IC Inbox for Hadriel

[zen_en_vert]

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[zen_en_vert]

I'm forty five. I've got several.

This was the most recent one, though, and the only one to turn up in Hadriel. Natasha- redhead, assassin.

[greywaren]

Definitely didn't meet that one.

[Ronan isn't quite sure if he's impressed or amused.]

You dated an assassin.

[zen_en_vert]

Codenamed 'the Black Widow,' in fact.

[greywaren]

[Ronan shakes his head definitively, putting up a show of Not Buying It.]

Nah. Too badass for you.

[zen_en_vert]

So I would insist.

[He promises.]

But she wasn't the kind of woman you argued with.

[greywaren]

[Bruce's tone makes Ronan roll his eyes with a little gagging sound, but the earlier conversation comes back to him and he refocuses quickly enough.]

She left?

[zen_en_vert]

Or got sent home, or whatever else happens to people who disappear here.

[greywaren]

How many other people are there from your world?

Here, I mean.

[zen_en_vert]

Initially it was me, Steve and Tony. Tony left, and Wanda came, then Steve left, then Wanda left, then Steve and Bucky and Natasha came, Natasha left, and Wanda and the Vision came.

It leaves us with five, including me. Steve and Bucky, Wanda and the Vision, and me.

[What should be evident from this is that Bruce doesn't actually come to Ronan with his problems.]

[greywaren]

[There's a pause, because he'd known that there have been some people, but certainly not that kind of revolving door of friends and- who knew what else. Ronan is quiet for a moment, considering that.]

I wonder about what would happen, if Parrish left. And the others too, but- I don't know.

[He almost certainly wouldn't be able to make it. He's not sure how Bruce does. Ronan pulls a leg up to the chair and wraps his arm around it, resting his chin on his knee.]

That sucks. I hope they stay this time.

[zen_en_vert]

I don't know if I do. I can't help but feel that all of us would be happier if they were somewhere else.

I don't want to wish ill upon them.

[greywaren]

Hm.

[It should be entirely obvious that Ronan (and Adam, and Gansey, and Noah) are all rather obsessively codependent, to the point where even admitting that his friends would be safer somewhere else would be gutting.

So Ronan isn't sure what to think of that.]

...where else? Is this worse than back home for you?

[zen_en_vert]

It is. I have a lot more control back home, and I'll admit- I miss that.

Very badly, in fact.

[greywaren]

But you can die back home.

[He points out, gruffly.]

Here it doesn't matter.

[zen_en_vert]

I- can't, so much, actually.

I can kill people, but dying, I haven't managed.

[greywaren]

[That earns him an eyeroll.]

Well, aren't you special.

[zen_en_vert]

If I could do it differently, I would.

[greywaren]

You mean not pulling a Jekyll-and-Hyde?

[Ronan shrugs.]

You'd be more vulnerable.

[zen_en_vert]

It takes a better man to be vulnerable than it does to be strong.

[greywaren]

I don't think you know much about being vulnerable.

[zen_en_vert]

That's a ridiculous thing to say to someone who you don't know very well.

[greywaren]

Fuck off.

[He sneers.]

I've known you for months. I know who you are.

[zen_en_vert]

You haven't. You've seen me the last few months, as an adult, you don't know where I've come from at all. I developed problems with anger after a long and storied history of abuse.

[greywaren]

[Ronan is quiet for a long moment at that, not necessarily backing down, just taking this new information and deciding how he feels about it.]

Tell me, then. How being vulnerable made you a better person.

[zen_en_vert]

I mean, when I was a kid, my father was dangerous. He-

[There are things here that he can't say out loud, even thirty five years later.]

I grew up very angry, about the things I couldn't do. Or change.