So maybe that’s why he stood there, watching the mother and child embrace, because of that lack of constant fury that he was so sure would be permanent. It was gone around them.
And when he heard the kid’s muffled comment about Elena’s smell, it happened again, he wanted to laugh. Or at least smile.
The need was almost as strong as the one to kill.
But he overcame it.
Polly, who was standing behind the mother and son, let out a giggle as tears poured down her face.
Lance didn’t tear his gaze away from the small dark head and the larger one with thick hair for long.
He watched until Elena finally let the kid go, framing his face with her hands, eyes roving over it as if she were needing to commit it to memory. Lance had expected her eyes to be wet, tears streaming down her face.
But nothing.
He knew how deep she was feeling. It was painted all over her. In every part of her body, the way she held herself, the way she fucking breathed. It was painful to watch. She was experiencing it, without shedding a fucking tear.
Even Rosie had leaked from her eyes when they got the kid back.
Rosie.
But Elena’s eyes stayed dry.
“How come I had to stay with that guy?” the kid asked. “He said he was my daddy. Is that true, Mom? Because it sounded real true. And he even had the same eyes as me, and a badge, just like you said my dad had. He promised me that it was okay. Did I do wrong by going with him? Is that why Captain America came to get me?”
Something in him clenched.
Something in his chest area.
No matter how often he’d tried to correct the kid when he’d referred to him as ‘Captain,’ he hadn’t let up, not even when he tried to snap it at him.
He seemed immune to the demeanor that had ensured most of the population avoided him at all costs.
The way he liked it.
Elena paused with the question. “No, honeybun, you did absolutely nothing wrong. And yes, that was your daddy. He just didn’t tell me that he was taking you for a sleepover. And I got so worried I had my friends come to pick you up.”
“I didn’t know you were friends with superheroes, Mom! That’s so cool.”
Elena grinned, it was sad, tight, full of exhaustion and sorrow. But it was beautiful. She was. Even in the same, wrinkled clothes she’d been wearing since the previous day, her hair knotted and tangled, her eyes bloodshot and paleness to her face that wasn’t natural. She was stunning. It attracted him even more, all that pain changing her. He liked it when ugly things brushed beautiful things.
Except that bruise. That fucking bruise that had only gotten worse since the previous day. It was shades of black and purple, the skin raised and it covered almost half her face.
The fucker must have put all his strength behind that punch. Everything he could give.
He didn’t give a fuck what Keltan said, about Elena’s wishes, he was going to end that piece of shit. Not today, or even tomorrow. But one day, when all of this had blown over, when he was least expecting it. He’d nurture this feeling, this toxicity in his bones looking at her beautifully bruised face, looking at the years shaved off her life worrying about her son.
It would happen.
“What happened to your face, Mom?” the kid asked, moving his small hand to gingerly brush it over the violence his father had wrecked on his mother.
She smiled. Tight still. “I was silly and forgot about being careful,” she replied.
Lance noted that she didn’t feed her son a lie about falling over or walking into something. She didn’t tell him the specifics, but she didn’t lie.
That was important to him somehow, and he wasn’t even sure how.
“Do you want me to butterfly kiss it better?” the kid asked.
Elena’s eyes lit up.
It was a gut punch.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, tickling her son.
He let out a giggle that seemed so separate from this whole environment. Kids were really resilient as fuck.
Though he should have walked out a thousand times before this, and despite the fact he knew he was making a huge fucking mistake, he got to watch the small boy press his face up against his mother’s and brush her angry bruise with his eyelashes.
It was then, and only then that he turned and walked out.
Elena
Nathan grinned as he pulled back, eyes lit with happiness that was so simple and so precious because it had meant someone survived these past hours.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded, choking on my happiness. “Better,” I croaked out.
Better was not a word for what I was. I knew that these hours had broken something in me, and I would have to deal with it for life. I was worse in that respect. Knowing that Robert was obviously intent on getting back into our lives. That terrified me. It also strengthened me. The little boy who’d just used his eyelashes to fix the bruise on my face his father created had fixed a little part of my soul. Solidified it. Turned it into armor, ready for a battle.