Work Text:
Doc
It was quiet in the apartment.
So strangely quiet.
“You miss them yet?” Etho asked from where he was lounging on their sofa, feet kicked up over one arm, head flat on the cushions, paw-like hands folded over his chest.
Doc sighed through his nose. “Hard to say…I will not complain at having space to move again.”
“Yeeeah, this really isn’t a five-person apartment, huh?”
“Not when three of the five have such big wings.”
Etho snickered, the sound emerging from his throat at a cheery pitch as he tilted his head back into the cushions.
His one functional eye, the other long since scarred over, gazed up at him with amusement-tinted fondness.
“We made it work…I’m sure they’re happy to be back topside.”
“Most certainly.” Doc walked over to the sofa and sat down on the remaining cushion that Etho wasn’t taking up with his sprawl.
In response, his husband kicked his feet and wiggled his way up till he was resting his head on Doc’s thigh.
The creeper mutant looked down at him with a quirked smile.
“You have been awfully clingy.”
“What, like I’m not always clingy?” Etho replied with a draw as he stuck his arms up toward Doc’s face.
“Get down here, big guy!”
“I do not think I can bend like that.”
“Aww, you’re no fun.”
Doc rolled his eye, the one of flesh, and his archival eye flickered as if in mimicry of such a motion.
He adjusted his posture to settle more comfortably on the sofa and then got ahold of one of Etho’s hands in his. Squeezed gently.
“We really did figure quite a lot out…”
“Sure did, sweetheart! Still figuring it out, I’d say…day in, day out…”
“Day in, day out,” Doc murmured in reply, and Etho gave him a beaming smile that didn’t match all they’d endured.
Not when they were teenagers.
Not as a couple of idiots who’d stumbled ass-backward into being leaders.
Into being parents.
Certainly not as a couple who’d claimed they’d sit together and watch the world burn…and yet they’d held together this little apartment with so many disparate sorts under their roof.
Told them all ‘you have a safe place to sleep here.’
And perhaps that is what I am proudest of.
Doc thought to himself as he rested his head back against the couch cushions, and Etho settled himself again, lowering his arms to fold on his chest, this time bringing Doc’s hand down with him to hold.
They sat like that awhile. Just breathing. Just being.
I did not think I would make it this far.
A boy so scared he’d played a mad genius.
And then played a leader, a father, a husband, a friend.
To the point where he started to let himself accept, bit by bit, piece by piece…
I am not merely playing. Not anymore.
The world wouldn’t burn so long as he could shoulder it.
And his loves in all their many forms would find a cramped two-bedroom apartment as a haven from it all.
That had been worth fighting for.
Day in and day out.