“I get it,” he insists, “I swear, I do, I didn’t think I could ever have it either, Malcolm. I— I thought I was too broken, too fucked up, too— whatever. To ever love someone else. To be loved by someone else. My dad did a number on me— a whole fucking play with three acts, on all of us. Being a Hargreeves means not knowing how anything in the social construct even fucking works, man, but…” he shakes his head, one hand falling to the dog tags hanging around his neck. “Dave changed that. He proved I could be someone’s everything, no matter how much I was convinced otherwise. That’s what this should be for you, it should be equal, not this imbalanced mess you’ve ended up with.”

He can help running his thumb along Malcolm’s cheek again. “You need someone who has a mess that goes with yours, not someone who makes everything even messier for you…”