A/N: Context: Star finds Night on a rooftop, but he's not himself tonight--something is wrong, and Star is too stubborn to arrest Night like this. And besides--there's something about how Night looks tonight that makes Star's heart beat faster, and he wants more than ever for Nightingale to join the Protectors for once and for all. 

This takes place in Nightingale's "quiet days"--ie, the days prior to when he finally began talking to Star. 

Nightingale, at least for today, lets Star pull him along--and he'll deal with the rest tomorrow. 

In other words, Night tries getting arrested. Star, for once, won't let him. 

{Starlight}

I found him on a rooftop, suit on, feet dangling over the edge as he stares up at the sky. He's on his back, and I can't quite see his eyes—they're hidden by the mask from this angle. I'll have to get closer to know what he's thinking.

"Nightingale?" I call. "You're under arrest...for..."

He's not listening to me at all, which is a bit disheartening. That's fine, I'll read him his rights when he's actually paying attention. I take a few steps closer.

"Can you stop ignoring me, please? Can this be a day where you at least look in my direction?" I can hear the annoyance break through into my voice—just a bit, just enough for him to know I'm serious. I'm so tired of chasing him around, talking to myself, trying to arrest him even though everyone knows he'll just teleport away the moment things get harder for him.

His head tilts to the side. I'm not sure if that's a signal that he's listening or a cheeky way of telling me he will be ignoring me today. I huff and continue: "You're being arrested for theft, terrorism, and conspiring against Solar Works. Please stand and put your hands over your head."

He turns his head back to the sky. His fists are clenched—that's not normal. Usually he doesn't seem fazed at all by my threats to arrest him. Maybe it's not me that upset him? Regardless, his knuckles are almost white from how hard he's clenching them. Something is wrong.

"Nightingale, are you okay?" I ask, and my tone comes out all wrong—gentle and caring. I'm supposed to be arresting him. I call light to my fingertips again. He doesn't bother calling shadows. Unusual.

"Are you injured?" I ask. "It would help if you actually communicated with me, Nightingale."

I inch forward some more. I'm within two meters of him now—my heart is pounding. He's still not teleporting.

I'm close enough now I might be able to see his eyes and mouth again. I stop watching his hands for a second to check—

His right eye is swollen and his lip is bleeding.

I stop moving forward.

"You're injured," I say, shocked. "How on Pluto did that happen? You can teleport!"

He laughs, but there's no humor in it at all. I don't think I've heard him do that before—or laugh, in general. There's usually not much joking around when I'm actively trying to arrest him.

I pull the light back into my fingers. "Can I come closer?"

That seems to come as a surprise to him. He actually looks directly at me, eyebrow raised. And then he nods.

I think my heart might beat right out of my chest. I take the last few steps forward and sit down next to him, but I'm feeling wobbly and nervous. I'm sitting next to a criminal. He could kill me if he wanted to—I should arrest him before he gets the chance. I have handcuffs—

He looks peaceful. I don't think he's going to hurt me.

"You're...actually communicating with me today. That's...new." I don't know how to handle this situation at all. They don't train you to talk to criminals when they're clearly going through a hard time. "And you're injured. What happened?"

He clenches his jaw, and I think that's probably going to be the only response I get when—

"What does Solar Works do to you when you mess things up?"

I blink, shocked. Nightingale doesn't communicate with me at all—he certainly doesn't talk to me. And definitely not about Solar Works.

"It depends," I say slowly. My hand is hovering over the handcuffs attached to my belt, and his eyes are latched onto it. He'll teleport the moment I grab them.

I move my hand away and lay it on the pavement. His eyebrow raises again.

"It depends," I repeat. "If it's something really small, like I'm grumpy or snarky, Bronze Ibis—you've heard of him, right? He's another protector—he just sends me to go take a break for a little bit. If it's a bit bigger than that, he grounds me. If I really messed something up, I'd probably get suspended from my role as Protector—not that I ever have, obviously. Considering I'm here to be ignored by you every night." I wait for him to react to my words at all, and at first I think it's futile—it was a useless question meant to throw me off track. He didn't actually care about the answer—it's a distraction. My hand moves to hover over the handcuffs again.

But then I notice it—he is reacting. His head tilts a bit away from me as he processes that. His hands aren't clenched so much, but they're clasped together now. He sets his shoulders back almost imperceptibly.

"Why do you ask?" I keep my voice quiet, hoping not to spook him into remembering that he hates me.

He looks so nice like this. His head lays against the cement and he's bathing in the moonlight. It washes over him, and I've never seen him look so peaceful.

"I wasn't where Troy wanted me to be," he said, and I know he's choosing his words carefully. It's so vague it won't give anything away. "So he lashed out. It's his punishment—every time, all the time." He sits up, and at first I think it's a tragic loss that I don't get to admire the way he looks laid back against the roof, but then I see his side profile and I know that I've gotten something even better.

"I shouldn't be talking to you," he says, but he's still sitting here with me. "I know I can't have it, anyway."

"Can't have what?"

"What you have. Solar Works."

"You can have it, Night." I don't realize I've given him a nickname until it's already left my mouth, and then his lips quirk up—he likes it. "You can have Solar Works. We could go right now and you could meet the other Protectors. You could stay with us—be part of the solution."

"No—I can't have it. This. You."

I scoot closer until our shoulders brush. I think he's crying—his shoulders hunch forward slightly now. "You can. You could have everything. You could have the world."

He shakes his head, and this time when he speaks, his voice is shaking—he is crying. "You're wrong, Star. I can't have anything."

His hands are covering his face, hiding his tears from me. I have the urge to pull him into a hug, but I'm afraid he might take that as an attempt to restrain him or something. Instead, I swallow deeply, a little nervous that I'm going to make a wrong move, and he'll teleport away before I can say another word.

Heart thumping with apprehension, my steady hand reaches for one of his tear-stained ones. I pull it away from his face and into my lap. His exhausted eyes follow the movement, and I'm starting to realize that maybe he wouldn't teleport even if I was going to arrest him right now. I think this might be him giving up.

I don't like that he's giving up. He doesn't get to do that—to throw up his hands and say this is all he's ever going to get so he might as well take it now. I want to do this my way—either convince him to join us, or have an epic battle that shows he at least deserves to be in prison.

Right now, he doesn't look like a criminal. He just looks tired. He just looks like he's giving up.

I'm not going to let him. I won't arrest him like this.

His eyes follow my thumb as I slowly massage the tears on his palm into his skin. His shoulders are still tense, but he isn't trying to pull away. I admire his hand for a moment, his slender fingers with hard calluses and neatly trimmed nails. A small breath escapes his lips, a sound of relief more than surprise, when I interlace my fingers with his.

"You could have everything," I repeat.

"I—I can't," he argues weakly. "I can't, Star."

When I turn to keep arguing, determined to persuade him to go back to Solar Works with me today, his face is right next to mine—he was still watching our hands. Our faces are so close that I can feel his breath.

My heart is thundering. I take his other hand, letting my thumb press on his wrist just a bit—I can feel his pulse, alive and thundering, too. His Adam's apple bobs up and down as he realizes I can feel how fast his heart is pounding—as fast as my own. He's feeling the same thing I am.

"Star," he says softly, and I lean forward until our lips are only the tiniest distance away.

"Yeah?" I whisper, hovering just the smallest distance away from his face.

"Star, I can't have this," he tells me. "We can't—Troy would—He would kill you."

Our hearts are beating in unison, the beat to a song of longing. The rhythm of want. I won't close the distance—I need him to do that. I got us this far. I hover for another suspenseful moment.

"Come with me," I whisper. It takes another three seconds after that to convince myself to stand up, putting distance between the two of us again. I'm still holding both of his hands, so he doesn't have much of a choice but to stand up with me. His cheeks are pink.

"Where are we going?" he asks.

"Home," I say.

"I can't," he says, his voice pained, but he follows me anyway. I let go of one of his hands even though I don't want to, and I lead the way back to Solar Works's Headquarters.

He doesn't argue with me as I take us down a ladder off the side of the building—a fire safety precaution most likely—but he does give me several nervous looks as we descend. The moment his feet are on the ground, I take his hand again and we continue walking. We're not far from Solar Works—we could see the tower from our spot on the roof. I squeeze his hand as I lead him through throngs of commuters on the sidewalk. He keeps his head down and tries to avoid drawing attention to himself.

We pass one of my favorite restaurants—a place that sells mouthwatering curries—and I'm tempted to take Night inside so he can experience it. I don't think he gets to take advantage of what the city has to offer very often—we never hear about him attempting to eat at a restaurant or shop at a bookstore. It's always only stealing the essentials. Keeping himself alive and getting what Troy tells him to get, but nothing more.

Maybe he really does believe he can't have anything.

I don't take him into the restaurant. It might be more trouble than it's worth right now—and besides, I think what he needs right now is to see that he can have Solar Works, if he wants it.

When we finally reach the plaza in front of Solar Works's front doors, Night finally resists my pull. When I glance back at him, he looks like a mule pulling against a lead. I squeeze his hand. "It's alright, Night. You're not under arrest. I'm just here to show you what you can have."

"What I can't have," he corrects, frozen and scared. "You're here to dangle it in front of me. I can't... I can't take Solar Works. I can't have this. You have to let me go or arrest me—don't make me look at all of this and then let Troy tear it away from me again."

Again?

I resist the urge to interrogate him about what that means.

"You don't have to take Solar Works. I'm giving it to you. All you have to do is not shove it away."

He tries slipping his hand out of mine, so I sigh and pull him away from the plaza again, marching him briskly to a more secluded place where we can have this conversation without him panicking any more than he already is. I slip between a white building with pillars—if I remember correctly, it's a museum of Solar Works's history, but it's been years since I've visited—and a center for immigrant registration. It's not as dirty and eerie as most alleyways are, but it's a tight squeeze, and it's quiet.

I pull Night in after me and then back him up against a wall so that the only thing he can focus on is me. I keep one hand firmly grasping his, and I use my other to tilt his chin so he's forced to look me in the eyes.

"Nightingale, I need you to listen to me."

His Adam's apple bobs up and down. He doesn't say anything.

"I know you're scared of what Troy will do," I say. He tries to look away, but I hold him steady. "I know you're afraid of having to go back to him after seeing what it's like to have something better."

"Then why are you torturing me with this?" he asks, and I shake my head.

"Because I'm not letting you go back to him." I let my hand on his face move up until my thumb is near his swollen eye and my fingers are in his hair. "So you don't have to worry about going back. I'm taking away the option. He did this to you, yes?"

"Yes," he chokes out.

"Okay. And this isn't the first time he's hurt you, correct? It happens often?"

"Star—"

"Am I correct or not, Night?"

He clenches his jaw briefly, and his eyes tear off of me as he takes a breath and stares at the sky instead. I don't say a word—I need him to confirm this.

"You're correct," he finally admits quietly, "but it doesn't change—"

"Nightingale, you are experiencing abuse," I inform him. "As an agent working for Solar Works, I cannot allow you to return. That being said, you have options—you don't have to stay at Solar Works if you don't want. But if you want Solar Works...you can have it. I'll give it to you, I'll give you everything. Do you understand?"

He leans his head against the wall, and he looks oddly relieved. I realize this is why he looked like he was giving up earlier—he was trying to get arrested so he wouldn't have to go back. He's been waiting for me to take away his other options, and he thought imprisonment was the only way.

"You could have told me earlier," I tell him gently.

"I didn't think it would change anything."

"I would have done anything it took to change things for you," I say. And then I let my hand in his hair drop. "Do you want this, Night? You have options. We could find a family to host you. We could—"

His free hand clamps over my mouth to shut me up. His eyes search my face, looking over every inch of me. And then he says, "Take me there before I come to my senses."

I grin under his hand, and then I'm pulling him out of the alley into the plaza again. He's tense, but he doesn't stop again.