˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

***

Irony is a cruel mistress.

Downright evil, in fact. Because how and in what world would you be so unlucky in love?

Every relationship you have bursts into flames. One time, literally, a fellow metahuman you dated caught fire and threw themselves out a window when you said “I love you” for the first time.

But that's not where the irony kicks in. It's the fact that you are the closest thing this earth has to Cupid.

Everywhere you go, you leave a trail of heart eyes in your wake.

Meet-cutes happen right in front of you with a snap of your fingers. 

Whether it was the exhausted accountant and the barista at your coffee shop or the dog-walker and the grumpy author downstairs, you'd shoot a little love-powered finger gun, and they'd ride off into the sunset together.

Trudging your way into the Daily Planet, the world’s most chaotic newsroom, you were not in the mood for any bullshit, especially not superpowered bullshit. The Big Belly Burger near your house just got blinked out of existence. You mean it, there’s literally a crater where it used to be, your rent’s due tomorrow, and a supervillain just stole your cat this morning for funsies.

Not to mention, you and your stupid powers just set up the really cute florist you’ve been plotting on for months with your neighbour.

He was the perfect guy for you. 

Sweet, funny, smelled like jasmine and sunlight, and your powers weren’t giving you any reason not to go full steam ahead.

But of course, the second your neighbour entered his flower shop, and they made eye contact, BAM, you made a match.

At this point, it would be merciful if someone finally struck you down with lightning. But knowing you, you’d survive, but all your hair would fall off instead.

You reach your desk, slumping down in it like the saddest little puddle of melted ice cream.

“You look like you’ve been through hell,” Lois comments, eyeing the scorch marks on your sleeve and the suspicious dusting of concrete in your hair. “You okay?”

“Toyman stole my cat.”

You replay the moment in your head. There was a large crash shattering through your window, glass everywhere, and before you knew it, your cat had leapt into his arms. Traitor.

“Sure, Cato’s really grumpy and tears my kitchen apart on a daily basis and has run away from home three times in the past month,” you sigh, rubbing your temples, “but he always comes home, and I miss him. He’s my grumpy little disaster.”

Lois blinks. “Toyman. The Toyman. Stole your cat.”

“Yup. Didn’t even monologue. Just grabbed Cato, said ‘shitty apartment’, and jetpacked out the window. Who even does that?”

You lean back in your chair, far enough that it creaks in warning. “Save me, Lois Lane,” you groan dramatically, flinging an arm over your face like a silent movie star in distress.

“Not my jurisdiction,” she says with a playful shake of the head and a comforting pat on the shoulder. 

You’re about to retort when the elevator dings across the bullpen.

A deep voice filters through the chatter. “Sorry, Perry!”

Then comes the soft shuffle of papers, a muffled thud of a bag, and the unmistakable steady rhythm of footsteps, ones you’ve heard a hundred times before. 

Your favourite mild-mannered reporter and serial bringer of pastries steps into the newsroom, brushing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes as he makes his way to his desk just across from yours.

“Hey, Cla—”

You lean back a little too far, mid-greeting, and gravity decides to betray you. The chair tips, and you tumble backwards in a spectacular display of dignity loss, hitting the floor with a thud that echoes across the bullpen.

As you’re groaning in pain and contemplating whether your day could get any worse, a shadow falls over you. You blink up, squinting against the overhead lights, and find yourself staring at a very concerned Clark Kent.

His hair is an adorable mess, a sure sign he’s been running around trying not to be late and failing miserably. His tie’s crooked, glasses slightly askew, and of course, he still looks like a lead in a rom-com.

You may or may not have an itsy bitsy crush on him. It absolutely does not consume most of your waking moments.

But you can't help but think of him when things are rough. 

Just a smile could warm even the coldest of days, thaw ice with a single chuckle.

If you could put your powers to use for anyone, you'd do it for him, but who to set him up with? Your Cupid senses were not tingling.

Which was odd. They always tingled. Constantly. Especially when Jimmy’s around.

You’d stumbled through multiple love matches a day thanks to him. There was Jimmy and the new interns, Jimmy and the girl from layout, Jimmy and the pizza delivery driver who once gave him an extra pizza he didn't order “because he looked like he needed it.”

But with Clark? Zilch. Nada.

Maybe he was unlucky in love just like you.

“Are you upside down, or is that just me?” you mumble, wincing as you try to sit up.

Clark laughs softly, that warm, gentle sound that makes your stomach do weird somersaults. He reaches down and, with one effortless motion, lifts you upright as if you weigh nothing more than a stack of newspapers.

“You okay?” he asks, still holding your arm a second longer than necessary.

You stare at him, heart doing that annoying thing, and sigh. “Define okay.”

“What happened?”

“Toyman stole her cat,” Lois answers from her desk.

Clark blinks. “Toyman stole your cat?”

“And insulted my apartment,” you huff, crossing your arms and glaring at the floor like it personally offended you. “What does he know about interior design anyway? The man literally lives in a dollhouse.”

Lois snorts. “Technically, a lair.”

“Whatever. It's ugly as hell,” you reply.

Clark’s lips twitch like he’s trying not to laugh. “I’m sure Cato’s okay. Toyman wouldn’t hurt—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” you cut in, sighing. “But still. He kidnapped my cat and roasted my décor. That’s a new low, even for me.”

“I know you’ll get your cat back.”

“Thanks.”

Lois’s kind smile makes you feel better, but you’re not sure she knows just how unlucky you are in every aspect of your life. 

You may never see your precious cat again, hear his grumpy meows, or wake up to him sitting on your chest and pawing at your face at 3 am. 

Clark is still beside you, mind working at lightning speed to cheer you up.

“How about we go to Amoré for lunch in a few hours? Get some of those Belgian waffles you love so much. My treat.” 

Your heart soars at the offer, the excitement on your face as plain as day.

“You always know how to make me happy.”

***

On your way into downtown Metropolis, you’re snapping every photo you can get your hands on. From street corners, skyscrapers, pigeons doing that weird little hop thing, anything that catches your eye. 

From the tram, you can see the city stretch endlessly below.

“Pretty, right?” You say, leaning towards Clark, showing him the faintly blurred picture of a couple having lunch under the sunlit arches in Centennial Park. 

One of your favourite sights in town, you had to say. Especially this time of the year, the cherry blossoms were in bloom, painting the city in a light blush. 

It was a sight to behold and completely and utterly romantic. 

You couldn’t be the second coming of Cupid if you weren’t a hopeless romantic. Even if it wasn’t happening for you, you were happy it was happening for someone else. 

The feeling of him right next to you, the faint but intoxicating smell of his cologne as he leans closer, has you swooning. 

Then he spoke, and it’s like he’s trying to put you in an early grave. 

“I love seeing Metropolis from your eyes…”

You were so gone.

You love the way he made you feel. Even the smallest things make you feel like you’re flying. 

“Well, it’s a special city,” you shrug. “Lots to shoot, lots to be inspired by.”

You play it off well enough. Just long enough for your heart rate to return to something less concerning. You didn’t need to be having a heart attack before you got your hands on free Belgian waffles courtesy of Clark. 

He seems to accept your response, not pushing any further, but the little twinkle in his eyes tells you he knows more than he’s letting on. 

“I know,” he says softly. 

You smile to yourself, a quiet kind of peace rolling over you before lifting the camera back up to keep shooting. Your world, framed in your lens once again. 

You don’t use cameras just for work; they're tools that help you focus, a way to keep your powers in check.

Finger guns can be… unpredictable. One time, there was a little misfire, and suddenly, you made a guy hopelessly in love with his own reflection. You can only hope it wore off before lunchtime.

But with the camera, you have control. Two consecutive photos of the same people with the same camera and, BAM, the match is made.

It’s the perfect tool for unsuspecting singles everywhere.

It'll push them both in the right direction, make them bolder, and give them the confidence to make that first move.

Sure, it’s a little bit of an occupational hazard, but you've gotten better at controlling it… mostly.

“It’s our stop,” Clark says, waking you from your daydream. You feel the tram car judder to a stop and step off. But not without stumbling a little,  though your big, strong guardian reaches and steadies you.

Letting out a deep breath of relief, you didn’t become a pancake. You beam up at him. 

“I swear, I would’ve become a splat on the pavement a long time ago if it weren’t for you.”

“I have to look out for a fellow klutz,” Clark responds, still holding you upright. 

It should be funny, really, that somehow you’re just as, if not more, clumsy than he is, but he makes it look endearing instead of disastrous.

Clearing your throat, you try to pull yourself together before you get lost in that beautiful oasis called his eyes.

“Well, fellow klutz, let’s get food.”

You reach out, half considering taking his hand before opting to tug gently at his sleeve instead.

Turning into a side street, you drink in the familiar sight in front of you. You couldn’t count how many times you’d found yourself walking through this part of New Troy, a hidden-away jewel, tucked quietly behind the hustle and bustle just a few feet away.

You snap a picture here and there, of the sun-worn brick walls lined with ivy, your favourite food cart with burritos you swore by, the smell of grilled peppers and warm tortillas bringing you back to the day you and Clark tried them for the first time.

An old jewellery store catches your eye, the one with the slightly crooked sign and the velvet-lined display. You smile at the memory of you and Clark stopping in to pick something out for his mother’s birthday, the store clerk wrongfully (but very enthusiastically) trying to sell you engagement rings. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Clark turn that red.

Before you finally arrive at the doors of Amoré, the cafe of your dreams. It’s like someone took a look inside your brain and planted it in reality.

The little jingle as you both enter is nostalgic as you’re yet again brought back to a memory with Clark. 

Unlike today, it had been absolutely horrid, winds threatening to sweep you off your feet, and it was as if heaven itself had opened up and decided to rain down without mercy.

Clark was soaked from head to toe, and it was partly your fault.

In your defence, it hadn’t been raining when you left the office, and it wasn't even forecasted, but your chronic unluckiness decided to make an appearance anyway.

Before you could get completely drenched, though, the rain stopped, or at least, it did for you.

Above you, Clark had shielded you from the downpour, holding his suit jacket over your head like a makeshift umbrella.

“But you’ll get cold,” you protested, trying to tug the jacket back toward him.

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t be. You’ll get cold and then get sick and then—”

He chuckled at your concern, adjusting the jacket so it covered you completely, water dripping from his hair as he met your eyes.

“I’ll be okay,” he said softly, “as long as you’re okay.”

You felt like Cupid had shot you with an arrow that day. 

Clark’s hair, wet and curly, clung to his forehead, droplets beading on the frames of his glasses. His white shirt was soaked through, clinging to the lines of his torso. That was also the magical day you realised Clark Kent has abs.

He was a vision. A romantic vision, the kind you’d scribbled about in the margins of notebooks and never expected to meet in person. 

The whole time he was smiling. All pretty and gentle as he shepherded you into Amoré, shaking the rain from his sleeves and insisting you go ahead while he wrung out his tie.

He treated you to the best hot chocolate you’d ever had: thick, sweet and plenty of marshmallows. 

“Give me your hands,” you demanded, and started rubbing them together rapidly, palms pressing against his as if your friction could send some warmth straight into his bones.

“What are you doing?” he asked, eyebrows quirked up.

“Getting you warm and making sure you don’t get a cold,” you said, dead serious. You knew very well your efforts were dumb and mostly theatrical, but you couldn’t be blamed for trying. “If you get sick because of me… I’ll end up feeling terrible, and I'll make you so much soup that it'll be falling out your ears.”

He laughed, the sound low and fond. “Is that the threat?” he teased. “Homemade soup?”

“Yes,” you said, because you meant it. He squeezed your hands once, warm and sure, then leaned in and brushed his forehead to yours, just for a second, before leaning back as if reconsidering his actions. You missed his touch as soon as it was gone.

“After you,” Clark says, opening the door to Amoré wide, and you step in immediately, hit with the smell of cinnamon and sugar. 

A stolen cat and a trip down memory lane could really make someone hungry. 

***

You had eaten your weight in food, the owner, Dana, giving you a free cinnamon roll on the house for your cat-related troubles. 

“It’s the least I can do since you spend half your paycheck here every month,” she joked.

Now, you’re walking down the street, the city humming quietly around you, on your way back to work.

You glance at Clark’s empty hand as he walks in step with you, his palm facing slightly upward, open as if he’s waiting. 

You wish you could reach out and take it. 

Be one of those effortlessly affectionate couples, the kind you see on park benches or on travel posters, sickeningly cute in a way that makes strangers roll their eyes but secretly smile. The kind you’d find on the cover of a magazine titled Love in the City.

You find yourself smiling at the idea. Clark would look good on the cover of something like that. 

You’re about to head to the tram stop when something catches your eye. It’s the way the afternoon light hits a shop window, scattering across the glass and bouncing off a row of flowers in buckets by the door. You rush to get one of your cameras out before adjusting the focus with muscle memory, taking shot after shot as the light shifts and flickers.

You can feel Clark’s eyes on you, probably curious and fond, but you’re too deep in the zone to meet his gaze. You’ll probably freak out about it later, when your brain catches up with you and remembers how close he’d been, how soft his look had turned.

A couple enters one of your shots, looking like they’ve stepped straight out of an old, vintage postcard. 

“Those are going to turn out beautifully,” he comments.

“Well, in another world, I’d be a wedding photographer,” you say, lowering the camera.

Clark chuckles, “Another world, huh? You’d make a great one.”

“I would. But fortunately for you, Mr Kansas, we’re in this world, and we get to work together.”

“Mr Kansas? That’s new,” he says, clearly amused.

“I gotta keep you on your toes,” you joke before continuing to take pictures.

Taking shots of things you love. A street musician playing to the clouds, the way sunlight hits a puddle after rain, a dog barking at a squirrel in a tree.  Life’s precious little moments that you’d normally overlook.

You walk over to the couple, camera still in hand, and offer them a print.

“I got you in one of my shots,” you say, smiling softly. “You can have this if you want it.”

Their eyes widen, and they take it with a “thank you”. It’s a candid moment of love, something so pure and effortless, yet somehow, just out of your reach. But seeing how it lights them up, how it makes them laugh and lean into each other, might just be enough for you.

You rush back over to Clark, cheeks flushed from the little burst of excitement still buzzing in your chest.

“Did they like the picture?” he asks, eyes lighting up, just at the sight of your happy face.

“They loved it,” you say, grinning, your heart all warm and gooey, like a freshly baked cookie right out of the oven. “Maybe love isn’t meant for me, but I love it regardless. I don’t know, being able to capture it for someone else makes my world a little brighter.”

You catch something flickering in Clark’s eyes, a look you can’t quite place. Knowing him, he’s probably fighting the urge to gently call you out on the self-deprecation, to tell you you’re wrong about love not being meant for you. But before he can say anything, something else catches your eye, inspiration burning inside of you like a fire.

“Can you hold this for a sec?” you ask, holding out one of your cameras to him.

“Of course,” he says, taking it carefully, as though it’s something precious.

You’re already moving, half jogging, half skipping, the sun spilling across your face as your eyes dart around, scanning the street for that perfect shot. 

Clark watches with that quiet, unshakable fondness of his, his heart pitter-pattering with every step you take, every moment you stop to frame a picture. And unknown to you, there’s a soft click, the snap of the shutter, as he lifts the camera and takes a candid photo of you.

He thinks you look beautiful.

Like something out of a postcard. 

***

After a long day at the Daily Planet, editing and colour-correcting your photos for print until your eyes felt like sandpaper, the only thing you wanted to do was sleep for the next decade.

So naturally, there’s a knock at your door.

You groan, rolling out of bed and immediately regretting every life choice that led you here when your knee slams into the floor.

“Fucking—” You bite down on the rest of the word, hissing through your teeth.

You grab the baseball bat you normally use to shoo away the pigeons that loved to shit on your balcony, hobbling toward the door and wondering who would dare interrupt your beauty sleep at this hour.

“Listen, whatever you’re selling—”

Meow.

You freeze. Your eyes widen when you see your cat being held in the arms of someone standing in your doorway. Cato looks perfectly content, purring like the little traitor he is, tail flicking lazily as if he hadn’t been abducted by a supervillain less than twenty-four hours ago.

You blink, lowering the bat slightly. “Cato?”

He meows again, utterly unbothered.

“My sweet baby. Never run away again!”

You pet him lightly, and he leans into your touch, purring contentedly… before suddenly hissing at you. 

“That’s my boy,” you coo.

As you straighten, your eyes travel up the body that’s holding your cat. That’s when it hits you: a very distinct colour scheme, blue, red, and yellow. And that unmistakable symbol on his chest that Cato had been pawing at… where did you know that from?

Lo and behold, Superman, in all his heroic super-ness, is standing in your doorway, holding your cat. The curl of Cato’s tail drapes over the Man of Steel’s arm, his little claws kneading gently at the emblem as Superman smiles down at you, that warm, world-saving smile that somehow makes even an over-caffeinated yet sleep-deprived photographer’s knees weak.

“Superman,” you start, trying to sound calm and not like you’re about to melt into a puddle of nerves. “Why are you holding my cat?” You can’t help the deer-in-headlights look on your face.

He shifts Cato gently in his arms, the cat looking way too pleased with himself for someone who just survived a supervillain kidnapping.

“I rescued him from Toyman’s old hideout,” Superman explains, “There was a small explosion, a lot of smoke, and I found this little guy sitting on a busted control panel like he owned the place.”

You blink, trying to picture your cat perched amid sparks and wreckage. That tracks.

Superman smiles, holding Cato out to you. “His collar had your address on it. Figured he’d want to come home.”

You take Cato, your fingers brushing briefly against Superman’s gloved hand, a spark running through your body. “Yeah, well,” you murmur, cradling your cat, “he’s grounded. Forever. No more villain playdates.”

Your mind is grasping to keep this conversation going when a certain someone comes to mind. 

“Oh! We uh, have a mutual friend,” you start, shifting Cato in your arms like it gives you some excuse for talking to Superman. “Clark Kent? Or, well, I guess I don’t actually know if you guys are friends. But you do give him an awful amount of interviews.”

Superman tilts his head, that signature half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Clark keeps me busy,” he admits, voice calm but amused.

“I’ll bet,” you say, raising an eyebrow. “So what’s a girl gotta do to get a moment with you? I take great pictures.”

He chuckles softly. “Persistence goes a long way.”

“Oh, I’m persistent,” you counter with a grin. “If you ever want a proper photo shoot, call me first. I’ll make you look just as handsome as you are in real life.”

Your eyes wander before you can stop them, over the sharp line of his jaw, up to the curl of hair that refuses to obey gravity. You swallow hard, heart thudding traitorously against your ribs.

“Which is,” you murmur before your filter can kick in, “really, really handsome.” A beat passes. “Wow, you’re perfect.”

Superman blinks, then smiles. That small, devastating smile that could probably power Metropolis for a week. “I’m… far from perfect,” he says gently, though the faint pink dusting his cheeks suggests he’s not entirely immune to the compliment.

“Liar.” You let out a shaky laugh.

“I should let you get back to saving Metropolis, or sleeping…” you pause, tilting your head, “Do you even sleep?”

“Yes,” he says, that soft smile still in place. “I sleep.”

“Good to know.” You laugh under your breath, rubbing the back of your neck. “Well, I uh…” You trail off, words slipping away as you look at him. The warmth in his eyes, his voice like a balm for your brain, smoothing out the edges of your chaotic day until everything feels… easy.

“Thank you so much,” you say quietly. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“It’s okay,” he replies, his tone gentle, reassuring. “I’m just glad I got him home to you. Seems like he missed you, too.”

You glance down to see Cato nuzzling against your arm, purring like a motorboat, his earlier hissiness forgotten now that he’s safely home. “Yeah,” you whisper, smiling softly. “He’s a menace, but he’s my menace.”

When you look up again, Superman is already stepping back into the hallway.

“Goodnight, Superman,” you say, voice a little softer than you meant it to be.

He smiles back, “Goodnight.”

And with a rush of wind and a flutter of red, he’s gone, leaving you standing in the doorway, clutching your cat and wondering if maybe your Cupid powers had finally started working on you.

***

You’re going mad.

But you can’t stop thinking about him.

No matter how many times you flip your pillow or change positions, sleep refuses to come. You toss and turn, your mind replaying every single moment on a loop, the way he laughed, the way his eyes softened when he said “I’m glad he’s home,” like he actually cared. The way his smile made the world tilt just slightly on its axis.

But on the other hand, he was Superman.

He probably dated someone equally as… super. Why wouldn’t he? It made sense. Someone who could fly beside him, and not have to worry about things like rent or camera batteries. He probably had a super hot alien girlfriend somewhere who could light up the sky with a wink.

Still… your Cupid senses were pinging around like a broken radio, so it was definitely alive. At least, on your part.

You’ve had crushes before. You’ve even fallen in love once or twice. But this was different. It wasn’t the soft, dreamy kind of love that crept up quietly. It was electric and loud.

Like your heart was dancing in your chest, and not a slow dance either, it was like the tango or samba. So full of life, like it might just grow wings and fly.

Kind of like that day in the rain with Clark…

Fuck, love was confusing.

You arrive at the Daily Planet the next morning with renewed energy. A spring in your step that even a double shot of espresso couldn’t usually inspire, you practically glide past the reception desk.

Jimmy, perched on the edge of a chair with a camera slung around his neck, grins and raises an eyebrow. “You look… chipper.”

“Chipper?” you repeat, smirking. “Jimmy, Superman saved my cat. Not just saved him, but brought him to my door.”

Jimmy whistles, leaning back like he’s suddenly seen the headline of the century. “Wait, what? Your cat? And Superman personally delivered him?”

“Yep,” you say, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously as you wipe your nails on your shirt. You were loving his stunned expression, eating it up, in fact. “We like talked or whatever. It's not even a big deal.”

You gush him to Jimmy for a couple minutes…or 15, give or take, until he shoos you away from his desk. With a sigh, your eyes sweep the office, looking for someone else to brag to when you see Clark.

Walking over and sitting on the edge of his desk, you smile at him a little too long.

“Is… everything okay?” he asks.

“Everything is more than okay. Clark, your boy, Superman, dropped by my apartment yesterday. Did you tell him about Cato?”

He blinks at you, maybe at the fact that you called him and Superman “boys”.

“I—”

Before he can even confirm or deny it, you throw your arms around him. “Thank you.”

You sink into his embrace, and no matter how many times it happens, you’re always a little stunned by how right it feels, like slipping into a warm bath after a long day.

His arms wrap around you easily, steady and warm, and for a fleeting second, you think this must be what home feels like. Your own little safe haven.

And his strong, solid biceps? Yeah, you could definitely make a home right there if he’d let you. 

Reluctantly, you pull back before you end up attaching yourself to him like a koala on a eucalyptus tree, though you’re very tempted.

“Plus, I swear, Cato has been so well-behaved since he got back. I woke up, and my apartment was still intact because he kept meowing at my Superman poster.”

“You have a Superman poster?”

You laugh, that same shaky, breathy laugh from last night, and wave a hand dismissively. “That’s irrelevant.”

You lean closer as if to imply whatever you're about to say has to stay hush-hush.

“But, uh, don't run off and tell Superman. I'll never live it down.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” he says, holding out his pinkie, which you immediately wrap around his. 

While he has you close, he says, “Well, I was actually going to ask if you're free for lunch later?”

“I'm always free for you.”

***

At lunch, two of you head back to Amoré that afternoon, ready to melt into the seats over a cup of coffee and a croissant…or 5.

“Couple discount,” Dana intises, as she approaches the two of you in your usual chairs.

“You know very well that we're not dating,” you whine, probably sounding a little too sad that you aren’t. 

“But you should be. In all my years of working here, I've never seen friends with chemistry like this. Truly, tell me…why not?”

The two of you don’t have an answer for that. 

You just let the question wash over you as you noticeably avoid each other’s eyes. 

“Because…we’re friends,” you reiterate. She remains unconvinced by your weak attempt at deflection.

“Well, the couple discount will be here until next week, so I would hurry up if I were you.”

“Thanks, Dana,” Clark replies politely as she walks off, grumbling to herself, something about “idiots in love”. 

She was a character, but you can’t help wondering what if.

What if she was right?

To distract yourself, you reach for your camera as you always do. 

The light is just right, painting the room in a warm, honeyed glow. Not quite sunny, not quite dim.  The kind of scene you could set music to. 

And then there’s Clark.

You lift the camera and look at him through the lens, and somehow, impossibly, he’s perfect as always.

 He's always so dynamic, so interesting. Wherever he's laughing at a joke Jimmy told, or he's hard at work on an article, there's so much to see, so much to love.

By now, he’s used to being the subject of your photos every now and then. He barely reacts when the shutter clicks, just glances up, raises a brow, gives you that familiar half-smile before going about his business.

You can’t help it. He’s just so fun to take candid photos of. Capturing his beauty that's usually in motion in still moments. 

Snapshots of Clark that feel honest. Real. The way his eyes soften when he smiles, the way he simply exists in a space.

You take the picture and practically die at the result.

He’s looking at you.

Not posing or performing. Just looking, curious in that way he often is, like he’s quietly wondering what’s going on inside your head. Like he’s trying to read you without asking the question out loud.

It’s funny how a single picture of him can weigh so heavily on you.

It’s the dimples, first of all. 

The way they show when he smiles at you, all soft and patient, like he’s waiting for your reaction. For your attention. For something.

That's real.

You smile at the photo without even thinking about it.

“Good picture?” he asks.

“More than good.”

You tilt the camera toward him, letting him see.

“See?” you say softly. “Perfect.”

***

You wake up in the morning, and everything feels lighter. It’s like the clouds in the sky were made of candy floss, and the sun is quite literally smiling down at you. It’s that warm and gooey again. 

You try to shake it off to no avail, blinking against the morning light, and begin getting ready for work, brushing your teeth and throwing on your clothes with a little extra spring in your step.

When you get to the office, Clark is already at your desk, leaning casually against the corner with that half-smile that drives your brain into a mild panic.

“Hey, Clark,” you say, drawing out the greeting and fluttering your eyes a little more than usual.

You catch yourself before it goes too far, snapping out of it and sitting up straight. What the heck was that?

“Hey yourself. I got you, your morning coffee,” he says casually, “And this bouquet of flowers.”

Before turning around and pulling the flowers out of seemingly thin air. It's a beautiful bouquet, full of life and colour. Is he a magician? A mind reader?

“They're beautiful.”

“Well, they match their new owner.”

Was Clark Kent… flirting with you?

“They're—” you start, words tripping over themselves. “Camellias… my favourite. How did you…?”

“I remember you recommending them when I was debating what to send my Ma on her birthday,” he says softly, smiling in that shy-but-warm way that makes your chest fizz. “Said that they ‘can light up any room without even trying.’”

“Do you remember everything I say?” you ask, feeling your heartbeat jump straight into your throat.

“I try,” he admits, voice low. “You say a lot of beautiful things.”

The Cupid tingles were here, and they were going crazy.

“Well, you say a lot of beautiful things too, Mr Kansas.”

You step closer into his space, almost chest to chest, love is in the air, and you can’t seem to stop yourself.

Were you flirting with Clark?!

The realisation knocks you out of the clouds as that sudden burst of confidence wears off. 

“I need to… feed the printer some, uh, paper,” you blurt, already stumbling backwards, walking directly into a filing cabinet and half tripping over your own feet before escaping to the supply closet like it’s a lifeboat on a sinking ship.

You didn’t know what was going on with you… more importantly, you didn’t know what was going on with Clark.

Behind you, you think you hear him exhale, and then quietly say to himself, “…Nice going, Kent.”

The rest of the day, it’s like the whole world had come to life, everything that bit brighter, more vibrant. And you can’t keep Clark off your mind, and you mean more than usual. Whenever you thought of him, he'd appear, just a few seconds later. 

And sure, maybe you could chalk that up to the fact that you work together, but that doesn’t explain him randomly walking up onto the rooftop where you were and having no reason as to why. Or him finding you in the broom closet, when he had no reason to be in there. 

It has something to do with the warm, gooey feeling from this morning. 

Even as you walk back from lunch with Clark, you notice that flowers that are out of season are in full bloom. Though little did you know, the worst was yet to come. As you’re walking, he stops over to help an old lady across the street.

“I’ll just be a second,” he says, rushing off. You watch him greet her and help her across the street, the way her face lights up as they talk, it makes you soft. 

Ping.

So it’s no surprise that a random halo appears over your head.

You only realise it's there when you feel a pair of eyes looking above you, rather than at you. You wave it away, the halo disappearing in a puff of smoke, thankfully before Clark makes back over to you. 

“Ready to head back?”

“Yeah, totally.”

***

Working was impossible at this point. It felt like you just stepped into a movie with how perfect everything felt. And for the girl with exceptionally bad luck, that could only mean one thing. Everything was about to go to shit. 

It’s not even anything major. 

You were chilling by your desk, fiddling with your pencil, finalising some edit when he came over to your desk. He simply says your name and then, “I’ve been thinking about you…”’

You don’t even hear the rest of the sentence.  That was enough for you to want to go feral on this man. 

“Shit—”

You let go of the pencil, instead of falling, instead of bouncing onto the floor as physics intended, the pencil hangs suspended in midair, floating in front of you like you’ve stepped into a zero-gravity simulator.

A beat passes. Then the coffee cup next to you lifts off the table too, tilting slightly, liquid sloshing dangerously but somehow not spilling. Papers flutter upward like startled birds. Pens twirl. Lois’s stress ball drifts majestically past your ear.

And then a far more alarming realisation hits you like a bus.

Why are my feet off the ground?

That should not be a question anyone asks during a normal weekday. That’s a question reserved for roller-coaster fanatics or trapeze artists, not you. 

You swish your legs experimentally, and instead of falling back down, you glide slightly sideways, drifting up like a helium balloon. 

If this weren’t happening in front of the entire newsroom, you’d feel like Peter Pan, all whimsical without the whole kidnapping children thing.

“You’re floating,” Cat gasps from across the bullpen, mouth hanging open as she drops her phone, which, of course, stops mid-air and starts floating too.

What was happening?

Was this… you?

Were you causing this?

Had your powers just evolved?

Or had flirting with Clark Kent somehow launched you into spontaneous levitation like a lovesick rocket?

You spin slowly in mid-air, hair drifting around your face like you’re underwater, and all you can think is, Why can’t I ever just be normal for one second?

All he did was bring you a pretzel, and your powers decided to have a complete meltdown about it. 

Clark opens his mouth to say something, probably to reassure you, because of course he would, but you beat him to it.

“No, no, don’t worry, everything’s under control,” you blurt, voice cracking like a rusty hinge.

It is absolutely not under control.

You’re now fully horizontal, hovering like a board in a magic show, the only thing keeping you from drifting straight up toward the massive ceiling is the death grip you have on the edge of your desk. 

Your knuckles are white, your heart is tap-dancing in your chest, and you’re pretty sure your dignity has already packed its bags and left the building.

The Daily Planet has stupidly high ceilings. If you let go, there is a non-zero chance you may never come back down. And you absolutely do not want to become the human party balloon of the office.

But of course, because this is your life, your grip slips.

Your hand slides, scrambling against piles of paper and glossy magazines that flutter upward like startled birds, slipping through your fingers one by one.

“No, no, no—!”

And then you let go.

You start to drift upward, slowly at first, then faster, and before you can cry out, a hand closes around yours.

“I’ve got you.”

As if you couldn't feel more weightless.

Despite all the chaos, the floating furniture, the gasps echoing through the bullpen, it’s like the world narrows down to just his face.

Everything else blurs out: the newsroom noise, the fluorescent lights, the fact that you are currently defying gravity in front of your coworkers.

It's like nothing else in the entire universe exists.

You’re weightless in more ways than one, and suddenly you understand why. It's exactly how he makes you feel.

His hands wrap around yours, warm and sure, and your fingers curl instinctively around his, clinging like he’s gravity itself.

“Just keep your eyes on me,” he says. He's steady, not freaking out in the slightest, and he has every right to be.

It's not every day your coworker starts floating away.

You nod at him, and slowly, he tugs you close. You fight the zero gravity and drift into his inviting arms.

And before you knew it, you were back on the floor. Everything was floating, crashing down shortly after.

“What the hell is going on?” Perry yells.

***

You hoped the incident would be forgotten by tomorrow. You doubted it, but you sure can hope.

You have been in love before, but never in a way that had your powers this out of whack.

He had you floating, and you didn't know you could do that!

But words couldn't fully explain the way it felt. Like your heart was climbing with you as you left the ground. 

You were comfy now and firmly obeying the laws of physics. Wrapped up in your blanket, watching reruns as you try to fall asleep.

Though it was impossible, the events of the day were still spinning through your head like a washing machine.

You’d all but exposed the fact that you’re a metahuman to your colleagues.

It’s not like you were ashamed of it or hated who you were; it was just…private.

Not even Clark knew.

And you liked it that way, the control, the separation between your strange and your normal.

But now?

Maybe there was still a chance you could blame everything on a freak accident. Or that you’d been accidentally blasted by an evil cosmic ray on your way to work. That sounded like something that happened in Metropolis at least twice a week.

Fuck.

The thought of the end of your social life disappears from your mind when you see a certain someone on the news. The thought of Superman, the image of his smile on the screen, lulls you to sleep, easier than you thought was possible. 

You awaken to the soft knocking on the window to your balcony. You and massaging out the crick in your neck from falling asleep half off the couch.

Assuming it’s just a pigeon pecking at the glass, you grab your trusty baseball bat, ready to shoo it away. You open the balcony door cautiously to find not a pigeon but a whole ass man.

Your gaze travels from his shoes up to a handsome face staring back at you, calm and impossibly composed.

“Superman,” you wheeze, heart racing, “What are you doing on my balcony?”

“I wanted to check on your cat,” he says, calm as ever.

“Oh.”

“And you.”

“Oh?”

“You’ve made quite the impression on me.”

You made an impression on Superman?!

You may not be screaming out loud, but on the inside, you've got a megaphone that you're yelling at the top of your lungs into.

“I tend to have that effect on people.”

You aim to lean against your doorway but miss, stumbling a little. He catches you because, of course, he does. 

So much for being suave.

The way he holds your arm, gently but securely, has you thinking about Clark. It's you've been hit with a wave of deja vu.

You shake away the thought and look back up at him. Probably shouldn't be thinking about two guys at the same time, but you couldn't help it. 

“You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“It's not that, it's just… there's something so familiar about you.”

As you look at him, it's like your brain is straining to put together a puzzle with a missing piece.

Like you couldn’t find the right words. He had your brain all fried; he had put a spell on you, that’s for sure. 

Before you can find that missing puzzle piece, your cat bounds up to him. Meowing at Superman's boots and pawing at his legs.

“Sorry about that. You've made quite the impression on him.”

Bending down, he lifts Cato into his arms and pets him softly, “I've missed you too, buddy.”

Right then and there, you decide it should be illegal to look that fine while holding a cat.

He looks up at you with light concern.

“What are you doing awake? It's 2 am.”

“Can't sleep. My brain is being stubborn. What about you? Shouldn't you be sleeping instead of throwing bricks from your glass house?”

“You got me there.”

“Seriously, though. You should sleep. I just saw you on TV lifting a building. You don't need to check on me.”

The guilt you would feel if he were tired the next day and potentially getting hurt fighting some villain, because of you, would be immeasurable. 

Sure, you didn't know what he did during the day when he wasn't Superman-ing around, but you wanted him to be well rested.

“I'll survive.”

From his tone of voice, you knew he was resolute in this. 

“If you insist. So…” you tap your foot, trying to think what you would do with a superhero in your living room.

“Wanna bake with me? By the time we're done, I'm sure we'll be tired.” You suggest. Doing something with your hands always helps tucker you out. “...Unless you think it's dumb. I know you're a busy guy—”

“It would be an honour.”

***

Superman was nice.

Not just nice but nice to be around. Like the kind of guy you'd bring home to meet the parents.

Boyfriend material.

Just who is this guy? Superhero and rom-com lead? You're starting to wonder if he was made in a lab.

“My Ma makes the best pies,” he says, voice reminiscent, kneading the dough with his hands in practised movements.

Those words bring you back to the first week of knowing Clark. It was around Thanksgiving when you started, and he fawned over his mother's pumpkin pie.

“My Ma makes the best pies,” he had said, probably verbatim, followed by, “Wish you could try it sometime.”

He had said it quieter, almost like he didn't mean for it to slip out. The thought of him bringing you home to meet his parents for Thanksgiving makes you feel a little lightheaded. What you wouldn't give to be that important to him.

You laugh softly, chuckling at the memory. You just couldn't stop yourself from thinking about him, could you?

“What?” he asks, brow furrowing slightly.

“No, it’s just… You remind me of someone,” you say, smiling, shaking your head. “A good someone. Someone I really like.”

He glances down at himself, a hint of concern crossing his face. You mistake that concern for concern about the mess the two of you were making. 

At this point, there was a light dusting of flour in his hair, and some on your cheek.

“Are you sure you can get, like, flour and stuff on your suit?”

“It’s okay,” he says casually, shrugging.

“Of course,” you tease, grinning. “The Man of Steel can handle a little flour.”

He smirks, brushing a playful dusting of flour from his shoulder, and you can’t help but notice how domestic and endearing he looks in the kitchen.

“Oh, wait, I know!”

You scuttle around your kitchen, slippers sliding on the floor, and grab an apron to present it to him in a most dramatic fashion. 

“Kiss the cook?” he says, questioning as he reads the block writing printed on the front, along with a gratuitous number of love hearts.

“Gag gift from a Secret Santa a few years back,” you explain away. “Now bend down so I can put this on you…”

Without arguing, he bends down, allowing you to slip it over his head.

“How does it look?”

You love the sight of Metropolis’ protector in an apron, goofy smile and all.

“Perfect, Superman. Absolutely perfect.”

***

One thing’s for sure, Superman knows how to bake a pie.

It was still dark, the room illuminated by your vintage bedside lamp, its warm amber glow spilling softly across the table. You’d found it years ago at a little thrift shop downtown, a place that smelled faintly of old books and cinnamon buns, for some reason.

Outside, the sun would soon begin to rise, birds chirping to life as the night slowly loosened its grip on the world.

As the two of you dig in, wrapped in the quiet stillness of morning, the only sound is the clink of forks against porcelain. 

He chuckles as you let out contented hum after contented hum with each spoonful.

“What?” you pout, “I can’t be excited about pie?”

“It’s not that,” he says, smiling. “You just have a little…”

Before you can ask, he reaches out, wiping the crumbs from the side of your mouth. 

You can’t stop your heart from racing as his thumb brushes away the last trace, lingering just a second too long, right next to your lips.

Ping.

A halo appears above your head.

The universe seems to be confusing Cupid with an angel.

“You, uh, also have a little…” he trails off, eyes set just above your head.

You tap above your head, hands finding the solid halo above you.

“Don't pay it too much attention,” you grumble, dropping your hands in defeat.

“Is that because of me?” He asks, definitely still paying it attention. 

“...perhaps.”

What use was there in lying? Your heartbeat was already giving you away anyway.

He leans a little closer, and you have to remind yourself how to breathe as you look into his impossibly blue eyes.

“Well,” he says softly, “it’s an honour to give you halos.”

Shit.

You hadn’t felt this flustered in a long time. Not since—well. Not since this afternoon with Clark. Why were handsome men flirting with you all of a sudden? Had you somehow won the love lottery after years of bad relationships after bad relationships?

“Can I take a picture of you?” you blurt out. “While I have you captive in my apartment. And, don't worry, I won't go selling anything to tabloids or anything. This is just for me.”

“Go right ahead,” he says easily, continuing to eat like he knows you want him exactly as he is.

You reach across with a grunt, yanking your camera from the counter it was resting on. 

You turn it on and focus on him immediately; you wouldn't let this opportunity go to waste.

A curl has fallen loose, resting against his forehead, stubborn and soft. You take a picture, then another. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even look up at first. You figure he must be used to cameras.

“Do you use gel?” you ask, lowering the phone slightly, “or is that all you?”

He smiles as he finally looks up at you. “All me.”

You take one more picture.

“Can I see?”

You move closer and show him the screen. “You’re perfect,” you say before you can stop yourself. “Those dimples are to die for.”

Your smile falters just a little because dimples suddenly make you think of Clark. Why were all roads leading back to him?

He notices, but doesn't say anything.

“I think,” he says gently, eyes flicking from the photo back to you, “I only look so ‘perfect’ because you’re the one taking the picture. Everything looks great from your point of view.”

***

By the time you wake up, it's 1 p.m.

Thank fuck it's a Saturday and you have nothing to do except sleep and stew everything that's happened in such a short space of time.

Hours pass as you think of Superman's cute little smile and how you're so not looking forward to going to work on Monday.

Before you know it, it's evening yet again. Time flies when you're having a mental breakdown.

You start going through the pictures on your personal camera, you hadn't used in a few days… because hotties love to scrapbook.

Seeing a flash of your face.

You didn't remember that picture.

You flip to the next one over, and it's the picture you took of Clark.

You flip back to you, then to the picture of Clark, then to you, then to Clark. The smile on your face suddenly drops.

If A + B = C… one picture of him plus one picture of you equals… accidental love match?

“Fuck…” you say, dropping your camera into your lap before letting out a noticeably louder, “Fuck!”

It practically shook the building. You spring up and start freaking out.

After getting your steps in by pacing and down so fast it was making Cato dizzy, you make the harrowing decision to call Clark.

He needed to know.

It explained a whole lot: the flowers, the flirting, the floating.

How did you not see this earlier? 

Your press on his contract, it rings once, then—

“Hello?”

“Clark?” you say, your voice is shakier than usual. You didn't quite know how to act.

 How could you explain that you kinda made him fall in love with you?

“Is everything okay?” He asks, as if he could read your mind from miles away.

“I know it’s late, and this is so stupid, but…can you come over?”

“I'll be there as fast as I can.”

A few minutes later, he arrives at your door. You don't even question how he got here so quickly when he lived halfway across the city from you, dragging him inside with urgency.

“What's wrong?” he says, frowning at your distressed expression.

“I fucked up. Like majorly, and when you find out…”

You pause, looking up at him and his kind eyes, marred with worry.

“Just try not to hate me.”You start sniffling, “I couldn't bear it if you hated me, but I'd understand if you did. I mean, this is just so fucked up and—”

He pulls you into his arms, making you feel secure. “Whatever it is, it won't change how I feel about you.”

You didn't have the time or energy to dissect his words, instead leaning your head against his chest. 

Who knows? It may be the last time you're able to.

You try to speak, but it's too hard. It's like you're being choked, the words too big to get out.

Seeing your distress, he gently guides you toward your couch, his hand warm on your back, and you don’t object. Your brain is too scrambled to even consider resisting.

“How about we relax?” he murmurs. “Just so you can collect your thoughts, and then you can tell me whatever you need to.”

You let out a long, shaky sigh before nodding.

“Come here,” he says softly, opening his arm for you, and you practically crash into his side, like gravity shifts just to pull you against him.

He wraps an arm around your shoulders, steady and protective, and your forehead finds the curve of his chest without thinking.

His heartbeat is calm.

Yours… less so.

At some point, somewhere between his fingers brushing your arm and the warmth of his side against you, your eyes grow heavy.

Little snores escaping you before you can help it.

Clark’s breath hitches in the smallest laugh, fond and quiet. He adjusts his hold so you don’t slump over, fearful of waking you. 

He knows how hard you work, running in empty and getting in your head about not doing enough. When you do more than enough, you are more than enough. 

And when he’s sure you’re completely asleep, he shifts carefully, lifting you into his arms with an ease that makes you wonder how you ever doubted if he'd be there for you or not.

He carries you to bed, smiling as you mumble in your sleep before laying you down gently.

Taking extra care to tuck the blanket around you.

“Goodnight,” he whispers, making his way out of the room. 

***

You wake up with a start. It's not a slow recollection of events; it's like you've been shot.

Jolting out of bed, you trip all over your room before finally making it out.

Though before you can make any rash decisions, you freeze the moment you walk into your living room.

Clark is on your couch.

Cato sprawled out on top of him like he pays rent, tiny paws kneading at Clark’s hair.

He sleeps peacefully, mouth soft, glasses still on. The light from your half-open blinds highlights every perfect inch of his face.

You stand there staring like an idiot, because this is not just your coworker, not just your friend, he’s the guy you're head over heels for.

And you might just lose him forever. All because you're the idiot who accidentally made him fall in love with you.

You swallow hard.

“Clark…?”

He stirs instantly, eyes fluttering open. His hand automatically goes to steady Cato so the cat doesn’t fall off. It’s stupidly endearing.

“Oh—hey,” he says softly. “Did I fall asleep? Sorry.”

“You—” You gesture helplessly at the entire scene. “You could’ve gone home. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He sits up carefully, Cato sliding into his lap like a sleepy loaf.

“You were pretty distraught when I got here.”

You nod, shifting your weight from one foot to the other.

“Do you want to talk about it now? Whatever you had to tell me?”

“Yeah, I think that's best.”

Steeling your nerves, you sit down next to him and press your hands to your face. “Clark, listen. These past few days, you may have been experiencing something odd. Like heart palpitations, and all sorts of romantic notions when it comes to me.”

You clear your throat, “It's all my fault. I uh…I'm basically like Cupid.”

Perhaps you should've thought about your words, prepared a speech. There's nothing like free styling, telling your best friend you're a metahuman.

“Cupid?” He questions, not in a judgmental way. Mostly just confused.

“I can matchmake people, and sometimes when I take pictures, they're like my ‘arrows’.”

Another nod.

“So when you took a photo of me the other day…” You cringe. “And I took a photo of you…”

Understanding flickers in his expression. Don't panic. Just quiet, steady recognition.

“Right,” he says. “So, you were worried because you thought you made me fall in love with you against my will?”

Bullseye.

“Well, yes. Or… no. No, they can’t create something that’s not already there or impossible. They just… amplify. Highlight. Push things along. Even though it was an accident it was still shitty—” 

You’re babbling, faster than you can think, and he puts his hand on your shoulder.

“So,” he says softly, “you're saying there's something here.”

You go perfectly still. In all your panic, you hadn't really considered the fact that this meant that he liked you too.

That it wasn't just a misplaced finger gun or a passing infatuation.

He liked you.

He shuffles closer on the couch, stopping close enough that you can feel his warmth, see the way his glasses have slid slightly down his nose a little.

“Between you and me.”

He looks at you like he’s already known the answer, like he’s been waiting for you to catch up.

“Yeah, I…I guess there is.”

If he keeps looking at you like this, like you’re the only person in the world… you might honestly end up floating straight up to your ceiling again.

“Aren’t you mad?” you whisper. “I manipulated your feelings, I—”

Clark shakes his head before you can spiral.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” he says gently. “It was an accident. And… honestly?”

His voice softens even more.

“It was the little push I needed. To finally tell you how I feel.”

“That you…?” you prompt, barely audible.

“That I’ve loved you since the moment we met. Showing me all the pictures you took, and talking to me like we've known each other for years. You really know how to make a guy feel at home.”

He gives a small, embarrassed smile.

“I can't get you out of my mind; it's always been like that, even before the whole matchmaking fiasco. Memories of you run through my head on the daily. From the night  you dragged me out to karaoke after I said I've never been, to the rainy day we stopped by Amoré for the first time and you tried to heat up my hands.”

Your heart lurches.

He remembers all of it.

Your fingers reach out, and he meets yours halfway.

“I love you and all that you are.”

Your hands intertwine, fitting together like they’ve been waiting to.

“You have no idea,” you breathe, “how long I’ve been wanting to hear that.”

Clark’s response is not verbal.

He leans in, and your lips connect like they were never meant to be apart.

The kiss is deep, warm, hungry without being rushed, like he’s been waiting for this but wants to savour it. 

When you finally pull away, your forehead rests against his, hearts beating in sync.

It was perfect.

The most perfect kiss.

The kind of kiss you’re pretty sure qualifies as the world’s greatest.

You think you might never recover from it.

Though a thought rings out in the back of your head. 

A certain Superhero, you may or may not have flirted with. 

You don't notice, but Clark is going through a dilemma too.

“I have something to—”

“I need to tell you—”

You both start talking at the same time.

A beat.

Then Clark gives a tiny nod. “You first.”

You swallow, “I… I baked with Superman.”

Clark blinks. “Hm?”

“I know, I know, don’t look at me like that—it just happened! I didn’t plan it, he was checking on me, and my cat, and we both couldn't sleep, and flour was everywhere and—” You put your hands in your hair. “Holy shit, am I going to have to reject Superman? No, no, that’s ridiculous, we only met twice, there's no way he likes me, it’s fine—”

“I’m Superman,” Clark says quietly.

You stare at him.

Then you let out a big, incredulous laugh.  You might have even slapped your knee.

“And I'm Batman. The fuck are you talking about?”

He hesitates. You can practically see him realising he maybe should’ve eased into that better.

“I… I’m Superm—”

“You can’t just repeat it!” you cut in, throwing your hands up. “Obviously, I don’t believe you. I sit across from you every day, Mr Kansas. You like fresh pancakes and Sunday morning walks, not to mention you’re the clumsiest person I know, bar me. There’s no way—”

He takes off his glasses.

You blink twice before letting out a scream. 

Is it one of horror? Excitement? Both? 

You may never know.

But the next thing out of your mouth, on repeat and in varying volumes, is “what the fuck?” 

You leap up from the couch, speed walking around in an attempt to burn off all this nervous energy. Your poor downstairs neighbours.

“Clark, what in the ever living—? How is this even possible?” you question, vaulting yourself back over your couch to face him.

“Hypno glasses.”

“Hypno— of course, of course,” you chuckle in mild panic as you throw your hands up. 

The similarities you were getting when you were around Superman were making a whole lot of sense. 

“The dimples… Oh! And the fucking pumpkin pies, I should've known!” you grumble.

The whole time you thought you were leading Superman and Clark on, he was the same guy? At least you're consistent.

“Are you angry with me?”

You shake your head immediately. “I’m not angry in the slightest.”

Your voice softens. “You’re Superman, Clark. A secret identity is… kinda necessary.”

Relief flickers over his face, but you keep going, because your brain is finally catching up.

“I mean, honestly, a lot of things are adding up now.”

You let out a breathy laugh, half disbelieving, half relieved.

“The disappearances, the fact that you’re always late… the way you’d show up with a new excuse every time I tried to confront you about it.”

You shrug helplessly.

“I just thought you had… I don’t know. A second job? A weird hobby? Some kind of… side hustle?”

You gesture vaguely.

“But not this. Definitely not ‘hey, by the way, I’m Superman.’”

Clark’s cheeks flush faintly (adorably).

He reaches for your hand without thinking, thumb brushing your knuckles.

“I wanted to tell you,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted to for a long time.”

You squeeze his hand back.

“Now you have,” you say softly.

“And I'm not going anywhere.”

***

“Catooo…” you whine for the fourth time.

He’s managed to perch himself on the very top of your shelf, tail flicking smugly, with absolutely no way of getting down.

Clark sighs, amused. “I swear he does this on purpose.”

Before you can argue, Clark lifts himself into the air, hovering up toward your stubborn little menace.

“Come here, buddy.”

Cato doesn’t need to be told twice. The moment Clark’s close enough, the cat launches himself straight into Clark’s arms with a loving meow like he’s been rescued from a burning building.

“That's my Cato,” Clark coos at him, getting nothing but adoring purrs in response.

He drifts back down, landing softly with Cato snuggled against his chest.

You fold your arms. “Traitor.”

But the moment Clark steps close enough to hand Cato over, it happens—

Ping.

A shimmering ‘love halo’, faint at first, then solidifying the instant he touches your hand.

You groan. “Is this ever going to wear off?”

Clark just smiles, wholly unbothered. “I quite like it.”

And he leans in, kissing the tip of your nose like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

You’re about to complain again when something tugs at your back, a sudden weight and a strange tickle, enough to make you sit up straight.

You twist around, confused.

There’s a… movement under your shirt. A flutter.

You freeze.

Slowly, cautiously, you lift the hem, and lo and behold… two tiny Cupid wings are sprouting out of your back, fluffy and soft.

“…Oh my,” you breathe.

You turn back to Clark, eyes wide, wings still twitching behind you like confused baby birds.

“This,” you say, pointing at him in outrage,

“It's your fault.”

“It is?” he replies, finding it all entirely too amusing.

“You made me fall so hard, I grew wings!”

“Your wings are adorable,” he chuckles before he wraps his arms around you, kissing all over your face.

“Clark!” you whine, but he doesn’t let up, determined to show you how much he loves you. “Be careful, I might grow a tail next.”

A/N: I know nothing about medicine, so if you do, please squint at the medical bs I wrote based on sleep-deprived research and ended up sounding halfway decent to me :D

Jack burst through the doors of the ambulance bay. The wheels of the gurney he pushed along at a merciless, break-neck pace squeaked under the assault. A shrill, high-pitched tone that his brain latched onto because thinking about the girl bleeding out beneath his fingertips was just too cruel-

Robby shouted your name.

A sound made up of guttural heartache and pure, unfiltered, raw grief.

Jack had never seen the man run so fast. He almost collided with the gurney. His trembling hands found your face, brushing away sweat-drenched strands of hair sticking to your skin and wiping tears off your cheeks while his own tears dropped down on you.

“She grappled for a gun with the shooter.” Jack hissed through teeth clenched so tightly he was surprised they hadn’t shattered yet.

Baran rushed into the trauma room, listening intently to the report of the paramedics while Jack stopped just outside the trauma room doors, grabbing Robby less than gently to hold him back.

Jack's hands were covered in your blood. There hadn’t been time for gloves.

“She’s my daughter!” Robby snarled, trying to tear free.

“Exactly!” Jack hissed back. “You can’t treat family! I didn’t stop you when you worked on Jake's girlfriend, when I should have! I knew I should have, but I didn’t, and look what it did to you! I am not going to let you do this to yourself! Baran’s got her, Robby!”

Robby deflated. The fear of the day demanded its tribute as he sagged against Jack. Dana brought over a chair for him. He sat there, long limbs folded awkwardly, more reminiscent of a wet tissue than the usually so headstrong man Jack knew.

Once Jack was convinced he would get up again to rush into the trauma room the second he turned his back, Ahmad standing on the side ready to step in should he try to anyway, Jack took Dana aside.

He stared at his bloody hands - your blood. Jack had to squeeze his eyes shut against the thought and the nausea it came with - and set his helmet aside.

“Robby jr got her nipples pierced."

“What?”

Jack gestured for Dana to not interrupt him. He could barely string two thoughts together, he didn’t need interruptions or distractions right now.

“Robby doesn’t know. He doesn’t need to find out like this.”

“When did she- How do you know?”

Jack shot her an exhausted, wry smirk. “Because the kind of piercer who accepts the obviously fake ID of a sixteen-year-old isn’t the kind you want to do your piercing. It got infected. She asked me for help. Just- he doesn’t need to find out like this, and she… daughters deserve to have some secrets from their fathers, no? Just- she’ll feel horrible enough once she’s better and realises she’s been naked in the ER. Just- can you take them out for her?”

Dana’s expression softened. “Yeah.” She sighed. “I’ve got her. Don’t worry.”

Worry was all Jack had left.

He found a chair and dragged it over to Robby, too exhausted even to pick it up. He slumped down next to his best friend and watched the coordinated chaos of the trauma room.

“The asshole who shot her is dead.” He said coldly. No emotion coloured his voice. He had no regrets. “I shot him.”

“Good.” Robby replied.

They sat next to each other, outside the trauma room they’d ruled for the past twenty-odd years as the new attending they'd known for less than three months fought for your life, forced onto the sidelines because suddenly their love for you had become a liability.

“What are you doing here?”

“Working.” Robby huffed without looking up from his tablet. There was a gaping, bleeding hole in his chest where his heart used to be - where you used to be.

“We’ve got it under control, Michael.”

He bristled at the sound of his given name off Dana’s lips.

“Go be with my daughter.”

“And how, pray tell, am I supposed to be with her when she is lying in a goddamn OR while Garcia is cutting into her, huh?! Because three fucking bullets-” Robby slammed his hands down on the counter and hung his head, desperately trying to force some air into his lungs.

He felt like you were already gone.

Like you had already died but the universe in its endless cruelty was just dragging this out. Perhaps it was punishment for everything Robby had ever done wrong in his life. For all his weaknesses and shortcomings.

You’re just like your mother!

The words echoed through his head again and again and again. An endless loop of torment custom-tailored for him. His own personal hell.

Baran had to shock your heart twice. You were given twenty units of whole blood. Esme was still cleaning your trauma room. Robby couldn’t bring himself to look at it.

He looked up at Dana, who wore her disapproving mom-face that always unnerved Robby.

“I’m about as useful as a limp dick up there, Dana.” He rasped, pleading silently with the charge nurse to not call Jack, who had left to debrief with his SWAT team who were still at the school. Another wave of patients had arrived while Robby paced the waiting room upstairs, being slowly driven crazy by his own spiralling thoughts and the feeling of your necklace in his hand.

The chaplain had tried to talk to him. Jefferson tried to talk to him. Dylan sat with him for a while, but Robby sent him away to help Kiara, who was still with the families of the students and staff in the cafeteria.

“The last critical patient just went up.” Dana said after a moment of silent consideration. “We’re still giving oxygen and fluid to some kids as we observe them, but no more GSWs.”

Robby nodded. His eyes were glassy, his gaze distant. Dana lowered her clipboard.

“Why don’t you sit with her friends?”

He shook his head. “And tell them what, Dana? I- I- There is nothing I can do. My daughter may be dying right now, and there’s nothing I-” He buried his face against his arm, fighting to not let the sobs bubbling up in his throat fall from his lips.

“You don’t have to do anything right now, Robby.” Dana said firmly. “Your daughter is in critical condition. You aren’t her doctor, and you don’t have to be one right now. You can just be her dad.”

“I should have said it.” He croaked, his voice finally failing him.

“Said what?”

Robby wiped his eyes roughly, berating himself in his head for ever letting them leave his eyes, and straightened up. “Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter anymore.”

“She’s not dead, Robby.”

He forced a bitter, tight-lipped smile and walked away without another word. What did Dana know?

You’d been doomed the moment you had been born, and Robby held you in his arms for the first time.

Robby didn’t get to keep the people he loved.

Garcia found him an hour later, doing CPR on a college student in the same trauma room you’d been coded in. The same trauma room where Baran broke your ribs trying to keep you alive. Where Langdon cut into you. Where Crus shoved a tube into your chest and your blood splattered onto the ground.

“Should you be working?” She asked with that derisive, sneering tone Robby couldn’t stand when it was directed at him. He didn’t stop giving compressions. Didn’t talk.

He didn’t want to look at Garcia.

If he didn’t look at her, if he didn’t slow down or stop, she couldn’t drag him to the family room and tell him the news. And if she didn’t tell him the news, then a part of him could continue to delude himself into thinking everything was fine.

You were just at home. You were doing your homework or cooking or lounging on the sofa with one of your projects you had rarely ever finished since you taught yourself how to crochet during Covid.

His grandmother would have loved to see you with her old crochet hooks… how dear they were to you, how dear all her handcraft tools were…

Robby had forgotten to add Jack into his consideration. With all the detached effectiveness of a soldier, Jack, who still wore his tactical clothes albeit without the body armour (clothes soaked in your blood. His baby’s blood. His little girl’s blood), he had Baran taking over and was steering Robby towards the family room.

He relented only because he knew Jack was not above throwing him over his shoulder.

The ER watched, as if Robby was a condemned man being led to the gallows.

“She was too unstable to tolerate the anaesthesia for long.” Garcia began as soon as the door closed, sparing Robby the humiliation of asking him to sit - something they both knew he would not be doing. “We managed to fix the biggest bleeders for now. Her intestine was nicked, but we got that taken care of and washed out her abdomen. We started her on a full course of antibiotics. Her right kidney took some more damage. We don’t yet know if she will lose it, but we are carefully optimistic. The third bullet miraculously missed all major organs and blood vessels. We could remove all three. We didn’t close her up at this time. We want to give her 24 to 48 hours to rest and hopefully stabilise further before we go back in for the beauty treatment. She’s in the surgical ICU now and as stable as we can hope for at this time.”

Some of the tension Garcia always held herself with eased. She didn’t go soft, exactly - Robby doubted Garcia was even capable of that, but she softened ever so slightly around the edges.

“She’s a real fighter, Robby. I’ve seen patients pull through worse. And she’s young. Teens always bounce back quicker than adults.”

Jack asked a few follow-up questions, about the surgery and her care from here on out until the next surgery, all the questions Robby should ask but couldn’t.

Not that he absorbed any of the information.

His torture would continue. 

That was all he could take away from this.

The universe had decided he had not suffered enough. It would continue to dangle you in front of him like a carrot, waiting for the right moment, the moment he allowed himself to hope before tearing you away right when it would hurt most.

“Where are you going?” Jack held Robby back when he tried to follow Garcia.

“I have patients.”

“You don’t.” Jack hissed. “You have your daughter-”

“Don’t make me.” Robby pleaded through a broken sob. He could not bring himself to look at Jack. He stared at the dried patch of blood on his pants and pretended it wasn’t yours. “Don’t make me sit there and watch her die.” He pressed his lips together to trap the next sob already crawling up his throat.

“She isn’t dying.”

A bitter laugh broke through Robby’s defences.

“She is not dying, Michael!” Jack placed his hand over the side of Robby’s neck and forced him to look up. “She’s not. You heard Garcia. She’s a fighter. And she needs her dad right now.”

“I can’t.”

“But you will.” Jack said firmly. “Because she is your daughter and you’ve always done what you could to be there for her. You never stopped when things got difficult. You won’t start now. I won’t let you.”

The walk towards the elevator felt like marching through hip-high molasses. The elevator was too tight, too quiet and yet far too loud. The hallway into the SICU, past the nurses’ station where pitying looks already waited for Robby, seemed endless. A nurse whose face he did not see through the fog clouding his brain brought him a chair so he could sit next to your bed. 

You were drowning in tubes and IV lines. 

His little girl.

He could barely stand to look at the tube coming from your mouth, knowing just how far that shit went down your throat to reach your lungs.

His sweet, innocent little baby.

Emergency medicine was brutal and barbaric, and he never, never thought he’d one day have to look at you and be punished with the knowledge of just how much trauma you were put through in the name of saving you.

And for what?

They would not save you, he knew, he felt it in his bones, so what was this all for? Why were they putting you through all this agony when he already knew it was all for nought?

Robby reached for your pale hand resting on top of the blanket and cradled it in his, careful, terrified of hurting you despite knowing exactly how he could touch and manipulate your body without causing harm. He ran his thumb over your knuckles, back and forth, eyes locked onto the sight of your small hand disappearing beneath his own.

Someone cleaned the blood off your skin.

You looked so delicate and small… so terribly fragile, and he didn’t know how to handle any of it. Jack sat down next to him, seemingly fighting with the same wave of suffocating emotions. He put his hand on Robby’s knee and gave it a little squeeze - maybe to ground Robby, maybe to ground himself. He couldn’t tell. 

Maybe Jack couldn’t either.

The machines breathing for you whirred. Monitors beeped. Fluids ran through the IV lines and into your body.

Robby tried not to look at your abdomen, tried not to think about the gauze shoved into your body cavity and the medical-grade plastic wrap keeping your intestines from bulging from your body. His little girl, cut open like a pig about to be butchered and haphazardly wrapped in plastic wrap like you were some leftover deli sandwich while machines kept your body alive because you were not strong enough to do it yourself.

How long until he would have to pull the plug like he had to for Adamson?

How long would the universe torture him with this sight this time around?

“She’s a fighter.” Jack whispered, voice raw and quiet, lacking all its usual strength and perhaps that terrified Robby most of all. “She’ll pull through.” He put his free arm around Robby’s shoulder, who simply sagged into the warmth of the embrace, head tilting to the side and coming to rest on Jack’s shoulder. He brushed a fleeting kiss to Robby’s temple.

“She’ll pull through.”

Robby wondered idly what the greater torture was, his hopelessness, or Jack’s hope…

Perhaps it was witnessing his hope knowing it was futile and wasted, because you were doomed to be loved by Robby and Robby never got to keep those he loved. 

He wondered how long it would take the universe to take Jack from him as well…

Jack had fallen asleep. Running towards the sound of gunfire and death demanded its tribute after a while, even for one Jack Abbot, Robby supposed.

The SICU quieted down further with the setting sun.

Visitation hours had ended a long time ago, but not a single nurse had made any effort to send Robby or Jack home.

The dim light illuminating the nurses’ station fell through the glass separating your room from the hallway. The machines you were hooked up to beeped and whirred, a ceaseless ambient noise that made it impossible to ever forget just how close to death you were.

Robby tried not to look at your body. He tried not to think about how vulnerable and exposed you were under the blanket, your torso cut open and only held together with plastic wrap.

Your skin looked pallid, ghostly already despite the machines forcing your body to stay alive a little while longer, even through all the trauma it had to endure and would continue to be put through.

“I love you.” Robby whispered and carefully, terrified or hurting you, smoothed down the blanket over your chest. “I love you for everything you are. I love your mischief and the grey hairs you’ve caused me, and I love your courage, your heart, and all your kindness…”

A nurse walked by your door. He didn’t look into your room. Nobody could look at Robby. As if he’d become something terrible, something infectious. As if looking at him would make his misfortune spread to others.

He could not blame them.

“Thank you for being- being all that you have been. For coming into my life when I needed you most. For being the only light at the end of the tunnel I could see most days. Thank you for existing and loving me despite everything.”

Robby hadn’t been able to do this with Adamson. Between a lack of time and the atmosphere of the improvised Covid ward, he just didn't have the chance - though that was just an excuse.

He didn’t have the strength to say goodbye to his mentor.

He was a coward.

But you deserved better.

“Forgive me for not being a better father.” He lifted your hand off the bed and pressed his trembling lips to your cool knuckles. “I forgive you for leaving me.”

You were back on the operating table two days later. Two days of sitting in a corner of your room like a wraith, waiting. Robby felt as if someone had hollowed him out. He was an empty shell keeping vigil over the remains of his daughter. 

A body he could barely recognise as yours at this point.

He managed to ask a nurse for a hairbrush late during his first night at your side. He carefully brushed the knots and tangles out of your hair and braided it loosely. ICU patients with longer hair often suffered from severe matting after a stay, and you liked your hair so much… you were seventeen, of course you did.

He would not claim it was an act of hope. He didn’t have any, just fatherly affections that suddenly had no place to go anymore.

Like phantom pains leading to muscle spasms.

He couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it, couldn’t make his treacherous, failing body realise that this - this thing lying in the ICU bed - wasn’t you.

Not anymore.

You were gone or about to be, but his muscles remembered caring for you, doting on you, and they refused to stop.

He adjusted your blankets and made sure your socks were neat, brushed the hair from your face. He ran his knuckle over your cheek in a feather-light touch while whispering soothing and encouraging words you probably couldn’t hear anyway.

Social workers and chaplains kept pestering them, but Robby eventually learnt ignoring them led to such uncomfortable silence they usually left.

Kiara and Dylan were more persistent, but not by much.

Only Dana and Jack he couldn’t drive away.

Robby sat in a corner of the surgical waiting room with a cup of shitty hospital coffee in his cold hands, his feet drawn up on the uncomfortable plastic chair in a way that made his lower back sting and stared blankly at the wall.

Your friends were here, waiting with him and yet giving him space.

Just two units trapped in the limbo that was hospital waiting rooms.

Robby remembered sitting in one of these sterile, cold, empty rooms when he was a kid, after his grandmother had a heart attack. The nurses were nice, bringing him snacks and drinks and just being there with him without making him perform his fear and grief for it to be taken seriously. His grandmother was fine, but the end result never quite made the hours in the waiting room hurt less.

Robby had lost bits and pieces of him along the way before.

The five-year-old boy who died on his first shift in New Orleans, so worried about getting in trouble until the second his little heart gave out, took a big chunk. You hadn’t been born yet then - you hadn’t even been a thought Robby played with in the dead of night without ever allowing himself to really want.

If you had already existed, Robby was sure that death would have broken him.

Every patient he lost since, every patient he couldn’t help, every case of domestic abuse where the victim went home with their abuser despite everything he tried to get them help, every patient suffering from substance abuse disorder he couldn’t get to go to rehab - he had worked at PTMC long enough now to see them all coming back, one by one, dropping like flies - took a piece of him with them.

His grandmother dying. Your mother leaving. Messing up with Janey.

Everything carved chunks out of him until Robby was a moth-eaten tapestry of misery he barely recognised when he looked in the mirror in the morning.

You were the best part of his life.

The only part that still made sense besides the medicine, and as he sat in the quiet, suffocating waiting room, Robby could not even make sense of that. It ran through his head endlessly, treatment courses and numbers and tracking the progression of the operation in his head, unable to stop his mind from picturing you laying on that table - alone, naked, vulnerable - and he couldn’t stop picturing all the hands that would be inside you, the surgeon, fellows, residents, interns observing from the sideline while his whole life lay beneath their eyes, cracked open like a goddamn lobster.

He barely felt the tear rolling down his cheek and disappearing in his beard. He held onto the cup in his hands as if it were a lifeline and didn’t look up when the waiting room slowly started to fill at shift change.

Jack and Dana sat down on either side of him. Perlah and Princess, Jesse, Donny, Ahmad.

All the people who watched you grow up between stretchers and toys built out of tongue suppressors and cotton balls - some of which had been keeping watch over central for almost a decade now. 

They had all come to watch you die with him.

You had to learn to be independent far too quickly. 

Another thing he owed you an apology for.

Robby tried his best, he knew he did, even if he doubted it was never enough, but when the Pitt was drowning, he couldn’t just leave because he had a kid. You learnt to sleep on the couch in the breakroom or the on-call rooms even when the ER around you was drowning in noise. You helped Dana pass out sandwiches or juice to patients waiting for hours. You sat with lonely seniors and listened to their stories, or asked them to read your books with you. You played with the kids of patients. You sat on Doc Adamson’s shoulders and bossed him around.

Monty loved you.

He loved you as if you were his granddaughter, and Robby would never forget how you sobbed when Robby had to tell you he died. He was staying away from you as much as he could at home, always wearing a mask in shared spaces and otherwise keeping to his bedroom and ensuite bathroom. He was terrified of seeing you end up in the Pitt, of you getting sick.

Robby had lost much of his faith over the years, but he hoped wherever the thing that made a human more than a meat sack filled with organs went after the body stopped working… he hoped Monty would look after you.

Not that you’d be alone for long.

When she dies, don’t you dare talk me down from the edge, he’d told Jack two days ago, who merely looked at Robby with those sad puppy eyes Robby could never endure looking at long.

He knew Jack would have his ass on a 72-hour hold the second something happened to you.

Waiting had never felt so unbearable.

At first, Robby thought his mind was playing tricks on him. He could not even remember the last time he had a proper night’s sleep, much less a nap not taken while sitting in the chair next to you with his back bent awkwardly and his head resting on the mattress next to your hand.

He could only stare, blinking as if to chase away the hallucination that attached itself to his retinas, but the more he came to himself, the more he realised he wasn’t imagining things.

You were waking up.

You were waking up!

“Shh…” Robby was out of his chair, and by your side so quickly he knocked the piece of uncomfortable furniture over. “It’s okay, sheifale. I’m here. You have a tube in your throat to help you breathe. I know it hurts, but just try to relax and not fight it.” He brushed the hair from your face, both of his hands framing your head, fingertips hovering just above your skin, barely touching you.

“I know, I know…” He whispered and wiped a tear from the corner of your eye with his thumb. “Oh, my brave girl… it’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’m here. You’re okay. Don’t speak- wait, let me get you a pen.”

He couldn’t begin to imagine how terrifying it must be to wake up with a foreign object in your throat, to have a machine breathe for you even when you were conscious, not be able to speak or advocate for yourself.

“Here.” Robby carefully closed your fingers around a pen and held the little notepad for you. You struggled at first to find enough strength to drag the pen across the paper, but after a couple of attempts you managed to scrawl out a barely legible you stink.

“Mayn gonif.” Robby chastised you affectionately, biting back his tears. He didn’t want to fall apart in front of you, not when you were being so strong and brave. “Someone had to go and get herself shot, excuse me if personal hygiene wasn’t my priority.”

You scribbled again. Robby had to fish his glasses out of his pocket before the strain on his eyes left him with a headache he really didn’t need right now.

I’m sorry.

“You have nothing to apologise for, princess.”

I love you.

Tears burnt in the back of Robby’s throat.

“I love you too. I love you so much. So much, sheifale.” Robby swallowed a thick, pathetic sob and bent down to press a gentle kiss against your forehead. He wiped away more tears slipping from your eyes.

The pen scraped across the paper.

Scared.

“I know.” Robby whispered and smoothed down the blanket across your chest. “I know. Me too. It’s okay. You’re safe now. It’ll be okay now.”

Hurts.

He felt his heart shattering in his chest and had to close his eyes to fight off the wave of emotions crashing into you.

“I’ll get a nurse. We’ll set you up with a morphine pump you can control yourself, yes? Is it okay if I leave for a second? Blink twice for yes.”

You blinked twice. Robby could tell you were already getting tired and struggled to make your muscles move.

“I’ll be right back, princess.”

He rushed out of the room and towards the nurses’ station. He wanted to be back by your side before you fell asleep again. He loomed behind the nurses, technicians and doctors coming in to assess you with crossed arms, scrutinising every motion, every little way they touched you, ready to jump in should he feel like they were not careful enough with his little girl.

You were given a VidaTalk to communicate and a morphine pump, the remote placed directly in your hand. You pressed down on the button immediately, and he felt his heart break a little bit more. You were in pain. You were in pain, and he could do nothing to take it away.

“Looks like I finally found the topic for my college admissions essay.” The robotic voice of the VidaTalk announced into the whirring and beeping of all the monitors and machines surrounding you. Your eyes were tired, but Robby saw that mischievous sparkle in them that always lit up your eyes when you smiled.

“Let’s focus on you getting better first, sweetheart.”

“I thought you were going to write about your personal hero, Uncle Jack!” Jack appeared in the door, a crooked grin plastered across his lips. “Look at you… I don’t think you need any of these doctors anymore, huh? Lookin’ strong.”

“Lame.”

“If you can give me cheek then you’re feeling better for sure.”

Your finger tapped rapidly against the touch screen. “I feel like a tank ran me over. Can this thing swear? Fuck.”

Your eyes sparkled.

“How about we cut back on the swearing and get some rest?” Robby said softly.

"Party Pooper."

A low chuckle bubbled up in his throat despite himself. The sound felt foreign in his mouth. He’d already surrendered to never feeling it again, and now here you were, looking at him, talking back even if you couldn’t talk - things could still go wrong. One little complication could still tear you away from him, but how could he let himself think about your demise for a single second while you were messing around with your godfather, as if you hadn’t been fighting for your life every day for two weeks?

“I’m tired.”

“That’s normal.” Robby murmured and ran his knuckle over your cheek. “Your body is using all its energy for your recovery, there isn’t much left over for insulting your old man with a tablet.”

“I’m sorry I was a bitch, Dad.”

“Shh, don’t say that. It’s not true. It was just- it was just a silly fight. Let’s just leave that in the past, yes? How would you put it? It was never that deep?”

“Ew.”

Robby scowled at you, but its effect was severely undermined by the pure, unadulterated joy crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“I’m the one who owes you an apology. It was awful of me to say that to you. I’d like to say that I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I honestly don’t know. I’ve been pretty messed up.”

“I forgive you, Dad. I love you.”

“You do remind me of your mom.” He whispered. Your brows dipped, forming an angry crease between them. Robby smoothed it down with his thumb immediately. “People aren’t black and white, princess. What she did is unforgivable, and I’ll never stop wishing that she talked to me instead of just running away and putting you in such danger. But before that… unhappiness and despair that drove her to do something so horrible, she was also a woman who would have cackled at you putting violet syrup in my coffee as revenge. She would have adored your sense of humour and your courage and the strong, unapologetic young woman you are becoming. She is a part of you… all her good sides are in you, just as you have to live with all my bad sides.”

“You’re not bad.” The monitor’s emotionlessness was only offset by the hurt in your eyes. “I’m proud to be your daughter.”

Robby swallowed down another rush of tears gathering on his waterline. “I’m proud to have you as my daughter, sweetheart.”

“Will you promise me to go home when I’m asleep?”

“Nah, I’m staying right here.”

“Please, Dad. You have to take care of yourself too, not just others.”

His shoulders dropped. “Okay. Okay, I promise.” He said because he could not bear to argue with you, not when he could see how much you struggled to just stay awake. He knew you wouldn't back down anyway.

“Shower, sleeping in a real bed for at least eight hours and eating a proper meal, Dad.”

“When did you become the parent, huh?”

“We’ve always taken care of each other.”

The expression in your eyes made him falter.

“Okay okay. I promise. Whatever you say.”

“Will you stay until I’m asleep?”

“Yes.” Robby pressed a kiss to your forehead. “I love you, sheifale.” He kept stroking your hair, standing over you while your eyes started to slowly fall shut, not moving an inch until you were deep asleep.

Robby went home. 

He didn't want to, but what was he going to do? Break his promise to his little girl?

He washed the hospital grime and fear-sweat off his body, drowning out the smell of antiseptic embedded deep into his skin by now in Old Spice and tried not to cry.

Crying in the shower. How pathetic would that be?

He did cry. 

Dry, silent, heaving sobs that shook his whole body, a mixture of all that he didn’t let himself feel while keeping vigil over you and stone-cold sober relief.

He checked his phone as soon as he was out of the shower. Jack sent him an update every ten minutes. A picture of you and your latest vitals. Jack understood Robby wouldn’t have been able to leave without knowing someone was watching over you the same way he would have been watching over you.

He pulled one of the mini lasagnas you cooked in bulk and froze in aluminium dishes for easy dinners out of the freezer. While that was in the oven, he gathered some things from the apartment. The SICU had strict rules, and you wouldn’t be allowed to have any plushies or blankets from home, not yet, but he could bring you some pictures, the charger for your phone, your spare earbuds since he had no idea where your main pair was now. 

Entering your room and being greeted by your familiar scent drove new tears into his eyes. The body spray you used that morning still hung in the air, and the crop top you'd gotten into a fight over lay crumpled on the bed.

He picked it up gingerly, meaning to fold and tuck it away in your wardrobe, but he ended up sitting on the edge of your bed, clutching the piece of fabric to his chest as he cried.

The timer for the lasagna sounded through the empty apartment, and Robby almost didn't manage to get up.

He also packed your Nintendo Switch. You would be tired and barely able to stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time in the coming days, but that would change, eventually.

He hoped it would.

He checked his phone again and ate in silence.

In silence and alone.

No phone being shoved in his face, far too close for his ageing eyes to make out anything more than blurry colours - because you’ve waited all day to show you this video, Dad. Just for that one video to devolve into twenty, and Robby started worrying just how much time you spent on TikTok. No bordering-on-snide back and forth between you two that always ended with you doubling over in laughter. It was usually the first time after a shift that Robby felt like he was not drowning. Seeing you happy and bubbly, chewing his ear off with all that you’ve waited all day to tell him… it was the only joy he had in life. The greatest joy he had.

You were the only reason he didn’t go on that three-month-long motorcycle trip he’d been thinking about, the one where he’d just drive until his luck ran out, but how could Robby challenge his luck to run out when you were back in Pittsburgh, staying with Jack while you waited for him to come back?

Some days, Robby thought you’d probably be better off without him. Jack would take care of you, he knew that. You loved Jack. Jack had figured out a way that got him out of the darkness that had its claws embedded so deeply in Robby he sometimes wondered if he’d ever see light again - but then he came home and was greeted by you singing along to one of Robby’s old mixtapes from college while making dinner in the kitchen…

Robby was a selfish, greedy man.

Robby wanted to be a part of your life, of your joy and happiness, and he wanted to see your smile when you spotted him in the doorway every day, and he wanted the way you jumped into his arms despite the fact you were inching towards maturity and Robby towards the grave - at least that was what his aching bones and bad back were telling him.

He knew he would only drag you down. He knew he had nothing to offer you but sad smiles he no longer felt reverberating in his chest, and he knew didn’t reach his eyes anymore.

But he was selfish.

So he stuck around and you… well, you had nowhere else to go, did you? Robby’s mother had disappeared decades ago. His grandmother was dead. You had never met your maternal grandparents. Maybe once you went to college you would realise you had no reason to be around Robby anymore. That he was a mess. That you could do better.

Robby knew you deserved better.

He didn’t think he’d be able to find any sleep, and he didn’t in his own bed. He tossed and turned, his mind assaulting him with the memory of you coding, of your blood on the ER floor, of the sounds of your ribs breaking he didn’t hear through the thick doors of the trauma room but still heard because he’d heard it a thousand times.

His desperation brought him back to your room. He knew he couldn’t go back to the hospital yet. He’d promised you he’d sleep. He curled up in your bed like the pathetic old man he was, clutching your pillow that smelled like your shampoo and that overnight keratin treatment you made him shell out far too much money for every time it ran out to his chest. He stared at the picture frame on your nightstand through teary eyes. It showed you huddled in a towel, your hair hidden beneath the towel, sitting on Robby’s lap in the backyard of Jack’s old house, the one he sold when his wife died. You were holding a popsicle that was melting down your fingers and grinned at the camera in that endearing grimace-smiling all six-year-olds did when asked to smile for the camera.

You were so little…

Robby looked at the picture and every time he closed his eyes, he saw you in the SICU, tube down your throat, feeding tube in your nose, old blood stuck in your hair, so pale as if you were already dead…

You recovered.

Within a day of you waking up, your medical team had you on your feet and walking. It was painful, it was exhausting and difficult, and Robby hated to see you struggle and the tears of humiliation clinging to your lashes as your team held your arms and encouraged you to move your feet.

It was brutal.

But, and the doctor part of his brain understood and supported this no matter how the side that was your father loathed the whole process, awake ICUs had shown significant increases in recovery rates and decreases in complications associated with the deep sedation most intubated patients were under in most of the country. There was no medical indication for you to be sedated, so you weren’t. You were still on a ventilator for now, but you were awake and walking.

Early mobility kept postoperative complications down, reduced the risks of blood clots and preserved muscle function.

Robby kept telling himself all the advantages, repeating them like a mantra in his head while desperately trying not to think about how much the effort you were taking looked like pure torture from the outside…

Days passed. Timelines for common complications rolled by without touching you. Milestones were reached.

But you were always tired. You were in pain and uncomfortable, and the reality of all that had happened to you slowly started to sink in - Robby could tell by the haunted expression that had slipped into your eyes.

Physically you were improving, but mentally… Robby could tell you were struggling.

Your medical team concluded that your level of consciousness was enough for you to protect your airway, and your spontaneous breathing tests came back promising.

Robby was wholly unfamiliar with the role of the family member during an extubation, but he tried his best when your doctor prepped you for extubation.

“Dad, you can sit right here and hold your daughter’s hand.” He said, addressing Robby as he would any other father of a patient. As Robby had done a million times, but today it felt wrong to hear the word Dad addressed to him in a voice that was not yours.

It had been so long since he heard your voice…

He’d been listening to old voice messages you sent him when he missed your presence at home too much. He was so pathetic, but right now Robby didn’t even care. He sat on the chair assigned to him and held your hand, smiling at you with as much silent encouragement as he could muster. You squeezed his hand when the tube was pulled from your throat. You coughed, and tears rolled down your cheeks. Robby held his breath, eyes flicking wildly back and forth between your face and your stats on the monitor. Your oxygen levels fell slightly while you coughed and tried not to choke on your secretions. A nurse was at your side right away to help by using the wall suction to get rid of most of it, giving you some time to adjust having the tube out before handling that yourself.

“You’re doing great, sweetheart.” Robby murmured and pressed a soft kiss to your knuckles.

“Hi, dad.” You croaked, voice raw and quiet, and you winced as soon as you spoke.

“It’s okay, sheifale. Your throat will hurt for a bit while it and your voice box recover from the inflammation the intubation caused. It’ll go away in a few days.”

“Thirsty.” You murmured. Robby noticed you were already struggling to keep your eyes open.

“You are getting fluids through your IVs and the feeding tube.” Your doctor explained. “But many patients report a feeling of intense thirst after extubation. You may sip some water, just tiny sips though.”

“Is that safe?” Robby asked.

“Yes. We’ll have a Speech-Language Pathologist come by to assess her swallowing function so we can determine whether it is safe to remove the feeding tube and have her feed herself, but research has shown that sipping water works best to reduce the sensation of thirst after extubation with no ill effects to recovery. We prioritise patient comfort in these cases over the older doctrines of mandatory fasting periods after extubation.”

Robby nodded. He trusted your doctor’s judgement. Robby intubated and extubated plenty of patients, but he didn’t usually get in contact with long-term ICU patients, nor was he well versed in the more recent research discoveries in the field.

Many liked to call emergency physicians butchers, but when literally fighting for lives, Robby gladly did everything he could - even if it wasn’t pretty. Your medical team was focused on different concerns.

They left after a moment of monitoring your breathing and oxygen levels. Robby held the ugly hospital-issued off-pink plastic cup in his hand and brought the straw to your lips, watching you take a cautious sip.

“Just a small sip, baby.”

“I heard the doctor.” You huffed.

“I know.” Robby smoothed your hair down and shot you an apologetic smile. “You know how I get. Let me fuss over you. It puts my mind at ease.”

You huffed again, but Robby saw the smile you tried to hide from him. It made his chest feel lighter to see it, to see your face without the tube and the tube holder obstructing it. Compared to that, the transnasal feeding tube almost didn’t stand out.

“You feeling okay?”

You nodded weakly.

“Shall I read some more?”

“Please.”

Robby picked up the book he’d been reading to you from time to time during your stay from the nightstand and searched for a bookmark. It was your favourite book from when you were a child. Robby doubted your choice had been a coincidence, despite the book never leaving your shelf in the years since. The last time these pages had been turned, Robby sat in bed with you, your little body curled up against him.

He’d gladly do anything he could to bring you any comfort he could in these times.

You fell asleep before he could finish even a single chapter. He tucked the bookmark between those pages but kept reading anyway.

His eyes, though, never stayed off your stats for long.

Robby missed your transfer from the ICU to the regular ward.

Your medical team had been discussing it for a while. You were improving. You still had a long way ahead of you but… somewhere along the way Robby stopped thinking about your death.

He still sometimes woke up in the middle of the night, most of which he still spent in the hospital despite your attempts to make him go home, in a cold sweat, startling from a nightmare where things had taken a much worse turn.

You were talking to Caleb twice a week since you’d been extubated. 

Things got dark. It was Jack who noticed that it had gotten too dark. That you crossed the line of grappling with what had happened to you into much more unsteady territory. Not that you could be blamed for it. What you had been through… no child should have to go through any of that.

Talking seemed to help you, but your smiles stayed a little too forced, your eyes a little too distant. That was when Caleb advised antidepressants. Robby closed off. He didn’t want to hear any of it. You were fine. You were struggling, yes, but how could anyone blame you for that? You’d been shot at school by a boy you were trying to help and spent hours running around the school, tearing yourself apart to help save as many people as you could. You starved off death with some gauze and stone-cold determination.

That was no reason to stuff you full of meds!

You were fine.

But you weren’t.

You weren’t, and, as Jack and Caleb pointed out, medication was just another support pillar they could offer to help you on your journey to come to terms with your new reality. It was no different than antibiotics, pain meds or physical therapy.

And just because a geriatric patient was still mobile did not mean Robby wouldn’t also prescribe them blood thinners to further help prevent blood clots…

You had lost so much that day, much more than had become apparent right away. You didn’t lose your kidney, but a not insignificant part of your innocence had been completely shattered. The whole magnitude of the trauma that day, almost dying, and the strenuous recovery process had handed you was only just beginning to crawl to the surface.

The massive scar stretching all the way from the top of your sternum down to your pubic bone and the three smaller, round scars where the bullets entered your body would be with you for the rest of your life. You’d be reminded of what happened every time you took a shower, every time you wanted to wear a bikini, every time your shirts had a slightly lower neckline…

Robby didn’t want to, but he owed it to you to explore why he had that reaction to Caleb’s suggestion. He was a doctor. He should not still be so affected by outdated prejudice regarding mental health, especially in this time they were living in, where the discourse about mental health was as alive as never before.

He agreed to give his consent should you want to take the meds.

The entire time you’ve been in the hospital, Robby had been thinking how he’d do everything to help you and if the meds could help you deal with your dark thoughts, with the anxiety and sleep problems, the nightmares then… well, how could he justify denying you that?

Caleb reassured him they’d reassess your need for them every six months. There was a good chance you wouldn’t need them for the rest of your life. You didn’t have chronic depression. Your whole world had been turned upside down, and you need… you just needed some help finding ways to cope with your new reality.

You spoke a lot with Jack. Robby tried not to be jealous. He had no reason to be. Jack was your godfather. Jack had been in a war zone. Jack lost his leg. Jack spent months in the hospital. Jack could relate to this new part of you that Robby didn’t even know.

There was a new part of you, one that your father didn’t know…

You were moved to the regular ward while Robby was at the mall, picking up a new book and a couple of video games you’d asked for. He was actually standing in a store looking at gaming laptops, considering getting you one of those since you wouldn’t be able to play on your computer at home - he’d bring the thing into the hospital, but Gloria would never let that happen - and he knew there were some games you liked that you couldn’t play on the Switch, when he got your text.

It was a selfie of you in your new room.

Freedom at last!, you’d captioned it, followed by a request for your favourite meal. The ICU had strict rules regarding everything family members brought in from the outside, one of which was no outside food. You’d been stuck with unsalted hospital food after your feeding tube was removed, and you’d been begging to have it back in because the liquid diet was still better than the disgraceful meal plan from the hospital.

You can have whatever you want, he replied. Anything you want from home?

You sent a list - of course you did - that ended with don’t touch my nightstand in all caps, and Robby debated whether he wanted to know what that was about.

He decided the content of a seventeen-year-old girl’s nightstand was between herself and the nightstand.

Robby finished his shopping and went home to gather some comfortable clothes for you, the quilt from his grandma you kept in your bed, a few of your most cherished plushies, some toiletries and a pair of slippers before picking up your requested meal and driving back to the hospital.

He found your room already occupied by your friends. They hadn’t been allowed into the ICU due to visitor limitations. Dwayne was still on crutches, but Robby knew they had all gone back to school a week ago.

Garcia had hit the nail on the head - teens bounced back faster than adults. It truly was inspiring to see how much the four of you refused to let this tragedy destroy you. Between talking about the memorial service the school held for the officer, the teacher, and the two students who died, you were discussing your plans for college and the summer. Dwayne got cocky about how the captain of the cheerleading team agreed to go to prom with him and Mira and Oliver exchanged shy glances.

“I don’t know about prom.” You huffed and tugged at the front of your button-down pyjama top. The dressing of your surgical scar peeked out at the top. “Not with this ugly thing.”

“Scars are cool.” Dwayne mumbled around the entire pack of Skittles he dumped into his mouth.

Robby couldn’t help the smile tugging on his lips.

“Mr R!” Mira was the first to notice him.

“Hello kids.” Robby deposited the bag he packed on the bed next to you and brushed a kiss to your forehead. “Hello, sheifale.”

It made him very happy to know you had found the kind of friends who would drop everything at a moment’s notice to get to the hospital just because you’d finally be transferred to a ward where they could visit you.

Robby settled on the chair Dwayne vacated when your friends said their goodbye and cleared out of the room. He unpacked the food he brought and listened to you fill him in on all the latest gossip your friends had brought from school, the cute puppy video you saw online and the ward gossip you picked up on from the nurses.

Robby could not imagine a place where he’d rather be.

Robby found himself growing increasingly fed up with his own struggles. He was sick and tired of feeling like an empty shell. He was sick and tired of feeling like everything sucked all the time and would never get better. 

He was sick of hating the day, every day, before it had even begun.

He watched you get better, despite having had to go back in for surgery once you’d stabilised to put permanent fixes in place where Garcia had only had time for quick patches.

He watched that haunted expression fade, a little more every day. He watched the antidepressants take effect and some of your old self returning to you. You tackled the full cafeteria during the lunch rush with your therapist, just sitting in the chaos and trying to endure it as your anxiety skyrocketed. When that went well, you moved on to the ER, then the waiting room, and from there you even managed to brave the park outside the hospital.

Robby was so endlessly proud of you, but at the same time a nasty, terrible part of him despised that you got better while he was still stuck, still trapped in his own bullshit as if it were tar slowly dragging him under.

And for the first time since Jack handed him the business card of his therapist a few days after PittFest, Robby picked up his phone.

Dana cackled.

Her laughter cut through the low buzz of ER madness and made Robby lift his head. His glasses sat low on his nose to prevent them from fogging up in the humid air being blasted through the department by the shitty air conditioning unit.

“What’s that about.”

“My daughter just sent me a TikTok.” Dana turned around to hand him her phone. Robby needed a moment to make sense of the video playing on the screen. In bold, white lettering written across the screen it declared filming my dad every time he uses hand sanitizer. The video started playing, showing Robby coming out of different rooms of the ED or stepping up to one of the many counters, rubbing his hands together. You, in your endless boredom as you called it, had apparently spent an afternoon following Robby with a camera - and he hadn’t even noticed. Every time he held his hand under a dispenser, you zoomed in on him.

“You went viral.”

“This?” Robby questioned with a raised brow. “This thing went viral?” He looked at the number beneath the little heart in the corner. “Jee-sus.”

Dana was still laughing.

“What the fuck even is this?”

“Ah,” Jack grinned as he stepped up next to Robby, catching a glance at Dana’s phone. “You found Robby jr’s project.”

“Her what?”

“Go on the profile, she’s been making all sorts of videos. The hospital honestly should hire her as social media manager. The people love The Pitt.” Jack tapped on the profile. You really had called it The Pitt. Oh, Gloria would hate it.

On the profile were a series of silly videos like the hand sanitizer one, filming Jack doing tricks in a wheelchair, asking staff around the ER for their secret talents, a montage of Javadi’s best shocked expressions, Whitaker ‘looking like a sad, wet puppy’ as you’d titled the video.

But it was more than that.

You did an interview with Dana, asking her how long she’d been working at the Pitt, why she went into health care, why she stuck around despite all the challenges, what she loved about the job and one thing she wished the world knew about her profession. You’d done the same interview with a couple of people - Jack among them - but also medics, Esme, Lupe, Antoine, and at least one of their techs. You gave Kiara and Dylan a chance to talk about the help available for people that most didn’t know about.

You interviewed homeless people, asking them about their lives, showing that they were human, that most of them had lived a whole life before something terrible happened and made them fall through the cracks.

One video stuck out. In it, you talked about what the ER meant to you personally. You talked about all the days you’d spent here when you were little, how much Robby had sacrificed to raise you. You talked about Adamson and the time you lost your tooth because you and Jake were playing chase and you slipped, knocking your mouth against a counter. You showed off the tongue-suppressor toys you built as a little girl, and Robby still kept around, almost a decade later. You talked about how you were almost born right here in the ER, on the way to the elevators, because Robby, in his panic at your mother’s water breaking, couldn’t find the car keys. How inspiring it had been to grow up around so many people who dedicated their lives to being there for people on the worst day of their lives, who shouldered the trauma and heartbreak of it all just so people wouldn’t have to be alone in their hour of need.

“This is where I almost died.” You said on the video as you walked into the trauma room. You flipped the camera around and smiled sadly. “Nobody likes going to the hospital, and I’m slowly losing my mind being stuck here too, I want to go home. I want none of this to have ever happened, but no matter what happened - this is home. My home away from home… and these people are my family. I’ve spent so many Thanksgivings and Hanukkahs and birthdays with them. I don’t have solutions for all of the things that are going wrong in the healthcare system, but if you’re in Pittsburgh and something happens to you, and you end up at the Pitt, you can trust that my family is going to take care of your family.”

Robby found himself fighting back tears, just for the video to scroll away automatically and the next one starting. You were following Robby with your camera again, zoomed in on him while nature sounds played.

“Here we see-” You said in your best approximation of David Attenborough. “-a common exhausted, overworked, burnt-out health care worker in his natural habitat.” 

Robby burst out laughing. You panned your camera over to Jack, who was standing next to you. “This is the existential crisis variant of the overworked, burnt-out healthcare worker.”

Jack made a peace sign with his fingers. “I got over the existential crisis.”

“Did you though?”

“Rascal.”

Jack put his hand on Robby’s shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. “She’s doing good.”

“Yeah.” Robby murmured, watching you chase after Jack in a wheelchair. You stood no chance of course. Jack had much more practice than you, but you were laughing, that shrieking high-pitched laugh that was so you and so real and for the first time since the shooting, Robby looked at you and saw the person you were before all of this shit.

But trauma was a conniving, resourceful bitch.

“Are you worried about her getting discharged today?”

Robby shook his head. “Not as much as I’m worried about everything else. She’s been struggling with going outside. Her therapist took her to a store, and she started crying and almost had an anxiety attack.”

“Which isn’t surprising with what she’s gone through, but she’s not ready to give up on her life just because some asshole decided bringing a rifle to school was the solution for all his problems. She handled that shit, brother. Yeah, it didn’t go how she hoped it would, but she used her skills, and she calmed down again and ended up buying a bunch of snacks to bring back to her room, and she'll be stronger for it. She did good. Healing isn’t linear.”

That was the exact same thing Jack’s therapist told Robby during their last session together. A weekly occurrence at this point.

“I know.”

Jack kept staring at him.

Robby sighed. “She wants to go back to school once she’s cleared.”

“Okay.”

Robby glared at Jack. “Okay? It’s not! It’s far from okay, man!”

“She doesn’t want to let this set her back. She wants to graduate with her friends.” Jack shrugged. “She’s starting with half days, right?”

“For now.”

“I think it’s good. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like thinking about her going back to school either, not after what happened, but she deserves to move on. She deserves closure. And she deserves to reclaim the school for herself. She doesn’t want this tragedy and the trauma to win.” Jack slapped Robby on the shoulder and shot him a crooked grin. “Go on, finish up here and take our girl home. I’m sure Robby jr is looking forward to finally sitting on the sofa and forcing you to watch one of her shows again.”

Robby chuckled. “Probably.”

He too was looking forward to it, and to many, many more evenings like that to come…

The End

A/N: Heavy angst incoming :D

I got guns in my head and they won′t go Spirits in my head and they won't

I've been lookin′ at the stars tonight And I think, oh, how I miss that bright sun I′ll be a dreamer 'til the day I die And they say, oh, how the good die young?

But we′re all strange And maybe we don't want to change

- Spirits by The Strumbellas

“Morning.” Jack chirped, far too cheerful for it being seven a.m. and him having just worked a twelve-hour shift on - presumably, but also most probably - three hours of sleep.

Robby merely grunted in response as she stripped off his jacket and reached for his thermos.

“Who pissed in your cereal this morning?”

Determined to drink his coffee while it was still hot, Robby took a large sip, just to scrunch up his nose and almost choke. He forced the scorching hot coffee that’d been desecrated by the violet coffee syrup you used for the cold brewed teas you made at home down, fighting his own gag reflex.

“Ah.” Jack said with a smirk he didn’t even bother to conceal. “Robby jr.”

“Nah, she lost the right to my name.” Robby scowled at the thermos but not without a healthy dose of heartbroken yearning.

There went his only shot at good coffee for the next twelve hours.

Jack took a sniff of it and chuckled. “Coffee-based warfare. She must be pissed, brother. What happened?”

“When,” Robby said after a longsuffering sigh and braced his underarms against the counter, peering up at Jack with tired eyes. “Did it somehow become acceptable to go to school with one’s entire midriff out? Not to mention that it’s against dress code and I can’t be driving up to her school in the middle of the day to pick her up because she earned yet another violation!”

“Urgh, I hate that I can’t find any shirts that aren’t cropped anymore.” Javadi sighed. Mel next to her nodded along eagerly. Jack and Robby turned at the same time, staring the unsuspecting med student down. She looked up, realised she had said that out loud, blushed and scurried away. Mel followed closely behind.

At least those two had enough shame to run and hide when caught eavesdropping, the same could not be said about one Trinity Santos.

“Honestly, power to her. School dress codes are dumb.”

Robby blinked, slowly, like a frog on sedatives as he tried to process Santos’ audacity he might never get used to.

“Be that as it may, I expect my seventeen-year-old daughter to wear more than what’s basically a glorified sports bra to school. Shouldn’t you be finding Cruz and Ellis for handovers? And when did this become a public conversation anyway?”

“Gee, sore spot I guess.” Santos muttered and sauntered off. She had barely even looked up from her tablet the whole time.

Had Robby lost his bite?

Jack watched her leave for a moment before turning back to Robby. “So, I’m guessing you told Robby jr in your usual soft and understanding way to change, and she blew up for no reason?”

“May not have been very soft or understanding.” Robby grunted and pressed his fingers into his temples to ease the whisper of a headache sneaking up on him. That was the last thing he needed today.

“Mhm.” Jack sounded as if he had already expected that answer.

Robby grunted again. He sighed and folded his arms against the counter to hide his face against them. “Nobody warned me a teenager would be worse than the defiant phase of toddlerhood. You didn’t know her then, Jack, but fuck, I wanted to throw the whole kid away and start over.”

“Amen.” Dana murmured with a quiet chuckle. “Raised three of ‘em and still don’t know how I survived it.” She peered at Robby over the brim of her glasses. “And I didn’t have to do it alone.”

Robby bristled. As much as he talked about you, fawning over you and how proud he was of you every damn chance he got, he didn’t speak about that part.

Dana and Jack knew he was a single parent. The rest assumed he and your mum were separated, but not that the sole responsibility of raising you rested on him.

Only Jack knew all the details of your mother walking out on both of you when you were just five. He’d been at work, unaware that his whole life was about to change. Unaware of the irreparable damage being done to you that he would spend the next twelve years scrambling to somehow fix. He was at work, back when Dr Adamson was still with them, before he became department chair, when he wasn’t yet drowning in work and paperwork as he was now. He was still working a lot, too much, but not the way he was now.

Robby went home after a long, gruelling shift, excited to see his family. His chest was lighter then, even when he lost patients, even when everything went to shit. Coming home to you and your mother was the best he had ever experienced, and after growing up without his parents, with only his grandma trying her best, he swore to himself you would not go through that.

He swore to himself you would have a real family, stability - everything he didn’t get. And in the end he could give you none of it.

He unlocked the door and found you, five years old and so small, so young and innocent, but no longer bright-eyed, curled up by the front door with your blanky, sobbing so miserably he was afraid you couldn’t breathe.

He found your mother’s note on the kitchen counter while you sniffled into his shoulder, tiny hands clinging to his filthy scrubs.

I’m sorry, Michael. I just can’t do this anymore.

Robby knew she wasn’t happy. Not exactly. He was trying. He was a good partner! For her, he had been a good partner. Getting groceries after work, cleaning, laundry, taking you to parks and playgrounds and the doctors. He knew what size you wore and what food you liked that week and your vaccination status. He was a good father, a great father, and a good partner, back when he still knew how, but it hadn’t been enough.

Your mother didn’t want children. You weren’t planned, and even though Robby left the decision up to her, and even though she chose to keep you, she never grew into her role as mother.

She regretted not getting out of the car outside the clinic Robby had driven her to the whole five years of your existence.

And then she left. She didn't reach out. She didn't talk to him. She pretended everything was fine until one day she just... disappeared from both of your lives.

She locked the door so you wouldn’t wander away and just walked away, leaving you home alone for nine hours while Robby was at work. The thought of all the things that could have happened to you still made him wake in a cold sweat at night all these years later. What if there had been a fire? You would have been trapped. What if you fell and hit your head?

He would almost call it lucky that all you’d done was cry for hours on end, waiting for your mother to return, terrified and lonely. The show your mother put on before leaving was not nearly enough to keep a five-year-old from realising she was home alone, all alone…

And just like that, Robby had become a single parent without a fucking clue how to navigate any of it.

Not for the first time, Robby wondered whether things would be… easier if you still had a mum. How was he supposed to relate to the daily hurdles, big and small, of being a teenager frighteningly fast on her way to being a young woman?

This felt so much worse than the period disaster…

Jack braced his hands against the counter and leaned forward, chasing eye contact with Robby in that infuriating way of his. He had the habit of stripping him off his defences just by looking at him, and Robby really didn’t need that to happen in the middle of the goddamn ER.

“It’ll be fine, man. You both are stubborn as mules, but no matter how much you clash, it never lasts long, does it? You’ll be out of each other’s hair for the coming twelve hours, that’ll give everyone time to cool down. You’ll see. Pick up some KFC on the way home, and all will be forgiven. This-” He gestured towards the thermos and the ruined coffee within. “-tells me it’ll be okay. Robby jr doesn’t do shit like that to people who pissed her off so bad she doesn’t care about them anymore. She doesn’t waste her energy on them. She did this so you’d think of her every time you take a sip. Remember the time she put neon pink hair dye into my shampoo and curl cream because I ruffled her hair in front of the boy she had a crush on, right before sending her into school?”

“You had pink hair for weeks.”

Jack was grinning, looking as if it was one of the fondest memories he had.

"And I rocked that shit!"

He always loved your mischievous side, ever since he met you when you were just five years old, shy and frightened and shut off in a way you had never been before. Jack somehow managed to get you out of your shell, a little bit more every time you met. Robby had already gotten on well with him then, new to the team and still a little bruised and battered from war, but seeing the way you responded to him was the true kickstart to their friendship.

“No girl wants to be told what to wear by her dad. We’re boring, brother. We’re embarrassing and lame. And she has an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex because she’s a teenager and can’t gauge the full scope of her decisions yet, so lame af Dad sometimes has to step in. She knows this, even if her nervous system in the moment didn’t let her see it. You’ll see, come tonight you’re both sitting on the couch watching one of her shows together - like always.”

Jack slapped Robby on the shoulder and, probably deeming this conversation a job well done, walked away to help an intern who looked like he was about to cry.

Robby did not deem the conversation a job well done.

He fiddled with his phone, staring down at the dark screen between his fingers - his nails filed, oiled, and cuticles trimmed thanks to your inability to watch a show without occupying your hands (manicures were better than those black peel-off face masks that felt like they were skinning him alive at least) - and tried to figure out why the heavy, gnawing pit in his stomach remained.

Jack was right. Your coffee warfare, past fights, and just the overall good relationship you two had (a far better relationship than he’d ever have expected from a father and his teenager daughter, if Robby was being honest - perhaps he had done some things right after all, judging by the late nights you spent huddled together on the sofa, discussing gossip from the Pitt and school with whatever mocktail creation you came up with that day) all pointed towards this just being a fight.

A stupid fight between a daughter who was getting ready to leave the nest, discovering herself, testing boundaries and a father who, perhaps, was a little too willfully ignorant of that impending change, but also saw too much shit every day to not be at least a little overprotective of the one good thing in his life.

And you were.

You were everything.

You were the reason Robby sat on the couch with you after a shift so gut-wrenching, so brutal it left him feeling raw for days to come instead of taking that step off the roof.

You were his greatest joy, his biggest pride, his treasure, his whole world.

Perhaps it was the lesson his grandmother instilled in him, and Robby in turn instilled in you. ‘Never go to bed angry.’ which Robby turned into ‘Never part ways angry’ since he often didn't get to tuck you in at night, and eventually ‘Your parting words may be the last you ever say' because Robby had seen too many parents, spouses, friends - you name it - part ways while angry and wound up reuniting here in the Viewing Room.

No matter how furious Robby was, he never left without saying that he loved you.

Not when you set fire to your curtains with a scented candle and called him at work, all panicked instead of using the fire extinguisher that’s been in the kitchen since you were six! Not when you lied to Jack that Robby allowed you to go dirt biking with him and ended up needing stitches on your chin. Or when you incited Jake to start a secret, rigged betting ring at your middle school with you.

When he had to leave for work, it was always with a ‘I am so angry right now, but I love you, and I will always love you’ as his parting words.

Always.

For seventeen years.

He didn’t say it today.

Robby couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t said it. He went over the morning in his head over and over, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Perhaps it was the exhaustion that still sat deep in his bones after his last shift, exhaustion of a thousand shifts over the years piling higher and higher. Maybe the fact he’d been sleeping worse and worse for weeks now. Stubbornness and pride because you were in the wrong, and maybe, just maybe, after fighting to keep the peace at work for twelve hours every day, he didn’t want to be the one keeping the peace at home too!

You wanted to act and walk around like a grown-up, then perhaps it was fucking time for you to start acting like one too. Maybe if you did, Robby wouldn’t have to be on your ass all the time!

Robby ran his hand over his face and down his beard and unlocked his phone. He was greeted by the wallpaper you’d set up, a picture of you and Robby making faces at the camera during one of the rare occasions he had taken time off work to take you on a trip. Robby opened your chat and pulled up the keyboard, thumb hovering over the screen-

“Dr Robinavitch?”

“Yeah.” Robby locked his screen and shoved the phone into his pocket as he turned around to the expectant R3 waiting for his help.

He was swallowed by the ER after that. Without his coffee, he was in a foul mood, but not yet desperate enough to surrender to the fate of breakroom coffee.

He was getting there though.

Jack stuck around, for one reason or another, Robby wasn’t entirely sure. Jack just… pulled a double sometimes for no reason. He didn't use to while his was still alive.

He wasn’t going to complain, not when the department was already a mess, Gloria hounding him for some paperwork he’d entirely forgotten about and he… well, he missed working with his friend. Was that a crime? With Jack banishing himself to the nightshift, Robby barely got to see him anymore. It had its good sides, sure. You and Jack were spending a lot more time together now, and Robby was glad to know you weren’t hanging out at the apartment all alone all day, or god knows where with your friend, even if he sometimes envied Jack when you sent pictures of the two of you out and about, at your weekly laser tag date or just grabbing lunch after school.

It was doing Jack good too.

About three hours into his shift, Robby’s feet found their way into the break room after all. He poured himself a cup of shitty coffee and slumped down on the sofa, out of view of the little window in the door to catch a moment of quiet and peace - just a moment. He wasn’t asking for much! But at the first sip of coffee he took, coffee that was not brewed from his favourite coffee beans, you were back. A ghost in his mind, or more like a pesky little mosquito.

His mind dragged him back to the drive that morning. How you sat next to him in the passenger seat, stiff and refusing to take your eyes off the road, arms crossed in front of your chest. You’d put on a different shirt under your hoodie - his hoodie, actually - but you were making your displeasure known by refusing to talk.

Driving you to school was never so quiet. It felt… eerie. Wrong. You were always talking, telling him about this and that while Robby understood approximately one out of five words that left your mouth - what was a red flag, and why was your best friend’s boyfriend saying she and you were spending too much time together one? - or you were giving running commentary to some podcast you put on. Or ranting about politics. Robby couldn’t remember being so political at your age. A lot was going to shit around him, but seeing the way you and your peers rose amidst all the shittyness was nothing short of inspiring.

You wore a whistle around your neck. You had ever since ICE made more and more appearances on the streets. Your whole friend group spent an entire weekend handing them out at the mall alongside laminated cards educating people on their rights in different languages. 

He and Jack had been in Jack’s truck in the parking lot keeping watch over you the entire time, just in case some asshole wanted to start some shit - he never told you. You never saw him.

Robby’s hands had been curled tightly around the steering wheel the entire drive, anger and exasperation running hot in his veins. It was a reasonable request, Robby still thought so, to tell you to mind the school’s dress code. It wasn’t even that Robby policed what you wore. If you wanted to wear that skimpy half-shirt when you met your friends, knock yourself out! But you had to learn there was an appropriate and not-appropriate way to conduct yourself at school, and later college, and after that work. School wasn’t a goddamn fashion show!

And he knew pressure on young women was different in this time than it had been when he was young. And he knew some boys at your school were huge assholes. And he knew the manosphere podcast bullshit was doing damage - both to boys and the psyche of girls.

But Robby thought he raised you to be above that kind of shit!

Before Robby knew what he was doing, he had his phone in his hand again, your chat open, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

It was simple.

Two words. Seven letters. One apostrophe.

It should be simple.

I’m sorry.

He could have handled things better, he was sure of it because lately… lately he could be handling everything better. His grandmother spent his whole life trying to teach him to be the bigger person. That it took less effort to be kind than it did to be an asshole. To own up to his mistakes, and you were his daughter. If Robby couldn’t even get over his pride and apologise to you, how were you ever supposed to learn to be the kind of person who can put their pride aside and say I’m sorry. Would you end up learning to accept this behaviour as normal from a future spouse? Was Robby messing you up the same way he was messed up?

You were stubborn and prideful and infuriating sometimes, but really, who was to blame for that?

The speakers calling out a code blue tore him from his ruminating thoughts. His coffee was forgotten instantly. His phone locked and back in his pocket - the words he never typed, never sent still tingling at the tips of his fingers.

The gnawing pit in his stomach remained.

Robby was just leaving the trauma room an hour later when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Faster than usual, and not without Dana noticing the hurried gesture, Robby pulled it out to check the message.

I’m sorry.

Robby slumped against the counter, staring at the phone in his hands, brows furrowing.

He watched the three dots dance under the bubble with your text, and dance- and stop.

The pit in his stomach grew to the size of a fucking boulder.

“Brother?”

Robby hadn’t noticed Jack looking up, nor that he’d been watching Robby stand still and silently stare at his phone for several minutes.

Robby didn’t react. Jack quickly put his tablet back into the charging port and rounded the counter, coming up next to Robby.

“What’s the matter?”

Robby tilted the phone towards him.

“That’s… I mean, that’s good, right?”

Jack didn’t sound convinced. Jack knew you almost as well as Robby. You would not apologise in a text. Not like this.

Something was wrong.

Robby felt physically sick. He barely heard the red telephone ringing. He stared at the screen of his phone and waited for the dancing dots to come back. For you to send the message you’d been typing.

“She’s at school.” Jack murmured next to him. “She probably- she probably just doesn’t have time to- to do her big voice message thing.” He shifted uncomfortably next to Robby. “She’s not even supposed to have her phone, isn’t she? Maybe a teacher-”

“Yeah.” Robby whispered, unconvinced.

“Oh god-”

Both men looked up at the same time, meeting Dana’s horror-stricken, pale face. Her hand trembled when she hung up the red phone. She cleared her throat, trying to find her voice again, something that he, in all his years working with Dana, had never seen.

Robby felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

His grip tightened around his phone.

The feeling of impending doom that had been following him all day crashed into him with enough force to knock the air from his lungs.

I didn’t tell her that I love her.

“We- There’s a school shooting. We don’t know how many injuries to expect but- but we should prepare for the worst.”

“Which school?”

Robby’s voice was tiny compared to the shocked, distraught murmur cutting through the ER, momentarily silencing all background noise.

Dana was still calling out orders, preparing her nursing staff for the expected influx of patients the same way Robby should be doing with his doctors, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t-

He stared down at his phone, at your message in its blue bubble right beneath the meme you sent him last night. He knocked on your door because he didn’t understand it. You were sitting in your bed already, reading the book you picked up from the library earlier when Robby and you went out to buy new gym shoes for you because you had gym class today and of course you forgot to tell him you needed new shoes. You always did-

“Dana.”

The charge nurse did not turn around.

“Dana!” Robby slammed his hand down on the counter. “What school?!”

Dana’s shoulders sank, and Robby knew the answer.

He knew the answer before she opened her mouth.

A picture of you flashed through his mind. You slamming the door of his car and taking a step towards your school. You hesitating, turning around, looking at him through the rolled-down window, waiting.

Waiting for him to say it.

Robby had only gripped the steering wheel tighter, lips pressed into a thin line beneath his beard, and stared at the road ahead of him. Your shoulder sank, just like Dana’s had a moment ago. Sadness flashed across your face for a split-second just to instantly be replaced by renewed rage. You turned on the spot and marched away.

Robby watched you go.

Robby watched you go, knowing he’d made a mistake, but not doing anything to rectify it.

And he drove away. Just like that, he drove away.

I didn’t tell her that I love her.

Robby shook his head. It wasn’t true. If he didn’t accept it then- then it wouldn’t come true-

“Hers.”

The sound that left his lips was that of a wounded animal, raw and bleeding, wrenched from the very depths of his being. His knees gave out under him, and if it weren't for Jack next to him, he would have collapsed on the ground like a puppet whose string had been cut.

Jack barked orders that Robby didn’t hear over the buzzing in his ears. People around him moved, gathering supplies, moving patients, calling in support, and all Robby could do was clutch his phone to his chest, the taste of bile on his tongue and slowly slip to the ground with his back to the nurses’ station.

You almost missed the first shot.

You’d been buried deep in your own thoughts, the hallway pass - a ridiculously big rubber ducky your history teacher found hilarious (he was right, it was iconic, not that you’d admit it) - tucked under your arm as you leaned against the sinks in the girls’ bathroom.

It didn’t sit right with you how you and your dad parted ways that morning. 

Why didn’t he say it?

He always said it!

Had you finally gone too far? Pushed too hard?

You didn’t even really want to wear the stupid shirt! Mira wanted you all to match, including the guys in your group, to make a statement against the stupid, sexist dress code. Robby was going off on you before you had any chance to explain and then… well fuck him. What happened to sorting out your issues like adults? Which he talked about just last week. What about innocent until proven guilty? He made you feel like a stupid little girl who couldn’t be trusted to dress herself, and you- you just closed up. Like a clam deciding this shit wasn’t worth her time.

You got defensive and bitchy and then froze him out, refusing to talk or even look at him. A part of you was pissed because you told him how difficult it was to find a shirt that wasn’t cropped lately. Even sweatshirts! Who wanted a cropped sweatshirt?

What right did you have to feel upset now because he didn’t say I love you after you acted like a bitch?

You hated that you’d have to sit with this pit in your stomach until this evening. You even contemplated visiting him at work after school, but that would probably not go over well, not with how angry he must be if he didn’t even tell you that he loved you.

He always did.

You of course knew that Gloria had been hounding Robby more than usual and budget cuts were affecting the staffing of the ER, which led to him doing more overtime. He’d been barely sleeping since PittFest too, not that he’d ever admit as much to you, but you could hear the TV in his room at night, and you overheard Jack trying to convince your dad to go to therapy more than once.

You knew he was struggling, and you understood it when he was more exhausted or a little less patient than usual with you - but to not say I love you? Over a stupid shirt?

The shot tore through your thoughts.

You flinched and almost dropped your phone you’d pulled out of your pocket as you considered just texting your dad, just clear all this shit up instead of carrying it with you for the rest of the day. It wasn’t worth it. This stupid argument wasn’t worth any of the stomach ache it had given you.

The door to the bathroom was pushed open, and a frantic, harried-looking Mira stumbled in.

“What’s going on?”

Mira flinched so violently at the sound of your voice that you knew, you just knew something terrible had happened. Mira rushed towards you without explaining, hands trembling- was that blood?!

“Shh-” Mira hushed you, one hand pressed to your mouth and dragged you towards the stalls.

“Mira-”

“He’s got a rifle. A fucking rifle!” She hissed through her teeth. Tears were running down her cheeks in thick rivulets, spreading her mascara over her skin.

The words sent a chill down your back. You grabbed Mira’s wrist and got her to climb up on the toilet seat with you.

“We have to lock- lock the-”

“No.” You whispered and shook your head. “We lock it and he knows we’re in here. Just be- just be quiet.”

With trembling hands, you tapped your code into your phone. Your fingers were too sweaty for the sensor to recognise your fingerprint. It always did that in summer, but your father refused to get a newer model for you while this one was still working.

You barely saw the chat with your father through the tears clouding your vision.

I’m sorry.

You’d been so stupid. So silly. You didn’t even want to wear the damn shirt. It was just Mira’s idea to make a point against the dress code, which you knew wouldn’t even work. It would just get you in trouble, and your dad couldn’t come pick you up from school in the middle of the day. And the guys chickened out anyway.

I love you.

The bathroom door hit the wall hard from the force with which it was thrown open. You pressed your hand to Mira’s mouth and forced yourself to be quiet. You pressed your forehead to Mira’s, her trembling arms slung around your shivering body, clutching you as tight as she could. Tears burnt in your eyes. You missed the send button by a hairbreadth, but you didn’t know that. You thought you sent it.

Steps sounded heavy against the tiles, the noise amplified by the tiled room. You heard the mechanical click of the assault rifle. You knew that sound. You knew that kind of weapon. Your godfather Jack took you to a shooting range a few times, something your father didn’t know.

It felt like hours passed, hours of standing there, mere inches away from death, from some person who decided to bring a fucking gun to school and shoot up the place. And not even some stranger, you thought bitterly. It was never a stranger, was it? Or rarely. Too rarely to matter in this moment as you stared at the closed stall door and wondered which of your fellow students had been planning to run fucking amok in your school.

Your school wasn’t the greatest. It was a school. It had shitty lunch and a shitty dress code and some of the teachers acted as if they hated kids but- but it wasn’t awful.

You couldn’t make sense of this.

This couldn’t be real- couldn’t be happening.

The door opened again. Closed again. Silence. Stretching long like taffy, suffocating, drowning. Then - gunshots in the distance.

“Oh my god.” Mira whispered after peeling your hand away from her mouth. “Oh my god!”

“Calm down.” You muttered, panicking yourself but already unlocking your phone again. You closed the chat with your father without looking at it, your brain running on autopilot. 

You dialled 911.

“Fucking reception!” You hissed and, tentatively, fearing an attack despite knowing the attacker had moved on, pushed the door of the stall open. Nothing. The room was empty, aside from the bloody boot prints on the ancient tiles.

You ignored them.

Forced yourself to ignore them.

“Give me a lift.”

Mira, and you really had to hand it to her because she didn’t have a lowkey crazy uncle who liked to use your weekly laser tag date as active shooter drills (he thought you didn’t notice, but you did), managed to gather herself quickly and rushed over to you. With her help, you managed to pull yourself up on the narrow ledge beneath the small window. You cracked it open, back bent at a painful angle to accommodate the ceiling right above you and tried again.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Oh thank god.” You exhaled through your teeth. “My reception is crap, but- fuck, there’s an active shooter at my school. He- he has a rifle- Mira!” You looked down. “What did he wear?”

“What?”

“What did he wear!?”

You passed along Mira’s description to the 911 operator. Jack always said that precise information was the most useful thing a witness could contribute. Anything could become important, and often people held back important details because they thought they were unimportant.

“It was Jeremy.”

“What?”

You stared down at Mira, stunned.

You knew Jeremy.

You caught yourself when the operator said your name, asking whether you were still there.

“Jeremy Connors. The shooter is a boy called Jeremy Connors. But I don’t know whether he is alone.” You gave them his address. You didn’t remember the exact house number since you’d never been at his place, but you figured it was better than nothing, though you weren’t sure how it would be helpful.

“Can- my dad works at PTMC. Dr Robinavitch, and- and my godfather, Jack Abbot, he works there too, but he’s a SWAT medic as well. Can- can someone-” tell them I’m alright, was what you were going to say, before you realised that by the time any message would reach them you might, with increasing probability, not be okay. How many students were killed at the school shooting in Arkansas last week? Three? With ten mortally wounded? How many people were injured during PittFest?

“These things get recorded, right?” You sniffled. “Because- because I had a big fight with my dad this morning and I- I just want to tell him I love him.” You bit back a sob that threatened to choke you off. “I love you, Dad. I love you, Jack- fuck- I’m sorry I was being such a bitch, daddy. I’m not mad at you. I’d never really be mad at you. I love you-”

The line beeped. You wiped away your tears to glance at your phone.

No reception.

“Fuck.”

You jumped down onto the ground and shoved your phone into your pocket before pulling it out again to turn it on silent. Mira did the same.

“You’re bleeding.”

“It’s not mine.” She whispered, sounding hoarse. “Should we- stay here?”

“I- don’t know.”

“He shot Dwayne.” Mira sniffled. “He just- he came out of nowhere and shot him. I ran as fast as I could, but- how could I just leave him there?”

You shook your head. “You did the right thing.”

“He’s probably still lying there! And I left.”

“We-” You licked your lips. Your chest tightened with the thought. It wasn’t wise. You probably shouldn’t. Jack would want you to find a place to hide and wait for the police to arrive. You called 911, now it was time to hide, but you couldn’t.

The thought of Dwayne lying somewhere out there, wounded, maybe already dead-

“I have a- I have a med kit in my locker.” You whispered. You had one in your bag too, but that was still in the history classroom because your teacher didn’t let anyone take it to the bathroom. “Come.” You took Mira’s hand into yours, and together you crept out of the bathroom. The bloody boot prints led away from the bathroom and in the opposite direction of your locker.

“He’s heading deeper into the school.” You whispered to nobody in particular. “Probably the cafeteria.”

Anything the shooter drills the school did every once in a while tried to teach you was gone, evaporated from your brain the second you realised what Mira’s terrified expression meant. You weren’t supposed to be running around in the hallway, you thought, very distantly and not for very long, not when there was someone bleeding out and needing medical attention.

Were you medical attention? Barely, but you watched all seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs and ER, your father and godfather were emergency physicians, and you practically grew up at PTMC after your mother abandoned you.

You knew how to stop some bleeding.

In theory. 

You thought you could stop some bleeding, in theory.

You miraculously reached your locker and peeled the med kit out from under your books. You closed the door of your locker as quietly as you could and turned-

“That’s Jeremy’s locker, isn’t it?”

Mira followed your gaze.

“I think.”

You bit your bottom lip, contemplating for a moment.

“Give me a bobby pin.” You were already on the way towards the locker in question. Mira, the true ride-or-die that she was, handed you the pin without asking questions. You picked Jeremy’s lock with relative ease - thanks to Jack - and inhaled a sharp breath when you opened the door.

“Knew it.”

“Is that-”

“Ammunition.” You nodded. “Help me get that shit out. We’ll- fuck it, we’ll put it in my locker. Just- just away from him. Let him run out, right?” You glanced at Mira, hoping for an answer that would put your own anxiety at ease.

“He probably has more on him.” She whispered. “He always wears those hoodies with the big pockets.”

“Yeah, but- we can’t leave this here?”

As quickly and as silently as you could, you gathered the boxes of ammunition and brought them over to your locker. It felt illegal to put so much ammunition into your (however technical) possession, no matter how good your intentions were.

“Is that a gun?”

Mira whisper-called from Jemery’s locker. You joined her.

“Yep.” You picked up the handgun and checked the magazine. “Probably a back-up or something.” You put on the safety and shoved it into the waistband of your trousers.

Mira hissed your name. “Are you insane?”

“No. But my godfather is.” You closed Jeremy’s locker. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You can’t take that!”

“Why not? Why should he be the only one who gets to shoot at us?!”

Mira looked like she wanted to argue, but you were already making your way down the hall, following the bloody trail, med kit clutched in your hand. She ran to catch up with you.

“Do you even know how to use that thing?”

“Yep.” You let the p pop. “Told you Uncle Jack is lowkey insane.”

“Does your dad know?”

You emitted a nervous chuckle. “God, if my dad knew everything I do, I’d already be grounded until I’m sixty.”

Despite your casual conversation, both you and Mira were hypervigilant of your surroundings. Mira used her handmirror to peer around corners ("What? Saw that in a movie"), and your hand never strayed far from the handgun digging into the small of your back. You weren’t sure whether you’d actually be capable of shooting at another person, but that gnawing pit in your stomach was at least slightly eased by its presence.

“Dwayne!” Mira hissed through her teeth and, forgetting all previous caution, ran towards the closed door a thick trail of blood led to.

“It’s us.” You said, knocking softly against the door. The curtain covering the window in the door was pulled back, revealing Oliver’s terrified, pale face. You waved. The faint click of the door echoed through the silent hallway, and you were ushered inside.

While Mira and Oliver worked to block the door again, you rushed towards Dwayne, who sat in a corner of the room, pallid, trembling, so very weak.

Your eyes roamed over him quickly, assessing his state as best as you could. Your head felt as though wrapped in cotton. It was difficult to reach through the fog and find the information you needed, but you knew it was there. Pounded into you by your father and Jack and growing up in the ER. 

You knew your first aid.

“Okay.” You murmured and wiped the back of your hand across your forehead. “Come on, Jack doesn’t call you Robby jr for nothing. Come on…” You grabbed your med kit and quickly slipped on gloves before searching the depths of the once-organised kit for some gauze. Hemostatic gauze specifically.

Dwayne’s lips and fingertips were already turning blue, you realised with increasing panic. His breathing was shallow and strained. His skin was cold and clammy, and he was barely conscious at this point.

“He’s in shock, I think-”

“You think?” Mira squeaked.

“I’m not a paramedic!” You hissed back. “Here, put this in his mouth.” You gestured towards a thick wooden ruler. “Oliver, hold him down. His shoulders aren’t injured, dunce! Hold him down. This’ll hurt like a motherfucker.”

You loosened Dwayne’s belts and any other tight clothing before grabbing a pair of safety shears from the kit to cut open the hole the bullet tore through his pant leg. Beneath lay the gunshot wound, deceptively small but bleeding continuously.

“The bullet is still in, but I can’t do anything about that.” You whispered, more to yourself than your friends. You knew you had to keep a clear head now or Dwayne would not make it to the hospital. Who knew when police would arrive. How much time had passed since you made your call? What was the response time for these things? You thought to remember reading once that it was 20 minutes, but was that applicable to downtown Pittsburgh too?

You ripped open the gauze package and started pushing the gauze bit by bit deep into the gushing wound with your fingers. Mira wrinkled her nose and looked away.

“Shouldn’t we- I don’t know, put his belt around his thigh or something?”

“A tourniquet?” You muttered. “Do you know how to safely use a tourniquet? Because I sure as fuck don’t, and I think this is way too far up anyway. This gauze is hemostatic, don’t ask me what that means, but it helps with clotting or something.”

Dwayne groaned softly and tried to move away from what you imagined must be excruciating pain, having someone shove gauze into an open gunshot wound without any meds, but Oliver did as you had told him and kept his hands firmly on Dwayne’s shoulders, keeping him from twisting out of your grasp.

“There.” You wrapped a bandage around his thigh, over his pants and over the packed wound, before pressing your palms down on the now covered wound to wait for the clotting agents to - hopefully - do their job. “Can you get the sharpie from my kit, please? Don’t worry, I think Dwayne is unconscious.”

“Is that bad?”

You shrugged. “He can’t feel the pain now?” You took the pen and wrote down how much gauze you used. You pressed your fingers into his neck and stared at the watch by the door while counting his heartbeats. You wrote his heart rate down on his leg as well, next to the current time.

“He’s lost a lot of blood.” Mira whimpered.

“It’s difficult to estimate liquids on the ground. It’s probably not as much as we’re thinking.” You didn’t even convince yourself with that one. “Fuck.”

“Jeremy blocked the doors.” Oliver said. “I was hiding in here after he hit Dwayne. Saw him do it.”

“What did he use?”

Oliver shrugged. “Mostly zipties, I think. And bike locks.”

“One with numbers? Or a key?”

“Key, I think.”

You and Mira exchanged a look.

“You’re crazy. We’re never gonna make it!”

“We have no idea how long it’ll take the police to start their sweep! If Jeremy locked all entrances or if he’s taken hostages, it could be hours, you do realise that, right?”

“This isn’t happening-” Oliver muttered, burying his face in his hands and smearing blood onto his cheek in doing so. “You were hanging out with him, why didn’t you realise this-”

“Oh, it’s my fault he’s shooting up the fucking place?” You hissed. “I barely hung out with him! I- fuck, I took pity on him, okay? He’s always alone and kinda weird, I figured- jesus, I figured he was autistic or something and people just couldn’t handle it. I was just being nice! And no! I didn’t realise he was going to do this. He barely even fucking talked to me.”

You thought you were extending a helping hand to some loner, some bullied kid the whole school had already forgotten about. You didn’t like seeing him sit all by himself every lunch and recess. He looked sad. So you- you just started sitting next to him. You tried talking to him, not that he ever replied much. He didn’t leave either, or told you to fuck off, so you figured he didn’t mind? Dwayne, Oliver and Mira eventually started to join you because they were tired of you always missing from their conversations.

You never thought being nice to the weird kid would end with this…

“Dwayne can’t wait for help.” You decided as you fumbled with the packaging of an emergency blanket. 

“I’ll go check if the coast is clear.”

You left, instructing Mira to lock the door behind you. You crept along the deserted hallway, blood pounding in your ear, Dwayne’s blood sticky against your bare legs.

You found the closest door. Oliver had been right, though the bicycle lock was one of those cheap ones and easy enough to pick. You cut the zip ties with your emergency shears.

Time acted strange, warping and shifting around you. The way to the doors had felt like it stretched on forever, but the way back was over within the blink of an eye.

Dwayne wrapped in the thin, silvery film of the emergency blanket, you and Dwayne all but carried him to the door. You heard sirens in the distance, and relief washed over you.

One foot already out of the door, you stopped.

Oliver whispered your name. His panicked eyes flicked from you to the dark hallway behind you. “Come on!”

“I-” Your mouth felt dry. Shots and screams echoed behind you, had for the whole time it took to scout the hallway and then bring Dwayne here.

It was how you knew Jeremy wasn’t anywhere near you.

“I can’t.” Your voice came out small and pained. You winced at your own words, even as you felt them reverberate through your chest and heart.

“What the fuck do you mean, you can’t?!” Oliver snarled. “There’s a fucking shooter in there! He isn’t going to care that you offered him some chips during lunch!”

“Who knows how long it’ll take them to go in? What if- what if more people are hurt?”

“And what- you are the only one who can save them? Are you shitting me?”

You licked your lips and gave a small shrug. “Who else is there? Look- you go. Take Dwayne, get him help, but- but I can’t leave.”

“You’re insane.”

“Yeah.” You sighed, because he was right. Common sense was screaming at you to run, to save yourself and never look back, but you’d watched your whole life as the two most important adults in your life threw themselves into madness over and over to save lives.

How could you walk away now?

“If you’re staying, so am I.” Mira stepped forward. She interlaced her fingers with yours and did her best to put on a brave face.

Oliver shook his head slowly. “I don’t know whether you guys are dumb or hella fucking brave.”

You shrugged again, grip tightening around Mira’s hand. “Depends on whether we survive this, I guess.”

The chaos of the Pitt was different today.

A collectively held breath pressing in on all sides. Tensed, as if waiting for the first punch to land but not knowing when or how hard it would.

Nobody knew how many patients to expect. One or two? Or another PittFest? How many shooters were in the school? The school was on lockdown and surrounded by police forces, but information was scarce.

Robby could not take his eyes off the TV playing the new broadcast. A helicopter shot footage from above. There was no audio, but his head supplied the gunshots all on its own. Somewhere in there were you. Somewhere in that building he drove you to for years, you were fighting for your life.

And Robby wasn’t there.

He couldn’t do anything. He felt like the greatest fucking failure. Wasn’t a father supposed to protect his child? Not that Robby knew much about fathers…

He thought he knew how to be your father. He thought he had done a decent job at it, for the most part. You were the only thing besides his work here that still mattered in his life. The only good thing. The only thing Robby ever even left the hospital, because he knew you’d be waiting for him at home, eager to tell him the latest school gossip or internet drama.

But, he supposed, he was always bound to mess it up.

Everything he touched caught fire sooner or later, and Robby had never had a woman in his life who wasn’t worse off after having the misfortune of being important to him.

His mother, his grandmother, your mother, Janey, Heather… even Mohan he had managed to fuck over…

“My SWAT commander just called me.” Jack said softly, stepping up next to Robby. “Robby jr called 911.”

Robby inhaled a sharp breath.

“Shortly after texting you. She was in the bathroom at the time the shooting started.”

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, hard. White spots danced before his closed lids. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t right. She should be in a classroom that could be locked down. She should be in a school that was safe! She should never have had to partake in a goddamn active shooter drill just to get her education, much less be dragged into an actual shooting!

“He told me she was with a friend. She- Robby she left a message. She said she loves you, and that she’s not mad. That she’s sorry.” 

Tears crept past Robby’s hands and rolled down his cheeks, disappearing in his beard. You used to find it hilarious to pull and tug on it when you were little… He felt the sudden, overwhelming desire to shave it off. To be rid of every reminder of your affection, remove you before the world could take you because if he had some semblance of control over the decision, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

“She gave a description of the shooter and even his home address. She did really well.”

“Don’t you dare.” Robby hissed through his teeth.

“She is a smart girl, brother. She’ll-”

“What?!” Robby snapped, swirling around to stare at his best friend he could not recognise at this moment. Was he truly standing there and telling him you would be fine?! “Last I checked, bullets don’t give a rat’s ass about how smart someone is! This is going to scar her, Jack! Even if she miraculously makes it out physically perfectly fine, she’ll be scarred for life!”

“Losing ourselves in worst-case scenarios isn’t going to help her.” Jack said with infuriating calmness. It pissed Robby off all the more. His daughter, his little girl, was trapped in a building with a monster who wanted to maim and kill as many as he could before cowardly ending his own life - optimism felt like a fucking slap in the face.

“Easy to say about another man’s child, isn’t it?” Venom dripped off every word. That finally cut through Jack’s iron composure that had once been forged in desert dust, IED explosions and bullet rainstorms.

“She’s my goddaughter. You made her my goddaughter, Robby. She isn’t mine, but I love her as if she were. Don’t stand there and pretend that isn’t true. That this isn’t tearing me apart just like it does you.”

Robby knew he’d gone too far, just like this morning, but he couldn’t stop.

“What the fuck are you even still doing here?!” His voice boomed through the department. It enraged Robby how much everyone was moving like this was just another day, just another fire waiting to be put out. How they were tiptoing past him like he was a loose canon they were afraid of setting off and not a father experiencing the worst pain he’d ever felt. 

“If you insist on being a fucking self-martyr with your goddamn SWAT hobby, at least make yourself fucking useful and save my daughter!”

“I am leaving.” Jack said softly. “As soon as Al-Hashimi is here.”

Robby scoffed. “You think I can’t take care of my department without a babysitter?”

“Not right now, you can’t. You shouldn’t be here, Robby.”

"Where else am I going to be?” Robby whispered, rage and hurt and terror deflating, leaving behind an empty shell, exhaustion and deep, gut-wrenching fear. “My baby is out there-” His voice broke.

“I know.” Jack put his hand on Robby’s shoulder and ducked to catch his gaze. “And we’ll get her back, brother. We will. Losing faith now solves nothing.”

“I told her-” Robby inhaled a trembling breath. It stung in his throat, burning with the aftershock of the words he hurled at you this morning with such unjustified anger. It was just a shirt. 

Just a stupid fucking shirt! 

Robby grasped at Jack’s arm as if that would stop him drowning. As if anything could right now while those words played in his head on a loop, followed by the expression on your face. The anger, the disgust, the pain.

“I told her she’s just like her mother.”

Robby tilted forward precariously, colliding with Jack who stood firm and unmoving, even as Robby’s arms curled around him, hands grasping helplessly at his scrub top. He sobbed, suffocated, broken wails filling up his throat until he couldn’t breathe.

“The last thing I said to her- I don’t why I said it- I didn’t even fucking mean it.”

“She knows that.” Jack soothed, holding Robby. “She said she’s not mad. She loves you, Robby. She’ll be fine. Come on, brother. Your kid is one tough nut.”

“GSW to the upper thigh, two minutes out.” Dana called over to them. 

Robby bristled. How many gunshot wounds had he treated in his career? More than he could ever begin to recall, though every single one treated in the Pitt during PittFest would be forever seared into his brain.

This was worse.

“Do we know-?” 

Dana didn’t need him to finish.

“Male, seventeen. That’s all I know.”

He nodded weakly. He felt awful for even having asked. As if a patient that was not his daughter was any less of a fucking tragedy. He kept thinking about Jake and his girlfriend. Kept thinking how he couldn’t save her and the almost debilitating fear he felt knowing Jake was at PittFest all alone, when Robby had been supposed to be there with him.

Why was this worse?

It shouldn’t be.

Was he a horrible man? That the threat to the life of his daughter terrified him more than the threat to his quasi-son had?

He raised Jake for several years and stayed a fixture in his life even after the breakup with Janey. Robby just never managed to commit to a woman the way he’d committed to your mother again; Janey came closest to it though. You and Jake were as close as siblings. He used to come over every Sunday for basketball well after the separation, while you usually went out with friends or planned something with Jack. 

Robby had been afraid you could be jealous to share your dad with another kid, but you just shrugged it off.

Janey would do the same for you in a heartbeat, and Jake would ‘share’ his mother with you just the same, without hesitation or jealousy, but you just never managed to trust another female caregiver figure again. 

In school, you’d always been wary of female teachers, especially the passionate, devoted kind every other kid adored. It had taken years for you to be at ease around Dana again, and perhaps you only managed that because you’d known her before. Before your mother left.

Whenever you came into the Pitt to do your homework in the break room or drop off some baked goods when you were experimenting with recipes again, you did your best to avoid Baran. You were cordial with Perlah and Princess, but you’d never be more. You didn’t get along with Santos at all. Whenever you two were in a room together for too long, it ended in disaster. 

Something about her personality and your trauma just didn’t mix.

Out of all the residents, you got along best with Mel. Perhaps that wasn’t surprising. Everyone got along with Mel.

“You should be sitting this one out, brother.” Jack muttered as he fiddled with his safety goggles. “Nobody would think less of you.”

Robby sniffed, arm tightly crossed in front of his chest, swaying restlessly on the spot. “I have to do something. I can’t- I’ll lose my damn mind if I just sit around.”

The ambulance bay doors opened. The brief moment of silence crumbled under the calls of the EMTs and the stench of blood and panic.

“Male, seventeen, GSW to the right upper thigh. Reported signs of beginning shock, but his condition has been stable since he’s been with us. First aid was administered on scene by another student.”

“Oliver?” Robby had noticed the blood-stained boy trailing behind the EMTs.

“It’s Dwayne.” He sniffled. “Jeremy just fucking started shooting at him out of nowhere. And- and- she- she patched him up and picked a lock so we’d get out-”

“Where is she?” Robby craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the ambulance bay, waiting for you to stumble in and crack one of your jokes you always used as a shield against all the heavy shit of the world. 

But you didn’t come.

Maybe you never would again…

Oliver swayed precariously, and Robby reached out to hold the trembling boy by the shoulders to steady him. The shock of the day clung to him like a thick, heavy cloak.

A weight far too heavy for such a young man to carry.

He knew Oliver. He knew him well. Robby knew his parents and his pizza order. He could recognise his shoes when they were blocking his door when Robby came home after a long shift just to find you, Oliver, Dwayne and Mira lounging on his sofa, your homework long forgotten. He was a good friend. The kind of friend a father would want for his daughter. He picked you up at the door when the whole group went out and made sure handsy guys stayed away from you. Once you’d gotten shitfaced at a house party and Oliver called Robby. He stayed with you by the curb and didn’t leave your side until you were strapped into the seat next to Robby.

“I told her to come with us!”

Jack reappeared at Robby’s side. Robby barely noticed.

“But- but she said she couldn’t.” Oliver wiped his snotty nose with the back of his hand. “That she had to stay and help the others who got shot. There were so many shots. Just- the entire time. In the background. Bang bang bang- and screaming- she- she stopped the bleeding. Said she used something- hemo-something and just shoved it in.”

“Hemostatic? Did she use hemostatic gauze?” Jack asked.

Oliver nodded weakly. “Said it would help clotting. Will Dwayne be okay?”

“We gave him blood, and now he’s going straight up to the OR. He’s in good hands.”

Jack gestured for Perlah, who swooped in with a warmed blanket she put around Oliver’s shoulders before gently pulling him away to get checked over by Whitaker.

“She could have left…” Robby murmured, hands trembling again now that there was no patient to focus on. “She could have gotten out, but she went back in.”

“I call her Robby jr for a reason.” Jack replied dryly, earning a glare from Robby. Jack shrugged. “You’re not known for turning your back on people who need help, brother.”

“I am not one to run towards bullets!”

“Yeah.” Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and shot Robby an apologetic look. “I might not set the best example there.”

“Stupid.” Robby hissed under his breath and crossed his arms again. “Stupid, brave- wonderful girl. Fuck! Why- why can’t she just have some common sense?”

“She has plenty of that, brother. But she also has your heart.”

“I wish she didn’t.” Robby whispered, because when had his stupid, ever-bleeding heart ever not brought him pain?

Yes, you were just like him, and most days… most days Robby tried to figure out how he could ever ask your forgiveness for that, because Robby could not think of a worse fate than to be Robby jr.

Jack never told you that the worst part wasn't the bullets or the screams.

It was the silence.

Silence so consuming it felt like it was a living, breathing thing. A creature born of terror and darkness that knew nothing but to feed to stay alive. Feed on your resolve, your hope, the very essence of your person.

It was deafening, stretching on and on and on until you thought it was finally over, just to be interrupted by a new wave of bullets and screams.

Mira was clutching your hand as tightly as you were hers. The cuffs of her blouse were stained pink from blood, the same blood that coated the bare skin of your legs. You wished you had put on a pair of jeans instead of these shorts, just so you would have to feel it.

The situation seemed to grow more bleak by the second. You could hear the sirens outside and helicopters whirring above. Occasionally the light of the police cars and spotlights fell through the windows, but it felt distant and cold.

You’d patched up four more kids with Mira’s help. Two terrified freshmen, one junior and another one of your classmates. Every deserted hallway you carefully made your way through was littered with bullet holes. In the walls and the lockers, bullets stuck in the bulletproof glass in the doors… 

You wondered whether Jeremy had already noticed he had no backup ammunition…

You still could not wrap your head around any of this. Jeremy was quiet and weird, and at this point it was almost a meme that the weird loner kid was secretly a psychopath, but Jeremy?

He never even made a strange comment that would reveal something darker, more sinister lurking under the surface.

What could drive a person to do something so horrible?

You had a couple of teachers try to make you stay with them and their class, stay behind a locked door, hidden from sight, and a part of you wanted to do nothing more than that. Just… find a blanket and hide under it like you did when you were five years old, and you were still waiting for your mother to come home, but you couldn’t.

How would you ever live with yourself if people died here today and you hadn’t tried what you could to help?

You weren’t an idiot. You knew your fragmented knowledge of medical emergency measures would not guarantee anyone made it out of here alive, but to stop bleeding was better than to not stop bleeding! You could pack a wound. Robby and Jack showed you how and let you practise on the training mannequins the hospital had for the interns and residents when you were stuck at the hospital and bored out of your mind. You knew the signs of shock and what to do until paramedics arrived. You knew more than your classmates and probably more than most teachers, so did you not owe it to them and their families and yourself to try?

You hoped Dwayne was okay.

“Why aren’t they coming in?” Mira whispered next to you, glancing at the flashing blue and red lights filtering into the hallway. “Aren’t they- I don’t know, supposed to come in? Engage the shooter as quickly as possible?”

You shrugged. You really had no idea what the protocol for these things was. “If he’s taken hostages, they wouldn’t, right? Like… to not put them in danger? Hostage situations take forever, Uncle Jack said that once.”

“Do you think he has?”

“I don’t know?! How would I know?”

“Don’t snap at me!”

“Sorry.”

You kept walking. There hadn’t been another shot fired in a while. You wanted to feel relieved, but something in you couldn’t let go of that tension, that anticipation.

You bit back a laugh. Mira looked at you as if you’d lost your mind.

“I just realised we’re just like Yang and Mer in that episode of Grey’s Anatomy with the shooter. Where they just causally stroll through the locked-down hospital.”

“Oh my god, you’re right.”

“And Derek finds them and can’t believe they thought it was just a drill.”

“I feel like that’s exactly how your dad is going to react.”

You winced. “And Uncle Jack… though… yeah, no. Not Uncle Jack. He’s more likely to give us a high-five.”

“He’s such a bad role model.”

“The worst.” You couldn’t help the smirk sneaking onto your lips despite everything.

Both of you fell silent the moment you saw the thick, bloody drag mark leading towards the cafeteria. 

Faint noises grew louder the further you followed the bloody trail. You crept forward slowly, staying pressed against the wall and out of sight. Through the windows set into the cafeteria doors, you watched movement - Jeremy, pacing frantically. He looked unstable, physically. He was swaying and muttering to himself, clenching and unclenching his hands around the rifle strapped to his chest. Unraveling.

That’s not good, you thought, biting your bottom lip bloody.

“That’s why they aren’t coming in.” You whispered and nodded towards the injured pair of police officers sitting slumped against one of the tables.

“Fuck…”

Your principal knelt in front of Jeremy. His hands had been tied behind his back with zip ties. Duct tape covered his mouth. He was bleeding heavily from a wound on his forehead.

“No.” Mira hissed, already realising what had gone through your head. "Absolutely not. Do you have a death wish?”

But any chance to make a decision was taken from you when Jeremy suddenly swirled around and spotted you just as you tried to duck and hide from his gaze.

He called your name and pointed his rifle at the principal.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

An ice-cold shudder ran down your back.

You subtly made sure your hoodie - your dad’s hoodie - concealed the gun still pressing into the small of your back and gripped your medkit tighter, stepping forward and into the cafeteria.

The stench of iron bit into your nostrils.

“You!” Jeremy hissed at Mira. “Get over there.” He gestured towards a cowering group of students, lunch staff and teachers in a corner with the muzzle of his rifle.

You peered at Mira and nodded, lifting your hands to make yourself seem like you weren’t a threat. You were a meek, compliant, submissive little thing. You didn’t have a gun in your waistband. Nope.

“Jeremy, what are you doing?”

You could tell the fact that the school was surrounded by police and the constant assault of sirens was stressing him out. Whatever his plan had been, it had gone off the rails a long time ago. He now was nothing more than a wild animal pushed into a corner about to consider chewing his own limb off to escape.

“They deserve it.” He spat. “My brother went to this school. Did you know that? Five years ago.” Jeremy swirled around, shoving his rifle into the principal’s face again, who flinched. “He killed himself! He died because of you! Because you didn’t stop them! All you had to do was do your job and stop the people tormenting him every fucking day!”

Your principal flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. A muffled whimper made it through the tape stuck over his mouth.

“Jeremy.” You said, keeping your voice soft and soothing, the same way you’d heard your father comfort frantic patients moments away from becoming violent. Jeremy glanced at you from the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry about your brother. That’s horrible.”

Jeremy’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Whatever determination and thirst for revenge had led him at first, it was quickly waning, replaced by the reality of what he had done and the fear the police presence outside struck into his heart.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone else. Just him.”

Liar, you thought, remembering well the weight of ammunition in your hands as you removed it from his locker. Why bring so much fucking ammunition when all you wanted was to kill a single person?

If this was about revenge, about the place he blamed for the loss of his brother, then he wanted the entire school, the whole staff and county to feel the same pain he had been in.

“Of course.” You said anyway. “You’re a good person.”

“I knew you’d understand.” Jeremy muttered and resumed his pacing. “You’re the only one- the only one here who understands.”

Not that he ever truly spoke to you. Is this what you get for trying to make the weird loner kid feel included? Ending up at the centre of some nutjob’s delusion?

“This is very scary, Jeremy. Can you put the gun down?”

He whirled around, raising his rifle and pointing it at you. You felt all warmth leaving your body, blood freezing in your veins, breath stopping-

The principal screamed behind his gag. Mira emitted a panicked shriek somewhere behind you. Shock and fear rippled through the assembled group of hostages.

You kept your hands lifted, your posture submissive, but you let the fear show on your face.

“Jer?”

Jeremy blinked. As though in a trance, he lowered his weapon. “I wouldn’t hurt you.” He said it with a scoff, as if it was ridiculous you’d even think he would.

You looked at the police officers. “May I help them, Jer?”

Submissive, meek, cooperative, non-judgemental.

“They’re going to go easier on you if you let me. You’re a good man. You don’t want to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it, I know you don’t. Please? I don’t want them to hurt you because they are too stupid to see that.”

Jeremy gave you a tight nod after a moment of consideration. Without taking your eyes off him, you walked towards the police officers. You knelt down on the bloody ground and opened your med kit with trembling hands.

One of them was dead.

Jeremy watched you. He realised it the same moment you did. When your trembling fingers left his clammy, cold neck where no pulse thrummed beneath his skin to still the bleeding of the second officer.

Jeremy pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and cursed, pacing even more frantically than before. 

The second officer had been hit on the neck. A grazing shot that luckily missed all major arteries, but he’d been sitting here for a long time and lost a lot of blood. You gave the officer a tight-lipped smile and opened one of your last packs of gauze to press to his neck wound.

“What’s your plan, Jeremy?” You asked after a while of silence, only interrupted by fearful whimpering, the sound of his boots against the ground and the sirens outside. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t.”

“If you go out now, unarmed, and with your arms raised, they aren’t going to shoot you.”

“Shut up, you dumb bitch!” Jeremy snarled. “You don’t know shit! I’m not making it out of here- I-” He stomped over to the principal and pressed the muzzle of his rifle against his forehead. He stared down at him, finger curling around the trigger-

Jeremy screamed, pent up and frustrated, and dropped his rifle against his chest before stalking away again, resuming his pacing.

It’s easier to shoot at running kids than execute a grown man, huh, you thought bitterly while bringing the officer’s hand to his neck to hold the gauze in place himself. He tried to grab your wrist and shake his hand, but you were already on the move.

“You can still make it out of here alive.” You said softly, keeping a deliberate distance from Jeremy. He was wearing tactical gear. Shooting him with a handgun, even from close range, would not slow him down enough. The impact of bullets on body armour still left bruises at the very least, or even broken bones, but he had his rifle strapped to his chest. Unless you aimed for his head, and miraculously hit, you couldn’t stop him.

And you couldn’t shoot somebody point-blank in the head.

Not even Jeremy, who had the object of his full hatred kneeling at his feet, after shooting down countless people, could do that.

“I don’t want you to die, Jeremy. Your mom already lost one son…”

Oh, you were not the only one with mommy issues in the room.

You realised your mistake right away, but the words had already left your mouth, and you could not stop them or take them back. Jeremy’s eyes grew hard and cold. He made two steps towards you, drawing himself up to his full height and glared down at you with all the hatred of a starved, abused, radicalised animal.

“And what would you know about mothers, huh? What makes you think mine is any better than all of them, huh?! Fucking kike bitch.”

Your jaw set, nostrils flaring as you tried to contain your rage. Your star of David necklace you inherited from your great-grandmother burnt against your sternum. It was part of a set. Its twin had been proudly worn by your great-grandfather for many, many years and now hung around your father’s neck.

You saw movement from the corner of your eye. Men in tactical gear, closing in on the cafeteria. Panic and rage surged alike inside you.

Jeremy was spiralling. He was losing it, and if the SWAT team moved in now, he’d start shooting blindly. And there were so many civilians around. Would they return fire?

Your body moved before your mind could catch up with the situation.

You punched Jeremy - square in the face, using every bit of momentum you could get to generate force and smashed his nose in, just the way Jack taught you how. 

The slur he hurled at you after you’d done nothing but be nice to him all year still had your blood boiling. You grabbed his shoulders and buried your knee in his groin. Jeremy went down with a muffled groan. You were on top of him immediately, pushing him to the ground with the weight of your body. You reached behind you, drawing the gun to shove it in his face and keep him down or- something.

You had no idea what you were doing!

Your body was running on instincts, survival and primal fear.

Jeremy recovered much faster than you anticipated. He grinned at you with blood-smeared teeth.

“You’re not going to shoot me.” He hissed and, proving his words right, tried to grab the gun from you.

The problem was that you wanted to live - and Jeremy only cared about not dying before killing the principal.

You grappled for the gun. SWAT stormed the cafeteria. Shots were fired. You scrambled to get away, but Jeremy already reached out to grab you. He dragged you to your feet with him and pressed the muzzle of the handgun against your temple.

Your eyes met Jack’s across the room.

He was covered from head to toe in tactical gear, and between the mask and helmet, only his eyes were really visible, but you knew those eyes.

He stared at you intently, then, lifted his fist to stall the team. He nodded at you, once, and you knew what to do.

You widened your stance, took a steadying breath and grabbed the barrel of the gun to yank it away from your head as quickly as you could, catching Jeremy by surprise and breaking his grip on the handle. He tried to reach for the gun, but you grabbed his wrist with your free hand and slammed your elbow into his face. You scrambled away. Jeremy went after you.

Jack fired five shots, each one hitting Jeremy square in the chest. He collapsed.

It was almost comical.

As if someone had dropped a fabric doll from a set of stairs.

How could something so menacing stop being terrifying from one second to the next?

With trembling fingers, you removed the magazine and ejected the bullet from the chamber before dropping everything to the ground.

You didn’t want that thing in your hand. 

You never wanted it in your hand in the first place.

You became painfully aware of all the drying blood clinging to your skin and clothes. Your father’s hoodie you’d stolen and not taken off despite your fight now ruined. Maybe he knew some tricks to clean it. He got blood on his clothes all the time despite the PPE. Sometimes there wasn’t time for PPE. Maybe Dana would know something…

A shuddering, painful sob tore through your throat, a sob you’d been holding back all day, pushing the trauma and fear to the very back of your head and ignoring all the physical symptoms in favour of helping other people.

Controlled chaos erupted around you. SWAT members helped carry the injured officer out and free the principal from the tape and zip ties. The terrified hostages were led outside. Jeremy was searched for weapons.

You stood in the cafeteria, the same place you sat in with your friends for years, complaining about the food and cracking jokes. The usual loud atmosphere of lighthearted jokes and animated chattering was now forever replaced by the sounds of bullets, shouts and screams - and the stench of blood.

You didn’t know if Jeremy was still alive as you stared at his unmoving body. 

A part of you didn’t care. Another, meeker, almost ashamed part of you, the part that had honestly tried to help a lonely, excluded boy feel less alone, did care. It cared a lot, despite everything he had done and everything that had happened. 

You could not consolidate either part with the other.

“Hey, Robby jr.” Jack secured his weapon and stepped up to you. He brushed a strand of sweaty hair out of your face. Finally, the tension coiled tightly around you since Mira stormed into the bathroom, covered in blood, evaporated. You sagged against Jack. He caught you with ease, keeping you upright.

I’m so glad to see you, you opened your mouth to say, your brain already having sent the order to your tongue and lips, but only a gargled noise made it out.

Blood trickled down your chin.

You watched Jack’s face shift from relief to utter terror. The strength in your legs disappeared. You were dragged down by the earth’s gravity. Pain exploded through your insides, dragging a groan to your lips that was accompanied by the taste of old, rusted iron.

Jack was calling your name, but it sounded distant. As if someone had stuffed cotton into your ears.

You felt his hands on you, tearing down the zipper of your ruined hoodie that had been concealing the blood spreading across your stomach fully.

Adrenaline truly was a remarkable thing… your brain mused as it was already powering down.

You hadn’t felt it… three gunshot wounds tearing through your insides, and you hadn’t felt them until you were safe in Jack’s arms…

Next Part