#mags writes

waves hit concrete, clash, retreat and repeat. a few lone boats linger on the lake, their lights blinding enough to make you have to cup your hand around your eyes to shield them from the sight

if it bothers the two figures in the lake, they make no indication of it. the smaller figure, a mop of curly brown hair that’s unruly, stands in the knee deep water, the life jacket tight around her neck, her hands cupped as she holds a handful of water-

and the taller figure over her-crouched behind her so he doesn’t tower over her, hair still dripping wet as he stands behind her and carefully picks through her palm, looking at the tiny treasures and any signs of seashells or pretty rocks.

the darkness looms over the horizon, hazy and lazy, threatening to fall any second. mosquitos dance around their feet, zipping in and out, no doubt leaving reminders of their presence to find later

“guys,” you cup your hands over your mouth as you stand, “it’s late-“

“awe,” the small voice pipes up first, a carbon copy of Quinn, “five more minutes, Mama! we’re trying to find a sparkly rock-“

as if she doesn’t already have five from this season alone, like quinn doesn’t take the rocks she gives him very seriously, buried deep in his pockets as he travels, worn now and smooth with age.

quinn says something to her, quieter, and her shoulders slump but she drops the handful of sand back into the water, lets quinn swing her onto his hip as they tread water in.

an hour passes. long enough for her eyes to grow deep with sleep as she threatens to sleep any second.

“Daddy,” her voice says, deep on the brink of sleep, “you promised we were catchin’ fireflies tonight.”

quinn looks at you through the rim of a half gone, half warm beer, questioning you without words, just a raised eyebrow, something the two of you were able to accomplish after many years together.

you two argue without saying anything for a second: it’s late you say, i promised he counters back

“daddy did promise, didn’t he?” you finally say, and quinn and his shadow shoot up at the same time, no longer tired.

you retreat back into the house, gathering up old mason jars from around the kitchen, quinn meets you in there. his arms slip around your hips and rest, his chin on your shoulder as he rocks back and forth slowly. his lips against your ear, voice gentle: “thank you.”

you hum gently back, already lost in the rhythm he has you in: “she missed you.”

“i missed my girls.”

“daddy!” she sticks her head back into the house, “mama! hurry! they’re out.”

“we’re being beckoned.” you tease and quinn sighs gently but pulls away, his hands between your face as he kisses you, hard, on the lips, grabs the mason jars from you and follows you outside.

“oh! behind you, babe!”

standing in the front yard, quinn holds the mason jar as he watches you and his baby chase around the lights that flicker and dance, squealing as they just get away from you, catching one and running to quinn with cupped hands as he kneels and gently slides it into a glowing jar.

“i think we’re almost there, honey.” quinn says gently to his shadow, “maybe one more?”

“help us, daddy!”

he laughs, the mason jar discarded onto the porch steps, she’s on top of his shoulders and his hand tangled in yours as he kisses the back of your hand-

“tell me when you see one.”

there’s loud squealing, and pointing, and many missed attempts (most exaggerated, as quinn hopes those are the memories burned into her mind) before everyone is gathered on the porch, the jar, now filled with grass and a stick and a small army of glowing lights made possible with the holes at the top of the lid.

“we did good.”

quinn is whispering; his baby trying to fall asleep any second, memorized by the lights he promised to put in the flower box outside her bedroom window, a promise she’d be safe, they’d keep watch.

“with her or the fireflies?”

he smirks: “both, obviously.”

She had no business being there.

It was a sham, first of all. A cosmic waste of time. But like anything Linda Harrington dug her nails into, it happened to be a particularly well-manicured one.

Robin parked at the head of the cemetery before beginning down the winding path on foot. Past the tombstones with names half-corroded by the salty New England air, past the squirrels that ran manic laps between them. 

Thank God somebody was having a good time.

She’d been to Montauk only once before. Almost two years ago, when the Harringtons decided to downsize from their family home to a shoreside condo, Linda had given Steve an ultimatum with a two-day window: come salvage your things from the attic or never see them again.

“It’s like she thinks I don’t see what she’s doing,” Steve had told Robin over the phone. Somehow, he always sounded more conspiratorial when it came to the subject of his mother than he did out in the field. She could picture him pacing loops in the living room of his Arlington apartment, testing the farthest limits of that poor, abused phone cord.

“Okay, I give. What’s she doing?” she had asked around a mouthful of orange sorbet, watching Seinfeld muted on the television across the room. 

“She’s been trying to rope me into visiting for years. And I could hear it, okay? In her voice, I mean. How fucking thrilled she is that she’s finally getting her way. God, Rob, I don't know what to do."

"Uh, don't go?"

"Robin," he whined. 

And that’s how Robin wound up on the weekend trip to Montauk, Massachusetts.

Then, in the throes of summer, Montauk had been salty and saturated. The bright shutters of old colonial homes, the manicured gardens of dahlias and lantanas, the green flecks of Lacoste gators. There were entire families lined up in rows outside the local ice-cream shop, and as Steve drove down the narrow street, Robin watched their cones drip onto warm cement in absolute wonderment. It felt less like a town and more like a perfectly prearranged postcard. Hot-blooded American propaganda, in the flesh. It wasn’t very hard to imagine a young Steve Harrington running around in salmon-coloured, name brand everything.

Linda had crossed the manicured lawn to meet them. She was a whole head shorter than Steve, but that was exactly where the differences ended. They shared the same dark eyes, the same square face, the same suffocating brand of hairspray.

Steve had leaned down to hug her. Somehow, folded in on himself, he had looked like the smaller of the two.

But it was different, driving into Montauk for a funeral—a word she still would not, under any circumstance, use without having first drenched it in a heavy dose of sarcasm. Under the overcast skies, the whole town was slate grey. Gone were the seasonal shops and the families who used to mill about them, even though the last dregs of summer still clung muggy to the air, hot and suffocating. It was as if Linda Harrington bribed God himself. Bent over her bed, a rosary wound between her lithe fingers: "Really sell it.”

“I don’t wanna hear it,” Steve had warned after he and Robin settled into the attic that first day. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows and his arms were half-buried in a box marked STEVEN 10-13. “I know what you’re thinking, and I don't wanna hear it."

“You couldn't have at least bought different hair products?" 

He had chucked a fraying hacky sack at her. 

That next morning, as Steve showered, Linda had whisked Robin into a tour through a hallway of calculated family photos. She had stories for every last one. The smiling young parents fresh off two weeks of no sleep. Steve’s graduations from high school, college, Quantico. Family gatherings of years past. 

Despite everything, Linda Harrington was pleasant. As the wife of a husband with a cushy government job, the matriarch of the perfect little New England family unit, she had no option but to be. Her smile still never reached her eyes.

“He looked so handsome here, didn’t he?” she had nodded at a headshot of Steve in a plain charcoal suit, his eyes looking up from underneath a tidy flop of hair. “That was from Quantico. You weren’t in the same class, were you?”

“No.” Robin took a very long sip of coffee, preparing for the inevitable. You get along so well. You look so nice together. It’s been so long since he’s brought anyone home—

Children had always been in the plan, but after three divorces, he was sure he’d missed his chance to be a father. It stung, seeing his friends, his colleagues and subordinates, with desks full of pictures. Vacations, family cookouts.

It would be nice to have something - someone - of his own to come home to again. A fat, bouncing baby with her eyes and a smile as warm as sunshine. It was a nice thought.

He frowned, Y/N’s words finally penetrating the fantasy. A donor, she’d said. Not a father. Not a husband. She wanted the baby, but she didn’t want him along with it. Not surprising, she probably didn’t trust him to stick and, with his track record, he couldn’t blame her.

* In te aftermath of Thanos’s death, Thor really tries his hardest to distract himself from the grief by searching for his people lost in space. With the help of the Avengers (that are gladly to do whatever they can to feel less useless), they pin point the coordinates of the rest of the scaped pods and redirected them to Earth.

* He latched onto the rebuilding of New Asgard like a drowning man to a lifeline, whatever was better than thinking about how he let Thanos win, or feeling the crushing guilt and the gaping hole knowing he was unable to save not only half of the life across the universe but also Asgard, his father, his mother, Sif, the Warriors Three, his people murdered in the ship, Heimdall and Loki. 

* The tough of Heimdall’s and Loki’s body floating in the space withouth proper burial was the beggining of the end. 

* He went into space a second time with the help of Valkyrie, Rocket and Nebula. The objetive: to retrieve the bodies of the asgardians among the wreckgage of the Statesman. Bit by bit they recovered bodies till they finally found Heimdall’s and Loki’s.  

* Every body found was like a piece of Thor’s spirit getting dusted away from him till nothing was left. 

* The burial of their warriors was the saddest affair for the youngest nation. Since there were not enough ships to send them off they decided to light the pyre next to the ocean. Sending part of their ashes into a lone ship and taking the rest to bury on their land. 

* Having a place for the final rest of his brother did not bring Thor peace, but a sense of  clarity about everything he has lost. Thanos words echoing through every bone of his body: “No more resurrections”, “I am inevitable”. 

* That was the finishing blow.