Only the Lonely, chapter 14
Mar. 20th, 2012 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lirillithTitle: Only the Lonely
Fandom: Tiger & Bunny
Characters/pairing: Karina/Barnaby/Kotetsu, appearances by just about everybody
Length: 4k words
Rating: T
Summary: When Kotetsu returns from retirement and starts coming to Karina's performances again, she thinks she has her chance to get closer to him at last... but that also means getting to know his partner.
****
Things had definitely changed, like Kotetsu had said; Karina couldn't have imagined, in her rookie season, that she'd be able to get almost the entire cast of Hero TV to help her move. She and Pao-lin had picked out a nondescript two-bedroom apartment about a mile from campus and persuaded their various co-signers to start the lease in July to give them time to get settled in.
Kotetsu and Barnaby turned up at her parents' house early on the morning of moving day to load up her packed belongings; when they got to the apartment they found Pao-lin and Sky High carrying boxes from an Odysseus truck. Origami had been held up in traffic, they said. Karina had tried to hang around, wanting to see what kind of car Origami drove - it was hard to imagine him traveling by any means other than giant shuriken - but Bison showed up and she and Pao-lin were sent on a mission to Ikea. Bison's truck and Kotetsu's SUV had ferried their new furniture back to the apartment.
Around three, a low-level Hero TV alert had interrupted, and they lost Kotetsu, Barnaby, Sky High and Bison for a few hours, just before Nathan showed up. Karina's mother dragged her out to buy hangers for her clothes, then when they returned they swiftly left again, this time with Natasha (it was very strange seeing Natasha in jeans) and Pao-lin, to buy things for the kitchen. When they came back that time, they found that most of the furniture had been assembled and Nathan had conjured up fabric swatches and paint color cards, leaving it to Karina to explain to him that this was the kind of apartment you had to restore to its original wall colors when you moved out. Finally she just confiscated them and collapsed on the floor.
That evening, as she sat on the living room floor with her mother, Nathan, and Natasha, looking at fabric swatches for curtains, she listened with half an ear as Kotetsu and her dad continued building the last of her bedroom furniture. Barnaby had spent all day calling her parents "sir" and "ma'am," to her secret amusement, and while they seemed to like him well enough, her dad had been so taken with Kotetsu she was worried they'd actually start spending time together. She didn't think Kotetsu played golf, at least.
Barnaby passed through the room, and she leaned back to snag his ankle. "Kotetsu doesn't watch football, does he?" He probably did. She was doomed.
"Surely he'd have wanted to watch the Super Bowl on my TV at some point in the past two years if he did," Barnaby said. "Why?"
"I'll explain later."
Karina's mother draped a selection of swatches over her knees. "Here are your finalists," she said.
"Umm." The apartment was beige, much to Nathan's dismay. The couch was dark brown. None of the swatches were pink, which was the main guideline she had from Pao-lin.
"The dark green would bring out the color in those throw pillows," Barnaby commented, before continuing into the kitchen. Natasha leaned back, grabbed one of the pillows, and passed it to Karina's mother, who retrieved the swatches and held them against the throw pillow.
"There you go," Nathan said. "Somehow I'm not surprised."
"So we're done?" Karina asked hopefully.
"We should feed everyone," her mother reminded her, so Karina bounced up, free from talking about curtains, to poll everyone on pizza preferences.
After the pizza and sodas, people started to filter out. Sky High needed to patrol, Nathan had a charity dinner - no wonder he'd just had a soda - and everyone had work in the morning. Karina's parents hugged her embarrassingly tightly, Kotetsu rumpled her hair, Barnaby hung back long enough that she could kiss him goodbye after her parents went out the door, and she could hear Pao-lin making her own goodbyes in the kitchen. She flopped onto the couch, waving to Natasha as she left, then Origami. Pao-lin followed him, closed the door behind him, and joined her on the couch.
"What was the verdict on the curtains?" Pao-lin asked.
"Dark green for the living room. Barnaby's selection. Blue in my room. I dunno about yours."
"Yellow. Nathan didn't like it, but it's my room, right? If I want the curtains in my favorite color..."
"Exactly," Karina said, then yawned. "Is it just me, or does it feel like this place doesn't really belong to us yet?"
"Not just you. It's like we're borrowing it."
"Maybe unpacking will help. Tomorrow."
But the next day she was back to work, recording her podcast, being interviewed, calling the cable company and the bank, going to the grocery store to buy food to fill up her very own fridge. Unpacking stretched on and on. Clothes were easy enough, her books and computer, but somehow each box had collected piles of random objects - framed pictures, Blue Rose merchandise prototypes she'd never gotten around to returning, old school papers that for some reason she hadn't just thrown away - and she had to decide what to do with them all.
The season wore on through August, mostly the kind of dull crimes apparently cooked up by people who didn't have Ouroboros funding behind them, with Karina and Barnaby neck-and-neck for first place. Agnes loved that, the whole sexual-tension-and-rivalry angle, and they were getting tons of screen time, which helped make Robert bearable while she waited for her lawyer to call her about the contract proposals.
And then there was the fire.
Someone's stray firework hit an old tinderbox of an apartment building on Bronze. A fully-rented-out old tinderbox. Karina hadn't been on rescue duty. She'd been busy spraying ice where the firefighters asked, usually riding up high, where it was harder to reach. At one point they had her go in to hold up a floor on the verge of collapsing, but that was toward the end of the night.
It wasn't until the fire trucks and ambulances were leaving, the helicopters pulling away, that their transports pulled up. That was when she noticed that Kotetsu wasn't headed for his like the others were - he was sitting on the stoop, his back to the wreckage, head in his hands. He didn't look up at the sound of her footsteps, and barely did when she spoke. "Were you hurt?" she asked. His faceplate was up, but his armor didn't seem to be more than scuffed and dirtied.
He shook his head.
"Is it something else?" She wished she had a better idea how to draw him out.
"I'm..." Kotetsu shook his head. "I'm okay. Sorry." He got to his feet, slowly, gave her an unconvincing smile, and walked past her toward the transports. She trailed after, unhappy and uncertain. He wasn't okay, but she didn't know what was wrong, or how to make him better. She went into her own transport, pulled off her wig, and studied the line along her scalp where the skin wasn't dusted with soot and ash. She peeled off her gloves, and there it was again, like a tan line. A gray line. She hadn't even been inside the building.
Some of the ambulances had raced off, sirens wailing, and a couple of them had driven off slowly. And Kotetsu had been on rescue duty. She left her gloves and headed out of the transport, toward the Apollon truck.
When she opened the door of the truck, she wasn't surprised to find Barnaby with his arms wrapped around Kotetsu, both of them in their undersuits. And if it looked like Barnaby's lips brushed over Kotetsu's cheek she wasn't about to say anything right then. She just went over to them, wrapped her arms around Kotetsu's waist from behind, and held on, her face pressed against the ridged, rubbery fabric of his suit, ignoring his noise of surprise at the new pair of hands. "Rose?" he mumbled.
"Did you seriously think I was going to believe you were okay?"
"It was worth a shot..." His voice sounded raspy, and she wasn't sure if it was emotion or the smoke. Maybe both.
"Neither of us is that gullible, old man," Barnaby said. He sounded a little hoarse, too.
"I know, I know," Kotetsu said. "This time I mean it, I'm not going to fall apart. Not... I need a shower, okay?"
"I think we all do," Barnaby said. She felt Barnaby's hand on her shoulder, and she loosened her arms a little around Kotetsu. He half-turned so he could look at both of them. She wasn't sure if he'd been crying or his eyes were just red from the fire.
"We're staying with you tonight," she said. She'd started stashing an overnight bag in the transport. "Both of us."
He smiled ruefully at her. "I think I can live with that."
Once they'd all relocated to the training center (Kotetsu only had so many towels, or so he claimed) they climbed into Barnaby's car. Kotetsu rested his head against one of the car windows, and they rode in silence, though Karina noticed Barnaby kept glancing in the rear view mirror, checking on him.
She wanted to ask about what she thought she'd seen in their transport, but obviously she'd have to wait. She looked out her own window, fidgeting with a lock of half-dried hair. She wasn't jealous, or at least, she didn't think she was. It didn't bother her, really, but she wanted to know what was going on. Maybe it bothered her a little. She didn't want to be... left out, she decided, was probably the best way of putting it. At least regarding any kissing that was going on. It wasn't that she wanted to be included in everything; part of the reason the idea of working with them at Apollon worried her was that she didn't want to force herself into the middle of their partnership.
His neighborhood was familiar now; she recognized when they were close to his house. She glanced back at Kotetsu, who was still leaning against the window, but he caught her eye and tried to smile. "It's not that bad," he said, the first words any of them had spoken since they got in the car. "Used to be I had to get myself home and deal with it alone, you know?"
And before that he'd had his wife. Would that make it harder to deal with it alone, the fact that he hadn't always had to? "That doesn't mean it wasn't bad," she said, but she didn't know what else to say. She didn't know exactly what had happened in the burning building, and she wasn't sure she ought to ask. She'd seen people die, though she'd never been in the position of carrying them out herself; she'd come home drained and shaken after bad nights and just needed her parents to hug her. Kotetsu should have that too.
Everyone should. She wondered if Nathan was okay; she'd have to call Pao-lin to check on her, and let her know where she was. But they were in front of Kotetsu's house, and Kotetsu seemed to be holding up just fine as he went up the steps and let himself in. Barnaby opened the trunk and she pulled out her bag. "Karina," he said, quietly.
She met his eyes; he looked a lot more upset than she was used to seeing him. "I don't know if you... saw, in the transport earlier..."
"Just don't go comforting him with tongue unless I'm around to watch," she said lightly, and she got the full effect as his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. "Sorry. Too flippant?"
"...just... surprising..." he managed. He pulled off his glasses and started cleaning them, while she tried to get her own expression under control.
"Did something change?" she asked, seriously. And sounding serious, thank goodness.
"I don't know." He closed the car's trunk. "I mean, yes, but I don't know what. When I first returned from retirement, things seemed... different from before. Like we weren't as close. And then over this spring and summer, it's been like before, or better. Because of you."
"How could I have any effect on you and Kotetsu working together?"
Barnaby glanced at the house. The door was still closed. "Maybe he had some idea of my feelings for him, and it put him on edge? Once you and I were together, he felt more comfortable?"
Karina shook her head. "I was way more obvious with my crush than you were and he had no idea. That can't be it."
"Subconsciously," Barnaby persisted, but then he shrugged. "I don't know. It was just a possibility. Maybe it's just that I'm happier."
"Maybe it's just that you knew he needed you right then," she said, picking up her bag.
He put a hand on the bag's handle, and leaned in to kiss her. When she kissed him again, she felt his arm go around her waist, and he buried his face against her shoulder. "I love you," he said. "I wouldn't have given up on Kotetsu if I weren't serious about you, and I don't want to... to endanger that with impulsiveness, or--"
"He's still your partner," she said. "And you two need each other, even if you don't like to admit it. Either of you." She wrapped her arms around him. "Bunny," she said, and she felt him sigh.
"Yes?"
"Let's go inside. I don't think right now is a good time to freak out about this, even if neither of us is as shaken up as he is. I'm just glad you brought it up because I didn't want to, I was afraid it'd seem like I was jealous, or you'd just claim it never happened and I must have imagined it. You kissed him on the cheek. It's not a big deal. Let's go inside and make sure he's okay."
"All right," he said, stepping back and pulling her bag from her hand. "Let's go."
When they opened the door, they were greeted by the smell of cooking oil and... something seafood-y? "I wonder what this might be," Barnaby said, loudly enough for Kotetsu to hear.
"Three guesses," Kotetsu called back from the kitchen.
"First two don't count?" she asked, heading for the kitchen.
"Right!"
"You are such a dad," she said, and Kotetsu actually smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling up, and it was enough for her to hope he was feeling better for real, not just to make them not worry. They ate sitting on the couches - he had too much junk mail piled on the table and the dining bar - and ended up talking about how Karina and Pao-lin were settling into their new apartment, if her parents were enjoying their empty nest, if she and Pao-lin needed to borrow any of Kotetsu's junk mail until they accumulated their own clutter.
"Only if we get to return it," she said. He seemed to be smiling as he got up, carrying his plate to the kitchen, but when he returned with a glass of something amber over ice, he just looked exhausted.
He must have noticed her noticing. "It's not an emergency," he said. "After a day like today, anyone would want a drink. It's a glass, not a bottle."
"You're not wrong," Barnaby said, collecting Karina's empty plate.
"Help yourself," Kotetsu called over his shoulder.
"You weren't doing so well earlier," she said, softly, not sure this was really the right idea.
"I know." He sipped whatever he had. Barnaby had said he liked shochu. Whatever that was. "It was just... You're in there, trying to get people out, but you can't always get everyone. And with one minute, I always... it's one thing against criminals. I have a pretty good idea when to use it in a fight. But a rescue situation, you have to pick the right time, because other peoples' lives depend on it, and you can't predict what's coming up next. Hard not to second-guess yourself. It was bad enough with five minutes, but with one?"
"You couldn't have saved five times as many people," Barnaby said, returning with a drink of his own. "That's not how rescues work. Or fires."
Kotetsu shook his head. "There was a point on the fourth story - I could hear people yelling down the hall, but it was blocked off, and I couldn't get through to get to them until you got there. I'd already used mine. And by the time you were able to shift the debris--"
"Oh God, Kotetsu," Barnaby said. "That apartment. I didn't realize you were stuck there, that long before I arrived. It was bad enough getting there too late."
"Yeah. I was trying to get by, but I wasn't making any headway for... I don't know. A minute, minute and a half. I was able to toss, like, individual cinderblocks, and there was an entire apartment from a floor above blocking the hall. Everyone else had their hands full, and you were on your way out with someone and back up. Maybe they wouldn't have made it even if I'd been able to get through myself and get them out, but standing there, not able to do anything..." He rubbed one hand over his face. "I don't know how many people I got out alive, because I just remember those three kids by the door."
She got up and went over to him, and he set his drink down on the coffee table and put his arms around her waist. His head rested against her upper chest, where her cleavage would be if she had any. She rubbed his shoulders, feeling him trembling, and remembering how there was a time when being this close to him would have been the highlight of her day. She heard the clink of ice against glass, and Barnaby brushed past her to sit on his other side. "You saved over a dozen people," she said. "I had Mario down low so I could hear the firefighters, but I heard that near the end."
"Yeah," Kotetsu mumbled, and sighed. "Sorry I'm such a wreck,' he added. "It's not like we haven't all been through this."
"Of course we have," she said. The roof had started to cave in, and Karina hadn't been able to brace it up fast enough. There had been three or four others, but the one face she remembered was the woman who'd looked right at her; freckles, curly auburn hair, a gray Stern Bild Myrmidons sweatshirt. And then the roof had fallen, cutting the woman off from view. It hadn't seemed real, at first, more like a scene from a movie. A fakeout when you think the character's dead but then she lives.
"That's why we understand how it feels," Barnaby said. "So you can't tell us it's nothing and you're fine. We both know better."
"I wish I could say you get used to it," he said. "I'm not much of a veteran, huh?"
"Because it's terrible for a hero to care about people," Karina retorted.
"Yes, kindness is a huge handicap in a profession that's all about saving lives," Barnaby added.
"I mean, rough on the hero, but still."
"Okay, okay," Kotetsu sighed. "Smart-mouthed kids."
After a while, when he stopped shaking, she sank down next to him on the couch, and the three of them curled up in a pile. "I used to try to memorize the names," Kotetsu said. "Everyone I saved, everyone I couldn't save. I couldn't do it. I guess I just ran out of room."
"I still remember the first person I ever saved," Karina said. "Lucia Nguyen. It was after a car bombing at a big shopping center." And the first she hadn't saved. She wasn't going to say that.
"Oh, so do I," Kotetsu said. "Not by name, but by face. This little old lady, and a banker in a suit. The lady was named Elizabeth, I remember that. And I know some of the names - the ones that send fan mail, or Christmas cards."
Barnaby's glass clinked as he drained the last of it. "Depending on when you start counting... my first rescue was either Kaede, or you, Kotetsu."
"Wait, you knew about Kaede?"
He sighed, but his voice was fond. "Kotetsu, it took you about two weeks to start showing me pictures. Of course I remembered her."
Karina poked Kotetsu's side, and he squirmed. "What did I say about telling people things?"
"Um," he hedged. "That I should do it?"
"Don't use long words with him, Karina," Barnaby said. "Think flash cards."
"Hey," Kotetsu protested. "I know you're ticklish, now. Don't push me."
She rested her head against Kotetsu's shoulder and closed her eyes. "Listening to you two bicker is like a lullaby," she said sleepily. Kotetsu kind of scoffed, but she'd meant it. She woke to the sound of her name.
"Huh," Kotetsu said. "I thought you were joking."
"Nuh-uh. What happened?"
"He wanted to know if you'd decided between Helios and Apollon," Barnaby said.
"No," she said, and stifled a yawn. "Not yet. I still have to meet with my lawyer to talk about the contract offers, and I'm sure Titan will have a counter-offer, and with me as MVP it's probably gonna be good, but before that... I don't know. I like the Apollon suit a lot, and of course my parents are in favor of armor too. Partnering up with Nathan would probably be a lot of fun... did I tell you he designed me a cape like his?"
"You can hypnotize criminals with it," Barnaby suggested. "And audiences."
"Right?" she agreed happily.
"You don't wanna work with us?" Kotetsu sounded a bit wistful.
"It's not that." She tried to clear her mind enough to describe it. "I love you guys, but I don't want to get in the way. I mean, you were partners before I ever came along... or before I got to know you both, I mean... ugh, I'm too sleepy for this."
"Y'know, even if it was Yoko Ono's fault, you're not her," Kotetsu said.
"What?" Barnaby sounded legitimately confused.
"What'd I tell you about him and music?" Kotetsu asked.
"I don't remember." She sat up, her side feeling cold where she'd been leaning against Kotetsu, and rubbed her eyes. "I don't think I'd break you up. I just don't want to be the... it's not third wheel."
"Fifth wheel," Barnaby said.
"Third makes more sense," Kotetsu objected. "Because it's always, like, a third person tagging along with a couple. Like me with you guys."
"Or me," Karina said. "And I told you to stop... that. Thing you do."
"But if you add a third wheel to a bicycle you get something more stable. A fifth wheel is just extraneous."
"I thought I didn't understand long words," Kotetsu teased. Karina flopped over sideways across both their laps.
"You're not extraneous," she told Kotetsu, blinking him into focus. The lights above were too bright, and she squinted, but then Barnaby's hand stroking her hair shaded her eyes. "I already told you that."
Kotetsu smiled at her, a real one this time. His head was on Barnaby's shoulder. "You're not either," he said. "Karina."
****
Fandom: Tiger & Bunny
Characters/pairing: Karina/Barnaby/Kotetsu, appearances by just about everybody
Length: 4k words
Rating: T
Summary: When Kotetsu returns from retirement and starts coming to Karina's performances again, she thinks she has her chance to get closer to him at last... but that also means getting to know his partner.
****
Things had definitely changed, like Kotetsu had said; Karina couldn't have imagined, in her rookie season, that she'd be able to get almost the entire cast of Hero TV to help her move. She and Pao-lin had picked out a nondescript two-bedroom apartment about a mile from campus and persuaded their various co-signers to start the lease in July to give them time to get settled in.
Kotetsu and Barnaby turned up at her parents' house early on the morning of moving day to load up her packed belongings; when they got to the apartment they found Pao-lin and Sky High carrying boxes from an Odysseus truck. Origami had been held up in traffic, they said. Karina had tried to hang around, wanting to see what kind of car Origami drove - it was hard to imagine him traveling by any means other than giant shuriken - but Bison showed up and she and Pao-lin were sent on a mission to Ikea. Bison's truck and Kotetsu's SUV had ferried their new furniture back to the apartment.
Around three, a low-level Hero TV alert had interrupted, and they lost Kotetsu, Barnaby, Sky High and Bison for a few hours, just before Nathan showed up. Karina's mother dragged her out to buy hangers for her clothes, then when they returned they swiftly left again, this time with Natasha (it was very strange seeing Natasha in jeans) and Pao-lin, to buy things for the kitchen. When they came back that time, they found that most of the furniture had been assembled and Nathan had conjured up fabric swatches and paint color cards, leaving it to Karina to explain to him that this was the kind of apartment you had to restore to its original wall colors when you moved out. Finally she just confiscated them and collapsed on the floor.
That evening, as she sat on the living room floor with her mother, Nathan, and Natasha, looking at fabric swatches for curtains, she listened with half an ear as Kotetsu and her dad continued building the last of her bedroom furniture. Barnaby had spent all day calling her parents "sir" and "ma'am," to her secret amusement, and while they seemed to like him well enough, her dad had been so taken with Kotetsu she was worried they'd actually start spending time together. She didn't think Kotetsu played golf, at least.
Barnaby passed through the room, and she leaned back to snag his ankle. "Kotetsu doesn't watch football, does he?" He probably did. She was doomed.
"Surely he'd have wanted to watch the Super Bowl on my TV at some point in the past two years if he did," Barnaby said. "Why?"
"I'll explain later."
Karina's mother draped a selection of swatches over her knees. "Here are your finalists," she said.
"Umm." The apartment was beige, much to Nathan's dismay. The couch was dark brown. None of the swatches were pink, which was the main guideline she had from Pao-lin.
"The dark green would bring out the color in those throw pillows," Barnaby commented, before continuing into the kitchen. Natasha leaned back, grabbed one of the pillows, and passed it to Karina's mother, who retrieved the swatches and held them against the throw pillow.
"There you go," Nathan said. "Somehow I'm not surprised."
"So we're done?" Karina asked hopefully.
"We should feed everyone," her mother reminded her, so Karina bounced up, free from talking about curtains, to poll everyone on pizza preferences.
After the pizza and sodas, people started to filter out. Sky High needed to patrol, Nathan had a charity dinner - no wonder he'd just had a soda - and everyone had work in the morning. Karina's parents hugged her embarrassingly tightly, Kotetsu rumpled her hair, Barnaby hung back long enough that she could kiss him goodbye after her parents went out the door, and she could hear Pao-lin making her own goodbyes in the kitchen. She flopped onto the couch, waving to Natasha as she left, then Origami. Pao-lin followed him, closed the door behind him, and joined her on the couch.
"What was the verdict on the curtains?" Pao-lin asked.
"Dark green for the living room. Barnaby's selection. Blue in my room. I dunno about yours."
"Yellow. Nathan didn't like it, but it's my room, right? If I want the curtains in my favorite color..."
"Exactly," Karina said, then yawned. "Is it just me, or does it feel like this place doesn't really belong to us yet?"
"Not just you. It's like we're borrowing it."
"Maybe unpacking will help. Tomorrow."
But the next day she was back to work, recording her podcast, being interviewed, calling the cable company and the bank, going to the grocery store to buy food to fill up her very own fridge. Unpacking stretched on and on. Clothes were easy enough, her books and computer, but somehow each box had collected piles of random objects - framed pictures, Blue Rose merchandise prototypes she'd never gotten around to returning, old school papers that for some reason she hadn't just thrown away - and she had to decide what to do with them all.
The season wore on through August, mostly the kind of dull crimes apparently cooked up by people who didn't have Ouroboros funding behind them, with Karina and Barnaby neck-and-neck for first place. Agnes loved that, the whole sexual-tension-and-rivalry angle, and they were getting tons of screen time, which helped make Robert bearable while she waited for her lawyer to call her about the contract proposals.
And then there was the fire.
Someone's stray firework hit an old tinderbox of an apartment building on Bronze. A fully-rented-out old tinderbox. Karina hadn't been on rescue duty. She'd been busy spraying ice where the firefighters asked, usually riding up high, where it was harder to reach. At one point they had her go in to hold up a floor on the verge of collapsing, but that was toward the end of the night.
It wasn't until the fire trucks and ambulances were leaving, the helicopters pulling away, that their transports pulled up. That was when she noticed that Kotetsu wasn't headed for his like the others were - he was sitting on the stoop, his back to the wreckage, head in his hands. He didn't look up at the sound of her footsteps, and barely did when she spoke. "Were you hurt?" she asked. His faceplate was up, but his armor didn't seem to be more than scuffed and dirtied.
He shook his head.
"Is it something else?" She wished she had a better idea how to draw him out.
"I'm..." Kotetsu shook his head. "I'm okay. Sorry." He got to his feet, slowly, gave her an unconvincing smile, and walked past her toward the transports. She trailed after, unhappy and uncertain. He wasn't okay, but she didn't know what was wrong, or how to make him better. She went into her own transport, pulled off her wig, and studied the line along her scalp where the skin wasn't dusted with soot and ash. She peeled off her gloves, and there it was again, like a tan line. A gray line. She hadn't even been inside the building.
Some of the ambulances had raced off, sirens wailing, and a couple of them had driven off slowly. And Kotetsu had been on rescue duty. She left her gloves and headed out of the transport, toward the Apollon truck.
When she opened the door of the truck, she wasn't surprised to find Barnaby with his arms wrapped around Kotetsu, both of them in their undersuits. And if it looked like Barnaby's lips brushed over Kotetsu's cheek she wasn't about to say anything right then. She just went over to them, wrapped her arms around Kotetsu's waist from behind, and held on, her face pressed against the ridged, rubbery fabric of his suit, ignoring his noise of surprise at the new pair of hands. "Rose?" he mumbled.
"Did you seriously think I was going to believe you were okay?"
"It was worth a shot..." His voice sounded raspy, and she wasn't sure if it was emotion or the smoke. Maybe both.
"Neither of us is that gullible, old man," Barnaby said. He sounded a little hoarse, too.
"I know, I know," Kotetsu said. "This time I mean it, I'm not going to fall apart. Not... I need a shower, okay?"
"I think we all do," Barnaby said. She felt Barnaby's hand on her shoulder, and she loosened her arms a little around Kotetsu. He half-turned so he could look at both of them. She wasn't sure if he'd been crying or his eyes were just red from the fire.
"We're staying with you tonight," she said. She'd started stashing an overnight bag in the transport. "Both of us."
He smiled ruefully at her. "I think I can live with that."
Once they'd all relocated to the training center (Kotetsu only had so many towels, or so he claimed) they climbed into Barnaby's car. Kotetsu rested his head against one of the car windows, and they rode in silence, though Karina noticed Barnaby kept glancing in the rear view mirror, checking on him.
She wanted to ask about what she thought she'd seen in their transport, but obviously she'd have to wait. She looked out her own window, fidgeting with a lock of half-dried hair. She wasn't jealous, or at least, she didn't think she was. It didn't bother her, really, but she wanted to know what was going on. Maybe it bothered her a little. She didn't want to be... left out, she decided, was probably the best way of putting it. At least regarding any kissing that was going on. It wasn't that she wanted to be included in everything; part of the reason the idea of working with them at Apollon worried her was that she didn't want to force herself into the middle of their partnership.
His neighborhood was familiar now; she recognized when they were close to his house. She glanced back at Kotetsu, who was still leaning against the window, but he caught her eye and tried to smile. "It's not that bad," he said, the first words any of them had spoken since they got in the car. "Used to be I had to get myself home and deal with it alone, you know?"
And before that he'd had his wife. Would that make it harder to deal with it alone, the fact that he hadn't always had to? "That doesn't mean it wasn't bad," she said, but she didn't know what else to say. She didn't know exactly what had happened in the burning building, and she wasn't sure she ought to ask. She'd seen people die, though she'd never been in the position of carrying them out herself; she'd come home drained and shaken after bad nights and just needed her parents to hug her. Kotetsu should have that too.
Everyone should. She wondered if Nathan was okay; she'd have to call Pao-lin to check on her, and let her know where she was. But they were in front of Kotetsu's house, and Kotetsu seemed to be holding up just fine as he went up the steps and let himself in. Barnaby opened the trunk and she pulled out her bag. "Karina," he said, quietly.
She met his eyes; he looked a lot more upset than she was used to seeing him. "I don't know if you... saw, in the transport earlier..."
"Just don't go comforting him with tongue unless I'm around to watch," she said lightly, and she got the full effect as his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. "Sorry. Too flippant?"
"...just... surprising..." he managed. He pulled off his glasses and started cleaning them, while she tried to get her own expression under control.
"Did something change?" she asked, seriously. And sounding serious, thank goodness.
"I don't know." He closed the car's trunk. "I mean, yes, but I don't know what. When I first returned from retirement, things seemed... different from before. Like we weren't as close. And then over this spring and summer, it's been like before, or better. Because of you."
"How could I have any effect on you and Kotetsu working together?"
Barnaby glanced at the house. The door was still closed. "Maybe he had some idea of my feelings for him, and it put him on edge? Once you and I were together, he felt more comfortable?"
Karina shook her head. "I was way more obvious with my crush than you were and he had no idea. That can't be it."
"Subconsciously," Barnaby persisted, but then he shrugged. "I don't know. It was just a possibility. Maybe it's just that I'm happier."
"Maybe it's just that you knew he needed you right then," she said, picking up her bag.
He put a hand on the bag's handle, and leaned in to kiss her. When she kissed him again, she felt his arm go around her waist, and he buried his face against her shoulder. "I love you," he said. "I wouldn't have given up on Kotetsu if I weren't serious about you, and I don't want to... to endanger that with impulsiveness, or--"
"He's still your partner," she said. "And you two need each other, even if you don't like to admit it. Either of you." She wrapped her arms around him. "Bunny," she said, and she felt him sigh.
"Yes?"
"Let's go inside. I don't think right now is a good time to freak out about this, even if neither of us is as shaken up as he is. I'm just glad you brought it up because I didn't want to, I was afraid it'd seem like I was jealous, or you'd just claim it never happened and I must have imagined it. You kissed him on the cheek. It's not a big deal. Let's go inside and make sure he's okay."
"All right," he said, stepping back and pulling her bag from her hand. "Let's go."
When they opened the door, they were greeted by the smell of cooking oil and... something seafood-y? "I wonder what this might be," Barnaby said, loudly enough for Kotetsu to hear.
"Three guesses," Kotetsu called back from the kitchen.
"First two don't count?" she asked, heading for the kitchen.
"Right!"
"You are such a dad," she said, and Kotetsu actually smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling up, and it was enough for her to hope he was feeling better for real, not just to make them not worry. They ate sitting on the couches - he had too much junk mail piled on the table and the dining bar - and ended up talking about how Karina and Pao-lin were settling into their new apartment, if her parents were enjoying their empty nest, if she and Pao-lin needed to borrow any of Kotetsu's junk mail until they accumulated their own clutter.
"Only if we get to return it," she said. He seemed to be smiling as he got up, carrying his plate to the kitchen, but when he returned with a glass of something amber over ice, he just looked exhausted.
He must have noticed her noticing. "It's not an emergency," he said. "After a day like today, anyone would want a drink. It's a glass, not a bottle."
"You're not wrong," Barnaby said, collecting Karina's empty plate.
"Help yourself," Kotetsu called over his shoulder.
"You weren't doing so well earlier," she said, softly, not sure this was really the right idea.
"I know." He sipped whatever he had. Barnaby had said he liked shochu. Whatever that was. "It was just... You're in there, trying to get people out, but you can't always get everyone. And with one minute, I always... it's one thing against criminals. I have a pretty good idea when to use it in a fight. But a rescue situation, you have to pick the right time, because other peoples' lives depend on it, and you can't predict what's coming up next. Hard not to second-guess yourself. It was bad enough with five minutes, but with one?"
"You couldn't have saved five times as many people," Barnaby said, returning with a drink of his own. "That's not how rescues work. Or fires."
Kotetsu shook his head. "There was a point on the fourth story - I could hear people yelling down the hall, but it was blocked off, and I couldn't get through to get to them until you got there. I'd already used mine. And by the time you were able to shift the debris--"
"Oh God, Kotetsu," Barnaby said. "That apartment. I didn't realize you were stuck there, that long before I arrived. It was bad enough getting there too late."
"Yeah. I was trying to get by, but I wasn't making any headway for... I don't know. A minute, minute and a half. I was able to toss, like, individual cinderblocks, and there was an entire apartment from a floor above blocking the hall. Everyone else had their hands full, and you were on your way out with someone and back up. Maybe they wouldn't have made it even if I'd been able to get through myself and get them out, but standing there, not able to do anything..." He rubbed one hand over his face. "I don't know how many people I got out alive, because I just remember those three kids by the door."
She got up and went over to him, and he set his drink down on the coffee table and put his arms around her waist. His head rested against her upper chest, where her cleavage would be if she had any. She rubbed his shoulders, feeling him trembling, and remembering how there was a time when being this close to him would have been the highlight of her day. She heard the clink of ice against glass, and Barnaby brushed past her to sit on his other side. "You saved over a dozen people," she said. "I had Mario down low so I could hear the firefighters, but I heard that near the end."
"Yeah," Kotetsu mumbled, and sighed. "Sorry I'm such a wreck,' he added. "It's not like we haven't all been through this."
"Of course we have," she said. The roof had started to cave in, and Karina hadn't been able to brace it up fast enough. There had been three or four others, but the one face she remembered was the woman who'd looked right at her; freckles, curly auburn hair, a gray Stern Bild Myrmidons sweatshirt. And then the roof had fallen, cutting the woman off from view. It hadn't seemed real, at first, more like a scene from a movie. A fakeout when you think the character's dead but then she lives.
"That's why we understand how it feels," Barnaby said. "So you can't tell us it's nothing and you're fine. We both know better."
"I wish I could say you get used to it," he said. "I'm not much of a veteran, huh?"
"Because it's terrible for a hero to care about people," Karina retorted.
"Yes, kindness is a huge handicap in a profession that's all about saving lives," Barnaby added.
"I mean, rough on the hero, but still."
"Okay, okay," Kotetsu sighed. "Smart-mouthed kids."
After a while, when he stopped shaking, she sank down next to him on the couch, and the three of them curled up in a pile. "I used to try to memorize the names," Kotetsu said. "Everyone I saved, everyone I couldn't save. I couldn't do it. I guess I just ran out of room."
"I still remember the first person I ever saved," Karina said. "Lucia Nguyen. It was after a car bombing at a big shopping center." And the first she hadn't saved. She wasn't going to say that.
"Oh, so do I," Kotetsu said. "Not by name, but by face. This little old lady, and a banker in a suit. The lady was named Elizabeth, I remember that. And I know some of the names - the ones that send fan mail, or Christmas cards."
Barnaby's glass clinked as he drained the last of it. "Depending on when you start counting... my first rescue was either Kaede, or you, Kotetsu."
"Wait, you knew about Kaede?"
He sighed, but his voice was fond. "Kotetsu, it took you about two weeks to start showing me pictures. Of course I remembered her."
Karina poked Kotetsu's side, and he squirmed. "What did I say about telling people things?"
"Um," he hedged. "That I should do it?"
"Don't use long words with him, Karina," Barnaby said. "Think flash cards."
"Hey," Kotetsu protested. "I know you're ticklish, now. Don't push me."
She rested her head against Kotetsu's shoulder and closed her eyes. "Listening to you two bicker is like a lullaby," she said sleepily. Kotetsu kind of scoffed, but she'd meant it. She woke to the sound of her name.
"Huh," Kotetsu said. "I thought you were joking."
"Nuh-uh. What happened?"
"He wanted to know if you'd decided between Helios and Apollon," Barnaby said.
"No," she said, and stifled a yawn. "Not yet. I still have to meet with my lawyer to talk about the contract offers, and I'm sure Titan will have a counter-offer, and with me as MVP it's probably gonna be good, but before that... I don't know. I like the Apollon suit a lot, and of course my parents are in favor of armor too. Partnering up with Nathan would probably be a lot of fun... did I tell you he designed me a cape like his?"
"You can hypnotize criminals with it," Barnaby suggested. "And audiences."
"Right?" she agreed happily.
"You don't wanna work with us?" Kotetsu sounded a bit wistful.
"It's not that." She tried to clear her mind enough to describe it. "I love you guys, but I don't want to get in the way. I mean, you were partners before I ever came along... or before I got to know you both, I mean... ugh, I'm too sleepy for this."
"Y'know, even if it was Yoko Ono's fault, you're not her," Kotetsu said.
"What?" Barnaby sounded legitimately confused.
"What'd I tell you about him and music?" Kotetsu asked.
"I don't remember." She sat up, her side feeling cold where she'd been leaning against Kotetsu, and rubbed her eyes. "I don't think I'd break you up. I just don't want to be the... it's not third wheel."
"Fifth wheel," Barnaby said.
"Third makes more sense," Kotetsu objected. "Because it's always, like, a third person tagging along with a couple. Like me with you guys."
"Or me," Karina said. "And I told you to stop... that. Thing you do."
"But if you add a third wheel to a bicycle you get something more stable. A fifth wheel is just extraneous."
"I thought I didn't understand long words," Kotetsu teased. Karina flopped over sideways across both their laps.
"You're not extraneous," she told Kotetsu, blinking him into focus. The lights above were too bright, and she squinted, but then Barnaby's hand stroking her hair shaded her eyes. "I already told you that."
Kotetsu smiled at her, a real one this time. His head was on Barnaby's shoulder. "You're not either," he said. "Karina."
****
