact that you are always covered in cuts and bruises?” you ask, and the both of you chuckle lightly.
“I think you have one,” he prompts after a few minutes pass in silence.
“When I was in college, back when I still believed in true love and destiny, I used to think that you can tell whether a person loves you from the way they look at you,” you pause and draw another deep breath, waiting till he nods before you continue, “Well, I know you see a lot… but you don’t see the way I look at you, so I try to show you, with the way I touch you.”
He doesn’t speak and you tug your hands out of his, embarrassed, and begin talking in an attempt to alleviate what you think is an awkward situation.
“I know it’s silly, you can laugh-” His lips against yours cut you off mid-sentence. His hands make their way up your arms and over your shoulders to cradle your head as he kisses you, slow and deep. You are quick to push aside your surprise and respond in kind.
He pulls away after several long moments, but his right hand remains on your cheek, thumb brushing soft strokes across your skin.
“It’s not silly,” he begins, leaning forward to rest his forehead against yours, “You give me hope ___. I love you.”
“So I’m not a distraction?” you are only half-joking because despite his words, a tiny part of you still worries that a time will come when he weighs the importance of you and his mission and decides in favour of the latter.
“Never,” he speaks with utter conviction, and as if he thinks he needs to do more to convince you he kisses you again.