Title: Bad Romance

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship

Summary: Marco helps Aerie get over a bad breakup.

WARNING: There are mentions of nudity.

Marco knocked on her door for the fifth time that morning, and still received no answer. He sighed and ran a hand through his short blond hair and stared at the barrier between one of his oldest friends and himself.

No one had seen hide nor hair of Tanaka Aerie in close to a week. The fact that this coincided with the breakup of her and her longtime boyfriend did not strike any of her friends as coincidence. Though while they all felt sympathy for her, they knew a week of solitude was crossing the line. This prompted her best friend and former roommate Eliza to call Marco, of all people, that morning and order him to walk to her apartment and see if she was still alive.

Marco knocked again. Still no answer. He took out his cell phone and called her. He could here the house phone ringing, but it went to her answering machine. He sent her a quick text:

Aerie, I know you're in there. Come out and talk to me.

To his surprise, she actually answered.

Go away.

Ah, so you are alive. Where have you been?

I'm at home. Go away, Marco. I want to be alone.

For a week? Just come out and talk to me. Please? Everyone thinks you're dead or something.

Sounds like it's their problem, then. Go away. Please.

Marco scowled at the phone. Why did she have to be so stubborn? An idea came to him, then, and he turned and left the doorway.

~...~

Aerie sighed as she watched Marco walk back down the hallway of the apartment complex through the peephole in her door. Truthfully, she had wanted him to stay. She wanted to tell him why she had cut herself off from the world for a week. But she also didn't want to shove her personal problems on the man, even if he was one of her closest friends. She hadn't even responded to Eliza's texts and calls.

Miserably, she trudged back into her bedroom and flopped onto the messy bed. She hadn't done much in the past week besides sleep and lie on the bed. The last time she had eaten was the morning before, and she hadn't showered or changed clothes since the breakup. As a result, the room reeked strongly of her body odor.

A noise in the living room caused her to lift her head from the mattress. She must be hearing things, because it sounded a lot like a key being turned in the lock and the door being opened.

To her annoyance (but also some relief), she discovered she wasn't imagining things: someone really had opened the door to her apartment. That someone was now standing in the doorway of her room, gazing about the cluttered space with electric blue eyes. Finally, those eyes landed on her form on the bed.

Aerie, Marco decided, had definitely seen better days. Her hair, normally a dark brown, was a greasy mess on the top of her head. Her skin was pale and pasty. There were horrible, dark circles under her dull, gold eyes, and her clothes were severely wrinkled. There was also a wretched stench in the room, but Marco had enough tact to not mention it.

Aerie frowned in irritation. "I told you to go away," she told him sourly.

Marco frowned back. "Don't know why you bothered, yoi. You know I don't ever listen."

"Well, you should listen when someone tells you they want to be alone."

Marco didn't respond, opting instead to raise an eyebrow. He then walked to her closet and drawers, and began rifling through her clothes. He didn't need to ask where anything was, even her lingerie, because he had been in this apartment so many times he knew exactly where she placed everything.

"What are you doing?" She asked from her bed. Marco ignored her and went into the bathroom next door, carefully placing the clothes on the toilet. He walked back into her bedroom and gave her a look.

"Are we doing this the easy way or the hard way?" He asked. She replied with a glare. "Hard way it is, then." Crossing the room in two steps, he quickly wrapped an arm around her waist and slung her over his shoulder. Aerie let out a startled scream while struggling in his strong grip. For his part, Marco was very glad the bathroom was only a couple steps from her bedroom.

The blond set her down on her feet once inside the bathroom. He reached into the shower and turned it on, setting it at medium heat. When he turned back to her, she had crossed her arms and put a childish pout on her face.

"I'm not getting in," she told him. Marco had to try really hard to not roll his eyes and sigh in impatience.

"You're getting in even if I have to strip you naked and go in with you, yoi." His voice left no room for argument.

Aerie's face flushed a dark red. "You-you wouldn't."

"I would and I will. You need a shower." The two stared each other down for a solid minute. Finally, Aerie sighed and bowed her head.

"Fine... I'll get a shower." Marco nodded, satisfied, and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He stood still for a moment, listening to the rustle of fabric as she took her week-old clothing off, before strolling into the kitchen.

Humming to himself, he shifted through the contents of her fridge and cabinets. Some of the food was expired, so he threw it in the garbage. Finding some noodles and sauce, he set about preparing spaghetti for the two of them. Oh yes, he was staying. He needed to make sure she actually ate.

Marco put a pot of water on her stove to boil and went back into her bedroom. He stripped the sheets and blankets off her bed, cringing at the smell, and set them in a laundry basket to take down to the laundromat in the basement later. After searching for a few minutes, he found a spare set of sheets in a hall closet and remade the bed with them. (He also lit a couple scented candles in her room to clear the smell, not that he would tell Aerie his reasoning for doing so.)

Upon returning to the kitchen, he found the water nearly boiling over. He quickly put the dry noodles in the pot and set a timer for them to cook. With the noodles in the water, he located a saucepan and poured the red sauce into it. He lit a fire under the pan, and with that being accomplished, leaned against the counter and waited for the food to cook.

As soon as the timer went off, Marco grabbed a couple of potholders and a colander and moved the pot to the sink. He poured slowly, making sure to not burn himself with the hot water. He checked the temperature of the sauce, and finding it to be satisfactory, turned the fire off. Taking some plates out of a cupboard and some forks out of a drawer, he set the table in the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" A quiet voice asked from the doorway. Marco glanced up and saw Aerie standing there in clean clothes. However, her wet hair was unbrushed, something Marco vowed to change. Without answering he took her wrist and led her back to the bathroom and took a comb and gently pulled it through her long hair.

He finished with the comb and set in on the counter. He left his hands on her shoulders and grinned at her reflection. "There, would you look at that. There's that beautiful girl everyone loves."

Aerie frowned and turned around to look at him. "What are you doing?" She asked again.

"I made you dinner. Are you hungry?"

"That's not what I meant."

"It's spaghetti. Most of your food was expired, by the way."

"Marco-"

"It's going to get cold if you don't eat it, yoi." The blond crossed his arms. "And you will eat it. I'm not leaving until you do."

Aerie sighed, knowing it would be pointless to argue further. "You're impossible," she muttered. Marco waved her comment away with his hand and left the bathroom. Somewhat reluctantly, she followed him.

They ate in silence. Aerie kept her eyes fixed on the pasta, not the man sitting across the table from her. She didn't want him there. She didn't want his pity or his sympathy. Being alone was really the only thing she wanted.

Then why did you let him stay? That annoying voice in the back of her head whispered. He wouldn't have left even if I had insisted, she reasoned.

Or you wanted him to stay. Aerie shook her head. Impossible.

Admit it, you wanted someone to come see you. No, no she didn't. She didn't like the way he took the time to come see her, didn't like the way he cleaned her up and made her dinner, didn't like that he cared.

She couldn't stand the silence anymore. She slammed her fork on the table and stood, briefly surprising Marco. "Why are you even here?"

He blinked and tilted his head. "What are you talking about, yoi?"

"You know what I meant, dammit," she growled. "What are you doing? I didn't ask you to come here, and...and...force me into taking a shower, changing my sheets, cooking for me..." Her voice trailed off and her glare intensified at his blank expression. "I don't need your help!"

A frown came to Marco's face and he crossed his arms. "Oh, really? No one's seen you in almost a week, and when I do come by, you're holed up in your room, you haven't eaten, and you haven't bathed. I wasn't going to just leave you like that!"

"Didn't you think that I wanted to be alone?"

"No, I didn't." He got to his feet and stood in front of her. "After what happened, it wouldn't make sense for you to be alone. I'm not stupid, Aerie, as much as you like to think I am. I know what you're going through, and-"

"No, you don't!" She took a deep breath. "No, you don't. You don't know what it was like for me and him. We weren't just any couple, we were a perfect match. We could have taken down the world together. I trusted him and told him everything. He knew more about me than my own father does. He was my best friend, my companion, my boyfriend...and then he wasn't." Her eyes softened and she looked away. "He was the world to me. All of my hopes, dreams...everything."

Marco stared, taken aback by her outburst. "Aerie-"

"Stop." Her eyes found his again. "I don't want your sympathy."

"Then what do you want?" He asked quietly, stepping forward again.

"I don't know," she mumbled. She pushed a hand through her damp hair. "I just... I feel like my whole world has been turned upside down, and I want it to be right again."

Marco stared at her impassively. Without warning, he closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. Aerie gasped quietly as she was drawn close to the chest of the taller man. "W-wait, what are you-"

"I'm your friend, aren't I?" He cut her off this time. She managed to nod against his chest. "So just shut up and let me take care of you."

That did it. The dam Aerie had constructed had finally broke and her eyes spilled over with tears. She held the front of his shirt in her fists and cried the tears that had been waiting to fall all week.

Marco smiled softly. "There now, it's alright. I'm here for you, yoi."

This went on for several minutes before she finally calmed down. Somewhat reluctantly, she released her grip on his shirt and back away, furiously wiping at her face with her sleeve. "Thank you," she murmured.

His grin returned. "Anything for a friend."

She shifted her feet and met his gaze uncertainly. "Marco?"

"Yeah, Aerie?"

"Could..could you stay here tonight? Just this once?"

He chuckled and reached for her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Of course."

WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH I'M SO SOOOOOORRRRREEEEEEEEE! It's been soo long since I've updated, well, anything. I posted some new stuff to my profile, so you should read it as I am too lazy to write it all out again.

Whew, what a one-shot! Waayy more angsty than I originally planned, but hey. Not too shabby. (Confession: I have never been in a relationship before, so let me know if I wrote this breakup right.)

Write a review, and favorite and follow the cuss out of this! Until next time!

~Batman