Fic: Remebering Priorities; Tim Drake/Cissie King-Jones; Rish; Part: 4/4
Title: Remembering Priorities
Series: Priorities
Author: Aravis Tarkheena
Pairing: Tim Drake/Cissie King-Jones
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, sex, angst
Disclaimer: Not mine, everyone's legal
Word Count: 19,000/19,000
Author's Notes: For lady_sarai. FINALLY done. <3
Index Post
Part Four
The window was slightly ajar when Tim arrived. Tim tightened his fist on the jump line he had used to repel down the side of Cissie's building, and frowned. Tim was worried by the implications of that scant few centimeters of space.
The gap implied either a welcome to enter that Cissie's previous mood immediately contradicted. Or it implied carelessness on Cissie's part due to supreme anger with Tim.
Tim was betting on the latter being the case.
That deduction made him even more nervous as he tapped on the glass of the window pane. It was dark inside, and he couldn't see or hear anything behind the window. Tim waited for an answer to his tap, but none came.
The longer he lingered, dangling outside Cissie's window, the more likely he was to be spotted. Tim took a deep breath, and slipped his fingers under the edge of the window frame. He pushed up hard, and the window stuck fast for a few longs. It then gave way with a long, loud creak that hurt Tim's ears.
Tim opened the window just wide enough to slip inside. The room was dark. None of the lamps were on, the night was moonless, and the streetlamps were all several stories below Cissie's window level. Tim had to pause to adjust his eyes to the darkness.
The small set of rooms were so completely still, that for the few moments it took for Tim's eyes to adjust, he wondered briefly if the flat was, in fact, empty. Then he caught sight of a grey cloak draped over the back of the sofa, and Cissie's favorite bow tucked carefully into a corner, and he knew she was home.
Just not in this room.
When Tim straightened his form completely, he saw the door to the next room slightly ajar. From what little he could make out within the small gap, the other room had to be the bedroom.
“Cissie,” Tim called out, quietly. He knew she would have heard the minute he opened the window, but he would have preferred to be welcomed into the flat.
There was no answer from Cissie, so clearly that was too much to expect.
Tim winced and made his way across the room to the slightly opened door. He pushed it fully opened, and stood briefly in the door way.
A small amount of light came into the bedroom from a small nightlight in the adjoining bathroom. The light was very dim, and muted by a partially shut door. Though, it was enough for Tim to be able to see much more clearly.
Cissie was laying down in her bed. She hadn't removed the rest of her dusty uniform, just her cloak and boots. Her quiver lay on the floor near the boots, mostly empty.
Cissie was curled on her side, her arms wrapped around a pillow. Her back was to Tim, so he couldn't see her face. Her usually brilliant golden hair was gray in the poor light. It made Tim's chest ache.
She looked almost like a stranger to Tim this way. Maybe she even was a stranger, now. Maybe she just wasn't what Tim thought she was. Maybe she wasn't who Tim thought she was.
Her body had grown, and changed in ways he hadn't had the opportunity to memorize. The set to her shoulders, the angle of her head, even the fall of her hair seemed new and strange to Tim.
Maybe the two of them were just kidding themselves. They weren't fourteen anymore. They had both changed, and grown into new and different people.
Just because Tim knew Cissie's favorite brand of soap, and the name of the first boy she had ever kissed didn't mean he knew her. It just meant he knew facts about her that maybe weren't nearly as important to her now as they were four years ago.
That scared Tim, almost as much seeing her ducking bullets did.
Then Cissie tilted her head back towards him. The light caught her face, and Tim saw the familiar set to her mouth. He saw the slant to her eyebrows, and the glint in her eye.
Tim saw Cissie's face, and knew from that glint in her eyes what she was probably thinking. He knew, from that set to her mouth and brow, exactly what she was feeling.
Tim realized then that some things, some connections, some pieces of knowledge would never change, no matter how much the person they were in reference, to did change.
He knew then that he would always be able to read Cissie, just like this. He would always know her moods. He would know when to push harder, and when to back off. Even if he didn't always have the context for that sort of knowledge anymore, it was still his.
It always would be.
He would always be able to read her. The signs on distress, of sadness, of need on her face, and in her form were always something Tim's subconscious would respond to. The impulse to help, to protect, to heal and comfort her were just so ingrained within him. They were impulses he would never grow out of. They were a priority he would never forget.
The things that existed between them were seeded too deeply for Tim to uproot, even if he wanted to.
The same must be true for Cissie too. Maybe that was what she had been trying to tell him all along. Maybe that was why she couldn't keep walking down that alley when she saw him, threatened.
Tim knew then that he wouldn't have been able to do it either, if their roles had been reversed.
So Tim did what he knew he should. He did what the fourteen year old that lived inside of him screamed at him to do.
He tried to make it better.
“I'm afraid,” Tim heard himself saying softly. His words echoed hollowly in the dark, nearly empty room. They sounded almost eerie, so thick with emotion and regret that Tim almost didn't recognize his own voice as it bounced against the bare walls of Cissie's bedroom.
Cissie's eyes sharpened in the darkness, and focused in on him. She rolled over in bed, and Tim could feel her examining him, just as he had examined her when her back was to him.
Tim wondered if she was taking this time to come to the same conclusions he had. He hoped that she did, but if she didn't...
“I'm just so terrified,” Tim found himself saying again, and this time he watched Cissie's face as he spoke.
Tim hated it. He hated all of it. He hated the way his throat tightened and his voice broke. He hated the thrill of fear that always came with a confession this profound. It shot through him like an electrical current his uniform hadn't been able to dampen. He hated the way that fear made him feel sick and jittery inside no matter how blank he made his face.
Tim swallowed hard around the panic, and tried to anchor himself in the now, but the now seemed to be just a little to much for him.
“What are you afraid of?” Cissie asked him quietly.
Tim shook his head and stepped further into the room. He couldn't look at her, not just now. He stalked over to her bedroom window, and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked out onto the alley way below.
It was all just too much truth without nearly enough cover for him to hide behind.
Tim's heart was pounding in his chest as adrenaline pumped through his system. He knew his hands would be shaking if they weren't tucked tight into his armpits.
“I'm afraid that if I say yes, if I pull you back into this, that you'll be killed,” Tim confessed. “I'm afraid that if I say no, if I push you away, you'll leave and never forgive me. I'm afraid of losing you, Cissie. I'm afraid that no matter what I do you won't be a part of my life anymore, and I can't stand that.”
Tim heard the rustle of the bed as Cissie climbed off of it, but he didn't look away from the window. The panes of glass, and the surface of the building across the street blurred as his eyes stung.
Tim could feel the warmth of Cissie's body behind him, even before she wrapped her arms around him. She tucked them around his middle, just under his own arms. She pressed her face into his shoulder, and breathed in deeply. She rubbed her nose against his neck, and sighed. Her hair tickled at the the back of his neck, and the soft scent of her tickled at his nose.
“I'm scared too,” she whispered back. “I'm scared of how alone you are. I'm scared of how alone I am. I'm scared of what that loneliness might make us do. What it might drive us to do.”
“You mean like make us want to take up an activity we had sworn off?” Tim asked pointedly.
“Or taking uncharacteristically dangerous risks,” Cissie suggested sweetly.
Tim didn't need to turn around to know what that sharp little smile on her face looked like. He had it burned into his brain years ago.
“I take your point,” he sighed, and leaned back, fractionally, against her.
Cissie tightened her arms around him.
“Maybe what we need, right now, is a little check and balance to our lives,” Cissie suggested. “Someone to keep close watch and call us on our bullshit until we can do it for ourselves.”
“Well, we have already demonstrated our abilities to be overly critical of each other,” Tim agreed, and Cissie snickered.
“We certainly have,” she murmured, and pressed her face into his shoulder again.
They were both quiet for a few long moments, Cissie with her face buried in Tim's shoulder, and Tim with his facing out the window. He could feel the slow and steady rise and fall of her breasts against his back as she breathed. Tim closed his eyes, and just let himself feel it, to revel in that simple evidence of her being alive.
“I'm not sure I'm going to be very good at this,” Tim confessed. He was surprised to find himself breaking the silence of the room.
Cissie didn't seem to be though. Maybe she knew him better than he thought she did.
“Mmmm? Why do you say that?” Cissie asked him. Her voice was soft and lazy, nothing at all like his own tight, nervousness.
“I'm not sure I have the emotional energy left to give to this... Relationship? Partnership? Whatever it is, what if I'm not good enough at it to...” Tim trailed off, and swallowed hard.
“To what? To keep me safe? To protect me?” Cissie asked him. She ducked under his arm, and stepped around to his front, just swiveling her arms around him, never really letting go. Her eyes were bright with understanding as she looked up at him in the darkness. “Yeah, I guess there are right ways and wrong ways of doing that. You may not always pick the right way, but you do usually pick effective ways, Tim.”
She was smiling at him, and the smile was very familiar. It was a smile that assured him that, despite the fact that he was a stupid clueless boy, Cissie loved him anyway. She probably always would.
“Besides,” Cissie went on, still smiling, “I'm pretty sure that should be one of the things I'm supposed to be keeping you in line about. So don't worry, I'll be sure to tell you when you're doing everything horribly wrong.”
“You're going to need to give me a serious learning curve, here,” Tim informed her wryly.
“Of that, Boy Wonder, I was never in doubt,” Cissie said.
She was still smiling when she rocked up on her toes and pressed a soft kiss to Tim's mouth.
It wasn't scary, and it wasn't bad. The world didn't change, and the fabric of time itself didn't rend apart when their lips touched.
It wasn't any of the things that Tim thought it would be.
It was soft, and it was sweet. It was nice in ways that made Tim's belly feel warm, and his toes feel tingly. It made him relax into her arms, and it took no coaxing for her to pull him back onto the bed with her.
They kissed and held one another for a long time, and when they made love it wasn't mad and it wasn't desperate. There was no terrifying intensity to it. It was all just soft mouths and gentle hands as they moved together in the darkened room.
When it was all over, Tim lay with his head against Cissie's breast, listening to her heart beat slow and steady under his ear.
“I want this to be the easiest part of our lives,” Cissie to him as she ran her fingers through his hair. “I want this to be just like our friendship. I want it work for all the right reasons and none of the wrong ones.”
Tim nodded, and let out a long breath.
“I want you to be here because you want to be here, not because you feel like you have to be to protect me. I want you to stay because this makes you happy, not because you don't want it to fail.”
Cissie pressed a kiss to Tim's temple and smiled.
“Sounds like a deal to me Boy Wonder. Now for next order of business...”
Tim raised an eyebrow, and tapped Cissie's bare hip interrogatively.
Cissie sat up and dislodged Tim. He flopped over onto the pillow next to her and she grinned down at him.
“Tell me just who it is that needs a visit from the Avenging Archer.”
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Three Days Later
Cissie felt the Interpol agents watching her. She couldn't see the glint of their binoculars, it was too dark, but she knew they were watching her. A sixth sense deep in the back of her head made the hairs on her arms stand up.
Cissie let out a deep breath and flicked the line open on the communicator Tim had given her.
“So tell me boys,” Cissie drawled, her voice teasing and low, “and I only ask because I'm sure you're in a position to know.”
She heard the rustle of clothes as the two Interpol agents straightened up on the other end of the line. She also heard Tim's little exhale of amusement.
“Does my ass look as good in this uniform as your piercing gazes lead me to believe?” she asked them conspiratorially.
There were loud guffaws of laughter on the other end of the line, along with Tim's low chuckle.
“It absolutely does, A,” Tim told her, and the other men just laughed harder.
“Good thing you're going in first tonight, Tiger,” she teased back. “You might get distracted and trip over your own two feet.”
The loud guffaws continued and Cissie could practically hear Tim smile.
“Good thing,” he agreed. “Wouldn't want to give you any more work than I have to.”
There was even more teasing from the two agents, as they waited for their quarry to arrive. Cissie congratulated herself on successfully breaking the ice. She felt a sense pride as the four of them chatted and joked.
It was nice to to hear socializing again, even in the most perfunctory of ways. It was nice to hear him tease and joke and relate to people on a human level. All the time he spent off on his own, seeing his partners only as badges, and therefore an means to an end had, had made Tim seem hollow somehow.
Hollow in the ways he had been when Young Justice first came together. Back when he only had Batman and no one else to support him. Back when he didn't have any sort of family at all. Back when he was alone.
Tim didn't seem hollow now. He seemed vivid and alive. He seemed like he had when he realized that Young Justice was his family. When he realized he did have love and support in his life, not just a cold dark figure who only told him what it was he did wrong, Tim had come to life.
Cissie had loved seeing that in him. She loved seeing the flashes of humor, and the glint in his eyes. That glint was back now. That dull, lonely desperation still hung n the back of his eyes, but the glint was back.
Cissie knew she had something to do with it, and that made something warm swell deep in her chest.
When Tim finally did ID their man, and they went to move in, all four were all business.
Tim was poetry in motion. Every leap, every kick, every movement was a thesis on serious intent. Watching him at work sharpened Cissie's focus. As she watched him, she didn't just see his perfections but his vulnerabilities as well.
She spotted his areas of weakness. She watched them. She followed them. She hunted them.
She shot and stalked and saved.
She protected him they way she promised him she would.
At the end, when the guy was in custody and Tim was safe and whole, he looked up in her direction, and smiled at her. She watched that smile through the scope, and knew deep inside that part of her chest where that sixth sense lived and thrived, that she had made the right decision.
She blew Tim a kiss she knew he would see, and packed up her bow and arrows.
They had other places they needed to be.
THE END
Series: Priorities
Author: Aravis Tarkheena
Pairing: Tim Drake/Cissie King-Jones
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, sex, angst
Disclaimer: Not mine, everyone's legal
Word Count: 19,000/19,000
Author's Notes: For lady_sarai. FINALLY done. <3
Index Post
Part Four
The window was slightly ajar when Tim arrived. Tim tightened his fist on the jump line he had used to repel down the side of Cissie's building, and frowned. Tim was worried by the implications of that scant few centimeters of space.
The gap implied either a welcome to enter that Cissie's previous mood immediately contradicted. Or it implied carelessness on Cissie's part due to supreme anger with Tim.
Tim was betting on the latter being the case.
That deduction made him even more nervous as he tapped on the glass of the window pane. It was dark inside, and he couldn't see or hear anything behind the window. Tim waited for an answer to his tap, but none came.
The longer he lingered, dangling outside Cissie's window, the more likely he was to be spotted. Tim took a deep breath, and slipped his fingers under the edge of the window frame. He pushed up hard, and the window stuck fast for a few longs. It then gave way with a long, loud creak that hurt Tim's ears.
Tim opened the window just wide enough to slip inside. The room was dark. None of the lamps were on, the night was moonless, and the streetlamps were all several stories below Cissie's window level. Tim had to pause to adjust his eyes to the darkness.
The small set of rooms were so completely still, that for the few moments it took for Tim's eyes to adjust, he wondered briefly if the flat was, in fact, empty. Then he caught sight of a grey cloak draped over the back of the sofa, and Cissie's favorite bow tucked carefully into a corner, and he knew she was home.
Just not in this room.
When Tim straightened his form completely, he saw the door to the next room slightly ajar. From what little he could make out within the small gap, the other room had to be the bedroom.
“Cissie,” Tim called out, quietly. He knew she would have heard the minute he opened the window, but he would have preferred to be welcomed into the flat.
There was no answer from Cissie, so clearly that was too much to expect.
Tim winced and made his way across the room to the slightly opened door. He pushed it fully opened, and stood briefly in the door way.
A small amount of light came into the bedroom from a small nightlight in the adjoining bathroom. The light was very dim, and muted by a partially shut door. Though, it was enough for Tim to be able to see much more clearly.
Cissie was laying down in her bed. She hadn't removed the rest of her dusty uniform, just her cloak and boots. Her quiver lay on the floor near the boots, mostly empty.
Cissie was curled on her side, her arms wrapped around a pillow. Her back was to Tim, so he couldn't see her face. Her usually brilliant golden hair was gray in the poor light. It made Tim's chest ache.
She looked almost like a stranger to Tim this way. Maybe she even was a stranger, now. Maybe she just wasn't what Tim thought she was. Maybe she wasn't who Tim thought she was.
Her body had grown, and changed in ways he hadn't had the opportunity to memorize. The set to her shoulders, the angle of her head, even the fall of her hair seemed new and strange to Tim.
Maybe the two of them were just kidding themselves. They weren't fourteen anymore. They had both changed, and grown into new and different people.
Just because Tim knew Cissie's favorite brand of soap, and the name of the first boy she had ever kissed didn't mean he knew her. It just meant he knew facts about her that maybe weren't nearly as important to her now as they were four years ago.
That scared Tim, almost as much seeing her ducking bullets did.
Then Cissie tilted her head back towards him. The light caught her face, and Tim saw the familiar set to her mouth. He saw the slant to her eyebrows, and the glint in her eye.
Tim saw Cissie's face, and knew from that glint in her eyes what she was probably thinking. He knew, from that set to her mouth and brow, exactly what she was feeling.
Tim realized then that some things, some connections, some pieces of knowledge would never change, no matter how much the person they were in reference, to did change.
He knew then that he would always be able to read Cissie, just like this. He would always know her moods. He would know when to push harder, and when to back off. Even if he didn't always have the context for that sort of knowledge anymore, it was still his.
It always would be.
He would always be able to read her. The signs on distress, of sadness, of need on her face, and in her form were always something Tim's subconscious would respond to. The impulse to help, to protect, to heal and comfort her were just so ingrained within him. They were impulses he would never grow out of. They were a priority he would never forget.
The things that existed between them were seeded too deeply for Tim to uproot, even if he wanted to.
The same must be true for Cissie too. Maybe that was what she had been trying to tell him all along. Maybe that was why she couldn't keep walking down that alley when she saw him, threatened.
Tim knew then that he wouldn't have been able to do it either, if their roles had been reversed.
So Tim did what he knew he should. He did what the fourteen year old that lived inside of him screamed at him to do.
He tried to make it better.
“I'm afraid,” Tim heard himself saying softly. His words echoed hollowly in the dark, nearly empty room. They sounded almost eerie, so thick with emotion and regret that Tim almost didn't recognize his own voice as it bounced against the bare walls of Cissie's bedroom.
Cissie's eyes sharpened in the darkness, and focused in on him. She rolled over in bed, and Tim could feel her examining him, just as he had examined her when her back was to him.
Tim wondered if she was taking this time to come to the same conclusions he had. He hoped that she did, but if she didn't...
“I'm just so terrified,” Tim found himself saying again, and this time he watched Cissie's face as he spoke.
Tim hated it. He hated all of it. He hated the way his throat tightened and his voice broke. He hated the thrill of fear that always came with a confession this profound. It shot through him like an electrical current his uniform hadn't been able to dampen. He hated the way that fear made him feel sick and jittery inside no matter how blank he made his face.
Tim swallowed hard around the panic, and tried to anchor himself in the now, but the now seemed to be just a little to much for him.
“What are you afraid of?” Cissie asked him quietly.
Tim shook his head and stepped further into the room. He couldn't look at her, not just now. He stalked over to her bedroom window, and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked out onto the alley way below.
It was all just too much truth without nearly enough cover for him to hide behind.
Tim's heart was pounding in his chest as adrenaline pumped through his system. He knew his hands would be shaking if they weren't tucked tight into his armpits.
“I'm afraid that if I say yes, if I pull you back into this, that you'll be killed,” Tim confessed. “I'm afraid that if I say no, if I push you away, you'll leave and never forgive me. I'm afraid of losing you, Cissie. I'm afraid that no matter what I do you won't be a part of my life anymore, and I can't stand that.”
Tim heard the rustle of the bed as Cissie climbed off of it, but he didn't look away from the window. The panes of glass, and the surface of the building across the street blurred as his eyes stung.
Tim could feel the warmth of Cissie's body behind him, even before she wrapped her arms around him. She tucked them around his middle, just under his own arms. She pressed her face into his shoulder, and breathed in deeply. She rubbed her nose against his neck, and sighed. Her hair tickled at the the back of his neck, and the soft scent of her tickled at his nose.
“I'm scared too,” she whispered back. “I'm scared of how alone you are. I'm scared of how alone I am. I'm scared of what that loneliness might make us do. What it might drive us to do.”
“You mean like make us want to take up an activity we had sworn off?” Tim asked pointedly.
“Or taking uncharacteristically dangerous risks,” Cissie suggested sweetly.
Tim didn't need to turn around to know what that sharp little smile on her face looked like. He had it burned into his brain years ago.
“I take your point,” he sighed, and leaned back, fractionally, against her.
Cissie tightened her arms around him.
“Maybe what we need, right now, is a little check and balance to our lives,” Cissie suggested. “Someone to keep close watch and call us on our bullshit until we can do it for ourselves.”
“Well, we have already demonstrated our abilities to be overly critical of each other,” Tim agreed, and Cissie snickered.
“We certainly have,” she murmured, and pressed her face into his shoulder again.
They were both quiet for a few long moments, Cissie with her face buried in Tim's shoulder, and Tim with his facing out the window. He could feel the slow and steady rise and fall of her breasts against his back as she breathed. Tim closed his eyes, and just let himself feel it, to revel in that simple evidence of her being alive.
“I'm not sure I'm going to be very good at this,” Tim confessed. He was surprised to find himself breaking the silence of the room.
Cissie didn't seem to be though. Maybe she knew him better than he thought she did.
“Mmmm? Why do you say that?” Cissie asked him. Her voice was soft and lazy, nothing at all like his own tight, nervousness.
“I'm not sure I have the emotional energy left to give to this... Relationship? Partnership? Whatever it is, what if I'm not good enough at it to...” Tim trailed off, and swallowed hard.
“To what? To keep me safe? To protect me?” Cissie asked him. She ducked under his arm, and stepped around to his front, just swiveling her arms around him, never really letting go. Her eyes were bright with understanding as she looked up at him in the darkness. “Yeah, I guess there are right ways and wrong ways of doing that. You may not always pick the right way, but you do usually pick effective ways, Tim.”
She was smiling at him, and the smile was very familiar. It was a smile that assured him that, despite the fact that he was a stupid clueless boy, Cissie loved him anyway. She probably always would.
“Besides,” Cissie went on, still smiling, “I'm pretty sure that should be one of the things I'm supposed to be keeping you in line about. So don't worry, I'll be sure to tell you when you're doing everything horribly wrong.”
“You're going to need to give me a serious learning curve, here,” Tim informed her wryly.
“Of that, Boy Wonder, I was never in doubt,” Cissie said.
She was still smiling when she rocked up on her toes and pressed a soft kiss to Tim's mouth.
It wasn't scary, and it wasn't bad. The world didn't change, and the fabric of time itself didn't rend apart when their lips touched.
It wasn't any of the things that Tim thought it would be.
It was soft, and it was sweet. It was nice in ways that made Tim's belly feel warm, and his toes feel tingly. It made him relax into her arms, and it took no coaxing for her to pull him back onto the bed with her.
They kissed and held one another for a long time, and when they made love it wasn't mad and it wasn't desperate. There was no terrifying intensity to it. It was all just soft mouths and gentle hands as they moved together in the darkened room.
When it was all over, Tim lay with his head against Cissie's breast, listening to her heart beat slow and steady under his ear.
“I want this to be the easiest part of our lives,” Cissie to him as she ran her fingers through his hair. “I want this to be just like our friendship. I want it work for all the right reasons and none of the wrong ones.”
Tim nodded, and let out a long breath.
“I want you to be here because you want to be here, not because you feel like you have to be to protect me. I want you to stay because this makes you happy, not because you don't want it to fail.”
Cissie pressed a kiss to Tim's temple and smiled.
“Sounds like a deal to me Boy Wonder. Now for next order of business...”
Tim raised an eyebrow, and tapped Cissie's bare hip interrogatively.
Cissie sat up and dislodged Tim. He flopped over onto the pillow next to her and she grinned down at him.
“Tell me just who it is that needs a visit from the Avenging Archer.”
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Three Days Later
Cissie felt the Interpol agents watching her. She couldn't see the glint of their binoculars, it was too dark, but she knew they were watching her. A sixth sense deep in the back of her head made the hairs on her arms stand up.
Cissie let out a deep breath and flicked the line open on the communicator Tim had given her.
“So tell me boys,” Cissie drawled, her voice teasing and low, “and I only ask because I'm sure you're in a position to know.”
She heard the rustle of clothes as the two Interpol agents straightened up on the other end of the line. She also heard Tim's little exhale of amusement.
“Does my ass look as good in this uniform as your piercing gazes lead me to believe?” she asked them conspiratorially.
There were loud guffaws of laughter on the other end of the line, along with Tim's low chuckle.
“It absolutely does, A,” Tim told her, and the other men just laughed harder.
“Good thing you're going in first tonight, Tiger,” she teased back. “You might get distracted and trip over your own two feet.”
The loud guffaws continued and Cissie could practically hear Tim smile.
“Good thing,” he agreed. “Wouldn't want to give you any more work than I have to.”
There was even more teasing from the two agents, as they waited for their quarry to arrive. Cissie congratulated herself on successfully breaking the ice. She felt a sense pride as the four of them chatted and joked.
It was nice to to hear socializing again, even in the most perfunctory of ways. It was nice to hear him tease and joke and relate to people on a human level. All the time he spent off on his own, seeing his partners only as badges, and therefore an means to an end had, had made Tim seem hollow somehow.
Hollow in the ways he had been when Young Justice first came together. Back when he only had Batman and no one else to support him. Back when he didn't have any sort of family at all. Back when he was alone.
Tim didn't seem hollow now. He seemed vivid and alive. He seemed like he had when he realized that Young Justice was his family. When he realized he did have love and support in his life, not just a cold dark figure who only told him what it was he did wrong, Tim had come to life.
Cissie had loved seeing that in him. She loved seeing the flashes of humor, and the glint in his eyes. That glint was back now. That dull, lonely desperation still hung n the back of his eyes, but the glint was back.
Cissie knew she had something to do with it, and that made something warm swell deep in her chest.
When Tim finally did ID their man, and they went to move in, all four were all business.
Tim was poetry in motion. Every leap, every kick, every movement was a thesis on serious intent. Watching him at work sharpened Cissie's focus. As she watched him, she didn't just see his perfections but his vulnerabilities as well.
She spotted his areas of weakness. She watched them. She followed them. She hunted them.
She shot and stalked and saved.
She protected him they way she promised him she would.
At the end, when the guy was in custody and Tim was safe and whole, he looked up in her direction, and smiled at her. She watched that smile through the scope, and knew deep inside that part of her chest where that sixth sense lived and thrived, that she had made the right decision.
She blew Tim a kiss she knew he would see, and packed up her bow and arrows.
They had other places they needed to be.
THE END