ic A Dark and Spiteful God (IC)

[alderwitch]

"My part of the script says that I make a shocked face and tell you that I'd never keep secrets from the ones I love," was Talya's drawled response. She flipped down from her perch silently even though it left her tipping her chin up to look at Steve. "Forever is a rather long time and, despite his heroic drive and his ability to mask roughly eighty percent of his emotional depth at any given moment in time, Erik actually does know what a losing battle looks like."

 

Emotion flickered briefly in the British woman's blue eyes, "I have no desire to add things to the list that keep him up at night, however."

[Avenger Assembled]

“I can promise that I will protect my life. That I will take no unnecessary risks - and that neither Caradoc nor Harrier will not court danger. And that I will do this because I want to live - and because I want to see you again.” Steve looked at Gina, not trying to catch her eyes as she looked down at her work. She would look at him when she was ready, and that was that.

 

“I appreciate the thought, but I’m unconvinced that you can understand the difference between necessary and unnecessary risks right now, nor evaluate danger in a rational and logical fashion,” Gina pointed out. “I mean… you didn’t feel suicidal when you were talking about going after the Hounds, right?” She glanced up at him, one quick, uncertain flick of her gaze. “You weren’t looking for a way out?”

 

“No. I have considered suicide more than once,” he went on, his tone frank as he discussed something Gina already knew. “But rarely since I became Caradoc. And since you and I…” He shook his head. “The Terminus is a special case. I know that.”

 

“The Terminus is personal to you, and that’s dangerous,” Gina summarized. “You don’t always think rationally when it comes to dealing with it or strategizing about it.” She was quiet for a minute, giving her newest invention a poke so that it came to life, emitting soft blue light and humming. “Can you give up that much? Will you stay away from that until we’re both sure that you’re better?”

 

“If the call comes, I will tell them to call another. Not Tarva the Black, though, she is...terrible.” He shook his head, wondering what Erik would think of the joke. With Gina’s intelligence, he knew he need not promise not to fight the Terminus if it showed up on their doorstep. “And I will leave the planning to others.” He had, if he was truthful with himself, done a great deal of that.

 

“Okay,” she finally said, still toying with her invention. “Okay.” It was rarely easy to get a bead on what Gina was feeling, especially as years spent inside the Miss A robot perfected her conscious control over her facial muscles. When she wanted to project a blank face, she really could do it. “GIve me your hand.”

 

Steve gave her his hand, thinking bizarrely of Earth-Prime weddings. Blank face or not, he never would have done anything else.

 

Gina set the device on the back of his hand, letting it rest there while she pressed a series of buttons. It hummed louder and began to move a little, small extensions moving as though giving him a hand massage, an odd but not unpleasant sensation. The machine made a small pop noise and Steve felt a quick pinch, then the machine beeped and folded in on itself, quiescent again. Gina took it back, looked it over, and stuck it in her pocket. “So what do you want for dinner?”

 

It was not the first time this had happened. Steve knew what it meant. “Hot wings,” he told her. “I will cook them - you take a bath.” Sometimes Gina forgot about these things when she had been working. “They will be done when you are out.”

 

Gina looked surprised for a moment, then sniffed herself and grimaced. “Fine,” she allowed with only slightly ill grace. “Don’t use that sauce you like, it destroys the delicate lining of my everything,” she reminded him as she rose. “There’s some normal hot sauce in the door of the refrigerator, and some ranch dressing too.” She headed out of the kitchen, but before she left, she dropped a quick kiss on the top of his head. It was a start.