Because Proton (and all the other Rocket Executives) needs love.
Disclaimer: Don't own. T^T
Sometimes, just knowing was enough.
Sometimes, just the mere thought of someone who cared was enough to see him through each day. Because sometimes, those days were rough. Lopping off Slowpoke tails, fighting off Champions or just defending the radio tower, it was all rough work.
And it took an even rougher persona to commandeer it.
He always prided himself in being the cruellest, the meanest, the scare factor. But she was all sunshine and daisies. And that happy ray of light enthralled him. Consumed him.
And she burned him, in all her brilliance. Then, when it was all over, she put out the fire and cradled him, nursing him back to his usual cold self. That's when he realised that – lying in the arms of the enemy – it was over.
Maybe, maybe that's why he met his downfall that day. Why they all did. Why Giovanni was never going to return.
There was no one left here to care.
Archer had Arianne, who had the whole of the male populace. But physical love was not real love. It was the uniting of flesh in the dark, the heated whispers in the night. It was instant gratification.
But it wasn't love.
Poor Petrel had no one at all. Well, except his disguises, but sometimes even they fail him. And they were only reflections of himself; flawed and broken just like everyone else.
So Proton decided that he was the lucky one. Even after it all, there was someone to catch him, someone to whisper sweet nothings to him in the light of the moon.
To tell him his life is still worth living.
So when he sees her years down the track, no longer the child with the pigtails and the over sized hat, but a woman with curves and the burning brown eyes, he smiles.
And so does she.