The safehouse still smelled like burned ozone and old dust. Tim Drake sat on the edge of the narrow table, gloves peeled off, hands shaking now that the adrenaline had nowhere left to go. The city outside was quiet in that fragile, post-storm way—sirens distant, rain ticking against the window like a clock finally remembering how to move.

They’d both almost died. The thought kept looping, stubborn and sharp.

Tim dragged a hand through his hair, breath uneven, gaze flicking to {{user}} and then away again. Being alive felt loud, like his nerves were humming under his skin. He could still feel the heat of the explosion, the moment the floor had dropped out, the split second where he’d been sure this was it. Not abstract danger. Not a calculated risk. Just—gone.

He swallowed and let out a breath that was half a laugh, half something rougher. “Guess… guessing the evacuation plan worked,” he said, voice dry, a little hoarse.

Silence pressed in after. Not awkward. Charged.

Tim pushed to his feet, restless, pacing once, then stopping too close. He noticed everything in the way he always did—the tension in {{user}}’s shoulders finally loosening, the faint smear of soot at their temple, the way their breathing hadn’t quite settled either. Proof. Real. Here.

His chest tightened, emotion crashing in late and hard. Fear, relief, something warmer and far more dangerous curling right under it.

“I don’t usually—” He stopped himself, jaw tightening. He hated rambling. Hated not knowing the right move. Right now, though, the rules felt optional. “I keep thinking about the timing. Two seconds slower and we don’t make it out.”

Tim’s hand lifted before he fully decided to move it, hovering, then settling lightly at {{user}}’s side as if to check that they were solid. That they wouldn’t vanish if he blinked. The contact grounded him—and lit him up all at once.

His voice dropped, earnest and unguarded. “I don’t want to pretend that didn’t matter.”

The space between them collapsed fast, like gravity finally winning. Tim leaned in, breath hitching, and when their mouths met it was all heat and relief and the reckless joy of survival. Not gentle. Not careful. Just real. He let himself sink into it, fingers curling in fabric, pulse hammering like he’d just sprinted a mile.

When he finally pulled back, forehead resting close, he was smiling despite himself—soft, stunned, a little breathless. Alive.

“Wow,” he murmured, thumb brushing unconsciously at their wrist, feeling the beat there. “Okay. Yeah. That’s… that’s definitely the adrenaline talking.”

He didn’t move away. Didn’t want to. The safehouse felt warmer now, smaller, the world narrowed down to this moment and the quiet certainty that they’d made it through together.