#tim x reader

The first time Tim met you, you were healing Bart Allen’s broken arm in the middle of a ruined parking garage while three League members argued with a sentient weather machine above your heads. Bart had taken the hit saving a child from a collapsing stairwell. He was vibrating too hard from pain and adrenaline, his words blurring into one long stream of panic.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, I mean it is super not fine but it’s fine because bones are supposed to be inside and this one is mostly still inside, which is a win, right? That’s a win. I’m calling that a win—”

You knelt in front of him, calm as moonlight.

“Bart,” you said. He stopped talking. Tim, who had known Bart long enough to understand what a miracle that was, immediately became suspicious. You held your hands a few inches away from Bart’s arm. “Can I help?”

Bart blinked fast. “Yes, please, because I’m trying very hard not to look and I looked three times already because my eyes are traitors.”

“Okay,” you said. “Look at me instead.”

You placed both hands around the break. Tim watched from ten feet away with a half-functional tablet tucked under one arm, blood drying at his temple and smoke staining his cape.

Warm light flickered beneath your fingers. Bart’s breathing steadied. His arm straightened. The swelling vanished. The bone shifted back into place with no visible incision, no external force, no residual damage.

Tim’s brain immediately began screaming. Because that was not possible. Or, more accurately, it was possible in at least nineteen different ways, and Tim hated not knowing which one he was looking at. Magic. Metagene. Divine intervention. Alien biology. Sympathetic energy transfer. Reality manipulation. Accelerated cellular repair. Time displacement. Wish magic. Lazarus-adjacent biofield reconstruction.

He made a list in his head. He always made lists.

Bart flexed his healed hand.

“Oh,” Bart said softly. “Whoa.”

You smiled. “Better?”

“Way better. Like, extremely better. Like, can-I-hug-you better? Is that weird? That might be weird.”

You laughed. “It’s not weird.”

Bart hugged you. You hugged him back. For one second, your face changed over Bart’s shoulder.

Only one.

Your eyes squeezed shut. Your jaw tightened. Your right hand trembled where it rested against Bart’s back. Then Bart pulled away, and you were smiling again.

Tim noticed. He did not know what it meant yet. That part came later.

At first, you were simply a variable. That was how Tim thought of you in the beginning, which he would later admit was objectively terrible and emotionally avoidant. But in his defence, he was seventeen, sleep-deprived, and had once tried to categorise his grief responses by operational impact.

So. A variable. A healer with inconsistent output cost, undefined limitations, and an alarming tendency to run toward active injury sites with no armour beyond stubbornness and a jacket with too many pockets.

You worked with everyone. Justice League emergencies. Titans fallout. Outlaws extractions. Young Justice chaos, which was its own category of medical nonsense because Kon, Bart, and Cassie could turn “reconnaissance” into “whoops, we angered a subterranean crystal cult” before lunch.

You were not officially assigned to Young Justice. You just kept showing up. Tim assumed Batman had coordinated it. Then he asked Bruce, and Bruce said, “I assumed you had.”

That was the first red flag. The second was that you never filed complete medical reports. They were accurate where it mattered: injury type, patient status, treatment applied, recovery expectations. But the sections on energetic cost, healer strain, and post-treatment symptoms were vague enough to qualify as modern art.

Fatigue. Mild drain. Temporary side effects. Resolved with rest.

Tim hated vague. Vague got people killed.

He started watching you more carefully. Not in a creepy way. Probably.

Mostly probably.

“You’re staring,” Cassie said one night in the Mount Justice kitchen.

Tim blinked and looked down at his laptop. “No, I’m not.”

“You were staring at the wall.”

“I was thinking.”

“You were thinking at the wall?”

“Yes.”

She leaned over his shoulder. “Is this about the healer?”

“No.”

His screen was open to a spreadsheet titled HEALING INCIDENT CORRELATION. Cassie stared at it. 

Kon walked in, took one look, and grinned. “Oh, it is definitely about the healer.”

Tim closed the laptop. Too late.

Bart appeared beside him in a blur, cereal bowl in hand. “Are we talking about our magic doctor? I like them. They have very chill vibes. Like if a weighted blanket became a person.”

“They are not a magic doctor,” Tim said automatically.

Kon leaned against the counter. “So you admit you’ve thought about it.”

“I think about everything.”

“Yeah, but you think about them in italics.”

Tim frowned. “That sentence has no meaning.”

Cassie patted his shoulder. “It has a lot of meaning.”

“It really does,” Bart added.

Tim stood. “I’m leaving.”

Kon pointed at the laptop. “Take your totally normal crush spreadsheet.”

“It is not a crush spreadsheet.”

“It has colour coding,” Cassie said.

“For incident severity.” Tim left.

He kept the spreadsheet. Obviously.

The problem was that the data did not fit. When you healed minor injuries, you seemed tired. Normal enough. Energy expenditure was expected. When you healed severe injuries, you disappeared.

After Bart’s arm, you missed two days of check-ins and returned wearing long sleeves despite the heat. After Cassie took a magical blade through the shoulder and you closed the wound, you did not use your left arm normally for twenty-six hours. After Kon was exposed to red solar radiation and you stabilised his cellular damage, you spent the next three days avoiding bright light and loud sound. After Tim himself got hit with a concussion grenade in Prague and you pressed your fingers to his temples until the world stopped spinning, you looked almost sick afterwards.

He remembered that one too well. He had been sitting on the floor of a safehouse bathroom, back against the tub, trying to convince himself that two of everything was better than zero of everything. His head throbbed so badly he could feel his pulse behind his eyes.

You crouched in front of him.

“Tim,” you said softly. He focused on your voice because your face would not stop doubling. “You need a scan.”

“Did one.”

“You tried to scan yourself with a cracked domino mask and a toaster.”

“It was a modified toaster.”

You looked at him for a long second. Then, inexplicably, laughed. The sound went through him like warm tea.

Tim blinked at you. “You think I’m concussed.”

“I know you’re concussed.”

“I’m fine.”

“You tried to weaponise breakfast technology.”

He considered this. Then nodded, which was a mistake because the bathroom tilted. You caught his shoulder before he could slump sideways. His breath hitched. Your hand went still.

“Is this okay?” you asked.

Tim looked at your hand. Then at your face. You had already healed Cassie that night. You looked tired, shadows under your eyes, mouth pale. He should have said no.

He said, “Yes.”

Your thumb moved slightly against his shoulder. “I can help with the concussion,” you said.

“Risk?”

“Minimal.”

He would think about that word later. For months.

Minimal. Not none.

Minimal to whom?

But at the time, his head hurt and your hand was warm and he was so tired of being another thing the team had to worry about.

“Okay,” he said.

You touched his temples. Warmth spread through his skull.

The pain dissolved. Tim inhaled sharply. His vision cleared. The nausea vanished. The world clicked back into alignment, sharp and bright.

You pulled your hands away. Your lips parted. For half a second, you looked lost. Then you smiled. “Better?”

Tim stared. “Yes.”

“Good.”

You stood too quickly. He caught your wrist.

You froze. Tim let go immediately. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“You’re pale.”

“I just healed a concussion.”

“Do you have a concussion?”

Your expression changed. Small. Almost invisible. There. That was the moment, though Tim did not know it yet. The first piece of the puzzle turning over.

“No,” you said.

Lie. Soft as a blanket.

Tim’s eyes narrowed.

You smiled again. “Rest, Red Robin.”

Then you left.

He slept for fourteen hours. You missed the morning briefing. When you came back, you wore sunglasses indoors.

Tim noticed.

The first real conversation between you happened at 4:13 in the morning in the Mount Justice medbay, because apparently nobody in the hero community had ever heard of normal social timing.

Tim was awake. This was not unusual. Tim being awake at 4:13 in the morning was so common that Bart once put a sticky note on the coffee machine reading: Good morning, Tim! Or good night? Or please sleep? Circle one. Tim had circled written no underneath.

You found him sitting on a medbay cot with three open tablets, two empty coffee cups, and a self-applied bandage around his upper arm that was objectively bad.

You stopped in the doorway. Tim looked up. You looked at the bandage. He looked at the bandage.

You said, “Absolutely not.”

“It’s functional.”

“It is offensive.”

“To who?”

“Medicine.”

You crossed the room and stood in front of him with your hands on your hips.

Tim lifted his chin. “It stopped bleeding.”

“That is the lowest possible bar.”

“It’s a practical bar.”

“It’s a basement bar.”

“Still a bar.”

You stared at him. Tim stared back. Then your mouth twitched. “You’re impossible.”

“I’ve been told.”

“By everyone?”

“Statistically likely.”

You held out your hand. Tim hesitated. Your expression softened. “May I fix the bandage? Not heal it. Just fix the crime scene you made with gauze.”

Tim looked down at his arm. Then back at you. “Yes.”

You sat beside him and began unwrapping the bandage. Your fingers were gentle. Tim hated noticing that. Not because he disliked gentleness.

Because he liked it. That was worse.

“That needs stitches,” you said.

“It doesn’t.”

“It does.”

“I can do them.”

“I’m sure you can. I can also cut my own hair. That doesn’t mean anyone should let me.”

Tim looked at you. “Do you cut your own hair?”

“Not the point.”

“It explains some things.”

You gasped. “Rude.” His mouth twitched. You smiled triumphantly. “There. Almost a laugh.”

“It was not.”

“It wanted to be.”

“You’re projecting.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“That was abrupt.”

“Useful redirect.”

He studied you while you cleaned the wound. “You do that often.”

“What?”

“Redirect.”

Your hands paused for less than a second. Tim logged it. You resumed. “Only when people ask annoying questions.”

“I haven’t asked one.”

“You were about to.”

Correct. That was annoying.

He watched you thread a suture needle. “What happens to you after you heal someone?”

You did not look up. “Fatigue.”

“Always?”

“Usually.”

“What else?”

“Tim.”

He liked the way you said his name. That was inconvenient.

“Is there pain?” he asked.

You pulled the first stitch through his skin. He did not flinch. You did. Barely. But you did.

Tim’s gaze sharpened.

“Sometimes,” you said.

“What kind?”

“The kind that happens when powers get used.”

“That is not specific.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“You should document it.”

Your mouth curved, but your eyes stayed serious. “And you should sleep.”

“I document things while sleep-deprived all the time.”

“I’m aware. I’ve seen your handwriting after hour thirty-six.”

“My handwriting is efficient.”

“Your handwriting looks like a spider had a panic attack.”

Tim looked offended. You laughed.

He should have continued the interrogation. Instead, he watched you smile.

Bad. Very bad.

By the time you finished stitching him up, the medbay had gone quiet around you both. You taped gauze over the wound and sat back.

“There,” you said. “Less criminal.”

“Thank you.”

You blinked, like gratitude still surprised you. Then your face softened. “You’re welcome.”

Tim looked down at his arm. Your stitches were neat. Better than his would have been, probably.

Definitely. Annoying.

“Why are you awake?” he asked.

You leaned back on your hands. “Why are you?”

“Work.”

“Same.”

“You don’t have work right now.”

“Neither do you.”

“I always have work.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”

You were quiet for a moment. Then you said, “Do you know how to stop?”

Tim looked at you. Your voice had changed. Still light. Still gentle. But there was something under it. Recognition.

He answered honestly, which surprised him. “No.”

You nodded like you had expected that. “Me neither.”

That was the first time Tim realised you were not just kind. You were familiar. Not because you were like him exactly. You were warmer. Softer around the edges. Better at making people feel held. But underneath that, there was the same engine. The same terrible logic.

If you could help, you had to. If you could endure, you should. If pain had to go somewhere, better you than someone else.

Tim did not know the whole truth yet. But some part of him understood the shape of you before the facts arrived.

That was dangerous too. Facts could be managed. Feelings were rude.

Your relationship with Tim developed in increments so small neither of you noticed until Kon started making gagging noises whenever you entered the same room.

There was coffee first. Tim had terrible coffee habits. This was not news. This was an established international problem. You discovered that he took coffee so strong it could reasonably be used to strip paint, then started replacing every third cup with tea.

Tim noticed immediately. He drank it anyway.

The next week, he modified the medbay kettle so it boiled water twenty-three per cent faster.

You stared at it. “Did you optimise my tea?”

“No.”

The kettle beeped. Tim looked at it. You looked at Tim.

“It was inefficient,” he said.

Your smile was slow and bright. Tim looked away.

Then there were the notes.

You left reminders on his laptop.

Eat something with protein. Your wrist brace is in the left drawer. Stop clenching your jaw. Yes, you. If this is still open after 2 a.m., I’m telling Cassie.

Tim responded with notes of his own.

Hydrate. Rest after major healing. Your supply cabinet inventory system was objectively chaotic. Fixed. Painkillers are not a personality trait.

You wrote beneath that one: Neither is detective work, beloved hypocrite.

Tim stared at the word beloved for nine full minutes. Kon found him like that.

“Oh my God,” Kon said. “You’re buffering.”

“I’m not.”

“You totally are. Do you need to reboot? Should I call Oracle?”

Tim closed the laptop. “Leave.”

“You’re red.”

“Out.”

Kon floated out backward, grinning. “Buffering!”

After notes came field coordination.

You were good in a crisis. Not just good at healing. Good. You knew how to read a battlefield by sound. You could tell the difference between fear and shock, between a civilian hiding and an enemy waiting. You listened to comms like they were music and found the one thread of pain in the static.

Tim trusted competence before he trusted almost anything else. So he started trusting you. That was where the problem became terminal. Because once Tim trusted someone, truly trusted them, he wanted to know everything that could hurt them. And you were hiding something that hurt you.

His spreadsheet grew. He told himself it was for safety.

It was. Mostly.

He tracked healing events, reported severity, your visible symptoms, absence durations, wardrobe changes, gait irregularities, medication requests, light sensitivity, hand tremors, appetite shifts, mission proximity, and what Bart called “vibe anomalies.”

Tim did not name the file CRUSH SPREADSHEET. He was not a monster. He named it MEDICAL POWER COST ANALYSIS. Kon renamed it CRUSH SPREADSHEET once when Tim left his laptop unlocked for eight seconds.

Tim changed it back. And added a password.

The first time you caught him staring at the data, you did not get angry. That would have been easier.

Instead, you looked tired.

“Tim,” you said from the doorway of the medbay office.

He froze. Slowly, he turned. You stood there with your arms folded, one shoulder leaned against the doorframe. There was a bruise fading along your jaw that had appeared after you healed a civilian from blunt-force trauma two days earlier.

Tim’s screen displayed a timeline of your symptoms. Colour-coded. Because apparently he was determined to be both invasive and aesthetically organised. You looked at the screen. Then at him.

“That’s a lot,” you said.

Tim closed the laptop. “Sorry.”

“You don’t sound sorry.”

“I am sorry you found it like this.” Your eyebrow lifted. He winced. “That was not better.”

“No, it was honest.”

You came into the office and sat across from him. The room felt smaller. Tim could hear the Mount’s ventilation system. The distant sound of Bart laughing at something in the common area. His own heartbeat.

“I’m trying to understand your limitations,” he said.

“I know.”

“For mission safety.”

“I know.”

“For your safety.”

Your expression shifted.

Tim leaned forward. “You’re hiding symptoms.”

You looked down at your hands. “Sometimes.”

“Why?”

A small smile. “Do you want the heroic answer or the honest one?”

“Honest.”

“I don’t always know how to stop helping.”

Tim had expected evasion. Not a confession shaped like a mirror.

He sat back. You looked up at him.

“People come to me when they’re in pain,” you said. “And I can take it away. How do I say no to that?”

Tim’s throat tightened. The answer should have been easy. Consent. Safety. Sustainable limits. Medical boundaries. Team protocols. All correct. All useless in the face of your voice.

“You have to,” he said anyway.

You smiled sadly. “So do you.”

He looked away. “What are you not telling me?”

Your smile faded. For a moment, something open and frightened appeared in your eyes.

Then it vanished. Soft blanket lie incoming. “Nothing that changes the outcome.”

Tim stared. “That is the most suspicious sentence anyone has ever said to me.”

That startled a laugh out of you. He wanted to keep that laugh. He wanted to solve you. He wanted, increasingly, to kiss you, which was not helpful.

“Tim,” you said gently, “there are things I’m not ready to explain.”

He hated that. He respected it. He hated that he respected it.

“Are you in danger?” he asked.

You were quiet too long. Then you said, “No more than anyone else.”

Lie. He knew it. You knew he knew it. But he nodded. Because trust meant not forcing a locked door just because you knew how to pick it. Even if your hands were itching.

“Okay,” he said.

You blinked. “Okay?”

“For now.”

A smile touched your mouth. “That sounds ominous.”

“It is.”

“Romantic.”

Tim froze. You froze. The word sat there.

Bart blurred into the doorway at exactly the wrong moment. “Hey, does anyone know why Kon is yelling that Tim’s crush spreadsheet has become sentient?”

Tim closed his eyes. You made a small sound. Laughter. Tim wanted the floor to open.

Bart looked between you both.

“Oh,” he said, delighted. “Am I interrupting tension?”

Tim stood. “Yes.”

“Cool, cool, I’ll tell everyone.”

“Bart.” But Bart was already gone.

You were laughing fully now, one hand pressed to your mouth. Tim looked at you. Despite himself, he smiled. Very slightly.

Your laughter softened into something warm. “There it is,” you said.

“What?”

“The smile.”

“I smile.”

“You smirk strategically.”

“That is different.”

“It is.”

Your eyes held his. For a moment, the hidden thing between you did not feel like danger. It felt like possibility.

Then the emergency alarm sounded. Because the universe had poor comedic timing.

The mission was supposed to be contained. Tim hated that word. Contained meant “currently not on fire.” It did not mean safe. A group of biochemists working with stolen LexCorp and H.I.V.E. materials had developed a neurotoxin designed specifically to target enhanced nervous systems. The League handled the main facility. Young Justice was assigned evacuation and containment at an auxiliary lab outside Metropolis.

Simple. Contained. Terrible words.

You came with them.

Tim objected immediately. “You’re still recovering from the last mission.”

You stared at him across the hangar. “That was three days ago.”

“You had a tremor yesterday.”

“I had too much coffee.”

“You hate coffee.”

“I was holding yours.”

“You shouldn’t have been holding mine. My coffee is a controlled substance.”

Bart nodded gravely. “It once made my molecules sing.”

Kon pointed at him. “You drank six cups.”

“I heard colours.”

Cassie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Can we please focus?”

Tim did not look away from you. “You are not cleared.”

You tilted your head. “By who?”

“Me.”

“Cute.”

Kon whispered, “Dangerous word choice.”

Tim ignored him. You stepped closer, lowering your voice. “People are going to be hurt.”

“And you are going to hurt yourself helping them.”

Your expression flickered. Tim saw it. His chest tightened.

“You don’t know that,” you said.

“I know enough.”

“Not everything.”

“No,” he agreed. “Because you won’t tell me.”

Your face closed. Immediate regret hit him. Cassie shifted uncomfortably. Kon suddenly found the ceiling fascinating. Bart vibrated in place with the desperate energy of someone watching emotional land mines blink red.

You looked away first. “I’m going,” you said.

Tim wanted to stop you. He did not. Because he had no right. Because you were not his to command. Because somewhere along the way, he had started caring enough to become unreasonable, and that was a him problem.

“Stay behind the second line,” he said.

You looked back. “Tim.”

“Please.”

That did it. Your expression softened, even though your eyes stayed sad.

“I’ll be careful,” you said.

Not a promise. Not enough. But all he got.

The auxiliary lab was already half-evacuated when they arrived. Smoke rolled from the east wing. Security alarms flashed red. Automated doors opened and closed in broken loops. Scientists stumbled through emergency exits, coughing and terrified, while local authorities tried to keep the perimeter intact. Tim’s mask display lit with toxin warnings.

“Rebreathers on,” he ordered.

Kon grimaced. “Hate when air gets spicy.”

Bart zipped through the entrance, evacuating three scientists before Tim finished saying, “Bart, wait for—”

He sighed. Cassie clapped him on the shoulder. “He heard you in spirit.”

“He absolutely didn’t.”

You moved to the triage zone, already kneeling beside a woman convulsing on the pavement. Her pupils were blown wide, veins dark beneath her skin.

Tim’s attention caught. You looked up at him. For one second, your eyes met. Then you placed your hand over the woman’s chest. Her convulsions stopped. Her breathing evened. You exhaled, sharp and controlled. Tim saw your fingers twitch. A cold thread wound through his stomach.

Inside the lab, things got worse. The toxin had not just leaked. It had been weaponised. Drones moved through the corridors, releasing bursts of aerosolised neurotoxin whenever they detected motion. Tim hacked the building’s ventilation while Cassie took out the larger drones, Kon shielded trapped civilians from falling debris, and Bart ran antidote injectors to anyone already exposed.

It almost worked. Then Tim found the server room. And the trap.

The door sealed behind him with a hiss. His mask display flashed. TOXIN DETECTED. Concentration climbing.

Tim switched filters. One second too late.

The first breath burned.

Not in his lungs. In his nerves. Pain flashed white through his body, sudden and total. His fingers spasmed. The staff clattered from his hand. The server racks blurred. He stumbled to the access panel. His hand would not obey.

“Red Robin?” Cassie’s voice crackled through comms.

Tim tried to answer. His jaw locked. The toxin crawled through his nervous system like static with teeth. Every muscle tightened. His heart hammered too fast, then stuttered. Vision fractured into overlapping panes of light.

He hit the floor. A seizure warning flashed across his mask display. Then another. Then another.

Tim’s body arched. The world became pain and code. He could hear comms, but distantly.

“Tim?” “Red Robin, respond.” “Rob?”

Kon’s voice changed. “Tim!”

Tim tried to breathe. Couldn’t. His lungs spasmed. His limbs jerked against the floor. Foam touched the corner of his mouth beneath the mask. His thoughts, usually so fast, so sharp, scattered like birds startled from a wire. He thought, absurdly, of your notes.

Eat something with protein. Stop clenching your jaw. Yes, you. Rest after major healing.

Then the door exploded inward. You stumbled through the smoke wearing a rebreather and a look of pure terror. Tim wanted to tell you to leave. His mouth would not move.

You dropped beside him. “Tim.”

He could not focus. Your hands hovered over his chest, his face, helpless for one horrible second. Then you pulled off a glove.

No. Panic cut through the toxin. No.

You touched his face. “Tim, can you hear me?” He heard you. He could not answer. Your voice broke. “I’m sorry.”

He hated those words. He hated that he understood them now.

Your hands pressed to his temples. Warmth flared. The toxin vanished. Tim’s body unlocked with a violent gasp. His heart steadied. His lungs opened. The seizure stopped so suddenly he collapsed boneless against the floor.

For three seconds, all he could do was breathe.

Then you made a sound. Small. Wrong.

Tim turned his head. You were still kneeling beside him. Your hand was pressed to your mouth. Your eyes were wide. Then your body jerked. Once. Twice. Your back arched.

A seizure tore through you. Tim’s blood went cold.

“No,” he rasped. Your body hit the floor. The rebreather slipped sideways. Your limbs spasmed against the tile. The same toxin pattern bloomed across your veins, dark and webbing under the skin.

Tim scrambled toward you. His hands shook, but they were obeying now. Yours were not.

“No, no, no.” He reached for your mask, fixed the seal, checked your airway. His training took over because if his feelings got one hand on the wheel, he would crash. “Kon!” he shouted. His voice cracked across comms. “Server room! Now!”

Static. Then Kon, panicked, “On my way!”

Your body convulsed again. Tim held you on your side, one hand braced at your shoulder, the other at your jaw.

“Stay with me,” he said. “Stay with me, please.”

Your eyes opened for half a second. They were unfocused. Terrified. But when they found him, somehow, impossibly, you looked relieved.

Tim understood then. Not as a theory. Not as a data point.

As horror.

You had taken it. The toxin. The seizure. The damage. His nervous system was clear because yours was burning.

Kon arrived in a blur, ripping the doorframe wider to fit through. He froze. “Oh, my God.”

“Get them out,” Tim ordered. Kon did not move. “Kon!”

That snapped him into motion. He lifted you with terrified care while Tim grabbed his staff and staggered after him. His legs worked. His lungs worked. His brain worked.

Because yours didn’t. The realisation nearly dropped him to his knees.

Outside, chaos blurred. Cassie shouted for medevac. Bart appeared and vanished and reappeared with medical kits, antidotes, three paramedics, and a blanket he had absolutely stolen from somewhere. You convulsed again in Kon’s arms, and Kon looked like someone had ripped his heart out.

Tim took your hand. It spasmed in his grip. “Don’t heal them,” he told the medics.

One of them stared at him. “What?”

Tim’s voice sharpened. “Don’t use energy-based healing. Don’t use magic. Stabilise only. The wound may transfer unpredictably.”

He did not know that. Not scientifically. But he knew enough to be afraid.

Bart looked at him, eyes wide. “Tim?”

Tim looked down at you. The toxin pattern was spreading. His toxin pattern. “I know what their power does."

Silence fell around them. Even the alarms seemed quieter.

Cassie’s face went pale. “What does that mean?”

Tim swallowed. Your hand jerked in his. He held on. “It means,” Tim said, voice hollow, “they don’t erase injuries.” Tim forced the words out. “They take them.”

Mount Justice had a medbay. The Watchtower had a better one. Batman insisted. Tim did not argue. That was how everyone knew it was bad. You were transported to the Watchtower within seven minutes. The toxin had burned through your body faster than it had through his, maybe because your power accelerated the transfer, maybe because your nervous system was already overloaded from previous healings, maybe because the universe was cruel and data did not matter when someone you loved was seizing on a medbay table.

Tim stood outside the glass wall and watched doctors stabilise you. Kon stood beside him, silent for once. Bart was sitting on the floor with his knees pulled to his chest, vibrating so finely he looked blurred at the edges. Cassie paced. Bruce was in the corner speaking quietly with Dr Mid-Nite, expression grim enough to bend the room around it.

Tim had your medical files open on three tablets.  Not the official ones. His. The spreadsheet. The timeline. The pattern. It was all there. It had always been there. Bruise after blunt-force trauma healing. Limp after fractures. Photosensitivity after concussions. Tremors after nerve damage. Fever after infection transfers. Vomiting after poisoning cases. Emotional withdrawal after psychic trauma. Absence durations proportional to injury severity.

He should have known. He had known.

Kon finally spoke. “So every time they healed us…”

Tim did not look up. “Yes.”

Bart made a tiny sound. Cassie stopped pacing.

Kon’s fists clenched. “They felt it?”

“Yes,” he said. “They felt it.”

Kon turned away, one hand over his mouth.

Bart’s voice came thin. “My arm?”

Tim closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Cassie’s shoulder?”

“Yes.”

“Your concussion?”

Tim opened his eyes and looked through the glass. You lay too still beneath the lights. “Yes.”

Bruce came to stand beside him. Tim did not look at him.

“You found evidence,” Bruce said.

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

“For how long?”

Tim’s hand tightened around the tablet. “Months.” Silence. That was worse than judgment. Tim looked up sharply. “If you’re going to say I should have told someone—”

“I’m not.” Bruce’s gaze remained fixed on you. “You were respecting a boundary.”

Tim let out a humourless laugh. “Was I? Or was I afraid they’d stop trusting me if I pushed?”

Bruce said nothing. Tim hated when silence was an answer.

Behind them, Bart whispered, “They asked every time.” Everyone looked at him. Bart’s eyes were wet. “Before healing. They always asked. But they didn’t tell us what yes meant.”

Cassie’s face crumpled. Kon sat down hard on a bench. Tim looked back at you. Bart had found the centre of it without any spreadsheets. You asked permission to touch. Not for consequence.

The doctors worked for another hour. The toxin ran its course differently in your body. Faster in some ways, worse in others. Your healing factor fought it like a fever trying to burn down its own house. Finally, Dr Mid-Nite came out. Tim stood immediately.

“You can see them,” he said. "They are stable. Exhausted. Their neurological activity is normalising. They’ll need rest, monitoring, and no power use.”

“For how long?”

“At minimum? Weeks.” Tim almost laughed. As if anyone here knew how to rest for weeks. Bruce’s gaze sharpened, probably because he had the same thought. Dr. Mid-Nite looked between them. “I mean it. Their system is overloaded. Another major transfer could kill them.”

Kill them.

Tim nodded once. Then he walked into the medbay.

You were asleep. Pale, dark veins fading slowly beneath your skin. Electrodes at your temples. IV lines in both arms. Your hands rested on top of the blanket, still except for the occasional twitch.

Tim sat beside your bed. For a long time, he did not touch you. He wanted to. Badly. But every touch between you had become suddenly complicated by the knowledge of what your hands could do. What they had done. What you had hidden inside gentleness.

Finally, he placed two fingers lightly against your wrist. Pulse. Steady. Alive.

His shoulders dropped.

Kon appeared in the doorway. “You okay?” Tim glanced at him. Kon grimaced. “Yeah, I heard it.”

“I’m not okay.” Kon nodded and came inside, leaning against the wall. For once, he did not joke. Tim looked back at you. “They saved my life.”

“Yeah.”

“They took neurotoxin into their own nervous system.”

“Yeah.”

“I should be grateful.”

Kon’s expression tightened. “You are.”

“I’m angry.”

“You can be both.”

Tim did not answer. Kon looked at him for a long moment. “They love you,” he said. Tim froze. Kon’s eyes widened slightly. “You didn’t know?”

Tim stared at him.

Kon rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh. Uh. Never mind?”

“Kon.”

“Look, I’m not exactly Sherlock, and even I noticed.”

Tim’s brain stalled. Not helpful. Not now. Absolutely not now. But the words entered anyway.

They love you.

As a variable, it was catastrophic. As a possibility, it was worse.

Tim looked at your face. Your closed eyes. The exhaustion written into every line. The body that had chosen his life at the expense of yours.

“Don’t,” he said quietly.

Kon frowned. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t make that romantic.” Kon’s face sobered. Tim’s voice shook. “They lied. They almost died. They took my choice away.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want love if it looks like this.” The words scraped out of him.

Kon was quiet. Then he said, “Then tell them what you want it to look like.” Tim looked up. Kon shrugged, expression sad. “What?”

“Nothing,” Tim said.

“No, that was a look.”

“You said something emotionally useful.”

Kon snorted. “Rude.”

“Unexpected.”

“Very rude.” Despite everything, Tim’s mouth twitched. Kon smiled faintly, then nodded toward you. “They’re gonna wake up and feel terrible.”

“Yes.”

“Physically and emotionally.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re gonna do the Tim thing.”

Tim narrowed his eyes. “What is the Tim thing?”

“Act like if you explain the pain precisely enough, it’ll stop hurting.” Tim looked away. Kon pushed off the wall. “Just, like… maybe don’t forget they’re scared too.”

Then he left.

Tim hated how often his friends were right. It was deeply inconvenient.

You woke six hours later. Tim was running a model on his tablet when your heart rate changed. He noticed before your eyes opened.

He set the tablet down. Your eyelids fluttered once. Twice. Then you looked at him. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Your gaze moved over his face slowly, like you were checking him for damage.

Then you whispered, “Did it work?”

Tim’s heart broke with surgical precision. He leaned forward. “Yes,” he said.

Your eyes closed in relief. He almost lost his temper right there.

Instead, he inhaled slowly. Count four. Hold four. Out six. Bruce would be proud. Insufferably.

You opened your eyes again. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

Your brow furrowed. “Did the toxin—”

“The toxin is gone.”

“Then—”

“I’m not okay because you took it from me and nearly died.”

Your mouth closed. The monitors filled the silence. You looked down at your hands. “I’m sorry,” you said.

Tim had imagined this conversation many times. In every version, he was calmer. More precise. Less seventeen different kinds of devastated. He had bullet points. A structure. Ethical concerns. Medical concerns. Consent framework. Risk disclosure protocol. Then you said sorry like you meant it, and all the bullet points burned.

“How long?” he asked. Your eyes flicked up. “How long has your power worked like that?”

You swallowed. “Always.”

Tim went still. He had expected that. It did not help. “Always,” he repeated. You nodded. “So every time.”

Your eyes shone. “Yes.”

“Bart’s arm, Cassie’s shoulder, Kon’s solar damage.”

“Yes.”

“My concussion.”

You closed your eyes. “Yes.”

He stood and turned away. The movement was too abrupt. He heard your breath catch behind him.

Good. No. Not good. He did not want to scare you. He wanted to scream. He wanted to go back to every moment you had smiled afterwards and rip the lie out of the air. He wanted to hate you.

He could not. That made him angrier.

“Tim,” you said softly.

He turned back. “You said minimal risk.” Your face twisted. “When you healed my concussion,” he said. “You said minimal.”

“It was.”

“To you?” You were silent. His laugh was sharp and horrible. “That’s the entire problem, isn’t it?”

“I knew I could handle it.”

“You didn’t know that today.” Your gaze dropped. He stepped closer. “You did not know you could survive that toxin.”

“I knew you couldn’t.”

The room went silent. Tim’s mouth parted.

There it was. The logic of you.

Terrible. Simple. I knew you couldn’t. As if that ended the equation. As if his life on one side and yours on the other could be balanced without asking what the equals sign cost. He sat down slowly because his knees felt untrustworthy.

“That isn’t enough,” he said. 

Your eyes lifted. “To justify it?”

“To survive on.” Your expression broke. Tim leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You can’t build a life out of taking whatever other people can’t survive.”

You laughed once, weak and wet. “That’s rich coming from you.”

He flinched.

“I know,” he said. That seemed to surprise you. He looked at his hands. “I know I’m a hypocrite. I know I run on caffeine and denial and contingency plans. I know I treat my body like an inconvenient transportation system for my brain.” A faint, unwilling smile touched your mouth. “I know,” he continued, “that if our positions were reversed, I’d be trying to justify the exact same thing.” Your smile vanished. He looked up. “That’s how I know it’s wrong.”

A tear slipped down your temple into your hair. You whispered, “I didn’t want you to die.”

Tim’s face crumpled despite himself. “I know.”

“I saw you seizing. I couldn’t—” Your voice broke. “Tim, I couldn’t watch that happen to you.”

He leaned closer. “And I woke up watching it happen to you.”

You closed your eyes. His anger shook. Not because it was fading. Because grief was moving underneath it.

“I thought I lost you,” he said. Your eyes opened. Something changed in your face. Softened. Tim swallowed hard. “I didn’t know if I had the right to feel that way.”

Your brow furrowed. “What?”

“Like losing you would—” He stopped, because the sentence had teeth. “Like it would break something important.”

You stared at him. Tim looked away. He had meant to say it better. Later. Maybe never. Probably never.

“Tim,” you whispered.

He shook his head once. “No. I’m not saying this because you got hurt. I’m not saying it to make this moment easier. It doesn’t make it easier.”

Your hand shifted weakly on the blanket. He looked at it. Then at you.

“May I?” he asked.

Your eyes filled again. You nodded. Tim took your hand. Your fingers were colder than normal. He hated that his first instinct was to log it. He hated that his second was to warm them between both of his. He did both.

“I care about you,” he said. Your breath hitched. “A lot. In a way that is… inconvenient.” A watery laugh escaped you. His mouth twitched. “Deeply inconvenient,” he added. “Operationally disastrous. Kon has been unbearable.”

“He knows?”

“Apparently, everyone knows.”

Your lips curved faintly. “Except us?”

“I knew.” You raised an eyebrow weakly. “I had data,” Tim corrected.

“That is different from knowing.”

“Unfortunately.”

Your smile faded. You looked at your joined hands. “I care about you, too,” you said. Tim stopped breathing. “A lot,” you continued. “In a way that is also inconvenient.”

His thumb stilled on your knuckles.

“I think,” you whispered, “I love you.”

Tim closed his eyes. He wished the words did not hurt. They should have been soft. They should have been a sunrise. A hand held in a kitchen. A confession under a quiet sky. Instead, they arrived in a medbay with toxin still fading from your veins. But they were still true. That was the worst, best part.

He opened his eyes. “I think I love you too,” he said. Your face folded with relief and grief at once. Tim leaned closer. “But I need you to understand something.” You nodded, tears bright in your eyes. “If love means you decide my life matters more than yours, I can’t accept it.” Your mouth trembled. He held your hand tighter. “I won’t.”

“I don’t think my life matters less.”

“You act like it does.”  You started to answer. Stopped. The silence was answer enough. Tim continued, gentler now. “I know why. I do. You’re surrounded by people who choose pain before help. You probably learned very quickly that if you told the truth, everyone would refuse healing unless they were unconscious.”

You looked away.

“And you couldn’t stand that.”

“No,” you whispered.

“So you made the choice for us.”

Your face crumpled. “I’m sorry.”

Tim nodded. “I know.”

“I really am... I don’t know how to not help.”

His chest ached. “I know that too.”

“What if someone dies because I ask first?”

Tim’s throat tightened.

There it was. The fear underneath everything.

Not pain. Not death.

Failure. A world where your hands could save someone and you chose not to use them fast enough.

He did not have an easy answer. He refused to offer a fake one.

“Then we make emergency protocols,” he said.

Your lips twitched through tears. “Of course you have protocols.”

“I am who I am.”

“Unfortunately, attracted to that.”

Tim blinked. A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

Tiny. Disbelieving.

You smiled weakly. The room softened around the edges.

Then he sobered.

“We make consent directives,” he said. “Everyone decides in advance what they consent to under different circumstances. Minor injury. Severe injury. Fatal injury. Mental pain. Chronic pain. Magical effects. All of it.”

Your eyes widened. “You already thought about this.”

“I’ve had six hours and trauma.”

“Dangerous combo.”

“Very.”

You squeezed his hand weakly. “What if they all say no?”

“Then we respect that.”

Your face went pale.

Tim leaned in. “Even when it’s hard.”

A tear slid down your cheek.

“Especially then,” he added.

“I hate that.”

“I know.”

“I really hate that.”

“I know.”

“I might not be good at it.”

“I know.”

Your eyes narrowed faintly. “You’re saying that a lot.”

“Statistically, I know many things.”

There. A smile. Small, but real. Tim cherished it and then pretended he wasn’t the kind of person who cherished things.

Too late. You already knew.

“What about you?” you asked.

His smile faded. “My directive?”

You nodded.

Tim looked down at your hand in his.

This was the question.

Not theoretical. Not medical. His life. Your power. The line between them.

“If I am awake and able to consent, you ask.” You nodded. “If I say no, you don’t heal me.”

Your fingers tensed.

He waited. Slowly, you nodded again.

“If I am unconscious or unable to consent,” he continued, “and the injury is fatal or permanently disabling, I consent to transfer only if the projected risk to you is survivable.”

Your brow furrowed. “Projected by who?”

“You, if conscious. Team medic if available. Otherwise designated field lead.”

“That’s very precise.”

“I’m very precise.”

“You also put ‘permanently disabling’ in there.”

Tim looked up. Your eyes searched his. He knew what you were asking. Spine. Brain damage. Hands. Eyes. Things that could alter the life he had built around intellect and motion and the ability to protect people from the shadows.

“I don’t want you sacrificing yourself for a broken wrist,” he said.

“Tim.”

“But I won’t pretend I would handle permanent neurological damage gracefully.”

Your face softened.

“I’m allowed to be honest too,” he said quietly.

You nodded. “Yes.”

He breathed in.

“And if the risk to you is fatal,” he said, “you do not transfer. No exceptions.”

Your eyes filled. “Tim—”

“No exceptions.”

“What if—”

“No.”

Your mouth closed. His grip tightened.

“I need you alive,” he said.

Your breath caught.

Tim’s voice broke around the truth. “Not useful. Not healing. Alive.”

You started crying then. Silent at first, then not.

Tim stood carefully, giving you time to refuse, then leaned over the bed and wrapped his arms around you as gently as he could.

You clung to him weakly.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered into his shirt.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

Tim closed his eyes. His hand cradled the back of your head. “I love you too.”

The words hurt less the second time.

Maybe they always would hurt a little. Maybe love was not painless. Maybe the point was not to make it painless, but to stop using pain as proof.

Recovery, for you, was not simple.

Tim hated simple anyway. Simple usually meant missing variables.

You developed tremors in your right hand for the first three days. Light sensitivity for five. Nerve pain that made your legs jerk at random. Migraines. Exhaustion so heavy that walking from the bed to the bathroom felt like a mission report no one wanted to file.

Tim tracked all of it. You tolerated this for thirty-six hours before threatening to throw his tablet into space.

“You need objective monitoring,” he said.

“I need you to stop looking at my nervous system like it owes you money.”

“It kind of does.”

“Tim.”

He looked up. You were sitting propped against the pillows, pale but increasingly alive, wearing one of his hoodies because Kon had brought it from the Mount with a look so smug Tim considered treason.

“What?”

You held out your hand. “Come here.”

“I’m right here.”

“Closer.”

He stood from the chair and moved to the bedside.

You looked at the tablet. He looked at you.

“No,” he said.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You have a face.”

“You have many charts.”

“They are medically relevant.”

“You have a bar graph titled ‘Tremor Severity Over Time.’”

“It’s a line graph.” You stared at him. “Not the point,” he conceded.

Your mouth twitched. He set the tablet aside. 

“Happy?”

“Getting there.”

You took his hand and tugged lightly.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Carefully. Always carefully now.

Not because he thought you were fragile. Because he knew you were hurt.

You leaned your head against his shoulder. Tim went very still.

“You can breathe,” you murmured.

“I am breathing.”

“Barely.”

He exhaled. You smiled against his shoulder.

“I’m okay,” you said.

He tensed.

You lifted your head.

“No. Wait. That’s not what I mean.” You took a careful breath. “I mean, I am in pain. I am scared everyone hates me. My hands won’t stop shaking, and I feel like my spine is full of bees.”

Tim blinked. “Bees?”

“Neurological bees.”

“Concerning.”

“Very.” Your thumb moved across his hand. “But I am alive. And I am telling you the truth.”

Tim looked at you. Something in his chest loosened.

“Thank you,” he said.

Your eyes softened. “You’re welcome.”

He reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from your face. “May I kiss you?”

Your entire expression changed. Hope, surprise, tenderness, all at once. It almost knocked him flat.

“You’re asking now?” you whispered.

His face warmed. “Timing has been difficult.”

“You confessed in a medbay after I nearly died.”

“Yes. Poor timing.”

“Classic hero romance, honestly.”

“I would prefer our first kiss not be medically supervised.”

You glanced toward the observation window where Bart was absolutely pretending not to watch. “Too late.”

Tim turned. Bart vanished in a blur.

Tim sighed. You laughed, then winced.

He looked back immediately. “Pain?”

“Worth it.” His expression sharpened. You grimaced. “Bad phrasing?”

“Extremely.”

“I’m learning.”

“So am I.”

Your hand tightened around his.

“Yes,” you said softly. “You may kiss me.”

Tim leaned in slowly. There was a strange moment before it happened where all his thoughts went quiet.

Rare. Precious.

Then his mouth touched yours.

Gentle. Careful. Warm.

Your lips were dry from medication, and your hand trembled in his, and someone outside the room made a muffled squeaking sound that was probably Bart being physically restrained by Kon.

It was perfect anyway.

When Tim pulled back, your eyes stayed closed for one extra second.

His heart performed an extremely inconvenient manoeuvre.

“Good?” he asked.

Your eyes opened. “Very good.”

“I can improve with more data.”

You laughed softly. “Did you just flirt with me using research methodology?”

“Maybe.”

“Nerd.”

“You knew that already.”

“I did.”

Your smile faded into something tender.

“I love you,” you said.

Tim pressed his forehead to yours. “I love you too.”

This time, the words did not feel like a wound. They felt like a promise being written carefully, with room in the margins for revisions.

The team meeting happened two days later. You hated it. Tim knew because you said, “I hate this,” exactly eleven times.

“It’s necessary,” he said.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to explain everything alone.”

“I know.”

“Everyone already knows the core mechanism.”

“I know.”

“You can stop saying I know if you want.”

You looked at him. He smiled faintly. Your mouth twitched despite yourself.

Young Justice gathered in the conference room. Cassie sat at the head of the table but looked like she would rather be fighting a hydra. Kon hovered instead of sitting, arms crossed, expression worried. Bart had three snacks and no appetite. Cissie had come in after hearing the truth and looked quietly furious in the way only archers and older sisters could manage.

Bruce stood in the corner. Tim had told him he did not need to attend. Bruce had stared at him. Tim had moved on.

You sat beside Tim with a blanket around your shoulders and your hands wrapped around a mug of tea.

Your hands shook. Everyone noticed.

Nobody commented.

Progress.

You explained the power. No evasions this time. No soft blanket lies.

“It doesn’t heal by erasing damage,” you said, voice quiet but steady. “It transfers the damage to me. Physical injuries are the easiest. Poison, burns, broken bones, internal trauma. Mental and emotional pain are harder and less predictable. I can’t always take those, and I shouldn’t have done it without asking.”

Raven was not there, but the weight of that truth was.

Bart’s eyes glistened. Cassie looked down at the table. Kon’s jaw flexed.

You swallowed.

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I told myself I was helping. I was helping, sometimes. But I also took choices away from you. You deserved to know what yes meant.”

Silence.

Then Bart appeared beside you and hugged you very carefully.

“I’m still mad,” he said into your shoulder.

You closed your eyes. “I know.”

“But I don’t hate you.”

Your face crumpled.

“Nobody hates you,” Cassie said, voice thick.

Kon looked at Tim. Tim nodded once.

Kon came closer, not touching yet.

“You scared us,” Kon said.

“I know.”

“And you’re banned from secret martyr crap.”

A tiny laugh escaped you. “Is that the official wording?”

“Yeah. I checked with management.”

Cassie nodded solemnly. “As management, yes.”

Tim slid a document across the table.

Kon stared. “Oh my God, is that paperwork?”

“Consent directives,” Tim said.

Bart leaned over. “There are checkboxes.”

“Of course, there are checkboxes.”

Cissie picked up a copy, scanning. “Minor injury, severe injury, permanent disability risk, fatal injury, psychic distress, chronic pain flare-ups, magical curse exposure…” She looked up. “This is actually good.”

Tim tried not to look pleased. You looked at him with soft amusement.

Kon groaned. “Do not encourage him.”

“This is helpful,” Cassie said.

“It is,” you agreed.

Tim’s ears went warm.

Bruce’s mouth twitched in the corner. Traitor.

The team spent two hours filling out directives. It was not easy. Bart said no to almost everything at first, then changed fatal injuries to yes if the risk to you was low. Cassie allowed severe injury transfers only if she was incapacitated and you had backup. Kon struggled with red sun and kryptonite exposure, jaw tight, before quietly asking if partial transfers were possible.

You answered honestly every time. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Sometimes I don’t know.

Tim watched the team learn to ask better questions. He watched you learn not to carry every answer alone.

It was painful. It was necessary.

When the meeting ended, Bruce lingered. Tim braced himself.

Bruce looked at the forms. Then at Tim. “This is good work.”

Tim blinked. Praise from Bruce was rare enough that it should have come with atmospheric warnings.

“Thanks,” he said.

Bruce’s gaze shifted to you. “You did the right thing telling them.”

You looked down. “Eventually.”

Bruce nodded. “Eventually matters.”

Then he left. 

Kon stared after him. “Was that Batman being emotionally supportive?”

Cassie nodded slowly. “I think so.”

Bart whispered, “I’m scared.”

You laughed. Tim smiled.

For the first time since the lab, the room felt breathable.

You recovered at Mount Justice because the team outvoted you, Bruce, and your very bad argument that your apartment was “probably fine if no one looked too closely at the mould.”

Tim privately inspected your apartment. The mould was not fine. Neither was the lock. Or the window. Or the fact that your pantry contained tea, crackers, and what appeared to be three emergency protein bars from 2018.

He made a list.

You found it. “Tim.”

“Yes?”

“Why is there a spreadsheet called Apartment Crimes?”

“Because your apartment is committing crimes.”

“You broke into my home.”

“I used a key.”

“I did not give you a key.”

“Your landlord’s lock was insulting.”

“That does not improve your case.”

“I also fixed the lock.”

You stared at him. He stared back.

Finally, you sighed. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Still invasive.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I’m learning.”

You softened.

“Okay,” you said.

That became the shape of things.

Mistake. Correction.

Apology. Learning.

Again.

Tim over-monitored. You called him on it. You downplayed pain. Tim called you on it. Neither of you liked being perceived accurately. Both of you endured it for the greater good, which was apparently each other.

Some nights were harder. One night, three weeks after the lab, Tim found you in the training room. You were sitting on the floor with your back against the wall, one hand pressed to your chest, breathing through what looked like a panic attack.

He stopped in the doorway. Everything in him wanted to rush forward.

He did not.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

You looked up. Your face was wet.

After a moment, you nodded.

Tim entered and sat beside you, leaving space between your bodies.

“Touch?” he asked.

You shook your head.

His chest hurt, but he nodded. “Okay.”

You rubbed both hands over your face.

“I wanted to heal someone today,” you said. Tim went still. “In the city. There was an accident. A civilian. Broken leg, maybe ribs. Paramedics were there. It wasn’t fatal. It wasn’t even… I knew they’d survive.” Your voice shook. “But I could feel it. Not literally. Just—” You swallowed. “I knew I could make it stop.”

Tim listened.

“I didn’t,” you whispered. His heart clenched. “I didn’t because of the rules. Because they couldn’t consent. Because I’m not cleared. Because it wasn’t necessary.” Your breath hitched. “And I feel horrible.”

Tim wanted to tell you that you did the right thing.

You had. But sometimes the right thing was not comfort.

So he said, “I’m sorry.”

You looked at him.

He meant it. Not sorry as correction. Sorry as witness.

Your face crumpled.

“I hate it,” you said.

“I know.”

“They were in pain.”

“Yes.”

“And I walked away.”

“You let trained medics help them.”

“I could have done it faster.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not supposed to agree with that.”

“It’s true.”

You gave a broken laugh. Tim leaned his head back against the wall.

“I watched someone get shot when I was thirteen,” he said. You went still. “I was on patrol. Before Bruce knew. Before anyone knew. I could have intervened earlier, maybe. But I froze. Then I didn’t. I helped. They survived… I still think about the seconds before I moved,” he said. “All the time. Even though they lived. Even though I was a child. Even though I didn’t cause it.”

You looked at him. Tim turned his head.

“I think helping people can become addictive when not helping feels like guilt.”

Your mouth trembled.

“Yeah,” you whispered.

“I don’t know how to fix that.”

“That’s unlike you.”

“I know. Very unsettling.”

A faint smile touched your face.

Tim held out his hand, palm up, resting on the floor between you.

No pressure. No expectation. After a moment, your fingers slid into his.

“Does it get easier?” you asked.

“Not quickly.”

“Honest.”

“You asked.”

You leaned your head against his shoulder. This time, touch was chosen. Tim let himself lean back.

“You did well today,” he said softly.

You cried harder. He held your hand through it.

No healing. No transfer. No solving. Just pain, staying where it was and somehow becoming survivable because someone else sat beside it.

Tim had never trusted that kind of math before.

He was learning.

Your first date happened at a bookstore café because Kon threatened to plan it himself if Tim did not stop “hovering romantically in a medically depressing way.”

Tim objected to the phrasing. Not the substance.

You were still recovering, but strong enough for short outings. Tim chose a quiet place with accessible seating, low lighting, and a menu that included actual food because he had learned, under duress, that coffee did not count as a meal.

You arrived wearing a soft sweater and a look of suspicious amusement.

“This is very planned,” you said.

Tim stood. “Is that bad?”

“No. It’s very you.”

“I can be spontaneous.”

“You sent me a calendar invite.”

“It had the address.”

“It had a weather contingency.”

“It might rain.”

“It has a section titled Emotional Expectations.”

Tim paused.

You smiled. “I liked that part.”

He relaxed slightly. “Oh.”

You sat across from him.

For a while, it was almost normal.

No medbay. No alarms. No poison. Just tea, coffee, bookshelves, and your foot brushing his under the table.

Tim told you about a mystery novel with three plot holes in the first chapter. You argued that sometimes vibes mattered more than forensic accuracy. Tim reacted to this like you had insulted his ancestors.

You laughed.

He loved you so much in that moment it almost scared him. Not the dramatic kind of love from the medbay. Not the desperate kind forged under alarms and toxin warnings.

This was quieter.

You with foam on your upper lip. You stealing one of his fries. You making fun of his annotated reading list. You alive in afternoon light.

Tim reached across the table and touched your hand.

You looked down. Then up.

“Hi,” you said softly.

“Hi.”

“You’re staring.”

“Yes.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I’m trying to memorise this.”

Your face softened. “Tim.”

He looked at your hand beneath his.

“I spent a long time tracking your pain,” he said.

Your expression shifted.

He continued before the words could become too heavy. “I’d like to track other things.”

“Like?”

“Favourite teas. Books you hate. Places you feel safe. What makes you laugh. How you take care of people when it doesn’t cost your body.”

Your eyes filled.

He panicked. “Good tears or bad tears?”

You laughed wetly. “Good.”

“I need people to start labelling them.”

“Jason said that too.”

“Jason and I agreeing is a bad sign.”

“End times.”

He smiled. You turned your hand over beneath his and linked your fingers.

“I’d like that,” you said.

“Good.”

“Also, I hate mystery novels where the detective says, ‘I’ll explain later.’”

“Correct opinion.”

“And I like jasmine tea.”

“Already knew that.”

“Of course you did.”

“And I feel safe with you,” you said.

Tim went very still.

Your thumb moved across his hand. “Even when you’re overbearing with charts.”

“I can reduce chart frequency.”

“Don’t be hasty.”

His mouth twitched. You smiled back.

There, in the soft noise of the café, Tim understood something he had missed while staring at all the data.

Healing was not only the absence of pain. Sometimes healing was information offered freely. A hand held without emergency. A truth spoken before it became a wound. A spreadsheet closed because the person in front of him was more important than the pattern.

Tim looked at you and let the moment exist without solving it.

Mostly.

He did make a mental note about jasmine tea.

He was still Tim.

Months later, the next major injury came on a rooftop in Gotham. A gang war had spilled into civilian territory, and Young Justice was assisting the Bats with evacuation. It was messy but manageable until one of Penguin’s people unveiled a black-market sonic cannon designed to scramble metahuman equilibrium.

Kon dropped from the sky. Cassie staggered. Bart crashed through a billboard.

You were on the adjacent rooftop with Tim, monitoring civilians and coordinating medical evac.

The cannon swung toward the street below.

Toward a group of trapped families.

Tim moved. So did you. He got there first, because grappling lines were faster than stairs and terror.

The blast hit him sideways.

Not full power.

Enough.

His right arm snapped against the building edge. Pain flared bright and nauseating. He rolled hard, vision sparking, and landed badly enough to taste blood.

You were beside him in seconds. “Tim!”

He looked up.

You were already reaching for him.

Then you stopped. Your hands hovered. Shaking.

His arm was broken.

Obvious. Ugly. Wrong angle.

Not fatal. Not permanent if treated quickly.

Pain roared.

You were crying.

Not because of the injury.

Because you wanted to take it. Because you were choosing not to.

Tim understood all of that in the space between breaths.

He held your gaze.

“No,” he said softly.

Your face crumpled.

He reached for you with his uninjured hand. “Stabilise only.”

You nodded, tears spilling over.

“Stabilise only,” you repeated.

Your hands moved to his arm.

Not glowing. Not transferring. Just splinting. Supporting. Wrapping.

You were fast, practised, gentle.

It hurt. God, it hurt.

Tim breathed through it. You breathed with him.

The cannon exploded behind you, courtesy of Kon and what sounded like Damian shouting something rude in Arabic.

Gotham rain began to fall. Naturally.

You finished securing the splint and looked at him.

“I didn’t,” you whispered.

Tim’s chest ached. “I know.”

“I wanted to.”

“I know.”

“I really wanted to.”

“I know.”

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to yours. “You did so well.”

You cried harder.

He kissed you there, on the rooftop, with his broken arm held against his chest and rain sliding down both your faces.

Not because pain was beautiful.

It wasn’t. Pain was awful and unfair and often badly timed.

But choice? Choice was beautiful. You had given him his. He had trusted you with yours.

Below, sirens wailed. Above, Gotham brooded theatrically.

Over comms, Damian said, “If you two are finished having a moment, some of us are still working.”

Kon laughed. “They are absolutely having a moment.”

Bart added, “A rainy rooftop moment! Very cinematic!”

Tim sighed against your mouth. You laughed through tears.

He loved the sound. He loved you.

Not as a variable. Not as a mystery. Not as a miracle with missing data.

As a person. Messy. Stubborn. Learning. Alive.

His arm throbbed. You did not take the pain. You held his hand instead. And for once, Tim let the equation remain unsolved.

Because maybe love was not proof. Maybe it was practice.

Again and again. Choice by choice. Truth by truth. Wound by wound.

You helped him stand. He leaned on you. You let him.

Neither of you called it weakness. And when the mission ended, when the medics set his arm properly and you stayed beside him without trying to steal the hurt from his bones, Tim looked at you and smiled.

A real one.

No strategy. No smirk.

Just warmth.

You smiled back.

“There it is,” you said.

“What?”

“The smile.”

Tim’s ears warmed. “I smile.”

“You do now.”

He looked at your hand in his.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I do.”

And this time, when the pain had to go somewhere, it stayed.

Not because you did not love him enough to take it.

His arms are really nice too. The chords of muscle flex in a particular way while he drives. Especially when turning or when he’s conducting a car chase and his hands go white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

You think to yourself that his hands are probably warm. Tim seems like the kind of man to run hot.

Tim also makes sure that you understand how much he doesn’t like you.

You get it. Kind of. He’d been on his way to becoming a sergeant when it’d been decided that during the coarse of his career, not enough of his officers actually made it past being a rookie.

“One last go,” The captain had said on your first day, “Should be easy. This rookie’s the most self-sufficient thing since Officer West. If she doesn’t make the cut, I want to know why.”

So yeah. You’re pretty sure Tim tuned out the conversation after hearing ‘one last go’.

Additionally, you two have… clashing personalities. You’ve always prided yourself on being self-sufficient- on not needing anyone else. But Tim makes it his mission every single day to remind you of all the million different ways you need to rely on your partner and need them— need him.

It’s annoying on a good day and humbling on a bad one.

And then there’s the matter of Lucy Chen. One of the few rookies to survive the Tim Tests and actually make it past rookie, all the while gaining his respect and friendship.

You don’t even try to hope to reach what she accomplished. Lucy Chen is an inspiration, a pipe dream, and an unreachable standard wrapped up in blue. It’s clear that Tim is proud of the cop she’s become. Proud of his work.

You’re not sure he could ever be proud of you.

But you didn’t raise yourself to be a quitter. So you get up everyday and take the Tim Tests in stride. You work and learn and learn and work and pretend the lack of relationship or bond you have with your fellow rookies doesn’t bother you.

You pretend you don’t dream of being held by warm arms and wake up in the same position, alone and cold.

You pretend the heated blanket you bought during the Academy with your meager funds feels just like human warmth. You pretend it’s enough.

And you do what you always do: you manage.

—

Like with any job, there’s good days, and there’s bad days. You try not to dwell on the bad days, but you usually end up doing so anyways, usually in your silent, empty apartment as you try to fall asleep.

Your shift today is only half over, and you’ve already lost a suspect during a chase —Tim ended up catching her, and the look he shot you as he cuffed him was nothing short of fiery— you accidentally tampered with evidence —in your defense, you weren’t aware that piggy banks were used to move drugs, but accidentally dropping it made you want to crawl into a hole and die— and the cherry on top was the suspect you apprehended today, who, in her desperation to get away from you and jail, kicked you in the leg while she was on the ground. With her very long, and very skinny heel.

‘I got stabbed in the leg with a stripper’s heel’ isn’t a sentence you ever thought you’d say, but here you are. The wound isn’t that bad, thankfully. Just all the usual pain that comes from being stabbed with a fairly blunt object.

You sit in an uncomfortable hospital chair in the waiting room, elbow digging into the hard, wooden armrest and holding your head up by your forehead, while your other arm presses on the still sluggishly bleeding wound on your lower, mid thigh, leg stretched out in front of you.

You’re tired.

Recently, the bad days have outweighed the good ones. You knew this would be the case when you signed up to be a cop. You knew your apartment would feel empty and cold, but you thought that maybe, maybe, you’d make a few friends in your coworkers and it wouldn’t feel so unbearable.

But it turns out there isn’t enough time to make friends when you’re busy trying to get the highest scores in the Academy. And by the time you graduated, you’d been written off as a stuck-up teachers pet. Tolerated by the other rookies at best, occasionally sneered at and mocked at worst.

No fellow rookies, no friendly coworker, no nice neighbors in your apartment. Your training officer doesn’t like you, and the watch commander regularly enjoys singling you out for rookie-typical ridicule.

You’re tired.

The wound on your leg hurts like a bitch, already bruised to hell and back in that way that blunt force injuries usually do. Your pants are dark and sticky with blood, and the hand that’s applying pressure is uncomfortably tacky as you bleed, clot, and dry, over and over again.

It’s shitty. You feel shitty.

The fluorescent overhead lights are making your head pound and there’s so much noise in the waiting room, overlapping and, for lack of a better term, stabbing your eardrums in a pounding beat, and the pain is starting to make you a little nauseous, or maybe that’s the smell of anti-septic, and you fucked up so badly today, and oh god what if you get sepsis or a staff infection, that heel was so dirty, who knows where it’s been, and why won’t you just stop bleeding, and—

“Boot.”

—you haven’t called your mom in ages, she deserves better than that, and god your leg really hurts, and you don’t want to go home after this because—

“Rookie.”

—you’re most definitely being sent home, you got stabbed with a fucking heel for christ’s sake, and unlike after a normal shift you won’t have the exhaustion to just send you straight to bed, chores be damned, your apartment is so, so so quiet and you hate it—

“Hey!”

Snapping fingers in front of your face and Tim’s shout jolts you from your pain-slash-panic-induced spiral, and you reflexively clench your fists, then hiss in pain as your grip tightens over the wound.

He’s crouched in front of you, dark, steady eyes scrutinizing your face.

“Sorry,” you huff, face hot with embarrassment. “It’s, um, it’s loud in here.”

He just nods once, looking rather unimpressed. You resist the urge to fidget.

“You good to stay here while I go back out?”

The thought of waiting in the ER alone, and then more than likely catching an Uber to the station and then ignoring possible doctors orders to drive yourself home from there is… less than pleasant.

But if it has to be done, then it has to be done.

“Yeah,” You say easily, the lie slipping right off your tongue. “Yeah, yeah I’ll be good.”

Your injury had already been called in, so Grey wasn’t expecting you back at the station. Tim would go back on shift and you’d take care of yourself like you always do. You’ll be fine eventually. You always are.

You expect Tim to take the easy out. You’ve handed it to him on a silver platter. Express permission to not have to deal with you anymore today.

He sighs, unexpectedly, then stands, and you look down so you don’t have to watch him walk away, and wait to hear the sound of his retreating footsteps.

They don’t come.

The chair next to you creaks as someone sits down in it.

As Tim sits down in it.

You blink, looking up at him. “Officer Bradford?”

He’s crossed his arms across his chest, sparing you a small glance. “What?”

You look down at your lap. “Nothing.”

He doesn’t say anything, just pulls out his phone, clearly texting someone —probably Officer Lopez— and pretty much ignores you as you wait to be called back.

His presence is enough, though. It chases away some of that creeping panic and chill in your chest. You relax in increments. Your posture slouches, your hand unclenches, and you feel like you can take a breath without throwing up.

Eventually, your name gets called, and maybe you just look especially pathetic as your stiffly and shakily climb to your feet and begin ambling towards the indicated trauma room, but you hear another annoyed sigh, and then Tim’s mumbling “Here,” and then your arm is around his shoulders and his arm snakes behind your back and just above your waist.

And fuck.

If you thought that having him near you was something, having the arms of the man you’ve literally dreamt about doing nearly this exact same thing is… it’s a drug.

Your skin is on fire where’s he’s quite literally holding you together as you awkwardly shuffle across the waiting room. His hands are warm even through the under shirt and your uniform shirt. The rush of chemicals in your head is dizzying at the contact, your brain startlingly aware of each and every place the two of you are connected.

To him, it’s nothing. To you, it’s everything.

If this is what hard drugs feel like, you sympathize with the addicts. All it takes is his arm around you, safe and steadying, and you’re gone. Hooked.

You try your best to file the feeling away in your head, to commit it to memory, so later, when those bad days have their cold nights, you can take it out and remember it. Remember what felt like to be even half wrapped like this. Supported and steadied.

It’s an uncharacteristic show of care on Tim’s part. He’s not exactly a touchy-feely kind of guy. He’s more like the ‘deal with it or quit’ kind of guy.

But he’s helping you here, now. More than he knows.

You don’t comment on any of this, of course, because you don’t want to draw attention to how much you’re leaning into his touch.

You hope he writes it off as needing help walking.

—

The first night after the stabbing —Tim does not let you drive yourself home, though looks vaguely impressed that you were completely willing, and instead drops you off and has Officer Lopez drive your car back to your place— is great. You sleep clear through the night without waking up once. The memory of Tim holding you up, touching you, is fresh in your mind. Sleeping is easy. You arrive to work for once not faking your enthusiasm under layers of professionalism. You actually, genuinely feel okay.

As the weeks progress though, you start flagging.

By the time a month has gone by, you’re downright miserable. You didn’t realize just how empty your chest could feel after actually feeling how warm and full it could be.

This, of course, means doubling over on professionalism, because there’s absolutely no way that anyone can know how much you’re starting to fracture, bit by bit. You’re strong, put-together, and self-sufficient. You take Tim’s training in stride and you never complain. You don’t rise to the bait when you get singled out for hazing, and laugh when you become the subject of a rookie prank.

You do not stare at Tim’s arms or hands out of the corner of your eye when he’s not looking, you do not imagine the big pillow you hold at night is him, and most importantly you do not even entertain the fantasy in which Tim holds you, really holds you, and you don’t have to keep it all together anymore.

It’s not realistic. You’re always going to hold everything together. You always have and you always will.

But sometimes, every now and then, you get something well and truly right, and Tim says “Good job, boot.” And he means it. Gets that crinkle near his eyes and that twitch in his jaw when he’s trying not to look impressed or pleased. And it chases away the empty, just for a little bit. Makes how hard he pushes you just a little more worth it, each time.

It’s starting to get to you, though. Has been for awhile. Because it’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it, to think these things about your training officer? Someone who would never, ever do the things you want him to do? As trivial and stupid and childish as they are?

And look. You’re not stupid. You know exactly why you’ve fixated on Tim Bradford specifically. You’re well versed in the art of “intellectualizing your feelings so you don’t have to feel them” and your want of your training officer’s touch is no mystery. He checks all your boxes- Brooding, emotionally unavailable, harsh, attractive, and more importantly, in a position of power over you. So you get it. Daddy issues, your emotional needs not being met growing up, blah blah blah. It’s whatever.

What’s not whatever is your inability to stop obsessing over it. Him. You need to get a grip.

You want to become a detective. And, not to mention, you’ve worked incredibly hard to be a damn good cop.

But here you are, sitting in the shop with Tim, spacing out when you should be paying attention because you saw one of your old friends post the anniversary for her and her boyfriend last night and now you can’t stop thinking about how she probably look at every couple and wonder how it feels to have someone around, constantly, to soothe the near permanent ache in your chest and itch under your skin.

She probably doesn’t have the ache or itch at all.

“Boot!” Tim barks, voice sudden and loud. “Where are we?”

You jolt in place. “Uh—“

Tim slams on the brakes, your seatbelt snapping against your chest. “I’ve been shot. I’m dead. Where were you just now?”

You scramble for an answer. “I was—“

“Your head wasn’t here,” He jams a finger onto the center console. “And in this line of work, that means you’re dead. It means people die on your watch.”

He starts the car, and without the crackling of dispatch over the radio, it’s awhile before he speaks again.

“What’s wrong?”

The words sound so foreign coming from Officer Bradford that you pause.

“Is that a trick question? Is the answer…um… I should focus more…?”

“Well, yes, and no,” He responds, face set in a slight grimace, “Yes, you need to focus more, but no, that wasn’t a trick question.”

When you don’t immediately respond —what are you supposed to say to that?— he keeps going.

“You’re spacey. You don’t get spacey. But you’ve been all over the place lately, so something’s up.”

“Nothing’s—“

He levels you with a Look.

Now it’s your turn to sigh.

One of the main reasons you didn’t get along with other students at the Academy was your unwillingness to sacrifice your career for a social life. You didn’t tell anybody your sob story— didn’t need the pity, didn’t care what they thought.

And you don’t really want to tell Tim either, but for a different reason. An opposite one, really. You do care what he thinks. A lot. And you don’t want to sound whiny or sensitive or any less of a capable cop. You need to prove to him that you can do this.

But Tim also has the best bullshit sensor of anyone you know, and will immediately see through you if you try to lie.

“I moved to California right before I started at the Academy. I was focused and career driven. And I’ve never really been social. It just, uh, kind of hit me, I guess. That my family is a thousand miles away.”

“What, you don’t have any friends from the Academy?”

His confidence in your social skills is nice, if not very misguided.

You shrug. “I gave up everything to move here. I thought that if I went out to bars and parties, I’d lose focus and fail. I couldn’t, and still can’t afford to.”

Tim’s saved from responding by a call close to your location crackling out from dispatch. And thank god for that. You’re sure as hell not itching to restart the conversation, and besides. Tim wants you to get your head in the game, so you do. Complete and utter focus on the call.

It goes well. But Tim doesn’t say anything as you climb back in the shop, not even a not-displeased hum.

“That’s stupid, you know.”

You look up from where you were checking something in the system. “What?”

“This thing you’re doing. You’re not even living. You’re just going to work and then going home. Your performance is shitty because you feel shitty.”

You gape for a second before rushing to respond. “My performance isn’t—“

“Yeah, it is. Don’t argue me on this, boot. You’re drowning, is what you’re doing. You have no work life balance. You’re going to burn out, and then you wash out.”

He turns to you, eyes bright and jaw set. “And you better not wash out, because you’re my last rookie and I need you to win.”

Right. Yes. Of course. Tim needs you to win, so he needs you to get focused, and get real.

The smile you give him is perfectly practiced and hollow. You ignore the nausea churning in your chest.

“Don’t worry. I don’t do anything other than win.”

—

Even though it’s most definitely stupid and insane, you ignore Tim’s advice. Since when have you had the energy to do things outside of work but rot in bed? And besides. Going out would mean losing precious sleeping hours, which are already hard enough to come by as it is. You don’t need to make your energy levels any worse than they already are by adding going to bed late on top of incredibly fitful sleep.

So it’s fine. You’re handling it.

—

You’re not handling it.

You’re exhausted. All the time. The more tired you are, the more you have to work to make sure your performance at work isn’t suffering. Which makes you more tired.

And you just… can’t sleep. You toss and turn all night, wake up a million times, and usually end up reliving your worst cases with added bonuses, like Tim being injured, and then berating you for it, and then the watch commander calls you into his office and fires you.

And then there’s the guilt. The sickening, nauseating guilt that follows you day after day, choking and clogging your throat because you know you’re better than this. You’re better than this. But you’re not getting better.

You should’ve taken Tim’s advice, maybe. Should’ve heard it two, three, maybe four months ago and extended yourself to other people and tried going out, making a routine of trying new things other than sleeping, watching tv, or working, but it’s too late now and you’re just so fucking tired.

And alone.

Really, really, alone.

When you finally lose it, it’s because of a call. A bad one. A really bad one.

It’s a little girl. No older than nine or ten. Her mother had reported her missing when she’d come home from work and her daughter and her husband were missing. At first, the report hadn’t been taken seriously, but the mother begged and pleaded. It was Lucy who’d pulled up the woman’s husband and found several previous charges for domestic violence and abuse that dispatch had sent multiple units after the child.

Whom you found. Locked in a car.

You were the one to break the window. You were the one to get her out.

You were the one who had to call an RA unit for a nine year old girl, not conscious, not breathing.

Tim pulled you away from the scene. From her. Kept a hand on your shoulder and steered you towards the shop, and you were shaking. Are shaking. You’re in the shop. You can’t get your hands to stop shaking.

Tim is uncharacteristically silent. He doesn’t start the car. You can see him watching you out of the corner of your eye. You need to stop shaking. You need to get it together.

It’s just. That was you. Could’ve been you. Almost was you, once or twice.

You spent a lot of time in locked cars growing up.

“Boot,” Tim says softly, too softly, he’s babying you, “You need to take a minute.”

“No, no,” The first no is shaky and the second is no better but you need to be fine, “I’m fine, I’ll be fine. I need to adapt, need to get used to this kind of thing.”

He makes a noise of annoyance in the back of his throat. “No you don’t. Becoming desensitized to this kind of thing isn’t what you want to happen. Trust me.”

You breath is starting to hitch a little, and your eyes are beginning to burn. Why can’t you stop shaking? It happened so long ago.

“I’m fine. I’m— It’s okay. We should get back on the road.”

Your voice wobbles at the end. You clench your jaw, steel yourself against the onslaught of emotions and will yourself to just get a fucking grip.

“Hey,” Tim starts, voice that lower, gentle tone he sometimes uses on victims, and that’s messed up, because you’re not a victim, just dramatic, “It’s okay to not be okay after something like that.”

“I’m fine!” You snap, “I survived. She didn’t.”

Oh.

You feel the first few tears begin falling, and immediately scrub them off your face as fast and as hard as you can.

“I’m sorry,” You half-whisper, mortified at the action of crying and snapping at him. “I’m sorry, this is, this is really unprofessional—“

You hunch, pressing the heels of your hands so hard into your eyes starbursts of color are whirling behind them.

Tim doesn’t say anything, which only adds to your mounting anxiety, until you hear the semi-familar sound of him typing on his phone, and then a steady tik. Tik. Tik.

You look up, your eyes already puffy.

Tim sets his phone down on the console between the two of you.

“That timer is set for ten minutes. For ten minutes, you are not going to be fine. Ten minutes while we drive. Got that?”

You sniffle pathetically. “Ten minutes is a long time to put up with me crying.”

He shrugs. “If I give you your ten minutes, and you get this out, then you’ll be more focused on the job. Seems like a fair trade off to me.”

You’re not expecting the firm hand to land on your shoulder.

“This was your first d-o-a. Even the best cops are shaken after something like that. It changes you. That is not something be ashamed of.”

You let yourself lean into the touch, ever so slightly. The tears start falling easier after that, and, still not entirely comfortable with crying in front of your TO, you cover your face with your hands.

The crying bit is over in only a few minutes. The rest of the time on the timer is spent staring down at your lap and trying to calm yourself down, and when that doesn’t work, you pull out your phone and soothe yourself by organizing one of your Pinterest boards. Ah, the peace that comes from setting arbitrary rules that affect no one and organizing pictures based on these rules. Bliss.

Tim only removes his hand after you stop crying, which. You try your best to memorize the touch —no matter how mortifying the circumstances— and try your best not to think about how it almost seems like starting to catch onto the messier parts about yourself you’d like to keep hidden.

—

Sometimes it’s hard not to feel well and truly and completely alone.

You know you’re not. Not really. Not if you tried harder, extended yourself more. Made an effort to get out there. But you don’t have any energy for efforts. You don’t have anything left to give.

Tim’s touch and approval and just there-ness haunt you on your off days and are, if you’re being embarrassingly and horrifyingly honest, the only thing you really look forward to anymore.

You like your job. You do. But you’re tired. And how many times can you say that? Can you think that?

I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired.

Please, someone, put me down, let me go, give me a minute, I’m tired.

So it’s not really surprising when you get sick.

You’ve been running yourself absolutely ragged, day in and day out, and when you wake, feeling like death warmed over, you don’t even groan. It makes your throat hurt.

Your head pounds with pressure from your sinuses and your hands shake as you put on your uniform in the locker room. Your slow-and-unsteady gait gathers a few looks as you make your way into the, surprisingly empty, roll call room.

Is it really empty if one person is in it? Tim’s in it. He’s leaned up against the front desk, where you usually sit with the other rookies. Only time you’re really ever near them. He looks mad. Why’s he mad?

“Boot,” He starts, voice low, and that’s never a good sign, “Is there a reason you decided not to show up to roll call today?”

You blink, thoughts going about as fast as a fish in frozen water, “But it’s not time for roll call yet.”

It’s not. You woke up when your alarm went off, took cold medicine (probably more than you’re supposed to, and the wrong combination of them, but who cares) and drove to the precinct. Same as you always do. Minus the cold medicine.

Tim frowns. He’s always frowning. He frowns deeper. “You’re over an hour late.”

That…doesn’t make any sense. How’d you lose an hour of time? Did you fall asleep somewhere along the way? You don’t remember falling asleep. You’re not missing any memories, no blank spots, no black outs.

“Boot!” He barks, and you flinch and the noise, pressing a hand to your forehead as if that’ll help the sharp stab of pain in your head that accompanies his raised voice.

Tim is downright glaring at you now. “Are you hungover?”

“No!” You reply indignantly, then instantly regret it due to the burn you now feel in your throat, “I’m just like. Kind of sick.”

Did that come out convincing enough? You’re sure you can still work. You worked through every cold and flu and fever back at the Academy. You can totally do this, right?

Tim pushes off the table and stalks towards you. arms crossed. He uncrosses them as he gets closer and—

Oh. That’s nice. His hand’s cool.

Your eyes flutter shut, unbidden, as the cool skin of the back of his hand presses to your forehead. If your eyes were open, you’d be able to see that his frown has taken on a concerned brow furrow to accompany it, but you’re too busy enjoying the simple contact to notice. Or keep your eyes open.

He takes his hand away with a sigh, and you stumble forward a little.

“You feel like you’re on fire. Jesus- did you drive here?”

You nod, to avoid angering your throat, and end up angering your headache instead.

“Yeah, you’re going home.”

Panic stabs you in the chest.

“No!” You rasp, “I’m fine. I’m a rookie, it’s my job to keep working no matter what—“

“It’s also,” Tim interrupts, “Your job to take care of yourself, but you’re shit at that, which is why you’re sick in the first place. So I’m going to drive you home and make sure you’re not going to die by yourself while you’re sick.”

You shake your head. “I used to work through being sick all the time at the Academy, I can do it.”

“And you were stupid for doing that too. The key difference here is that you’re not responsible for peoples lives at the Academy. I’m not going to get shot today because you’re too hopped up on cold medicine to cover me.”

“But—“

“I’m sorry,” He growls, “Were you under the impression that you have any sort of say in this decision?”

You close your mouth.

“That’s what I thought. Go wait at my desk while I clear this with the watch commander.”

You trudge solemnly to his desk, head and vision swimming. Great. Now Tim’s upset at you and you feel awful. Why is everything so terrible?

You slump into the chair at his desk, dropping your head onto your arms and allowing your eyes to close. The walk from the briefing room to Tim’s desk exhausted you. And your uniform feels extra uncomfortable.

You just want to be at home, not sick, and maybe sleeping restfully for the first time since becoming a cop. Maybe you’re not cut out to be a cop. Maybe you should quit. Maybe—

Someone gently shakes your shoulder, and your straighten, blinking blearily.

“Come on, up we go.”

A strong arm hooks under yours and carefully hauls you up, and let out a small whine at the movement. Tim’s desk is comfortable. And smells vaguely like him.

“Don’t give me that. I’m taking you home. We need to go get your stuff from the locker room.”

You whine again, as if the noise will somehow convey everything you’re feeling at the moment.

I don’t want to leave the temporary and fake saftey of Tim’s desk. I don’t want to go home cause my home is empty and I’m sick. I’m extra miserable because I’m sick. My brain isn’t working and I don’t remember what locker I put my stuff in. I don’t even know if I brought my stuff. Is it somehow possible for my technical-boss to take me to his house instead and tuck me into his bed that smells like him and has him in it so I can sleep next to another human being and feel safe for even twenty minutes?

Of course, none of this is relayed to Tim, who’s currently half holding half dragging you over to the locker rooms, grip firm but not unkind.

After assuring you that no one else is even going to be in the locker room because you’re now over an hour into your shift, he goes with you and helps you find and take your stuff. In your sick daze, you did manage to bring your bag and water bottle, but neglected to put any water in your water bottle or put your wallet in your bag.

Tim just mutters an “Alright, come on,” once your stuff has been acquired, and escorts you out to the parking lot.

Two things occur to you.

One, Tim is no longer dressed in his uniform. Instead, he now sports jeans and a dark gray henley.

Two, you’re both headed towards the personal parking lot.

If Tim isn’t in work clothes anymore, and he’s taking you towards his car, that means he’s not just dropping you off at your house.

He is, presumably, going to look after you. Because you’re sick.

He ushers you into the passenger seat, going so far as to help you up and grab the seatbelt for you. He leans over you when he does it, and there’s a second where he’s pressed against you and it’s so nice and you kind of want to live in the moment forever but you can’t because you’re sick and he’s mad at you and he shouldn’t have to deal with this and you should’ve been better.

You sniffle just as he starts the car, momentarily thankful for the engine turning over hiding the sound, but unfortunately, the second the tears start, they don’t stop.

Tim notices immediately, because of course he does.

“What’s wrong?”

You hiccup a half-sob. “I’m sorry. I should’ve called out.”

“Yeah, you should have.”

You sniff again, harder, cause now your nose is running. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could handle it.”

He eases the car out of the parking space. “Having a brain-cooking fever isn’t really something you can just handle.”

He eyes the fat tears rolling down your cheeks and you see the muscles in his jaw work.

“Why didn’t just call out sick?”

“I don’t like calling out. I wanna be a model employee. Model officer. Wanna be reliable. I wanna be—“

You swallow, voice hoarse and wobbly. “I just wanna be good.”

The car is silent for awhile. A long while. Tim doesn’t respond, and with your nerves now thoroughly fried and your immune system making a minor attempt on your life, you’re pretty sure you fall asleep.

You wake to Tim shaking you, albeit gently, and helping you out of the car. He instructs you to leave your bag and to go inside and change.

He really doesn’t have to tell you twice. You feel awful. So bad. Terrible. Horrible.

Changing clothes only serves to exhaust you further, so you trudge out to the living room and collapse onto your couch, shivering. There’s a blanket only a few feet away, but it’s just so far.

You hear your front door open and the sound of heavy-footsteps, and then there’s the creak of your shitty fridge opening and a few mumbled curses.

You ignore the noises behind you and dedicate all of your energy to grabbing the remote off the coffee table and finding something you don’t have to think about watching. Maybe Criminal Minds. Or Bluey.

“I,” Tim starts, then annoyedly snatches the blanket off the end of the coach and drags it up over you, “Am going to the store, because your fridge looks like it hasn’t been used since the eighteen-hundreds. Don’t die while I’m gone.”

“Okay,” You say, but your voice is hoarse and muffled by the blanket so it comes out more like, “Mmomhay.”

You end up watching Jurassic Park, because nothing makes you feel better like dinosaurs and people getting eaten by them. Classic.

Tim does return at some point, right about when you’re thinking of just binge watching every single Jurassic Park/World movie, and starts making noise in your kitchen. Which you also ignore.

You’re doing a lot of ignoring today.

It’s easy though, is the thing. Tim is cooking something, if the sounds of grocery bags and pots and pans and chopping are anything to go off, and he’s handled you and his’s shifts, so there’s no work to worry about, and you’re really honestly too sick to think about any other things that need to be done.

Tim’s taking care of it. So you don’t have to worry, cause he’s cooking something, and people are getting eaten by dinosaurs on the tv in front of you, so maybe everything will be okay for the time being.

The okay feeling comes to a swift and brutal end when Tim comes around the edge of the couch and tells you to sit up.

“M’ comfy,” You mumble, indignant.

He rolls his eyes, ever exasperated. “You can’t eat soup while laying down.”

“Watch me.”

“No. Come on, sit up.”

You whine as he pulls you forward, stuffing pillows behind you so you don’t actually have to put effort in to staying upright. He then places a tray you didn’t know you owned (maybe he bought it?) on your lap and places a small bowl of soup and a sleeve of saltines.

Your eyes begin to burn with unshed tears again.

Tim groans. “It’s just soup, Boot.”

You sniff harshly. “No one’s made me soup before.”

He sigh’s long-sufferingly, but his vocal exasperation is undermined by the careful way he dabs at the tears on your cheeks.

“Thought you liked your mom.” Tim says, a question hidden in his voice.

“I do. But we were really poor, so she couldn’t really afford to take time off work because I was sick. And I got sick pretty often so,” You pick up your spoon with shaky fingers. “I got good at taking care of myself.”

“Yeah?” Tim says, opening the package of saltines for you, “Then where’d all that skill go?”

He clearly means it as a joke, but you still can’t help the small stab of guilt in your chest.

You set the spoon back down. “I’m just really tired.”

He doesn’t sigh again, but he does purse his lips in that way he does when he’s upset about something and can’t quite decide how to show it.

When he moves, it surprises you. He takes the soup off your lap, moves the tray to the little coffee table by your couch. Turns the TV volume up. Loud enough to hear the audible crunch of the Spinosaurus battling the T. Rex.

Then, he reaches forward and just. Reaches his arms around your waist and back and pulls you forward, then borderline man-handles you into a comfortable position with your legs now where your head used to be, and your had pillowed on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you just that much closer.

You couldn’t have stopped yourself from melting into the embrace even if you weren’t hopped up on cold medicine.

After a few minutes of mindlessly watching a Spinosaurus go on a rampage, he speaks again.

“You wanna know what I think?”

You nod into his arm, face smushed.

“I think you got really good at making people not worry about you. You probably had to.”

For a brief second, you think about hunger, and sickness, and locked cars.

“And I think that in my haste to get through this training period and make it to Sergeant, I didn’t bother looking deeper to find out if you were lying or not.”

You shift in place, now a little uncomfortable as the conversation has switched over to you. “It’s not really your responsibility.”

“It is,” Tim says easily, tone-matter-of-fact. “You’re my rookie. And it shouldn’t have taken me this long to learn what kind of training and support you needed.”

You sit up at his words. Which is a huge mistake, because then you get really dizzy and nauseous and there are weird stars dancing across your vision.

“You—“ You pause, taking a deep breath, “This is police work. I shouldn’t have to be coddled every step of the way.”

“Lay back down,” He tugs you down by your waist. “You aren’t coddled every step of the way. You’re a capable cop. You’re good at your job. I’m not holding your hand. I’m giving you what you need.”

You sink lower on the couch, trying to hide your face from this mortifying experience. Unfortunately the closest thing to hide your face in is Tim’s side.

Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers.

He rubs your back consolingly. It only feels a little patronizing.

“But,” He continues, “I don’t know what you need if you don’t tell me.”

“I don’t want to bother you with that. You’re my T.O.”

“And you’re my rookie,” Tim continues smoothly, “I can’t send my rookie out on the streets if any criminal can get to her through a hug.”

“Hey,” You grumble, “That’s mean.”

“No it’s not.”

You pull your face away from his side and go back to facing the TV.

“But what if I need this a lot? What if my brain gets… screwy when I’m alone for awhile, and this is what fixes it?”

“Then I’d say it was a fairly normal reaction and need.” Tim shrugs.

You look up at him questioningly.

“Look. I didn’t have a great dad either. It’s not…” He trails off, jaw working. “Bad things happened to you. You dealt with them the only way you knew how. But now you need a little extra help. That’s all.”

“That sounds like something Lucy would say.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “How could you tell?”

The conversation lulls into a gentle silence. Tim continues trailing his hand up and down your side. Up and down, up and down, up and down. And occasionally pause to rub, knead, or scratch. All of which you lean into with equal amounts of shame and enjoyment.

“You’re like a cat,” He mumbles, eyes trained on the still rampaging Spinosaurus, “Can’t believe I didn’t make the connection before.”

You don’t have it in you to do anything more than make a non-committal hum.

A couple beats pass.

“Thank you.”

Tim’s hand trails a little higher on the next pass, his large palm curling up over your shoulder and to the back of your neck.

“For what?”

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