Tony had been gone for two days now. Summer had essentially locked herself in her apartment the entire time, trying in vain to distract herself. She hadn’t been able to let herself sleep; every time she laid down and closed her eyes, her mind, freed of outside input, began to rehash the whole situation all over again.

She had been first. She’d always thought that of course Dummy knew about her. She knew about him, didn’t she? She’d seen the ring Tony sometimes wore, she’d asked about it. She didn’t ask Tony for /things/, but she’d never had any issue asking him /about/ things. She kept arguing in her head with Dummy, trying to explain to him that if he had only asked, if he had only paid attention — she’d been there for months. Jarvis let her in without challenge.

Part of her wanted to believe that if Dummy hadn’t known, and things had been fine for so long, then it could have carried on being fine if he had continued to not know. But her innate honesty reared up in protest against that — it wasn’t how polyamory worked, and it wasn’t how she wanted to live. Since /she/ hadn’t known that Dummy didn’t know, before, that was one thing.

But now that she did know, she couldn’t endorse pretending. Soon or late, Dummy would have begun to suspect — and she rather thought, from his attitude regarding Tony, it would have been sooner.

She consoled herself with the knowledge that Tony was safe, not smashed into pieces in isolation somewhere, and fled deeper and deeper into her books.