#and we did hear him on the phone at the gala to somebody he’d made a ‘deal’ with

[choices-and-voices]

Okay but guys

GUYS

[ragingbookdragon]

I Saw It Coming When You Threw The First Punch

Batmom x Batfamily One-Shot

Word Count: 1.7K Warnings: Explicit Language, Mentions of Violence

Author's Note: I honestly feel like I get my irritation from people out by writing stories where the characters punch people. I live vicariously through my characters. Enjoy! -Thorne

Getting the call that his wife had been taken into GCPD custody was not one that Bruce had ever expected to receive. Not in a million years. And yet, low and behold, Gordon had called sounding apologetic that she’d been detained after a physical altercation at the gala she’d hosted earlier that evening.

Which was absolutely baffling to him, because the only person more anal retentive about screwing up at a gala than Alfred, was his wife. So, something must’ve seriously set her off if she’d hauled off on somebody. And Gordon had made it quite clear that it was his wife that threw the first punch, though beyond that, he didn’t know what else had occurred because she’d invoked her rights to the company lawyer and to remain silent, simply staring at the wall while the other officers tried to get a story out of her—Bruce knew she wouldn’t crack. Other than him, his wife had a reserve that no man, alien, or god could break. He’d never say it, but he was envious of his wife’s willpower.

He arrived rather quickly with all four sons in tow, knowing that the sight of the entire family would probably help her chances of getting out and they waited patiently to be escorted to where she was being held.

When they arrived at the interrogation room, they saw her sitting there with crossed legs, hands placed palm down on the table. Her eyes were closed in what Bruce recognized as her deep meditative state; the one she used to fight off telepathic control from enemies—she was probably recounting what happened that night.

“What are the charges?” he asked Gordon and the older man sighed.

“Simple battery and public disturbance.”

Bruce hummed lowly in his throat and gazed at his wife. “How do you see this playing out for her?”

“If the woman she keelhauled doesn’t press charges, there’s possibility of probation with community service.”

He had to play naïve. “And if she does?”

Gordon met his gaze. “Then you’re looking at your wife going into lockup for a year.”

Bruce let out a sigh. “I’ll call our lawyer then.”

“I’ll give you and your wife some privacy,” he replied, hitting a button on the keypad beside the door, and the glass went dark while the glowing red button recording the room turned off.

“Thank you, Gordon,” he said, and the detective waved as he walked off, closing the door to the interrogation room behind him. Bruce looked at his sons. “Let’s go see what set your mom off tonight.”

***

The door to the room opened but she didn’t open her eyes, still under the cold water in her retreat.

“(Y/N),” someone murmured and though the voice was familiar, she didn’t come to yet.

“(Y/N),” they repeated a bit firmer. “Come back up.”

Ever so slowly, she allowed her mind to come back from the deep waters and she opened her eyes, smiling at her husband and sons.

“Good evening family.” Damian immediately sprinted to her and buried his face in her neck, and she laughed, running a hand through his short dark hair. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“You are in trouble,” he murmured and pulled away to look into her eyes. “We will do whatever you need, Umi.”

(Y/N) snorted. “Don’t worry about me baby. Knowing Little Miss Martha May, she’s not going to press charges over our spat.”

“I think simple battery is bit more than a spat, mom,” Dick worried, brows furrowing in concern. “What did you two even start fighting about?”

Her eyes darted to the glass then to Bruce and he said, “Gordon turned off the cameras.”

“Mom,” Tim started, and she looked at him; he held up his phone screen. “I just assured that you’re protected here.”

She nodded and let out a sigh. “I knew I should’ve just walked away but I couldn’t help it. She just set me off like a match to gunpowder.”

“What’d you guys even duke it out over,” Jason questioned, and she sighed again, recounting the night.

***

“You’ve thrown another wonderful party, Miss Wayne,” Lucius murmured, handing her a champagne glass.

She grinned widely, thanking him. “Thank you, Lucius, I try.”

“Clan couldn’t come tonight?”

“You’ve always been perceptive about us, haven’t you?”

“To use your words, I try,” he laughed, and she nodded.

“Patrol started early tonight,” she said inconspicuously, eyes shifting around to glance at who was walking near them. “Besides, most of them only come to these to appease the crowd.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot that you’re the only one who actually enjoys these.”

“Only when Bruce and the kids are here,” she corrected. “It’s easier to bullshit when they’re here to pick up the slack.”

He barked a laugh and she chuckled in return when someone walked up to them. She turned and immediately grimaced at the old classmate of hers.

“(Y/N), such a beautiful party you’ve thrown tonight,” the woman greeted, though it was laced with cheerful fakeness.

She plastered a smile on her face. “Good evening, Marianne. I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

“Oh, you know me, I’m always up for a party.” Her eyes drifted around. “Where is your husband? I wanted to thank him for the gift basket he sent after my operation.” Marianne gave her a sarcastic smile. “Isn’t it rather off for a host to avoid his own party?”

Note to self, yell at Bruce for sending her a gift.

“He had to work late tonight. So did the boys.” (Y/N) matched her smile. “I’m sure they’d be delighted to know that you thought of them though.”

Something shifted in Marianne’s eyes. “Oh yes, the children you have.” She leaned in close and murmured, “You know I’ve been hearing some rather negative rumors about yours and Bruce’s decision to adopt orphans rather than have some of your own.”

(Y/N) blinked, not sure if she should be shocked or unimpressed. “Really? Care to enlighten me?”

Marianne waved a hand. “The major one is that you simply took pity on the strays because you were barren.” She felt like she’d been slapped across the face and her jaw dropped as she gaped at the woman.

Apparently, that was all the ammunition that Marianne needed because she offered a sympathetic smile an placed a hand on (Y/N)’s arm. “Oh, you poor dear.” She patted her arm again. “You should’ve come to me instead of adopting orphans. I would’ve been happy to be a surrogate for you.”

(Y/N) shrugged the hand off her arm and reached up, pulling the silver teardrop earrings from her ears. “Yeah, those orphans aren’t mine, not biologically.”

She pulled off her diamond wedding rings and handed them and the earrings over to Lucius who took them and stepped back.

“But you know what they are?” she glowered at Marianne and seethed, “They’re my sons.”

The next thing anyone knew, the two women were rolling on the floor, their hostess throwing punches that seemed to make everyone wince when they connected to the woman’s face.

***

“And all I remember was being escorted down here,” she finalized, eyes drifting to Bruce’s.

He simply stared at her for a moment before he let out a heavy sigh and put his face in his hands. “I’m proud that you defended our family, but at the same time, I’m disappointed that you let Marianne set you off.”

(Y/N) crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, so you’re taking her side?”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Bruce shot back. “If she decides to press charges, you’re going to be in lockup for a year.”

“She’s not.”

“You don’t know that, (Y/N).”

“No, I do,” she blinked and leaned forward. “If Marianne doesn’t want me to ruin her image with shit she did when she was a teenager, she’ll keep her mouth shut and take the blame for this.”

“What’d she do, Ma?” Jason questioned curiously and she turned her attention to him.

“Enough that’ll disgrace her image amongst every elite this side of the globe if she tries me anymore.”

Before anyone could say anything, the door opened and they turned, seeing Gordon walking in. “Good evening, Miss Wayne,” he greeted, and she smiled.

“Good evening, Jim. How’s your night so far?”

He chuckled. “Not too bad. I got to detain my favorite socialite and listen to all my officers speculate what she did.”

(Y/N) lifted her hands palm up beside her shoulders. “I live to please, Jim, you know that.”

“I do.” He walked over and handed her a few papers. “When asked if she wanted to press charges, Marianne Walters declined. She instead gave a rather detailed statement that she instigated the fight and threw the first punch.” He stared at the busted lip she had. “Does that match what happened?”

She quickly looked over the papers and nodded. “Yes, that’s true.”

Gordon sighed. “Do you wish to press charges?”

(Y/N) shook her head. “No,” she smiled. “There’s no reason to make a fuss about this.”

“…Miss Wayne, you and Miss Walters are all over the news.”

She shrugged. “And people have very short memories. They’ll forget about this.” She handed back the papers. “Send this to my lawyer and she’ll handle it with the prosecutors.”

“You think they won’t press charges despite Walters?” Gordon asked and she nodded.

“Oh, they won’t,” she said then looked at the clock. “Am I free to leave? It’s been a long night.”

Gordon let out a heavy sigh and nodded. “Yes Miss Wayne, you’re free to leave now.”

(Y/N) rose. “Wonderful.” She looked at her sons. “Boys, let’s go.”

They followed her and Bruce stood from the table, standing beside Gordon. “Thank you, Jim.”

Gordon grunted. “I know (Y/N) threw the first punch.”

“You do?”

“Of course, I do.” He huffed. “And I don’t blame her either.” He watched (Y/N) laugh at something Dick said while the others groaned around him. “You’ve got a good woman, Bruce. Good wife. Even better mother.”

Bruce looked at his wife and let an easy smile cross his lips as she pulled them all into hugs. “Yeah…yeah, I do, don’t I.”

[spine-buster]

the storm before the calm (f. andersen) | prologue

A/N:  Here.  We.  Go.  Canon questions welcome (even though this is just the prologue).

Frederik Andersen was tired.  He was tired, and it was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and he was walking down King Street West to get home.  Except then he remembered: he remembered he couldn’t go home yet, because he needed to pick up toilet paper, and he couldn’t go home without toilet paper.

Or aftershave.

Or toothpaste.

He could never just go home like he wanted to – there always had to be something.  Something that obstructed him from doing what he wanted to do, from getting himself to the comfort of his own home, from being the traditional homebody that he was.  Something always thwarted his plans.  Something always came up.

He sighed.  

He took out his phone and opened Google Maps to make sure he hadn’t walked past the 24-hour Shopper’s Drug Mart yet.  He knew it was a five-minute walk from his condo, but in the dark of night he knew it would be hard to see.  It also didn’t help that it was obscured within an old building, the typically large, LED-signage not present like with others.  Noticing that it was only the next block over, he hurried his pace, walking through the scores of girls in too-short dresses drunkenly tipping over on their stiletto heels grabbing onto one another for support and the boys desperate for their phone numbers following them out of the bars and clubs that lined the street with their phones in their hands and hope in their eyes.  

Because it was two o’clock in the morning, the Shoppers Drug Mart was empty.  There was one lady standing at a till, with all the self-checkouts still open.  He wasn’t even sure if the pharmacist was present, looking towards the back to see if his suspicions were correct.  It was quiet – so quiet he could practically hear the ringing of the lights above him.  The only interruptions were giggles from girls outside or cars revving their engines.  

Okay, toilet paper.

He grabbed a small basket, putting in a quick 6-roll package inside, knowing that it would probably last him until his next road trip, when – inevitably – he’d come home late at night and realize he was out of toilet paper and would have to run back to the same Shopper’s Drug Mart to get some so he could sleep peacefully.  

Toothpaste.

He walked a few aisles over and was greeted with the wall of toothpaste.  He grabbed an old favourite and chucked it into his basket.

Aftershave.

The previous aisle back.  He realized his usual was locked up in a cabinet, and he wasn’t in the mood to go ask the one lady working the till to get the key and unlock it just for him.  He had enough to last him.  He made the decision to come back tomorrow.  Or, technically, later today.  When there was light outside.

Was there anything else?

Deodorant.  He needed deodorant.  

He walked the few aisles over to where he knew the deodorant was, and as soon as he turned the corner, he saw a figure.  It was a person – that much he knew – in a stylish trench coat.  A woman – mounds of hair twisted and tied with a scrunchie in a messy bun atop her head, the wisps of hair she didn’t happen to catch cascading down her back in perfectly manicured waves.  Her back was to him.  She was standing right in front of his deodorant.  

He approached her slowly, making sure not to startle her – he was 6’3”, he knew he could startle people based on his size alone.  But the closer he got to her, he realized she wouldn’t move.  The closer he got to her, he realized she was either ignoring him or legitimately didn’t hear him.

The closer he got to her, he realized she was crying.

He heard it at first: soft sniffles, even softer whimpers, her body shaking slightly from her trying to keep it together and not descending into a full-on sob in the middle of the store.  He still couldn’t see her face – only her hands and her hair still – but it was still awkward.  He didn’t know what to do.  It’s not like he had ever encountered a crying girl in the middle of a Shopper’s Drug Mart at two o’clock in the morning before.  There was no precedent for this.  Fifteen seconds ago he thought he was the only customer in the store.

“Um…excuse me?” Fred asked in as gentle of a voice he could muster.

The poor girl jumped in shock.  She turned her head towards him quickly, like a flash, not long enough in the slightest to get a good look at her.  “Oh my God…” she mumbled.

“Are you okay?” Fred asked as she began wiping her face with her hand.  It was then, and only then, when she turned her head slightly to look at him, that he got a good look at her.

He knew that she was taken aback by his soft intrusion, but to say that her features took him aback was an understatement.  In less than a second, he was completely and utterly transfixed.  Rich, dark brown hair.  Perfectly tanned and contoured skin as smooth and flawless as glass.  Dominant eyebrows that framed her face.  Perfectly cut cheekbones blushed and highlighted.  Lips – God, her lips – full and bow-shaped, pained with a daring red.  

Her eyes full of tears, with striking hazel irises, were staring directly into his soul.

She was, quite possibly, the most strikingly beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and would ever see, in his life.

“I’m fine, Fred,” she said, in a voice equally as soft as his.  He noticed her shuffle away from him nervously, refusing to stay too close.  “I’m – I’m sorry – I –”

Fred’s brows furrowed at the mention of his name.  He had never seen this girl before in his life.  And he’d know if he’d seen her before.  How did she know who he was?  He knew he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs but…well…this wasn’t a girl who looked like she was into hockey.  He knew he should never judge a book by its cover and all that, but still.  “How do you know who I am?”

A certain look flashed across her face – a look he couldn’t read.  It could have been disgust.  It could have been sorrow.  It could have been surprise.  It could have been anything, really, and the fact that he didn’t know made him upset.  “I just performed at the function you came from.”

He was taken aback by her answer.  He had just left a charity gala – a busy one at that, with hundreds of people in attendance – and he’d heard the music being performed there…well, there was the music during the cocktail hour, and the performers during dinner, and the live band when the dancing started, and…she was there?  Which one was she?  He…he would have noticed her.  He would have listened.  If he saw somebody like her approaching the stage or at a piano he’d notice, God damn it he’d notice, but he didn’t remember…

“I’m sorry I’m in the way,” her voice interrupted his internal battle as she moved away.  Her heels clicked on the ground below them and each step further away from him was like nails on a chalkboard to Fred.  She turned the corner.  

“Wait – wait – who – are you sure – why are you crying?” he asked.  He wanted to move but his feet were cement, stuck to the floor like heavy columns.  He couldn’t even formulate the right words.  He sounded like an idiot.  The only thing that kept flashing in his mind – not the rows upon rows of different brands of deodorant – the only thing he could see in front of him were her eyes.  Her striking hazel eyes.

Bright but full of darkness.

Full of life but full of sorrow.

So vivacious but so unhappy.

After a few moments, Fred was able to get his footing again, his own shoes clacking against the floor as he rushed over to the end of the aisle to catch her in the next.

Except she wasn’t there.

He turned around, going to the next aisle.

The next aisle.  The next.  The next.

Not there.  Not there.  Not there.

He looked towards the window.  There were more people on the sidewalks now, since bars had their last call and everybody had to filter out.  He dropped his basket and ran outside, towering over everyone passing him.  He looked to his left to see if he could find her trench coat and heels walking through the crowds.  He looked to his right to see if he could find her messy bun and scrunchie.

She wasn’t there.  She wasn’t anywhere.  It was like she had disappeared into thin air, never to be heard of or seen again.  Was she a figment of his imagination?  Was she just a hallucination?  Something that his mind conjured up at two in the morning after a charity gala?  It was impossible.  This wasn’t Hamlet.  He wasn’t Hamlet.  No ghost was going to appear to him, speak to him, call him his name and know he went to a function that night.  No overtired or overactive imagination would do that – the least not his.

“Sir?  Sir are you going to pay for your items or should I re-shelve them?” the poor cashier called out to him from inside the store, lifting his basket in his arms.  “Should I ring you up?”

He took one more look to his right.  One more look to his left.  Nothing.  Should he ask the cashier?  That might make him sound like a stalker.  The last thing he needed was this cashier calling the cops on him because he wanted to follow a female stranger out of the store.

“Sir?”

He sighed.  He took in a big gulp of the crisp night air to make sure he was still…alive.  Cognizant.  Conscious.  He thought about the encounter: brief but life-changing.  At least for him.  He thought about her trench coat, her heels, her lips, her tears, her voice, her eyes; everything imprinted in his mind so they were unforgettable.  

He resolved: he’d scour every face in Toronto, he’d look into every pair of eyes until he found hers again.  

“I’m coming,” he finally called out, walking in through the out door.

[imjustthemechanic]

Our Own Demons

Part 1/? - A Bolt from the Blue Part 2/? - A Different World Part 3/? - Stark At Home Part 4/? - Pot Roast Night Part 5/? - Space-Pie Continuum Part 6/? - Energy Signature Part 7/? - Miss Potts Part 8/? - Bot from Beyond Part 9/? - Even the Odds Part 10/? - Miss Potts Arrives Part 11/? - Truth Hurts Part 12/? - The Third Reality Part 13/? - Thor and Odinson Part 14/? - The Tesseract Platform Part 15/? - Prime Suspect Part 16/? - Jailbreak

What if Tony Stark really were the villain of the Marvel universe?  How would that work?  Tony himself is about to find out, as he battles his inner demons (and some outer ones, too) across a multiverse of infinite possibilities.

Tony sat up straight across from the female cop and folded his arms across his chest, determined not to let her intimidate him. “If that was Sid,” he said, “are you Nancy?”  He immediately thought he should have said Marty instead… Marty would have been funnier, but too late now.

“I’m Officer Zsivoczky,” she said.

“‘Nancy’ it is.”  Tony sighed heavily.  “Look, I know you guys think I killed Pepper.”  It was a struggle even to say that.  “I didn’t. I wasn’t here.  The guy people saw was not me.  He was from another world.”  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lawyer twitch, and added, “I know how it sounds, but seeing as New York City was half-flattened by aliens a couple of years back, I’m sure you can suspend a little disbelief for this.”

Nancy was not interested.  “Where’s her body, Stark?” she asked.

“Not in this reality,” Tony insisted.  “The other me, the bad guy, he took her away.”  The other me.  Now he sounded like Bruce.  They were going to think he had multiple personalities or something.

Her eyebrows rose.  “You admit there’s a body, then?”

“No!”  Tony put his head in his hands.  “I can get her back, but you have to let me go.”  If he had a suit… and some of that energy from the tesseract.  SHIELD had a bunch of that in storage from their experiments with it.  He’d read about that in the files he’d downloaded.  They would have moved it now, with all their secrets out, but maybe he could figure out where to.  He and Dr. Foster had talked about the resonant frequencies they’d need.  He could find that other reality and get her.

“Where did you put her?” Nancy demanded.

“I didn’t do anything!” said Tony.

“Our client is done answering questions,” one of the lawyers announced – probably, Tony thought, because his answers were embarrassing them.  “I’m sure you are aware that Mr. Stark suffers from post-traumatic stress, and your unfounded accusations are…”

“They are hardly unfounded!” said Nancy.  “We have eyewitnesses to Mr. Stark meeting Ms. Potts at the LACMA and putting her in a car.  We have the car in question, with her hair and his blood in it.  We have him, looking like he’s had the hell beaten out of him by somebody desperate to defend herself.”  She gestured to Tony’s scraped and bruised arms.

“I’m Iron Man,” said Tony.  “I was fighting a robot.”  The words sounded hollow even to him.  They didn’t believe him.  Nobody would.

“Between the last time you were seen in New York and when you were sighted in Los Angeles there’s plenty of time for you to have made the flight in one of your suits,” Nancy told him.  “And the time since is more than enough to dispose of a body. Where is Ms. Potts?”

“Why would I have hurt her?” Tony asked desperately.

Nancy’s voice was cold.  “Only you know that.”

Tony lowered his head.  “No more questions,” he said.  “I’m done.”

With his lawyers there to enforce his wishes, the interrogation was over, but the police could – and did – book him.  He was photographed and fingerprinted and swabbed like a criminal, then put in an orange jumpsuit to be taken back to a cell.

“When’s the bail hearing?” he asked.

“The judge has decided there won’t be one,” Sid replied, holding the cell door for him.  “They couldn’t set it high enough that you wouldn’t be a flight risk.”

Of course they couldn’t.  “I want to make a phone call,” Tony said.  Since calling Pepper clearly wasn’t going to do any good, he would call Rhodey.

The police stood around and watched as Tony sat using the phone at a detective’s desk, listening to it ring.  He didn’t doubt that everything he said was going to be recorded.  It didn’t matter, because he would tell the truth.  Telling the truth at least meant you never needed to remember what you’d lied about.

“Hello?” asked Rhodey’s voice.

Tony had been holding his breath, terrified that Rhodey, too, would be mysteriously unreachable.  Now it roared in the mouthpiece as he let it out.  “Rhodey, it’s me,” he said.

“Tony?”  The surprise in his voice was audible.  “Where have you been?”

“Fighting robots in an alternate reality.  It’s a long story,” said Tony.  “Are you okay?  Is Bruce okay?  We were all on a government hit list.”

“I know,” Rhodey said.  “We’re all fine, don’t worry – except Pepper.  Nobody’s seen her in days.  I’ve been trying to tell people that if you took her away, it was to protect her.  I know you wouldn’t have it in you to hurt her.  Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Tony admitted miserably.  How many times was he going to be forced to say that? Tony always preferred to give the impression that he knew everything, so having to say he didn’t know something, repeatedly, stung.  Having to say he didn’t know where Pepper was… that was ten, twenty, a hundred times worse.  “At least, I sort of know, but like I said, there’s alternate realities involved  I know how to go find her, but I have to get out of here.  These people think I killed her.”

“I know,” Rhodey repeated gravely.  “Like I said, I’ve been trying to tell them that’s not you, but you have to admit the evidence doesn’t look good.  The DA thinks nailing Iron Man for murder will be her ticket into congress.”

“Great,” said Tony.  On top of everything else, politics.  “I need help, Rhodey.  I can get to her and I can get her back, but I can’t do it alone.”

“They’re not gonna let you out of there,” Rhodey warned him. “There’s not gonna be a bail hearing for a guy who could pay the GDP of some small countries, and I can’t help you while you’re in jail for murder.”

Tony nodded.  He understood what his friend was saying, and exactly how he ought to reply. “Do me a favour.  Call the Met and tell them I won’t be at the Gala this year.”

“I’ll do that,” Rhodey replied.

With the call finished, Tony went quietly back to his cell, running his fingers along his forearms as he did.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan had an exhibit on arms and armor, and a few years ago Tony had donated an old suit to it.  The museum staff had no idea it was still functional – either he or Rhodey could send it a signal from a cell phone that would activate it in the event that either of them needed a suit and didn’t have access to any others.  It would seek out the transponders in Tony’s body.  All he had to do was wait.

Twenty minutes later, the female cop with the unpronounceable name stopped by to give Tony his dinner.  This appeared to be spaghetti and meatballs, although appearances could be deceiving.  “Thanks,” he said as she handed it to him.  “Say, what’s the odds that this contains any actual food?”

“It’s not drugged, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “What do you think we’re trying to do?”

“If I’m being honest, I think you’re trying to railroad me,” Tony replied.  “You must feel pretty jazzed, arresting Iron Man and all.”

Nancy met his gaze evenly.  “You’ve always been able to get away with anything, haven’t you? Well, you know what?  The richest man in the world can’t get away with murder.”

“I’m not the richest man in the world,” Tony corrected her, “but if I see him, I’ll tell him so.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “I’ve seen you on TV.  You’ve always thought you were a really funny guy, haven’t you, Stark?”

“It’s my chief coping mechanism,” Tony told her – and then he felt a sharp pinch in his right arm.  That was the transponder.  The sizzle of a mild electric shock was its way of alerting him that the suit he’d summoned was approaching.  He’d figured he’d better build in some kind of alert system after nearly embarrassing himself in front of the AIM mooks last Christmas.  “You might wanna duck,” he warned Nancy, then dropped his spaghetti and rolled under the bed.

Half a second later, the Met suit blasted the wall down.

Tony could hear Nancy yelling for backup, but he didn’t even look at her as he wiggled out from under the cot and crawled over the rubble. He couldn’t afford to.  He had to get into that suit.  It opened for him, and when he stepped inside the pieces clicked into place around him with an easy familiarity.

“Hello, JARVIS,” said Tony, as the familiar HUD popped up.  “Did you miss me?”

Very much, Sir, the familiar voice replied.

“Can’t wait to hear about it,” said Tony, “but for now we can…”

“Freeze!” a voice shouted.

Tony looked up to see six cops pointing guns at him. He frowned.  “Really?” he asked.  “I mean… really?  You’re threatening Iron Man with a Glock 22?”  He wasn’t even offended by it, just mystified.  It was public knowledge that the suits could take an anti-tank round – footage of it had made the news years ago.  What did these people think they were going to accomplish?

The cops plainly hadn’t considered that.  They exchanged some nervous glances, each hoping one of the others had a better idea.  Apparently nobody did.

Tony was kind of curious what they might come up with if he stuck around, but there was no time for that.  So he waved and said, “bye, now!” and took off.

In the gathering dusk, the lights of Leesburg dropped away below him, and Tony took a moment to watch as the terrain and air traffic control information appeared in the display, getting his bearings.  Once he had that, he began circling, settling into a holding pattern while he figured out where to go next.  “Okay, JARVIS,” he said.  “What did I miss?”

I believe it will reassure you to know that Captain Rogers and Agents Romanov and Hill, along with a new ally, First Lieutenant Samuel Wilson, are being hailed as heroes in the media for their role in exposing the conspiracy within SHIELD. Unfortunately, they are also all out of work now.

“Tell them there’s always a place for them at Stark Industries,” said Tony.  Rogers wouldn’t accept, but the others might.  “Before we go on, though – the cops must have some kind of record of where they picked me up, and since I’m a celebrity it was probably on the news.  I need you to find that spot, because we gotta track down the truck I came back in.  It’s probably got what I need in it.”  If SHIELD – or HYDRA – were taking the wormhole platform away, they were probably also hiding any leftover tesseract juice they had in storage.  Hopefully, they would put related things in the same place.

Searching now, Sir, said JARVIS.  A map came up in the HUD, and several points illuminated.  Photographs from Google Earth appeared next to each as JARVIS attempted to match the location to images from news websites.

“There!”  Tony stared at one particular image, which JARVIS obligingly enlarged for him.  “The overpass with the white building visible over the hill – where is that?”

That is where the Loudoun County Parkway crosses State Route Seven, said JARVIS.

The area nearby matched – there were the trees and fence he remembered, and he knew he’d seen that building that was peeking out over the crest of the overpass.  “That’s it,” said Tony.  “That’s where we stopped.”  He thought for a moment.  “If I remember correctly, Route Seven goes directly from Washington to Leesburg. Where’s it go after that?”

State Route Seven ends in Winchester, Virginia, said JARVIS.

“Is there anything there they might be stopping for?”

JARVIS brought up a couple more photographs – brick buildings, a copper-roofed gazebo, and a man with a bald head and big horn-rimmed glasses.  The dean of the Shenandoah University School of Arts and Sciences is Dr. Kassander Xanthopoulos, an expert on higher-dimensional physics.  SHIELD consulted him several times in relation to the tesseract, before bringing Dr. Erik Selvig in on the project instead.

“Awesome,” said Tony.  “That’s where we’re going, then.  Now, on the way you can tell me what happened while I was gone.  We had a power surge somewhere over Kansas – then what happened?”

[pinelife3]

Getting Short Stories

I read the short story “The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women” by Haruki Marukami last weekend. I really enjoyed it - until it finished. Because then it was obvious the story wasn’t going to give me any more help to understand it. Of course, I thought about if after I finished it, still trying to get whatever Murakami was on about. And I’m still thinking about it now. I don’t get it.

(Disclaimer: I cannot give you a clear definition of what it means to get it. It’s the same as when a poem works. It’s something clicking into place. Something you couldn’t learn on Wikipedia. Sweeping clear new pathways in how you think about something. I’d argue that you can get something from a piece of media without explicitly getting the media itself (for example, I love “Burnt Norton” but it is pretty inscrutable to me). Equally, you can get something without really caring about it (see: the more recent seasons of Black Mirror) - but that’s not all that interesting to talk about.)

“The Semplica-Girl Diaries” by George Saunders is an example of a short story I like and get: the character’s actions and motivations are sometimes surprising but still make sense, the world is vivid and interesting, the writing is highlightable, and I think I understand what Saunders is trying to say. Or - if I’ve misunderstood what he’s saying, I’ve been able to wring something satisfying out of it on my own. It means something to me, and I feel moved by the story and its ideas in some inarticulable way. I think I read it in a food court.

“The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women” was published in The New Yorker in 1990 and then made its way into Murakami’s 1993 book of short stories The Elephant Vanishes (published in English in ‘93 - it wasn’t published in Japanese until 2005). Probably like many people who have bought the book in the past year, I was inspired to read it after seeing the Korean film Burning (which is based on a story in the collection called “Barn Burning”). Also, I haven’t read any Murakami (that’s a lie: I tried to read Norwegian Wood when I was 21 but didn’t have much patience for it and gave up after ~100 pages) and thought this might be a low-effort way of remedying that.

In terms of the action of the story, The New Yorker summarises it well: 

The narrator, a resident of Tokyo, has quit his job in a law office, and is living as a house husband. One Tuesday morning he receives a phone call from an unknown woman, who says she will help him "come to an understanding," if he'll give her ten minutes. Busy cooking spaghetti for brunch, he hangs up. Later, his wife calls to tell him of a job prospect, as poet and poetry editor of a magazine for young girls. She also asks him to look for their missing cat; it's named Noboru Watanabe, after the wife's brother. She thinks it's in the yard of an abandoned house on their street. In his own yard, the narrator hears a bird screeching; he doesn't know what species of bird it is, but he and his wife think of it as the windup bird: it's there each morning, as if to wind up their world. That afternoon the mysterious woman calls back, and tries to have an erotic dialogue with the narrator. After he hangs up, the phone rings again; he doesn't answer. At the abandoned house, a young girl coaxes him to sunbathe with her. She tells him a fantasy about ripping up a corpse to get at "the lump of death itself." That night, his wife angrily accuses him of killing the cat. He writes a poem: Noboru Watanabe Where have you gone? Did the windup bird Stop winding your spring? The telephone begins ringing once again, but neither the narrator nor his wife will answer it.

This is basically the extent of the story but there are some weird details that add flavour. For example, the protagonist seems to have an auditory fixation. A lot of the story is about him listening to female voices (side note: Murakami is known for having a thing for ears - or formerly having a thing for ears). When a woman calls him on the phone, he makes much of his ability to place voices but has difficulty placing hers. Eventually, their conversation devolves into what is essentially phone sex. He hangs up and avoids answering the phone for the rest of the day, although it keeps ringing. The narrator describes a secret garden path/passage with no entrance or exit. It runs behind all of the houses in his block, so when he walks down it, he has a view into everyone’s backyards: he can see their washing, smell their cooking, etc. He is surprised and suspicious that his wife is familiar with this corridor. (If this were high school English I would be hammering home that the blocked in tunnel is a metaphor for the protagonist’s directionless existence, etc.) The ‘young girl’/teenager mentioned in the summary above, is described as crippled/limping and she mentions that she’s taking the year off school while her leg heals after a bike accident. He falls asleep in a deckchair in her garden while she talks to him. When he wakes up she’s gone. This never goes anywhere. The phone sex never goes anywhere. The corridor never goes anywhere. 

The passages about the wind-up bird are brief and seem trivial while you’re reading them: just lazy, dreamy thoughts from our unemployed protagonist as he drifts off to sleep on a warm Tuesday afternoon:

A regular wind-up toy this world is, I think. Once a day the wind-up bird has to come and wind the springs of this world. Alone in this fun house, only I grown old, a pale softball of death swelling inside me. Yet even as I sleep somewhere between Saturn and Uranus, wind-up birds everywhere are busy at work fulfilling their appointed rounds.

Okay... sure. Clearly, the bird has some significance, but the protagonist spends an equal amount of time thinking about spaghetti. What I also find difficult is that people’s emotions, reactions and motivations in the story don’t make sense. When his wife yells at him at the end of the story, accusing him of killing their cat, I wondered if maybe she was trying to pick a fight, if she’s sick of the marriage and wants out. I also thought she might be more distressed because the cat is named after her brother - how do you tell your brother that the cat you named after him is lost, probably dead. What would that symbolise? Still, to me she seems like an unreasonable person because the way her emotions escalate (apparently without any real trigger) is seriously out of step with normal human behaviour:

I emerge from an after-dinner bath to find my wife sitting all alone the darkened living room. I throw on a gray shirt and fumble through the dark to reach where she’s been dumped like a piece of luggage. She looks so utterly forsaken. If only they’d left her in another spot, she might have seemed happier.

...I take a seat on the sofa opposite her. “What’s the matter?” I ask. “The cat’s dead, I just know it,” my wife says. “Oh c’mon,” I protest. “He’s just off exploring. Soon enough he’ll get hungry and head on back. The same thing happened once before, remember? That time when we were still living in Koenji -” “This time it’s different. I can feel it. The cat’s dead and rotting away in the weeds. Did you search the grass in the vacant house?” “Hey no, stop it. It may be a vacant house, but it’s somebody’s house. I’m not about to go trespassing.” “You killed it!” my wife accuses.

I heave a sigh and give my head another once-over with the towel.

“You killed it with that look of yours!” she repeats from the darkness. “How does that follow?” I say. “The cat disappeared of its own doing. It’s not my fault. That much you’ve got to see.” “You! You never liked that cat, anyway!” “Okay, maybe so,” I admit. “At least I wasn’t as crazy about the cat as you were. Still, I never mistreated it. I fed it every day. Just because I wasn’t enthralled with the little bugger doesn’t mean I killed it. Start saying things like that and I end up having killed half the people on earth.” “Well, that’s you all over,” my wife delivers her verdict. “That’s just so you. Always, always that way. You kill everything without ever playing a hand.”

I am about to counter when she bursts into tears. I can the speech and toss the towel in the bathroom basket, go to the kitchen, take a beer out of the refrigerator, and chug. What an impossible day it’s been!

Am I dumb? Do I not understand adult relationships? Because this seems like a very weird exchange to me. Does the way he reacts to her accusations, with exasperation rather than anger or surprise, suggest that he’s seen her behave like this before? A pop culture analogue: remember the video of Solange beating up Jay-Z in an elevator after the 2014 Met Gala?

Jay-Z is in the white suit. Solange is the one hitting him. There’s a bodyguard trying to keep them apart. And Beyoncé is standing there calmly - not getting involved, just trying to protect her outfit. Here they are directly after the incident.

What a fucking pro. Thousand yard smile. 

At the time, speculation was rife about what Jay-Z did to trigger such a beating (in italics because it’s still surprising that everyone was so okay with the domestic violence). What really thrilled people was the crack in the facade of perfection. A glimpse into their lives that hadn’t been perfectly curated, something we were never meant to see. The common read was that Jay-Z must have done something because otherwise Beyoncé would have stepped in to protect him. The consensus now is that Solange had found out that he’d cheated on her sister. Maybe even that he’d done something at the Gala. This is all now part of the Carter canon because they’ve referenced it in their music to great commercial and critical success.

Another interesting interpretation was that perhaps Beyoncé had seen Solange raging and uncontrollable many times before and knew how to weather the storm. Maybe Solange has a temper when she drinks? Maybe she’ll have an outburst, and all you can do is stay out of the way and ignore it until the mood passes and she sobers up. Perhaps her family is used to this behaviour. There’s no point engaging or trying to reason with her, you just have to let her get it out and then smile for the press at the elevator doors. 

As with Beyoncé, maybe our protagonist is accustomed to bad behaviour: recriminations, tears, tantrums. You kill everything. Most people would want to dig in if their partner said something like that. But perhaps it doesn’t trigger such a strong reaction in him anymore. Another odd behavioural detail, perhaps again showing the protagonist’s muted response to the world, is that he is pretty indifferent to the mysterious phone call. He resolves not to answer the phone, but is otherwise not at all curious about who’s calling him. If I received a call like that from a shadowy stranger, I would sacrifice a great deal to find out who was behind it. I know I’m not alone here - because, as every scammer knows, the most efficient way to get someone to open an email which it is in their best interest to not open (full of malware, spyware, etc.), is to include a declaration of love or romantic interest in the subject line.

Searching for some connection between the events of the story, I wondered if maybe the wife hired the woman on the phone to seduce her husband so that she’d have a concrete reason to divorce him. But this doesn’t really track because just earlier in the day she was encouraging him to stay a house husband - why would she do that if she wanted to leave him? 

There are lots of weird details in the story, none of which signify much to me. Our protagonist is unemployed, he doesn’t have much to do and isn’t looking for much to do, his voice as narrator is anxious, circular, repetitive. The key themes seem to be curiosity, restlessness, loneliness, directionlessness, nessness, etc. But unless the point is that everything that happened in the story was pointless, and that’s supposed to echo the protagonist’s torpor, I don’t get it. Basically every major plot element is still a question mark - are we supposed to dismiss those as magical realism or wishful thinking on the part of the protagonist and move on with our lives, never being curious about who the lady on the telephone is, or why the girl has a messed up leg and won’t go to school? I can’t do it. I want to know! I want to get it.   

Fortunately for us, Murakami wrote a novel called The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle which spins off the short story into the first chapter of the novel and runs from there. Do you think it answers any of my questions above?

Remember the cat named after the wife’s brother? In the novel, the brother is an incestuous rapist. Maybe that is why the narrator doesn’t care for the cat much. Maybe that’s why the wife is accusing her husband of killing it? Some kind of wishful thinking? Still, we don’t get any background on the relationship with her brother until The Wind-up Bird Chronicle so you’re kind of grasping at air in the short story. 

In a chapter of the novel apparently not published in English versions (according to Wikipedia, Vintage, the English publisher, was concerned the book was too long so they had the translator cut about 61 pages from the original 1,379 pages), it is revealed that the phone sex lady was actually his wife. Twist! In the short story he said of the woman’s voice:

I have absolutely no recollection of ever heading this woman’s voice before. And I pride myself on a near-perfect ear for voices, so I’m sure there’s no mistake. This is the voice of a woman I don’t know. A soft, low nondescript voice.

I presume his skill for placing voices isn’t in the novel. Because that seems like a pretty lame trick to pull on your reader. It’s one thing to have an unreliable narrator. But an incompetent, overconfident one is just setting you up for a shitty experience. That’s a book I don’t want to read. I also don’t want to read it because it’s 1,318 pages, so that’s that.

Perhaps it’s wrong to judge Murakami based on one short story. But he put this one at the start of the book! And actually (even though I’ve read hardly any of his stuff) I would argue this story is probably representative of his work. Check out this Murakami bingo card:

Appearing in “The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women”:

Mysterious woman

Ear fetish? Perhaps not - but, like I said, an auditory fixation for sure

Unexpected phone call

Cats

Urban ennui

Secret passageway

Precocious teenager

Cooking

Vanishing cats

This story is in his usual stylistic neighborhood. He’s got to be comfy here. 

What do people like about Murakami? Does his writing make me feel like the universe is singing a song? Certainly, this story has stuck with me. By which I mean, it plagues my every waking thought. It torments me. It twists my toes backwards, blocks the drain of my shower with hair, corrupts my Excel files. It is a blight I shall bear for the rest of my life: who was on the phone? Not only do I not get Murakami, but I don’t get what others might like about him. Like I said at the top, I did enjoy reading this story because there were tantalising threads. I could tolerate the dull inner monologue about the narrator’s erstwhile legal career and how he felt as he drifted off for an afternoon nap if there were a resolution to at least one of the story’s mysteries. But this story does not pay off. Not even a little bit. The idea that you need to read 1,300 more pages for a resolution is frustrating. In 2014, The Guardian covered an event where Murakami spoke about The Wind-up Bird Chronicle:

The author of 13 novels and many short stories admitted to having completely forgotten what he has written – or indeed why – when asked about specific plot points, without seeming bothered at all. “Really?” and “I don’t remember that” were two of his most frequent answers, and he had the audience laughing at his frankness every time. “It was published 20 years ago and I haven’t read it since then!” he said of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, around which the event centred...

“I don’t have any idea at all, when I start writing, of what is to come. For instance, for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the first thing I had was the call of the bird, because I heard a bird in my back yard (it was the first time I heard that kind of sound and I never have since then. I felt like it was predicting something. So I wanted to write about it). The next thing was cooking spaghetti – these are things that happen to me! I was cooking spaghetti, and somebody call. So I had just these two things at the start. Two years I kept on writing. It’s fun! I don’t know what’s going to happen next, every day. I get up, go to the desk, switch on the computer, etc. and say to myself: “so what’s going to happen today?” It’s fun!” 

Fun for you, maybe.

I don’t think a feature of good fiction is wacky shit inexplicably occurring with no explanation or follow up - otherwise, it’s not a narrative.

I don’t need every plot line neatly resolved, and I don’t need to be told explicitly what everything means (I’m happy to do some legwork on my own) but none of the plot points are resolved at all in "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women”. In fiction, as in life, I want things to be connected, to have a cause and effect relationship. I want things to make sense: to have a trigger, make an impact, be remembered. Even if the trigger is hidden, I want people to react to the things happening around them in a plausible way. Ideally, I want to think the things in the story mattered. 

“Up in Michigan” by Hemingway is a short story I like. It’s an interesting depiction of sexual politics, innocent female affection, etc. As I’ve gotten older, the reasons I like it have changed. When I read it when I was 20, I felt some kind of feminine kinship across time with the protagonist because she falls for the wrong guy, and her romanticism is crushed by the weight of the drunk guy she likes falling asleep on her after some bad sex, and she loses a little bit of herself that night - yes, her virginity but also some trust and whatever. And now I find it kind of amusing because you know Hemingway killed with the ladies and probably played the heart breaker (or the drunk dude falling asleep on some poor girl) a hundred times over so it’s funny to imagine Hemingway in his early 20s, having just got done stomping some girl’s romantic aspirations, then sitting down to write this story, all soulful and sensitive, as if he gave a fuck about girls crying over boys who will never like them. Still, Hemingway’s short stories fucking kill. Killing fuck. They’re good. In “Up in Michingan” as in many of Hemingway’s stories, things are implied rather than uttered (as per the law in Hemingwayland), so sometimes you don’t know the background to a conversation and have to deduce what two characters are talking about, but the dynamic between them is revealed through dialog and their actions. You may not understand why something happened, and often there’s no narrator to help you out, but you infer how people feel about it and what it means to them. Not everything needs to happen for a reason: sometimes babies are born with cancer, sometimes the guy you like doesn’t like you back, sometimes guys get into fights outside bars, sometimes you meet a weird teenager in a secret garden path. But the things that happen should matter to you, to your reader, and to your protagonist, at least a little bit. Otherwise what’s the point?

[astoldbyacertifiedunicorn]

The Girl by City and Colour

This is part of a drabble a day for seven days challenge, where you out your playlist on shuffle and write a drabble inspired by each song. @japril12 encouraged me to do this because she believes in me more than I do lol Sorry, if I don’t stick to schedule. :D 

I wish I could do better by you

Cause that's what you deserve

You sacrifice so much of your life

In order for this to work

"Janine, who approved this?" He asks, trying to keep his voice calm. It's not her fault. She's not the one to blame, so he's not going to yell at her. But, he's this close to yelling at somebody and he needs to know who it is.

"I'm sorry, Dr.Avery. But, Dr.Harper Avery thought it would be best if it was you who gave the key note at the conference, since you're set to take over soon, anyway." She say, sounding a little nervous.

"Don't remind me," He groans, "There's no way I'm getting out of this, am I?"

She smiles regretfully, and shakes her head. She's a good assistant, loyal, smart and has never once tried to make a move on him. He appreciates all that. So, he keeps to his promise and doesn’t take his anger out on her.

"Thank you. Tell John we'll be taking off tomorrow morning to Tokyo." He asks her, and she jots it down on her tablet before heading off.

He falls back on his chair, and runs a finger across his brow. It's something April always does when he's frustrated, smooth his brow. She always offers a kiss after that and he misses that now. He has to call her. He has to let her know. He's already wearing too thin on the whole business trips allowance. He's been gone for a almost a week now, and it looks like he'll have to extend that trip to about a week and a half.  He's not particularly looking forward to this conversation.

While I'm off chasing my own dreams

Sailing around the world

Please know that I'm yours to keep

My beautiful girl

Harper had been sick for some time now. It was, ironically, a problem with his heart. It wasn't performing as well as it should. He wasn't set to die any day soon, but he wasn't taking his chances. Even in his potentially final days, his grandfather's sole goal was the future of his foundation. They were so clearly different people, with a set of completely different priorities.

And yet, he couldn't help but feel the need to step up. This was his legacy too, after all. He wasn't sure what it was, maybe it was the need to prove his family wrong or maybe, it's his wife who'd made him realize the importance of the work the foundation was doing by funding revolutionaries of medicine. He sometimes wondered if it was the talk of a ‘purpose’ he heard in church that made it all feel special. Not that he believed in religion, even after all these years, but he liked the whole idea of a purpose, of being a part of something bigger than himself. That's what the foundation was to him now, and so maybe it wasn't just his grandfather's or mother's dream anymore, maybe it was also his.

He just hated the traveling. He hated the conferences, the award ceremonies, the galas, the meetings. He hated anything that meant spending time away from his wife and children. To top it all off, April was pregnant again, this time with twins, and they already had 2 kids under 5. He hated leaving all the responsibility to her and flying off for the foundation.

He hated mingling with other doctors, who'd make the constant 'thank god, my wife isn't here' jokes, or the other men who'd nudge him and revel in the joy of being away from their families.

Jackson recalled how before he fell in love with April, marriage and children had seemed like the dreariest thing in the world. He never cared for it and he never thought it'd be something he'd enjoy. He loved been independent, only sharing a bed when he wanted to. He wasn't too thrilled about getting into something that meant he had to be tied down. But then he met April. And he wanted to be super glued to her for the rest of his life, way before he actually went ahead and married her. What he thought would be constricting and dull was the most brilliant decision of his life. He loved been married to her. He loved the beautiful children she gave him. Every single day, after work, he couldn't get home fast enough.

So unlike most of them, he hated having to leave April and their kids even if it was for just a couple of days. He couldn't fall asleep anymore without her tiny body pressed against him, her hair sprawled out across his chest and the feeling of her breath on his neck. He loved the fact that he could come home, help his kids with homework, put them sleep, kiss them goodnight, give them everything his own father never did and then go to bed and make love to his wife, who also happened to be his best friend, his favorite person. It gave him no joy to miss even one day of this wonderful routine. 

When you cry a piece of my heart dies

Knowing that I may have been the cause

If you were to leave

Fulfill someone else's dreams

I think I might totally be lost

She picks up after a few rings, and he instantly smiles at the sound of her voice.

"Hello, beautiful." He says, and he can almost see her blushing, after all these years.

"Hi, honey. Hold on, I'm putting you on a speaker," there's a click, "Say hi to daddy guys."

"Hi my dad!" It's Samuel's soft voice that rings through first.

"Dada. Dada. Dada." He hears Harriet yelling loudly, in the background. That had been one of the few words she was still able to speak, on account of being only 2 years old.

"Hi, you two. I hope you're not giving mom any trouble."

"No, my dad. I is very good. Hattie bad. I is good." Samuel says, and both the parents laugh at his sibling instinct to tell on his sister. He's a wonderful child, with a massive heart, but not even he is prone to deny an opportunity to throw his sister under the bus.

"Good boy, Sammy. But how about we cut your sister some slack, hm? She's just two. Listen, I'll call you a little later, okay," He says, although he can picture Samuel's face falling, and it breaks his heart, "April, can I talk to you in private?"

He can feel her hesitation as she picks up the phone, without another word, giving instructions to the kids, before likely hiding away in the hallway.

"You're extending the trip, aren't you?" She sighs, and he rubs his face. His wife is too instinctive sometimes.

"Babe, it's Harper."

"How long?" She asks, ignoring his excuses.

"About 3 more days." He mumbles.

"3 more days?! Jackson! You're going to be gone for more than a week!" She's frustrated he can tell, and he hopes she's not getting stressed out too much because it's not good for the babies, "Samuel painted a picture at school today of his family. It has the three- five of us at home, and you on a plane. I had to explain to his teacher that you weren't an absent parent. That was fun."

He winces. That stung a little. He never wanted his kids to feel like he wasn't home enough.

"I'm sorry, I'll talk to him." He promises.

"Harriet has been acting out. She threw her food across the room 2 times, and last night she was inconsolable. She kept asking for you." She sounds like she’s on the verge of tears at the point, and it makes him want to reach out and pull her against him. Harriet's diva moments weren't easy to handle, least of all, alone.

"Baby, I'm sorry-"

"I miss you. So much. I hate sleeping alone, you know that. I missed you at work so much, I took some of your shifts at the burn center," She says, and she pauses before letting out a loud sob, "and I've been this hormonal mess this past week, and as much as I love being pregnant, I could do without wanting to burst into tears every other minute, and I miss you so much. I just want you to come home, Jackson."

He doesn't say anything. He sits there, holding the phone against his ear, wondering if any of this was really worth it, as she cries softly on the other side.

She stops after a while, "Call me before you take off, okay?"

He nods, although she can't see him.

"Thank you." He says.

"For what?"

"For staying. For not leaving me." He replies, and he means it. If she were to get sick of him not being around and leave him, for someone more present, he's not sure how he'd cope.

"I don't have a choice, do I? There's this thing where I love you too much to even think about leaving you." She teases him, eventhough he can tell she's still sad.

He grins. 

"I love you too," He says, "Give me a kiss."

She chuckles, for real this time, and exaggeratedly blows a kiss at him.

"Go. No more after this one for sometime, okay?"

"Okay." He says, but they both know he can't make that promise. He's just grateful, that she cares.

You don't ask for no diamond rings

No delicate strings of pearls

That's why I wrote this song to sing

My beautiful girl

He gets up from his seat and heads to down to the lobby. There's the guilt, but there's also\a million papers to sign before he boards he plane and a speech that needs to be made for tomorrow night. It distracts him, somewhat.

He thinks about sending her flowers, maybe some jewelry. He could put an order with Tiffany's in a second, but this is April, she's still the same girl he married all those years ago. The one who still insisted he stop sending the clothes to the dry cleaners.

"Hey, Janine."

His assistant looks up as he gets into the car.

"You know that video of me and Dr.Webber?"

She chuckles a little, and nods her head, "The one you told me to make sure your wife and mother never see?"

He nods his head, clears his throat in embarrassment. It's a by-product of an awkward step father-son bonding moment, that had been eased by alcohol. It was his own misfortune that a karaoke machine had been nearby.

"Send it to April."

She takes her phone out, and types in a quick email, before looking up at him, "I'll get you home by Tuesday."

He smiles, gratefully and his own phone lights up.

A : I love you, Tina Turner.

She was there. Always.

My beautiful girl