James thought he was ready for the comments. Turns out, he'd become rather adept at lying to himself. And to everyone else, too, but that was besides the point.
"Hmm," Sandy had hummed when she first saw him the day after his skirmish with the SHIELD agents. She eyed the smattering of bruising along his cheeks and curving up to his brow with snide amusement. "It was only a matter of time."
He had scowled and hung his coat up behind the counter. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Finally ticked someone off enough."
He then smirked to himself and grabbed his nametag. "You should see the other guy," he said. It had sounded like a threat and it was, in a way.
She didn't seem to have gotten the memo because when he saw her again on the fourth day after, she only scoffed a small laugh. "Give my thanks to the guy that pummeled the asshole up to the surface for all of us to see."
James rolled his eyes and settled down to do more storage checks. "Give my thanks to whoever made you such a ray of fucking sunshine."
Sandy scowled almost immediately. "Well, unless you want to talk to my ex-husband—"
"Oh, I do. What's his number?"
She scoffed and walked off and that was the last of it. For the first hour.
"Heard there was a brawl around the corner."
"If I was there, you wouldn't know about it."
"No, I would. I would be in the front row, cheering the other guy on."
Then a group of younger teens came in about some project and he was spared. For one more hour, that is.
"Oh, I'm sorry, do you need to go this way?"
"Yes, Sandy. You are blocking the restroom."
"Then ask me to move."
"Not likely."
"Then I'm not moving, asshole."
"Hmm, I can find a way to make you."
The weight of his tongue ached in his chest. The urging of his abilities. The wave of anger washing through him.
"Oh no, are you going to fight me?"
He just shoved his way past her and hid until he was sure she was gone.
Two hours later, she found him restocking in the far back corner of the store. Sandy stopped in her tracks and leaned up against the shelf beside her, tilting her head to watch him. Then she hummed to herself and he froze, sighing as he straightened and turned to face her with a scowl.
"Have you got a family, James?"
His hand tightened into a fist, nails digging into his palm. "No."
"No? Well, I suppose that makes sense."
"Why do you ask?" he grumbled, leaning back too.
"Handsome young man like yourself? God, even with your personality you'd sure to have roped some poor soul into marrying you."
He wasn't always like this. Once, he may have been loveable. Loyal, headstrong, kind; tender, even. Now, though? Without them who made him so good with all the good that they were?
James was the scraps of happiness and good.
"Hmm, don't care. Not interested either way," he said with a straight face.
Absent-mindedly he ran his opposite thumb over an empty space on his left hand's ring finger. Sandy noticed this and raised her brows high.
"Divorced, then?" she asked.
YOU ARE READING
Gatsby | Wanda M.
Fanfiction"A man with no purpose is a lost man." James is a solitary man who works and then goes home. He doesn't keep friends and he doesn't want to. Besides his psychologist, there's not a single person in his life. At least not anymore. But at...
