Chapter Text
きみ嫁けり 遠き一つの 訃に似たり
“You married.
It’s like a death note
From far away.”
-Shigenobu Takayanagi
You had never intended to fall for a married man.
It wasn’t like you woke up one morning and decided, “Hey, let’s go catch feelings for your friend and mentor’s husband, won’t that be fun?” It just happened.
You couldn’t quite say when it began, or pinpoint an exact slice of time where your heart began to beat faster around him. It was more like you one day caught his eye from across the living room, and the realization burned in your throat that you had been falling for quite some time.
Rosalie Octavius did a lecture for one of your classes on 18th-century poetry during the last year of your graduate schooling around a year ago. You had cornered her after class to gush about your shared love for Robert Burns, and share a laugh about the reference to his poem A Red, Red Rose in Jim Carrey’s film, The Mask.
Friendship quickly blossomed into mentorship, and your most treasured mornings were those spent having passionate discussions with Rosalie in the backs of quiet coffee shops, indulging in melty cinnamon rolls and lavender lattes over the works of Amable Tastu. She taught you more than most of your own professors did, and as time wore on, you had come to value her time over most others’.
About a few months into becoming acquainted, Rosalie had invited you to her home on a rainy afternoon for tea to avoid the crowds in your usual haunts. As you wrung out your umbrella in the doorway, a taller figure rose from the couch in your peripherals, embracing Rosalie with a peck on the cheek.
“Y/N, I’d like you to meet my husband, Otto Octavius. Otto, hon, this is Y/N, she’s the one I’ve been telling you about.”
“Ah, so this is the famed Y/N!” Otto beamed from ear to ear, offering a hand for you to take. “Rosie’s told me a great deal. In fact, I haven’t been able to get her to shut up about you.”
“Oh, hush, you. Y/N, you can hang your coat with the others there. Otto, help me with the kettle?”
There was nothing remarkable about Otto on first glance. He was handsome, donned with dark curls and eyes smooth as espresso, and though the height between you was a smidge intimidating, his easy-going smile quelled any initial unease.
You weren’t the type to buy into that “love-at-first-sight” junk. You also weren’t the type to go to a friend’s home and start drooling over their husband. Besides, it didn’t matter if a guy looked like a literal god if his personality was shit, so you merely greeted him with a friendly hello and carried on about your business with Rosalie.
The warning signs were small but there, had you taken the time to actually notice them.
The way you were slightly disappointed if Rosalie wanted to go out somewhere instead of to her house. The way you became eager to shoot the breeze with Otto while Rosalie fixed your drinks. The way your breaths unsteadied whenever he sat close to you.
The way his smile infected you even on the worst of days.
Perhaps for a while you had been in denial, hoping to simply stomp the little growing buds out of existence before they could grow into anything problematic. Unfortunately, the more you tried to overlook them, the worse the feelings bloomed, until you were tangled up in a garden of heartache.
You were many things, but you were not an adulterer, no-siree. Not that your wrinkled self esteem could even fathom Otto returning your affections, but--strictly hypothetically speaking--even if he did, you would not allow yourself to give in. You were stronger than that, and no desire would ever be powerful enough to make you ignore your principles.
Not that you were a saint, of course. Not by any means. If you were a better woman, you would cut off all contact with Rosalie. Maybe even tell her the truth, so you wouldn’t hurt her feelings. You would tell her you couldn’t help yourself, and did not want to be around him while thinking of him in that manner. It would be the right thing to do.
...But, again, you weren’t that great of a person. There was an ugly, painfully wrong part of you that treasured your time around Otto, that refused to give up on your one-sided romance in spite of knowing it was doomed from the start. It shredded your heart to ribbons, but being a friend was a far cry better than never seeing him at all.
Every day, you hated yourself. You hated the anxiety that filled your lungs every time you made your way over to his home, the tension in your shoulders and the painful thudding of your heart against its enclosure. You hated that, despite your best efforts to bury your feelings deep underground, you still lost all your sensibilities in his presence.
To be fair, he certainly didn’t make things easy on you.
The damned man was constantly doing things that, had he been anyone else, you would have been certain he was doing them on purpose. But Otto was about as crafty as a newborn puppy. He was eons ahead of you in his smarts in science, but when it came to basic human interactions, he seemed to have zero idea of the effect he had on anyone, let alone you.
There was that one time a month back when you had attended a work party with Rosalie and Otto, and he had made a remark about your earrings. Simple but pretty little drops of blue topaz.
Tender digits brushed your hair aside for better inspection of the gemstones, his fingertips just barely grazing your cheek in the process. You gulped.
“Beautiful,” he praised. The comment was not made for you, and you knew damn well that he wasn’t being coy or leaving room for misinterpretation. And yet, thud-a-thud-thud went your heart. “Th-thanks.”
“Are they real? Most blue topaz has often been exposed to radiation to give it that color.”
And that seemed to be the gist of it: He would fluster the hell out of you with simple gestures, and be completely unobservant to your reactions.
It was infuriating, but also probably for the best. Nothing good could come out of him knowing how you felt for him.
****Present Day****
You scrawled chicken-scratch notes on a loose sheet of paper, cheek squished into your hand and eyes lidded as you listened to Rosalie carry on about Juan Rulfo. The two of you had been studying for hours in the upstairs loft of her home, from dusk to dawn, so your focus was quickly waning.
Not to mention the fact that you were at Rosalie and his house, and that he had poked his head in multiple times throughout the day to say hi or bring snacks.
You stifled a yawn, and Rosalie smiled fondly. “I think that’s enough for tonight. Would you like some tea? I made a pot just a little while ago, there should still be some left.”
“Oh, I don’t want to impose--”
“Nonsense, since when have you ever imposed?” Rosalie shut the textbook with a snap! and stood, straightening her shawl. “Come on down to the kitchen. Otto’s just meeting with a friend of his; you might know him from the university, actually.”
You gathered up the scattered notes as best you could into a neat stack, cramming them in a folder in your book bag before following Rosie downstairs.
Otto occupied the kitchen table with a younger man, who looked to be a little younger than you, maybe early 20′s. They were in the middle of a heated discussion when you crept into the room, so engaged that the young man’s light cobalt eyes never once spared you a glance. Otto, however, did grace you with his signature lopsided grin, and you cursed every damned butterfly in your stomach.
“Are you sure you could stabilize the fusion reaction?”
“Peter, what have we been talking about for the last hour and a half? This is my life's work. I certainly know the consequences of the slightest miscalculation.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to question you.”
Otto grinned, rolling his eyes. “Rosie, our new friend thinks I'm gonna blow up the city.”
“You can sleep soundly tonight,” Rosie reassured him as she poured you a full cup of black tea, which smelled strongly of peaches. “Otto's done his homework.”
“Come to the demonstration tomorrow, and you'll see for yourself. Y/N, you should come by, too. You don’t have any afternoon or evening classes tomorrow, right?”
You seated yourself between Otto and his young friend, cradling the warm cup of tea in your hands. “Really, you mean it? Yeah, of course! I’d love to go!”
“Consider it an invitation, then. We’ll be happy to have you.”
Rosalie settled beside her husband, resting a hand atop his. “And you need to sleep soundly tonight, Otto.”
Otto huffed. “Did Edison sleep before he turned on the light? Did Marconi sleep before he turned on the radio? Did Beethoven sleep before he wrote the fifth?”
“Did Bernoulli sleep before he found the curves of quickest descent?” The younger boy chimed in.
Otto flashed him a warm grin before raising his cup to his lips. “Rosie, I love this boy. Oh--forgive me, Y/N.” His cup settled back in its saucer with a clatter of porcelain. “This is Peter Parker, he’s writing a paper on me for one of his classes on Nuclear Fusion. Peter, this is F/N L/N. She’s studying for her PhD in English Literature, and Rosie here’s been helping give her some guidance.”
“It’s uh, it’s nice to meet you, uh, Y/N.” Peter offered you a timid smile, looking about as uncomfortable in his own skin as a snake about to shed. Typical science geeks. You grinned back gently in return.
“Likewise, Peter. Are you in your undergrad right now?”
“Y-yeah, undergraduate. Empire State.” He cleared his throat. “Good stuff.”
“Peter, tell us about yourself,” Rosie intervened, and you couldn’t help but fixate on her fingers, which were drawing slow circles across Otto’s knuckles. “Do you have a girlfriend?
“Well...I don't really know.”
“Well, shouldn't you know?” Otto chided teasingly. “I mean, who would know?
“Oh, leave him alone. Maybe it's a secret love.”
Your heart stopped.
“Love should never be a secret,” Otto scolded, turning to look pointedly at Peter and Peter alone, but every fiber of your being felt those cocoa eyes scalding your own skin. “If you keep something as complicated as love stored up inside...gonna make you sick.”
You choked on your tea. Rosie patted you firmly on the back as you coughed and spluttered, feeling embarrassment burn every inch of skin it could reach. “I-I’m fine, sorry! I’m fine.” You coughed into your fist, kicking yourself for reacting like that. “Go on. Sorry.”
Continuing, but with more of a focus on you now, Otto commented, “I finally got lucky in love.” His fingers laced themselves with Rosie’s, and you felt lightheaded.
“We both did...But it's hardly perfect. You have to work at it.” Rosie daintily sipped her tea, and the nausea in your belly rose. “I met him on the college steps, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy. He was studying science, and I was studying English literature.”
“That's right. I was trying to explain the theory of relativity. And Rosie was trying to explain T.S. Eliot. I still don't understand what he was talking about.”
“Yes, you do!”
“I'm serious. T.S. Eliot is more complicated than advanced science.”
“Who then devised the torment? Love,” you blurted out suddenly, unable to contain yourself.
“‘Love is the unfamiliar Name.
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.’ T.S. Eliot.”
You finished reciting the poem, only to realize that the room had fallen horrifyingly silent.
Why the hell did you just say that? You immediately felt like curling inward until you hid completely inside yourself, and sank slightly in your chair. Just what the hell were you hoping to accomplish just then? To show off your knowledge of a subject your crush’s spouse knew far more about? To get the two of them to stop openly flirting in front of you?
Their love life was hardly any of your business, and they had every right as a married couple to express their affections for one another, but fuck, did they have to do it with you there?
“Little Gidding,” Rosie acknowledged, nodding her assent, and you thanked her wordlessly for saving you from the cringing silence. “An excellent pick, Y/N. You remembered it well.”
“I...um, I should get going,” Peter announced, slowly rising from his chair with the speed and demeanor of an awkward turtle. Even he seemed to have picked up on the shift in mood. You had to admit he was cute—in a geeky, schoolboy kind of way. “Thank you so much for having me over, doctor.”
“Otto,” Otto corrected, standing to shake his hand. “Anytime, my boy. We’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Wouldn’t miss it!”
You remained rooted on the spot as the others rose, bidding Peter farewell. You exchanged pleasantries with him as well, folding your hands in your lap and listening to the chatter as it subsided toward the front door. Then the door shut, and the muffled conversation continued outside, so you had assumed the three of them were talking on the porch. That being said, Otto’s sudden return to the room caused you to visibly startle.
“You’re a jumpy one,” he commented, his chuckle rumbling deep in his chest. You squeaked out an incoherent attempt at agreement. “Rosie’s giving Peter some poetry recommendations for his girl situation. Speaking of...”
Otto plucked one of the books from the kitchen shelf with nimble fingers, thumbing through the pages a moment before finding the desired one. “Ah! This one. By Paul Eluard.”
He set the book down open-faced on the table in front of you, then towered over you from behind, his chin just close enough to rest upon your shoulder--if he so chose to do so. You worried your bottom lip between your teeth, only barely able to keep your focus on his words as his hand brushed past yours to indicate a chunk of text on the page.
“’Unknown, she was my favorite shape,
She who relieved me of the worry of being a man,
And I see her and I lose her and I suffer
My pain, like a little sunlight in cold water.’
I can’t say I know much about poetry, let alone understand it half the time, but that’s one of my favorites.”
You sucked a sharp breath between your teeth. “Ah. Eluard. Good, uh, choice.”
He’s talking about Rosie, you reminded yourself, hastily crushing any girlish hopes that threatened to bloom in your chest. Not you. Rosie. Obviously!
Still, why he felt the need to share this with you, you couldn’t say.
You cleared your throat, all too aware of his presence still looming over your shoulder, of his warm breath wafting across the tip of your ear. “Y-you know, he had actually written some poems against Nazism! He was called—um, the Poet of Freedom, I think. He’s been considered one of the Founding Fathers of Surrealism, and oh, he also was one of the people to develop the concept of the Exquisite Corpse, which is actually—“ you cut yourself off, realizing you had begun rambling. “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to…to derail like that.”
You could almost hear the smirk behind you. “You should never apologize for your passions, Y/N… I myself find your intensity rather endearing. You shouldn’t hide it.”
Your breath hitched again, and his chuckle faded with him as he backed away with the book in tow. “Sometimes, I swear—you and Rosie could be twins.”
And then he was gone.