"This isn't one of those pictures where someone makes a huge heroic sacrifice and we all salute your corpse, Fever. I need you alive and preferably not riddled with bugs."
"I'm not a hero. That's not a title I'll ever lay claim to."
It falls from her mouth as something unadorned. Still, she reaches out to lift his chin up, his eyes unable to hide from hers, and she leaves her hand there as she speaks.
"And I'm not going to sacrifice myself. I am going to stay alive, as myself. Listen to me - I've survived worse places than this. Even had to contend with a ship that was doing its best to break everyone aboard. I have endured, so I know I can endure again. Easy."
A bit of a smile, restrained but light. Even as her spirit screams against the idea of being made to endure again. Fever doesn't want to. She doesn't want to be here. She wants so badly to be back on solid ground. She wants to believe that help can be found and sent and this can be over, the inner dilemma of everything she thought before and still, the deep desire to not have to go through it.
"It'll be all right. I promise you."
It won't be. It isn't. But what is she supposed to do, crack at the idea of someone saying I need you alive? (why her?)
"Why do you have to be so damn brave, huh?" he asks. There'll be no convincing her otherwise. Fever might not call herself a hero, but Hawk knows how this goes. There's so many factors that could go wrong, so many reasons he might never see her again as herself.
Hawk moves his hand to cup her cheek, and leans in for a parting kiss. Give them both something sweet to remember each other by.
She's not brave. That's another title she can't take for her own - she just sees what needs to be done, and the fact that others can't do it, and it must happen anyway. Even if the odds are staggering, even if it's full of risk, even if her own life dances on a tightrope. It has to be done. It won't make up for anything she's done and will do. She knows it doesn't work like that. But at the least, at the least, let her do the one thing she's good at. Let her stand in the middle of danger, and inflict violence, and draw it to where she stands. Then it might allow just enough cover for others to run away.
The kiss is gentle, smothers the part of her that knows she can't remove whatever false good concepts he has of her. One day. One day it'll all come out, and she'll have to watch him turn away. It's fine. If she starts preparing for it now, it'll be easier to shoulder. But until then, she kisses him as if he's only going on a trip for a few days, something soft that doesn't say goodbye. Lingers before she pulls back.
"There's something terribly clever to be said about kissing as a replacement for painkillers, but I just don't have the brains for it."
It's a clumsy attempt to make him smile. It probably will fall so short. But she'll pretend and keep pretending if it makes it any easier.
And yet she kisses him a second time. She needs to go, needs to give him room to make up his plan, needs to let him depart with whoever he can convince to accompany him - perhaps that man with the glasses that's around him enough, perhaps some of the more jittery ones who'd leap at it. She needs to leave, she knows, but one more second. Just one.
Hawk makes a small noise at the touch of her lips again, eyes shut only lightly. He's a little bristly from his shaving kit being left back in his apartment, reeks a little of alcohol from the disinfection earlier, but his kiss is as pleasant as it always is. All pressure and no force. Have her eyes always been so red? The bright candy colour of oxygenated blood from the heart- there must be no pigment in her irises at all.
"You know, you could. So I can observe, make sure you don't chew your stitches when I'm not looking. I'd hate to have to put you in a cone."
She shouldn't. They'll wind up having this conversation again, about going and not going. About where one is needed. Shouldn't, should go. But the idea of going back to her room on her own, in this sort of place, is unappetizing given the throbbing ache in her shoulder. It'd be worth it. Even thought it would test her again.
The scent of magic, crisp ozone, still clings to her from the lightning strikes.
"You raise a good point. What if something happens?"
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"This isn't one of those pictures where someone makes a huge heroic sacrifice and we all salute your corpse, Fever. I need you alive and preferably not riddled with bugs."
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It falls from her mouth as something unadorned. Still, she reaches out to lift his chin up, his eyes unable to hide from hers, and she leaves her hand there as she speaks.
"And I'm not going to sacrifice myself. I am going to stay alive, as myself. Listen to me - I've survived worse places than this. Even had to contend with a ship that was doing its best to break everyone aboard. I have endured, so I know I can endure again. Easy."
A bit of a smile, restrained but light. Even as her spirit screams against the idea of being made to endure again. Fever doesn't want to. She doesn't want to be here. She wants so badly to be back on solid ground. She wants to believe that help can be found and sent and this can be over, the inner dilemma of everything she thought before and still, the deep desire to not have to go through it.
"It'll be all right. I promise you."
It won't be. It isn't. But what is she supposed to do, crack at the idea of someone saying I need you alive? (why her?)
no subject
Hawk moves his hand to cup her cheek, and leans in for a parting kiss. Give them both something sweet to remember each other by.
no subject
The kiss is gentle, smothers the part of her that knows she can't remove whatever false good concepts he has of her. One day. One day it'll all come out, and she'll have to watch him turn away. It's fine. If she starts preparing for it now, it'll be easier to shoulder. But until then, she kisses him as if he's only going on a trip for a few days, something soft that doesn't say goodbye. Lingers before she pulls back.
"There's something terribly clever to be said about kissing as a replacement for painkillers, but I just don't have the brains for it."
It's a clumsy attempt to make him smile. It probably will fall so short. But she'll pretend and keep pretending if it makes it any easier.
no subject
"You want to kiss me again, see if that jogs your mind a little bit?"
Fever might be the one putting on a brave face, but Hawkeye practically invented laughing in the face of crushing terror and loss.
no subject
And yet she kisses him a second time. She needs to go, needs to give him room to make up his plan, needs to let him depart with whoever he can convince to accompany him - perhaps that man with the glasses that's around him enough, perhaps some of the more jittery ones who'd leap at it. She needs to leave, she knows, but one more second. Just one.
no subject
"You know, you could. So I can observe, make sure you don't chew your stitches when I'm not looking. I'd hate to have to put you in a cone."
no subject
The scent of magic, crisp ozone, still clings to her from the lightning strikes.
"You raise a good point. What if something happens?"
A little more time is worth the later pain.