nextgenerationmarvel | A Day In The Life of Stephanie (Marcelo)

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A Day In The Life of Stephanie (Marcelo)

Stephanie hadn't slept the last night, having spent the whole night finishing up both her papers for school and a policy draft for Shaw Industries, both of which had to be finished and sent off to the appropriate recipients by 8:30 am that morning. Stifling a yawn (it'd been three solid days without sleep and she was starting to feel tired), Stephanie went off to classes, picking up some fast food for breakfast along the way. Classes ran from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, including one of the many surprise tests that she was fond of giving. The one half-hour stretch she had consisted of delicately balancing shoving the nearest food at hand into her face and engaging in a frantic phone call with Shaw Industries personnel about yet another crisis.

She was also very nearly caught texting in class. But intead of sexting her boyfriend like half of the other students, she was arranging for food deliveries to the shelter.

Immediately after class was finished, she had to rush over to Bistro Provencal to run a job interview for a sous chef there and shortly thereafter, to La Navarra to have a dinner meeting with city officials regarding her plans for expanding the facilities of the 8th street shelter. Soon after that, she was at Shaw Industries, filing paperwork and making sure that nothing else hideously corrupt or evil had in fact transpired that day. Tuesdays and Thursdays were better days for the Shaw Industries work- she only had morning classes on those days and could put more effort into her primary business holdings.

Shaw Industries work more or less done by 3 am, at which time she finally got home, having to find the list of 24-hour food delivery places because she was desperately underfed. By the time she'd eaten, she realized that she had to be up and about for another day in only four more hours and that there'd be no immediate respite until the next weekend.

Marcelo wasn't home- probably on patrol. And Sancho for his part seemed almost hesitant to come near her, as if frightened she was simply going to disappear again.

There was a desperately sad little meow from her furry baby.

That was when Stephanie broke and began sobbing into the substandard Thai food she'd ordered.

I can't do this anymore. I can't. I don't know how I'm going to do this.

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"Oh. Ah heh." He quickly shoved some food in his mouth. Then he was very thorough about chewing and swallowing.

There had been a decided flaw in his plan for his wife to take some time off to relax. He wasn't quite so pretty looking under the pajamas. And one thing Stephanie did do was care and worry about him. And enjoy the physical aspects of their relationship.

He scratched one of his eyebrows as he chewed and tried to figure out a good way around this.

"I'll be getting some better sounds out of you soon enough." Stephanie emphasized the point by eating a strawberry about as lewdly as it was possible to actually consume an item.

There was definitely a serious flaw in Marcelo's plans to make Stephanie relax, because it usually didn't take too long for her mind drift towards enjoying her husband very, very thoroughly.

She reached over to feed him a strawberry this time.

He gave her a little half-smile. He was slightly distracted by trying to figure out if they could be in a dark room. Which would not hide the heat coming off of demon-inflicted bruises.

His distraction from trying to work out something to save the day was interrupted by his wife and her strawberry display. His eyebrows shot up at the display. He shifted on the bed a bit.

No point getting excited when the rest of his body was going to ruin it.

Despite his worries, he did not refuse being fed a strawberry.

Stephanie did realize that he seemed a little hesitant about things. Honestly, she was surprised that he wasn't a little more all over her, considering she'd even started performing for him a little bit.

"If you're worried about how I'm feeling, I'm really much better ..."

She reached over to brush her hands against his chest and felt a strange, unnatural warmth coming off of them. Her eyes opened wide.

"... Marcelo, why do you feel so hot?" It would make sense if it was his brow, though that would have been a terrible fever.

He was a bit slow to reach up and stop her from running her hand over his chest. So his hand hung lamely in the air as his wife felt what he had been trying to hide.

Last night, she probably hadn't noticed because the pit of despair she had been in was deep and cold. This afternoon was a whole different story.

He winced a little. "The... bruises on my body are... not from my typical targets. They're more... infernal in multiple senses. But! Sofia Strange assured me they'd heal up naturally."

"... infernal? Like Hell?"

Stephanie's eyes opened wide. It took her a moment to form anything resembling words and when they did, they came out something between a terrified whisper and an angry hiss.

"... you were fighting demons?!?"

Edited 2016-03-26 20:16 (UTC)

"Or the underworld, but yes." He realized now that was probably among the worst ways to explain it to her. He rubbed the back of his neck.

He was very tempted to slide off the bed and retreat somewhere. Though he stayed put.

"I have been helping the Defenders with demons for the past few months, when I'm not running into mythological creatures or the Blood Cultists of Make Demon Babies."

"Demons."

Stephanie repeated that statement because it bore repeating. She took a deep breath, trying not to simply yell at him like she wanted to do.

"Marcelo ..." In truth, she was terrified, because he was going to get himself killed. She didn't want to say that he couldn't be out there fighting demons but he didn't have the power to do that.

And then she realized something and turned away from him completely, staring at the ground.

He's going out there and getting himself killed because he can't deal with being abandoned by me.

His brows knit together when there was nothing said beyond his name. He'd expected to get yelled at, lectured, something. And then she turned away from him.

He drew in an unsteady breath and blinked away the sting in his eyes. "Isso é foda," he whispered softly.

"Não sei o que dizer." He really didn't. She was shutting down on him. He tried to reach over and touch her.

"It's like you're trying to get yourself killed." Stephanie replied, whirling around at him as he tried to touch her. "It's like you're trying to get yourself fucking killed. I knew. I knew when I married you that you would be going out, fighting gangsters. I understood that, even if I didn't love it.

But where does it stop? Where does it end? If the fucking Defenders want you to fight Galactus? What happens then? I just want to be able to believe that there's some other way that this ends other than you being in a box in the cold, dead ground and me being a widow."

Her glare dissolved as she started to cry, as the thought of him dying became all too real. She could imagine it perfectly. Having to tell his father about how and why his son died so young, having to deal with life without him.

"Tengo mucho miedo de que vas a morir.

Mi amor, no puede morir.

Te necesito."

He recoiled a bit when she whirled on him. He hadn't expected it though the words she threw at him were.

"Galactus is kind of beyond the..." He trailed off. That line of defense wouldn't work. And just like that, Marcelo being himself had ruined any recovery for Stephanie.

"I can't sit by and not help people, Stephanie. It's just... a flaw. I don't go out there to fight, I go out there to save. It might not be gang members on the street who take a child's parent away. It could be... But it hurts you. So, I..." He spread his hands helplessly and shrugged. He felt so stupid. There should be some winning argument to this. His brain just couldn't seize it.

He swiped at the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"I know, mi amor." Stephanie quietly murmured between little sobs. "You're the bravest man I ever met and it's really, it really is one of the reasons I love you so much. Most other men would have taken one look at my life and run screaming. But, but you have to plan to live. You have to intend to be here and grow old."

She wiped at her eyes. "I'm not stupid. I know that horrible things happen. I know that there's a very real chance that fate could take- you know, it might not even be you. It could be me too. But you can't just assume you're going to die young. You can't. That's no way to live, not for you, not for me, not for us.

I'm sorry if I'm not making sense."

His head hung low. He didn't know how to tell her that it was near impossible for him to plan to grow old. To think about being older than his mother ever got the chance to be.

"You go, I won't be long behind you," he admitted very quietly.

"Don't say that." Stephanie pleaded with him. "Please. Please don't." She let out a sob.

She knew that if she lost him that she may very well live for a very, very long time without him. But it would be a miserable existence and there was a very real risk of losing her moral center. For so long, he had been that lodestar for her.

He shook his head slightly. He was not great at lying to her. Though he was great at not telling her things. Like that.

He probably shouldn't have told her. Adding a burden to her shoulders at that very point was stupid.

"I should..." He slid off the bed and then he stopped. He just stood there dumbly beside the bed. He had no idea what he should do. Everything he was doing made Stephanie feel worse.

Stephanie slipped off the bed herself and went over to him, wrapping her arms around him and bringing him close, feeling the unnatural heat of his injuries, but also the warmth of his body, the beat of his heart.

Marriage had never promised that it was going to be easy and their lives would make it so much harder. And being angry would be so easy. But was it right? She rested her head against his back.

"Para bien o para mal ... para tener y mantener"

He stiffened a bit. He hadn't expected her to touch him. Even if it was something he had been craving for months.

Marcelo tentatively placed a hand on one of her arms encircling him. He swallowed a bit.

"I'm still here."

"You are. Maybe I worry too much about the future." Stephanie held him tighter. "I love you. I need you, you're my life."

She leaned against him, probably getting part of his pajama top wet with her tears.

"We need each other."

He swiped at the wet tracks on his cheeks with his free hand. His wife was there. Those should have been tears of joy. So, he tried to muster his reserves to pull together.

"I love you, too. And you're leaning against a ticklish spot..."

Which was a nice change from the burning pain, all things considered.

Stephanie's hands slipped a little lower and tickled at that particular sensitive spot.

"I know." Her own eyes were still wet, but she let out a tiny little laugh and tickled him again.

After all, she knew his body just about as well as he himself did.

"Gah!" He jerked in her arms when she purposefully tickled him. He bit his lower lip to keep from giggling, but it came out as muffled snigger when she tickled him again.

"Oh, now I'm trapped. Good thing the tickler is a drop, dead gorgeous woman."

"Rawr." Stephanie replied. "You're trapped." She hugged him just a little tighter. Not too much that it would hurt, particularly with his bruises, but if he tried to break out, he'd find it difficult. "All mine."

She slid around so she was in front of him and pulled him down for a long kiss.

He took a deep breath in that tight hug. Things might get back to normal. Which was better than they had been. He wanted that so very badly.

"All yours," he agreed. When she shifted around, he moved his arms so she could do so without letting him go.

Whatever intentions she started that kiss out with, he couldn't say. Because his own portion of it became desperately hungry. He had missed her so much and he swore he had almost ruined it a few minutes ago.

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A Day In The Life of Stephanie (Marcelo)

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