you can't love someone

Tim hit the ground and rolled out of the cold, metal hand. The loud clang had sent his brain rattling in his skull. He clenched his jaw, fighting through the pain to keep himself mentally present. This wasn’t over yet. He couldn’t afford the luxury of checking out. He’d meant it: no one and nothing was going to hurt Conner, Bart, or Cassie while he was still breathing. That might have been a currently difficult task but not yet impossible.

“H-hey, Wonder Girl.” He should move, he knew that– he could see the looming metal giants behind Cassie’s frame– but his muscles felt locked with exhaustion. Blinking sluggishly, he smiled with bloody lips. “There’s two of you.”

His fingers loosely curled around hers. After a moment, he picked up on the softest crackle behind them, and closed his eyes in relief at the recognition of the sound as Kon’s heat vision sliced the air above them to cut through one of the other robots. There were words said as Kon rushed by them, up and moving again with ferocity, but Tim let them go without really hearing them. Kon was okay. Cassie was okay. He could feel his pulse and hers in their fingertips squeezed together. 

Another hand closed over theirs, vibrating slightly. “You guys good? Nope. Dumb question. Stay down. We got this. I’m a little rattled but I’m a’okay. I got this. Gonna earn that hero card while you two play damsels in distress. Let me be cool, ‘kay?”

Tim gave a shaking thumbs up, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, his other hand keeping twined with Cassie’s. “Just… remembering how to breathe.”

HE’S NOT ALWAYS THE BEST AT COMMUNICATING. and maybe that’s because he was pulled out of xavier’s and launched into a future timeline. but it’s hard to explain that the guy they know in this timeline wasn’t him –so he appreciates the times that he doesn’t have to. and meeting her was one of those times everything changed –she didn’t hold his future mistakes against him. it made her easy to open up to –easy to just be around. and that alone makes it one of many reasons why what they have something he can’t screw up.

but boy did he feel like he was on the verge of screwing it up, nonetheless. 

but friends do this, right? little gestures to show someone that their presence had made your life just a little better. and there’s truth to that –he does value her friendship no matter how much he wonders “what if?”

but the one thing he wasn’t expecting was for that to be her response. and for a moment, he’s stunned, trying to desperately to remember this is actual reality and not some daydream. he’s never really caught off guard –not in the field, at least– but his social life is a different story;. and this time he’s stunned to silence. 

a smile breaks, one of pure surprise.  ❛ oh gee..i thought i was the one bringing gifts. ❜ he teases. ❛ do you– i mean is this really–? i had no idea you wanted to…  ❜ a beat. ❛ cause i want to –boy do i want to. ❜

She would have face palmed and then laughed, the fact that this was how he functioned was just one of the things that had charmed her. He was such a bonehead through and through. Still, Cassie having stared at him with her brows narrowed ready to throw things and him and tossing him out right on his behind, paused. It was the way his face changed. “You just said gee..” she was teasing, kind of. That was Scoot. Boy next door, the boy that was launched into his own future to deal with all of that fall out. But they weren’t even from the same world and she had a distinct feeling she might not like the future version of him. That version didn’t have her and didn’t have all of this to figure out. 

@sassiesandsmark

Very rarely was Tim, the squishy human of the group, the last one left standing. It was terrifying. His team was down and he couldn’t stop the sound of Conner hitting the ground from echoing in his head. He didn’t dare look. The last time he’d seen Conner unmoving in a crater he’d been dead. Instead, he stood before his team as a final defense. One of them would get back up. They had to get back up.

Bo held firmly in his left hand, his right hung useless at his side, dislocated at the shoulder. The cowl was dented and cracked above his right eye, blood matting his hair. He was tired. So tired. But that hadn’t stopped Tim before. If he gave up now, they were all dead. This time, Tim had a chance to save them, and there was no way in hell he’d move aside now. 

In front of him were the last four massive robots of what had been, without exaggeration, a metal army. Tim had spotted an L Corp logo on one of the chips inside their shell when Bart had taken one apart earlier. If this was some twisted father-son bonding thing Lex was attempting, Tim was sure Conner wouldn’t appreciate it. Couldn’t Lex just ask to play catch like a normal person? No, of course not.

Four. Four robots, each at least eight feet tall and geared to the teeth. Tim couldn’t punch through them. He couldn’t lift them and throw them. He couldn’t speed-phase through their armor. Everyone who could do those things was down. Down. Down– Focus! His arsenal was depleted, he was injured, and he was backed into a proverbial corner. Think. He had to buy time. Bart would get up soon. One of them had to get up soon.

No broken bones. He could take a few more hits. He had to. If he was right and Lex was watching through these things, or controlling them, Tim wasn’t at risk of dying. If Lex still wanted Conner on his side one day, he would have to leave Tim alive. Lex was smart enough to know Conner would never join him if he was at fault for Tim’s death. A risky assumption but Tim was out of options. 

Pushing off his bo staff, he leapt and whipped himself up onto the shoulders of the front-most robot. He almost had his staff jammed down into the weak neck joint when the thing reached up and grabbed him, throwing him back down. He hit the ground right where he’d been standing before, wind knocked out of his lungs. Gasping, he rolled onto his side, numb fingers reaching for his bo. The robots stood, almost as if waiting, teasing. Was this some kind of game? Tim pushed himself back to his feet, spitting out a glob of blood. This was no game. Bart, Cassie, and Conner– Their safety was no game to Tim.

“You’re not…” his voice sounded like gargled rocks even to his own ears. “You’re not getting to them as long as I’m breathing, Lex.” Simultaneously, each of the four robots took a step forward. Tim didn’t move. “I can do this all–” The words choked in his throat as a massive metal hand grabbed his torso and squeezed, lifting him several feet into the air. “B-bad form,” he wheezed. “You’re supposed to let me say my cool line.”

Cassie wasn’t the kind that didn’t rock the boat, she could handle anything that was throw at her most of the time. So this? She leaned over and caught him by the shirt, kissing him gently before she pulled back. “You have ten seconds to kiss me back, Scott. If not it’s on you.”

“Of course I do.“ Thad says plucking a fry from her plate. “If you were the worst you, first of all, would not be sharing food with me, and secondly, you are not the worst. Trust me I’ve dealt with worse people in general and you are not it Ms. Sandsmark.” Thad grins at her, “Not in the least. Hogging the covers is childsplay. We’ll just get a second blanket. Easy and solved!”

Thad laughs, “Fair enough, though if we’re half married you have to know that you’re not the only one in my life I feed. A few people could also say the same thing about me.”