Tarin just shook his head when Lee pointed out that not doing things with powers could be impressive.

What he did was the bare minimum. He wasn’t going to argue though, and it was gratifying that Lee was impressed by what he did, even if he wasn’t doing anything special.

She squeezed his hand and Tarin gave her a little smile, then Lee spoke and all he could do was nod.

They had decided that anything between them was none of anyone else’s business. They’d decided that the first night and as Lee talked, Tarin felt a bit better.

When she said that she’d had feelings that she tried to convince herself against, Tarin had to smile. ”Friday?” he asked simply.

”Friday?”

Lee laughed slightly and nodded. ”That was definitely an interesting night,” Lee said. She then looked down at their hands, bringing her free oneover so she was holding his hand between both of hers.

”You came so close to me that night,” Lee said softly before looking up into Tarin’s eyes again. ”Even after we both agreed that I should go, I almost didn’t leave your room. If you hadn’t stepped back when you did, I don’t think I would have…”

Lee laughed again as she shook her head. ”Rachel definitely knew what she was doing with sending us out that night, didn’t she?”

It had been an interesting night. They’d talked about it a bit before, but as Lee talked and held his hand, he listened to things from her perspective.

When she said she didn’t think she’d have left if he hadn’t stepped back, Tarin chucked a little and shook his head, ”I had promised myself over and over that I wasn’t going to make things weird.” he said, ”But those were really difficult steps to take.”

As for Rachel. ”How she knew at that point, I have no idea. It’s not like she’d even been around us that much and when she cornered me at the shop…” They had talked about this before. Tarin just shook his head.

”She did have good instincts.”

”Well, you weren’t completely successful,” Lee told Tarin when he said he wasn’t going to make things weird. ”When you stepped close to me then, I remember thinking later, looking in your eyes that close, right then, I almost felt like I was trapped. I couldn’t move away. Though I did want to touch you…” Lee laughed a bit again as she looked down at their hands with a slight blush on her cheeks.

”There were a few times before then,” she continued, looking back at Tarin after a few moments. ”When I would wonder ‘...does he?’ And I had definitely noticed a few times how green your eyes are…”

Was it strange that Lee was blushing talking about this now, after they’d been together two months and they had already shared so much more? Maybe, but the blush was still firmly on Lee’s cheeks.

’’She really does,” Lee agreed about Rachel, shaking her head. ”I honestly do not know how she does it. It’s not the first time she’s done something like that, either, with me or other people.

“Which makes it even harder for me to understand why she thought trying to set me up on all those dates over the years was such a good idea…”

To be fair, Tarin had promised himself not to make things weird if Lee had made it clear she wasn’t interested. That had been why he’d stepped back that night. ”If you had touched me….” he started, then smiled and shook his head again, ”Well…you know what would have happened.”

Lee continued reminiscing about that day that seemed so distant, but had realistically only been a couple of months before. She’d wondered if he? ”He did..” he confirmed, and she had noticed how green his eyes were? We’re they? He’d never spent much time looking at his own eyes, so he wasn’t sure…but still.

”That same thing had kind of happened earlier.” Tarin continued a moment later, ”When we were watching the movie though, and that time I very badly wanted to touch you.” he added, thinking suddenly that if he was going to have any chance at actually getting ready for the work day, they needed to change the subject.

Luckily, they’d moved on to Rachel and Lee pointed out that the two of them hadn’t been the first time that Rachel’s instincts had been correct.

”She told me you had given up…and that day in the shop I could tell that she hated it. I told her you wouldn’t want to go out with me, and she told me just to get you out of the apartment.”

Tarin sighed a little, ”She’s a lot, but she really does care about you.”

If she had touched him that Friday night before they’d gone to the bar, before Lee had even known about the plan to go to the bar…

Yeah, Lee likely wouldn’t have been walking out of that room until the next morning.

There had been so many possible times that night, so many ways that things might have happened before the two of them had been sent to the open mic night.

”I hadn’t given up, exactly,” Lee tried to explain. ”It’s not as much of an issue now, because I’ve got better control, and know more about what my powers do and don’t do, but the trust and understanding that I need there to be in addition to actually liking the person…” Lee shook her head. ”No, finding someone who even comes close to understanding about my powers is hard enough on its own. And can you really see me having the patience with blind dates in an attempt to find that?”

Lee explained the mindset that she’d had and why it had been so hard for her to do what Rachel had wanted. Tarin hadn’t ever thought about it that way because Lee seemed so in touch with her powers and what they could do. In a way it was similar to what he’d dealt with in trying to decide how to share with people he’d dated about his powers though. It was different though by the very nature of what Lee’s powers did and how she needed her powers to survive.

Yes, she'd been struggling today, but Lee was working to find a happy median…changing things away from the norm. It made sense that there would be trial and error and now she’d agreed to communicate and let him help things would be much better.

Tarin could see why blind dates would have been hard, even if Rachel’s instincts were good. The prospect of having to explain over and over again…

”I understand.” he said, ”But I’m so very glad you took pity on me and made an exception.”

Tarin said that he understood what she was saying about Rachel having tried to set her up in the past and with how he had understood other things she’d explained about her powers, really understood, she knew that he had.

But when Tarin continued, Lee couldn’t help but take the opportunity to tease him. ”What choice did I really have?” Lee asked, her tone having turned playful and joking. ”If I didn’t let you take me to the bar, Rachel probably would have dragged me there, and then I likely would have been stuck there until close.”

Shaking her head, Lee gave Tarin a smile before she continued speaking, her voice having become more serious. ”I didn’t ‘take pity’ on you, Tarin. You had met the first two before Kevin had even gotten home. Hell, you had already understood about my powers than a lot of people after knowing me for years.”

Squeezing Tarin’s hand, Lee made sure that they were each making eye contact before she continued. ”Not once have I felt pity. You’ve made me feel lots of other things, but never pity.”

The atmosphere at the bar had been nice, the open mic thing had been really fun, and in the short time they’d ended up staying Tarin had seen why the place had been successful. Staying until close had never really been an option though and Tarin absolutely could have seen Rachel making Lee stay until close.

Tarin was going to laugh and comment something, probably silly, but Lee kept talking. As she spoke, Tarin dropped his eyes. Lee had said so many times that she trusted him that by this point Tarin couldn’t even argue against the fact in his own head. How though. How with everything she’d known…God, everything she had seen had she trusted him? It was a question for the ages.

The second part, Tarin was still absolutely baffled that anyone could fail to understand about Lee’s powers. Lee spent most of her time and a fair amount of mental (as well as probably physical) energy managing her powers. Lee had said she was impressed with how he used his powers, but she was an absolute marvel with how she managed hers. What was there to understand other than the fact that Lee needed energy to function? She constantly and to her own determinant was aware of what she was taking, and from whom she was taking it.

Lee squeezed his hand and Tarin looked up, pulled from his thoughts to look into her eyes. Not once had she felt pity? Not once the whole time?

Tarin wasn’t sure why that mattered to him so much, but it really did. The second part of what Lee said, made him smile. Part of him wanted to smirk, or be silly, but instead he looked back steadily, ”Me too.” he said, knowing that in the same way that Lee said he understood her, she would understand that with how hard he tended to try not to feel much of anything…it mattered.

”And for the record, anyone dumb enough to not understand or accept your powers, who has missed out on knowing you because of it, has gotten what they deserved.” he said, the words a bit more clumsy than he’d intended them to be. ”You say you’re impressed with me Lee, and I know you hate praise…but my God you’re impressive. You can turn off an innate part of yourself. You have honed what you have to do into your own personal radar. The fact that you’re fast and strong might be the least incredible thing you do and that’s really saying something…especially because you’ve gone out of your way to train with that too.” Tarin was gushing, but he didn’t care, Lee needed to hear these things that apparently people had neglected to tell her for far too long.

There was more. Tarin could probably have gone on for hours, but they didn’t have hours to spare, so it would have to be enough.

Lee smiled happily when Tarin said ‘me to’. With how little Tarin tended to verbally acknowledge any emotions, it was big that he was saying this to her.

But then Tarin was continuing, and with each word, a blush grew darker on Lee’s cheeks.

By the time that Tarin had finished, Lee’s eyes had dropped to look at their hands again and her face was bright red. And while yes, she had managed to learn how to do all of those things, Lee really didn’t think it made her nearly as impressive as it apparently made her in Tarin’s mind.

”That’s all really just learning how to use my powers…” Lee said softly, glancing up at Tarin very briefly through her lashes before dropping her eyes back to their hands. ”Though, the training at the gym isn’t just because or for my speed and strength…”

Lee might have had a heck of a poker face, but that blush gave her away every time. And this time it was bright red.

Lee was also avoiding looking at him for more than a moment at a time as she tried to pass it all off as simply learning how to use her powers. ”Maybe, but most people would have stopped at just getting by. You’ve figured out way more.” One day she would see it, msybe.

Lee pointed out that the training wasn’t just for speed and strength and it was Tarin’s turn to squeeze Lee’s hand. ”You've mentioned real fights before…is that why you go so hard?” he asked, ”Just in case?”

Lee just shrugged, still looking at their hands, when Tarin pointed out when most people would have stopped. That might have been, but Lee had also had her reasons.

”Honestly,” Lee said after a couple moments. ”I really started to figure out the radar thing because I thought I was going crazy.” Feeling things that weren’t actually there. At least she had thought so.

That was before she had actually gone crazy. At least briefly.

Was the fact that she had been in real fights the reason she trained so hard? Because Tarin had seen her go hard on that heavy bag. And he had seen the video of her sparring match in addition to working with Tony.

”That’s part of it,” she told him, a slight frown on her face as she finally looked up at him again. ”And I want to have at least an idea how to do it ‘properly’ so I don’t hurt myself when I’m using my strength and speed.”

Lee bit her lip and dropped her eyes before continuing again. ”But it’s not like I can always access that,” she whispered.

Tarin knew how that went, the whole going crazy thing. He’d been much younger when all of that had happened, but it really was a wild thing to try and discern whether or not things were actually real when you really couldn’t be sure.

Tarin nodded his understanding of what Lee was saying. It still didn’t matter though. Lee wasn’t going to convince him that she was anything less than, well, extraordinary.

Her explanation about the training was less clear though. The frown on Lee’s face indicated that whatever her reasons were, they somehow upset her. That was definitely confirmed when she spoke again. She always whispered like that when something was hard to say. It was different from how Tarin just kind of blurted everything out, but it was a tell all the same.

Bringing his other hand up, Tarin put it on Lee’s where it was holding his.

”So you want to know what to do if you can’t be super strong or fast?”

Lee stood silently as she watched Tarin’s free hand move over, wrapping around the back of her hand in the same way hers was wrapped around his hand.

But when Tarin spoke, Lee frowned slightly deeper before shaking her head. ”No,” she said slowly. ”It’s not just that I want to know. I need to know how to fight if I can’t use my powers.”

Talking about this, Lee couldn’t help but think back to when she was stuck in a fake house with absolutely no energy. Taking a deep breath, Lee just stood there for a moment savouring the feeling of the energy flowing into her where their hands were touching, the energy from Tarin’s body in general, the much weaker but still present flow of energy from people passing by outside on the sidewalk.

She needed to know how to fight if she couldn’t use her powers.

Lee was frowning even more deeply now and Tarin watched her as she looked down at their hands. Now Tarin was frowning too and as Lee took a deep breath, he leaned, trying to catch her eye again since his hands weren’t free.

Was it because of the camps? Just thinking about it still almost made Tarin sick. He wasn’t going to bring it up though. Lee was already too in her thoughts.

Why did she always end up sad when they talked? Tarin wished now that he’d never asked.

He nodded though.

”I’ll help. However I can.” he said. He’d been going to ask why, but he didn’t really need to know. It didn’t matter. ”I know you don’t need my help, but I’ll help.” he also wouldn’t tease her about the bruises from sparring anymore. He hadn’t known it mattered this much.

”Anything you need.”