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bonnie-barstow-of-flag · 4 years

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What Keeps You Up at Night part 2: Michael Knights Pov

Bonnie’s POV X

Dedicated to @aspacerat1 and two other people who begged me to write this.

For most silence is craveable, worth more than its own weight in gold. However, for Michael Knight, the quiet is intrusive. An invading force that extends its wicked tendrils into corners of his life he'd prefer to leave undisturbed. He had enough personal demons plaguing him without reawakening those wicked wraiths left to slumber in the wakes of the past.

Stirring, walking, and working forced those unsettling spirits to remain cast out to bay where they belonged. Observant azure orbs behold Wilton’s garage, taking note of the thermal pools of light exuding from within. Michael pauses outside the industrial doors, his fingers clasped around the solid steel handle. Dare he interlope on the work being done within? Would Bonnie be receptive to the encroachment on her territory at this hour? Or should he travel onwards like the wayfaring soldier he was? Warring deliberation is evident upon his striking face though it rests in the realms of darkness. The unyielding urge to investigate eventually wins over.

Barstow hears him though his practiced steps are hushed. A fact, he deduces, comes from having been snuck up on one too many times. He is pleasantly surprised when she does not berate his nosiness but rather, welcomes it. A whimsical Cheshire-cat-like grin snakes across his lips at her prodding. “Ya know, Bons, I could say the same thing.” He casually leans his weight against Kitt’s door.

For posterity's sake, he casts a glance down at his watch. His azure orbs briefly denote the time. It’s the bewitching hour of three when thick blankets of fog cuddle close to the ground and envelope everything including the skyscrapers of the far-off city. Darkness has not yet tasted the welcoming vibrancy of sunlight. Even still, the sky is gradually perfecting a reverse ombre. Thoughts of any realm outside the present garage fizzle into nothingness.

Michael is genuinely touched by her obvious concern. His lips part ways with a gentler, more tame smile. “I’m fine.” Suddenly, he is overly conscious about the focus of her eyes flashing over him. His large hand smooths through the luxuriously thick tangles of his dark curls, hoping to bring some measure of order to the otherwise half disheveled and unruly appearance. After a pause, he finally embellishes his answer to her question. “Figured I might as well make myself useful since I can’t sleep.” Devon surely had mountainous stacks of manila folders laying around with new cases. Some of them might even become the Foundation’s priority before too long. Yet, he’s not really interested in swimming through the black inked collections of information. By preference, he invests fully in his favorite prepossessing coworker.

His azure eyes practically glow, wired by mild disquietude as if they were neon lights when she lets out a huff. Had he ventured to ask something he shouldn’t have? He is about to apologize for any offense he may have dealt her when she finally begins to speak. Any semblance of a smile completely evaporates. Her first answer to his inquiry felt deliberately vague but in a way, he fully understood it. There had been so many instantaneous reactions and so many moments over the years that he would amend if he was ever given such an opportunity. Lingering at the top of that very list was the way he spoke to the poor dying Wilton Knight the day he stormed into the garage. Devon said Michael had just struck a dying man. That phraseology though simple haunted him still. He’d spend the rest of his life wishing he could take those venom-laced words back.

Sympathetically, Michael nods. In existence, there were probably a trillion comforting words he could offer. Begrudgingly, not a singular term would willfully lend itself to snuffing out her quieted sufferings. Even still, he refused to be dismissive of her pain. “I get it. Trust me, I do.” And the hideous truth was, he painfully did comprehend. He waits till she stands to draw nearer. “Look I know you don’t need me to tell you this,” Michael starts, “but there’s no use in torturing yourself over the past. It just takes your mind away from your present.” A pause. “Besides, every mistake is a lesson propelling you on your way to success.”

“You stole that off some cheesy poster, didn’t you?” Bonnie playfully accuses.

Bonnie wasn’t wrong. He had pilfered some of it but adapted it to fit in his own lax lexicon. Notes of cheerfulness begin to creep back into his countenance and it is denoted in the softening of his eyes. “Well, it’s more like borrowed,” he cheekily returned. Stealing was such a dirty term.

Bon’s next confession cuts him to the quick. He felt as though he had been sucker-punched. The strangled breath that he emits attests to the awful palpable sensation of having been viciously belted by her words. “Bons...” Her nickname is expelled reverently, in the form of a near prayerful whisper. His hands which had been mindful of respecting her personal space now lurch forward, gingerly collapsing around the slopes of her shoulders. He swallows sharply with the realization of just how much responsibility she allowed to weigh down upon her shoulders. They’ve had their share of close calls but not a single one of them had occurred as a result of anything Bonnie had done. Michael couldn’t fathom how she’d ever shift that blame to herself.

Making sure he is holding her gaze, he speaks again. “You’ve never let either of us down. No matter how hopeless our situations have been. I know you constantly say that you’re a scientist, not a miracle worker, but I tend to think of you as both. Without your skills and expertise, neither of us would be here.” His chord is full of unwavering conviction. “I know you, Bon. You will never let Kitt and I peel out of this garage if you genuinely thought we would not return in, at the very least, a salvageable condition.” He knows that this will probably do little to assuage her fears. Yet, he is trying. Michael allows one hand to depart her shoulder to cup her face. His thumb purposefully swipes slow strokes across the smooth globe of her cheekbone half-committing her beauty to memory.

He can discern wisps of terror coiling through those turquoise pools of hers and immediately, his poor heart gives off a series of terrible thrashing pangs. He desired to remove that fear from her, to let her know that he and Kitt are always going to return to her. Perhaps, he thinks to himself; he should take some measures towards being less feckless. “We’re safe. We’re going to stay that way. I promise.” Sure, he knows he ought not to make vows that he is uncertain he can keep but it feels exceedingly important in this very moment to do just that.

He can feel unintentional crater-like chinks forming in his armor both physical and emotional. Shielding her from bearing witness to anything that may translate into the depths of his eyes, Michael opts to press a doting kiss to the expanse of her forehead. It’s a sin. He knows. But he allows the cracked leather of his lips to remain against the warm silk of her skin for a touch longer than he ought. While there, he reveled in the familiar scents of her shampoo and body wash. Man, oh man, he jealously coveted her the way pirates did their treasures.

Barstow’s question causes Knight to unintentionally recoil. It’s something he hadn’t allowed his mind to ruminate on. Hell, he can’t remember the last time he thought about the causes behind his insomnia. Withdrawing his lips and taking a step back, he elects to gaze upon her countenance. She deserved nothing but an honest answer.

The unspoken reply hits Michael the way a barreling freight train might. With every click along the tracks shot fleeting shadows, hollow phantoms of faces and places, resurrecting images imprinted on his mind. Whether they were imagined or real or an unholy collision of the two, he could not distinguish. There was nothing concrete left in the whirlwind the question created and still, the sparks felt indelible. Among these things, Michael dared not give a voice were: oppressively thick jungles with flickering silhouettes of soldiers traversing cautiously through them, glints off of silver and gold shields with the towering engraving of city hall etched in them and the casts of red and blue flashing lights, hot Nevada nights, his father and mother or a man and woman with near enough resemblance to Long, American flags draped over caskets, super-nova like bursts of light from guns being fired, and something- something way back in the blur of memory. He thinks though it is with no absolute clarity, that it might have been home. No. It is not his current place of residence but rather that of his, correction Michael Long’s, childhood. Having taken two bullets to the skull had done little to preserve the things most other people could never forget. Tanya Walker’s bullet managed to wipe out the most solid impressions of the past. While he was grateful not to relive a majority of the horrors and atrocities of Nam, he mourned the loss of recollection towards the rest of Michael Long’s life.

Somewhere along the way, the unspoken reminiscing to the lost voices of the past derails. It takes a wrong turn, spinning on an axis until it conjures up feelings of dread, anxiety, and intense anger. His fingers curl up, clenching tight at his side before going lax again. Just as quickly as the negative emotions arrived, they vanish.

Embarrassment flushes across his cheeks when he realizes that she is patiently staring and he had not given her a response. He had been floundering, drowning without hope of rescue, in things he couldn’t entirely understand himself. He’s never been raw and open about any of his wounds. Discussing them wasn’t going to be an easy feat.

Despite Michael Knight’s outward confidence, insecurities dogged his every step. “Sometimes,” he starts, his voice unusually gravely and husky. “Sometimes I lay awake, wondering why Wilton Knight chose me to carry on his legacy instead of someone else. Instead of Devon or .... or any number of readily available people.” His tongue trails briefly over the jagged edges of his lips. “If anyone deserved a second chance at life, Muntzy did.” It is a fact Michael whole-heartedly believed. He would have traded his life a hundred times over to ensure that poor Rebecca (Muntzy’s wife) and his three little girls wouldn’t have to face a life without their father.

Bonnie listened intently. Her eyes never daring to depart from him. She is so astonished by the revelation, that she finds herself at a rare loss for words. Her brows furrow in disbelief. In her mind, she never questioned Michael’s appointment to FLAG’s most trusted operative. Devon might have earned the position were he younger, more nimble, and less inclined towards a life of predictability. Sure, he had been wild in his youth but those days were long tossed to the wind. Regardless, Wilton had always been startlingly confident in his choice! There had been no doubt in his mind to Michael’s worthiness.

In a softer agonized tone, he rhetorically prods, “why me of all people?” He didn’t fancy himself as being overly special but more than that, he didn’t feel deserving of Wilton Knight’s incredible mantle. The extraordinary burden of which had been thrust upon his shoulders without his ever being asked with the demand that he walks away from everything and everyone he cherished. There hadn’t been one single moment where Michael had been gifted the opportunity to turn back. Michael Long was dead. “What if I cease to make him proud? What if one man isn’t enough to make a difference?” He shifts uncomfortably. His hands briefly delving into the denim pockets of his jeans. His eyes dart around the garage before returning to her. Where he expected to find judgement, he found only empathy. Before she can open her mouth to further comment, he changes the subject.

Taking one of the cleaner rags he could find nearby, he starts running it along Kitt’s outer shell. It was easier to focus when he could be doing some menial task or other. Or so, he tells himself. “There are some nights where fragments of intelligence missions in Nam and my early days of police work come back to me. Can’t make odds or ends outta them but I know they’re there. They’re hopelessly jumbled like a tangled ball of yarn.” It was hard to put to words unless one had experienced it for themselves. It was like trying to recreate a phenomenal recipe with no real idea of what ingredients went into it. Even if you did, by some miracle, manage to secure all of the ingredients, there was still a mystery pertaining to measurements. When they’re all mixed together, it never really turns out like the original. Now, does it? Heck, sometimes it didn’t make for even a shallow reproduction.

When he tried to connect the dots of things that happened in Nam and on the big bad streets of Nevada and Los Angeles, they came out pixilated a kaleidoscope of images woven tightly together. Everything would shift and warp with the slightest touch, altering in their entirety. Reality or fiction? It was impossible to discern which category each memory should be assigned to. There is no one he could ask to assist him with the task of making distinctions. A majority of his work gathering intel reports and sending them along in a timely manner had been highly classified. Worse still, there were no war or cop buddies who were made privy to the knowledge of Michael Long’s rebirth into Michael Knight. He had to circumnavigate lapses in memory on his own.

Relinquishing a frustrated breath, he continues in a low voice, “ there are nights when I close my eyes and see her. I see Tanya and that sharp burst of yellow light from the gun...” The words feel thick and he chokes a little. A frigid chill creeps down every vertebra in his spine. Even talking about it makes him recoil. He knows Bonnie wouldn’t ask him to further elaborate. She knows about the accident and a good bit of the aftermath.

Turning back to her with a plaintive expression, he decides to confess a terror that made every drop of his blood turn to ice. “Hear me out,” he starts, abandoning the cloth rag on Kitt’s T-top so that his hands might return to Bonnie’s frame. He hesitates, pulling his hands away from her shoulders at the last second and opting to cradle her face. “Those things are all intense but thoughts of losing you are by far the worst.” He spoke in a manner that left no debate towards his sincerity. Azure orbs vigorously drink her in. He’s lost one love and he made a vow before heaven and earth that he would stop at nothing to protect her.

#answered ask #bonniebarstowofflag #Michael Knight #Knight Rider #because they don't deal with his trauma like ever or let him talk about it #forgive me as Michael is not my main muse #this got far longer than expected #bonnie barstow

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