He pulls back, his expression quickly turning worried before being covered up by a brittle front of curiosity. A hand flits to Summer’s shoulder as the archangel says, “Clearly I’ve missed some important things. What happened? Is there someone I need to ‘have a discussion’ with?”
“That would have been nice at the time,” she sighs, “but it’s a bit late now. It’s a long story.” Taking his hand, she pulls him to sit beside her on the edge of the bed, pausing to offer ear scratches to the little calico curled up in the centre. “I’m dating Tony Stark,” she begins, avoiding his eyes. “And … so was one of his AI robots. Some grey magic gave it a human-android body, I don’t know much about that. But, um, Dummy — the AI’s name is Dummy — he asked Tony to marry him. Not long after you disappeared.”
She twists her hands together, shoulders tensing up. “Tony decided he wanted to keep both of us, and Dummy was … very not okay with that. He shot himself. Tony was able to save him, and he agreed to try, but even after that he avoided me. And I — I got impatient, and jealous, and when I went to talk to Dummy, to try to be friends, I did it all wrong. I pushed too hard, and he threatened to kill himself again, and — ” She falters, struggling against tears. “I made him leave,” she whispers finally.
His face visibly straining to remain only concerned, and nothing more, the archangel opens his mouth hesitantly to speak. “What others do to themselves is not your fault. You didn’t “make” anyone do anything, and you tried to remedy the situation. If a robot is emotionally unstable, that is not your daddamn fault.” Anger rolls off of Gabriel in waves, his muscles tense as he tries to keep himself under control, tries not to fly off and find this appropriately named robot and turn it into a bouquet of flowers he can give to Summer (after uploading six viruses to its hard drive and watching it break into twitching circuits and scrap metal). He knows that hasty violence will not help anything, but he’s a fucking archangel – protecting people is his Dad-given job. As he tries to calm down, his eyes lose their detail and simply become glowing gold pits above gritted teeth.
Summer flinches under his anger, unconvinced and self-castigating. “I should have been more patient,” she says. “I /know/ Tony loves me, even if he doesn’t say it often. I only wanted to be friends …” She buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, hot tears sliding down her cheeks. The memories are still painful, reminders of failure and accidental cruelty. Gabriel’s fury is just another burning layer added to that.
Realizing his selfishness, the angel bottles his anger up with a well-practiced chain of thoughts. I cannot change the past, I can only try to help the present, he repeatedly thinks to himself. Forcing his face blank, he hugs her to his chest and wraps the two of them in his soft grey wings. Not knowing what to say, he strokes her hair in an effort to comfort her.
His hands in her hair, more than anything, bring ease to the set of her shoulders. If nothing else, having the words out lances the wound more than it did with Tony, whose avoidance of the ache of it merely threw her back into self-hatred. Not that she blames him for that, but she knows the dangers of bottling up her feelings.
It’s only a little time before the tears stop, and she rubs at her face. “I’m sorry,” Summer murmurs, “you’ve only just come back and here I am dumping my woes on you. That’s hardly fair.” She glances up, a wave of red hair falling over one eye. “I’m sorry.”