somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Monday Morning [10/09].

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MHA #4; Monday Morning [10/09].

Even if Summer had thought it would be a good idea to leave Stark alone for a bit while she went to work, she would seriously be way too tired to deal with anything, especially whatever random holiday Apu was celebrating, and you know what? That was fine. She was the boss now, she could do whatever she wanted, and if that meant doing orders tomorrow instead of today, then so be it. Because Stark was definitely not doing much better, and she hadn't gotten hardly any sleep for all the nightmares and screaming, and she eventually gave up and just went into her kitchen to make herself some coffee and cling to the mug with a thousand-mile stare at the backsplash tile and thinking of maybe writing a strongly worded email to the multiverse to maybe stop throwing in shit to give the guy she slept with horrible night terrors that were making no one in this apartment right now happy, the cat especially included.

As she sipped her coffee, she was also staring at that backsplash tile and idly wondering if she should maybe redo her kitchen.

Her brain had been through a lot lately, shut up.

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That got Summer one of those soft smiles reserved only for her and a gentle squeeze of her hand before he took the mug.

"A little better?" he said, still sounding uncertain. "Not so exhausted, at least. You...you always help, you know."

He took a sip of his coffee and sighed contentedly. "This helps too."

And Summer almost said that, yeah, she knew, but, instead, just nodded approvingly at this answer and added, "And the food'll help even more, once it gets here, and thank god, because there was no way I was cooking anything, no offense, you'd have had frozen waffles and liked it."

Well, Summer was pretty sure she could feed Stark most things, even gross things at this point, and he'd love it, actually, but that was beside the point.

"Breakfast sandwiches sound much better, and even a little better is still better because that's at least some improvement, at least."

"I like waffles," Stark said. "I would have liked it." Because she gave them to him.

Also it was likely neither one of them would ever make pancakes again, so.

"Improvement is good," he agreed. "I'll take a little better over not better at all. Should we sit? Table? Couch? The food should be here soon. They said just a few minutes..."

There was absolutely about to be a knock at the door.

A little better over not better at all meant it was less likely that whatever damage had been done wasn't permanent, which meant that Summer could take her level of being pissed off down slightly instead of straight up amping it up to eleven.

"Wherever you'd like," Summer told him. "Couch is probably more comfortable, but maybe we should wait until it gets here, so we don't have to get up the moment we do get comfortable. Actually, no, you just go ahead and sit down, I'll grab the food when it gets here, you're the one who needs to be resting more."

"I can stand without hurting myself," Stark said with mock indignance. He was still already heading for the couch. "I don't need that much rest!"

Except maybe he did. Someone had taken a big bite out of his very lifeforce less than 2 full days ago.

"But I'll sit. And drink my coffee. And then eat my sandwich when it comes."

Summer was very pleased to see that Stark was going to save her the trouble of arguing with him about something they both knew she was going to be right about by just going to the couch regardless of any protesting urges.

"Good," she said fondly, drifting after him less to make sure he was going to be good on his word but more to just give him a pat on the head once he did sit down because she just couldn't help herself.

"Anything else you want for the day?"

Stark didn't actually have the energy to argue for real. Not yet.

"I have everything I could want," he said, looking up at her with another soft smile and catching her hand after she patted his head. "For now. Thank you. For everything."

Summer shook her head but she grinned down at Stark for a moment before she snorted. "Man," she said, "you really need to shoot a little higher, we don't even have--"

Conveniently, that was when there was a knock at the door. "Well, there we go," she said, pulling away to go answer it, "that's probably the food now."

"If it's not the food tell them to go away," Stark said.

Look, he wasn't in the mood for dealing with other people right now. Especially if, say, a very angry person came from upstairs. That would be bad. Very, very bad.

He really just wanted to be here in his favorite spot with the person he cared most about in all the worlds and hopefully have nothing terrible happen, at least for a little while.

"What if it's someone coming to tell me I won a billion dollars?" Summer challenged, although, yeah, there was a very short list of People Other Than Food that would be acceptable right now, and she kind of hated the fact that, now that Stark had proposed the possibility, she was thinking of a list of Who Would Be The Worst To Show Up Because That Would Be Exactly My Luck and bracing herself when she got to the door and checked the peephole.

And then out a sigh of relief that it was, in fact, the food, opened the door and fished out an extra tip for them from her wallet, thank them and triumphantly returned to the couch.

"It was the food!" she announced. Thank god! She plopped down onto her side of the couch with the bag between them and started to open it to rifle through it. "Any bets on how much extra they sent?"

"For a billion dollars you could let them in," Stark allowed. "But I'm glad you didn't have to."

He leaned forward to set his mug down and then turned his attention to the bag.

"Do you think they sent potatoes? I should have ordered potatoes. The...hashbrowns?" They were so crunchy and delicious! "But...at least 1 extra sandwich, I'm sure."

"Can Pancakes have egg? Or a little bit of the meat? She might need a treat."

She might need a trip to a kitty space spa, really.

"Good luck trying to get her out of her hiding tube any time soon," said Summer, with a snort, as she fished out at least one sandwich for her and one sandwich for Stark, and then dutifully counted how many remained inside. Definitely more than they'd need, unless she was greatly underestimating Stark's appetite right now, but not too excessive. And, alas, no hashbrowns, which caused her to shake her head a little and discount the theory that these delivery orders sometimes seemed to just be based on the manifestation of sheer will alone. "But we can save a little bit for her for later. She's got to come out to eat at some point."

While staring warily at Summer the whole time and practically begging her to not start crying again.

"This," said Summer, with a mouthful of her first bite of the sandwich already, "was a great idea, Stark, thank you."

"I didn't mean to frighten her," Stark said, frowning as he unwrapped a sandwich. He didn't know that Summer had been crying at the poor cat for days already. "Or you."

He took a bite of his sandwich, barely chewing before he swallowed and followed it with a second bite. Maybe he was hungrier than he'd thought.

"You're right. Very good idea. I was hungry."

Summer shook her head as she ate her next bite, chewing and swallowing it before she answered, with a dismissive shrug. "You're fine," she assured him. "She was already pretty irritated with me to begin with, you showing up was just probably a big old 'sigh, FINE, just throw more on my plate while you're at it!'"

She then looked at him thoughtfully with her next bite, reaching over to pick up her coffee again to take a drink as she contemplated the whole frightening her aspect of it, which then just lead her to simply note, "Good. That's a good sign. I'd be way more worried if you weren't."

"Did something happen?" Stark asked before he could think better of it.

Something must have happened but he had no idea what.

"You don't have to say," he added quickly, stuffing a very large bite of his sandwich into his mouth before he could add anything else."

"It's just--" Summer started, stopped. then frowned a little at her sandwich. She took another bite so that her mouth had something else to do while she debated with herself about trying to explain, because, hey, lady, you were all about how good therapy was for you and how a big part of that was actually talking about it when something was wrong, and here was someone who would listen to you read the damn phone book outloud if it meant getting to spend more time with you, so therefor...

"I...got some news on Wednesday," she eventually said, and, right out the gate, she was getting it wrong and she shook her head. "Well, I mean, kind of. Not exactly. It's...it's kind of complicated, but that's why....that's why I was the way I was Wednesday night, and why I've been kind...~~nonexistant~~ low-key since then, I've been just kind of trying to....process it, I guess, and I'm not doing a great job of it, so she's had to deal with me being all emotional and shit about it..."

She shook her head. "It's dumb, anyway. I should really just go see Dr. Wang about it. It's been a while since we've had a session, anyway..."

Stark took another bite of his rapidly disappearing sandwich and chewed it slowly.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "If you want someone to listen...you know I'm here. For whatever you might need."

The last bite of the sandwich disappeared in his mouth and then he turned to look at her.

"But you don't have to say any more than you want to. Ever."

"I know," said Summer, softly, and that urge to just start spilling her guts out right here and now was strong, but also, the desire to not be reduced into a sobbing, blubbering mess again was pretty fucking strong, too. "It's...it's kind of dumb, anyway, and you've been through enough right now without having to add to it. Probably should just save it for the person getting paid to listen to me be all...."

She waved a hand in front of her in lieu of a good word that wouldn't just make Stark start to immediately protest.

"Whatever."

Stark just looked at her for a long moment before nodding.

"You don't have to say. But I'm here if you need me and I'm here if you want me. Always."

He reached for his mug then, took a long sip of coffee, then set it down again before moving the bag of food to the table as well. Just in case someone wanted to come closer.

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MHA #4; Monday Morning [10/09].

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