I Would Take A Whisper (If That's All You Had To Give) - (7/9)
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Mark drives them to the large park a few blocks away and explains how Matt, his new head of PR, had said they should make more outings as a family.
“I mean those photos of us at the baby store went viral; it was huge! Now, apparently, they want more so I released a statement this morning that should go public by this afternoon but they’re gonna wanna see proof that we don’t hate each other and that Chris and Dustin made the right choice for Rosalind.” He parks the car and turns around, “Matt wants us to do an interview with some news company on Monday. It’ll only be a few questions, just us sitting in my office but it would be good if you were there too. Matt says I need someone to keep me running my mouth off.”
Eduardo laughs and nods, “Sure,” but he’s nervous and Mark notices.
“What?” He asks, raising his eyebrows impatiently.
Eduardo sighs and gets out the car to lift Rosalind out while Mark grabs the basket and walks along beside them, still looking expectantly at Eduardo.
“It’s just,” he runs a hand through his hair, “I don’t think your employees like me very much. Everyone just thinks I’m that whiny guy who sued us, you know? Don’t even pretend that Sean didn’t encourage those kinds of judgements.”
Mark just shrugs and says, “So show them they’re wrong,” like it isn’t worth any more thought than that, and walks on ahead to drop the basket onto an acceptable patch of grass.
Eduardo watches as he lays out a blanket and flops down onto it.
“Seriously, where did all this even come from?”
“I bought it. We went to the store this morning,” Mark says, waving an impatient hand up at Eduardo while he starts unpacking food. He turns around after a few seconds to look up at Eduardo and raises his eyebrows. “Are you going to just stand there all afternoon? I have to go back to work at some point, you know.”
He pulls out Rosalind’s stuffed chicken from the basket and she scrambles to be let down so Eduardo sits carefully on the blanket and takes the offered salad from Mark’s hands.
“So apparently,” Mark says, sitting back with a tuna sandwich, “people like me more now that I’m a dad. Makes me look more sympathetic...or something.”
Eduardo nods, “Yeah well they know you have feelings now.”
“I really don’t see why that has anything to do with Facebook. People should like Facebook and want to use it because it’s good, not because I have feelings,” he says, annoyed, and Eduardo snorts, “Maybe. But I suppose it looks better if the guy who controls the tool in which they socialise knows how to socialise himself.”
“I know how to socialise!”
Eduardo raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth to retort but Rosalind leans over and starts making the chicken peck at Eduardo’s food, making loud ‘om nom nom nom’ noises and smacking her lips.
“Well, would you look at that,” Mark says, and his voice is so strained that Eduardo looks up and sees that he is trying valiantly not to laugh, “She’s your daughter after all.”
Eduardo looks back down at his salad. Chicken. She’s making her chicken, eat chicken.
Mark explodes into laughter. He clutches at his stomach and almost falls onto his back with the force of it and Eduardo even thinks he sees tears in his eyes before he’s covering his face with his hands to try and stifle his hysterics. Eduardo has seen Mark laugh before of course, because contrary to what the public thinks, Mark does have feelings and he does laugh if he finds something funny enough but he has never, not once, seen Mark laugh like this: eyes shining with mirth and mouth wide in a grin, gasping for breath and shoulders shaking. Eduardo cannot help it. He laughs too.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees some flashes go off but he hardly even notices. They’re laughing like children after too many sweets; like drunk teenagers staggering out of a party watching their friend put a cone on his head; like two best friends with a lot of problems sharing a private joke they weren’t even aware they had.
Later, after Mark films Eduardo pushing Rosalind on the swings and Eduardo tries to snatch it off him to film him on the seesaw with her (it’s a hilarious sight, okay?) and after Mark gets home from work in the evening, Mark puts Rosalind to bed.
She’s already asleep and Mark is just standing there. Eduardo steps into the room from the doorway and stands next to him, smiling when he sees Rosalind hugging the chicken to her chest.
He nudges Mark with his shoulder gently. “I’m sorry I accused you of planting that story in the Crimson,” he says quietly. Mark shrugs like he already knew.
“You know,” Mark says after a couple of minutes, “I bought her that chicken just after she was born.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. I’ve been teaching her to do that for weeks.”
“What?” Eduardo turns to look at him, confused.
“I’ve been playing ‘feed the chicken’ with her for weeks in the hope that she’d feed it chicken at some point.”
Eduardo laughs quietly and shoves at his shoulder. “Asshole,” he says, but even to his own ears it sounds way too affectionate. Mark’s lips twitch up at the corners and he looks up at Eduardo.
“Come to dinner with me tomorrow.”
“Oh sure,” nods Eduardo, “I’m sure Rosie can cook for herself for just one night.”
Mark levels him with a classic ‘don’t be an idiot’ glare and Eduardo sighs.
“You mean like a date?” he asks nervously. Mark shrugs. “Mark, I don’t - “
“It’s just dinner, Wardo.”
Eduardo considers him for all of two seconds before he nods. “Okay then.”
“Good.” Mark smiles, and he stands up on his tiptoes, hand on Eduardo’s arm to steady himself, and places a quick kiss on Eduardo’s cheek. Then he’s gone before Eduardo can do anything more than blush.
He really, really tries not to reach up and touch his cheek, but he knows he’s fighting a losing battle.
*
So they go out to dinner. They sit at a small table near the back of an expensive restaurant and Mark even wears a tie for the first hour of the evening. They order the most expensive wine on the menu and clink glasses with a smile when Mark mentions they’ve made it a month with Rosalind already and they talk and they talk and they talk.
They talk about Singapore and how Eduardo should take them both to see it one day; they talk about Facebook and the press and the interviews they’re going to have to do (“Eduardo stop whining. There’s not a single person alive that isn’t charmed by you the minute you open your mouth, hell, the minute you look in their direction even. You’ll be fine. More popular than me in no time.” “Yeah well that isn’t really saying much.” “Asshole.”) and they talk about Chris and Dustin and Harvard and their families and sports and TV and books and travel. They talk about everything that’s happened to them in the years since the depositions and it’s everything that Eduardo pretended he didn’t want for nearly four years.
And then it’s the weekend and it’s so comfortable, so easy, that Eduardo catches himself almost waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mark works throughout Saturday and Eduardo takes Rosalind shopping and to the park before coming home to an evening of watching Finding Nemo with Mark and then Up after Rosalind is in bed (Mark insists when he learns that Eduardo never saw it). On Sunday Mark tries to cook dinner but fails dismally and they end up ordering a pizza and watching a Spongebob marathon with Rosalind, Eduardo promising to teach Mark how to cook some time and Mark grumbling about being able to do it himself if he’d had a recipe to follow.
It’s all just very...domestic. Nice. And for the first time since that grey and miserable Monday back in June Eduardo starts to think this is my family when he looks at Rosalind scribbling squiggles onto a blank piece of paper on the floor or at Mark sitting with an arm draped casually over the back of the couch, chewing on a red vine. And he loves them. Both of them. When he looks at them, he feels safe and so tentatively happy and Palo Alto - this city that’s haunted him for years - may just be becoming his home.
*
“Now I want both of you to just relax, okay?” Matt is kneeling down in front of the couch in Mark’s office where the two of them sit with Rosalind in between them. “Eduardo, I know you’re not used to doing interviews but I’m still pretty sure you will cause me less hassle than Mark will so I’d appreciate it if you could try and jump in if he tries to say anything that would make my job harder.”
“I am sitting right here,” snaps Mark and Matt levels him a longsuffering look. Eduardo sees why Mark hired him; he definitely has the ‘no nonsense’ air that Chris used to emulate.
“Yes you are, but telling you to behave is not guaranteed to have any effect so I have to cover all my bases.”
“Is there anything we should definitely try and say? Or not say?” Eduardo asks, eyeing the readying camera crew nervously.
“Well mostly just use your common sense. Don’t say that you hate kids or that you’re annoyed with Chris and Dustin or that, you know, you still hate each other’s guts and try to impress upon them that this shouldn’t impact Facebook in any way. Users need to know that the site isn’t being compromised. Also, all of this has been really good for publicity and those pictures of you laughing at the park the other day were unbelievably popular. Mark, they like seeing you happy, okay? Try not to scowl.”
Mark looks mildly affronted and Eduardo snorts.
“Okay guys, you ready?” asks a friendly looking man, probably ten or so years older than them. “I’m Charlie, I’ll be interviewing you today. Nothing to worry about, just a few questions that you are, of course, free to not answer if you are uncomfortable at any point.”
“Are we likely to be?” Mark narrows his eyes.
“Excuse me?” Charlie’s smile falters a little.
“Are we likely to be made uncomfortable by any of your questions?”
“Well hopefully not, of course, but I have to tell you that you’re free to - “
“Well of course we are. You couldn’t make me answer anything.”
“Mark, do you remember what I said to you only a minute ago?” Matt sighs, frustrated.
Mark opens his mouth but closes it again and nods stiffly. “Okay then,” Matt sighs and gets up, throwing Eduardo a pleading look over his shoulder as he leaves the room.
“Bye!” Rosalind calls cheerfully after him and Charlie chuckles, “Alright then, shall we get started? Camera and sound ready? You guys ready? Yes? Okay then, camera on.”
It starts off mostly mundane and generic questions: what it’s like being back in The States, how tired they are, how much they were in Rosalind’s life before the accident and how she is adjusting. Eduardo relaxes into it pretty quickly and starts making Charlie laugh and engaging Rosalind into saying things to make the camera crew coo at her. Mark speaks when he is spoken to and for the most part he seems almost bored. He isn’t frowning or snapping but he isn’t smiling either and only really gets animated when asked about Facebook.
“Now obviously,” Charlie says after a few minutes, leaning forward slightly, “everyone knows the story about you two: the dilutions and the lawsuit and I gotta tell you, I for one never thought I’d see the day that Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg strolled through the park carrying a baby and a picnic basket. Have you two really managed to overcome your differences? Because I have to say, it’s a massive inspiration if you have.”
“I issued a statement a few days ago saying that we were friends again and I wasn’t lying for the sake of the press,” says Mark, but he doesn’t sound angry. “If you’d asked me a month ago then I would have agreed with you, I never thought we’d manage to get over everything that happened, as much as I always wanted to and I think that... I mean we haven’t solved everything. There’re years of tension and resentment and, in my case at least, remorse that we can’t just erase but we’re getting there. Right?” He looks at Eduardo.
“Right.” Eduardo smiles. “What you have to remember, Charlie, is that we were 19 and 21 and we were both so stubborn. We’re not kids anymore and having a toddler to look after certainly puts things into perspective. I thought Chris and Dustin were mad at first, thinking Mark and I could ever work things out when I was so unbelievably furious with him but,” he shrugs, “I guess I was wrong. As much as I miss them both, and of course I really do, I’ve got my best friend back and I owe them for that.”
Mark smiles at him and looks back at the camera, “I’ve been told everyone thinks I’m a robot with no feelings so I would also like to just add that I really am a human.”
“It’s true.” Eduardo looks at the camera earnestly. “I’ve seen him drunk. And tired.”
Charlie laughs, “Oh, what is a drunk Mark Zuckerberg like?”
Eduardo smirks. “If you like, next time someone takes Rosie for the night I’ll get him hammered and parade him around the streets.”
Mark just turns to look at the camera. “I lied. We’re not friends anymore.”
Charlie laughs. “Oh dear, and you were making such progress! Now you mentioned Chris and Dustin, Eduardo and obviously I’m not going to ask whether you miss them or anything like that because obviously you do but, can you tell us anything about why they chose you two for this? I mean, do you think they knew before you did that you’d be able to make up?”
“I really don’t think that that was their main priority,” says Mark, slightly impatiently. “When they wrote their wills they needed to be sure that Rosalind would be in the best position possible and as her godfathers we already knew her and loved her and also, of course, have the means to give her a good life. Whether they thought we could reconcile or not, they did know that we would be there for Rosie whatever issues we had between us, even if it meant working out a joint custody agreement if it really didn’t work out. We were all very close. Even when Wardo and I weren’t speaking we both saw Chris and Dustin a lot. They wouldn’t have wanted Rosie with anyone else.”
Eduardo nods and Charlie smiles at them both. “But they’d be happy that you reconciled, I bet.”
“Obviously,” Mark says and Eduardo rolls his eyes at him.
“Obviously,” Charlie repeats. “And I mean I’ve seen pictures of Chris and Dustin of course, they were on the news at the time. She really does seem to be inheriting Chris’s genes. Does she get anything from Dustin? I mean not genetically obviously but did living with him for a year have any impact on her personality, d’you think?”
Eduardo smiles. “Well she smiles a lot. Dustin was honestly always smiling. There was always a joke to be made or a silver lining to be found with Dustin and I’m pretty sure Rosie is going to grow up just the same.”
“Yes well she’s certainly been very well behaved today.”
“Yeah, you should hear her at night though. But you can never be angry with her. She has some killer puppy dog eyes. Which she also probably got from Dustin.”
“Or you,” says Mark.
“What?” Eduardo and Charlie say at the same time. Mark shrugs.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Eduardo has the eyes of a baby deer. When he wants something, he’s pretty good at getting it.”
Eduardo gapes at him for a second. “Seriously?”
Mark rolls his eyes at him. “Wardo, back in Harvard we used to call you Bambi.”
Charlie laughs, “I actually can see the resemblance! Eduardo, you’re not helping yourself right now with this deer caught in the headlights look.”
“He can’t help that, it’s his natural expression,” Mark deadpans and Charlie laughs heartily, making Rosalind giggle on the couch and Eduardo just blinks at all of them, bemused.
“Okay well I’m going to leave it there because if we’ve started comparing these guys to a robot and a Disney cartoon then I think that’s really a sign to stop! Thank you both very much for taking the time to talk to us, I know it’s been a tough month for you. And thank you to little Rosie as well, we wish you all the best.”
*
It’s a week later by the time the interview airs, but Eduardo doesn’t see it because it’s also the morning that Rosalind says ‘thanks’ for the first time and it completely puts it from his mind. He’s helping Rosalind into her shoes by the time Mark comes hurrying down the stairs, mumbling about over sleeping.
“Mark, slow down. They’re not gonna start the meeting without us. You’re the CEO,” Eduardo says calmly and then, because he can’t help it, adds “Bitch.”
Mark turns to glare half-heartedly at him and starts toeing on his flip-flops.
“Jesus, Mark, go and brush your hair at least.”
“It’s fine how it is,” Mark says petulantly and Eduardo huffs, straightening up and moving forward to smooth out Mark’s hair.
“Um,” Mark says while Eduardo’s hands are trying (and failing) to make his hair lie flat. He stills when he realises just what he’s doing.
“Sorry,” he says quickly, withdrawing his hands. “Sorry. It really was just sticking up everywhere though.”
Mark smirks. “Yeah well sorry we can’t all pull off the ‘my hair has a life of its own’ look.”
Eduardo lifts a hand to his own head self-consciously and Mark snorts, “Now can we leave? I seem to remember you have issues when other people are late and I don’t want to make you a hypocrite or anything.”
Eduardo wonders why he isn’t nervous. It’s the first shareholders’ meeting he’s ever actually been to and it will be full of people who will want to speak to him about Facebook, about Rosie and about Mark, but he finds he really isn’t all that nervous. It’s been another great week full of lunches at the park; Mark playing with Rosie in the kitchen while Eduardo cooks various dinners (sometimes with Mark trying to help); watching through Mark’s collection of Pixar films in the evenings and then continuing to beat him at Mario Kart after Rosalind goes to bed. Eduardo thinks briefly, as he pulls into the Facebook parking lot, that maybe that song he’s been waiting for, the song that was meant to follow the one before but didn’t, is finally starting to play.
“Hi, Eduardo!” Isobel smiles warmly at him as they enter the conference floor.
“Hi, Issy,” he replies with an answering smile.
“I’m here too,” Mark points out rather petulantly and Isobel shoots a quick glare his way.
“They’re all in there so you’d better go on in. You want a coffee or something, Eduardo?”
“You really don’t have to do that.”
“Oh no really, it’s my pleasure. Go on in, I’ll bring it in to you.”
She makes to hurry off but Mark stops her, “Isobel, you know you’re my assistant, right?”
She huffs, “Fine, Mark. Do you want anything?”
“Coffee,” he snaps and she sends another glare his way before smiling at Eduardo and disappearing off to the cafeteria.
“Shall we go then?” asks Eduardo, starting in the direction of the conference room. Mark nods stiffly, a slight frown on his face, and follows him in.
So, okay, Eduardo isn’t totally oblivious. He knows flirting when he sees it and Isobel is most definitely flirting with him. She leans in much closer than is strictly necessary when she brings his coffee into the meeting and touches his arm lightly before she turns to leave. When they are finally allowed out after a couple of very tedious hours of finance reports, she meets them outside the room with Rosalind on her hip to ask Eduardo if it had been a good meeting and when Mark is pulled into a conversation with Peter Thiel, she tucks her blonde hair behind her ear before saying,
“You’re good for him, you know. He’s been like a whole new person since you guys made up. Well, not a whole new person but... a nicer version of the person he was. He smiles now,” she says, as if she were saying that Mark has suddenly taken to skipping through the offices scattering petals behind him. Though, to be fair, to Isobel the smiling is probably similarly alarming.
Eduardo grins at the floor and she reaches over to squeeze his forearm. “You guys must be really good friends, huh?”
Eduardo nods with a smile and looks up and over to Mark. But Mark isn’t listening to whatever Thiel is saying at all. He’s glaring murderously right at them.
He turns back to Isobel and takes Rosalind from her as he sees Mark brush Thiel off and make a beeline for them. “Thanks for looking after her, Issy. Seriously, we really appreciate it.”
“Anytime.” She smiles sweetly and Eduardo is pretty sure she inches slightly closer to him.
“Isobel,” Mark says sharply from Eduardo’s right, “I’m pretty sure I don’t pay you to stand around chatting with the shareholders.”
Isobel looks affronted and opens her mouth to speak but Mark pointedly turns from her to look at Eduardo. “Did you bring sandwiches?”
“Yep.” Eduardo gestures with his briefcase.
“Good. Let’s go to my office,” and he marches off towards the elevators, even though his office is only one floor up.
“Mark,” Eduardo ventures tentatively once they get to Mark’s office and he sets Rosalind down on the floor, “are you, um, is everything okay?”
Mark turns around slowly and shrugs. “Isobel likes you.” It isn’t a question and he’s clearly trying for nonchalance as he looks at Eduardo with a very carefully impassive face. Eduardo just nods, he’s not going to pretend he didn’t notice. Mark looks like he wants to ask something but eventually just looks down and nods, turning back towards his desk to move some papers about pointlessly.
So remember when Eduardo said he wasn’t totally oblivious? Well now he kind of wants to hit himself in the forehead because yeah, he kind of is. Mark isn’t angry with him. He’s jealous.
“Mark,” Eduardo says gently and Mark pretends not to hear him. “Mark!” he says louder and Mark’s hands still on his desk. “Mark, turn around,” Eduardo sighs and Mark straightens his back from where he’d been standing slightly hunched over his desk and turns to face Eduardo with the same impassive face that used to infuriate Eduardo. “I’m not interested in Issy, Mark.”
Mark’s guard begins to crack at the edges as his eyes meet Eduardo’s. “You’re not?” Mark says and his voice is the same ‘would-be casual’ as his face and Eduardo has to suppress a grin at how obvious Mark doesn’t even realise he’s being.
“No,” he says firmly, “I’m definitely not.”
It’s sort of like someone’s let all the air out of a bouncy castle or something, the speed at which the tension leaves Mark’s body. His face visibly relaxes with relief before he schools it back into a blank mask and Eduardo feels such a rush of affection that he can’t even remember what the hell he’s been waiting for.
Because now he’s thinking about it, seeing the relief in Mark’s eyes, Eduardo is hit by all the little things Mark’s done this week which he probably should have noticed at the time. The Brazilian wine he brought home that night which apparently wasn’t even very good but that he thought Eduardo might appreciate; how he asked every evening how his day was and whether he slept well; that afternoon when they couldn’t have lunch and Mark had texted him just to say hi and even that one night when Mark had pulled out Eduardo’s chair for him.
Yeah okay, so Eduardo was definitely on the oblivious side.
“Mark, you’ve been trying to...woo me this week, haven’t you?” he says, incredulously but with a smile. Mark shrugs defensively and doesn’t meet Eduardo’s eyes. “You have!” Eduardo says triumphantly. “In your own, weird, Mark way - “
“Well if it’s not working all you have to do is say so,” Mark snaps and Eduardo can see him beginning to shrink in on himself.
“No, no, Mark, come on, that wasn’t a criticism! I just... uh, I just - “
“You need time, I know. I get it.” Mark interrupts and when his eyes meet his they’re not angry or closed off or defensive. They’re hopeful and they’re honest and they’re open. “But I’m not giving up, Wardo, just so you know. I’m always going to want this and I’m not giving up until you tell me to. I’m... I’m not making that mistake again, okay? I’m not gonna do that.”
And his voice is firm and sure and passionate but at the same time, Eduardo can hear the crack of vulnerability under it all; like Mark is teetering on the brink of breaking open altogether and Eduardo, the hope that maybe one day he’ll have him the way he wants him, is the only thing holding him together.
And Eduardo doesn’t really understand why he didn’t just close up those cracks weeks ago.
He looks out through the glass walls at the empty office outside, everyone’s on their lunch break or still upstairs in the conference room, and he steps forward slowly so that Mark doesn’t back away and collide with his desk, until he’s standing very deliberately in Mark’s space. Mark’s jaw slackens slightly and his breathing hitches, his eyes darting between Eduardo’s eyes and his lips.
“Okay.” Eduardo murmurs softly, watching as Mark licks his lips and swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing noticeably and his breathing slightly laboured, “You know, it’s been two weeks. That is... well, that’s quite a bit of time.”
Mark’s eyes snap up to his from where they’d been staring dazedly at his lips and they’re wide and hopeful and so open that Eduardo just wants to gather him into his arms and never let him go. But he doesn’t, he just inches closer until their feet are almost touching and their faces are almost close enough for Eduardo to feel it when Mark breathes out, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eduardo answers. “You wanna have dinner with me tonight? After Rosie is in bed? That bottle of wine is yet to be opened and maybe we could...talk.”
“Yeah, uh, yeah, yes.” Mark stutters breathily and Eduardo smirks at how clearly he’s affecting Mark. Mark swallows again at the upturn of Eduardo’s lips and his gaze lingers on them when Eduardo says “Good,” almost too quiet to even be audible if it weren’t for their proximity.
For one of the longest minutes of Eduardo’s life, they are quiet; the only sound coming from their breathing and their noses are almost brushing.
“Wardo?” Mark croaks eventually, eyes lidded and heavy and face flushed.
“Mmm?”
“We...uh....we’re in a glass office.”
“I didn’t know that. Tell me more,” Eduardo says drily and Mark huffs in a way that isn’t at all as irritated as he probably wanted it to be but actually more of a shudder.
“I just mean...uh...” he blushes and his next words come out all in one breath, “anyone could walk past right now and if you haven’t walked away in approximately five seconds I’m going to kiss you whether it’s advisable or not.”
Eduardo’s heart beats wildly in his chest, “You are, huh?” he asks lowly, leaning forward just a fraction so that their noses touch. Mark whimpers somewhere in the back of his throat and Eduardo smiles.
“Well I guess I better walk away then,” Eduardo whispers and Mark’s eyes slip shut.
“Yeah,” He breathes inanely.
Eduardo leans even further, so their lips are barely a hair’s width apart and then he smirks.
“Okay then,” he pulls away and steps out of Mark’s space, smiling brightly. “Walking away. See you later, Mark!” he says, with a rather triumphant grin as Mark’s eyes fly open, and he hoists Rosalind off the floor, waves cheerily in goodbye and drops Mark’s sandwich on the table by the door as he leaves.
As he walks away from Mark’s office he gets a fleeting glance of him bracing himself against his desk, trying to calm his breathing. He smiles helplessly to himself all the way back home and when he pulls his phone out of his pocket on the way to the front door there’s a text from Mark.
Asshole.
Eduardo laughs happily and sends back:
;)
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