A Moment of Weakness
He doesn't trust her. Why would he? He knows her father's name, her family history. Why would he trust Falcone's daughter? Besides...that goulash was exactly as he remembers it from his mother's home cooking, and he's not fool enough to think that it's a coincidence.
The taste brings back memories, and memories bring with them pain, pain of both body and mind. He leaves before he can make a fool of himself, retreating to his club. It's closer than his home. Once there he gives the door guard specific instructions, barring entry to everyone, but especially her. Inside, he gathers himself an ice pack, before summoning his bartender to mix him a drink.
He knows, logically, why memories of his mother have caused the ever-throbbing pain in his ruined ankle to flare. Memories bring stress. Stress brings tension. Tension alters the set of his shoulders, the posture of his back, putting added strain on the mutilated joint. Added strain causes the muscles to spasm and clench, creating excruciating pain.
Knowing the logic of it doesn't help. Doesn't stop the agony that flares through ankle and calf. But ice will numb it, and alcohol will loosen the clenched muscles, enough for him to don his mask and return to the outside world. If need be, enough for him to get home, where he has a stash of stronger remedies. Remedies to deliver him into unconscious, boneless slumber. He doesn't use them often, disliking the vulnerability and the haziness they bring, but sometimes he counts that less dangerous than he does the vulnerability of his pain.
Judging by the way pain darts through his leg, like blunt fiery spikes being hammered in a millimeter at at time from instep to mid-calf, this might be one of those times.
But of course, it can't be that simple. He's barely started sipping his drink when the doorman comes in, followed by the last person he wants to see. Falcone's daughter.
The moron actually thinks that her specific request is reason enough to disregard his orders. As if he didn't give them for precisely that reason. He ought to shoot the man and hire smarter help, except they'd probably stab him in the back.
He waves away doorman and bartender, unwilling to have any witnesses. It doesn't help that he nearly falls as he stands, choking on a gasp of pain. His leg hurts worse than when it was broken, and that's saying something.
He cuts off her pretty little speech apologizing for upsetting him. He doesn't believe it anyway. "You think I believe in coincidence? That goulash tasted exactly like my mother's." He snarls the words out, daring her to deny it. Daring her to admit it.
She's smart. She knows enough to walk a thin line between admission and denial. She's aware enough to realize that admitting it will only cement his suspicions, whereas denying it will only fuel his anger. He'd admire her wit, if he weren't so busy distrusting it.
He hurts too much to engage in the subtle dance of words. "You're buttering me up. Why?"
She tries to pass it off as a courtesy, and he flings it back in her face. People aren't courteous, they aren't kind to him. Ever. His mother was the sole exception to a rule he learned the hard way.
She snaps back, genuine fire in her eyes as she retaliates with the insinuation that he's lucky to have had at least one person to be the exception, as her father didn't give her the benefit of the same.
He doesn't have it in him to engage in a battle of wits, to respond to her words. With every moment, the pain flaring up and down his leg intensifies. He wants to sit. He knows, from long experience and bad nights that he's on the verge of howling, or sobbing, or screaming. Something undignified. He wants her gone before the noise breaks free, before he falls. Wants her gone so he can collapse and give vent to the pain that is radiating from his crippled leg to overtake his whole being.
He dismisses her with cold words. "Go. I'll decide what to do with you later." At a better time, he'd make of the words a threat to make her quake and shrink from him. Right now, he doesn't care how she takes it, so long as she leaves.
Except that she doesn't. She turns as he staggers past her to drop onto the sofa. Watches as he draws his leg up, clenching his hands over his ankle, trying to...well, he doesn't know what he's trying to do. All he knows is that it hurts, and he wants it to stop, and he's biting his tongue on a whimper and a groan because she hasn't left yet.
"I just want to help." He doesn't believe a word of it. And even if he did, he doesn't care.
"Try leaving." He means the words to be a sneer, but he's afraid they lack the strength he needs. How could his words be strong, when he's breathless and trembling with the torment he endures? He's proven right a moment later.
Her eyes travel over him, to his hands, resting on his mangled ankle. "Your foot." The words are soft with realization. They would make him flush with shame if he weren't biting the inside of his cheek to keep from sobbing.
"It's just the weather." It's a lie, but it's the only thing he can say. He's on the verge of screaming, and even those words are an effort.
She comes closer, and he can't help the fear that locks his shoulders and sends ice down his spine. There's a gun beside him on the couch, but still...he'd have to release the grip on his ankle. He's vulnerable, and she's too close. She has him at a disadvantage, and he hates feeling like that.
And then she kneels, surprising him. Kneels on the cold stone floor and sets aside her bag, crouching before him like a servant. He blinks at her. In all the scenarios he envisioned, this isn't one of them. "What are you doing?" He doesn't understand this move, doesn't understand her motive or her plan, and he's afraid of it. Unexplained actions are dangerous at the best of times.
She answers his question by lifting her hands and reaching for his mutilated ankle. He jerks back, flinching, before he can even consider the motion or how it looks, flooded with shame and fear, and cries out. "Don't."
The command is weak, and it's no surprise she doesn't heed it. And yet, her touch is gentle, as is the expression in her eyes when she meets his. Gentle, like the words she speaks. "I won't judge."
The serenity and sincerity in her voice startles him, takes him off guard. Her hands are over his, gently prying his fingers loose, before he can bring himself to make any sort of response. And by then, it's too late. Her hands are tugging his away, setting them to either side. He could fight her, but the pain is debilitating, sapping his strength. Besides, there are times when fighting reveals a greater weakness than submission, and this has somehow become one of those times.
He lets her move his hands away, clenching them in the sofa. Lets her tug his shoe free, angling it so it rests on his toes and against her knee, not quite off, but far enough to expose the broken ruin of his ankle joint.
He turns away when she tugs the sock down to expose the scarred and broken flesh. He doesn't want to see it, nor her reaction to it. Maroni taught him to take pride in his strength, in the name he was given, but to have someone see this wound, to have his greatest shame and vulnerability laid bare at a time when he is already so weak...the humiliation of it is more than he can endure watching. Had he the strength, he would pull away.
It takes all the strength he has left not to shudder, not to cry out as her hands close over the throbbing limb. He braces himself for the pain that must follow, for whatever torture she might choose to inflict on him.
But it doesn't come. Instead, her hands rub gentle, careful circles over the knotted muscles and twisted joint. Her fingers smooth out over the skin, soothing his suffering, easing his torment in a way that ice and alcohol never managed.
He stares at her, stunned and struggling to contain his moans of relief. How could she do this? How? Why?
She meets his gaze. Perhaps she understands the question he can't ask. Perhaps she only seeks to distract him. He finds himself listening to her words, if only to avoid thinking about what she is doing to his ankle.
"When I was a child, I broke my ankle. My father told me to put some ice on it, toughen up. But my mother...she told me that cold actually intensifies the pain. What's needed is warmth."
He can't tell if it's intentional, the way her words bring his attention back to her actions. Back to the hands that caress his twisted limb, the warmth that seeps from her gloved fingers into taunt muscles and makes them loosen.
As her fingers prod loose a particularly agonizing knot in the top of his ankle, he decides he doesn't care. This is more than anyone since his mother has ever done for him.
She gave him a memory of her mother, a memory of warmth and kindness. It seems only reasonable to return the favor, if only to remove this small portion of the debt he feels.
He offers the words with a shaky, gasping breath, unable to muster anything stronger. "My mother used to sing."
He doesn't know what he expects, but it isn't for her to begin humming, a low, wordless tune that makes him think of a lullaby.
The unexpected generosity leaves him breathless. Then her hand does something, rubs just so, the warmth of contact and friction combining, and the stranglehold of knots around the nerves of his ankle releases. He gasps, shuddering as the pain abruptly lessens, as if the spikes he imagined earlier being hammered into his flesh have all suddenly been yanked away.
He cannot stop the tear that streaks down his face. A tear of relief, of wordless gratitude as the searing agony begins to fade, the tight muscles relaxing. No more than he can stop the way his shoulders slump as the strain of enduring is taken from them.
He should be ashamed of it. Of this moment of weakness. He cannot find it within himself to be anything but relieved. He knows well that this compassion, this kindness, may only be a trap, honeyed words and actions to lure him in and bring him to his knees.
But he was on his knees anyway, brought low by the pain she has banished, pain he thought unendurable only moments ago. And she did not strike him, did not shame him. Instead, she has offered warmth to replace the icy agony, and solace to ease the ache in his heart.
It might be a trap. But for this one moment, here and now, there is only kindness, and his weakness remains unexploited.
Here and now...that is enough.
Author's Note: What can I say? Oswald wanted his point of view heard too.