I blame the people who begged for a happier ending. Here ::throws short epilogue::

"Marry me."

Her blue eyes widened at his whispered words, almost unheard over the relentless splattering of rain on the dark umbrella held between them. Thunder clattered overheard, rumbling through his chest. Cold droplets of rain battered against his back, plastering his shirt to his skin, but all his attention was drawn to the woman in front of him.

For years they had danced around each other, the pieces of their hearts interwoven together to create an intricate pattern marked by friendship, love, partnership, trust. For years, they had been by each other's sides through good and bad, through happiness and sorrow. They'd grown from the awkwardness of youth to the confidence of adulthood, from hopeless to hopeful, from lost to found. Together.

It had been her that had saved him. She had taught him how to be a friend. She had taught him how to love. She had taught him how to be himself. She had taught him how to be strong when he felt weak. She taught him how to be a hero.

She trusted him with her life, even when she feared for his own. She trusted him with her heart, even when he wasn't sure if he knew what to do with it. She trusted him with her identity, something that she valued more than he could understand. Most of all, she trusted him.

It was she who had been there when his fragile world had crumbled. She who had picked up the fragments of the life he had known and stitched it together into a new one. She who that had held him when he'd cried, when he'd screamed, when he'd given up, and when he'd finally tried to find his feet again.

Nightmares calmed when she was near. The emptiness that threatened to claim him was held back because she gave him a reason to fight. Fears were broken free. His heart could keep beating because her heart beat in rhythm with his. They belonged together, two parts of a whole.

Life without her would be impossible.

He loved her more than his own life. He always had. Mask or no mask.

And so, the words of his heart had tumbled from his lips, wanting to be with her forever.

He forgot how to breathe as blue pulled him in, dragging him into her soul - the home of everything he knew he ever needed: her.

"Yes."

The only word he wanted to hear.

Umbrella forgotten, he pulled her to him as the rain poured onto their heads, rivers of water streaking down their faces as lips met in a promise to love each other forever.