Because this truly could not be the end.

It's only the end if you want it to be, The words rang in his head over and over again as he sat beside her, their respective positions as female and male valedictorians having forced them closer than they had ever been before.

He highly doubted that this was what Alfred had meant when he had repeatedly referenced the Batman comics. Likely Alfred had been talking about friendships, their bounds as classmates, their education, many deep and insightful things that did not involve one Natalia Arlovskaya and how her blonde hair had taunted Toris's dreams;

But being a man of faith he took it as otherwise.

Man?

Was he a man? Perhaps that would be a better topic than the speech he had chosen to write.

Men didn't wait in the wings watching boyfriend after boyfriend find their way to the women of their dreams, men didn't coincidentally 'forget' to tell the girl they loved how they felt every day of the week.

Perhaps he was not a man, perhaps he was destined to never be one.

All that he was aware of was that he had a total of five minutes before his speech began, Natalia's thigh had just brushed by his, and if he stayed silent for these next few moments then that simple thigh brush would remain the luckiest moment of his high school career.

And he honestly wasn't sure if he was okay with that.

"Natalia, may I talk to you?"

The blonde glanced over at him momentarily, seemingly confused by what it was he could possibly want before turning her attention to Alfred again and slowly nodding her head.

"I'm up next."

Again she nodded, her eyebrows furrowing slightly at the obvious statement.

"What would you do if I went off script?"

"That would mess up my speech, we're supposed to have a common theme." Her first response to him, deadpanned as he had known her most of his school years.

"Would you be upset?" The question itself was pointless, for while she may not be upset at the change of them, the topic itself would upset her.

"I supposed I wouldn't care much, so long as it was shorter. You always rely on words too much, yet on actions not enough." She tilted her head. "Why?"

Three minutes until showtime.

"I want to talk about you." Why was it suddenly so hard to meet her eyes? To tell her that?

"You want to talk about me?" She squinted. Finding him to be avoiding her eye contact, she placed her hand on his thigh to better establish some sort of hint as to what he was thinking, to at least see his face. To her siblings in the crowd however, this likely appeared to be some sort of show.

"It's a really long story."

"This is a really long speech."

"It spans thirteen years, and this speech has less than ten seconds left."

"Well then, just get to the good part." She was never one for patience was she? He swatted her hand away from his leg to even begin to hide his deep blush.

He had ten seconds until he had to get up, ten seconds and his time was up.

He stared at her for eight of them.

Slowly began to stand up for two of them.

And overstayed his welcome away from the mike for ten more of them.

And during those ten he thought.

He just stood there and thought.

He thought of all the regrets in his life, of all of the opportunities he'd missed out on, and of the person he was today instead of the one he wanted to be yesterday.

He dropped back down to his knees in front of her to be eye level, whispering words unheard to the audience.

"To get to the good part right now, I'd have to kiss you. Would you be alright with that?"

There were over a hundred people in the auditorium at that very moment, but as Natalia nodded that slow and very confused yes, there was only two.

And he did not know if she enjoyed it, and he did not know what tomorrow would bring, but he walked up to the mike and began a speech unwritten.

"It's only the end if you want it to be, that's a correct statement. But perhaps another statement more true and dear to my classmates' and my own heart is this, 'you make your own opportunities.'" He glanced over his shoulder for a mere second to see the amused face of Natalia. " And starting today, I, and the rest of my classmates, begin to make opportunities for the rest of our lives."

Author's Note:

Thought that I would post some fanfics from my other tumblr, maybe start posting a bit more.

Have any ideas for a fanfic? Message me here or on my tumblr, Capesandshapes.