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“Weather’s nice, isn’t it?”
Tango barely twitches at the sudden voice coming from behind. Like the other had always been there. Weirdly, Tango wouldn’t be too surprised if he had been. If the other had been following in his footsteps. It’s something he doesn’t quite find himself wanting to wonder about yet.
The weather the other had been talking about was the cold breeze that blew against him underneath the gentle moonlight. The type that had soft clouds coming out of his mouth every other breath, the type that still let him shiver underneath his jacket and gloves. Nice wouldn’t be the word Tango would use to describe it, but some part of him could describe it as pleasant. It was the kind of cold that would have his head quiet on busy days. When he’d sit on the ledges of roofs and look down at the city lights—those times he’d much prefer a few layers and the cold that froze him to stone rather than hot summer weathers.
Nice, he supposes. He doesn’t answer.
A weight sits down next to him, swinging his feet over the edge. And Tango can almost feel his spirits dip in the same way a mattress would’ve. Etho had a particular weight to him when it came to that. Something he’d forever recognize. It’s like the other had left a dent in him that he just couldn’t manage to undo with a plunger he had on hand.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and blew into them, trying to warm them through his gloves.
Etho leans back on his hands, letting out a dramatically loud sigh in Tango’s opinion.
“Come here often?”
That nips at Tango just slightly. He gives the other a sideways glance.
“Is that a pickup line or are you genuinely asking?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Is it working?”
Tango chuckles, as stupid as it is. Partly because it just fits the other so well that it barely comes as a surprise. It’s bittersweet that Tango would’ve laughed at this same joke more than a year ago, while he was in a different outfit and Etho in the exact same one.
His eyes follow a lonesome car passing by. He wonders where it’s going tonight.
“You’ll have to try a bit harder than that to swoon me.”
Far away, very distantly, Tango thinks that that may not actually be true, though. Because Tango isn’t that simple of a man but Etho does seem to be and it’s hard to not make a pretty image out of it. If it fooled him once he’s fearing that it could fool him again. Even if he’s sure he’s grown since the last time they properly spoke—spoke in a way that weren’t glances over a distance, or holding hands while pulling the other out of the ruins of a building.
Too long, it’s been. But only timewise. A part of him hasn’t travelled at all, he thinks. He hopes he’s wrong. He hopes his words spoken are true.
“Aww shucks, and here I was hoping.”
Etho sighs again and stretches. He leans forward and sits hunched over with his arms on his thighs, in a similar way to how Tango sat. It reminded Tango of his posture, and he himself quickly straightened his back just slightly.
“It’s nice here,” Etho admits. “Way nicer than the office.”
Tango kicks his feet backwards against the bricks. Back and forth.
“Is it still as boring as before?” Tango asks, and ignores how heavy his tongue feels in his mouth.
“Still the exact same as it’s always been,” Etho responds, matter of factly.
He does not tell Tango about the Team BEST picture that’s now replaced with a vase of flowers that keep dying. He found that out himself months ago when he peered inside, much against everyone’s advice. Tango wouldn’t confess the knowledge through hissed teeth, because they had every right to remove it. Team BEST was no more and Tango had left too long ago. They’d gotten rid of every reminder of the plague that was him in that building, he was sure.
Tango takes a deep breath, and breathes out the specks of anger building up in his lungs. Then took a deep breath again, quite like his therapist advised.
He lets his head slowly turn to the side and his gaze finally settles on the other, something he’s been dreading since Etho sat down, something he’s been dreading for months now.
He’s…similar. Not the exact same. He’s in the same hero suit that he’s worn on missions ever since he started, one Tango is pretty sure he has multiple versions of in his closet, but there’s a wool-lined bomber jacket thrown over it. Against the cold, Tango suspects, although last he checked the suit was supposed to keep his temperature level enough it wasn’t needed. His hair sat in a half-up half-down style, which revealed that his hair came all the way to his shoulders now. His roots were outgrown and black, a hard contrast to the platinum blond that the rest of his hair was. And if the moonlight falls on his face well enough, Tango can see the dark line of eyeliner that he’s sure wasn’t there last he checked. Even if the last time he checked was months ago.
And he looks at the person who stared down at the streets with lidded eyes, more relaxed and calm than Tango could dream of being, and a million questions sit at the tip of his tongue.
Are you cold? Tango wants to ask.
Why did you grow out your hair?
Who taught you makeup, and why wasn’t it me?
Why are you different?
Why are you the same?
Doesn’t it hurt you?
Do you miss me?
Have you ever thought of me?
Are you here to end the job?
Are you happier?
Why can’t you leave me be?
Why did you—
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
It scared Tango out of his thoughts, and any words that might have left his lips get swallowed. He gives a dry chuckle, and turns his eyes back to the empty street. One of the streetlights flickered.
“I don’t need any pictures,” he says. “Already see you plenty on the news.” Tango doesn’t intend for his tone to come out as bitter as it does. He just hopes it’s not something the other will notice.
He doesn’t add that he turns off the news anytime they get mentioned. He hasn’t read a newspaper in months.
“Well, eyes have been on us—”us, he says. Because it’s never a single one. Always the trio; Bdubs, Etho, Skizz. “—ever since you left. It’s only now starting to dwindle. They think we’re in mourning.” Etho rings out the word like it’s something silly, dramatic. Like it’s the stupidest thing people could possibly assume.
Tango bites tongue so he doesn’t ask: are you? Because they both already know what the answer is gonna be. It fills Tango’s throat with a brick that hasn’t been there for a while now. He didn’t realize the rock had left a perfect imprint that it would always be able to fit into. He sucks in a breath, perhaps a weird attempt to push it down.
Then, Etho glimpses at him through the side of his eyes before he asks, with a lot less confidence than he’s had since he sat here. “Do you…is it nice? To be like this?”
He speaks like it’s something careful, delicate. Almost like it’s a taboo to mention, or that he’s scared of shattering something. Tango’s not sure what he’s so scared of breaking—because it can’t be him. That’s not something he’s ever cared for before.
“My life, you mean? As a vigilante?” He asks, now looking at the other, finger pointing at his chest. Etho turns towards him, nods.
And it’s the first time they meet eyes, and it gets a bit harder to speak. Etho has that tiredness to his gaze that seems to never leave, and looks at Tango like he’s searching for something. Etho’s always had stupidly beautiful eyes. The kind that made Tango want to cup his face, rub his thumb over his cheek.
It hurts, kinda, in a way, that it’s suddenly so hard to answer. Because he’d lay awake, dreaming of the day he’d finally be face to face with the trio and he could tell them about how great his life is, how he’s moved on, how he’s even better than them now. He’d puff out his chest in pride and they’d see what they lost—finally realize their mistake. He’d be proud and strong and healed and—
Tango now is none of those. Tango now wants to curl up into a ball and die.
“...It’s different,” he starts, his head tilting to the side slightly. His eyes finally tear away from the ones that haunt his dreams, instead he looks down at his gloved hands.
“Being a vigilante—it’s a lot more freeing really. I make all decisions on my own, but that also means I need to make all decisions on my own. Which is really less ideal than it sounds. I also can’t just go to the hospital when I’m injured, like a hero could. I just have to suck it up and bandage it at home.”
Etho squints at him.
“Bad, I know. But everything good comes with something bad.” Like Etho.
“Do you…prefer it?”
“I don’t know.”
Would Tango prefer to be lonely on rooftops, wind running through his hair, or would he prefer to be lonely in a loaded crowd, where he can’t get himself to utter a word to his team standing next to him after what they’d done? They both hurt in a way Tango still struggles to describe, even after those few therapy sessions.
He’s not fully alone, not anymore. Never really was. He’s had multiple people that were only a call away as long as he can remember; even closer now than before. But that’s not exactly what he missed. He thinks, he’s thought, that overtime it became less so people that he was missing, and more so a feeling. Tango fears putting a word to it.
He looks over at the other. For a moment he wonders if he came here with a purpose. To hear Tango admit that this life was horrible, that he never should’ve left. Admit that he was the one in the wrong, rather than the people that made him feel like something that could run out of use. But Etho’s gaze lacks such intent. Rather it’s filled with emotions that Tango wants to describe as pity, but has been taught not to. He wonders if Etho could feel his pain secondhand.
“It’s both just very different, my life that is. It’s like comparificating apples and oranges.” And then, as he’s speaking he realizes he’s lying just slightly. He’s making it digestible for someone he fears hearing the reaction of.
As he thinks back to the lives to compare, he comes to realize that he spends way less nights laying awake. Messaging Zedaph that a day wasn’t going well wasn’t nearly as dreadful as it’s once been. It’s bad, yeah, but…
“Well, actually,” Tango starts, much to both their surprises. “I started getting therapy, so it’s definitely going.” He rubs the back of his neck, gives a dry chuckle. “Well not currently. My last therapist wasn’t too good so we’re looking for a new one right now.”
His former therapist wasn’t that bad, truly. She’s helped Tango think about things in ways he hadn’t considered before. But as of current it’s like she’s helped Tango rip open all the boxes that contained his problems, his feelings, his fears. And now they all laid open on the ground and they never ended up getting to the part where she taught Tango how to clean them up, or how to close them. Tango isn’t sure she ever would’ve.
A multitude of factors separated them. They just hadn’t matched, also. And a few of the things she told him would raise a good few eyebrows of his friends when he mentioned it. They didn’t quite like her as much as he did at the time.
But she was the first step to working it out. He just needed to try taking a different path than the one she had.
Etho’s head tilts, and he seems actually surprised at what Tango says. Like out of all things this hadn’t been one of the possibilities he’d expected. Which doesn’t surprise Tango either, really he thinks that if someone had told him this back when he was still working as a hero he wouldn’t have believed them.
But he still sat here nonetheless. And he’d still sat in that office chair multiple times now.
“Therapy?” Etho asks, curiously.
“Yeah, turns out I had some issues to work out.” Tango does not mention that most of the issues in question had originated in that heroes institute. Tango doesn’t mention that the issues are the kind that make him afraid of turning his back to people. Tango does not mention that Etho is one of the issues. There’s multiple versions of him spread throughout the boxes that cover the floor.
“...You seem calmer,” Etho says, and there’s the unspoken sentence that they both know of. It’s had its effects, he doesn’t say.
And Tango freezes. Because only after it was said does Tango realize how much he dreaded hearing such a thing. How his heartbeat turned rapid within seconds from just those three words.
“Well that’s just because I was always angry with you guys… I still kinda am.”
Tango smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and there is a certain bitterness to his words. Like he’s addressing a stupid accusation, which it might as well have been. Of course he seems calmer. Tango could describe how he both was and wasn’t in a million different ways.
“Are you?” Etho asks, like Tango might not be sure of his words. And for a second Tango regrets telling him about the therapy thing completely—a sudden fear struck him at the fact that it could be used against him. Like proof that he’s not right in the head, that his own words shouldn’t be trusted. He couldn't have that. He couldn’t make their perception of him any worse than it already was.
“I am,” he says firmly. “I wish I was. I’m angry. I want to be angry.” He looks at his hands in his lap. He balls them into fists and lets out a breath to clenched teeth.
“I-I told my therapist that—” And it takes a second to get the words out, because suddenly his eyes are starting to burn and the rock in his throat is getting unbearable and it’s like he’s standing before all three of them again. Defending his case like he’s in some type of court.
Tango takes a deep breath.
“I told my therapist…that if I’m not angry I no longer have any proof that you guys did anything to me. I don’t have scars and you guys never mentioned it but I was angry. And I don’t get angry when I’m not hurt…it took so long to figure that out.”
The power leaves his voice the longer he goes on. How he goes from confrontation to someone afraid to confess a secret. He should be better by now, he thinks.
But Etho had told him that he was calmer, that the former anger was no longer there. And logically Tango knows it isn’t true but a part of him still believes that if that were true it means he let the proof of the incident slip through his fingers without noticing. That all memories of it were gone.
He was still angry. Therapy had opened that box and not taught him how to close it.
He looks over at the other. And Etho is sat more upright, listening more intently. And there’s a look in his eyes that had to be pity. Because what else could it be? Care wasn't an option, and he’s not all too sure regret was one either.
He looks back down at his hand, then at the street below his feet. He lets his palms lay on his thighs again. For a moment he can breathe, albeit shakily.
“It was always me versus you, you know?”
Etho doesn’t know. He may not ever know.
“We loved you,” Etho says then. And he sounds breathless, and he sounds sad. And it breaks Tango.
His eyes widen. It’s every word he’s wanted to hear and now he’s not sure he’d despise any response more than this one. It was insensitive and cruel and wrong and—
“No, no you fucking didn’t.” He shoves his finger in Etho’s chest, forces their gazes to meet. Perhaps to show the other just exactly what he’d done to him. “You loved the idea of me—not even, actually, you loved the idea of Team BEST. If you could have Team BEST without me you would’ve done it in a heartbeat.”
His heart beats in his chest and he can hear the blood rush in his ears. It’s a specific type of anger he hadn’t felt in so long that he almost thought he got rid of it. That it had finally left him behind. But it simply seemed to be a team BEST exclusive. That only they could ruin him like this. And suddenly he wasn’t as calm as Etho made him out to be.
“No, Tango, we wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t you? Because you literally have!” His hands wave around as he speaks. “ And even then, you guys would have each other before you’d even consider having me.”
“Skizz wanted you! At the very least!”
Once. Skizz and him had been just as inseparable as Etho and Bdubs when they just started out. Skizz wanted him once.
“No, what Skizz wanted was Team BEST. Are you not hearing me?!”
Tango knows this because no amount of therapy will get rid of the pit that made home in his stomach the day Skizz defended Bdubs right to his face, mere moments after it transpired.
Etho was getting agitated too. His eyes fell into an angry squint and his hands started gesturing too. He turned his whole upper body to face Tango.
“What could possibly be the difference here, Tango?!”
Tango mirrored him, turning to face him. Any anger Etho would give him Tango would give back doubled.
“The fucking difference is that if I was in a room with all of you you’d run to eachother!” He takes a breath, and rubs over his rapidly blurring eyes. He curses. “The difference is that when I got hurt you guys made me get over it because Team BEST had to stay together rather than hold Bdubs accountable for the shit he did to me. That if all of us were in a room right now, would you pick me?”
Etho falls silent, and his face falls with it. He stares at Tango with wide eyes and Tango hates it. He’s geared up for an argument and having to defend himself to no end but Etho is looking at him like his words are starting to mean something and that he’s actually thinking about what Tango is saying and—and what the hell is Tango supposed to do with that?
What is he supposed to do when he’s being listened to?
“Would you want me?” Tango asks, but it falls into a weak whisper. A stray tear managed to find its way down his face.
“Do you want me?”
And in hindsight it’s the stupidest question Tango could ask. The answer would've been written in the sky. Hell, his whole life should be proof enough.
But then there’s a warm hand on his cheek wiping away the tear and Tango can’t even wonder when he’d taken the glove before he’s leaning into the touch like it’s from someone he loved. Like it’s from someone that loves him.
His mouth opens to comment on it but then suddenly lips crash into his own. His eyes widen and he gasps against the other's mouth. But when Etho tries to pull away again a second later it’s Tango that chases after him and closes the gap, going against everything he’s promised himself. His eyes squeeze shut and his hands find Etho’s neck, and Etho’s hand finds Tango’s waist.
They’re kissing and holy shit, they’re kissing. What was rough and passionate at the start dissolved into something that was eerily gentle. The kind you’d get from a lover that kissed you just to love you, a lover not searching for a reward. Etho’s lips are slightly chapped against him, and while he’d seen the other without mask a good few times it was never enough to truly see if this was the case or not. Tango can feel Etho’s hair against his fingers, because it’s long enough for that.
It’s Etho he’s kissing. It’s Etho that kissed him. Etho that responded on his own initiative to the question do you want me with kissing him. Etho who he’s tried so hard to get over. Etho who stills makes his heart flutter like he hasn’t also torn it apart. It had taken so much mending and crying to get it to its current state, yet Tango feels like Etho is carefully pulling out all the stitches. The whirlwind of emotions in his stomach is not something he’ll be able to describe to anyone anytime soon, if ever. He feels whole and like a husk of himself. Why couldn’t the other have given him this when they’d still spent nights together after work shifts? Why not when Tango try so desperately to stay?
They parted for air for only a second before they were together again, neither sure who truly pulled the other back in. Tango’s lips parted and the kiss deepened and Tango was really afraid of having the kiss ever end. He felt warm and Etho was up against him and he’s not sure he’ll ever feel this again when it’s done. The dangers of a once in a lifetime experience was that the taste of the mints Etho always ate underneath his mask would never leave Tango’s mouth, nor would the imprint of his lips on Tango’s.
Etho’s fingerprints will never leave his heart and Tango will once more have to live with it.
When the kiss ends it’s reluctant, and Tango wants to cry. He’s not even all too sure why anymore. Etho rests their foreheads together and Tango keeps his eyes closed because he fears that if he opens them the other will no longer be there. Every bit of effort to let the moment last longer.
He can hear Etho breathe. He can hear a car honk in the street below them. The lampposts shown bright.
Tango gives a wet chuckle. Perhaps he might already be crying.
“This is not the closure I wanted…” He admits.
His therapist had told him he may never get closure. He may never get that apology. He may never get that confession on the news admitting what they’d done—tell the world that Tango hadn’t left the company just because he wasn’t getting enough attention. He would have to move on and grow either way. He would have to walk forward without the anger.
This wasn’t something he would’ve dared to imagine.
Etho laughs back. It’s soft, Tango missed the sound of it.
“Then let me give you the one you want—” Etho says, daring. “Just…just give me time.”
I’ll make it up to you, he doesn’t say. I’ll be better, he doesn’t say either.
Tango sobs. “It’s been more than a year, skip.”
He can’t do this to Tango. Not now. Tango kind of wants him to. The things he’d lie awake dreaming of.
“Just this once,” Etho promises. He takes one of Tango’s hands to hold it tightly. Tango still fears opening his eyes. “Hold a space open for me.”
And Tango would fall for Etho again, and let it drag him along again, and it may never end. But this is the closest to an apology he may ever get. And he’s so, so scared of letting it slip through his fingers.
So he hiccups, and nods.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Please, don’t take too long.”