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Daniel wakes to a nature documentary playing quietly on the TV, a crick in his neck, and a warm weight across his chest.
The first two things aren't unfamiliar; it's far from the first time he's ended up sleeping on the couch during a rough night. It's a nice couch, but it's still not ideal for sleeping on, and he's already dreading having to move when his brain registers that the third thing is a person. And then it registers that the person is Morgan and all other thoughts quickly abandon it.
Her hair is a mess, falling across her face in an auburn tangle, and somehow that's what his focus catches on. It's strange; he's seen Morgan brush her hair out of her face a hundred times, dragging it back under control after flying or sparring, but he's never thought of it as messy. When he'd touched it last night it had felt smooth as silk. Now his fingers catch on knots as he runs them through it, tangled by rough sleep and everything that came before.
Everything…
He has to suppress a wave of giddiness. Embarrassing as it is to remember now, he won't pretend he's never thought about this; still, he'd never expected it to actually happen. Sidestep was his hero, but his handful of teenage fantasies had never been more than that. Morgan is more than the vigilante on TV ever was, but he'd never expected to be anything to her; he'd hoped for friendship and pushed aside every other desire that reared its head. He'd never really expected her to train him, or get coffee with him. He hadn't thought she'd invite him out to dinner and agree to come back to his apartment with that nervous smile she gets sometimes, like she can't believe what she's doing.
And okay, it's not the most important revelation of the night. Not by a long shot, and he's still not sure how to respond to some of the things she told him or the vivid orange tattoos he can see scrawled across her bare skin. But it's hard to stop thinking about the little noise that had escaped her when he'd first touched her, nervous and hesitant and hungry all the same. It's hard to ignore that he knows the feel of her now, the taste, the way her voice sounds moaning his name—
Morgan mumbles something incoherent against his shoulder, shifting in her sleep, and he remembers her half-hearted complaints about how loudly he broadcasts everything he thinks. A part of him—the part that still hasn't gotten over the fact that Morgan Becker is sleeping mostly naked in his arms—wants to keep up this line of thought just to see how she reacts. The rest of him sees the shadows under her eyes, how worn she looks even when she's asleep, and starts looking around for a distraction.
He could clean up a little. His mug is still sitting on the coffee table; Morgan's is lying on the floor where she'd thrown it. Their clothes are scattered around the couch where they'd been dropped. It won't take long to tidy up, and once that's done he can start on breakfast. He's got the ingredients for pancakes, he's pretty sure. The only problem is the woman still asleep in his arms.
"Morgan?" he whispers. No response. When he starts to push himself upright she makes a soft noise of complaint, but doesn't wake. He's a little surprised, if he's honest; he'd half expected her to be up before him, at the same time at the latest, waking at the slightest disturbance. That would fit with how tired she looks all the time. Instead she's still fast asleep; even the mumbles go quiet as soon as he stops moving. This might actually be doable.
It's hardly the first time he's carried someone's dead weight, but it feels different when it's Morgan. She still clings a little too tightly whenever he picks her up; even last night, flushed and laughing in his arms, it had taken a moment for her to relax. Without that tension he finds himself holding her a little tighter, as if she might slip out of his grasp. Still, with his powers it's not like she's heavy, and she doesn't stir as he floats off the couch and towards the bedroom. He doesn't have a hand free, so it's lucky that he didn't fully close the door when they left the room last night. All he has to do is nudge it open with his foot and float inside.
Morgan's eyes flutter half-open as he lowers her onto the bed. "Mm… Danny?"
Daniel is pretty sure he's grinning like an idiot, but he can't help it. "Hi," he says as softly as he can.
She doesn't tease him for it, which is how he knows she's still at least partially asleep. "Hi," she says with a smile so sweet he's pretty sure his heart stops for a moment.
"I'm gonna get started on breakfast," he says, instead of something that will definitely get him called a sap. "Pancakes okay?"
"Mhm."
He can't help it, seeing the way she blinks blearily up at him; he leans down and kisses her forehead. He's never seen Morgan be cute before. "You can go back to sleep," he says. "I'll come get you when they're ready."
"Mmkay." She's already nuzzling into the pillows, eyes drifting fully closed again. Daniel isn't sure she actually heard a word he said.
He catches himself holding his breath as he floats out of the room and eases the door shut. It's probably unnecessary—if Morgan slept through him carrying her to the bedroom, she'll probably sleep through him leaving—but he hates the idea of disturbing her more than he already has when she actually seems to be sleeping peacefully. I don't sleep well, she'd told him last night, staring at the documentary they'd been half-watching like she could hide in it. It's normal, it's not because of you, like she was trying to reassure him, like she thought it might make him feel better to think of her lying awake and alone in her bed with no comfort but her own mind. He's not arrogant enough to think she's told him everything, but he knows more than enough to know her mind isn't good to her.
Well, he might not be able to fix insomnia, but he can at least make breakfast. He's good at pancakes, and Ortega—he shoves down the pang of guilt that rises at the thought of her—assured him Morgan loves those. Or she did at least, and he really hopes she still does; he wants this morning to go well. He wants her to be happy here, in his home. He wants her to want to come back. It's selfish of him. She'd probably laugh if she heard him calling that selfish—you're such a hero, flyboy, said almost like an insult but with a smile fond enough to take the sting out of it—but it's true. He's selfish, when it comes to her.
(Don't think about Ortega. Don't think about the way she looks at Morgan, the way Morgan looks back, both of them looking away before the other sees. Don't think about the knife-sharp longing in the air whenever they're close to each other, the stories Ortega used to tell with tears in her eyes when she got drunk. They're not together; they never really were, the way the two of them describe it. There's nothing between them, except for all the things that are. Nothing he needs to feel guilty about, except for the things he does.)
He thinks about clearing the windows for a moment; he likes the view, and he wouldn't mind the distraction. Then he remembers the way Morgan had glanced at them when she asked him to tint them, like she'd thought there might be someone looking in despite how high they were, and turns on the light instead. With that decided, he sets about cleaning up. First the clothes; he pulls his shirt from the day before back on and drops his pants in the hamper. Morgan's clothes he folds and leaves on the coffee table where she'll see them when she gets up. That done, he collects their coffee mugs. He's lucky that the mug Morgan had thrown at the couch had been empty and hadn't broken on impact; all he has to do is take it and his own mug into the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher, he doesn't have to worry about shards or coffee stains.
He's made pancakes often enough that he doesn't have to focus on what he's doing once he gets started, which is lucky. It's hard to concentrate, his attention split between what he's doing and the bedroom door. For the first time he wishes Morgan wasn't a telepath; he's got a lot to think about, and he feels like she's spent far too much time on the subject. Starting on his research can wait until she's gone, but it's like being told not to think about elephants. No matter how hard he tries he can't stop thinking about the scars, the tattoos, the way she'd tensed like she thought he'd attack her when he saw the truth. As if he could ever deliberately hurt her, no matter where she came from. She's been hurt too much already.
The shower starts up as he finishes the batter, which at least distracts him from thoughts of the past. He's not sure if he wants Morgan knowing what he's thinking now either, but at least he knows she's not opposed to him wanting her. Loving her, even if she still flinches away from the words. Even if she clearly doesn't know why he would, and he thinks he might be as confused by that as she is by his attraction. He can't imagine a world where he wouldn't. Can't think of anything she would do that could make him stop.
After a while the shower turns off, startling him out of his thoughts, and he scrambles to get the first pancake into the pan. Now he really hopes Morgan doesn't know what he was thinking. She's still his trainer, after all; he's sure she'd have something to say about him getting so distracted. If he's lucky she wasn't paying attention while she was in the shower, but she'll probably notice if he hasn't gotten started by the time she joins him. So he tries to push Morgan out of his head and focus on the pancakes.
It works better than he expected it to. He's focused, and that's why he nearly jumps out of his skin when he glances up to find Morgan leaning against the wall, staring at the blanked out windows as she fiddles with her butterfly earring. "Good morning," he manages once he's caught the pan.
"Good morning," she says, trying for normal and not quite reaching it. Her hair is still wet from the shower. She's wearing one of his shirts, grey and blue and familiar in a way he decides not to think about.
She's not wearing anything else.
The way she watches him out of the corner of her eye says she's testing him. The fidgeting, one hand still on her earring as the other tugs at the hem of his shirt, says she's regretting it. Daniel pushes down the concern that bubbles up at the scars that litter her skin, swallows the anger at the sight of the tattoos that mark her clearer than a brand; it's not the right time. God, she's beautiful, he thinks as loudly as he can, and knows she hears him from the way she flushes and ducks her head.
"It's too early for you to be such a sap," she grumbles, but she's not trying too hard to hide her smile. "Are you actually making breakfast?"
"I said I was going to." He flips the pancake a little more showily than he usually would and almost drops it, feeling himself blush at the quickly muffled snort of laughter behind him.
"When was that?" Morgan asks, padding across the room to look over his shoulder. Her chin digs into him in a way that might have been uncomfortable if he wasn't distracted by her breath against his cheek. He can feel the water from her hair seeping into his shirt. "I feel like I'd remember you promising me pancakes." She smells like his soap, his shampoo, and the jolt of heat that sends to his gut pulls an almost-inaudible giggle from her.
"You might have still been asleep." It had occurred to him that Morgan might not have fully registered what he was saying when he'd mentioned it, but it's only now that he starts to worry. "Are pancakes okay? Because I can make something else if they aren't, it's not a problem—"
"Danny." Morgan knocks her head against his, just hard enough to distract him from his train of thought. "It's fine. Pancakes are… Yeah. I like pancakes, it's fine."
"Oh, good." He has to nudge her off his shoulder so he can flip the pancake onto the plate with the others. She doesn't go far, though, leaning against the counter beside the stovetop. "Ortega said you did, but I wasn't sure if you still…"
Morgan takes advantage of her new position to rip off a piece of pancake from the top of the stack and pop it into her mouth. She chews thoughtfully for a moment, then her eyes go wide. "This'll do." She swallows. "I didn't know you could cook."
Of course he can cook. "I've been living alone for years," he says. "I'd be in trouble if I couldn't feed myself." Of course it's only after he's said that that he remembers Ortega's stories about Morgan's incompetence in the kitchen. Walking fire hazard had been a common—if affectionate—refrain. "…Can you not…?"
"I manage." She glances at him sidelong, tugging a little harder on the hem of his shirt. "And Ortega exaggerates, I only started a fire one time— Well, three times, but the second time I was drunk and the third one was her fault so it doesn't— Where's your cutlery? I'll set the table."
He doesn't get the chance to answer. She must pull the knowledge from his head, because she grabs cutlery from the drawer and plates from the cupboard as if she's been using his kitchen for years. "I could teach you how to cook," he suggests, listening to the clatter of her setting down the plates and thinking about the syrup in one of the other cupboards.
"Ortega tried." Morgan grabs the syrup, knocking her shoulder against his affectionately on her way past. "That was the third time."
Daniel is pretty sure he could've guessed how that went even without knowing about the fire. From what he knows about Morgan and Julia's old relationship the only question is whether they got distracted because they were fighting or kissing. "I won't let you set fire to my apartment?" he tries. Morgan makes a disbelieving noise at him. "Come on, it could be fun."
"You just want to be the teacher for once."
"You did tell me to pick my battlefields," he teases. "Is that a no?"
"I didn't say that." Morgan busies herself with the coffee maker. He's seen her do this before, finding something to do with her hands and attention so she doesn't have to focus on what she's saying. Honesty embarrasses her; she doesn't like to look at it. "I mean, I probably should learn."
"So… maybe?" He offers her the most winning smile he has when she glances over her shoulder at him, and her lips twitch up in response despite the way she rolls her eyes at him.
"Maybe," she agrees. "But don't you think you're getting ahead of yourself? I haven't even properly tried your cooking yet."
Daniel knows a hint when he hears one. "They're nearly ready," he assures her. "Give me a few more minutes."
"Thank you." Morgan glances down at his shirt thoughtfully. "I'm going to get dressed."
"You don't have to." He doesn't realise what he's said until she raises an eyebrow at him, lips pressed together in a way that might be hiding amusement or annoyance. "I mean— I didn't—" Okay, it's definitely amusement now. Morgan has nice legs, though. The shirt she borrowed is on the longer side, but it still isn't covering much. When she leans back against the counter he can see a trail of dark bruises up the inside of her thigh; he remembers putting those there, her hands in his hair as she tried and failed to muffle her whimpers. He wants to kiss them—
Morgan clears her throat, and his eyes snap from her legs up to her face. She's blushing, but there's a spark of mischief in her eyes. "What were you saying?"
"You're teasing me again." There's a thrill in being allowed to reach out and grab her by the waist; a bigger thrill in the way she lets him tug her into his arms. Her hands come up to his shoulders, playing with the collar of his shirt. "You know I like looking at you, right?"
She's quiet for longer than that question should need, gaze distant in a way that Daniel is pretty sure means she's reading his mind. "I suppose you do," she says at last, softly. Almost wondering, and he can't not kiss her at that. He wants to kiss her until she has no doubts left about how he feels. He never wants to stop.
His hand drifts from Morgan's waist down to her thigh, and he's rewarded with a hum against his lips and a wave of pleasure against his mind. He's starting to learn what she likes, guided by the way her nails dig in and her telepathy jerks against her control when he gets it right, the bitten-off whimpers she tries to silence until she can't. He lets his fingers slip under the hem of his shirt, tracing the lines of her tattoos up her thigh, pressing on the bruises he left there just to hear the sound she muffles against his lips—
His elbow knocks against the bowl of batter on the counter, and he forces himself to pull away from Morgan enough to breathe. "Is this how you and Ortega started that fire?" he asks against her lips, unwillingly removing his hand.
Morgan hums thoughtfully in a way that almost covers her whine at the loss. "I was wearing more clothes then," she offers, instead of you're bringing her up now? or any of the other questions he's asking himself. "You want me to stop distracting you?"
He really, really doesn't. "I said I wouldn't let you set my apartment on fire." He could just turn the stove off. A very loud part of him wants to, but he did promise breakfast. Next time. There can be a next time; isn't that something?
"Technically you would be starting the fire," Morgan argues half-heartedly. "It's your cooking." But she steps away, patting him on the shoulder as she goes; a double-tap with two fingers, the way she always does with him. He'll ask her what it means one day. For today he watches her pad off in the direction of the bedroom, then turns the tap as cold as it'll go to wash his hands.
Morgan stays gone long enough that he has time to finish up the pancakes before she announces her return with a quiet "Now, how do I…" from the living room. Then the room is flooded with daylight, accompanied by a satisfied hum. She's figured out the windows, apparently.
"Can you get the coffee?" he calls.
"On it!" He'd expected her to put her own clothes on, but she reenters the kitchen in his shirt and a pair of his sweatpants. Whatever his brain and expression do at that wins him a grin as she grabs a couple mugs from the cupboard, but she doesn't comment; she just gets the coffee and joins him at the table.
Breakfast is quiet. Morgan eats fast once she gets started, her full attention focused on her pancakes. He can feel the warmth of her enjoyment in the back of his mind. In the last day it's been hard to tell what she's sharing with him on purpose and what's slipping through the cracks in her shields, but he's pretty sure this is deliberate. He'll get better at telling the difference over time, he hopes. He wants the chance to learn. He wants more mornings like this, watching Morgan finish off her breakfast with the most content look he's ever seen on her face. It looks good on her. He'd give a lot to see her this happy every day, but he knows better than to think she'd just let him help her—
"What is it?" Morgan is looking at him quizzically, head cocked slightly to the side.
"What?" It takes a moment for him to pull himself out of his thoughts. He's painfully aware that he was probably staring at her while he was lost in his own head, but she doesn't seem bothered; it's strange to remember how sharp she'd been when they first met, how she almost snarled at any glance that lasted more than a second.
"You wanted to ask me something," she says. That's the strangest part of talking to her, and something he's not sure if he'll ever get used to: the way she sometimes plucks thoughts from his head before he's noticed them. It's endearing, in an odd way; he wonders if anyone else realises how much attention she pays. He wonders if she does this with anyone else, or if it's just him. "What is it?"
"I…" Then it comes to him. "Oh, right. There was something you wanted to tell me last night."
Last night he'd woken briefly to her climbing back onto the couch, hands shaking and breath a little uneven. "It's fine," she'd whispered, pressing a hesitant kiss to his temple in response to his vague, half-asleep concern. Then, once she was settled again, "Danny?"
"Mhm?" he'd managed, struggling to stay awake enough to listen.
"…No, never mind," she'd decided after a silence long enough that he'd almost drifted off again. "Maybe I'll tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep."
He had, too tired to do otherwise, and he'd forgotten all about the exchange until now. Seeing the deer in headlights look Morgan is giving him, a part of him wishes he hadn't remembered enough for her to catch it. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks anyway.
"I—" and for a moment there's the same look in her eyes that she'd had before she'd shown him her tattoos, that helpless, angry terror at what she was about to do. Then it's smoothed away, replaced by a distant half-smile that's almost convincing. "No," she says. "No, I— actually think I might have been dreaming? I don't remember what I wanted to say. It probably wasn't important. You don't need to worry about it."
He's pretty sure he needs to worry about it, but he manages a smile back. "If you're sure," he says as gently as he can. "But if you remember and you still want to tell me…"
"You'll listen, I know." She sounds almost bitter about it for a moment. Then she smirks at him, voice warm again. "You're dangerous like that."
A part of him wants to push, but he thinks Morgan has been pushed far enough for the time being. He doesn't want to hurt her; he doesn't want to scare her away. It would be so easy to do either. Instead he lets the subject go in favour of nudging her ankle with his foot. "I'm not dangerous."
"Is my training that useless?" she asks, one hand over her heart in an expression of mock-affront he's pretty sure she learned from Ortega. Under the table she returns his nudge, then pulls her foot away.
"You know that's not what I meant," he laughs, and Morgan's offended look cracks into a smile. "I just meant… you can tell me things. I won't tell anyone, or judge you, or anything like that. You know that, right?" She's told him so much already. He hates the thought that she might regret it.
"I don't regret it," Morgan snaps. She drops her gaze to her coffee, one finger circling the rim of her mug. "It's just— I'm not—" She's quiet for a long moment. "I would never tell someone I didn't trust completely what I am," she says at last. "But there are some things that are about more than trust. If you— if I— if anyone gets hurt because of something I tell you, I…" Then she cuts herself off, glaring at him. "See? Dangerous," she complains. "I always say more than I mean to with you."
"Uh… sorry?" It would probably be a more convincing apology if he could stop smiling. Well, it's not like she would have believed it anyway.
"No you're not." She's smiling too, one of those rare, relaxed smiles that make her look years younger. She finds a crumb of pancake on her plate and throws it at him, her smile widening at his startled noise. "You like it."
He does. "You trust me enough to tell me things. Are you actually surprised that I like it?" Morgan grumbles something under her breath and looks away, but she's still smiling to herself. Daniel reaches out across the table to take her hand, squeezing it to make sure he has her attention. "It's not a bad thing," he says. "You don't have to be mad about it."
"Easy for you to say," Morgan complains. She raises his hand to her lips and kisses it; without thinking about what she's doing, if the way she blushes and drops it a moment later is anything to go off of. "I bet people tell you their secrets all the time."
"Most people don't just tell heroes their secrets, actually." It happens sometimes; some people just need someone to talk to, and Daniel's public image makes him a tempting choice, but it's not that common. This isn't the same, though. He's used to lost and lonely civilians who just need a friendly ear, and even the occasional desperate criminal with no one else to turn to; this is Morgan. Sidestep, and he can't pretend he never dreamed about her trusting him but the reality is so much better than he could've imagined. He never could have pictured this, Morgan sitting across from him at his table wearing his clothes, sharp green eyes gone soft as she watches him take a sip of his coffee. If he looks he can see her tattoos poking out from where she's rolled up her sleeves, just below her elbows. She's nervous, tugging at the sleeves but not unrolling them. I would never tell someone I didn't trust completely what I am. Has she ever done this before?
"What, you've never had anyone fall to their knees at your feet to… I don't know, seek forgiveness for their sins?" Morgan asks.
"No!" He's not sure if the thought is hilarious or terrifying. Criminals have confessed to him before, sure, but that's entirely different. "No one has ever done that."
He's not sure how to read the look on her face. "There's a first time for everything."
"Don't even joke about it." Is she joking? It's usually easier to tell. "I would have no idea how to respond to that, can you imagine?" A horrible thought occurs to him. "Did that ever happen to you?"
Morgan is quiet long enough that he starts to worry. Then that strange expression vanishes and she laughs. "No, no," she assures him. "…Well, Ortega did once, but she was joking. Mostly. I guess it's less weird coming from someone you know."
"Yeah." Daniel nudges her foot under the table again. "Did you forgive her?"
She thinks about it. "No. She couldn't even get through the apology without laughing, so I told her to go fuck herself. I think she ended up buying me an apology cake instead…"
"If you did that I'd forgive you," he offers.
"The cake or the begging for forgiveness?" Morgan asks, struggling to maintain a straight face.
"Either." He'd mostly been joking about the cake, but he has to be honest with himself. After last night he doesn't think there's much he wouldn't do for Morgan if she got on her knees for it.
"Just like that?" She's losing the fight against her grin; her blush says she's reading his mind again, and now he's blushing too.
"Just like that."
"No matter what?" She's still grinning, but there's a look in her eyes that makes Daniel think he's missing something. Something from her past, maybe? He doesn't know much about Re-Genes, but he suspects she's had to do things she isn't proud of; things she doesn't want him knowing about.
"I can't think of anything you'd willingly do that I wouldn't forgive," he says, because it's true.
"…Right." For a moment she looks like he's punched her in the gut; for the next moment she looks like she desperately wants to say something. Then she jumps in her seat and pulls her phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants, staring at the screen in mild dismay. "Oh, hell."
"What's wrong?" She's stumbling to her feet and he rises with her, a jolt of panic hitting him. "Did I—?"
"You're fine, you didn't do anything, I am so late," Morgan calls over her shoulder as she hurries to grab her clothes from the coffee table. She hesitates for a moment, casting a glance at the windows, then ducks into the bathroom. "It's past ten!" she shouts through the closed door. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"
He gets the feeling she doesn't want to hear about how tired she looked. "I didn't notice," he says, and heads into the bedroom to find something other than sweatpants for himself. His jeans from last night are still on the floor; they're a little crumpled, but they'll do. He's still got a few hours before he's scheduled to go on patrol, thankfully, but he should probably make an appearance at HQ sooner than later. If only to keep the teasing to a minimum. "Do you want a ride anywhere?"
Morgan reemerges from the bathroom brushing her fingers through her hair. She's mostly back in her own clothes. She's still wearing his shirt, the sleeves still rolled up to reveal her own tighter shirt underneath, and he decides in the moment before she opens her mouth that he's not going to say anything about it unless she does. "You're heading to HQ, right? Just take me straight down, I'm going in a different direction."
"I wouldn't mind a detour," he says, mostly because he feels like he should; he doesn't need an answer to know she won't let him see where she's going.
"No, it's fine," Morgan says, just like he'd expected. "I've already made you late, right?" She gestures him towards the door, standing there impatiently while he grabs his bag and all but pushing him up the stairs to the roof. Once they actually get up there, though, she hesitates. "…Hey."
"Yeah?" He's all set to take off, just waiting for her to come close enough to pick up. He's learned his lesson about grabbing her.
Morgan looks for just a second like she's facing a firing squad. Then she shakes her head with a laugh and steps close enough to take his face in her hands and kiss him, just briefly. "Thank you. For… all of this." An awkward smile. "I didn't want to do that on the ground."
"Of course!" He returns the kiss as he sweeps her up into his arms, his feet hovering just above the roof. It's a kiss goodbye, and the ease of the gesture sends a shiver of joy through him. "This was good, right?"
"It was. I… I liked it." It's not quite a we should do this again, but he thinks it's probably the closest he'll get from her right now. "…Okay, we really do need to get going."
"Right, right." It's the work of a minute to lower them both to the ground, around the corner from the main entrance where there isn't anyone nearby. The hardest part is setting Morgan back on her feet once they're down there. "So I guess this is… it?"
Morgan rolls her eyes at him. "Go save the day, hero. Don't drag this out, we'll see each other soon."
"Yeah?" He won't pretend he wasn't even a little worried she would vanish for weeks; he's heard enough stories from Ortega and occasionally even Chen to know that she's done that more than once when she got too close to someone.
"Training on Friday," she reminds him, something wicked in the curve of her smile. "And don't think I'm going to go easy on you just because we're…"
"Wouldn't dream of it," he assures her. The tension of the moment is gone; when she shoos him away he doesn't hesitate to take off again.
Morgan doesn't turn away until she sees him look back.