Work Text:
Debbie bought two things in town today that, a year ago, she never thought she would: a book on bereavement and a pack of cigarettes.
She spent as much time out of the house as she could, sometimes until late at night, having no reason not to. Mark was at college. Her husband was gone. There were courtesy calls from friends and not-friends, but she was entirely alone in the house from the moment she stepped over the threshold. She bought coffees she didn't finish at cafes she didn't recognise so she didn't have to go back there and be alone again.
The bed was the worst. She slept on the couch some nights because she couldn't be in that empty bed. Hence the intermittent shopping and a lot of coffees.
Back in that empty home, Debbie wasn't sure which she'd open first, the book or the cigs, so she placed them both on the table. She almost made herself a coffee, as though she needed to see another full cold mug left on the table in front of her today. Thirst licked but there wasn't wine left in the house -- some earlier thought about cutting back had overcome her as she shopped -- so she got herself a water.
Her fingers fell on the book first. A true impulse purchase for 10¢ at a charity shop, she hadn't even read the blurb, but instead she opened it to the introduction.
Like any book with 'grief' in the subtitle, the intro was a cribbed letter to the author. I lean over in the middle of the night to ask him for sex. The bed is empty, and I feel terribly selfish for my desire. But I realise no part of love ever diminishes completely.
She smacked the book shut, lump rising in her throat, and fumbled the cigarettes open. Crammed one in and tore open her handbag looking for a lighter. Not finding one -- it had been eighteen years since she'd touched one, not since the day of the pregnancy test -- she lit it on the stove instead.
She looked at the book, sitting on the table like a tarantula, waiting for her to come close again.
The house was colder than it usually was. It was darker too, and emptier. Because of the chill she'd kept her jacket nearby. Moving automatically, the moment she felt the grief truly start to press on her, she put it back on and picked up her keys.
She'd already shopped today and she was sick of sitting alone, so she ran through her mental list of friends and their availabilities as she left the house. Olga, out of the country. Alana, dead. Holly, dead. All the Guardians were dead, dead, dead... even the Immortal was gone where she couldn't follow.
Art. She started her car.
She used to consider it a blessing that her life was entwined so thoroughly with Nolan's. It had made them closer, made their respective social lives into one big social life. She used to think that was a good thing, before his betrayal and vanishing act cut through everything she had like a knife. Now there was just pieces of his old life and her clutching them, a civilian just now realising this had never been her life at all.
Twenty years.
Walking into Art's shop felt like flipping a page in a photo album. At least this time, she could know the smiles were real.
Art welcomed her in without batting an eye. One good thing she was now just realising, everyone in Nolan's world never batted an eye at late visits. "Coffee?"
"No. God, no."
"Something stronger?" He chuckled at her relief. "Coming right up, Debbie."
It was uncomfortable in this cozy old workshop. She used to love coming down here and seeing the newest designs, chatting with him about the Guardians and their costumes while he worked on one of Nolan's. She always used to come early on the rare time she got to pick up his costume so they could talk for longer before she could take it home to Nolan. Her hero husband. So naive.
She didn't recognise many of the costumes hanging in his shop now. So many heroes she knew were gone. She was already left behind by the leftovers of Nolan's world. So many new and young heroes had been thrust into the light in the wake of everything that happened, into responsibility they shouldn't have had to handle, like her son. Art always kept an extra suit for him, hanging there in the lit storage. Mark's suit was torn up often enough. And himself inside it. She kept her eyes on the desk.
Art was the tiniest bit awkward as he passed her the drink. How many times had they spoken since Nolan left? Once? And how many times must Mark have spoken to him about everything? They must be closer than Debbie was to Art now. He was fitting so much better into the world she used to call home. Everyone was at an arm's length, and it made it awkward to just talk.
She tried anyway, thumbing the edge of the glass. "I miss him. I miss who I thought he was."
"I know." He and Nolan had been friends. Good friends, maybe. Good enough that he'd lost something too, and the betrayal was shared.
"I wish he was really dead."
Art sighed. "I know what you mean." But he looked away.
"Why couldn't it have been a heart attack or cancer like every other widow? A drunk driver, a..." She splayed her hands.
"Loose missile?" Art joked, his smile stretched wider on one side than the other, wry.
Debbie scoffed. None of those things could have a hope of killing him. She wished they had. She wished the bomb in the surveillance house, the laser, not Mark but someone, had killed him that day.
"You can do better than thinking about that chump." Good old Art, always supportive, always rational. She sighed. She didn't know what she needed right now, but it wasn't platitudes from someone she cared about.
Then Art's hand rested on her shoulder. He was never a touchy guy, and withdrew it after a moment or two, meaning only to comfort her. But she could feel the heat in his hand and for a second it felt like Nolan's. Heat pooled in her stomach, reacting, and she raised her lip in disgust at herself.
She swigged her drink and stood. "I'm sorry. Thanks for the drink. I need to go."
Art leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised. "If you ever need to talk at all, if you ever need anything --"
"No, Art," she said, and cursed herself, she'd meant to say 'I know' instead. She hurried to the exit.
Art stared after her, mouth set in a line of confusion.
In the car, she didn't even put the key in the ignition until she'd given herself time to cry. A new habit that had set in since Mark left for college. When she'd sniffled herself to a state she could drive in, she put in the key and turned it.
Art was looking at her from the shop window. She forced a smile and a wave -- sorry, Art -- and put the car in gear.
The feeling of his hand lingered. She tried to ignore it. Her cold bed was waiting, along with all the coffee and water she could drink, and a nice book to read, too.
She drove the long way home, one-handed, digging in the bottom of her handbag for change. Not even enough money for cheap wine.
She pulled over to have a real good scrounge in every old pocket, swearing there must be change balled in a receipt in at least one of them, and the tears came again.
Just up the hill was the plot of land they used as Nolan's grave. It marked the death of his civilian identity and the end of his status as member of her household. And a waste of a good funeral plot.
She wanted to fall into his arms and beg him to fly her home. To feel his muscles, to brush her lips against his moustache, to feel lifted and weightless. To escape the millstones on her back crushing her to the earth.
Leaving her car door open, she trudged up to the graveyard, holding herself. She didn't know what she'd find at the cold gravestone but she had nowhere else to go. The grass was trim and neat and the rest of the gravestones must be people who were loved, some of them wearing flowers. Nolan's grave had been bare since the day of the funeral, since the flowers laid by stooges pretending to be herself and her son had blown away.
She raised her head as she got to the grave, and was surprised to see someone there.
Cecil Stedman. The director of the department meant to keep the Earth safe from threats like aliens, the man who'd saved her son, the asshole who'd tried to use him as a weapon against his father. The never-quite-a-friend who'd tried to reign in Nolan for years and never succeeded. Why would he be here? To drown in his own selfish regrets, like her? To spit on his grave, like she might?
He hadn't brought flowers either.
She walked to him, brushing away the tears. Folded her arms like she wasn't just sobbing over not being able to find another seventy cents.
The first words out of her mouth were sorrowful. "Why couldn't you have finished him off?"
Cecil looked around with blue eyes that were nothing like her husband's. Too chilled to be Nolan's Mediterranean sea blue. More arctic, or on dreary late evenings like this, closer to morgue steel.
"I'm sorry I couldn't kill the bastard for you." He'd spent Christ-knows how much taxpayer money trying and had cost servicemen their lives. She believed he was truly sorry.
And she believed he, too, wanted Nolan dead. Maybe that was why she stayed at his side after he turned back to the grave. No conflicting wishes like Art and Mark and herself, just twenty years of tension and a day of pointless violence.
She looked at his face, wondering if he was currently planning how to kill Nolan if he returned. Or maybe he was planning on how best to turn Mark into another one of his soldiers, or maybe he was just cursing Nolan in his head and hoping he never came back.
"Tell me what you're thinking about," she murmured.
He arched an eyebrow as he glanced over, but he was always tolerant of her, more than he was to his staff. Families of heroes, even families of murderous traitors, got the special treatment from him. The 'sensitivity training' and 'situation de-escalation' treatment. "Work," he answered, like that narrowed it down when the whole of Earth was his business. So vague, so politely contained.
She wondered what she'd have to say to have him snap at her.
She tilted her head back and looked at the sky. "If anybody on Earth could have killed him, it would've been you. I'm not sure you ever trusted him." Something spiky wanted to push past her lips. She let it: "You never warned me."
"Would you have listened?"
No. Not for a moment. "Is that your excuse? I've seen what you're willing to waste. A few words wouldn't have hurt you."
He sighed. "I always admired you, Debbie. You're a whip-crack of a woman." He cocked his head towards the empty grave with something like disrespect. "That man was an unstoppable bastard and you, you could turn him like a tide when you wanted to."
"No. I could never control him. I couldn't stop him from almost killing our son." She swallowed. She'd tried to piss him off and now he was fine and she was holding back tears again. What happened?
"Nobody could. But he was a real different man back when you two met, and you know it -- when you and him tangled, you held your ground. It made him better." A smaller sigh as he added, "It just wasn't enough."
She faced him straight on, the way she'd face Nolan when she told him off. "I wish you'd tell me I could have done better. I wish you'd blame me."
That got his attention. He frowned, suddenly looking at her like she was an idiot. "Blame you? What, you think you could undo a thousand years of military brainwashing in a couple decades?" Voice almost raised but not quite.
She watched his cold eyes, challenging him. "I failed to see what was under my nose. As dumb as any murderer's wife, or maybe I was willing to ignore warning signs. Maybe I could have stopped him from hurting people if I'd tried harder."
"Maybe he'd have killed you."
"Maybe he should have." Enough venom in her voice to stop it from cracking.
"And what good would that have done? Mark needs you."
"Like you give a shit about what Mark wants. You'd have killed him to kill his father."
A heavier tiredness overcame his features. Not just stress but deep frustration, like he was dealing with a particularly tough case. "What do you need from me, Debbie?"
He should have asked why do you need a fight or something, a specific accusation, but he had to ask it vaguely. There was only an inch between their faces, hers tilted up to his.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him down. He struggled for a moment, alarmed, before she pressed a kiss to his cold lips that told him everything. Then he stopped moving and let it happen.
His hands were just as gentle on her waist as the time she'd sobbed onto his shoulder, that day Nolan left, when Mark was clinging to life in a pool of his own blood. Cecil must have been trained in comforting witnesses and families. Had he ever received training on what to do when a bereaved, hateful spouse came onto him?
She still felt like she hadn't shaken him out of professional mode. She wanted to shove him, yell at him, blame him. She wanted to bite his ear in that way that always got Nolan riled up and horny.
But this man had a massive tolerance for intimidation and was the furthest from Nolan a man could be. She didn't know how to fuck with him.
She bit his lip the tiniest amount, testing the waters, and received nothing in return. She rested her hand against his scarred cheek. She tried to intensify the kiss, standing on her tiptoes to do it, but he remained solid as a rock, teeth firmly closed. Kissing wasn't working and she stopped.
She sighed and pressed her forehead to his, and he even inclined his head the tiniest amount to let it happen.
Where was the line? She ran a hand sidewards on his shirt, feeling his undefined chest, her fingers slipping between the buttons to touch his unfamiliar skin. Soft, not hard as rock like her husband's.
"Debbie..." Softly, meant to bring her back to herself. He didn't know she was already here in the driver's seat, goddamn him. If he wasn't going to stop her, she was going to do him right here on Nolan's grave.
She started with the loud red tie she'd always disliked. Tugging it harshly, not caring if it creased. He let her. She wound it around her fist and squeezed it, yanked it from his collar.
"Debbie." Slightly firmer. Still the voice he'd use for a crying widow (wasn't that what she was?) and nothing raw.
She pulled the top button through of his shirt and widened the gap. His collarbones were obvious due to his age, the sag of his skin, the skinniness of his body. She lowered her head to his chest. So foreign, so chilled from the cold air, was any part of the man ever warm or physically strong? She kissed and nipped him.
Then she was moving through the air and her back hit the ground. It winded her. She hadn't been thrown in a while.
She peered up, dazed, saw the top of the gravestone above her, and looked down again to see Cecil's bemused face lower in her sight. He was blushing now, bothered, mad.
"Christ Almighty," he muttered, rubbing his collarbone where she'd nibbled. "Come back down to Earth already, Deborah."
"Fuck you," she said, excitement rising in her voice. "I'm not drunk or crazy."
"You're acting it."
"I know what I'm doing," she snapped back. "You asked what I wanted from you and I answered."
"You're a mystery, Debbie. And give me back that tie."
"Come and get it." She heard the need in her voice and didn't care. Nolan's ghost wasn't here in the shadow of his empty grave.
He stepped forwards. She beckoned with a giddiness she hadn't felt since the last time a new man touched her. Two decades became less important for just minutes as Cecil knelt on the grave grass and pushed her down.
She usually found two things attractive in men, one being an exploitable temper, and the other she would likely never have again in another man. She was okay with only getting one right now.
She found a little warmth in him, hidden inside his shirt and his pants, just like she'd found his temper. He shared that warmth with none of the soft subtlety of his career responsibilities. His touches were frustrated and intrigued in ways he never let himself be when they had met before.
She hitched up her skirt for him, dirty and with no romance. He thanked her with his squeezing hands. Bit her lip like she'd bitten his, punishing her. He wasn't being kind or concerned when he knelt between her legs and planted one hand on Nolan's name on the stone.
What would Nolan think? Would he be distant and uncaring, not giving a shit whether his pet fooled around in his absence, or would his temper and all those old emotions kick in? Maybe he'd kill them both. In this moment, she didn't care. She pulled Cecil's warmth closer and scraped his skin with her nails.
He didn't cling at all to the moment, either indifferent or needing to be somewhere, and knowing him it was both. Did Cecil even know how to be gentle in a way that was genuine, or was it distance and aggression all the way down? Actually, she didn't care about that either.
They were done in minutes, sloppy and irrational. Chilled fingers and heated skin on trim grass and cold stone.
He again pressed his forehead to hers, and they breathed each other's air in the aftermath. Some measure of satisfaction settled in her heart like a wild bird finally deciding to roost.
But Nolan's sleepy kisses didn't come, instead Cecil withdrew completely.
Loneliness slammed back in like a shutter. Tomorrow she'd wake alone again.
He plucked his tie from her limp hand and wound it around his neck. He tied it without looking, his cold eyes never leaving her face.
"I'm going to give you that specialist's number again," he threatened in that soothing widow-diplomacy voice. She was frustrated that she hadn't fucked that out of him.
He plucked a pad and pen from his jacket and wrote the number down from memory; apparently she was one of many people who needed the specialist. Then he paused, waggled the pen once in thought, and added another number beneath.
She stood up, using Nolan's gravestone as a handle. She took the paper and didn't say goodbye.
He vanished in a blaze of wasteful energy and then she was alone.
She looked at the numbers on the page. What specialist would she even want to open up to, let alone would have anything to give her?
His own number was below, labelled Cecil's personal. She smirked. What a dog.
She cast one last look back at the grave, tutted at the scuff marks in the grass, and walked back to her car, crumpling the piece of paper in her hand.