alphabet challenge - m

 M. Compassion

 

He is entirely aware that he should be a great deal angrier with how everything has turned out. He is also aware that whatever knowledge Tony had would have been nice to know before everything that happened on the hellicarrier–even if it didn’t apply any longer.

 

All the same, Bruce still feels a bit sorry for the man; he’s been half a trainwreck ever since the fight ended. That, more than anything, is why he agreed to stay.

 

Someone needs to, and though Tony won’t admit it to anyone and Bruce hasn’t known him that long, Bruce can see how much Pepper leaving has just added to the wreckage of Chicago.

 

So Bruce stays. It’s only going to be for a little while. Just until Tony can find his feet. Besides, there’s the Avengers to think of–he still has no idea how that worked, when every sign pointed to a chemical reaction that would go wrong if breathed against. It’s interesting, intringuing, even if they’re still working out what to do next because, truth to tell, there’s still quite a bit missing.

 

Tony, for whatever it’s worth, seems to appreciate it when he’s not drunk or distracted by the thousands of thoughts in his head.

alphabet challenge - n

 N. Nothingness

 

She does not speak, and this frightens you more than anything else.

 

Frightens is the wrong word, but you don’t know another. It aches though, how she does not speak, how she sits and stares, hands in her lap, a shawl over her shoulders. Her blue-gray eyes are distant, unseeing, and where before she was nothing but sound–a careful rhythm to her steps, the soft brush of fabric, soft laughter and gentle praise–now she is naught but quiet.

 

It burns and aches and twists you apart more than anything else.

 

And despite what you know, that this was not your fault, that there was more at stake and more at play than you, her silence allows your mind to make the blame wholly yours.

 

You should have been able to keep them safe. You should have been able to do more. You should have–have–

 

You do not know, and it infuriates you, twists anger in your chest and makes you want to lash out at everything.

 

Guilt.

 

(They were your children, only children, hardly a threat, no threat at all, prophecy or not, and what does it matter, they could have done nothing, and you should have been able to keep them safe, should have been able to stay his hand, and you could not could not could not, and how could you possibly ever be worthy after failing so.)

 

A reason. You tell yourself there was a reason, and yet for all you tell yourself that it does not make it right, does not make it well, and it does not make her speak.

 

Prior, sometimes you very nearly grasped her disdain for your kingdom; never before have you understood so intimately.

 

She is silent, shattered apart, and you do not dare leave her side despite the grief it causes you in turn.

 

Grief upon grief, because you yet turn sometimes to call for them and realize the silence is absence, nothingness, so loud it nearly crushes you and you need place a hand out to steady yourself. One of you must be strong and she, always order and foundation and home, cannot be.

 

And so you force your grief and guilt down, drink deep of anger and hate (hate so strong it hazes the edges of your vision), and hold her in your arms, allow her to break apart the rest of the way, every tear and hitch of breath another brand you will never heal from.

 

(You will find her a gifts, something worth more than anything else you have ever given; though it will never soothe this pain, you need something to wrap her in, some physical sign that when she needs, you will be there to offer whatever comfort you may.

 

An himation, she calls her cloak. It is a start.)