{"id":28260,"date":"2013-05-07T04:23:22","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T04:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/05\/07\/gadgeteerphilanthropist-19\/"},"modified":"2013-05-07T04:23:22","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T04:23:22","slug":"gadgeteerphilanthropist-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/05\/07\/gadgeteerphilanthropist-19\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

gadgeteerphilanthropist<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

iamthefirechild<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cDon\u2019t lie to me, don\u2019t say that.\u201d Another sob hitches through her body as her voice cracks and spikes. \u201cAll the things that have happened since I met you, everything \u2014 I couldn\u2019t protect you. I couldn\u2019t save you.\u201d She\u2019s barely coherent, knees shaking. Tony might as well be holding her up. \u201cIt hurts so much, Tony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the pain isn\u2019t less, the effects of it are wearing off, wearing her down. The tears don\u2019t slide down anymore when she blinks, and most of the dried blood has slipped off her skin, though there are still patches at her hairline where she shoved recalcitrant strands out of her eyes with the back of one hand. After a minute, and a long, shaking sigh, Summer turns around. She rests her forehead briefly against the arc reactor before tucking her head into the curve of his shoulder instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill you do a thing for me tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tony doesn\u2019t bother trying to change her mind or correct her or convince her that she\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t think he could even get her to believe him at this point, never mind that he\u2019s one of the last people she has to worry about protecting.\u00a0 He settles on a quiet, \u201cI\u2019m safe, Sunshine,\u201d instead.<\/p>\n

His hold on her loosens for a moment as she turns.\u00a0 Once she\u2019s facing him, he curls one arm around her shoulders, and settles his other hand on the back of her head.\u00a0 He glances down at her, but mostly succeeds in getting an eyeful of her hair, and instead lets his gaze roam aimlessly around the shower.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would you like me to do?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“Hold me. Don’t go down to the shop, don’t pull out a tablet, don’t anything else. Please. Just me. Just … ” she presses her lips together, and looks up, eyes big and pleading. “Tell me why you love me.”<\/p>\n

She pulls away, reaching for the bottle of shampoo. She doesn’t want to, but even at the Tower there’s a finite amount of hot water, and if she doesn’t get the dried blood out of her hair she might scratch herself bald. So she forces herself to do what needs doing, and maybe Tony will help wash her back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

gadgeteerphilanthropist: iamthefirechild: \u201cDon\u2019t lie to me, don\u2019t say that.\u201d Another sob hitches through her body as her voice cracks and spikes. \u201cAll the things that have happened since I met you, everything \u2014 I couldn\u2019t protect you. I couldn\u2019t save you.\u201d She\u2019s barely coherent, knees shaking. Tony might as well be holding her up. \u201cIt … Continue reading <\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,199,3366],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28260"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}