Chapter Text
Rain taps lightly against the kitchen window—thin, persistent, the kind that never floods but never stops either. The world outside is soaked in pale gray, the sun nowhere to be found.
The house smells like antiseptic and coffee. A weird combination that doesn’t feel like home anymore.
Kenta arrives first.
He doesn't knock. He never does. The screen door creaks open, clicks closed behind him. A damp hoodie clings to his shoulders. He adjusts the strap of the grocery bag digging into his collarbone, two fingers white-knuckled around it. The other hand carries a bulk pack of protein drinks.
He sets them down on the counter too hard. One falls over. He doesn’t fix it.
North glances over from where he’s slouched near the stove, one elbow propped up, fingers wrapped around a steaming mug like it’s the last warm thing in the world. He doesn't say good morning. No one really says that anymore.
“There’s hot water,” North mumbles, voice hoarse. “Sort of.”
Kenta doesn't respond. He’s already unpacking. Bread. Bananas. Wet paper towels. A new bottle of shampoo—the kind Charlie used to like. He stares at it for too long.
“Left his brand in,” North says quietly. “Didn’t have the heart to switch it out.”
Kenta says nothing. He slides the bottle behind the tea canisters, where no one has to see it.
Alan is at the fold-out table again.
Third day in the same shirt. A clean one sits folded on the back of the chair, untouched. He’s reading garage invoices like they matter, like it’s still important whether a shipment of brake pads arrived two days late. His pen keeps running out mid-signature.
Every time it happens, he sighs. Not loud. Just a little more cracked.
The table beside him is cluttered with documents. Half of them medical. The top sheet lists Charlie’s nutrient intake in small, clinical print.
He hasn’t looked at it in two weeks.
In the bathroom, Jeff brushes his teeth like it’s a punishment. Stares at his reflection like it’s a stranger. His eyes are bloodshot and he doesn't remember crying.
His toothbrush clatters against the porcelain when he sets it down.
He opens the medicine cabinet. Closes it. Opens it again. Not looking for anything. Just... checking.
His brother isn’t dead.
But it feels like the house is haunted anyway.
Kim stands on the porch, cigarette burning low between his fingers. He doesn't smoke often—not really—but lately it’s the only thing that cuts through the suffocating weight in his chest.
The window into Charlie’s room is angled just enough for him to see the curve of a shoulder beneath the blankets. The soft blue glow of the machines.
He tells himself he’s just keeping watch.
He tells himself Babe shouldn’t have to be the only one.
But he doesn't go in.
Inside, Dean is trying to fix a broken cabinet hinge in the hallway and failing spectacularly. His hands are shaking, not because the job is hard but because every creak of the floorboards sounds like Charlie waking up, and every time it isn’t, something inside him dies a little more.
He doesn’t tell anyone this.
Instead, he swears under his breath and throws the screwdriver too hard into the toolbox.
It clatters, lid swinging half shut, but no one comes to check. They’ve all stopped reacting to sounds like that.
Sonic is on video call. The laptop sits on the kitchen island, propped against a cereal box. His face is pixelated from the connection, but his voice is clear.
“You all look like shit,” he says. It’s meant to be a joke.
No one laughs.
Sonic’s smile falters.
“Seriously. I—I wish I could be there,” he mutters, brushing a hand through his curls. “Paris is stupid. Everyone here wears scarves like they’re allergic to oxygen.”
Alan glances over. “We’re fine.”
Sonic snorts. “You’re lying. Alan, you’re literally in a shirt that has blood on the sleeve from the second week. Kenta looks like he hasn’t slept since May. North is developing a caffeine addiction. Jeff’s gone mute. Kim smokes now. Dean—”
“Don’t finish that,” Dean says from the hallway.
Sonic holds his tongue.
Then, quieter, almost afraid to ask: “Still no change?”
No one answers. The question is a curse they don’t speak out loud anymore.
The monitor in the other room beeps steadily through the silence.
They don’t talk about it. Not really.
About how Charlie’s breathing is too regular. How the doctors said if he wakes, there might be memory loss. Or worse. How Babe doesn’t leave the house anymore. How he won’t let anyone else give Charlie a bath or check his vitals. How he barely eats unless someone forces a plate into his hands.
How his entire life is now a 12x12 bedroom, a pair of medical monitors, and a man who hasn’t looked him in the eyes in four months.
They don’t talk about how they’re scared.
Scared he won’t wake up.
Scared that if he does, he won’t be Charlie anymore.
Scared that Babe—quiet, steady, headstrong Babe—won’t survive another loss.
They keep moving. Eat. Work. Pretend.
But the house is too quiet now.
And nothing feels like home.
The door to Charlie’s room closes softly behind Babe.
The rest of the house fades.
In here, the light is low—warm orange from the bedside lamp, its bulb faintly buzzing. One window is cracked just slightly to let in the rain-cooled air, but the curtains are drawn to keep the wind from reaching Charlie's bed. The room smells like clean linen, antiseptic, and faintly of cedar from the lotion Babe rubs into Charlie’s skin.
Charlie lies in the center of it all—still, pale, and thin. His body is cradled in layers of soft fabric, carefully arranged pillows, and warm weighted blankets. His chest rises and falls with mechanical precision. His hair has been trimmed. His nails are clean. There’s no medical staff here. No outside help.
Just Babe.
Babe rolls up his sleeves, methodically, and wets a cloth in the basin of warm water beside the bed. He wrings it out with practiced care. His hands no longer shake. They used to—back in the first weeks, when every movement felt like a violation, a crime against the man he loved.
Now his fingers are steady. Not because he’s healed. But because he's practiced breaking a thousand times over.
He presses the cloth gently to Charlie’s forehead, then over his cheekbones, behind his ears, along the line of his jaw. The skin is cool to the touch. Too cool. Babe warms the cloth again, then keeps going—down Charlie’s arms, under his shoulders, lifting one limb at a time to keep the muscles from dying. He whispers as he works. Words with no shape. Just sound. Just closeness.
“You’re doing good,” he murmurs, voice cracking the silence. “Your heart’s steady today.”
No answer.
Babe doesn’t expect one. He moves to Charlie’s fingers—wipes between them. His own thumb lingers on the knuckles, tracing the slight scar across Charlie’s ring finger, the one from a racing wrench years ago. The one Charlie used to call his ‘lucky mark.’
Babe swallows hard.
“You missed the first snow,” he says. “Not much, but… it stuck to the roof for a few hours.”
He shifts Charlie’s body gently to one side, careful of the IV line and catheter tubing. He changes the shirt—another soft, worn tee with faint lettering from an old garage event. The kind Charlie used to steal from Babe’s drawer when he ran out of clean ones.
“I kept your playlist running last night,” Babe says quietly, pressing the cloth to Charlie’s spine. “Thought maybe you’d hear it. I don’t know.”
He sets the cloth aside. Pulls a clean blanket over Charlie’s chest. Tucks it around his arms. Adjusts the oxygen tubing under his nose.
Then he just… stops.
His hand lingers on Charlie’s shoulder. Just rests there. A touch that has nowhere else to go.
“I miss your voice,” Babe admits.
The monitor beeps. Charlie doesn’t stir.
The door creaks open.
Babe glances up but doesn’t say anything. Just nods once and stands, slow and stiff, the chair legs scraping softly across the hardwood. He knows who it is. There’s only one person who comes at the same time every day, never late, never early.
Jeff.
He slips in like a ghost. Hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands, hood shadowing his face. He barely glances at Babe, just steps into the room like it’s the only place he remembers how to breathe.
Charlie’s room is still warm, low-lit, humming faintly with quiet machines. His chest rises and falls beneath the weighted blankets—mechanical, slow, painfully regular.
Babe squeezes Jeff’s shoulder on his way out. Jeff doesn’t react. Just pulls the stool to the bedside, the same one he always uses, and sinks down onto it with a familiar, bone-deep exhaustion.
He sits for a while in silence.
Then he leans forward and touches Charlie’s hand—fingers cool and unresponsive beneath his own.
“Hey,” Jeff says quietly. “You’re still here.”
His voice is hoarse.
He shifts on the stool, wraps his arms around his knees, and rests his chin there like a kid.
“You know, I had a vision once,” he murmurs. “Back before everything. Before Tony. I saw you standing in the garage with that stupid clipboard, yelling at Dean for putting the wrong oil in the Shelby. You were smiling. You never smiled like that unless everything was calm. You were happy.”
He looks at Charlie’s face. Still unmoving. Still too pale.
“I used to think that was our future. That someday we’d get there. I kept having that one vision over and over, like it was fixed. Like it couldn’t break.”
He takes a shaky breath.
“But then my powers started... mutating. And you—you tried to pretend it was okay. Said we’d train harder. Said we’d figure it out.”
Jeff laughs once, bitter. “I didn’t even see it. How much it was costing you.”
His thumb strokes over the edge of Charlie’s wrist—like he’s tracing the memory of a pulse that was once stronger.
“You told me not to use my powers. Said they were killing me. I thought you were overreacting.”
He swallows. Hard.
“And then you took them from me.”
His voice breaks on that last word.
“You took them. Without asking. Like it was nothing. Like your life was worth less than mine. You didn't even let me argue. You just smiled that annoying, smug-ass ‘I’ve already made up my mind’ smile and said—‘it's better this way.’”
A tear hits the back of his hand before he even realizes it's fallen.
“I didn’t want you to carry that,” he whispers. “You weren’t supposed to protect me. I was supposed to see it coming. I should’ve stopped you.”
He leans forward, rests his forehead against Charlie’s hand, and closes his eyes.
“And then you went after Tony. Got yourself shot. Just to finish it. Just to end it for all of us.”
His voice drops to barely a whisper.
“I can’t even look at Babe half the time. He never says it, but... I see it. Every time he looks at me. You did this for me.”
He lifts his head, wiping his cheek quickly with the sleeve of Charlie’s hoodie—the one he wears every day now, too big on him, but comforting in a way he doesn’t try to explain.
“I don’t know if I deserve to have you back,” he says. “But I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He reaches out and brushes Charlie’s hair off his forehead, smoothing it gently.
“I’m gonna keep coming, okay?” he says, voice trembling. “Even if you don’t wake up. I’ll still be here.”
He stays like that for a while.
Then he rises, quiet and slow, presses a soft kiss to Charlie’s temple, and walks out without another word.
Dinner happens late.
No one planned it. No one even said the word dinner. But somehow food appeared—takeout containers left on the counter by Alan hours earlier, a pot of burned rice scraped down to its passable top layer, reheated leftovers pulled from the back of the fridge.
They don’t set the table.
They just drift into the kitchen in ones and twos, pulled together not by appetite, but gravity. Habit. Maybe guilt.
The overhead light is dim, one bulb dead, the other flickering just enough to be annoying.
Dean slouches in the corner seat, hoodie pulled over his head, spoon tapping rhythmically against the side of his bowl. He hasn't taken a bite. He’s just making noise. He keeps his head down, as if eye contact might pull the wrong thread.
Alan is perched on a stool near the sink, sipping bitter coffee, eyes vacant. His fingers twitch against the side of the mug with the restless energy of someone used to fixing things—with his hands, his mind, his plans. But this? There’s no blueprint for this. Just waiting. Just hoping someone else opens their eyes before he closes his own.
Kenta sits stiff-backed in the only chair without a crack in it, eating methodically. One bite, chew, breathe. One bite, chew, breathe. His movements are precise. Controlled. But his jaw is tight, and every time the medical monitor in Charlie’s room beeps through the wall, he stops for just a second.
Sonic is on video, laptop balanced on a pile of mail. He’s in some dark corner of a student apartment in Paris, surrounded by half-finished sketches and a tea mug with a broken handle. The camera frame shakes occasionally, but his voice is steady. It's clear he's only pretending to be okay.
North sits on the floor, his back against the fridge, holding a half-eaten piece of naan. He hasn’t shaved in days. There’s sauce on his hoodie. His socks don’t match. His eyes keep darting to Charlie’s door down the hallway.
The silence thickens.
Every clink of a fork. Every scrape of chair leg. Every muffled beep from the next room presses down on them all like fog.
No one speaks.
Not until North tries.
“You know,” he says, voice too loud in the hush. “He used to snore so bad, I thought I was gonna lose my mind.”
Kenta looks up.
Dean doesn't.
Alan blinks once, slow.
North forces a chuckle. “Like, it wasn’t human. I thought it was an engine misfiring. It rattled the ductwork. No lie.”
Still silence.
He presses on, desperate now, trying to conjure levity where there is none.
“That time we all crashed in the garage after the track fire? I nearly duct taped a pillow over his face just to sleep.”
Dean mutters, “Don’t.”
Just one word.
But it lands like a punch.
North stiffens.
“I’m just saying—”
“Don’t,” Dean repeats, sharper this time. “We’re not pretending this is fine. You don’t have to make it a joke.”
North's lips press together. His face doesn’t crack, but his voice softens.
“I wasn’t pretending. I was remembering.”
On the laptop, Sonic’s pixelated face shifts closer to the camera. His expression is uncharacteristically serious. His voice cuts through the static clean and sharp.
“He’s still there.”
Everyone looks up.
Sonic’s eyes are glassy. The bright lights of his Paris apartment cast pale rings under them.
“You hear me?” he says. “He’s still there. Don’t you dare forget that.”
North drops his gaze.
Kenta sets down his fork with a careful clink and leans back in his chair. His face is unreadable, but he nods once. Quiet. Final.
Alan doesn’t speak. He just unfolds a napkin from his lap, smooths the edges, folds it again. The smallest rituals are the only thing that keep his hands from shaking.
Dean pushes his bowl away, untouched.
Nobody finishes their meal.
Nobody gets up first.
They just sit in it—together, and still somehow alone.
And in the hallway behind them, Charlie’s door remains closed.
Still.
Waiting.
The room is quiet.
Not silent—the machines are never silent—but quiet in that way Babe has come to understand as sacred. The kind of quiet that feels balanced, like something on the edge of tipping.
It’s after midnight.
He hasn’t slept.
There’s an untouched cup of tea on the windowsill, lukewarm. His hoodie smells like antiseptic and lemon soap. The oil on his hands is from massaging Charlie’s legs earlier, stretching out the muscle. He does that every four hours.
Just like the schedule says.
Babe is reading—well, was reading. A dog-eared copy of something Charlie liked once. His thumb rests against the edge of the page. He hasn’t turned it in twenty minutes.
He glances toward the bed.
Just for a second.
And then he sees it.
A flicker.
A twitch.
So small he almost doesn’t believe it—just the faintest curl of Charlie’s right hand beneath the blanket. A shift in the ring finger. A spasm?
No.
No, not a spasm. Babe is on his feet in an instant. The book hits the floor without a sound.
“Charlie?” he says—too loud, too quick, voice cracking on the name.
He’s at the side of the bed before he can think. He stares.
The fingers twitch again.
Then the shoulder shifts. Just barely. A ripple under skin and cotton. Babe’s breath leaves him in a rush.
“Charlie—”
The monitor beeps faster.
Babe fumbles to press the call button—but his hand hovers. He doesn't want to look away. What if this stops?
“Come on, come on,” he whispers. “Look at me. Just—anything. Give me anything.”
Inside, Charlie is drowning.
Sound is the first betrayal—beeping, too fast, too loud, sharp like broken glass in his ears.
Then smell: antiseptic, lemon, flannel, sweat, something almost like smoke.
His throat closes.
He doesn’t know where he is.
Can’t move. Can’t scream. Can’t even open his eyes.
His chest rises on instinct—but it doesn’t feel like breathing. It feels like falling.
Then a sound—a voice.
Rough. Familiar?
“Charlie…”
The name crashes through him like a stone thrown into water.
Something inside him recoils, then surges forward.
He remembers—gunfire.
He remembers—blood.
He remembers—a choice.
Jeff. Tony. Babe.
Then darkness again.
No, not darkness—light.
Babe leans in, fingers brushing Charlie’s hair back from his forehead, eyes wide with something between hope and disbelief.
“Charlie—if you can hear me—just squeeze my hand.”
He takes Charlie’s hand, carefully, and waits.
Nothing.
Then—pressure.
The faintest movement. Not enough for a grip. But it’s not passive. It’s intentional.
Babe’s breath catches.
His eyes sting. He doesn’t blink.
“You’re okay,” he says, voice breaking into a whisper. “You’re home.”
He lets go of Charlie’s hand only to reach up and press his palm to Charlie’s cheek.
Charlie’s eyes don’t open.
But his jaw tightens. His breathing shifts again.
The panic fades—just slightly.
The warmth of the touch, the voice, the name—it burrows into him. Anchors him.
He doesn’t know why.
But he believes it.
Just for a second.
Outside the door, down the hall, the house still holds its breath.
But in this room—something has changed.
The silence has cracked.
Charlie is waking up.
A shift.
Barely perceptible at first.
A flutter of lashes. A twitch of a brow. A breath that doesn’t sound like all the others before it—sharper, deeper, conscious.
Babe leans forward so fast the chair almost tips.
“Charlie?” he says. It bursts out of him like a prayer.
Charlie's eyes crack open—slow, trembling. A deep blink, then another, the muscles weak from disuse. His gaze moves—disoriented, unfocused.
He squints toward the light bleeding in through the curtains.
Then turns—just slightly—toward the voice.
The beeping on the monitor climbs.
Babe reaches out instinctively, hand hovering near Charlie’s cheek. “Hey, hey, I’m here. You're okay.”
Jeff is already halfway into the room, shoulders rigid, face pale. He doesn’t speak yet. Just watches, lips slightly parted, as though afraid sound might snap the moment.
Charlie blinks again.
His gaze finds Babe.
There’s no flash of recognition. No softening. His brow furrows faintly.
He doesn’t flinch.
But he doesn’t know him.
“…Who?” he croaks.
His voice is like gravel and air. Dry. Raw. Unused for too long.
Babe’s throat tightens. “It’s me. It’s Babe.”
The name sits in the air. Charlie looks at it like a shape he’s never seen before.
Then he tries to speak again—but his throat fails him. A choked sound. He winces. His head presses back weakly into the pillow.
Alan moves in from the hallway, calm but tight-jawed. His voice is low, efficient: “Kenta. Call the doctor. Tell them he’s conscious.”
Kenta doesn’t question it. He vanishes down the hall, already tapping the phone with steady fingers.
North stands frozen by the doorway, eyes glassy. Dean moves closer but doesn't cross the threshold.
Jeff steps forward. He says nothing at first. Just comes close—closer than anyone else—and kneels beside the bed, his fingers curling around the frame.
Charlie turns toward him slowly.
And something flickers in his eyes.
Just a flicker.
Like a word on the tip of the tongue.
“…Jeff?” Charlie whispers.
Jeff’s eyes go wide. His throat contracts once. Then he nods, hard, his voice breaking as it emerges: “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
Tears well instantly. He doesn't try to hide them. His hand reaches out—carefully—and hovers near Charlie’s.
Charlie’s lips move. It takes effort. But he gets the words out, barely.
“…Are you okay?”
The room stills.
Jeff’s breath stutters.
Alan lowers his head.
Babe closes his eyes like he’s been hit.
“You almost died,” Jeff whispers. “You’ve been—gone, for four months. And the first thing you say is—”
He doesn’t finish.
His hand finally lands on Charlie’s, trembling.
“I’m okay,” Jeff says, voice rough. “We’re okay. You did it. You saved us.”
Charlie closes his eyes, just for a second. His fingers curl weakly around Jeff’s hand.
He still doesn’t know where he is.
He doesn’t remember how he got here.
But he can feel it—the fear, the love, the relief pressing in on all sides.
The warmth of Jeff’s touch.
The crack in Babe’s voice.
The sound of someone crying softly in the hallway.
And beneath it all, his heart pounding in his chest, steady and growing stronger.
The doctor comes quickly.
He moves with quiet precision, shoes barely audible against the wood floors, a black case swinging at his side. He’s been here before—months ago, when Charlie was first brought home. When the odds were bad and the hope was worse.
Now, he enters without speaking. Alan guides him in. Jeff steps back. The others start to shuffle out—slowly, hesitantly.
North lingers in the doorway until Kim places a firm hand on his shoulder and steers him toward the hallway. Kim’s eyes are watchful, unreadable. His presence says what no one dares to voice: Let’s give him space. Let him come back.
Kenta is the last to leave. He glances once over his shoulder—not at Charlie, but at Babe. Then the door closes with a soft click.
The room dims.
The doctor checks vitals. Pupils. Reflexes. He speaks to Alan in low, clinical tones. Charlie doesn't register the words. His vision is blurring at the edges. His body feels too heavy for his bones.
He lets them lift his wrist, adjust his oxygen, press a stethoscope to his chest. He lets them touch him. But he doesn’t look at them.
His eyes are on the man sitting beside the bed.
Babe.
Slouched forward slightly, hands clasped between his knees, jaw tense like he’s holding back a storm. His eyes stay locked on Charlie’s—quiet, searching, unreadable. Like he's bracing himself for something—rejection, maybe. Distance.
Charlie doesn’t speak.
He just watches.
Too tired to think. Too drained to ask the questions circling in his mind. But not too tired to feel.
There’s something about him—this man, this stranger.
Charlie doesn’t know who he is.
But he doesn’t want him to go.
His hand moves slowly.
Trembling. Weak. Like lifting it takes more strength than he has.
It rises from the blanket inch by inch, fingers outstretched, unsure.
And then it finds Babe’s wrist.
Wraps around it.
Soft. Shaky. Fragile.
But there.
Babe freezes.
Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move.
He just breathes—once, sharply—and lets his hand turn, palm upward, so Charlie can hold more of it.
Charlie doesn’t grip tightly. He can’t.
But it’s enough.
Enough to say: Stay.
Enough to say: Don’t leave.
He still doesn’t know this man’s name.
But his body knows what his mind cannot.
And that’s all that matters.