You were late. Again.

The restaurant was already dimming its lights when you arrived — wind still clinging to your jacket, the smell of ozone and concrete dust clinging to your skin. You’d cleaned up the best you could in an alley three blocks away. It didn’t help much. Your hair still looked like you’d been electrocuted, and you had a thin gash across your cheek that hadn’t quite healed yet.

She was sitting outside. Alone. A single glass of water on the table, untouched. Her phone was in her hand, but she wasn’t looking at it.

“Amber,” you breathed, guilt lacing every syllable.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t look up right away, either. When she did, it was with that same look — the one she gave you after the second time you missed her art exhibit, the same one she had when she waited on the museum steps in the rain for two hours.

“Twelve minutes before closing,” she said flatly. “New record.”

You exhaled, stepping closer. “There was a—”

“Bridge collapse? Alien skirmish? Robot uprising?” she interrupted. “Pick your poison, cape-boy.”

There was no real anger in her voice. Not anymore. She was past that. Past shouting. Now she was in that quiet place that somehow hurt more. That calm, tired part of her that no longer expected you to show up on time — just wondered why she kept letting herself believe you might.

“I’m sorry,” you said.

And you meant it. God, you meant it. You always did.

“I know,” she murmured, her fingers tracing the edge of her glass. “You always are.”

You sat down slowly across from her, the chair scraping too loudly. She glanced at your cheek, her eyes lingering just long enough for you to wonder if she still worried. If she still cared. If you hadn’t worn that away, too.

“I brought flowers,” you said, sheepishly pulling the half-crushed bouquet from your coat. “They… kind of got tackled by a gorilla. But the sentiment’s there.”

That cracked something in her. A twitch of her lips. A sigh through her nose. She took the flowers wordlessly, set them beside her water, and leaned back in the chair.

“You know,” she said, “for someone who can fly, you’re really bad at arriving on time.”

You smiled — not wide, not victorious. Just relieved. “I’m better in emergencies.”

She met your eyes then. Something flickered there — affection, resentment, longing, exhaustion. Love, still hanging on by its fingertips.

“Amber,” you said. “Can I make it up to you?”

She tilted her head, skeptical but curious. “Depends. Are we talking like... a normal-person make-up? Or a 'you accidentally blew up a monorail again' kind of make-up?”

A breath of laughter slipped through your lips, and you shook your head. “Neither. I mean something real. Something I've wanted to do for a while but didn’t think I deserved to.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s ominous.”

You looked at her — really looked at her. Past the sarcasm and the exhaustion, to the woman who kept showing up for you, even when you didn’t deserve it. The one who stayed long after it would’ve been easier to leave.

“Come flying with me.”

She blinked.

You smiled, a little crooked. “Tonight. After dinner. Just us. No emergencies. No scanners. No suits. Just the sky. You and me.”

“Flying,” she repeated, like she was tasting the word.

You nodded. “Not on patrol. Not running from anything. Not to impress you. Just to share it. You’ve waited long enough, Amber. I want to show you what it’s like — why I always come back to you. Because the view up there? It doesn’t mean anything if you’re not part of it.”

Her expression softened — slowly, like a thaw. You watched her shoulders drop, watched the weight of a hundred missed dates flicker in her eyes. And then... she smiled.

A real one.

“Alright,” she said. “One date in the sky. But if you drop me, I’m haunting your ass.”

You laughed. “Deal.”

Maybe you were late tonight. Maybe you’d screw up again.

But right now, she was still here.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow, she’d be in your arms, weightless over the city, wrapped in wind and stars — and for once, the world could wait.