Chapter Text
Lux et Nox
One
The warm stained oak floorboards gave an almighty creak beneath his socked foot as he dared to ease his weight forwards, and Eddie Munson winced visibly in response.
He paused, stock still, for a full three minutes after.
No breathing. No shifting any further into the room. Not even daring to think too hard in case his thoughts were somehow too heavy for that traitorous squeaky floorboard.
He stayed frozen, like he was playing some crazy version of musical statues, where the prize was not getting yelled at by his husband in front of the entire extended family. Except the music was the voices and laughter of their guests down the hall, all gathered together in the living room after dinner.
Voices drifted down the hallway from the open-plan space. Steve’s voice was the one his ears picked out most of all. Warm and bright and happy. Woven together with Robin’s chaotic, breathless commentary and his Uncle Wayne’s amused, low drawl. Joyce and Hopper arguing half-jokingly with each other, the kids discussing the latest movie they were just dying to drag Steve to see.
When no one immediately came charging into their bedroom, armed with throw pillows and judgmental stares, Eddie resumed his mission. Slower this time. Careful. Skirting the squeaky floorboard in favour of the edge of the room. He tiptoed over to their shared wardrobe, like the fate of downtown wasn’t currently resting on him not knocking over the laundry basket…
Inside, a wall of material greeted him in the dim evening light. Black and grey and muted on his side. And opposite him, Steve’s burst of colour amidst the shadow. Blue and yellow, warm sunlight captured and woven in between the cotton threads. It always made Eddie’s lips curve gently into a smile, seeing the physical proof of their differences, their complementary juxtaposition.
Salt and sugar. Yin and yang. Dark and light.
Daybreaker and Nocturne.
But he wasn’t there to get nostalgic! He absolutely did not have time to get all choked up and sentimental about how perfect his husband was for him. He was on a mission! Had people depending on him.
So, Eddie started digging.
☀☀☀☀☀
Ten minutes later, the entire bedroom looked like it had witnessed a tornado pass straight through it.
It wasn’t there.
And Eddie was panicking. Ripping through clothes, long since having thrown caution to the wind.
Armfuls of shirts had been dragged off their hangers, the winter bins upended across their bed, and he still couldn’t find it! A sweater dangled off the bedside lamp, halfway to becoming a fire hazard…
“...Okay. Don’t panic.”
As if on cue, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, glancing down at the message he knew would already be there.
Gareth: Come on, man! We need you!
“Shit,” he hissed, tossing the phone on Steve’s dressing table.
He scrambled across the bed, dislodging shirts, jumpers and jeans as he gave an ungainly army crawl. He hung over the edge, yanked out the drawer of his bedside cabinet, rifling through the absolute crap he’d accumulated over the years - crap that Steve had been nagging him to sort through.
(If Eddie had learned anything from this experience, it was that he should really listen to Steve when he nagged him about things. This whole search would be easier if he had.)
Nothing. Because of course. Because life was funny like that.
Shit.
He lay there, face down, for a long, breathless moment, draped across the bed in apparent defeat.
He could bow out. Tell Gareth and the rest of the Hellfire crew to go on without him. He was almost sure they could handle whatever dickhead villain had crawled out of the sewers this time.
But…
But, there was a little voice at the back of his mind that whispered ‘what if’?
What if they really did need his help this time?
What happened if they went down and it was all his fault?
His chest tightened at that.
☀☀☀☀☀
Eddie was still lying there, draped across the bed, head and arms dangling over the edge of his side, when he felt the air shift behind him.
He rolled over immediately. Sat bolt upright like he’d been shot through with a lightning bolt.
“It’s not what it looks like!” he half-yelled, panicked, spreading his arms wide as if that would somehow hide the absolute carnage he had wrought.
Steve didn’t say anything.
He just stood in the doorway, lips parted around a quiet ‘oh’, eyes flicking between Eddie’s face and the mess. One hand braced on the door frame, the other still on the handle of their bedroom door.
Now he was the one who was frozen.
“Babe, it’s nothing! I’m just…”
Eddie stopped.
Because he had no idea what he was ‘just’ doing.
Well, he did, he just didn’t have a convincing enough lie ready. And he never could lie to Steve anyway. It was part of the reason that Steve had known his secret identity for a full six weeks before Eddie had figured out his.
(Which had been completely unfair, by the way! The emotional damage alone! Thinking he’d been in love with two different people. Honestly, Steve still owed him for that!)
Steve snapped his mouth shut with a click of teeth that clenched as soon as they connected. He took a slow, deep breath in through his nose, held it (like his therapist taught him) and then let it out in a steady stream.
Then he stepped into the room. Closed the door very calmly, very quietly, highly controlled, behind him.
Silence.
Eddie winced.
“...Sunshine?”
“No.” Steve’s voice was very quiet. Dangerously so. His fists settled on his hips. His hazel eyes flashed -just for a heartbeat- with something gold and molten. Like sparks from a bonfire catching in their depths.
Oh.
Oh, he was mad mad.
“Darling-” Eddie tried again, gaining his knees, clambering over to Steve’s side of the bed. He reached out for him placatingly, but the gesture went ignored.
Double shit.
“Light of my life-”
“The one weekend, Munson!” Steve snapped. “I have planned this weekend for months. To have this nice family get-together,” he poked Eddie in the chest for emphasis.
“Okay, okay, listen, Babe. It’s Hellfire. They called me. They need backup. I did not go looking for trouble.”
Steve exhaled sharply, like he was physically restraining himself from bursting into a full-on solar flare. His hair crackled with golden energy in warning.
“And you decide that you need to go out and relive your glory days being a hero?”
“Why am I ‘Munson’ again?” Eddie wrinkled his nose, pouting slightly at having been relegated to his surname.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m just saying, Sunspot,” he held up a hand, trying to interrupt the impending rant. “They sound like they really need the assist. You know Gareth only asks when they’re on the ropes…”
“You promised no more heroics, Eddie!”
And he’s back on first-name terms, thank god! Eddie let out a small sigh of relief. “I know,"
“It’s the first time Wayne’s managed to get time off work to come and visit the new apartment. Robin and Chrissy can only stay until tomorrow night! Not to mention the risks. We’re still very much illegal in case you’d conveniently forgotten that. Maybe Gareth needs his ass kicking as a sharp reminder that-”
Steve was fully ranting now.
Eddie used the distraction to slip down to sit on the edge of the bed, to lean down so very, very gently and carefully, to tug open the drawer of Steve’s bedside cabinet just to check if-
“Eddie!”
“What?!” he threw his hands up again, in surrender that time. “What? You want me to do nothing? What if people get hurt? Innocent people, all because Nocturne is caught up with family night and worrying about a little thing like supers being illegal?”
“It’s not a little thing.” Steve ground out, his jaw clenched and set. “You could get caught, go to prison! Worse, they could experiment on you. I’ve heard what Dmitri went through-”
Eddie sighed, palms settling gently on Steve’s elbows, guiding him into the lee between his knees. Steve allowed it, scowling. The embers in his eyes flare again, just briefly, before settling back to their normal brown-green.
“I’ll be careful, Sunshine, you know I will,” Eddie flashed his best, biggest, brightest smile, dimples and all. Shameless. He'd used his smile more than once before to get his own way when he'd realised that Steve was quite the sucker for a set of dimples.
Steve’s flat-eyed glare told him he knew exactly what Eddie was doing...
Eddie did it anyway.
Because it usually worked. Because it still might work. Because he needed it to work.
The adrenaline had already started to build now, thrumming under his skin at the thought of getting back out there. Being able to help his friends in a battle. Of being needed.
A rising tendril of shadows flickered from his fingertips. He felt it. Saw it. The black plumes twisting and turning like smoke where his hands still grasped tightly to Steve’s arms. Aiming for comforting, probably coming across as more than a little desperate.
Steve saw it too. The darkening beneath Eddie’s skin as the shadows race through his veins. Just waiting for Eddie to reach out, grab them and pull them forth for wielding.
“I have to help them,” Eddie swallowed, and Steve held his gaze for a long moment.
Finally, very reluctantly, very dramatically, he heaved a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes.
“Your suit is in the laundry room,” he stated. “Clean basket on top of the dryer.”
Eddie didn’t hesitate for a second.
He kissed him -hard and fast, full force- almost before Steve had finished speaking.
And then he was up, shouldering past him (earning him a tut and a huff of irritation), he was hurrying, running.
“Sunshine, you are the best! I love you more than anything!”
And then he’s gone.
“Yeah, yeah…” Steve’s voice grumbles after him. “What’s new?”
☀☀☀☀☀