[It's always a little difficult to believe that there is, in fact, a certain strength and support in this. We all need something, but we can all provide something too — we're all strong in our own ways; that was a lesson it'd taken a stay in school to learn, when for so long she'd thought that strength and agency were things that belonged to someone else, and her lot in life was simply to cling to the coattails of the ones who had it.

It's strange that this works, that it turns out the one thing Dave needs and craves is something she knows she can provide, and that she herself derives strength from offering him. His powers are unfathomable, his determination unprecedented, his loyalty unbreakable — and there are still times when she is his knight and not the other way around, and she can defend him by loving him when he needs it most.

Breathtaking.

So she keeps her fingers moving easily through his hair, keeps his head cradled in her hands, and lets him kiss her awhile before taking back the lead, making sure his forehead and brow and cheek aren't left unkissed as well.]

I'll borrow your letter sweater and they can all work it out for themselves.

[It's a reference she only gets mostly right, still with a few very slight flaws in the execution, but a joke doesn't have to be perfect to be what's needed, anyway.]

I'm okay, too. Not...not so scared that I can't still be okay. It's not perfect, far from it, but it's...getting easier to be okay all the time. Is what I mean.