longer.blue

#missinghowlett For whoever finds this first, Please, do not come looking for me. I'm breaking a lot of promises, and I'm sorry. I can't stay while all of you look at me the way you are. I know what's probably going on with me and I can't burden you all with that. Bad things happen to those I love or get close to me. I refuse to let you all watch the worst happen to me. Forgive me, one more time. Logan. Trembling hands reread the words over and over, as if by studying each word again, they would change. They would shift, transform, into saying anything but what had been written. Moisture filled her blue eyes. A quick glance toward the picture in the corner of her room was all she allowed herself before she tossed her phone to the side, the picture taken of the letter clearly on the screen and zoomed in. Her jaw clenched. Moisture threatening to spill onto her cheeks, sitting at the edge and threatening a waterfall should she let them loose. 💭I can work on SP//dr... I can lose myself in that, so I don't have to think about this. Her footsteps echoed through the empty house. Empty rooms gathered dust; a legacy of children burying their fathers that she inherited. Thin sheens of dust covered all seventeen rooms aside from the three she inhabited - and would inhabit more often, with no reason to leave now. The shadow on the ground, separate and different from the shadows that surrounded it, immediately drew her attention as she walked across the hallway to the repair bay. A rapid entry of the PIN code and the door opened with a suppressed hiss, where the severed pieces of SP//dr sat on the table before her, a heap of wires connected to six different diagnostic ports on it and the faint smell of burnt copper in the air. Usually when she stepped into this room, she got to work, as if her body took on a separate will and knew what to do. The teenager remained motionless. Her hands rested at her hips, gaze staring off into the darkness of the room before she focused enough on the present to turn the lights on. 💭Two. 💭Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. The smooth, cold metal of SP//dr's buckymetal and ceramic armor plating should have been comforting in its resistance. As if it alone were a bastion against the rest of the world, unyielding to anything trying to pierce it. Her fingers trailed along it, feeling the sensation against her skin. Now all it felt was cold, like stone. Unfeeling. Unyielding, but not in a protective way. Just in the way of the earth, resisting because of what it was and not with intent behind it. 💭It's as dead as he'll be. "SHUT UP!" Peni roared unexpectedly, her voice echoing throughout the empty repair bay. "JUST SHUT UP! He's not gone! He's THE WOLVERINE! He's- he's the..." Her voice trailed off, her admittance feeling as though she declared it before the world and not to an empty room. "He's the only one I didn't think would ever die." 💭He's the only one I thought would never leave me like dad did. The words rang true, whether spoken or not, and she still felt ashamed for them. 💭Ashamed? Why? Because- because I should be good enough without a dad? Is that what I think? That I just don't NEED someone like that because I can do everything else myself!? "That's so stupid!" she yelled, crashing her hands against SP//dr's plating. "That's so stupid, Parker! STUPID STUPID STUPID!" The plating didn't yield. Her palms reddened, she brought them away from the metal and looked at them and noticed how they trembled. "He doesn't want me to see him suffer?" she murmured, thinking about the note. "That's so... selfish. What is love if not to endure together?" 💭Talking to myself won't fix SP//dr. It won't bring dad back. It won't bring Logan back. But it can stop others from losing their fathers and mothers. It—I—can stop that from happening. Focus briefly flashed through her, only to fade away as she checked the diagnostic readout. The holographic display lit up the room in red and yellow, presenting the dire news to its lone audience. CAPACITOR AT 0% SHELL INTEGRITY AT 4% BATTERY INTEGRITY 1.5% CRITICAL DAMAGE TO NEURO-PSYCHIC RECEPTOR ARRAY CRITICAL DAMAGE TO RESONANCE CHAMBER ALIGNMENT CRITICAL DAMAGE TO SPINAL SUPPORT Her eyes scanned over the report rapidly. It was short, spelling out the situation in terms that couldn't be argued with or navigated around; SP//dr was inoperable. Just as unyielding as stone. Peni sank to the floor and then sat down, pressing her palms to her eyes as the dam broke and tears slid down her cheeks and chin to land on the repair bay floor plating. Her sobs echoed throughout the room. 💭If he left me it's because he's better off without me. Without us. He's doing this to spare us. "To spare us from what!? From being with him when he finally dies, like a family SHOULD be?" she snarled back at the thought, then shot up from her feet, still crying and wiping the tears on her white shirt sleeve. "So that we can- how dare he do this! How could he just run away and- and DIE!" Peni stopped walking at the solitary corner where the VEN#M suit rested and she pointed up at it accusingly. "WHAT'RE YOU LOOKING AT!? HUH!? You're just as bad as he is! JUST A REMINDER OF MORE LOSS!" Her foot collided with the plating of the VEN#M's left shin and she cursed rapidly, alternating from Japanese to English with a few choice oaths in German, then she kicked it again for good measure - or to break her toe. In the moment, she wasn't sure which. It felt good. Good to rage against something, to try and change something with her hands since she couldn't fix SP//dr with her hands. The rage cooled and vanished just as fast as it had appeared. The teenager turned away from the other mech and faced the doorway, then slowly walked through it, standing in the hallway once more, her hands running through her hair and ruining her ponytails. She tossed the small plastic bands to either side and found a curtain of hair obscuring her vision. "Why did you have to leave me?" she asked the empty air, knowing it wouldn't answer. 💭Am I asking Richard or Logan? 💭Do I... know? 💭Two lost dads. Three lost parents. By his logic, I should stop seeing anyone as a familial figure; I'll just have to bury them sooner rather than later.