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"You heard me. Take off your shirt."

Code actually grinned at me. "This really isn't the time for⁠—”

"I'm not propositioning you. I want to see what you're not telling me." I stepped back and crossed my arms. "Shirt. Off. Now."

He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed and pulled his shirt over his head, wincing as he did.

The entire left side of his ribcage was purple—bruised, swollen, angry looking.

"Oh my fucking God." My hands shook. "Code, those are broken."

"Cracked. Not broken."

"That's not better!" I moved back, afraid to touch him. "You need a hospital. X-rays, pain medication, proper treatment."

"My ribs aren't that serious."

"Not that serious? You can barely breathe!"

"I can breathe fine."

"You're in pain."

"I've had worse."

"Stop saying that!" My voice cracked. "Stop acting like this is nothing. You have cracked ribs, Code. Cracked. You could have a punctured lung, internal bleeding, any number of serious complications."

"I don't."

"You don't know that!"

"I know what cracked ribs feel like. I've had them before."

"Great, wonderful, you're an expert at getting injured. That doesn't make this okay!" I paced the room. "You went into that house and fought trained Russian operatives, and you could have died. You could have been shot in the head or the chest or bled out on that floor and I would have just been sitting at Sophie's waiting for a phone call that never came."

"But that didn't happen."

"But it could have! Don't you get that?" I looked into his eyes. "It could have happened. And now you're sitting here with cracked ribs acting like it's no big deal when you can barely move without wincing."

"Katherine."

"No, don't ‘Katherine’ me. This is serious. You're seriously hurt. And you're trying to minimize it like it's just a scratch or a stubbed toe when you probably need to be in a hospital right now getting actual medical treatment."

He stood up slowly. "Katherine, I promise you, I'm okay."

"You're not okay! Look at you!" I stood up beside him. Tears burned behind my eyes and I refused to let them fall. "You're hurt and you're in pain and you're acting like it's nothing and I can't…" I stopped and took a breath. "I can't watch you do this. I can't watch you minimize getting hurt when all I can think about is what could have happened to you tonight."

"Nothing happened to me."

"Something did happen! You have cracked ribs and a black eye and you killed someone and fought for your life and that's not nothing, Code. That's not nothing." The last came out as a whisper.

"I know."

"Then stop acting like it is!" My voice rose, then I remembered Sophie in the other room and I dropped it again. "Just let me be upset that you're hurt. Let me care that you could have died tonight."

"Okay, sweetheart. You be as upset as you need to be."

That just pissed me off more.