bokketo: a multimuse blog

[x] Guinevere hadn't been natural at parenting at the start, but she has become more attuned to Matt's wants and needs over the years. Most of the time, she can tell when he's whining, when he's going to be stubborn about things, and which arguments are worth having.

Wheedling, like he's doing now, is more effective on his father than it is on her.

[x] "Less talking, more sleeping, mister," Kirsten mutters.

Honestly, she'll be glad for some rest. Her attempt at maternity leave had quickly turned into her compiling reports at home and doing legal support work behind the scenes. It's mostly while their daughter is asleep, but also Skye isn't really at an age where she's engaging. Aside from when she's uncomfortable or hungry, she doesn't fuss a ton, so Kirsten can work with Skye strapped to her chest in a swaddle or laying in a bassinet next to her. That'll evaporate soon, she knows, but for now, she'll do what she can to feel a little less helpless when the firm is faced with difficult cases.

He lifts his head from her neck and shrugs in response. "After I first started out as Daredevil, I never went more than a few months without... something happening, something going wrong, or my life going down the drain in some way or another. Now, it's been years... and it's all quiet... peaceful. Which is a good thing!" He's quick to add. "I'm just... not used to it. I guess that puts me a little on edge." It's not that he misses it— part of him does, but he still trains with Sam on occasion, which mostly fulfills that need.

These days, he's more excited about staying home with his family than going out to get some new bruises. There's just some unsettleness that came with it, because he isn't sure what to do with himself when things are going so well for him.

[x] Kirsten sighs gently, but not out of exasperation, and holds Matt just a little bit closer. Nowadays, the biggest thing he should be worrying about is how much Skye seems to enjoy throwing herself down snow-covered mountains.

( They're watchful, of course, and make sure she's being as careful as possible while hitting the slopes, but Kirsten's heart lurches a little every time when her little girl pushes off into the unknown. She's gotten very used to finding kid-sized protective gear. )

But Matt's worries are significantly broader and more severe. She understands where the paranoia comes from, why his past leaves him scared even, and it's hard to convince someone that there is no evidence of misdeeds at present when they could simply be unknown. Lurking. Waiting.

"What?! No, Foggy, you— you don't have to apologize for anything. I started it, it's my fault. I should be the one apologizing to you, I'm the one who keeps fucking things up." It's why he'd been planning on skipping past this exact conversation. Matt has never been great at talking about his feelings, especially when it comes to Foggy.

Matt's heightened senses tell him a lot about people, but figuring them out takes time. It was months before he figured out Foggy's feelings for him, and he'd spent most of his time since then trying to bury his own feelings, because he has an awful track record when it comes to relationships.

He doesn't want to risk Foggy's friendship. Foggy has been all he has for years now— Matt doesn't know what he'll do with himself if he loses Foggy, one way or another.

He leans back against the headboard— burying his feelings might be a little more difficult after this.

[x] The prospect of everything staying the same as it always has is appealing, if only because Foggy knows how to cope with that. He can smile at Matt's antics, laugh a little too loud at terrible jokes he makes, admire the way Matt moves and looks and everything else about him without saying anything. He can flirt in the most harmless of ways, take the rebuffs with good grace because it was mostly a joke anyway ( even though it never completely is ) and life will be... normal.

He needs Matt to know that. Things can be normal. A moment of weakness won't ruin their friendship.

"You didn't fuck things up, I, I'm fine, we're fine—" Foggy stops, brain catching up to him, and shoots Matt an almost bewildered look. "Wait, you started it? Were you, like, really backed up or something? Not that I'm complaining but..."

There is something bizarre to this that he doesn’t understand; he can’t define why, because he can’t possibly know. His life is only what it is: at face value, he only knows this existence in Lumière to be what he knows it as. He knows nothing of other worlds, of Paintings, of a dead son and a grieving family. He knows nothing of a fire that took his life in one world but not in this one, and that truth breaks his mother’s heart every time she looks at him. 

And so when Aline comes to the door, it’s with a weary understanding only that he rises, because he assumes this will be when Clea brings up the idea of this little outing — only to be a little bewildered as she leaves, instead. " I —— alright, " he says, fingers trailing along the top of his desk; Aline turns to watch her go, and he can’t interpret the look on her face. 

He swallows, feeling as though he’s missing something dire — something important, a moment swimming around him that somehow slips through his fingers. He forces himself to shrug it away, then, and ushers his mother inside, a smile coming swift and easy, even as there’s a little twist in his gut when she turns attention upon him, sets a hand on his cheek, smiles in that watery way that feels like she’s grieving something lost rather than looking at him properly. 

But he pulls away, and when she asks him to play something — she speaks so rarely and softly these days — he’ll gladly do so, but the strangeness of their meeting doesn’t soon fade. 

It’s later, then, that he’s able to step away; Renoir comes home, and they all have dinner, and it’s a pleasant if not subdued evening. But it’s not ’til later, not ’til the evening wends and he finds himself completely unable to focus on the book that he’s reading, that he rises and goes to find his sister again. 

[x] It's a dangerous game that Clea is playing, being in this canvas. She's not sure how long she can reasonably keep her doppelganger locked up and take her place without her family getting suspicious. She has considered constructing a temporary reality for the other Clea so that there's some sort of justification that can be offered upon her return, but to be frank, the real Clea hates the painted version of herself.

This Clea has never needed to become a soldier ( there are no Writers here) . This Clea has both the free time and the softness needed to take a lover ( insipidly sappy letters are tucked into a book the desk ). This Clea ...will serve her purpose for the real Clea ( and then be discarded like the abomination she is ) .

She puts that from her mind at the knock on her door. Her perusal of her counterpart's room for more information can wait. With a wave of her hand, everything is back in its rightful place, and she can open the door.

The carriage is waiting by the time she gets ready — he'd taken care of that — and he smiles easily and helps her up into it, all casual elegance and gentlemanly manners, of course, and a compliment to the dress she's chosen, because his little sister deserves no less. He pulls the window covers aside so he can watch the city pass — he's ever been fascinated, the lights growing and twinkling and lively, a boyish wonder in it even as he's very much grown — and he gives a little grin as the carriage jerks smoothly into motion and the distant clip-claps of hooves on the street carry them along.

" Only two, " he admits, like that's nothing at all and like everyone knows performers. " Just —— hey, you might remember one of them. Do you remember Estelle? It's been a few years. " He'd performed in the orchestra pit in a production of a musical number a few years back, and a few of them had come over one evening after dinner. This woman in particular, a lovely talented singer but socially shy, had been quiet but had spoken quite a bit to a younger Alicia all those years ago.

[x] "Estelle! Yes, I remember." She'd been much younger then, and had absolutely bubbled over with enthusiasm when the woman said she wrote many of the songs she sang if they weren't for a production. Alicia had just been getting into writing proper poetry and, while the other orchestra members were busy chattering about everything else, Estelle shared her tips with the young girl for when and how to incorporate rhythm and slant rhyme into her work so that the poems could be sung smoothly. It had been a brilliant evening.

It seems surreal that the dainty woman now has a family of her own. Everyone around her seems to be growing up and Alicia still feels so painfully young sometimes. She hopes that motherhood won't stop Estelle from being the same kind presence that she remembers.

" You are, " he agrees soberly, and he means it. " But if he's gonna be big enough to grow lots of mushrooms, he's gotta be real big, and maybe real heavy too. " He looks oh-so-serious, those too-large ice-blue eyes intent. " Esquie's cave is big after all. It has to be, because he flies in. " Which is new; last time he could only swim. " So if he's going to live with Esquie is got to be big, too, or else he'll get lost in the cave. "

But his thoughts are scattered. They're not alone in the house —— they have a babysitter, somewhere, a student from the Conservatory who made him wash his hands three times before dinner before she was satisfied, so he's avoiding her —— but the big house feels lonely anyway. And their father helped his mother go to the physician's, and he knows that's miserable, because every time he has to go he gets pinched and told to stick out his tongue.

[x] "Hmmmmm okay." François can be big and magical so that he can protect the mushrooms when Esquie is carrying him around and fight anyone who comes to steal them because they're pretty, Clea decides, planning a pattern of ice crystals around the not-turtle as a sort of shield.

She waves off his compliment, instead looking at Verso's face. "You don't have to worry so much. Papa said she was fine and that they'd be back with the baby soon. I'm sure it takes a while to get it out of her." Clea grimaces at the thought. "Maman is strong and the doctors are very smart. They went to the best of the best."

They always do. Everything they do outside the house has to be perfect, the way they act, the clothes they wear, the people they interact with, the services they use. Clea remembers sneaking off once in order to buy cheap candy that she loved. She looked mightily suspicious in a hooded cloak, paying in a larger denomination than the shop had ever seen. She thought she was so devious... and then Maman had yelled at her. She'd never done it again.

Verso has watched the Nevrons grow over time with trepidation; those early days, they were often powerful and strong and deadly but —— still anchored to this world, somehow. Great big boulders —— metal contraptions with powerful chroma. Sea creatures that lurked the depths and made the construction of the Dome necessary.

But then they began growing —— strange. Even more strange than they ever were, multi-limbed with magic torn from the void. Faces cracked in agony or lacking faces at all ——

Oh, Clea.

The nights he's sat and looked up at that floating distant manor, those times he's tried to venture in and been slaughtered at the gate. He knows, and he doesn't know, but his heart feels it all the same.

He swallows, and his gaze flits back over to her. " Not as many, but we didn't know what to expect, either. And none —— few of us, " a swift correction, as though it's an important one, " knew how to fight. So not as many, but —— " His smile tilts, pulls ruefully, and he looks aside. " A single Lancelier killed four people our first couple nights here. " It's a brittle smile, a long-ago grief, honest enough in its loss , and he matches her gaze with his briefly before he looks away.

" Just me and him, " he sighs. " And —— no, I don't know why, " yes you do, liar, liar, " except, " and a drawing in of a breath, " he was our Commander and I was his second. " Another lie, though one that at least isn't a complete lie. Simon was the second, and truthfully Verso was only really there because he was Renoir's son — but he held rank, and he knows better than to admit their familial connection by now.

[x] Lune understands pain, loss, grief. Lumiére is steeped in it, and then with the white-haired man wiping out almost the entire Expedition, there's been an extra layer of that violence that has been embedded into her. She hates how vulnerable people are, how easily they die.

She hates that she led them to their death like this.

She hates that. with her tactical mentality, she's grateful that Gustave survived over some of the others because he'd be better able to convert pictos to lumina. She hates that she doesn't know if Verso is the same way, ready to sacrifice them in order to reach the Paintress. ( Then again, if that's what it took to stop the Gommage, would she fight him on it? She just wants to know. )

"We should prepare, just in case."

That is what Lune does. She prepares, she makes a plan B and C and D, collects data to try to make the best possible decision and creates failsafes.

Foggy is the one who least deserves it, though, and Matt's well aware of that. Foggy had known Karen for as long as Matt did, if anyone can understand the pain he was in, it's his best friend... or maybe not. At least, not to the same degree. Foggy doesn't have to go home to an empty apartment where every room, every piece of furniture reminds him of the woman he loves, knowing that she'll never come home again because she committed the horrible, horrible crime of loving him back.

If Matt tries hard enough, he can almost trick himself into thinking Karen is still here, just out running an errand or another, and will be home soon. Almost. Her scent on the bedsheets is strong enough to torment him, but they're fading away fast enough for him to know that fantasy can't last long, and he's pulled back into the harsh reality soon enough.

[x] "Oh yeah, because seeing you beat down has always been such a source of joy for me." The words drip sarcasm. Foggy takes a deep breath to calm himself, refusing to give in to Matt's provocations. "If wallowing in your own misery is easier for you, go for it, but don't make me an accessory to the crime."

Foggy has enough misery of his own. He's fighting the voices that tell him that Karen could have dated him, could have been safe with him ; the jealousy that he'd buried years ago flares, ugly and cruel, and he hates it. Who wouldn't pick Matt? Handsome and silver-tongued, kind and sweepingly romantic, of course Karen fell for him.

But she was one of Foggy's closest friends too, even without the romantic attachment. She laughed with him and cried with him and got him dumb trinkets ( which lined his desks both at work and at home ) to keep him afloat when the going got tough. She was a shot of coffee in the morning and the sunshine in the afternoon and the all-important glue when he and Matt fought, and she was gone. Foggy is trying not to blame Matt for it, he is, but with her lying there so still...

               “Had the room cleared two days ago.”

     His voice is quiet too, enough that it doesn’t disturb the hum of silence between them. He doesn’t fill the space immediately, lets her take it in as long as she needs. He watches her through the mirror, her reflection caught there, all of her wariness, her poise, the threadbare piece of herself that still responds to something like this with awe. It strikes something in him. Not guilt. Not pride. Something…colder, heavier, deeper. The knowledge that she had nothing like this growing up. The quiet confirmation that he’s built her something softer only after everything hard has already been carved into her bones.

               “Took the liberty of having the floors replaced.”

     He adds after a pause, stepping forward until his reflection nears hers in the glass. His arms don’t immediately reach for her. There’s something about this moment that feels suspended — like touching it too soon might shatter it.

          “The poles are regulation height. Barres are reinforced. Mirror’s from a supplier that usually deals in rehearsal halls and film sets. Nothing custom, just correct.”

     He lets the words hang, not showing off— not really — but to underscore that this wasn’t some whimsical expense. It was purposeful. Something chosen. Like she was.

     Finally, his hands find her hips from behind, fingers splayed loose rather than possessive, thumbs brushing lightly over the damp fabric at her waist.

               “I remembered…”

     Kage says, lower now.

               “What you said in when we were undercover. That ballet was one of the only parts of your training they couldn’t beat out of you.”

     His mouth hovers just near her ear, like a secret too close to say aloud.

               “Figured you might want a place to prove they never did.”

          And that’s the closest he’ll come, today, to saying you deserve something that’s yours. That even after everything, the missions, the betrayals, the names they’ve had to drop like snakeskin, Kage wants her to have a place that wasn’t written by someone else’s hand. Something she can make new.

     After a moment he withdraws his hands and simply steps to the side, gesturing out with one arm, not unlike a stagehand introducing a scene.

               “It’s yours now.”

     Kage says with a small smile.

[x] Natasha rarely feels as fragile as she does in the moment, caught off guard, trapped between a past that she's tried to run away from for decades and an uncertain present where she's thrown away the life she's built in avoidance of the one before it. Here, in the safety of their own home ( when did it become a home instead of just a house? when did she get so sentimental? ) , there is space for not only what she wants, but who she is.

It is jarring.

She watches his approach, feeling rather like prey that has been cornered by virtue of how exposed she is, but doesn't lash out. Rather, something in her relaxes into his touch by just a fraction.

He has always claimed to care, and they have protected each other more and more as of late, but this...

The false wedding band glints in the light, the shimmer reflecting off the mirror in front of them. They are tied together in more ways than words.

It takes a moment beyond Kage stepping back, a stretch of silence that hangs in the air before she reacts. Then she turns and takes two steps to reach him, pressing a kiss to his lips before shoving him off towards the corner.

"Sit," she says, imperious but just a little breathless. "Watch."