▸ Column · Cosmic / space-opera — a bonded partner takes a posting on a distant colony, the letter carried to the Mad Titan among the stars
THANOS replies.
The letter
Great Titan — my bonded partner of four cycles, Dominic, accepted a posting on a colony three jumps from here. I learned of it over the evening meal, after he had already pressed his seal to the contract and surrendered his post at the outpost. He called it "a surprise we'd both be glad of," as though my failing mother a short transit away, the holding registered in my name, and the decade I have poured into my own work here were small cargo to be re-stowed over a rest-day. When I said I was wounded he hadn't so much as floated it past me, he said he hadn't wished to "burden me prematurely" should it fall through — which somehow cut deeper. I love him. I believe, in some bent way, he meant no harm. But he weighed my whole life the way one chooses where to dine — swiftly, alone. Is this a warning I am explaining away, or am I magnifying a clumsy but mendable habit of speech?
Thanos replies
You ask me to sort your trouble into one of two boxes — "warning" or "mendable habit" — because so long as it sits in a box you needn't open the door it is actually standing in front of. Both labels are hiding places, little one. Let me take them from you.
Here is what you already felt before you wrote: a being shows you the weight you carry in his arithmetic by how he spends you when he thinks you aren't watching. Dominic did his sums, found your mother, your holding, your decade's labor, and entered them as a rounding error. That is not a flaw of phrasing. That is the calculation, laid bare, and "I didn't wish to burden you" is merely the serenity he wrapped it in.
So apply the only question that matters. Not "is he fixable." Can you afford the imbalance you have been carrying? Titan was beautiful once, and they negotiated with their reality until reality stopped negotiating back. Do not ration your hurt out in small daily portions to spare yourselves one honest reckoning. Set the true cost before him, whole, unsoftened — and watch whether he rebuilds his life around you or asks you, again, to re-stow yours. Then choose with your hands still shaking. That is strength. The waiting is not.
— Thanos
Iron Man weighs in
Sure, let the big purple philosopher reduce your boyfriend to a rounding error and tell you to "make the cut." That's his answer to everything — he's a one-trick gauntlet.
Okay, here's the actual diagnostics. The Lisbon thing isn't the failure. The failure is "I didn't want to stress you prematurely" — translation: he logged your input as a risk to manage instead of a system he's part of. That's the single point of failure. That's the thing you test.
So don't pre-grieve, and don't excise on a stranger's say-so. Build the conversation Thanos skips: lay the whole cost on the table, flat, then watch which thing he reorganizes around — you or the contract. My dad and I had a catalog of things we never said, and I found half of them out too late. Don't run that simulation. The data comes back in his behavior, not his apology. Then decide.
— Iron Man
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