"Uh."

He had to bite the bullet now. It wasn't that he wanted to stay jail-baity. He wanted to be his glorious, muscular, even-hotter present-day self.

But a hurdle was in the way. A big one. A total moodkiller.

"Okay, so, you haven't seen me without my shirt since..."

Since his ordeal at Project: Gladiator. He hadn't even so much as changed shirts in front of her, always opting to do it in the bathroom or when she was out of the room.

He cast his gaze at the blanket.

"I got a lot of scars, Cass. They kept me in red light rooms a lot so I didn't always have my usual healing. They did - they did a lot of, uh. Like there's certain types of scars, you know?" Ones that were clearly made by strange devices or unnecessary surgery. Scars that didn't look like they came from fighting. Scars that were clearly from medical torture.

He held a hand over his heart. "I want - I don't want this to be all maudlin, though, you know? I want this to be fun. If it has to be sad, I want that to just - to just be a moment that we let go. Can we do that? Just...have the moment and then let it go?"

He looked up at her pleadingly. "'Cause I wanna be with you like how we used to be together."

Where it was saucy and fun and half the time he laughed her right into bed.