You hiss at the way your ribs creak as you scaled the tree outside Fluttershy's window. You've never truly, truly appreciated it up until now. Knocking on the window, sitting on the closest branch to the edge of the window, You see movement through your reflection. Your reflection who is still wearing the fucking mask! You scramble to rip the mask off and as the window slids opens and Fluttershy looks out at you with that cute tired, puzzled face you've seen many times before...
" I-it's two am, what are you d-doing here?" She stutters out. She rubs her still adjusting eyes
You shake your head and shuffle closer to the windowsil. "Can I come in?"
"Sure." She moves back and you climb into the room, landing hard on the floor, with a thump. The light isn't on. She hasn't seen you... Yet.
"Is anyone here?" You pray there isn't. It's bad enough that you have to tell her. You can't afford for anyone else to know, too.
"No. it's just me here tonight...what's going on?" You see her reach out a hand, but the injury's dulled your senses, and you're not quick enough to stop Fluttershy from grazing a hand over your wound.
You groan in pain and just like that, she pulls her hand back, as if burned. Her hand is smeared with blood. Your blood.
"Faust! Anon, are you okay?" Fluttershy rushes over to the light switch and flicks it on. It hurts your eyes. She turns; her eyes widen and her jaw drops. You're not really sure what she's saw...
The ripped costume, the blood, the cut on your forehead that's still kind of dripping blood into your eye, the hair in absolute disarray.
Well, she sees you, the love of her life, standing beaten and bloodied in costume, pale, frightened and obviously in pain.
Flutters backs up against his bedroom door. You hold your hands up to show her that you mean no harm.
"I'm sorry," you manage to croak and clear your throat. "I should have told you when it happened, I shouldn't have kept it from you, but I was afraid you'd get hurt. I didn't want you to-"
"You're Mr-Do-Well." She barely whispers, and the look of fear melts from her features, "It's been you, all along?"
"Yeah." Nodding makes you dizzy so you think it best to stop.
"I..." She runs a hand through her hair, leaving a streak of your steadily leaking plasma on her forehead. She gives you a once-over. "You n-need to go to a hospital."
"I can't walk in as a vigilante, and ask them to check if I have broken ribs." You respond, leaning subtlety (you hope) on her desk chair. Without it, you'd have lost balance a minute or two ago. "And I can't walk in as Anon and expect them to not ask questions. I can't go to a hospital, Fluttershy. I can't let anyone know. They'd be in too much danger."
"You're in danger r-r-right now." Flutters insists, gesturing to your bloody torso. "And you're telling me."
"I trust you, Flutters. You mean the world to me, you're the only one who could help me, right now, so I have to risk it." You took a deep breath and release the desk chair, stepping towards Fluttershy on unsteady feet. "I wouldn't come here if it wasn't serious."
She reaches for you and curls her soft hands around your elbows. Maybe you aren't as discreet as you think as she saw how unsteady you are. "I'll go get the First Aid kit. And s-some painkillers. And a cloth." She pulls away, slowly, and gestures vaguely to your costume. "Get o-out of that, and try not to get blood on my bed. I could w-wash it out, but that'd raise way too many unwanted questions from my mom, and I don't need that, right now."
"You tryna get me naked, Flutters?" You ask in a joking tone, trying to lighten the mood.
Fluttershy's expression falls flat. "Please, just do this." She says, words clearer than ever.
Fluttershy leaves the room, leaving you standing in the middle of her room.
You numbly, slowly, strip out of the costume, draping it over Fluttershy's desk chair. Your phone's a little cracked from the fight you were just in, but it lights up when you click it on.
You call Captain Shining Armor.
"I turned him in." You say, by way of greeting.
"I saw." He returns, with the same amount of curtness in his voice. "It was on the news. You looked like a mess."
"I am." You sigh.
"Did you go to the hospital?"
"No."
"Seriously?" He sounds skeptical with a hint of worry, and that's not great.
"I have a friend." You reach up, out of habit, to push your hair behind his ears, and feel the slickness of blood. You pull it away in disgust, and wipe your hand on your thigh.
"Doctor?" Shining asks.
You shook your head in response and the world swims before his eyes. It takes you a few moments after that to remember that he can't see you. "No. Civilain…"
"You know how dangerous that is?" Captain Armor questions, sounding legitimately angry*. You wish you'd never given him a reason to sound that way. But, if you hadn't, you could've gone down with that bridge. "For both of you?"
"Of course I do. It was dangerous telling you, in the first place."
"As if you had a choice." Shining Armor snorts, as if remembering the terms of your partnership, "You gonna be okay?"
"She treats animals. She knows some stuff. And if all goes wrong, I can always rely on Google."
"You're gonna die, one of these days, I swear." The police captain huffs.
"Currently am, my dear, captain." You say in the most posh voice you can muster.
"Fuck off." He spits, but it's good natured; you can tell. "New's not happy with you."
"The news is never happy with me."
Okay, deadman. Call me if anything else happens." He hangs up before you can say anymore.
Your arm is slick on the side with plasma as it brushes against your ribs. You look down to assess the damage.
There are little nicks from your collar down to your stomach, and a huge gash across the left of your ribs. There are bruises blooming and purpling around the edges of the oozing, jagged cut. There's blood under your fingernails, and your legs are splattered with blood and bruises. You can't even imagine what your face looks like, but you can feel the blood matting your hair into knots.
It'll take a few washes to get all the red substance out of your scalp.
Your back stings. But before you can check, Fluttershy's shouldering her door open, carrying a towel and washcloth in one hand and a bag of first aid equipment in the other. You don't even have time to be embarrassed by the fact that you're standing in Fluttershy's room in just your briefs when Fluttershy looks up.
She drops everything when she sees you.
"Oh my Faust." Fluttershy sets everything down on the bed, and assesses each of your injuries. "I s-s-seriously think you should go to ho-hospital."
"What would I tell them?" You feel lightheaded.
"I don't know. You, you're a mess. T-Turn around." You do as you're told and heard Fluttershy gasp, sharply. "What the fuck did-did you d-d-do?"
He doesn't hear Fluttershy swear all that often, so it's a shock to hear it now. "What? What is it?"
"Your back. Whoever you fought sliced up your back pretty bad. What did you fight? A bear?" Fluttershy ushers you onto the towel on her bed and sits behind you. "Faust, you're a m-mess. I need to see how much bl-blood you've lost."
Fluttershy cleans out the gashes and it hurts like hell. You grip the back of Fluttershy's desk chair, with white knuckles, and grit your teeth. When Fluttershy touches your ribs you hiss and Fluttershy frowns. "I can't-can't tell if they're bruised or br-broken. You'll need to get an X-Ray, and those aren't ch-cheap."
"I can afford it." You assure her, knowing you (probably) won't need it.
Fluttershy weakily sighs, "Okay..."
After Fluttershy's patched up all your cuts with gauze and given your ribs another look, she says, "Take a sh-sh-shower. You're c-covered in blood," She sniffs you, "And you stink."
You do. The water 's pink for most of the experience. You look up while your towelling off your hair, with one of the darker towels the she has, and see your face.
You wince.
Besides the bags, and general hollowness that your face had taken on. You now sport a line over your right eyebrow that arches into your hairline, and a black eye, as well as a busted lip.
It's not attractive in the least.
Fluttershy left folded clothes on her bed, telling you to get dressed while she went downstairs to get something to eat.
The sweatpants are an inch or two too short at the ankle, and the t-shirt is a little too tight. But it doesn't even matter, because you already feel way better than how you felt climbing the tree outside Fluttershy's window.
Fluttershy enters the room holding a few granola bars and her phone, watching what looks to be a news broadcast.
She pauses it and looks at you, then back down at the screen. "I can't believe that's you."
You grimace. "I try not to watch the footage that they get of me."
"Why?" She inquires, handing you a granola bar. It's strawberry flavor.
"Makes me self conscious." You mumble, half-unwrapping the bar and sticking a good third of it in your mouth, beginning to chew.
"That's bullshit." Fluttershy says, kicking at her carpet as you sit down on the edge of the bed.
You shrug, swallowing the bite that's almost sickeningly sweet. "Throws me off my game." Is your next excuse but you know she isn't buying it.
"You." Fluttershy grinds out, glaring at you. Fluttershy never glares. You've really done it.
"It feels vain." You admit, rewrapping the bar, somewhat, and setting it down on the blue coverlet of Fluttershy's bed. "People are always gushing over Mr-Do-Well, the good that he does, how he's always there. Even you. It feels vain just letting all the comments slip by. It feels worse to actually push myself to watch the praise. I don't need that shit. Plus, a lot of people could die if I get cocky. You could die."
Fluttershy scoffs at this statement. "What makes you think that anyone would come after me?" She asks, leaning against her closet, a cat poster that was probably ripped out of a magazine crinkling against her shoulder blade. "What makes you think that anyone would want to get to you, li-li-like that?"
"I don't know. I just know that I can't risk it." You crumple your hand in the sheets. "I can't lose you, Fluttershy."
"That's bullshit." Fluttershy repeats, completely disbelieving.
"I can't lose you, you're too important." You insist, standing up, fists clenched at your sides. Fluttershy frowns at you.
"Stop lying," She says, striding towards you and pushing your shoulders, "it was bad enough-"
You grab Fluttershy hands and hold them in between youu two. "Do I need a reason to want you safe? Do I need a reason to protect you?" You whisper, and Fluttershy still looks angry, but in a helpless kind of way. "What if you were one of the people on the news and I couldn't get to you in time? What if someone took you, what if someone hurt you? I can't let that happen, Fluttershy."
"So, what? I'm supposed to sit by while you go around ri-risking your life for people you don't know, and not know if you'll make it out alive, or even uninjured?" Fluttershy demands, ripping away from you. This isn't what you wanted. You didn't expect Fluttershy to throw the chess board out the window completely. "I'm supposed to st-stay up late every night that you go out to stop robberies, and wait by the window, just in case you need me to patch you up, afterwards? I'm not useless, you know!"
"You could be in a dangerous situation!" You reply, the heat and anger and hurt in your own voice rising and choking you. The idea that Fluttershy could ever be in a position where you couldn't get to her, where she could die-
"So what if I am? You are too! Even w-worse than me! You can't stop me from worrying about you! You can't st-stop me from being terrified every time you leave that you won't c-c-come back!" Fluttershy's yelling now. You're terrified that she'll overexert herself say something she doesn't mean. Or say something loud enough for a neighbour to hear. "You crawled in my window t-tonight and you looked barely alive, and do you know what it would do to me if you died?! If they got you? Do you know how it would destroy me?!"
Your stomach drops. There are tears in Fluttershy's eyes. You gasp a little as you inhale and rub your eyes.
"Don't act all high and mighty trying to protect me! Because, at the end of the day, I'll be trying to protect you from people who will leave you for dead in the middle of the road just so some amateur journalist can pull your mask off and snap a picture while you're unconscious. Or worse. You can't tell me that I should stand by while I could watch you die on live television. Let me help you. Please."
"Fluttershy..." You reach for her but Fluttershy takes a step back. You stop breathing.
"You can't just walk in at two am, all beaten up, in your costume, and not expect me to want to help you." Fluttershy says. Silence fills the room.
You still don't dare to breathe. The subsiding dizziness creeps forward in your mind and you would rather die right here then fighting some crazy bitch with magic hair.
"I can't stand by and watch you get yourself killed," Fluttershy whispers, and swallows visibly. You watch as she trembles where she stands. "I can't let that happen, because I love you."
You watch as Fluttershy's chest rises and falls with breath and looks up to meet your gaze.
You let out the breath you were holding.
"I love you, too." You return and tug Fluttershy into a hug. Fluttershy's arms loop around your neck, and you feel Fluttershy start to cry, feel her clutch you as close as she dares.
It makes you hug her tighter.
Like a promise.
Like you'll never let go.
You know that you owe Fluttershy so many explanations. And that there are so many loose ends. And that it's far from being over, and that everything will be different in the morning, because everything is a little less gorgeous in the day. But you have this for now.
And, you might die tomorrow, but you know that at least there isn't so much that you left unsaid, now.
