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tamingthemuseFandom: Marvel Comics
Title: How Many Times
Characters: Hank Pym, during his stint in Avengers: The Initiative
Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tamingthemuse 161 a fool's paradise
Word Count: 544
Rating: PG
Summary: I'm just expounding a little on Hank's breakdown in his office after he faces Trauma.
Author's Note: talk of spousal abuse (which I don't endorse, obviously)
He’s right. That skinny little goth kid with the eyeliner and perpetual frown is right, damn it.
That’s all Hank can think of as he fumbles with the bottle of pills with shaking hands. No matter all of the good he’s done, both here at Camp Hammond and for the world, that’s not what people think of when his name is mentioned. No, what people see in their mind’s eye is his ex-wife’s bruised face, and that’s all they’ll probably ever see.
It’s embarrassing to admit how much he needs these now, needs them to survive the panic attacks that he thought he’d managed to suppress for good, at long last. And now Trauma skulks onto the scene and all of the progress Hank has made in the past years comes crashing down around him.
He finally manages to open the bottle and dry swallow a few of the pills, and then he lets the bottle slip to the floor. He’ll pick them up later, if he remembers, if he even cares...
Why is he here? Playing the hero, trying to make up for what he’s done even though he’s apologized a million times already, fooling himself? Because that’s the only person he is fooling. The others all know. It’s almost like his crimes are branded on his forehead, in plain view for anyone and everyone to see.
Jan said she’s forgiven him. His friends have said that they do, too. And he believed them… He had believed them, and yet he has the awful, awful feeling that they had been lying to him this entire time.
His head feels like it’s going to explode, and Hank clenches his fists against his temples, willing the pain, the memories, to go away.
How many times can he apologize? How many times can he say he’s sorry?
And all along, Hank had thought that maybe, maybe, people were beginning to forget, beginning to see him as a hero again. And he’d poured his time and soul into running this camp, into training the future heroes of the world, into making a legacy for himself that didn’t involve Jan’s battered face. But he’s just been deluding himself, content to live in some fool’s paradise of his own creation and bury his head in the sand for just a little longer.
He needs to prove himself.
Again.
(Always.)
Worst of all, he still loves Janet. He loved her and he hurt her, and though she may have forgiven him for the fists, she hasn’t forgiven him for the betrayal. She never will, and that still breaks his heart to think about, even today, even after all of the time that has passed.
The pills are starting to work, finally. He can feel his racing thoughts beginning to slow, and the overwhelming panic is now being replaced by a deep-seated regret that he can’t even voice. He is so incredibly sorry, in every sense of the word, and yet he has no way to atone for his sins. Nothing he can possibly do will make things better. Nothing. Not even Camp Hammond. Not even guiding these kids to use their powers responsibly.
Nothing will make Hank Pym more than what he was in the darkest moment of his life.
[week 30 - hooray!]
Title: How Many Times
Characters: Hank Pym, during his stint in Avengers: The Initiative
Prompt:
tamingthemuse 161 a fool's paradiseWord Count: 544
Rating: PG
Summary: I'm just expounding a little on Hank's breakdown in his office after he faces Trauma.
Author's Note: talk of spousal abuse (which I don't endorse, obviously)
He’s right. That skinny little goth kid with the eyeliner and perpetual frown is right, damn it.
That’s all Hank can think of as he fumbles with the bottle of pills with shaking hands. No matter all of the good he’s done, both here at Camp Hammond and for the world, that’s not what people think of when his name is mentioned. No, what people see in their mind’s eye is his ex-wife’s bruised face, and that’s all they’ll probably ever see.
It’s embarrassing to admit how much he needs these now, needs them to survive the panic attacks that he thought he’d managed to suppress for good, at long last. And now Trauma skulks onto the scene and all of the progress Hank has made in the past years comes crashing down around him.
He finally manages to open the bottle and dry swallow a few of the pills, and then he lets the bottle slip to the floor. He’ll pick them up later, if he remembers, if he even cares...
Why is he here? Playing the hero, trying to make up for what he’s done even though he’s apologized a million times already, fooling himself? Because that’s the only person he is fooling. The others all know. It’s almost like his crimes are branded on his forehead, in plain view for anyone and everyone to see.
Jan said she’s forgiven him. His friends have said that they do, too. And he believed them… He had believed them, and yet he has the awful, awful feeling that they had been lying to him this entire time.
His head feels like it’s going to explode, and Hank clenches his fists against his temples, willing the pain, the memories, to go away.
How many times can he apologize? How many times can he say he’s sorry?
And all along, Hank had thought that maybe, maybe, people were beginning to forget, beginning to see him as a hero again. And he’d poured his time and soul into running this camp, into training the future heroes of the world, into making a legacy for himself that didn’t involve Jan’s battered face. But he’s just been deluding himself, content to live in some fool’s paradise of his own creation and bury his head in the sand for just a little longer.
He needs to prove himself.
Again.
(Always.)
Worst of all, he still loves Janet. He loved her and he hurt her, and though she may have forgiven him for the fists, she hasn’t forgiven him for the betrayal. She never will, and that still breaks his heart to think about, even today, even after all of the time that has passed.
The pills are starting to work, finally. He can feel his racing thoughts beginning to slow, and the overwhelming panic is now being replaced by a deep-seated regret that he can’t even voice. He is so incredibly sorry, in every sense of the word, and yet he has no way to atone for his sins. Nothing he can possibly do will make things better. Nothing. Not even Camp Hammond. Not even guiding these kids to use their powers responsibly.
Nothing will make Hank Pym more than what he was in the darkest moment of his life.
[week 30 - hooray!]
