![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Inspired by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cardboardcornea's picture, found here: http://i.imgur.com/GYnTnuE.png
Title: To Know A Superhero
Word Count: 524
Characters: ambiguous
Relationships: ambiguous
Spoilers/Warnings: n/a
To know a superhero is to know loss.
It is to know that there is absolutely no guarantee that your loved one will return safe and sound. In the abstract, that’s true of everyone – there are so many casual accidents. So many twists of fate. A car crash, an attack, a bank robbery gone wrong. So many small ways that a loved one may never again walk back through the door through which they’d left an hour ago.
But to know a superhero is to know that intimately.
It’s a wider world of despair and anguish. Of having your loved one come home, but come home bloody and beaten. Tired and exhausted by the day, needing nothing but quiet reassurance while questions claw at your throat and tear at your heart and you clamp your lips tightly so as not to ask them, not to let loose the barrage of interrogations you so desperately wish to unleash. It means to try to understand why they do it, why the world called on them to do it, why it can’t be anyone else. Why they’re necessary, why you will always come second.
And those thoughts make you feel petty, and small. They’re fleeting, and you never voice them, but it’s one more shifting sand dune to stand upon, one more level of insecurity that makes you ache. Because of course your loved one should care about the world. Of course there should be someone to guard the world, save the world, prepare the world for greater things. But it doesn’t make things easier, doesn’t stop those traitorous thoughts from worming in.
To know a superhero is to know strength.
It’s to know that no matter what happens you have to be strong. You are the rock, the foundation, the four walls and ceiling that are safe for your loved one. You are what they come home to, and you are their touchstone, their guiding light, their north star. You have to shoulder that, to bear it gracefully and keep on pushing forward, even when your loved one might not be able to. To convince them to stand up, go back out that door. To ignore your own fears and assuage theirs. And then, no matter how much you wish they wouldn’t, you have to convince them that their efforts are necessary, are needed. That the world is a better place with them out there, risking their life and limb and sanity.
You deal with the nightmares and the insecurity. You voice yours only when you’re sure your loved one is in a position to hear it, is able to give the comfort you’re looking for.
You’re not lessened by your closeness to them. You are their inspiration, their grounding. You are independent of their trials and tribulations – for the most part.
Because when you stare at them on news screens, on radios, at a front-row seat to a battle, you are not independent at all. You are nothing but terrified.
To know a superhero is to have life in your hands, with all the wonder and terror that brings.
And you wouldn’t change a thing.
cardboardcornea's picture, found here: http://i.imgur.com/GYnTnuE.pngTitle: To Know A Superhero
Word Count: 524
Characters: ambiguous
Relationships: ambiguous
Spoilers/Warnings: n/a
To know a superhero is to know loss.
It is to know that there is absolutely no guarantee that your loved one will return safe and sound. In the abstract, that’s true of everyone – there are so many casual accidents. So many twists of fate. A car crash, an attack, a bank robbery gone wrong. So many small ways that a loved one may never again walk back through the door through which they’d left an hour ago.
But to know a superhero is to know that intimately.
It’s a wider world of despair and anguish. Of having your loved one come home, but come home bloody and beaten. Tired and exhausted by the day, needing nothing but quiet reassurance while questions claw at your throat and tear at your heart and you clamp your lips tightly so as not to ask them, not to let loose the barrage of interrogations you so desperately wish to unleash. It means to try to understand why they do it, why the world called on them to do it, why it can’t be anyone else. Why they’re necessary, why you will always come second.
And those thoughts make you feel petty, and small. They’re fleeting, and you never voice them, but it’s one more shifting sand dune to stand upon, one more level of insecurity that makes you ache. Because of course your loved one should care about the world. Of course there should be someone to guard the world, save the world, prepare the world for greater things. But it doesn’t make things easier, doesn’t stop those traitorous thoughts from worming in.
To know a superhero is to know strength.
It’s to know that no matter what happens you have to be strong. You are the rock, the foundation, the four walls and ceiling that are safe for your loved one. You are what they come home to, and you are their touchstone, their guiding light, their north star. You have to shoulder that, to bear it gracefully and keep on pushing forward, even when your loved one might not be able to. To convince them to stand up, go back out that door. To ignore your own fears and assuage theirs. And then, no matter how much you wish they wouldn’t, you have to convince them that their efforts are necessary, are needed. That the world is a better place with them out there, risking their life and limb and sanity.
You deal with the nightmares and the insecurity. You voice yours only when you’re sure your loved one is in a position to hear it, is able to give the comfort you’re looking for.
You’re not lessened by your closeness to them. You are their inspiration, their grounding. You are independent of their trials and tribulations – for the most part.
Because when you stare at them on news screens, on radios, at a front-row seat to a battle, you are not independent at all. You are nothing but terrified.
To know a superhero is to have life in your hands, with all the wonder and terror that brings.
And you wouldn’t change a thing.
