The school rooftop was the only place where the wind drowned out the whispers. Lucifer stood by the rusted railing, staring at the horizon where the city buildings met the pale blue sky. He didn't turn around when the heavy metal door creaked open. He knew the sound of her footsteps by heart now.
"Aryan is an idiot," Nancy said, her voice steady as she walked up beside him. "But the whole school is talking, Lucifer."
Lucifer gripped the railing until his knuckles turned white. "He wasn't lying, Nancy. I did get expelled. And yeah, the other guy ended up in the hospital."
Nancy waited. She didn't flinch, and she didn't judge. She just stood there, a quiet anchor in his storm.
"My dad's business in New York... it wasn't just 'business,'" Lucifer finally continued, his voice cracking. "He owed people. Dangerous people. They couldn't get to him, so they came for me at school. Three of them cornered me in the locker room. They started talking about you."
Nancy's breath hitched. "Me? But you were thousands of miles away."
"I had a photo of us in my locker. They took it. They started saying things... what they'd do to the 'little girl in the sandbox' if my father didn't pay up." Lucifer closed his eyes, the memory playing like a dark movie. "I didn't think. I just saw red. I didn't stop until they couldn't stand up. I wasn't being a hero, Nancy. I was a monster that day."
The silence on the rooftop was heavy. Lucifer expected her to walk away, to be afraid of the violence he was capable of. Instead, he felt a small, warm hand slide into his.
"You weren't a monster," Nancy whispered. "You were a boy trying to protect the only piece of home he had left. You fought for a memory, Lucifer."
"I almost lost everything because of it," he muttered.
"But you didn't lose me," she said, turning him to face her. "The school can whisper all they want. Let them. They don't know the boy who gave away his favorite blue marble. They don't know the man who survived New York just to find his way back to a sandbox."
Lucifer looked into her eyes, and for the first time, the "Ice King" let a single tear fall. He leaned his forehead against hers, the wind whipping around them, finally letting go of the guilt he had carried across an ocean.