Work Text:
Tyrone still isn’t sure how to describe what she is and how much she means to him.
He wasn’t sure when they first met, a botched robbery and glowing hands leaving his mind imprinted with her. He wasn’t sure when she held his hand, fell asleep, and drooled on his shoulder on the bus ride out of New Orleans. And he isn’t now, not even a year later, when she kisses his temple right before they go and break up a trafficking operation or squeezes his hand before they climb on the next bus. But here is what he does know.
She is Tandy fucking Bowen. Master thief (sometimes). Kickass ballerina (all the time). Manipulator of light. Harbinger of Hope. She still laughs when he lists that all off, usually responds with something a bit snarky about how he’s cursing more now or that he still remembers all that. But he’s not the only one, as she’ll give her little spiel about him being a baller lady killer, a master of space and time, and the coolest consultant on Greek mythology ever. The last one is newer, only starting to appear more consistently three months ago. So there’s another thing he knows, she’s got a hypocritical streak.
He knows she has panic attacks in the bathroom after a particularly hard operation bust. He knows he’ll always come in after two minutes, because earlier and she won’t be ready but later it’ll be too late. He knows she freezes when she hears sirens and then will turn and ask him if he’s okay, because he does too. He knows at motels with pools she’ll sneak out at around eleven at night, stick her feet in, and stay there for an hour. He knows she’ll always come back.
He knows she’s snarky, and a tease, and will bite him if he’s getting on her nerves enough. He learned that last one the hard way.
He knows when they have a pregnancy scare, she’ll practically frame the negative test, and actually buy a bottle of whatever she can get her hands on at the nearest corner store as celebration.
He knows she’s bisexual and that she bought him the small demisexual pin that hasn’t left his hoodie since he found it on his dresser.
And though he can’t truly find the words to describe his feelings for her, love just feeling too small, here’s what he can describe about her.
She drools when she sleeps. He’ll wake up and she’ll be sprawled over him and his shirt will have a wet spot and he can’t find it in himself to care.
When the light hits her just right, she just glows. And sometimes it’s this warm, soft, yellow glow, and other times she looks just like one of her daggers and he can’t tear his eyes off her either way.
Tandy’s looking up how to style his hair. Tandy will buy him new clothes only to steal his shirts a month later. Tandy bought him a Barbie doll with a big poofy dress because “she thought he’d like it” and now it lives in his travel bag. Tandy holds his hand and falls asleep on his shoulder every bus trip. Tandy smiles at him every morning when they wake up and his day is already brighter.
Tyrone can’t describe who or what she is to him. Friend isn’t wrong but it isn’t right. Lover feels… just no. Girlfriend feels too juvenile or not serious enough in some odd way. Part of him wonders what would happen, how she’d react if he just started calling her his wife. They’re both eighteen, they could legally get married if they so wished. It’s not like she hasn’t done the ring-pop proposal before.
But the timing’s not quite right.
He decides one night, whenever it is, whenever the timing’s right, he’ll propose.
—
A year later, they’re back in New Orleans, getting married in a small ceremony a few steps above a courthouse marriage. His mother and her mother are there. Evita and Brigid are there. Molly, Gert, Nico, and Karolina are there as well. Mina and Tyrone’s father and Alex and Chase weren’t. It’s a joyous occasion, but in that sense, it’s heartbreaking. No matter how many people the Blip hadn’t taken away, it was unavoidable.
But it’s joyous, nonetheless. There aren’t any flowers or special decorations. The tables are foldout and rented, with cheap, Halloween tablecloths thrown on top. Tyrone wears the closest thing he has to a suit and Tandy wears a short, white sundress. None of the guests were dressed too fancy and the minister was Adina, who got ordained online a week earlier.
It was joyous and heartbreaking and messy and chaotic. Gert broke into tears three times during the ceremony and “reception”, and the caterers, the one part that wasn’t skipped on, only accepted cash, so Tyrone had to give Adina his card so she could withdraw the amount they were promised. Tandy whispered to Tyrone, a flute of champagne in her hand that he wasn’t sure how she got, that she’d probably need to take a pregnancy test later (it came back negative). Nico kept staring at Tandy in her dress and Karolina, sitting obliviously next to her; Tandy catching on and laughing so loud, declaring if Nico wanted to propose to Karolina so bad, she should just do it. Nico went red, but she and Karolina were engaged not even a week later. There was laughing and crying from just about everyone at multiple points, about the wedding and everything else going on in the world.
And Tyrone still wasn’t quite sure how to describe everything she was to him.
But he tried his best during their vows.