I was rereading Fire, and while reading the part about Roman's magic giving him ominous feelings, and him sometimes mixing that up ptsd stuff, it reminded me of how in some other fics Roman has he sometimes reads more into nonverbal cues than other people/reads into them too much. What are some examples of that?
so this is not actually a trait unique to roman, its a very common response to living under an unpredictable abuser. under these conditions one becomes extraordinarily sensitive to minute expressions and tone of voice, because these are often the only indicator that the abuser is about to lash out. you see it in it most extreme cases usually in people who grew up with unstable parents for a long time with little to no support
for roman, it comes out most often with two groups 1. loved ones and 2. people he percieves as having authority over him, like the other parents of gc members. He's most sensitive to anything he perceives as irritation, annoyance, or frustration, and will (often not even consciously) adjust himself to try and mirror what he thinks the other person wants from him if he feels like the vibe is getting tense.
Of course, sometimes he's wrong - like he's good at it, when someones actually getting worked up he Will clock it, but it does throw a lot of false positives.
The only person he almost never has this problem with is May, because even that trauma has a hard time overcoming the surety that whatever he is, May will love him. In Broken, when he admits he misses Durant, that is not a confession he could have made to Virgil Logan or Patton, at least not at that time in the timeline.
