Archive of Our Own ^beta

The storm rattled against the Tower like it wanted in. Glass panes shuddered under the weight of the wind, rain pelting against them in relentless sheets. Every flicker of lightning split the sky wide open, flooding the room in harsh white light before thunder cracked, low and rolling, vibrating through the walls.

Tim sat hunched over his desk, pretending to work. His screen glowed with lines of notes and schematics, but his eyes weren’t keeping up. His focus drifted with every flash outside, every hollow groan of the building’s frame. Normally, he could drown out distractions. He was trained for that. But tonight, the storm kept clawing its way back in.

And the cold didn’t help.

The Tower’s heating system had gone out an hour ago. He’d layered up—sweatshirt, flannel, even pulled the blanket off his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders like a cape. None of it worked. The chill still crept under his skin, turning his fingers stiff, his jaw tight.

He rubbed at his hands, blew into his palms, tried pacing. Nothing. The cold clung to him like it was personal.

By the time thunder cracked so hard it rattled the mug on his desk, he snapped his laptop shut. “Screw this,” he muttered under his breath, voice rough in the empty room.

He didn’t even bother folding the blanket or thinking about appearances. He just shoved his chair back, padded barefoot across the floor, and pulled the door open. The hallway beyond was dark, humming faintly with the sound of rain against the Tower.

Conner’s room was only a few doors down.

And Tim already knew where he was going.

The hallway stretched out, dim and quiet except for the storm clawing at the glass beyond. Tim padded past a few closed doors, his blanket still draped around his shoulders like a makeshift shield. He felt faintly ridiculous, but not ridiculous enough to turn back. By the time he stopped outside Conner’s room, thunder boomed again, shaking the floorboards under his bare feet.

He knocked once, quick and sharp, and pushed the door open without waiting for an answer.

Conner was sprawled on his bed like he didn’t have a care in the world, one arm folded behind his head, the other lazily tossing a stress ball up and catching it again. The flicker of lightning lit him in sharp contrast, highlighting the curve of his grin when he noticed who it was.

“Hey, Rob,” Conner drawled. “Power outage kill your heater too?”

Tim shut the door behind him, rubbing his hands together for warmth. His voice came out shorter than he meant: “You’re Kryptonian. You’re…warm, right?”

Conner raised a brow, stress ball caught in one hand. “That’s what you came here for? Body heat?”

Tim froze mid-step, shoulders stiff, and scowled like that might hide the flush creeping up the back of his neck. “Shut up. I’m freezing.”

Conner laughed under his breath, but it wasn’t mocking. If anything, it sounded pleased. He tossed the stress ball aside and shifted over, making space on the bed. “Guess I can be your personal space heater.” His grin turned sly. “Don’t tell Bart. He’ll never let me live it down.”

“Not planning on it,” Tim muttered, pulling the blanket tighter around himself as if it could protect him from how casually Conner said things like that. He crossed the room before he could overthink it, already bracing for the smug comment he knew was coming.

Tim hesitated at the edge of the bed, hovering in that familiar limbo between logic and impulse. Logic said this was a mistake—too close, too personal, too much of a line blurred. But the storm rattled the windows again, and another shiver tore through him despite the cocoon of blankets. Logic wasn’t keeping him warm.

Conner propped himself up on one elbow, watching him with a half-smile that somehow managed to be infuriating and gentle at the same time. “Gonna stand there shivering all night, or are you actually gonna use me for what you came here for?” His tone was teasing, but not sharp—more like he was coaxing Tim into admitting what he wanted.

Tim shot him a glare, sharp enough to slice through steel, but the effect was ruined by the flush spreading up his neck. He muttered something under his breath—probably unprintable—and climbed onto the mattress.

He perched there awkwardly, blanket still clutched around his shoulders like armor. His back was straight, every line of his body screaming reluctance. It would have been funny if it hadn’t looked so uncomfortable.

Conner sighed, shaking his head fondly. Then he reached out, hooked an arm around Tim’s shoulders, and tugged him down before the other boy could protest.

Tim’s muscles locked instantly, every nerve firing with the instinct to pull away. But then the warmth hit him. God, the warmth.

It rolled off Conner in waves, seeping through Tim’s layers and straight into his skin. His muscles, so tense a second ago, started to loosen. His shoulders sagged before he could stop them, a quiet betrayal of how desperately his body had wanted this.

Conner adjusted easily, pulling the blanket so it covered them both. His chest rose and fell steady against Tim’s temple, a slow rhythm that drowned out the storm for a moment. “Better?” he asked softly.

Tim exhaled, long and shaky, the breath fogging faintly against Conner’s shirt. “…Don’t get cocky.”

Conner chuckled, low in his throat. The sound rumbled through his chest and into Tim’s cheek where it rested against him. He dipped his chin, brushing it lightly against Tim’s hair. “Oh, too late.”

The next crack of thunder shook the Tower, rattling the glass in its frames. Tim flinched before he could stop himself, jaw tightening as if he could will his reaction away. Conner didn’t say anything—just shifted, his arm curling tighter, steadying, like an anchor against the chaos outside.

The warmth wasn’t just physical anymore. It seeped deeper, quieting the restlessness that usually kept Tim’s thoughts running circles. Conner’s hand moved in slow, absent arcs across his shoulder, a small repetitive touch that grounded him in the here and now.

“You know the Tower’s reinforced, right?” Conner said after a moment, his voice lower now, less teasing. “Storm could tear itself apart out there, and we’d still be fine in here.”

“I know,” Tim murmured, though his shoulders stayed pressed close, his ear catching the steady thud of Conner’s heartbeat through his shirt.

For once, the silence that followed didn’t press in uncomfortably. The storm carried on its tantrum outside, wind shrieking past the glass, rain hammering down, but inside there was only the steady rise and fall of Conner’s breathing and the cocoon of heat wrapping around him.

Tim’s eyelids felt heavy, tugged down with every exhale. He fought it, of course. He always fought it. Sleep meant letting go, and letting go wasn’t something he did easily. But it was hard to keep resisting with warmth pulling him deeper, with fingers still brushing idly against his back, and with the quiet certainty that Conner wasn’t going anywhere.

“You’re not allowed to ever complain about cuddling again,” Conner said softly, amusement curling the words.

Tim made a noise halfway between a scoff and a yawn, his eyes fluttering half-shut. “…You’re assuming I ever complained.”

Conner’s laugh was quiet, warm, like the rest of him.

Tim’s body grew heavier against him the longer they lay there, the rigid line of his shoulders easing bit by bit until he wasn’t holding himself up anymore. Conner could feel the shift—how Tim let himself lean, how the weight of him settled fully into his side. It wasn’t much, but for Tim, it was trust written in the language of silence.

Conner stayed still at first, not wanting to risk shattering it. His arm remained loose around Tim’s shoulders, the steady stroke of his thumb against the fabric of his sweatshirt the only movement. But the more he felt Tim’s warmth pressed into him, the more he noticed how natural it was to let his hand wander a little lower.

Fingers traced slow arcs down the line of Tim’s spine, careful and unhurried, pressing just enough to feel the slope of muscle beneath the layers of fabric. Tim gave no sign of pulling away. If anything, his breath deepened, his body melting closer with each pass of Conner’s hand.

Emboldened, Conner shifted his palm lower still, resting it just above Tim’s waist. He felt the faint hitch of breath against his chest, the smallest reaction—but not rejection. Tim didn’t move, didn’t stiffen. He only nestled in tighter, as if the warmth and weight were exactly what he’d been searching for all along.

Conner risked brushing the back of his knuckles against Tim’s hand where it was caught between them, half-hidden under the blanket. Their fingers touched, hesitant at first, the lightest graze of skin. Tim’s hand twitched, then stilled. A beat later, he let his fingers stay where they were, brushing faintly against Conner’s.

The storm roared outside, but inside the room, every detail narrowed down to that single point of contact—the slow drift of Tim’s breathing, the solid heat of him curled close, the promise of connection in the way their hands lingered together.

Conner swallowed, his voice quiet, almost more to himself than to Tim. “Yeah. This is better.”