LAURA

The tautness in the cabin was unrelenting, my sigh a rather soft deflating as my eyes fell on him - sense and standing and turned away from me. It was as if the tension had been hoisted off my chest and left me with ease instead of despair. My terseness melted into nothing, reeling me onto the door frame and palming my forehead in the confusion of the source weight suddenly dissipating.

I saw his bare back muscles strain with effort as he slipped on the abandoned sweatshirt over the side of the bed. His hair was disheveled from the resting posture and his movements too slow to be lucid. When he turned, his eyes softened with genuine surprise, a smile spreading on his lips.

'Morning, doll. How've you been?'

It took me a second to actually believe that he was right in front of me, hours later from the mire of dysfunction he had pushed me into, larger than life itself. I didn't know what came over me, my legs moving forward on their own accord and doing what neither of us expected.

Don't do it, Laura, don't even - 

A loud thwack resounded through the room, Eddie grabbing the side of his cheek after my upturned palm collided with his cheek. My face was scrunched to a sneer.

Fair enough.

'Ow,' he grunted with his jaw dropped in shock. 'Laur, what the fuck - '

'You,' I seethed and clutched the clutched of the sweater, 'wake up after what seems like days and have the nerve to ask me how I am! I could just - ' I ended up letting out a growl of disbelief and shoving him away. 

'Did you just stomp your foot?' Eddie said, chuckling while adding up to my irritation. 'I thought girls only did that on TV.'

'Don't even, Eddie,' I bared my teeth at him. 'I asked you to stay where you were. None of this would've happened if you had just listened and - and I was so afraid! There was so much blood, you wouldn't open your eyes - '

Eddie placed both his hands over the side of my cheeks to cut into my rambling and lift my eyes to his. His lips were pressed into a thin line, his eyelids held low.

'I'm alive and kicking,' he said. 'And I still love you.'

Don't fall for it, weakling.

'That's a pretext,' I breathed out. 'Poking at my pet peeves is a bad idea.'

'Yet, the undeniable truth.'

And, you fell for it.

I shook my head in hopelessness, dropping it over his shoulder prompting him to laugh lightly and gather me into his arms for a hug. How much ever my favorite dress was in shambles and face was crusted with grime and few bruises from the previous night, he didn't seem to care. Eddie was warm all of a sudden, maybe the similar temperatures causing us to take refuge in each other or his acts. He swayed us on spot, resting his cheek over the top of my head and caressing my body with his gentle breaths.

'Want to tell me about those badass swords of yours?' He insisted into my hair, inhaling sharply. 'Any other tricks up your alien sleeves?'

Many more. Hammers, maces, arrows, webs . . . 

I laughed at Sin, tightening my arms around him. 'So much more, apparently. Jealous?'

'Greatly,' he replied. 'And surprisingly aroused.'

'Ew,' I scrunched my face. 'That's disturbing.'

'Yeah, not my best move,' he lowered his shoulders with the failed effort. I lifted my lips to his with a soft smile, wanting to have haven after all the chaos around us. He gave in, pushing his lips against mine and kissing me unrestrictively. I couldn't help but moan under my breath, muffling into his lips and coiling my hands over his neck.

'But it worked like a charm,' he said into my lips and making me chuckle. 'Too bad we're being patrolled or I would've seriously put that air-mattress to use.'

Can't this human male not keep it in his pants?

I don't think so.

'Jesus, Eddie,' I sighed and extricated myself from his arms, undeniably embarrassed about the fact that we were being watched or maybe even listened to, at the moment. 'For one second, you can't be together.'

'You're just as pleasing as punch,' he confessed, dipping his hand to my waist. 'Body and brains - it's making us vulnerable.'

'Oh?'

I will leave you to it from here. Being offended sucks.

Sin was a life-saver. Not that Eddie had never not complimented my looks before, but seeking this as his weakness was new. I had always thought of him as my uppermost strength emotionally, before Sin even, since almost everything my life was tied around revolved around him. 

'I've been giving a lot of thought to what comes after,' he muttered, softer than before and taking my hands into his. I stood rooted on spot, confused about his sudden approach. 'None of this is what I wanted with you, Laur. Stuck battling some hideous creature every other day, Earth's mightiest heroes, people falling from the sky - all this is not me. Not us.'

'What do you want?' I asserted. 'Eddie, you're one of them, now. A hero, a role model. This is the next best thing - '

'No,' he shook his head, 'you are light years away from my point. Two weeks ago, this wouldn't have made sense but now? It's the right thing to do. To fall back and give it a rest,' he mumbled out and rubbed a finger over the underside of my palm. 'Plan ahead and start something together.'

'There are people out there who need you,' I snatched my hands away with disapproval. 'I risked everything for protecting your stupid sobriquet! And, you want to up and leave? This is not the Eddie Brock I agreed to spend the rest of my life with.'

'I - we want a family,' he sighed, blurting out his final detail. 'Is that too much to ask? To be normal?'

My breath caught in my throat, knowing this conversation was not appropriate at the stance we were in. I felt exposed all of a sudden, the obvious befuddling and the revealing an all-new path making my thoughts swirl. Eddie was, in some way, right. A long time ago, I would've smiled and accepted his offer but with a symbiote linked to my body and involvement with the saving-my-fellow-man troop, it all seemed too far away.

We'd lost too much. 

Eddie's large hands encircled my jawline, pushing the hair away from my face. He had a despairing expression on his face, forcing his eyes on mine.

'I know you're scared. It's only fair because missed our chance at starting over,' he said softly and hinting at our lost chance of beginning a family from a while ago. My eyes burned with unshed tears, holding them back and biting my trembling lip at the thought of the obscene matter. 'It's in the past. We have an opportunity and I'm willing to take it. A baby Brock.'

'I'm not ready for that,' I confessed softly, breathing roughly. 'Not yet. I can't do it.'

My eyes were set on the ring on my fingers which started to weigh a thousand pounds and toughening my responsibilities. I wasn't his girlfriend anymore, I was his wife and I was having a hard time accepting that. 

He exhaled out, long and hard. 'Laura - '

'A long time ago, I would've said yes,' I continued. 'A baby, a bigger home and everything; it's a pipedream at our stances. You almost died yesterday so easy to say, anything could happen at any time. To me, inclusive. Think about a baby in the mix, Eddie, how are you going to deal with that?'

For what seemed like the longest time, he looked at me. As if searching my face for flaws in my decision but he was at a loss because I was certain about my point. 

'So no, we are definitely not ready for that.'

'Okay.'

I snapped my eyes to his. 'What?'

'Let's have it your way. I can't force you into it,' he sighed and shrugged lightly. 'And at this rate, I don't want to lose you over some early negotiations.'

I nodded solemnly, happy that he was falling in line. I cast him an apologetic expression. 'I'm sorry.'

'Hey,' he murmured, stuffing his palms awkwardly into his pockets. 'Don't be. I'm happy you straightened this out with me.'

'Right,' I spoke to convince myself, 'because that's how marriages work. You talk.'

'Exactly,' he nodded. He raised his fist for a fistbump. I grinned and knocked mine with his. 'A plus for that effort. You're not having second thoughts, are you?'

'None you should worry about.'

The air only thickened with tautness after the reservation, a slight buzzing static of the interface around us, crackling softly. I gripped the edges of the bed, cording and uncording my fingers around it not knowing how to react after something so formal that we had talked about and not able to meet each other's eyes. Eddie himself felt the strain, his hands going to his neck and cracking his knuckles with anxiety.

'Sweet Jesus, just use the freaking bed already!'

- ♣ -

[ w/n: i know what you guys are thinking. 'oh my god! what a loser, she just put this in here without context and just ends with a shitty one-liner, ugh!' 

well, shut your mind traps right now. here's your minor plot info :-- Eddie and Laura were both vulnerable at this point: Eddie nearly lost his life and Laura was shaken up from the fact that her lover wasn't all that durable for a fact. this conversation was going to happen one way or another since for sooooo long, I've wanted these two to literally get a break. but that's the thing about superheroes - you can't ever escape it! being an avid comic reader, I've learned one thing. once you have it, you've signed off your every aspect to this one thing that will have everything revolve around. starting a new chapter is literally a no-go. I hope this clears things around here, thanks for reading this, loves! 

btw, i'm having a writer's block and it's so hard *cries* i don't usually have this *cries harder*  ]