Stupid of me to say it, but the day had been a lot, and I was feeling like more than one set of feelings were runaway trains.

“Cross my heart,” he said. Metal fingertip traced an ‘x’ on metal breastplate. “Are you feeling like running away?”

I shook my head.

I wasn’t even sure how to articulate it.

“What?” he asked. His metal fingertip touched my face, cool to the touch, brushing at a droplet.

“I realized how far away my parents were. How far away you were. It’s like something inside of me broke.”

“Don’t break because of me,” he said, like it hadn’t already happened.

“And when I took off, flying above the city for the first time… it’s like a rollercoaster ride, and my stomach just went… whooosh. Like I left it behind.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice a breath.

“And at the same time, this other feeling hit me with just as much intensity, when I realized how small they were, and that they couldn’t fly.”

I shivered.

“You’re cold.”

“I’m overwhelmed.”

I waited for him to speak up, because I’d just shared vulnerability, told him just why I’d triggered, as much as I’d figured it out and put words to it. I wanted it, badly, because he was the person I wanted to share this sort of thing with, and I wanted to share in his. It was the last big barrier between us.

He didn’t.

But he undid a catch, lifted up his full-face visor, and showed me his face, lit up around the perimeter with the small lights that made the gaps of his armor shimmer and glow. He had to turn his head more than usual to kiss me so he didn’t hit me with the visor.

A substitute for the answer I’d been reaching and hoping for, but… I’d really wanted this too. I told myself he could tell me later, in a more private time and place.

⊙

“Are you okay?” Chicken Little asked me.

The question was loaded, and it was one I’d heard again and again. Jessica’s first words on seeing me whole had been ‘you’re okay’. Gilpatrick had asked me, my mom had asked me, my dad had asked me, Crystal had asked me. Every single one of my teammates had asked me.

Again and again, the answer had been no. No. Fuck no. Are you crazy? No. Or variations on that theme, like wanting to cry when I heard it. Again and again, I’d dodged the question, avoided it, or I gave the best nonverbal cues I was equipped to give.