"Shut up, you love it." The way Marcus protests and then relaxes into him is so characteristically him, in Midnighter's mind; he loves it. He nuzzles his face into the side of Marcus', humming softly. "Now that I know you like playing doctor, I'm just giving you more opportunities."
He says that as he lets Marcus down on the bed, and sits on the side to take off his shoes and unbuckle the knee and leg guards of his uniform.
Of course Marcus loves it. Getting literally swept off his feet is so deeply satisfying to his hopelessly romantic streak that he has to protest just to save face. He grumbles accordingly into Midnighter’s neck, something-bastard-something, and sighs with pleasure once he’s stretched out on the bed and watching him start to undress.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, and he wriggles on the bed and gets his boots off, letting them thud down onto the floor. “And I don’t get off on seeing you hurt. Just like feeling useful. Always been a bit like that.”
He nudges Midnighter’s thigh with his toe. “Need someone looking after you.”
"Know you don't, babe," he says, turning to watch Marcus watch him. There's real affection in his eyes, there has to be. That's real care and consideration. Love, maybe. He wants to wrap himself up in it, to life up to the opinion of him that Marcus seems to have. He wants to be good to him.
Once he's got his shinguards off, he pulls off his pants, and the protective cup underneath them. With that now strewn over the floor, Midnighter is left only in boxer-briefs and the expansive array of band-aids he's been spackled with. The boxers, of course, have the Superman insignia over the crotch.
He lets himself lay back on the bed, his legs dangling off the side, letting out a tired huff. A smile plays over his face, sharp but genuine. "So you're looking after me, now?"
Marcus shifts so that he's lying lengthways on the bed on his stomach, elbow propped up next to Midnighter's head, chin on his hand. His other hand comes to Midnighter's chest, stroking featherlight over his sternum. "Yeah," he murmurs. "If you'll let me. Spoil you good and proper."
His eyes crinkle up as he smiles. That warm, precious feeling again: centred right where his ribs draw up and in. And he leans in to kiss him, briefly regretting that he can't stay in the morning. It's been too long. "Wanna know about your new problems. The ones throwing you through concrete walls. Don't have to tell me now, just...don't keep me guessing."
Midnighter closes his eyes, and his lips part just slightly; he moves appreciatively under Marcus' hand. It's not sexual, not entirely; he just missed... this. Being touched. Being touched by Marcus. Yeah, if he had more energy, he'd turn this into a bid to get laid. As it is, he just appreciates the feel of it. He wants to ask for more. He doesn't.
"Tell you all about it," he promises. "Just not now. Rather think about you. Missed you in my bed." He lingers a moment, before finally rolling over with a little huff, crawling into bed properly so he can find a place in Marcus' arms.
Midnighter comes up and crawls under the covers, and Marcus wraps about him from behind. As usual, he's almost feverish to the touch, and as usual Marcus couldn't be happier about it. He nuzzles into the back of his neck, and exhales happily.
"Nhnngh," Midnighter says, tension unwinding from him. It's a fair amount of tension, especially when he keeps having to ignore the computer's warning that his neck is about to have some teeth sunk into it. He settles eventually, though he's tired enough to show some tells, occasional twitches and tremors from reactions that stop the moment they begin; defenses against attacks that aren't coming.
His head finds the space over Marcus' heart, its steady beat, sometimes nervous and sped up, but consistent and comforting for that. "You," he says, but he's got a good idea of Marcus at this point, and anything to blatantly complimentary won't be believed. "And the floor. Never got the hang of beds. But I'm not gonna drag you down there just for me."
"Really? The floor?" Mild, interested. Marcus doesn't have Midnighter's technological augmentations, but he's attentive enough to Midnighter's little twitches to notice them — they're unusual. He's concerned a moment, but Midnighter's tired and just pulled a gnarled metal bar from his torso. Maybe muscle spasms are part of the healing process.
All the same, he wraps his arm tighter about him, protective.
"Slept in some weird places. Never made me anything but grateful for beds, though." He scritches his fingers through Midnighter's scalp. "We can sleep on the floor, darling. 'S you that needs the rest."
"Never got the hang of beds. Feels like you're sinking." He shrugs, glad he can't see Marcus' face. The confusion and rejection doesn't hurt, not really, but he's tired and apparently that's making him fucking sensitive. Nobody ever gets the bed thing, boo fucking hoo.
"Don't need it to sleep, though. Good with putting up with shit I don't like." And I like listening to your heartbeat. No, no, that's too strange.
Oh, Marcus doesn't like the sound of that. He can sleep on the floor just fine: he's slept in beds for three nights straight now, what a treat. He doesn't want Midnighter putting up with stuff for his sake. The generous part of him wants to see Midnighter happy and rested and comfortable. The meaner, nastier, clingier part of him is terrified of all the compromises Midnighter makes for him: they all speed them up towards the moment that Midnighter thinks screw this and drops him.
"Oi." Gently grumpy, Marcus squeezes Midnighter's shoulders as if in retribution. "What're you talking about. You want to sleep on the floor, we'll sleep on the floor. Lemme take a pillow and I'll be happy." He tries to roll them towards the edge of the bed, but Midnighter's way too heavy to move like that.
Midnighter does move, but it's to put more of his weight on Marcus and pin him down. He's happy to be a lodestone if it means Marcus will stop being weird about this. And it's very weird. He can't decide what it means. Nobody's ever offered to sleep on the floor for him before.
He appreciates the thought, but he can't take Marcus up on it.
"No," he says, his head still pressed onto Marcus' chest. He's lying flat and boneless, draped over him. "Not fucking letting my boyfriend sleep on the floor. I'm half asleep already." He nuzzles his forehead into Marcus' chest a little, trying to belabor the point.
Marcus grunts from under Midnighter's bulk, a noise of protest like he doesn't love feeling his weight on him. "Mmf, fine. Fine. Fine." Briefly, he thinks: if we're using words like boyfriend, why the bloody hell don't you talk to me more? Or why don't I talk to you more? Should we do something about that?
Probably fine. They're both busy. He doesn't want to nag. And now's not the time anyway.
He shifts and kisses the top of Midnighter's hair. He still smells of sweat and coppery tangy blood. Marcus doesn't mind. "Go to sleep," he murmurs, for the novelty of it. That's usually what Midnighter says to him.
Midnighter shifts a little, getting more comfortable on the too-soft mattress. He ends up with a fair portion of his bulk on Marcus' side, an arm wrapped around him his head laid in the crook of Marcus' neck. "Night, babe," he rumbles, and finally, fucking finally closes his eyes.
Sleep takes him almost immediately, and there's not much waiting for him on the shores of dreaming. Dark images and numbers, a mess of silver thunder, a man with a pumpkin for a head. No image is lingered on for too long.
Midnighter sleeps like the dead. When his body shuts down, he stops moving completely. After a point, he doesn't breathe, either; his body doesn't need it, and he mostly does it out of habit, when he's awake. As it is, he's completely still, completely silent, a dead, warm weight on Marcus's shoulder that won't wake if Marcus moves. Won't wake for much anything.
The novelty of being awake while Midnighter sleeps keeps Marcus up for a bit. He wants to enjoy it. Midnighter's breath pours rhythmic across his shoulder and chest, and he bleeds feverish heat. Marcus hums happily, curls around him. He drifts off before Midnighter's breathing stills, and he doesn't wake up before light comes through the blinds.
The morning finds him stiff and achy, still not quite used to sleeping tangled up with someone else. His arm's dead where Midnighter's lying on it. First order of the day: extricating himself (Midnighter's head bounces onto the pillows below and he doesn't wake) and stretching.
Second order of the day: settling on his side, facing Midnighter, and reaching out to touch his face...but not getting there.
He's not breathing.
Marcus' hand wavers, frozen between them.
This is, he knows, just a weird quirk of Midnighter's augmented biology. He's still furnace-hot, he's clearly alive. He's just so, horribly still. Still like living bodies just aren't. Marcus has seen enough dead ones to know that. But Midnighter's fine, he's just sleeping very, very deeply...
Marcus knows that. But knowing doesn't make it better. His heart speeds up, anxiety whining quicker in his chest. He blinks, and though he knows there's nothing to worry about a pit opens in his stomach, a horrible twisting black space...
"Midnighter," he says, voice low and hoarse, then he raises it: "Midnighter! Hey. Hey, wake up, love — " He shakes him by the shoulder, fingers digging in, having forgotten or perhaps just discarded Midnighter's warnings to wake him up carefully.
The punch Midnighter sends flying toward Marcus' face changes course at the last second, slamming into the wall at the head of the bed. The headboard snaps, cracking in half, and the wall behind it becomes a spiderweb of cracking plaster, dust shaking from the opened seams and chipping paint. Faintly, someone can be heard yelling, what was that?
Midnighter retracts his hand from the hole in the wall, now covered in plaster dust and wood splinters and blood-- punching that hard that fast with no gauntlets opens up a hundred tiny stratches, peels back the skin on his knuckles, leaves flesh flaking off. Regardless of this fact, he presses both hands to his face.
"Jesus!" Okay — now he remembers. He scrambles back, but he knows it's not his reflexes that have saved him. It's just the modicum of control Midnighter wrested back at the last moment. That punch would most likely have sent his nose crunching back into his brain.
He's panting, eyes wide. Alarmed and shaking and suddenly sick with guilt. Idiot. Midnighter told him not to do that.
"M," he manages. "Midnighter. You — hey. Christ — look at me. Look at me, calm down. Please."
He'd be lying if he said he wasn't angry. Angry with worry, worried with anger, it doesn't matter. He looks up, and his face is scowling, a bloody hand-print over half of it; he looks like the bestial weapon he was meant to be.
He breathes.
"I'm not going to hurt you." He says, "I promised."
Marcus is sat up, his hands half-way to Midnighter's face but frozen again. He doesn't want to spark another reaction. His eyes flit cautiously, wide, over Midnighter's face, taking in the blood smears with only the upset merest twitch of his mouth. "I know," he says, "I know. I — you weren't breathing."
He exhales, and slumps back. Into the corner of the bed, away from Midnighter, huddled and a little sullen, still staring at him. His chest actually hurts. If he has a heart attack in bed with Midnighter for reasons unrelated to sex, he's going to — he's going to be confirmed, once again, in his opinion that God has a sick sense of humour.
"You weren't breathing," he sighs, and rubs his face. "I know, I know, you told me."
There's no point in chastising him. Midnighter can tell the man's guilty enough as it is. This isn't a mistake he'll make again. He swallows his anger like a bitter pill, though it still lingers in his movements, rigid and withdrawn.
"You okay?" But he knows he is; the computer is still registering him as a threat. Midnighter turns away on the bed to grab some clothes. "C'mon, let's get you to wherever." He can't imagine Marcus will want to stick around.
Conflict resolution not involving bloodshed's never been his thing.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He says that as he lets Marcus down on the bed, and sits on the side to take off his shoes and unbuckle the knee and leg guards of his uniform.
no subject
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, and he wriggles on the bed and gets his boots off, letting them thud down onto the floor. “And I don’t get off on seeing you hurt. Just like feeling useful. Always been a bit like that.”
He nudges Midnighter’s thigh with his toe. “Need someone looking after you.”
no subject
Once he's got his shinguards off, he pulls off his pants, and the protective cup underneath them. With that now strewn over the floor, Midnighter is left only in boxer-briefs and the expansive array of band-aids he's been spackled with. The boxers, of course, have the Superman insignia over the crotch.
He lets himself lay back on the bed, his legs dangling off the side, letting out a tired huff. A smile plays over his face, sharp but genuine. "So you're looking after me, now?"
no subject
His eyes crinkle up as he smiles. That warm, precious feeling again: centred right where his ribs draw up and in. And he leans in to kiss him, briefly regretting that he can't stay in the morning. It's been too long. "Wanna know about your new problems. The ones throwing you through concrete walls. Don't have to tell me now, just...don't keep me guessing."
no subject
"Tell you all about it," he promises. "Just not now. Rather think about you. Missed you in my bed." He lingers a moment, before finally rolling over with a little huff, crawling into bed properly so he can find a place in Marcus' arms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQo1HIcSVtg
"What helps you sleep," he mumbles.
thx for that earworm.
His head finds the space over Marcus' heart, its steady beat, sometimes nervous and sped up, but consistent and comforting for that. "You," he says, but he's got a good idea of Marcus at this point, and anything to blatantly complimentary won't be believed. "And the floor. Never got the hang of beds. But I'm not gonna drag you down there just for me."
its always playing in my head
All the same, he wraps his arm tighter about him, protective.
"Slept in some weird places. Never made me anything but grateful for beds, though." He scritches his fingers through Midnighter's scalp. "We can sleep on the floor, darling. 'S you that needs the rest."
Re: its always playing in my head
"Don't need it to sleep, though. Good with putting up with shit I don't like." And I like listening to your heartbeat. No, no, that's too strange.
no subject
"Oi." Gently grumpy, Marcus squeezes Midnighter's shoulders as if in retribution. "What're you talking about. You want to sleep on the floor, we'll sleep on the floor. Lemme take a pillow and I'll be happy." He tries to roll them towards the edge of the bed, but Midnighter's way too heavy to move like that.
"Oof. C'mon."
no subject
He appreciates the thought, but he can't take Marcus up on it.
"No," he says, his head still pressed onto Marcus' chest. He's lying flat and boneless, draped over him. "Not fucking letting my boyfriend sleep on the floor. I'm half asleep already." He nuzzles his forehead into Marcus' chest a little, trying to belabor the point.
no subject
Probably fine. They're both busy. He doesn't want to nag. And now's not the time anyway.
He shifts and kisses the top of Midnighter's hair. He still smells of sweat and coppery tangy blood. Marcus doesn't mind. "Go to sleep," he murmurs, for the novelty of it. That's usually what Midnighter says to him.
no subject
Sleep takes him almost immediately, and there's not much waiting for him on the shores of dreaming. Dark images and numbers, a mess of silver thunder, a man with a pumpkin for a head. No image is lingered on for too long.
Midnighter sleeps like the dead. When his body shuts down, he stops moving completely. After a point, he doesn't breathe, either; his body doesn't need it, and he mostly does it out of habit, when he's awake. As it is, he's completely still, completely silent, a dead, warm weight on Marcus's shoulder that won't wake if Marcus moves. Won't wake for much anything.
no subject
The morning finds him stiff and achy, still not quite used to sleeping tangled up with someone else. His arm's dead where Midnighter's lying on it. First order of the day: extricating himself (Midnighter's head bounces onto the pillows below and he doesn't wake) and stretching.
Second order of the day: settling on his side, facing Midnighter, and reaching out to touch his face...but not getting there.
He's not breathing.
Marcus' hand wavers, frozen between them.
This is, he knows, just a weird quirk of Midnighter's augmented biology. He's still furnace-hot, he's clearly alive. He's just so, horribly still. Still like living bodies just aren't. Marcus has seen enough dead ones to know that. But Midnighter's fine, he's just sleeping very, very deeply...
Marcus knows that. But knowing doesn't make it better. His heart speeds up, anxiety whining quicker in his chest. He blinks, and though he knows there's nothing to worry about a pit opens in his stomach, a horrible twisting black space...
"Midnighter," he says, voice low and hoarse, then he raises it: "Midnighter! Hey. Hey, wake up, love — " He shakes him by the shoulder, fingers digging in, having forgotten or perhaps just discarded Midnighter's warnings to wake him up carefully.
no subject
The punch Midnighter sends flying toward Marcus' face changes course at the last second, slamming into the wall at the head of the bed. The headboard snaps, cracking in half, and the wall behind it becomes a spiderweb of cracking plaster, dust shaking from the opened seams and chipping paint. Faintly, someone can be heard yelling, what was that?
Midnighter retracts his hand from the hole in the wall, now covered in plaster dust and wood splinters and blood-- punching that hard that fast with no gauntlets opens up a hundred tiny stratches, peels back the skin on his knuckles, leaves flesh flaking off. Regardless of this fact, he presses both hands to his face.
"Marcus."
no subject
He's panting, eyes wide. Alarmed and shaking and suddenly sick with guilt. Idiot. Midnighter told him not to do that.
"M," he manages. "Midnighter. You — hey. Christ — look at me. Look at me, calm down. Please."
no subject
He breathes.
"I'm not going to hurt you." He says, "I promised."
no subject
Marcus is sat up, his hands half-way to Midnighter's face but frozen again. He doesn't want to spark another reaction. His eyes flit cautiously, wide, over Midnighter's face, taking in the blood smears with only the upset merest twitch of his mouth. "I know," he says, "I know. I — you weren't breathing."
He exhales, and slumps back. Into the corner of the bed, away from Midnighter, huddled and a little sullen, still staring at him. His chest actually hurts. If he has a heart attack in bed with Midnighter for reasons unrelated to sex, he's going to — he's going to be confirmed, once again, in his opinion that God has a sick sense of humour.
"You weren't breathing," he sighs, and rubs his face. "I know, I know, you told me."
no subject
"You okay?" But he knows he is; the computer is still registering him as a threat. Midnighter turns away on the bed to grab some clothes. "C'mon, let's get you to wherever." He can't imagine Marcus will want to stick around.
Conflict resolution not involving bloodshed's never been his thing.