Work Text:
Lucy tries to hide it.
Really, she does.
She takes a deep breath before she knocks on Tim’s front door. She moves in small steps, hoping they won’t pull too badly against the dull throb in her hip. She doesn’t let on about the knot on the back of her skull. EMTs had cleared her at the scene, and Tim will read the report in the morning, she’s sure. Tonight, she doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
So she tries to hide it.
And she does.
Or, she does until she sits down next to Tim on the couch. She settles herself against his side, perfectly natural even after just a few weeks. Right away, she feels some of the tension seep out of her body.
Then Tim drapes an arm around her and starts working his fingers gently into her shoulder.
Right where Oliver had jammed it against a wall earlier.
She winces, and her next breath hisses between her teeth. Tim pulls his hand back as soon as he realizes, but she still shifts away from where his touch had been.
“Lucy?”
“It’s fine.” She bites the end of her tongue, trying to keep herself from whimpering. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Lucy.” Tim sits forward, turning so he can look at her more fully. He reaches for her, but drops his hand before he touches her again. “What’s going on?”
“It’s not a big deal. Don’t freak out on me, OK?”
“What happened?” He leans forward a little further, and she can see the concern across his wrinkled brow.
“I got a little banged up when Kyra called earlier. Oliver was waiting for me to come through the door. I pushed him off, but we got into it a little bit. It’s fine, I got checked over before I left, it’s just bruising. No concussion or anything.”
“No concussion?” Tim’s jaw drops. “He hit your head?”
“Well, he was holding it and I threw my weight back. So his hand, my head, it all kind of hit the wall together.”
“Lucy.” He doesn’t say anything else, just her first name, like he’s glad that he can use it freely now. Then, softly: “You didn’t think to tell me?”
“You’ll see the report tomorrow. It’s all in there.”
“What about tonight?”
“Tonight I … I didn’t want work to come home with me. All week, I’ve been so worried about Kyra, and I finally know he can’t get to her right now, and they’re both in custody, and I just wanted to take the uniform off and not think about it for a little while.”
“They’re both in custody?” Tim waits for Lucy to turn toward him, then looks at her more carefully. “May I?”
“Yeah. She was trying to protect him. Even after everything, she tried to protect him.” Lucy nods and tilts her head to one side. Tim pushes her hair away from her face, revealing the little round bruises on the side of her neck. He doesn’t touch them, but his fingers are featherlight beside the marks.
She pulls the zipper down on her sweatshirt, sliding it off of her shoulder. Like this, the tank top she’s wearing underneath doesn’t hide the mottled purples that Tim had inadvertently pressed on earlier.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pressing a tiny, gentle kiss right above where the discoloration starts. “Where else?”
“Um,” Lucy takes a moment to catalog her various aches and pains. “My ribs are a little sore, but the vest kept them from bruising, I think. When he pushed me down, I landed on my hip. It’s not too bad, though, when I’m not moving it. Other than that, it’s just these two, and the back of my head.”
Carefully, Tim turns her around by her elbows until he’s sitting behind her.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you.”
He slides his fingers through her hair, prodding slowly as he goes. She can tell when he finds the bump, not quite the size of a ping-pong ball. His touch slows, and he makes a quiet sound.
“Tim, it’s OK, really. I’ll heal.” She pulls away from his touch and turns around again. There’s something written across his shadowy expression, but before she can figure it out, he’s standing up.
“I’ll get you some ice.” He stands in front of the open freezer for a long minute before reaching inside to fill a towel with a handful of cubes. When he comes back, he folds one leg underneath himself and lets the other one hang over the front of the couch.
He reaches behind Lucy with one hand and lifts her hair up so he can fit the bundle of ice against the base of her skull.
“How’s that?” He asks, when she reaches back to adjust it a little bit. Her hand rests on top of his, and she leaves it there even after the ice is situated. Their fingers slot together.
She’s not sure which is more soothing, the ice or his touch.
“Good.”
“Good.” He smiles.
They sit like that for a bit, until Lucy grows tired of supporting her own body weight. She leans back, waiting for Tim to get the message and turn so she can tuck herself back against his side. This time, he rests his arm on the back of the sofa but doesn’t try to touch her shoulder. It would probably be OK, she thinks, as long as he was gentle, but she understands his reticence.
The ice ends up wedged between the back of her head and the side of his chest, but he insists that it’s fine when she asks if it’s too cold. Lucy stretches her feet out across the second sofa cushion and reaches up to play with Tim’s fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, when the silence has stretched between them long enough. “Really, if I’d have known you had a bruised shoulder, I wouldn’t have tried to …”
“I know.” Lucy tips her head back to look at his face, even if the view from this angle is mostly chin and stubble.
“I’ll never hurt you. Not on purpose.” He whispers the words, and Lucy suddenly realizes that he’s talking about a lot more than pressing on a bruise. He’s talking about "tune-ups" from his own father, about boyfriends who don’t know what it means to love someone right, about the scars you can’t see, and a million other things in between.
Lucy turns over, resting her chin on his chest and sliding her hand up to cup the side of his face.
She waits for him to look down, for his eyes to meet hers. This part, she needs him to hear and understand perfectly.
If he’s talking about more than bruises, then she is too.
“I know.”