#you can probably be really delusional about the flower language in some of the cards. shippers have fun with that. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sirowsky · 4 years ago

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The Flowers Always Know

Description: When a mad scientist uses you as an experiment while you’re on holiday, the Heroics only just manage to save you. And in your recovery you become very close to the leader of the group. (Slow burn)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Language, mentions of torture, psychological distress. Angst.

Link to Masterlist

Comment: We’ve had a few cute and funny chapters now, so we were bound for some trouble. Old ghosts mixes with more recent, and the resulting damage will have lasting consequences.

Chapter 13

“Hey, kid, scram. Your dad and I need to have a grown-up talk.”

“Got it. I’ll finish watching this in my room with my headphones on.”

Missy and Marcus were in the living room watching a movie, when you walked in after having taken a long hot shower after work and dinner. She got up and bounced off towards her room, and Marcus did his best to play it off, but he was suddenly very nervous.

“Kid? What happened to sweetie?”

“There’s a time for sweetie, and a time for kid.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“Nope. Just something we can’t really put off any longer.”

“Okay.”

You sat down on the table in front of the sofa, facing him.

“So, you know how I was a little off at lunch the other day?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… I was late.”

“Oh. That kind of late.”

“Yep. It was a false alarm, I got my period today, but considering the fact that we haven’t been careful – at all, we can’t really ignore it. I mean, I know it’s a big conversation to have after just two weeks, but if we put it off, it might end up being too late.”

“Right. Well… If you’re asking what my attitude is to having more children, the answer is that I’d love that. And if you’re asking me if I’d freak out if we got pregnant already after just two weeks, my answer would be – no. I don’t think I would. I’m sure about you, about us, and this family has plenty of room to grow.”

“Oh.”

It was all you could push out of your mouth after hearing him declare his thoughts on the matter so clearly. You were so ambivalent, yourself, that it was almost jarring to hear his simplicity.

“What about you?”

This was the part you’d been dreading. You had so much baggage where family was concerned, and you honestly weren’t sure if you were ready to talk to him about it. But you owed it to him to at least try to explain where you stood on children.

“Hey, preciosa, what is it?”

You hadn’t even noticed that your eyes were watering.

“Um… It’s just… my own family… it wasn’t a good place. I don’t have a lot of fond memories of growing up and I’m just… completely fucking terrified that I’m somehow gonna taint this beautiful little family with that… darkness.”

He listened silently, but he looked worried, and reached out to take your hands when the tears started to fall.

“I have never realistically thought about having a family. Not because I didn’t want one, but because I just never thought that it was in the cards for me. I had more or less convinced myself that I’d never deserve something like that. And then I met you, and… damned it! Now I want all of it, and I don’t know how to deal with that.”

He kept searching your eyes, but you had no idea what he was looking for. His voice was as soft as he could make it when he finally spoke.

“Why wasn’t it a good place? What happened with your family, hermosa?”

“I… I can’t.”

“Please, just tell me. Whatever it is, you won’t lose me. I’m right here. Please.”

The memories surged up behind your eyes, and you closed them as hard as you could, trying to keep it all out, trying to make the truth disappear. But it never would. So, you just cried. Painfully, forcefully. Marcus held you as you doubled over, feeling as though your insides were turning to acid, trying to destroy everything that you were. You didn’t see or feel him cry with you. You didn’t see how much your pain made him suffer, or how helpless he felt as you curled into a foetal position when he moved you over to his lap, and wrapped his arms around you and just rocked you. You didn’t hear him continuously repeat how sorry he was, as though he had been the reason for all this pain.

At some point, you fell asleep, and when you woke again, it was to the sound of voices close by.

“…can’t ask her to do that! No. Absolutely not, it’s not happening.”

“That’s not your decision to make, hijo.”

“And it shouldn’t be hers either. She shouldn’t have to even think about it.”

“It might be good for her. Confronting it. Has she ever even talked to you about it?”

“No. Not directly.”

“And you know that that’s never healthy.”

“And meeting the man that tortured you, is?!”

“What?”

You’d made your way from the sofa to the kitchen, where Marcus was arguing with his mother. But you stopped cold when you heard that last part.

“Sweetheart, you should get to bed, you’re exhausted.”

“No. Tell me.”

Marcus couldn’t bring himself to say it, so you turned to Anita.

“Dr. Prince wants to meet you. He’s saying that if he can talk to you for one hour, he will give the authorities the names of the three unidentified bodies they found at his facility, and disclose a secondary location, where he’s claiming to have hidden an additional ten.”

You suddenly felt completely numb. You had never once asked to see a picture of the man, and while you were authorised to watch the videos of his interrogations, you never had. You’d made a choice at some stage of your recovery to leave all of that behind, and focus on moving forward. Without Marcus, you couldn’t have done that, because he had been the light that you had constantly been running towards. That you were still running towards.

Fuck… you were still running. Which meant that you still felt like there was something you needed to run from.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

Marcus lost every shade of colour in his face, and he stared at you with complete disbelief. Anita nodded and turned to leave.

“I’ll let them know. It’ll probably be set up for the day after tomorrow.”

As she left the house, you turned and walked to the bedroom, still not feeling anything, even your own feet as they moved over the floor. You sat down on your side of the bed, your back to the door, and tried not to think at all. You didn’t have to speak to him, you could just sit there and let him talk, it wouldn’t matter what he said. But, of course it would. Every fucking word would matter. How could it not?

“You don’t have to. They’ll get that information out of him some other way. It doesn’t have to be you.”

He came in, rounded the bed and crouched down in front of you while he spoke.

“Yeah, it does. Because it was always me. It was me in that hospital, it was me on that bed for weeks, it was me…”

“Por favor, no hagas esto.”

You just looked at him, trying to mould your face into the expression that you always gave him when you didn’t know what he was saying. You couldn’t really feel what your face was doing, but it seemed to work anyway.

“Please… mi amor, don’t do this.”

***

You had forbidden Marcus from accompanying you to the prison. You were nervous enough yourself; you didn’t need the added tension of his nerves on top of yours. You’d never seen him that angry before, and suddenly Amaire’s comments about him turning into Cujo had made sense. There really was something wild about him when he was that furious, especially since he didn’t act it out, but got unnaturally still instead.

There were forms to fill out and long corridors to cross before you got to the room. It was a specialised visitation room, parted in two with a thick reinforced piece of plexiglass. There were no holes in it, so the sound was carried over electronically, from small microphones to speakers in both sections of the room. It was all managed from an adjoining control room, where you waited the last few minutes before your hour would begin. There was no possibility what so ever, that he could physically harm you during your visit. But that wasn’t what you were concerned about. He was already there when you stepped through the door from the control room, walked in and sat down on the offered chair in the middle of your section. He looked… ordinary. He was quiet for a few minutes, while he seemed to study you, but then he spoke, and your blood turned to ice.

“I knew it was possible. I always knew, despite the data, despite the numerous failures, that it would be possible, if I could just find the perfect specimen. And I did. Wow, you turned out so perfect.”

You’d heard that voice before. You had never been able to remember anything of what actually happened in Egypt, and you still didn’t. But your body knew that voice. Your body remembered the pain that had accompanied that voice. You didn’t want to answer him, but you needed to.

“You’re delusional. Even now, you can’t admit that you failed. I don’t have any powers.”

“Yes, you do. I can see it. You might not have discovered them yet, but you have them.”

“You’re wrong. You’re grasping…”

“You were different from the start, you know. The way you responded to the enhanced cells. The first round was so intriguing, seeing how you dealt with the pain, oh, you were so strong. You never stopped fighting me, even when you could no longer move. And then, as you regained your strength, you tried so hard to escape. The second round was more delicate, trying to figure out how much I dared to give you, to keep pushing your system, without breaking it, but you were amazing. No matter how much I gave you, you kept bouncing back as soon as you got the chance. So, I knew you’d survive the final round, the one that would actually send your body over the threshold.”

“I’d be flattered by your confidence in my abilities, if not for the fact that you fucking tortured me for two days.”

“Oh, no, my dear, I had you at my mercy for three weeks.”

The ice in your veins seemed to double. Rationally, you wanted to believe what your mind was telling you, which was that it wasn’t true, how could it be? But your body’s reaction to him told you that there was more to this than you had realised.

“…no, that’s… not possible.”

“I changed your digital footprint, and rearranged your mind a little, with the help of a certain skilled friend. You went through ten rounds of my treatment, each one slightly more potent than the last. The final one, was mesmerising. It overwhelmed your system, letting the enhanced cells take control for a while, and in mere seconds you were healed. You were perfect. You are perfect. You’re a testament, living proof, you’re my salvation and redemption!”

You were on your feet and by the door in two seconds, and they opened it for you the moment you reached it. You collapsed on the floor and vomited into a trashcan as soon as you passed through the door. Your hands were shaking as you tried to steady yourself enough to sit up. But, when you lifted your arm up to grab the edge of the desk, you suddenly stopped shaking. From one second to the next. And a familiar strength eased its way through your nerves. Marcus’ current. You looked around, confused, since you were convinced that he wasn’t there, but he was. He was right there in front of you, kneeling down with the most pained expression you’d ever seen on his face, and his eyes were so dark you didn’t even recognise them. He was afraid to touch you, to get too close. But you couldn’t tell if it was because of his own anger or if he was actually afraid of you.

“Marcus…”

He didn’t move.

“Please.”

He stood up and backed away, and you felt as though you might break in half.

“Don’t. Please, no hagas esto…”

His current left you as he moved too far away for it to reach you. And you’d never felt emptiness like that before.

Twenty minutes later you walked out of the prison, feeling like you were on autopilot. Nothing inside you was working right, and you had no idea how to even begin fixing it. You just knew that everything hurt.

But as you stepped out into the bright sunlight, you were met with complete destruction. The cars in the parking lot, the lamp-posts, even the pavement was broken where pipes and wires had been wrung out of it. Every piece of metal in sight was crumpled or distorted. Marcus had been afraid of hurting you. And even if you knew that he never would, as long as he didn’t trust himself, you knew he would never touch you.

Some hours later, after doing what damage control you could for Marcus at the prison, a cab dropped you off at your house. It looked so cold and empty after the weeks spent at Casa Moreno, that you didn’t even wanna go inside. But, you had nowhere else to go.

Or, maybe, you did…

It took you an hour to get there, and it was a difficult place to find, even though you had the correct address. You knocked on the door and waited. You honestly had no idea if you’d be welcome here, but if you weren’t… you didn’t have a plan B. You’d just sleep out there on the grass. The door opened after a while, and Anita looked you over, head to toe, before settling on your eyes.

“Ah, niña. I’m gonna wring his neck the next time I see him, you mark my words.”

Authors’ Note: I love criticism, don’t be shy to let me know if there’s anything you like/don’t like/have questions about.

@blueeyesatnight @farfromjustordinary @allmyspideys @hrk-fic-recs @strawberryperegrine

#marcus moreno #marcus moreno x reader #marcus moreno fic #we can be heroes #we can be heroes fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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