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“What are those from?”
Chase jumped at the sudden voice behind him. For having super hearing and an incredibly loud partner, Kaz still always managed to sneak up on him without fail.
“What?” he asked, willing his heart rate back down. At least Chase hadn’t twisted his arm and thrown him to the ground like he’d done to Mr. Davenport earlier in the week because the man thought it’d be smart to show up without calling and grab his battle-trained son’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” Kaz winced, lowering his volume.
He still wasn’t quite adjusted to being quieter around Chase, but the fact that he was even trying was enough to make Chase’s heart skip a beat.
Kaz came up behind him in the mirror, gently smoothing his hands down Chase’s arms. He couldn’t help but shiver a little at the blazing heat that emitted from Kaz’s palms. It was much too warm in all the best ways.
Chase saw the boy smirk amusedly in the mirror at his reaction. He rolled his eyes, tossing the top of his suit that he was changing out of into his face, making Kaz sputter out a laugh.
“Okay, okay!” he conceded, throwing his hands up in surrender.
Kaz moved a few feet away, beginning to remove his gloves. The mission their team had just finished was quite taxing- a traffic pileup a few blocks away. Thankfully, there were no casualties, and the Elite Force scraped by with a few bruises, but overall, it was a success. Despite that, the five had stayed a few hours extra to help displaced civilians salvage what they could from their ruined cars and to make sure they all had shelter for the night, whether it be the rest of the team flying or speeding them home, or Chase bringing them to a nearby hotel and paying for it under the Davenport Industries card. His father might be unhappy, but it was pocket change to him and Chase figured helping people was worth any cost. It was well after three am when they finished.
Without a word, the girls had dragged themselves into their room, slamming the door with a rather clear “ if you bother us, we’ll kill you” intent. Oliver hadn’t even made it to the stairs, collapsing on the couch, mission suit and all, and promptly passing out.
Chase had headed down to Mission Command, despite Kaz’s insistence for him to forget about the report and get some rest. He ignored that, even though a part of him agreed that sleep sounded very nice. He had finished typing about fifteen minutes later, going up the hyperlift to find Kaz standing exactly where he had been, with folded arms and an expectant look on his face. Well, there went his plans to get ahead on some new projects.
Kaz had gently settled a hand on the small of Chase’s back, helping him up the stairs as he had landed a bit too rough on his ankle when he pulled a child and her puppy out of a burning car. Thankfully those two were unscathed, at least. He couldn’t help but acknowledge how much the little girl looked like his baby sister. Of course, he’d have helped her regardless of if she reminded him of Naomi, but it was a special kind of desperation there.
Chase scowled at his sooty reflection in the mirror. He hated the feeling of grime. Maybe it was his super senses, maybe it was the disgusting pranks Adam pulled on him when they were younger, maybe it was the information of every single particle and just how nasty they were cataloged in his brain, but being dirty was not it for him.
“They worked great by the way, babe.”
“What?”
Kaz gave him an amused smile at Chase zoning out yet again. It was quite common, which was to be expected from a man with all the knowledge in the world and a non-existent sleep schedule. Most of the time he received eye rolls or sighs of annoyance from other people. Kaz never seemed to mind.
“The gloves,” Kaz held up the garments. They were brand-new, crafted by Chase to be fully fireproof so his boyfriend wouldn’t have to get new gloves every other mission.
“Oh, good,” Chase couldn’t help but smile back. Kaz had that effect on him.
He worked at a particularly stubborn smudge on his cheek. He’d have to take a shower before bed, despite the ever-increasing exhaustion in his bones.
Kaz came back up behind him, gently taking his elbows.
He gazed at Chase’s reflection as well, as if studying something Chase couldn’t see. Normally Chase would be uncomfortable at the unflinching stare, but the moment they’d met on the terrace, far before they had become official, Kaz had always felt comfortable, easy to be around, to be himself.
Chase shuddered when Kaz pressed a light kiss to his nape, right over his chip. He smirked amusedly against his shoulder at the reaction. Chase and his older siblings all had very sensitive necks, which Kaz definitely had fun with. Whether it was a soft declaration of love in the early morning, trying to rile Chase up, or to just straight-up dump ice down his shirt, Kaz took full advantage.
He kissed his shoulder blade.
“Kaz, I’m covered in sweat and dirt-”
“Don’t care,” Kaz moved to rest his chin on his shoulder.
“Gross,” Chase made a face, though he didn’t actually mind.
They stood in comfortable silence as Chase brushed some leftover debris out of his and Kaz’s hair.
Kaz’s eyes hadn’t left the mirror.
“What’s up?” Chase asked.
“Hm?”
“You have your nose all scrunched. It looks like you’re deep in thought.”
“Well, that’s unnatural. Maybe I’m getting sick,” Kaz snorted, which made Chase laugh. “But for your information, when you’re dating the most beautiful man in the world, you have the urge to stare.”
Chase hoped the room was dark enough to disguise his blush. He turned, curling his fingers into the hair at the base of Kaz’s skull. “Well, I’d know about that.”
It was true. A couple of months ago, during a hot June afternoon, Kaz had elected to not bother to wear a shirt, as he was already always hot because of his powers. Chase had hidden his face in a book to conceal his tomato-red face. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t peek over a few times. Bree made fun of him relentlessly, until he reminded her that she had no grounds to stand on, given that she had walked straight into a wall watching Skylar work out.
But in all honesty, from Kaz’s warm skin to his deep brown eyes that crinkled when he smiled, to his loud, contagious laugh, to the way he put up with Chase’s incredibly chaotic family, Kaz was just about as attractive as someone could be, in Chase’s humble and always correct opinion.
Kaz however looked at him like he’d grown a third head at the response, which to be fair, if you asked Skylar, that’d be normal.
“Smarties, you are seriously batshit if you don’t think you’re the pretty one here.”
“Right back at you, Fireboy.”
Kaz was about to argue until Chase accidentally put too much weight on his bad foot. He flinched, making Kaz’s brows furrow.
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “My fault anyway.”
Kaz rolled his eyes. “Yes, Chase, absolutely horrendous of you to rescue a four-year-old and a puppy from a blazing vehicle.”
Okay, yeah, it did sound pretty stupid.
“I was talking about your scars earlier, by the way.”
“Which ones?” Well, wasn’t that sad? At the ripe age of eighteen, Chase had to ask which scar Kaz meant, of the many that littered his bionic body, despite its enhanced endurance.
“This one.”
Kaz tapped lightly on the starburst scar tissue that covered most of Chase’s left shoulder.
Chase hummed in acknowledgment.
“When we were, I don’t know, maybe I was sixteen? Bree had been upset over Mr. Davenport not giving her any freedom, so she destroyed her chip. Later Adam and I went on a mission without her. There was an explosion, and since we didn’t have her superspeed I tried to protect him with my forcefield and he tried to protect me at the same time. We both got burnt pretty badly. Bree felt horrible after that. She decided to rejoin as quickly as she could.”
Kaz scowled. “So your sister was given the choice of watching you two be hurt or not having any freedom. That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah,” Chase sighed. “Yeah, it really is.”
He knew his father had his faults. He cared about them enough, but sometimes Mr. Davenport made decisions and said things that Chase could not defend. Seeing the turmoil Bree went through and knowing she basically gaslit herself into coming back made him nauseous to think about it.
There was a brief pause.
Kaz startled him by gently kissing the damaged skin. Chase flushed at the gesture.
“What about this one?” Kaz brushed his thumb against the jagged line on his nape. For a split second, Chase was back in that sterile lab, chained to a freezing cold metal slab, sure he’d never see his family again. He shook himself out of it when he saw the concern on Kaz’s face.
“You don’t have to answer-”
“I got abducted by my uncle’s psycho ex. Well, one of them. She wanted to rip the chip out of my neck to clone my bionics into her androids. I switched myself with a fake before it could happen, but the robot who was going to cut it out got way too close for comfort.”
“...fucking hell, dude,” Kaz shook his head. “That’s- just, wow.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Chase laughed humorlessly.
Not only that, but he had scarred his older siblings for life. The illusion of his corpse on the table was meant to fool Giselle, for her to see and her only. Not for Bree and Adam to find and believe they were too late to save him.
Bree still had nightmares to this day. Many times Chase would awaken to his sister standing outside his capsule, red-eyed and puffy-faced, with some half-baked excuse as to why she was there. He’d always move to the side for her. She’d tuck herself against him, holding on on the edge of too tight, like she needed reassurance that he was real. Still there.
Adam had been similar, if more subtle and awkward, refusing to talk about the “I never told him I loved him” bit. One distinct moment was back on the island. Chase had removed his eyemask when his capsule had hissed open in the middle of the night, revealing his brother standing in the darkness wordlessly.
“Adam, what the hell-” Chase had whispered, as Leo and Bree were very much asleep.
He was yanked into a lighting-fast hug, gone as soon as it had appeared, Adam walking back to his own capsule with a muttered “Nerd.”
Also, the time when Adam had damn near thrown a student through the wall after he had accidentally hit Chase too hard in training, cracking some of his ribs. That had been a doozy.
He missed him. He made a note to call his brothers soon.
Kaz kissed that scar too.
He ran his hand down his arm to take his hand, brushing the rough crescent mark on his knuckles. “How about this one?”
Nausea bubbled in Chase’s throat. He recalled the glowing red, the crushing weight of betrayal, the evil hatred filling the eyes of the boy he’d once loved.
“I-I don’t want to talk about that one.”
For a moment in the silence, Chase worried that Kaz would pry, or feel upset that he didn’t say anything.
All he did was bring Chase’s hand to his lips.
“You don’t need to babe. You don’t owe it to anyone.”
Chase took a moment to process that.
“How ‘bout this?” Kaz tapped a lighting-shaped one on his abdomen.
Chase laughed at the complete tonal whiplash.
“My little brother is an accident-prone clown who thought it’d be a great idea to rope all us kids into a prank on Davenport that backfired like nothing ever before it.”
“Oh, do tell,” Kaz smirked mischievously.
He did, from the mayonnaise grenade to the flamethrower, to the zipline Leo and Adam had for a reason Chase didn’t bother to ask about, to it taking days to clean the soot from the wall, to Tasha sitting all five of them down on the couch, including her husband, and lecturing them while they tried not to laugh. Of course, they’d failed, and Tasha gave up on staying serious, joining in. They’d ordered takeout that night and watched the worst b-movies in existence as a family, which Leo had somehow managed to collect from the depths of cinematic hell. All in their blackened walls and singed hair. It was so chaotic and messy, so them. Chase missed Tasha too. He and Bree needed to visit soon.
Kaz had a fond smile on his face the whole time, listening intently. Eventually, Chase tapered off his rambling when he noticed.
“I love it when you talk about your family,” Kaz explained. Chase wanted to kiss him right there. “You light up and get all giggly. They mean a lot, huh?”
Chase nodded with a smile.
Kaz kissed that scar as well.
He gently pulled Chase to his bed by his waistband, sitting him down as he put his foot on his lap.
Kaz carefully rolled and stretched his ankle, slipping into his doctor mode that Chase only saw once in a while. It was quite different, and although Chase would rather die than admit it, it was attractive. To see how serious he could get, how caring he was. He must’ve had the best bedside manner records back at Mighty Med.
Chase winced, hard , at a wave of pain.
Kaz frowned. “I know, Smarties, bear with me. You’re doing well.”
Normally Chase would be indignant at the coddling, but coming from Kaz, it just made his chest feel fuzzy and warm.
Kaz murmured to himself, before lightly massaging the swelling appendage. “It’s just a sprain. Not too bad.
I’ll wrap it before bed,” Kaz continued his massaging. “What’s this one?”
“Laser to the foot.”
“Yikes. This one?”
“A blaster fired by accident so I jumped in front of Tasha.” he shrugged. “In hindsight, I could’ve used a force field but…”
“You love your mom and emotion overrode logic?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Kaz smiled softly. “What about this?”
“I was doing the dishes and the knife I’d been rinsing did a triple backflip.”
Kaz burst into laughter.
They continued on like that in warm comfort, Kaz asking about any scar he found and listening intently to each and every word as he continued working on his ankle.
Chase felt more heard than he ever had in his life.
He and his family hadn’t been all that touchy-feely until Leo and Tasha had arrived, as none of them really felt the need to, and were quite awkward about it to boot. Even after their family grew, Chase rarely ever hugged most of its members one on one, let alone had deep emotional conversations with them.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had listened to him for so long without their eyes glazing over or clear boredom. Or simply cut him off with teasing or dismissal.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever aired out any grievances or hardships or fears he had crawling at the back of his anxiety-ridden mind.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked.
Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been honest with himself about anything remotely emotional.
And yet, Kaz sat at the other end of the bed hearing every single word of his ranting, never leaving the conversation for a second, despite his incredibly prevalent ADHD.
Or maybe it was a front. Maybe he was far too nice to tell Chase to shut up. After all, it had been made quite clear to him throughout his life that no one in their right mind would stick it out listening to him.
Chase trailed off again.
“What’s wrong?” Kaz tilted his head.
“Nothing,” Chase felt like his tongue weighed a million pounds now. “I’ve been rambling. You’re probably bored of it. Sorry-”
He yelped as he was tugged into his boyfriend’s lap, mindful of his ankle of course.
“Babe, I don’t think I’d ever get bored of hearing about you. Funnily enough, I like knowing every little thing about you.”
Chase froze.
“I mean everything,” Kaz reiterated, drawing shapes on his leg. “Your hopes, dreams, past, family, complaints, your geeky science-y stuff that I could never begin to understand but want to hear regardless, your laugh, you yelling at us to get our shit together, all of it.”
Chase blinked in surprise. He felt Kaz trace a crude heart with his finger.
“Honestly, Chase, I think it’s about damn time someone gave you the time of day. You deserve the world and so much more, so the least I can do is offer you basic human decency. And I could and will listen to you talk all day if you’d let me.”
Chase was speechless.
The prospect of someone actively thinking any of that was enough to make him think he was glitching, or maybe dreaming.
More love and fondness than Chase ever imagined he had the capacity for what with his status as a robotic weapon swelled up in him.
“Um…” Kaz swallowed. “You okay there?”
Chase closed the distance between them.
He wrapped his arms around his neck.
He’d never felt so loved, never been so in love. It might’ve been a bit naive, being that they were seventeen and eighteen respectively, but Chase knew he found the one.
He’d always been far too logical to believe in soulmates and true love and all that, but this was real, proven over and over again.
From Kaz keeping him company in Mission Command, to stifling laughs at whispered jokes in the middle of the night, sweet kisses and butterflies, pranking their teammates, strong embraces after particularly tough missions, always having each other’s backs, picking up each other when they’d fall, stumbling around in the kitchen when they couldn’t sleep, laughing and trying to keep quiet as they attempted and failed to make cookies, Kaz warming him when they stood on the terrace during sunrise, floating in the air to fulfill his nerd of a boyfriend’s urge to do a “superhero kiss”, all of it, made Chase lose any doubts.
He pulled away, cupping Kaz’s face and pressing their heads together.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“More than,” Chase answered honestly, running his thumbs on Kaz’s cheekbones. “I’m always okay when I’m with you.”
Kaz grinned at that. “That was Kaz-level cheesy.”
“Yeah, shut up,” Chase snickered. “Now, it is four am and I need a shower.”
Kaz stuck out his hand to help Chase hop down on his uninjured foot.
“Want company?” he waggled his eyebrows.
Chase hoped the room was dark enough to hide the massive blush that flooded his face. “You’re horrible,” he informed.
“Thanks,” Kaz smirked, now holding both of his hands. “I can’t help being this hot-”
“You do light yourself on fire when you sneeze, yes.”
Kaz put a hand to his chest. “That’s a low blow babe. I’ve never been more betrayed in my life.”
“Tragic,” Chase laughed, pulling him to his feet.
They stood face-to-face for a moment, Kaz having one hand set on his hip and the other holding his cheek, Chase fiddling with the collar of Kaz’s mission suit.
“What’s this one?” Kaz brushed the prominent scar under his left eye.
Chase looked away. Adam and Kaz already had a pretty rocky relationship for reasons Chase wasn’t privy to, the tension between the two always being pretty stifling. He figured Kaz wouldn’t appreciate knowing who the culprit was.
Of course, it had been when they were younger and completely accidental, Adam firing his highly unpredictable heat vision involuntarily, and Chase had never blamed his brother for it. Especially since it had destroyed Adam for a while, where he couldn’t even look at him.
Kaz would probably understand. But regardless, he wasn’t really keen on potentially adding more fuel to the fire of whatever was going on between them, so he shrugged.
“Training accident,” Chase summed up, taking Kaz’s hand- not before he kissed his scar, of course- and leading him to their shared bathroom.
~*~
Chase sighed to himself as he stared up at the ceiling. He felt much better, one shower and bandaged ankle later. it also helped his aching muscles, having the equivalent of a human heating pad next to him.
He picked at the hoodie Kaz had given him, both it and the sweats he was wearing belonging to Kaz.
“Real subtle.” he had rolled his eyes as Kaz handed him the clothes.
“I don’t have the faintest clue as to what you could possibly mean.” he laughed as Chase tossed a towel at his face to dry his hair.
He played with Kaz’s slightly damp ebony strands, as god forbid the boy ever dry off properly. Kaz had his head on his chest, and being the human koala that he was, wrapped his limbs around Chase’s body as he snored.
As Chase reveled in the comforting peace, his mind wandered.
He pondered what he’d tell his fourteen-year-old self, who had been teased and reminded every day that he’d never have a partner. That no one would love him.
His fifteen-year-old self, who was terrified and almost unable to comprehend the idea that was forming in his head, that he liked girls and boys, the latter of which he believed to be wrong.
His sixteen-year-old self, starry-eyed and lovestruck by the boy he’d met on the island. The one he thought loved him too.
His seventeen-year-old self, ravaged by betrayal and responsibilities and trauma and far too much weight on his young shoulders to even consider letting someone in.
It’ll all be okay.
That’s what he’d say.
The love of his life right next to him, his sister and best friends down the hall, his brothers and mom and father/uncles just a phone call away.
It’ll all be worth it in the end .