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Courtney still wasn’t used to the sound of this lock.
Not the cheap hollow rattle of some month-to-month sublet, not the sticky knob of a stranger’s place she’d forget in a week. This was a solid click. A quiet thunk of a door that shut properly. A nice lock. Good deadbolt. The kind you buy on purpose.
She’d watched Mandy install it herself, sleeves rolled up, tongue sticking out a little while she drilled the holes.
Now her hands were shaking too hard to get the key in.
First try, she missed the slot by a mile. Second try, the keys rattled against the metal so loud she flinched, like it was a gunshot. On the third, she finally hit the keyhole and turned, wrists still buzzing from impact that wasn’t there anymore.
The door swung inward on warm air and lamplight.
“Court?” Mandy called from inside, voice drifting past the smell of garlic and tomato and something buttery. “That you?”
It hit Visi right in the sternum how casual it sounded. Like of course it’s you. Of course you come here. Of course this is where you go when you’re done almost dying.
She swallowed and kicked off her boots, missing the little mat by an inch. “Yeah. Sorry. Took a minute.”
“Bathroom hallway or kitchen?” Mandy asked, still out of sight. “Level of triage here.”
Visi forced her voice up into something breezy. “Kitchen. I’m only, like, eighty percent dead.”
“Relatable,” Mandy said. “Get in here.”
The apartment was small but it had that lived-in, the same two people leave mugs in the same three spots feeling. Her backpack on the hook. Her sneakers by the door. A stupid little succulent she’d bought as a joke now thriving on the windowsill because Mandy actually watered it.
She followed the sound of a simmering pan.
Mandy was at the stove, barefoot in gray joggers and an SDN t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her hair was up in a messy knot, little curls escaping at her neck. The TV hummed low from the living room with some reality show rerun she half-watched while doing case reports. Two bowls were already out on the counter. Two glasses. Two spoons. Expecting them, plural.
Courtney’s throat got tight.
Mandy looked over, did a quick up-down scan. Eyes lingering on the ripped seam at Visi’s shoulder, the dust in her hair, the blood at her knuckles.
“Mmm,” Mandy said. “So by ‘eighty percent dead,’ you meant ‘trying to stand upright with rebar still sticking out of you.’”
Visi snorted automatically. “If I had rebar in me, you’d already be in the group chat sending selfies with it.”
“True.” Mandy set the spatula down and moved toward her. “C’mere.”
Courtney’s body wanted to back up, and also wanted to collapse, and also maybe climb her like a tree. The confusion made her feet stutter.
Mandy slowed before she reached her, palms open, not touching yet. “Can I?” she asked quietly.
Her brain, wired by a decade of hookups and one-night stands and attention means hands on your skin now, tripped over the question. “Y-Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine, it’s just-”
Mandy didn’t buy “fine” for even a second. She stepped closer and tilted Courtney’s chin with two fingers.
Up close, the alpha’s eyes softened and sharpened at the same time. “You’re pale,” she murmured. “You only go that color when your adrenaline’s crashing. How bad?”
“Not-” Courtney’s voice tried to stick to a joke and failed. “The building went boomier than planned.”
“That’s not a unit of measurement,” Mandy said, but her hand slid from Courtney’s jaw to the back of her neck, thumb resting on that little spot that always made her shoulders unclench. “Any ringing in your ears? Headache? Nausea?”
“No, doctor,” Courtney muttered.
“Not yet,” Mandy corrected. “Bathroom. Let’s de-dust you before dinner.”
Courtney hesitated. “We can just eat, I’m…”
“Bathroom,” Mandy repeated, gently, like she was talking to a skittish animal that still had its teeth.
It wasn’t the commanding bark she used on rookies or in a fight. It was worse. It was soft. Assumptive in this weird, tender way. Like going to take care of you was a thing that just happened now, as inevitable as gravity.
Courtney’s body obeyed before the rest of her caught up.
The bathroom lights were already dimmed when she stepped in. Not the harsh overhead, but the softer one above the mirror. A towel hung neatly on the rack. Her big, stolen-from-Mandy hoodie (navy blue, zip up, smelled like her) was waiting on the hook.
Steam crept out from behind the shower curtain.
Visi blinked. “Did you run this?”
“Turned it on when you texted ‘leaving now,’” Mandy said from behind her, leaning in to adjust the tap temperature by touch. “You always say you’re ‘leaving now’ and then write ‘ETA 15’ five minutes later, so that’s plenty of preheat time.”
The casual I know your patterns made her dizzy.
“You shouldn’t waste hot water just ‘cause I’m dramatic,” Courtney muttered.
Mandy glanced back at her. “That’s why I live alone. No roommates to yell at me for letting my girlfriend hog the shower.”
Girlfriend.
She said it like it was settled fact, no italics, no air quotes. It still rang in Courtney’s ears like a fire alarm.
She tried to smirk. “You sure she’s your girlfriend? Sounds like a menace.”
“Yeah,” Mandy said, unfazed. “She breaks my stuff. Runs into burning buildings. Fails at using coasters. Total disaster. I’m very taken.”
Something brutal and bright pinched behind Courtney’s eyes. She tightened her jaw until it hurt.
Mandy shut off the water and turned to her fully. “Clothes off,” she said gently. “Will you let me check you over?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know I don’t have to,” Mandy cut in. There wasn’t any edge to it, but it was firm. “I want to. You scared the shit out of me tonight. The least you can do is let me see where it hurts.”
Courtney rolled her eyes up at the ceiling and exhaled. “Yeah, okay. Fine. Lecture me while you strip me, why don’t you.”
“Tempting,” Mandy muttered, but there was this little flash of relief underneath it, like getting consent through sarcasm still counted.
She worked the suit zipper down carefully, fingers skimming deliberately along uninjured skin, pausing whenever Courtney flinched. The whole thing felt too intimate; not lusty, not casual. Reverent, almost.
As the fabric peeled away, bruises bloomed into view. Angry purple across ribs. A scrape along her hip. A cut on her thigh she hadn’t noticed.
Mandy sucked in a breath.
“It looks worse than it is,” Visi said quickly. “It’s-”
“I know what ‘worse than it is’ looks like,” Mandy murmured, eyes tracking each mark. “This is… medium bad. You still did good.”
Her thumb traced the edge of a dark, ugly bruise with infinite patience. “You hit the wall this way?” she asked.
“Yeah. Got thrown. Caught the beam before it took out the civvies but the rebound.”
Mandy’s jaw clenched. “I saw the replay. Security cam from across the street got a good angle of you pancaking yourself between two stories of brick and terrible life choices.”
“Oh, sweet,” Courtney said weakly. “Can we make it a training video?”
“Already filed under ‘Things My Girlfriend Is Never Doing Again,’” Mandy said.
Girlfriend. Again. Like pressing on a bruise.
She got Courtney down to her bra and underwear and guided her gently toward the shower.
“Can you stand?”
“Yeah.”
“Invisible?”
Courtney cocked her head. “Why?”
“Because if you pass out, I want to know which direction your skull is going,” Mandy said, deadpan. “You fall weird when you’re invisible. Learned that the hard way.”
“I only ate shit that one time.”
“It was three times,” Mandy corrected. “In twenty minutes.”
Courtney huffed a tiny laugh, stepped under the spray, and let the hot water hit. It burned for a moment, then melted something deep in her chest. Dust ran grey down the drain.
She leaned her forehead against the tile, eyes closing. The first breath was jagged. The second less so.
Behind the curtain, she heard Mandy moving around, medicine cabinet opening, the little rip of a packet being torn, things set near the sink. No rush. No huffing impatience. Just the soft clink of someone making ready.
No one had ever stayed this long after a mission. Or before. Or during. Usually it was adrenaline → find warm body → blackout → leave before dawn. A system. Messy, but predictable. No one hung around to see her shake.
“Court?” Mandy’s voice came through the curtain. “You still with me?”
“Yeah,” Courtney croaked.
“Describe something in the room to me.”
She frowned. “Uh… shower curtain?”
“What’s on it?”
“Rubber ducks,” Courtney said, “They were bright yellow and stupidly cheerful.”
“Cool. Means you’re not dissociating so hard you forgot my terrible taste,” Mandy said. “How’s your breathing?”
Courtney rolled her eyes, even though Mandy couldn’t see it. “You’re very bossy, you know that?”
“And yet you keep coming home to me,” Mandy said. “Suspicious.”
Home.
It bounced around inside her ribs like a ricochet.
She shut off the water before the spiral in her head could get worse.
By the time she stepped out, wrapped in a towel, her hands were trembling more obviously. Not from cold. The adrenaline cliff was in full view now.
Mandy noticed. Of course she did.
“Sit,” she said gently, nodding toward the toilet lid. “I’m gonna do something wild and give you ibuprofen before your body realizes it needs it.”
Courtney dropped down, still damp, watching as Mandy knelt between her knees with a first aid kit. The angle was wrong for her brain, she was used to this perspective meaning something else. Someone pressing in, taking, using. Not someone balancing gauze and antiseptic wipes.
“Hey,” Mandy said softly. “Look at me, not the floor.”
Courtney dragged her eyes up.
Mandy smiled just enough to count. “There she is.”
She cleaned the cut on Courtney’s thigh, murmuring warnings before the sting. She checked her ribs with cautious fingers, counting each hitch in Courtney’s breath. She pressed painkillers into her palm and waited until she actually swallowed them before she moved on.
The whole time, Courtney felt like her skin had been turned inside out. Everything was too much. Mandy’s hands. The care in her voice. The way she didn’t make jokes about “you owe me later” or “I expect payment in orgasms.” Just… this.
“This is illegal,” Courtney muttered when Mandy taped the last bit of gauze down.
“What is?”
“You,” she said, heat rising in her face. “Doing…this. Being…ugh” Her throat closed around the word. “Nice.”
Mandy made a face. “Wow, the bar really is underground, huh.”
“I’m serious,” Courtney whispered. “Nobody does this. Not for me. They want… other stuff.”
Mandy sat back on her heels. “I want other stuff,” she said plainly. “I’m extremely invested in other stuff. Have you seen you?”
Courtney’s lips twitched.
“But,” Mandy went on, “none of that matters if you’re falling apart. And honestly? I kinda like being the person who gets to see you when you’re not performing.”
“I don’t perform,” Courtney protested weakly.
Mandy’s eyebrow did the thing. “You hit on the EMT who was stitching your leg last month while you were white as a sheet.”
“He was hot.”
“You were half-conscious.”
“Hot and helpful,” Courtney said. “King behavior.”
Mandy huffed a laugh, then sobered. “That’s the point, though. You flirt to deflect. You fuck to numb out. You never… let it hurt.”
“It already hurts,” Courtney snapped. The edge surprised both of them. “I just… I know what to do with that kind of hurt. The other kind-”
She waved a hand, helpless. The other kind was right in front of her: steady, warm, infuriatingly patient.
“That’s the kind that actually heals,” Mandy said quietly. “Which sucks. Healing is the worst. Ten out of ten would recommend, though.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how ratings work,” Courtney muttered.
“Shut up and let me love you,” Mandy said, deadpan enough that it took a second to register.
Courtney’s breath stuttered.
Joke. It had to be a joke. Except… it wasn’t fully a joke. Not with the way Mandy was watching her. Not with the bath and the hoodie and the two bowls already set out.
The panic rose fast and sour, spiking behind her eyes. She stood abruptly, towel knot nearly slipping.
“I can just crash on the couch,” she blurted. “You don’t…you’ve done enough. I’m fine. I can- I’ll order food or something, you don’t have to—”
“Hey.” Mandy stood too, but slowly, hands out, not boxing her in. “Courtney. Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Courtney said. Her chest felt too tight. “I don’t….I don’t know how to do this, okay? I don’t know how to let you… be nice. I keep waiting for the bill.”
Mandy’s face softened at that. “There is no bill.”
“Everybody wants something,” Courtney shot back. “They want access, they want a story, they want a body, they want-”
“What do I want?” Mandy asked.
The question hit her like another blast wave. She searched for the punchline. Couldn’t find it.
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
Mandy took a careful step closer. “I want you alive,” she said. “I want you not wheezing up blood. I want you to have somewhere that isn’t a motel to come back to. I want to cook for you because you forget to feed yourself when you’re spinning. I want to watch bad TV with you. I want to hold your hand in public and not care who sees. I want to know how your day was when you’re not being Invisigal, just… Courtney.”
The name felt fragile in the air.
“And yeah,” Mandy added, voice dipping, “I want to kiss you and touch you and wreck you in ways that have nothing to do with concussive force. But if all I get tonight is ‘you didn’t die and you let me wash your hair,’ I’m calling that a win.”
Courtney’s vision blurred. “You’re gonna get tired of that,” she said. “You’re gonna get tired of me freaking out every time you..you do something like make me soup and I spiral for three hours, and then you’ll just-”
“Stop,” Mandy said gently. Not a command. A plea.
Courtney’s mouth snapped shut.
Mandy reached up slowly, fingertips brushing a damp curl off her forehead. “You are allowed to say no,” she said. “To all of it. To dinner. To baths. To talking. To sex. To me. You get to say no and still be here. That’s the part you don’t trust yet.”
Something inside Courtney’s chest spasmed, ugly and sharp. “That’s not how it works,” she whispered.
“It is here,” Mandy said simply.
Courtney’s pulse thudded in her ears. The old script tried so hard to kick in: make a joke, lean in, kiss her, offer sex, change the channel. That was what people wanted from her. That was what she knew how to give.
“I…” Her throat closed up. She forced the word out anyway. “No.”
It was tiny. A squeak. Pathetic, in her own head. But it was loud as a siren between them.
Mandy went very still.
Courtney stared at the wall over her shoulder, muscles braced for it, for the flinch, the disappointment, the flash of annoyance, the oh and the step back. She braced for the soft, polite, “it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” that really meant you’re too much work.
Instead Mandy just nodded. No delay. No sting.
“Okay,” she said.
Courtney’s head snapped back to her. “Okay?”
“Okay no,” Mandy said. “No sex tonight. No anything-you-don’t-want. That’s allowed. Come eat first. Then, if you feel like it, we can fall asleep in front of the TV like old people and my shoulder can go numb under your giant head.”
That last bit had a smile in it, but it was small, careful. Not a weapon. A bridge.
“You’re not mad?” Courtney asked, hating how small she sounded.
Mandy’s eyes flashed. “At who?”
“Me.”
“For doing the bravest thing I’ve seen you do in months?” Mandy asked. “Nah. I’m good.”
Courtney wobbled. “That’s not brave.”
Mandy huffed. “You can jump off a collapsing parking garage and trust that I’ll catch you with half a force field and a prayer, but you think saying ‘no’ to sex is too much?” She shook her head. “Your wiring is cooked, babe.”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me,” Courtney muttered, blinking rapidly.
“Too late,” Mandy said. “Now get dressed before you freeze. I made extra garlic bread.”
“You can’t weaponize carbs.”
“Watch me.”
It felt weird to pull on the hoodie and soft cotton shorts instead of the usual progression toward less clothing. Like walking backwards down a staircase. Like rewinding.
She still felt raw and exposed when they sat at the tiny kitchen table. Her hair was damp, clothes too soft against skin that hadn’t caught up to not being in armor anymore.
Mandy set a bowl in front of her. Pasta. Steam curling up, smelling like tomato and cream and basil. Actual garlic bread on a plate between them.
“You’re gonna make me soft,” Courtney grumbled, twirling her fork.
“That’s the dream,” Mandy said.
They ate in mostly silence. Not the strained kind. The tired, post-battle kind. The clink of cutlery and the low murmur of the TV in the other room filled the gaps.
At some point, Courtney realized she was halfway through her bowl and actually tasted the food. That she’d chewed, swallowed, and her stomach hadn’t rebelled. That Mandy had made something easy to eat, small pasta, not much chewing, nothing too rich.
“You planned for me not having an appetite,” she said, surprised.
Mandy shrugged. “You never do after a bad one.”
“You keep saying ‘never’ like it’s been years,” Courtney said.
“It’s been months,” Mandy said. “That’s enough to notice things.”
The idea that someone had watched long enough to form patterns around her made her chest feel too tight again. But the edge had dulled enough that it wasn’t panic. Just… pressure.
After dinner, Mandy didn’t paw at her. Didn’t angle for the couch makeout, the usual lead-up, the familiar choreography. She just gathered dishes, bumped her hip against Courtney’s on the way to the sink, and said, “Five minutes to Netflix, then bed. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor,” Courtney said.
“I am in my own home,” Mandy said. “Now go pick something terrible to fall asleep to. Nothing with explosions.”
“Rude,” Courtney said. “You’re erasing my cultural heritage.”
She picked some pointless baking competition show and curled up on the couch. When Mandy joined her, she didn’t drape herself over her automatically. She sat nearby, leaving a gap, like an offered seat on a subway.
Courtney stared at the space.
She scooted over.
Mandy let her come to her, one arm looping easily around her shoulders when Courtney tucked herself in. No comment. No fanfare. Just a warm, solid line of alpha along her side, hand resting light and easy on her upper arm.
The show played. Some woman cried about buttercream. Courtney’s eyes drooped. The day caught up with her all at once.
“Hey,” Mandy murmured, too soft to be for the TV. “You fading?”
“Mm,” Courtney managed.
“Bed,” Mandy said. “Come on.”
She expected the panic to come back then, bed had always been a prelude to something, a transactional space, somewhere you did things to avoid feeling. But her body was too tired. Her mind remembered no had already been said.
She stopped at the edge of the bed, fingers twisting in the hem of the hoodie. “You sure?” she asked quietly. “About me staying? You could still… change your mind.”
Mandy frowned. “About what?”
“About all this,” Courtney gestured helplessly. “The… coming home. The cooking. The-” Her throat clenched. “The no.”
Mandy’s face eased. “You’re not a favor I’m doing,” she said. “You’re my person. I want you here. No doesn’t make me want you less, it makes me trust you more.”
Courtney stared at her so hard her eyes hurt. “How?”
“Means you’re not just giving me what you think I want,” Mandy said. “Means when you say yes, I’ll know you actually mean it.”
A different kind of heat flushed up the back of Courtney’s neck. For once, it didn’t feel like shame.
She climbed into bed. Mandy turned off the lamp and joined her, leaving a sliver of space again.
Courtney bridged it, inch by inch. Turned onto her side, nose full of detergent and Mandy’s scent. Hesitated. Then muttered, “Can you…?”
Mandy waited. “Can I what?”
Courtney wanted to swallow the words, but they were already halfway out. “Hold me?”
Mandy made a tiny, wounded noise that Courtney pretended not to hear. Then strong arms slid around her waist, careful but sure, pulling her back against Mandy’s chest.
“You can ask for that whenever you want,” Mandy murmured into her hair. “No expiration date.”
Courtney tried to make a joke. Tried to say something cutting to deflect. Nothing came out.
Her body didn’t know how to be held without bracing for hands moving lower. It took long minutes before she unclenched, little by little, muscles loosing, shoulders dropping, breath syncing up with Mandy’s.
“You’re shaking,” Mandy whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Want me to talk or shut up?”
“Talk,” Courtney said, surprising herself again. “Something stupid.”
Mandy thought for a second. “Okay. Once, in high school, I tried to impress a girl by volunteering to help her family move. I dropped their TV down the stairs. Her mom made me a sandwich anyway.”
Courtney snorted weakly. “You absolute menace.”
“Fast forward,” Mandy continued, “now I’m older and more strategic. I fix things instead of breaking them.”
“Is that what this is?” Courtney asked. “Me being… broken?”
Mandy’s arms tightened, just a little. “You’re not broken,” she said. “You’re… scraped up. Mis-wired in some places. There’s nothing wrong with you that being safe for a long time won’t help.”
“A long time,” Courtney whispered.
“Yeah. You’re stuck with me now. Sucks for you.”
Courtney let herself sink into the hold fully then, curling her fingers around Mandy’s forearm where it banded across her stomach. The usual urge to bolt, or distract, or go find a stranger to overwhelm with sex, it wasn’t gone. But it was quieter, drowned out by something else.
Something like relief.
“You’re gonna get bored,” she mumbled as sleep crept up.
“I watched a three-hour livestream of you filling out expense reports last month,” Mandy said dryly. “I think you underestimate how into you I am.”
“Pervert,” Courtney murmured.
“Yup,” Mandy said affectionately. “Go to sleep, omega.”
The word should have made Courtney bristle. Instead, wrapped up in Mandy’s arms, safe and held and not required to perform anything… it just felt like being named.
Her last coherent thought before she slipped under was that this hurt. It did. But not like her usual hurts.
This hurt like thawing.
Like something frozen in her finally, painfully, starting to move.
And Mandy didn’t let go.