K I L L Y O U R D A R L I N G S

o. star-crossed lovers
prologue.

1995.

( LOVING HER FELT AN AWFUL LOT LIKE DYING. )

No — rewind. Losing her felt an awful lot like dying. Losing her felt like cogent fingers curling around my throat, depriving me of oxygen, draining me of life. Losing her felt like a knife, as sharp as her carefully chosen words, grasped between the cage of my failing ribs, tearing me apart from the inside out before etching her name all over the heart that beats for her. Only her.

But loving her — I'm still unsure what love actually is, I'm just a kid. How am I supposed to know what love is? Was it the way her delicate fingers brushed with adoration across my skin? Was it the way she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, only to add my world to it, too? Maybe love was how her eyes lit up like a thousand dying stars each time I smiled, or how the heat arose to her apple blossom cheeks each time I threw some flirtatious remark her way and how the flustered curl of her boldly colored lips I got in return made my heart leap.

Maybe. But loving her was also fucking terrifying. Aunt Pegs always said that it would be, I just never expected to be constantly afraid. Afraid of falling too hard. Afraid of getting too attached. Afraid of losing her. For the record, I did all of the above, she had me whipped, without question.

We all lost her. To some, she might have been a friend, or an acquaintance, maybe even family, but to me? She was the reason I rolled out of bed every day. She was a pair of arms that were always open, warm eyes I could get lost in, a heart that was undeniably too big for her body. She was home.

And finding a home in a person is either the best or the worst thing that can happen to you. For me, it's the worst. But I know that however ephemeral our love story was, it will be the goddamned best thing to ever happen to my miserable life, and I will forever have an empty space in my heart from where she was.

Yeah, she has me whipped.

( SHE WAS HIS HOME, BUT HERS WAS NOW AMONG THE STARS AND PERHAPS THAT, THAT WAS THE GREATEST TRAGEDY AFTER ALL. )

— ( tony stark's unspoken eulogy for nova moon. )

you'll find out why there's 'unspoken' in there, warning: it will crush you. any ideas? have a nice day.