Challenge fic. Content warning for implied domestic abuse. Send me challenges?

"I was just going to hug you, why'd you flinch?"

It was almost impossible to keep her voice even and calm in response to that, even if she didn't have a heartbeat to leap wildly into her throat anymore.

"Thought you were gonna hit me." she muttered darkly, avoiding the other woman's eyes.

"Why would you ever think that? Wow, being away didn't make you any less weird."

Thanks, she thought sarcastically, I missed you too, you selfish butt. But something had changed in the intervening years and where before she'd have said it out loud this time it stayed dammed up behind her tongue, unable to escape past the irrational terror that had spiked unexpectedly when she'd seen arms being raised up towards her face.

Maybe it had been a mistake to come let Bonnie know she was back. Marceline had turned up in the middle of what appeared to be a very fancy dinner party; clearly the Duke of Nuts' second son's first birthday party was the second best place to be that night. Whatever, she could almost guarantee they were having more fun at the Nut Castle. Maybe she should have come and let Bonnie know first thing, but she'd wanted to settle back into her cave house first, get a feel for the land before stirring up too many feelings. Besides, it had been too much fun messing with the human boy and his dog friend, she couldn't remember when she'd last laughed like that.

She'd hovered around awkwardly for a while outside the window and almost decided to just leave again when Bonnibel had happened to glance up and see her, dropping her fizzy pink drink in shock. While Peppermint Butler cleaned it up and fussed around her the princess had made an excuse about suddenly feeling rather ill and needing to retire early for the evening, she needed to get some air on her balcony. There was some subtext if ever she'd heard it; come to the balcony. So obligingly she had. Minutes later she was face to face with Bonnie again, after all that time, and it was like she'd never left at all. Almost. Right until the princess lifted up her arms and-

Flinch.

It was probably Ash's fault. Most everything was these days.

"Didn't know if you were ever coming around here again. I heard about what happened with your buttface boyfriend, I'm sorry." Bonnie added softly. They were sitting together on the balcony railing, looking out at the stars and moon, like they had a thousand times before. And it was almost like nothing had changed, only the flinch.

"Nothing for you to be sorry for. Not your fault he's a jerk." she replied tersely, unable to look the princess in the face.

The silence stretched for so long that even socially awkward Marceline began to feel uncomfortable with it. Then Bonnie spoke again, even more softly, like she wasn't even sure she should be saying the words out loud.

"Where did you go? I looked for you. I tried everywhere I could think, sent people to track you down. You were just... gone. I thought perhaps you'd died. I won't lie, Marcy. I cried for you a few times, in those first years, because I couldn't help imagining that something awful had happened to you."

"Those first years? How long was I gone? I lost track. I was in a little shack in the dessert, nothing but sand and the open sky and my bass. Not dead. Just... needed to be alone for a while." she replied with a casual shrug.

"You were gone for ten years."

Oh. That... was longer than she'd realised. No wonder those kids had moved into her tree house, they'd have only been babies when she'd left Ooo.

"I didn't realise it was so long." she murmured, still staring at the stars. "I just lost track of time. Ash messed me up, I needed to think."

"I don't want to say 'I told you so', but-"

"Yeah, I know." Marceline cut her off with a snort. "You told me so. He's a butt and you could see it and I couldn't. That'll teach me not to give people the benefit of the doubt, at least."

More silence, rolling thick and deep between them but somehow less strained. It was almost relaxing, sitting quietly under a brilliant blanket of stars with Bonnie equally silent by her side.

"Why'd you flinch?" she asked again after what felt like hours. Bonnie was like a dog worrying a bone when she wanted to know something, Marceline hadn't forgotten.

"I told you. Thought you were gonna hit me."

"But why?"

"Please just drop it, Bonnibel. Because I'm messed up. Ok?"

A warm hand rested against her own and she jumped and looked down, surprised. It was the first time in longer than she could- oh, in about ten years, actually- that someone had voluntarily touched her with something akin to gentleness. She wasn't counting that human boy Finn, he didn't know anything about her.

"He hurt you."

Not a question. Somehow Bonnie had always been able to see right thought her.

"Yeah."

"And you're scared to be touched, now."

"No fooling you, Bonnibel."

"I want to hug you."

"I want to accept your hug. But I need time."

"Another ten years of it?"

This time there was a sour undertone to Bonnie's words, like she resented having her touch rejected. It was very nearly uncomfortable to have her warm hand resting on Marcy's cold skin, it was about as much as she could deal with.

"Maybe. I dunno. I'm not sure I should have come back at all, to be honest. I can still feel his hand connect with my skin, if I let my thoughts spiral too much out of my control. Leaving was hard. Coming back was hard. Even sitting here with you is hard, and you're about the only person under the sky that I can feel properly relaxed around, anymore. So please don't take it personally, Bonnibel. I just... need time."

She'd spoken about as much as she could stand. Rising gently into the air again she pulled her hand away from that warm touch and turned to look the other woman in the eyes. Bonnie's face was a confusing mix of emotions, too complex and tangled for her to be able to make out much more than regret, old anger, some kind of relief and something nameless held carefully in check. Marceline didn't want to think too hard about that last one. She hoped the old anger was directed at Ash, at least.

"I should go home. You've probably got princess stuff to do tomorrow and I'm keeping you up."

"Wait, you're leaving again? Where are you going?"

There was a flush of panic in Bonnie's eyes when she said that, and really Marcy couldn't blame her. She'd come to say goodbye but the princess had been sleeping so in the end she'd just hovered in the corner of her bedroom, staring at her and feeling like a creepy stalker, before pressing a very soft kiss to her forehead and disappearing for a decade.

"Get some chill, nerd. I'm going to my cave house."

"Will you stay there?"

She asked it quietly, almost like she was afraid the answer might be no.

"Do you want me to stay?"

"It's rude to answer a question with a question, Marceline. But yes, I'd like very much if you'd stay. At least for a while. And tell me if you're leaving again. When Finn and Jake first moved into the tree house and I saw the lights on in there I came literally running, I thought you were back. Don't put me through that again."

Typical Bonnibel, making it all about her. Marceline just nodded.

"I'll stay, then."

There didn't seem to be a lot more to say. She began to drift backwards slowly, intending to disappear into the night. A sudden soft cry stopped her.

"Marcy! Wait!"

She turned reluctantly, meeting Bonnie's eyes as evenly as she could manage.

"Will you come back and see me? Tomorrow night, the night after? Sometime soon?"

"If you want me to. If you promise not to try to grab me again."

She smiled her first really genuine smile in ten years and began drifting again, letting the darkness swallow her long before the balcony became too distant for her supernatural night vision to make out the wistful expression on Bonnie's face as she watched her go. When she closed the door of her cave house and floated up to her old bedroom she was very nearly calm again, hand still tingling warmly from the contact with another being.

Everyone else in the world could see her perfectly practiced mask, the grinning trickster, stoic punk, uncrackable ego. Bonnie had always been able to see right through her to the vulnerability beneath. She wasn't sure that was necessarily a good thing, but it was nice, in a strange way. Like, the opposite of a flinch.