desiderium | m. o'hara

thirty-three

Whoa hey sorry for disappearing like that lmfao I promise this fic isn't abandoned. I still gotta break your hearts!! :)

The renovations to The Daily Bugle presents me with a highly-modernised building to work from. I step into my new office - my own, private office - and feel as though I'd been stuck in the middle of a void situated somewhere between my world and Miguel's.

It's white (why did everything modern have to be white? I'm so bored of white) and has light wood furnishings and a floor-to-ceiling window behind my desk. My new chair is leagues better than my old one, which had probably been the same age as me, and a weeping fig stretches spindly green-leafed burdened branches to the led-lit ceiling.

My desk utensils all match - a tidy shade of blue. My mousepad is spick and span and new. I have a shelf of beige coloured books - a thesaurus and dictionary included. A minimalist clock ticks from its spot on the wall. I have a door.

It's perfect. I brush invisible dust from my new desk. I boot up my new computer with its two new monitors and stretch back in my new chair and admire my new space. It's so peaceful - there's nothing to disturb me, no crazy multiverse shenanigans to distract me from my work. It's just me. Just me in my own office.

The clock ticks. It's so quiet.

I miss Miguel.

My chin drops onto the plush cushion of my mousepad and I stare at the framed photo I brought into work with me this morning. The frame is bright orange - the only bright colour in this entire office - and holds the photo of Miguel and Rosita from the day when she won her soccer championships.

Miguel. I turn onto my cheek as my computer flickers onto the login screen. I study his countenance; the joy in his eyes, so slightly hued red one could hardly notice. The brightness of his smile. The love so effortlessly melting from his expression as he laughs with our daughter. The pride of her accomplishment. The adoration he has for her. The admiration she has for him.

Miguel's an amazing father, but he'd promised to me that I knew all his secrets. He lied.

I lift myself up with effort and drop my head back with a sigh. My arm drapes across my eyes and snuffs out my vision until all I can see is black.

I'm not worried about whatever happened on Earth-1610 that Miguel's keeping secret. It's just the fact that he's keeping a secret. And, yes, he has a right to privacy within reason, but I'm so curious, and my want to know gnaws at me. It's driving me up the wall. It's almost making me turn to my Gizmo and portalling him straight into a haphazard interrogation.

Miguel had married (or almost married) a curious wife, so really, this was entirely his fault. I'm a bloody journalist - curiosity is what wakes me up in the morning.

Fuck. The clock ticks. My computer hums away. I drag my hands down my face with a groan. If I don't do something, this is going to eat at me for weeks.

And eat at me it does.

It lingers in the back of my head all morning - a rolling, festering ball that swells and swells. It hovers throughout a meeting I have with one of our photographers in the new meeting suites, and it pesters at my brain during one of my pitches to Jameson. I'm a journalist. I'm atomically built to find answers to my questions.

I'm so caught up in the ribbons of my frustration that I nearly bump into one of the juniors in the kitchen when I go to return to my office. I gasp and apologise, leaning back from where my tea spills over the edges of my cup and splatters on the tiles. Great. First spill on the new floor.