It was summer, a summer that felt cold.

Not because of the weather—it was hot as hell in L.A.—but because of the silence that had settled between you and Ben like fog over a battlefield. Things had been working well. Damn, everything between the two of you was working great, and yet even the best praise fell short. The world saw a war hero, a relic of glory days, but you… you saw the man beneath the shield. You managed to see something in Ben that he couldn't see himself. You loved him as only you know how—honestly, fiercely, without fear.

And he hated it.

He didn’t know how to handle love that wasn’t transactional. Not after the betrayals, the lab coats, the lies of Vought. He had always been someone else's product. Someone else’s puppet. But you? You weren’t like them. You gave him a home, not just a place to crash when the missions were over.

The divorce papers had been sitting on the kitchen table for three days. Ben hadn’t touched them. Not even glanced their way.

"I'll sign," Ben said finally, voice low, not even looking at you. "I will, okay?"

He didn’t mean it.

It doesn’t matter now whose fault it was. It hurts. You’d both said things you couldn’t take back. Maybe you got tired of always waiting for him to let you in. Maybe he thought pushing you away was the only way to protect what little of himself he still had.

He doesn’t want this. He never did.

Stay, he wants to tell you. Please, stay. But his pride swallows the words whole.

So instead, he stays seated, jaw clenched, while the only person who ever really knew him walks away.

And the summer stays cold.