THE HERO DEFEATED.

you let her keep touching you because god, jesus, fuck, christ, has anything felt this good in so long? it hasn’t. you’re basically in the thick of fucking dying but look at this. look at this right here. look at this life you’re sort of living, even if you’re a little bit fucked up on painkillers (for medical reasons, right now) and your chest feels like it’s being sewn shut and ripped open. breaths are hard, but you don’t care. you’d rather be awake.

against feathers yet still, gentle and so very tender, all fingertips, all fingertips. those light touches, those little things. you get to do this, too, and you love that most of all. (you’d never so liberally thought the word ‘love’ before but here you are, sort of saying it anyway).

“most people don’t realize how completely beautiful snow is. whenever it snows it gets really quiet because snow actually absorbs sound around it, so a snowstorm is sort of like shutting everything up into safe, muffled silence. i always liked snow so much,” fingertips still over feathers. you feel them react, so you keep the pattern safe. “i just think of you in terms of things that make me feel safe.” it seems very basic to you. of course that is how you feel. “—the good doctor’s a bleeding heart. people drop at her feet like dominos thoroughly affects by the weight of gravity. it’s mesmerizing.”

you inch closer and closer and closer until you’re comfortably nestled beneath the warmth of a wing and against her. you’re safe, there, after all. as safe as you can be. “thanks. it’s cold.”

she lets alana touch. lets those fingers run over her feathers; the dark bars and stripes patterned against cream and what would be russet in a normal light. there’s a soft noise in her throat. a birdlike noise of contentment. her wing twitches in the way that muscle and skin react to touch and in some ways it’s a foreign sensation. that light touch. that softness.

alana has her curious now, and she cocks her head ever so slightly to convey that. “do i make you feel safe?” it’s a genuine question. there’s something quietly earnest in the way that she asks it. a subtle desperation. she tucks those loose strands of hair back behind alana’s ear and briefly lets her fingertips wander to the curve of her jaw, then shifts when alana scoots closer. shayera snares her arm around a thin waist and wraps her wing a little tighter around them both. 

safety. that’s not a term she’s ever used to define herself. not one that has ever seemed to suit her. but she’s never likened herself to snow before either. the first time she’s been called winter. the first time she’s been called safe. it’s funny, when she thinks about it, that she had to travel lightyears to hear these words for the first time. that she’d ever have found herself here, in this room, in this bed, with this human who is so much more to her than just that word.

“you make me feel less…less…” shayera struggles for a moment, forehead puckering while she searches for the word she wants to use. “less isolated.” her fingertips begin tracing shapes against alana’s spine—nonsensical patterns mostly. the familiar movements of her own native language, spelled out against a body. words that have no human equivalent.

“yes. you make me feel safe. you— have my back,” her fingers brush up and down your spine, up and down. over the rough, jagged, gummy scar tissue where you almost severed your whole fucking spinal column and your brain stem. your back is a mottled wreckage of scars— your whole entire body is. every goddamn inch of it. all of it is more than you can deal with, but she keeps touching you. she keeps touching you and you shrink a little further in, against.

safe. she makes you so safe. (you feel her alphabet against your flesh and it warms you.)

“you make me feel like i don’t have to be as afraid. or uncomfortable. maybe frightened. it’s comforting. it’s— good. good. it feels like i can maybe finally go a whole night in a bed again and not wake up dizzy from hyperventilating in my sleep.” it’s honest. (in the dark, that touch of silver, of metal melted into your jaw, your cheek where her fingers touch, it’s moonlit.)

you keep touching feathers. so soft. you touch and you touch.

you feel it, too. it’s fucking sharp as hell. if it were tangible, you would’ve sliced your palm wide open with the retraction of her hand or the flat nature of her words. you’d duck under something or you’d hide under something or you’d crawl underneath somewhere to stay quiet and try not to hear the yelling or the sounds. places you could hide that would be safe.

(a wing flicks and you look at it immediately. all a swift glance. you can’t control it. your throat tightens you even further. you can’t stop hearing dad calling you a crybaby.)

“it does matter—“ your hands are open, palms up, “whatever matters is mentionable. whatever is mentionable is manageable. when we talk about our feelings they become less overwhelming, less scary, and less upsetting. the people we trust with this important talk reminds us we’re not alone.” hands open. palms up. here. look.

“it does. it matters a whole lot. explanation is the way communication occurs— when i don’t understand, i ask. i am asking because i don’t understand, but i really want to. i don’t want to hear anyone else talk to me about their problems— you say anything about yours, and my brain immediately turns on and pays attention.”

“my problems aren’t your problems, and i left them back on thanagar,” where they belong. shayera fixes her with her sharp stare; a predator caught on the edge of fight or flight who is more prone to fighting than anything else. that old learned panic hasn’t lessened. it’s settled on her chest now, and the sensation of being pinned down only serves to aggravate how uncomfortable she is right now.

she doesn’t know how to do this: opening up, being vulnerable. for so long the only thing that kept her alive was her ability to force her own feelings down; to swallow any sign of weakness and push forward despite the odds against her. talking about it—admitting to it—would be like stripping off her armor and leaving her exposed. that scares her. what terrifies her even more is that alana might pity her. alana might think less of her for it.

but maybe, for alana’s sake, she could at least try.

shifting her weight in an anxious motion, she takes another step or two away and glances at a blank spot on the wall, trying to collect her thoughts. “i had a—i guess you’d call him fiance in your language… an intended mate, and he—he—” 

words suddenly fail her. she doesn’t have the words to explain everything he put her through. she doesn’t know them in this alien language; she barely even knows them in her own. all that panic finally boils over into frustration and her wings bristle until they snap open in a display not intentionally meant to be threatening. her nails dig into the nearest object, an unfortunate chair, and shred through the material.

you don’t care that she snaps so hard. and you don’t care that it makes your stomach keep roiling. but you feel something way down in the bottom of your whole soul and it refuses to allow fear to be more important in this moment. her own sense of discomfort. you talk fast, and you can’t slow yourself down when it flies out of your mouth, “you never, ever, ever, ever, regardless of what you have done or did not do, you never, ever, ever deserve to be hurt. i don’t care what you think and i don’t care what you were told. it’s wrong and it’s never right. he doesn’t deserve to lay a hand on you. if he couldn’t understand and appreciate that, he’s a worthless monster and he deserves to die.”

you’re aware this is probably hypocritical but you do not care, “you— that’s not a boundary anyone should be allowed to cross. especially not within the confines of a relationship. you don’t hurt the person you’re with.” you can feel that itchy feeling in the center of your palm. and how blinky’s stutter stuttering flicker flashing with the intensely quick beat of your panicking heart. you fight it as hard as you can, and that’s what matters.

you remember your mother too well (you miss her like a horrible ache). you remember the days when she’d hold your hand and talk softly to you and corral you everywhere your father wasn’t. you remember how she walked a thin line between fear and complacency. you remember how much you thought she must’ve hated it. you can see faded bruises you didn’t remember until you were older. you remember her like she was, but you remember how daddy dearest crushed the life out of you both.

and now you’re surviving.

@beliefruined (x)

“yeah. you really really are,” knock the stardust out of your eyes, stark, she doesn’t need to see it. but your legs swing and you’re still screwing with the tablet in front of you, doing just what she just suggested. “everybody needs a hobby, right? and besides. everything is a learning experience. good way to be sure i plug any leaks happening on the boat.” save yourself from just looking embarrassingly like you didn’t call her fucking amazing.

“oh,” you’re not used to that. you’re disarmed, honestly. it’s all over your face, in the widening of your eyes. you’re not used to that. to someone agreeing to help without a ton of stipulations. you were (and are) ready to shell out millions. you probably will to begin with. you’re just like that, but you’re trying to put yourself back in the moment. you’re understandably nervous, “i— need someone as a private medical professional for monitoring what i don’t necessarily trust myself to monitor.” your brain is— it’s not as there as you’d like it to be. and you hate that.

“i don’t think there’s a lesson to learn if you do it continuously enough and it’s that benevolent—“ you don’t think there’s any lesson to learn. you don’t learn yours, even down an arm and a leg, “i just mean that you sound like you’re really good at what you do. and when someone like jessica jones says you’re noteworthy, i trust that. because she has really paranoia-informed opinions, and i guess you can’t be too cautious. —sorry. i don’t… even know if you can help me. i think i’m asking if you can help me help me.” that’s like pulling teeth out of your own mouth. you’re so scared to try, but—

but if you don’t, you’ll die. (and nat wouldn’t be happy about that. neither would bryce. or even fucking steve.)

“i’m going to be honest, jessica jones and i don’t really know each other, but i helped her once, it turns out i’m very good at handling weird problems,” she said. good at finding solutions — medical solutions — when other people, other doctors, didn’t know what they were dealing with. but mostly she cared. she cared enough to keep trying and trying even when options seemed exhausted.

she gave a shrug, “well that’s kind of why we go to a doctor in the first place. somethings wrong, we can’t fix it ourself, so we seek out help. now here are the terms of my help,” claire said, fixing alana with a look, that while compassionate was firm. the kind that one could imagine she gave patients who weren’t going to behave themselves, the kind that got them to behave. “now you’re very smart, and i’m sure through a lot of research practically are medical doctor anyways,” she said. she was pretty sure she had never heard if stark was a medical doctor, she could be, but claire was pretty sure that alana was mostly into mechanical engineering, “so my first condition is that you’ve come to me for a reason. if you’re going to ignore my medical opinion, or in general be the kind of pain in the ass patient doctors generally are, i’m going to tell you — and you’re going to get two options. start listening to me, and remember you brought me on because i actually am a medical expert. or i’ll leave. that’s not to say i won’t listen to what you have to say, especially because it’s your body, you know it a lot better than i do. but at a certain point you’re going to have defer to me,” she said, ticking off point one on her finger. nurses and doctors generally made the worst patients. she wasn’t going to deal with it. not in her spare time.

“second is, no lying to me. you’re a scientist you know how skewed results can be if i’m not getting all the information i need,” she said. “so even if something is embarrassing, or you figure it might be something i’ll judge you for, or the pain is normal and you deal with it most days anyways — tell me. it’s all important. and … for the record, i won’t judge you for anything you tell me. that’s not my job,” she said, tucking her hands back in her pockets.

“i am— not a medical doctor. i’m extremely medically learned and make no mistake i could perform a surgery if it came down to it, but not technically at all. i defer entirely to your opinion. i wouldn’t ask if i didn’t plan to completely comply,” it’s explanatory. you don’t even know how to explain this. you don’t want to. maybe if you say it it’ll just— go away. maybe it’ll just drain out of your body and this pain, this deterioration will stop. your hands open and close. there’s this pale sheen to your skin, and it’s an aluminum sort of paleness, a vague discussion of moonlight that isn’t at all. the tin man is rusting.

isn’t it ironic. you’re turning silver.

a medical condition. a fucking medical condition because all your fake parts are rusting. going bad inside your body. overrun with palladium poisoning. argyria. an over abundance of silver in the blood. you would laugh at yourself if you had much of a sense of humor.

grayson’s new and wet behind the ears but truly not at all, somehow. you arch an eyebrow at him, very irritated, but you’re only flicking one look to acknowledge that he’s there and not much else. just to know you heard him. it’s what passes for ‘polite’ with you. you don’t even pause yourself when you bounce off the rolling chair, wandering to some kind of huge table ornamented with gizmos and gadgets aplenty (daph calls it that. you don’t know what that means but you stick with it). your eyes scan over it. there’s plenty of shit here, but a lot of it? a lot are developments.

on the table so far there’s a purple bow for clint you’re outfitting with more artificial intelligence promise than you thought you could put in a bow, but you go for something beside it. it’s a recreation of the scepter that almost ran you through, but with tweaks and adjustments. you obsess over this, take it in your hand, toss him a battle axe long and not yet outfitted with its eventual heavy blade. right now it’s just a staff, like you know dick’s good at. you nod your head, tilt it up, look him in the eye now for a second in a way that means you’re more than acknowledging, now. “okay. let’s do.”

so much. grayson was designed for being around people. grayson was made to get along with others. grayson was made to be a teammate. people like him. they look up to him. even damian loves him, in the damian way damian loves. (how does a kid get to be so like bruce so far away from him?) you? you were made to be alone. it’s how things are. but he motions and you look over this scepter. it’s sleek and shiny and it feels heavy in your hand.

your chest hurts, but that doesn’t matter at all. your chest aches, and that’s something you’re comfortable with round the clock now. you let the scepter languidly drift through your fingers. you feel it more than you see it. you don’t care.

he understands what you’ve both been through. what raised you both. —you love bruce. but really. you don’t imagine he’s always been a good dad. kind of hard to fight crime and pack lunchables.

you step and you step and you step and you keep your steps as calm as the little twirls of the scepter. you keep looking at him with as much scrutiny as you can. he’s likely (probably absolutely) going to beat you.

@thanagrian (x)

your gut tightens up. your whole body tenses. you feel a wave of shame when you see her hand move, when you see where it touches. you put those things together and you pile them on top of each other. it’s shame that’s immediate— maybe you remember how your mom looked whenever she was frightened. whenever she was nervous. whenever he was too loud, too drunk, too—

she takes your hand and you blink. there’s a tremulous sensation in your body— selfish, yes, unreasonable, yes, and you always feel cruel. you know you’re unreasonable. harsh. you know it and you blink again and whatever you were feeling, it abates. what you think of yourself, it abates.

“no,” you look down and away, brow furrowed, speak quiet, “no. i don’t. —don’t— don’t hurt yourself.”

your voice is gentle and so are your eyes. and maybe what you believe of yourself doesn’t matter so much. maybe it backseats your attitude completely. it stops mattering because you’re putting together everything and piling it all on top of itself— her flinch and her draw in and her— you’re putting things together mentally.

“would you talk to me?” again, up, imploring. pleading. you squeeze her hand just once. again.

fear. she always feels it when she thinks of him—that unnatural quiver in her usually unbreakable spine. the feeling that only comes when one knows just how powerless they truly are despite everything they want to believe. she feels anger, too, and shame. the belief that maybe all of it had truly been something she deserved. and underneath it all is that tiny naive little shred of misguided love. like maybe, maybe, he could have changed.

the pain doesn’t even occur to her until alana mentions it. don’t hurt yourself. she looks down at her arm and lets go immediately, skin red from the pressure of her own fingers, a tiny droplet of blood welling up in one of the crescent-shaped indents where her nails had dug in a little too hard. it doesn’t hurt. not really. not compared to the thirty-some years worth of memories she’s just relieved in the past five minutes.

alana squeezes her hand and shayera turns to look at her, features suddenly morphing into a dismissive mask. “what is there to talk about?” she asks. it’s as casual as if she was commenting on the weather. her people don’t talk about the things that bother them. that hurt them. they don’t express themselves the way humans do.

besides, what good would talking do? it doesn’t change anything.

(a wing flicks and you look at it immediately. all a swift glance. you can’t control it. your throat tightens you even further. you can’t stop hearing dad calling you a crybaby.)

“it does matter—“ your hands are open, palms up, “whatever matters is mentionable. whatever is mentionable is manageable. when we talk about our feelings they become less overwhelming, less scary, and less upsetting. the people we trust with this important talk reminds us we’re not alone.” hands open. palms up. here. look.

@thanagrian (x)

you wake up slowly. waking and sleep. waking and sleep. blinky glows gentle in the light, and brighter, dimmer, brighter. you sleep more than usual. (you don’t consider that a bad thing.) you haven’t relaxed in so long, and when you fall away it’s just listening to the sound of feathers ruffling ever so, the sound of shay being awake and you being asleep. you want to say something. anything.

you blink at her in the dark and then you speak. “it was— something. i’m sure,” you lean into that hand immediately. it’s the most touch starved motion anybody can make. it’s desperate in its entirety. and you’ll give anything if she’ll always touch you just like this. under her fingers, the thick band of scar tissue that connects your prosthetic arm at your shoulder is hard and rubbery. you can’t feel her at all, but you imagine what it’s like. what it was like before you were down a limb.

“dr. bloom talks— talks like a—“ you’re yawning softly. blinky brightens, softens. you turn your cheek to press a nose into a palm with all the warmth you can muster, “sorry. excuse me. talks like a riddle. she talks like a riddle. it sounded apt or something. your feathers are like winter.” you reach up, only just to touch with your fingertips, “the way— the way they look in the dark. it’s not like anything i’ve been familiar with. it’s like— like how snow looks under a streetlight.” that’s a familiar vision. you love that quiet.

“that’s not exactly an answer,” but it’s enough to garner a soft laugh and a more genuine smile. she keeps her palm pressed against alana’s face, thumb stroking her cheekbone. over a hundred years and this is the first moment she remembers wishing she could freeze in time. just this quiet minute where the only things that exist are herself and alana and this dark room and this warm bed. she’d like to press it under glass or do whatever it is humans do when they want to save something forever.

those fingertips brush the edges of her feathers and she lightly pushes her wing into alana’s hand with the same instinct that alana had to press her cheek into her palm. that desperate need to touch and be touched. she looks at her wing and sees infinitesimal shades of silvers and grays and blacks and whites; far more colors than alana can probably see. the colors that exist between colors—bruce had called them that once. her eyes return to alana’s face, pausing for a moment before she decides to lie down next to her, spreading one wing over them both.

against feathers yet still, gentle and so very tender, all fingertips, all fingertips. those light touches, those little things. you get to do this, too, and you love that most of all. (you’d never so liberally thought the word ‘love’ before but here you are, sort of saying it anyway).

“most people don’t realize how completely beautiful snow is. whenever it snows it gets really quiet because snow actually absorbs sound around it, so a snowstorm is sort of like shutting everything up into safe, muffled silence. i always liked snow so much,” fingertips still over feathers. you feel them react, so you keep the pattern safe. “i just think of you in terms of things that make me feel safe.” it seems very basic to you. of course that is how you feel. “—the good doctor’s a bleeding heart. people drop at her feet like dominos thoroughly affects by the weight of gravity. it’s mesmerizing.”

“ I ain’t stupid enough to FALL for your gimmick. You’re one of those goody goodies. All of you who hang out with Batsy are. It’s disgusting! Just tell me what you did with the body, and we’re DONE here. ”