Teaser: Chapter 7 - Photograph
((still looking for this artist!))
-----Pre-notes, note and clue: If you close your eyes and listen to Ed Sheeran’s song by the same name as the chapter title: you’ll get an idea for this chapter’s theme.
----==BONUS TRACK - Loki (Love Letters)
The debate didn’t even last a second in his head.
He wanted to know what they had been talking about; so he was half sliding from the bed, coming around Peter’s feet to slip-step sideways on his haunches between their knees and snag the wire-bound little stack of paper. A hasty but silent retreat and he was fast out the door with a near devilish smile as he flipped it back and started for the kitchen with every intent of starting up some coffee and breakfast when he noted the time. Loki was halfway down the stairs, when the first few lines started to slow his steps.
And then stopped them entirely, nearly made him sit down right there; when he realized with the longer, second scroll of graphite across the paper just what, and who they had been talking about. He did sit, when he re-read those words again; unable to turn the page right away as they hit him, hard in the throat and low in the gut.
He instantly knew, he wanted to keep this. Reading it a third time, he finally turned the page: and read more.
‘Gam.. my Gamora; she was the same way. Probably a lot angrier about it though? That was her general default already when I met her. Chip on her shoulder. Lots of pride, and none of it for who raised her; but plenty for who she made herself into regardless. Good reason to, when you look at who it was that did. I’d have gone a little crazy -- okay, I did, a little: when my old man let slip he actually put the tumor that killed her in my mom’s head. I’m sorry you had to go through that, if I haven’t said it. I know how that goes. I had to watch mom go through all the stages.’
Another little page, he kept reading. This was something, a set of details Quill hadn’t told him. Not outright, not in this detail.
‘Right up to the night she died. I was a kid, and couldn’t take it. I ran, and I never got to see her off. Then he said that, and I just imploded. Shot him seventeen times. Six seconds. Wasn’t enough. Not to kill him, and not to finish off what rage I had either. Neither was what followed. Not for the rage anyway. Not really. But for all that; for all the tiny parts that feel dirty just still having the tiniest wish he could have been different? I don’t think I could have been raised by him knowing what he’d done, like she was: and come out as put together as she was. She had trust issues, yeah and go fig. We had a hard time getting to being a real us because of that, and because I knew it and had a hard time figuring out how to go at it without spooking her. Well, ha; and because I’m a flirt with big appetites who tends to jump in head first and figure out how to make the messes I get myself in, to work after: somehow.’
That last part made him smile a bit as he turned the page; and kept reading; a pause to listen for movement, a glance up the steps because Loki knew even first thing in the morning, Clint could be as deadly silent as he himself was if he wanted to be.
‘But she knew that too; and would dance with me anyway, when no one else was looking. Or no one else was around, and work at it. Step by step. Song by song. Oh we’d argue. A lot. A lot!!! But we always figured it out, sometimes because we did argue.. If that makes sense?’
‘Heh. I get that. Laura and I fought a lot in the beginning too; even before we were married. She knew early on I was bisexual. Our second meeting? Was me coming out of a hotel she was staying at with the then on again off again bed partner making his escape in the background. Made for a funny conversation but; she was way cooler about it than I thought she might have been. He wasn’t in the picture the next time we met, and we were good those first few months after.’
Loki remembered this conversation, though it was different in text than in word. Clint been a little short with him, when he’d explained it, but in a different way. More words, but a little less trust at the beginning; something that, by the end, Loki had been given on the subject: when Clint had seen not only the lack of judgement, but the near eagerness to know more about him. He read on.
‘But she had a hard time when it came up, understanding how that end of my life worked and where she might fit in it. Wrapping her head around the fact I was still figuring some of that out for myself, back then: but not where she was concerned. I was still a bit of a mess when we met, but I knew she was different for me; where they weren’t. She did figure it out though, eventually and lucky me. Maybe faster than I did in some ways. Sometimes I just ..needed to try and find whatever was missing there, for me. She wasn’t it. I was happy with her. With the kids, but .. well, that gap, I mentioned. Didn’t find what I needed to fill it for a long time. Not until Lau. And I never expected to find him where I did. He surprised the hell out of me.’
Another blue ruled line. ‘I mean; not just about him. About.. You know.’
‘Liking men too, and the difference between him and the rest?’
There were several little grey dots to one side of that last penned entry. Like Clint had tapped it a few times. Loki could almost see him thinking about it; probably that narrowed look at the paper, or his own knees. He did that sometimes. Sometimes the trickster loved it, others it could be frustrating; but in the end he admitted still: that the thoughtfulness he put in behind his answers when it came to things like this still made him smile. ‘I'm still sort of figuring us out, with the gaps. But I see him; enough of him and his affect on me to know this is worth keeping, whether I get it all back or not. We fit. I love him. Sometimes, that and the willingness to stick through the painful bits and arguments along with the good parts are all you need. Hell. They're the biggest part, really. Don't think I need to tell you that. Gender aside, the ones that can really bail on you when the going gets tough, aren't worth holding onto when it comes to much of anything. As for the general.. I think maybe I always did; and I just never really thought to explore or show it? I mean.. Look where we both grew up, and when; and how that kind of thing was viewed in those kinds of little communities back then. Don’t even get me started on how my old man would have reacted if he’d lived long enough to see the signs himself.’
‘Look on your face says you belong to the same club as me and Loki?’
‘The ‘my dad was pretty much a waste of breath’, club.’
‘Yeah, definitely on that train.’
‘He’s why I was so damned mad at myself hitting Lau like that; even if it didn't hurt him physically. Why I asked you to deck me, if I tried again. He was the worst kind of alcoholic. Used to beat the hell out of me and my little brother when we were younger. Mom too, when ever she got between him and us. And she did that a lot, when we were still too small and not fast enough yet to run and get out of his reach, and he didn’t have more booze money. Also why I don’t drink. Much, if at all. Your dad killed your mom with a magic tumor. Mine killed himself and my mother with an emptied set of bottles left behind on the bar top, and the insistence he get behind the wheel of that piece of shit Le Baron after she’d peeled him off smacking me around and sprung for said bar run to keep him off for the night.’
‘Told myself early on I wouldn’t be him. Following that’s what drove me into what I do. Trying to be better. Aiming to be what he wasn't. But sometimes, I wonder if I didn’t get his shit temper anyway.’
‘I dunno. I’m pretty infuriating, or so I’m told. And you didn’t swing at me. You do good by your kids, that much I can tell. Can tell it’s been a stressful ride for you too. Honestly, just Loki's end would have driven me to swing at someone: never mind the frustration of yours. Doesn't make who you ended up hitting any more excusable! But isn't any less true.’
‘You still threatened to put me in a wheelchair.’
‘Yep. Would again too, if it meant you’d still get or keep your head on straight. We talked a lot that night. A lot about things that had nothing to do with what we intended to. He couldn’t go more than twenty minutes without mentioning you, and anybody what’s been hurt by someone they love could see the reason why he was so down? Was because he’s crazy about you. Disappointed and beating himself up more over what he did than you ever could. Doesn’t make it right, but by comparison; he didn’t feel that punch so much as he felt what was behind it?’
‘I know. I figured that out after. It’s the part of me that took that long to piece, that pisses me off about it still. Don’t let me do that again. I dunno how he does it, but he usually has to make a conscious effort to make it so we don’t break more bones when someone not as physically durable as they are comes at them earnestly; but. That doesn't mean I want him using it as an excuse not to smack me back if he's not confident in being fast enough about it. If you're watching though? I feel .. more in check? ’
‘I didn’t even know that was possible. Aren’t their muscles alone like .. I dunno. Gamora said it was like some kind of alloy or fiber or something.’
‘Far as I can tell, yeah. Asgardian durability and strength is up there. Though it varies. I’ve seen him bounce bullets off ’
‘ What? Is this a kink thing like the porn theatre, cause I never thought of using a gu___’ Loki snorted a little at where that word had literally been drawn right off the edge of the page. Clint had probably grabbed his hand.
‘No. It’s not a - I don’t even know what to say to even the idea of that, shut up...’
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---The only bad thing about tumblr posting is; you miss out on the emphasis on certain words and phrases that things like italics help you read with better emotive understanding. There’s a lot more to this. I’ll be posting one more teaser for Photograph before I stop spamming you poor bastards til Chapter 8.
Read from the beginning and more here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/19248328/chapters/45772732
