#puhhhhhhh

"Tim?"

Cassie's fingers froze in front of the mug she was about to withdraw from the cupboard. "Mm?" she turned around to see Mr Pennyworth standing at the doorway to the kitchen with a laundry basket pressed against his hip. Well shit.

"We didn't expect to see you back so soon." The man drifted past Cassie to place the basket on the counter top. Within were 12 neatly folded tea towels. Tim folded his in the same way. Cute. "My understanding was that your time with the Titans extended through the weekend."

It did. It was supposed to. Until the melee and the misfiring laser and Tim crashing into Cassie milliseconds before it felt like her brain was being pulled out through her nostrils. When she came to, she was staring at her own wide-eyed self, her new body–Tim's–feeling flightless and tender in a way that kept niggling at her since the whole debacle started. The others found it funny, because of course they did.

Now, they'd both agreed to hold up in another location of his. He just needed some stuff from the manor first. He assured her it would be no big deal to get at this time of day. That most everybody who was even around would be asleep. She just had to try to avoid Alfred.

"Master Tim?"

Unconfident in her mimicry abilities, she decided to keep her answers short. "Nope." Mr Pennyworth raised sharp eyes to her, then continued pulling the towels from the basket and placing them neatly in the little drawer by Cassie's hip. She felt compelled to add something now. The slightest bit of scrutiny from the butler and she was already scrambling for embellishments. She'd never have survived in this house. "Alf." God. "Fred." God. "Alfred."

He cast her another glance then towels all done, reached for the mug she still hadn't managed to take–her hand stuck in the air like a feeble impression of a swan neck.

"Tea or coffee, Master Tim?"

"Uh..." Why did this feel like a test? A trap. He was on to her! "You know what? I'm just going to–Yeap. Gotta. Okay. See you later, Alfred."

She scurried out of the kitchen and directly out the front door, Tim's gear be damned. If he needed it so badly, he could have it couriered or something. That was quite enough Bat-house for one morning.

When she arrived back at the small apartment, Tim was in the kitchen looking every bit as wired as she felt. She saw he'd attempted to put her hair up in a bun, which resulted in what looked like a depressed pineapple.

"Look, I'm sorry. Alfred was all over me. I couldn–"

"I gotta pee."

"Oh-kay."

"What do we do about it?"

She didn't think she'd ever seen him look so lost. She had to wonder if it was something innate to her face she'd simply never noticed before. She hoped not.

"Well, I'd prefer if you didn't piss myself."

"So I just... go?" He glanced at the bathroom door and then whipped his head back to Cassie. "Wait, have you?"

She shrugged. "Yeah."

"Gone?"

"Yeah."

He looked honest to God like he might cry. She marched forward and caught his elbow, steering him towards the bathroom. "What's the big deal? Just go in, sit down, squeeze a little and enjoy."

He looked aghast. She shoved him inside and closed the door behind him, which given the circumstances, did seem a little redundant.

When he came out again, the pineapple had lost any of its already meagre structure and was now hanging limply on the side of her head. Tim made his way to the couch and sat down stiffly beside her. He cleared his throat.

"So, no gear?" he asked. 

"No gear." She opened her palms in a kind of supplication; saw the fine scars dissect them and swallowed a grimace. "Mr Pennyworth is kind of scary."

"No kidding," Tim said. "His bullshit detection is second to none." He nudged her. "Thanks for trying."

Cassie nudged him back. "You bet. So what now?" 

"Now we wait, I guess. Give the others some time to puzzle things out."

They watched a movie: Freaky Friday, naturally. Neither of them laughed but it was nice, all the same.

A dull ache kicked up in Cassie' lumbar. She hissed and adjusted herself, catching Tim's attention. He made a sympathetic face and laid two fingers on his own hip joint. "Sorry about that. You might want to be careful sitting too much. Something with my psoas. I don't know. Old groin injury maybe."

"Too many splits?"

"Nah," Tim smiled. "Try-outs for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders."

She laughed his laugh. Funny how the body remembered some things like his manner of laughing and that small tic he had where he'd blink hard when especially tired. She was doing it now. Maybe he didn't notice it anymore. Like his complaining back or the belt of muscle around his ribs that made drawing a full breath hard sometimes. She wondered what he was indexing in her body.

"Hey Tim," she asked. "Aren't you tempted? To..." She didn't want to insult him. "I don't know... Try out the..." She made a flying gesture with her hands. 

She watched her face unfurl into a smile then settle again into thinking. "No," he said, drawing the vowel out like he was processing the question for the first time. "I don't think so." Her 'why not' was in the silence that followed so he continued. "I think maybe... I don't know... It would be hard to go back."

"Oh."

"Like I'm used to being ordinary, I suppose."