Chapter Text
He knows it’s going to happen before it does.
It’s the biggest drawback of the spider sense that’s served him so well for so long. When it helps you stop something, it’s wonderful, a better superpower than his reflexes or his strength or the ability to stick to walls. But when all it does is make sure he knows something terrible that he cannot prevent is about to happen, he wants nothing to do with any of it.
Things have finally settled down, even as the freezing rain continues to fall. Everything else is still, and he’s perched on the trunk of a car, surveying the scene to see if there’s anyone he needs to help into or out of a car, depending on their condition. It’s going to take hours to untangle everything and clear the bridge, but first responders should be able to get everyone out long before then. He can already see the flashing lights of an ambulance coming down the street.
The back of his head starts to buzz as it approaches the pile up blocking the bridge, the last few cars perilously close to the edge still, and he drops off the back of the car as the ambulance starts to slide. Visibility is basically zero, and everything is slick and loud and too much as he plants a shoulder into the car and tries to get his feet to stick even though they’ve gone entirely numb. Every muscle screams as the pile shifts into him and he fights back, black spots bursting across his vision.
It’s too much, he knew it was going to be too much from the moment his spider sense triggered, the moment the rain immediately soaked through his suit, the moment he went out in this weather even as Olivia and Rita practically begged him not to. But if he hadn’t gone, if he hadn’t tried, he wouldn’t be Spider-Man, and he doesn’t know how to not be Spider-Man anymore.
Normally, his balance is impeccable, he could cling to the nearest surface with just the tips of his fingers or toes, he could catch himself with his webs as a last resort. Now though, he’s disoriented and exhausted, every limb numb, his web shooters clogged with ice and almost empty as well. So when his legs hit the edge of the bridge, there’s nothing left to do but fall.
He’s fallen a lot over the decades he’s been Spider-Man, but never quite like this.
He remembers that first year, when he was still getting used to all the things he could do and all the things that could now happen to him because of that, and the time he’d shattered his arm so completely it had hung at an obvious angle as he climbed in his mother’s window. She’d cried, all the color drained out of her face as she’d looked at him, but she’d also helped him cut his suit off because he couldn’t go to the ER with it on, maneuvering her sewing scissors steadily while he rested his face against her neck and tried to breathe through the shock that was threatening to overwhelm him.
And a few weeks later he’d walked into his room to find his suit there, the new seams barely visible.
Rafael twists his body as much as he can, relying on years of experience moving through the air to avoid hitting the water on his back. His only chance is to get out of the water, to give Olivia and Rita a chance to find him, and so he has to make it through that first impact. He’s trusted them with his life before, but he doesn’t know if he’s ever asked this much of them. This is going to be bad.
They hadn’t wanted him to go. They’d done everything but hold him down, and when he’d still refused to be dissuaded, Rita had thrown an old Harvard sweatshirt at him and Olivia had tucked an NYPD stocking hat over his ears on his way out the door. It wasn’t much when the weather was this bad and he was soaked to the skin in moments, but the thought had been enough to keep him going until about three seconds ago.
Hitting the water forces the air out of his lungs, and it takes all the concentration he’s got left to keep his jaw clenched against the urge to gulp air that’s not there as he sinks. He doesn’t want to waste energy trying to fight against the momentum of his fall, so even as panic floods his system he holds as still as he can as the water batters him until he slows. Every movement feels sluggish and he’s not actually sure he’s heading in the right direction as he finally pushes for the surface, but he has to try his best.
Finding the surface and getting out of the river is the only way to give Olivia and Rita any chance of finding him, and he owes them at least that much.
He breaks the surface, sucking at least as much ice and nasty river water through his mask as oxygen as he gasps for air, but he doesn’t have the time or energy to lift it yet. With the rain and the state of his mask, he’s basically guessing which bank he’s closest to, and he strikes out for it, forcing his stiff muscles through the motions. His right side, which had hit the water first, is on fire, the pain blurring his vision even more but concentrating his thoughts. The bones will heal, much more quickly than they ever did before his bite, but only if he gets out of the water.
His head dips under the surface for a moment, and when he manages to find his way up again, he realizes he’s lost Olivia’s hat at some point. It’s a sharper blow than the impact with the water, and as he struggles to pull air in through his soaked, clinging mask, his thoughts narrow.
I have to tell Liv sorry. I have to get out so I can apologize to her. I have to get out.
He almost runs into the bank when he finally reaches it, and it takes him multiple attempts to get enough of a hold to pull himself out of the sucking water. It sluices off him as he hauls himself over the fence that separates the river from the concrete, and he manages to land on his feet by clinging to the metal. He finally gets his fingers underneath the seam of his mask, not bothering with the tiny hooks he knows his numb fingers will never be able to undo and just tearing it free.
Sucking in air, he gathers everything he’s got left, and his legs still shake as he takes his first step. There’s not much strength in any part of him, but he forces himself forward as best he can. He has no idea where he is, isn’t even sure what side of the bridge or the river he’s ended up on, but getting out of the immediate vicinity of the river seems like his best bet.
His knees hit the ground before he realizes he’s falling, and he dully registers that he feels the impact but no real pain. Everything is numb, and he swears he can almost feel his joints actually creaking as he forces himself back to his feet for another few stumbling steps. The second time he falls, he has to catch himself with his hands, and he stills for a few moments, still trying to catch his breath. Each ragged exhale blooms white across his vision, each freezing inhale makes his teeth ache.
He forces himself back to his feet again, and then forward, still not entirely sure where he’s going. His brain can’t concentrate on anything but his next step, and even that is starting to feel impossible.
When Rafael falls for the last time, he’s aware of everything: his feet slipping on the ice, the weakness in his knees, the darkness blurring the edges of his vision. There’s just nothing he can do about any of it at all.
---------------
Olivia doesn’t feel useless, but it’s pretty close. She’d made Rita stop long enough to put on an actual coat before charging out into the rain, and she’d webbed up the doors to her car so they could leave the heaters running without worrying about it being stolen. But now she’s just trailing after Rita, feeling twitchy with how much the freezing rain is dulling her normally sharp senses, and trusting entirely in Rita’s preternatural ability to know where Rafael Barba is.
She should have made him stay home. The weather had been awful all day and still somehow managed to get worse right as Rafael was preparing to go out. They’ve both gone out in terrible weather before of course, but this had seemed particularly ridiculous, sitting around and freezing when hardly anyone would be out anyway.
What she should have done is just stop him. He was faster, yes, but all she would have needed to do is get ahold of him once, because she was stronger. Then she and Rita could have just sat on him or something until they could bring him around. Although the chances they’d actually be able to do that are slim, because Rafael is so stubborn about being Spider-Man.
Whether he’s wearing his mask or not, whether he’s clinging to the side of a building or strutting around a courtroom, Rafael is always Spider-Man. Always. And so it’s almost impossible to convince him to take a break at all, even when he’s exhausted or the weather is awful or anything else he seems to only ever view as an excuse. They’d considered calling Lucia, who is occasionally able to talk some sense into him, but that always felt like cheating.
She’s thinking about having to call Lucia now, and just the idea is making her sick to her stomach.
Rita is walking purposefully, not hesitating or slowing down at all, like she really does somehow know where Rafael is. Olivia knows that’s impossible, but she also knows better than to doubt Rita when it comes to anything to do with Rafael. Tugging her coat more tightly around herself, following the yellow blur of the other woman ahead of her.
“There!” Rita says, slipping a bit as she starts to run, and Olivia feels a dizzying mix of relief and alarm as she catches sight of the bright red bits of the otherwise dark mound she’s moving towards. She drops to her knees beside Rita where she’s trying to turn him over. Her breath catches at how pale his skin is where he’d pulled his mask up, but she can see his chest rising and falling slowly underneath one of Rita’s hands.
They work to wrap him in one of the extra coats they’d brought along, although Olivia doubts he can actually get any wetter. It at least means that Rita can tug the hood up over his head and carefully pull off his mask. His hair is sticking up all over, and her heart aches at how young he looks, at the ragged line of fabric where he’d pulled the mask free without undoing the tiny hooks that normally hold it in place when he has the time to do them up properly.
“Can you carry him back to the car?” Rita asks, and Olivia nods, already moving to scoop Rafael up. She wishes there was something more immediate that she could do, but there’s not much else that will warm him up as long as they’re still out in the freezing rain.
The trip back to the car is tricky, her balance affected by the weight of him in her arms, but Rita sticks close to her side as they walk. She’s sure the three of them must look ridiculous, even with no one out in the weather to see them, but she can’t find it in herself to care when everything in her just wants to get Rafael somewhere warm and safe.
It takes a bit of finagling to pull the webbing free from around the handles while she’s still holding Rafael, but she eventually gets them cleared away enough that Rita can wrench the back door of the car open. She climbs in first, and Olivia carefully maneuvers him onto the seat so that she can pull him fully into the warm car.
“You got him?” she asks, and Rita nods without looking up, concentrating on pulling Rafael’s now soaked coat off and replacing it with another dry one. Olivia helps her pull the pile of blankets they’d brought over him while she arranges him as best she can across her lap, and then she jogs around the car to free the driver’s door handle.
Before they’d left, Rita had asked her if she’d be willing to turn the sirens on, and Olivia had just given her a look. Under normal circumstances, she’s sure Rita would be chagrined, but at that moment there wasn’t any room in her for anything except worry and determination and love. Olivia had forgiven her in a moment and without a thought.
She eases out onto the road, wipers going furiously and the lights flashing red against the rain. Every bit of heating the car has is cranked full blast. As she drives as quickly as is comfortable in the weather, she glances at the other two in the rearview mirror; Rita has wrestled him into another of the coats they’d brought and pulled a couple blankets over him. They’d both agreed that it would be best to wait to get him out of his wet suit until they were back to his apartment, but she can tell how worried Rita is about the soaked material still pressing against his skin.
The drive is both frantic and surreally careful at the same time, her jaw clenching every time she starts to skid and has to adjust her speed. Ice is building up over everything, and she quickly shakes off the thought of Rafael’s still outline shining with it. The only sounds in the car are the heaters and Rita’s occasional soft whispers to Rafael. She can see the rise and fall of his chest due to the volume of blankets on him, but otherwise he hasn’t stirred.
It takes quite a bit of maneuvering to get him out of the car without dragging him bodily across the seat, but they manage it between the two of them. Olivia wishes she could take him up the side of the building and in through his bedroom window to avoid the chance of anyone seeing them, but it isn’t possible with the weather and his entirely boneless state. They’re just going to have to move quickly and continue to hope that the weather is dissuading anyone from leaving their apartment; Rita walks a little ahead of her, but she’s a poor lookout given that she can’t stop glancing back at the two of them.
“I’ve got him,” she assures her, and she watches her take a long, deep breath before nodding and continuing on a little faster.
They make it to the door without meeting anyone, and Olivia hugs Rafael close as she waits for Rita to unlock it. She keeps telling herself that he already feels warmer, but she knows that isn’t enough on its own even if it is true.
Rita heads directly for his bedroom, but Olivia sets him gently on the couch; she doesn’t want his bed wet when they ultimately want to bundle him up in it. She grabs one of the towels they’d set on the coffee table when they were still hoping he’d bring himself back home, doing her best to ignore the soft crackling from the police scanner they’d been listening to and hadn’t bothered turning off in their rush out the door.
Holy shit! Spider-Man just fell off the bridge!
All these cars were crashing together, and we almost went in the water, but then Spider-Man saved us! I can’t see him anymore though, I don’t know where he went.
He might have swung away, you know how he moves, but I didn’t see him up above anywhere. I think he’s in the river and it’s pretty bad out here.
Multiple reports that Spider-Man was on scene and helped keep some of the cars on the bridge, but there’s no sign of him now. Kid who seems like the last to have seen him claims he fell.
Olivia shakes her head clear of the messages that had poured in and caused their rush in the first place. There’s no point in dwelling on it, and Rafael needs all of her attention right now. Ignoring another stab of pain in her gut at the ragged collar of his suit, she uses the towel to dry his hair and face as much as she can.
Rita comes back into the room with an enormous pile of Rafael’s clothes in her arms. She drops them on the coffee table with a thump, and Olivia moves to snap the scanner off as she gets to work. At some point they’ll need to check to see if there’s anything that indicates that someone had spotted them, but she doesn’t have the energy to worry about that at the moment.
“You should change, you’re all wet,” Rita says, which is at least partially true. Her coat and hat had protected her for the most part, but anywhere not underneath those two things is soaked. Looking at Rita, she can see that the other woman hadn’t bothered taking her own advice, but she knows that there’s nothing that’s going to distract her from Rafael.
“I’m okay.”
“If you both freeze to death, I’m never speaking to you again,” she says, not looking up as she starts to pull Rafael’s suit off. Olivia wants to roll her eyes, but she knows Rita is coming from a place of deep concern, just like she always is when one of them gets hurt.
So she leaves her to work and goes to change quickly, pulling her wet hair back into a messy ponytail. It’s easy enough to give Rita one less thing to worry about, and she does feel a little better in dry clothes. Only a little though, with Rafael still pale and still as Rita pulls his arms into a long sleeve shirt. She’s already gotten a pair of sweatpants onto him, and she grabs a sweatshirt from the stack she’d brought out to the coffee table. Wordlessly, Olivia helps her move him to pull it and a hoodie on over it.
“We should move him to the bed. All of us could use some sleep.”
Rita just keeps working without a word, and Olivia finally has to gently wrap her fingers around one elbow, physically pulling her to a stop. The other woman looks at her with bright eyes, almost feverish.
“If nothing else, the body heat will be good for him.”
She waits her out, not entirely sure what she’s going to do if she refuses, and she lets out a sigh as Rita finally nods, her shoulders dropping as a few minutes of hours worth of tension leaks away from her muscles.
-------------
She knows Olivia is right, even before she gives in. They’re all exhausted down to their bones, and Rita likes to think of herself as an expert in exhaustion after all these years. She knows Olivia is right, but staying still goes against every instinct she has when it comes to taking care of Rafael.
Olivia gives her a look until she goes to change out of her wet clothes, leaving her to move Rafael into his bed. She stops by the hall closet and collects the extra quilt she knows he keeps in there, and when she gets to the bedroom, she drapes it over Rafael in addition to the two Olivia has already covered him with.
Looking at him, small and pale underneath the pile of blankets, she realizes she should be crying. Or screaming maybe, although there’s the neighbors to worry about with that one. But all she can do is stand there and stare at him. She hears Olivia come into the room behind her, and she leans into the hand she rests on her shoulder.
“We really should sleep,” she says, and Rita nods but doesn’t move. “Rita.”
“I-” she starts, but she doesn’t know what to say really. She’s terrified that she’s going to touch him and he’s going to be cold still. Somehow colder even than he’d been when she first touched him by the river. Cold and still and-
“He’s okay. He needs rest and heat,” Olivia says, “and we can give him that.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to sweat like crazy under all those blankets.”
That finally breaks through, and she laughs softly as she turns to look at her.
“Worth it.”
“Definitely,” she says, gently pushing Rita toward the bed while she makes her way around to the other side.
It takes both of them a few moments to successfully navigate their way onto the bed and underneath the blankets, but once they’re settled on either side of Rafael, some of the tension in her stomach finally eases. She throws an arm across his chest as she burrows into his side, and she can feel it rise and fall with each breath.
Rita knows she won’t fully relax until he’s awake and moving and probably giving her shit, but for now she lets the warmth of him next to her be enough as she drifts off.
-----------
He wakes up.
That’s the first surprise, and a pretty significant one at that. His head feels stuffed full of cotton, and moving doesn’t feel like a particularly good idea, but he’s alive to register those two things, which is nice.
He’s warm.
That’s the second surprise, and maybe actually more surprising than the first thing. He supposes that even when he was convinced that Olivia and Rita would find him, some piece of his brain was equally sure that he would never really be warm again. But other than a slight numbness at the tips of his fingers and toes, his current situation feels absolutely as far from the last thing he remembers as possible.
He’s wearing at least three layers, and he can feel the weight of all the blankets on him. There’s a warm body on either side of him, pressed close. He shifts slightly, realizing exactly how warm he is as his sweaty clothes stick to his skin.
“I’m hot,” he mumbles after several seconds of trying to remember how his mouth works and another few trying to move the words from his brain to his tongue.
“Shut the fuck up, Barba,” Rita says from in front of him.
He makes a genuinely embarrassing whining sound, but he really is uncomfortably sweaty. Rita mumbles something under her breath in response that he can’t actually hear, but she scoots far enough away from him that he can wriggle out of a few layers. Pushing at his socks with his feet, he realizes he’s apparently wearing four pairs, and a rush of affection fills his chest; he manages to push off two pairs with his toes and wiggle out of the heavy hoodie he has on.
Rafael breathes a long sigh of relief as he settles back down, dropping his forehead to rest against Rita’s spine.
“Thank you,” he croaks, and he can feel the muscles in Rita’s back relax. She shifts, turning over to look at him. He waits her out, in part because he thinks she deserves to have her say and in part because the four words he’s said since waking up have worn him out already.
“You’re so stupid,” she says after studying his face for a few moments, and he nods.
“Yeah.”
“Just incredibly so. Right, Liv?”
“Definitely,” Olivia says from behind him, but she sounds half asleep herself, and her arm had quickly returned to its place around his waist once he’d pulled off some of his layers.
“You’re right,” he says, voice faltering at the end, and Rita sighs.
She shifts again, pressing a hard kiss against his forehead before laying back down, head tucked in against his neck and her arm thrown over his side next to Olivia’s.
Rafael wants to stay awake, here in this quiet moment with the two of them, but exhaustion is pulling at him hard already and he knows they’ll be here later. He settles between them, leaning back into Olivia and shrugging off his blankets enough to wrap an arm around Rita.
He’s warm.
------------
She can sense him stirring in the other room. Rita had made sure to pile all his blankets on him again, and Olivia can’t help smiling from the doorway at the sight of him peering out from underneath, only his messy hair and bleary eyes visible.
“Why does this keep happening?” he asks, voice still so much softer than it usually is.
“Probably because you almost froze to death,” Olivia answers, crossing the room to sit next to him and help him move the stack of blankets to the side. He moves stiffly, trying to push himself up into a sitting position, and she winces at the reminder of his bruises as she offers him the cup of coffee she’d brought with her.
He shakes his head, settling back against his pillow. “Where’s Rita?”
“She went in. You both missed yesterday, she didn’t want things falling apart.”
“I hate that she feels like she needs to cover for me.”
“You know that you’d do the same for her. Or for me. And that there’s nothing on the planet that would stop either of you.”
Rafael nods, but she can tell he’s upset. She brushes her fingers through his hair, trying to neaten it for him a little bit; he’s never really comfortable with it being messy, even when he’s totally exhausted.
“What’s up?” He shakes his head, hiding his face in his pillow. “Rafael.”
“It’s stupid.”
“Rafa, it’s not, I promise.”
He looks up, and she’s only a little surprised to see tears in his eyes. She’s reminded a little of the photographs Lucia’s shown her before of him as a kid.
“I lost your hat.”
“Oh, honey,” she says, setting the drink in her hand on the bedside table so she can rub his back. When he starts to cry in earnest, Olivia shifts to lay next to him, wrapping her arms around him and letting him bury his face in her neck.
“I didn’t mean to,” he says, and she can feel him shaking. She rubs his back, giving him a few seconds. Olivia knows him well enough to know that this is about more than just the hat, that he’s hurt and exhausted and what he went through is all catching up with him. But right at this moment, it absolutely is about the hat.
“I know that, and it’s okay. I have plenty of hats, I promise.” He manages to laugh a little at that, although it’s distinctly wet sounding. “All I really care about is that you’re here. All Rita and I wanted last night was to find you and make sure you were okay. I didn’t even notice the hat was gone.”
He nods, but he doesn’t loosen his hold on her, and she continues to rub his back and murmur to him until she feels him relaxing. Even after he’s asleep again, breathing deep and even, she stays with him, tracing the lines of his shoulder blades. He’s a warm, solid weight in her arms, and she can’t bring herself to leave until she hears Rita come home an indeterminate amount of time later.
She moves carefully to extricate herself from the bed, smiling softly to herself as she tucks a single blanket over his shoulders and leaves the rest piled next to him. Rita will no doubt be in shortly and he’ll be buried again, but he does seem to be out of immediate danger, if still obviously exhausted.
“Hey,” she says, emerging from the bedroom to find Rita at the counter, draining a mug of coffee. She knows she’d woken up throughout last night to check on Rafael, and she certainly hadn’t slept much at all the night before. Rita had basically only gotten in bed in the first place because Olivia had pointed out that it might help warm Rafael up.
“How was your day?”
“How is he?”
“He’s fine,” Olivia says with a sigh, even though that was mostly the answer she was expecting, “Sleeping again. You could go in and lie down with him. How was your day?”
Rita gives her a look at the repetition, but she sets her mug down and turns to lean against the counter.
“Good. No catastrophes, and no comments on Barba’s absence. He could probably miss tomorrow too.”
“You know that if he can walk, you’re never going to convince him of that. You two are similar in that way.”
Another look, and then a sigh.
“He’s sleeping?”
Olivia nods. “No complaints except that someone keeps piling blankets on him,” she says, and that at least gets a soft laugh from her.
“I might take your advice then, make sure he’s warm enough.”
“You should. I’ll wake you both up for dinner, and we can talk about tomorrow, see how both of you feel.”
She expects a response to the last comment, but Rita really must be exhausted, because she heads back to the bedroom with just a nod. Olivia sighs, pulling out her phone to answer some emails before she orders dinner. Sometimes she just has to let them work things out on their own.
----------------
He blinks up at Rita, sitting next to him reading her book.
“You’re home,” he says, glad to feel more strength in his voice and hoping she can hear it too.
“Mmhmm.”
“Work alright?”
“Yeah.”
Rafael holds back a sigh. He knows how much he’d scared her, not to mention Olivia and his mother, and he had known how pissed she would be with him about it. Anger was how Rita had always dealt with fear, as long as he’s known her, and God knows he’s given her plenty of reasons to be scared over the years. He doesn’t remember the last time it was this bad though, especially given how hard she and Olivia had pushed him to stay home with how horrid the weather had been.
Groaning a little as tight muscles and bruises protest, he pushes himself up into a sitting position next to her, his shoulder pressing against hers.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and she finally closes her book. She lets out a long breath before she speaks.
“Are you? Really?”
He takes his time answering, considering what he wants to say because he knows she’s really asking. She’s watched him do plenty of dangerous and even stupid things as Spider-Man. Hell, doing stupid, dangerous things was a lot of what being Spider-Man was . But this was something different, and he’d known that even before he’d woken up to Olivia and Rita’s reactions.
“I should have listened to the two of you.”
“That’s true,” Rita says, still keeping her voice carefully neutral.
“I should never have been out there outside of going to an emergency we knew was happening, when at the very least I’d have Liv with me and you would have known exactly where I was.”
“Also true.”
“I just… I don’t know how to not be Spider-Man,” he admits, even though he knows that she is well aware of this fact, but he can feel her shoulders relax just a little bit for the first time since he’d woken up. “I need your help.”
“I don’t want you to stop being Spider-Man. And you know I don’t want that, and even if I did, I would never ask you to. But there are times I need you to prioritize Spider-Man the person over Spider-Man the idea. You and Liv both, honestly, but right now you’re the one I had to cover for at work because you can’t get out of bed.”
“I’m not that badly off. But I get your point,” he says in response to the look she gives him, “I mean it when I say I need your help. I need you to remind me of that. And you know how stubborn I can be.”
“I’m expecting you to argue with us every time.”
“I give you permission to call my mother if you have to,” he says, and she laughs, finally letting her head drop to lean against his shoulder.
“You know I’ll do it too. I’d sick Lucia on you in a second if it means not feeling like I felt that night, Rafael. I really thought I was going to lose you.”
“I didn’t. Ow!” he says when she pinches his arm, and he covers her hand with his quickly, “I was terrified, but I knew that what I had to do was give you two a chance to find me. With everything I had left, that was all I cared about, because I knew you were coming. I knew if I gave you the chance, you’d find me.”
“I’ll always find you. Or at least I’ll always try. But I need you to…”
“You need me to try too. And I promise I will, you might just have to remind me of that promise sometimes.”
She laughs softly, then settles more firmly against his side with a sigh.
“This shit is exhausting.”
“Tell me about it.”
“There’s Chinese food out here, if you think that would help,” Olivia says, smiling at them from the doorway.
“It absolutely would.”
“And then you’re going to stay here while I swing out on a quick patrol,” she says, expression going stern in a moment, and Rafael looks from her to Rita.
“I think I can do that. Especially since at least one of you is going to have to help me out of bed to get to the food.”
Olivia rolls her eyes, but she comes around to help him get up, and all three of them head out in the direction of the food.
-------------
She hesitates.
Just for a few seconds, fingers curled around one strap of the backpack. And honestly, she thinks she’s justified. Her best friend had almost died, and he’s still leaning on Olivia a bit as they make their way out to the table, which is fairly covered in Chinese food.
But she knows she has to give it to him. There isn’t any world where she’d even for a moment consider keeping this from him, and not just because she knows in the end it wouldn’t do any good. She’d meant it when she said she would never want to take this from him.
Rita waits for the two of them to load up their plates– rolling her eyes just a little at how much they both eat, although their metabolism obviously isn’t their fault– and then she sets the backpack on the chair next to Rafael. She rounds the table to take the seat next to Olivia, aware of him looking from her to the bag and back again.
“I took it to your mother before work today. She had some very choice words about your decision making, but I think she fixed it up pretty well.”
Rafael opens the bag, half pulling out his suit and running his fingers along the newly repaired neckline. The black and red suit is more familiar to her than any piece of her own clothing she’s ever- owned, but right now the sight of it makes her heart race.
“She did a good job. She always has,” he says, with a smile, and Rita nods, trying to swallow past the lump gathering in her throat, “I should go see her after work tomorrow.”
“You should,” she replies, hating how rough her voice sounds, and Olivia reaches over beneath the level of the table, squeezing her wrist gently.
Rafael is watching her from across the table, his eyes dark and serious.
“I think I can handle work tomorrow, and probably even dinner with my mother. To thank her, and reassure her that I’m perfectly fine.” Rita nods, looking down at the food to give her something to distract herself, even though her appetite has vanished quickly. “But I’ll have to wait a few days before testing out if her repairs will hold.”
Her gaze shoots up to his again to find him giving her a soft smile.
“Unless Liv wants to wear my suit out on her patrol tonight.”
That gets a laugh out of both women.
“Considering how many people saw you fall off that bridge and the difference in our frames, I can’t imagine the insane rumors that would start. So I think I’ll stick with my own tonight.”
Rita finally manages to ease the lump out of her throat, smiling as she serves herself some food and watches Olivia and Rafael dig into theirs.