a very diverse spectrum of obsession

A pause. Then Hood, sounding annoyed in a way that meant he had probably practiced the line and hated that you had ruined it. “I have an infiltration job.”

“You need me to marry you for an infiltration job.”

“Fake marry me.”

“Oh, good. For a second there, I thought you were being impulsive.”

“Can you be serious for ten seconds?”

“I can. I just usually charge extra.”

A low sound came through the comm, almost a laugh, before he caught it and killed it. Red Hood had a habit of doing that, letting amusement slip halfway into his voice before remembering he was supposed to be terrifying. The criminals of Gotham still believed in the terrifying part. You believed in it too, mostly. You had seen him put a man’s head through drywall for threatening a kid. You had seen him walk through gunfire like pain was an inconvenience rather than a warning. Red Hood was not soft.

But he was funny when he forgot not to be.

That had been one of your first problems with him.

The second had been the way he trusted you at his back.

You leaned against the sink and pressed a clean cloth to your ribs. “What’s the job?”

“Masquerade tomorrow night. Private estate outside Bristol. Guest list is a who’s who of Gotham’s worst-dressed with too much money. Arms brokers, corrupt judges, traffickers, one Intergang accountant who’s either brave or stupid, and a host who calls himself Mr. Argent because apparently Gotham finally ran out of normal criminal names.”

“Argent,” you repeated. “Subtle.”

“He’s auctioning off a ledger.”

“You called me at two in the morning because of bookkeeping?”

“It’s a buyer list. Names, routes, shell companies, offshore accounts. Enough to gut a weapons pipeline running through the East End, the Narrows, and half of Blüdhaven.” Hood’s voice changed there, the humor thinning out into something harder. “Kids have been turning up with military-grade rifles in their backpacks because these assholes are selling like they’re moving party favors. I want the ledger.”

That sobered you fast.

You pulled the cloth away from your side and looked down. The bleeding had slowed. Good enough.

“What’s the catch?” you asked.

“No solo guests.”

You blinked. “Sorry?”

“The invitation admits married pairs only. Spouses. No exceptions. They verify rings at the door, cross-check the aliases, then keep paired guests together for most of the night. Argent’s paranoid about undercover cops and lone operatives. Thinks people are less likely to make a move if their partner can be used against them.”

“That is either deeply stupid or unfortunately insightful.”

“Both.”

“And you thought of me.”

The pause on the other end went a fraction too long.

You knew Red Hood in pieces, because that was how everyone knew each other in Gotham. You knew the red helmet, the leather jacket, the guns he carried like extensions of his hands. You knew the brutal efficiency of him in a fight, the dry commentary over comms, the way he always put himself between civilians and bullets before anyone could accuse him of caring. You knew Arsenal liked him enough to insult him creatively, Nightwing worried about him with the exhausted fondness of an older brother, and Oracle treated him like a migraine she would still guide home through a burning building.

You did not know his name.

He did not know yours.

That had always been safer.

“Yeah,” Hood said finally. “I thought of you.”

Your fingers tightened around the comm.

Outside the bathroom, your apartment was dark except for the neon wash bleeding through the blinds. Moxie had been a joke once. A stupid little word spat by men who thought it made you sound small, cute, harmless. You had been new to Gotham then, fresh from Star City with one duffel bag, two batons, seven knives, and Roy Harper’s warning that Gotham had teeth. You had kept the name because it annoyed people. Then, you had made it expensive to laugh at.

Red Hood had never laughed.

The first time you worked together, he had found you pinned behind a half-toppled bar with four rounds left, a dislocated shoulder, and a mouth still running badly enough to make three smugglers hesitate before rushing you. He had dropped through the skylight like divine punishment with a gun in each hand and said, “You always this chatty when you’re bleeding?”

You had said, “Only when I’m bored.”

He had trusted you after that. Slowly. In the grudging, suspicious way Gotham vigilantes trusted anyone, but it had counted. You had traded intel, patched wounds, covered escapes, and spent too many dawns sitting on rooftops while the city turned bruised and gold beneath you. Friendship had crept in under the armor. Attraction had followed like a bad idea wearing boots.

Neither of you had said anything.

“So,” you said, because your silence had begun to feel too revealing, “you need a wife.”

“I need a partner.”

“But the invitation says married pairs.”

“Yes.”

“Which makes me your wife.”

“Fake wife.”

“Still hearing wife.”

“Moxie.”

You smiled despite yourself. He only used that tone when he was trying not to react, which made it one of your favorites. “What, no other options? Arsenal busy?”

“He offered.”

“He offered to be your wife?”

“He offered to wear white and make it everyone’s problem.”

You laughed, and this time Hood did not quite hide the answering warmth in his voice.

“Nightwing?” you asked.

“Would spend the whole night making heart eyes at the security cameras so Oracle could laugh at me.”

“She’ll laugh at you anyway.”

“Probably.”

“You could ask one of the Bats.”

“I’m asking you.”

The room seemed to quiet around that.

You looked at yourself in the mirror. The mask was off, leaving only the tired face beneath it. A fading bruise shadowed your jaw. Rain had flattened your hair against your cheek. You did not look like anyone’s wife. You looked like someone who had kicked a gunman down a stairwell forty minutes earlier and still had glass dust in one sleeve.

“You trust me that much?” you asked, softer than you meant to.

Hood did not answer immediately. When he did, the modulator could not quite strip the honesty out of his voice.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

The stupid thing was, you trusted him too.

“All right,” you said. “Send me the details.”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine.”

You straightened. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s a married couple event. We have to arrive together.”

“You can meet me two blocks out like a normal person.”

“A normal fake husband.”

“You’re enjoying this too much already.”

“You’re the one who keeps saying husband.”

“You started this call with a proposal.”

“It was a mission brief.”

“It was a cry for help.”

This time, he did laugh, low and brief and rough around the edges. It slipped under your skin before you could stop it.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Nine. Formal. Mask. Minimal weapons.”

“Define minimal.”

“Enough to keep you alive. Not enough to start a war before dessert.”

“You take all the romance out of organized crime.”

“Wear something you can run in.”

“Wear something you can bleed on.”

“Always do.”

The line clicked off.

You stood there for a moment with the comm in your palm and rain tapping against the glass. Then you looked down at your half-bandaged ribs and sighed.

“Fake married,” you told your reflection.

By the next night, you had decided that if Gotham criminals insisted on being dramatic, you were at least going to make them regret inviting you to be attractive.

The dress was black because subtlety had its limits. It skimmed close where it needed to, moved where it had to, and hid more than one blade in the places people politely pretended not to look. The slit up one side gave your thigh holster room. The structured bodice concealed flexible armor. Your shoes had been modified by a woman in Blüdhaven who believed all formalwear should survive a rooftop chase and at least one attempted kidnapping.

Your mask was matte black, simple and sharp, covering enough of your face to preserve the fiction without interfering with your sightlines. It lacked the tactical comfort of your usual mask. It also made you feel less like Moxie and more like someone who had been invited into a room specifically designed to test whether she could lie prettily while armed.

You arrived two blocks from the estate at 8:56.

Red Hood was already there. He stood beside a sleek black car under the cover of an old stone archway, rain misting silver around him. He was not wearing the helmet. That was the first problem. The second was the suit.

You had seen Red Hood in body armor, leather, Kevlar, blood, soot, and once an ugly green hoodie he had stolen from a safehouse after taking a knife to the shoulder. You had never seen him in a black suit tailored so cleanly that it looked as if it had been built around the breadth of him. His shirt was dark red, open at the throat instead of strangled by a tie, and his masquerade mask covered the upper half of his face in black and oxblood leather. A white streak cut through his dark hair, which had been pushed back like he had fought it into submission and lost only once.

His mouth was visible.

That was unfair.

You stopped under the archway.

He looked up from adjusting his cuff and went still.

The rain filled the silence between you.

You lifted a brow behind your mask. “Problem?”

“No,” he said.

His voice was not modulated tonight. It was lower than you expected, rougher, human in a way that made something in your stomach tighten. You knew Red Hood’s voice through static and armor. You knew the shape of his threats, the cadence of his sarcasm, the way he said your name when he was warning you not to do something dangerous you were absolutely about to do.

This was different.

This was close enough to touch.

“You look…” He stopped, jaw working once. “You clean up nice, Mox.”

The nickname landed differently without the helmet.

You gave him a slow look from shoes to shoulders to mouth, because if he was going to make you feel off-balance, he could suffer too.

“You look expensive,” you said.

“Emergency tailoring.”

“Obviously.”

His mouth twitched. “That obvious?”

“You’re wearing a suit that actually fits, Hood. Either someone threatened you, or you threatened them first.”

“Little of both.”

“That sounds more believable than it should.”

His mouth curved. “You ready?”

“For the crime gala or the fake marriage?”

“Yes.”

You stepped closer, close enough to smell rain, leather, and something faintly smoky beneath his cologne. “Rules?”

He opened the car door but did not move out of your way. “We stay together. We get in, find the ledger, copy it if we can, and steal it if we have to. Argent’s people are running heat sensors at the door and wand checks inside, so anything metal better be hidden well.”

“It is.”

His eyes flicked down for half a second before he caught himself.

You smiled. “Professional, Hood.”

“You brought it up.”

“Are you going to be weird all night?”

“Probably.”

“At least you’re honest.”

Something shifted in his expression. The teasing stayed, but a different tension moved beneath it.

“Speaking of.” He reached into his jacket.

You tensed on instinct before you saw the small velvet box in his hand.

He noticed. Of course he noticed. Red Hood noticed everything, which was one of the most annoying things about having a crush on him.

“Relax,” he said. “If I were going to shoot you, I wouldn’t be standing out in the open like this.”

“You got a velvet ring box.”

“It’s part of the cover kit, Mox.”

“You have a cover kit with rings?”

“I have a lot of things.”

“That answer raises more questions than it resolves.”

He opened the box.

Inside were two rings. His was plain and dark, brushed black metal with a thin line of red through the center. Yours was simpler than you expected, a narrow gold band set with a small dark stone that caught the low light like it had a secret. It was not flashy enough to be ridiculous. It was not cheap enough to be meaningless.

For a mission prop, it looked dangerously thoughtful.

Your mouth went dry.

“Hood,” you said slowly.

“They verify at the door,” he said. “Needed to look real.”

“You bought rings.”

“I bought a cover.”

“You bought rings, Hood.”

His jaw shifted. “They verify at the door.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

He took the smaller ring from the box. His hand was bare, no gloves, and the sight of it did something stupid to your pulse. Broad fingers, scarred knuckles, a pale line across the back of one hand that disappeared under his cuff. You had seen those hands reload guns, set bones, pull you out of an exploding warehouse by the back of your armor. You had not imagined one holding a wedding ring.

That was a lie.

You would never admit to imagining it.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

You should have made a joke. You usually had one ready, sharp and easy and useful for putting distance between yourself and anything that looked too much like vulnerability. But his voice had gone quiet, and the rain had softened the edges of the city, and there was no helmet between you tonight.

You gave him your hand.

He slid the ring onto your finger.

It fit.

You looked down at it.

Hood held your hand a second longer than necessary. His thumb brushed the base of your finger, barely there, and the carefulness of it landed worse than any joke he could have made. 

“How’d you know my size?” you asked.

“I’m observant.”

“That’s a creepy answer.”

“In Gotham, paying attention is the difference between getting home and getting buried.”

The joke caught in your throat before it could fully form, because there was nothing theatrical in his voice when he said it.

“Fair enough.”

You took his ring from the box before he could close it, because letting him have the upper hand for too long was bad for your health. His eyes narrowed slightly, but he gave you his hand.

His ring slid over his knuckle with a little resistance. You felt the scars there. You felt him watching you.

“There,” you said, because your voice needed somewhere to go. “Tragically wed.”

He flexed his hand once, looking at the ring as if it had personally betrayed him. “For the mission.”

“Obviously.”

“Nothing else.”

“Never even crossed my mind.”

The lie sat between you, wearing formalwear.

“Names?” you asked.

“Anders,” he said. “Daniel and Elise.”

“Elise?”

“You hate it?”

“I sound like I own silk robes and poison my husbands.”

“Useful energy for tonight.”

“How long have we been married?”

“Three years.”

“Too long. I would’ve killed you by then.”

“Two years.”

“Better.”

“We met in Star City. You hated me.”

“That part’s true enough.”

“Got married in Atlantic City after a job went sideways.”

You stared at him. “That is the least believable thing you’ve said tonight.”

“It’s memorable.”

“It’s tacky.”

“It’s criminal.”

“It’s grounds for divorce.”

His mouth curved. “Then sell it, Mrs. Anders.”

He opened the car door wider. “After you, darling.”

You almost tripped on your own dress.

He caught your elbow immediately, steadying you with infuriating ease.

You looked up at him. “Don’t call me that.”

His thumb rested against the inside of your arm. “Noted.”

“You’re going to call me that again, aren’t you?”

Every guest wore a mask.

It made the whole thing feel less like a party and more like a confession waiting to happen.

Hood stepped out first and came around to your side before the valet could reach you. He offered his hand with the smoothness of a man who had absolutely been taught manners at some point and had chosen violence anyway.

You took it.

His ring flashed dark against his hand.

“Smile,” he murmured.

“I am smiling.”

“That’s your I’m-going-to-bite-someone smile.”

“It’s versatile.”

His hand settled at the small of your back.

The contact was light. Polite, even. It still burned through the dress like he had pressed his palm to bare skin. You hated him a little for being able to do that. You hated yourself more for leaning into it just enough that his fingers flexed.

At the door, a woman in silver looked over your invitation with the blank expression of someone paid well enough not to blink at murderers.

“Mr. and Mrs. Anders,” she said.

Hood smiled. It was small, controlled, and completely fraudulent. “That’s us.”

Mrs. Anders. You were going to murder him before midnight.

The woman glanced at your rings. Then at your faces. Then at the security guard beside her, who lifted a scanner.

“Hands,” he said.

Hood went first. Calm. Unbothered. The scanner passed over his sleeves, chest, waist, and legs. It did not beep, which meant either he had actually obeyed the minimal-weapons rule or he had spent the afternoon sourcing enough ceramic, polymer, and carbon-fiber problems to make the scanner irrelevant.

When it was your turn, Hood’s hand shifted against your back.

A warning.

You relaxed your shoulders, lifted your arms, and let the guard scan you. He found nothing. He did not know about the ceramic blade along your thigh, the garrote sewn into your hem, the lockpicks disguised as hairpins, or the tiny flash drive tucked beneath the dark stone of your ring.

Oracle would have been proud.

The woman in silver gave you both a final look. “Enjoy the evening.”

“We intend to,” Hood said.

You waited until you were inside, past the first curtain of security and beneath a ceiling painted with golden saints, before you muttered, “Mr. and Mrs. Anders?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I sound like I run a suspiciously profitable antique store.”

“You do have the vibe.”

“I’m divorcing you.”

“We’ve been married for fifteen minutes.”

“Annulment, then.”

His hand moved slightly at your back, fingers pressing once as a masked couple passed too close on your left. You caught the movement of the man’s hand toward his jacket and shifted before Hood had to pull you, putting yourself just out of reach while looking like you had only turned to admire a vase.

Hood’s mouth twitched.

“Nice,” he murmured.

“I know.”

The ballroom was a glittering fever dream.

Chandeliers spilled gold across polished floors. A string quartet played something elegant and mournful in the corner. The guests drifted in pairs, all silk, velvet, diamonds, and concealed cruelty. Masks transformed familiar monsters into myth. You recognized a judge who had buried evidence in three trafficking cases, a shipping magnate whose warehouses had burned twice under suspicious circumstances, one of Penguin’s accountants, and a woman from Blüdhaven who had once tried to stab Roy Harper with an oyster knife.

Above it all, on a balcony overlooking the room, stood Mr. Argent.

He wore white. Of course he did. His mask was silver, shaped like a fox’s face, and his hair was slicked back so severely it looked lacquered. Two guards flanked him. He lifted a champagne flute as the room applauded, and you felt Hood go still beside you.

“That him?” you murmured.

“Yeah.”

“Punchable.”

“Very.”

“Later?”

“If you behave.”

“I never promised that.”

“No,” Hood said, looking down at you with an expression you did not know how to read. “You didn’t.”

For the next hour, you were married.

It was alarming how well you both lied.

Hood kept you close, his hand at your waist or your back or curled around your fingers whenever someone looked too long. You let yourself be guided without seeming guided, answered questions with a smile, and invented a marriage with him in pieces. You had met in Star City, according to him. Blüdhaven, according to you. You handled private acquisitions. He handled security consulting. You had been married for two years, unless someone asked Hood, in which case it became three because apparently your fake husband believed in committing to details without warning you first. You disliked his driving. He admired your temper. You preferred clean exits, and he preferred making sure no one followed. Somehow, that was the most believable part.

Every time he called you his wife, your body reacted before your brain could remind it to be professional.

“My wife has better instincts than I do,” he told a broker with a scar cutting through one eyebrow.

“That must be difficult for you,” the broker said.

“You have no idea,” you replied.

Hood’s fingers tightened on your hip.

The broker laughed like he thought you were charming.

Hood leaned close to your ear as the man turned away. “Careful.”

“You brought me because I’m charming.”

“I brought you because you’re dangerous.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“I could say sweeter.”

Your breath caught.

He did not move away.

The room kept spinning around you, music rising and falling, glass chiming against glass. Hood’s mouth hovered close enough to your ear that you felt each word more than you heard it.

“For the cover,” he added.

You turned your face slightly toward his. “Coward.”

His gaze dropped to your mouth.

The moment stretched thin.

Then a bell chimed from the center of the room, and Mr. Argent descended the stairs with his hands spread as if he were welcoming guests to a wedding rather than a criminal auction.

“Friends,” he said, voice carrying. “Partners. Devoted halves of dangerous wholes. Welcome.”

You felt Hood’s irritation through the line of his body.

Argent spoke for several minutes, all polished charm and predator’s teeth. He praised loyalty. He praised discretion. He praised the beauty of masks, of chosen names, of the sacred privacy between spouses. It was all ridiculous and unpleasantly effective. This crowd liked being told their secrets were elegant rather than filthy.

The auction would begin at midnight.

Until then, there would be dancing.

“Of course there will,” you said under your breath.

Hood looked down at you. “You dance?”

“I fight people on rooftops in steel-toed boots. What do you think?”

“I think that wasn’t a no.”

“It should have been.”

The quartet shifted into a waltz.

Couples moved toward the center of the floor.

Argent watched from the stairs.

Hood held out his hand.

You stared at it. “You’re kidding.”

“He’s watching.”

“Let him.”

“Sweetheart.”

There was the mission voice again. The one that made you want to argue and obey at the same time, which was probably why you usually chose to argue.

You placed your hand in his. “If you step on my dress, I’m leaving you for Nightwing.”

“Like hell you are.”

“He has better posture.”

“He has worse taste.”

“He still claims you, so clearly.”

Hood pulled you into the dance before you could look too pleased with yourself.

You had expected competence. Red Hood was good at nearly everything physical, which was obnoxious but useful. You had not expected grace. He moved like he fought, controlled and deliberate, except here the violence had been translated into something almost beautiful. His hand settled at your waist, the other holding yours. He led without forcing, gave you space when you needed it, adjusted to your rhythm so quickly you almost forgot to be surprised.

Almost.

“Where the hell did you learn to dance?” you asked.

“Crime Alley community center.”

You looked up sharply.

His mouth curved. “You should see your face.”

“I am going to widow myself.”

“You ask a lot of questions for a woman with at least six hidden weapons at a no-weapons gala.”

“Seven.”

“Anklet?”

“Hair.”

“Nice.”

“You missed it.”

“Did I?”

His hand shifted at your waist, just enough for his thumb to skim the reinforced seam where one of your hairpins had been before you tucked it into place. Heat shot down your spine.

You narrowed your eyes. “Show-off.”

“Observant,” he corrected.

The dance turned you beneath one chandelier, light sliding across his mask. For a moment, with his face half-hidden and his mouth bare, you felt the strangeness of knowing him and not knowing him. Red Hood had carried you once when smoke inhalation made your knees buckle after a warehouse fire. He had sat beside you on a roof while you stitched his arm and complained about his inability to hold still. He had told you which safehouses had clean water and which clinics would not ask questions. He had never told you his name.

You had never told him yours.

Yet his hand fit at your waist like it had always been meant to find you.

“Why me?” you asked.

His steps did not falter, but his expression changed.

“I told you.”

“You said you trusted me.”

“I do.”

“That’s not all.”

Around you, masked couples turned and glittered. Argent’s people watched from the edges. There were cameras in the chandeliers, guards at each door, predators in every corner, and still the most dangerous thing in the room felt like the pause before Hood answered.

“You don’t flinch,” he said.

You could have made that a joke. You should have.

“I do,” you said. “Just not where people can see.”

His eyes stayed on yours.

You hated the mask for hiding their color from you. You hated it more for making you want to know.

“I know,” he said.

The words were quiet enough that no one else could have heard them. They landed with brutal precision anyway.

The dance ended. Applause rose politely around you.

Hood did not let go.

You did not pull away.

Then Oracle’s voice crackled faintly through the tiny comm hidden in your earring. “Argent’s private office just went active. East wing, second floor. You have maybe ten minutes before the auction staff transfers the ledger downstairs.” 

You stepped back first, mostly because someone had to.

Hood’s jaw tightened like he had been pulled out of a thought he did not appreciate. “Copy.”

“And try not to make the cameras work harder than they already are,” Oracle added.

“I make no promises,” you said.

Hood shot you a look.

He joined you inside thirty seconds later.

“Cheekbones?” you whispered as the door clicked shut behind him.

“They were very proud of them.”

“You’re mean when you’re jealous.”

“I wasn’t jealous.”

“They were looking at me.”

“I noticed.”

“That’s jealousy.”

“That’s situational awareness.”

“You’re very committed to being wrong.”

“Part of my charm.”

You grinned and headed for the stairs.

The office was exactly where Oracle said it would be, behind another locked door at the end of a corridor lined with bad portraits of dead men who had probably also committed tax fraud. Hood stood watch while you worked the lock. It took eighteen seconds, which was twelve seconds longer than it should have taken because he stood too close behind you and smelled too good.

“You’re hovering,” you whispered.

“I’m guarding.”

“You’re breathing on my neck.”

“Want me to stop?”

Your pick slipped.

Hood noticed.

You got the door open and shouldered your way inside before he could say anything smug enough to justify stabbing him.

Argent’s office was dark-paneled, overdecorated, and cold. A fire burned low in the hearth, more decorative than useful. The desk was massive. The safe behind the portrait was predictable. The pressure sensor beneath the rug was less predictable, but only because Argent had otherwise shown no taste.

“Left,” Hood said.

“I see it.”

“Camera above the bookcase.”

“I see that too.”

“Drawer’s wired.”

“You know,” you said, crouching beside the safe, “some husbands support their wives in silence.”

“You’d hate that.”

“You’re right. Keep talking.”

The safe took longer. Argent had invested money there, at least. You worked by feel while Hood disabled the camera feed through a device Oracle had given him with a warning not to break it. The room smelled like smoke and old paper. Music drifted faintly from the ballroom below.

When the safe opened, you found the ledger in a black case beside stacks of cash, passports, and a velvet pouch filled with diamonds.

“Bingo,” you said.

Hood came closer. “Can you copy it?”

You opened the case.

Inside was a slim encrypted drive and a paper ledger. Dramatic and paranoid. Gotham criminals really were exhausting.

“Copy the drive, photograph the paper,” you said. “Three minutes.”

“You have two.”

“You always say that.”

“You always take three.”

“And yet you keep asking me places.”

He stood beside you while you worked, close enough that his suit brushed your bare shoulder when he reached past you to shift the desk lamp. The contact made your skin prickle. You ignored it. Then his hand settled briefly over yours to steady the ledger page before it curled.

You stopped.

He stopped too.

For one suspended second, both of you looked at your hands. His ring. Your ring. Inked names of criminals between you.

Then footsteps sounded in the hall.

Hood moved first, crossing to the door with silent speed. He listened, shoulders going tense.

“Two guards,” he mouthed.

You closed the ledger, pocketed the drive, and grabbed the paper book because copying was suddenly less important than leaving.

The office door opened before you reached the safe.

Hood caught the first guard by the wrist and slammed him face-first into the doorframe. You threw the ledger case at the second guard’s throat, followed it with your elbow, and swept his legs when he choked. The fight was fast, ugly, and mostly quiet until the first guard got a hand on the panic button at his belt.

Red light flashed in the corridor.

“Well,” you said, breathing hard. “That’s unfortunate.”

Hood looked at the unconscious guard, then at you. “You said three minutes.”

“You said two. This marriage has communication issues.”

Shouting rose from downstairs.

Oracle’s voice cut in. “Alarm triggered. Multiple hostiles converging on the east wing. Also, Argent just noticed his ledger room is having a moment.”

Hood grabbed your hand. “Not the window.”

You glanced toward the glass. “I wasn’t going to suggest the window.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was considering all exits.”

“You were thinking the window.”

“Fine. I was thinking the window.”

“Too exposed. Service corridor.”

He pulled the office door open just enough to check the hall, then drew you out after him. The alarm had not yet become a full lockdown, but the estate had shifted around you. Music still drifted from the ballroom, strained and elegant beneath the first signs of panic. Somewhere below, a guard barked orders into a radio. Somewhere closer, expensive shoes moved quickly over the polished floor.

You made it down one hall, then another, before voices rose ahead of you.

Hood stopped so abruptly you nearly collided with his back.

“Storage room?” you whispered.

“Locked.”

“Can you open it?”

“Not before they turn the corner.”

“Then what?”

He looked at you.

You had just enough time to understand before his hand slid to your waist and he walked you backward into the shadowed alcove beside a half-open terrace door. Rain breathed cold against your bare shoulders. His body covered yours, broad enough to block you from the hall, close enough to steal your balance. The ledger pressed between you.

The sensible thing would have been to wait until the footsteps faded completely, then slip away.

The less sensible thing was Hood looking down at your mouth.

“Careful,” you whispered.

His eyes lifted to yours. “With what?”

“You know what.”

“We’re still undercover,” he said.

“You say that like it explains why your hand is on my ass.”

He had the decency to look caught for half a second before the corner of his mouth tilted. “It’s a convincing cover.”

“We’re in the middle of an active alarm.”

“Gotham criminals love drama.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“Yeah,” he said, quieter. “Maybe.”

Then his mouth was on yours.

It was supposed to be a cover. You understood that. You understood it with the part of your brain still tracking footsteps, sightlines, cameras, and the weight of the stolen drive hidden beneath your ring. The guards were coming. You needed a reason to be tucked into a dark corner with his hands on you, and Gotham criminals were much more willing to believe in lust than competence.

Knowing that did nothing to save you.

Hood kissed like he had been waiting for permission and hated himself for needing it. His hand tightened at your waist, the other braced near your head, and when the first guard rounded the corner, you let yourself make a soft, irritated sound against his mouth as if being interrupted were the only crime happening.

“Hey,” the guard snapped.

Hood lifted his head slowly.

You had to give him credit. He looked exactly like a rich, dangerous husband being inconvenienced in the middle of something private.

His mouth was damp. His mask was slightly crooked. His hand tightened at your waist before the guard could decide whether to look embarrassed or afraid, and when his voice came, it was low enough to make the man rethink his life.

“You lost?”

The guard looked like he was seriously considering saying yes. His gaze flicked from Hood’s face to your hand fisted in his lapel, then to the ring on your finger.

“Restricted wing,” he said, but the authority had already leaked out of him.

You smiled from beneath Hood’s shoulder, breathless enough that it was not entirely acting. “We were looking for somewhere quiet.”

“This isn’t—”

“My wife gets bored at parties,” Hood said.

Your nails dug warningly into his jacket.

He did not even flinch.

The second guard muttered something into his radio. The first looked between you again, then made the obvious and incorrect calculation that two half-dressed socialites sneaking away from a masquerade were less urgent than the alarm coming from Argent’s office.

“Return to the ballroom,” he said.

“Eventually,” Hood said.

The guard looked like he wanted to argue. Then Hood smiled.

The guard chose life.

When they disappeared around the corner, neither of you moved.

The sensible thing would have been to break apart immediately and run.

Instead, Hood’s eyes dropped to your mouth.

“Convincing,” you said, but your voice had gone thin.

His thumb moved once against your waist. “Yeah.”

“For the cover?”

“That was the idea.”

“And now?”

His gaze lifted to yours.

The alarm wailed louder somewhere behind you. Your heart was worse.

“Now I’m waiting for you to tell me to back up,” he said.

You should have. The mission was still burning around you. Argent’s men were searching the estate, Oracle was probably developing a stress migraine, and you had a stolen ledger digging into your stomach.

Instead, you caught his lapel and pulled him down again.

The second kiss had no excuse at all.

Hood made a low sound against your mouth and crowded closer, one hand sliding from your waist to your back, the other cupping your jaw with surprising care. He kissed like he did everything else, with focus, hunger, and a barely leashed intensity that made your knees threaten to forget their job. You kissed him back just as hard, biting at his lower lip because you had wanted to know what he would do.

He groaned.

That sound nearly undid you.

“Fuck,” he muttered against your mouth. “You have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

Your laugh came out uneven. “I was hoping it wasn’t just tonight.”

His forehead touched yours. Rain slid down between you. “Not just tonight.”

The admission settled under your ribs, warm and terrifying.

Then Oracle said, with the precise exhaustion of a woman who regretted every friendship in her life, “I know this is a very meaningful moment for whatever emotionally constipated thing you two have going on, but the armed men are still armed.”

You closed your eyes. “Oracle.”

“East stairwell is blocked. West service corridor is clear for maybe ninety seconds. Also, Hood, if you get lipstick on that suit, Roy is going to know the emergency tailor trip was for a date, and I refuse to moderate that conversation.”

Hood froze.

You pulled back just enough to stare at him.

Roy.

The suit.

Hood’s mouth tightened.

Your brain, traitorous and quick, began putting pieces together. Arsenal’s teasing. Nightwing’s fondness. The way Hood moved through certain rooftops like he knew the Bat-routes and hated that he knew them. The way Roy had texted you earlier that week, complaining that getting his friend Jason into a tailor’s shop had required bribery, threats, and the promise of post-mission chili dogs.

Jason Todd, scowling in Roy’s kitchen three months ago with a beer he barely drank and a book tucked under one arm like a threat. Jason Todd at a crowded charity event Roy had dragged you to, wearing a suit with the stiff irritation of a man who understood formalwear but resented having to surrender to it. Jason Todd, who had once apparently threatened a tailor over sleeve mobility.

Oh.

Oh, no.

“You’re Jason,” you said.

Hood’s eyes narrowed. “We are being hunted.”

“You’re Jason Todd.”

“Moxie.”

“I made fun of your tie at Roy’s birthday.”

“It was an ugly tie.”

“You said you liked my boots.”

“They had knives in them.”

“You noticed?”

“I notice a lot of things.”

You stared at him, outrage and desire tangling so tightly you could barely separate them. “Did you know?”

His expression shifted, something almost helpless moving through it. “Not until tonight.”

“Tonight when?”

“At the door,” he said. “You smiled like you were about to rob the place and insult me for helping.”

“That is not specific. I smile like that often.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice dropping. “That was part of the problem.”

The shouting grew louder.

Oracle cleared her throat over the comm. “The identity crisis is very compelling, but your ninety seconds is down to thirty.”

Jason—because it was Jason, because of course it was Jason—looked down at you, rain bright on his mask and your lipstick smudged at the corner of his mouth.

“We’re finishing this conversation later,” he said.

“You showed up in a custom suit, called me your wife, and let me figure out you were Jason Todd during an active alarm. We’re finishing several conversations later.”

His mouth curved. “Looking forward to it.”

“Thirty seconds,” Oracle warned.

You tightened your grip on his lapel, outrage and desire still tangled somewhere behind your ribs. “Run, husband.”

His grin flashed, sharp and delighted.

You ran.

The next twenty minutes were chaos in formalwear.

You and Jason moved through the service corridors like you’d done it a hundred times before. He covered your left without needing to be asked. You ducked under his arm when he fired over your shoulder. You broke a man’s wrist with one hand and held the ledger against your chest with the other. Jason used a serving tray to knock a guard unconscious, which you appreciated as both violence and commentary.

At one point, you vaulted over a dessert cart, and he caught you by the waist on the other side because the floor was slick with spilled champagne.

“Careful, honey,” he said.

You elbowed him in the ribs.

He laughed as he shot out the lock on a service door behind you. The door swung hard enough to clip one of Argent’s men in the face, which was probably not intentional but still felt like a gift from the universe.

Argent made it as far as the conservatory before his sense of self-preservation failed him. He had two guards, a silver briefcase, and the deeply unfortunate confidence of a man who had never been tackled by Red Hood while wearing formal shoes.

Jason hit him beside the orchid display.

The fountain took both of them.

Water surged over the marble lip. Argent shouted. Jason came up soaked to the chest, one hand locked in the back of Argent’s expensive white jacket and the other already reaching for a zip tie.

You handled the guards.

By the time Nightwing arrived through the shattered glass roof with far too much acrobatic flair, Argent was bound to a marble cherub, Jason was dripping wet in a custom suit, and you were holding the ledger in one hand and one of your broken heels in the other.

Nightwing landed lightly beside you and took in the scene.

Then he looked at Jason.

Then at you.

Then at the rings.

“Oh,” he said, with terrible delight. “This explains so much.”

Jason pointed at him. “Say one word.”

Nightwing’s grin widened. “Mazel tov?”

You covered your mouth with your hand but couldn’t hide your laugh.

Jason looked betrayed. “You too?”

“You’re soaked in fountain water and wearing a wedding ring,” you said. “I’m only human.”

Nightwing pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m honored to have been here for the reception.”

Jason started toward him.

Nightwing wisely flipped backward onto the fountain edge, still grinning. “Oracle says police are six minutes out. Arsenal also says, and I quote, ‘Tell the happy couple I’m claiming visitation rights.’”

“I hate all of you,” Jason said.

“No, you don’t,” you said.

He looked at you.

For a second, the wreckage of the night narrowed to the space between you. Broken glass glittered on the conservatory floor. Rain poured through the ruined ceiling. Your mask was still in place, and so was his, but the fiction was gone. He knew you. You knew him. Not completely, not all at once, but enough to make the wanting feel less like a dangerous mistake and more like a door neither of you had realized was unlocked.

Nightwing’s expression softened, which made you want to throw the broken heel at him.

“I’ll take Argent,” he said. “You two should go before the cops arrive and ask why she has seven knives and a ledger full of people who are going to want her dead by morning.”

“Six knives,” Jason said automatically.

Nightwing stared at him.

You stared at him too.

Jason glanced at you. “You lost one in the east wing.”

“You counted?”

“I’m observant.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Yeah,” he said, and there was something warm under it. “You noticed.”

Nightwing made a sound that was suspiciously close to a laugh. “Go. Both of you. Before I start making a speech.”

“Don’t,” Jason said.

“Oh, I have several prepared.”

Not awkward, exactly. You and Jason had survived too many injuries together for silence to become fragile that easily. But this was different from your usual post-mission quiet. There was no helmet between his voice and your ears. No modulator to make his breathing sound distant. No way to pretend you had not kissed him in a dark alcove, learned his name while being hunted, and liked both too much.

The rings were still on.

You noticed every time his hand moved on the steering wheel.

He noticed you noticing, because of course he did.

“Say it,” he said eventually.

You looked out the rain-streaked window. “I’m deciding which thing.”

“That bad?”

“Oh, there are categories.”

His mouth twitched. The bruise along his jaw had darkened. There was still a faint smear of lipstick near the corner of his mouth, half washed away by rain and fountain water.

You reached over without thinking and rubbed at the mark with your thumb.

Jason went very still.

The car slowed at a red light on an empty street.

Your hand remained against his jaw. The stubble there rasped lightly beneath your thumb. His eyes flicked to yours behind the mask, and the air in the car changed so quickly it felt like a drop.

You withdrew your hand. “Lipstick.”

“Right.”

“Couldn’t let Roy win.”

Jason huffed a laugh, but his fingers tightened on the wheel.

Neither of you said anything for the rest of the block.

When he pulled into the alley two streets from your apartment, the rain had softened to a mist. He parked beneath a fire escape and cut the engine. The sudden quiet felt deliberate. You could hear the ticking of the car cooling, the distant hum of traffic, your own pulse refusing to calm down.

Jason removed his mask first.

You had seen his face before. That was the worst part. You had seen him across Roy’s kitchen, half-lit by the open fridge while he argued about takeout like it was a tactical decision. You had seen him at that charity event, bored and handsome and restless, as if all that polished wealth irritated his skin. You had not known then that he was the man who called you Mox over comms when he was worried. You had not known he was Red Hood.

Now the two versions slid together and made something sharper.

You took off your mask.

Jason stared.

Not like he was surprised, not exactly. More like the last remaining doubt had just been removed, and he had no armor ready for what came after.

“Hi,” you said, because apparently you had lost access to every clever line you had ever had.

His laugh was soft and almost disbelieving. “Hi.”

“That’s it? No dramatic comment?”

“I’m having a moment.”

“Should I wait?”

“Probably.”

You smiled, and his gaze dropped to your mouth again.

The car felt much smaller than it had a minute ago.

“We should talk,” you said.

“Yeah.”

“About identities.”

“Yeah.”

“And boundaries.”

“Definitely.”

“And the fact that you apparently knew my ring size.”

“I guessed.”

“You did not guess.”

“I made an informed estimate.”

“That’s worse.”

He dragged a hand through his damp hair. The ring flashed again, dark metal and red line catching briefly in the low light.

Your smile faded around the edges.

Slowly, you twisted your own ring. It slid halfway up your finger before Jason’s hand closed over yours.

“Don’t,” he said.

The word came out too raw for the joke he clearly meant to attach to it.

You looked down at his hand over yours. “Jason.”

His name felt new in your mouth. His fingers tightened.

“I know it was supposed to be a cover,” he said. “I know. But don’t take it off like it meant nothing.”

Your throat went tight.

There he was. The man beneath the helmet, beneath the suit, beneath all that practiced brutality. Not soft, exactly. Jason Todd would probably never be soft in any simple way. But honest, when cornered. Brave enough to bleed where you could see it, if not quite brave enough to ask.

You turned your hand beneath his, palm to palm.

“It didn’t mean nothing,” you said.

He exhaled as if something in him had braced for impact.

“But,” you continued, “you don’t get to fake marry me, kiss me in a hallway, let me find out you’re Jason Todd, and then look wounded when I try to return the prop.”

“I didn’t look wounded.”

“You looked extremely wounded.”

“I have a bruise.”

“Emotionally.”

He made a face. “That sounds like something Nightwing would say.”

“Nightwing is emotionally literate.”

“Don’t compliment him right now.”

“There’s the jealousy again.”

“Threat assessment.”

“Jason.”

He looked at you then, really looked, and all the banter thinned into something warmer and far more dangerous.

“I wanted it to be you,” he said. “Before I knew. The job, the partner, the whole stupid fake-married thing. I wanted you there. Then you showed up in that dress, and you were you, and I kept thinking…” He stopped, jaw working. “I kept thinking I was screwed either way.”

Your chest ached.

You had imagined, once or twice, what Red Hood might sound like if he ever admitted wanting something. You had imagined arrogance, maybe. A filthy grin. A hand around your wrist in an alley. You had not imagined this careful, frustrated honesty, as if desire were easier for him than hope.

“You could’ve said something,” you said.

“So could you.”

“I was being professional.”

He gave you a look.

“I was being emotionally avoidant,” you corrected.

“Yeah. Same.”

You laughed, quiet and helpless.

Jason’s thumb brushed your ring again. “You can take it off if you want.”

There was the out. Offered plainly, because whatever else he was, Jason had never once tried to trap you. He had asked you to trust him and then given you room to choose.

You looked at the ring. Something bought for cover. Something worn through gunfire. Something neither of you had meant to make real, except maybe that was not true. Maybe the wanting had been real for months, and the ring had only given it a shape.

You slid it off.

Jason’s expression closed before he could stop it.

Then you placed the ring in his palm and folded his fingers around it.

“Next time you want a date, ask me properly.”

He stared at you.

The silence lasted one breath. Two.

Then his mouth curved, slow and stunned and devastating.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make me regret being romantic.”

“You’re calling that romantic?”

“I’m new at it.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You rolled your eyes, but your face had gone warm. “You owe me explanations.”

“I know.”

“Real ones.”

“I know.”

“And dinner.”

His smile deepened. “Explanations, then dinner?”

“That order, yes.”

He leaned closer. “What about kissing?”

You pretended to consider it. “Depends.”

“On?”

“How convincing you are.”

Jason reached out and touched your cheek, giving you plenty of time to move away.

You did not.

The second kiss was nothing like the first. There was no alarm, no audience, no cover to excuse it. It was slower, deeper, and somehow more dangerous for being honest. His hand slid into your hair carefully, avoiding the pins he knew were weapons. Your hands found the front of his shirt, still damp from rain and fountain water, and pulled him closer until the console dug into your hip and neither of you cared.

He kissed you until your breath broke.

Then he murmured against your mouth, “Tell me to go, and I will.”

Your fingers tightened in his shirt.

The heat between you flared so fast it almost startled you. It was not as if you had not wanted him all night. You had wanted him at the door, in the ballroom, in the dark alcove, in every narrow space where his hand found your back and his voice dropped low near your ear. But here, with your mask off and his name still warm in your mouth, the wanting became something else.

Still, you pulled back enough to meet his eyes.

“Not because of the mission,” you said.

“No.”

“Not because of the cover.”

“No.”

“Not because we almost died and adrenaline makes people stupid.”

Jason’s thumb swept along your jaw. “I’m always stupid about you.”

That should not have worked on you.

It worked on you.

You kissed him again, harder this time, and felt him smile against your mouth for half a second before hunger took over.

By the time you reached your apartment, you had both forgotten at least three reasonable boundaries about elevators, hands, and the general decency owed to security cameras. Jason kept one hand at your waist, his body angled between you and the hallway, even now, even here, and something in your chest went painfully soft at the thought.

Inside, the door barely closed before he had you against it.

He stopped before pinning you there fully, breath rough, eyes searching your face. “Still good?”

You hooked two fingers into the open collar of his red shirt and pulled him down. “Jason.”

His name was answer enough.

He kissed you as if the sound had snapped the last of his restraint.

The dress that had survived knives, guards, and a criminal masquerade nearly lost its battle against Jason Todd’s patience. He found the hidden zipper with insulting speed, paused only long enough for your nod, and drew it down slowly while his mouth moved along your throat. You shivered when the cool air touched your back. He noticed that too, pressing a kiss beneath your jaw as if the reaction pleased him more than he wanted to admit.

“Still six knives?” he murmured.

“Five,” you said, breath catching when his teeth grazed your skin. “Lost another on the way out.”

“Careless.”

“I was distracted by my husband tackling a man into a fountain.”

His hands stilled at your waist.

You smiled against his cheek. “Too much?”

He lifted his head. His eyes were dark, intent, and stripped of every joke. “Say it again.”

Your pulse jumped.

“My husband,” you said softly.

Jason made a sound that was almost a groan and kissed you hard enough to make your spine arch against the door.

After that, things blurred into touch and heat and the shedding of every last defense. His jacket hit the floor. Your heels followed. The dress slipped down, and Jason followed it with his mouth, kissing each place the night had left a mark as if he could argue with every bruise. You pushed his shirt from his shoulders and found scars beneath, old and new, a map of violence written into him. He went still when your fingers traced one across his chest.

You kissed it.

The breath left him all at once.

“Baby,” he said, rough and warning and wrecked.

The endearment settled low in your stomach.

You looked up at him. “That one for the cover too?”

“No.” His hands tightened at your hips. “That one’s mine.”

You should have had a clever answer.

You had survived worse nights than this. You had talked your way out of locked rooms, gun barrels, bad dates, worse missions, and once, memorably, a hostage situation involving a chandelier and three men who had severely underestimated your patience. You should have had something sharp ready for him.

Instead, you caught Jason by the front of his shirt and pulled him with you toward the bedroom.

His laugh followed you, low and breathless, half disbelief and half surrender. It lasted until you stumbled backward through the doorway, and then he was on you again, one hand braced against the frame, the other sliding firm and careful around your waist.

“Impatient,” he murmured.

“You’re still talking.”

That did it.

Jason kissed you like the words had snapped the last thread of his restraint. He crowded you back with the heat of him, with the rain still clinging to his hair and the city still written in bruises across both of you. His mouth found yours hard enough to steal the next thing you meant to say, and you let him have it. Let him have the sound you made when his hand settled at the small of your back. Let him have the way your fingers dug into his shoulders. Let him have the moment your knees hit the edge of the bed and you pulled him down with you because distance suddenly felt offensive.

He caught himself before his full weight landed on you.

Of course he did.

Jason Todd, who had thrown men through glass tonight, who had tackled Argent into a fountain like subtlety was a language he had never bothered to learn, stopped himself with one hand planted beside your head and the other cupping your hip like you were something breakable.

The tenderness almost annoyed you.

Almost.

“You can touch me,” you said.

His eyes searched yours, dark and intent. “I am touching you.”

“You’re treating me like evidence.”

That surprised a laugh out of him, rough and quiet. “You are evidence.”

“Of what?”

“That I’ve lost my mind.”

You smiled despite yourself, and his gaze dropped to your mouth like the expression had done him personal harm.

Then he lowered himself over you.

The weight of him settled slowly, carefully, and your breath caught before you could stop it. He noticed. Of course he noticed. His attention sharpened immediately, that same devastating focus he brought to fights and locks and exits turning entirely on you. On the way your fingers tightened in his shirt. On the places you tried not to flinch. On the places you leaned closer.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

“Words.”

The command should have irritated you. Instead, it went through you like heat.

“Yes,” you said. “I’m okay.”

Only then did he kiss you again.

This kiss was different. Slower. Deeper. Less like a collision and more like a decision. His mouth moved over yours with the kind of patience that made your pulse kick in frustration, like he had all night, like there were no sirens waiting in the distance, no bruises blooming beneath your skin, no ledger full of enemies, no blood drying at the edge of his collar.

Just Jason, above you.

Jason, kissing you until your cleverness dissolved completely.

His jacket hit the floor first. You pushed it off his shoulders with more force than grace, and he let you, smiling against your mouth when it caught at one wrist.

“Bossy,” he murmured.

“You like it.”

His smile flashed against your skin. “Yeah.”

The honesty in it landed harder than the teasing had.

You pulled at his shirt next, impatient with buttons, fabric, anything that kept him from you. Jason helped only when your frustration became obvious, sitting back just long enough to drag it over his head. The movement bared him to you by degrees: the broad line of his shoulders, the hard planes of his chest, the scars.

Old ones. New ones. Some pale, some angry, some so familiar-looking in their violence that your throat tightened.

You reached before you thought better of it.

Your fingers traced a line across his chest, not the worst of them, not the newest, just the one closest to your hand. Jason went still.

Immediately, you stopped. “Sorry.”

He looked down at you, and something in his face shifted. Not away from you. Not quite toward you either. Inward, maybe. Somewhere you could not follow unless he let you.

Then his hand covered yours.

“Don’t be.”

His palm was warm over your knuckles. His heartbeat moved beneath your fingertips, steady and alive and too close to miraculous for either of you to joke about.

So you didn’t.

You lifted your head and kissed the scar instead.

Jason’s breath left him all at once.

For a second, he did not move. Then his hand slid into your hair, not pulling, just holding, like he needed somewhere to put the feeling before it broke loose. When you kissed another mark, lower this time, his fingers tightened.

“Careful,” he said, voice uneven.

You looked up at him. “You first.”

Something in his expression cracked open.

Then he was kissing you again, and this time, there was nothing careful about his mouth.

He was careful with the bruises. Less careful with your lips. You liked both. You liked the contradiction of him, the control and the hunger, the way his hands could disarm a man in three seconds but trembled once at the zipper of your dress. You liked the way he paused there, waiting, until you nodded. You liked that he needed the nod. You liked that he looked wrecked by it.

The dress slipped down by inches.

Jason followed it with his mouth.

He kissed your shoulder first, right where the strap had been, then lower, where the night had left a shadow on your skin. Each bruise earned a touch so gentle it made your chest ache. Each scrape got the brush of his lips, the warmth of his breath, the silent fury of a man trying to argue with every mark violence had put on you.

“Jason,” you whispered.

His name changed something.

You felt it in the way he paused against your skin, in the way his hand flexed at your waist, in the half-second when his control faltered before he gathered it again.

“Say that again,” he said.

You should have teased him.

You really should have.

Instead, you said his name again, softer this time, and felt him shudder.

His mouth found your collarbone. Your throat. The place beneath your ear that made your entire body go tense and then loose beneath him. Your hands slid into his hair, and he made a sound against your skin that you felt more than heard.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

Not smoothly. Not like a line. Like the words had been dragged out of him against his will.

It hurt more than it should have.

You pulled him down until his weight settled over you. “You’re overdressed.”

His smile returned, brief and dangerous. “Still bossy.”

“And yet you obey.”

That got you his laugh again, but it broke when your hands moved over him, learning him in return. The strength of him. The scars. The heat. The places where his breath caught. The places where he tried, unsuccessfully, to pretend it had not.

Outside, thunder rolled over the city.

Inside, Jason bent his head and said your name.

Not Moxie.

Your real name.

You barely remembered when he had started saying it like that. Somewhere between the hallway and the bedroom, maybe. It mattered anyway. It mattered when he said it against your mouth. It mattered when he pressed it into your shoulder. It mattered when he used it like a promise, like a confession, like something he had no right to keep and wanted anyway.

Everything after that softened and sharpened at once.

The night had been all alarms and violence, all running feet and broken glass and blood under your nails. This was slower. Hotter. More dangerous in a way you had not prepared for, because Jason did not just want you. He paid attention to you. He watched your face, listened to your breath, checked in with quiet words and searching hands until you were almost angry with how much it undid you.

“You still with me?” he asked.

You touched his jaw. “Yes.”

His eyes closed briefly, like that single word had gone straight through him.

Then he kissed you through the next breath, and the next, and the next, until the storm outside felt distant compared to the one he built under your skin. You answered with your hands, your mouth, the tilt of your hips, the helpless little sounds you would deny later if anyone had the nerve to ask. Jason learned each one with ruthless attention. Worse, he remembered. He returned to every place that made you gasp, every touch that made your fingers twist in the sheets, every kiss that turned his name into something unsteady on your tongue.

By the time he moved over you again, bare skin warm against bare skin, the teasing had burned down to something quieter.

He paused.

Of course he did.

His forearm braced beside your head. His hair fell forward, damp and dark, and his eyes moved over your face as if he were trying to memorize you before the world remembered it had claims on either of you.

You touched his cheek. “Jason.”

“I know,” he said.

But his voice shook slightly.

Your heart turned over.

“Just looking,” he admitted.

The tenderness of it nearly undid you more than the hunger had.

For once, you had no armor left. No mask. No joke sharp enough to save you. There was only the warmth of him, the weight of him, the impossible gentleness in his hands after a night that had given neither of you any reason to be gentle.

You wrapped your legs around his waist and pulled him closer.

“Look later.”

Jason lay beside you with one arm under your head and the other across your waist, holding you like he was trying to pretend he was not holding on. His hair was a mess. There was a scratch near his shoulder that you were fairly certain you had left there. The bruise at his jaw had darkened, and your lipstick was long gone.

Your ring sat on the nightstand beside his.

Two mission props in a pool of warm lamplight.

You reached for his hand beneath the sheets. His fingers laced through yours immediately.

“Still awake?” you asked.

“Yeah.”

“Thinking?”

“Dangerous habit.”

“About?”

He turned his head on the pillow to look at you. Without the mask, without the suit, without the red helmet or the ballroom or the gunfire, Jason looked younger and more tired and more beautiful than was fair.

“You,” he said.

Your chest warmed. “That’s vague.”

“I’m working up to poetic.”

“Take your time.”

His thumb moved over your knuckles. “I’m thinking I should’ve asked sooner.”

You looked at him for a long moment, then shifted closer until your forehead touched his shoulder.

“You did ask me to marry you.”

He huffed. “Fake marry me.”

“You should be more specific next time.”

“Next time?”

You smiled against his skin.

Jason went quiet.

Then he reached past you toward the nightstand. You watched as he picked up your ring, turning it between his fingers. It looked smaller in his hand than it had any right to, dark stone catching the lamp light.

He did not try to put it on you.

Instead, he held it out.

“Dinner,” he said. “Tomorrow night. No masks. No aliases. Explanations first, because I heard you the first three times. Then dinner.” 

You took the ring from him.

Your fingers closed around it. “That sounds dangerously like a date.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. His voice was rougher than it needed to be. “That’s the idea.”

“And if you completely screw it up?”

“I’ll ask for another one.”

“That confident?”

“No,” he said. “That stubborn.”

You laughed softly.

He smiled at you like he had won something he did not know how to hold.

You looked down at the ring in your palm, then slid it back onto your finger yourself.

His breath caught.

“For safekeeping,” you said.

“Right.”

“And because it’s pretty.”

“Obviously.”

“And because you look like you might pass out if I don’t.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do.”

Jason rolled toward you, pinning you gently beneath him with a look that promised retaliation and probably more bruises you would enjoy explaining to no one.

“Keep talking, wife.”

The word should have felt like a joke.

It did not.

You reached up, touched the bruise on his jaw, and smiled.

“Make me, husband.”

Jason kissed you again as Gotham rumbled beyond the windows, all rain and sirens and secrets.

On the nightstand, his ring waited beside your mask. In the morning, there would be explanations, consequences, teasing from every mutual friend with a pulse, and probably at least one lecture about professionalism.

For now, there was Jason’s mouth on yours, his hand over the bought-for-cover ring, and the dangerous, wonderful realization that some covers were only lies until someone chose to keep them.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

“It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my to-”

The shake of your doorknob sobers you completely. No longer immersed in the book, but staring doom in the face. You weren’t expecting anyone. No one was supposed to be here, not at this time anyway. It was a little after one in the morning, which only meant one thing in Gotham.

Trouble.

The handle on your front door kept jangling, and you could hear the lot of them outside messing with the lock. Practically shooting off the sage couch, you dart toward your bedroom. The door shuts behind you as quickly and quietly as possible. Flipping the silver notch to lock you inside, adrenaline starts pumping through your veins. Your eyes are frantically examining all your furniture to fins the most feasible piece to block the door. In a desperate attempt at survival, you muster all the strength you can manage at 1 a.m. to push your dresser.

The dresser was ancient and colored with a faded spruce stain. Your brother had gifted it to you as one of his legendary Facebook marketplace finds.

He loved to play this game to see how much he could lowball the sellers and get away with it. After each buy, he would call you to tell you how much he managed to get discounted off. You could always hear the smirk in his voice, proud of himself and his bargaining skills. As you reminisce on the memory while pathetically shoving the dresser, you think of him.

This is exactly why he didn’t want you to get your masters at GothamU.

There was a whispering voice in your head that wanted to put off telling him about this as long as you could. You knew exactly what the phone call would sound like. The first thing he would do would be to tell you “I told you so” and the next would be him packing your bags to move you back to Central City.

The ricochet of your front door off the wall halts you in your tracks. The vibrations of the insane  force are felt through the foundations of your shitty apartment. You say a silent prayer to any deity listening when you finally manage to get your dresser to block some of the door. Your lamp next to the couch was still on and you hope their stupid enough to think that you didn’t really acre about your electric bill.

It’s only a matter of time until they realize that someone was in fact home.

Your phone lights up from your nightstand with a notification from your brother highlighting the lockscreen. That development springs you into action, finally making an attempt to ask for help. From what you could hear, there were about three of them out there. The drawers in your kitchen were being pulled off the rails, cabinets were being thrown open, books were being fanned out for extra cash.

It was a lost cause really, you were a broke master’s student who worked at the campus bookstore. They weren’t going to find much except frozen meals and too many annotations in between pages.

Tip-toeing to your phone, you hear them outside talking to themselves. What saves you is that you have a million little containers and trinkets that they’ll busy themselves with. It’ll take them at least ten minutes to rifle through and guess how valuable each of them are.

“Of course” you can’t help but mumble with shaking hands when you see the notification from him. Only Wally West would be up at 12:14 a.m. (Central City time) sending you an Instagram reel of Zuko in the leaked Avatar movie with a message that says “I can take him.”

I’ll take him in between the legs, you think to yourself as the edit plays.

Your guardian angel must have been tired of working overtime because something shatters in your kitchen, which catalyzes your self-preservation to kick in again. In spite of the fact you’re about to drop the phone with how much you’re shaking, your fingers manage to type out a message.

As much as I’d love to discuss how you cannot in fact “take him” I need your help

I totally can thank you very much But what’s up?

Someone broke into my apartment and I’m hiding out in my room

WHAT!?!?!?!

He instantly starts calling you. In any other circumstance an Instagram call would make you laugh, but right now you hit the decline button as fast as you can. The second it ends, another call comes through and you decline that one too.

Pick up the phone right now.

I can’t They’ll hear me talking Can you call 911 for me?

I mean I would love too but they’re not going to do anything You’re in GOTHAM. They’re probably dealing with a psychotic lion or something.

Your head falls back after reading the text. He’s not exactly wrong, but a very small part of you is trying to overpower the stressed one and stay calm. Tears are threatening your water line from terror, you’re positive that your heart is about to beat out of your chest. One of them keeps walking past the door as they tear apart your bookshelf and entertainment center, each footstep feels like a countdown.

You stare at your door with your heart in your throat when another text form Wally comes through.

I just texted Dick, someone’s going to be there soon For now go to your bathroom and barricade yourself inside This time when I call, you ARE going to PICK UP and sit with me in silence until someone gets there okay?

You barely finish reading the text when the green and red buttons appear on the screen again.

Instantly, your fingers go to the side of the phone to lower the volume. The only sound coming from either of you are heavy anxious breaths.

If it wasn’t for the no meta rule, you know he would already be halfway here. He’d threatened to break it multiple times on the grounds of you just having a bad day. You knew him not being here right now with this absolute disaster happening was killing him.

The quiet padding of your feet on the way to your bathroom sounded like bombs dropping to your ears.

Realistically, you knew they couldn’t hear it, but all your senses were at 110%. Every noise that came from outside of your bedroom felt like a crescendo to the climax of your worst nightmare. In a really strange and fucked up way, you were lucky. You’d been living in Gotham for a year and a half without having any real problems. It was about time to pay the piper.

Entering the bathroom, you delicately place your phone on the counter and shut the door behind you. The lights remain off while you slide down the wall. The timer of your call with Wally was the only source of light in the claustrophobic wash room. When it hits 2:07, they start trying your bedroom door. Wally hears it, the hitch in his breath obvious even on the lowest volume setting.

It’s going to be okay, I promise. They’ll be there soon.

His text only causes the tears to fall faster on your face. You just wanted tonight to be over.

Then you hear it.

The shatter of your living room window. It’s followed by a heavy set of footsteps that land on the floor. A few punches are thrown, some gunshots, and then you count three bodies falling to the floor.

The ringing in your ear is louder than you’re comfortable with and Wally speaks for the first time.

“Are you okay?”

It’s a miracle that you heard or even understood him. The broken speaker of your phone paired with his small whisper was almost impossible to make out.

“I think.” Is all you can say back.

Then there are three knock on your bedroom door that sends you flying to your feet. Phone in one hand and white-knuckling the counter with the other, every limb is shaking and your breathing hadn’t been coming out evenly for minutes. The room is spinning, and the aftershock is starting to sink in.

“Hey it’s me,” the voice comes out slightly awkward and you freeze. Recognition travels with a chill down your spine. “I took care of the them, you uh- you can come out now.”

There was like a million of the bats and bat-adjacent vigilantes in Gotham, and they sent him. Deep down when you heard the gunshots, you knew who it was. There was only one vigilante in that family that dared to go against the Batman’s gun ban. You were hoping that fate was going to give you a break, but that didn’t seem like it was in the cards tonight.

Once upon a time, this would’ve had relief washing over your body.

Wally used to bring you to some of the get togethers that the Titans held when you were younger. Then, thinking like a true older brother, Dick used to drag Jason along with him.

Safe to say, you both became fast friends.

You would talk about everything that came to your mind. Books, games, shoes, stuff going on in your lives, anything you could think of. Sometimes when you both got bored, you would sneak away to play video games in Wally’s room at the tower. Jason would always help you beat the levels you were stuck on in your latest save.

But, nothing perfect lasts forever.

Everything dampened when he died. It was awful to put it plainly. When he came back, it was almost worse. He changed so drastically, you almost didn’t believe that this was the same boy who gave you a forty five minute rant on why Jo was never meant for Laurie.

You couldn’t blame him for what he became, the experience was horrifyingly unique. Yet, you don’t think you’ll ever forget the last time you spoke.

It was a stupid argument in hindsight.

Dick had come to you one night, begging for you to try to get through to him. Apparently they all had given their best efforts into attempting to talk to him, and you were the last line of offense.

That was a year and a half ago.

A hesitant call of your name through the door takes you out of the memory flashing behind your eyes.

“Yeah,” your voice squeaks out with a cringe following. You didn’t realize how small it was going to sound. “I-I’ll be out, just give me a sec.”

Turning back to your phone, your throat bobs with a heavy swallow. “I’m all good Wall,” there’s a sound of relief coming through the speakers. It was almost as if he had been holding his breath for the entire three minutes of the phone call.

“Who’s with you?” The question was immediate. He heard the gunshots, he knew as well as you did who was here.

“Um,” your eyes dart up from his horrific contact photo to the door and then back down to the picture again, “Jason’s here.”

The silence from the other end of the phone was palpable. Wally knew how bad the last argument you and Jason had stung. He was the one who sat on the phone with you after. Blinking back the emotions, you steel yourself for what’s awaiting in your apartment.

You’re a big girl, you can handle this. You’ve handled worse than a shitty ex-best friend.

“I’m going to hang up now, okay?” Your hands are starting to shake again. “I gotta figure out how bad the damage is, I’ll text you with the updates.”

He could hear the words rushing to leave your mouth, a pathetic attempt at convincing yourself this was fine.

“Do you want me to come? I will, give me like ten minutes- fifteen tops, and I’ll be there. All you have to do is ask.”

You knew he would do it too, the reassurance was unnecessary. The gravity in his tone almost made you fall into the temptation. There was nothing you wanted more right now than for your brother to be here. He would know how to handle this. He would know how to wrangle Gotham vigilante’s and tell them to go to Hell.

Your strive for independence was going to be the death of you one day.

“I think I’m okay for now, but I’ll call if I need backup.”

“Okay,” a hint of defeat is mixed in with the sigh. “Well I doubt I’ll be sleeping much after this, so please just text me with what ends up happening.”

“I promise,” and because you know he’ll lose his mind all night you ask him for a different type of help. “If you want to make yourself useful, go back to scrolling on reels and send me some that I can watch later.”

“Aye Aye boss,” You can almost hear his smug grin when he gets a snort out of you. “I love you, I’ll talk to you later.”

“I love you too Wally.” When the line goes dead you hold the phone to your chest for a moment. Even with the levels of annoying you’re sure only Wally could reach, you truly could not have asked for a better brother. He always dropped whatever he was doing if you needed him.

Savoring the last moment of peace you had from the rest of the world, you lean against the counter and try to catch your breath. You were going to have to confront the disaster that was your apartment. The devil on your shoulder was contemplating to just leave it for tomorrow, but the angel reminded you that your book was out there.

Mustering up the final ounces of courage left in your stomach, you unlock the door to the bathroom. Thankfully the sanctuary that was your bedroom remained untouched, except for the dresser propped against your door.

The dresser was heavier than you remember it being a few minutes ago. Adrenaline strength truly unlocks a version of potential you didn’t know you had. The effort it takes to give you a clearing, leaves red imprints of the design on your palms. Your hand hovers over the doorknob, hesitation plain on your fingers. You were going to have to see him, you were going to have to confront him after seventeen months of no contact.

Left hand at your side, you crack each knuckle with your thumb before opening the door. Not letting yourself think too hard, it swings wide open. And there he is.

He was on one knee flipping the coffee table back over. His hands were filled with a bunch of the trinkets that made their home on it. When he hears the door open, his head whips in your direction. The air in the room depletes when the white slits of the mask meet your eyes. Both of you frozen, staring at each other with a decade of history lingering in a glance.

Uncomfortable with the silence, you start cracking the knuckles of your right hand.

You might as well have activated a sleeper agent with the movement. He suddenly remembers where he is, and shoots to his feet. Carefully cupping his hands, he moves to drop your belongings back on the table.

Peeling your eyes off his devastatingly gorgeous frame, you find the three robbers tied together hanging off your fire escape.

“I’m waiting on Dick.” His voice is gravelly and a bit panicked. In the back of your mind, you note that he turned off the modulator. “He’s on his way to pick them up and take them to the station.”

You don’t trust yourself to speak, so you hum in reply.

Examining your apartment, it wasn’t as bad as you expected. Despite the few broken pieces of decor, the glass littered all over your living room from where Jason made his dramatically grand entrance, and your stuff being thrown everywhere, you were pretty lucky.

Noticing the way your eyes caught on the glimmering pieces of glass off the floor, he starts anxiously adjusting the cuffs of his jacket.

“I’m sorry about the window.” He’s rolled and unrolled the cuff of his left sleeve three times by the time he manages to speal. “I was in a rush and it seemed the fastest way in, I’ll pay for someone to fix it tomorrow.”

“I would hope so.” The answer came out like a reflex. You bite back the grimace fighting your features. You hadn’t even thanked him for the help before pouring gasoline on the fire.

He doesn’t say anything, yet his shoulders tense. Somewhere deep in places his pride won’t let him admit, he knew he deserved it, and that was enough of a punishment for you. He had to live with himself at the end of the day, what more could you ask for?

A clang on your fire escape steals your attention. Next thing you know, you’re being tackled in a bone crushing hug. If the blur of blue and black spandex didn’t’ give it away, the hints of Tom Ford cologne certainly did.

The hug is merely a second long before he pulls back and holds you at your shoulders.

“Good to see that you’re doing alright kid.” A grin is pulling at his face, but you can see the tension in his build. Wally had trusted Dick with this- with his family. That wasn’t an easy thing for anyone to do. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself if something happened.

“Yeah I’m fine,” You try to laugh but it comes out weak. “I was overdue on my Gotham initiation anyway.”

 The dominos mask hides it, but by the subtle shake of his head you can tell there was an eyeroll that went along with it.

He lets go of your shoulders and you look back at the dump that was now your apartment. Jason and Dick hold each other’s gazes silently. They were speaking in the silence with movements you pretended to ignore.

You’re scratching your eyebrow when Dick starts, “Hey um, where are you staying tonight?”

Hand falling from your face, you turn to him. “What do you mean?”

Confused, he looks from you to Jason, then back to you.

“You know you can’t stay here for a few days right?” His head cocks to the side. “The cops have to come, investigate, tape it off, and we need to get someone to fix your window.”

Your eyelids blink slowly. You weren’t tired by any means, but tonight just got a hell of a lot longer. None of your friends were going to be awake and you would rather sleep under the bridge than try a hotel in Gotham you could afford.

“Fuck.” The curse barely audible when it leaves falls off your tongue.

“I mean,” Dick starts with a shrug of the shoulders. “You’re more than welcome to stay at the manor. Bruce won’t mind”

Jason’s neck snaps to Dick, the white slits of the hood widen a bit before narrowing again.

“I mean this with the upmost respect.” Your hand lays flat against your heart. “I would rather chew rocks.”

You weren’t sure how long you would need to try and find somewhere to stay, but you wanted to avoid the manor at all costs. You’d had the luxury of visiting a few times, but it always felt awkward. It was too big for you, and you really didn’t want to feel like an imposition.

Dick and Jason both snort at your reply. Both of them knew how you felt about the manor. It was breath taking, but it wasn’t somewhere you wanted to sleep in, especially for multiple nights.

“I’ll figure something out,” you sound unsure even to yourself. “I’ll just find some couches to surf for a while.”

“Yeah no, try again West.” Jason finally decides to speak for the first time since his brother’s arrival.

Your neck snaps in his direction and a fire lights behind your eyes, daring him to repeat himself. He had no right to tell you what you could, and couldn’t do. His opinions meant jack shit to you.

“Sorry kiddo,” Dick’s domino mask expands a miniscule amount, but still enough to notice. He looks like he’s been tasked to negotiate the terms of a peace treaty before World War 3 breaks out. “Wally entrusted us with your safety, which means we have to know that where you’re staying is at least somewhat protected.”

Understanding dawns on you in a cruel shiver up your spine. The second option about to be presented to you was dangling like a rotten carrot on a stick.

“It’s the manor or Jason’s place.”

Your jaw drops and you meet the latter’s gaze. The damn mask betraying no emotion, you however, don’t miss the little fidget of his foot. Your eyes narrow in between the boys.

“So what? My choices are the fourth or fifth circle of Hell?”

“C’mon the manor’s not that bad.” Dick tries to reason with you.

“Jason’s place is.”

He doesn’t deny it. No one does.

You should’ve chosen the manor, every nerve in your body was telling you that was the reasonable choice. Dick would be there for a few days, there was other life there. Yet, It was just too much and it was too far. Your commute to class would double and you liked your alone time too much to give it up.

Swallowing your pride, you turn to the boy you longer knew with a deadpan. “When do we leave?”

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

Jason’s apartment was surprisingly clean.

His apartment was embracing the minimalist aesthetic. He had never been one for many material goods because of how he was raised. That never changed, even after all the years he lived with Bruce.

The living room, where you were currently sitting, had barely anything inhabiting the space. The couch was dark and worn with some cracks in the leather, the entertainment center was a simple stand made of oak with a glass cabinet on the bottom, the TV was rested on top of it, a floor lamp next to the couch, and the last piece was by far the liveliest- his bookshelf.

It took up about half the wall. Every shelf littered with different genres. It was almost too personal to examine. Some books you recognized and some you didn’t. An odd wave of sadness washes over you when you see some books you’d never heard him talk about. It was still strange to you on some days that you were no longer in each other’s lives.

You knew he was out and about in Gotham, but your paths never crossed. Whether that was by design or some level of mercy, you never knew.

He was on the news at least once a week. It felt like cheating no contact, but you couldn’t help yourself. It was the one indulgence you allowed yourself, to know that he was still alive and working with the bats. This way you didn’t feel guilty about holding the grudge for as long as you did.

You’d been staring at the same page for fifteen minutes. The first line of the chapter was permanently engraved in your mind because of how many times you’d read it.

“Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?”

For your Women in Literature class, you chose Frankenstein as the novel you were going to be analyzing in your paper. The assignment was to find a topic from a book and write fifteen pages about it in MLA format. It was an interesting class, but fifteen pages felt like overkill, it was double-spaced at the very least.

This was your third reread of the book this semester.

The first read was to familiarize yourself with the novel, the second was to piece together the paper, and this one was to find the evidence after you’d started the rough draft. It felt fitting that you were using a green highlighter for the evidence.

Sleep never came easy to you, and you had tried essentially everything. All the medicines, the teas, a warm glass of milk, counting sheep, all of it. At one point your doctors and family members suggested reading, which was probably the worst thing they could’ve said.

The last suggestion ended up with you staying awake all night with a book in hand.

Which is exactly what you were doing now. It was around four in the morning, Jason had brought you back to his apartment and then went back on patrol. He still hadn’t returned, but you weren’t complaining.

The less you had to interact with him the better.

In a pathetic attempt to finally turn the page, you start to read again. Making it to the third sentence on the page, you start to finally get immersed in the story again when-

The window slides open.

Your hands drop the book in shock and it clatters on the floor. Alarmed, Jason turns to you already prepared for a fight, forgetting that you were staying with him.

“What’re you doing awake?” He sounds truly baffled that you hadn’t managed to fall asleep. His hands move to the back of his mask and there’s a quiet hissing sound before it unlatches. He examines it for a second, checking for damage. Then his fingers slowly uncurl from the edge and it falls to the floor.

“I couldn’t sleep.” You answer with a bite that didn’t fit your current state. You had stolen one of his mugs and warmed up some milk, bundled in a blanket on the couch, and had been reading under the lamp. “What the hell is it with you and the damn window?”

“It’s my place, I can use whatever entrance I want.” He turns to you with an annoyed look now. Your attitude seemed to finally start pricking at him. “I also didn’t think you’d be waiting up on me.”

“I wasn’t waiting up on you.” The answer comes out way too defensive for your liking.

“Whatever you wanna tell yourself sweetheart,” he mumbles and you scoff at him. You were starting to miss the quiet Jason that found you in your apartment.

He bends down to pick up your copy of Frankenstein and flips it around in his hands a few times. Looking back up at you, he raises a brow and you cross your arms.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs and tosses the book back in your lap.

“You obviously got something you wanna say Todd.” Rolling your eyes, you flick your left hand at him. “Go on, spit it out.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes at you and you want to pluck them out of their eye sockets. “It’s nothing, I’m just surprised you’re reading Frankenstein.”

“Why? Because I’m ordinary, because I’m not one of you?”

The words land right where you wanted them too, right in the center of his chest. His lips thin and you can see the flex of his jaw as it tightens. It was a terrible echo of the fight you’d had all those months ago. It was petty, but you’d been waiting to throw it back in his face one day.

“No,” his voice comes out softer than you were expecting, and his throat bobs while he tries to swallow his guilt. “I was just surprised because you didn’t read classics before. You used to ask me about them because you didn’t like the writing style.”

“Yeah, well things change Jason.” Your gaze doesn’t waver from his, even when he momentarily breaks away to look at his boots in shame. “People change.”

He knew that better than anyone.

With that, he glances back up to you. All the tension, all the anger, it was bleeding into the few feet between you.

“I’m going to go shower.” The sentence sounds distant from his body, as if he was just speaking into a void instead of ending the conversation.

You nod and purse your lips before picking up your phone. He stays there for a moment watching you as you attempt to look busy with swiping through the weather and notes app.

When he finally steps away into his room to head to the bathroom, you throw your head back on the armrest of the couch.

This was going to be a long week.

Dread takes over you, when the shower shuts off. You’d been trying to watch the five million Instagram reels that Wally sent you, but there was no hope in being able to focus enough to really watch them. Your brain was hyper focused on where Jason was in the apartment. He left the door to his bedroom open, so you see him pass from the bathroom to his dresser in nothing but a towel.

Your eyes may have been on your phone, but your concentration was on him.

There’s some shuffling in his room, movement of blankets you think, before he appears in the doorframe. You refused to look up until he cleared his throat awkwardly.

By some miracle you were able to hide the way your breath caught in your throat. It was unfair how he could be such an asshole and still look like that. His hair was damp, curling at the ends in a beautiful frame of his face. He had thin rimmed glasses that hung on the bridge of his nose, highlighting the piercing green of his eyes. He was in plaid pajama pants that were a smidge too tight around his thighs and ass. There was a cotton white t-shirt on that left little room for imagination as it clung to his arms and torso from where he hadn’t dried himself off completely.

The crush you had on him at fourteen was slowly becoming more valid in this light, but you would rather die than admit that out loud.

The most damning part about the whole scene was what he was holding. Tucked under his left arm was a pillow and a blanket under the right one.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other before finally admitting. “The bed’s been made.”

Your eyebrows furrow together. What the hell was he on about? Did he think you were going to sleep in the bed with him.

“Um- okay? Do you want me to congratulate you for making your bed at the ripe age of- what 22? 23?” Your phone drops face down onto the blanket you were covering yourself with. “I mean I know Alfred used to make it for you. I’m not sure how big of a feat this is.”

“I’m 23.” His expression falls to an unimpressed expression. He licks his lips slowly for a moment as if he’s using it to ground himself, and you hate that you catch it. You were learning things you didn’t want to know about yourself tonight. When his eyes shut in that annoyed manner and his tongue swept across his lower lip, the way your stomach coiled terrified you.

“I’ve made my bed before West,” The heat in your stomach only intensified at him calling you by your last name, leading your heart to sink a second later. “I was telling you, so you could get in it.”

“And why would I do that?”

His eyebrow is mirroring yours now, raised with confusion at a lack of communication. “Because I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Why are you sleeping on the couch?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

You blink once, twice, then, “this is your place, you remember that right?”

Frustrated with the fact you would do anything just to fight him, he tosses the blanket and pillow to the unoccupied side of the couch.

“Oh my god-” He runs a hand through his hair and your eyes linger on every line of every muscle in his bicep. Thankfully, you manage to break away from the distraction before he realizes. “I’m trying to be nice and give you the bed. Did you think I was going to offer you a place to stay and make you sleep on this shitty couch?”

“The couch isn’t shitty.”

His hand drops from his hair, and while he doesn’t say it, you can hear the deadpanned “really?” that he was defiantly thinking.

The couch was old and thoroughly used. You could feel every spring in it on the bone of your ass, the cushion was flat, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the type of sofa that would be at your grandparent house because they refused to throw it out. You’d been subjected to worse sleeping arrangements than Jason’s thrift find.

“It’s not that bad Jason.”

“I wouldn’t even subject Tim to sleeping on this couch.”

That earns him a snort. He seems to celebrate the small win as something like a bridge between you two. Noticing the crease disappearing in his eyebrows and his shoulder relaxing, you catch yourself. It was always too easy for Jason to undo you, he knew the exact weak points to hit in order to break down your walls.

It flipped a switch in you, immediately tensing up again, and he noticed. He always did. He gives up trying to fight you on getting to the bed and takes his place on the other end of the couch.

“What’re you doing…?” The sentence is dragged out of you, exhaustion from the day slowly overtaking the anxiety that was keeping you up.

“Putting on the TV.” He said it so simply while picking up the remote from the coffee table, it was as if this was normal for the both of you.

“Why?” The question escapes you before you can swallow it. A flush creeps over your face, suddenly self-aware of all the questions you’d been asking.

He doesn’t seem to notice the pink now dusting the tips of your ears- well, if he does he doesn’t comment on it. He only shrugs and logs into Dick’s streaming services that he has a profile on. “It helps me unwind after the night. Having something on in the background distracts me enough that it makes it easier to fall asleep.”

He starts scrolling through his account while you nod at his response.

“Jason?”

“Mhm.”

“Why is Sex and the City in your recently watched?”

His cheeks deepen to a color dangerously similar to the hood he dons every night, his freckles disappearing under the blush. He coughs to hide the fluster and pushes his glasses back up his nose.

“It was part of a deal I made with Steph,” he mumbles, skipping right over it. “When I started talking to them all again, she made me start watching it with her. Every Friday night I would come over after patrol and watch two episodes together. It was nicknamed as my “anger management” work for me to try and survive two episodes without getting frustrated with one of them.”

“Uh huh,” every thing you learned about his new life was more shocking than the last. “And how’d that go?”

“About as well as you’d expect.”

Who was this and what did they do with Jason Todd.

“That doesn’t explain why it’s still in your recently watched, though. You said you watched this with Steph, why are you on season three on your profile?”

He grumbles something unintelligible while looking through the other show options he has.

“Objectively… it’s an okay show.”

It takes all your strength not to break out in a laugh. “Just okay?”

He hears you smothering the giggle and meets your gaze. Despite his face drowning in pink, he still puts on a brave face. “I put it on after patrol sometimes. Is that what you wanted to hear? It doesn’t matter what fucked shit is happening to me, Carrie somehow always manages to take the cake in the shit show competition.”

“Well then, don’t let me stop you from your routine.”

His lips press together when the words leave your mouth. “I’ll pass thanks.”

“Why?” Your response came out more lighthearted than you’d planned on. This situation felt like an old normal you were no longer familiar with.

“You’re laughing at me that’s why.”

“I’m going to laugh either way.” You tease. “Might as well commit to the bit now.”

He stares at you for a few seconds. You don’t think anything of it, but he’s drinking in this version of you. A version that he thought no longer existed anymore. The version of you that trusted him.

He knows it’s not completely there, but this brought him hope. He didn’t think you were going to be doing much speaking through the week. Just this interaction was more than he could’ve dreamed for. He knew now that there was something he could work toward, that maybe there could be a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the sun would shine on you both again.

So, not taking advantage of the smile pulling at your lips, he turns on the show. He’d turn himself into the biggest idiot if it meant you would look at him like that again. He would embarrass himself in every lifetime, every universe, every dimension if it meant he got to witness your smile one more time.

And with Carrie talking about how Big is leaving his wife, your eye lids begin to flutter. Jason, acting as a protective presence opposite of you, allows you the comfort you’d been looking for. Finally, you’re able to drift into a world that wasn’t so haunted.

Once your breathing evened out, Jason acted quickly. He picked you up bridal style and carried you to the bed you seemed determined to not sleep in. He tucks you in with the blankets cascading around you. Standing up to his full height, he takes one last look at you and makes a promise.

A promise that he’ll work every day to become someone worth trusting again.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

Most nights were like the first one.

You would come home from class or work and then make a home on the squeaky couch. Jason would be out and about running on errands or at the auto shop he picked shifts up at. Neither of you spoke much through the day, he left you to have your much needed alone time.

Then at night, after patrol he’d crawl in through the window and you would sit on the couch together. Some nights it was awkward with not much talking, other nights it was a weird in-between of what normal used to mean for you two.

You hadn’t forgotten the fight, it still stung most days.

You knew it wasn’t easy for him to come back. You weren’t so naïve. He had crawled out of his grave, was dunked in the Lazarus pit, fought in the league of assassins, and was still trying to find a place in the world.

It didn’t erase all the hurt however.

On the fourth night he looked at you over the rim of his glasses.

“How’d you like it?”

Glancing up from your laptop, your eyebrows threaded together.

“How’d I like what?”

“Frankenstein,” he closes the book he was reading, Six of Crows- a recommendation from you. “You finished it the other day right?”

“Oh,” It sounded dumb but you hadn’t realized he was paying that much attention. “Yeah, I did. That’s not the first time I’ve read it though.”

“Oh,” he repeats. The vowel comes out in a breath from his mouth. “What’d ya think of it?”

“I liked it, I always liked the story. I’m reading it for a paper I’m writing for my Women in Literature class.”

He nods, accepting the answer. Still wanting specifics on your opinion, he continues to press. “What’s the paper on?”

“Basically,” you start out ready to summarize the topic in the same way you did for everyone. “It’s about how Frankenstein can be interpreted as autobiographical for Mary Shelley, and an expression of her experience as a child bleeding into the challenges she faced with motherhood.”

Your voice was robotic as you explained it to him. Countless of your classmates had asked you about your paper trying to get an idea for their own, and they all dismissed it. Despite it being a Women in Literature’s class it was a required elective, and unfortunately, you got stuck with one too many men who pitied the unreliable narrator.

Jason, however, surprised you.

He cocked his head to the side, barely shifting it to a thirty degree angle. “I… I hadn’t thought about it that way.” His face contorted together, the small dimple on his chin making an appearance as he actually thought about your analysis. “I’ll admit I don’t know much about Mary Shelley, despite that her husband seemed to be somewhat decent since he let her publish the novel, which is more than you can say for most men those days.”

“Somewhat decent is pushing it,” your tone was laced with disgust. “He was a cheater. He cheated on his first wife with Mary, and then cheated on her with her cousin.”

Jason’s eyes were wide and he shut his mouth as fast as he could. Biting his cheeks, he’s making his best effort to avoid saying something that would inadvertently piss you off. he had just managed to get civil with you and he didn’t want to waste it.

“What parts of the book are you using for the paper?” He was giving it his best effort to redirect the conversation so you would be in a good mood again.

“It’s a lot of the inner monologue for both the Creature and Victor.” You shrugged, going back to typing the outline. “In spite of there not being a lot of notable female characters, with the exception of Elizabeth, it had a lot of underlying feminine issues. Victor essentially goes through postpartum depression and rejects the creature. A lot of people also believe that the Creature remains nameless because she had a miscarriage at the time and didn’t name the baby. So the creature can be seen kind of like the child she lost, but also as herself. Since Victor went through life with a rejected creator, essentially on his own, it can be loosely interpreted as a mirror of her childhood. Her mother died when she was young and she was generally depressed like the Creature.”  

You hadn’t realized how long you had been rambling for until you finished. Your lips pressed together, almost biting them in the wake of your words running from you. Jason’s face remained a carefully crafted neutral expression, but he wasn’t as successful as he wanted to be. You didn’t miss the subtle twitches in his jaw, the way the last part cut deeper into him than anyone you knew.

Jason Todd who had an addict as a mother.

Jason Todd who gave his everything into being Robin.

Jason Todd who was failed by the world.

And in spite of it all, came back.

He could relate to this monster of a being more than anyone knew. So, when he listens to you talk about it as an innocent thing, as something who was a victim of the world that created him, something broke in him. Because now, there was hope you would look past all his wrongs, to see him as a man trying his best, instead of the monster fate was determined to make him to be.

He nods and by some miracle, makes more conversation with you about the paper and then you shift into a comfortable silence. A couple hours later when he’s transitioning to the nighttime routine, he takes you in.

He knew the week would be over soon. You would go back to your apartment and probably never look in his direction again. He wouldn’t take advantage of this- of you looking at him like the past few years hadn’t happened. That he hadn’t destroyed the only good thing in his life.

Eventually, Sex and the City comes on. It’s as if the universe finally took pity on him and gave him another miracle, letting you got comfortable in his presence. You started talking through the show, shitting on something- he wasn’t sure what.

His heart stopped when he heard the same scoff you used to do when you both watched Mission Impossible. He could practically hear the mumble, ingrained in his memory.

“There’s no way they would get away with this in real life.”

He didn’t move a muscle as you spoke, save for the few encouraging grunts or hums of agreement.

Jason Todd hated when people spoke through movies. He liked to sit, digest it, then talk about after, but he never minded it when it was you.

That’s actually how Dick discovered his crush on you when you were teenagers. He walked by his room and peaked in through the door frame. You were watching some romcom and you had spoken more dialogue through the scene then the film had in general. He was expecting Jason to blow a fuse, but it never came.

Dick teased him relentlessly for days.

He couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed, or care though. He would listen to you talk about anything and everything. Jason Todd would spend every night bleeding dry on the Gotham streets if it meant he got to come home and listen to the harmony of your voice. In those dying seconds he had left in that warehouse, his last thought was of every voicemail he’d never receive.

So now, here on this couch, he absorbs every word, carving it into stone. Every syllable from your mouth was like a recitation of the Bible to him, you were holy.

He didn’t think he’d ever be granted this luxury again. For now, he’ll take what he can get and maybe one day this could be his normal again.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

As if the past three nights were on replay, you fell asleep before him. He sighs in relief when he notices your eyes close and breath even out. Like every other night, he takes you back to the bed even if you’re determined to take the couch.

The next few nights are also the same. Small domestic moments highlighted by his flickering light bulb and uncharacteristic pleasure of 90s chick flicks.

It had become habit to wait for him to come through the window. You usually were up until this time anyway. Whether it was nightmares, small anxieties that kept you up, or just your general inability to fall asleep, you were up at all hours of the night.

It was weird. You weren’t expecting to feel any comfort in this apartment, you were prepared for the exact opposite actually. Yet, in his stupidly charming Jason way, he managed to make you smile. He got you to laugh. He cooked enough for two even when you said you weren’t hungry.

It was surprisingly peaceful.

Until the last night.

All the butterflies dropped to the pit of your stomach in seconds when he barreled in through the window.

Covered in blood.

His breath was coming out heavy and jagged. He was flat on his ass, arms and legs spread out as if he was cosplaying a starfish who had just gone to war.

“Jason-”

You’re not exactly sure how the words leave your mouth. Laptop forgotten, shoved off your lap onto the couch. Your legs carry you just far enough until you can drop to your knees next to him.

“I-” he coughs. “I’m alright.” His arm wraps around his midsection trying to press on the giant wound that went straight down from his left pectoral to waistline.

“Alright?” He winces at your incredulous tone. “Jason please, you can barely hold your head up.”

The clock had barely struck two, which was never a good sign. If he ever came home early, it was due to some catastrophic injury.

“You shouldn’t be up at this time anyway.” He somehow manages to get out in one breath, wincing again when his hand presses on his torso.

Pointedly ignoring the comment, you help him to his feet. Silence overtakes you two when you help him to the bathroom. He sits on the lid of the toilet. His head leaning against the wall behind it.

Deep, slow breaths are coming from his nose and mouth. A part of you hopes that it’s to calm himself and that he’s not fighting for his consciousness.

That is not a phone call you want to be making tonight.

He sheds the jacket, then the shirt. You’re left with a bloody bruised Jason whose red in the face. He’s staring at you with no hope, ready for you to walk away, to decide that it’s too much.

It’s quiet when you step out the bathroom to the little half closet. It’s quiet when you grab a hand towel and walk back in. The only sound now echoing through the apartment being the water pouring from the faucet onto the grey towel when you wet it.

You finally break the silence, when you sit on the edge of the bathtub. The wound getting uglier by the second, your hand hovers it, right before contact.

“This is going to hurt.” It’s barely a whisper, yet in this room, it could’ve been a scream.

He chuckles and it’s half concerning, half reassuring. “Do your worst darlin’”

The nickname does something to you, and your face flushes.

The towel makes contact with his skin and he hisses. Your hand doesn’t move, letting him adjust to the sting. Then with a small nod, you continue the first cleaning. Once all the grime is scrubbed away, you find the first aid kit in the cabinet under the sink. The antiseptic is next, then the gauze, then the tape.

It took a little longer than thirty minutes to get him patched up. He’d have to see someone to get it properly looked at tomorrow, but this would be okay for now.

You couldn’t ignore the way he was looking at you the whole time. His eyes were swimming with guilt, pain, and something else you weren’t sure you wanted to name.

When you’re finally done, you stand to your full height. He’s looking up at you now from where he’s sitting. Both of you don’t pay mind to the biohazard on the floor next to you, just simply getting lost in each other again.

So much more was said in the quiet of the bathroom than in the past week you’ve been here. It feels like you’re seeing each other again for the first time in the fluorescent bathroom light. It was as if something clicked for you two.

“You’re not fourteen anymore you know that right?” You’re still looking in between his emerald green irises when you start to mumble. “You can’t jump straight into a fight and crash through my window expecting me to patch you up.”

His eyes are half lidded, squinting in disbelief, like he isn’t sure if this is real. That you’re here and teasing him.

“But you patch me up so well.” His voice is a low rumble, words meshing together out of delirium and exhaustion. “It’s also technically my window.”

A snort comes out of your nose along with a roll of your eyes.

“Let’s get you to bed big guy.” You start to hook his arm over your shoulder and he breaks into a sly smile.

“You think I’m big?”

“Yes.”

A small pout appears on his face when you won’t play this game with him. As much as you loved a good round of teasing, you were far too stressed to try and keep up with it right now. Your goal for the evening was to get him to the bed alive and make sure he doesn’t die.

Again.

After he lies down, you sit next to him on the bed with your legs crossed. He’s bound to fall asleep any moment now, but you want to keep his eyes open a little longer. It was part in worry and part selfishness. This way you could make sure he was actually okay by the time he drifted off while also getting to stare into the eyes that you used to feel like home.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology snaps you out of your daze. It’s the first coherent sentence he’s managed since busting through the window.

“It’s alright.” Your hands shake while you try to wave it off. “This is hardly the first time you’ve shown up beaten and bruised needing a cleanup.”

He came to you as much as he could to patch him up when you were younger. You’d had enough practice patching Wally up that he trusted you.

“No, I’m sorry about what I said to you that night.” Your veins turn to ice. “I was an asshole. You were trying to be nice and I pushed you away. That wasn’t fair to you.”

He takes a deep breath.

“I was a mess when I crawled out of my grave, the pit wasn’t a big help either. I was so angry with the world, upset that it brought me back.” His eyes lay on the popcorned roof now. “I was even more pissed that the world hadn’t changed while I was gone, it was still the same shit. I was horrible to everything and everyone. I… I lost my way.”

“You were the only good thing left here.” His eyes are back on you now. “When you came to see me, it scared me. It was like you saw right through me and everything I didn’t want to deal with was rising in my chest. I couldn’t handle it. So, I said some nasty shit to get you to go away. It was disgusting of me and it’s my biggest regret in this and every life I’ll ever live. I’ll never forgive myself for it. In a way, it felt easier to stay in that angry hole than to grow.”

You weren’t sure how you kept your breath even, it was like every time you managed some oxygen, it was robbed from you.

“Eventually though, I finally started getting help and wanted to get better. I’ve been trying every day to be better than who I was. To be someone who could be something. I don’t want you to think that these are excuses, they’re not.” His eyes are so conflicted, he can’t read your reaction and it’s terrifying him. “I just wanted you to know, I guess. If you never want to talk to me again, I completely understand. I’ll never bother you and I’ll leave you to your life.”

There’s a pause and your heart sinks.

“But if there’s a chance you’d be willing to try again, I had to give it a shot. I’ll spend every day making sure you know I’m serious about this. I’ll do it all this time. I’ll take you to dinner, I’ll give you your space, I’ll bake you cookies every Sunday night just like you always wanted.” His breathing pattern is broken and it shudders when he tries to breathe in.

You couldn’t bring yourself to speak. Your hands begun tracing the web of scars on his chest. A fingernail along the constellation he had over his heart. He shuddered, the intimacy of seeing him like this was almost as difficult as the vulnerability in the apology.

Eventually your hand lays flat on his chest, feeling the warmth. Your palm was right over his heart, it was beating a little quicker than normal but it was your favorite rhythm. His thumb and pointer finger wrap around your wrist. It was a loose grip, you could break out whenever and he kept it that way, but it was still strong enough that you could feel the hope behind it when he says,

“Stay.”

Your head whips back to him and desperation is written across his forehead.

There was still so much you had to talk about, so much you needed to get through. But right now, when he’s looking at you like you’re the most important person on the planet, you can’t stop yourself from indulging.

He watches you walk to the other side of the bed. His breath catches in his throat when you pull back the covers. He starts to believe in love again when you scoot closer to him.  

His eyes are on yours when you make eye contact again, mere centimeters apart.

“I’m sorry.” He repeats again. And this time, you know it.

You know he’ll spend the rest of his life making up for seventeen months.

Your hand rests on his cheek and he leans into it. His eyes close and he breathes in the feeling. You’re not entirely shocked when his arms are pulling you into him. The rest of the night passes with him whispering sweet nothings into your ear.

And for the first time all week, you both fall asleep together.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

Bonus:

Once he’s finished his own patrol, Dick Grayson appears at his little brother’s window.

Jason had disappeared after the fight in the middle of patrol. They knew he had gotten hurt but he said he would patch himself up at home. Bruce was fighting an aneurysm, trying to keep him safe but not push him out of his comfort zone. When Jason cut his comms, Bruce almost tore the apartment door from its hinges, but Dick convinced him that he would drop by and check on him.

What he finds however, renders him speechless.

Jason was in bed with the one person he thought was going to buy him a one way ticket to his grave again. His arm was wrapped protectively around your waist, almost in fear of letting you go. Even in a state of crippling pain, you were always his priority.

At the heartwarming scene, Dick has one thought that turns his body to ice.

Wally is going to kill him.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

A/N: Sorry guys I got kind of lazy with the ending but I hope you like it anyway! I’m really tired and wanted to finally get this out lol

You thank Gwen for setting the bathroom up as you step inside and make quick work of shedding your clothes and stepping into the hot water. It does little to shake the sleep from your body, but with no time to linger in the water, you wash, then step out to dry and slip on the robe that rests on the counter. 

When you step back into your room, you sit at the vanity so Gwen can braid and pin your hair into a style suitable for the dress chosen and Ira can apply just enough makeup to enhance your features. You stare at a spot on the wall and let your mind go blank while they fuss over you. This was always the part of the day you dread–it made you feel like a doll being dressed to appease everyone else but yourself. 

Once dressed into an exquisite dress that leaves you quite literally breathless due to the corset that's cinched to the tightest it could go, you step into the matching ballet flats as Ira and Gwen take their leave while Alice stays behind, like always. 

“Please remember to mind your attitude with His and Her Majesty.” She brushes a curl that rested awkwardly on your shoulder to flow down the expanse of your back.

“I think I know how to handle my own mother and father,” you whisper back with a smile on your face. Alice had spent a lot of time with you growing up and she's become somewhat of a second mother–always doting over you, reminding you, and most importantly: listening, something your own mother chooses not to do at times.  

“I also know how you can be when Her Majesty makes decisions that you don’t agree with.”

“Because they’re always decisions about my life that I don't get a choice in. It's not fair.”

“I know it's not, but it's the price to pay for the castle you live in and the title you have.” 

“I didn’t ask to pay the price. I didn’t choose this bargain,” You say feeling that heat your chest lighting to life like a hearth. 

Alice, always calm as ever, runs a hand down your arm. “I know,” she whispered, “Just please, keep that fiery personality you have to a minimum.”

You relent with a quiet sigh, “Okay, I’ll try.”

She smiles and rushes you out the door to walk through the familiar castle halls and to the study room where your parents await your arrival. After 10 minutes of navigating, you stop in front of the solid wooden door that remains closed, then rasp your knuckles loud enough to catch the attention of your parents. 

“Come in!” 

The door lets out a loud creak as you open it and you step inside the familiar room. The large desk in the middle takes up the expanse of the room, with bookshelves lined with books on the shelves. Your mother and father sit on the opposite side of the desk as you take the plush seat across. 

“Good morning,” You say with as much confidence as you can muster in this moment. It’s not often they call you into formal settings like this. 

“Hello, my dear.” You’ve always been closer with your father even since a young age–your mother always expected so much from you and felt more like a tutor than a mom. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m okay, just mildly tired.”

“Stayed up late reading again?” 

You smile sheepishly, “Yes, maybe a little bit.”

Your father smiles at you from his seat, but when you glance at your mother, she wears an almost bored expression on her face, like she can’t imagine staying up through the night to read words off a page. “We needed to speak to you about what you’ve chosen to put off for years.” 

Her words immediately make the smile drop from your face and every bone in your body want to retreat from this room immediately. “No.”

“You need to marry,” her voice holds the authority as it would if she were making a public announcement to our people, “and you need to do it soon.”

“I don’t want to be forced into a marriage against my will. I am not some pawn to use so you can make your allegiances with neighboring kingdoms!” Desperation is not a powerful enough word to explain how you feel about avoiding this future. You loathe the idea of being forced into a marriage with a suitor you do not know and do not wish to marry. “I’m not even the heir, so why must I marry at your convenience?”

“While you may be last in line for the throne, we need alliances and we need heirs–both of which you can provide.” You look toward your father to silently plead to fight for you, but his face is full of pity. You shake your head and look back at your mother as she continues. “We have given you three years past legal marriage age to come to terms with this. You will not argue with this.” 

“I am sorry sweetie.” Your fathers tone tells you he fought for you while he could, but it's time to accept the reality. 

“We are holding a ball here in a month's time on solstice. We have eligible suitors coming in from different kingdoms to meet you.”

You’re at a loss of words as you stare at the woman who's supposed to care and support you as she betrays you with the sharpest knife she owns. You keep your head down as you stand from the chair, refusing to say a word to either of them and thankfully they don't stop you as you march out of the study and into the hallway. 

You don’t even think, just walk on autopilot through the hallways and out the back doors till you reach the gardens. The flowers are barely in bloom, only few colors outshine the green, but the environment relaxes you as you sit on the grass, looking like a desolate portrait.

“Princess.”

You turn your head at the familiar voice that cuts through the gusts of wind. “Captain Todd.” 

“Is there any particular reason you’re sulking in the gardens?”

“Just a few.” You turn back toward the flora and pat the spot on the grass next to you. “Sit with me.”

You hear the shuffle of his boots walking across and toward where you rest. As he sits down, you can't help but notice how much he sticks out against the soft nature that surrounds him. Captain Jason Todd, our father's best, and tasked with the mission of being your personal guard. He’s quiet, but rose up the ranks quickly due to the multiple skill sets he has. You’ve never asked about his past in the conversations you have forced from him, but you catch glimpses of the scars that linger across his body.

You sigh quietly and pick at the blade of the grass, “I am to marry.”

“This was already expected, no?”

“It was, but it doesn’t mean I was prepared for it. I thought maybe I would meet the love of my life before it would be declared upon me, but it seems that was a foolish dream after all.”

He doesn't say anything for a long moment and neither do you. The wind presses softly against your cheeks and reminds you of the gentle life you wished to have. As the sun starts to make its leave, casting the sky in shades of oranges and pinks, you feel less like a princess and more like a prisoner surrounded in finery.  

You stand and brush the dirt and grass from the skirt of your dress with a new determination to get out if only for a second. “I must retire to my rooms, but I will see you tomorrow?” 

He glances at you with narrowed eyes for a second too long before responding, “Yes, till tomorrow, Princess.” 

You walk off and back into the castle before he can question you further. Making it to your room in record time, you're pulling the pins from your hair then straining your arms to untie the corset by yourself. Finally, once done, you slip out of the recognizable dress and into a mundane dress that sits in the back of your closet–one that won’t draw attention to yourself. 

You pull your hair back into a singular braid to keep it out of your face, and nod in approval as you glance at the mirror. Perfectly simple. You throw your windows open and glance at the now midnight sky, then down at the drop below. You’ve taken this path enough times to know where to step as a makeshift ladder and where to avoid getting spotted by the guards. 

With careful movements, you climb out the window and onto the ledge below you before following the path to keep getting closer and closer to the grass, and when you finally step on the ground, the freedom hits you immediately. You’re not often allowed to go into town, which is why you’re familiar with the path to sneak out. 

However, that victory is short-lived as you hear someone clear their throat from your left. You slowly turn and come face to face with the permanent frown on the Captain's face. “Going somewhere?”

“Uh– just checking the weather, making sure it’s clear skies throughout the night.”

“Mhm.”

“Please don’t say anything about this.”

“I never have before.”

“Okay, goo– wait what?”

“You think I didn't know when you sneak out of the castle?” His arms are crossed and instead of wearing his royal gear, he's wearing casual tunic and trousers. 

“You’ve… known about that?” 

“Every time.”

“And you never said anything?”

“No, I would follow from afar to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid or attract the wrong attention.” He says it so bluntly that you’re not sure if you should be upset or touched. 

“But not tonight?”

He stares at you for a long second. “Not tonight. I don’t want you to be alone tonight.”

You smile up at your guard and loop your arm through his to pull him along with you. “Then come on, we have places to be.” 

The walk into town was quiet, neither of you saying anything significant, but you noticed all the small things he did while walking down the pathway. He’d pull you away strangers who stepped too close, kept his pace slightly in front of yours so he could react quickly to an attacker, and even moved the hood of your cloak on top of your head so you’d be less recognizable.  

Not many shops are open at this hour, but the occasional shop would have their lights on for the people who walk the streets at dawn. You walk past a small bakery with nobody sitting inside, and guide Captain Todd to the entrance. The mouth watering smell hit you immediately, pulling you to the counter to order one of the many sweets. 

As you chat with the lady running the shop, you're thankful she doesn't recognize you as you order two sticky buns and hot chocolates. The cup is warm in your hand as you take it and hand the second one to Jason. He takes the cup and the offered sweet as you make your way out of the shop to sit at the Courtyard.

Finding an empty seat is easy when nobody is in the open expanse, so you sit down and watch the few people walk by completely unaware that their princess is gazing upon them. 

“Why do you sneak out here? There’s nothing special about a late night snack you could get at the castle.”

“It’s not about the snack, it's the fact I’m out of the castle.” You pull your knees to your chest and rest your chin upon them. “I don’t get to choose my life there. It reminds me of dreaming at night and knowing you’re dreaming, but being unable to stop it–it feels magical at first, but when you realize there's no escape, it becomes a nightmare.”

You glance at the night sky and wonder if the moon feels trapped in its own cycles as well. Jason doesn’t say anything so you speak again, “I don’t get to choose my dress or my hair for the day. When I asked to be taught swordplay like my brothers, mother denied and assigned me a tutor for ballroom dance. When I wished to learn gardening I was told it was too messy and instead got sat before a piano.” You look back over at Jason and his eyes have softened as he gazes at you while you speak of your feelings. “Coming here is my choice. I get to roam freely and pick what I want, not what is decided for me.”

“Like the marriage,” he offers quietly.

You nod with a sigh, “Like my awaiting marriage.” Turning back to the street, you watch a couple holding hands while laughing freely with each other. Love. Something you may never experience at this point. 

“I will teach you.”

“Marriage?” You ask, confused as to what he is talking about. 

“No. Swordplay.”

You whip your head around to face him again, “You’d do that?”

He nods.

“What if you get caught? You’ll get in trouble for this if my mother finds out.”

“She won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” 

“Trust me?” 

“Okay,” you breathe out as the reality of what he’s offering hits you. The smile on your face grows to a full grin before you tackle him in a hug while nodding. “Thank you, thank you!” 

His laugh–something you’ve never heard before–is rough and deep as he lays on the grass where you brought him down. “You're welcome.” 

The following night, dressed in a tunic and pants you found in the bottom of a drawer, you make your way to the now abandoned music room in the castle that Jason requested you meet him at. When you get there you see him resting against the wall with a wooden sword in his hand. You’d seen your brothers use those when they first started training at a young age, but never since then. 

“Captain.” You announce yourself to him in the dark room lit only by the soft glow of the moonlight. “This is your secret spot for us to train?”

“Mhm.”

“And you’re sure we won’t get caught? I cannot risk your title for the sake of an activity I want to learn.”

“They made this room soundproof when it was built and now that it’s not being used, it's a good place to make a lot of noise.”

Your cheeks heat slightly, but thankfully in the dark, he won’t be able to see. “Right,” you whisper, “I assume that's for me?” You walk further into the room whilst looking at the wooden sword. 

He nods, handing it to you. “It’s how every soldier was trained to use a sword in the beginning. We will start with this and work on how to handle and hold it.”

You run your finger along the smooth wood as you analyze it. There's a few blemishes indicating its own use, but it seems fairly new. You hold it up like how you imagine a guard would, but the Captain immediately corrects your form. 

“You want to keep your elbows up and have your feet apart to hold a good base. You don’t want to be knocked over on the first hit.” He goes through the proper stances and techniques with you on his own sword, correcting and making adjustments to your stance as needed. You do your best to mimic each move he shows you, but it’s not as easy as you’d once assumed. 

“No, no like this.” He holsters his sword and walks behind you to adjust your arms. “If you keep them far away from you, you’ll have less control. You always want to keep your arms close.” He pressed your elbow closer to your ribs. 

You turn your head to glance back at him not expecting him to be so close to you. One of his arms rests on your waist and the other on your elbow, and you become hyper aware of the heat radiating from his skin and through your clothes. You can’t help yourself when you glance down at his lips then back at his eyes that you realize shine a muted green under the moonlight. He watches you carefully, before blinking and dropping his hands and stepping back. 

Neither of you speak of the moment that passed as he urges you into the next position to stand. You can help but notice how your waist still tingles from where his hand lingered. 

You’d met Jason every night in the old music room to practice your swordsplay, which you’d even upgraded from the wooden sword to a real one, for the past month. It had been freeing to learn something of your own volition inside the castle walls. Tonight, however, there's no lesson to attend with the Captain because you’re to be paraded around in an overly exquisite gown to find your suitor. 

At your request, Alice is the only handmaiden in the room tonight. The thought of having more than one person in your space right now makes you feel even more sick to your stomach. She finishes the pins to keep your hair in the meticulously designed style while you force to keep the dinner in your stomach. 

“You look beautiful my dear, there's no reason to look horrified.” 

“I’m just… nervous. I don’t want to do this.”

“I’m sure there will be plenty of wine you could sneak.” She smiles at you through the mirror, and while that would normally make you laugh, it does little to ease your nerves.

She sighs and brings another chair to sit in while facing you. “Is this about the Captain?”

That snaps you from your jittery daze. “What? What does the Captain have to do with anything?”

She gives you a knowing look, “I’m not blind, I see the way that boy looks at you and how you look at him. I also know you’ve been sneaking off a night to go somewhere, which I’m assuming he’s been doing the same.”

“I haven’t– How did you know?”

“It’s my job to take care of you and know your whereabouts. Don’t worry, nobody else knows.”

You bring your hand to a bead on your dress to fidget with. “It’s nothing like that okay. He’s just been teaching me to use a sword.”

“And you can say you feel nothing for him?”

“I… I don’t know.” You admit to yourself for the first time that you might have become closer with your guard and you might have developed feelings for him.

“You might want to figure that out before you go out there to all the suitors who came here for you.”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel anyways, Mother would never allow him and I together.” 

“Let me deal with Her Majesty. Aspire for whomever you want.”

She stands back up and finishes with your hair, leaving you to think on her words and your own feelings. There were always little moments with Jason during the late nights and even times during the day where he would escort you to different places. You couldn’t explain it, but when you caught his gaze, you felt a magnetic pull toward him.

With everything finished, Alice helps you up and walks you outside of the ballroom. The doors are shut, and the guards standing by are waiting for your approval to open them and send your arrival announcement to the guests. 

You turn to Alice as she whispers, “You know what you want, do not be afraid to reach for the farthest star.” 

You pull her into a hug as a thank you, and when you step back, you nod at the guards to let you inside. The large double doors swing open and you hear the announcement: “And now please welcome the Princess of Gotham.”

You step into the ballroom and feel everyone's eyes turn to you. You plaster the polite smile onto your face as you walk down the few steps toward the floor where many men of ages similar to yours bow to you as you pass. The walk to get to your throne next to your brothers feels never ending, but when you glance up and see Jason standing by your throne as many of the other guards do, the panic eases slightly. 

Finally making it to your seat and sitting down as your father stands to make the announcement reminding everyone tonight is a night of merriment, but you know that's simply a deception. Everyone in this room knows it’s the night you choose your husband. 

The night drags on as you're pulled from person to person to dance with them. Your feet ache from following the music, you tire of the same conversation with each partner, and you feel nothing for any of these men. 

You take advantage of the small gap between suitors coming and asking for your hand in dance to escape and grab a glass of wine. When you walk to the refreshments and take a sip from your glass, you see a familiar brooding man with that white curl that rests upon his forehead standing by the corner scoping out the room as if waiting for someone to attack. With a smile you walk over to him.

“Captain Todd.” 

“Princess.” 

“What are you doing over here?”

“I’m watching over the room to make sure no harm will come out of tonight.”

You smile up at him. “Always on guard.”

“That is my job.” His tone is clipped as he speaks to you, which usually isn't the case. You were beginning to notice his voice softening each night you would meet with him, becoming so unlike the guard you once knew, but tonight it feels all progress has been reverted. You will not allow that.

“Dance with me.”

He finally meets your gaze. “What?”

“One dance.”

“No. I’m not the one you should be dancing with.”

“I get to decide who I dance with.” You grab his hand and try to pull him along, but he holds firm in his position.

“I will not risk you getting in trouble for something you do not truly wish for.”

You stare at him for a long moment, the self-deprecation in his eyes gleaming enough for you to see. “Please,” you whisper.

You see the hesitation in his eyes followed by the slight dip of his chin before you tug him along, this time with him following after you. Once you come to a stop in the middle of the ballroom floor, he carefully places a hand on your waist like he’s afraid his touch will burn you. “I’m not the best dancer.”

“That's alright, just follow my lead.”

Each step you take he follows along with, and for the first time this night, there is no over the top courting, talks of your partners lists of accomplishments, or even awkward compliments. It’s quiet with the small space between you both filled by the thrums of music. He doesn’t try to impress you or make you feel like an object being auctioned, instead its simply two souls dancing around each other. 

The song ends and he bows while you curtsy, but instead of taking a step away from him to be passed to the next suitor, you loop your arm through his and pull him along with you as you run out of the ballroom. He doesn’t question or try to stop you as you wind through the halls and open the doors to the gardens in the back. 

You stand before the garden that is now bloomed in a full array of colors that are nearly impossible to see with only the light of the moon hitting them. You look up at the stars that litter the night sky. Reach for the furthest star.

“The gardens?”

You just nod.

“Why did we just leave?”

“I don’t want any of those men. I cannot be with any of those men,” you whisper.

“I don’t think you have much of a choice, Princess.”

You turn toward him, your dress is practically glowing in the moonlight, as you stand only inches away from him. “I’m choosing now.”

His eyes drag across every feature on your face and you see the realization dawn on his own. “No. No, we cannot do that. It’s practically forbidden." His hands clench at his sides.

“There is no rule against it,” you counter.

He reaches for the loose strand of hair that had fallen during your dances with suitors you don't remember the name of and tucks it behind your ear. “I cannot put you through that.”

Your hand encircles his wrist to keep it at your cheek. You don’t say anything, you just watch him and hope he understands just how much you feel for him. 

“Your father would never forgive me. I could lose my title,” he says, but he leans down closer to you and his nose brushes yours. 

“I wouldn’t let him do that.”

He inhales sharply, “We can’t.” His voice is barely a rough whisper now. He shakes his head as if trying to pull himself out of it and step away but he stays firmly rooted in his spot. His other hand moves to your waist and pulls you flush against him. 

“Jason,” you whisper, and that's all it takes for his lips to crash against yours. His lips are soft against your own, but his kiss is rough, like he's scared someone will rip you away from his grasp. You move in synchrony, trading breath for breath till your heartbeats align, before he finally pulls away, resting his forehead against yours while smiling.

“You might just be my ruin, Princess.”

☆ blurb ── @toxicgetou I F

☆ emergency contact ── @kalila I C

when you wake up confused & covered in your own blood what better idea than to call your hot downstairs neighbor to the rescue

☆ i can see you ── @dearwalker I S

New city, new hospital, new job. You give yourself one last day to be free before your first shift, & happy hour ends with a stranger on your bed. The real problem starts the next morning, when he shows up in the same ER answering to “Dr. Abbot.”

☆ opposites attract ── @callienotcally I F

a look into your relationship with a man that couldn’t be more different from you, but acts as if you were made for each other

☆ missing parts ── @/callienotcally I A + F + S

you and jack have been dating for a few months now, but every time you try to initiate intimacy he becomes distant; and you can’t help but feel like he’s hiding something from you

☆ my girl ── @fleurrain I H/C

The PITT didn’t expect to ever meet the girl that had changed Abbot’s mood for the better, much less under the conditions you arrived in. After a quick thinking move saves a patient's life, Abbot can’t withhold the pride he has for you & your work.

☆ old bets ── @bitter-n-sweet I A + C

an old bet has accidentally resurfaced & you question where you stand in your relationship with Jack.

☆ heat waves ── @peachyparkerr I F

jack abbot & the pretty young nurse he can't seem to get away from. it's only a matter of time before he can't help himself.

☆ hard launch ── @starlord-s I F

☆ blurb ── @/starlord-s I A

☆ blurb ── @/starlord-s I F

☆ blurb ── @/starlord-s I F

☆ drabble ── @/starlord-s I F

☆ smutty books ── @/starlord-s I S

☆ interrupted ── @/starlord-s I S

☆ your mind’s walking out ── @lovebugism I H/C

no one at the pitt knows you and jack are separated when you show up to the emergency room during a particularly chaotic shift, with a number of dubious symptoms that force you and jack to reconcile.

☆ touch me ── @/lovebugism I H/C

jack abbot tries to hide in pedes to have a panic attack but ends up getting help from the pretty resident there instead

☆ doctor barker ── @/lovebugism I F

jack abbot never gets jealous; that is, until he finds out that you have a whole lot of history with the handsome radiologist from upstairs that everyone else is fawning over.

☆ coming around again ── @/lovebugism I H/C

while trying to calm down from a panic attack, you accidentally end up in the same room jack abbot is sleeping in, after you've already switched to the day shift just to get away from him.

☆ take care of business for me ── @/lovebugism I A + F

your relationship with jack has always been 50/50: he buys you everything, and you let him. this arrangement, as he calls it, works perfectly - until you start to worry that you may not be the only one who's doing it with.

☆ say it ain’t so ── @somethin-sparklyy I A + C

You get punched by a disgruntled patient while you're outside in the Ambulance Bay (à la Dana Season 1) before you head into the Pitt for your shift. Familiar faces come towards you trying to help, but all you can think is that you need Jack. Robby can’t help but wonder why it isn’t him anymore. 

☆ the five stages ── @thecherrypittttttt I F + S

☆ little thief ── @richeeduvie I C + F

☆ drabble ── @loves-alibi I S

robby being granted the opportunity to watch jack fuck his spouse

☆ bicker ── @kill3ill I S

☆ is this it? ── @lovableapocalypse I A + C

on the way to your fourth of july shift at ptmc you are involved in an accident. too bad you live closer to westbridge.

☆ scenic route ── @traumaone I F

Shen needs saving, you're sleep deprived and suffering an unrequited crush, and Abbot wishes he had never asked.

☆ somewhere only we know ── @imagines-r-s I A + F

☆ public profession ── @drjohncarters I F

when an ob consult flirts with you, jack decides to make your relationship status very clear.

☆ santa ── @burgundysnow I F

☆ nudelates ── @inbred-eater I F + ~S

☆ yoga at sunrise ── @nfwmb-gvf I F

☆ material girl pt2 pt3 pt4 pt5 pt6 pt7 pt8 ── @rr-after-dark I F + S

Opposites attract: Serious, intense, widower, army veteran, and emergency room doctor Jack Abbot finds love in a sweet, sexy, silly bimbo.

☆ peanut ── @/rr-after-dark I F

Hosting your Halloween party turns into a visit to the ER when you discover an adult-onset peanut allergy.

☆ ceremonial ── @/rr-after-dark I H/C

After you win a prestigious award, Jack's stressed-out dismissiveness leads to your biggest ever fight.

☆ dating? ── @/rr-after-dark I F

☆ family secret ── @/rr-after-dark I F

You've managed to keep your relationship and family with Dr. Jack Abbot private from his work for an entire decade. But your last pregnancy doesn't seem to care about that as you get brought to PTMC for an emergency delivery.

☆ beyond infatuation ── @rizbert I F

5 moments the night shift (and co) observes between you and jack + the 1 they don't

☆ tiktok troubles ── @imaginesofwonder I F

Five times you pranked Jack with TikTok trends, and one time he got you back

Yeah, you think, taking another sour sip. You’ve done enough critical thinking for the day.

Samira is at your side, sipping her strawberry Daiquiri, half-choking on her chuckles as Usher’s DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love echoes from the speakers. Heather sits across from Mohan, cheekily sipping her Sex On The Beach and stealing glances behind her back. Squinting her eyes, as if in thought, she says: “Actually, I think ripping hair out would be less painfu—”

“Either kill me,” you cut her off over the music, “or shut the fuck up about it.”

She has the gall to laugh. As does Samira, as does Yolanda. Fuck, you do make for a painful sight, you’ll give them that. Still, your eyes lock into Yolanda’s, sharp and clouded. “Oh,” you laugh, but it gets lost under the beat, “I know you’re not laughing right now, Romeo.”

She almost chokes. “Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

You shrug, smirking into your glass, eyes catching onto a certain intern a few tables away whose eyes are locked into your friend’s back for what feels like hours now. You must’ve caught Santos’ eye over Garcia’s back, like, three times in the past fifteen minutes. If Yolanda noticed, she hardly made it known.

Still, as cheap a shot as that was, it worked. Now Yolanda’s silent, staring into the half-melted ice cubes of her Rum & Coke, and the looks exchanged over the table are not about you. You fight dirty when you’re cornered, but you’ll take any win you can get.

This is rare; day and night shift merging after work like this. Shoulders tense and weighed down by code-blue’s and lives lost and the metallic stench of blood, soldiering through it only for the ones you manage to save. It feels almost cosmic. You damn-near begged on your knees for Mohan to tag along, and naturally, she could never say no to you. Even Javadi is here, staring at Mateo with stars in her eyes, sat in the booth with Santos and Whittaker.

Even though it’s your night off, the antiseptic still lingers in your nostrils from yesterday, the ice-cold chill of the OR, your hands raw from scrubbing in. Technically, that all happened today, but you’ve found the days and hours get blurry on the night shift. 

Lines get hazy, too; everything does. Boundaries rewritten, reservations forgotten, walls knocked down with nothing but a quirk of the lips and lukewarm coffees under the blaring fluorescence.

You shake your head, tongue curling in your mouth. Fuck.

Well, however you call it, today was a fucking shit show. There’d been a car pile-up just a little after 6AM. “So close. So, so close,” Shen had sighed in the ambulance bay. Two or three or four fucking cars with college boys drunk off their asses behind the wheel, determined to be goddamn gentlemen and drive some girls home from their frat. If only chivalry was dead.

Only two out of the six girls made it. One bled out right in your hands, her shredded abdominal aorta gushing red-hot rivers faster than you could’ve ever stitched her back together. Her name was Sydney, and she had her whole life ahead of her. Besides the smell of her blood, that’s all you can remember about her.

If you focused really hard right now, even over the deafening bass, you could still hear her flatlining on your table. Still taste the bile in your throat from when you called it, breathless, ripping off your surgical mask and moving on. Because you had to. The boy you operated on next, blond and baby faced and crushed behind his friend’s wheel, made it. He nearly hadn’t, but he pulled through.

Jack was… he was there when you entered the trauma room, gait planted and hands methodical as ever. They don’t call him an ER cowboy for nothing. 

Sharp eyes and even sharper tongue, he’s precise like the ten-blade that’s as much an instrument as it’s an extension of your palm. “I need to open him up,” you said over the beeping monitor. Jack had already placed a chest tube, but the boy’s vitals were tanking, and his lungs were a ticking time bomb. You didn’t have to say as much, he knew, but you did anyway. It’s terrifying to think you would’ve said anything to make him look at you.

Jack hardly spared you a glance. You like to think you didn’t care, that you didn’t notice he spoke with his eyes pinned ahead, anywhere but on yours. It almost felt more disorienting than the chaos itself. More destabilizing than the wails and moans and heaps of blood on the linoleum, than the nurses and residents all whirring around the department like scattered animals.

Because, that’s the thing with Jack Abbot; his eyes are anchors. Heavyweight, like snares. They catch on yours and keep you there. Steadying, lingering until he’s satisfied, head tilted until he can see the message has registered behind your eyelids.

So, when that lighthouse in the storm suddenly shut you out, you felt stranded. Hurt. Maybe even angry. But you pushed through, because you’re a damn good surgeon, and that boy needed you.

You performed a thoracotomy in OR 3; paged Dr. Walsh for the green light and wheeled the patient past Jack and his bloodstained gown, eyes searching for his in the storm. Only then did he meet your gaze, just as the elevator doors closed, hands curling up to his neck as he ripped the gown off. You were left breathless, staring at cold, humming silver instead of two warm pools of hazel.

The change was sudden. No more than a few days ago, it was all so… 

Fuck. It wasn’t like this. It was… good. Dizzying in all the right ways. You were walking on uncertain ground, uncharted waters, but you like to think you were treading them together. Like two sailors in a storm, trudging through disaster side by side; like a log that’s keeping each other from getting swallowed by the waves.

That’s how it started, anyway. You craved it; that comfort, the blanket of warmth only he could’ve given. It was a few months ago—maybe four or maybe more—that you switched to the night shift.

“Giving up one of our best here, brother,” Robby had said during the daily hand-off; your first time working after 7PM.

“Night shift wins again,” he’d quipped beneath his breath, iPad already in hand. The smile he’d shot you was small, tight-lipped, genuine. “Welcome. We love ourselves a scalpel jockey ‘round here.”

You’d quirked your brows. “Scalpel jockey?”

But he’d already turned away from you as he walked off. He’d shot you a look behind his back, smirking, pointing with his thumb. “Wear it proudly.”

In your second week, you went through a brutal shift together. Two kids had died on your watch, and you’d been exhausted. Drained physically, mentally, in every way that mattered, in every way it didn’t.

After talking to the parents, after providing them with a social worker, after showing them their babies’ bodies, you damn near fucking collapsed. 

You still don’t know why it hit you so hard. During your residency, you’ve lost more patients than you can count. Kids, teens, parents and friends and strangers. You’ve felt their temperature drop, you’ve heard the echo of a flatline beside the overhead lamp, smelt the staleness of the OR after calling time of death.

Perhaps it’d been because one of the little boys looked so much like your baby brother when he was that age. Perhaps it was their mother’s hopeful eyes as you’d shuffled your feet to the family room, scrub cap clutched between your hands like a cross, a rosary, a lifeline.

The woman’s eyes were beautiful, red-rimmed as they were; they crumpled up like paper when you forced the words out of your throat. “We… I did everything in my power.” “The injuries were far too severe.” “I’m sorry.” 

Perhaps it was none of these things at all.

His brother never even left the ER; he’d been DOA. Nothing more to be done other than work on him longer than necessary, just so they could tell the parents they’d done everything they could’ve. Jack stood over him as you’d wheeled on by, eyes catching on his as the flatline echoed.

Backed up against the door of an empty viewing room, heaps and piles of x-rays glaring down at you, you’d heaved and gasped and clasped your mouth shut to muffle the sounds. They sputtered and clawed their way out of your throat regardless, white-hot tears clogging your vision.

He’d knocked on the door. Three precise taps, no room for argument. Still, though, your back had remained glued to the door, even as he’d pushed his way inside. There, bathed in the dim blue light of the imaging, it was as if you truly saw him for the first time.

Wrinkled eyes, kind and steady, anchoring you in their hold. Tilted head, arms tight as he’d laid a tentative palm on your shoulder. You don’t even remember what he’d said at first. Does it even matter? He was there. Warmth seeping from his palm, eyes holding your gaze in their death-grip. He’d made you breathe with him, letting the air sit deeply in his lungs, nodding and muttering an encouraging, “Yeah?” when he felt your stuttering ribs even out.

And, suddenly, you could breathe again.

“Crying is good. Feeling. Means you’re still human,” he’d told you, whispers of a breath. “Means you still got fight left in you. Don’t ever let the job take that away from you. You’re good, jockey. Trust me.”

It was a week after that when the coffees started. 

Bleary-eyed under the hospital lights, the stillness of the hallways echoed in a way that’s only possible during the night. You’d been leaning on the nurse’s station down at the ED, staring into nothingness as the iPad screen in your grip shut itself off.

It’d been a particularly quiet shift, not that any of you had dared to say so out loud. When Shen attempted a few hours prior, you’d launched a half-eaten protein bar at his head. You’d missed by an inch. Ellis had nearly pulled a muscle laughing, and you swear you’d seen Jack huff out a chuckle as he passed. A win, in your book.

It was like the coffee had materialized out of thin air. But, no. He was there. Staring at his watch, unassuming and quiet and there. You’d eyed the coffee cup he slid between you with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. When he’d met your eyes, his lips had quirked up. Just slightly, just enough. The sight of that almost-smile was slowly becoming as familiar as the well-trodden hallways to the ORs. 

“What’s that about?” you’d asked.

“Can’t have you falling asleep over someone’s cracked chest, can we? Too much paperwork.” He’d lifted his shoulder in a shrug. As if bringing you coffee was something he’d done a million times before and would do a million times again.

“You… got me coffee,” you’d said dumbly, eyes shifting between the brown cup and the hazel of his gaze like a pendulum. Not a question—just a statement, the same way the sky is blue and grass is green—but he’d answered anyway.

He’d softly tapped his fist on the counter. Once, twice. Nodded. “I got you coffee.”

And, that had been it. No more acknowledgement, no further comment; just the piping-hot paper cup next to your hand. Just the look he snuck from further down the ED when he’d seen you bring it to your lips, that’d felt more intimate than having someone’s tongue down your throat.

You’d pretended not to notice, but you think he saw right through you. Of course he had.

It became a ritual, of sorts. A routine. Every night on call together, right around the 4AM slump, a brown paper cup would somehow find its way to you. Always hot, always sugary; you don’t know if he somehow guessed or overheard it, but that’s exactly how you drink it.

“Sugar with a side of coffee, for the lunatic in OR 3,” he said once, monotone and dry in a way that made him funny. That was half his charm, some days.

The cup had felt heavy in your palm. Biting the inside of your cheek, you’d asked: “Why do you keep doing that?”

He’d looked at you, long and hard. The overhead fluorescence made every edge of his face sharper. Your eyes had caught on the grey in his temple, the way it blended with the brown of his curls. He’d shrugged, looked down at the iPad in his hands. 

“Told you. Can’t have Walsh’s best triage tourist falling face-first into an open cavity. Don’t need that kinda headache.”

You’d raised a brow, laughed into the cup as you brought it to your lips. The coffee scaled its way down your throat, hot and sweet. You’d felt it settle down your chest. Or, maybe, it was the way he’d looked at you out of the corner of his eye, pursing his lips in that half-smile that made his dimples show.

“Triage tourist, scalpel jockey… I left Langdon and his ‘Edwina Scissorhands’ bullshit for Garcia to put up with. Can’t catch a fucking break with you people.”

He’d huffed a breath, a chuckle. “Someone’s gotta keep you on your toes, jockey.”

You’d felt brave. “Alright, big guy. Careful not to pull a muscle next time I wring a patient from you.”

That was the first time you’d seen him laugh the way he had. Surprised, eyebrows raised and mouth open, nodding in a way that invited challenge. “Wow, okay,” he’d rasped, “give somebody an inch, they’ll take a fucking mile.”

“Patients is what I take, old man.” You’d clicked your teeth.

“Fuckin’ sawbones,” he’d huffed, shaking his head.

“You know it.”

You never questioned the coffee again. You even missed it on the occasional odd day when your schedules did not line up. Kept looking at your watch around 4AM, unconsciously waiting for a cup of coffee that wouldn’t come unless you dragged your ass to the break room yourself. You’d been fucking Pavlov’ed. Jesus.

One time, though, he had a rough night. Kept limping his way through the ED, brows tight and lips curled. It’d been busy, busier than usual. Broken ankles, lacerations, burns, a bike crash victim. Even a head trauma that’d been sent up to neuro immediately. Fucking gnarly. 

The guy didn’t make it; vet, homeless, victim of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Much of that these days. Every muscle in Jack’s body had been tense, you’d seen it. Felt it, even. You’d kept wincing everytime you saw him grabbing onto the counter of the nurses’ station, letting his weight fall on his good leg.

He’d found you in the break room by 4AM, coffee cup in his hand.

Maybe he’d Pavlov’ed himself, too. 

You’d nodded at the empty chair across from you, silent. Shaking his head, he’d dropped the cup on the table and slid it towards you.

“C’mon, humor me,” you’d said, grabbing the cup. “I just… just want your company. So.”

The look in his eyes had called your bullshit. Still, he’d sat down. You’d seen the way his shoulders drooped, the way he craned his neck, clenched his eyes. His palm had trailed down to his knee, massaging the skin above the prosthetic.

The lights had kept humming above you, white sterile noise filling the deafening silence. It’s always quiet around that time of night; a small window where everything pauses before surging again.

“I’m fine,” he’d rasped.

“Didn’t say you weren’t,” you’d quipped, head tilting in a way that parroted his own habit.

“You’re a shit liar.”

“And you still believe me. What does that make you?”

He’d hummed. Touché. You’d sat like that for a while. Mutual quiet, a shelter in the storm, blanketed by headache-inducing fluorescence and the smell of teeth-achingly sweet coffee. Until one of the nurses, Bridget, poked her head into the break room and said: “Incoming. GSW to the chest, head trauma, the works.”

You’d locked eyes with him, more awake than you’d been all night. Cup forgotten, you’d smirked. He didn’t need your pity (not that you had any to give); he needed the rush. The knowledge that you could offer him respite and keep him on his toes as easy as you could breathe. You’d huffed, ready to bolt: “Catch me if you can, cowboy.”

You’d found him on the roof that morning; it’d been Robby who told you. (“Yeah, he does that, sometimes. You wanna…?”) Jack had been leaning his back against the outside of the railing, soaking in the early light spilling from behind the clouds. The sunrise is always beautiful on the roof; blooming pink and orange aflush by the white yolk of the sun. It’d been chilly, and you’d felt a shiver run through you as you moved to him, the wind licking at his sleeves.

You knew he’d heard you; heard the click of the door shutting, heard the shuffling of your soles on the ground. Maybe he’d even known it was you. You like to think he had. If not, he never let it show. Only looked at you from the corner of his eye as you stopped at the railing, leaning your elbows on the cold metal.

You hadn’t spoken, not at first. Had simply let your eyes fall on the skyline, tracing the city with your lashes.

A beat passed. Two, three. Suddenly, your voice rang out. “You jump, and I’m not putting you back together.” He’d turned his head. Latching onto his gaze, your lips had quirked; not too much, just enough. “Conflict of interest, y’know.”

He’d shaken his head, lids falling, smile persistent. A scoff had punched its way from his throat, but it was light. Relieved, maybe. Soft around the edges in all the right ways. 

“Oh, I’m sure,” he’d rasped. “Fuckin’ addict, you are. You’d pounce at the chance.”

You’d looked away from him, setting your eyes ahead, letting the silence hang. As seriously as you could’ve mustered, you said: “Yeah. Bet your ass I would.”

He’d chuckled, and you’d bottled it right up. Sobering up, you’d continued. Not looking at him, letting your words spill out like morning dew instead; his call to acknowledge them, or let them dissipate. “You don’t need anybody to put you back together, though. That’s a you job. But, jockey as I am, I’m still here. With my 4AM coffees and all. Just… just so you know, or, whatever.”

Fuck, the way he’d looked at you then? You’d felt every muscle in your body somehow tense and melt all at once. Two hazel whirlpools pulling you right the fuck under. You just let it happen.

“Yeah. ‘Or, whatever.’”

And, there it was. That quiet acknowledgement. The hand pulling each other from the ledge. The person you looked for first when the elevator doors to the ER opened and you were thrust into action. The man who was a rock amidst a hurricane, unmoving because he has to be; the one pulling everyone down to their feet beside him.

But, who was there to drag him down to steady ground, except himself?

The first time he kissed you, it was nearly bone-shattering. Sinews splitting apart in his hands, skull crushed in two, heart ready to spill from your throat and into his. He would’ve swallowed it, you really believe he would’ve.

It’d been another circus show at the PTMC Emergency Department, barely past 1AM on a Friday night. Or, was that technically Saturday? Fuck, you don’t even care. Mass casualty: a shooting at a club downtown, with half a dozen victims and twice as many cops flooding the hallways. It’d been all hands on deck. Blood, lidocaine, the moans and yells and calls for attendings who already had their hands full to the brim.

The shooter had landed on your table, shot straight in the chest by the club owner. You had to perform a pericardial repair to address the gunshot wound near his heart, to stop the hematoma from draining the life right out of him.

Instructed to salvage any bullet fragments for evidence, you’d let the world around you fall apart; until all you could see was the red gushing from his heart, and all you could smell was its metallic tang between your fingers. In the end, seven bullet fragments lay on a surgical basin to your right, and the man lay lifeless before you.

Time of death, 2:37AM.

The bleeding had been too much. Too erratic, too tricky for a resident to handle alone. Not because you lacked the experience, but because you lacked the hands. By the time you were ripping the mask and gloves off alongside your gown and throwing them in the bin by the OR door, your fingers had been shaking like leaves.

You hadn’t been good enough to save him, or smart enough to request an attending, or strong enough to accept that this was the hand you were dealt and you did the best you could’ve.

You’d brushed past the OR floor, all the way down to the ER and through the waiting room. People looked at you; at your sweaty scrubs and disheveled surgical cap, at the way you bit your lip until it bled, breezing through the pedestrian entrance doors and into the night air.

Even through your tunnel vision, you saw the state the ER was in; lulled, the first and worst wave of the trauma washed away. The most emergent cases dealt with and admitted to surgery or the ICU, the less-gravely injured cared for and checked up on, families called and statements given. You hadn’t realized how much time had whizzed by while you were wrist-deep into the man’s chest.

Time passes differently in the OR. Slows and twists out of your control. Out there, though—past the cop cruisers and at the park outside—it stood still completely. The wood of the bench you’d fallen on felt cold, even through your scrubs.

Minutes could have passed, or hours, as you sat in the quiet chill. It tickled the goosebumps on your arms, the rawness of your bitten lips as you’d smoothed your tongue over the skin.

Jack had followed you out. Of course he had. There isn’t a world where he wouldn’t have.

“What happened?”

The scoff that spilled from your throat had been tired. Spent. You hadn’t looked at Jack once, not even as he took a seat beside you on the bench, thighs millimeters apart. His warmth spread through the meat of your thigh and right into your bloodstream. You’d sniffed, sharp, tongue curling on the roof of your mouth to stop the tears from gathering.

“I lost him. The shooter. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t… wasn’t good enough, I guess.”

A hand on your knee, big and strong and sure. So, so familiar, it nearly hurt. “If you couldn’t save him, then he couldn’t be saved.” Firm, unshakeable, as if he’d been stating a truth as universally accepted as the stars hanging above your heads. Is that what he truly saw in you? A trust in your abilities so strong, he believed his words like they were set in stone?

You’d shaken your head, eyes clenched shut, a single breath pushing its way out your ribs like a hydraulic press. “I couldn’t fucking do it. Isn’t that messed up? I’m sitting here, crying over a man who shot up a club.” You’d swallowed. “Maybe this was justice. Have him make it to help, only to end up with a surgeon useless enough to let him drain out. Like I’m a goddamn first-year, or something. Fuck—”

“Hey,” Jack had cut you off mid-spiral, grip tightening on your knee, the feeling punching through you all the way down to your belly. He’d tilted his head, searching for your gaze, finding it and keeping it in a headlock. “Don’t fuckin’ say that. You know it’s bullshit. Hey, hey, look at me.  You,” he’d paused, “are one of the best. I’ve seen you. I know it, and I’m telling you. So stop fucking saying that.”

He’d looked pained, severe. As if hearing you tear yourself down was like a punch to his gut. You hadn’t known what to make of that realization in the moment. Or, you had, and you just weren’t strong enough to admit to it. Not even to yourself.

You’d nodded, if not for anything else, just to see his brows soften. His shoulders laxing, lips curling softly and dimples showing, thumb softly stroking your skin over your scrubs.

Silence bathed you, louder than the clamor of a war torn emergency room.

“Didn’t know you liked me that much,” you’d quipped after a few moments trickled by, eyes locked on the hand that still rested on your knee. It’d felt deliberate now, the way he’d made no move to remove it. “You getting soft on me, Jack?”

Jack. Not cowboy, or big guy, or Dr. Abbot. Hell, not even old man.

Just… Jack.

It’d taken him a second to respond. Blinking, quiet, surprise melting into something much softer yet unnameable. “I’m not telling you shit again,” he’d chuckled. “Watch it.”

He hadn’t once let his eyes fall from yours, even when you had. Jack Abbot and his fucking staring problem. Pulling you in, making the world melt into nothingness as his hand had stilled. Fuck, why couldn’t he have just looked away?

You’d felt it before you saw it. His other hand—the one nearly touching yours—drifting up to your face, the other still scorching your knee. Curling around the edge of your scrub cap, unruly on your head and halfway down the side of your forehead. Like a deer in headlights, you’d frozen. He’d stared at the cloth intensely, fingers drifting across your face, pulling it back on your hairline, tracing the outline of your burning cheek with the back of his fingers.

Your breath had stuttered, swelled like a balloon about to pop. “What’re you doing?”

“Your cap,” he’d said, fingers hovering. “There. Fixed it.”

“Oh,” you’d exhaled. “Thanks.”

“I might call you jockey,” he’d breathed suddenly, eyes lifting from the curve of your mouth and catching yours again, “but you’re not one. Not really. You know that, right? You have to know it. Can’t even remember all the times you’ve let us mortals try and keep someone from gettin’ sliced up.”

He’d inched closer, and if you hadn’t felt his breath tickling yours as he spoke, you might not have even noticed. Lashes fluttering and eyes shifting from the hazel down to his mouth, to his hands—back and forth, back and forth—you’d breathed: “Jack?”

“Do you? Know?” he’d rasped out, barely a whisper, barely a breath. He hadn’t been looking in your eyes. His gaze had drifted under again, past the slope of your nose, to the angry flare of your bitten lip. But as he said it, he’d looked up. Just for a second. Hand sliding down towards your nape, nearly engulfing your neck whole.

He’d be looking for an answer to a different question. Still, you’d nodded in his hold, lids nearly shut and hands shaking against the wood of the bench. Why did you nod?

Idiot. Is there a world where you wouldn’t have?

A breath, a surprised yelp muffled by his lips, the feel of him pressing you closer. Earth-shattering, bone-splitting, all-consuming. Jack Abbot—the fierce attending, the hardened veteran, the shelter in every storm—kissed you with his entire body, explosive warmth seeping into your skin with every deep swipe of his lips. And when he’d broken away with a sigh, you’d felt the sound curling its way around your skin. Fuck.

“Now you do.”

And, that’s how it was from then. Tentative, unknown, undefined. Real. An, “I’ll walk you home,” at the end of the shift. More 4AM coffees, and rooftop gazing, and brushing past each other in a hallway only to stop for no reason at all other than to soak the other in. No further than heated kisses shared in empty on-call rooms and wandering hands that stopped respectfully just before the threshold was crossed.

(“Damn. You fucking like me, don’t you?” you’d teased a couple weeks back. Breakfast burrito in hand, walking side-by-side on a cracked sidewalk with his hand hovering over the small of your back.

He’d scoffed, smiling in that characteristic way of his. Lips pursed, dimples out, head swerving. “Tolerate, more like. Gotta get those patient satisfaction scores up, somehow. Can’t do that if our best tourist doesn’t get her nightly sugar-induced overdose.”

“Fucking comedian, over here. Poor man’s Carlin.”)

You didn’t mind it; the waiting, the tiptoeing. This… thing felt far too fragile and far too young to have a name yet. At least, out loud. You knew how you felt, you think you knew how he felt. No need to rush. No need to panic. You were content to let the waves carry you.

That brings you to three days ago. You were leaning back against the nurse’s station, almost 4AM, head pounding from the artificial stillness. Bridget was standing beside Ellis, both shaking from laughter. They made you burst into a fit, too. 

“Fuuuck,” you moaned, “can’t believe I told you this. Ancient history. Next time I open my mouth, slap me fucking dead—”

Hand clutching her stomach, Ellis wheezed: “And then what’d he fucking do?”

“Ugh,” you clenched your eyes, cheeks flushed from embarrassment. “He was such a pussy, I swear to God. Tried to smooth-talk his way out of it. Can you believe that shit? Anesthesiologist who doesn’t know how to choke a girl right?”

“Sounds like the opening to a bad joke,” said Bridget.

“Right?!”

“What’s that about you getting choked?” piped Shen as he strutted over, slurping on a coffee cup.

“You eavesdropping on us, now?” you asked, leaning to the side to look at him.

He shrugged, smirking as he leaned an elbow on the counter. “It’s not eavesdropping when you’re in the middle of the ER, sawbones.”

Turning to the girls, you pointed a finger at him, jokingly exasperated. “This fucking guy…”

“No manners,” tutted Ellis, shaking her head. Bridget clicked her lips, looking at him as if disappointed.

“Hey,” Shen voiced with his lips around the yellow straw. “Not my fault you go on and on about Stan from Anesthesia and how he almost broke your larynx tryin’ to go all Fifty Shades on you. Quit blamin’ a guy for getting curious.” He winced, grimacing: “But, like, dude… really?”

“Mhm. Worst lay of my fucking life. Scratched the itch, though—”

“—Oh, hello, Dr. Abbot,” sang Bridget from your side. “Right on time,” she glanced at her watch. 4:02AM.

Your blood damn near clotted in place. Oh, fuck. How much did he hear?

The coffee cup—brown, hot, familiar—landed on the nursing station counter with a thud. Two hazel whirlpools found yours, then vanished with a nod. Curt, stern, the attending on call, the veteran medic who barked orders from the back of a helicopter and onto a sand-baked tarmac. Dr. Abbot, not Jack.

Shit, did he think that was…? That you…?

“Get back to work, this ain’t a tea party. Guy in 12 needs an IV change, kept whining when I walked past.”

“Fuck me, that guy’s been on my ass about the food since 10PM. Jesus,” groaned Ellis.

“I got it,” chirped Bridget with a nudge on Ellis’ shoulder. She left to change the IV, Shen made a beeline for the break room, Ellis grabbed an iPad and moved to sit behind one of the monitors. And just like that, you were left staring at Jack’s retreating figure, the steady gait you’d come to think of as familiar. The only warmth was from the coffee, but that was getting cold, too.

You hardly saw him for the rest of the night. Stupid, stubborn, emotionally constipated old man with walls higher than Mount Everest. Even as you waited by the pedestrian entrance for fifteen minutes at the end of the shift—the early morning chill slithering over your exposed arms, the steady beat of people just waking up thrumming all around—he was nowhere to be found.

Fine.

You walked home alone that day, probably for the first time in weeks. You had the next two days off, but you could’ve called him instead. You didn’t. Couldn’t quite muster up the courage to press the button, even as his name glared back at you from the screen in bland sans serif.

Fuck. You hate confrontation; always have, probably always will. It’s kind of ruining your life. You hate feeling shut out, yet something invisible still keeps you from taking that first step to resolution.

It’d have been so easy to just pick up the goddamn phone and say: “Hey, that thing you overheard? Old fucking news, back in my second year. I like you and didn’t go get dicked down by some other guy just because you haven’t had your way with me yet. Don’t shut me out. Dumbass.”

But, you didn’t. Because, like always, the fear of confrontation morphed into something more ugly—more jagged—as the hours and days passed with not one text received. Something like indignation, bullheaded pettiness that oozed from every pore.

He’s pushing fucking 50, and he acts like this? If I wanted to relive my high school boyfriend, I would’ve just texted him.

…Well. In hindsight, that wasn’t entirely fair. Not at all, even. Maybe he was hurt, betrayed, embarrassed. Maybe he needed a day or two to collect his head. Maybe he saw your inaction and perceived it as indifference. Maybe, if you’d just pulled your head out of your ass and called him, this would’ve been ancient history by now.

Fuck. This whole thing had spiralled into mutually assured destruction real fast, and the worst thing?

He’s here now.

Past the sweaty throng of bodies and sitting with Robby, who hasn’t once stopped looking your way. Jack’s in a black button-up, sleeves pulled to his elbows. Brown strands streaked with grey sweating at his temples, salty stubble on a tight jaw, lips curled. His forearms are bulging as if to fucking mock you; thick and corded as he snatches the dart from where it’d landed on the black-and-white target by the side of the bar, gripping it in his hands as he moves back again.

“He’s totally picturing your face,” giggles Mohan, letting her head fall on your shoulder as she hums around her straw.

Heather almost chokes on her drink, the liquid bursting from her lips as she laughs. “He so fucking is—”

“Shouldn’t have told you bitches anything,” you groan, eyes still locked on Jack. He’s watching you back. ‘Fuck you too, old man,’ you hope your eyes say. Shaking his head and taking a sip of the foamless beer that’s been sitting on the bar counter, he shoots another dart. Sharp, precise, sure; looking in your eyes the whole time.

Bullseye.

From the speakers, Ciara has just begun singing about riding (the beat) with Ludacris. The song is familiar, the bass settling down your body like water. Your shoulders sway with it unconsciously, and with a last sour gulp of your lukewarm Margarita, you stand and grab Yolanda by the hand. She gets up with a start, a confused furrow settling on her brows, an easy smile curling at her lips.

“C’mon, Romeo,” you tell her over the music. “Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?” Your eyes point to Santos, and Yolanda’s fall on Jack by the bar. She smirks, eyes narrowing in understanding. Atta girl.

“I market it so good,

They can’t wait to try-y-y me-e-e,

I work it so good,

Man, they tryna buy-y-y me.

They love the way I ride it,

They love the way I ride the beat,

How I ride the beat,

I ride it…”

Her hands are on your sides, your back against her chest, ass moving in tandem with her hips. Side to side, again and again, a dizzying whirl of motion that has your head reeling.

You picture it’s Jack behind you instead; his strong frame bracketing yours, his fingers digging in the meat of your hips, his breath on your neck. It’s all too easy to imagine as a shiver wrecks your frame.

Jack is watching. Your entire body burns with it; the weight of his gaze, the clench of his jaw, the cording of his muscles as they strain against his pulled-up sleeves. Fuck, he looks so good. Even at fifteen feet away, even in the dark, even in the chaos.

Eyes hooded and lipgloss smudged, you let Yolanda guide your body as you feel her head swerving back. Santos must be gawking, too.

Quid pro quo.

Ciara hasn’t finished singing when you see Jack pushing his way past the small crowd and to the back-door. You pout, laying a hand on Yolanda’s at your hip, motioning with your head towards the door. With a knowing look and a nudge, she sends you off.

“Go get ‘em,” she laughs.

Outside, the chill of the night feels like an old friend. Biting as your body adjusts to the temperature change, humidity giving way to the smallest of breezes. The pavement is cracked, the bottoms of your short heels weaving in-between.

Jack is leaning his back against his car that’s parked by the curb, dark and sleek, just like him. Waiting, like he knew you’d follow; maybe even hoped. And—just because the alcohol made you brave—perhaps even flushed at the sight of you grinding against someone that wasn’t him.

If you squint your eyes, you can almost pretend you’re outside the ER again, and he’s kissed you for the first time.

Stubborn, stubborn old man.

“Piss break?” you breathe. You were going for teasing, but your voice is hoarse from the tequila and all the yelling-to-be-heard inside. You don’t think the tone quite struck the landing.

He scoffs—a dark sound that lands right between your legs—and shakes his head, eyes gliding across your frame. Black polished heels, burgundy sheer tights; mini skirt tight around your thighs, fitted black blouse to match; hands littered with bracelets and rings. The you outside the hardass trauma surgeon clad in scrubs, outside the death and antiseptic that lingers for days at a time.

“Something like that,” he rasps. “You?”

“Something like that,” you echo.

A stretch of silence, the muffled beat of a strong bass still nagging in the atmosphere. His eyes on you, unmoving, anchoring, burning. Fuck. He looks so good like that, brooding because he’s fucking jealous.

Shit.

“I missed you,” you breathe, heels clicking as you inch closer. You see him shift, posture tightening, eyes still locked on yours.

“I’m sure you managed just fine,” he says slowly, clicking his lips. “Stan from Anesthesia, was it? He treat you right?”

You can’t help it, you literally cannot help it: you giggle. Tipsy, flushed, elated; palm shooting up to cover your lips. This fucking idiot. Damn all these past three days of silence, this is amazing. He’s so fucking jealous it makes your heart run like a racehorse, threatening to burst.

“You jealous, tiger?”

Brows lifting, nostrils flaring. “Yes.”

Oh. Oh, there he is. The trauma attending, the seasoned physician, the man who jumps headfirst into calamity and makes sure everyone’s unscathed.

“You idiot,” you snort, smile so wide it’s splitting your face in half. You’ve drifted closer, now; right in front of him, barely ten inches apart, hands ghosting over his tight biceps. He makes no move other than clenching his jaw, huffing a breath.

“Watch it.”

“Or, what? What’re you gonna do, big guy—?”

The way he grabs you has your stomach doing somersaults. One hand on your waist, the other burning on your nape, swivelling your positions in place as your back collides with the cold metal of the passenger door.

He’d cushioned the impact on your skull with his palm, a bulging forearm now stretching past the side of your face. You can see the vein that’s there. Fuck. The breath that punches out of you is half a whine, half a gasp. Equally desperate, disproportionately charged. Like a live wire. 

“This what you want?” he asks, low in his throat, two hazel pools of warmth nearly black as tar.

You smile, victorious. No point in holding anything back now, right? In for a penny, in for a pound. “He was a one-nighter back when I was a PGY2. A fuckin’ limp-dick who didn’t know what to do with his own hands, much less with me.”

Silence.

“…What?” He blinks, stupefied.

“Yeah, genius,” you smirk.

Oh, he actually looks in pain. Clenches his eyes shut, drops his head on your shoulder with a sigh so visceral it must’ve come from his gut. “Fuck. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry is right, you bitch,” you hum, lids fluttering and smirk widening. Shit, the Margarita must’ve done a number on you. But his head lifts, and those bottomless pits surrounded by hazel are burning you again. He looks so pretty up close like this; you can trace every dip and wrinkle on his face, map it in your mind. His hair is so nice, have you mentioned before? Frames his face just so, thick and curly and salty and hot. So hot.

“You let me not talk to you for days—?”

“Nu-uh. Did that all by your lonesome, cowboy. But don’t worry. I like my men older, riddled with workaholism, and with ‘bout as much emotional intelligence as a brick wall.”

That last part? Again, not fair or factually true, but the alcohol has loosened your tongue way past the point of return. In vino veritas, but not always. Still, he doesn’t protest. He’s secure enough not to.

“You’re in luck then, baby. Got emotional baggage in fucking spades,” he mutters, gaze falling on the exposed expanse of your neck, head falling as his lips seek it out.

It knocks the breath right out of you, shocks the ground from under your feet, liquifies all logic in your brain. “‘Baby’?” you echo, voice a static sort of noise, trembling and broken.

You feel him humming against your neck, nipping at the skin, both his hands tightening on you, reeling you in further, pulling you in closer. “Mhm. I’m fucking sorry. For all of it.”

“Yeah, w–well, you fucking should be…”

“Uh-huh,” against your neck. Dizzying and electrifying.

“Jack…”

“What is it?”

Your hand had somehow found its way into his hair, curling around it at his nape, the other thrown over his shoulder, body arching into him. “Kiss me?”

And, he does. He really fucking does. And, somehow, it feels better than any other time. Every sense wired to the maximum, every brush of his button-up against the exposed skin of your arms, his mouth on yours; gasping and aching and perfect. You feel him swallowing every last bit of your lipgloss, the faint aftertaste of berry-tinted glitter sliding over your tongue.

You moan into him, open-mouthed and desperate. The pulse between your legs has worsened, thumping in tandem with the muffled beat of a song you can’t recall right now.

He breaks away with a sharp breath, and it’s like you feel it as it settles in his lungs. Eyes hooded, looking at you in a way that has you clenching around nothing. “How much have you had to drink?” he rasps.

“Just a watered-down Margarita. Fuckers ripped me off.”

He chuckles, you grin. And then, the hand on your nape drifts forward, so, so slowly. Curls around your throat—feather-light in its touch—thumb and pointer on each carotid. Not applying pressure, just… there. You heave out a breath as your lashes flutter. “What are you doing, Jack?”

“Did he touch you like this?”

“What?”

A kiss on your cheek, down to your jaw, up to your ear. His breath is hot against it. “Did he?”

“No,” you manage, one of your palms tightening around the hair at his nape, the other trailing up and down his strong side. “T–told you, he couldn’t touch me for shit.”

“Figured,” he hums. Leaning his head back to look at you fully, capturing your gaze and not letting it go. He purses his lips, grins. It makes the burning in your cheeks deepen.

You can do nothing but smile back, staring at him from under your lashes. The hand you were trailing down his side comes up, curling around his palm on your throat, pushing and making his hold on you tighten.

It feels heavenly. Two fingers pushing on your carotid, warm and big and firm. Already you feel the telltale signs of reduced-blood-flow induced bliss, and he’s barely even started. You feel your eyes nearly roll back as you moan, mouth closed tight and from within your throat. There’s a fire licking at your insides, spreading from your center and into every neuron.

“Yeah?” he mutters, voice teasing, light and heavy all at once. He lets his hold slacken, and the world comes into focus again.

You grin. Instead of an answer, you seek his lips. He meets you halfway, swiping his tongue against yours, and it’s so hard to think right now; with the breeze making your hairs stand, the heat that scorches your blood, the sounds that keep bubbling out of you and into his mouth.

Your hand is still on top of his palm on your neck, anchoring. Jack leans more of his weight on you, blanketing you under the golden yolks of flickering street-lamps. You break apart with an inhale, spit clogging your throat.

When he pulls back, he looks pained. Brows caving in, a groan clawing its way out of his chest. You feel the suffocating tendrils of concern wrapping around your limbs, and suddenly, anything else is forgotten. “Are you okay? Is it your leg? D’you wanna—”

“My leg’s fine,” he rasps, meeting your eyes. The hand on your neck falls back, grabbing yours and guiding it down. Past his chest, making you cup him through his cargo. Fuck. “This ‘s all you, baby.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He’s hard, painfully so, straining against the tough fabric as you push against him. It makes him suck in a breath, forehead falling against yours, hand on your waist pulling you in, sandwiched between his frame and the car door.

“Open the fucking car,” you mutter against his lips.

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Deftly swipes a hand down his pocket, clicks the lock button on the remote, grabs the handle of the back door and holds it open for you. With a giggle and a breath, you get in, knees gliding against the back seats as he follows. Sloppily, you drag your tights and underwear from under your skirt and down your legs, huffing at the lack of space.

“Come here,” he says, door thumping shut behind him as you bunch your tights and panties in your palm, flinging them away haphazardly. Throwing a leg over his lap, you take one of the best seats in the house. There’s a hand on your naked skin, digging in the meat of your thigh. His other softly ghosts over the small of your back, where your blouse has ridden up, toying with the seam.

Just as you let your full weight fall—grounding yourself against his hard-on, skirt completely bunched up—he pushes up. Adjusts his stance in that way men do, spreading his thighs and lighting you on fire. His head tilts, seeking your eyes. He knows what he’s fucking doing.

“You got a condom?” you ask, hands around his neck, fingers weaving in his hair. You think he’ll say no, and you’ll kiss him and say, ‘I’m on the pill. There’s no one else. I need you.’

But, he surprises you. Huffs bashfully, reaches in his side-pocket, retrieves a single shiny foil package. Bunching your brows, your smile is devious as you tilt your head back at him, cooing: “What the hell is that?”

Is he fucking blushing? You can hardly tell in the darkness, but it feels like he might be.

“Robby may or may not have bribed Heather for intel.”

You gasp, playfully, smacking him softly on the shoulder. “Fucking snakes, all of you! I’m surrounded by goddamn sellouts.” But then, quieter, mellower: “You knew I was here? That’s why you came?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Sorry for the abrupt shut-out, the fleeting jealousy that wrecked through him faster than a bullet, the way he had no idea what the fuck to do with it.

You tut your lips, shaking your head. “Talk to me next time, alright, big guy?”

“Done,” he breathed, capturing your lips.

You melt against him, grounding your hips with a sigh he swallows, rocking your clothed center against his. With a shaky hand you snatch the condom from him, breaking the kiss. Watching with a bitten lip as he unfastens the cargo, pushes his pants and briefs down, wraps a hand around himself and sighs. His frame vibrates with it.

You put the condom on with little fanfare and a shaky palm, giggling breathlessly when you catch his eye. He kisses you, hands tight around your hips, guiding you forward.

And when you finally sink down on him, having him this way for the first time, it’s tectonic. Cataclysmic in the best of ways, devastating as you feel him stretching you, feeling full and warm and yours.

The sigh that leaves you is a broken thing, hot against his lips, eyes rolling back as he bottoms out. You’re pulsing with it, this need, slick and aching as his palms start guiding you into a steady rhythm.

“Fuck, Jack…” you whine against his lips when he starts rocking up, holding you still instead. Your head falls on the junction between his neck and shoulder; nipping at his skin, mouth falling apart when you feel him sneak his palm between your bodies, thumb catching on your clit and toying with it.

You’re scorching. Sensitive, hips swerving, chasing after a climax that draws nearer with each snap of his hips. His breaths are ragged next to your ear, deep and searing as you clench around him.

“Yeah?” he croons breathlessly, turning his head against your neck. “You feeling good, baby? Tell me, tell—”

“Y–yes,” you gasp out, backing up and sitting straighter. With a shaking hand, you grab the one that’s on your hip, making him wrap his fingers around your neck again.

It’s tethering, blistering, right. It’s showing you trust him in a way you haven’t yet explored together. It’s narrowing down the world to just his eyes as his fingers apply calculated pressure on your arteries; nothing existing past the heat of his gaze, his open lips, his breathless groans, his cock that’s still rocking inside you.

It lasts for a moment, and then it’s gone. Fingers slackening around your neck, his thumb rubbing the skin of your throat, your head swirling and swimming on cloud nine. A little harder to think, to feel time passing. It’s so fucking good it’s bordering on senseless.

“I’m gonna come,” you cry out as his fingers find your clit again, finding a rhythm and holding it; much like he locks someone’s gaze, much like he fixes crises before Surgery even gets the page.

“Do it,” he moans against your lips, “I wanna feel you. Do it, sweetheart, I know you can…”

He doesn’t speed up, he doesn’t slow down; he keeps hitting every motion steadily, surely, like making you come around him is as easy to him as breathing.

It’s only when you feel his hold tightening beneath your jaw again—when the world narrows into a slit, when your head starts swimming in a cloying haze, when each touch is cranked up to eleven—that you melt.

Shaking, writhing in his steady hold, falling down like jelly against his arms, his name on your lips and your tongue in his mouth. It spreads from the bud of your clit like tendril up your muscles, weaving between nerves and arteries like syrup. It leaves you spent.

He’s not far behind. With your body like putty in his hands, with your husky voice in his ear—nipping at him, whispering filth you’re not half-sure you even remember—he comes apart the only way he knows how. Sharp, intense, real. Keeps pushing against you through it, riding it out. The stimulation is dizzying, viscous and nearly too much.

Holy shit.

The car is quiet in the aftermath.

Windows fogged up, keys and underwear and a pair of burgundy tights you got on sale forgotten on the floor, breaths mingling in post-orgasmic haze.

It’s perfect. Or, better yet, it’s right.

His hands are on your back, curling around you completely as you try lifting yourself up. The movement is shaky, and his eyes shine when he catches onto it. His palm comes around, cupping your flaming cheek, thumb rubbing the skin with such softness you think you might actually die. The look on his face is worse, though. Soft, brows furrowed, drinking you in like he’ll go blind and this is his last chance at picturing you. Your chest swells with it, this… fuck, what even is it? 

Love feels like too big of a word, too scary; staring you down like the maw of a gaping gorge ready to drag you in its depths. But, like feels too small; too insignificant and wrong for the way he makes your heart surge, the way you look for him first in every room you walk in.

You don’t know right now, or you’re too fucked-out to think, or you do know and it just feels more like being held at gunpoint rather than a self-actualization. Whatever the fuck it is, you’ll figure it out later.

Right now, you just let your lips melt with his own, giggling as his stubble tickles you, huffing a moan together as he pulls out. Back in his place, you’re looking at him from where you’re leaning on his kitchen counter, eyes softening as he places the prosthetic against the arm of the couch, as he sighs and lies back into the cushions with a hand rubbing his aching skin. But then his voice rings out: “I got a new sugar pack, 500 grams. Try not to use it all, yeah?”

And you know. You know.

You love him.

(It’s fifteen minutes before 7AM, and slowly, the day crew has begun trickling in. First it was Dana, then Robby, then Yolanda. You handed patients off, updated last-minute details on the charts, exchanged hello’s and quips. Jack is at the nurses’ station, smiling as Dana tells him about a recipe whose name you missed. Just that it is a ‘must.’ He turns and looks at you, eyes softening around the edges, mouth quirking, dimples showing. You shoot a wink, and maybe, if you were asked, you could pass it off as aimed at Dana instead.

Perlah and Princess are watching; goddamn walking security cameras. You don’t mind, though. Maybe you can even fuck with them about the bet. 

Oh, yeah, the bet. When will Dr. Abbot and his favorite jockey finally drop their pants? Find out on page four in the ever-growing PTMC hot-goss column.

Bridget and Shen started it, and then it trickled over to the day shift, and you kind of love Robby and Garcia and Collins and Mohan for being tight-lipped about it. You actually believe it’s because they want the money for themselves, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

“D’you see that wink? You think they did it already?”

“Are you kidding me?! I got money on another week, tops.”

“Walk you home?” asks Jack.

“Yeah,” you grin, shooting a look over your shoulder just to watch two of your three favorite day-shift nurses fumble and flail. “Let’s go.”)

3leni © 2025 — i do not consent to my work being republished on other platforms or put into ai. do not copy or plagiarize.

It had started on med school rotation, after meeting the chief attending. You were fresh-eyed and eager, just coming off an internal medicine rotation. The ED had been a mess you were not quite expecting. You knew almost immediately that it was not the place for you, but you had every intention of finishing the rotation just to prove to yourself that you could.

You flustered in his company, heart beating like a hummingbird's wings and you felt just as delicate. A crush on your attending felt like a break in protocol, a break in your carefully curated plan of med school, residency, attending or physician in a clinic. You were hung up on his age, which helped you keep your distance, and eventually you just tried to avoid him unless he was showing you something.

Sticking closer to Langdon or Collins felt like a safer bet until the rotation was through.

It was impossible to avoid him forever, it seemed, especially in the chaos of the Pitt. Two patients had been rushed in after an MVA — and you raced behind Langdon as he got the vitals of the first patient.

Seven month pregnant woman, awake and alert, with abrasions along her arms and legs, but a bruise already forming from the seatbelt. She grabbed your hand while Langdon was rattling off her vitals as she was rolled into Trauma-1.

“You’ve got to save my baby,” she cried, face scrunched in pain. “Please, it’s too soon.”

It squeezed your heart and you wordlessly nodded at her. “We’re doing everything we can.”

Robby walked into the room with an air of confidence, and it seemed to reassure you. Until her blood pressure crashed and the code blue began — L&D had been called, but they had yet to make it. You each took turns with compressions, and you felt as if you had completely stopped breathing.

The main focus had been to bring back the woman, even as the fetal heartbeat stuttered to a stop. A L&D attending rushed in the assess the situation, and you moved out of the way until your back hit the wall, stuck frozen as the scene played out.

The attending and Robby argued back and forth over something, but everything sounded like a high pitched whine. Langdon resumed compressions and you eventually got control of your limbs again, only to run out of the room.

Your breathing had come in shallow pants, like your lungs could not take in the air you desperately needed. You vaguely heard Dana call out to you, but perhaps it had been in your head. Everything felt like it was closing in on you, like despite any efforts made, it still would never be enough.

You found the stairwell without meaning to and collapsed on the stairs. Seconds blurred into minutes as you sat there, head between your knees so you didn’t throw up or pass out. Just hours before, you had been stone faced and helpful when a man had come in holding his intestines in his hands. The blood or the gore had not phased you — but this woman? Her baby?

It rattled something to your core.

Someone sat beside you, not speaking, simply just sitting. It made your hairs stand on end, and when you pulled your head up to look at them, you realized your vision had gone blurry. You frantically wiped away your tears to see Robby sitting there, elbows on his knees, hands together, looking down at the tile like it had personally offended him.

“Dr. Robby,” you said, sticking the heels of your hands into your eyes to try to stop the tears. “I’m sorry—I won’t—it—that won’t happen again.”

He glanced over at you, “First one is always the hardest.”

You sucked in a breath, “So she’s—”

He nodded solemnly, “Fischer thinks the baby might make it.”

You swallowed thickly, “That’s good.”

Silence encased you, but the rush of anxiety being alone with him did not flush through your system. While it was a painful silence, it was one being shared.

The way his eyes swept over your face made you blush, “You’re doing good, kid.”

“I don’t think emergency medicine is for me.” You told him, like it was some moral failing.

He blinked, “Your options are always open. Your next rotation, you might find something you love.”

“When I got placed here, I guess I just wanted to prove that I could do it, you know?”

“And aren’t you?” He asked, “One patient doesn’t change the fact that you’re still doing well. Hard worker, dedicated, eager to learn and you’re excellent with patients. I can clearly see that you care.”

Heat warmed your cheeks.

He stood slowly and extended his hand, “Let’s get back out there so you can kick this rotation’s ass.”

You barked a laugh before covering your mouth with your hand. You grabbed his hand and stood, ignoring your burning cheeks.

“Thank you, Dr. Robby.”

He let go of your hand and nodded, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate, yeah?”

You smiled at him.

—

The end of your rotation came with a bit more sadness than you had expected. Not so much to be leaving the Pitt — you were quite happy about that — but the fact that you were not likely to see Robby again.

On your last day, Robby tried to have you in as many complicated cases as he could — even when only a few came through the door. He wanted for you to take as much knowledge from your time in the Pitt as possible, and you found it incredibly endearing. You shadowed him for a majority of the day, rather than Langdon or Collins.

Though, the evening came without fanfare — only people wishing you luck on your next rotation and you bid them goodbye. Robby walked with you outside.

He rubbed the back of his neck when you stopped on the sidewalk, and he looked away from you. He pulled a yellow sticky note out of his pocket, before handing it over to you. His name was scrawled at the top in his messy script, and underneath laid a seven digit number preceded by the Pittsburgh area code.

Robby’s phone number.

Your breath caught in your throat and you looked him in the eyes.

“In case you ever need anything. School. Rotations. Life. Just uh…give me a call. Or a text.”

You looked back down at it as your heart thundered nervously in your chest. After a few frantic beats, you finally got yourself to smile at him. “Thank you, Dr. Robby.

“Uh, just Robby’s fine. Or Mike—Michael, works too.”

“Thank you,” you repeated, “Robby.”

You ended up reaching out to him a lot sooner than you were expecting, asking if he was free to meet over coffee to discuss your upcoming COMAT exam. Despite having zero time to study, you truly just wanted to be able to see him again, perhaps pick his brain about some of the specialties you were thinking of, but certainly not the exam.

When you met up, it was easy to talk about what you had been up to, how you were liking family medicine, and how he had been since you had last seen him.

You were thankful that it didn’t feel awkward or forced. The attraction you had felt for him back in the Pitt had come crawling back into your chest and made it as if it had never left. His warm brown eyes on yours made it obvious it never had.

Talking over coffee became a weekly occurrence after that. Part of it felt inappropriate as the conversations ebbed away from school and his advice, and closer to something a touch more intimate and mature.

You wondered if he was just placating you, or perhaps even pitying you, until several weeks later. He had sat down red cheeked and flustered, though you were quick to see it was not from the biting Pittsburgh wind.

“You alright, Robby?”

He met your eyes quickly, before glancing away again. “I don’t know if this is forward—I was hoping you might want to grab dinner sometime?”

You stared at him, momentarily dumbfounded. “Are you asking me out?”

“That would be…” He sighed, before rushing out, “Yeah, yeah I am.”

Your smile seemed to ease the tension in his shoulders.

“Dinner sounds good.”

—

It had been difficult to figure out, to say the least. While your age gap was controversial to many, it only reared its head to you when Robby mentioned an old movie quote that had you raising a questioning eyebrow at him. He would look mildly dumbfounded that you hadn’t seen it, or hadn’t heard the song he was humming, before resorting to show it to you.

You hadn’t enjoyed the judgment at first, but you knew his intentions were not bad — he was not looking to just have sex with you, which was refreshing. None of the guys in your program were particularly interested in anything serious, and most of the men you had met outside med school were too intimidated to seek much else. Like you, Robby was looking for something serious.

You were just surprised to find it before residency in the sad-eyed attending from your last rotation. But it was good, and no one could take that from you.

Robby wasn’t looking to rush or pressure you, and you weren’t looking to fool around and break his heart. Boundaries were easily set, and expectations laid out, and soon enough, he was calling you his girlfriend.

Your parents would likely have an aneurysm once they found out his age — they had already made a fuss to find out you were dating, “don’t let this impact your grades, young lady!” — but you had decided to wait until graduation, over a year away. Robby had respected your decision, knowing how focused you were on studying. You knew he had been nervous to meet them, and you would be lying to yourself if you weren’t nervous, too.

Robby was nearly your father’s age, which had bridged some uncomfortable conversations early on about daddy issues.

Your nose scrunched up, “I really don’t think that’s what it is. I’m not seeing you to get under his skin, or get his attention, or resolve some trauma about my father. It’s a lot less complicated than that.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I like you. I enjoy talking with you. I enjoy watching those stupid old movies,” part of your lip quirked up, “but more importantly, I like how you make me feel. I like who I am when I’m with you. I don’t feel like I have to hide or pretend, or try to be something I’m not.”

“You just get to be.” Robby said, finishing your thought.

You lit up at the way he seemed to immediately understand.

“And for the record, 80’s movies aren’t old.” His frown was playful.

You laughed, “Whatever you say, old man.”

You ended up paying for that comment all night long, more-so to prove a point, but you could hardly complain. At least not until the following morning when you woke with a soreness that should have been a crime and an ache for more that was completely impure.

A few months rolled into a year and eventually you started the fall semester with a rotation in pediatrics as an MS4. It was hard not to venture down in the Pitt to visit Robby, but after about a week, you got up the nerve to go and say hello.

You spoke with Dana, and Collins, waving at Princess and Perlah as they passed. Dana was happy to see you, and asked how you were faring upstairs.

“A lot better than I was down in here.” You chuckled.

Dana waved it off, “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, kid. I know you’ll find something.”

You bid a goodbye with a promise to stop by again — subtly looking for Robby, and now having an excuse to see him during this rotation. He looked surprised to see you, and played up the pleasantries as to not look obvious.

“What a surprise. You wanna come back to the Pitt?”

You laughed, “No.”

Robby liked to keep his private life out of prying eyes, and certainly away from the gossiping nurses, and you respected that. You let him walk you out, exchanging small talk. Once outside, he snuck a quick kiss.

“Meet you at mine tonight?”

“Me and my textbooks will be there.” You said with a smile.

—

Pittfest had been a nightmare made real, and finding Robby on that roof after only twelve hours since Jack had been in the same spot had made him worry. Robby had looked so broken, and after the day Dana had, Jack had volunteered to be the one to go check on him.

Knocking on Robby’s apartment door, a six pack in hand to have an excuse to show up, the last thing Jack had expected was a pretty young thing to answer his door. Jack blinked dumbly, looking back to the apartment number, thinking perhaps he had knocked on the wrong door.

Looking back to you, Jack noticed you were dressed in a hoodie he knew was Robby’s — hems frayed and collar worn out, the university lettering fading with use. Your eyes moved from his face to the case of beer in his hand then back to his face.

Jack finally got his lips to move, “Is Robby home?”

You only blinked, and then smiled softly. You called for him over your shoulder, and Robby came from around the corner with his eyebrows drawn close in confusion. He still looked completely worn down, but he was in new clothes.

“Hey, brother,” Jack ventured, glancing at you in the corner of his eye.

Robby’s head moved just a hair in the slightest nod. It was a movement Jack barely registered, but you had.

You introduced yourself quickly, and Jack shook your hand before coming inside. You disappeared into the kitchen, out of eyesight.

Jack raised an eyebrow at him, setting the beer on the coffee table.

“I didn’t realize you were…seeing someone.”

Robby rubbed the back of his neck, sighing, “Yeah.”

Jack sat on one of the L-shaped couch, cracking open one of the beers. He handed one over and Robby took it.

“Wanted to check in…finding you on that rooftop, I didn’t want you to be alone.” Jack looked toward the kitchen. “Didn’t realize you wouldn’t be.”

Robby only shrugged, “Told her to stay home, meet me here.”

Jack absorbed the information, “She a…resident?”

It was easy to see the rose color tinting at his cheeks, “Med student.”

Jack let out a low whistle, “How the hell did you manage that?”

“She passed through the Pitt on rotation.” Robby offered, looking at the beer in his hand. “Started seeing each other after that.”

“So you’ve got game.” Jack nodded, smirking slightly.

Robby chuckled, sipping his beer.

“Can she even drink one of these?”

Robby choked on the liquid, coughing a few times before looking at Jack wildly. “She’s twenty-three.”

Jack raised his hands in defense, “Had to ask.”

Robby’s nose scrunched up, “I’m not a—”

“I know, I know.” Jack said, “So you drop off at school?”

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Robby shook his head, rubbing a hand on his face.

“Alright, she drop you off at the old folks—”

“You done?” Robby deadpanned.

“Okay, okay. That was the last one.” Jack chuckled.

Robby laughed, so many pent up emotions clearly overflowing. He took a few deep breaths and shook his head.

“What a day. Thought I had a few more months before I broke the news to everyone slowly.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at him, “You were gonna tell us?”

“Eventually. We wanted to take our time — knew how people were likely going to respond.”

Jack frowned.

You appeared again, sweatpants now joining the oversized sweatshirt — Robby’s sweatshirt. You smiled sheepishly, taking a seat beside Robby. The sleeves were just a bit too long for you, but you looked at home in it.

Jack’s mind was swimming — looking to just check in on his friend and instead finding a relationship Robby had kept secret from everyone. His mind kept jumping to you using his friend, or his friend seeking companionship in problematic places — until your hands intertwined and Robby’s entire body relaxed.

The way your eyes swept over Robby’s face with affection dripping with love and care, or the way he kissed the back of your hand like it was holding him together. The way Robby looked at you like Jack was not even there, and you smiled back at him with a soft adoration, quiet and tired, but deliberate. Deliberate in the way someone chose to care about someone else, a decision made every day, even when it got hard.

Jack settled deeper into the couch, no longer on guard, no longer concerned his friend would fall flat on his face after falling in too deep.

“I’m happy for you.” Jack told you both, and Robby smiled at him genuinely. Jack took a quick swing of his beer, smiling to himself.

Dana was going to love Jack’s update in the morning.

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All: @nixandtonic

SHIFT TWO, Mon-Tues, 9:17 PM:

Meredith Sakman, a 67-year old woman who fell off her kitchen chair as she was trying to clean her kitchen light, sits before you in the examination room as you suture the superficial laceration sustained to the right side of her head.

Her hands, wrinkled with age and wisdom, fiddle with each other incessantly. Passing from twiddling with her wedding ring to drumming on her thighs as you weave thread through skin.

Sensing her discomfort, you fill the space. “So, Mrs. Sakman—how long have you been married?”

She seems startled out of the fog of her head, ”Oh, uh, 42 years.”

“Wow. Congratulations.” You hum, sincerely. “What’s the secret?”

“I don’t know. All these years and he’s still the person I look for when I walk into a room.”

“Must be an outstanding man.”

“When he wants to be. He’s a little bit of a grouch, but he makes me laugh.” She laughs, and the wistfulness of her voice grounds the room. You smile inadvertently at the details of her love.

 “Are you dating anyone?” She asks curiously, just as your forceps tie one end of the suture.

“Uh, no. I am not.” Saying it isn’t a confession of fault. It’s fact. 

The priority has always been your career. School first to get you to the good job that can get you to the rest of your life. You weren’t made for much of the troublesome youth, a fortunate detail your parents never took for granted. Smart head on your shoulders that got you the New York residency for three years, that led you to pursue the Pittsburgh EM fellowship—year one of two already knocked off your belt. 

Dating—as desirous as it could be on the lonely nights—didn’t fit much into that picture. The type of men that were interested in dating you didn’t fit into that picture. 

“Well that’s odd.” Mrs. Sakman heaves, truly stunned by your admission. “You’re a beautiful young woman. And a doctor. They should be rushing to snatch you up.”

“Well, you know. Guys my age tend to find that intimidating and often can’t measure up.” You explain simply and the older woman scoffs. 

“You need an older man.” She smiles knowingly. “One who knows a couple of things and can be your match. I’ve had my fair share of them and they were quite the memories.”

You don’t settle too long on her words, no matter how much you agree with them. Have always been told that you needed someone mature, like you. 

You move on. “I bet you were a hot gun back in the day.”

“Still am, sweetheart.” She giggles. “You know, my son is single.”

You give her a deadpan stare from above, halting the thread of your needle to meet her gaze. 

“Mrs. Sakman—“ You scold and she holds her hands up in defense.

“He’s a very smart man! Has his own accounting firm, very sweet and I’m not saying that because he’s my son. He’s 40 and you’d make a good match. And with that face of yours, you’d give me beautiful grand babies.”

You laugh, tying up the final knot in the suture and setting the forceps on the cart beside you. The excess thread is cut off with your scissors. “Unfortunately, I’m not in the habit of dating anyone related to my patients.”

“Then I’d like to see another doctor, please. So that way I’m not your patient.”

You shake your head with a smile. “You are a trip, Mrs. Sakman.”

The exam room settles into a comfortable silence, filled with the overheard sounds of the life of the ER around you. The small chatter in the curtained room beside you, the hum of machines, the occasional shout or laugh from the nurses desk. 

Just as you finish up your dutiful matters to her laceration, slipping the gloves off and directing your attention to her to explain proper suture care—

—she’s calling out to someone over your shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir! Can you be my doctor?”

Turning around, you see Jack is caught mid-stride walking past your room. His face scrunches in concern. 

“Everything alright?”

“Mrs. Sakman—“ You begin hastily, mortification burning through you as he steps into the enclosed space. 

Mrs. Sakman, in her rosy glory, plows on. Meeting the man with an effervescent grin that gives no cause for caution. “Oh yes, your doctor here is lovely and has taken such good care of me, but I’d like you to be my doctor.”

A brow raises, his eyes flicking to yours for explanation. 

You flounder for a moment, your mouth opening and closing repeatedly. The chagrin you feel is red hot and there is little hope that it doesn’t reflect obviously in your face.

“Dr. Abbot—” You sigh, begrudgingly, fingers at your forehead as you try to rub the embarrassment away, “Mrs. Sakman is trying to set me up with her son but as I said, I do not date relatives of my patients.”

“Ah.” He takes the information in stride, nodding his head with latent interest. Cool, calm, and collected while you fluster over the discussion of your dating life.“You trying to take one of my doctors from me, Mrs. Sakman?”

“If you’ll let me.” She smiles

“You don’t have to put your son through that torture. Order me a pastrami deli sandwich and I’ll give her to you for free.” Jack tilts his head to the side, grabbing a pair of gloves from the wall. He pointedly ignores the loud offended gasp you emit. 

“Let’s take a look at you.” Sliding the gloves on and stepping up beside the older woman, he begins a gentle survey of the laceration. Fingers slightly touching the wound, turning his head this way and that in review. 

“Sutures look good. CT clean?”

“Not even a hairline fracture.” You present, “She’ll be tired, maybe a bit dizzy, but otherwise she’s good. Anticoagulants have been prescribed along with tylenol for the next couple of days. Gonna keep her for another hour for observation before discharge with a wonderful guide on how to clean her sutures.”

“Good.” Jack nods. “Well, unfortunately, Mrs. Sakman, there’s not much more for me to do that your current doctor hasn’t. So you will have to stay in her care.”

“You can’t make an exception for a poor woman?” She sweetens. 

“Your flirtations won’t work on me, young lady.” He issues, low and exceptionally playful.

Mrs. Sakman giggles akin to a teenage girl, her face turning rosy as she waves Jack away. 

“Besides—” Hie head gestures to you as he speaks to Mrs. Sakman, “—we call this one Rambo behind her back. We give her up, we gotta spend more money on security and that’ll come out of my paycheck.” 

Jack takes off his gloves and tosses them into the bin, giving you a long, knowing look. Mirthful and wry, it holds against your dry, scolding one. Waiting for you to make a rebuttal, calculating the moves and ways it would come out of your mouth for him to counter. You anticipate it, depriving him of the reaction that he’s looking for despite the way his eyes dig into yours, searching for it. Looking like he couldn’t stop looking for it, like it would make his whole night if you just caved.

You stick your tongue in your cheek and he watches, fixated—the ghost of amusement casting over his face as he sidesteps you by the curtain’s opening. 

Your eyes trail after him, doing so well in withholding until he tilts his head at you. Beckoning. Your lips quirk upward then, and it’s all he needs.  

He breaks the prolonged charge with a sweet goodbye to your patient. “Have a good night, Mrs. Sakman.” Then, to you, he innocently says. “Holler if you need me.”

And then he’s gone, leaving from whence he came. The crater of his weighty presence settles in the room. 

You turn to Mrs. Sakman, with a shake of your head and an exasperated smile on your face. “And that is why you don’t want Dr. Abbot as your doctor.”

“Is he seeing anyone?” She laughs. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve got a daughter you want to set up, too.” You admonish.

“No. But you should pursue that one. That look, I’ve seen that before.”

It’s a splash of cold water over the heat that was simmering within you. At the embarrassment, at his teasing. A voiced thought that has no place for existence in this room—in this department, in this moment, in your life.

(A voiced thought that has infiltrated your own a time or two. That has wiggled its titillating fingers into the wayward dream, made a mountain out of a molehill, leaving your chest heaving, your thighs clenching, and the thought of Jack Abbot vivid on your mind.)

You push on, clearing your throat and detouring before your embarrassment escalates to humiliation. “Alright, Mrs. Sakman. I’m going to print out a guide for you that tells you how to take care of your sutures.” 

“I’m serious. Rules be damned, life’s too short. And he’s too handsome.” She insists just as you mean to step out of the exam room. You see only sincerity and genuity in her features. “I can see you with someone like him.”

Your mouth opens to find a response only to be met with the drying of your tongue. Words suddenly hard to connect, meaning difficult to find. 

Finally, with little resolve and even less polish, you mutter, “Be back soon.”

SHIFT THREE, Tues-Wed, 12:05 AM

“Hey! You think you can take my shift, sunshine?”

Ellis’ voice stops you from your walk from the bathroom and into the break room where she and Hilly gaze curiously back at you. The resident and the nurse are two of your favorites on the night shift, stopping for them is akin to stopping for air. 

“Rambo, brawler, sunshine. I’m getting all the nicknames this week.” You lean against the doorframe, peering at the two women who smile easily at you. “When?”

“Next Tuesday.”

“Can’t. I’ll be on vacation.” You tell her with pity. 

“Oh shit.” Her voice is light despite the disappointment. A welcome refresh on the night shift. “Where you going?”

“Florida.” The excitement is barely contained in your words. The prospect of a long vacation—away from the noise, away from the stress, away from disinfectant and in the sun—is a long overdue one. That excitement is shattered upon Hilly and Parker’s audible groan of disgust. Your mouth drops in shock as you defend. “I’m visiting my sister!”

“Don’t get eaten by a gator.” Hilly mumbles.

“Or a disney adult.” Parker pokes and you roll your eyes.

“I will be at the beach, thank you very much. A whole week with a piña colada in my hand and a tiny bikini on.”

Parker stands from her seat at the break table and fills up her thermos from a water bottle in the fridge. “If you come back with sun poisoning, I’m gonna laugh.”

“I’m a pro at tanning.” You insist. 

She raises a brow. “Even with a tiny bikini on?”

“Especially with a tiny bikini on.” You assert. 

She shrugs with a smile. “We’ll see.” 

“Talk to Abbot.” You tell her, returning back to the topic, “He might cover it.”

It’s almost comical the way Parker and Hilly’s faces scrunch in unanimous uncertainty. 

“Not today.” Ellis says. 

“It’s one of those days.” Hilly supplements. You nod in understanding, not entirely faulting the reasoning. Warnings were issued throughout the crew the minute the shift started. Steer clear. Dr. Abbot woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. 

Or maybe he didn’t sleep at all.

“Unless you wanna ask him for me?” Ellis counters, curiously.

Your brows furrow. “Why me?”

“Because you would get a much different answer than I would get.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” You insist, off put by the implication that you have any kind of weight to you in respect to Jack. Jack doesn’t lean on anything, for anyone. He doesn’t waver, he doesn’t reconsider. He’s a straight shooter, calling things like he sees it, having answers before the situation even arises.

If anything, your familiarity and comfortability with him makes you more prone to being at the short end of his sticks. Voluntold for things less than appealing—like picking up more shifts, by his steadfast hand.

“He’d say the same thing to me that he would to you.”

Hilly and Parker, in another feat of supernatural alignment, look at one another. A silent discussion translated in the look before they return to you.

“Sure.” Hilly nods. 

“Whatever you say.” Ellis supports. Your guffaw is met with Hilly’s boisterous giggles. 

That is, until her laughter is unceremoniously shot dead. An arrow to the heart, a quick and frigid silence encompassing the room. A glance at her reveals widened eyes fixated on something over your shoulder. 

The man in question stands behind you, lips in a thin line as his gaze bounces between the three of you. 

“Are we a hospital or a talk show, now?”

The two women quickly make their excuses, shuffling out of the room in a speed remarkably unlike either of them.

“Nope, on the way out now—”

“—I just remembered I’m so busy—”

Leaving only the two of you to occupy the break room. You half expect him to throw a comment out to you, expelling you back to the trenches of the ER but he doesn’t. He steps into the room with a low mutter. Unintelligible and gruff, resounding of the ire that has become him since the night started. 

The smell of his aftershave wafts past you. A cool mist twined with a musk. Inexplicably, him. Resonant of the stoic confidence that emanates off of him. Resounding man.

He’s tense as he approaches the counter, pulling a mug out of the cupboard and flicking on the coffee machine. It’s visible in the way he carries himself. The stance of a soldier back on war grounds, eyes skirting, glancing over his shoulder, listening for something. Not the sound of an incoming ambulance, not the sound of an intern struggling during a procedure. Something almost quiet, imperceptible. Known only to him, familiar to the memories that live in the lines of his face. A call with no name. 

A call that will bring back all that he’s lost. 

“Ellis needs her shift covered next Tuesday.” You toss the test balloon out, wondering if it’s enough of that kind of day for him to shoot it down with a precise blow dart or if there’s enough gentility in him to at least let it float by. 

“Sounds like an Ellis problem.” He mumbles.

“Just throwing it out there. In case you happen to have a solution.”

He looks over his shoulder, his eyes clearly bounce between yours, digging for a moment, before he turns his attention back to the coffee machine. 

“I’ll see.”

Floating by, it is.

“Everything good?” You ask his turned figure. Stepping further into the minefield, seeing what lands, which foot you place will step on the mine. “You’ve been working all week.” 

He snorts, but there’s no humor to be found. “So have you.”

“Yeah, but I’m off for a week starting Saturday. When are you off?”

”Saturday.”

A quiet hangs in the air, filled with your expectancy. ”…that’s it?”

“And Monday.”

“You need more than that.” 

One shoulder raises in a shrug. The smell of ground coffee fills the air as the pot bubbles to toil with the brew. Nothing particularly interesting and yet his attention is fixated. “Not dead yet.”

You hum, suspicious enough. “Rough night?” 

“What makes you say that?” 

The edge to his tone, that’s identical to the edge in his posture, that’s exactly like the edge in his attitude. Any and all of the above.

“You’re wired, today.” 

The observation isn’t groundbreaking. It doesn’t shatter windows, or break the sound barrier. It is a recognized truth that sits in the air with little disruption. He says nothing. Only pours the pot of black coffee into his mug. 

He’s not wearing his ring. 

The black one that has stayed permanently fixed on his left hand, third finger. 

There’s only been a handful of shifts in your year at PTMC that you’ve seen him without it—and they all felt like this. Rough. Tense. Like someone is one misstep away from receiving the glare that maims the career.  

It’s not a secret that Dr. Abbot lost his wife to cancer a few years after he was medically discharged from the Army. Just the mythology that lingers in the air like antiseptic. It’s easy to piece together that the days of his rigidity happen to coincide with whether or not his ring is on. 

And maybe that’s why you’ve been able to gravitate towards him. Not out of pity, but understanding. Respect. Admiration. Anyone with two eyes can tell that Jack carries himself with a significant weight—a testament to the life he’s lived, all that he has learned and lost. It’s a quiet confidence, an assumed burden that shows in his gait. A shining light that draws the helpless to him.

It’s hard to not be drawn to someone like him. 

So, you try. Out of some loose notion of affinity, respect, out of some desire to give back, you push where you know you probably shouldn’t. 

“You know…if you ever want to talk— about life, your day, what you ate this morning, something stupid you saw—” Your voice falters, hesitant for a moment before you find your steel commitment and push. “—grief. You can always talk to me. I’m here. At work. Out of work.”

His body goes still. Rigid. And stupidly, you wonder if this was the call he was listening for.  

“I won’t pretend to know. But, I can listen. If you want me to. Just ask.”

You don’t think he’ll ever take you up on it. In fact, it’s laughable to think that your attending—the man leagues above you in experience, and knowledge, and wisdom, would willingly stoop down to his fellow’s standing and talk about his feelings. Men like him compartmentalize. It’s what makes him an excellent doctor. The immovable rock under the beating current of the river. The beacon in a rushing trauma room.

But a foolish part of you tries because… well, because you want to. 

Because it’s Jack, at the end of the day. Battlin’ Jack with the edge in his eyes and the razor on his tongue. The first one you look for in a busy operating room, the last one you spot as you're packing up for the night.

Hazel eyes turn over his shoulder and find their spot on you with immediate precision. Boring a hole into you. Analyzing, configuring, understanding. He stares at you, in a charged stillness, almost like he were doing all three things at once and coming up empty on whatever he was trying to find.  

“…Sure.” 

You understand in the hesitancy that there is something hidden that he’s not wanting to share. You try to reason that his answer, as vague as vague comes, is a good thing, if only to save yourself from the disappointment of realizing that your attempt for connection has met a stoned wall. His words ring of finality, his signal to end the conversation. 

It’s here where the berth between you two feels so enormous, the difference in your stages of life. Not in the quips of the shifts, not in the jests of your being his junior and your teases of his age. Not when you’re beside him manning a procedure and working in tandem with the makings of a well-oiled machine as though you were always meant to work with him. But here, where you catch Jack in the hush and see glimpses of the man under the doctor is where the reminder is so pointed.

Signed, sealed, and delivered with red tape in your line of sight. Caution, written in his crow’s feet. Tread lightly, in the wrinkle of his smile lines. Warnings you should heed.

And yet, keep pushing, echoes in the beat of your heart. 

You nod, a small, resigned smile crossing your face. Leaving well enough alone. 

“Okay.” Tapping a hand against the doorway, you begin to take your leave from the room.

“Oh!” You stop yourself, turning back to him only to find that his eyes are still trained on you. “Uh, your patient in fourteen said he was experiencing a burning sensation in his penis when I walked by.”

“He’s in for heartburn from eating a shit ton of takis.” He says, diffident. 

“Guess he didn’t lick all the dust off his fingers.” You shrug. 

“Sounds like it.”

You take your leave and in the wake of your absence, Jack takes a harrowing breath.

His therapist’s voice lingers in his head. 

Doesn’t have to be the whole fleet. Doesn’t have to be announced. Just one is enough. Just a status update is all they need. All you need.

And maybe it's because he knows the sincerity behind your words, the invitation doesn’t feel like a hanging noose like it usually does. The prospect of talking about it—giving the status update—is akin to a standing death sentence for a man like him. Giving the unnamed a name, voicing it into existence, giving it the power to consume. 

He’s getting better at it. Giving the small doses in the official setting, where it's him, four beige walls, and a man with a PhD. Taking it outside of there, though, is still the battling challenge.

But—when you say it, when you offer—  

He pushes past it, doesn’t try to think too hard about it. Stocks it up on a shelf out of reach. Something to handle later, to forget about when he remembers to toss it out. Or, if the mood catches him just right in the safety of Dr. Mott’s office, he’ll bring it up. Discuss what it means, what he should do about it.

He doesn’t know. Only knows that a door has been left ajar, breadcrumbs of care and comfort leading a trail through and to you. Cracked open by your gentle hand.

Only knows that in the dormant hold of a wounded man and the slow becoming of a new one that he’s pushing himself to, Jack finds himself feeling the faint pang of hunger for something other than self-inflicted guilt and shame.

He eyes the breadcrumbs you left behind. Wondering, deep in the recesses of his conflicted mind, how they would taste.

He chugs his coffee, burns the taste buds on the tip of his tongue. Hopes that it erodes the want right where it began, cripples the potential to even try.

(It doesn’t.)

Thurs-Fri, 11:35 PM:

Jack is two forearms deep in the cracked thoracic cavity of an intubated 46-year old woman performing an EDT when the doors to Trauma One open. 

“Dr. Abbot, can I speak to you?” Dr. Reno, communal night shift’s bane of existence and general nuisance, shouts into the operating room. 

Jack has no more of an issue with the man than he does with anyone from Ohio—a general sense of pity coupled with a scrutinized squint of the eyes at some unsavory opinions that tend to come from the Buckeyes, particularly when the Steelers are playing—but the general opinion of the team’s feelings are not lost on him. 

He’s heard the whispers, seen the way the crowd parts like the Red Sea when the man is around. Jack keeps his head down, for the most part. He’s not Robby. Aside from the general check-in and check-out, he doesn’t want to manage people. Personalities exist, but they don’t matter in the heat of the moment. He leaves them be, pointedly making quirks and general tendencies a side effect of the job. Pointedly makes it not his business.

Until it is.

“Don’t know if you have eyes, Reno, but I’m kind of busy.” Jack responds, quick and cool, before turning his attention to Ellis’s intubation, “Drop the left lung and pump another three CC’s. Pericardium is getting cut.”

“Find me after.” Reno says briskly, the doors shutting loudly. 

Something vile and uncouth springs to his mind, annoyance cutting through Jack like a stabbing knife at the summoning. Something inappropriate, unprofessional, mildly threatening on a good day. Its sentiment is met in equal parts with Ellis’ mumble of “dick” which only makes Jack feel slightly better. 

Scissors cut through the thin wall of the heart’s membrane and quickly spot the torn ventricle that’s spouting blood profusely. 

“Found our geyser.” Plugging the hole shut with his finger into the rupture, he looks over to Walsh. “Ready to stop twiddling your thumbs, Dr. Walsh?”

“About time.” She rebuts, moving in beside him and beginning the suturing of the heart. 

Then a moment later, as her forceps pull thread through delicate tissue, she says, “You should handle that.”

He doesn’t need clarification to know what she means. “And you should handle this.”

“I’m doing my job.” She pushes. “Do yours.”

12:05 AM

“I’m concerned about your other fellow.”

If time could be rewound, he’d go back to this morning and let the phone ring into oblivion. Ignore the call asking him to come in tonight and spend the rest of his day watching the Pirates play the Yankees. Would rather watch his team get their asses handed to them than have this conversation—knowing where it’s going, knowing who it's about. The regret of his decisions only grates him further.

Dr. Abbot doesn’t find Dr. Reno. Dr. Reno finds Dr. Abbot—contrary to the directive that interrupted the procedure in South-13.

Just as he’s stepping out of the OR and chucking his bloodied gloves into the trash bin, Maxwell is on him without preamble. That stabbing feeling—the unabated annoyance— creeps up his neck like a fucking burn. So much so that Jack has to roll it out before even looking at the new fellow. 

His eyes flick to the man, deeply unimpressed at how dogged the man appears to be. He continues his path towards the workstation. Dr. Reno follows after him, quick on his heels. 

“Her charts and prescriptions are suspect.”

“What, is there not enough work, man? You’re reading other doctors’ charting notes?”

“She and I have disagreed too often about standards of care.”

“Then leave it as a disagreement and move on.”

“Just—” Dr. Reno grabs onto Jack’s arm, halting him in place. It earns the man a putrid glare, Jack’s eyes boring into the hand that lingers on his bicep until Dr. Reno takes the hint and quickly removes it. “—look at it, Dr. Abbot. I’m concerned.”

Reno holds out a folder, one that Jack fights the urge to grab and chuck across the ER. There are no niceties when Jack takes it, his ire blatant as he yanks the folder from the man’s hand. 

Your name is the first thing he sees on the document. A usual tender, easing thing within him that Jack refuses to draw attention to—the sight of your name below his on the schedule set for the same shift, the pop-up notification of your name in the work group chat whenever you send a text. Something he would continue to dutifully ignore were it not for the fact that the notes labeled as “suspect” are notes you’ve made on a patient dated a week and a half ago. 

He scans the timeline, red quickly filling his vision. Steel becomes him the minute his gaze flicks up to Reno, finding the man looking back at him expectantly.

“This is your smoking gun? Really?” Reno nods, emphatically. Jack grits his teeth. “Get back to work, Maxwell.”

“The patient was coughing up blood and complained of chest pain. CT confirmed it was a pulmonary embolism which should’ve resulted in a cardiac catheterization.” Reno insists, bulldozing past the point of professional restraint.

“Not if it wasn’t severe enough.”

“It was enough for the patient to be transferred for admission and OR to take care of it. This is a clear case of delay in proper care.”

“You’re upset that one of our doctors isn’t trigger happy with a knife? That she—” Jack looks to the chart record again, spotting a note that makes him more irritated, “That she correctly prescribed and provided anticoagulants that reduced patient discomfort and clearly instructed the patient to follow up with their PCP the next day.”

“And him being on the schedule for the upstairs OR today?”

“A week and a half after the patient’s visit to the ER. Clearly not admitted through us and yet treated in our hospital. Wonder what that could mean.” Jack bites sarcastically. “Oh yeah, that the patient followed up with their PCP and it was decided to remove the clot.”

“Dr. Abbot—“

“Stop following up on other doctors' charts. Focus on your patients. And don’t bother me with this shit again unless it's serious.” The folder is shoved unceremoniously into Reno’s chest. “Whatever beef you got against her, don’t bring it to my floor.”

It’s when Jack is halfway down the hall that another remark is called out.

“I didn’t realize you were so biased.” 

His leg aches in the socket of his prosthetic, a sign of his lowering threshold. The pulse of blood felt worse in the stub more than anywhere else. Turning, his eyes narrow.

“Excuse me?”

”You should’ve written her up. You know you should’ve.” Reno explains as Jack steps—stalks—closer. “It was a threat against another doctor. Management won’t be happy that you’ve overlooked it.”

Abbot stands before him, his chin tilting up just as his jaw clenches. “I didn’t overlook anything. I’m well aware of what happened and I’m choosing to handle it differently.” 

“You handled it wrong.”

Jack's eyes narrow. A long steadied exhale is released, like a bull catching sight of the red. “You caught me on a good day. Take a walk, Dr. Reno. If you can’t be a team player and get your shit on straight, then consider this permission to get out of the ER for the night. Your choice.”

“You can’t—“

“Make. Your choice. Before I make it for you.” 

12:17 AM

You’re on the back of a motorcycle with the wind in your hair when a phone call interrupts. Opening your eyes is like pulling yourself out of tar, but the caller ID does the hard work of taking you out of the depths of your REM cycle.

“Hello?” You ask, voice groggy and tired. 

“Sorry to be calling you so late. I know it’s your day off.” Hilly’s voice sounds on the other end of the phone. “Any chance you can come in and work an 8-hour?”

“Why? What’s going on?” You’re already sitting up in your bed, the decision to head into work practically made. 

“Reno had to head out for an emergency. We’re short one.” 

“Oh shit.” You mutter. You raise the heel of your palm to rub into your eye. “I didn’t realize I was next on the rotation.”

“You aren’t. Dr. Abbot asked for you.”

If the decision wasn’t made before, it was made now. “I’ll be there in thirty.”

“You’re the best.” Over the line, you hear from a familiar but faint voice in the background, “She coming in?”

“Yes!” Hilly calls, before turning her attention to you. “Dr. Abbot gave a thumbs up, but it was a grateful one. I can tell.”

12:52 PM

“What took you so long?” Jack calls over his shoulder, seemingly already knowing you’ve entered the ER without even glancing backward. 

You watch as the back of his head tilts up to the status board, then back down to his notes. You saddle up beside him, placing your bag onto the nurses desk for shoving into a locker later and lean against the workstation. 

“Yankees beat Pirates ten to four. I should be out on the town. You’re lucky I’m here at all.” You push back and he tuts, annoyed. Whether at you or the game, you’re unsure, but it brings a smile to your face. 

You peer into his notes. If he minds, he makes no visible sign of it.

“I’m delighted, truly. Nothing screams lucky more than watching the unit crash and burn while we wait for you to grace us with your presence.” He retorts, but there’s no venom to his bite. 

“You’re smart, Dr. Abbot. You can handle it.”

”Yeah? Then what do we pay you for?”

“PTMC needed the city flair.” You smile widely at him. 

“The shitty one?”

“The New York state of mind. The wins and all. You’ll understand when the Pirates finally fix their offense in the outfield.” 

“Don’t forget the stellar humility.” He hums, noncommittal. “And leave the Buccos out of this.”

You tilt your head at him. “You don’t like me because I’m humble.”

“Like implies affection.” He replies, easily. “Tolerate is more accurate, city girl.”

“Whatever you say, old man.” You sigh. “I get to leave early tomorrow though, right?”

“Extortion.”

“Tit for tat.” 

An announcement rings over the intercom. An inbound GSW, four minutes out. The room turns then, those settling in the front half of the floor preparing in an orchestrated chaos for the arrival. Jack grabs a pair of gloves from the box affixed to the wall, tossing them over to you before grabbing and slipping on his own. Jack finally looks over to you, his eyes doing a quick once over of you before he settles back on your face—readied, but easy. 

Seamless and still anticipation constructing your features, determination filtering in through the artful weave of your calmness. You stand sliding gloves onto your hands welcoming the impending disaster like it were an old friend.

If there were nerves to be had on you, he couldn’t find them. 

It only compounds the ridiculousness of Reno from earlier. Only furthers Jack’s unwavering lack of doubt when it comes to you. You stand awaiting the incoming trauma like you hadn’t just woken up half an hour ago, like you’ve been standing beside Jack the entire night when it should be Reno, and relief hits him like a truck. 

A semi that’s caught him like a deer in the headlights, loosens the strain that’s fixed permanently in the column of his neck, makes the ache in his shoulder pointedly less. One held breath away from feeling. 

“Thanks for coming in.” He says, suddenly serious. 

Thanks for coming when I asked, he means.

It startles you, the turn. The unexpected stoop into sincerity. Eyes bounce between his, unaware of where it comes from. He stares back, unabashed with the earnest yet otherwise unreadable. 

Nonetheless, you take what he gives you. 

“Yeah. Of course.” There is equal genuinity in your voice. You nod your head, softly. “Anything you need.” 

He nods, once. Then turns to watch the loading bay doors. “Make me proud tonight and I’ll think about Friday.”

“Getting soft on me, Dr. Abbot.” You tease, but it holds no real feet to fire. It’s not ribbing, nor is it a condemnation. Just an observation that sits between you two like a shared secret.  

“Yeah, well.” Jack shakes his head, but there’s no concealing the way his lips twitch upward. You both decide to leave well enough alone.

Turning in time with him, you pull on his surgical gown and tie it at the back. He ties your own, his hand lingering on your back when he finishes.

SHIFT FOUR, Friday-Sat, 8:47 AM:

You don’t get to leave early. 

You take a sip from the porcelain mug of lukewarm coffee you’ve taken from the breakroom and continue your endless stare into the slow revival of the world. 

The dark of the sky begins to dilute with the morning rise, the cold breeze of the spring air a welcomed remedy to your flustered skin. The benches at the park beside the hospital are uncomfortable, pointedly so. The longer you sit, the further the aches in your back that made their wonderful appearance halfway through your shift demand your attention—but this is what you need. 

A tether to reality, a removal from the endless spirals of a hurried mind. A way for your feet to finally settle on the firm, stable ground. No running, no long stretches of standing, no burning in the flex of your calves. Just dirty sneakers on the gravel, feeling some semblance of stillness even as life begins to slowly wake up around you. Hands feeling the fading warmth of the drink you hold tightly.

Birds chirp melodically as streaks of orange break up the sky. Your chest starts to feel like it isn’t on the brink of collapse from the erratic beat of your heart. You can finally breathe. 

The new day, in. The old one, out. 

“It’s not the worst of vices to have, but a sixth cup of coffee is pretty drastic. Even for my standards.”

It’s rather difficult to align your inner chakras when Jack’s voice grows closer to you.

The heavy sigh you exhale conveys exactly how you feel about it. “I’m not in the mood, Jack.”

“First name, huh?” The sound of his voice is another stabbed knife into the pantheon of wounds that decorate you today. 

“Off the clock. Formalities be damned.” You return, annoyed.

He steps in beside you, his steadied gait and imposing figure filling your periphery. A vision cladded in black scrubs that you refuse to look at. He makes no further movement, surveying you with a neutral look on his face. Not a new thing from him, and certainly not for the first time it’s happened tonight. 

Jack has a staring problem. Always watching, hawk eyes knowing things before they reach his ears. A dutiful sentinel on the floor and the subject of the running joke you have with a few of the nurses about the amount of eyes he has on the back of his head. Lisa and Hilly think there’s at least four, one for each cardinal direction. You’ve got money on the table that there’s eight pairs, minimum.

It’s his job as attending to be tuned in to everything that happens on his shift but it’s uncanny the way he notices everything. 

(“Military.” Ellis had said simply, eyes focused on charting. 

“X-ray vision.” Shen chirped with a shrug and a sip of his iced coffee. You nodded in agreement.)

It’s not a hunch, or a theory, or a girlish fantasy to say that all eight pairs of Jack’s eyes were on you tonight. He appeared out of thin air when things went sideways on your cases. Seemingly easy patients turning chaotic within the blink of an eye and each time, he was there. Beating Ellis and Shen to the punch, pulling gloves over his hands and giving his assessment in steady confidence and simple authority as he fell into step beside you.

Assisting you with perfect timing the first two times your patients coded, leading the procedures for the next one, and taking over completely on the final one. 

With his backpack slung over his shoulder and his hand shoved in the pants of his scrubs, Jack does as he’s done all night long and stares at you. Deeply, intently, unnervingly. His face betraying no tangible thought as he keeps you within his line of sight. 

And just as you’ve done all night, you keep your gaze in front of you. Fixated on the park before you.

There’s no telling if he watches out of concern for your wellbeing or others. Determining if you were a complex puzzle needing to be solved or maybe a potential bomb needing to be diffused. 

He’s got a morbid connection to the latter. All the more reason for him to stay away. 

In standard Jack fashion, he doesn’t. 

“That bad, then.” His words are light, almost blasé. It fuels a fire that you were unsuccessfully trying to stampen out. 

You scoff. “Yeah. Pretty fucking bad.”

He moves, then. Shrugging his backpack off, he places it beside the bench and sits next to you. Close, too close. Out in the open and away from the confines of sterile white walls and yet you still feel like you’re cornered. Drowning in the nearness of him, in the substantial feel of his presence.

He takes a breath before finally saying, quietly, like a man trying to tame an angered animal, “It wasn’t personal—”

“Felt personal.” You bite back, bitterly.

“You were clouded.”

Finally, your head snaps to him. Disbelief furrows in your brows. “That’s bullshit.”  

Your heated and sharpened fury meets his stoic and anchored one, looking at him for the first time since you were pushed aside in trauma three. No betrayal of guilt resides in the lines of his face, only true honesty and sincerity. 

It only makes you angrier.

“You undermined me in the middle of a procedure. In front of interns, in front of residents. This isn’t my first time around the block, Jack. It was a resection. I can do those in my sleep and you know that. This was no different.” Your head shakes incredulously, the frustration surging forward with little reservation. And while the anger is there, simmering deep in every crevice of your words, pinching your lips and narrowing your eyes, the hurt bleeds through, try as you might to hold it back. 

“You might as well have just told the whole team you think I don’t know what I’m doing. That would’ve been infinitely better than telling me to step aside.”

The corner of Jack’s lips flick downward, a sign you’ve come to understand as his clear disagreement. They purse forward as he thinks for a second. Registering the extent of your words.  

He leans his elbows on his knees. Thinking for another moment, until he says, “This isn’t New York.”

Your head pulls back in offense. “What the hell does that mean?” 

“It means you’re not alone in a department doing drastic shit by yourself because you have to, anymore. You’re here, we’re a team and in case you forgot, you’re my senior fellow. My responsibility. And I’m not going to let you drown.” 

“I-I wasn’t drowning. I had cases, they got resolved and I moved onto the next one—”

“You had four codes today.” He interrupts. “You don’t just move on from that.” 

Your breath hitches. It’s the actualization of the heavy weight, the one that’s been sitting on your chest all night. Constricting your breath, keeping your feet moving, and hands fidgeting. Somewhere in between keeping your head down and switching from one patient to the next, it hadn’t registered that he would have tucked the information away as something other than a performance metric.

A stupid notion, one clearly without any semblance of thought, because it’s Jack. 

(The Jack you’ve had all week, the one who teases as a means to compliment, who has quietly deferred to you when questions arose during procedures, who has given approving looks from the doorway over the course of the week. Jack that has brought you coffee on random occasions when the lulls have kicked in, in the mug he knows belongs to you, the one you sip at now. Jack who knows you’ve entered a room before a word comes out of your mouth. 

Jack, who is both a breath of fresh air and the halting cause of your own when the hazel of his eyes fall on yours from across a hectic room. Concern etched in the irises, a quiet check-in, a quick review of your status, before moving on to the next thing.

Jack, Jack, Jack—whose name fits too well in your mouth, that you’re too keen to speak out loud just because you want to.)

He says the truth simply. Without blame, unlike the raging guilt that courses through you. Without lecture. Words uttered incredibly soft for a man forged from fire and brimstone. 

“None of them were easy and none of them were your fault. Just really bad fuckin’ luck that they landed on you. It’s enough to weigh on anyone.” 

“My day had nothing to do with that procedure. I’ve been through worse, I can handle it.” You lie, stubbornly.

“It had everything to do with it.” He continues, holding your gaze dutifully. As though he could stare his truth into you—make you physically see his meaning. “I saw that look in your eye. You were gonna hack at that man’s body if it meant a single chance of survival.”

“Because there was a chance, Jack. If you had just let me—“

“Sepsis from secondary peritonitis. The bowel was necrotic. There wasn’t.”

“Then let me find that out! You push Shen, you push Ellis, I’ve seen you push Mohan. I get one bad day and I’m treated with baby gloves? I get kicked off a procedure? I’m a fellow, Jack. I should’ve been allowed to do my job.”

“I push when there is something to learn. He was gone the minute he rolled in through those doors. There was nothing to learn in that.”

“So I get punished for wanting to try?”

“I stepped in because you weren’t doing it for the betterment of the patient, you were doing it for yourself.” 

He renders you speechless. Your face falls from tense anger to a shattered hurt. You fall against the backing of the bench with defeat. The throat tightens in that familiar way that it’s been doing all shift. Your eyes start to sting with the swell of tears that you try to swallow down, force away before they threaten to spill. 

Still, Jack watches. Assessing, preparing, readying himself for the fall that he’d seen coming from the beginning. 

“This isn’t a question about what you can do.” He says quietly, a whisper in the wind. A reassurance uttered in the safe space between you, broken only by your shuddering breaths. “You’ve been off kilter on me since you got that little girl. I get it. No one blames you for that. You went into this one hoping you could get a save after the ones you lost. And if you want to pretend there was a chance, fine. You can sleep knowing that I made the call on this one. That this falls on me. Not you.”

And you’re smart enough to read between those lines. 

It was never about competence. It was a staged intervention. Jack’s way to release some of the pressure off of the cooking chamber that has been you all day. To place part of your burden on his shoulders.

Making sure that the four codes you were responsible for tonight didn’t turn to five.

The heat of your bruised ego simmers low, water poured onto the embers and leaving a smoking ash of your tender and fragile heart. Heavy with the stress of today, fraying from the guilt that eats at you. You turn to him, your eyes red-rimmed and burning with unshed tears that only inch forward the minute you meet his gaze. 

His focus on you isn’t intimidating. It’s a familiar shroud of comfort, a soft place to land. He listens, watches, waits. Beckoning you into him, wanting you to let go. 

“It was just like New York again, Jack. It felt like everyone I touched died.” Your voice breaks at the admission. “I can handle it, you know, when it’s bad. It sucks, but I can put it away and keep going. But today it was—these were simple ones.”

Your breath catches when you feel him move closer to you, his thigh intentionally pressing into yours. Another tether to the ground. 

You rub your hands against your face roughly. “Like what— what do you mean I lost an eight-year old to pneumonia? That’s routine, we go through that all the time. I did a year in peds for fuck’s sake. I had her— for a second I had her.”

An incredulous laugh tumbles out of your mouth. Absurdity is hardly a humorous thing and yet, it escapes with the fall of a tear that you quickly wipe away. “Then it was the dad with the DVT who just dropped on me. He was ready to be discharged. I was on him for two hours and nothing.”

“Then the car accident came in and I—I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t shake them from me. It was just one after another. And I tried but…just wasn’t good enough.”

He interrupts quickly, leaning in close to you. His voice fusing with a well-meaning reprimand, “Don’t do that. That doesn’t do anyone any good.” 

You sigh, tearfully and look to him. He’s close, close enough in your space where his shoulder is touching yours and you see how the lines on his face deepen with his intentful stare into you. It only capitulates the need to fall. 

“I know Reno’s been looking at my charts. And I know he brought it up to you.” You tell him. The careful composition of the man made of stone fractures, then. Surprised, aggrieved, almost furious. “And I guess—I don’t know. When you told me to step aside, it felt like you were believing him a little bit.”

The speed in which he dissuades the thought is comforting. “That wasn’t what that was. That’s not why I took you out.”

“I know.” And you do. But it still felt like it. 

Jack shakes his head, drilling truth into you with an emphasis that could hardly be missed. Needing you to understand exactly what he meant. “Whatever Reno thinks about you, fuckin’ forget about it. It doesn’t matter—”

“I don’t care what he thinks. He’s an idiot. And he’s from Ohio.” You scoff. “I care what you think.”

It’s his turn to be rendered silent. Not out of shock or stupor—but at the need to hold back everything that creeps up in that moment. Tiny gospels that bang against the caverns of a hollowed heart, carved empty from the brutal grip of a world that has taken too much. Truths that beg to be let out. The unnamed that claws up the soft tissue of his throat that begs to be given a name, to be heard. 

The truth is that you had been thorough all night, fast on your feet, a helping hand where needed. A forceful hurricane blazing through the trauma bay with a proficiency that justified your standing as a fellow. And Jack had an eye on you all night not because you were cracking but because he had to make sure you were still standing. Still breathing. Not as part of his job but because—

He needed to. 

And the minute he saw the slight waver, saw the way it was beginning to seep into you, he became a man of two minds. No longer able to compartmentalize. His eyes focused on the patients in front of him, his ears attuned to the sound of your voice on the other side of the room. Listening to the rises and falls like a hymn, reverent in his pious focus.

How his only way to fix all that was wrong for you was to be involved himself—handle it himself. Wedge into the web of you that’s been stretched thin and mend the cracks, bring you back to steady and safe ground. 

Bring you back to him. 

He doesn’t say any of that. Restrains the flooding thoughts with a wrangled rope and ties it hard enough to cut circulation. Ties the yearning before it makes an ample fool out of everything. 

Instead, he goes for the standard. The known truth, the easy one that lives beneath the dry teases and offhand remarks. 

“If it matters that much, you knocked it out of the fuckin’ park today. You touched more patients today than anyone else on the floor, gave excellent care in the chaos. You did damn good, today.”

Your nod is empty, tired. Dry of any attempt at human dignity. And it humors you that just a few days ago you were the one offering him comfort. 

“How’d you know how many I was on?” You ask after a moment. 

“…I was keeping count.”

“Really?”

”You drink more when you’re stressed. Like caffeine will make you focus harder.” He huffs at the surprised look on your face. “Told you. You’re my responsibility.”

“MD, therapist, dietician, and babysitter.” The laugh that comes out of you is wet. You sniffle. “Sucks to be you.”

“Most days, but not today.” You huff out a laugh and his smile slants. He flicks his head to the side. “C’mon. You need to sleep. Florida’s calling your name, God knows why.”

He stands with a grunt, working out a knot in his neck before turning and holding a hand out to you. You take it, allowing him to lift you from the bench with your own pained sigh. 

You rub at the ache on your back. “I’ll try but I’m five coffees deep—“

“—six.” He corrects.

“Six.” You repeat, feeling gently warmed at his record keeping. “Don’t think my buzz is going to let me sleep. Try to get some shut eye for me, though.”

“Don’t waste your wish on me. I don’t sleep much.”

“Do—do you wanna get some breakfast, then? I just—” The words come out before you have much cognizance to reel them in. Exhaustion and guilt and all of its disarming siblings pushing the request out. “I’m not ready to go home yet.”

Just as they hit the air, you realize how silly it is. You don’t expect him to take you up on it—too aware of the gap, the existing berth that lives loudly in between you two. 

“Yeah. Of course.” He interrupts. Says it as sure as the air he breathes. Says it without hesitation and even less reservation. As if you couldn’t have asked anything more obvious. 

“Anything you need.”

And in your colored shock, in the repeat of the words that were once aimed at him, here—that’s when you see it. Or rather, feel it. The charge, the shift, the inkling of something else.  

Something beyond your attending. Beyond the stature of the leader who knows everything, who can impart wisdom just as much as he could take it away. Beyond the monolith who pushes you to be better, that draws the lines firmly in the sand of duty and obligation, of giving it your all and knowing when to let it go. 

There, in the softness of his hazel eyes settling on yours and the small tilt of the corner of his lips pulling upward, is a man. A gentle one, with something soft wedged in the center of his steel chest that he’s torn down a wall and unlocked just to show you. 

Only you.

Something on the precipice of becoming sweet, almost ripe for picking. 

Something you don’t know the name to, yet, but can feel deep in parts previously unknown to you that you desperately want to learn more of as the sun rises on the two of you. 

SHIFT ONE, Tues-Wed, 6:48 PM

“Look at what the cat dragged in.” Dana’s smile bleeds into her voice as you step onto the floor. “Smelling of coconut and looking sunkissed.”

The familiar smell of sterile sanitizer and disinfectant is a welcome one. The pat of your sneakers on the tile floor is a familiar anthem as you enter the ER. 

You hold your hands out and bow to your awaiting crowd, “In the very flesh.”

“Surprised you don’t have a flower in your hair.” She teases, her smile growing warmer as you draw in closer.

"Thought about it but I figured that’d be bragging.”

“Indeed it would.” Dana busies herself with the final details in preparation of handoff. You come up to the desk, leaning your elbows against the surface. A quiet moment before your shift starts. “You get to stay at the beach?”

You hum, pleased. “All week. In the tiniest bikini known to man.”

“Atta girl.” She smiles.

“There’s sunshine.” Ellis calls from down the hall, and you see her approach the workstation looking like she’s already gotten a head start on her rounds. “Welcome back. How’re the nieces?”

“Too stinking cute. I got some photos you’re gonna die for.” You sigh, wistfully. “I missed them.”

“Not gonna leave us for Florida now, are you?”

“Ask me at the end of my shift.”

“Nah, she won’t.” Dana coos, wrapping her arms around your shoulders and giving your arm a loving rub. “Pittsburgh won’t force our sunshine out just yet.”

“Abbot would put a stop to that before it even started.” Ellis jests, and you raise a brow.

“What?” You ask. 

Dana ignores you, directing her stare to Ellis. “Maybe even get some people written up.”

“Maybe even put some people in a disciplinary hearing.” Ellis returns.

Your eyes bounce between the two. “Okay, what the hell don’t I know?”

“Nothin’.” Ellis smiles, turning on her heel. 

Dana pats your arm, lovingly. “Happy to have you back, sweetie.”

7:47 PM

“Hilly, I’m going to put in an order for an EKG for Mr. Breyer. You mind making sure that he’s bumped up on that one?” You tell the nurse as you both exit the exam room.

“Can do!” She chirps. 

“Oh! And—“ She turns on her heel at your call, looking at you curiously. “Did something happen while I was gone?”

Her brows furrow. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something with Abbot.” Understanding floods her face.  

“What have you heard?” She asks, voice dipping low.

”Just a comment. Something about a disciplinary hearing.”

”Oh my god, I can’t believe no one’s told you.” She crowds near you, excitement radiating off of her. “Not confirmed, but heavily suspected because Anna Maria heard it from Jesse who heard it from Perlah who saw Dr. Robby and Dr. Abbot talking about it. But— Dr. Abbot got Reno suspended.”

“What?” Shock raises your volume, which Hilly quickly shushes you. You lower your voice in apology, “For what?”

“Harassment. Unprofessional conduct.”

“Against who?” You ask, already suspecting the answer.

“Four people. Three nurses—” 

“Three!” You gasp. You had only known about the one incident, heard some things about from the others. But the extent remained only in what you saw in the stairwell with Anna Maria.

“All Latino. They all went to Dr. Abbot. Apparently he was keeping notes on certain racist comments made.” Your mind flickers to the image of the note he tucked into his breast pocket, and its unsurprising then that he would’ve known about it all along. 

Eight pairs of eyes always watching.

“And the fourth?” You ask, curiously.

Hilly’s eyes seem to gleam brighter when she says, “You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Dr. Abbot raised it up to Dr. Robby who raised it up to Gloria and so on.” 

“Harassment against me?” You ask again, unbelieving.

“Yeah. Something about sabotaging your performance. Depending on the source, some say he talked about some of the comments he’s heard Reno say to you or the arguments he would start in the operating rooms.  But everyone agrees—” 

Hilly pauses for a moment—whether for dramatic effect or to convey the extent of the magnitude of her next. Either way, you remain fixated on her. Waiting, watching for her. 

“—they’ve never seen Dr. Abbot angry like that.”

9:51 PM

You don’t get the chance to talk to him—officially. 

Only make him out in the background of the hectic shift, see him at the bedside of an incoming trauma before rushing into an OR, stepping in beside him and slipping the gown on to assist. 

There’s the sly comment about your absence—Hope you didn’t forget how to do your job, city girl. 

One you meet in equal time—Watch and learn, old man. 

Sly smiles exchanged, the meeting of tender glances, the return of the familiar. Into the feeling. 

He catches you at the rolling cart outside of North 12 again. A moment finally spared in the frenzy of the night that he willingly decides to lean into. He puts his good shoulder against the wall, surveying you with a steadied eye. 

“How you feeling?” He asks, but you can make in the tone that something belies the words. A veiled test, the subtle making of your person upon return to work. A gauge of what you’ve heard. 

You meet his test balloon with an easy smile. Happy, content. 

“Good.” You say to him, true and meaningful, “How are you?”

He watches for a moment before nodding, satisfied. “Good.”

There’s not much to say about what may or may not have happened while you were gone. At least nothing you trust to not lay waste to the goodness of the moment. There’s nothing to explain or be explained. 

You know why he did it. He knows you know why he did it. You both decide to leave well enough alone. Trusting each other like second nature. 

A beat passes. “D’you relax? Take photos?” 

You nod, emphatically. “Yeah. I gotta show you the ones I got from this alligator farm we took my nieces to. You’d get a kick out of it.”

“So long as you skip over the bikini ones.” A smile etches on his face. Loose and light, the same familiar song and dance. 

“C’mon. You don’t even want to take a peek?”

“Not unless you want to keep me up at night.” He raises a brow. “You can keep your Florida sunburns to yourself.”

“Well, just picture my screams, then. That always puts you to bed, right?”

“Not this time, it won’t.”

You take it to mean that the image of your body will scar your attending, which forces a scoff out of your mouth. Rolling your head to him, you intend to make faux hurt known. But, in meeting his gaze, you see something else entirely. 

A toiling knowing that runs the quip on your tongue dry. It’s that something from before, tainted with a depth that you haven’t seen from him. 

The air heats slowly, flint to stone igniting the mutuality of piqued interest. 

For a second you realize that maybe, the heavy gap that you’ve always figured lies between you two wasn’t so hefty from the extent of the said differences in life and experiences—but heavy for another reason altogether. For all the things left unsaid.

It brings an image to your mind—one that has entered into the realm of consciousness on nights where alcohol has made you too loose and latent desires infiltrate the privacy of sleep. 

An image of you and him.

Rough, calloused hands running over flustered skin. Tugging shirts off, stripping pants down, pulling panties to the side to take a peek. The heat of his breath fanning over the side of your neck, the pads of his fingers swiping through the wet. Circling, playing, a tease whispered in a husky tone just before he—

Your breath shudders. 

“Welcome back.” Jack says lowly, turning on his heel and trekking down the hall. 

a/n: of course it would be a a traumatized forty-nine year old man that would break my eight month hiatus. my first dip into this man, and i want more

Times where it felt infinite, like the first time you read “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and rode through the Fort Pitt Tunnel in the back of a pickup truck feeling hopeful and yet so, suffocatingly sad that the world was so big and beautiful, and you had barely even touched a small part of it.

Times that it felt messy, and cold, and plagued with the sentimental pain and wonder of the human existence, knowing that death comes for us all, but that it wasn’t something to be feared, only welcomed when the time was right. 

Times when it felt like life wasn’t just passing you by like a train you hoped to be on, like you were wanted, and needed by people who made you believe that they loved you; that they held their breath for you and your success. 

Most of the time, it just felt raw and somehow shameful, like you were constantly asking for forgiveness instead of permission, and like you were destined for all of it, as some sort of punishment. And yet, you loved it all the same.

Your history taught you how to be honest with yourself, that this is the only universe you will ever get to exist in and to look for the light even in the darkest hour. Taught you perseverance to seek and demand the truth even when it’s difficult and hidden. Taught you how to miss people more than you will ever love them and to find comfort in solace--that objects and people are not memories and that you don’t need one to have the other. 

When you left home for graduate school, you left with the optimism that you could make it right, and honest, and good. And it was, until you discovered that monsters are real, and they look just like people.

The assault barely lasted minutes. The pain—white, hot, lightning striking behind your ribs. The voice at the base of your spine, quiet and relentless, telling you not to fight back, that it would only make things worse. His face—familiar and contorted in determination, eyes absent of compassion. His body—on top of yours, pinning you down, trying to send you through the floor. The blood--warm and wet, pooling under you, staining everything it touched. The sound left your throat was one you didn’t recognize—guttural and desperate—a sound resulting in vocal fold hemorrhages and the taste of blood. When you tried to recall the events later, you could have sworn it was the body alarm that alerted staff. But when you watched back the footage, it was your piercing screams. 

It's that sound that drives you out of a nightmare and back to reality—chest heaving, throat tight, heart racing. Light peers into your bedroom through the leaves of the trees outside, extending itself over your restless body. You roll over onto your stomach, grimacing at your phone, 5:00 glowing bright green, the same color as the Nyquil you gladly swallowed last night to submerge yourself into liquid unconscious – best sleep you ever had, without a cold.  The nightmares and the chronic pain have been largely manageable, but on some nights, they leave you nauseous and begging for dreamless sleep. 

You get up early enough to walk to work, and every day is the same lesson in futility. You’re supposed to keep moving, keep exercising, keep regaining strength. But your hips ache and the muscles in your mid back on the same side as your injury lock up, and you take the same 15-minute break on the same park bench along the way—pretending to take a call so you can focus on something other than the tears burning your eyes and the room spinning. Work was the perfect distraction, and regardless of the physical pain you gladly welcomed the long shifts.

For the first week or two, it felt like most of the ED staff were avoiding you- out of habit. If you work in a place long enough where you’re expected to take on the role of several departments, you forget it’s not the norm. And when help finally arrives, it’s hard to relinquish control. It wasn’t intentional, and it wasn’t that there wasn’t a need for mental health services, but it still felt quite foreign to you—you were used to being busy and needed.  No one knew how to approach you, or what cases required psychology over psychiatry. Nurses and medical students avoided coming to you before consulting with an attending, and residents continued to page for consults over the phone to psychiatry, forgetting that you existed. You didn't blame them, as the look on their faces when you showed up to a patient room were usually looks of relief that they no longer had to talk to them about their feelings. 

But when the rushes died down, or there was a minute or two to breathe, staff were at your door, asking you to join them for lunch, a cigarette break, the after-shift dive bar escapade, and you welcomed the feeling of being invited. There’s something exciting about a room of people who hasn’t heard your screams on the news. 

Robby and Abbot were different— spent a lot of time alone, or with each other on the roof; the consequence of experiencing years of secondary trauma without ever talking about it. It had to haunt them, the lives lost in this building, the burden of the guilt and shame not theirs to carry. And for some reason, the ebb and flow with these two had you in a fucking chokehold.  You craved their attention with every glance and every quick-witted remark.  You wanted them to like you, to need you, to want you. And in return, you wanted to know everything about them—if they smoked cigarettes after a long day, what books they read, what their homes smelled like, the music they liked, what they sounded like in private-- if they thought about you for a single solitary second. 

“Those two have a soft spot for you, Robby and Abbot,” Dana had pointed out to you, while the two of you were alone at the nurses’ desk, “It’s been a minute since they weren't the most interesting thing about this place. And it doesn't hurt that you’re cute.”

“Yeah, they tell you that?” You raise an eyebrow at her. She doesn’t answer, just shrugs her shoulders while picking up another chart to pretend to look at, “Dana, do they ask about me?”

“You’re a mystery--a dark horse, and you’re playing hard to get.” She smiles, “Of course they ask about you. Why? You interested?”

“That obvious?" There's no point in lying to a woman who practically raised you. You spent more nights at her house with your best friend than your own growing up. But the last thing you need is for her to play matchmaker or give them any hints that you’re vying for their attention. 

"Not at all." She shook her head, "Just be careful. They have quite the habit of getting whatever they want." 

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel the gravitational pull from the two men who gave you the time of day, made you feel seen, and referred endearingly to the three of you as “the adults,”—a nod to not needing supervised, and not needing to speak about medical bullshit around them. Abbot had said it in jest, “the adults are talking” when a medical student had tried to interrupt a completely off-topic conversation between the three of you, and it stuck. They took every opportunity to match your sense of humor and push the boundaries during shift change-- the only time the three of you fully crossed paths – like two supportive, incredibly attractive work husbands, who you also wanted to see naked. 

"Did it ever occur to the two of you" Abbot makes a comment as he and Robby approach the nurse’s desk, finally finished rounding with each other, both leaning on the desk on their forearms in front of you, "That we're more fucked up than the patients?”

“It’s the years of compounded trauma that I’m guessing the two of you refuse to process or talk about” you nod, smiling sweetly at them “Or did you expect me to believe that you both love working in the ER because it makes you feel hip and young”

"Ageism isn't tolerated here, baby" Abbot shakes his head, "and I’ll go straight to Gloria.”

Baby. Say it again, and this time like you mean it. 

“Last time I checked, we’re not that much older than you," Robby adds, turning to Abbot for a confirmatory nod, before turning his attention back to you, "and before you let that go to your head, we asked Dana."

"You two, asking about little old me? I'm both amused and flattered to take up occupancy in your heads." A hand to your chest, sarcastically clutching your proverbial pearls, watching the two of them roll their eyes, “What else did you ask her about?”

“Seems like you like occupying that space,” Robby barely misses a beat, wearing an expression of vague amusement, "Only the important stuff. Age, blood type, deep dark secrets,"

“Are you flirting with me Dr. Robinavitch?” his eyes meet yours when you ask, winking at you, “You asked about the tattoos too, didn’t you?

"Yeah, I’ve got 20 dollars on you having a tramp stamp, and Robby’s got 20 dollars on a back piece” Abbot retorts, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, “and a tongue piercing in college.”

“Boys, you have no imagination whatsoever” you walk behind the two of them, placing your hand on each of their shoulders, and lower your voice just loud enough for the two of them to hear, “it was my nipples in college.”

You squeeze their shoulders, hearing the air leave their lungs like a punch to the gut, Abbot stifling a giggle.

“You really are trouble” Abbot retorts, both grinning like schoolboys, “how’d we get so lucky?”

"I could ask myself the same thing" you turn on your heels, headed to the elevator, their eyes following you the entire way, “I’ve got a meeting, but I’ll be back by noon for any consults. Try to keep your minds off the piercings.”  

“Come get a beer with us after work,” Abbot calls out to you, “It’s my day off, and you can’t leave us hanging like that, it’s just rude.”

“If you're buying. But I'll need more than one beer if you want to see them,” you smile sweetly at the two of them as the door to the elevator closes. You lean your head against the elevator wall –please, please, let me get what I want. 

By the time you make it back to down to your office, it’s after noon and the only thing standing in your way of a long-awaited lunch break, is a smug looking Robby waiting outside your door, those warm, brown puppy-dog eyes lighting up when notices you walking towards him, coffee in hand.

“I come bearing gifts” Robby holds up the coffee, extending it to you, waiting for a proverbial pat on the back and a thank you, “I promise the order is right. I also asked Dana about that.”

“You really did ask about the important stuff,” you take it from his hand, eyes narrowing towards him, “sounds like a bribe though. A much needed and greatly appreciated bribe. What do you want? A consult? A back massage? Come in, have a seat, close the door.”

You open the door to your office, and he slides his arm between you and the door to hold it open for you, towering over you as he follows you into your office, door closing behind him. For the first time all morning, you're met with silence. Must be a first for him too, as he leans against the door, eyes closed, appreciating the lack of noise, "I fucking love that sound. And a massage, huh? you offer that to all your patients?"

When you turn back to him, he's got this look on his face of pure amusement, like this is new for him, and like he's proud of himself for the quick comeback, and subsequently your reaction. He didn't have to bring you coffee and he sure as shit didn't have to ask Dana for your order

"My brother in Christ, this really is the nicest thing anyone has done for me all day,” the first taste of coffee hits, "And no, I only offer it to tall, dark and handsome trauma-ridden attendings who know my coffee order. Turn around.” 

You motion for him to spin around, and you watch him hesitate. 

"You don't...I didn't. Fuck you’re hard to read.” He tries to backtrack, eyes searching your face to see where your head is at. The last thing he needs is to take this too far, or the wrong way. It’s endearing.

"Jesus Michael, relax.” His face softens when you say his name, like he likes the way it sounds coming out of your mouth, “I’m not offering to blow you in my office, or explore your prison wallet, just turn around, and take off your hoodie,” 

You put your hands on his shoulders, ushering him to turn around to face the door, “Permission to touch you in a non-sexual way.”

“Granted,” he confirms, apprehensive. He takes off his hoodie, still unsure of your next move, and tosses it on the couch. You return one hand to his shoulder, thumb of your opposite moving just below his shoulder blade. His body is warm, muscles tight and rigid and you take a moment of silence to appreciate the man in front of you—the goosebumps on the back of his neck, the tattoo ink on his bicep, hidden by his shirt sleeve. You'll remember to ask him about that later. You trace your thumb along his shoulder blade and press firmly into the muscle just underneath. And like everyone else, in the history of the world who has experienced this exact pressure for the first time, you feel his entire body relax against your hands.

"Fuckkkk,” It’s low and drawn out, shoulders slumped, his head falling to rest against the door, and your breath catches in your throat at the sound of him. So that’s what he sounds like when he’s into it. Noted. 

“See? Just carrying around years of trauma,” you chuckle, bringing your mouth close to his ear, pressing even harder, “And Michael, if you can teach me how to run the psych department as smoothly as you run this ED, I’ll do whatever you want.” 

The moment it leaves your mouth, you briefly panic, your hands leaving his shoulder, and you instinctively take a step back, “Fuck, I’m sorry. I made it weird.”  

He turns towards you and leans his back against the door, arms folded across his chest, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He likes watching you panic, “That felt fucking amazing. And no, not at all. You had me practically begging for it.”

He doesn’t notice the flush of your cheeks, or if he does, he doesn’t take the bait to embarrass you any further.

“I did, however, come to see if you had time to sign off on an involuntary hospitalization” He adds, back to the professional bullshit like it never even happened. Then again, he didn't need to bring you coffee for you to do your job. “Meet me outside of two in five minutes?”

“Absolutely,” you nod, downing the rest of your drink, “I’ll be right there.” 

"And Wheeler,” He opens the door, turning back to you momentarily, lowering his voice, “Whatever I want? My kind of girl.”

He doesn’t let you respond, nor does he stick around for your reaction. The blood rushes to your face as the door shuts and you're left standing in the middle of your office, skin burning, cheeks red, the air sucked out of your lungs. Who’s fucking hard to read now?

The end of the shift comes quickly, after back-to-back consults, an inpatient hospitalization, and several therapy contacts. You get the chance to be needed, albeit during a crisis. And you're really fucking good at it.

The thing about crisis work is that it makes you soft—allows you to meet someone where they’re at on the worst day of their life and show them empathy. When you tell them it’s okay to feel this way, it’s almost like you’re reminding yourself.  Pain, Like John Green wrote so eloquently, demands to be felt. And you'd argue that it also deserves to be shared—the weight of it distributed. 

By the time you’re done documenting, Robby isn’t anywhere to be found, and you feel a familiar sense of defeat in the pit of your stomach. Maybe the extended invitation for a beer wasn’t an actual invitation, just a knee jerk reaction to your earlier comments. You make your way out to the ambulance bay, searching your bag for your air pods.  Nothing some elder emo bullshit won’t fix. 

“There you are,” Robby’s voice calls out to you, relieved, like he’d been waiting the whole time, and you turn to find him leaning against the wall, sunglasses on, bag slung across his shoulder, “thought maybe you bolted.”

“And miss the opportunity for a free drink? Never.” You play it off as if you weren’t about to go home and drink yourself into a coma for being so naïve. He motions you to follow him off hospital grounds, and the two of you walk mostly in silence, taking in the last bit of daylight that you rarely get to see.  The day is all noise—beeping machines, staff asking questions, patients yelling. This silence is welcomed. He looks over at you a few times during the walk, and by the looks of it, he’s working up your limp in his head—a real doctor thing to do. You’ll tell him about it eventually, in all its glory. 

Abbot’s waiting outside of the bar, in jeans and a leather jacket. He looks good, a smug look on his face when he sees the two of you approaching, “The adults are here”

“And ready to drink, brother” Robby slaps his hand against Abbot’s back as you follow the two of them inside.

It’s a shitty dive bar—one you’ve been too, and puked in, plenty of times in college. It’s loud, full of undergrad kids practically buzzing with energy and undamaged livers. Abbot leads the way to the bar and orders the three of you Yuengling- a Pennsylvania staple. It feels foreign being back here, but familiar—the air humid, someone playing Hot Line Bling on TouchTunes, the faint smell of vomit. Someone touches the small of your back to pass you, and the room tilts briefly, a cold sweat washing over you.  You grip the beer bottle tightly between your fingers, and down the liquid inside, an old habit mixed with a trauma response. When you set the empty bottle on the bar, your hands shaking, you’re met with looks of shock and awe from Abbot and Robby.

“Can we get the fuck out of here?” You mean to ask like it’s not a big deal, like you're not on the verge of panic attack from a stranger brushing up against your scars, but it comes out as more of a plea to the two of them.

"Absolutely," Abbot picks up on the tone of your voice and the fact that your hands are clenched into fists at your sides, and nods to Robby, "Beer and pizza at your place?"

"Read my mind," He replies, "Although, let the record reflect I'm still young and hip enough for this place."

It's a two-block walk to his fancy upper-level condo, with a fire escape perfect for late night cigarettes and contemplating the universe. The interior is beautiful. Dark exposed brick but full of natural light and just far enough away from the city to be quiet.  He definitely hired someone to design this place, judging by the leather furniture, hanging art, and antique lighting. It smells like sandalwood and tobacco, like an expensive candle you burn only on your worst days. You put the beers in his fridge, like you've been doing it your entire life, and take stock of the take out containers lining the shelves, a mental note to bring him some of your own leftovers. Men love a woman who can heat up frozen food. Abbot turns on the TV and puts on hockey; something non-threatening to ease the awkwardness of a first encounter. 

“We really fucking suck” He chuckles, as he and Robby take a seat on the couch. But you can't stop looking around. His refrigerator is crushed with magnets of places that he's presumably been, probably with an ex who probably bought these magnets. He's got all-clad pans he's probably never used, and a gallery wall full of hand drawn Pittsburgh landmarks. He's so put together, a real adult right in front of you.  You realize you've been invading the privacy of his home for probably more minutes than you were cognizant of, and grab three beers from the fridge, walking towards them. 

You hand them both a beer and take a seat on the arm of the couch, hesitant to encroach on their best fucking friendship. They talk about sports, patients, residents, the weather, the scrubs they wear, the bars they go to, the shit they’ve seen. 

“Come on, you” Robby pats the cushion between the two of them, and you oblige, taking a seat between the two of them, their knees touching yours. 

It feels comfortable, being with them, like you’ve done it a thousand times before. Something about the absence of expectations reminds you of home—a feeling you’ve searched for since you left. 

“Okay I have to know” Abbot starts, setting his beer down, “Are you always as full of shit as you are at work? It’s fucking criminal how funny you are.”

“You know how you guys are all silent and broody because of trauma? I’m funny because of trauma.” You admit, “less dangerous than diving off the roof.” 

“And the questionable boundaries?” He continues, raising an eyebrow at you

“Prison” you exhale, rubbing a hand over your face. “It’s a different world in prison. You see more dicks by 8am than most people see in a week, and the fucking insults. Someone told me I had a quarterback’s ass one time and I’m still trying to decide if it’s a compliment. You just get used to the inappropriate jokes and comments. I’m sorry if I made it weird.”

“I fucking love it” Robby laughs, he leans back against the couch, “and believe me, as long as you don’t call me fruitcake or cocksucker while handcuffed to a wheelchair, we’re good.”

The three of you drink beer and eat pizza and watch hockey. They’re impressed at your knowledge and affinity for yelling at the refs, and you can’t stop giggling at the two of them bickering back and forth like best friends about their favorite teams.  You stand up to head to the bathroom but the alcohol rushes to your head, and the room sways.

“Careful” Robby’s hands reach out to steady you, his hands unintentionally sliding under your shirt, hands warm against your skin, “a bit of a lightweight?”

The feeling reminds you of why you’re here. The unspoken chemistry, the push and pull of two men who look at you like you’re interesting and worth something. 

“Guilty” the room rights itself and you thank him for the assistance, “haven’t had a drink in 12 weeks.” 

When you come back, the game is still on, but their eyes are on you. Abbot’s still on the couch but Robby’s leaning against the kitchen counter. You make your way past Robby to his record collection. They don’t say a word, just watch you trace your fingers along his record collection, finding the record with the saddest energy; you’re a beacon for darkness and they don’t even know it.  You pull out Bon Iver’s self-titled record, and turn on the record player, the sound of “Perth” filling the room.

“So” you turn around, both still looking at you, trying to gauge your next move. They’re used to being in control and you’re used to causing chaos wherever you go, “Is this thing platonic?”

The confidence is 10% you, 90% alcohol, and it surprises you how smoothly the words come out of your mouth. Neither of them speak, but they look at each other, exchanging some silent words in looks that you hope to one day come to recognize.

“Or have I been reading the room wrong?” You speak up, trying to squash the silence, “because it feels weird for me to be here, a little bit drunk, putting on your sad boy records, if we’re not going to address it”

“Definitely not platonic” Abbot speaks first, a smile on his face, “We’re absolutely smitten with you.”

“And what about you?” your eyes move to Robby, waiting patiently at the kitchen counter. He bites the side of his thumb and narrows his eyes at you. 

“Already told you that you’re my kind of girl” he references the conversation from earlier, rubbing a hand behind his neck, a blush spreading across his cheeks, “but we know nothing about you.”

He’s not wrong. You haven’t given them anything to work with other than inappropriate jokes and some implied sexual advances. You’re good at keeping others at arms’ length, only pulling back the curtain far enough to know you superficially—to avoid scaring them away. But this feels different, safer, honest.

“What do you want to know?” You reclaim your seat on the couch, patting the spot next to you for Robby to sit, “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“How old are you?” Abbot starts

“Thirty-five.”

“What’s your story? How’d you get here?” Robby asks

“I grew up here, in Shadyside actually. Got into psychology after I couldn’t pass organic chemistry. Thought I’d never leave this place, actually” you share, “I love it with my whole heart, and I’ve always missed it, but the relationship I have with my family is difficult, and it began to feel suffocating, so I moved away for a job in a maximum-security prison. Grew to love a different place, with different people.”

“That job must have been really hard,” Abbot counters, “I can’t imagine the shit you’ve seen.”

“I’ve always felt empathy and understanding and compassion and thought that maybe it would be a good challenge,” You sighed, “but I learned very quickly that the only thing separating us from inmates were the bars on the door. And it’s fucking hard to be part of that system that sets people up for failure”

“I’ll fucking drink to that” Robby adds, “You never settled down there?”

“Unfortunately, I’m still painfully single. Never married. No kids, one cat,” you concede, “The tattoos and piercings probably didn’t help.”

These fucking tattoos,” Abbot groans, frustrated that you still haven’t put your money where your mouth is, “You ever going to show us or should we just talk about it some more?”

“Remind me, which one of you has back piece?” You stand up between the two of them, pulling your t-shirt up over your head, exposing an entire black and white floral back piece connecting to the floral sleeve running down your arm, “got it in grad school. I believe one of you owes the other 20 dollars.” 

Before you can pull the shirt back down, your surprised by the feeling of both of their hands on your back, fingers tracing the scars on your skin. You haven’t had the confidence to look at it, but the way you hear the breath catch in their throats, as doctors, solidifies the fact that it probably looks as bad as it feels. “Barely missed your spinal cord,” Robby’s fingers trace down your spine, and you shiver against his hands.  They take stock of what’s in front of them, the way your skin twists and scars and warps the design of the ink, “Jesus, Y/N what the fuck happened?”

“One of my patients stabbed me with a sharpened toothbrush, at nine in the morning, on an uneventful Tuesday.” You pull your shirt down, their hands breaking contact with your skin, and turn to face them, “But that’s a story for a different day, boys. And I don’t want to ruin the mood.”

“The mood, she says,” Robby shakes his head in disbelief, picking up his beer to take another sip.

“Listen, I’m happy to share my deep dark secrets with the two of you” You take the beer out of his hand before he can set it back down, finishing what’s left, “but if this is not platonic, and both of your dicks get hard when you think about me, and you want to fuck, then let’s talk logistics.”

This will be the turning point in your relationship. 

“Logistics, huh?” Abbot raises an eyebrow, both trying to wrap their heads around the words coming out of your mouth, “I’ve never been one to say no to having fun.” 

You take a step so that you’re in front of him, legs on either side of his knees. You lean forward, your hands finding the muscles between his neck and shoulder, squeezing. He welcomes the action, a smile on his face like he’s settling in for what’s about to happen, his expression changing as your put your knee on either side of his hips, straddling him on the couch, hands moving to his chest, 

“Oh, okay,” He breathes.

You’re careful to rest your weight on your knees, only touching him with your hands. “Yeah, Jack, Logistics,” your mouth to his ear. His hands grip the sides of the cushion underneath him, and you hear him exhale slowly, “How do you feel about fucking the same girl as your best friend?”

“I mean I prefer to fuck alone, with him not in the same room” he chuckles, an effort at distraction, “But I don’t mind sharing.” You briefly look to Robby, who’s watching your movements, hands clenched into fists beside him as he tries to ground himself. His eyes meet yours, dark, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. This is definitely turning him on.

You lean back to look at Jack, your weight shifting, fully sitting on his lap “Any other ground rules?”

Your fingers trace his jaw, down his neck, to his arm, wrapping your fingers around his biceps, and you can feel his skin shiver underneath your fingertips. 

“I don’t want to know what the two of you are doing, and the same goes for him.” He looks you in the eye, his hands sliding up your thighs to your hips, “and we make a schedule. Your mine on nights, his on days.” 

Mine. His. 

“Fair enough, Jack.” his eyes move to your lips, watching the way his name comes out of your mouth. You feel him tilt his hips underneath you, your breath catching in your throat, and his fingers grip your hips tightly, holding you against him. You press your lips to the pulse point beneath his jaw, his heart racing beneath his skin, and as you stand up, he lets out a frustrated groan at the loss of contact. 

You turn to Robby, climbing over him so that you’re standing in between his legs. He looks up at you, waiting to see if he’s about to get the Jack Abbot treatment.

“Michael,” you say sweetly, kneeling down between his legs, reaching out to slide your hands under his shirt. His skin is warm, as your hands slide over his stomach and up to his chest, “What about you?” He squeezes his eyes shut, mouth open, sharply inhaling, “Look at me, Michael”

He opens his eyes and sees you kneeling in front of him, cheeks flushed. 

“I want this to be fun,” he says as you slide your hands up his thighs, swallowing hard, “And I want to know everything about you. What you like, what you don’t. And we don’t tell anyone at work. ”

“Deal,” You tilt your head, fingers tracing the waist of his jeans, “and we definitely don’t tell anyone at work.”

“Good girl” his voice is low, and it makes your entire body vibrate. He leans forward and reaches out, his hand wrapping itself around your throat gently, before running his thumb along your bottom lip. You open your mouth wide enough for his thumb to slip between your lips, your tongue swirling around the tip of his thumb, eliciting a groan from his mouth, hips instinctively lifting off the couch, “Jesus Christ.”

You stand up and take a seat between the two of them, both still breathing heavily, and you pat both of their knees with your hands.  

“This is strictly for fun, we don’t share stories, and we don’t tell anyone at work. If this stops being fun, or if either of you don’t want to do this, we stop. No questions asked, no hard feelings.”  You confirm, “got it?”

They both nod, swallowing hard. 

“Good. And we start now. I’m on days for three more shifts,” You look over at Abbot, “and Robby’s got the day off tomorrow. So, unfortunately, Jack, you gotta go.” 

“You’re a lucky man, brother” He takes a moment to compose himself before standing up, “I’m just going to go home and take a cold shower. Looking forward to the night shift, Wheeler.”

“Goodnight, Jack.” You blow a kiss towards him as he exits the apartment, turning your attention back to Robby as the door closes.