Archive of Our Own ^beta

Taylor slides into the seat next to him.

He glances at her briefly and then focuses back on his drink. “The answer is no to whatever you're asking.”

“I’m not asking anything.” There’s a pause, “And you want to hear this.”

“I really, really don’t,” he says, head on his hands. “It’s been a shitty day.” It had started well enough, seeing Tommy again. He’s still not sure why he went to Harbor – maybe the elation of finding Bobby, Athena, the whole cruise ship experience getting the better of him, he supposes. Then watching Eddie, Tommy grinning at each other, piling into the helicopter to fly away from him… Rubs his forehead, where he’s getting a headache behind his eyes. They’re at a dive bar close to his place; he’d come here with Taylor a few times when they were still together. It wasn’t her speed; mostly filled with old guys, who live at the bar, watching tv and ignoring them. He likes that.

But today… There’s a pool table in the back room (he listens briefly as some older lady in a business suit separates a guy in flannel from his last twenty) and a pinball machine that someone’s playing, can hear the clicking and clanging and jiggling over the flipper from here. It’s loud today, and the smell of stale beer and fried food is overwhelming.

Rolls his head around, trying to push the headache away, then opens one eye, so he can watch her ignore him, perch on the stool, hook her bag under the bar. She waves at the bartender — points at his drink and raises two fingers. Turns his face back into his elbow. “You’re paying for those.”

“Sure,” she tosses her hair and looks around them, her nose wrinkling a little.

Tries to see what she’s seeing – the floor is sticky, but the bathroom is remarkably clean. Doesn’t think it’s violating any fire safety codes, so he can ignore a lot.

Belatedly it occurs to him to ask, "Why are you even looking for me? Are you stalking me?"

“You’ve come up a lot in the newsroom lately,” she starts. “Oh. Yea. I got a job at Channel 7?”

He hadn’t heard. It’s one step up from a tabloid but does have an investigative news team. “Congrats,” he says, muffled. “Back on the air?”

She ignores him. Answers his original question. “I’m not not stalking you.”

“Yay me?” The bartender arrives with their drinks, two whiskeys neat. Slides them over and Taylor hands him her card. He doesn’t recognize her. He raises his head, holds his drink between his hands. Stares at it so he doesn’t stare at her.

She’s Taylor so she’s still pretty. Too bad he knows what’s behind those blue eyes now.

But he fucked up too (never just the other person’s fault, as much as he’d like it to be) so he can be the bigger man. “So, what’s this about now? Me? The 118?”

She’s quiet for a minute. It’s weird. She was never quiet. “I have a theory.”

He looks at her over his drink. "Is this when you ask if I want to hear it?"

She shrugs. "Your call."

"Really," he says flatly. "Because you didn't not stalk me in order to not tell me your theory?"

Taylor taps her nail against the bar top – tap tap tap. He waits while she considers, listens to the guy at the pool table whine about double or nothing and the woman laughs, slides his twenty into her bra.

He caves. The sooner she tells him whatever it is she's chasing the sooner she'll go away (not really, but a guy can dream). "Fine. What."

She tucks her hair behind her ear. She lays out a timeline of his life for the last six months in more detail than he feels comfortable with – after action reports, news coverage, photos of him emerging with people from various scenes over the last few months. She keeps pointing things out like they’re evidence of …. something?

Unfortunately, he knows exactly where she’s going with this. Tries to think of ways to brush it off, act like it’s just him doing his job. He’s good at his job. She never thought it was that cool before, unless there was a story in it for her. But he waits her out because she’s got a head of steam and he’s learned that lesson.

“Are you sure you're not stalking me?”

She glares at him. “And then there’s the ship.”

She pauses expectantly. And he asks obediently, because now he wants (needs) to know what she knows, thinks she knows – what she's figured out. “The ship?”

“The cruise ship,” she confirms. “The ship that nobody should have been able to find. In the middle of a hurricane.”

“Trailing edge of a hurricane,” he murmurs, and she ignores him. Sits up a little straighter when she pauses again like she’s waiting for him to say something. “I didn’t find the ship. Tommy found the ship.”

She gives him an exasperated look. "And who was the one who found Nash and his wife in a capsizing cruise ship? You think that was luck? In several miles of flooded corridors and rooms? Really?"

He mimes confusion at her. “I really have no idea where you’re going with this.”

“And then yesterday…” she starts, and then fades off at whatever expression he’s making.Yesterday there’d been a family — no carbon monoxide detector and when their oven malfunctioned….they were lucky they had a nosy neighbor. He’d found the littlest kid hidden away — apparently she’d been playing hide and seek when it happened.

They all survived. Barely.

She takes a breath, leans forward and says, just above a whisper. “I think you got superpowers in that lightning strike.” His stomach swoops, but he can’t help it. He busts out laughing in her face.

She sits back and folds her arms and looks unimpressed with him. Which, honestly, is an expression he’s pretty familiar with. "Did you think just anyone could find them?"

He throws his arms wide. “Yes? It’s my job to find people, rescue them. I’m good at my job.” Sometimes feels like the only thing he’s good at, but all the same, he’s scrolling back in his mind, trying to figure out when he gave it away, when he used the new senses? Powers? On a scene. Didn’t think he’d done it often enough for anyone – Taylor – to have noticed. Apparently he was wrong about that.

“You're smarter than that, Buckley. I know you are.”

Full last name. She’s getting pissed at him. He sits up straighter. Glances at the evidence she has laid out on the table - neatly cross referenced and organized. Says more slowly, “You really believe this?” She nods. Points at the files on the table and sips her drink while he sifts through them - 911 transcripts that she absolutely should not have. News articles. The aforementioned after action reports. He looks up. "Taylor, uh, you know how insane this sounds?" She taps the news article about the gas leak with a perfectly manicured nail. "You don't think I'd know if I had super powers?"

She tilts her head. “You tell me.”

He ducks his head so she can’t see his face, his eyes. He's lying to Taylor. But, well, she's a reporter, she's used to people lying to her (she's used to him lying to her, a small part of him reminds him). He has noticed … something. Wouldn’t have called it superpowers – mostly because it sounds stupid.

He’d barely noticed it when he first woke up from the coma – everything was a cacophony of sound, a reminder of the chaos of his dream, of the inability to tell truth from fiction. The fact that he couldn’t distinguish between what was happening in his room and the sound of someone coding down the hall – the panicked whisper-yelling of the nurses, the doctor barking orders, the empty air where a heartbeat should have been – hadn’t felt any stranger than anything else happening to him. He’d looked over at Bobby, head bowed next to him, and he didn’t seem to hear anything, notice anything wrong, so Buck just… rolled with it. Drugs do weird things to bodies, he of all people knows that.

They gave him a list of things to watch for, a list of potential side effects from his coma, from the drugs they’d had him on during his coma. None of the handouts listed heightened smell or hearing, but they didn’t mention understanding trigonometry either and nobody seemed surprised by that. Besides, he still remembers his memories of being under. This isn’t any weirder.

Public Service Announcement at 7:00pm. This is your brain on a lightning strike. Don’t do drugs and comas, kids.

Came home from the hospital and everything still felt too loud, too much. Every rustle of his sheets like a knife across his skin, the antiseptic smell of the hospital searing in his lungs. He’d just about drowned himself in the shower trying to wash it off. Woke up the next morning and lay in bed and listened to his downstairs neighbor making breakfast and checking his daughter’s math homework. His neighbor who lives four floors below him. Could smell the second their toast burned.

He’s been …ignoring it? Mostly. Yesterday’s call out, the little girl in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom, notwithstanding. That had been a last resort, to find her heartbeat before the walls collapsed. That hadn’t even really been on purpose, more desperation and instinct than a choice. That’s how his new skills usually break through – when he’s tried everything else, but can’t give up yet. Most scenes aren’t that dramatic though. Thankfully.

He figured it would fade the way the math had. Chalked it up to the lightning, the coma, being back at home after the hospital, always at high alert (even though he couldn’t find a reference to anything like it anywhere on the internet). Except it hasn’t faded, not really. If anything it’s getting worse – stronger.

Figured out maybe something else was going on when he had tried desperately not to listen to Mr. and Mrs. Casale having sex on Thursday night. He’s always been able to vaguely hear them through the wall, but not like that. Not like he had floor seats. And look, Mrs Casale is a lovely lady. She’s also like 80, and she deserves privacy and he deserves to not know, well, any of the things he learned that night.

He couldn’t do that again, shouldn’t ever do that so he – tried over and over until he determined how to mute everything fast after that. Imagined a dial in his brain and turned it all the way down. Problem solved.

When Eddie discovered the math thing (and that part was pretty cool). Eddie had asked, can you do anything else? and his instinctive response had been no, of course not, that's silly, but even then he’d know that hadn’t been quite true. He just hadn’t known how to talk about it – freaky math skills you can monetize are one thing; he can’t imagine Eddie – anyone – reacting well if he told them that he can hear, can see pretty much anything remotely near him. It’s another reason to keep it all dialed down. He likes his friends, his family. Doesn’t want to give them a reason to be wary of him.

He fobs Taylor off with a flimsy excuse that night, that he barely sells and she doesn’t believe, but lets him escape before she can pin him down anyway. But, he knows her. She’s not going to let this go. And. If he’s being honest. It’s a little bit of a relief. To have someone put a name to it. Have someone that he can maybe talk to about it. Isn’t sure if he can trust her enough to actually admit that she might be right.

Except, now Taylor’s put a name to it he can’t stop thinking about it, in a way he hasn’t let himself since he woke up from the coma. Starts to wonder what would happen if he let himself dial it up a little, if he took his finger off the mute button. The math powers had faded, but he knows without checking that these ones haven’t. It takes too much effort to keep them muted for them to have gone away.

It’s a week before he calls Taylor. Lies in bed at night, trying his best not to listen to the Casales and can’t ignore it anymore. Agrees to meet her at a coffee shop his next shift off. She’s waiting for him, cup of coffee already on the table in front of the empty chair that she pushes out for him when she sees him come in. He looks at the cup – it’s a frozen mochachino – the kind of coffee he only gets on cheat days, and she knows it’s his weakness.

Takes a sip and says slowly. “Okay, let’s say that I believe you.” She sits up straighter. “What do you get out of it?”

“I can’t just be doing this out of the goodness of my heart?”

He snorts derisively. “No.”

He sees her take the hit, and refuses to feel guilty about it. “Okay,” she says, “that’s fair.” She shifts on her chair. “I’m not going to apologize for putting that story on the air. It was newsworthy.” She talks over him before he can have a reaction. “But,” she holds up a finger. “But, I am sorry about the way I went about it. It was unethical.”

He crosses his arms. “Okay. Apology accepted. Doesn’t answer my question though, what do you get out of this now?”

She fidgets with her coffee. “Nothing.”

“Don’t believe you. Thanks for the coffee, but no deal.” Starts to stand up and she reaches up to pull him back down.

“God, you’re touchy. Sit down. Okay, look, would I like to do a story on it? Sure. Who grows up wanting to be a journalist and doesn’t dream about being Lois Lane? That doesn’t mean I’m going to do it. Even I can see why that would be a bad idea. I’m not here to out you.”

Even though he knows that’s not what she means (that she would never even think to imagine that, probably), he thinks about Tommy kissing him, the way that it had made every hair on his arms stand on end, the way it had felt like the last week – the last 33 years – finally made sense, and swallows a laugh, because he can only deal with having one life altering conversation with Taylor at a time. “Okay, so why are you here?”

She lets out an exasperated breath. “I’m starting to wonder. Look. If I noticed, other people will notice too.” He raises his eyebrows, because he doesn’t think most people pay any attention to him at all unless he’s standing in front of them. And he doesn’t even mean that in the kind of way that makes Bobby look disappointed in him, just in – most people, even most journalists, are not paying any kind of attention to one firefighter in LA. She glares at him, getting visibly fed up. “Look, I can’t prove to you that I don’t have an agenda here, but I don’t. There’s no story. No exposé. No exclusive. Just, I noticed, and I know you, and …” she trails off.

“And what, Taylor?”

“And I want to help,” she retorts. “Take it or leave it. Your choice.”

He leaves it. He has trust issues a mile wide, and Taylor – silky red hair and wide blue eyes? Doesn’t get a free pass.

Goes on a disastrous date with Tommy. Comes out to Maddie. To Eddie. Thinks, now is when I should tell him about the way that I can hear more now, see more now, the way that I kind of have a sixth sense about when there’s someone trapped. Doesn’t say any of it. The coming out, the bad date post-game analysis, the worrying that Tommy will never want to talk to him again (when he’s just starting to realize how much he wants Tommy to talk to him. Kiss him. Do more than kiss him) – that’s…normal. That’s within the realm of things that he and Eddie talk about.

Lets Eddie reassure him that Tommy will give him a second chance. Doesn’t mention any of the rest of it. One hurdle at a time, he thinks.

It’s not like he forgets about his ‘super powers’(still thinks it’s a dumb description, but hasn’t come up with a better one yet), enhanced hearing, whatever. It’s more that they just take a back burner. He’s got Gerrard to deal with, Tommy to date, and whatever it is that’s going on with Eddie that he’s not talking about. He’s broadcasting guilt like it’s on basic cable. Doesn’t need super powers to read that expression.

Even with the Gerrard of it all, he’s happy. Happier than he thinks he’s been in a long time. Years maybe. Doesn’t want to jinx it. He’d tried – once – deliberately turning up the dial at a scene and wound up crouched on the floor while the sound of the fire battered at him. Hadn’t heard Chim come up behind him, until he was dragging Buck out of the house and over to Hen. He’d played it off as smoke inhalation and narrowly avoided a full work up. Now he keeps the dial in his head turned all the way down. He doesn’t want to become the emergency.

It feels like an on/off switch; all or nothing. He tries a couple of times, at home, when there’s nothing going on, just him at home in the middle of the day. Ends up zoning out on the smell of the nectarines he bought at the farmer’s market, and the hum of his fridge. Doesn’t snap out of it until a door slams down the hall, and he realizes he’s lost hours. It scares him enough not to try again.

He thinks about it sometimes here and there – at a scene, listening to the sound of fire, listening for the shift that will tell him it’s getting better or worse, and thinks how much more he could do if he could hear that shift earlier; or at the firehouse making dinner, if he could smell that the pan of onions was going to scorch in time to rescue them; in bed, with Tommy, watching and listening and waiting for that shiver that tells him he’s doing something right. But, already gets a little drunk on the smell of them together in bed, sweat and lube and come and, underneath it, the smell of the fabric softener he uses, and the shampoo Tommy likes. Can’t imagine how overwhelming it would be if he let go of the control he’s got on his senses. He comes so hard with Tommy, like his spine is melting out of his back, and he’s not sure if that’s just Tommy, or if it’s whatever weird legacy the lightning left him with. He likes how things are, is a little afraid to push for more.

For a while, he lives with the dread of waking up to a flurry of texts rattling his phone, Taylor having done a “live on location” feature on him but…she doesn’t. A day, then a week and then a month passes.

When he emerges from a burning factory one day, she's there, clipboard in hand, ordering a video crew around, the on-air talent standing with a PA and a mirror, while Taylor takes in the scene. She waves. He waves. They ignore each other.

It was nice. He texts her to meet.

Figures it’s got to be good to have her on his side. Better than the other way around. Tells himself not to be mercenary, and then reminds himself it’s Taylor. She has to earn the benefit of the doubt back.

They meet up for coffee again. Then lunch. She does keep trying to get him to tell her more about his powers – how much he can do, what he can’t do. He doesn’t really have answers for her. She pushes him about it too far. Once. Barely recognizes his own voice when he tells her to drop it. Knows she heard what he heard because she backs off.

“Have you told anyone?” she asks one day. “Eddie? Your sister? Your girlfriend?”

He raises an eyebrow at her, because he hasn’t told her he’s dating anyone. Her lips pinch. “I know what you look like when you’re dating someone. You keep smiling at your phone every time you get a text. I’m not an idiot.”

He flips the phone over, face down on the table, abashed. Her expression lightens. “It’s fine. It’s not like I expected you to be celibate for the rest of your life. I’m good in bed, but not ruin you for all other people good.” He snorts. She nudges him. “So, who is she?”

Clears his throat awkwardly. “Uh, he actually.”

Her eyebrows raise sharply for a moment. Then. “Huh. Yeah, okay.”

He tries to read her expression and fails. “Umm. Are you ummm, okay with it?"

She tilts her head. "Why would I care?"

He winces. "Some people do?" He'd found that out the hard way.

She shrugs. "I'm not one of them.” She pauses. Squints. “Unless, are you dating Eddie? Is that your-–?” She waves her hand, encompassing all of the invisible Eddie between them.

“What? No.”

She nods sharply. “Good.”

“What? Why good?”

She purses her lips, and waves a hand. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. So have you told this mystery guy about your,” flaps her hand again, “thing?”

“Tommy,” he says absently. “His name is Tommy. He flies for AirOps.” She makes an exaggerated impressed face and he relaxes because this is normal, this is exactly how she would have reacted if he’d told her he was dating Lucy. Well, okay, bad example. Not Lucy, but another hypothetical AirOps pilot. “And, no.”

There was so much new with Tommy. He'd pressed his luck once and got Tommy to give him a second chance, but – sharing this wasn't worth losing him again. He was a lot, too much for some people, and he wanted to be what Tommy wanted.

"If you're sure," Taylor says, with that look on her face that he hated, like she was judging him.

"I am?"

"Just," Taylor sighs, "relationships are built on truth." They both wince.

And then he’s busy, and he’s happy. Until he isn’t.

Until Tommy walks out and all he can do is bake. Everyone at the station thinks it’s so that he doesn’t call Tommy – which is true. If his hands are busy kneading dough, or covered in flour he can’t pick up his phone to text Tommy – ask how he’s doing, if he misses him at all, if he’s sleeping as badly as Buck is, what he did wrong, how he can fix it. But also, if his apartment is filled with the smell of sugar and vanilla and melting chocolate it drowns out the fading smell of Tommy’s cologne, the ding of the oven timer and the bubble of sugar caramelizing masks the sound of Tommy not being there.

He thinks again about telling Eddie about his super powers. Telling Maddie. Telling Bobby. Except, everyone’s already tired of hearing him talk about Tommy. Doesn’t want to test the waters telling them about something else that’s wrong with him. Keeps it to himself.

Anyway, Eddie's busy these days, with the move, new school for Chris, some woman he's been on a couple of dates with, dealing with his parents. And Maddie’s pregnant, and they’re all watching her and trying to make it look like they’re not watching her, because she wants this pregnancy to be joyful and it should be, and he always wants to give her anything he can, but also he doesn’t want to burden her. Not with this. Not now. And Bobby’s busy too – with Harry coming back, with building the new house. And anyway, he’s a grown up. He doesn’t need anyone to hold his hand.

"So what did happen with you and hot firefighter pilot dude?" Taylor asks at lunch one day. He takes too long answering her, and she kicks his ankle. "Spill. You looked happy in all the pictures."

He had been. But it’s been long enough that he can kind of find this funny and she’s earned this so he makes sure to wait until she’s taken a sip of her coffee before he says, "He told me he used to be engaged to Abby and I asked him to move in."

She swallows wrong and coughs and glares at him. "What is wrong with you?"

Taylor’s weirdly the easiest person to talk to about the breakup. She takes any baked goods he hands her, just says, “I’m the most popular person in the newsroom, keep them coming, Buckley.” And she doesn’t tell him not to call Tommy, or tell him there are more fish in the sea, to get back out there, tell him to move on already.

He asks her why once and she cocks her head like he’s being an idiot. “It takes as long as it takes to get over someone you love.” Bites her lip. “Someone you saw a future with.“

Life trundles along and Taylor and him become actual… friends? He thinks.

And then there's the baby in the car.

"How did you do that?" Ravi asks, morosely drinking his beer.

"Uhhh," Buck has no answer for that.

Has absolutely no idea what his voice does that makes Ravi look up and squint at him. "Wait, what was that?" Buck shakes his head, and Ravi abandons his beer entirely to stare at him, and Buck squirms under the evaluation. "I thought this was going to be a 'when you grow up, probie' talk, but–" His mouth does something that Buck can't define. "This? Does not feel like that."

Buck stares at the table, wishing it would tell him what to do, what to say. He hasn't told anybody, except Taylor. And that doesn’t count because technically she’d told him. He’d already known, but the point still stands. It’s been too long now, and he doesn’t really have a good explanation for why he hasn’t told anyone else, except that he likes the status quo, and he’s seen enough people walk away. And now he has another to add to his ever-growing collection. He hadn’t wanted Tommy to reject him, to deem him defective.

Turns out he did that anyway, all on his own, no superpowers necessary.

Maybe that is one of his superpowers.

Ravi is still staring at him and he needs to say something. And he is totally gearing up to say, ‘you’re a good fire fighter. We all lose someone some time. That doesn’t make you not good at your job.’ What comes out is, “I cheated. “

“You cheated?” Ravi repeats. “How exactly do you cheat at fire?”

In for a penny, and he started this. So. “I have super powers.”

Ravi laughs lightly, taking a swig of his beer. “That’s a good one, Buck.” Snorts. “You have super powers.” He shakes his head, muttering. It’s not that Buck doesn’t understand why Ravi doesn’t believe him but he’s not really sure how else to say it. They don’t usually do him much good, but he has them, and he’s grateful that the itch at the back of his brain that said something was wrong had overridden whatever mute button he’s had clamped down on it all these months.

He barrels through Ravi’s incredulous expression. “You remember the lightning strike?”

Ravi’s expression does not get less incredulous. “Do I remember when you got hit by lightning and were in a coma and Bobby took the entire station off line until you woke up? Yeah, I might vaguely remember that.”

He ignores Ravi’s tone, like he thinks Buck is being deliberately obtuse and tone deaf. “Remember how I had the math powers?” Doesn’t wait for Ravi’s response. “Turns out they weren’t the only things I got.” Risks a glance at Ravi and keeps going. “Uh, my hearing and smell were enhanced, and I can sort of tell where someone is if they’re in trouble. Like even if I can’t actually hear them, I know they’re somewhere.”

“You have a spider sense?” Ravi says flatly. “Are you being serious right now?”

He nods. Because yes. “That’s how I found the baby. It’s not because you did anything wrong or missed anything. I cheated. That’s how I found her.”

“You’re fucking with me.” Points his finger at him, “Not funny.”

Buck sighs. Guesses it’s time to perform. “Go stand by the pool table.” Waits until he’s over there, cautiously unmutes the world– it’s hard to focus on one specific conversation, not just hear everything in the bar as one undifferentiated wall of sound, but he can probably do it for a minute, long enough for this demonstration – and listens in on the conversation (someone giving a guy shit about his break), waves Ravi back.

It takes him a minute to remember how to hit that mute button, shut out the girl breaking up with her boyfriend at the other end of the bar, and the bartenders bitching about their manager, and the guys at the table in the back arguing about whether ranch goes with pizza (it doesn’t) and debating whether the corporation in Severance is a cult or it’s all an analogy for the end of the world (he hasn’t seen it, doesn’t have an opinion). Realizes how much he’s been — not listening, trying not to over hear what he shouldn’t. Knows everyone would want him to stay far, far away if they knew.

Ravi stares at him. Says faintly, "You're really not kidding, are you?"

He shakes his head. "No." Has a thought. "Uh.... please don't tell anyone?"

That makes Ravi look affronted. "No. Of course not. Wait, who else knows? Eddie. Bobby. Did you tell Tommy?"

He winces. "Uh, Taylor?" Eddie doesn’t know. Bobby, waggles his hand back and forth. Sometimes he thinks Bobby’s guessed.

"Taylor like your ex-girlfriend Taylor? Like Taylor Kelly who wrote a tell-all book about the LAFD? That Taylor?"

"She didn't publish it," he says weakly. And then caves in the face of Ravi's expression. "Yes, that Taylor." Winces again. "She umm, figured it out before I did?"

Ravi buries his face in his hands and mumbles, "Of course she did." Looks up. "Okay, so Eddie, Bobby, Taylor, me. Tommy?"

He shakes his head. "Taylor. Now you."

Ravi is shocked into silence for a moment, gaping at him. "What? No, seriously, what?"

Buck shrugs. Doesn’t really feel like explaining it. To Ravi. To himself.

“Ok, so no one knows. Tell me you’ve at least done the training montage portion of this origin story.”

Buck shrugs again.

Ravi squints at him. “Exactly what have you done since you got these powers,” counts on his fingers,. He looks over at at Buck, his eyebrows furrowed. "How many months has it been, anyway?"

He avoids Ravi’s judgemental gaze and doesn’t answer his question. “I figured out how to not hear my neighbors having sex.”

Ravi looks briefly intrigued then horrified. “Right. Anything else?” He doesn’t say anything, and lets that be his answer, and Ravi drops his head to the table, voice muffled. “You’ve seen Spiderman, right? Superman? Batman, at least? You know how this is supposed to go?”

“I think I saw a Batman? Taylor thought the dude was hot?”

“Which dude?” Ravi asks, looking up. Flaps a hand. “Nevermind, doesn’t matter.” Which is good because Buck can’t answer that anyway.

"I always liked the Batman comics," he offers to throw Ravi a bone.

"Of course you did," Ravi mutters. "Literally nothing is less surprising than that." Ravi takes a deep breath. Then another. Slaps his hands on the table. "Right. Okay. With great power comes great responsibility."

"I'm not Spiderman," he objects. Because he hasn’t seen the movies, but he’d read the comics as a kid.

"Who says I was talking about you?" Ravi retorts. Points a finger at him. "Okay here's what's going to happen. I am going to get us some tequila, because I am way too sober for this conversation. And then this weekend I am going to pick you up and we are going to drive out to Topanga and we are going to figure out what you can do."

"We are?"

Ravi nods sharply. "We are. Because you have," he waves his hands and sounds a little manic, "superpowers and you don't know what you can do, and apparently I am the only sane person you know. Wait, what am I talking about, of course I'm the only sane person you know."

"Hey," he objects. Thinks for a minute. "I know Karen."

"She married Hen, jury's out," Ravi retorts and then goes back to his original point. "I am the only sane person you know, and so it falls to me to do the training montage."

When Buck balks, Ravi narrows his eyes. “So do you only like clipboards for other people?”

And Buck caves and lets Ravi come up with a series of tests.

Except they don’t have time to get to any of them before everything goes wrong. He’s never felt so helpless as when his people were stuck in that lab. He did what he could, got Tommy to come help; he and Athena got them the remedy.

But he wasn’t immune; it would have killed him as fast as it almost did Chim, as it did Bobby.

He couldn’t punch through walls to get to them. He couldn’t turn invisible. He couldn’t even fly to get the antidote; he had to ask Tommy for that. He couldn’t DO anything other than stand there and watch, to know Bobby, his dad, was dying, had died and he — was helpless. He wasn’t special, he wasn’t super; he was just – a kid, watching his dad suffer, die and unable to stop it.

Wonders if he’d worked on understanding how to use his super powers if there was something – anything – that he could have done. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, but maybe it would have. Guesses there’s no way to ever know for sure. Makes a promise to himself to keep the powers buried; if they couldn’t help Bobby, what good were they? What good was he?

It’s a promise he keeps for all of two weeks. Ravi rings his – Eddie's – doorbell two days after Eddie goes back to Texas to pack up his life again and move back to LA. Back to the house he'd sublet to Buck. The house he hadn't explicitly asked for back, but he knows Eddie assumes that he can have without asking, because that's how their friendship works. Apparently. And Buck can't say anything about it without – He cuts off the line of thinking, because it's pointless and he needs to find somewhere else to live before Eddie gets back with Christopher.

Ravi eyes the boxes he's pulled back out of the garden shed he'd just managed to put them away in. "Moving?"

He shrugs, "Yeah. The house is Eddie's."

Ravi opens his mouth, and then closes it again. Says, "Let me know if you have problems finding somewhere mid-month. I've got a unit open that I can let you have for a couple months while you look."

He blinks. "Oh. Thanks. That's. That's really nice of you."

Ravi shrugs. "Still gonna charge you rent. Not that nice of me." Takes one more look around. "Anyway, not what I came here to talk to you about."

"Oh right. Of course. Uh, do you want coffee, or something?"

Ravi accepts the coffee, and a slice of banana bread, eyes Buck's fridge like he knows the secrets it's hiding. "You agreed.” Buck stares at him, while Ravi narrows his eyes. “We’re going to figure out what you can do.” "

He's mid-sip and coughs a little. "Ravi…” Thinks about Bobby, Athena – sobbing on the floor of the hallway. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Ravi’s face twitches. “No.”

“No?”

“It matters more than ever. We need to know.” Ravi makes little pew pew noises and gestures at his eyes. "For next time. What you can do, super power-wise."

"I don't have eye lasers," he points out.

Ravi rolls his eyes. "You might. You don't know. You said yourself you've never really tested what you can do. We should test, and then practice."

"We?" he says cautiously.

"We," Ravi says firmly. Then a little more hesitantly. "I know work is a clusterfuck right now." Buck starts to argue and Ravi narrows his eyes and Buck concedes. Ravi seems to change direction when he speaks again. "I need something to do, I can't keep just replaying it in my head." Looks at Buck, "You can't tell me you aren't doing that too."

And no, Buck can't tell him that.

Ravi nods, like Buck had admitted that outloud. "Right. So, training."

And well, it's not like Buck has anything better to do at the moment, except pack up his life again, try and find somewhere new to live, try and figure out how to put his world back together after all the ways it's been broken and fractured.

"Sure," he says, and enjoys for a second the way Ravi looks surprised at how easily he'd caved.

"Great. because I already called Taylor, and she'll be here in 30 minutes."

"Wait, what?"

“You’re dating Ravi now?” Taylor asks when she arrives, peering around the living room. “Also, why are you living in Eddie’s house?”

“It’s not Eddie’s house,” he whines at the same time that Ravi makes a hilariously horrified expression, exclaiming, “No!”

Taylor looks a little disappointed. “Too bad.” Frames them in an imaginary camera lens. “You’d be so pretty together.”

Buck leans against the couch. Teases him, because he can. Feels like maybe the first normal thing he’s done in days. “What, you don’t want a piece of this?”

Ravi makes a face. “No offense to all your,” he waves a hand, “whatever. But, not my type.”

He leans forward, curious. “Yeah, what is your type exactly?” Because nobody has ever been able to get a read on Ravi. There are at least three betting pools that he knows about at the station on it.

“None of your business,” Ravi says. “And, we’re here to talk about you, not me.”

That gets Taylor to focus. “I can’t believe you managed to convince him to actually do this. I’ve been trying for months.” Wanders over to the table to look at the clipboard and series of tests Ravi’s apparently spent his free time since the funeral dreaming up. “Wow. You’ve put thought into this.”

Ravi nods. “I had some time on my hands.”

Hasn’t been sleeping, Buck translates in his head. He can relate. Clears his throat. “Right, so where do we start?”

Ravi looks grateful for the subject change and straightens. “Okay so baseline it for me. What are we working with?”

“Who is this we?” Buck grouses. Then more seriously, “I’ve tried it on scenes, but it's just too much. Almost got stuck in a flashover because I zoned out and couldn’t move.”

“Okay,” Ravi says. “But you clearly function day to day, so how are you doing that?”

“Uh, I kind of picture like a mute button? Like on zoom? And I keep it all muted.”

Ravi thinks about that. “So like a volume thing?”

“Sure.” And it is so weird to be actually talking about this to someone other than Taylor after so long. “I’ve tried unmuting it – like in the bar when I first told you. I can do it for like a minute, two minutes. Any longer than that and it’s all just too much, just everything coming at me all at once.”

“What about a volume dial instead of an on/off switch. Turn it up just a little at a time?”

And oh, he feels like an idiot that he’d never thought of that.

Turns out the theory is a lot easier than the practice. Like, he can visualize the dial just fine. Getting it to move like he wants it to is a lot harder. And it doesn’t help that he gets distracted so easily. It’s hard getting his mind to focus on just one thing, instead of all the conversations going on around him.

First time he manages to tune in to Ravi whispering from the other side of the station he laughs out loud because Ravi’s been reading Pride and Prejudice outloud.

/ Pride and Prejudice? Seriously? / he texts Ravi. He remembers watching the movie in class in high school. He’d been supposed to read the book, and hadn’t. Maybe he’ll pick it up now, because Elizabeth seems awesome. He’s invested, needs to find out how it ends.

“My sister likes it,” Ravi says without raising his voice. "And I grew up watching the Gurinder Chadha movie with her. Figured I should finally read the original. It's very..." he makes a disparaging noise, "British." And Buck hears him loud and clear. And okay. This is kind of cool.

The first couple of sessions after that go so well that he gets cocky with it.

And okay, he zones out a little at lunch with Maddie because he can hear the radio in the car that drives by and he keeps following it because they're playing an interesting podcast – and how cool is it that he can filter out all the other noises and just follow that one. Comes back to himself abruptly when Maddie pinches him. "Where is your head at today?"

And okay, so maybe a little bit of a work in progress to stay here and there at the same time – focus enough on what's around him, and on what he's tracking. But still. He's got this. He learned how to think about the fire in front of him, and what the fire is going to be doing in ten minutes, before he graduated from the Academy. This isn’t any different.

Plans to meet Ravi and Taylor for lunch before their next session – and he's not totally sure how Taylor became a default invite, but she is, and he doesn't actually mind. He'd always liked her (until he didn't), had liked the way she could be funny and bitchy and ambitious and sweet and cycle right back to funny all in the space of two minutes. He'd liked the way she didn't care what anyone else thought of her (knew that wasn't true, but sometimes her mask was good enough that he forgot). He'd thought he’d loved her, until she'd used him and didn't care who it hurt.

They're working their way back though. And Ravi's training schedule is part of it, and lunch is part of it. She's there early, head bent in the sun, reading the menu, biting her lip, and he focuses in, trying to see what she's torn between. Used to be he'd order the thing she couldn't decide between and let her swap plates halfway through dinner if she decided she didn't like her first choice.

Doesn't even realize he's gotten distracted by trying to read the menu over her shoulder from across the street until Ravi yells and shoves at him and there's a squeal of brakes and a driver yelling at him, and Ravi's staring at him, looking angry and shaken. It's a look he used to see a lot on his mother's face. Doesn't love it on Ravi's.

"What the fuck?"

He lets the restaurant manager push him down into a chair and get him water, while Ravi cleans the abrasions on his arms from where he'd fallen on them. He hasn't known you could clean wounds aggressively, but Ravi's managing it.

"Sorry," he says, and is. "I wasn't paying attention."

"No shit," Ravi says and squints at the skin on his arm and then wraps it loosely with some gauze. "You'll live." Sits back and glares at him. "I yelled at you to get out of the way and you just kept walking."

"I was trying to read Taylor's menu," he admits. Then, in the spirit of honesty, or something, admits, "It happened with Maddie the other day too. I tried to use my," waves a hand near his ear, and Ravi nods, "and zoned out. She had to pinch me." Thinks about how close that truck had just come and is actually glad he's sitting. Because what if he'd been driving. Or been with the kids.

"Is this a good idea?" he asks when they've finally settled at their table and ordered. Taylor doesn't ask him to order her second choice, but he's got a pretty good idea what it was and orders it anyway, plans to trade her a bite for a bite of her entree.

"Is what a good idea?" Ravi asks irritably. "You taking your powers out for a joy ride? Clearly not."

"No, trying to use them at all. Maybe I should just go back to what I was doing, keeping them tamped down."

Ravi starts to argue with him, but Taylor beats him to it. "Really? You want to quit? Guess times really have changed."

"What does that mean?"

She shrugs and examines her manicure with elaborate disinterest. "Where's the guy who sued the department to get his job back? Who tried to dig a mud pit out by hand to get to his best friend?”

"That was different," he protests.

Ravi cocks his head, like he’s just figured something out. "Oh my god, everything has always been easy for you, hasn't it?"

He blinks, derailed from arguing with Taylor. "What are you talking about?"

Ravi appropriates the basket of fries like they were his and not table fries. "What, you've always been big? And strong? And pretty coordinated?"

He shrugs and steals some of the fries back. "Sure? I guess?" He's put on muscle since he joined the LAFD (had loved picking Tommy's brain about his workout routine ... had loved working out with Tommy, even though half the time they'd called the session early and worked up a sweat in more creative ways.) The PT after his leg had been crushed had been a bitch, but there’d been a purpose to it.

Ravi nods. "That's what I thought. You've never had to work at it. I bet the Academy was easy for you."

Yes, and no, he thinks. He's never been good in a classroom. He's good at knowing things, but random things. He'd been good at the physical stuff, but the classroom stuff and the tests had been hard. It had gotten easier once he was a probie and in the field and he could see the connection between the theory and the practice. Bobby had always been good at figuring out how to teach him what he needed to learn without making him feel dumb about it. He misses Bobby. (Still. Always. Wakes up some mornings and goes to text him and has to remember all over again why Bobby won't answer if he does.)

"Is there a point here?" Taylor asks, liberating half his chicken, and replacing it with half her sandwich. Ravi watches them, diverted for a second.

"My point is, Buck here, is impatient and tried to jump the line."

Taylor chews her bite and swallows. "Yes? This is news to you?"

Ravi takes a bite of his own lunch and thinks about that. "Kind of, actually."

Which surprises Buck as much as it does Taylor. "Really?"

Ravi nods. "You trained me. I was your probie. I mean, don't get me wrong, I never bought into the myth you tried to create for yourself, but yeah, you were my teacher. I never really thought about you having to learn the stuff I was learning."

"Bobby fired me my first day," he says absently, "I wasn't always good at my job. I, uh, didn't always understand what it meant."

Ravi absorbs that. Takes another bite and is clearly thinking. "Okay, so we obviously need more practice. But like, what works for you?"

Ravi takes his half jumbled explanations of what he’d learned with Bobby his probie year and turns them into something actionable. And, Ravi’s always been a good firefighter, but Buck thinks that maybe the Academy really lost something when Chim went to get him to transfer back to the station. The next time he meets Ravi to train, Ravi’s revamped the entire program for specific practical ways that help Buck learn how to see better, hear better, hone his spidey sense (yeah, that’s sticking) that will be useful on the job.

He flips through the pages on the clipboard and then looks up at Ravi. “How long did this take you?”

Ravi shrugs. “I don’t always sleep a lot. I don’t like waking my partner up by turning on the TV.” Buck looks at him more closely, and can read a history of nightmares and sleep that’s exhaustion more than restful in the shadows under his eyes. He gets it.

Says, “Apologies to your sleep schedule, but I appreciate it.”

Ravi doesn’t quite meet his eyes, looks over at where Taylor’s just pulled up. “Yeah, well, works out in the long run for me too, if you get that much better at the job.”

Taylor looks over Ravi’s plan, and then points out that he's going to be doing this in the field – when his heart is pumping and his body flooded with adrenaline – so trying to use his powers in the middle of a workout is a good approximation.

Ravi eyes her skeptically. "You sure you don't just want to look at him in tiny shorts and no shirt?"

She shrugs. "Doesn't hurt. But my point stands."

Buck glares at her without any real animosity. "I mean, as long as you're enjoying yourself."

She nods seriously. "That is the most important thing."

In the end, Taylor mostly actually doesn't watch him, just takes notes on her phone about something, and periodically looks up to tell him that she knows he can lift more than that, and to put some effort into it.

And eventually he tells her that if she says that one more time the thing he's going to be lifting is her, and putting her down in her car. Outside.

She nods. "Sure. But only if you can tell me what Ravi's saying inside while you do it. You need to learn to multitask."

And Ravi just laughs at him.

And it's cool, and useful, and Buck's glad that Ravi pushed him to do this, but it's still not leaping a building in a single bound, or shooting lasers from his eyes, or being a magnet.

"You have powers," Ravi says, "You're not a superhero."

"I could be," Buck says, in a voice that Maddie would call petulant if it was Jee.

To mark the end of his first three months as Captain, Chim invites them to a barbeque. Says, "It's time." And, "Bobby would want us to." And, "This station is his legacy, and we're going to celebrate that."

Buck spends most of the afternoon hiding with the kids. He doesn't call it that. Obviously. But, it's what he's doing.

He's glad Chim is Captain. Would have been happy if Hen had taken Captain too. Mostly just pleased that it hadn't gone to someone outside the house. But, he's not ready to celebrate yet. He hadn't taken the leave the department had offered, because the idea of being alone at home was worse than the idea of being at work without Bobby. But, going to work still feels like dragging himself through mud some days. Most days.

There are no neat, easy words for who Bobby was to him. More than a Captain. Less than family. Officially. There's no tidy way to explain to anyone outside the 118 who he's lost. And that would be okay, except that it doesn't feel like anyone at the 118 really gets it either. Except maybe Ravi.

Ravi and Taylor. Most unlikely co-conspirators. But they get it, and they make it better. Bearable.

So yeah, he hides with the kids. Disguises it as an offer to babysit, and takes the unearned brownie points. Entertains them with the stuff he's been working on with Ravi and Taylor.

He tells Mara and Jee stories about what their parents are doing and saying on the other side of the yard, while he's rocking Robert (never Bobby), and Mara runs back and forth, fact checking him, demanding, “How do you know that?”

And he winks at her, and shifts Robert up onto his shoulder, and says, “I’m just very smart.”

Laughs at the mega side eye she levels at him. Offers, “Your parents are very predictable?”

“Hmm,” she says skeptically.

He goes to work. He goes home. He practices with Ravi and Taylor. He babysits for Maddie and Chim. He takes Chris out to lunch sometimes, he’s too old now for the zoo, the aquarium, the planetarium. He’ s just grateful Chris hasn’t deemed himself too old to hang with Buck at all. It’s not the same as it was before. Any of it. But some days, some parts of some days, it starts to feel like a new normal. Losing Bobby doesn’t stop hurting, but every day it gets a little bit easier to breathe around the loss.

Ravi's on the phone, tying up the end of a conversation, and Buck isn't trying to listen in. He's not. At all. Because that's rude and an invasion of privacy, and he has learned his lesson about that already. But when his mind drifts he loses control. Which is one of the things Ravi's been designing exercises for him to work on – so really this is Ravi's fault.

He’s really just idly listening to the cadence of Ravi’s voice, he’s clearly talking to a girlfriend (boyfriend? nonbinary partner?), and he sounds a little besotted, and Buck’s planning on teasing him about that. And then he hears someone who is very clearly May say, "Love you too. See you tonight?"

And sits up straight, because just what? WHAT?

Waits until Ravi’s in normal human earshot before he says, "Does Athena know?"

“Does Athena know what?” Ravi asks, and if Buck hadn’t just literally heard him saying goodbye to May, and promising to make her breakfast he’d have doubted himself, but he had, so. He raises his eyebrow at Ravi and points at his ear.

Ravi glares. “That’s an abuse of power.”

Buck can't hold in the cackle. "And, that's my sister you're dating."

"She's not your sister."

"She's not not my sister."

Ravi turns on his heel to pick up his clipboard of the day with dignity. "I regret all my decisions?" Doesn’t stop him from pointing at the other end of the parking lot, and saying, “Okay, I’m going to hold up cards. Tell me what they say.”

It's not all training montages though – and he thinks that Hollywood leaves out a lot of the sweat and frustration in their training montages, he'd like to fast forward to where he can reliably do this shit so Ravi will stop inventing ways to make him hang off the side of a building and try and listen for the tape recording of a crying child from seven floors away.

"You have to learn how to split your focus," Ravi tells him when he complains. "You're not gonna be doing this from the armchair in your living room – you're gonna be doing this while you're in the middle of a call. Next time we're simulating a flashover."

"We are?" he said, alarmed. "How exactly are we doing that?"

"I've got a friend," Ravi says vaguely.

His control is getting better, more instinctive.

He’s starting to use it without thinking. They get to a scene and Chim pulls up short, staring at the brown bag on the porch, keeping back a wary distance. They all come to a milling halt behind him, peering over his shoulder to see what’s spooked him.

“Bomb?” Eddie suggests. “Call the bomb squad to be safe?”

Buck shoulders past them. The call had been for a kid locked in a bathroom. Rolls his eyes at the collective gasp behind him. “It’s poop.”

They all turn to look at him, and he sniffs dramatically and instantly regrets it. Can see Ravi laughing at him. “You can’t smell that?”

Ravi steps around Eddie, who looks like he wants to argue about Buck’s assessment. Ravi takes in their skepticism and says, “What? If he says it’s poop, it’s poop.” Glances back over his shoulder at their shiny new probie, “You’re up, Grayson.”

It doesn’t slip any more if he’s not specifically concentrating. But, when he’s tired it’s harder. And today has been one of those shifts. He’d almost think someone had said the Q-word, but even thinking that feels like he’s jinxing them, and he does not have the energy for another call before the end of shift.

He’s hiding in the bunkroom, not really even trying to sleep, but just being horizontal, away from everyone. He loves them all, and normally he thrives on the energy of being around other people, but tonight his social battery is dead. He’s drifting a little, in that hazy space between awake and dozing, and his guard is down. It’s the only reason he hears Chim talking to Maddie. Knows he should wake up enough to focus, pull back. Nothing that Chim’s saying to Maddie is his to hear. But his attention is caught by something, maybe the tone of Chim’s voice, the way he sounds worn thin. Not quite the way he’d sounded on the roof the morning of Bobby’s funeral, but closer to that than Buck’s comfortable with.

“Why did I think I could do this, Maddie?”

He can’t quite make out her response, can imagine Chim hunched over in the captain’s chair, arm on his knee, phone pressed tight to his ear, eyes closed, that worried groove on his forehead.

Chim says. “I can’t be Bobby, Maddie. I keep trying, but I’m screwing it up. I’m letting them down, him down.”

Buck wants to tell him, he’s not. He’d been – not skeptical exactly – when Chim took the captain’s post, but uneasy, a little blindsided by the shift. Chim’s proved him wrong though. Wonders if anyone’s told Chim that. He’s not Bobby, nobody could be Bobby, nobody should try. But Chim’s doing a good job filling his own shoes, making the captaincy of the 118 his own.

He can’t tell Chim that outright. Thinks Chim would sic Maddie on him if he did that out of the blue – out of loving brotherly concern. And it’s not like he can straight up tell Chim what he heard – even if it wouldn’t invite a host of other questions, not least of which why he hadn’t said anything before, it’d be admitting to a gross invasion of privacy. But there has to be a way he can show Chim. Makes a mental note to figure that out, and then very deliberately turns the dial in his head down until he can’t hear Chim anymore.

Ravi and Taylor’s combined training sessions (different methodologies, same intent) are making him better, sharper. It means he can push himself further, use it more in the field without risking burning himself out. But, it’s – he’s – still a work in progress, and he still sometimes pushes too much too fast and ends up with a headache. It had been worth it this time, he’d heard the floor creak, felt the give of the wood under his feet in just enough time to pull the new probie back. But, as a consequence he has a crushing headache, and he’s not too proud to not take the head massage Ravi is offering. They are two evolved men, entirely secure in their masculinity, which means he can lie there and enjoy it, starfished across the roof, trying not to listen in to things while Ravi rubs his forehead with surprisingly gentle fingers.

“My sister used to do this for me when I was a kid,” Ravi said the first time Buck had commented on it. When he had cancer Buck fills in, wonders if Maddie had done this for Daniel.

He hears the door open and doesn’t shift. Squints up against the fading light when the footsteps come to a halt next to them. Chim’s standing there, opens his mouth, and then closes it again. Says, “You know what, I really don’t want to know. I just came to say dinner’s ready.”

Ravi combs a hand through his curls and says, “Okay, we’ll be down in a minute.”

He cocks half an ear to Chim’s muttering as he goes down the stairs and says, “Chim’s wondering if he should start a new pool.”

“Happy with the relationship I’ve got, thanks. And again, you’re not my type.”

He heaves himself up, and then offers a hand to Ravi to pull him up too. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“And yet, somehow I’ll survive,” Ravi says dryly, following him down the stairs, and ignoring Chim’s speculative look when they enter the kitchen.

The better he gets at it, the more he gives himself away. Except that nobody guesses superpowers as their first guess (unless you’re Taylor), so mostly he just looks like he’s the top of his game. Which, he kind of is, but also he definitely feels like he’s cheating a little.

They’re in the firehouse and someone’s watching TV in the kitchen. Chim’s got his head cocked, trying to figure out what it is, and Buck absently fills in the answer to the question Chim hadn’t quite asked, “He’s watching Outlander.” Listens for a second with more attention. “Season Two? I think?”

Hen sticks her head around the door of the fire engine. “You can hear that?”

He nods. “You can’t?”

She shakes her head. “But Denny keeps telling me I’m going deaf. I thought he was just mumbling, but maybe I really do need to get my ears checked?”

Which makes him feel guilty, because he hadn’t done it on purpose, but that had been cheating.

Chim’s more fascinated than anything else. “Since when do you watch Outlander?”

And the answer is, Tommy had liked it. And Buck still watches it. Jaime and Claire are hot. Sue him. Also he's invested in the melodrama now. Not because it reminds him of Tommy. But he doesn't say it, because nobody will believe him if he does, and he's not up for another round of significant looks between all of them.

"Taylor was talking about..." he starts, and then stops abruptly when they all turn to look at him and he realizes what he's said.

Chim tells Maddie – who hadn't liked Taylor any better than anyone else had, but had faked it better. Maddie talks to him.

"You've been spending a lot of time with Taylor? And Ravi?" She pauses significantly. And it irritates him for no good reason, except that this is the first time she’s called him for anything except to find out if he can babysit in months. And, he knows she’s got a newborn, and a three year old, and that’s overwhelming, and they’re all still watching for PPD, and he loves his niece and will take all the time he can get with her. But it rubs him the wrong way that this is what it takes to get her to pick up the phone. It makes his response come out sharper than he meant it to.

"Yes? Sorry, I'm not sure what the problem is? Are you worried that Ravi's going to be a bad influence on me? Convince me to start investing more in my 401K? Buy some properties and become a landlord?"

Maddie looks taken aback. "No, of course not. Just, it's new, that's all. I'm not worried, I'm interested."

And it jolts him out of his temper, lets him tamp down his feeling of what – jealousy of Jee and Robert? Of anyone having more of her time?. "Sorry. Yeah, we get drinks sometimes. Neither one of us have kids, you know."

"And Taylor?" she asks delicately.

"I'm not dating her, if that's what you're asking." Maddie looks relieved. "Just, we did use to be friends."

She looks skeptical, and he caves because it’ll make her smile, and reassure her, and he’s hardwired to want her to not worry about him. "Yes, fine, usually with benefits, but we're not doing that anymore. So, we're trying friends friends. She was never as bad as everyone thought she was."

Maddie stops folding laundry to look at him thoughtfully. "You always think the best of people. I've always envied that."

Which, in retrospect, his defense of Taylor is funny because the next time he sees her she’s yelling at him before she’s even made it out of the car.

“You went back in and saved the damn dog?!?” Taylor yells at him.

“I couldn’t lose anyone else,” he says.

“Are you trying to get caught?”

"No," he mutters under the force of her glare. He's not lying. He's not trying to get caught. But, he can't just sit there and not do everything he can when there's someone he can save, when there's a chance that what he does mean that someone gets to go home to their family at the end of the day, that their family doesn't have to look at an empty place at the table.

He wonders, sometimes, when they’re going to disappear — the superpowers. His math skills did; faded quick, just a few weeks after the lightning.

But instead, his hearing, sight seem to be getting better.

“You’re practicing,” Ravi tells him. “Didn’t your mom ever tell you that you had to use it or lose it? Now," he adds, "we just need to figure out a way to hone that spidey sense."

"Can we not call it that?” Ravi ignores him. “Anyway, weren’t you just yelling at me about not getting caught?”

Ravi waves a hand. “That was Taylor. You’re a firefighter, and if you repeat this I’ll deny it, but you’re a really good firefighter. People are going to look at your record and think horses, not zebras. It gives you a lot of wiggle room.”

He sits up a little straighter. “You think I’m a good fire fighter?”

Ravi looks exasperated. “Yes? You don’t actually need me to tell you that.” And no, not really. It’s still nice to hear though.

He swings his legs idly. "Don't I need a villain to be a proper super hero?"

"Again, you're not a superhero," Ravi rolls his eyes.

Taylor taps her chin, "Who do you think is your villain?"

Ravi and Buck say in unison, "Gerrard."

Thankfully, that villain seems to have been defeated. For now. He’s like a bad penny (or the Penguin); he’s always going to pop up.

A few weeks later, they’re supposed to be going to a bar in WeHo tonight. For training? Apparently Taylor thinks the triple threat of music, and drinks, and hot guys (“and girls,” she makes sure to add) is a good way to test his control. Personally, Buck just thinks she wants a night out, but hey friends, music, and drinks (he’ll leave the hot people for someone else), it’s not the worst way to spend an evening.

He knows Taylor's car is still in the shop. Thinks wistfully that Tommy would probably have been able to fix it. Wonders what Tommy would have thought of Taylor, if he’d have liked her, or been like everyone else and just grudgingly put up with her. He’d never been able to explain to anyone at the 118 why he liked her. Loved her. And he had, he thinks. Maybe not enough, or not the way either one of them needed in the end, but he’d tried.

Drops by the TVstation to pick her up and sees more than he thinks she’s meant him to. It's been months, but she's clearly still not back on the air, still clearly barely a step up from glorified PA. He knows she's been pushing for it, trying to crack stories that will push their hand. A couple of months ago he’d have worried that she’d use him – his story – to get back in front of the camera, but …. he’s not anymore. She seems... changed. Like him.He tries to duck out before she sees him, but he’s big and tall and he sticks out and he knocks into a stack of papers as he turns to leave and looks up to catch her eye. Sees her embarrassment and wishes there was a way he could tell her it was okay in a way she’d believe. Best he can do is leave. Not mention it when she comes out 20 minutes later.

He tries to make small talk about the calls they’d had, how he’d been able to use what they’ve been working on. How it’s helping.

She finally says. "I told you I’d meet you there."

"I wanted to be nice, save you some uber money."

"That was always your problem." She sounds bitter. "You always think you can solve other people's problems for them." She ticks them off on her fingers. "Solve Eddie's problems. He ever say thank you for any of that? Keep your sister's secrets – trying to solve her problems. Same with me and my parents.. Always stepping in where nobody asks you to."

Her aim is excellent as always.

"I told Tommy I don’t have to love everyone I sleep with," he says into the awkward silence that follows, trying to even the playing field. She doesn’t respond, and he keeps going. "We hooked up. He made breakfast, said he thought he had a chance again now that Eddie was out of the way."

Taylor makes an incredulous noise. "You are not in love with Eddie. You love him, love his kid, but you're not in love with him. And he is definitely not in love with you. Some days I wasn’t even sure he really liked you as much as he liked the free babysitting you offered."

For the first time he contemplates that Taylor might have had a good reason for not liking Eddie, and that it had been because of him, not Eddie. Tucks that away to think about later.

"Yeah, I told him that. Then said I didn’t have to sleep with everyone I loved or love everyone I slept with."

That gets her to look at him. "You’re an idiot. Did you apologize?"

"I meant to? But then Bobby–" He waves his hand to encompass everything that happened after that.

"He came when you called even after that?" She shakes her head. "We need to get that man some self esteem." Fixes him with a look. "Right after we teach you to pull your head out of your ass."

She says that last part as they’re getting out of the car and Ravi looks up. "What Buck do now?"

"Hey," he objects.

Taylor talks over him. "Lied to his hot pilot situationship."

"Ah," Ravi says. "Yeah no. Been there, done that. Not getting involved again. Now for tonight I thought we could work on vision." Rubs his hands together. "Figure out if you have x-ray vision because I always thought that'd be cool."

"Hey!" Taylor objects.

"No, like actual x-ray vision, like bones and stuff. Not seeing under girls' clothes."

She looks slightly mollified.

It feels like there’s a tipping point. One day it’s a struggle and the next day it makes sense. Like something clicks inside his head. And then it’s just fun. Listening to Ravi’s dry running commentary from across the station as he runs inventory or polishes the truck or rolls the hoses, he wonders if Ravi has always done that, or if he’s doing it specifically for Buck's benefit. Has to pretend he's read something funny on his phone more than once when he laughs out loud at nothing anyone else in the room can hear.

Hen looks at him like he grew another head; later, he hears Chim ask Ravi who he was talking to. Ravi taps his ear, says he was on the phone and that becomes their excuse — always keeping an earbud in. “It’s our version of ‘drug-related, PCP,’ ” Ravi tells him later.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Buck may be able to hear and see more than most people, but it’s frustrating how much pop culture still escapes him.

Work is fun in a way it hasn’t been in a while. In months. Longer maybe. Maybe since even before Bobby died. Since Eddie left for Texas. Called him selfish the first time. Or before that, back when Tommy broke up with him. Even though that shouldn’t have affected work. Except they’d all known Tommy first. Had felt a little bit like they were all on his side, telling Buck not to call him, that he could just try again with someone new. Like Eddie had a leg to stand on when it came to romantic advice.

Taylor keeps calling Tommy his hot pilot situationship because she thinks it’s funny. And she thinks it’s funny that he’s not interested in any of the guys she points out to him in. He tries to tell her that he’s working on learning how to be alone and happy in himself, and that he’s too busy learning how to master his powers to start a new relationship. But, (if he’s honest) there’s no one he really wants but Tommy. Still.

Taylor meets them after work at the bar that’s default become theirs – not a badge and ladder bar, but a local place down the street from the apartment Ravi’s still letting him rent month-to-month and close enough to wherever it is Ravi lives – wearing a shirt he would have jumped her in second in before and it’s… “You look nice,” he tells her and she looks at him like he grew an extra head.

After she leaves, Ravi stares at him, unblinking, like he’s the one with super powers, can see right through him. "You really love Tommy, don't you?"

"What gave it away?" he asks, and is aware that he sounds annoyed. "The obsessive baking? The way I can't get over him?" Even months later. It’s a little depressing if he thinks about it. So he mostly doesn’t.

Ravi shrugs. "I mean, that too. But mostly the way you didn't just look at Taylor's tits right now. She still kind of terrifies me, and I looked."

Buck scrubs his face. "This is what it takes to get people to believe me? Maybe I should parade Taylor through the station and not look at her." Mutters as an aside. "I can invite Maddie too."

Ravi's eyebrows go up, but he doesn't say anything.

“He would believe you, you know,” Ravi tells him a few nights later. “He still answered your call after you both fucked it up again, he would…”

He shakes his head. He’s got nothing to offer Tommy right now – still fucked up about Bobby. Still angry about Eddie. Ravi lets it drop.

And then they get the call out for the house fire. Get the mother and daughter out. Get the husband out too until he goes back in for who knows what. Nothing's that important, but it's hard, impossible even, to tell people that, to get them to believe that in the end it’s just stuff, that it’s not worth the risk. Slips past them when they’re busy trying to put the fire out. None of them realize until his wife starts screaming that he hasn’t come out again, that they have to go back in for him.

The house is five minutes from collapse. He knows that there’s no way to get in and out and find this guy. Except what if he knows exactly where the guy is? What if he doesn't have to do a room search? So Buck listens for him. Tries to track him over the roar of the fire. Turns the dial up all the way and focuses.

The heartbeat is faint when he finds it. In the upstairs bedroom. There’s no way to get to him in time. He tries anyway; Hen and Eddie catching him and holding him back while the house collapses around them.

Chim yells at him after. “What the hell was that? You think this house needs to lose someone else? I thought Bobby’d finally trained you out of going full Buck.“

Buck doesn’t say anything. Too numb. Ears still full of the fire. The wife’s screams. The daughter’s soundless sobbing. The sound of the beam falling on the husband. The floor going out from under him. The sound of the flames reaching him.

Ravi’s waiting for him by the Jeep when he finally emerges from the station. Showered until the water ran cold, and then stood there a while longer.

“You gonna yell at me too?”

Ravi crosses his arms. “Would it do any good?”

He shrugs. Fiddles with his keys. Doesn’t move to get in the Jeep. Finally says, “He was praying. At the end. He was praying.”

“You couldn’t save him,” Ravi reminds him. “You know that.”

He does know that. Eight years in this job he knows it down to his bones. “Still had to listen to him die.”

Ravi’s head dips in acknowledgment.

“Feels like my curse, to never get there in time.” Daniel, Bobby, this stranger. Always too little too late. Doesn't say that part out loud. Ravi doesn’t need his guilt

Ravi looks at him sharply. “Don’t do that. You do the most you can for as long as you can, but you have to put your own life vest on first. You taught me that.”

“Bobby had a book,” he hears himself say, like it’s someone else saying it. “A list of every person he didn’t save. A list of every person he did. Tying to even them up, make up for every lost life that was his fault.”

"That’s creepy and masochistic even for a Catholic. Don’t go there. “

Which makes him laugh.

“Chimney said we can’t lose anyone else.”

“Cap’s right,” Ravi says easily.

He shrugs, because yes. But, “I can’t lose anyone else either.”

Ravi doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then picks up his bag. “Come on. I told May I’d be there in time for dinner.”

He nods. “You should go. Never keep a woman waiting. Especially not a Grant woman.”

Ravi rolls his eyes. “That was an invitation dumbass. Come have dinner with us.” When Buck doesn’t move he adds, “That wasn’t actually a request.”

He barks a laugh. “Maybe check with May to see if she’s okay with me gatecrashing your date first.“

Ravi doesn’t bother to pull out his phone. “She’d be more pissed at me if I told her I let you go home alone. She seems to like you for some reason.”

He smiles faintly. “ I keep telling you, she’s my sister.”

“You’re definitely something,” Ravi mutters. “Jury’s out on what exactly." Pulls out his phone though. Texts something. “I told her you’re joining me, so you have no choice now. And she always makes enough to feed an army – I think she learned it from Bobby. So no more excuses, get in your car already. I’m hungry.”

He does as he’s told.

May greets them at the door with a smile and a hug, asking Buck “How’s my favorite big brother doing?” Buck smiles into her hair before stepping back and looking over his shoulder at Ravi, hears him mutter “Traitor,” under his breath.

“So, May,” he says, “Ravi doesn’t…” but trails off as he hears Ravi say, “c’mon, man, bros before…” And he has to laugh. “Were you about to call my sister a ho?”

“She’s not your sister!” Ravi says, blowing out a hard breath, exasperated.

Buck raises his eyebrow judgementally and Ravi throws up his hands. "OMG. Moving on."

May looks between them, “Do I want to know?”

Buck catches Ravis's emphatic head shake and shakes his own. Kicks off his shoes and coat, walks into the kitchen with her. "So, do I need to give him the shovel talk, or has Athena already covered that?"

“My mom does NOT know.”

That’s not a shovel, that’s a whole grave.

Dinner is good. Exactly what he needed. Gives him a chance to tease May and Ravi some more and then leave before it gets awkward. Says his thank yous for dinner, and then thank you again to Ravi when he leaves because being alone tonight would have been worse.

After that, he gives in to Ravi, they make plans for their next time off to go into the mountains for training. It's late by the time they make it back into the city. Ravi had come up with a series of tests for him in ever darker conditions. They'd gone well. He's getting better at this, and he's tired now, but the good kind of tired. Like he's worked out and now his muscles are sore but in the right way. He's also starving.

"You want to come in? I have," he thinks, "stuff to make grilled cheese? Or eggs?"

"Grilled cheese is good," Ravi confirms and follows him in. Watches as he pulls out white sandwich bread from the fridge – he'd made bread earlier that week and the loaf is sitting on the counter, but there's something sacred about grilled cheese made with white bread and American cheese.

"You ever have grilled cheese with naan before?" Ravi asks. He shakes his head. "You're missing out." And he makes a note to try it, maybe make it at the station. "Dad used to make it for me in high school," Ravi continues, a little dreamily, lost in a memory.

He looks over his shoulder at Ravi, because he doesn't talk about his family much. "You close with your family?"

Ravi shrugs, grabs water for them both. "Sure. My sister lives up in Portland now so we only see her on holidays, but I see my parents most weeks unless the shift schedule is insane."

Huh. Then says it outloud. "You don't talk about them much."

"Nobody really asks about them," Ravi points out dryly. Which makes him swing around to look at Ravi.

"Do you want us to ask about them? You always kind of, you know, keep yourself to yourself. None of us even knew who you liked to date until I found out about May, and even that was an accident."

"Not all of us thrive on being co-dependent," Ravi says, but he sounds more amused than anything else and Buck doesn't think he's particularly offended.

"I'm .... we're not."

Ravi raises an eyebrow. "Man, I thought you and Eddie were the most functional divorced couple on the planet for like the first three years I worked there."

He winces. "I don't think we're that functional anymore," he admits.

"No," Ravi agrees. "You're not."

He doesn't really have a response to that, and checks to see if it's time to flip the grilled cheese instead. "You don't have to tell me," Ravi says, "but you can if you want." Waits a second. "Doesn't seem like much of anyone has asked why things are weird between you and Eddie, but they are. Weird."

He snorts a laugh. Very much does not want to talk about it. "Thanks." He appreciates that Ravi's noticed, felt a little like he was going crazy that nobody else seems to have.

He flips the grilled cheese.

Ravi taps idly on the table while they wait for the other side to toast. "So, you don't have to answer this." Waits until Buck nods to acknowledge he's heard and understood. "But, like, why am I the only person you've told?"

He plates the grilled cheese while he thinks about how to answer that. About what the answer even is. "At first it was because I didn't know how. Didn't even really know what it was."

Takes a bite and chews. It tastes just like the ones Maddie used to make him after school. Ravi hums appreciatively as he takes his own bite and waits for Buck to continue his thought.

"And then, I don't know. Everyone was busy – and I didn't want any of them to feel like they had to stop what they were doing to worry about me. Again."

Ravi finishes his sandwich and licks his fingers while he thinks about that. "They're your family," he finally says. "I always admired that about the 118." Holds up a hand when Buck starts to tell him he is too. "Yeah, no. I like my work life and my personal life to be a little bit more separated than that. But, I can still admire it, even if I don't want to be in the middle of it. My point is. They're your family. Family worries about each other, because that's what loving people means."

Buck appreciates that he doesn't take it further than that. Just takes his plate and Buck's and puts them in the dishwasher, and washes the pan while Buck thinks.

Taps the counter. "See you tomorrow?"

Buck nods absently. Then. "If you're serious about May–" Ravi crosses his arms and nods. "Then I hate to break it to you, but your personal life and your work life are already mixed up." Ravi narrows his eyes at him, and Buck laughs. "Welcome to the family ... brother.”

He’s not sure how long it would have kept going like that – work, and lunches with Taylor and Ravi, and now May sometimes too, training – each sphere kept neatly separated from each other. Indefinitely maybe. Or maybe there would always have been something to disrupt the status quo, to push him, kicking and screaming into the new normal. Maybe that’s what life is; a series of steps where you have to find your equilibrium before you can take the next one.

Taylor texts him while he’s at the grocery store doing his weekly stock up while he’s off shift. He misses it, but not the three follow up calls.

He calls her back and she answers before the first ring. “There’s been an accident — Tommy—“

Feels a clutch of fear. “What about Tommy? Is he okay? What happened?

Her voice is kinder than he’s really earned. “I don’t know. I was listening to the scanner and heard there was an accident in Topanga Canyon.” There’s a beat then, “Tommy’s missing.”

Taylor's ringing his doorbell, phone still held up to her ear. He stares at her. "Were you sitting in your car outside while you called me?" How had he missed seeing it?

She pushes past him and doesn't dignify that with an answer. Does pause to look around. "Huh."

He eyes her, and then his living room, trying to see it through her eyes. He’d only moved in two weeks ago, half his stuff is still in boxes. "Good huh, or bad huh?"

She shrugs, and drops her bag on the couch. "Neither. Just huh. Focus, Buckley, your man's gone missing."

He rubs his forehead. "Ex-boyfriend,” he reminds her.

She waves her hand, "He’s missing. That’s the part you want to focus on?”

She spreads a map of LA county out on his dining room table. "He was flying out to a rescue here," she points to a spot up in the Santa Monica mountains. He glances at her and decides not to ask how she knows that. "He didn't make it there. Signal is shitty in the mountains, so they're not sure when or where exactly they lost contact with him. Somewhere between here," she holds her finger down on the map, "and here."

There's a broad swath of mountains between the two points. He could have gone down anywhere.

He swallows. "I'm not sure what I can do that SAR isn't already doing."

"Really?”

He stares down at the map, “I need to be close enough to hear or physically see something." She knows that. He thinks she’s easing him into this. Gentler than she used to be.

She nods and gestures impatiently. "Shoes, wallet, keys. Get moving, Buckley."

"What?"

"You need to be closer? We'll get you closer. Keep up."

She drives the same little cherry red BMW she’s had as long as he’s known her, and he’s always wanted to ask if she matches her lipstick to the car, or bought the car to match her lipstick. Lets the question distract him now, as he attempts to fold himself into the passenger seat and not think about what’s waiting for them up in the mountains.

She speeds out of his driveway, tires squealing. He leans his head on the window — considers putting the window down, but whatever Hen says, he’s not a dog, and he’s not about to act like one now.

Texts Ravi to tell him what’s up, sends him coordinates to where Taylor’s decided is the best place to start. Ravi says he’ll meet them there.

It's quiet, eerily so, when they pull into the State Park.

Ravi apparently knows a guy in the forest service – Buck wonders a little hysterically if Ravi and Tommy have ever traded books to see if any of the guys they ‘know’ are the same guys. Jed meets them at the end of a service road and drives them out to their best guess as to where Tommy went down. “We’ve got guys in the air looking,” he tells them. And Buck can hear helicopters overhead. “But the tree cover here is really dense. Unless it went down in flames we probably won’t see it, and the area’s too big for us to find him on foot unless we get lucky.”

It’s been three hours since they lost contact, and it’s going to be dark in another four and if Tommy or his copilot (“Lucy,” Taylor murmurs) are hurt then they need to find them before the search gets called off for the night.

Jed puts the truck in gear and says, “Okay. We’re here. Not sure what you think you’re gonna do, but we’re here so you’re up.”

Buck concentrates. All he can think is that this is Tommy, and he still hasn’t called him. And he always thought there’d be time to try again, figure out how to apologize for that morning, for the things he said. He’d thought there might have been a moment when he called and Tommy came to save them – for Chim, for him. But then Bobby had died, and his friendship with Eddie (with everyone) fractured in the aftermath. And he couldn’t put that on Tommy. Couldn’t ask him to be a lift raft when Buck was drowning. He deserved better than that. So the moment had slipped away. Again.

He pushes the thought aside and breathes in, the hint of dry grass (fire season’s going to be bad this year, he can smell it) and the fresh green of growing trees. He filters out the ticking cooling of the truck engine and the thud of three heartbeats and hears the rustle of some animal moving in the forest.

He frowns. There’s something. He can’t pinpoint it, but there’s something tickling his senses, something that feels off. “What’s to the west of here?”

Jed looks where he’s pointing. “More forest. A rock that idiots like to hike out here to climb even though they’re not supposed to. An old logging road. Abandoned gold mine. Uh. Sometimes you get weird downdrafts off the mountain face that direction.” He looks at Evan more closely. “You some kind of tracker?”

He shrugs, uncomfortable. “Something like that.”

They drive west in fits and starts. Or well as west as the trails allow. But every time they stop the feeling of something off gets stronger, easier to feel over the ambient noise of the forest and the people in the truck with him. They’re edging away from the search grid SAR is looking in, and he’s not sure if that means they’re on the right track or he’s following a deer or something.

"This is working, I think,” he tells Ravi one of the times they stop for him to get his bearings. Takes in Ravi’s expression. “We haven’t found them yet, don’t let it go to your head.”

“We will,” Ravi says, and sounds absolutely sure, and Buck borrows a little bit of his confidence and angles their trail a little bit south and follows the tickling sense of something out of place, something wrong.

He goes the wrong way twice ("Yeah, that's was a deer," he says and the other is a forestry cabin tucked away).

But then he hears a heartbeat, two heartbeats. Slower than the small creatures, breathing labored –

It takes another hour before they find them – triangulating off where the trail lets them drive, and what Buck can hear, getting louder with each passing minute. In the end they overshoot the location and have to backtrack and then hike down hill to get to the helicopter, but at that point they can all see the trail of damage it left as it went down, and Jed is radioing for backup even as they slip-slide their way down the incline.

They don't have any of their gear with them, and going in unequipped is sometimes worse than not going in at all, but he's found them, and he can see the twisted metal of the helicopter blades and he can't not get closer.

He's got Ravi, and he has Jed and the first aid kit in Jed's truck is pretty well equipped, and they can at least get close enough to triage the situation even if they can't do more than that.

He’s still mad at Tommy, but this can’t be how it ends. They deserve, he deserves better than a hunk of twisted metal at the bottom of a canyon. He needs to yell at him, let him know he’s not getting out of this, this easy.

Tommy stares at him through the windshield of the helicopter like he’s seeing a ghost. Which Buck thinks is unfair, if anything it should be the other way around. “Evan?”

His voice sounds like he’s been chewing glass – or like he’s been breathing in smoke and who knows what other chemicals from the crash for going on however many hours now.

His knees don’t buckle in relief only because he locks them. Cautiously clambers around to get as close as he can to the cabin door, pulling on it experimentally. It’s very jammed.

“Evan?” Tommy says again. “What are you doing here?”

He circles around to the rear compartment of the helicopter, which now has a large tree branch stuck sideways through it. That’s not going to work as an ingress point either. Says, “Well, you didn’t call, but I thought I’d pick up anyway.”

Tommy laughs which turns into coughing that he can’t stop, and Buck scrambles back to the front of the helicopter, where he can look through the windshield at Tommy.

“Don’t talk,” Buck tells him. “Or actually, can you tell me where you’re hurt? Where Lucy is hurt?”

From what he can see Lucy’s in worse shape than Tommy, and Tommy’s pinned by the steering column, so that’s saying something.

“I’m mostly okay,” Tommy says, and yeah, Buck’s gonna call bullshit on that. Tommy must see his skepticism because he amends, “I think a couple of my ribs are cracked or broken. But my legs are fine, just,” he waves a hand, “stuck,”. He looks at Lucy. “Donato’s bleeding somewhere neither one of us could see or get to. She’s been fading fast for the last hour. You need to get her out first.”

Now that they're there, he wishes his superpower was something more useful. Good hearing doesn't help him extract Tommy from where the front of the chopper is caved into him, doesn't help him dislodge Donato, get her door open. He wishes he had super strength, or the ability to bend metal, or something fucking useful. Feels like he’s back in the lab all over again. All this training, all these gifts, no way to use them to save the people he loves. Stuck staring on the opposite side of the glass. Again.

But then Ravi appears with tools (from where? Who knows. Buck is perfectly willing to accept that as Ravi’s secret super power) and a calm, steady voice that Buck appreciates, even if he's heard it used on a scene a million times before. Later, he'll let Ravi know not to use it on him. He knows what's up, what the odds are. Right now he’s grateful.

They get Donato free first, and she's not breathing when they do, her heart stopped, bleeding sluggishly from high on her thigh where there's a piece of metal sticking out. He starts compressions on autopilot, running through everything Hen, Chim, Eddie have ever said, hears them talk him through it in his head, puts his hands on her chest and feels her ribs crack under the weight of his compressions. He pauses for mouth-to-mouth, but Taylor’s already there, tipping her head back and breathing into her mouth and Buck doesn't stop, just wishes he could do more, anything, he's so fucking useless, and Tommy's hanging there, watching him, watching him fail to save another person, letting Lucy, die under his hands – a broken, cracked doll that he broke more. He curses the lightning, and himself, and Bobby and – his hands tingle as he pumps her heart, keeping the rhythm. He stretches his fingers for a second, just a second and goes back. He doesn't look at Tommy again, but feels his eyes on him. He cannot – will not – lose another person.

The tingling gets worse and then, a flash from his fingers, his whole body jerks, like the static jolt he’d get from opening the car door in cold Hershey winters, and he looks up in shock. Taylor is grinning at him, and Ravi is looking at him wide-eyed for a second, before he’s turning Jed, and distracting him so Buck has time to do whatever he’s going to do. Buck has no idea what he’s going to do, but he looks at his fingers and stretches them again, and again a shock, harder this time. He hears the beat of her heart, just barely, a tiny, lonely sound and then a moan and–

He looks over at Tommy.

Oh shit.

Taylor's the one who breaks the stalemate with a hissed, "Well, that’s definitely one way to come out of the superhero closet.”

He can see Tommy's eyebrows go up, and then he focuses back on Lucy. He's got her heartbeat back, now he needs to stabilize her long enough to keep it until medevac gets there.

"10 minutes out," Ravi tells him when he joins Buck, having delegated Jed to setting up flares for the medevac to find them. "They'll drop some guys from 217 to get Tommy out and take Lucy. Come back for Tommy once we've extricated him."

Buck nods, processing but not really looking up from where he's trying to get a good tourniquet on Lucy's leg. He's got basic EMT training, but this is way beyond his skill set.

He sits with Tommy while they wait for a second medevac.

“So,” Tommy starts. “Seen any good movies lately?”

"What’s a nice boy like you doing in a plane like this?" he counters.

"Bird, not plane," Tommy objects. Exactly like Buck knew he would. He sounds breathier than Buck would like. Like now that Lucy’s been medevaced out, he can admit how much pain he’s in too.

"Hey, how are you doing really?"

Tommy ignores him. Which, honestly, tracks. Neither one of them ever talked about the real shit. Instead he glances over at where Buck had worked on Lucy and waggles his fingers. “It’s a bird, it’s a plane,” points at Buck, “you’re Superman?”

“Or Super Grover,” he agrees, and holds his breath for Tommy’s reaction.

Tommy smiles a little, but even that looks like it hurts, and Buck resists the urge to check his watch, see how long it’s been, how much longer 'til the second medevac gets there.

“So I didn’t hallucinate that. Good to know.” Purses his lips. “Unless all of this is a really elaborate concussion hallucination, or maybe I’m actually just dead already.”

He reaches in to check Tommy’s pulse. Has to make himself pull his hand back when he’s done. He wants to keep it there, feel the reassuring thud of Tommy’s heartbeat under his fingers, but that’s not the kind of thing he has the right to do. “Nope. Still alive. Can you tell me who the president is?”

“Trump,” Tommy says automatically. Then, “Fuck all our lives.”

“Then yeah, probably not concussed either.” Tilts his head. “You’d hallucinate me?”

Tommy’s laugh is a little hysterical. “That’s the part you want to talk about?”

He tries to settle a little more comfortably, but helicopter crashes are not known for their comfortable bedside seating. “Well, actually, we’re both kind of stuck here for the moment. So, we could talk about the weather – we could use some rain, fire season’s gonna be a bitch. Or, we could talk about how I’m still in love with you. And how I’m really sorry for implying that I wasn’t that morning.” Shifts again, there’s a rock digging into his thigh. “Or we could talk about how you always walk out when you should stay and fight.” Looks at his fingers – he tore a nail earlier trying to pry Lucy’s door off, can’t quite bring himself to look at Tommy’s face. “I’d really like it if you stayed and fought.”

“Evan,” Tommy says, and he doesn’t think the way he sounds a little breathless is all about the way the steering column is pressing into his stomach. He looks down at the injury and back at Buck’s face, “I’m not going anywhere.”

And then the medevac is hovering, and Eddie and Hen are coming down on ropes with a basket for Tommy, and they’re out of time to talk.

“You could have called,” he says urgently as they strap Tommy into the basket. “I'd have come. If you called." It feels important Tommy knows that.

Tommy reaches for his hand before they winch him up. Says, “I want–.” Winces as the straps obviously push on his broken ribs. “Evan, I– Even if I’m not stuck in a helicopter I promise I won’t run this time.”

And then Buck’s alone in the forest. Or there’s Taylor, Ravi and Jed and a crew dealing with the helicopter, but no Tommy.

He drives over to the hospital after the debrief with Chim when he gets back. He'd heard that Lucy was in surgery, but they're optimistic, and that they're keeping Tommy overnight for observation despite his protests that he's fine.

For all his protests, Tommy's out cold when he gets there, and Buck lets himself sit in the chair in the corner of his room and just watch him. Be relieved that they found him. Be grateful that he wasn't really hurt. Try and process that apparently his powers now include … electricity. From his fingers?. Wonders if it’ll work on the Jeep too, because that would be useful. Ravi’s gonna have a whole new list of training exercises for him, he just knows it. Finds himself looking forward to it.

Buck's sat in too many hospital rooms to count, watching over people he loves.

He watches Tommy's face – he hadn’t been afraid of Buck. Of who he is, what he can do. Bobby said that they’d needed him, and they do. Just maybe not the "they" Bobby anticipated.

Buck's good enough, for people to love, to stay – Taylor's not there because he has superpowers. Maybe it's why she came back, but she's stuck around more than that. Ravi believes in him as much as he believes in Ravi.

And Tommy...

He looks up when he hears Tommy stirring, and winces at how stiff he is. Hadn't realized how long he'd been sitting there thinking.

Tommy blinks at him muzzily – Buck flicks a glance at his IV and wonders what they have him on. "You came," he says.

Buck's not sure if he means now or before in the forest, but either way. "I did."

Tommy blinks at him again. There’s an extended pause, and then, "Uh, the,” he waggles his fingers, “was that real? Or was that the concussion they keep telling me I have?”

He waggles his fingers in return. “Real. It’s how I found you.”

Tommy nods. “Sure. Was that Taylor Kelly I saw with you? And Ravi?”

He nods. “She’s the one who told us your helicopter went down, that you were missing.”

Tommy assimilates that slowly. "Just to clarify, this is your ex-girlfriend Taylor Kelly? On the news Taylor Kelly?"

He smiles faintly. "I don't think there's more than one. Yes, that Taylor Kelly."

"Huh. Didn't know you were a thing again."

(As much as they hadn't talked about their past dating lives (getting to the Abby of it all after six months was ridiculous, even for them), Taylor had come up – not by Buck, of course, but one night out at the bar with the crew, early on. “So I'm competing with a television star," Tommy had whispered into his ear, "good to know."

"She's not a star, she's a reporter" he'd responded, biting Tommy's ear softly. "And there's no competition.")

He rolls his eyes. "We are very much not a thing." Considers. "We might be friends though?" Tests the theory out, and it holds water. Ish. He leans forward, arms on his knees. Teases, “This is the part you want to focus on?”

But, Tommy's sliding back into sleep already and just mumbles something. It's fine. They can revisit it later.

The next time Tommy wakes up Buck's still there. Or well, he's there again. He'd been kicked out when visiting hours ended and went home, showered, ate something – he was ravenous – set a loaf of lemon poppyseed bread out to defrost – tried to sleep – and was back at the hospital and waiting for visiting hours to start again.

Tommy looks less fuzzy when he comes awake this time, still surprised to see Buck. "You’re still here"

"In the flesh." He points at the bedside table. “I brought you some bread.”

“Sure,” Tommy says. Stares at it for a long minute. Then. “I feel like I’ve already asked this, but the,” waggles his fingers. Buck’s dangerously close to finding that cute. “Real?” He nods. Waits for Tommy’s next question. Tommy stares at him. Opens his mouth and closes it again and finally says, "That something you've always been able to do and I just didn't notice?"

"I think since I got hit by lightning? Yesterday was the first time I ever did," he waggles his fingers the same way Tommy had. "But there've been other things." Pauses, then follows through because not talking never did much for them, talking might actually work. Tips his metaphorical hat to Bobby in acknowledgement. Took him a while to learn the lesson, but he got there. “Taylor and Ravi have been helping me figure out what I can do, how to use them.”

Buck knows enough, now, to see Tommy thinking, to watch him doubt himself, Buck, what they had together. "Taylor, huh?"

"She reached out," leans forward, puts his arms on his thighs, "I thought she was being ridiculous, just wanted something for the news, but–"

"She wasn't wrong," Tommy finishes.

Buck nods.

Tommy looks away, over at the door. "And I didn't see it."

"Hey, hey," Buck pats his hand, pulls it lightly, "No. You didn’t know me, uh, before. And I, uh, really didn’t want you to see."

Tommy pushes himself up a little more in bed. “You could have. I would have thought it was cool.” Hesitates and then says in a rush, “I always wanted all of you.”

He twists his hands in his lap. Doesn’t say that Tommy could have told him about Abby, that he wouldn’t have judged. Just says, “Okay. Noted for future reference.”

Tommy looks slightly mollified. "Okay, so besides the–" Tommy does the jazz hands, wincing slightly when it pulls on the IV in the back of his hand, "What else can you do?"

He hesitates again, and sees Tommy visibly steel himself to be shut out, and that's what pushes him to say, "Hearing, sight, they're," he pauses looking for the right word, "enhanced?" Sighs. “And, uh … Ravi calls it a spidey-sense?” He doesn't look up to see how Tommy's reacting. "That's how I found you. I could feel something off, and when we got close enough I could hear your heartbeats."

He does risk a look up at Tommy then, and he looks .... he's not sure actually. Tommy's mouth twists. "Just know I really want to make a Sentinel joke right now, except I know you won't get it, so I'm holding it in." It breaks the tension, and he snorts. Tommy looks more serious. "Who else knows?"

"You, Taylor, Ravi."

"Ravi?"

"I needed someone else to talk to." He hesitates, and then keeps telling the truth. "It would have been you, but," he waves a hand between them.

"Not Eddie?" Tommy asks carefully.

He makes a face. "You never needed to be jealous of Eddie." Something in his tone makes Tommy raise his eyebrows in surprise, and he waves a hand. "Long story. Not important."

"Agree to disagree," Tommy murmurs. "But we can table it for now."

He wishes he could have turned to Eddie, but can only imagine what he'd have said if he mentioned superpowers.

Chris would have thought he was cool though.

There’s a sound in the hallway, and Buck turns his head, listening. For long enough apparently that Tommy pokes him. “Are you doing it right now?” He sounds a little scandalized, like he’s caught Buck watching porn in public.

He points at the doorway. “Visitors for you incoming.”

A minute later he gets up to open the door for Ravi, pushing Lucy's wheelchair while she bitches at him that "I can walk, but the nurses..."

"They'll withhold the good jell-o," Ravi says, knowingly.

"Exactly," she nods, then turns her attention to Tommy. "How you doing, partner?"

Tommy tilts his hand back and forth. “Better than you, I think.”

She shrugs, before turning the full weight of her gaze on Buck. "I hear I have you to thank for my continued existence." And Buck smiles at her. No one says anything about why, about what he did, and Buck hopes she never asks.

He doesn’t want to lie to her.

Oh. This is what don't ask, don't tell feels like.

Tommy naps after Lucy and Ravi leave. Buck stays, and reads a little bit of Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is about to say something to Lady Catherine de Bourgh. He can just tell. Cannot wait for her to unload on that woman.

Tommy wakes up again when they bring lunch through, although looking at it, Buck thinks he might have been better off sleeping through it. Makes a mental note to stock Tommy’s freezer with some frozen meals when he goes home. Then stills. Because, they haven’t actually talked about what happens next. They’ve talked about his powers, about how Tommy’s fine with them. But, so far they’ve both been avoiding a them conversation. He watches Tommy pick at the excuse for meatloaf, and then give up on it in favor of the jell-o, which is popular for a reason. Even hospitals can’t fuck up jell-o. No time like the present? While Tommy’s still hooked up to an IV and can’t walk away? Which is unfair. Tommy’d said he’d stay. This time. Time to test the theory.

"So, uh, how much of when we found you do you remember?" Because it's possible he'd said a little more than he'd planned on in the wake of the relief of finding Tommy alive, getting confirmation that Tommy wouldn't run away screaming from his super powers.

Tommy tilts his head. "Do you mean the part where it turns out you watched Sesame Street as a kid, or the part when you said you're still in love with me?"

"Um...." He can't get a read on Tommy. Maybe he never could. "Sesame Street is great?"

Tommy doesn't say anything for just long enough to make him sweat. "You know, crashing your helicopter reprioritizes things."

"Yeah?" Tries not to hope.

"And then this guy you kind of can't get over, shows up with super powers ...."

He pauses again, and Buck narrows his eyes. "Are you fucking with me?" Tommy shrugs, and Buck risks reaching for his hand, and relaxes when Tommy takes it immediately. Thinks about what Tommy had said. "You can't get over me either?"

"I stole a helicopter for you," Tommy points out.

"You made breakfast for me." Because honestly he'd rather Tommy kept making breakfast for him than stealing helicopters. Eventually the LAFD is going to get annoyed about that, and he wants to keep Tommy around.

Endearingly, Tommy blushes. "Yeah. I did."

"When they spring you from here, maybe I can make you breakfast for a change?"

Tommy nods seriously, linking their fingers together. "I did promise you we'd finish that conversation, and that I wouldn't run this time."

Tommy gets released from the hospital the next morning. Buck drives him home. Then goes home himself and sleeps like the dead for ten hours. Wakes up and meal preps a probably excessive amount of food to take to Tommy’s the next morning. Waits until it’s a reasonable hour of the morning and then drives back over.

They talk. Over banana bread and coffee. And then lunch. And then dinner. And then they do it again the next day. And the day after that. And, at some point it stops being about what they did wrong the first time, and more about how they’re going to do it right this time.

A week later he calls Ravi. Invites him to lunch with Taylor and Tommy. Says, “And, um, you should bring May with you.” Takes a deep breath, “And you should tell her.” He doesn’t have to explain what.

Can feel Ravi’s stutter of surprise. “Are you sure?”

He’s not. But he’s also not not sure. “She’s family. I want to start being more honest with the people I love.” He isn’t quite sure yet that he’s ready to tell Maddie. Because telling Maddie means telling Chimney, and telling Chimney means telling – everyone. And he’s fine with Maddie and Chim knowing. Mostly. He thinks. He’s not sure yet about the rest of A shift. But, May feels safe. Baby steps.

Doesn’t know how much of that Ravi guesses, but he says, “Okay.”

He doesn’t think he’s nervous. He’s not really worried about how May will take it, how Taylor and Tommy will get along (they’re both go with the flow people, in some ways; Taylor rocks boats, but only if it’ll get her something), but he finds himself obsessively baking before everyone gets there. He listens to his new neighbors and kind of misses Mrs. Casale singing in the shower (somehow he only heard her when she was naked and that – there was no justice in this world, honestly). There’s a kid learning to play the violin; knows he’s not the only one who’s going to be thankful when practice moves away from the apartment, even if the off-key screech as she draws the bow across the string hurts his ears more than most. Another family is just finishing dinner as he pulls the cake from the oven, wiping his hands absently at the knock on the door.

There’s Tommy, standing in the doorway, everyone else just behind him, hidden by his bulk. He takes his time removing his shoes, taking it all in. Buck realizes it’s the first time Tommy’s seen his new place. May and Ravi had helped him move in. They’ve already eaten pizza and drunk beer in his living room. He finds himself holding his breath for Tommy’s reaction.

Tommy spins on his heel, taking it in. “So, this is your Fortress of Solitude.” Looks around again. “I approve of the way the rug is on the floor this time.” Winks at Buck. “Less chance of accidental concussion.”

“No,” he agrees, grinning. “You already have one of those.” He’s missed Tommy’s particular brand of dry bitchiness. And, this is one of the things they’d talked about – how long he’d been feeling lost, alone. How what Tommy said had snagged at a spot that was already tender, like a hangnail catching and ripping.

Taylor plops herself down on the couch, and looks up at Tommy. “So,” she drawls, “this is actually the boyfriend.”

Tommy glances at Buck, and that feels…right. How it should be. Buck tries to contain the grin that threatens to spread across his face but doesn’t think he’s very successful. That’s okay, he wants Tommy to know – and Tommy takes what he sees on Buck’s face, a small, matching smile twitches on his lips, and tells her, “I hope I live up to the hype.”

She cocks her head. “Guess we’ll find out.” Then looks at Buck. “Okay, I know the Fortress of Solitude was in the arctic, but does that mean your apartment actually has to feel like it? Use your powers for good and turn down the air.”

“My house, Taylor – it’s where I like it.” She’d always been cold, burrowing into sweaters whenever she came to his loft. He’d kept the temperature warmer than he’d liked back then. Doesn’t have to now.

“If not for me, for the environment.” She arches her eyebrows, “I don’t know if you’ve heard but there’s this thing called global warming…”

“Isn’t saving the environment really more Captain Planet’s lane?” Taylor swings her eyes back to Tommy, and he smirks at her.

She hums thoughtfully, tapping a bright red nail against her chin. "Both wear bodysuits, though. And capes." They turn in unison and look Buck up and down; normally he could get behind these looks from them, but they're looking at him like they’re sizing him up for a billboard pinup ad and he wants to disappear into the wall.

"I'm not wearing a costume." He's firm on this. "I'm not a superhero."

"Agree to disagree," Tommy says, eyes still hot on him.

Taylor flicks her hair over her shoulder. "That's too bad. We could do a lot with that."

May looks between them, and nudges Ravi. “I didn’t believe you, but you were right. Buck totally has a type.”

Buck squints at her. “What?” She waves a hand between Tommy and Taylor, and he tries to see what she means, but, “What?”

Ravi slides an arm around May. “I told you and told you, but did you listen?”

Taylor and Tommy look at each other, with identical expressions of wary bafflement like they’re not quite sure if they’ve been insulted. He’s not sure either. Or, well, he knows he has been.

He puts out the pizza, the cake, the three types of cheesy bread and listens to them oooh and aww over the spread before sprawling across his living room furniture and devouring it all. Tommy's calling it his Fortress of Solitude, and maybe that used to be true. But, they're all here now, in his living room, eating, laughing – teasing him. Each other. He's not alone.

May follows Tommy into the kitchen when he gets up later to clear the dishes. Buck does not follow them exactly, but he does – maybe – linger near the door, ostensibly to break down the pizza boxes. "So,” May says, “you're back together."

"Something like that," Tommy tells her, "I want to be." More honest than Buck expected. “We’re working on what that looks like.”

"He missed you. He was really..." A moment of silence and then, "Upset when you left."

"I know."

"Do you, though?"

There’s silence while Tommy loads the dishwasher. “You know,” he says after he closes the dishwasher door. “I’d honestly forgotten that Evan has two sisters. I’ve been bracing myself for the shovel talk from Maddie. Didn’t see it coming from you. If I say I made myself equally unhappy, will that help?”

“Hmm,” May says, and sounds so much like Bobby that he has to put a hand down to steady himself for a second. “Just don’t… Just don’t do it again.”

“I can’t promise that,” Tommy says, gentle, but honest. “Nobody can promise that. But I promise I won’t do it because I get scared and run away again.”

And … he has to step in for that. Because that is – Feels a lump in his throat he has to swallow around to get out a credible, “Hey! Are you picking on my man?”

May gives him a look that says she knows he was eavesdropping, and isn’t going to apologize. “Don’t abuse your superpowers,” she says primly, “If Mom knew…” she trails off, never completes the sentence and Buck feels a shiver roll down his spine. He can only imagine what Athena would say.

Tommy openly grins at that, and then, “Wait.” Buck can actually see the wheels turning. “If you’re Superman…”

“ ‘M not Superman,” he mutters, affronted. He only dreams he was as cool as Superman.

“Does this make me Lois Lane?"