#valdaya

There’s a quick knock on the door to let her know someone’s coming in, and then Peta is there, and she’s dragging Val by the arm in behind her. 

Zendaya sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes raking over the man she hadn’t seen in person in almost seven years. Nerves shoot through her, and she balls her fists and crosses her arms over her chest in attempt to smooth them. 

“..-getting sick of your behavior,” Peta hisses at Val, and Zendaya gulps at the turbulent expression on his face as he looks at his sister-in-law. “I didn’t invite Zendaya here just for you to give her the cold-shoulder the entire night. You’re going to listen to her and you both,” Peta looks across at Zendaya, “are going to talk things out. Are we clear?” 

Val shakes Peta’s hand off his arm. “Crystal,” he practically spits, walking away from the two women to the other side of the room. 

Zendaya watches him, pulling her bottom lip into her mouth. He still hadn’t spared her even a glance. She hadn’t expected anything less but that didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt. 

A gentle hand suddenly covers one of her balled-up fists and she looks quickly up at Peta. 

She squeezes her hand in silent encouragement. “Be strong,” she whispers with a nod. After looking once more at Val, a tired sigh escaping her lips, she turns and exits the room. 

And she’s left alone, without the support of Peta or the safety net of blending into the background of other people, and she takes in a ragged breath, her palms beginning to sweat. 

Val looks out one of the large windows, his hands in his pockets as he stares out at the heavy downpour over the estate. 

He’s changed so much. Yet he hasn’t at all. 

Of course time aged him to the 33 year old man he is now. There might be a few more lines on his forehead and around his mouth, but otherwise, he looks the same as the last time she spoke with him. 

It’s the way he holds himself now. Watching him interact with other people all night, and...and with Jenna, it was so noticeable to her. He was more subdued, more guarded. Whereas before-...before everything...he would’ve been more emotive in such a situation with family and friends. Now... 

She hugs her arms around her middle, her heart feeling heavy. The person across the room from her was a consequence of the actions she’d taken all those years ago. This coldness? She knows that it’s of her doing. 

 “So are you just going to stare at me all night, or are you actually going to get the courage to say something?”

His question jolts her out of her thoughts abruptly, and she stares stupidly at him, figuring that she would be the first one to speak. 

“I-I-...” she trails off, mouth opening and closing. 

He turns his head and she’s skewered to the spot when those green eyes pin hers suddenly. The level of indifference, of contempt even, she notices in them are like bullets through her gut. She can only gape like a fish while he then takes quick inspection of her, as if cataloguing how she had changed over the years.

Then he looks back at her and arches an expectant brow. Realizing that he was actually wanting an answer, her cheeks flush in humiliation and she looks at her feet. 

“I-um...congratulations,” she offers lamely, glancing up beneath her lashes. 

“Thanks,” he sneers. “If that’s all, I’ll return to the party now,” and then he’s moving towards the door and Zendaya panics and races forward.

“No, wait!” she grabs his arm and they both freeze at the contact. 

Sparks shoot up her arm from her hand where it grips his bicep. Underneath her palm, his muscles are coiled like a spring, and her eyes shoot to his face, catching that tell-tale jaw clench she knows all too well. 

“Val,” she whispers, and her saying his name seems to make him even more angry. 

“Don’t touch me,” he seethes, ripping his arm out of her grasp. His eyes catch hers and he levels her with a glare that tears into her enough she takes a small step back. 

“I don’t know why you came tonight, after all these years of blocking me out of your life,” he begins, and her heart skips a beat. Here it goes. “-and to be honest, I don’t give a fuck. All I want to do is go back to my engagement party and try to forget that my sister-in-law thought it would be a great idea to bring you here. So if you could just kindly get the fuck away from me and my family-go back to whatever the hell it was that you were doing before- that would be great.” 

His viciousness hurts her, yet she’s not going to let him get away that easily. 

“Just wait! Please,” she begs, her nervousness and fear of facing him again slowly disappearing. She can’t pussy-foot around about this. If she wanted to make any lee-way she needed to have courage. Be strong. With Peta’s words encouraging her, she squares her shoulders. 

He stops at the door, but doesn’t turn around. 

“I know that this is probably the worst time to be doing this-to be having this conversation, considering everything,” she takes in a shaky breath, “-but...god, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Val turns, eyes slowly meeting hers. His expression is carefully blank, but the fact that he’s giving her his attention is as much clue as any that he’s going to let her have this chance to talk. 

“How about you start with why,” he suggests, voice giving away nothing. “Why you erased me-and my family-from your life.” 

Tears well up in her eyes, and she can’t even be upset that she’d caved so quickly. “Right. I-okay..” she nods, biting her bottom lip. “I-Val I wish I could give you a good reason, but I just-I don’t have one,” she stares down at the floor in shame. Here we go. 

“When you broke things off that night...I was so hurt and betrayed. I wanted you to fight for us to be together still, not cave to my dad.” His eyes go glassy as his mind no doubt goes back to their last moments together. “I realized later, of course, that you and my dad did the right thing. But in the moment? Right after?” she shakes her head, “I wanted to lash out.”

His jaw ticks and she laughs hollowly. “You told me I should be sixteen so I became the most childish sixteen year old I could be. I got petty because I was so hurt and I wanted you to feel as hurt as I did at the time and I abandoned you-...like I felt you were doing to me.” Her vision blurs as a solitary tear escapes. His face still remains impassive, giving away nothing. The only sign she gets that he’s even listening at all are his hands clenching tighter at his sides.

“And I am so sorry for that-” she cries, voice warbling, “I’m so sorry for ignoring you-for growing up and not doing anything when I knew better. For not just hurting you, but your family-one that I grew up calling my own. I-” her arms cross over her chest as she begins to shake. “-and I hate myself for knowing that without Peta demanding that Maks call me...I could have very well gone on doing the same thing for the rest of my life. Pretending that you don’t exist.”

She sucks in a sharp, stuttering breath as she finishes her speech, eyes searching for any sign that she’s reaching through to him. 

He stares at the ground with half-shuttered lids, pulling the corner of his mouth in by his teeth in that familiar way that has her chest aching at the sight. 

After what feels like an eternity, he begins to move towards her in the same slow manner, his gait like a burning fuse getting closer and closer to the dynamite about to blow. 

Her breath hitches when he stops close enough that she can smell his cologne, and she criss-crosses her fingers in front of her. 

“Thank you...for your honesty,” he begins, still looking at the ground somewhere to her right. “No matter how much I might have detested your presence here tonight, I am thankful that I’ve finally gotten the closure I needed from all of this.”

Her heart drops as those emotionless eyes finally meet hers, and he stares at her for a long moment. 

“But even with your explanation I’m still left feeling....confused. Because what you said...it’s something the girl I knew would never have done.” His voice becomes more vehement as that deep-rooted anger begins to show itself and Zendaya backs up instinctively. 

He follows, cornering her into the wall by the door. 

“The girl I knew, the girl I loved-” he spits, “-would never have done something so inconceivably childish and hurtful. She never would have shunned an entire second family that’s known her since she was born, she never-” his fist suddenly slams against the side of her head and she gasps, frightened. Her heart tells her that no matter what, Val would never lay a hand on her but now? It hurt that she couldn’t be so sure anymore. 

She breathes fast as her heart pounds in her chest, staying very still. Val’s whole body was trembling. It was like he was trying to keep himself in check. 

It’s deadly silent between them. Zendaya’s stomach flips as the realization that they’ve come to this point hits her. This place of such deep hurt and resentment and regret. 

Then the most heartbreaking sound in the world comes out of Val and her eyes snap to his. She watches unbelievingly as tears well up in his eyes and then it’s like a dam breaking from within him. 

His head drops heavily on the wall over her shoulder, his hand sliding lower on the other side of her. He’s not touching her but the incredibly close proximity is overwhelming. 

“I never wanted you to leave,” he croaks out, shaking his head slowly against the wall. Her eyes widen at his broken admission. “I didn’t want to leave you. You were supposed to understand. You were supposed to-to know what I meant when I said we couldn’t be together that night. You weren’t supposed to leave me. Why, Zendaya? Why did you leave me?”

He pulls back and the breath leaves her at the devastation in his eyes and she can only gape in horror at the raw display of emotion. Obviously something he’d buried for a long time just now being released. 

“I-I-” she stutters, hiccuping as sobs crawl up her throat anew. “I was hurt and I didn’t understand at the time-” she cries, eyes darting between his, “I’m so sorry. Val, I’m sorry-” she reaches up hesitantly to place her hands on either side of his face. 

The touch burns both of them, and he grabs her wrists tightly, pushing them forcefully back and against the wall on either side of her. 

“No. Don’t-just don’t,” he bites out, still holding her arms back. 

She nods, sucking back a sharp breath in an attempt to slow down her erratic heart. 

His eyebrows pinch as he turns his head towards the side, staring almost curiously at his hand squeezing her wrist. Carefully, like he’s dealing with a wild animal, he loosens his harsh grip. He curves his hand around the back of hers, his thumb sliding up the inside of her hand in an agonizingly slow manner. 

With a jolt, it hits her what he’s doing and she sinks into herself, staying as still as possible as he explores her lost touch. 

His right thumb reaches up, so slowly, to trace the lines of her palm. Her breath stutters unevenly at the touch, electric shocks zinging from the inside of her hand straight to her heart. 

Too many days, months, years without seeing him in person, without knowing his touch-

It’s too much and not even close to being enough. 

She feels her body begin to tremble from where he has her pinned to the wall, but she dares not breathe a word. Wide eyed, she can only stare at him with barely concealed restraint as he frowns in concentration. His gaze stays fastened on their hands. 

She greedily drinks in the sight of him while he’s distracted-the way his face has hardened, his jawline more pronounced, his elegant nose, the hooded shape of his eyes, the green irises just barely visible in the low light of the room-

Her gaze falls to his mouth and oh, how she remembers

..faces slick with tears, pressed so close together in mutual despair…

…his trembling mouth against hers and ‘You have always had my heart, and it will always be yours’...

Without meaning to, she finds herself leaning forward as if chasing the memory. 

“Don’t.” 

She’s brought back to the present at his firm command. She gulps when she looks up and sees his turbulent expression, and the hand that had been exploring hers suddenly grips it like a vice. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. For so many things..

 Like coming out of an unwanted trance, he takes quick steps away from her, turning and running a hand over his hair. It’s one of the gestures she knows from years of experience to mean he’s shaken. 

She doesn’t move an inch from the wall. Her hands go behind her back and she leans hard on them before she does something more stupid like reach out to comfort him. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he growls, still facing away from her as he shakes his head. “Out of all the fucking times to try and make things right-” he lets out a bitter laugh, but doesn’t continue. His fists clench at his sides. 

She hangs her head, shame twisting her gut into knots. 

The space between them, no more than a couple of paces, seems suddenly tremendous and insurmountable. The loss of what they once had cuts her to the core and she feels her vision swims with tears she tries valiantly to hold back. 

“Why are you here?” he asks again, sounding both angry and incredulous. “Why are you here now?”

Her chest lurches. She has a feeling he knows the answer already, and she hates that he’s going to make her spell it out. She finds that she really doesn’t want to because she knows it’s hopeless. This whole situation was hopeless. How could she have ever thought that doing this was going to solve anything between them?

When he turns around at her lack of sudden response, she can only stare at the ground, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. Impossibly, she hunches back further into the wall. 

“What, you don’t want to talk now?” he sneers. She flinches. “Isn’t that what you came all the way across the country for? To talk?” 

“Y-yes,” her voice cracks, and she suppresses a wince. Peta would be shaking her head if she could see her right now. So much for being strong. 

There’s a long silence. 

And then, “Ah, I see. You heard from Peta that I was getting married, that I’d finally moved on, that I finally found happiness, and you came here to take that all away because you’re selfish-”

“No,” she denies vehemently, finally looking up. The move cost a little bit of her dignity as the tears she’d been trying to keep at bay are finally set free. 

“Don’t lie to me!” He roars, and then he’s getting in her face again. “You’re selfish, Zendaya! This is selfish,” he seethes and she shakes her head defiantly even as a broken sob escapes her throat, “Don’t even try to tell me this whole fucking thing isn’t you trying to recover what little control you thought you still had over me.”

A vein bulges from his temple as he raises his voice angrily at her, his expression reddening. In all of her 22 years of knowing him, 16 of which intimately, he has never yelled at her. She can’t remember ever seeing him this spitting mad, and the fact that it's all directed at her tears her apart. Her hands cover her mouth to muffle the terrified whimpers as his control snaps. 

This is so different than five minutes ago when he was the one almost brokenly crying onto her shoulder. Now, he seemed to be lashing out at her, trying to erase the vulnerability he had so briefly allowed her to see. 

“You fucking left me!” he shouts in her face, “You left all of us! Maks, Pops, Mama-everyone! You threw us out of your life like garbage for six and half years and you do not get to strut back into my life and try to deny that-”

“I’m not denying it, I’m sorry, Val!” she sobs, body shaking visibly. “I’m so, so sorry!” Her arms wrap around her middle in a feeble attempt to hold herself together. His rage cuts at her viciously. 

For a moment, he looks as if he’s about to go off on another tirade, but then he shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he lets loose a frustrated shout, hands going behind his head as he paces in front of her. 

She sinks to the floor, the dark green silk of her dress bunching around her knees. She cries in earnest now, her keening wails the only sound in the room. 

This was all so fucked up. 

Honestly, though, she shouldn’t have expected anything less. 

All she knows is that as soon as the words ‘Val’ and ‘engaged’ had been said, she’d been reacting on impulse, rushing to see a man she’d actively tried to erase from her life for breaking her teenage heart. When she was finally old enough to look back and know the reasons and the logic behind all that went down, it was too late. She had been too ashamed to attempt reconciliation in the aftermath and too chicken shit to face any negative confrontation with him. Obviously, with good reason, as this whole present situation proved. 

Besides all of that, she had been beyond overloaded with her work. K.C. Undercover had wrapped and immediately she had been cast into the Spider-Man Franchise, then The Greatest Showman, then Euphoria, and soon Dune and time just slipped through her fingers and it got easier to ignore the guilty panic whenever she thought about him- them, because she was so fucking busy. 

But these were all excuses. Weak ones, at that. 

And Val knew it. 

He was furious with her for it, even after all this time.

Her shame swallows her whole, and she sobs anew, drawing her knees to her chest and hiding her face in the space between them. Her red tinted hair falls like a curtain over her face and she’s secretly grateful for the small protection of not having to see her one-time soulmate so angry with her. 

“Z-please stop crying,” the man across from her says after a while of her pain being the only sound in the room. “I can’t-Just stop, please,” he mutters, his tone holding the slightest hint of begging. 

She sniffs bitterly, peeking at him over her forearms where she had them folded over her knees. He’s not facing away from her anymore, but he’s not looking at her either. Instead, it looks as if he had turned towards her but stopped midway. His hands are balled into fists again at his sides and his body is tensed and coiled like a spring. 

Well, it was good to know he cared enough still to not want to see her cry, she thinks with a grimace. 

“I’d apologize, but I think I'm sick of saying sorry for the night,” she quips, resting her cheek sideways on her arm as she gazes sadly at him. 

His only response is a sideways glance, his fists diving into his pockets. 

She breathes out a forlorn sigh. “You’re right, by the way. It was stupid of me to come here.”

She notes his jaw clenching as he stares down at the stone floor. 

“I just-when Maks called me to tell me the news,” she sniffs, “I-I was on the plane before I even really knew what I was actually doing. I think I went into shock,” she let out a bitter laugh, “and just moved on auto-pilot. If Peta hadn’t tracked my location after not picking up any of her calls, I think I’d still be sitting at LaGuardia like a homeless person.”

His guarded reaction is just a slight movement of his head in her direction. His eyes look at the space a couple of inches from her feet. His expression is shuttered, but she does see the corners of his mouth pull down in a frown at her words. 

“I didn’t come here trying to ruin your…,” she bites her lip, “engagement party.” She barely refrains from choking out the two words. She was going to have to get used to this stab of pain to her chest any time she was forced to face the reality of it, now. “I-I just…I realized how much time I lost with you, you know what I mean? I’d been doing so good at compartmentalizing you and the fam away in my mind that when Maks called, it-it me hard. Finally, right?” she rolls her eyes at herself in self-reproach. “I just can’t believe…”

She trails off without finishing the sentence and sits up straighter, pulling her head up to rest her chin on her arms instead of her cheek. She sniffs back snot, the hard sobbing had really taken a toll on her, physically. 

“Z,” he starts, voice quiet. “I really don’t think you should be here.” 

She freezes at his softly whispered words. When he turns to face her full on, their gazes clash and she recoils from the hint of pity she sees there. 

“I have to try and make up for everything, though,” she gets to her feet, wobbling slightly on her heeled shoes. “I realize that now, Val. I want to make up for lost time-”

“I don’t.”

Silence. 

His gaze is unflinching on her as he says this-so steadily-and her arms go around her middle again. Jesus, would this night ever stop finding ways to rip her heart out?

“It’s too late,” he continues, and his gaze turns sad, “I moved on. I found Jenna and….she’s amazing,” she sucks in a sharp breath at hearing his fiancee’s name for the first time, “She understands me, she was there to pick up all my broken pieces and try to put me back together again when I realized you were never coming back.”

She can’t look at him when he says this, and she turns her head sharply to the side, pulling her bottom lip into her mouth. She can feel another lump rising in her throat. Great.

“You have to understand,” he inches closer to her, his hands falling out of his pockets to be placed out in front of him tentatively. “Your abandonment destroyed me, Z. It fucking wrecked me. You were my best friend, and if I believed in it, I’d even say you were my soulmate,” he gets close enough to her and his hands come up to gently cup her elbows where his thumbs trace calming circles on her arms. It’s such an old Val and Zendaya gesture that she involuntarily cries out in longing. 

His grip tightens, warningly. “This is why you can’t be here,” he concludes firmly. “Because I don’t think I can trust that you’re just here to make up for what happened. I think you may still have…unresolved feelings,” he ignores her indignant sputter, “And I cannot have that kind of distraction two months away from my wedding.” He shakes her, not hard, but enough that she meets his beseeching gaze. “You have too strong a hold over me,” he admits in a rush, “you always have and I promised-I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never let myself love like that again….the way I loved you.”

Zendaya gasps, her eyes darting between his. 

She opens and closes her mouth, trying in vain to find the right words, any words to respond to such a statement. 

A loud banging on the door causes them to jump apart. When a familiar blonde head peaks around the door to check on the inhabitants, the tension eases somewhat. 

“You guys need to wrap it up and get back out here,” she tuts, stepping fully into the room and closing the door almost all the way behind her. Outside the room, the party rages, laughter and loud conversation filling in the silence.

Peta glances at Val. “Jenna’s starting to get worried. I told her the veal wasn’t agreeing with you but that was twenty minutes ago. She’s looking around all the public bathrooms on the floor now.”

Val gulps. Zendaya watches him straighten his back in front of her. He hesitates for one single moment, and she begins to hope that he might ignore Peta’s warning to stay and talk longer but…

“Excuse me,” he clears his throat, and walks out of the room without a backwards glance. Peta steps widely out of the way as he passes around the door, her searching gaze being stubbornly ignored. 

Then the blonde woman looks back at Zendaya. “Everything okay?”

The young actress stares miserably at the door he had just walked out of. 

“No,” she whines, “everything’s fucked up and I really kind of hate myself….like, a lot.”

The only thing she can cling to in the cesspool of misery that was tonight was-

‘I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never let myself love like that again….the way I loved you’

Well. She didn’t come all this way to just give up on the first try. 

She’d just have to keep trying, and she didn’t want to toot her own horn or anything but the handful of acting awards she’d won this year reminded her that when she wanted to be…she could be very convincing.