[ it was different when the Beatles sang it ]

[ifthebroomfits]

WHO: Nico and Victor
WHEN: December 2017
WHERE: California
WHAT: Nico and Victor have an awkward talk about a very sensitive subject

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[ifthebroomfits]

"I can't," Nico sighs, bowing her head and pressing her face against the side of his neck. She can feel the prickle of tears coming, the cusp of a breakdown that she's been courting for months. With a wrathful kind of stubbornness, she doesn't want Victor to see. She's not sure how much more he can take and it's obvious that he's already taxing himself as-is.

But jesus, the care in his voice. It's enough to make her fingers tremble with the need to hold onto the piece of Victor that's surfaced. She just wants him to stay, to be the human that's still there in all the cracks and torn-out pieces of psyche.

The soft noise of hurt that he makes, hollow as a punch to the stomach, kills her.

"I can't see a doctor. The baby's a fourth Skrull and a forth Kree and inside me. I can't go to just anyone, and it---it'll register all through the resistance if I do. Billy and Teddy aren't supposed to be alive. I can't jeopardize them."

More than I already have, she mentally adds. It hangs, pendulous, threatening to drop.

"I don't know what to do, Vic."

[killbotwashere]

He lets her cling, and strokes her head, and just breathes for awhile.

"Gotta be somebody. Someplace. McCoy. That...ninja guy."

Their trio's been a hearty 'fuck you' to the government, the status quo, 'collaborators', for quite awhile, and a whole lot of people would be delighted if they burned out and collapsed. But now they seriously needed some support.

"You should. maybe. Should talk to him. Even if it's risky, he should know. Does he know? Maybe his mother. Is his mother still around?"

He's going to lose it. He should get away from her before he does, he doesn't like her seeing him decohere. He should also make sure she eats something, somehow.

"It's gonna be okay, boss. Listen to me, It's gonna be okay." Came back for me, held me together, please, please be okay. Merciful God watch over us.

[ifthebroomfits]

Please stay, please stay, please stay this time, she thinks, but she isn't Billy. Her wishes have no weight. His sentences are jerking up, cracking. Victor's standing right there with his arms around her, but she's still losing him.

It's no wonder that she has to get away sometimes. Nico can barely hold herself together, and here she is with a blue-screening ex-love and a speed junkie who doesn't remember how to fit with people who move at a thousandth his speed.

"I'll tell him," she says, even though she isn't sure. How can she? What will she do, just track Teddy and Billy down and ruin what modicum of peace they have between them? Balling her hands in his shirt, she adds, "I'll find a doctor. I'll make this okay. I just---this doesn't change things. Do you hear me, Victor? This doesn't change us."

Please don't let this be the last straw for you. Don't fall apart because I screwed up again.

[killbotwashere]

He smooths her hair, strokes his hand down her back. She couldn't make that promise, but the fact that she wanted to made him feel a little better. Victor presses his lips to her temple, muffles a sort of chuckle against her hair.

"Of course it does, mi jefe. Of course it does. That, that, that's life." Slow down. Relax. You can hold on a little longer.

"We'll make it okay. We will. It's not all on you all the time." Except for how it sort of is.

He pulls back enough to offer her a wavery half-smile. He wants to get away and he doesn't. He wants to go out and destroy something big, and he wants to hold Nico until she falls asleep. Of course she might have just woken up. When he's not online time sometimes gets a little weird on him. Oh God he should not be around an infant, that could be bad.

"Just tell me whrrr. what you need."

[ifthebroomfits]

Her stomach gives another seasick heave, though she isn't sure if it is lingering nausea from her omnipresent morning sickness or how easily he says that this would change things---and the rolling stammer that goes with it. She just resists the urge to dig her hands into Vic's hair to keep him close when he peels himself away.

He's so close to being himself. This has gotten so difficult for him, she can't tell if he's getting better or worse. She wants to know, but knowing feels like more than she can handle. He'd answer with his usual brevity, not connecting the right grief to the fact that what makes him human is disappearing.

"Don't let this change you," she says, swallowing thickly. "I need you to keep with me. I'll need your help. What do I know about babies?"

[killbotwashere]

He squeezes his eyes closed, bows his head so their foreheads touch. "Okay. All right. Keep talking to me."

He doesn't like acknowledging the shifts in himself, but he has to, he has to learn to manage it better. The sad part is that it doesn't actually bother Victor when he's dissociated. He doesn't feel the lack. It's just the transition that hurts, the lost time, and the way it affects the people around him. There aren't enough people around him to push his mind into human directions.

"I'll stay. I'm staying. We'll, heh, we'll get a copy of Dr. Spock or whatever. There's a lot on the Kree up in here. Captain Marvel. Very relevant. Just need to help me write it down."

[ifthebroomfits]

She does reach up this time, cupping his jaw. Her palms rasp against his dark facial hair. They were never this close as teenagers, since Nico had always kept the world at an arm's length. She bristled until the people she cared about slipped out of reach---and then she'd hold onto them desperately, grabbing them. Maybe the way Victor seems to be in a constant state of freefall is what has her holding so tightly onto him, uncaring of what it means.

Some of what he says makes sense. Some of it doesn't. She sifts through it.

"I will," Nico promises, and takes his hand. She can faintly see the bluish-green light of cybernetic wirings or whatever it is that he's made of on the inside through the thin skin of his wrist. "But I need to lay down now. I should try to sleep, at least. It's been almost two days."

Thirty-nine hours, some mental capacity informs her. She always seems to know that, now. Time systems have internalized for her; she's based off of the lunar cycles or the tides or how many hours are left until the end of the world. She can't tell.

[killbotwashere]

It's like she's physically keeping him from flying apart and he's grateful. He's grateful to Nico for so many things, even if being this close to her and feeling these things is sometimes hard for him.

"Listen. Even when I'm not...hrrgn." He whispers, ashamed. "Even when I'm confused, I still know what's important, okay? I'll still be here. It's getting better, I swear."

He closes his hand around hers. He'd let her lead him, hold her till she slept, find something she could eat. Help her sort this thing out. Their lives had to change, this was no place for a baby, no life. Whatever part of it he could, he'd make something right.