#temporary deafness

            He pushes water into the kid’s hand, pills. Red dodges at first, but then he takes them, shakily. That’s when the cold twist in Frank’s gut gets its meaning, and he grabs Red’s now empty hand and holds on for dear life. When that doesn’t work – for him or Red – he moves his hand up. He touches the Red’s shoulder, his neck. He draws their heads together and puts his lips up to Red’s ears and just mouths the words, “I got you,” over and over until those short bursts of breath become a deeper and steadier rhythm.

            Red’s hand finds its way to Frank’s shoulder. Frank thinks, at first, he’s about to get pushed away, but Red doesn’t move him one way or another. He just holds him there the way Frank holds him by the back of the neck, the two of them locked in this interminable horror together.

            A horn honks on the street below; Red starts and searches, tilting his head towards the sound. Frank gives him room to move.

            “You hear that?” he asks.

            Red startles again, jerking back. His breathing is rapid-fire again, desperate. “Yeah,” he says, nodding, “Yeah, I…I hear that. I hear you.”

            His hand paws for a second at the spot above Frank’s heart like he’s trying to unbury a hidden treasure, then he pats at Frank’s breastbone, resettling the earth, putting Frank’s heartbeat back in hiding again.

            Red gets back on his feet, the last of the shakes draining out of him. Frank follows along, waiting for him to drop again, but Red gets back into the kitchen. He navigates with uncertain ease, knowing what’s where in the moment but waiting, like Frank, for the earth to fall away from him again.

            “That happen often?” Frank asks, trying to quell the chill still roving through his guts.

            Red cracks into a horrifying smirk, the kind that precedes all manner of shitty stories about his life. “Every once in a while.” He refills the glass of water but doesn’t drink, not immediately. “After Midland Circle, I couldn’t hear out of the right for a while. Combination of burst eardrum and swelling, I think. I didn’t exactly get an MRI after that.”             The joke isn’t funny. “You didn’t burst an eardrum last night. You took one punch to the head wearing that stupid helmet of yours.”

            “Yeah, well.” Red shrugs. “I’ve taken a lot worse hits to the head over the years. You shot me in the head, remember?”             “You never let me forget.”             “That was one of the first times. And now, I take a knock to the head, I can usually expect a blackout or two for a few days after.”

            Another shrug. Red walks around the counter. Frank supposes there are people who would fall for it, but he clocks the hesitancy in Red’s steps, the way his shoulders curve ever-so-slightly to help him focus. He’s really worried about the ground falling out from under him. He even keeps one hand on the countertop as he moves.

            And the jokes keep coming: “We’re not as young as we used to be, right, Frank?”

            That chill in Frank’s gut turns into an ache. He can’t keep his eyes off the spot on Red’s head where that bullet snapped off his stupid costume. He knew it wouldn’t kill the kid; the kid had to know it too. There was intel, there had to be. Frank wouldn’t’ve fired if he thought he thought he might actually kill.

            But he can’t remember, not clearly. His brain’s getting better and worse over the years; things are clearer but they fade faster. And the gaps get wider on the stuff that isn’t staring down the barrel of a gun. He’s gotta take it on something like faith that he knew, and then he’s gotta put that together with what he just saw in Red’s apartment, the kid trying to hold himself together while the world’s disappeared from around him. Frank might not remember if he knew the little shit’s suit was bulletproof (he had to know), but he is never going to forget that sudden drop in Red’s expression, the way the life drained out of his eyes. The way he stopped breathing and started feeling, trying to use his hands to compensate for two senses instead of just one.

            He can’t remember if Red shouted or screamed or gasped when he got shot that first night; there probably wasn’t time. But Frank has Red’s shout burned onto his brain. He’s wearing the shape of it like a brand behind his eyes. He is never going to forget that shout for as long as he lives.

            “It’s fine, Frank.”

            But those words mean something different now that Frank’s heard them uttered while they’re huddled together on the floor, when Red’s eyes are wild and vacant and his ears aren’t moving where they ought to. “Don’t.”

            “You didn’t know. No one does.”             “Nobody.” Frank doesn’t recognize the word, and when he does, it’s accompanied by more of that cold, that shaky, clammy chill. “Nobody knows about you being deaf in your apartment for, what? Days after you get clocked in the head? Because of me?”             “Foggy almost caught me at work, but I pretended to take a phone call.”

            “That’s fucked up, Red. That’s-“ but Frank can’t finish, because he knows the real fucked up thing is that he shot Red in the head.

            He scrubs at the shot side of his own head, ants crawling under his skin, muscles desperately to move, to do, to be somewhere. He doesn’t go to run, though. He puts his hands back on Red – one on his arm, the other on the back of his neck – and pulls him in like they were on the floor, with Frank’s lips right over his ear.

            He whispers it so no one else can hear. Not that anyone’s around. But Red gets it without startling. He takes it in, the whole weight it, those two words, and he sighs, saying two words of his own: “I know.”             Red grips Frank by the arms and refuses to let go, and Frank knows he should run, get out, get anywhere, but he can’t move his feet, he doesn’t want to, not even as Red adds, “I forgive you.”

She shook her head, stumbling back a step.  It was so silent.  She - someone touched her shoulder, and she startled violently.  Gavin backed off, hands raised, and his mouth was moving as well.

She felt like she was underwater.  She felt like she was in a dream.

“Can’t hear you,” she said, or thought she said, because she couldn’t even hear herself - she could feel her throat vibrate, but she had no idea what came out.

Gavin frowned.  Ash raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t hear anything,” she said, a lump rising in her throat, and clearly her panic was evident, because Ash’s face scrunched up and Gavin reached out slowly to grab her shoulders.

Janiya let him, because she felt like she was going to float away, like the whole world was behind a muffled sheet of glass and she clutched at Gavin’s arms as she tried to remember how to breathe.

Gavin was mouthing something at her, taking large, exaggerated breaths, and she was trying, she was, but her heart was beating too fast and she was gasping and she couldn’t hear any of it.

Black spots danced around her vision, and she held Gavin tighter, her grip no doubt painful, but he didn’t let go of her, not even when her knees wavered as the room shifted around her.

Her collapse was more controlled than sudden, and Gavin had an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her back as he gently but firmly pushed her head down, forcing her to take a deep breath as the pounding in her head lessened.  She couldn’t hear anything he was saying, but she could feel his arms, feel the pulse below his skin, feel the gentle circles he was tracing in her back.

She looked up, vision blurry as a lump swelled in her throat, and she could see his mouth moving, words that weren’t intended for her, an expression crinkling to sympathy and protectiveness.  She couldn’t let go of his arms, and he didn’t try to make her.