This situation between him and his partner was becoming harder and harder to handle.

He couldn't even breathe in the same room as Barnaby without feeling like he was going to throw up. Kotetsu quietly groaned; this guilt was awful to handle. It didn't really help that he was stuck doing paperwork in the same office as him for probably the next four of five hours, judging by the stack of paper that had piled up on his desk during his absence. It honetsly wasn't like he had tried to get severely injured. Damn it, even though worker's comensation was pretty awesome, filing the paperwork for getting injured on the job was an absolute pain. Especially if you were resolutely trying to ignore the map tapping away at his own computer right beside you. Yeah, that really made things pretty difficult sometimes. But really, trying to avoid your own partner is pretty impossible to begin with. Kotetsu leaned back in his chair, stretching out and hooking his leg around his desk to avoid falling over, which would ruin his chances of getting out of the office any time soon. It was almost lunchtime, anyway. It wasn't like sneaking out to get a bite to eat before you sat there forever was a cardinal sin. And given the current tensions, he didn't know how much longer he could hold out without just running out of the office like his arse had caught fire.

Surprisingly, Bunny didn't do a thing. The blonde simply sat there, clicking away and signing things, while Kotetsu waltzed out of the room. That kind of stung.

Kotetsu headed for the resting room, where the vending machines were on this floor, jamming his hands into his pockets. Damn, why did this have to hurt so much?

Pulling out his wallet and some change, he purchased the least disgusting-looking tiny, overpriced sandwhich that was there. It was going to be disgusting anyway, he knew, but that was kind of punishment for not packing a proper lunch. The fact that what he would have packed would probably have been fried rice and mayo was pretty irrelivant—at least that would have been somewhat tasty and nutritious.

Yeah, as he thought, it was really gross, with too much mayo and extremely bland cheese. Urgh.

The blonde still hadn't come after him. The morning he'd spent in the office was practically silent, anyway. Neither of them had bothered to say a word to each other, and Kotetsu was beginning to get kind of offended, though ti wasn't like it was that much different from the norm. He sighed unhappily, and grimaced, hurriedly finishing off the sandwich. He needed sustinance, and he wasn't going to suffer more than he had to. His side throbbed ungratefully.

That wound was mostly healed by now, and as he'd thought, the scar was absolutely wicked. Anyway, it kind of matched the one that he'd gotten defending Bunny before that. It was kind of like a badge of honor or something, as most of his scars were, especially since it was for his partner. 'Aha, that's adorable.' His smile was a self-depricating, and without the tiniest iota of humour. 'What's next, you're going to profess your undying love? "Oh, Bunny, I wear these scars happily, because I got them protecting you~" As if that will go over well, Kotetsu, you idiot. I can't believe this is happening.'

He blandly walked to the coffee machine, swallowing a bit of bile and leaning against the wall with his forearm. Retrieving a plastic cup, he scowled at his reflection in the glass pot. 'Don't do this to yourself. Stop thinking about it. You're just turning yourself in circles and making it worse.' his brow furrowed and he bit his tongue, quickly marching out of the room and up to the stairwell. The banister and the cold morning air stared back at him blankly, and his mood worsened. Ah, Bunny had cussed him out here, just before his fight with Jake. Kotetsu leaned over the banister, calmly taking a drink. This couldn't have been a worse spot to chose, given his current mood, like putting gasoline on a fire, or dumping a bucket of water on someone with a cold. It would just end badly. Then again, it wasn't like there were many places in the Apollon media building that he and the blonde hadn't been to, on some level of interaction or another. They did both kind of work there.

The view was nice, though. It was cloudy, a bit, and a bit cold for this time of year, but the coffee took the chill of made it bearable. Autumn was already here, and it seemed that winter was already on it's way. Well, he had kind of spent the tail end of summer in the hospital. It seemed like August was yesterday, though it had admittedly been the end of summer already when a hole had been blown through him. Still, missing basically a whole month of nature, and the end of summer, no less, was kind of upsetting. Still, this kind of weather, whith leaves falling, and a light breeze...it was kind of relaxing, if chilly.

There was a gentle crunch of fabric right beside him, and Kotetsu jerked lightly, having completely missed any sign of footsteps or anything. A very cold-looking Barnaby was leaning right beside him, holding on to his own coffee like it was the only thing keeping him warm, dispite the leather jacket bunching up against his elbows where they were bent against the banister. Kotetsu said nothing; what could he do? They hadn't said anything to each other all day, there wasn't much to talk about.

He didn't have to, at it seemed that Bunny really had his own plans. "You trusted me." His fingers clenched gently around the cup, and he hoped that his gulp wasn't too audible. Kotetsu couldn't look him in the eye, and instead took a long gulp of coffee, clenching his eyes shut tightly. "You could have died, you know." green eyes were boring into the side of his head.

A long sigh, and his eyes opened. "I know."

"That's twice now." and if he'd thought the atmosphere was nice before, now it was something like breathing water. Kotetsu felt a bit like puking again, his stomach was starting to hurt. "That you've saved me. I-I never thanked you did I? Not for last time either. And, come to think about it, it didn't even cross my mind until recently that I should thank you for taking those hits or me, even though I know you would have done it for anyone." Kotetsu swallowed another mouthful of coffee, though he didn't really taste it, and his stomach churned again, making him dizzy. "I mean, I worried about you when you were in the hospital, it was like I'd made it my responsibility to ask after you. It was kind of hard to focus on my actual job, to be quite honest, and I asked about your shoulder everyday when you injured that, too. I...Thank you. For what you did."

"You...You know, that's the thing, isn't it? I wouldn't."

"What?"

Kotetsu smiled grimly into his cup. "I protect people, but I'm not a martyr. Even if given the choice, I probably wouldn't directly take on someone...something so dangerous for something I didn't know." Damn, the coffee was almost gone—he was running out of excuses not to look at the blonde. His fingers laced around it gently, and a short breeze ruffled by quietly, puncuating the silence between them. "I was...prepared to die, actually, as scary as that sounds. I thought that Jake was seriously going to kill me; when I woke up in the hospital first, I thought I was in heaven. Of course, until the drugs wore off, that is. Then I thought it must have been hell. It didn't occur to me until I saw the others that I was actually still alive." That earned him a half-hearted snort, at least. He gave a light chuckle of his own, though there wasn't really any humour in it. "Same with when we were fighting with Lunatic that one time. His flame...it can't be put out by normal means. It just burns until nothing is left. Apparently, the only thing suitable for putting it out is being punched in the face in midair, and flung to the ground two stories below you, and to be quite honest, not a lot of people would survive that anyway." He grinned a little, "I didn't think about dying. Really, I don't want to. No one does. But it wasn't a matter of whether or not I'd die, it was about whether or not you'd live."The blonde just kind of sat there, leaning into the wind, face a bit flushed from the chill, no doubt mimicking the state of Kotetsu's own. It wasn't that there wasn't anything that could be put into words for someone who just said that they would die for you, but maybe it was something that didn't need words. That was what Kotetsu hoped, anyway. Silence would get you nowhere unless it meant something. He cleared his throat softly. "This...whatever this is that we've got, Bunny, I don't want to lose it. That's what I'm protecting."

"That's why you wont tell me?" Kotetsu blinked mildly, and Bunny gestured uninformatively. "About the thing on your hip. Whatever it is."

A grimace. "Ahh. Yeah." he swirled the cup of coffee in his hands; it was kind of cold now. "That." There was another long, pregnant pause after that. 'Everyone has deep, dark secrets that they don't want to share with anyone else, Bunny. Mine just happens to be deeper and darker than most.' He would have smiled, but then he would have looked a bit crazy given the situation. A deep breath: "I've killed people."

"...Everyone makes mistakes? A lot of accidents happen in this line of work-"

Kotetsu almost laughed right in his face. "No. Well, yes. But that's not what I'm talking about, and I think you know that." haha, his hands were shaking, weren't they? That's kind of funny, and a little dangerous. His coffee was in danger of spilling on some unsuspecting pedestrian. "I've killed people. I've put a gun against someone's head and pulled the trigger, smiling all the while. When I was young, I once litterally brained someone on a wall with my powers when they took me hostage in a bank robbery.I did it, because I thought it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. I think..." another deep, deep breath, mostly to steady his voice and shit, why was he shaking so badly? "I think whatever conceptions you have of me...they're kind of wrong. I'm no martyr. I'm no hero. But, you know." Bunny was calm, much calmer than he was. "That's why I am a Hero."

Bunny took a long drink of his coffee before replying, and when he did, it was short and quiet. "...For atonement?"

"Something like that." Kotetsu actually did laugh a little this time, but it was mostly to relieve the tension. It felt a bit like drowning. "You said, ''Everyone makes mistakes''. Well, I've made mistakes too. A whole lot of mistakes, in fact, and a lot more than I'm willing to tell a lot of people." a wry grin. "Especially when I'm sober. Consider yourself lucky to hear this, Bunny."

"Ah." There was a note of surprise along with another he didn't really recognize in the blonde's voice, though it remained steady. He looked, and was met with a small, soft smile. "As I thought, smiling is a better expression for that face of yours."

His face turned bright scarlet, and Kotetsu's hand shot to his face before he could stop it, whether he was checking to make sure if he was lying, or to stop himself from being seen, he wasn't really sure. Either way, it wasn't like he was lying. "You—That was a serious topic, you-!"

"Kotetsu."

He choked on the rest of what he had been planning to say, nearly dribbling the rest of his (now frigid)coffee down his front.

"I'll wait for you."

A sharp exhalation of breath through Kotetsu's teeth. He was drowning, he couldn't breathe. "What...?"

"I've decided," that expression was definitely amusement, bastard, "I'll wait until you're ready to tell me what happened between you and Jake. It's...I'm curious, yes, but. But I've decided to trust you about this."

"You-" he voiced, shaky, and practically only air. A breathy whisper.

"We're friends, aren't we?" Ahh, that smile. It was a bit bittersweet, but Bunny was smiling at him. It was hard to resist just pulling him into a hug and- "Oh, you're looking me properly in the eye, too. Finally. You haven't done that for-"

Oh bugger resistance.

"Hey, what-! Wh-The hell are you doing?" a short struggle and a few quiet puffs of almost-laughter, and not-quite-exhasperation. "Didn't you say we were having a serious conversation—stop that!" Tiger grinned, probably the happiest he had been in five years, wrapping his arms around the chill of his partner's body as the other half-struggled and protested. "Kotetsu, get off! You're—Wait, are you..?" Another autumn breeze rolled by, the gust deafened by the concrete walls around them, but the chill wasn't lost. "Bunny" echoed, over and over in the small alcove, a bright, if a tad watery smile on Kotetsu's face as he clenched the younger man to his chest.

'Thank you.'

Sorry, real life finally caught up to me, and then I was without internet for three days...! And, yes there is more than just this orz. I can't leave this fanfic alone for too long, It'll get ronery, and I'd feel bad if I left it there, because I have so much more planned ahmigad.

(Tiny spoiler, if you haven't seen ep. 22 I think. Though you should really watch it anywayyyyy~ because otherwise I'm seriously going to end up spoiiiiling things for youuuuuu~~~)On another note, goddamn, that scene just after Bunny remembers him is probably my favorite scene in the entire anime, for some reason. Can you tell? Crying Tiger is just the best! It`s just so corny and awesome *3*

Teary smiles and hugs all around, everyone, for sticking with me this long! As always, thank you and thank you again for continuing to read this (even though it was junk at the start)~~~~~~~~