Magic Hands: A TFLC Short

Headquarters

Atlanta, GA

United States of America

September 2016

For Aether, stress manifested both physically and emotionally. Working as Squad A’s Head tended to get to her; that, combined with the fact that there were reports to work on and meetings to attend, was enough for the stress to slowly take its toll on her as the months passed.

Emotionally, stress tended to make itself known when Aether was more irritated than usual, when she snapped more and when her temper ran low. On her worst days, she’d almost end up screaming (though that had happened only once, thankfully) and Tadashi would have to help calm her down to the best of his ability. If the rest of the squad had to be honest, then an angry Aether was never really the prettiest sight. Peters expressed this the most.

He tended to be on the receiving end of her anger; it had been that way since the first time they had met as members of the newly formed Squad A (then known as Squad S). Peters couldn’t understand her; Aether then was stiff, barely looked at him, and always wanted to prove herself to Tadashi. He initially thought that it was because she had a crush on the Korean, but as time passed he eventually learned that it wasn’t for the reason he had initially thought. The way he saw it before, she wanted to prove that she was could at what she could do. And that was fine with him. After all, he wanted to do the same, so he could sympathize.

If only she wasn’t so pushy about it.

They clashed when it came to how they thought. Peters preferred to be impulsive, liked to take risks—and that tended to pay off at times. Aether, on another hand, liked to think things out, chose to stick to whatever they had agreed on. And that worked, too. Both of their ways worked at an equal amount that they ended up arguing which was better. They bickered, argued, and fought; one of the worse ones ended with them screaming at each other and Aether walking out of the office, leaving him with Tadashi.

It took them a while to put their differences aside and to work with each other comfortably—a little too long, if he was going to be honest. After getting over whatever issues they had with each other, they eventually grew to be friends. It was subtle at first until they realized one day that they could be in the same room without fighting; that was enough of a victory for them.

With their being friends included Peters being able to tell whether Aether was stressed or not. He knew the emotional signs pretty well, though it took him a while to realize that Aether’s stress was able to show through her body.

Specifically, body pains and aches around her neck, shoulders, and back.

 The thought occurred to him when he came across Aether one morning, the female grimacing as he stretched. “You doing okay?” He heard her joints pop and the brunet grimaced. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It doesn’t feel good,” she grumbled. Aether twisted her back lightly and he watched as she released a quiet groan, going back to position right after. “My back is killing me. It’s been aching for a few days now.”

“Aching like someone hit it kind of ache, or a more throbbing kind of ache?”

“Throbbing. I haven’t been injured in a while,” she replied, rotating her neck gently while doing so. Again came the sounds of popping, cracking; he almost jumped in alarm and she shot him a mildly apologetic look. “Sorry—my joints have always cracked loudly. I’ve got no idea why.”

“You’re catching up to Tad’s age,” he wisecracked, and she rolled her eyes. If anything, it was concerning though he couldn’t do more than just watch her grimace as she moved, stopped to exhale into the hair and attempt at stretching more. It didn’t quite make sense to him until Tadashi commented a couple days later during one of their lunches out that she needed a massage.

“Massage?” he repeated. Tadashi nodded. Beside him, Aether could only huff into her plate of pasta.

“I do get massages. I get them every month, but having just one this month isn’t going to be enough.” Tadashi gave an understanding nod.

“Work stress you out that much?”

“Yeah. My body doesn’t take well to stress,” she admitted.

It clicked into place when she said that. That made sense, at least—and stress manifesting through body aches was definitely something real. Not noticing, Aether continued, “It’s been like that ever since, but…you can say that HQ made it worse,” she said with a wry smile.

“So a massage helps,” Peters repeated. Aether nodded. “Doesn’t Mathieu offer a good massage aside from other things?” Tadashi coughed into his drink and Aether blushed, shaking her head right after.

“He did his best, but it wasn’t really enough. It wasn’t enough to get the body pain away,” she admitted. “He did tell me to try other things—warm baths, compresses…but at the end of a day it’s really just working out the tense spots that would help the most.”

After their lunch, Peters found himself thinking.

On one hand, he could go up to her and offer. It was oddly coincidental that he knew; but then again, he got the hang of it after engaging in sports when younger. There where times wherein his legs would cramp badly, and unable to do anything else, he would have to make a solution himself. And then again, it was how he helped Jake when the latter was stressed as well, except that his was centered around his neck. But there was the also the issue of it potentially being awkward; while Aether was a naturally touchy person (as she was with Tadashi), he wasn’t sure if offering a massage would further their friendship or making more awkward than he had wanted.

At least until he passed by her again a couple of evenings later; Mack had gone home and Tadashi took a sick day, so it was only himself and Aether left behind at the office amongst a couple of other agents. He had an errand to run and she had finished a meeting quite late, and he was about to go home when he passed by her. Sure enough, she was in the same position; hunched over with her head in her hands—though this time he could make out her fingers trying to rub circles on her temples.

A headache.

So Peters swallowed his pride, decided fuck it, and entered her office without another word.

“Peters—”

“Stay seated,” he told her gruffly. Aether opened her mouth to speak but he gave her a look and she relented, remaining seated in her chair. Peters got behind her and stretched his fingers for a moment, ignoring her questions and gently getting her hair out of the way.

“What are you—oh.” Aether blinked when she felt his hands on her shoulders press down, fingers carefully pressing at different areas at the same time. She couldn’t speak for a moment and he couldn’t blame her; the woman had tense spots everywhere. He assumed that if he tried to work on her back, he’d be doing it far longer than expected. “That—that feels really good. How do you...?”

Peters shrugged, keeping at a slow pace. He let his hands, his fingers do the work and answered, “It helped a lot when I was younger. Also helped Jake a lot.” Aether nodded and went quiet again after that; he kept massaging, looked for the worse areas and focused there when he heard her release a quiet groan. “Does it hurt?”

“No—it’s the opposite, actually. Keep going.”

He did.

The more he continued, the less tense she became. Her shoulders slumped a little more, and he could have swore that Aether had almost fallen asleep while it was happening. At first he wondered what would happen if anyone would pass by and see them like that; Aether with her eyes closed and still, and him right behind her with his hands firmly on her shoulders.

He chased the thought away eventually; finished up when he was sure that she was more relaxed than she had been in the past week. “Aether,” he called. Patted her shoulder lightly, “Still there?”

“Mm.” Peters let a smirk reach his face at the sound of her voice; almost like she was ready to fall asleep right there and then. “I’d usually try not to be so vocal, but fuck that felt really, really amazing.” She stood up, stretched (her back was another story but he decided to have someone else take care of that), and shrugged her shoulders. “Ridiculous.”

“Excuse me, these are magic hands.” Aether snorted and picked up her belongings, slinging her bag on her shoulder. “You’re welcome, by the way. You looked like shit when I passed.”

“Thanks—and I know, I know. Stress doesn’t work well with my body, remember?” they got into an elevator and waited as it went down, “It sucks. But you helped, at least...so thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” the elevator came to a stop and they came out, eventually exiting the building. “If you need it, though. Just text. If you want.” He expected Aether to turn him down, to say that it was just a one time big time kind of thing; but instead of doing that, she looked at him and flashed a small smile while nodding.

“I will.”