“Ain’t that right,” he said with a chuckle, clinking his glass against hers. The odds really were low that they would meet each in a place like New York, but he was glad that he had met her. It felt good to know that maybe he wasn’t entirely alone in being so damaged. There was someone else who was just getting through things like he was. And, best of all, she was a cool person.

The alcohol was doing wonders for settling the mood and making things less awkward, but he wasn’t interested in getting plastered the way they had the other night. He was done with the part of his life where he made himself numb by drinking all the time; sure, he’d made an exception, but it was just that. An exception. He wasn’t looking to make a habit of it.

“You can talk to me sober, you know,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. Was there more that she hadn’t shared? Some of the stuff that she’d told him had been pretty vague, to be fair, though it had been intense. Maybe he was missing details that she was still scared to tell him about. “I swear I don’t bite very hard. Besides, I used to keep government secrets from people. I can keep my mouth shut.”

He kept his eyes on her, shifting just slightly on the couch so that they could be facing each other rather than both looking forward. Matt took a sip of his beer as he studied her quietly, trying to figure out what it was that she was afraid to tell him. She already knew almost everything there was to know about him, anyway.

They sat together on the couch, drinking beer. This was a lot like being friends. But also different somehow. It was a generic 'I like you' friendship - rather, a sort of connection over shared experience that was very hard to explain to people who did not have it. And talking about it was ever harder.

>>“You can talk to me sober, you know. I swear I don’t bite very hard. Besides, I used to keep government secrets from people. I can keep my mouth shut.”

She arched an eyebrow at the biting comment. Damn. Too bad they did not hit it off with the flirting before the secrets.

"There's another thing we have in common." she smirked when he mentioned keeping secrets. Government secrets, indeed. Technically, Sveta herself was a government secret...

"The guy I fell in love with chose puberty over me." she deadpanned, then snickered into her beer. It sounded horrible when summarized like that. "It sounds horrible, but it's technically true. He was... he's a mutant too. Long story short, he lived an entire adult life, and then went back to being a kid, with an adult mind... then to an adult again. That was when we started dating. It was... a whole thing." powers and fights and potential future children and all. "And then he decided he'd rather go back to being a kid and do the whole growing up thing a second time. So. Yeah." she smirked, sipping some beer "I have an ex in high school. Isn't that peachy."

He’d prompted her to keep talking about the different things that she hadn’t told him yet. It seemed like she wanted to keep talking, but she was nervous about doing it sober. Did he make her nervous? With all that she had shown him that she could do, he somehow doubted it. Besides, he was doing all that he could to make himself look human now. Even his apartment was pretty lame.

The prompting worked, though. He sat still and watched her from his seat as she talked about the ex that she’d had. Only, it wasn’t a typical relationship. Not at all.

"The guy I fell in love with chose puberty over me."

Matt simply blinked at her and took a sip of his beer. That was the most messed up bullsh** that he’d ever heard. He could understand wanting to do life again, but choosing an unknown future that involved puberty over something good? Something happy? That just seemed foolish; entirely so. Also, insane. Mutant powers made things entirely insane and way too complicated.

“I’m… I’m, uh, sorry he chose to do that,” he said, unsure of what else to say. His eyes were wide as he shook his head in disbelief. Kid sounded like a little twerp. Svetlana was reacting to it the way that she reacted to most of the bad things in her life, though. She was smiling. Perhaps that was how she had learned to deal with things or push past them. Matt had been through a few breakups in his time, and he knew that they could be tough to come to terms with, especially when you were on the receiving end. To be passed up for high school, though? That sounded like a low blow. “Are all mutant relationships that complicated, or just yours?”

“If it makes you feel any better, Sophie broke up with me twice,” he said, smirking as well as he thought back on the experiences. It likely wouldn’t make her feel any better, but maybe it would make her a little more comfortable.

Sveta could see the shock in Matt's face as she told him about Jude. A small part of her was amused by the reaction that story got. Once the pain was not so raw, putting it to wards definitely made it sound like one hell of a story. Matt, who was not used to the mutant world, was definitely trying hard to process it.

>>“I’m… I’m, uh, sorry he chose to do that,”

Sveta shrugged. Of course there was another part of the story, the part where Jude disapproved of her being a vigilante. The part where they had to break up because of it. But that was a whole other tale for another day.

>>“Are all mutant relationships that complicated, or just yours?”

"Most of them are complicated in some way" Sveta nodded "But I think mine... have been more than usual." Because of her powers. Or maybe bad luck.

>>“If it makes you feel any better, Sophie broke up with me twice,”

Sveta chuckled at that. Compared to hers, his story was entirely normal. Minus the end of it...

"She sounds like an adventure" she smirked "Tell me you deserved it."

Every relationship was bound to have strife, but it certainly seemed like mutant relationships would be more turbulent than most. What was better than adding in the ability to breathe fire or give someone a caffeine buzz when you were dealing with raging hormones? It seemed like that was just a recipe for disaster.

Svetlana had been privy to her own fair share of it, too. She seemed to have particularly bad luck, especially since it involved an ex leaving her to be a teenager again. That just sounded silly. Matt sort of hoped that the sucker was dealing with a pizza face for that choice.

He had attempted to relate and make her feel better by bringing up his own relationship drama, though it in no way compared. He and Sophie had been known for being off-again-on-again at one point in time, mostly because of his own stupid behaviour. Matt had never ended things between them, but he had been stupid enough to let her go for periods of time. It was time he would never get back now.

”An adventure,” he repeated with a chuckle. ”Yeah, she was. I like that.” She’d made him get out of his shell. Grow up. Get his life together. He had no idea where he would even be if not for her. Trying to figure out how to navigate things without her grounding force had been tricky, to say the least.

He sighed as he leaned back against the couch a little and took a sip of his beer, thinking back to both times that she’d stomped on his heart. ”Yeah, I deserved them. First time, I was a twerp who couldn’t get my head on straight, so I told her at prom that I was enlisting in the army and moving away. Somewhere in my head I thought she’d be happy for me, but she was just pissed that I hadn’t told her.” He could still remember her crying silently on the drive home. That had been what had really done it for him, but it hadn’t stopped him from leaving.

”The second time was when I came back. I was... in a dark place, and I had trouble keeping a job. She told me that she’d only take me back if I pulled up my socks and showed her that I wanted to be here,” he explained. She’d given him grace at first for his PTSD, but she’d been right to do that. It made sense and it helped him in the long run. ”So I did. Wasn’t long then before we were married.”

Talking about his dead wife had to be hard for Matt. It was a good sign that he could talk about her, though, and not just about losing her. Sveta listened carefully. She was curious, but she was also watching to see how he was dealing with sharing more about her.

>>”Yeah, I deserved them. First time, I was a twerp who couldn’t get my head on straight, so I told her at prom that I was enlisting in the army and moving away. Somewhere in my head I thought she’d be happy for me, but she was just pissed that I hadn’t told her.”

"At prom? Smooth." Sveta smirked softly. She was not really going to poke fun of him more than that. She knew how the whole enlisting thing worked for many young Americans. Still, she could understand the girlfriend.

>>”The second time was when I came back. I was... in a dark place, and I had trouble keeping a job. She told me that she’d only take me back if I pulled up my socks and showed her that I wanted to be here. So I did. Wasn’t long then before we were married.”

"Sounds like she knew what she wanted" Sveta noted with a small smile. Not many people stuck around when things got bad. Somehow that woman managed to get through to Matt enough to keep him from going off the rails. No wonder he loved her so much. "PTSD is a b*tch, huh." she noted, drinking her beer. She could definitely relate to that.

“Yeah, I thought I was really smooth,” Matt said with a smirk, shaking his head at his younger self. He thought he was really good to her back then, but looking back, he could see everywhere that he’d failed. Everywhere that he’d fallen short. It was just too bad that he really couldn’t go back and do things again.

Maybe there was some sense to Svetlana’s ex after all.

Sophie had always known what she wanted; that was one of her defining traits, and it was something that Matt had always admired in her. He’d always been a little less sure, flipping between directions, but she had known. With Matt, she’d managed to whip him into shape enough to be in a state to be with her, and he was glad for that. Most people would have run when he had dark nights, but not her. She always stayed. Even in her own personal life, direction had never been a challenge. Journalism had always been her goal, and she’d worked to achieve it. It was just too bad that her career had been cut so short.

Matt did love to talk about her; he liked to think that it kept her memory a little clearer, but it often ended that way. Him looking down at a bottle, thinking that her life wasn’t even close to as long as it should have been. Not even close. He took a long drink of beer and then nodded silently, his smile having fallen. No, he wouldn’t slump again. Not again.

“I guess you would know that better than most,” he mused quietly, focusing on something else. He liked Svetlana, but if she was constantly having to deal with his broody side, then he figured that she wouldn’t stick around very long. He needed to get a hold of himself. “Anyway, sorry. Was this the same guy that you f***ed in a forest and ran into a moose with?” There. That would shift the mood, with any luck.

It was not easy to deal with PTSD, even under the best of circumstances. Sveta had never really been to therapy of any official sort; her life had been too hectic and unpredictable for any of that. But she knew enough about it to recognize when she experienced the effects, and she could relate to Matt for having a hard time pulling it together. He was lucky he found someone who could help him. Even if for only a little. Sveta could see his expression getting gloomier as he talked about his wife. This was probably the limit of how long he could talk about her without the memories taking over.

>>“Anyway, sorry. Was this the same guy that you f***ed in a forest and ran into a moose with?”

Sveta chuckled and nodded. Smooth change of topic, Matt.

"Yeah, same guy." she shrugged "It was a while ago." She paused, thinking about what else to say. Maybe ask him for another song? She'd enjoyed the music. She glanced at him sipping his beer.

"I really couldn't tell, you know." she noted finally "About your hands. You played really well."

The same guy that she had gone into the forest with was now a teenager, living life as an adolescent with an adult brain. Matt shook his head and grinned despite himself. It likely wasn’t the best way to change the topic off of something that made him want to binge drink again, but it had done the trick. They were back on the way to talking again, and he didn’t feel the need to dwell on things anymore. Instead, he could move on a little and hopefully get her talking again. He felt like he’d just dominated the conversation.

It seemed like Svetlana didn’t really want to talk about her ex, either, which was fair. It had been a long time ago, apparently, and those wounds had scarred over already. Maybe she was lucky enough to have it be past the point of hurting.

Matt sometimes wondered whether he would get to that point; whether he would be able to just live his life without being haunted by ghosts. It was a nice dream, but he wasn’t sure whether it was achievable. It was likely his own fault for being so stuck in the past or afraid to move on, but he didn’t know how to do anything else.

Svetlana mentioned his hands and he looked down at them instinctively, running his thumbs along the scars in on the opposite hand. “Took a lot of practice and rehab,” he said honestly. “It took me a while to get good enough to play again.” He couldn’t pretend that he’d gotten better all on his own. Everything took a village, after all. Most of the time those days, it was just phantom pain and reduced range of motion that he dealt with. Always there, never quite stopping him from doing things, but always remind him where his deficiencies were.

“Follow me,” he said rather suddenly, standing up from his seat. He walked across the living room and grabbed his guitar from the stand, waiting to see whether she would trust him enough to walk away from the safety of the living room. A slight grin formed on his lips while he held his free hand out toward her.

Sveta was not well versed in music enough to be able to tell when someone was playing well or not - not in the professional sense. All she knew was that the song sounded good, and she enjoyed it. Matt probably worked a lot on using his hands again to play the guitar - if the scars were any indication, his injuries had to be pretty bad.

>>"Took a lot of practice and rehab. It took me a while to get good enough to play again.”

Sveta nodded. She could imagine. She had never been severely hurt so far, not in a way that would have left lasting damage. Plus, she had a healer that she could boost. Times like this, she was reminded how important DocProf was. And how unfair it was that he could not get to everyone.

Matt suddenly got an idea. He got up and picked the guitar up again.

>>“Follow me,”

Sveta blinked, then stood. He offered a hand, and she took it, not sure where they could be going in the small apartment. She had to admit, she was curious what the idea was. The only other room in the apartment was the bedroom... but that was not much of a creative endeavor. Certainly not one that would have needed the guitar...

It was true, Matt didn’t entertain all that often, and when he did, it was usually just in that one little living area. For special occasions and when he was alone, though, there was somewhere specific that he liked to go. It was a little nicer than his living room, anyway.

He had offered her his hand to take, and while he wouldn’t have been offended if she had declined or been wary of following him, he was glad that she was willing to trust him. After all, it might’ve looked like he was trying to lure her into the bedroom, or something. That wasn’t what he was going for in this case. Actually, he wanted to share something a little more personal with her. In his other hand, he held his guitar, carrying it near the end of the neck. He walked toward the door of his apartment, talking Svetlana along for the ride.

“Thanks for trusting me,” he said with a smile as he turned back to look at her. Matt walked her right outside of the apartment, locking it behind him as he slung his guitar over his shoulders. Back down the hallway and over to the elevator, where he stopped and punched in the button for the top floor.

When she realized they were going outside the apartment (and not to the bedroom), Sveta grabbed her boots and padded after Matt, down the hallway and to the elevator. It was... different, seeing him like this. Somehow, almost excited. She wondered what he wanted to show her, but whatever it was, his awkwardness had disappeared in the face of the small adventure.

>>“Thanks for trusting me,”

"I told you, I can take you in a fight" Sveta smirked, aware that she was holding his hand. It was not a usual sensation for her, casually holding hands with someone. But he was an adapted. He was safe, even if she almost forgot. She hesitantly pulled her hand back when she felt like it was getting awkward. The elevator took them towards the top floor of the building.

She likely could take him in a fight. Yeah, that much had already been decided. Matt, personally, had decided that he didn’t want to cross her for any reason. It was a good thing that he had only the purest of intentions.

The awkwardness had faded, and she had taken her hand back as they stepped into the elevator. Matt stood straight, aware of the fact that he had just held her hand without really thinking about it. It had felt natural, and for whatever reason, he didn’t really regret it. His hands had migrated to the strap of his guitar, though, where his thumbs rested. The elevator only took a minute or two before the sound notified them that they had reached the top, and the doors opened for them.

“This way,” he said, stepping out and walking down the hallway. At the end of a row of doors, there was one last one that stood out in an industrial style. A sign on the front read, ‘To Roof’. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys, unlocking it and pushing it open. He held it open for Svetlana to walk through after him as he nodded his head toward the stairs.

“Feel free to go up ahead. The views are incredible.” It was a tall apartment building situated deep within the city and near the coast, so the views from either side were rather nice. Plus, the building super had been nice enough to set it up in a way that the tenants would be able to get use out of it, with outdoor furniture and a canopy with lights. It made the space incredibly functional. For Matt, the space was a nice escape, and it was usually the place that he defaulted to when he wasn't able to sleep.

It was not a big surprise now that they were going to the roof. Sveta put her boots back on in the elevator (she would not want to walk around in her socks outside), and waited curiously to see what kind of place the roof of the building was. It was a fairly tall building, so the view had to be nice. She knew that many places in the city had rooftop gardens or furniture up there; it was a thing even movies used quite often. She wondered what this place was going to be like.

>>“Feel free to go up ahead. The views are incredible.”

She went ahead, and soon reached the top of the stairs, walking out onto the roof. Matt was right, the view was incredible. The air felt fresher too, and as they were getting closer to sunset, the lights were falling sideways onto the roof, as well as onto the rest of the city and the buildings around them. There was some patio furniture, an a canopy; the weather was nice and warm, like spring. It really had been a good idea to come up here.

"Incredible" she echoed his words with a smile as he came up after her "So... you come up here to play?"

“Sometimes,” he said with a nod, following Svetlana up the stairs toward the rooftop. The second doorway at the top was heavy, but unlocked for people to walk up and down from. Only the inside door needed the key to be opened.

The rooftop was one of his favourite places in the world. It was quiet, and many of the tenants in the building didn’t use it as much as he did. When he was lucky, there would be no one else up there using it, and that was one of those lucky nights. Over the edge of the bricks, the beginning of the sunset could be seen, with the mixing hues of the sky. Soon enough, it would be washed in the pink light of twilight.

“It’s quiet; simpler up here,” he said quietly, walking over to stand next to her. He stood still on the patio, his eyes focused out onto the sky up ahead. The world seemed to stop turning so fast out there. “I don’t have to think about things as much.” Was that a strange thing to say? That things became clearer up there and didn’t bog him down as much? That was the truth, though.

Matt nodded his head to where there was a little area of patio furniture set up under the canopy. He walked over and took a seat on one of the couches that faced in toward the roof. He had placed his guitar down next to him and leaned the neck up against the arm of the couch. If he was going to play it again, he could easily pick it back up. Over the other side of the roof, the sunset could be seen clearly, mixing in with the skyline of the city that had become as close to home as it could get.