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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 1 day

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You Call It Madness But I Call It Love

Chapter 14: You're All I'm Dreaming Of

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy. This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter fourteen of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 5.8K

Warnings: References to sex, Mentions of sex (not really explicit), Self-detrimental thoughts, Cursing, Drinking/Snorting Drugs, Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, a little OOC, Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from Soldier Boy's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

********************************************

Previously:

"Y/f/n Y/l/n?" The dark haired man asks, an accent tilting the ends of his words.

"Who's asking?"

He pulls out a badge, holding it up to the peep hole. "I'm Agent Butcher, this is Agent Campbell. We’re from the CIA, here to ask you a couple of questions about Soldier Boy."

You open the door to look at them. "The rapper?"

"What?" Agent Butcher looks confused.

"The rapper? Soulja Boy-" You arch a brow feigning confusion. "Because honestly I don't understand why the CIA would be asking me about that."

“No.” Agent Butcher holds up a photo.

You keep your face impassive. It’s a photo of Ben and you at a movie premiere the week before he left to go to Nicaragua.

“You’re here to talk to me about my mom?” You flit your eyes back to the two men standing in the doorway, easily slipping into the lie that you and Legend invented.

“Your mom?” Agent Campbell looks confused.

“Yeah. Indigo. Who did you think I meant?" You ask.

*******************************************

Present Day

*Soldier Boy POV*

The longer Ben sat in the motel room the more he thought of you. It wasn’t unusual. Ben was always thinking of you, even before he fucked everything up and before you two became supes, Ben rarely thought about anyone else. He hated that he did that, hated that you were always on his mind because he believed that he shouldn’t care about you as much as he did. Because why would you want someone like him? He was a fuck up before and after the serum and you deserved better. You always had deserved better.

When his cage had finally opened your name had been on his lips. He was ready to see you again, tell you how sorry he was, and how much he loved you. He hoped that it was you finally coming to take him away, but it wasn’t.

Y/n said she never wanted to see you again. Of course it wasn’t her.

He sighs and takes a bite of cheeseburger. His first one in 40 years, that the British fuck had gotten him, but it tastes like sandpaper, because he can't focus on anything but you.

"Well we know a few of your old team members are already dead." Butcher breezes pacing in the dingy motel room. "Countess, Gunpowder, Indigo-"

Ben reaches for his knife to grind up the oxy on the table in front of him, hoping that the pills will bring more relief than the whiskey.

It had been three days since he got out of Russia. Two since he visited Legend, when Legend told him that you were dead and Ben threw Legend's red armchair through the window of his apartment.

When Legend said it, Ben couldn't breathe, couldn't grasp that you were really gone. He didn't want to believe it.

You were all he thought the past 40 years, you were the only reason why he wanted to get the fuck out of Russia. He hated himself for what he had done, felt that he deserved the torture, but it was nothing compared to how he had tortured himself over the years.

The last thing he said to you often replayed in his mind and the way you looked when he said it burned against his eyes at night. He hadn't meant to hurt you, he didn't want to hurt you, never did. You were his oldest friend, the only person he knew that could be honest with him, call him out on all his shit, the only person who knew the real him, and the only person he could trust to be the voice of reason when he lost his temper.

And he threw you away like you meant nothing to him, when you were the only person who meant everything, the one person that he actually gave a fuck about.

Ben thought about your last night together often, remembered the dinner in the little restaurant when you wore a dress the color of his suit and looked more beautiful than he'd ever seen you as you danced to the song that always made him think of you. Remembered how he felt when he finally took you to bed, how each time you cried out his name it made him feel proud that it was him making you feel that way, that you wanted him as much as he had wanted you for so long.

Of course, then the memory of the next morning broke in his mind. When he woke up before you and held you closer than he'd held anyone else, slowly stroking your back and watching the gentle rise and fall of your chest as you slept and allowing himself to feel at peace. He couldn’t stop smiling in that moment because you genuinely wanted him to hold you close to him. When he woke up with you in his arms when you were children he feared that you wouldn’t want him to hold you, so he always pulled away, afraid of the rejection. He felt rejection from his father, but Ben knew that if you ever rejected him he wouldn't recover.

And then I rejected her, like a dumb fuck.

Ben was not a cuddler, he didn't think it was manly, but being there with you the morning after was different, and he believed he could have laid there for eternity listening to the soft beat of your heart where you rested against his chest and watch the gentle rise and fall of your body as you breathed. He had trailed his fingers along your spine as you laid on his chest, happy for the first time in his life.

When you told him that you loved him, he had been stunned. He remembered the soft blush of your cheeks and wide smile as you said it. He had wanted to say it back, to hear you say it once more, and to make love to you again while he said it- because he knew that’s what you had done together. He had fucked a lot of women, but that night with you was different, he cared how you felt, wanted it to be good for you, wanted to be everything you needed.

But the thought of you loving him scared him.

As much as it made him a pussy, Ben understood that it scared him.

You shouldn't love him because he didn't think that he could be what you wanted, that after all these years he couldn't be enough for you, and he believed that he shouldn't care for anyone as much as he did for you, because that meant weakness. That meant that every time you were on a mission together he would have to worry about you more than anything else. And Soldier Boy couldn't be weak.

So he pushed you away and ran to Countess. Ben's jaw tightens.

The psychotic bitch that sold me out.

It had surprised him, how recently she had died. Butcher hadn't taken responsibility for it as he had for Gunpowder, which made Ben curious as to who had done it.

"Are you sure that Indigo is dead?" Ben asks taking another bite of the hamburger, but it still tastes like nothing.

He wondered if that was because you were gone and then wondered if he'd ever be able to taste anything ever again.

"What?" Hughie looks up from his bag of food. "Why would you think that?"

"Countess. Y/n hated her." Ben takes a swig from the bottle of whiskey on the table to try and dissipate some of the sadness he felt when he thought of you being gone. "Who told you that y/n was dead?"

"Her daughter." Hughie answers.

Ben freezes, his muscles tightening as a sickening feeling rises in the pit of his stomach. "She-she had a kid?" The thought made jealousy burn in his chest. Someone else had loved you, someone else had been man enough to say the thing that kept him up at night.

Of course she had a kid. She said she wanted a family. I was just too fucking stupid and couldn't admit that I wanted to give her that, to give her anything she wanted because I fucking love her. Did I really think she was going to wait for me? After everything I did to her? After everything I said?

"Yeah-" Butcher shrugs. "Spitting image of her."

"She looks like her?" The thought of seeing you smile again makes something stir in his chest.

But it wouldn't be y/n. Ben reasons to himself. Because she’s gone.

His hand tightens on the bottle of whiskey and he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter in his hand as a wave of sadness comes over him. The memory of you and him at Fairmount Park, when you painted him briefly flashes across his mind and he allows himself to bask in your smile for a few fleeting moments before it’s gone. It makes him feel like he’d taken a knife to the chest at the thought that he’d never see it again and never hear you laugh.

"Yeah. Calls herself the same thing." Butcher continues.

"I want to meet her." Ben states taking one last drag of whiskey from the bottle.

"What?" Hughie chokes on his food.

Ben stands up. "I want to meet her. Where is she?"

"Oi, I don't think that's a good idea. She didn't really seem too keen on seeing you-"

"What do you mean?" Ben spits back, eyes narrowing.

Hughie shifts in his seat uncomfortably and Ben can hear Hughie's heartbeat quicken in fear.

"Don't be a pussy and just tell me." Ben snaps, becoming angry.

"She didn't want to talk too much about her mom. But she did mention how upset her mom was with you." Hughie states.

Ben felt the memories of the past creep up on him again.

Of course she was upset.

He remembered how broken you had looked the night you caught him and Countess. The look on your face forever sealed in his memory. He’d never seen you look so small. Honestly he was surprised that you hadn’t killed Countess that night. If he had walked in on anybody fucking you after the night you shared together, he knew that he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from killing them.

Because you were his.

He thinks about Howard briefly. Ben had almost killed him before you were supes when he called you his at the dance. It was also difficult to walk away when Howard hurt you.

Ben’s thoughts drift back to Countess. Her body had been burned beyond recognition, but her head was no longer attached. It would have taken an extreme amount of force for someone to do that.

Could she still be alive?

Ben thought about your ability. He was the only one who knew what it really was, that you didn't just come back from the dead, that your body was able to take the power of any supe that killed you. It made you incredibly indestructible, more invulnerable than him, even though he didn't want to admit that. He liked the thought that he was stronger than you because it meant that you needed him to protect you. He liked the thought that you needed him.

The day you both figured it out momentarily dances across his mind, making him tighten his jaw.

He remembered the sound of the gun and how you immediately pushed him out of the way to take the bullet for him, because you didn't know he was bulletproof and your gut reaction was to protect him.

Ben remembered how he held you when you took your last breath, watched the fear and pain in your eyes, mirrored in his own body at the thought of losing you, of trying to exist in a world where you weren't there. It was how he felt now.

Purposeless.

He remembered the broken feeling that rose in his chest when he heard your heart beat for the last time and how he begged internally for you to come back to him, because he didn't want to live if it meant losing you. He remembered gently brushing your hair back from your face as relief swelled in his chest when you came back and he clung to you like you had been gone a millennia. Of course after he had yelled at you for being so stupid, for putting yourself in that situation, tried to act like he didn't care as much as he did, but you'd only yelled back and refused to listen to him.

She was just so damn stubborn all the time.

"I don't care. I want to talk to her." Ben grabs the black leather coat that Butcher brought him and changes into a dark t-shirt and a pair of jeans. "Take me to her."

Butcher rolls his eyes. "Well, she did call the other day and say that she had some information for me." Butcher shrugs. "Let's go."

"But-" Hughie interjects.

"Oi Hughie. Calm down."

"She lost her mother. I don't think she wants any reminders of that."

"I promise I'll be gentle, cupcake." Ben rolls his eyes and pushes past Hughie to the door, the thought of seeing you again or just someone who shared your face enough to make him feel something for the first time in forty years.

***************************************************

"Oi, Y/n you in there." Butcher presses the call button on the outside wall of the brick apartment building.

Ben looks up and down the street, noting the people who are walking down the cracked sidewalks. It was weird to be back in New York, to be in a city that he lived in for so long and feel out of place. Hughie had tried to explain some things to him about the new century, but Ben was still confused, and honestly he didn’t care. The only thing he could focus on was you and the possibility of you living here.

Not you. He corrected. But maybe. He still didn't quite believe that you were dead, that you could die.

A minute passes and Ben is tired of waiting. He confidently walks up to the glass front door, and pulls with enough of his superstrength to break the lock and open it.

"What are you doing?" Hughie whispers following behind him, but Ben ignores the question strutting straight to the stairwell.

"What floor?"

"8th." Butcher says.

When they finally reach your door Ben pauses. He's not sure if he can look you in the eye, not after all of these years, if it really is you. And if it wasn't then what? What would I say to her daughter?

The thought makes the fear that he refuses to acknowledge grip his chest, the fear that you were dead followed by the feeling of purposelessness that seemed to follow him since he heard the news.

If it is her daughter, maybe she’ll tell me if y/n suffered, if she died thinking that I hated her.

The memory of the fight stirs in his chest as Butcher knocks on the door and waits. But nobody answers.

"Must not be home." Hughie shrugs. "We could call her-" He begins to say, but Butcher deftly picks the lock and the door swings open into the darkness.

As soon as Butcher opens the front door of the apartment and Ben steps through, all he smells is you. It's enough to confirm in his heart that it is you and not your daughter. He felt something in his chest stutter to a halt as he inhales the familiar scent of lavender and lemons. It was everywhere, all around him, flooding his senses.

And for the first time in forty years he felt comfort, at peace. For a moment all thoughts of revenge, rage, and justice fades from his mind and he is left with the memory of you.

Ben immediately is transported back to those quiet moments when he settled into bed next to you after climbing through your window. When you would fall asleep before him and curl against him subconsciously, your hair tickling his cheeks and sending the soft smell over him. The nights when he’d wrap his arm around you as soon as you fell asleep because he was afraid to do it when you were awake, afraid that you would reject him like so many others did. Those nights with you outweighed any other time in his life. He remembered that each time he crawled through your window you smiled up at him, were happy to see him, so different than the home he left behind, where his father wouldn't look at him.

He remembered the nights after you took Compound V, when even after a hard day when he was a dick, you still allowed him into your bed, allowed him to sleep next to you. Those quiet moments in the late hours of the morning when you cuddled into his side and muttered words in your sleep that he couldn’t understand all the while he brushed your hair back from your face stayed with him. As much as he refused to admit to anyone, refused to show any emotion, being there with you, felt more like home than anywhere else.

That's why he asked you to come with him in the first place. He couldn't leave you behind. Maybe that was selfish of him, but he would not pretend to be unselfish, not when it came to you.

He thinks about all the suitors that he scared away before him and you left Philadelphia, all his friends who expressed interest in you only to have him drive them away, and of course the one that wouldn't leave. The one that bought you jewelry and finally asked you to marry him, another reason why Ben convinced you to come with him.

The jealousy was familiar. Ben didn't want to leave you behind, the thought that some other man would possess you or love you made his chest hurt. You were his. No one felt the way about you that he did, never would. No one would know you, care about you or understand you like he did, and no one knew you as long as he did. And although Ben had trouble expressing it, he knew that he loved you, he hated himself for being unable to say it. He couldn’t decide if admitting that he loved you made him a pussy or it was his fear of telling you that made him one.

Ben looks around the apartment, noticing the artwork on the walls, the messy studio table, and smiles. He remembered the way you always had a sketchbook with you, he used to tease you about it, but you would only roll your eyes at him and continue to draw. He loved watching you sketch, watching how focused you were as you created something so effortlessly. He remembered watching you paint with the watercolors he got you, feeling a swell of pride that he was the one who started that love. Ben had been afraid to give them to you, afraid that it was too thoughtful, but then he remembered how widely you smiled, how happy you had been.

The apartment felt like you.

And by now again he knows that it is you and perhaps that's worse, because now he has to face you and he doesn't know how to fix this, any of it.

You weren’t like him or anyone else. You didn’t bend under easy promises and gifts like the other women he had been with over the years. Your ability to read him and understand him meant that you were special. And you were. You were special to him.

He moves forward towards the darkened hallway.

"Hey wait-" He hears Hughie say behind him, but Ben ignores him.

Ben finds your bedroom easily and the smell grows when he opens the door. He takes in the controlled chaos of the room before his eyes fall on the suitcase on the large bed.

Where was she going?

Ben pulls your supe suit out of the bag and smiles at the memory of the day you first tried it on. You never wore anything form fitting, hid your shape under shirts and pants, but the day he saw you in this for the first time made his breath catch in his chest. He knew that you thought you were fat, but Ben never believed that. He loved every curve of your body, loved to trace them with his eyes when you weren’t looking and when you finally let him take you to bed, his hands. Seeing you in the suit for the first time was almost enough to push him over the edge, but he kept it together.

He notices the plane ticket on the edge of the bed, beneath the bag, and he pulls out the printed piece of paper, reading the fine print.

She was going to Russia. She was going to come get me even after I-

The emotion that rises in Ben's chest is unfamiliar. He did not like giving in to emotions the same way others did because he believed that made him weak, a lesson his father had ingrained into his mind. But this time he doesn't attempt to push it down. The plane ticket crumples in his hand as his jaw clenches tight. A part of him was relieved, relieved to know that somewhere deep down you still cared about him, maybe that meant that you would be willing to see him.

But he still didn’t know how to fix this. He'd never been good with words or apologizing or, well, love in general. He’d never loved anyone before you. He frowns at the thought of all the meaningless flings he'd had in the past. There was only one relationship with a woman he'd ever been in, with you, and he'd fucked it all up.

He kneels and reaches under your bed, looking for the box he knows will be there. It's a dark rosewood, one from your bedroom when you were a kid, but now it holds a different value. Ben sits on the end of your bed and opens it.

He had caught you with it a few times, usually when you started drinking or on your birthday, always on your birthday. It's why he never let you stay at home, he made sure you came out with him, because your mind would drift when you were alone and Ben didn't like the dark places it took you.

Ben rarely liked leaving you alone. Whenever he was on movie shoots in another country he would call you just to hear your voice, and even when he went to bed with someone else and they fell asleep he would stay up thinking of you, wondering if you missed him as much as he missed you, and wondering if you could sleep without him because he couldn’t sleep without you. Another reason why he pushed you away, believing that it made him weak.

The photo on top is unfamiliar to him, it's newer, and shows you standing with a young brunette woman outside of a college dorm. He traces the lines of your face with his thumb. He hadn't seen a picture of you in forty years, but you were just as beautiful as he remembered. The one that follows is also unfamiliar, you holding a baby wrapped in a pink blanket, the baby’s hand wrapped around your index finger, and you looking down at it like it's your whole world.

The look in your eyes does something to him. He remembered when you looked at him like that, the morning when you woke up next to him and whispered those four little words to him that he always wanted to hear while holding his face tenderly between your palms, "I love you Ben."

When things got bad in Russia he would strain to remember the memory, remember the way you looked at him, the way the words sounded falling from your lips. The words that he always wanted to hear you say. The morning that he wished he could change and the disastrous night he wished never happened.

"We shouldn't be here." Hughie says to Butcher in the living room.

"She ain't home. We'll go when he wants to leave." Ben hears Butcher respond.

But Ben knew that he didn't want to leave, wouldn't want to leave. He had spent the past forty years away from you and he didn't want to spend anymore time apart from you, even if that made him a pussy, he didn't care.

"This isn't a good idea. Y/n didn't want him here-" Hughie tries again

"Oi, look at this. She's looking at flights." Butcher states, when he notices the laptop on the counter.

"What?" Hughie asks.

"If it ain't her, how would she know about Russia?" Butcher says back. Ben hears a rustling like Butcher is going through the trashcan “And take a look at this-“

Ben shuts out their conversation and pulls other photos out, finally pulling out strip of paper from a Photo Booth. It was the day he took you to a baseball game, before you were supes. You’d never been to one before and Ben had only been to the one his father took him to, when his dad got drunk and forgot Ben was with him. Ben frowns for a second but then looks back at the collection of photos on the strip. It was a good day. He had bought you a ridiculous hat, and you'd sat next to him looking radiant in the sunlight like you always did sketching him. Ben loved it when you drew him, it made him happy to know that when you looked through the pages of your sketchbook later that you were thinking of him. He often wondered if you thought of him as much as he thought of you. You'd both gotten drunk on cheap beer and when a woman yelled at you for being unladylike you flipped her the bird and said some choice words that made the tips of the woman’s ears turn pink.

Ben loved that about you, that you never seemed to care what others thought of you, especially your friendship with him. Everyone you knew had told you to keep a wide berth from him, but you didn’t listen.

Ben traces your young face in the photo with his fingertip.

Maybe she should have.

He turns back and pulls out a yellowed photo of you and your mother. Ben frowns at the expression on your face. You were never happy when she was around. He hated your mother, not just because she hated him, but he hated what she did to you. He hated that she made you feel ugly, when you were the most beautiful woman that he'd ever seen. Even as teenagers, Ben couldn’t help but notice how pretty your figure was and how you filled out the soft dresses you wore when you went with him on adventures through the city. He never thought you were too fat, if anything he liked your curves. The night you were finally together he worshipped them, wanted you to know that you were beautiful, to understand that he saw your beauty, because he knew that you still thought about what your mother said to you. He hated that she had such a hold on your life even though she had been dead for so long.

He hears a rattle along the bottom of the box and when he picks up the source of the noise he immediately wishes he hadn't. It's a single pearl, and Ben understands what it's from. It's from the necklace he bought you for your birthday, the one that you ripped off your neck when you found him with Countess. He had agonized over whether or not to get it for you, thought that maybe it was too thoughtful or rather was too romantic. But the look on your face when you opened the box made him feel like he’d swallowed the sun.

Ben's teeth clench together as a wave of guilt crashes over him remembering what he yelled at you, remembering what he did to you. He thought that it had been what he needed to do, that he needed to push you away because he didn't want to care about anyone else, at least not the way he cared about you.

He hadn’t thought it would hurt as much to say those things to you, but it had all but ripped his own heart out.

But even before you found them together all Ben felt was guilt. He wasn’t enjoying anything he was doing to Countess, all he wanted was to do those things with you. He thought it was necessary, that by doing those things with her he could somehow clear his head of you, but all it did was make him feel guilty and want you more.

He thinks about the days that followed before his mission in Nicaragua, when he agonized over calling you, over showing up to your apartment, but he couldn't. He couldn't face you. He hadn't been able to sleep those nights before the mission and wanted desperately for you to be there with him. Ben couldn't sleep when you weren’t with him. He hated that he'd finally gotten you and then lost you so quickly.

Ben notices a velvet box, and he sighs when he opens it. It's an engagement ring, the engagement ring that you showed him the night he asked you to come with him.

He briefly wonders if you thought that was his version of a proposal. That you believed, turning your back on your family and coming with him meant more.

I’m such a fucking idiot. I should’ve-

“It really is a shitty ring.” He mutters. And it was, it was all wrong for you. Ben knew what you liked and he couldn’t believe that this was what that asshole got you.

Why did she keep it? Because she wanted to remember what her life could have been like if I didn’t ask her to come?

Ben remembers when he asked you if he ruined your life, before everything exploded. He imagined that after that night you changed your answer, because how could you look at him, let alone want to be around him after what he did to you?

Ben examines the ring again allowing the memory of the night you showed it to him push its way into his mind. He remembered being scared, of course he’d never admit that, he wasn’t a pussy, but he acutely remembered the moment you showed it to him. The fear of losing you that struck him when he noticed it on your finger, as the weight of what it represented settled on his shoulders. He knew that the asshole who proposed would quickly turn you against him, and this time you’d believe it because you loved that dick or-

Ben reconsidered. She didn’t love him because she came with you. She loved you.

He remembers again what it was like to be with you in bed, when you whispered those words so tenderly to him and is struck with guilt all over again.

You had looked almost sheepish when you showed me the ring, like you were afraid to tell me-

Of course she was afraid to tell you. She wanted you to propose but you didn’t instead you fucking ruined her life and strung her along for 40 fucking years-

He never understood how you did that. Survived all those years with him while he fucked his way through everything that crossed his path. How you continued to stand by him when he was a dick to you and so many others. And yet you never let any other man into your life.

He remembers the night after you got between him and Noir, remembers asking you if you wanted to marry Howard, but you said no. The other things you said struck something within him. When you said you wanted someone to come home to, someone who would love you, a family. He remembers how you looked the night of your birthday in the restaurant, how you watched the couples around your table and smiled. He knew what you were thinking, and he had tried to show you that he could be that for you by taking your hand where it rested on the table even though it went against every instinct he had. He wanted so badly to give you those things, to make you happy. Ben didn’t want you to find that with anyone else. He would have loved to have a family with you, to be with you always the way you were always there for him, or were until he fucked it all up. He remembers asking you to marry him, apart of it had been a joke, just to gauge your reaction, but deep down he was curious. He hadn't expected it to hurt so much when you laughed him off.

Ben sighs. When you spoke about leaving Payback he was worried, worried that it meant you would leave him too and then who would he have? No one. It’s why he spent so many nights in your bed, with you curled up beside him. He didn’t want to be anywhere else.

He shuts the ring box with a snap and throws it back inside. The memory of the night you spent together is just on the edge begging to be let in. Ben indulged in that memory many times over the years, letting it strengthen him. Remembered every detail. It was the first time that he actually cared what someone else wanted in bed. He remembered how your cheeks blushed when you told him that you’d never had sex before and how you said that you wanted it to be him. He never imagined that you would want him the same way that he’d wanted you all those years.The exact reason why he drowned himself in so many other women, because he thought that’s what he needed to do. Because you deserved someone better than him, you always had.

The thought is immediately followed by what he yelled at you in the bathroom at the premiere, when he turned something that you believed to be special, one of the happiest nights of his life, into a cheap fuck.

He remembered the broken expression on your face. He'd never seen you look so small. Ben always admired how strong you were, but as soon as he said those things to you, he watched you crumble when he broke your heart.

Worse still was when he grabbed you. He fights the shudder, remembering how he grabbed onto your arms. As many times as you’d stood between him and the source of his anger, he’d never laid a hand on you but that night, he was just so damn frustrated. You were looking at him with those big eyes of yours that always saw through him, understood him, and he was frustrated because he wanted to tell you that he loved you that he always had loved you but he couldn’t. He couldn’t admit it because he was a man and damn it a man didn’t show emotions and he was Soldier Boy he didn’t need anyone-

His jaw clenches together so tight that he hears the click of his teeth.

But he did. He knew that all he needed was you.

I’m such a fucking asshole. Y/n doesn’t need me and I don’t deserve her-

Ben raises his head to look at your bedroom door as he hears the front door of your apartment swing open. And he freezes.

Because why would you want to see him? He had ruined your life.

***************************************

A/N: Alright everybody we made it to the chapter right before the reunion!!! What will happen? Will she forgive him? Who knows?! Even me, honestly. 😂

Thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to my taglist, please let me know. :)

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