A KlipSwiper one-shot (practice writing romance)
Klipspringer made by @violence693
Swiper made by @ketelakeren
late night · behind the old rail yard
Swiper hadn't meant to end up watching a fight. They'd just been cutting through the rail yard on the way to nowhere in particular, the way they did most nights, when the noise started metal against metal, a sharp grunt, the specific electric whine of Night Ninja's weird little gadgets powering up. Curiosity had done the rest. Now they were flat against the trunk of a half-dead tree at the yard's edge, peering around it at the two figures tearing across the gravel like the whole place belonged to them.
Night Ninja was fast, everyone knew that, but Klipspringer was faster, and stronger in a way that made Swiper's breath catch a little watching it. He moved like something built for exactly this, all sharp angles and explosive power, taking a hit that should've put him on the ground and using the momentum to come back twice as hard. When he finally got a clean shot in a Spring Strike that sent Night Ninja skidding a good ten feet across gravel the ninja boy scrambled up, decided this fight wasn't worth the bruises, and bolted into the dark muttering something about "unfair advantages."
Klipspringer stood there a second, chest heaving, watching him go with the specific satisfaction of someone who'd won an argument nobody was going to admit losing.
Swiper shrank back further behind the tree, heart going a little too fast. Okay. Cool. Didn't see that. Definitely didn't see that. Just gonna slip away and pretend this whole thing didn't happen
They peeked around the trunk one more time to check the coast was clear. He was gone.
Which okay, fine, that was fine, that meant they could just leave, no harm done, nobody the wiser that they'd been standing here gawking likeâ
"You're really bad at this, you know that?"
The voice came from directly above them. Swiper's whole body went rigid before they even turned around, and when they did, Klipspringer was right there close, way too close, looming a solid head taller than them with his arms crossed and an unreadable look on his face, orange eyes half-lidded like he'd been standing there for a full minute just watching them fail to notice him.
"OKAYâ" Swiper's voice came out about three octaves higher than intended, and they scrambled back a full step, hand pressed flat against their own chest like that might slow their heart down. "Personal space! Ever heard of it! You can't just appear!"
"I didn't appear. I walked. You were just too busy being a terrible spy to notice." There was something sharp and pleased in his expression regardless, the specific look of someone who'd caught you red-handed and intended to enjoy it. "Hiding behind a half-dead tree. Bold strategy. Real professional."
"I wasn't hiding, I was... passing through. Coincidentally. In the exact spot where you were fighting Night Ninja."
"Sure is." He tilted his head, studying them with that same sideways, cataloguing attention he always did, the kind that made Swiper feel like they were being read instead of looked at. "You're gonna keep standing there being bad at lying, or you want something? Since you're clearly here for a reason and it's not the tree."
They ended up sitting on an overturned shipping pallet near the yard's edge, close enough to the fight scene that the gravel was still scuffed up from it, Swiper still visibly recovering from having the actual fear of god put into them a minute ago.
"He's fast," Swiper said, meaning Night Ninja, picking gravel dust off their sleeve. "Like, annoyingly fast. How do you even keep up with that?"
"I'm faster." Klipspringer said it flat, no bragging in it, just fact. "Also I work out. A lot. You don't get legs like these," he gestured vaguely at himself, "from sitting around being sad about stuff."
"Do you also sit around being sad about stuff?"
"You kind of implied it."
"I imply a lot of things. Doesn't mean they're confirmed." He was watching them again, that sideways attention, and it took him a second to place what he was hearing underneath their voice a low, unmistakable growl, coming from somewhere around their stomach.
"That your stomach or a small animal dying in your jacket."
"It's... nothing, it's fine, ignore itâ"
"That's not what I asked." His voice had gone flat, serious, all the teasing edges dropped out of it. "Did you eat?"
Swiper's silence was answer enough.
Klipspringer didn't say anything else. He just stood up, brushed off his knees, and turned to walk off into the dark without a word of explanation: no "be right back," no "hold on," nothing, just gone, the same efficient disappearing act he'd apparently mastered his whole life.
He was gone for almost five minutes. Long enough that Swiper started assuming the obvious that he'd just left, bailed, wandered off mid-conversation the way weird nighttime hero boys apparently did and they'd actually gotten up, brushed off their own jacket, and started walking toward the yard's exit when they heard fast footsteps coming up behind them.
"Where do you think you're going?"
They turned around, and there he was, slightly out of breath, holding a paper bag in one hand and somehow, impossibly, a small cardboard container in the other that was very clearly, unmistakably, a cup of ice cream.
"Biscoff and rocky road," he said, holding it out like it wasn't a big deal at all. "That's still your thing, right? Figured. And burgers, 'cause ice cream alone is a bad life choice even for me."
Swiper stared at the container, then at him, then back at the container. "How did you evenâ"
"I have my ways. Don't ask questions you don't want honest answers to."
"I liberated it. Different legal categories. Sit down before it melts, I'm not doing this twice."
They sat back down on the pallet, closer together this time, Swiper working through the ice cream with the fast, careful efficiency he recognized immediately and didn't comment on same as always. He watched sideways, not directly, giving them room to eat without an audience.
"You're not having any," Swiper said, halfway through a burger, nodding at the second one still wrapped on his knee.
"You just ran off and stole four different foods and you're not eating any of them."
"I ate earlier." He hadn't. He couldn't remember the last time he had, actually, but that wasn't a conversation he was having right now, or possibly ever.
Swiper narrowed their eyes at him the specific look of someone who didn't believe a word of itâand, without further argument, tore off a piece of the burger and shoved it directly in his mouth.
"Eat, Klip, or I'm gonna start narrating your bullshit out loud."
He took it. Mostly to make them stop talking. And the second the food hit his mouth, something in him just gave up the act entirely, and he ate it in one bite, then reached for the rest of it without being told, hunger apparently louder than his pride once it got permission to show up.
Swiper watched him do it, something soft settling over their face that he didn't have a name for and didn't examine too closely.
"Guess we both got eating problems," they said, quiet, no judgment at all just recognition, one tired kid to another.
He didn't say anything back. I didn't need to. He just kept eating, and let that be the whole conversation.
They sat there a long while after the food was gone, the rail yard quiet except for the distant hum of the city, and Klipspringer had gone still in a way Swiper hadn't seen before, not tense, not wired, just quiet, staring at something near his own feet.
A dandelion. Growing up through a crack in the gravel, scraggly and half-alive, the kind of thing most people would step on without noticing.
"Hey," Klipspringer said, low, to absolutely no one. "You're doing good. Real resilient."
Swiper blinked. "...Are you talking to the weed?"
He froze. Actually froze, the way Swiper had never once seen him do not during the Night Ninja fight, not during any confrontation they'd ever witnessed and when he looked up his face had gone red under the mask, ears flattening hard against his skull.
"No," he said, too fast, too defensive.
"You were absolutely talking to the weed."
Swiper giggled and couldn't help it, the sound bubbling out before they could stop it, because watching him go from towering intimidation to flustered and caught felt like watching a completely different creature entirely. "That's so cute, oh my god."
"It's not cute, it'sâ" He stopped himself, jaw working, some internal argument playing out before he sighed, hard, and dropped his gaze back to the dandelion like it might rescue him from the conversation. "They were my sister's favorite flowers. dandelions. She used to pick 'em out of cracks just like this, saying they were the toughest flowers in the world 'cause nobody could kill 'em no matter how many times people tried to weed 'em out."
His voice had gone quiet, flat in a way that wasn't deflection anymore just tired, and honest, and old.
"So sometimes I just... Talk to 'em. Like it's her. Stupid, probably."
Swiper's chest ached at that, sharp and sudden, the giggle draining right out of them. "That's not stupid."
"Is sheâ" Swiper stopped themselves, already knowing the answer from the way he'd said it was, from the way his shoulders had gone tight the second the sentence started. "Never mind. Sorry."
"It's fine." It wasn't, clearly, but he said it anyway, the way he said most things that weren't fine.
Swiper looked at the dandelion for a long moment, something aching and careful in their chest, and said, quiet: "That's amazing that you talk to them, though. Really. I betâ" they hesitated, not sure if this was the right thing to say, saying it anyway, "âI bet she's talking back. In her own way."
Klipspringer didn't answer. He just looked up not at them, past them, at the smudged-out sky above the rail yard and stayed like that, quiet, unreadable, for long enough that Swiper started to worry they'd said the wrong thing entirely.
He didn't smile. He never did. But something in his face had gone soft in a way Swiper had never seen on him before, something unguarded, and he just kept looking at the sky like it might have an answer in it somewhere.
The silence stretched a long time. He wasn't sure how to break it, and apparently neither was Swiper, because they'd gone quiet too, picking at a thread on their sleeve like they were waiting for permission to keep talking.
"I never met anyone like you before," they said, careful, like each word was being tested before it left. "Like... I don't mean that as an insult. I mean you're different. From other people I've met. In a good way."
He didn't say anything. Didn't know what to say, honestly couldn't remember the last time someone had said something like that to him without an angle attached, without it being a setup for something else.
Swiper, reading his silence as something worse than it was, started backpedaling. "Sorry, that was weird, forget I saidâ"
"People usually just say I'm mean," he said, cutting them off, quiet. "That's the whole review. Mean. Angry. Hard to deal with. That's what the heroes say, anyway. The PJ Masks types. Guess I never really corrected 'em on it."
Swiperâs rolled their eyes, sharp and immediate. "That's 'cause they don't know jack about what's actually going on with people. Heroes always do that to decide who you are from, like one bad interaction, never bother finding out why. It's annoying as hell."
He looked at them then really looked, the sideways cataloguing gone, just direct, steady eye contact that he didn't usually let himself hold with anyone.
Swiper looked back for a second, then faltered, glancing away fast, startled by the sudden weight of being looked at like that. "...What."
"Nothing. Just... nobody's said that to me before. That's all."
He sighed, finally, and got up, brushing gravel dust off his knees. "I gotta get going."
Something in Swiper's chest dropped a little at that, faster than they wanted it to. "Oh. Yeah, no, I get it."
He glanced back at them, actually paused, like he was reconsidering something, and then reached out and ruffled their hair, quick and rough, the same brisk energy he did everything with. "We'll do this again sometime. If you're up for it."
"Yeah," Swiper said, and meant it more than they wanted to admit. "I'd.. yeah. I'd want that."
He nodded, already turning to go, and something in Swiper's chest panicked at the idea of him just disappearing into the dark the way he always did so before they'd fully thought it through, their hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.
Klipspringer went rigid. Instantly, completely rigid, his whole body locking up, eyes going wide in a way that had nothing to do with surprise and everything to do with something much older and much worse.
Swiper let go like they'd been burned. "Oh my gosh... sorry, sorry, I didn't... sorryâ"
"It'sâ" His voice came out tight, clipped.
"I didn't mean to, I just didn't want you to leave yet, I wasn't thinking, I'm really sorry, I know that wasâ"
They stopped, breathing hard, mortified, already trying to figure out some joke to make this less awful. "I'll just, um, forget Iâ"
"Don't do that." His voice had gone quieter, but firmer, cutting through their spiral before it could really start.
Swiper's mouth snapped shut.
He exhaled, slow, some of the rigidity easing out of his shoulders now that the contact had actually stopped. "It's not you. I don't do touch well. Old stuff. Not really a conversation for tonight."
"Okay," Swiper said, small. "That's okay. I get it. I'm still sorry, though."
He looked at them for a second, something unreadable passing over his face, and then slow, deliberate, entirely on his own terms this time, he leaned down and gently bumped his forehead against theirs. Soft. Quick. Barely there at all.
Swiper blinked. "...What was that?"
"Nothing," he said, already pulling back.
But he was already moving one second he was right there, and the next he was thirty feet off and picking up speed, a blur cutting across the gravel and out past the yard's fence line, gone before Swiper could even finish the sentence.
They stood there a moment, hand pressed lightly to their own forehead, utterly baffled and despite the confusion smiling anyway, warm all the way through.
"...Weirdo," they said, to the empty rail yard, but smiles wrapping their arms around themselves and started the walk home, already hoping they'd run into him again soon.
Might be a little short and a bit weird at first because I'm not good with shipping like I use to be I still remember that one Catboy x Night Ninja story lol I'm still learning don't worry I'll get better at this soon if anyone else wants a one shot oc x oc I can do that! It would help I just need some information about y'alls ocs
