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Signal Bleed

Pairing: Roy Harper/F!Reader

Word Count: 13k

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: explicit sexual content, empathic bond, forced proximity, shared bed, violence, guns, blood/injury, sensory overload, alien tech, mutual pining, emotional vulnerability, references to Roy’s past and recovery, oral sex, vaginal sex

Summary: The Outlaws are easy enough to handle from behind a screen.

Roy Harper is a different kind of problem: reckless, brilliant, charming, and far too good at finding excuses to text you after midnight.

When a mission drags you out from behind the keyboard and into the field, the line between banter and wanting becomes a lot harder to pretend you cannot see.

Author’s Note: set loosely during the New-52 Outlaws era. reader is the team’s smart-mouthed tech handler, not a vigilante.

Roy Harper sent you a picture of a smoking circuit board at 2:43 in the morning with the caption, be honest with me, doc. is she gonna make it?

You stared at the message from the dark hollow of your bedroom, phone held inches above your face, one eye open and the other still committed to sleep. The image was grainy, badly lit, and deeply offensive to anyone with even a passing respect for wiring. A ribbon cable had been severed, two contact points were scorched, and the outer casing of what looked like a modified arrowhead had partially melted into a shape that suggested Roy had either dropped it into a furnace or tried to flirt with it.

A second message arrived before you could decide whether to answer.

also before u get mad this was already broken when i touched it

Then a third.

mostly

You typed with your thumb.

you are a public safety hazard

Roy’s reply came almost instantly.

ur awake :)

You closed your eyes and inhaled through your nose.

i am awake because you keep committing crimes against engineering

i thought u liked engineering

i like engineering when it isn’t screaming for help

sweetheart that feels like a limited worldview

You rolled onto your back and dragged the edge of your blanket up to your chin, as if warmth could protect you from Roy Harper and his apparently endless ability to find you through encrypted channels, bad hours, and your own poor decisions. You had been working with the Outlaws for eight months, which was long enough to know better and apparently not long enough to stop answering.

The arrangement had started with Red Hood breaking into your apartment at midnight, helmet tucked beneath one arm, a hard drive in his gloved hand, and a red domino still fixed over his eyes. Oracle’s word had apparently earned you a glimpse of the man beneath the mask, though not his carelessness. Your motion sensors had warned you three minutes earlier, so you did not scream; screaming at strange men with guns gave them too much satisfaction.

He had said, “Oracle said you’re good.”

You had said, “Oracle needs to stop giving my name to strange men with guns.”

“She didn’t. She said you answer to Relay.”

You looked at the hard drive in his hand. Then at him. Then at the open window behind him.

“Is breaking and entering a Red Hood thing, or a you thing?”

His mouth twitched like he had decided not to reward that. “You want a job?”

You had nearly told him to climb back out the window. Then you had taken the drive, decrypted the first layer out of spite, and found three trafficking routes, a shell company tied to a private militia, and enough offshore transactions to make your professional curiosity stronger than your survival instincts.

After that, you became what Jason called support and what Roy called mission control. You ran comms, built surveillance patches, forged clean travel documents, tracked dirty money, scrubbed safehouse feeds, and kept their gear from betraying them at inconvenient moments. You did not go into the field. You did not wear armor. You did not jump off rooftops, exchange fire with mercenaries, or stand close enough to explosions to develop opinions about them.

You were not an Outlaw. You reminded them of this frequently.

Jason respected it because he understood boundaries when they were backed by blackmail-level system access. Koriand’r found it charming because she found many human distinctions charming, especially the ones people pretended were not emotional. Roy ignored it whenever possible.

Roy called when he had a pertinent technical question. Roy called when he had a stupid technical question. Roy called when something was sparking, smoking, blinking, ticking, leaking, or behaving in a manner he described as “ominous but kind of sexy.” Roy also called when missions went too quiet and his voice took on that careful, bright edge that told you he needed noise in his ear until his hands stopped shaking.

You knew the difference. You never said you knew.

Your phone buzzed again.

for legal reasons jay says i need to ask if this could explode

You opened the message, stared at it, and then sat up with a sigh that carried all the ruin of your sleep schedule with it. Your laptop sat on the nightstand because you had learned months ago that Roy’s emergencies were usually easier to solve from a full interface.

You accepted the secure call.

Roy had a way of saying Relay as if he had personally discovered the word and intended to make it everyone else’s problem.

“Relay,” he said into the comm, bright and shameless.

You closed your eyes. “Do not make it sound like a pet name.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“You absolutely were.”

“Little bit,” he admitted. Then, before you could hang up on principle, he added, “Before you say anything, I want you to know I value your expertise.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“See, that is the kind of decisive leadership I respect.”

“Show me the circuit board.”

His video feed came in at a terrible angle. For three seconds, you got an intimate view of his collarbone, the strap of his harness, and a smear of soot on the underside of his jaw. City lights glittered behind him, too high and too distant, which meant rooftop. Gotham, judging by the industrial gloom and the fact that Jason was audibly swearing somewhere off-screen.

“Camera,” you said.

Roy adjusted it. “Better?”

“Marginally. Why is it smoking?”

“In my defense—”

“No.”

“You didn’t hear the defense.”

“I have heard enough of your defenses to know they are usually confessions with better lighting.”

Jason’s voice cut in. “Ask her whether the thing is going to detonate.”

“I did ask,” Roy said.

“You flirted with her and then talked about legal liability.”

“That is asking.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. “Point the camera at the board.”

Roy obeyed. Mostly. The feed lurched as he moved closer, catching a blur of rooftop gravel, Jason’s boot, and the smoking circuit board balanced on the ledge before settling crookedly over the component. Then Roy leaned in from the side, too close, and the camera caught the line of his cheek, the corner of his mouth, the smile he was failing to suppress because he knew he had woken you and had the nerve to enjoy being scolded for it.

“Roy.”

“Right. Board.”

The feed shifted. You studied the damage, your irritation fading as your brain caught on to the problem. The arrowhead was not one of Roy’s usual designs. The housing had been modified to carry a small but highly unstable cell, likely scavenged from alien tech and forced into a human-made casing by someone either ambitious or stupid. Given the Outlaws’ usual social circle, probably both.

“Do not cut the braided line,” you said.

Roy’s hand froze in frame, wire cutters visible between two fingers.

You stared.

He slowly moved the cutters away. “Wasn’t gonna.”

“You absolutely were.”

“Maybe as a thought experiment.”

Jason made a sound of disgust. “Give it to me.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Your entire life is evidence to the contrary.”

Kori’s voice floated through the line from farther away, calm and warm. “Is our friend awake?”

“She is,” Roy said.

“I am involuntarily conscious,” you corrected.

Kori sounded pleased. “Hello. I am sorry Roy has interrupted your sleeping.”

“Thank you, Kori.”

“He has been watching his phone for twenty minutes, so I believe he was hoping for an excuse.”

The rooftop went silent.

You blinked at the screen.

Jason barked a laugh.

Roy’s face came back into frame too fast. “Okay, that is wildly out of context.”

“Is it?” you asked.

“Yes.”

Kori hummed.

Jason said, “No.”

Roy pointed somewhere off-camera. “Nobody asked either of you.”

You leaned back against your pillows, suddenly much more awake than you wanted to be. “Twenty minutes?”

“I was waiting until it was necessary.”

“You were waiting for a component to smoke so you could text me?”

“Technically, the component made that decision.”

“Fascinating. I hope the two of you are happy together.”

Roy’s grin softened around the edges, just enough to make the room a little warmer than before. “Jealous?”

“You are one bad solder joint away from a memorial service.”

“You’d come?”

“I would make sure Jason disposed of your browser history.”

“That’s love.”

“That’s hazard pay.”

Jason leaned into frame, expression flat. “Are we done?”

“For now,” you said. “Disconnect the cell from the regulator, wrap it in the thermal sleeve, and stop letting Roy hold things that can alter the skyline.”

Roy placed a hand against his chest. “You wound me.”

“Clean the cut on your forehead while you’re being wounded.”

His smile froze for a second.

It was small. Barely anything. But you saw it because you had gotten too good at watching him through screens. The cut was half-hidden near his hairline, a little dark with dried blood. He had not mentioned it. He would not have mentioned it until the mission was done, and then only if it made a good joke.

“Bossy,” he said softly.

“Alive,” you replied.

For a moment, the rooftop noise faded.

Roy looked into the camera, and the usual distance of comms felt thinner than it should. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll clean it.”

“Good.”

His mouth lifted. “You worried about me, Relay?”

You should have said no. You always said no. It was part of the rhythm. Roy leaned too close; you pushed him back with sarcasm. He tossed charm into every open channel; you swatted it away before it could land anywhere vulnerable. The system worked because both of you understood it was a game, and because neither of you had ever been stupid enough to ask what would happen if one of you stopped playing.

So you said, “I am worried about your unpaid invoices.”

“There she is,” Roy murmured.

Your stomach did something foolish.

Jason took the damaged arrow out of Roy’s hand and moved out of frame. “I liked her better before you started flirting.”

“You hired me,” you said.

“One of my few regrets.”

Kori said, “I enjoy this. It is like watching a small battle, but affectionate.”

“It is not affectionate,” you and Jason said at the same time.

Roy, traitor that he was, only smiled.

You ended the call before he could see you smiling back.

By noon the next day, Jason had ruined your week.

He arrived through the door this time, which meant either he wanted something difficult or he had finally learned from the countermeasures you had installed on your windows after his first visit. Roy came in behind him, carrying a cardboard tray with four coffees and the expression of a man who knew he was about to enjoy himself. Kori entered last, ducking slightly under the doorframe of your apartment with easy grace, a bright smile, and a paper bag.

“I bought pastries,” she announced.

You pointed at her. “You may stay.”

Roy held up the coffee. “I brought caffeine.”

“You may plead your case.”

Jason set a matte-black case on your worktable. “We have a job.”

“You always have a job.”

“You’re going on this one.”

You looked at him.

Jason looked back.

Roy took one careful step away from your desk, proving he had some survival instincts after all.

“No,” you said.

“You haven’t heard the job.”

“I heard enough. You used the phrase going on this one, which is the wrong phrase to use with someone who works from a chair for several excellent reasons.”

“You’re the only one who can do it.”

“That is often true and rarely requires me to leave my apartment.”

Jason opened the case.

Inside, secured beneath layers of anti-static film and dampening mesh, was a shard of metal about the length of your thumb. Metal was the simplest word for it, though you knew as soon as you looked at it that it was not quite right. The surface shifted from silver to green to a color that slipped away when you tried to focus on it. Fine lines ran through it in repeating geometric curves, too deliberate to be damage and too organic to be standard circuitry.

Your irritation thinned despite yourself.

“What is that?”

“A piece of the problem,” Jason said.

Roy leaned his hip against the edge of your table. “A sexy piece of the problem.”

“Do not flirt with the alien shrapnel.”

“I was flirting with the expert.”

“Also ill-advised.”

Kori’s expression had gone serious. “It is old.”

You glanced at her. “You recognize it?”

“Not fully. I recognize the shape of its energy, but it has been changed. Perhaps Tamaranean. Perhaps Psion. Perhaps both.”

That got your attention. “Both sounds bad.”

“It often is,” Kori said.

Jason tapped the lid of the case. “This shard broke off the main artifact during transport. A private collector named Lucian Crowe bought the larger piece and locked it under his estate near Marseille. The vault is air-gapped, shielded, and running a hybrid system none of our gear can read from the outside.”

You looked at the shard again. The lines along its surface seemed to pulse.

“Crowe has alien tech in a private vault,” you said slowly, “and you want to steal it.”

“Recover it.”

“Steal it before the man who stole it can keep it. I understand branding, Jason.”

Roy grinned. “Crime with ethics.”

“Do not help.”

“I think I helped a little.”

“You did not.”

Jason crossed his arms. “The vault has no wireless access. Drones die within thirty feet of the lower level. The main artifact is tied into the internal security system, and if we pull it wrong, we don’t know what it triggers.”

You closed your eyes.

Roy said, “She’s doing the thing.”

“What thing?” Jason asked.

“The thing where she’s already solving it and hating us for being right.”

“I am hating you for several reasons,” you said.

“But one of them is because I’m right.”

“Do not make me regret saving your face from microfusion shrapnel.”

Kori stepped closer, her voice gentler than the others’. “We would not ask if there were another way. You will not be there to fight. You will be there to understand the machine.”

“I understand machines from behind walls and heavily encrypted distance.”

“The distance is the problem,” Jason said. “We need hands on the system.”

You looked at Roy before you meant to. He had gone quieter. The humor was still there because Roy rarely abandoned a shield while conscious, but it had settled into something less bright. He was watching you with open concern, and that was worse than if he had made another joke. Roy could tease you into doing almost anything because you could tease back. This felt like care, and care made you stupid.

“I’m not a vigilante,” you said.

“We know,” Jason replied.

“I don’t do fieldwork.”

“We know.”

“I am extremely attached to being unshot.”

Roy lifted a hand. “For what it’s worth, I am also attached to you being unshot.”

You stared at him.

His mouth twitched. “That sounded smoother in my head.”

“Did it?”

“No, actually. I panicked halfway through.”

You should not have laughed. Unfortunately, you did.

Jason looked between you with the exhausted resignation of a man who had been trapped in an elevator with jazz. “Roy stays with you the whole time. Kori and I handle security. You get in, interface with the vault, disconnect the artifact, and get out.”

You studied the shard. The sensible answer remained no. It sat in your mouth, clean and ready. Then the lines along the metal flared in response to some unknown input, and your nearest monitor flickered.

Your curiosity stirred.

Roy saw it happen. You knew because his face changed.

“Don’t,” you warned.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You looked smug.”

“I have a naturally smug resting face.”

“You have a naturally punchable resting face.”

“See?” Kori said warmly. “Affectionate battle.”

Jason groaned.

You rubbed a hand over your face. “I want hazard pay.”

Jason nodded. “Done.”

“And I call retreat if I think the system is unstable.”

“Done.”

“And Roy does not touch anything unless I specifically tell him to touch it.”

Roy put the coffee down and raised both hands. “I will be your humble assistant.”

“That sentence has never once described you.”

“I said will be. Personal growth.”

You held his gaze longer than you should have. “I mean it. If I’m on the ground, you listen.”

Roy’s smile softened again, the joking surface giving way to something steadier beneath. “I’ll listen.”

You hated that you believed him.

The estate outside Marseille looked like every criminal billionaire’s idea of subtlety: pale stone walls, manicured cypress, glass balconies, an infinity pool overlooking the sea, and enough concealed security to make the entire cliffside hum with money and paranoia. From the outside, it could have been a vacation home. Through your tablet, it looked like a migraine.

You crouched behind a maintenance structure near the eastern edge of the property, wearing body armor Jason had produced far too quickly and an earpiece you had modified yourself because you trusted your own encryption more than his. The Mediterranean stretched dark and quiet beyond the cliffs. The night smelled like salt, stone, and expensive flowers.

You missed your chair. You missed your monitors. You missed the ability to glare at danger through a screen while wearing pajama pants.

Roy crouched beside you, bow in hand, wearing the serene expression of a man who thought breaking into fortified estates was a reasonable way to spend an evening. He glanced over when you shifted the tablet against your knee.

“You okay?”

“I am reconsidering several life choices.”

“That’s normal.”

“For you.”

“Usually I wait until after the explosion.”

“You are bad at comfort.”

“I can try flirting.”

“I will push you into the ocean.”

He smiled, but his eyes stayed on the perimeter lights. “You’d have to get through my reflexes.”

“I have disabled three of your comm units remotely.”

“Those were innocent.”

“Those were playing music during a stealth op.”

“They were boosting morale.”

“They were playing ABBA.”

“Exactly.”

Jason’s voice cut in through comms. “If you two are done.”

“You are no fun on heists,” Roy said.

“It’s not a heist.”

“It is absolutely a heist,” you said.

Jason ignored you both. “Patrol’s coming around west. Kori, you’re up.”

Above you, Kori crossed the sky like a silent flare, too fast and high for the guards to register before their feed died. Your tablet showed two camera grids that froze, looped, and resumed with edited footage. You tapped three commands into the overlay and opened a six-minute window through the outer perimeter.

“East path is blind,” you said. “Thermal sweep is on a delay. Two guards by the service entrance, one drone on the south balcony. Kori has twelve seconds to make that drone regret existing.”

“I will be swift,” Kori said.

The drone vanished from your feed.

Roy whispered, “I love watching her work.”

“I love when people complete tasks without arguing.”

“That feels pointed.”

“It is.”

He touched your elbow lightly. You looked at his hand before you looked at him. The contact was brief, barely more than a check-in. It should not have steadied you as much as it did.

“Stay behind me once we’re inside,” he said.

“I thought you were my humble assistant.”

“I can be humble in front.”

“That is not how hierarchy works.”

“I’m reinventing it.”

You rolled your eyes, but your pulse had slowed. Roy noticed. His hand fell away before it could become something either of you had to address.

Jason dropped the two guards by the service entrance with the efficiency of a man who had decided the night would go better if no one got to finish a sentence. The door opened on your command, and the four of you slipped inside.

The first floor smelled like polished wood and cold air. Crowe had filled the place with art, or what people with more money than taste considered art: stolen statues, framed weapons, antique maps, fragments of things that belonged in museums and were instead arranged under perfect lighting for one man’s private enjoyment. You kept your attention on your tablet. Objects were easier to pity when you were not trying to stay alive.

The house systems were easy compared to the vault. Too easy, which annoyed you. Crowe had spent millions on hardware and then let human arrogance make the architecture predictable. You looped feeds, delayed door alarms, and walked Jason through a rotating pressure sensor in the hall outside the private elevator.

Roy stayed close. Too close, sometimes. His shoulder nearly brushed yours when you stopped beside a panel. His breath warmed the side of your neck when he leaned in to look at your screen. Once, while you were bypassing a biometric lock, his hand came to rest on the wall beside your head as he watched the corridor behind you. It put him around you without touching. Protective, but not crowding.

You hated how aware you were of him.

“You’re staring at the wrong thing,” you murmured.

Roy’s eyes flicked down. “I’m watching the hall.”

“You were watching my hands.”

“Your hands are doing cool things.”

“My hands are working.”

“That is one of the cool things.”

The lock clicked open.

You refused to look at him as you stepped through. “Your field professionalism is overwhelming.”

“Thank you. I’ve been practicing.”

Jason, several yards ahead, said, “You haven’t.”

“I’ve been thinking about practicing.”

“That’s different.”

“It’s adjacent.”

The private elevator took you below the estate, deep enough that your tablet lost the house network and switched to local mapping. The lower level had been carved into the cliff and reinforced with composite paneling. The air turned colder. The lighting became harsh and clean. Wealth disappeared, replaced by sterile function. You saw lab rooms through narrow windows as you passed. Containment chambers. Scanning equipment. Storage cases. A surgical table with restraints attached.

Your stomach tightened.

Roy noticed immediately. “Hey.”

“I’m fine.”

His voice lowered. “I know you are. Still.”

You glanced at him and found no joke waiting. He had seen the table too. He knew what kind of people used restraints in private labs beneath their homes. The anger in his expression was quiet and sharp.

Jason stopped at the end of the hall. “Vault.”

The door was circular, seamless, and embedded in the wall with no visible handle. A single access port sat beneath a shielded cover at waist height. The readings on your scanner went strange as soon as you lifted it, numbers bending into nonsense before snapping back.

Kori stood very still.

You looked at her. “Bad?”

“Old,” she said again. “And hurt.”

It was not the kind of thing you wanted to hear about alien technology.

Jason glanced at you. “Can you open it?”

“Probably.”

“Comforting.”

“You want honest or comforting?”

He said nothing.

“That’s what I thought.”

You settled in front of the access port and pulled your kit from your bag. Roy crouched beside you, bow resting across his knees, his body angled toward the corridor while his attention kept flicking back to you.

“Don’t hover,” you said.

“I’m guarding.”

“You are hovering with weapons.”

“Very different.”

You plugged into the port. Your tablet flashed white, then black, then filled with symbols that were not part of any language pack you had installed. The translation patch you had built from the shard’s resonance data stuttered, corrected itself, and began offering rough approximations.

Resonance lock. Neurological key. Containment field. Memory lattice.

You frowned.

Roy heard it in your silence. “What kind of frown is that?”

“The bad kind.”

“I know several bad kinds.”

“The system isn’t just locked by code. It’s reading the room.”

Jason’s hand tightened around his gun. “Reading how?”

“Heat. Electrical output. Brain activity, maybe.” You tapped deeper into the system, watching the symbols reorder themselves. “It’s tied into the artifact. Crowe didn’t build a vault around it. He built the vault through it.”

“That sounds unstable,” Roy said.

“That is because you have pattern recognition.”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

“It almost was.”

Kori moved closer to the vault door. “Can it be opened without harm?”

“I think so,” you said, which was the most dangerous kind of answer. “I need quiet.”

For once, you got it.

Your world narrowed to the interface. The system resisted blunt commands, so you stopped giving them. You followed its rhythm instead, tracing the places where Crowe’s human security had been forced around something older and stranger. The vault was listening. You disliked the word, but it was the right one. It listened for patterns, for intent, for emotional pressure. It had been designed for something delicate before Crowe turned it into a lock.

You found the seam.

The door opened with a low mechanical groan. Cold air spilled over the threshold. The chamber beyond was round and dark, lit from below by thin white lines in the floor. At the center stood a pedestal. Suspended above it, inside a transparent containment field, was the artifact.

It looked like two interlocked rings around a shard of living light. Metal, crystal, and energy moved together in a slow rotation, too elegant to be weaponry and too precise to be decoration. It gave off no heat on your scanner, but your skin prickled as if you had stepped too close to lightning.

Roy let out a low whistle. “Okay. That is sexy alien tech.”

“Do not flirt with the artifact either.”

“I’m appreciating craftsmanship.”

“It can probably hear you.”

He leaned away slightly. “Then I respect its boundaries.”

Jason entered first, gun raised. Kori followed, eyes fixed on the spinning rings. You stayed near the access port, still connected to the vault system, and began mapping the containment field.

The deeper you went, the less you liked it.

“This was altered,” you said. “Badly.”

Kori nodded. “The Psions did this.”

You glanced up. “You’re sure?”

“I know the cruelty of their work.”

There was a weight in her voice that made Roy’s expression darken and Jason’s mouth flatten. You looked back down, suddenly aware that this was not merely a dangerous machine. It was history in pieces, stolen, modified, sold, locked away under a rich man’s house.

You hated Crowe with surprising clarity.

“What was it originally?” you asked.

“I do not know,” Kori said. “Perhaps a healing instrument. Perhaps a ceremonial bond. Something meant for trust.”

Roy shifted. “And Crowe wired it to his alarm system.”

“Men like Crowe think trust is something they can buy a cage for,” Jason said.

The vault hummed.

Your tablet vibrated against your palm.

You looked down. “That wasn’t me.”

The floor lights shifted from white to amber. The artifact’s rings turned faster, drawing light inward until the center went dark. New symbols spilled across your screen faster than your patch could translate.

Roy stood. “Talk to us, Relay.”

“Secondary command just woke up.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I can if everyone stops asking me questions.”

Jason moved to the vault door. “We have guards coming.”

“Of course we have guards coming.”

Kori lifted off the ground, energy gathering around her hands. “Can I destroy the pedestal?”

“No,” you snapped. “If you hit it while the containment field is inverting, the feedback could—”

The vault door slammed shut. The sound punched through the chamber like a verdict.

For a second, nobody moved.

Then Jason was at the door, knife in hand, tearing into the manual panel. “Open it.”

“I’m trying.”

Roy came to your side. “What do you need?”

You shoved the scanner at him. “Aim this at the artifact and keep it steady. Do not touch anything else.”

His face changed at your tone. All humor gone. “Got it.”

He moved into position.

You cut into the secondary command. The system fought back like a living thing. Crowe had built a trap beneath the trap: if anyone tried to deactivate the field, the artifact would activate instead, using the neurological signatures in the room as a trigger. You saw it one second before the system committed.

“Oh,” you said.

Roy looked over. “Oh good or oh bad?”

“Everyone down.”

The artifact opened. Light tore through the vault.

Roy moved first. He dropped the scanner and lunged for you, one arm catching around your waist as he hauled you backward from the interface. Your tablet hit the floor. His body turned around yours, bracketing you against the nearest console, one hand cradling the back of your head as the room went white.

For one impossible moment, you felt everything. Kori was a star in human shape, fear and anger blazing together with a grief so old it felt like deep space. Jason was a locked door with a burning room behind it, every instinct sharpened toward getting all of you out alive. Beneath them both, the artifact reached through the chamber with desperate, broken purpose, searching for a pattern it recognized.

Then Roy eclipsed all of it. His fear hit you like impact. Your name. Your body under his. His arms locked around you. The violent certainty that the blast would hit him first because he had chosen to be there. Beneath that, a rush of things you were never supposed to feel: affection buried under jokes, wanting buried under habit, the old ache of being too much and never enough, the terror of losing something before he had ever admitted he wanted to keep it.

The light went through him. Then through you.

The world snapped apart.

You came back to the sound of Roy saying your name. At least, you thought he was saying it. The comms were static. Your ears rang. Your cheek was pressed against his chest, and his hand was still cupped around your head. The vault strobed red around you. Somewhere nearby, Jason was cursing at the door.

“Hey,” Roy said. “Come on. Look at me.”

You opened your eyes. His face hovered above yours, too close and too frightened. Blood tracked from a shallow cut near his temple. His hair was mussed, his shoulder smoking where the blast had burned through the outer layer of his jacket.

“You’re very dramatic,” you managed.

Relief flooded you so hard you gasped.

It was not yours.

Roy laughed once, shaky and breathless, and then went still because he felt you feel it.

Your eyes met.

“Oh,” you whispered.

The vault door shrieked open behind you.

Jason stepped through the gap with his helmet on, guns drawn. “Move.”

Guards shouted from the corridor. Kori flew past him in a streak of light, and the next several seconds became chaos.

Roy got you upright. The moment his hand left your waist, pain stabbed behind your eyes so sharply your knees buckled. He caught you again, and the pain eased.

Both of you froze.

Jason fired into the corridor. “This is a bad time for whatever that is.”

“Agreed,” you said, grabbing Roy’s hand.

His fingers closed around yours. Relief moved through the contact, warm and immediate, and you hated that you could not tell which one of you felt it first.

The escape came in pieces.

You remembered Roy keeping one hand on you as the four of you fought your way out of the lower level. You remembered Jason taking point with ruthless efficiency. You remembered Kori’s light burning through smoke. You remembered trying to pull up the estate schematic and seeing the lines swim on your screen whenever Roy moved more than a few feet away.

Worse than the pain was the noise.

Roy was in your head, though not exactly in words. He came through as pressure, heat, flashes of thought sharpened by emotion. His shoulder hurt. His ribs ached. He was angry at himself in a way that made your throat tighten. Should’ve pulled her sooner. Should’ve said no. Should’ve kept her out of this. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“Stop,” you snapped as the group reached the service corridor.

Roy looked at you. “What?”

“Thinking so loudly.”

His eyes widened.

Jason did not turn around. “Do I want to know?”

“No,” you and Roy said together.

That would have been funny if the west stairwell had not exploded.

By the time you reached the van, your hands were shaking badly enough that Roy had to help you inside. He climbed in after you, and you hated the way your body leaned toward him as soon as he sat. Kori got behind the wheel. Jason slammed the back doors shut and pounded the side panel twice. The van tore away from the estate with the kind of speed that suggested Kori had learned to drive from someone who believed roads were merely polite suggestions.

Roy sat beside you, close but not touching. The space between you throbbed.

You clenched your teeth.

He noticed instantly. “Can I?”

He held out his hand.

That was the thing that almost broke you. He was in pain too. You could feel the echo of it. He was worried, confused, and strung tight with adrenaline, but he still asked before touching you.

You nodded.

His hand closed around yours.

The relief was so intense you had to shut your eyes.

Jason turned in the passenger seat. “Explain.”

“The artifact was tied into neurological response,” you said, forcing the words through the haze. “The blast created some kind of feedback loop.”

“That is not an explanation.”

“It’s the only one I have while trying not to vomit.”

Kori glanced at you through the rearview mirror. Her expression softened. “You are bonded.”

Jason’s helmet turned toward her. “Bonded.”

“In feeling. Perhaps in sensation. It may be temporary.”

“May be?”

“The technology was damaged,” Kori said. “And altered. I will need to examine the shard.”

You opened your eyes. “What shard?”

Jason was quiet for half a second too long.

You stared. “Jason.”

He reached into his jacket and withdrew the black case.

“You brought unstable alien tech into the van with the people it just scrambled?”

“I wasn’t leaving it for Crowe.”

“You could have mentioned it.”

“We were being shot at.”

Roy’s thumb moved across the back of your hand, small and unconscious. It steadied you before you could resent it. Then his worry spiked when he realized he had done it.

You turned to him. “Do not apologize.”

“I didn’t.”

“You were about to.”

He looked uncomfortable. “This is going to get weird fast.”

“It already got weird. You’re late.”

Kori pulled onto a dark service road, leaving the estate lights far behind. “Touch will help. Distance may worsen the symptoms until the bond settles.”

Jason leaned back in his seat and said nothing for a long moment.

Then he said, “Of course touch helps.”

The safehouse was ugly, practical, and aggressively Jason.

It sat on the edge of an industrial stretch outside the city, surrounded by shuttered garages and storage units. Inside, it had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen stocked with protein bars and instant coffee, a weapons table, a medical cabinet, and furniture that looked as though Jason had collected it from various places where people had died. It was clean, secure, and devoid of any object chosen for joy.

“You live like a haunted landlord,” you said as Roy helped you through the door.

Jason removed his helmet. “You’re welcome.”

“I did not say thank you.”

“You were about to.”

“I was not.”

Roy’s hand was warm around yours. “She wasn’t.”

Jason looked at him. “You stay out of this.”

“I’m literally attached to this.”

“Temporarily,” you said.

Roy glanced at you, and the flicker of hurt crossed the bond before he could bury it.

Your chest tightened.

You had not meant it like that. Or maybe you had, because the alternative was admitting that something in you had already started to worry about what would happen when it was over.

Jason did triage in the living room. He checked your pupils, cleaned the cut at your temple, asked questions about dizziness and memory, and kept his expression carefully neutral as you and Roy sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch because anything more than a foot of distance made both of you nauseous. When Jason cleaned the burn across Roy’s shoulder, the sting echoed across your own skin.

You flinched.

Roy turned immediately. “You felt that?”

“Yes.”

His guilt rolled through you, hot and awful.

“Stop,” you said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You felt guilty.”

Jason paused with the gauze in hand. “You can feel that?”

“Apparently.”

Roy looked down. “Great.”

You touched his knee before thinking. “I’m fine.”

He went still.

The contact was nothing. Barely anything compared to holding hands, compared to his body over yours in the vault. But the emotion that moved through him in response was enormous. Relief. Desire. Care. All of it slamming into restraint so quickly it almost hurt.

You pulled your hand back.

The headache returned at once.

Roy caught your wrist, not hard, just enough to maintain contact. “Sorry.”

You glared at him. “What did I say?”

“Right. No apologizing for involuntary alien-bond nonsense.”

“Or for wanting things.”

His eyes snapped to yours.

The silence that followed was a problem.

Jason stood. “I’m getting Kori.”

“Coward,” you said.

“Yes,” he replied, and left.

Roy stared at the coffee table like it might offer legal counsel. “For the record, I am trying very hard not to make this your problem.”

“You are doing a terrible job.”

His mouth twitched. “Yeah?”

“You are anxious directly into my brain.”

“That sounds unhealthy.”

“It is.”

He leaned back against the couch, wincing when his shoulder touched the cushion. You felt the pain and turned without thinking.

“Shoulder.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are a liar.”

“You knew that before the bond.”

“Yes, but now I have receipts.”

That startled a laugh out of him. You felt the way it loosened something in his chest, and that was worse than the desire. Desire was easy to categorize, even when inconvenient. Roy’s happiness at making you laugh was soft. Too soft. It slipped under your defenses before you could lock them.

Kori returned with Jason and the shard. She had wrapped it in a square of gold fabric that shimmered strangely under the safehouse lights.

“I spoke briefly with someone who may know more,” she said. “The full answer will take time, but I believe the device was not made to harm. It was a bonding instrument once, perhaps used for healing or shared pain. The Psions damaged it. Crowe made the damage worse.”

You looked at the covered shard on the table. “Of course he did.”

“Can you reverse it?” Jason asked.

“Not safely yet. The bond was formed under distress. It must settle before I can separate them without causing more harm.”

“How long?” Roy asked.

“Hours. Perhaps days.”

Jason’s jaw tightened. “And until then?”

“Proximity,” Kori said. “Touch, when needed. Calm will help.”

Jason looked at your joined hands.

Roy looked at the ceiling.

You said, “Do not.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Jason replied.

“You thought something judgmental.”

“I always think something judgmental.”

Kori sat across from you, expression kind. “The bond does not create what is absent. It reveals and amplifies what is already present.”

The room went still.

Roy’s hand tightened around yours for half a second before he forced it to relax.

Jason closed his eyes.

You looked at Kori. “Is that medically relevant?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a less devastating way to say it?”

She considered. “The machine cannot invent desire, only conduct it.”

“That was worse.”

Roy made a choking sound.

Jason turned toward the kitchen. “I’m leaving before this becomes my problem.”

“It is your safehouse,” you said.

“Then I’m leaving the problem in a room I’m not in.”

Kori watched him go with fond patience. “He is uncomfortable with tender complications.”

Roy’s voice was dry. “Jason? No.”

You tried to laugh, but the movement made your headache worse. Roy noticed, because of course he did.

“Rest,” he said.

You looked at him. “Do not start giving me orders.”

“That was a suggestion.”

“It had tone.”

“My tone is concerned.”

“Your concern is bossy.”

“I’m learning so much about myself tonight.”

Kori smiled. “Rest would help. The bond will be easier to understand if your bodies are not fighting injury and fear.”

You wanted to argue. You also wanted to lie down before your skull split open. Unfortunately, standing without Roy touching you remained a bad idea. The second your hands separated, pain flashed through both of you. He caught your hand again, breathing through his teeth.

“Okay,” he said. “Hands remain.”

Jason’s voice came from the kitchen. “One bedroom has a queen bed. The other has two twins. Kori and I are taking the twins.”

Your entire body went hot. “Excuse me?”

He reappeared with a glass of water and an expression that dared anyone to make him explain further. “You two need touch, or you get migraines. I need at least three hours of sleep before Crowe sends people after us. Kori needs space to figure out the alien soul Velcro. Adults can share a bed without making it weird.”

Roy’s emotions jumped so violently that you almost winced.

Jason pointed at him. “Especially you.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You breathed like an idiot.”

“You heard him breathe?” you asked.

“I heard the intent.”

Kori nodded. “The intent was loud.”

Roy looked betrayed. “I am being persecuted.”

“You are being accommodated,” Jason said. “Try gratitude.”

“I can take the floor,” Roy said quickly.

You turned toward him.

His face was open enough that you forgot your retort. Beneath the humor was the same fear as before: that you would think he wanted the situation, that his wanting made him unsafe, that needing touch because of the bond would make you feel trapped with him.

It was exhausting, realizing how careful Roy was underneath all that recklessness.

It was also inconveniently attractive.

“The floor makes no sense,” you said.

He blinked. “What?”

“The chair makes no sense either. The couch barely fits Jason’s emotional repression, let alone a human body. We can share the bed.”

Roy stared.

“You are going to be normal about it,” you added.

“Absolutely.”

“You are already being weird.”

“I’m being extremely normal in my head.”

“You are not.”

His mouth opened, then closed. “That is unfair.”

“Yes.”

Jason set the water on the table. “Great. Settled.”

“I hate this family meeting,” you said.

“We’re not a family,” Jason said.

Kori smiled. “We are an unconventional support structure.”

“That is worse,” Jason said.

The bedroom was small, plain, and lit by a single lamp with a crooked shade. The bed took up most of the floor space. There was a dresser, a chair, blackout curtains, and no evidence of anyone having ever enjoyed being alive in that room. Jason’s safehouse aesthetic seemed to have been developed by asking a bunker what it feared most.

Changing became a negotiation conducted with military seriousness and no eye contact. Jason had grabbed your emergency bag from the van, which meant you had backup hardware, chargers, field tools, and three different ways to bypass a locked server. What you did not have was clothes, because you had not packed for whatever fresh hell this was. Roy had a spare shirt in his bag, soft from use and big enough that you could pretend it solved more problems than it did.

You changed first, with Roy standing with his back to you and one hand held awkwardly behind him so you could keep two fingers hooked through his. Each brief loss of contact sent pressure blooming behind your eyes before you found his hand again. Fabric dragged. Armor came off in stages. Your dignity followed shortly after. There was no underwear in your bag, and the thought of putting borrowed sweatpants over nothing felt somehow worse than wearing only Roy’s shirt, which at least fell low enough to cover what it needed to cover if you did not move too carelessly.

By the time you looked down at yourself, drowned in Roy Harper’s shirt and partially empathically bonded to him, you had given up on preparing for sharing a bed.

There was no preparation for that.

Then it was his turn, which was somehow worse. You faced the blackout curtains with the focus of someone defusing a bomb while Roy changed behind you, his fingers still loosely linked with yours. A buckle hit the floor. Fabric shifted. Roy swore under his breath when his injured shoulder pulled, and you felt the brief flash of pain through the bond before he could hide it.

“Shoulder,” you said.

“I’m fine.”

“You are very bad at lying for someone who does it professionally.”

“I’m wounded.”

“Yes, that is my point.”

A soft laugh left him, followed by another rustle of fabric. “You know, if you’re going to feel every time you want to look, turning around might be the more honest option.”

You stared harder at the curtains. “I am practicing restraint.”

“Hot.”

“Roy.”

“What? It is.”

“You are making this worse.”

“I am standing half-dressed in a safehouse bedroom while psychically handcuffed. Worse was already here.”

By the time he sat beside you again, Roy was in sweatpants and a clean shirt, his damaged shoulder bandaged beneath the fabric. He had not showered. Neither of you had. There was still a faint smear of soot near his jaw and dried blood near his hairline, but the clean clothes made him look softer in a way you had not prepared for.

He looked at you.

Then he looked at the hem of his shirt, which had fallen low enough to cover you when you were standing still, but now that you were sitting, rode just high enough to make it impossible for either of you to forget what you were not wearing beneath it.

Heat pulsed through the bond.

“Subtle.”

He closed his eyes. “I am trying so hard.”

“I can tell. That makes it funnier.”

“It makes it worse from where I’m sitting.”

“You could stop staring.”

“I did stop staring.”

“After getting caught.”

“I am only human.”

“You are mostly nuisance.”

“Mostly,” he agreed, and his smile was tired but real. Then, after a beat, “For the record, I am aware this is a practical clothing issue.”

“That sounds almost mature.”

“I said almost.”

“You were doing so well.”

“I’m doing heroic work internally,” he said. “You have no idea.”

“Unfortunately, I have some idea.”

The old rhythm helped. You got into bed before you could overthink it, choosing the side closest to the wall because you had tactical instincts and also because it gave you something to do. Roy waited until you settled, then lay down beside you with stiff care, leaving an absurd gap between your bodies.

The gap lasted less than five seconds.

Pain bloomed behind your eyes, slow and sharp. Roy hissed softly beside you.

“This is stupid,” you said.

“I support that assessment.”

“Hand.”

He reached for you under the blanket. Your fingers slid together. The pain eased, though not fully.

Roy looked at the ceiling. “Better?”

“Somewhat.”

“That sounds like a no.”

“It is a partial no.”

“Can I move closer?”

The question was so careful that something in your chest ached.

“Yes.”

He shifted toward you. His shoulder brushed yours. Relief moved through the bond, warm and immediate, followed by awareness. His body close to yours. The hem of his shirt riding high against your thigh. The sound of your breathing in the quiet room. The fact that the two of you were alone now, with Jason and Kori beyond the wall and a bond humming between you like a live wire.

Roy went rigid.

“Breathe,” you said.

He let out a laugh that barely qualified as one. “Working on it.”

“You are panicking.”

“I am in a bed with the woman I’ve been flirting with for eight months while alien tech broadcasts my inside thoughts. I feel like a little panic is fair.”

Your heart gave a stupid little turn.

“The woman you’ve been flirting with?” you asked.

He froze.

You turned your head on the pillow. He was close enough that you could see the uncertainty cross his face, the way he wanted to make a joke and could not quite reach for one fast enough.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “That woman.”

You should have deflected. You were good at deflecting. You had built entire relationships out of deflection, made yourself useful enough to be kept around and sharp enough not to be handled carelessly. With Roy, deflection had always been easy because he was doing it too. Both of you tossed sparks across distance, trusting neither would let the fire catch.

The bond made silence honest.

“I flirted back,” you said.

His breath caught.

You felt that too.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“You cannot possibly be surprised.”

“I’m trying to decide how much of that was real and how much was you keeping me from electrocuting myself.”

“Those can overlap.”

His smile flickered. “Kori would be thrilled to hear you say that.”

“Do not tell Kori anything.”

“She already knows everything.”

“She suspects everything. That is different.”

Roy rolled slightly onto his side, careful with his shoulder, facing you fully now. His hand remained in yours beneath the blanket. “What do you suspect?”

It was the wrong question to ask softly.

You looked at him, at the face you had watched through glitching cameras and rooftop feeds, at the mouth that could make anything sound like a joke until the joke broke and something sincere slipped out. Roy was reckless, yes. Brilliant. Charming. A walking hazard label with a bow and unresolved emotional baggage. He was also kinder than he pretended, more careful than he wanted credit for, and lonelier than most people noticed.

You suspected you were already in trouble.

“I suspect,” you said, “that you call me when things are broken because it gives you an excuse.”

Roy’s expression changed. “Sometimes.”

“I suspect sometimes the broken thing is you.”

His jaw tightened.

You almost regretted saying it, except the bond carried his answer before pride could: yes.

You squeezed his hand. “I don’t mind.”

He looked away. “You should.”

“That is not your decision.”

“Maybe not. But I know what it’s like to be somebody’s bad habit.”

The words landed gently, which made them hurt more.

You knew pieces of Roy’s past because files existed, because Jason had warned you without giving details, and because Roy had mentioned recovery once in a voice that dared you to make it a subject. You knew enough to understand that wanting had not always been safe for him. Need had been complicated. Comfort had been complicated. Shame had teeth, and sometimes Roy smiled like a man keeping them from closing.

You turned onto your side, keeping hold of his hand. “You are not my bad habit.”

His mouth moved like he wanted to argue.

You lifted your eyebrows. “Do you want to fight with the woman currently inside your emotional blast radius?”

That startled a laugh out of him. The bond warmed.

“You’re terrifying,” he said.

“You like that.”

“I really do.”

The words were immediate. Too immediate to hide behind.

You both went quiet.

Desire moved then, slower than before. It did not crash through the bond the way panic had. It spread, intimate and heavy. Roy’s gaze flicked to your mouth, then back up. Your own body responded before you could pretend otherwise. The bond caught that too.

Roy inhaled carefully. “We should sleep.”

“You don’t want to sleep.”

“I am making a noble suggestion.”

“It is a bad suggestion.”

“It is probably the only smart one I’ve had all night.”

“Do you want to stop?” you asked.

His eyes closed briefly. “No.”

“Then stop trying to decide for both of us.”

He opened his eyes. “I am trying to be decent.”

“You are being decent. You asked. I answered.”

“That easy?”

“No. But it can be that clear.”

Roy stared at you for a long moment, and whatever he saw in your face must have reached something the bond could not, because his restraint shifted. It did not vanish. It changed shape, making room for want instead of trying to bury it.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

The first kiss was careful.

That surprised you, though perhaps it should not have. Roy did many things quickly, but he kissed you as if he had spent months imagining it and still did not trust the moment not to break under his hands. His mouth touched yours softly, once, then again, and his fingers tightened around yours beneath the blanket.

The bond lit.

It was overwhelming, but not unpleasant. His nerves and yours braided at the edges, doubling sensation until the slide of his lips over yours felt like both giving and receiving. You felt his pulse jump when your free hand touched his jaw. You felt your own pleasure echoed back by the low sound he made when you kissed him harder.

Roy pulled back first, breath uneven. “Okay?”

You blinked at him. “That is an absurd question.”

“I’m going to need more than that.”

You kissed him again.

He accepted that answer with enthusiasm.

The second kiss was less careful. Roy’s hand slid to your waist, warm through your shirt, then stopped there until you shifted closer. The permission broke something loose in him. He drew you in, still mindful of his shoulder, mouth opening under yours with a hunger that made the bond flare hot.

You had expected him to be good with his mouth because Roy was good with it in every way that had annoyed you for months: talking his way past locked doors, flirting over comms while bullets flew, distracting armed men with sheer offensive charm, and making you laugh when you were trying very hard to stay mad at him. Expectation did not help. He kissed like he listened, and that was devastating. Every small sound you made changed him. Every reaction taught him something. His hand moved at your waist, thumb stroking once beneath the hem of your shirt when it rode up.

Skin touched skin.

Both of you gasped.

Roy went still. “Too much?”

“No.” You heard your own voice and barely recognized it. “Again.”

His eyes darkened.

He touched you again, this time deliberately, palm sliding beneath your shirt to settle against your side. The bond carried his reaction with humiliating clarity. Heat. Desire. Awe so intense it nearly embarrassed you. He was not only touching you. He was stunned that he was allowed.

You caught his wrist and guided his hand higher.

Roy exhaled shakily. “Sweetheart.”

The word had always been a weapon in his mouth. Playful. Teasing. Designed to make you threaten him. This time, it sounded wrecked.

You kissed him before he could see what that did to you.

Things moved slowly after that, though not because either of you lacked interest. The bond made rushing impossible. Every sensation needed room. Roy’s hand on your skin, your fingers in his hair, his mouth at your throat, the flex of his stomach beneath your palm when your hand slipped under his shirt. Everything reflected. Everything deepened. If either of you moved too quickly, pleasure sharpened toward something almost painful.

Roy learned the rhythm faster than you expected, and then you remembered that he was always learning. That was part of the problem with him. People saw the jokes first. They saw the reckless grin, the bad impulse control, the quiver full of impossible arrows, and they missed the mind underneath. Roy paid attention. He adapted. He learned where pressure became too much and where you wanted more.

You pushed his shirt up, and he sat back enough to pull it over his head with a wince.

Your hands caught his before he could hide it. “Shoulder.”

“It’s fine.”

“You are incapable of telling the truth about injuries.”

“I tell the truth about injuries all the time. Usually through humor.”

“That does not count.”

“It counts a little.”

You touched the edge of the bandage. The burn was ugly but clean, crossing the upper slope of his shoulder where the blast had hit him first. Your throat tightened.

Roy felt it.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Don’t.”

“You got hurt because of me.”

“I got hurt because Crowe is an asshole with a haunted space artifact.”

“Roy.”

“I pulled you back because I wanted to. I’d do it again.”

The truth of that moved through the bond, steady and immovable.

You hated it. You needed it. You could not decide which feeling scared you more.

“That is exactly the problem,” you said.

His smile was small. “Yeah. I know.”

You touched his chest, just over his heart. “Do you?”

His hand covered yours. For once, the answer took time.

“I know I’m not great at limits when somebody I care about is in trouble,” he said. “I know that’s not fair to the people who have to watch it. I’m working on it.”

The last sentence landed with the weight of something practiced, not because it was false, but because he had said it in other contexts. Recovery was not always about one thing. Sometimes it was about learning how to survive your own instincts in every direction.

You leaned in and kissed him gently.

He accepted it like forgiveness, which made your chest ache.

“This does not get you out of being yelled at later,” you murmured.

His smile touched your mouth. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You pushed him back against the pillows, careful of his shoulder. He went willingly, watching you climb over him with a look that made the bond go bright and hot again. You settled over his thighs, the hem of his shirt riding higher than either of you could pretend not to notice, and his hands came to your hips before they froze.

You felt the restraint lock down.

“Roy.”

“I’m being respectful.”

“You are being tense.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“You can touch me.”

His fingers flexed. “Where?”

The question went straight through you.

“Anywhere.”

His mouth parted like he had several answers and trusted none of them. Then his hands slid up your sides beneath his shirt, slowly enough to change your breathing. He followed the reaction, eyes fixed on your face, palms warm against your ribs. When his thumbs brushed the underside of your breasts, pleasure curled low in your stomach and moved through the bond before you could hide it.

Roy swallowed. “Can I?”

You knew what he meant. The shirt was the only thing you had on, and both of you knew it.

“Yes.”

He lifted it carefully anyway, giving you time to stop him, giving you time to help him. The fabric dragged over your skin and disappeared somewhere beside the bed, leaving you bare above him in the crooked lamplight. Roy looked at you with an expression that made you feel too seen, not because of the bond this time, but because of him.

“You’re doing the thing,” you said, self-consciousness flickering despite the heat between you.

“What thing?”

“Looking at me like that.”

His mouth curved, but his voice came out softer than his expression. “I like looking at you.”

“You are very sincere while concussed.”

“I’m not concussed. Jason checked.”

“Jason’s medical standards include ‘still breathing’ and ‘no visible organ loss.’”

Roy laughed, and the sound eased the tightness in your chest. Then his mouth found your collarbone, and the laughter left both of you.

His kisses moved lower, careful and hungry at once. When his lips closed over your nipple, your hips rocked down against him before you could think. Pleasure flashed through the bond. Roy groaned against your skin, his hands tightening on your waist.

“Do that again,” he said.

You did.

The friction pulled a sound from both of you. He was hard beneath you, and the realization would have been obvious without the bond, but feeling his desire from the inside was something else entirely. It was not simple lust. It was layered with months of almosts. Your voice in his ear. Your name in his phone. Your hand reaching for him in the van. Your face above him now, wanting him back.

You bent and kissed him.

Roy met you with enough heat to make the room tilt. His hands roamed carefully, learning you through skin and sensation, until one slid down over your hip and stopped at the outside of your thigh.

There was nothing beneath his hand except bare skin, and the knowledge moved through the bond like a spark catching dry tinder.

Roy went very still.

You felt him pull himself back from the edge, not away from you, but away from rushing. It was almost unfair how much that restraint affected you.

“Tell me where this stops,” he said.

Your breath caught.

Then you held his gaze and answered clearly, because the bond had already stolen subtlety from both of you. “It doesn’t.”

His fingers flexed once against your thigh.

“Sweetheart.”

“I want this,” you said. “I want you. Keep going.”

The restraint in him shifted. It did not disappear, but it changed shape, becoming focus instead of distance. The smile that crossed his face was small, bright, and gone almost immediately beneath concentration.

He shifted you gently onto your back, moving slowly when the bond tugged at the change in position. For a moment, he hovered above you, braced on one arm, hair falling forward, bandaged shoulder held carefully away. His eyes searched your face once more, and whatever he found there softened something in him.

Then he kissed his way down your body, and coherent conversation became less available.

Roy touched you like he had something to prove and all the time in the world to prove it. He drew your shorts down your legs, pausing when the movement pulled you too far apart and the bond complained in a sharp pulse. He solved the problem by keeping one hand on your thigh, grounding both of you. Then his mouth returned to your skin, kissing your hip, your stomach, the inside of your thigh.

You reached down and caught his hair. “Roy.”

He looked up. “Tell me no, and I stop.”

The clarity of it nearly undid you.

You tightened your fingers gently. “I was going to tell you to keep going.”

His eyes darkened.

The first touch of his mouth made your back arch.

Roy groaned like he felt it almost as strongly as you did, which, given the bond, perhaps he did. His hands held your thighs open with careful pressure, not pinning, only steadying. He learned quickly there, too, which should have been unfair and absolutely was. His tongue moved slowly at first, testing, listening to every breath and every tug of your fingers in his hair. When he found a rhythm that made your hips lift, he stayed there.

The bond turned pleasure into a loop.

Your body reacted; Roy felt it; his hunger spiked; you felt that too. It built on itself until the room seemed to narrow around his mouth and your hands and the low sounds he made against you. The headache, the fear, the vault, the shame of wanting too much—all of it receded beneath the weight of being touched by someone who was paying attention.

“Roy,” you gasped.

He slid one hand up your body and found yours, lacing your fingers together beside your hip. The contact steadied the bond and ruined you at the same time.

You came with his name on your mouth.

Roy did not stop until you tugged at his hair and murmured, “Too much.”

He pulled back immediately, pressing one last soft kiss to your thigh before he climbed up your body. His mouth was warm and wet when he kissed you, and the taste of yourself on him sent a fresh wave of heat through you. He smiled against your lips as he felt it.

“Smug,” you whispered.

“Deeply.”

“You were told to be normal.”

“I have never promised that successfully.”

You laughed, breathless, and his expression changed again, going soft in the dim room.

“I like that,” he said.

“What?”

“You laughing.”

The words sat between you, tender and unexpected.

You touched his face. “You are dangerous when you stop joking.”

His smile wavered. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Good dangerous or bad dangerous?”

You kissed him instead of answering. He seemed to understand.

After that, the rest of his clothes came off with less grace than either of you had hoped for. Roy nearly tangled himself in the blanket trying to remove his sweatpants without moving too far away from you, and you laughed so hard the bond lit with his satisfaction before he even freed one ankle. He accused you of enjoying his suffering. You told him his suffering had excellent comedic timing.

The laughter helped.

It made the room less fragile. It reminded you that this was Roy, not only the bond, not only the desperate press of feelings neither of you had invited. Roy, who made terrible jokes when injured. Roy, who sent you pictures of broken arrowheads after midnight. Roy, who looked at you like you were the most impossible machine he had ever been lucky enough to understand.

He reached for the pocket of his discarded pants and produced a condom with triumphant relief.

You raised an eyebrow. “Prepared?”

“I am an optimist.”

“You brought that on a mission?”

“I brought several things on a mission.”

“Do not make me ask follow-up questions.”

He tore the packet open, then paused. His humor faded, replaced by that careful seriousness again.

“Last check,” he said. “Is this what you want?”

The question settled over you, warm and steady.

You were tired, sore, overwhelmed, and still connected to him in ways you did not fully understand. But the answer was clear. It had been clear before the artifact, before the vault, before Roy shielded you from light meant to tear through anything in its path. It had been there in every late call you answered and every joke you pretended not to enjoy.

“Yes,” you said. “You. This. I want it.”

Roy’s breath left him.

He kissed you slowly, and then he rolled the condom on with hands that were not quite steady.

When he settled between your thighs, the bond went quiet for one suspended moment, like even the alien technology understood that this needed its own space. Roy braced himself above you, careful of his shoulder, his body warm and solid against yours. You wrapped your legs around his hips and drew him closer.

He entered you slowly.

Both of you stopped breathing.

The sensation was intense enough on its own, the stretch of him filling you inch by inch, the heat of his body, the tremble in his arms as he held himself back. The bond made it sharper but not less yours. You felt his restraint, his pleasure, the stunned gratitude moving through him as if being wanted by you was something he had not known how badly he needed until it happened.

When he was fully inside, his forehead dropped to yours.

“Okay?” he asked, voice rough.

You nodded, then realized he needed to hear it. “Yes.”

He kissed you, and then he moved.

Slow at first. Careful. Almost too careful, until you tightened your legs around him and drew him deeper. Roy groaned into your mouth, and the sound snapped the last thread of careful restraint between you. His rhythm shifted, still controlled, but fuller now, each thrust dragging pleasure through both of you.

You held onto him carefully, avoiding his injured shoulder, fingers pressing into the muscles of his back. He kissed your jaw, your throat, your mouth whenever he needed to swallow a sound. The bond carried flashes of him: the way you felt around him, the way your voice saying his name nearly unraveled him, the way he kept thinking that this was real and then fearing it might not be.

You cupped his face, forcing him to look at you. “Real.”

His hips stuttered.

“What?”

“This is real,” you said.

Roy’s expression cracked.

He kissed you hard, and the next thrust punched a sound out of you. He followed it, angling his hips until pleasure sparked bright and deep. Your nails dug into his back. He found that rhythm and stayed there, breath coming rough, eyes fixed on you like he needed to watch you feel it.

“There,” you said.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Roy, please.”

The word “please” did something to him. You felt it ripple through the bond, desire and want and tenderness and a nearly painful need to give you whatever you were asking for. His hand slid between your bodies, fingers finding your clit with the same attention as before.

The pleasure climbed fast.

You clung to him, overwhelmed by the press of his body, the rhythm of him inside you, the touch of his fingers, the bond folding his desire around yours until the room seemed to pulse with it. Roy murmured your name against your mouth, low and unsteady, and that was what pushed you over.

Your orgasm hit in a wave that made you shake beneath him.

Roy followed seconds later, his control finally breaking as he buried his face against your neck and came with a groan that seemed to move through both your bodies at once. The bond flared warm and bright, then softened, carrying the echo of pleasure into something quieter.

For a while, there was only breathing.

Roy shifted carefully, wincing as he moved off his shoulder and onto his side. He dealt with the condom, then came back to you under the blanket with that same hesitation as before, as if he still expected permission to expire without warning.

You moved into his arms before he could ask.

His body relaxed around yours.

The bond had settled to a hum. It no longer hurt. It no longer crowded every thought. It was simply there, a thread between you, warm and strange and temporary.

Roy’s hand moved slowly up and down your back. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Pain?”

“Just sore.”

“Regrets?”

You lifted your head.

He was staring past you, trying to make the question sound casual. It did not work. Even without the bond, you thought you would have known.

“No.”

His throat moved. “If tomorrow you decide this was just the artifact—”

“It wasn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“Sweetheart.”

You pushed yourself up enough to look at him properly. “Roy.”

He shut up.

“I wanted you before the artifact. I wanted you before the vault. I wanted you when you sent me pictures of broken equipment at two in the morning and pretended you needed technical support when what you needed was someone to stay on the line.”

His face went still.

You softened. “I stayed on the line because I wanted to.”

His arm tightened around you.

For once, he had nothing quick to say.

Then, very quietly, he said, “I didn’t want to be another thing you had to fix.”

Your chest ached.

“You are not a project,” you said.

“I’m a little bit of a project.”

“You are a person who sometimes needs help.”

“People get tired of that.”

“Some do,” you said. “Some answer the phone.”

He closed his eyes.

You kissed him gently, and when he kissed you back, the bond carried gratitude so raw that you nearly cried. You did not. You let him hold you instead.

Jason knocked on the door six hours later with the emotional delicacy of a police raid.

Roy jerked awake beside you. “Occupied.”

“I hate that I know that,” Jason said through the door. “Kori has a reversal plan. Put clothes on.”

Roy’s face went through several stages of horror and resignation.

You buried your face in his chest and laughed.

Jason added, “I’m going to the kitchen. If I see anything I can’t unsee, I’m shooting both of you.”

“You would miss me,” Roy called.

“I would grieve efficiently.”

Kori’s voice floated from farther down the hall. “I am pleased the night went well.”

“Oh my god,” you whispered.

Roy closed his eyes. “The sea is still an option.”

“You are not leaving me alone with them.”

“Right. Teamwork.”

Getting out of bed was less painful than expected. The bond still tugged when you moved too far away, but it no longer punished you for every inch you moved. You borrowed one of Roy’s hoodies because your shirt had somehow ended up under the bed, and because the second he saw you in it, his entire face did something worth preserving for later mockery. This time, you put on the sweatpants, even if you still had no underwear.

“Do not look so smug,” you said.

“I’m looking respectfully.”

“You are not.”

“I’m looking respectfully smug.”

“That is worse.”

When you entered the kitchen, Jason was making coffee with the grim focus of a man trying to survive exposure to other people’s feelings. Kori sat at the table with the shard wrapped in gold fabric before her. She took in Roy’s hoodie and sweats on you, Roy’s hand at the small of your back, and the carefully neutral expression both of you were failing to maintain.

Her smile bloomed.

Jason pointed a spoon at her without turning around. “Don’t.”

“I said nothing.”

“You inhaled.”

“It was a happy inhalation.”

“Don’t do that either.”

You sat at the table, Roy close beside you. “Can we end the bond?”

Kori’s expression sobered. “Yes. It has settled enough. The separation may be uncomfortable, but it should not harm you.”

“And afterward?” Roy asked.

“The forced connection will end. There may be residual sensitivity for a few hours.” She looked between you, not unkindly. “Anything that remains after that is yours.”

Jason muttered, “Great. Science and feelings.”

You looked at Roy. His face was relaxed, but you knew him better now. Even without the bond screaming every emotion across your nerves, you could read the worry in the set of his mouth.

“What?” you asked softly.

He leaned closer, his voice low enough that Jason could pretend not to hear if he wanted to. “What if it feels different when it’s gone?”

“It will.”

His gaze flicked to yours.

“Different does not mean gone,” you said.

He absorbed that. Slowly. Like he wanted to believe you, but did not want to grab too hard in case the belief cracked.

You slid your hand into his under the table. He held on.

The reversal felt like stepping out of a crowded room into silence.

Kori guided your hands and Roy’s around the covered shard. She spoke in a language you did not recognize, soft and rhythmic. The shard warmed beneath your palms. For one last moment, the bond surged open. Roy flooded through you: fear, hope, want, affection, the terrible vulnerability of needing something and choosing to reach for it anyway.

Then the thread snapped.

You gasped.

Roy did too.

The silence inside your own head was immediate and enormous.

You were alone in your body again. No echo of Roy’s pain. No flicker of his desire under your skin. No second heartbeat of concern and care and restless energy. Just you, your breath, your pulse, your hand still touching his over the shard.

You should have felt only relief.

Relief came, yes. But grief came with it.

Roy stared at you across the table. For the first time since the vault, you could not feel him at all.

Then he pushed back his chair just enough to face you properly, cupped your jaw, and kissed you like he meant to make himself understood without supernatural help.

You leaned into him. His hands framed your face, warm and real and chosen. There was no bond to amplify it, no alien resonance making emotion impossible to hide. There was only Roy, kissing you in Jason’s ugly kitchen while Kori made a delighted sound and Jason said something under his breath that would probably ruin the moment if you cared.

You did not care.

Roy broke the kiss just enough to rest his forehead against yours. “Still real?”

You touched his face. “Still real.”

His smile came slowly, bright and relieved enough to make your chest hurt. “Good.”

Jason cleared his throat. “Kitchen.”

Roy did not look away from you. “You have one fork.”

“I eat here emotionally.”

“You do not do anything emotionally.”

“I am about to throw you outside emotionally.”

Kori folded the gold fabric over the shard. “I think this is a successful courtship.”

“It was not courtship,” Jason said automatically.

You glanced at Roy.

His hand found yours.

You smiled despite yourself. “It might be courtship now.”

Roy’s face lit up.

Jason stared at you. “You too?”

“I contain multitudes,” you said.

Roy looked delighted. “That was my line.”

“I improved it.”

“You improve a lot of things.”

The sincerity landed without warning.

You looked at him, and for once, there was no bond to reveal the emotion underneath. You did not need it. Roy was standing in front of you with his hand in yours, bruised, exhausted, warm, and entirely too pleased with himself for someone who had nearly gotten you killed by association.

You squeezed his hand.

Two nights later, Roy sent you a picture of another smoking circuit board.

You were back in your apartment, behind your screens, wearing a shirt you stole from Roy and trying to restore the last pieces of your sleep schedule. The Outlaws were in Prague this time, which you knew because you had routed their travel documents yourself and because Roy had sent you six pictures of street food before Jason confiscated his phone for operational security.

The picture arrived at 12:19 a.m.

terrible news. she’s dead

You zoomed in on the circuit board, then sat back.

that is a capacitor

yeah but she had dreams

You smiled before you could stop yourself.

why are you texting me about a capacitor during a surveillance op?

Roy took fifteen seconds to answer.

because jay said if i asked u out over comms he’d shoot me

Your heart turned over.

Then another message arrived.

dinner when i’m back? not because of alien tech. because i want to see you and ideally not almost die first

You let him wait. Just long enough to preserve your pride.

Then you typed back.

dinner. eight. bring intact technology or don’t come at all.

His reply came almost instantly.

yes ma’am

A second later:

for the record i wanted to ask before the alien overshare

You looked at the message for a long moment, the monitors humming softly around you, the room quiet except for the faint pulse of encrypted channels and the distant city beyond your window.

You answered honestly.

i know

The typing bubble appeared. Vanished. Appeared again.

yeah?

You thought of the first call, the smoking circuit board, the jokes that were not only jokes. You thought of Roy in the vault, pulling you back before the blast hit. Roy in the dark bedroom, asking when he could have taken. Roy in the kitchen after the bond broke, crossing the room because he wanted you without anything alien making the wanting easier to admit.

You typed:

i wanted you to

This time, his answer took longer.

When it came, it was simple.

good. eight.

Your secure comm pinged before you could answer.

Jason’s voice came through a moment later. “Relay.”

“Yes?”

“Tell your boyfriend to stop smiling at his phone during surveillance.”

Roy’s voice protested in the background. “He called me your boyfriend!”

“I heard.”

“You didn’t correct him.”

“I was processing the presumption.”

“You paused.”

“The bond is gone, Harper.”

“I have instincts.”

“You have head trauma.”

“Also instincts.”

Jason made a sound of profound suffering. “I’m muting him.”

Kori’s voice entered the channel, warm and pleased. “I believe this is still courtship.”

“Still not courtship,” Jason said.

Roy laughed, bright and familiar through the line. “Pretty sure it is now.”

You leaned back in your chair, listening to them bicker through the clean channel you had built, the signal steady in your ear. The Outlaws were easy enough when friendship came with protocols. Jason needed routes, Kori needed context, and Roy needed reminders not to touch volatile equipment without supervision.

Roy had become the kind of problem your phone recognized before you did. It buzzed after midnight, and some tired, traitorous part of you already knew it would be him before the screen lit up. Not because he was careless, exactly. Careless people did not send encrypted attachments, blurred circuit diagrams, and three separate angles of a device before asking whether the blinking red light was “a personality thing.” Roy prepared for disaster beautifully. He simply preferred to flirt with it first.

But your phone was in your hand, your smile was already there, and when his voice came through the comm again, softer this time, you did not pretend you had not been waiting for it.

“See you at eight, sweetheart.”

You looked at the monitors, at the open line, at the ridiculous shape your life had taken because Jason Todd had once climbed through the window with a hard drive and Roy Harper had never learned when to leave well enough alone.

“Try not to die before our date, Arsenal.”

His laugh warmed the channel.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider and @toxisyddy for the Robin divider ❤️💛