"Are you messing with me?" Because if he was, he was succeeding. Nico felt thrown off, a little unsure if he'd imagined everything or not. But...he had the bruises to prove it, so it had definitely been real, right?

"You slipped up," he said, sighing. "We were fighting, you called me Nico." Instead of Cinder. "And when? I don't know, just..." he gestured vaguely. When relative to what?