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Bag in hand, Matt began to pick through the produce in front of him to pull out the best of the crop. His fingers ran over the skin of a particular tomato as his eyes scanned over the rest of the row. Many of them were alright, though there were a few outliers that looked overripe. The ones closest to the front were what he picked from; without a doubt the best.

He was about to move on to the next item on his list when he heard a voice next to him. Usually, people at stores ignored each other in favour of getting their own stuff done, especially in New York, but the woman seemed to be talking to him specifically. It was a little surprising that she would go out of her way to do that, actually, since she could have simply brushed past him to pick one up for herself. It was an interaction that could have been easily avoided.

That wasn’t, however, to say that Matt was against talking to her. She was young, blonde, a few inches shorter than himself, and clearly focused on the tomatoes. Maybe she was just looking to talk, or maybe she really was confused about whether they were alright for tomato sauce. Either way, he was more than versed in the art of talking to strangers. Matt deposited his bag in his cart along with his other items and then glanced back at the produce.

Matt smirked and shrugged gently, resting his elbow on the handle of his cart. “If you’re making sauce then you don’t really have to worry,” he pointed out, nodding toward the red fruits. “It’s not really a big deal unless they’re still green.” They could be overripe and still do the job just fine.

Matt’s chiles rellenos was world famous.

Alright, not world famous, but it was definitely a favourite among his family members. His mother had made it when they were young, and it had become a staple at his house. Each of the siblings knew how to make it, but his was often cited as the closest to the original, and since Matt’s parents were situated in Florida those days, it fell on his shoulders to make it for the New York crew. It would just be his sister and two of his brothers, but it was as close to family reunions that they came to.

Having worked a kitchen renovation that morning, he had the afternoon and evening off. It was easier if he didn’t schedule shifts at the bar those nights, since it was often a lot to juggle all at once, and it was nice to have time to actually do things. The dinner was scheduled for that weekend, and so he would be getting the various items needed to complete the meal that day. His car was already full of a few of the items needed, such as rice and meat, but there were still lots of things that he needed to pick up. Making tortillas, salsa, and guacamole from scratch could often require a number of ingredients.

So, he found himself in the produce aisle, glancing over a batch of tomatoes. It was better to get things as fresh as possible, since they would chop and keep the best. After all, he wouldn’t be able to live it down if he made something that didn’t taste good. His sister would likely take over for good and he'd lose his title as the reigning family cook. There were high expectations in place that he needed to live up to.

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.

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.”

“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.

He hadn’t been playing to impress her, but having her say that she liked it wasn’t exactly unwelcome. Rolling his lips in as he glanced at her, he simply nodded with a bit of a smile at her comment. It was a thank-you in its own right.

He had more that he could play, but he wasn’t going to subject her to that right away unless she seemed interested. As much as he could pretend that he wasn’t getting a kick out of playing for someone again, he completely was. It was boosting his ego.

He was switching to the role of a good host by that point, so he lifted the guitar back over his head and let it rest back on the stand. With that, he stood up and walked into the kitchen, simply making an ‘uh’ sound as he glanced in the fridge. It was true, he didn’t host a lot. Sometimes he had some coworkers over, his siblings, or army friends when they were in town, but for the most part, he kept to himself. Plus, he hadn’t had any time to prepare for this.

“Honestly, no,” he said with a shake of his head as he glanced in the fridge. “Okay, I’ve got beer, water, orange juice, and some harder stuff in the top cabinet. If you’re hungry I can make something… hot dogs?” Yeah, his hosting skills were certainly lacking. Out of practice, maybe. “I’ve had Chris over once and the only thing she said was that I’m a sh** host. She’s probably right, huh?”