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"Cindy, don't you fucking dare." He stalks after her as she makes her way up the rusty iron stairs.
She doesn't say a word. Instead, she starts grabbing at the blueprints spread out haphazardly on the drawing table and retrieves a lighter from her pocket.
"Stop right now, those are my new plans. You don't know how valuable they are—"
"They're worthless is what they are, Neutron." She spits back. "Have you ever managed to pay our rent with one of these godforsaken inventions?"
"Well, no. But I will be able to—"
"Sometime this century?" She mocks, setting down the lighter to wad up the pages of a legal notepad stuffed with notes. A good fire will require kindling.
"Vortex, I'm telling you now, don't do this."
"Or what?" She can't hide the caustic edge to her voice. Something dark and dangerous stirs within him.
"Step away."
"I'm sick and tired of your bullshit. You're circling the drain. Nothing good ever comes of your ginormous head."
"Cindy, I will have Vox remove you if you can't listen to me."
"Listen to yourself, Neutron." Disgust drips from her every word. "Do you care about anyone except yourself? Have you ever once thought about what it's like for me, the life you've given me?"
"I have to work, and you're distracting me, get out of the way, Vortex."
She steps to the side so he can see her properly. "Take a good long look, moron."
That's when he realizes.
"No."
He shakes his head in disbelief.
"You're a fucking prick." She rolls her eyes.
"It's not possible. You had to have fucked someone else."
"Why in God's name would I fuck someone else? Like one man isn't headache enough?" She can't believe him. The audacity of genius can really be too much to bear sometimes.
"Well, it sure as shit isn't fucking mine."
"Get a grip. Because whether you like it or not, this child is very much yours." She shoves all of the papers on the table onto the floor, sending up a layer of dust into the sterile air.
"That's not possible—"
"Don't tell me the scientific savant doesn't know that when you fuck, there's a possibility you might have a kid." She lets out a dry laugh.
"Cindy, our lives will be different in a matter of months. You have no idea what kind of things I'm putting together."
"I'll tell you what I do know. We have bills coming at us from every direction, and the only thing keeping us afloat is my paralegal work."
"I'm pursuing greatness. You're doing some glorified paperwork."
"How dare you." She jabs a finger into his chest, pushing him back to the wall. "You twerp. Your parents enabled your every damn whim, but I've had it up to here with your attitude."
"Oh, simmer down."
"You're incorrigible."
"You're a self-absorbed brat with no regard for my dreams."
"Your dreams," She scoffs, "are just that. And they'll always be just that."
"Then why did you marry me, huh? Not thinking you can get rich quick off me anymore? Milk my mind?"
"Your modesty knows no bounds."
"Modesty doesn't get anyone anywhere." He starts gathering the papers off the floor and pauses close to her boot, looking up into her emerald eyes for a moment.
"My mother always told me I deserved better." She declares, casting her gaze down at her pitiful partner.
"Sasha was a bitch, who cares what she told you?"
"Well, I'm kicking myself for not listening to her."
"Don't kick too hard. It'll distress the child that isn't mine."
"I will drain your brain in your sleep if you say that one more time, Neutron. Fucking try me."
He knows she will do it. He doesn't particularly want to test her on that front.
"Go watch TV or write up some briefs. Whatever you do. Just leave me alone."
She sighs. It's time to ask Estevez and Wheezer for money again. It's not a favor she relishes, but what other choice is there while failure doesn't even enter Neutron's consciousness?
They've just managed to scrape by enough for her doctor visits and for them to keep the roof over their heads for another month, and he still insists on his goddamn dream.
The worst part is that Cindy can't even blame him entirely.
His whole life, he'd been told that he was born to do science. It was his purpose, his calling. He had grown up with this idea drilled into his head.
Now, he can't seem to let it go. The notion that he's not supposed to use his mind for some run of the mill job. Instead, he just wastes every spare morsel of time, money, and energy on coming up with pointless designs that will never get him anywhere.
He's exasperating and singular-minded and awful. And yet, she can't leave. She isn't sure what keeps her there.
Curiosity? Maybe one day he'll be the cat that gets the cream. And then she can ride the wave of his success.
Sheer anger? She's thought about it often.
Love? This is the most fucked up explanation, but it's the one she keeps coming back to.
She does love him, even if he's a good for nothing rascal. She knows that deep down, he cares. There's a real, beating heart beneath all the ambition and imagination. And one day, she thinks she might break through.
The fucking is best after a nice, heated argument. It begins with the usual screaming match, and then escalates. And suddenly, he's gripping her ass as he ruts into her almost desperately, the two of them moaning in the stone-cold silence of his laboratory. He's careful not to be too rough, though. The child, he insists, may not be his, but he doesn't want anything to happen to it.
For her part, she hates herself for allowing herself to be charmed by this goddamn loser. But she can't quite picture life with anyone else, even though he's a real basket case, with an ego too big for his own good.
With each thrust, she finds a new colorful adjective to call him.
Feckless.
Cheap.
Tactless, irredeemable cad.
That's the one that really gets him. Sends him over the edge.
All in a day's work, she thinks.
Sometimes she's jealous.
No, scratch that, she's always jealous.
His brilliance is a curse, in a way. But it also marks him out.
She can't help but feel like a dwarf star next to his supernova-level intensity.
It's infuriating, it really is, the way she's reduced to this...grating nag, the way her own purpose always takes the passenger seat.
He's painted over the radiance of her mind with the vivid colors of his own. She is washed up, under-appreciated, unloved.
There are, of course, tender moments. They tend to follow his fuck-ups.
Like when he accidentally exposes her to some chemicals she's not supposed to be around. Or when she uses her personal time to help him with experiments. Most memorable of all, when he feels a rush of guilt.
Her recollections of the last time around still make her stupid heart pound...
He'd taken her face in his hands. "It'll be okay, it really will."
And the more he'd tried to reassure her, the more she fell apart. Her blonde bangs stuck in a sweaty clump against her forehead, her chin pressed into the crook of his shoulder. The singed edges of his lab coat retain the faint scent of ash.
It's hard not to fall for his bullshit. This man who has taken her into space and made her believe anything is possible, can sell anyone on the fruits of his imagination.
And yet, it never seems to be the right season for harvest.
She starts becoming indispensable. Quietly, but surely.
The wilder his ideas get, the more funding he needs to secure from dubious sources, the scarier the figures he has to deal with...he needs her.
She's his shield. His protection against those who would exploit him or stamp out his spirit.
He fucking needs her to draft NDA's, to navigate the despised corridors of bureaucracy, to play the "woman card," all of which she does grudgingly. She takes every chance to throws it in his face that he can't live without her, that he's incompetent, that he's a misogynistic jerk who will never be cognizant of all her sacrifice.
She goes into labor the day he's making the most important pitch of his career to top-level investors.
As she expects, she handles the entire blasted ordeal alone. If she wasn't so exhausted by pushing a child out of her body, she would be livid.
After his meeting, he manages to take the time out of his busy schedule to come visit his wife and get his first look at the child he always denied.
Later, she learns that the first time he ever lays eyes upon their daughter, he bursts into tears.
Why, she will never quite understand.