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Chapter Text

When bullets pierce the thick air, it is ludicrous to believe one could be witness to the flying destructor. One will only know a bullet has been released from a gun's barrel when it has rooted itself in human flesh. Which unfortunately is precisely how events transpired with Bose.

The bullet shattered Bose's rib cage before the cramped air could swallow it and lessen the impact. His chest had been torn open into several seeping wounds by several other flying bullets, but this one had exploded his ribcage into confetti. The impact had Bose clawing at what remained of his chest, his hands becoming a bloody, tangled mess, he assumed it was because of a punctured lung but his nails scratched painfully at his lingering skin, it relieved him of no pain. Blood splurged out quickly, blinding his vision temporarily and wrecking his coordination. He weakly tried to call his girlfriend over but she was still fighting someone and his voice was too hoarse and feeble to be heard, it was Chapa that ran to his side first, just as broken cobblestone met his back as he crumbled as his clawing lodged a bullet further into his skin.

"Holy shit, Bose," She breathed, she spoke no other words but her frantic blinking assured Bose of his inevitable fate, Chapa tenderly touched the gaping wounds that dismantled the whole structure of his chest, her hands share the same fate as his as her palms try to keep the blood inside but instead get decorated in rich colouring. The only sound Bose is still able to make is hissing, which still shoots soaring pains to all of his nerves. "Shit, Mika!" Chapa shouts, her breathing frantic whilst she slightly stumbles over her own words, Bose can just about see the worry ingrained on her face, he knows it isn't long until he loses his vision altogether. Chapa abandons their superhero names. What's the point of them if one of their team is about to pass?

Mika's head whips back after landing a punch to the criminal's jaw, she felt it crunch through her knuckles, but when she turned back in the direction of Chapa's voice, she did not expect the sight she was greeted with. Her boyfriend, her Bose, was bleeding out. His imploded chest supplied his ruby-red blood generously as if it were a water fountain. Mika feels her eyes fill with unshed, burning tears as she rushes over. She drops immediately to her knees and grips Bose's hand, she holds it to her mouth and kisses it tentatively, her breathing pattern breaks as he attempts to smile at her, and she sees the life leave his eyes before her mouth can form any words, any last final reassuring, any final murmured love confessions. He's gone too quickly for any of that, and Mika's bottom lips start to quiver under the pressure. Ray is still punching and defeating the criminals mercilessly whilst Miles had wandered over. No words are spoken from him or Chapa, stunned into silence. Mika is the first to cry.

The tears escape her before anything else. She clings helplessly to his hand that had grown limp and cold in her warm embrace. Mika's face is stained with silent tears, her eyes provide limitless tears, they burn and sting at her eyes, but so many are already being cried. They rain down on Bose's cheeks. She hopes for them to make him flinch in life, anything. She prays for him to come back to her, but as her eyes search his body, his chest is destroyed, it's a surprise how any organs still remain inside, his ribcage is now shrapnel and litters the floor around his body.

Mika's shattered soul makes her cling desperately to Bose's limp body even after Chapa and Miles tenderly try and remove her deadly grip, but she shoves them back in the process. The slight rain of her tears form puddles now, overflowing on what remains of his costume and inside where his organs were once neatly compacted. Mika couldn't let him go. She wouldn't, she couldn't.

•

A wave of nausea suffocated Mika as the funeral processions continued. She was dressed as ShoutOut, just like Miles and Chapa were in their individual clothes. They were mourning the loss of Brainstorm, not Bose. Her eyes began to sting from the swelling that set up home in them. She was grateful for her mask that disguised them.

Upon seeing the crowd that had engulfed the area, her teeth started to grind as a burning feeling sprouted in her chest, she was aware of her menacing she appeared to all of the guests but as they all paid faux respects to her dead boyfriend she couldn't stop herself from glaring at all of them, making them all feel her wrath and she relished when they cowered away from her stare. Chapa's hand brushed over Mika's, and she jerked away momentarily before facing her friend.

"Are you okay? You keep glaring at people, that's usually a thing I do," Chapa asks, her eyes are fixed forward but they soften when Mika's are trained on her, Chapa hasn't spoken openly to anyone about what happened, Mika believes she heard some hushed conversations about it between Miles and her, but that was all.

"I'm at my boyfriend's funeral. How can I be okay?" Mika snaps, her stare turns cold and Chapa can't help but flinch away from under the spotlight of her friend's glare, "I didn't even get to say fucking goodbye." Her voice breaks halfway through her words, and she delivers the final half with a hoarse and ruined voice.

Chapa smiles softly but cautiously at Mika, "You were the last face he saw, Mika. He died seeing your face for the final time," She tries to comfort Mika, she had never chosen her words so carefully but it still appeared to not be enough, Mika continued to stare at her before forward blankly, her eyes lacking any emotion with her eyes dry.

"How am I supposed to be comforted by that when I'm breathing and he's not?" Mika hisses, her hands curled up into fists whilst her teeth grind again but harsher this time. She hears Chapa breathe hard next to her but she doesn't care for the words that flow out, words have never had less meaning than at that moment. Other noises fizzed into the air before falling on her ears, she chose to ignore every and all of them.

Chapa realised that Mika wasn't listening to her rather quickly and she eventually grew frustrated, she couldn't allow Mika to distance herself from her friends when they were still willing to help her overcome her foreboding grief whilst they themselves also suffered however in solitude and silence. Chapa tried to draw Mika's attention to her but every attempt failed and so she attempted to softly touch and direct Mika towards her.

"Don't touch me," Mika snapped, upon seeing that it was Chapa who so carefully tried to redirect her attention, a destructive tsunami of guilt drowned her veins and she promptly stumbles over more words in a fleeting attempt at an apology, "I didn't mean-"

Chapa says nothing, she doesn't jeer, she doesn't glare, she doesn't electrocute Mika as penance, instead the faux mask she had built crumbles. It scatters to the ground catastrophically, and then for the first time, Mika was witness to Chapa's eyes watering with plenty of tears, "I lost him too. We're both grieving."

Chapa shoves past Mika roughly, and their shoulder collides brutally, Mika winces but her mouth remains closed as if it were forcefully sewn shut. She doesn't attempt to speak knowing her words would fall flat, she's aware of the eyes that bore into her seemingly like they all want to bruise her skeleton. Mika's eyes fall to the ground, and her feet kick the dirt occasionally as she avoids the intruding gazes and stares of the funeral attendants. Her hands overlap each other as a form of distraction before they start trembling whilst her eyes glaze over with tears, her tremoring hands carefully lifted to wipe away a desolated tear that ran over her mask.

She moved quickly and quietly through the crowds, shunning the whispers and gossip that followed her like a knife in her back. The noise of Ray's voice flooded the air, attempting to redirect the attention back to the funeral at hand and it mostly worked but it didn't soften the tough crowd Mika had to manoeuvre her way around, all whilst her swollen eyes were dry but leaking silent tears.

Mika is suddenly met with greenery, an exit is obvious and she speedily took it as the urge to be in the safety of her home overwhelms her.

•

Hours had bled into days which morphed into weeks which expectantly grew to be months, and Mika made no progress. It wasn't that she didn't want to move on, it was the cautious tone that settled in her head that told her it was selfish to move on, insensitive to build up some immunity against this grief, and heedless to ever wash herself of the blame. She repudiated every activity her family tried to involve her in and every meal they left at her door, begging her to feast on actual food and not mould in her room surviving off hidden snacks and what else. Mika was aware of how fatuous she must seem to her parents because after all Bose O'Brian deserted Swellview and his family, he merely ran away and that was not a reason to ball one's eyes out. It would've made more sense to her parents if she was infatuated with Brainstorm and therefore his death would've caused a hurricane of emotions. But as usual, her parents had dismissed the thought and given their daughter what they always seemed to - solitude.

The only person that came close enough to talk to her was Miles. And even with his dedication, he couldn't even pluck a smile out of the darkest pits of grief for Mika to wear. Mika was informed at some point of Chapa's visit with an apology ready to fall from her mouth but Mika couldn't stomach any motivation to accept it and return one as well. And after a while, Miles lost his motivation to appease Mika and he left her alone too. She had no one to confide in, no one she wanted to anyway. Everything Bose ever did haunts her, she would spiral with several ideas on what she would've done differently spanning from his death day to when they had started dating. Maybe if one thing had been different, he wouldn't be in the grown with mud and dirt as his only company. The acting thought alone would reduce Mika to sobs, she couldn't go a second without a dampened pillow, her bedroom had been scattered with framed photos of her and Bose and to save her shattered soul an ounce of pain, she turned them around so the back would always greet her.

Whenever she caught a view of herself in the mirror, she was appalled by the abhorrent sight that welcomed her. She slept her days away often now, the small foods she survived mainly on, she supposed did not give her the energy she needed just to waste, but even with such sleep the eyebags that framed her eyes expanded and hung so low. Whilst her eyes looked frosted and faulty, they were so damaged by tears and trauma. She ceased staring at her dishevelled appearance since then, ignoring any glances she caught of herself.

It was on one particular day that Mika twitched awake whilst immediately being blinded by the harsh sunlight that peaked through a gap in otherwise shut curtains. Instinctively, her eyes squeezed shut as a frown settled on her features, but she didn't immediately feel the inordinate impulse to mourn and cry another day away. A throbbing pain had settled in her stomach but she had grown familiar with it, and she planned to tolerate it for another day.

Her hand flew to her bedside table which held her phone, and her hand messily fumbled before latching onto her phone. Her thumb pricked the edge of the phone searching blindly for the power button before Mika squints as the brightness invades and blinds her whilst a groan escapes her sore and aching throat.

The phone annoyingly displays the time incessantly, she reads it over and over again before it settles in her head, it's 1:27 in the afternoon. Mika places it back down with some force when the low battery reminder threatens her again, she mules over the idea of leaving the room she had grown so accustomed to, before deciding (rather impulsively) to leave.

"This will be good for me," Mika mutters to herself, before treading over to her wardrobe and lazily pulling out a hoodie to wear, she's quick to pull it over her head, she'd lost any care for her unkempt and bedraggled look and with that, she disappeared from her room and her goal was to reach the front door without any flickering ideas of turning around and burying herself under blankets.

Her family wanders around the kitchen whilst engaging in hushed conversations, Mika spots expeditiously the wrinkles that stand prominent on her parents' foreheads, her mother's face is contorted with stress, and Mika is easy to note the signs, and her hands are flying around desperately as a mechanism to distract from yelling aloud whilst her father can say nothing in retaliation, Miles is the only one not fully engaged. He's sat at a small table whilst his parents dance around him in a frenetic argument hanging a target of looming despair over his head.

Mika trudged closer towards the door, but her heavy footsteps draw her brother's attention, his eyes go implausibly wide with relief to see his sister has abandoned her room in favour of something, anything else, "Mika!" He exclaims rather excitedly, his hand immediately clamps to his mouth, he doesn't need to have his eyes trained on their parents because he knows they are directly facing Mika now, he mouths an apology to her and she offers him a slight smile in return before it falls completely, with not a lingering sign of joy patent.

"Mika," Her mother begins, Mika watches her calmly, her eyes drooping further into the drowning eyebags, "Where are you going?"

Mika is aware of how her mother wants to pound her with question after question, but she's too tired for any of that. She wants to go on a minuscule walk, perhaps just down a few streets, but enough to fuel her energy somewhat so she doesn't go collapsing back into her confiding bed of grief, "I'm going for a walk," She states simply.

Her father's head tilts and his lip pouts upwards, she can see it on her mother as well, but she is better at concealing it than her father she must admit, she finally offers a simpering smile, "Why don't you have Miles accompany you?"

"I'd prefer it to just be me," Mika responds, unknowingly to her mother, her hand was now wrapped around the door handle, and was slowly spinning it to undo the latch. Her mother had begun to say something in response but the door had flung open and the world was her treasure chest despite the sun momentarily blinding her.

•

Mika had walked more than a few streets. She no longer saw cobblestone under her feet, or dirtied stone that scattered the earth floor outside of parks, but greenery had replaced the boring tones. The grass appeared a refreshing colour as Mika crumpled each grain under her shoes before it bounced back into life as if never wounded. She sighed deeply before sitting on a bench.

It crunched under her weight due to lack of use, her eyes began to look at the sky as she realised her phone was left on her bedside table. The sky was her best form of entertainment, she watched the clouds cascade over the glowing, brazen sun whilst also forming the most complex figures out of separated clouds.

Whilst her eyes are focused upwards, another addition to the bench crunches the stiffened wood causing Mika to let out a piqued sigh and her eyes fall to the person who sat irritatingly next to her.

The Time Jerker's piercing eyes stare back at her, usually, just his face would unease Mika, but she wasn't ShoutOut and hadn't been for a few months, so neither had any reason to be confrontational.

"Time Jerker," Mika murmured, and he nods slowly and cautiously as if answering a question that was never uttered. An idea flies into Mika's head.

"You just looked lonely is all. That's why I sat here, no one deserves to be lonely," He says, and Mika believes that whilst she was tormented by her whirlwind of thoughts he had started talking and therefore had missed the beginning of an allegedly truthful statement, "Oh. I don't care about that. Do you still have a time portal?"

Despite his name, he seems taken aback by such a question, and Mika swallows the urge to roll her eyes in frustration, her temper had blown a fuse recently and she found it unbearable to swallow and forget about deep and tormenting feelings. He nods awkwardly.

"Brilliant," Mika mutters, her eyes concealing calculated plans, "Where can I meet you tomorrow to use it?"

"Hold on," He stutters, confusion washing away his relaxed features, he starts to tremble from it, Mika notices, "I don't think that'll be the greatest idea, I mean the last time, Captain Man-"

"I know him," Mika blurts out, and the Time Jerker tilts his head disapprovingly and Mika laughs awkwardly before correcting herself, "No! What I mean is, I have my links here and there, and you'll be fine."

Time Jerker was notorious for doing many things impulsively, Mika had heard several stories from Ray and Schwoz about how dangerous messing with time was, but she didn't care at that moment. Bose was just out of reach from her. And she was unconditionally grateful for the speed at which the Time Jerker agrees and informs her of a meeting place.

And for the first time in many months, Mika Macklin can smile an unfeigned smile.

Chapter Text

To have an attraction to change time and relieve only the purest of memories is significantly catastrophic, which Mika was well aware of, she could change the role of the universe if one infinitesimal factor was altered but her desire to hold Bose dear to her again outweighed her moral scale.

The air wrestled with her irritatingly as Mika walked hurriedly to the agreed meeting spot, her mind clouded with high-minded specs before blinking them away as a looming, common building tilted over her head trapping Mika in its shadow. And if her oversized shoes hadn't scuffed on the sidewalk, she knew she wouldn't have ever found the bravery needed to take the few steps back into the arms of her Bose.

The inside of such a building is overpoweringly similar to its exterior, the walls are inconsistently painted poorly before transforming into a lavish display of rich colourings. It was nauseating to frequently set her gaze on and Mika's legs began to move her into a labyrinth of identical hallways. And if he hadn't just appeared infront of Mika, she would've declared her loss aloud and retreated to her bed where her depression lay with embracing and open arms ready to collapse her again with enticing words.

"Are you sure about this?" He spoke quietly, Mika was aware of his cautious approach to the subject that his body was being pumped with anxious adrenaline. His bulging iris highlighted unseen veins of his eyes, Mika watched him fiddle with several machinery devices after receiving her nod of confirmation.

The Time Jerker's nerves began to take their toll when the buttons were pressed with such soft and tender care that they made no impact at all on the otherwise useless time portal. Mika sighs in dejection before the electricity gets robbed from the overhanging lights and is instead transferred to the now flickering machine. It extracted all the lights just to blind the room again in the overwhelming glory of burning light, Mika's eyes reflexively squeeze to protect her eyes from an obnoxious sorry sight.

She feels a coiled hand push heavily on her back and it sends Mika stumbling forward. Her neck is rapid in turning back to face him, he shrugs guiltily and Mika pretends it doesn't annoy her endlessly. She had always been a lighter away from her nerves being set alight and exploding with ruinous intent.

"It's now or never," He hisses, and Mika's nerves shake with fear as she takes an ever-dooming step toward regaining her happiness.

Mika's mind is a storm of re-emerging feelings that acts as a tsunami drowning her head, her breathing stutters as she becomes face-to-face with the time portal. Mika steadily looks it up and down before closing her eyes and leaning towards the sickening blinding lights. Mika hears a montage of muffled sounds and other additional things that normally would arouse suspicion and concern within her but her mind is focused on what she is experiencing.

It's a void of nothing but everything at the exact time, colours blind her momentarily before flying out infront of her in a rushed, ugly display of mismatches. It's all over however before Mika can even register anything she had just experienced.

Mika's convinced it was all for nothing as her bedroom walls greet her. Her body is covered by her heavy duvet, and exhaustion swamps her. Mika is certain in the fact that it all had never happened and that intrusive sunlight had robbed her of the belief she could have Bose back. Tears begin to sprinkle down her cheeks silently as her exhausted and frayed emotions can handle no more. The temptation to scream, sob and ruin her life with her grief overwhelms her, she can't bear to catch a glimpse of anything in her room, it's nothing like how she left it, the pictures stare at her.

Her bedroom carries a lingering sense of unfamiliarity despite her knowing it well. The framed photographs of her line the horizon of her wooden shelves and storage units, and she glares at them savagely with her cheeks stained from fresh tears that fall like droplets from a leaking tap. The air is lined with distant feelings of joy and enjoyable memories and Mika starts to loathe it, how could her room still hold such a sense when it had been witness to such enigmatic misery?

Mika's phone buzzes on her side table and she neglects it, the tears become faster and she's drowning her clothes and blanket, they become damp with her suffering. Her phone continues to vibrate restlessly and Mika swallows quickly and desperately in an attempt to regain the impression of someone who hadn't just been crying, she pauses to hear herself breathe and settles for it. She scrambles for her phone and swiftly answers it without consideration of the contact.

"Hello?" She murmurs into the phone, her tone laced with unfixed exhaustion which masks her anguish.

"Mika! You finally answered!"

Mika's phone falls from her grasp, colliding with the floor ruthlessly.

Mika's mind is dark and tormented, the unattainable despair of idealism where her life isn't clouded with mourning and unspeakable grief crucifies her agonisingly because there is no way that his voice just spoke to her. Not when she has already convinced herself that he was still dead and her attempts hadn't worked. The sturdy floorboards began to sway under her feet as Bose's muffled voice continues to echo throughout the spacey room. Mika's vision blurs as so much information settles uncomfortably within her head, her leaking eyes immediately stop supplying her tears and become dry with normalcy whilst she reaches for her phone.

Her palms are slick with sweat and her lip quivers as she carefully holds the phone up to her ear, her eyes brimming with tears of respite, "Hey Bose," She speaks quietly, still too scared to risk it all.

"Are you okay? Do you need me to come over?" His hurried and concerned voice replies, Mika had known she had missed his voice and caring personality but she hadn't realised just how much, it was almost unbearable missing him now when he was so close to her again.

"Please," She begins, "I just want to see you."

•

Bose felt warm and excessively familiar as Mika clung to him. Mika's head nestled into Bose's shoulder and she just breathed in his earthy, homely scent she had been bereaved of for so long. Their fingers were intertwined whilst Bose looked downwards at Mika, with utter adoration and an ounce of curiosity due to his girlfriend's sudden want to delay her normal diurnal routine.

"Mika, you know Ray wanted us there," Bose begins, he shudders when Mika instantly bolts up and her breathing becomes frantic and quick with worry.

"No!" She yells, and as soon as the words leave her mouth her lips press together into a tight, thin line and grow paler in colour, "Please. He has Miles and Chapa, he'll be fine." Her eyes wrestle with returned joy and anxiety, Mika stares into Bose's eyes that drown in concern that increased the tension surrounding the couple.

"I just haven't seen you in so long, I don't want to spend the day without you and your constant company," Mika rephrases, she smiles sheepishly in an attempt to calm down Bose, he returns a shy grin but it fails to reach his eyes.

"Okay," Bose murmurs behind pursed lips. A pool of disquietude settles in Bose's stomach and he fidgets to remove the invasive feeling but it continues to sit in his stomach and ruin his trail of thoughts and time with Mika. He placed a tender kiss on Mika's forehead before she was able to nestle into his shoulder again, he breathed deeply whilst Mika sighed.

Bose usually loved Mika's company, even prior to the beginning of their relationship he enjoyed their time together endlessly. Mika's personality was so welcoming and she was such an attentive person that it was impossible not to be in love with, she quite frankly felt like home to Bose. Mika and Bose were unrivalled with their dedication to one another, they had experienced so much together and the blossoming love between the two was just an additional advantage, there wasn't a time when they had ever been too awkward with one another for they always found a way to make them laugh uncontrollably. The stars aligned to make true soul mates out of both of them. But it all seemed odd to Bose now, he stared down at their interlaced hands and the uneased pool swarmed in his stomach once again. Mika had acted off earlier when he had called her and now she was even more peculiar than formerly. She wasn't herself, something in her had twisted and she just wasn't his Mika, he tried to fool himself into believing that she just had a rough night but it plagued him still.

"I love you," Mika whispers, her words becoming muffled as her face continues to be buried in Bose's clothed shoulder. Mika breathes in her boyfriend's scent and is immediately met with feelings of softened relief whilst Bose's bloodstream and body is drowned with anxiety and suspicion.

"..I love you too," Bose echoes with caution, he can feel Mika's grin as her face remains buried, nothing feels right but also spectacular all at the same time. Bose couldn't recall when he had ever felt like this with Mika, it was new and he loathed the unexpected new experience that swallowed him.

Mika had started to work herself to her an early grave with the worry that swarmed her recently. Her eyes were dropping with exhaustion and were rapidly losing any Mika spark, they were lonely, ruined, and robbed of ecstatic colour. She had succeeded in preventing Bose's death, but her brother and friend got attacked in the process, and all because of some heedless whims she harboured. Nevertheless, she was filled with gratitude that Bose's previous fate wasn't inherited by Miles or Chapa and that they had survived with minor injuries, she had spent days clinging to Bose awfully, she wanted to spend eternity within his hold. She was arranging something in her room whilst Bose was collapsed on her bed, engrossed in something displayed on his phone screen but his gaze occasionally lifted to glance at Mika.

Mika's nerves were wrecked by the hole that Bose bore into the back of her head, "Bose?" She calls.

"Yeah," He hums in response, her gaze flicking down to his phone screen in order to act faux innocent, Mika now stares at him, adoration clouds her otherwise dead eyes, "Stop staring at me, Bose," She teases, Bose lifts his head and smiles at his girlfriend.

"Well, you're awfully pretty honey, and I'm bored, I have nothing else to do but stare at my girlfriend," Bose replies, he throws his phone carelessly to the left of him and Mika rolls her eyes at him. Mika eases through the atmosphere to take a seat close to Bose on her bed, she lovingly picks up his hand to hold and he protests nothing and only stares at her, his eyes misted over, "So what do you inquire we do then?" She says a playful tone coating her words like sugar.

"I didn't necessarily have anything in mind," Bose replies, his eyes trained on Mika, "I just want to go out with you, I couldn't care less about where."

The shiver that shakes Mika's body shudders Bose's in turn too. Her eyes are robbed of any value as she stares soullessly back at Bose, her lips knitted together in a firm, callus and pale line, Mika's lips are frowning slightly but she covers them quickly with the movement of a hand to stop any obvious emotions peeking through her facade.

"Sure," Mika stutters, her face displaying a shaky smile whilst Bose's was one of genuine joy.

•

The days passed in a frenzied blur of a bundle of nerves becoming Mika's only personality. Bose would arrive on her doorstep every single day. And without fail, he bought along flowers. Ranging from tulips to carnations, it seemed like the constant petals were choking her, she couldn't escape countless romantic gestures and days out.

She quivered with every step she took outside on the side path, her senses were heightened and every car exhaust that spluttered with combustion shook her, reminding her of the dreaded sound of bullets being fired, she feared that the criminals she had worked so hard to avoid would be able to track them down and force her to watch her boyfriend's chest be exploded again.

Mika's hand was held possessively by Bose's, this was perhaps the seventh day he had drug Mika out into the outside world and the seventh day of Mika silently panicking. Bose walked steadily down the street, his eyes looking around distractedly, absorbing all of the shops and anything else surrounding them whilst Mika's palms being to wetten with sweat as her breathing quickened, it felt like pots were banging all around her, mocking her, following her always.

Her heart knocked brutally against her ribs whilst the blood pounded brutishly in her ears, her vision became shaky as it disfigured from its average perfect vision and clouded with blinding specs as her throat began to choke with tightness as bile started to surface from the bottom of her stomach. All because the car's cracking exhausts wouldn't stop ricocheting around in Mika's memories and cursing her with the image of a bleeding Bose with a torn chest like confetti.

She collapses to the floor destructively leaving a confused Bose standing over her like a protecting, guardian angel.

The room that Mika woke up to see felt like a disinfected blank page, she had awoken with a startled shudder, and her previous feelings choked her neck like a bounding rope.

"Hey," Bose speaks up quietly not to startle Mika too much, Mika's head almost snapped with the speed used to look at her boyfriend, his gentle smile hadn't vacated his face but Mika's eyes were tainted with a blown chest, pieces of shrapnel and bullets lodged in his skin and uncovered organs befouled her vision. Her hands were quick to fly and shield her vision, and Mika's whole body quaked under the phantasmagoria.

Bose promptly moved out of his cornered seat and moved to comfort Mika, his arm wrapped around her chary, his sweatshirt's sleeve soon became wetted from tears neither he nor Mika realised she had been weeping.

"I think you had a panic attack, M," Bose confesses, Mika nods into his sleeve before attempting to catch a glance of her boyfriend, thankful she saw her boyfriend alive and breathing and not a haunting corpse. Unshed tears shine in her eyes, and Bose almost crumbles at the sight, "What happened, honey?" He whispers, his tone pleading and desperate, and Mika hates it, despises how her actions lead them both here.

"I don't want to talk about that, please Bose," Mika responds, her tone defeated with exhaustion and avoidance, her eyes are damaged and wounded from the tears and Bose stares at her vanquished, but his eyes held harmful words that he wished he could convince himself to say.

"Talk to me, Mika, please. I just want to know what you're thinking, let me in," Bose pleads, his bottom lip shaking under the pressure, his eyes glistening with worry and fury that Mika wasn't confiding in him. Her eyes held a besieged ghost that rob Mika's eyes of any possible joy and Bose licks his lip in annoyance at such a sight.

"It's just the car exhausts scared me, that's all it was, Bose," Mika tries to confess, unspoken words sting and burn her tongue as Mika's mouth continues to hold them hostage in a gilded cage.

"No cars were passing by us, honey. None at all," Bose approaches, his voice breaking with worry halfway through, and his arms tighten around Mika as he attempts to hold her body closer to himself.

"No! There were!" Mika protests, she had been experiencing memories of that traumatising, mortifying, and grief-provoking day but never to the point of being haunted by sounds alike to the ones caused by a fire gun's barrel, "There were," She repeats, her tone faint now.

"Why would that scare you anyway?" Bose inquires, Mika looks up at him through glass eyes and Bose loathes the thought that comes to his mind and is sickened by the links his failing brain tries to find. He closes his eyes slowly and neither of them exchanges any words. A silent tear rolls down Mika's cheek as Bose removes his arms from around Mika and takes a seat right next to her. Bose opens his eyes and lays them on Mika, whilst Mika stares unemotionally forward.

"Please look at me, Mika," Bose asks, Mika hesitates for seemingly never-ending seconds that drag on before catching an eyeline with Bose, her shining eyes are ruined by falling tears, "Did the exhausts remind you of bullets, Mika?" He asks calmly, Mika's brain halts at the question and the nickname the question lacks, she couldn't remember the last time he had called her Mika in the span of two sentences, it had always been a nickname, an unspoken confession of undying adoration of one another. She nods slowly.

"I died, didn't I? That's why you keep distracting from superhero work, you don't want me to die," Bose swallows, "Again. Do you?"

Mika doesn't say anything nor does she need to.

"I'm sorry," Mika mumbles, Bose doesn't say anything and Mika can't, for the life of her, gauge why. She expected him to feel unbeatable anger towards her, fury that she didn't face her problems head-on and instead aimed to rewind time for a moment of relief.

"Why?" Bose croaks out, he bites his gums and his eyes finally avoid Mika and instead stare blankly at the walls.

"You feel like home to me, Bose. I couldn't let that go," Mika confesses, she's surprised at the words that escape her like nothing at all. She knew that Bose understood just how much he meant to her, but she hadn't realised just how much she used it as an excuse to momentarily excitement and relief with him.

"I'm asking you to, Mika."

"What?" Mika asks, Bose doesn't reply and Mika prays she didn't interpret those five words Bose expected her to.

"Please don't do this to me. Please. Please don't make me lose you again." Mika beseeched. Bose just stares at her, Mika wishes she could've avoided the fore coming end to her shortlived happiness, he continues to stare at her and she shivers under the glance.

"I'll always love you, Mika. You know I would sell my soul to spend eternity with you, but you can't continue this torture on yourself," Bose speaks, his words are careful and considerate. His hand reaches out and brushes his thumb against hers in comfort, and she melts into his shoulder, "I'll always love you too, Bose."

•

Mika was walking back miserably in the rain, she'd tracked down the Time Jerker, and slightly threatened him before finally getting him to agree to fix her mistakes. The rain poured down on her umbrella, some raindrops escaping down the umbrella's sides to dribble down on Mika's face resembling the tears she had wept in the past hours.

Mika had begged Bose not to see her before or after she left to start fixing her mistakes, and he had promised faithfully to do that. Therefore the walk back to her home was drowning in solitude and under grey, storm-filled clouds.

Before Mika could register much, her front door met her in the face, she sighed and uncovered her key, and unlocked the door with shaking hands. Mika put down her umbrella after sprinkling her lawn with an additional rain pour. She made short conversations with her parents and Miles before abandoning them all in favour of her bedroom.

Her feet collided heavily with the carpeted stairs, she moved quickly up them and across the upstairs hallways and in the direction of her bedroom. Mika expected her room to be coated with a blanket of darkness, an eerie silence, and feelings to suffocate the atmosphere therefore she hadn't envisioned a waiting Bose to be perched on her bed, waiting for her arrival.

"Bose?" Mika murmured, confusion forever evident in her voice.

"Before you start freaking out, I know what you said and I know what I promised. But I can't let us go without a fighting chance, I just had to see you before I never could again," Bose confesses, a chastened, timorous smile pulling up at his lips, Mika smiles tenderly back at him.

"So what did you have in mind for our final hours?" Mika ponders aloud.

"I wanted us to dance," Bose replies, a growing, cheeky smile wrinkling his cheeks, "You know I can't dance." Mika laughs.

"That's all in your head. Everyone can dance, it's just an opinion of how well someone can," Bose retorts. He holds out an extended hand towards Mika, whilst a muffled song starts to play out of his phone's shitty speaker. Mika stares laughingly forward before reaching out to finally take his hand, interlacing their hands and pulling Bose up into a dancing position.

They start to twirl chaotically together, their supposed dancing completely ruinous and increasingly awful, but an experience nevertheless. He holds her so tenderly and so lovingly, that she wants his touch forever on her because he makes her feel incredible, and makes Mika feel unbelievably valuable to him.

As they continue to twirl, Mika realises that even though he won't ever hold Mika again in a dancing embrace apart from this very moment, Mika knows she will still remember their dance, how their bodies fit like a puzzle together as they spun around the floor for it was the only moment she felt alive. And Bose could go happily to such an execution knowing that this would be his most recent memory with the one who owned his heart relentlessly.

Tomorrow, Mika will change the history of time again. She'll have to watch Bose die again, but currently, he held her tightly. He holds her with such dignity and love that time stops around them, and they can just be a couple together trying to have it all, no matter what other people try and dictate them to do in their favour of better. She and Bose will forever be a couple trying to just be with one another, and that's how she'd like to remember it.