Just Me Reposting

as if every part of him had grown, he laid his weight just over you, not crushing but enough that you could feel the difference. his heavy palms pushing your legs over your shoulders, pressing down like he belonged there. his lips trailing over the shell of your ear, praising you for taking him like this. for letting him in so deep. grabbing at your thighs and just pushing them higher and higher. he always loved a mean mating press when he was bulking. and fuck, so did you, mewling when he buried himself to the hilt. scratching at his back when he folded you just right. crying out his name with every movement he made because it was just so damn good.

the first time, he looked at you wide eyed, pulled back a little just to make sure he wasn’t hurting you. repeatedly asking, “is that painful?” and “i’m so sorry sweets, we can stop.”

to which you immediately wrapped your legs around his waist, his stomach slightly poking out and hugging your chest. looking up at him with tears in your eyes, but definitely not because you wanted him to stop, “no! it’s good, it’s really…really good,” biting your bottom lip.

he still looked at you sideways and decided to let you on top, thinking giving you a little more control might be nice. then you straddled him, holding onto his big beefy shoulders, and struggling to take him all inside without his help. you let out sharp involuntary whines. bouncing and squeezing him tightly within your slick walls. he cups your ass and keeps you still.

“baby, are you sure you’re okay?” he asks again, ever the sweet man he was.

you nod again, leaning down in exhaustion and slight humiliation for being unable to handle him on your own.

breathing his name out softly, “it’s perfect, you’re perfect. i just need your help.”

he knows it too, nodding and helping you back onto the mattress. taking his time at first, slowly easing you into it. then when he finally gets you under him again and he realizes that you really couldn’t fit him all on your own, he smiles. he doesn’t just give you that same charming and cheeky smile, but he gives you one reminiscent of the devil that finally gets you to give in to temptation. when he finally sees how much you like him like this, he’s entirely feral.

“fucking love this don’t you?” he groans out, heavy and tender in his thrusts, “you’re so sexy, fuck, i’ll bulk all the time if you like it this much,”

lips attaching to your jaw, kissing and sucking harder than he usually does. one hand kneading your breasts like damn stress balls and you can’t help it, moaning out like a pornstar.

he laughs at your neediness, “feel good sweetheart? feels good when i’m riiight,” dragging his palm up your stomach and touching the spot he repeatedly hits over and over, “here.”

then he’ll manhandle you onto your stomach, pulling you up by your hips and have you arch just right for him. he used the opportunity to slip back inside with ease and drive himself back home. his groans are even more animalistic, panting harder and gripping tight in a way that you knew would leave bruises. but you didn’t care. you couldn’t care less if anything and all he wanted was to make you feel good, repeating what he notices you like.

when he pulls you up so your back is to his chest, you mewl his name and wrap his arm around your neck. he understands it immediately, keeping you in a headlock and fucking into you deeper. watching your face contort into blissful pleasure and moaning with you because all it did was drive him wilder.

it’s too much and not enough at the same time. you have nothing to say, no words to express how he was making you feel. all you could do was claw at his forearms and push back into him, chanting his name like prayer, over and over.

he hisses dirty words just by your ear, leaving open mouthed kisses along the side of your face, “gonna fuck you so dumb, you know that? imma ruin you pretty baby.”

god, you loved bulking season.

He tries to hide it, tries to roll his shoulder like it’s nothing, but you’ve seen him bleed out in worse places than this.

“You should be in medical,” you say.

Roy scoffs, tugging his gloves off with his teeth. “And miss the part where you tell me everything went ‘according to plan’?”

You don’t smile.

The door seals behind him, cutting the city noise clean off.

The quiet presses in.

Post-mission quiet is always the worst—when the adrenaline drains and all that’s left is what almost happened.

You turn away, busying yourself with pulling data off your gauntlet. Anything but looking at him too long.

“You went off-route,” you say. “Again.”

“I had the shot.”

“You didn’t have backup.”

“I didn’t need it.”

There it is.

Sharp. Defensive. Familiar.

You exhale slowly. “Roy, that wasn’t the call.”

He laughs under his breath, bitter. “Funny. Didn’t hear you complaining when it worked.”

You finally face him.

His cheek is bruised, a shallow cut at his brow already crusting over. He looks tired in a way even sleep won’t fix.

“It worked,” you say carefully, “because I covered you.”

His jaw tightens. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“No,” you snap, heat bleeding through your control, “you never do.”

The words hang between you, heavier than they should be.

Roy looks away first.

“That’s not fair,” he mutters.

You cross your arms, cape shifting around you. “Then explain it to me. Explain why you keep acting like you’re disposable.”

He stiffens. “I don’t—”

“You do,” you cut in. “Every mission. Every time. You run in like it won’t matter if you don’t make it back.”

“That’s rich,” Roy shoots back, eyes flashing. “Coming from you.”

You falter.

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” he asks, voice quieter now. “Because from where I’m standing, you throw yourself in front of bullets like you’re daring the universe to take you.”

The room goes still.

This is the glitching part—the moment where neither of you is saying the right thing, where everything hurts more because it’s half-true.

“I can handle myself,” you say.

“I know,” Roy says immediately. Too fast. Too intense. “That’s the problem.”

You swallow. “Then what is it, Roy? What are you actually mad about?”

He drags a hand through his copper lock, pacing once before stopping in front of you.

“I’m mad,” he says, voice rough, “because every time you almost get hurt, my heart tries to punch its way out of my chest.”

You blink.

“And I’m mad because I don’t get to say anything,” he continues, words spilling now, unstoppable. “Because if I admit I care too much, I lose focus. And if I lose focus, I lose you.”

Your breath catches.

“I don’t feel like enough for you,” Roy admits. “Not when you’re Nightingale. Not when you’re fearless and brilliant and everyone needs you, everyone loves you.”

Silence.

Then you step closer, slow, deliberate.

“Roy,” you say softly, “I don’t need someone fearless.”

He looks up at you, eyes glassy.

“I need you,” you say. “And you scare me too. Every time you don’t come back when you’re supposed to.”

His voice breaks when he speaks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He lets out a shaky laugh. “Guess that makes two of us.”

The confession doesn’t come with fireworks. No dramatic kiss. Just the truth, laid bare and trembling between you.

Roy reaches out, hesitates, then cups your face like you might disappear if he doesn’t anchor you there.

“Don’t do that,” he murmurs. “Don’t make me imagine a world without you.”

You lean into his touch. “Then don’t leave me imagining one without you either.”

He nods, forehead resting against yours, breathing you in like proof you’re real.

For once, neither of you runs.

The couches on either side of you remain forgotten, eerily still in the passage of time, they don’t have dents of conjoined body weight that strains their velvety pillows. All the hand woven throws on them, untouched, un-crinkled. No sign of them thrown off in a lazy sprawl.

You and Jason didn’t even look at them when you arrived at his safehouse cabin, having been drawn to the front of the fireplace, like moths to bright light —precious floor time, as you had called it earlier— you drifted fast to create your makeshift fortress.

And now here you are. His shoulder brushed against yours. His thigh warm where it rests beside your knee. The futon he insisted on bringing—because you mentioned, half-laughing, that hardwood floors would murder his spine—unfolded beneath you like he’d known you’d end up here.

Jason shifts beside you, slow and easy, enough that the futon dips and your hip nudges into his. He doesn’t move away—he never does. Instead, his arm settles behind you, brushing your back with that familiar, grounding warmth that always makes your shoulders drop a little.

The fire cracks softly, and the glow spilling over him feels unfair. All warm golds and long shadows, softening a man who spends the rest of the world hard-edged. Here, he’s just Jason. Your Jason. The one who always looks back at you like you’re the only steady thing he’s got.

You lean into him without thinking, letting your head rest against his shoulder. He shifts just the tiniest bit, settling you closer, like he was waiting for you to do exactly that and you coo into his warmth. 

His fingers find your thigh in patterns of absentminded, lazy little circles that make it very hard to pretend you’re not melting. Not because it’s new, but because it’s him. Because somehow no amount of time together has made this feeling normal enough so that your heart doesn’t want to jump out of your chest.

The silence between you is thick but silky, like the blanket you’re both wrapped under. Not awkward. Not anticipatory. Just full of everything that doesn’t need to be spoken for you to feel it humming between your ribs.

Your hand drifts toward his on instinct, brushing across his knuckles before you weave your fingers through. Jason’s chest rises in slow, quiet breaths, the kind he only ever takes when he’s fully, privately at ease.

And then he hums, low in his throat—almost a laugh, almost a sigh.

“Y’know…” he murmurs, tilting his head just enough that his cheek grazes your hair, then your temple, “we’ve got two perfectly good couches behind us.”

You smile in his chest without lifting your head. “And?”

Jason’s thumb strokes along your thigh, slow enough to feel intentional.

“And we still end up right here.” He leans down just slightly, voice brushing your ear like a secret. “Pressed up against each other on the floor like teenagers.”

He pauses, warm lips grazing your temple.

“Not that I’m complaining. Just saying… there’s gotta be a reason.”

Jason shifts just enough for his nose to skim your hair, his voice dipping into that gravelly, amused tone he saves for when he’s about to get under your skin.

“‘Cause if I didn’t know any better…” his fingers slide a little higher on your thigh, just enough to make you breathe in, “I’d think you drag me down here on purpose.”

You pull back half an inch to give him a look, but he catches your chin lightly between two fingers, smirking.

“Mmhm,” he hums, eyes half-lidded, way too pleased with himself. 

It earns him a chuckle from the depths of your throat.

“Act innocent all you want.” You tell him “Every damn time we’ve got a surface to lay down, a blanket, and five minutes alone? You end up glued to my side.”

He scoffs—mostly because you’re right.

“And what about you?” He mumbles.

“Must you need the confirmation?”

Jason nods, then laughs under his breath, warm and low. He presses his forehead to yours, grin softening into something deeper.

“Baby,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb across your jaw, “you think I’d sit anywhere else when I could have you right here? Not a chance.”

His lips hover a breath above yours before he adds, teasing but honest enough to crack you open a little

“Besides… you get real cuddly on the floor. Kinda my weakness.”

You don’t even try to hide your smile this time—it just blooms, warm and helpless, because he’s doing that thing again. That thing where he teases you until you’re flustered, then softens at the last second like he can’t help giving you the truth underneath.

“Your weakness, huh?” you whisper, lips brushing his.

Jason’s smirk tilts, lazy and fond. “Mm. Big one.”

And then he kisses you.

Not hungrily. Just slow—achingly slow—like he’s got all night and wants to savor every second of it. His hand slides to the back of your neck, guiding you in, and your fingers curl into the front of his shirt without thinking. The fire pops behind you, sending a warm ripple across your skin, but Jason is warmer, deeper, steadier.

He breaks the kiss just long enough to nudge his nose against yours. “See?” he murmurs, breath ghosting your mouth. “Floor time makes you sweet.”

You shove him lightly in the chest, mostly to hide the way your heart just stuttered, but he only laughs, low and amused, and pulls you straight back into him. This time he lies back on the futon, tugging you with him until you end up half sprawled across his chest.

“‘M always sweet you asshole.”

“Aha, indeed.”

His arm wraps around your waist. Solid muscle, heat, that quiet strength you never have to ask for. You settle into him, your cheek pressed to the spot just over his heartbeat, and he exhales like you’ve put him exactly where he’s meant to be.

The firelight dances across the room. His fingers trace lazy patterns up and down your spine.

After a minute, he speaks again—soft, teasing, but quieter, like he’s letting his guard slip a little.

“Gotta admit…” he murmurs into your hair, “I like when you curl up on me like this.”

You tilt your head up, eyebrows raised. “Yeah?”

He looks down at you, eyes warm enough to ruin you.

“Yeah,” he says, brushing a thumb across your cheek. “Makes me feel like I’m… I don’t know, needed!? Yours...”

Your breath catches—so subtle you’re not sure he noticed.

But he did. And his hand stills on your back, fingertips sinking in just slightly.

“Jay..”

“’Cause I am,” he adds, voice barely above a whisper. “You know that, right?”

Jason’s words are still hanging in the air when you shift on him—slowly, like you’re sliding into a better position without any particular intention.

But he knows better.

Your leg drapes across his waist. Just a little weight. Just enough to make his breath catch. Barely.

You pretend not to notice.

Instead, you nuzzle into the warm column of his throat, lips brushing the skin there like an accident. A soft, lingering accident. Jason’s hand on your back flexes, fingertips digging in for half a second before he catches himself.

Good.

You let your nose trail up the line of his neck, lazy, innocent, torturously tender. His pulse jumps under your mouth—fast, but ever so contained. He’s trying so hard to be unbothered.

You’re not done with him however.

Your palm slides across his chest, slow enough that you can feel each breath he’s trying to regulate. He’s solid under your hand, warm, muscles going tight one at a time like he’s bracing for something he doesn’t want to admit he wants.

Still you say nothing.

You just shift again. Just enough that your hips settle a little closer over his. Not grinding. Not obvious. Just aligned. A feather-light tease that sends a hot, invisible jolt through him. You feel it. You feel everything.

Jason exhales, a quiet, shaky thing he tries to turn into a laugh.

It does not sound like a laugh.

You bite back a smile and press your lips to his stubbled jaw—soft, slow, completely devastating. He tilts into it instinctively before he forces himself still.

His fingers slide lower on your back.

You don’t give him what he wants.

Instead, you kiss the corner of his mouth—barely there, a whisper of warmth—and pull back before he can quite chase you. His eyes crack open, dark and unfocused, a little ruined around the edges.

You settle your head back on his chest like nothing happened at all.

He makes a noise in his throat. Frustrated. Fond. Helpless. His heartbeat is thunder under your ear now.

“I know you’re mine,” you whisper.

You shift one last time, just a tiny roll of your hips as you get ‘comfortable,’ and Jason’s arm tightens around you—reflexive, full-body, soft growl stuck in his chest.

He mutters something incoherent into your hair.

You smile smugly into his shirt.

Jason is officially in hell and he’s loving every second of it.

“And I’m yours.”

Jason lasts all of—what—another eight seconds? Maybe ten, if you’re too generous.

Because you stay exactly where you are, pretending to be oh-so-innocently settled on top of him, and then you do it—that move. That tiny, absentminded roll of your hips like you’re just adjusting your weight.

It’s not even a grind. It’s not even purposeful.

But Jason’s whole body reacts—hips jerk the slightest bit under you, all blood rushing suddenly to his cock, breath punching out of him like you knocked it loose. His hand, the one resting on your lower back, spasms and grabs a handful of your shirt.

“Jesus—” he breathes, barely audible.

You smile into his chest wickedly. He knows you do. He feels it.

And that’s the moment he officially cracks.

One second you’re lying on him, all soft and innocent, the next—

His hands slide down to your hips, grip tightening, and he flips you onto your back in one fluid, pissed-off-but-turned-on-as-hell motion. The futon dips beneath the sudden shift, and you gasp more from the shock than the force.

Jason hovers above you, breath unsteady, hair falling into his eyes like he lost it somewhere in the movement.

And he looks beautifully wrecked.

Flushed pink. Jaw tight. Pupils blown wide. The thin veneer of “I can handle this” absolutely torched in flames.

He braces one forearm beside your head, the other still clamped around your hip like he’s anchoring himself. It slips away only for a moment’s time, to adjust his bulge inside his pants.

“You think you’re funny,” he growls—quiet, deep, breath warm against your lips.

You grin up at him, soft and taunting. “A little.”

Jason’s eyes flick down your body, then back to your smile, and he huffs out a broken laugh.

His lips pepper kisses across your face and jawline, each one of them sloppy and slow.

“Yeah?” He says between kisses. His thumb strokes along your hip, possessive, hungry, already losing any attempt at patience. “You’re lucky I love you.”

You tug lightly on the collar of his shirt. “Do something about it then.”

That’s it. That’s the actual kill shot.

Jason lets out a sound—somewhere between a groan and a surrender—and crashes his mouth directly to yours, all heat and pent-up frustration and relief. His hand grips your thigh and pulls you flush against him, no space left, no guessing.

Jason’s kiss is hot enough to dizzy you—deep, and hungry, coating the skin around your mouth with saliva, like he’s been trying not to do this for the past thirty minutes and you finally snapped the last thread holding him together. His hand slides under your thigh as his tongue touches yours, tugging you up to meet his hips and the low sound he makes when your bodies line up is downright sinful.

He bucks his hips directly into yours eliciting a small moan out of you when your clit rubs perfectly on the seam of your pants.

You pull him closer by the front of his shirt, kissing him back just as fiercely—teeth catching his bottom lip and pulling it into your mouth, fingers threading into his hair. You can feel him melt into it, lose the last scraps of restraint, push his weight down over you like he wants you under him, wrapped around him, nowhere else.

But there’s no way you’re letting him win that easily.

Mid-kiss, you twist your grip in his shirt and roll your hips slow and steady, with cocky intention this time. Jason’s breath stutters; he breaks the kiss with a sharp inhale right against your mouth.

“Oh, you’re—” he starts, but you don’t give him the chance.

You use his moment of shock to flip him.

You hook your leg around his waist, shift your weight, and suddenly he’s the one on his back and you’re straddling his hips. The futon dips under you both, the fire crackles, and Jason just freezes.

Not in fear, but in awe.

His hands fall to your thighs like gravity dragged them there, fingers spreading over your skin, squeezing like he needs the reassurance you’re real.

You lean down, kiss him slow—slow enough to make him chase the end of it when you pull back half an inch.

He exhales shakily.

“Baby,” he warns, voice shredded down to something deep and ruined, “don’t start something you can’t finish.”

You smirk, shifting your weight deliberately over him, drawing a curse out of his throat.

“Who says I’m not finishing it?”

Jason’s head falls back with a low groan, his hands tightening on your hips—possessive, helpless, gone.

That’s when he moves.

One sharp thrust of his hips up into yours—enough to knock a gasp out of you and make your hands slap against his chest for balance. He grins up at you, wild and triumphant.

“Got you.”

You glare at him, breath uneven. “Cheater.”

“Survivor,” he counters, grabbing your waist and dragging you down again so your faces nearly touch. “And if you keep teasing me—”

He flips you back.

Fast.

Effortless.

Like you weigh nothing.

Your back hits the futon again and he cages you in with his body, breathing hard, forehead pressed to yours. His lips ghost along your jaw, down to your neck, warm and maddeningly slow.

“You gonna behave now?” he murmurs against your skin, voice barely holding together.

You curl your fingers into his hair and tug just enough to make him curse under his breath.

“No.”

Jason laughs—breathless, disbelieving, insanely turned on.

“Good,” he growls, dragging your hips up against his again, “’cause neither am I.”

He kisses you again—deeper, dirtier, more desperate—and this time neither of you hold back. Smooching sounds fill the room and Jason’s scent mingles with your own, so much, you don’t know where he starts and you begin.

His hands fly to the button of your jeans, the pads of his fingers fiddling with it.

The button pops with a sharp, silver click, but Jason doesn't rush to strip you. Instead, he pauses, his large hand splayed flat against the heat of your stomach, his thumb hooked just inside the waistband. He’s looking at you with such intensity that feels heavier than his actual weight.

Jason’s kisses turn hungry fast — the kind that steals the air from your lungs and gives it back to you warmer. You arch up into him, not consciously, not even teasing this time, just responding to the heat of him pressed fully against you. 

He moans, low and helpless, the sound punching out of his chest like he’s been holding it back for weeks.

Your fingers tangle in his shirt. You tug hard and he jerks a little, hips pressing into yours with absolutely zero finesse. He bites down on a laugh, breath hot against the wet patches his lips have left on your throat.

“That’s… not fair,” he manages when you palm him through his pants, voice tight, breath shaking.

You drag your nails lightly down the back of his neck.

“Who said I was playing fair?”

He loses it for a second. His hand grips your thigh, hauling it up around his waist like he needs you anchored there or he’ll come apart. His body settles deeper against yours, chest to chest, hips locked to your hips, the futon creasing under the weight of both of you pressing together like there’s not a single inch you can spare.

Your shirt rides up, you don’t even know when, and his hand slides under the fabric, warm, broad, rough in that way that makes your breath catch. He strokes up your side slowly, until his fingers shimmy inside your bra from the front and begin to flick at one of your nipples.

Your own hands slip beneath his shirt, feeling the heat of him, the solid muscle, the way he tenses the second your fingertips skim the edge of his ribs. He shudders and you feel it all the way down to your pussy.

“That’s it,” he breathes, forehead dropping to yours, eyes blown wide and dark. “God, you drive me—”

His voice breaks.

You kiss him before he can recover.

It gets messier than before, very very fast.

His mouth is open against yours, desperate, almost clumsy in the way he chases you. He drags you up into him, half-guided, half-grabbed, bodies tangling as hands roam and clothing shifts, little gasps slipping between kisses. You’re barely aware of what’s moving where or how clothes are stripped messily off you — just skin, heat, the wet drag of his breath against your cheek, the way he sounds when you touch him just right through his pants.

He pulls back only long enough to look at you — really look at how beautiful you look with just your underwear— chest heaving, lips red from kissing you stupid, a string of saliva connecting your faces.

“You’re not getting away from me tonight,” you murmur, voice like spice and honey all at once.

You wrap your arms around his neck, tug him down on you again.

“Didn’t plan on it, princess” he mumbles, the word vibrating against your collarbone. His smile is downright sinful.

He pulls back just enough to meet your half lidded gaze, his eyes roaming over your face like he’s trying to memorize the exact shade of you. 

His hand slides up, disappearing beneath the curve of your back, his rough palms dragging over your scorching skin. He finds the strap of your bra and undoes it with a soft click. He lets his thumb trace the curve of you, over and over, until you’re arching off the futon just to meet the pressure.

“Jason,” you breathe, half-plea and half-complaint.

“What—I’m just lookin’,” he grunts, a slow, predatory smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I’m takin’ my time. You’re the one who wanted to play games, baby. Now you gotta sit with the consequences.”

He leans down, but he doesn't kiss you. Instead, he brushes his lips against the sensitive hollow behind your ear, inhaling deeply. His beard scruff burns against your skin, a delicious friction that makes you shiver. He moves lower, his tongue darting out to lick a slow, wet stripe down the side of your neck, stopping right where your pulse is thrumming like a trapped bird.

His other hand finds your inner thigh, fingers digging into the soft skin there. He doesn't go for the center—not yet. He just kneads the muscle, his touch possessive and grounding, reminding you of exactly how much stronger he is than you. 

Jason knows how much you love it when he pins you down just like this.

“You’re shaking,” he observes when your legs decide to give out, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that vibrates right through your chest.

He shifts, dragging his body up yours until his nose nudges yours. He stays there, breathing your air, his hand finally sliding up, up, until the heel of his palm brushes against the damp patch of your underwear. He doesn't move. He just applies pressure on your clit with his pointer finger—steady, delicious pressure—and watches your eyes blow wide in pleasure.

Before he moves further, he gives your clit a fast flick.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asks, his voice a rough velvet when he circles a finger at your entrance, feeling how sticky you are. “Me making a mess of you on the floor?”

You can’t even answer; you just nod, your fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck, trying to pull him lower.

Jason chuckles, a dark, low sound. He finally relents, his fingers slipping beneath the lace of your panties, finding you already slick and hot and achingly pulsing for him. He doesn't rush. He circles the hood of your clit with agonizing slowness, his touch light as a feather one second and firm the next, mocking the way you’ve been teasing him all night.

He watches your face the whole time, tracking every hitch in your breath, every little broken sound that leaves your throat, looking entirely too smug for a man whose own heart is trying to beat out of his ribs.

Jason’s fingers continue that torturous slow-motion circling, his eyes never leaving yours. He’s reading you like a map, noting the exact second your pupils dilate or the way your hips stutter upward when his thumb find a specific, sensitive ridge.

You don’t even have time to whine at the loss of friction when he moves to completely take off your panties, because he’s back to you inhumanly fast.

His fingers spread your puffy folds apart and he rubs from your sopping hole to your poor clit, with two of his fingers, up and down again and again, so achingly slow that you can’t help but chase it with your hips.

He’s being deliberate. It’s his revenge for the way you played him earlier—an undoing that leaves you grasping at the fabric of his shirt just to stay tethered to the room.

“You’re so loud for me,” he says, his voice thick with a dark sort of pride. “Even when you’re trying to be quiet, your body’s fucking screaming.”

He dips a finger inside you, shallow and testing, and the sound that breaks out of you is high and thin. He swallows it with a kiss, his tongue mimicking the slow intrusion of his hand. It’s too much—the heat of the fire on your side on your skin, the weight of him on your chest, and the slick, sliding friction of his fingers fucking themselves inside your squelching pussy. 

Just as he adds a second finger, stretching you open with a scissoring motion a groan of his own, a loud —crack— echoes through the room.

A cedar log in the fireplace decides to give up, snapping in half and sending a violent spray of orange sparks against the mesh screen. The sudden noise is like a bucket of cold water in the middle of a fever dream.

You jump, your back arching off the futon, and Jason’s head snaps toward the hearth, his shoulders tensing instinctively as if his bodyguard reflex kicks in for a split second.

The silence that follows is heavy, broken only by the frantic thumping of two hearts trying to find their rhythm again, pulsing in both of your ears.

Jason looks back at you, a single stray spark reflected in his dark eyes. He’s still hovering over you, his fingers still buried in you, but the spell of the ‘perfect moment’ has a tiny, jagged crack in it.

Bent on not letting this destroy the moment completely, Jason takes a beat and continues sliding his fingers inside you ever so slowly.

He huffs out a breath when you mewl, a lock of black hair falling over his forehead.

“Scared the hell outta me, shit” he whispers, though he doesn’t move an inch away.

You let out a shaky, breathless laugh, your hands sliding from his hair to his cheeks. “The ah—floor is a dangerous place, Jay. Hazards everywhere.”

Jason’s gaze teasingly drops to your lips, then down to where his hand is still hidden away between your thighs, feeling the way you’re pulsing around him. The smirk from earlier returns, slower this time, more dangerous.

“Right. Hazards,” he repeats, his voice dropping an octave. He leans back in, his nose brushing yours, the playful banter dying a quick death as he replaces it with raw intent. “In that case, I better finish this quick before the house burns down, huh?”

Your lips purse in dissatisfaction at that, your eyes squinting. Solemnly, you shake your head at him.

“What?” Jason teases, smirking ever so slightly “want me to take my time instead?”

He doesn't wait for a comeback, for he knows your answer. He just hooks his other hand under your knee, dragging your leg up and over his shoulder, exposing you completely to the firelight and his hungrily wrecked expression.

Jason watches you for a heartbeat, his chest heaving as he takes in the sight of you—disheveled, legs draped over him, skin glowing with a sheer coat of sweat like polished amber in the firelight, your pussy glistening in need for him. His playfulness is still there, dancing in the corners of his mouth, but it’s being rapidly overtaken by a hunger that looks almost painful.

“Right,” he mutters, more to himself than you, patting down his body. “Clothes. These have gotta go.”

He sits back on his heels, a move that feels like a physical loss the moment his heat leaves your skin. He doesn’t take his eyes off you as he reaches for the hem of his shirt, his knuckles grazing the jacked ridges of his stomach. In one fluid, impatient motion, he yanks the fabric over his head and tosses it somewhere toward the dark kitchen on the left.

The firelight catches on the broad expanse of his chest; the scars that map out his life of vigilance, the heavy, tensed muscles of his arms. Seeing him like this—bare and braced for you—always makes the air feel a little too thin to breathe.

Fuck—even every vein that props over his muscles sent you into a frenzy.

He makes quick work of his belt, the leather creaking in the quiet room. When he finally shucks his pants, the futon groans under his shifting weight. He’s back over you in nanoseconds, but he doesn't go for the kill. Not yet.

He settles between your knees, his large hands sliding up your inner thighs, spreading you wider until you feel the cool air of the room hit your skin—and then the scorching heat of his gaze.

“Jason…” you murmur, reaching for him, but he catches your wrists and pins them gently above your head.

“Uh-uh,” he rumbles, his voice a low, warning vibration. “You spent all that time teasing me. Now you’re gonna stay right there and take it.”

He leans down, but instead of kissing your mouth, he starts at your knee. His tongue traces a slow, wet line up the sensitive skin of your thigh as his lips wrap around patches of your skin, his beard scruff nuzzling to you sending fresh jolts of electricity through your nerves. You writhe under him, but his grip on your wrists is like iron—steady and grounding.

And fuck, you love it when he bends you in half like this. Even if by the time he reaches the glossy center of you, you’re breathless and your head is tossing back against the futon.

Jason pauses, his hot breath ghosting over your folds, making you shiver. He looks up at you, a wicked, ruined sort of grin on his face.

“You wanted floor time,” he whispers against your throbbing slit. “I’m gonna give you floor time you’re never gonna forget.”

Then, he dips his head.

The first lick of his tongue on your slit is broad and slow, catching every bit of your sticky slick. You let out a broken, jagged sound, your hips jerking upward instinctively. He groans into you at the taste, his tongue finding your clit and swirling around it with a rhythmic pressure with the tip of his tongue that makes your vision go white at the edges.

He’s not rushing. He’s savoring you, his fingers letting go of your wrists only to dive into the futon on either side of your hips, bracing himself as he drinks you in. Every time you try to close your legs, his shoulders act as a wedge, keeping you open, keeping you vulnerable, keeping you exactly where he wants you.

The sound of the fire is a distant hum compared to the rushing blood in your ears. Every muscle in your body is wound tight, vibrating like a live wire snapped in half as Jason continues eating you out.

He’s using his tongue with a terrifying level of focus, swirling, flicking, and then applying the flat of it all over your slit, before his lips lock around your clit and suck, ever so gently. It makes your heels dig into the futon and your hands find his hair, pulling him closer even as you try to escape the sheer intensity of it.

“Jay—please,” you gasp, the words breaking apart as he finds that one specific spot that makes you see stars and keeps abusing it with his tongue. 

He doesn’t stop. If anything, he gets more aggressive with it, his hands sliding under your glutes to tilt you further up, until you’re bent upwards, meeting every one of his wet laps with a desperate tilt of your hips. 

The friction is perfect, agonizingly so. It’s a building pressure behind your ribs, a tightening in your stomach that feels like a spring being coiled tighter and tighter until something has to snap.

“Baby…Look at me,” he pleads against your skin, eyes all soft when he pulls back for air, his voice muffled as he leaves open mother kisses all over your pussy, then some smaller, more focused in your clit. His tongue is darting out to place small kitten licks on your sensitive bundle of nerves.

His hand plucks one of yours away from his hair and comes to interlace with it onto your stomach tenderly.

You force your eyes open, your breath coming in short hitches. You see the top of his head, his dark hair messy and wild between your fingers, and the way his broad shoulders are bunched with the effort of holding himself back. The dimples on his biceps flex when his palms force your legs open, so he can keep licking, keep sucking.

Then, he does it. He uses his thumb to pin your clit in place while his tongue sweeps over it in long, firm strokes.

That’s it for you.

Your world narrows down to a single, blinding white light. You cry out, a raw, high pitched sound that is lost in the crackle of the wood, as the first wave of your orgasm slams into you. 

Your walls clench desperately around nothing, pulsing in a frantic rhythm that matches the thumping of your heart. Jason doesn’t pull away; he drinks in every shutter, every twitch of your thighs, his own breathing ragged and harsh.

He stays there, giving your clit small and pointed licks and tiny kisses until the last of the tremors fade into a heavy, boneless warmth.

You’re floating, your limbs feeling like lead, your chest heaving as you try to remember how to breathe. Jason finally lifts his head, his chin, dripping, slick with your juices and cheeks red, looking like he’s just survived a fight.

He doesn't give you a second to recover, however.

He crawls up your body, his skin sliding against yours in a delicious, heavy drag of heat. He hovers over you, bracing his weight on his forearms, his eyes dark with a hunger that hasn't been even slightly sated by your release.

“Love it when you come on my tongue. Oh shiiit.” he rasps, his voice a ruined growl.

He reaches down, guiding his hand across his length, giving it a few twisted jerks before lining it up to your entrance—still wet and sensitive from his tongue—and pushes inside.

He goes slow at first, catching all your wetness with the fat tip of his cock, letting you stretch and flutter around him, a guttural moan escaping his throat as he feels how tight you still are, how much you're still humming from your climax.

He sinks in until he’s buried to the hilt and you’re molded perfectly to shape of his dick, his forehead dropping to yours as he just breathes you in for a second, his heart hammering against your chest.

Your pussy clenches desperately around him, sopping all around his entire length.

“God, you’re… you’re perfect,” he murmurs.

His hips begin slow; a soul-crushing grind that tells you the real ‘floor time’ you so desperately wanted, has only just begun.

The hardwood floor groans beneath the futon, a rhythmic creak that underscores every heavy thrust Jason makes to drill into you. 

He isn't rushing either; he’s taking his sweet time and up all the space you gave him, fucking you with a slow, agonizing friction that feels like it’s peeling back every intimate layer of you.

The heat from the fireplace is a constant presence against your side, scorching you with kisses of fire’s warmth, but it’s still nothing compared to the furnace of Jason’s skin and the pace of his hips. 

He’s solid, crushing weight above you, his arm muscles roping and snapping under your touch as he anchors himself. His hands find yours, lacing your fingers together and pinning them to the floor beside your head. Because he has to, and because he wants to feel the way your knuckles knock against the wood when he hits the right depth inside you. When he hits all the spots that make your eyes roll back.

“Floor’s too hard, huh?” he grunts, his jaw tight as he pulls back almost entirely before sinking in again, faster this time, hips stuttering with bullet like strength. The friction is excruciatingly good and you’re feeling so full that your eyes water.

The way he’s picking up the pace makes your toes curl into the folds of the throw blanket before you wrap them around his waist to guide him into you further.

You remember to shake your head in response to him, your hair fanning out across the futon like a halo. “Don't... don't stop. Go harder. Jason puhleasee.”

“Wasn't plannin' on it,” he breaths out, a jagged, broken sound.

He shifts his angle, his hips tilting for his cock to catch that spongy spot his fingers had already teased into a raw, pulsing ache.

The impact sends a jolt through you that feels like a spark from the fire—sharp, hot, and impossible to ignore. Every time his weight comes down so he can fuck his mushroom tip inside you, the futon dips, your skin slaps frantically and the shadows of your joined bodies dance wildly against the ceiling in the orange glow.

He starts to pick up the pave even more, the movements turning from a grind into something more urgent, even more primal. The sound of his thighs slapping against your ass is wet and rhythmic, a counterpoint to the messy mewls you’re making into the crook of his neck or into his mouth.

It’s a sticky mess, really. Spit everywhere, your thighs and his coated with your sleek.

Jason’s breathing is a series of harsh hitches now. He’s already losing that "hard-edged" control he prides himself on on his best days, his movements becoming less calculated and even more desperate to chase his own release. He buries his face in the space between your neck and shoulder, his teeth grazing your skin in a way that’s just shy of a bite.

“You’re so wet,” he mutters, the words nearly lost to the friction. “So damn wet for me. I keep sliding out.”

It’s like he’s going insane afterwards; he’s kissing you one second and the other he’s got a nipple in his mouth to lick and suck onto, and the next one he’s biting down the flesh of your chest, like he could chomp a piece of you and eat you.

In a frenzy of touches, he releases your hands, his palms sliding down to grip the edges of the futon, his arms caging you in as he drives into you with everything he has. The floor vibrates and creaks with the force of it, a dull thudding that resonates in your very bones. 

It’s messy, it’s loud, and it’s perfectly, quintessentially him—taking the rough, unyielding reality of the world and turning it into something that belongs only to the two of you.

Suddenly you are so glad the two of you came to this random safehouse of his in the middle of the snowy woods for Christmas. You get to have him all to yourself like this, anywhere, anytime.

Just the two of you and no one else, trying to swallow each other’s tongues.

Only the fire can hear your squealing moans tonight, and if you made a hole through the floor right now with the force Jason is fucking into you, it wouldn't even matter.

You’d love it, even in the afterglow.

Just the thought of it makes you even wetter.

Jason’s movements slowly lose their drilling edge, replaced by a desperate series of bucks that tell you he’s right on the brink of coming too.

His pace slows down, a fraction of what it was before, his face pulling away from yours so he can look at you with those lust blown green eyes. His hips buck upwards, hitting the spot that makes you lose it—

“Yeah, that’s right,” he tries to say, though he slurs his words out of gritted teeth and hisses of pleasure “yeah baby I’ll give it to you slow, shh—fuck—I gotchu.”

His fingers dig into the padding of the futon, then your hips, just to make you match his own rhythm, knuckles white. He drives into you with bruising force that it doesn’t even matter if he’s been pretending to go slow.

You’re both spent, moving with hurried twitches, chasing each other’s release; you by locking your feet behind Jason’s ass and forcing him to be rougher, maybe a little faster too since his pace is downright torture. Him by slamming your hips into his while his hands leave bruises on you.

Every swallow thrust is pure collision, a shatter wreck of skin and friction. You can feel the tension coiling in his thighs as they go taut, the way his entire body has gone rigid like a bowstring about to snap.

“Baby,” he chokes out, his voice completely shredded and high pitched. He lifts his head, and for a second, the mask of lust is totally gone.

His eyes are blown wide, dark and vulnerable and so glossy, searching yours for that one final bit of permission to let go. His lips are parted perfectly, with that beautiful crease down the middle of the bottom one, his jawline sharp as the light hits him. “Look at me—can I come inside? Y’r pussy feels like heaven.”

You wrap your legs tighter around him, pulling him in, your heels hooking into the small of his back to bridge the last microscopic gap between you. His fucking stutters in a white-hot roar now, eclipsing the crackle of the wood, a building pressure that demands everything you have left in you to give him.

“Dun’ wanna pull out.”

“Fuck yeah, Jas—Jason,” you sob against his lips. “Make ah—a mess.”

He lets out a sound that is half-growl, half-shatter. His hips jerk in a final, deep surge, burying himself to the hilt as his own climax slams into him. He goes still, his head falling back, the cords of his neck standing out in sharp relief under the firelight. You’re right there with him, your body clenching around him in a frantic pulsing that feels like it’s shaking your very soul loose, your inner walls are painted in streaks of white, hot cum, and he bucks his hips devastatingly into yours so he can fuck his own release even deeper into you.

For a long, suspended moment, the only sound in the room is the overlapping gasps of two spent bodies who have run out of all air.

Jason collapses forward, his weight pinning you deep into the futon, his heart thundering against your ribs like a captured drum. 

He’s truly shaking; his forehead pressed into the crook of your neck as he tries to regulate a breath that still won’t come. He feels massive, heavy and so very tender in your arms. You coo into him too, wrapping your arms completely around his back to pull him in closer into you.

He can’t suffocate you if you’ve already run out of breath, but even if he did, you’d adore him still.

Slowly, the world starts to bleed back in again; the smell of woodsmoke, the fading warmth of the embers, and the dull ache of the floorboards on your back that Jason warned you about earlier.

Jason makes a low, tired noise in his throat—a sound of pure contentment—and nuzzles his nose into your skin, his hair, damp with beads of sweat sticking to your temple.

“Told you,” he murmurs, his voice a gravelly ghost of itself. “Floor time... dangerous.”

You let out a weak, shaky laugh, your fingers tracing the dip of his spine. “Shut up, Jason.”

“Make me,” he huffs against your lips, sucking your bottom one into his mouth, but he doesn't move. He just settles deeper into you, his arm wrapping around your waist to anchor you both to the spot, right there in the glow of the fireplace.

You feel him harden up inside you again and oh fuck— it’s time to have him on his back.

You’re gonna show him just how bad hardwood is for his back.

~All rights reserved: @/strawberry-nugget, 2025. Please do not copy, over write or steal my work //

A/N: hiii, merry Christmas everyone! This is my gift for all of you, I know it took me so long to get this out but work is kicking my butt. Also this is SO self indulgent, im so sorry I just need him like this right now😭

Taglist: @starfiremylove @vanillacici

Likes and reblogs are so appreciated but if you you liked this you can let me know in the comments <3

To say Jason was pissed didn’t even begin to cover it. The anger sat low and molten in his chest, a constant burn he couldn’t shake no matter how carefully he replayed the night in his head.

The mission was supposed to be nothing. A quick, forgettable errand before something that actually mattered. Before you. He’d timed it down to the minute, even swallowed his pride long enough to loop Bruce in, asking—reluctantly, irritably—for advice on evidence collection. In and out. Clean. Efficient. Four hours, max.

He’d planned it like a promise.

Seven o’clock: cuffs, charges, done.

Eight: showered, blood washed from his hands, the city scrubbed off his skin.

Nine: knocking on your door, pretending he hadn’t been counting down the hours since morning.

Damian hadn’t factored into any of it.

That was the problem.

Jason could have handled anyone else. He always did. Dick would’ve laughed it off later, bruised and dramatic. Tim would’ve brushed past it with that tight little smile, already turning the pain into data, into something useful he could throw back at Jason. Jason could’ve dumped either of them back at the warhouse—bloody, scowling, alive—and walked away without looking back.

But Damian—

Damian is a kid.

And that truth claws at him now, sharp and relentless. Because this time, the weight doesn’t slide off his shoulders. It settles. It presses down until his ribs ache with it. A kid got hurt, and Jason was there, and suddenly the mission isn’t clean anymore. It isn’t forgettable. It follows him, sticky and stubborn, refusing to wash away.

He drags a hand over his face, exhales hard through his teeth, and thinks of you—how he was supposed to be with you right now, how you were supposed to be the thing that grounded him at the end of the night.

Instead, he’s left standing in the wreckage, anger curdling into something uglier.

Guilt.

And Jason hates that most of all.

And now he’s fumbling with his cracked phone, thumb slipping against the spiderwebbed glass as Damian Wayne clings to his back, breath coming shorter, rougher by the second. The kid’s forehead presses into Jason’s shoulder, voice thin and stubborn even as his grip tightens.

“Not the manor,” Damian mutters. Again. Like a plea. Like a command. “Not the manor.”

Jason clenches his jaw.

He wants to grab the kid by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. Wants to sit him down, shove him into a metaphorical time-out until he’s Bruce’s age and then go find Bruce himself and shove him into the same corner for good measure. Wants to scream about contingency plans and backup and the fact that he thought he agreed that children should not be bleeding in alleyways while pretending they’re indestructible. How the fuck did he get past the security system?

Instead, he exhales sharply through his nose.

“Screw you,” Jason huffs, shifting his grip, hooking his arms under Damian’s knees and hauling him higher, more secure against his back. The kid’s weight settles there—too light, too fragile for someone who carries a sword like it’s an extension of his spine. “You’re going home. Fuck—do you know how much trouble you’re in, kid?”

Damian doesn’t answer. Just breathes. Too fast. Too shallow.

The night bites at them, cold even by Gotham’s standards. An ugly, cutting wind snakes through the alley, carrying smog thick enough to taste, clinging to the back of Jason’s throat. The city feels especially mean tonight, all sharp edges and dim lights, like it’s watching to see what breaks first.

They’re wedged between a burger joint and a narrow antique shop—the kind that smells like dust and old paper and forgotten things. Jason recognizes it with a jolt of something unwanted. One of the places you dragged him into after a date night once, all soft laughter and teasing commentary about cursed objects and ugly lamps. He shoves the memory away before it can root itself.

Now he’s crouched between two dented dumpsters, knees protesting, Damian pressed against his back, and his phone trembling slightly in his hand. The screen flickers when he taps it, the crack splitting light in the worst possible way.

Jason swallows, anger buzzing beneath his skin, tangled tight with fear he refuses to name.

He doesn’t drop Damian.

He never would.

But God—he’s going to have words for Bruce.There are no trackers. Not on either of them. Nothing Oracle can latch onto, no quiet safety net humming in the background. For one, Barbara was never looped in—this wasn’t supposed to be that kind of mission. For another, Jason and Damian had both taken the same unspoken ‘precaution’, stripping themselves clean of anything the family could use to find them.

Independence, they’d called it. Control.

Now it just feels like a mistake.

“Your either going to B or you’re going to Dick,” Jason hisses, the words sharp as he adjusts his footing. The stench of stagnant alley water crawls up his nose, mixing with the copper tang of Damian’s blood until it makes his stomach roll.

“No— no, no, Dick.” Damian’s protest is weaker than it was about Bruce, but the conviction is still there, stubborn even as his voice slips, fraying at the edges.

Jason stops short. “What the fuck is your problem now?”

“Father will know,” Damian coughs, the sound wet and wrong. “If I go to Dick.”

The words land heavier than Jason expects.

He tightens his grip without thinking, fingers curling beneath Damian’s knees, anchoring him there. Of course Bruce would know. Of course it would get back to him, echo through the manor halls, sharpened into disappointment and anger and whatever passes for concern in that family.

Jason exhales through his teeth, staring down at the glowing fracture in his phone screen.

Great.

Jason is two seconds away from popping a blood vessel.

From yelling at the kid that this is his own damn fault for following him in the first place. From telling him he’s dragging him—by the ankle if he has to—straight to Dick and Kori’s apartment whether he likes it or not. From letting the fear burn off into something loud and ugly and easier to carry.

And then—

“Father will be angry.”

Damian’s voice comes out small. Not sharp. Not defiant. Just… thin. Frayed.

“I— not today,” he whispers, breath hitching. “Just— just leave me here. I’ll find a drugstore in the morning and—”

Whatever argument Damian is trying to build collapses before it reaches Jason. The words blur together, fading into static.

Father will be angry.

Jason freezes. Because that’s it, isn’t it? Not the pain. Not the blood soaking through Damian’s clothes. Not the fact that his breathing is still wrong, still too shallow. It’s that disappointment—Bruce’s particular brand of it, sharp-edged and suffocating, wrapped in concern that feels a lot like judgment.

The kid would rather bleed out in an alley than face it

Jason swallows hard, throat tight, hands curling reflexively where they hold Damian in place. The anger drains out of him all at once, leaving something heavier behind.

Yeah, he thinks grimly.

Yeah. He would too.

And that realization settles deep in his chest, ugly and familiar, as the city hums on around them like it doesn’t care at all.

Damian’s argument cuts off abruptly when Jason lets out a long, frustrated groan, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Fuck—my phone’s broken,” he mutters, staring at the shattered screen like it personally betrayed him. “Couldn’t—god, you’re fucking annoying. I can’t even take you to Dick if I wanted to.”

The lie stutters where it leaves his mouth, uneven and rushed, but Damian’s already too far gone to catch it. His weight slumps heavier against Jason’s back, breath hitching once, twice.

“You better be—” Jason swallows, jaw tightening. “Fuck. You better not say a damn word to her. You got that?”

There’s no answer.

Damian goes limp, consciousness slipping away before the warning can reach him. Jason feels it immediately—the shift, the sudden dead weight—and his heart kicks hard against his ribs.

“Shit,” he breathes, softer now.

The alley feels colder. Narrower. Like it’s closing in.

Jason shifts his grip, careful now, but every movement sets fire through his muscles, tendon and bone screaming in protest. The anger is gone, replaced by something sharper, something primal—a protective rage that doesn’t care about pride, or rules, or consequences. Only survival.

He hauls himself up the side of the antique shop, scraping against rough brick, the ache in his left leg a screaming reminder of the bullet that tore through him. Blood seeps past the torn fabric of his pants, warm and sticky against the cold bite of the night. Fantastic. Perfect. Wonderful.

A few blocks later, he reaches a rooftop and finds the water tower looming like a dead sentinel. He collapses on his side against it, letting the world tilt and sway around him. Damian is still draped across his back, pale and trembling, a thin line of blood seeping from a cut near his temple, matting strands of hair to his forehead.

Jason lowers him into his lap, careful but clumsy, hands slick with his own blood and Damian’s, pressing him against his chest to stop him from sliding off. He peels off his jacket and wraps it around the kid, ignoring the wet patches that cling like a second skin. His cape already wraps around him, but the darkness has its own weight, and Jason tucks the jacket over Damian’s small frame wherever the fabric of the cape won’t reach, shielding him from the cold—but unable to shield him from the horror still clinging to them both.

The city smells of smoke and rot tonight, alleyway blood and smog curling up through the night air. Every distant siren, every echoing footstep feels like it’s coming for them, and Jason presses his forehead against the top of Damian’s hair, whispering words he doesn’t trust to carry weight. 

Safe, he tells him. For now, you’re safe.

And yet, beneath it all, the taste of iron is on his tongue, and he knows—knows—that the night isn’t finished with them yet.

Jason pulls his phone out with hands that tremble just enough to make the cracked screen wobble under his grip. Each movement feels jagged, raw, as though the cold has leeched into his bones, sharpening every ache, every burn in his muscles. He positions the phone near his ear, thumb hovering over your name.

“Pick up… pick up… pick up…” he mumbles, each repetition ragged, desperate, a whisper swallowed by the bitter wind that curls under his helmet. The chill isn’t just outside—it snakes through the lining of his armor, seeps into his chest, into his fingers, into the taut, coiled terror of his gut.

Every second stretches, unbearable. The night presses in from all sides, black and cold and smelling faintly of iron and smoke. He can feel Damian’s small weight against him, limp and bleeding, the blood warm but thin beneath his hands, and the city hums like a predator circling, waiting.

Jason bites back a curse, pressing the phone closer, willing it to connect. Pick up, pick up, pick up.

Because if you don’t answer… he doesn’t even want to think what comes next. He has only expired antiseptic and old and opened gauze that is probably half of Damian’s age. His apartment doesn’t even have heating. It works for him but he doubts it’s what the kid needs right now.

So he breaks his rule to never contact you when he’s hurt.

The ringing stops.

“…Jason.”

Fuck. You sound mad. You should be. He was supposed to pick you up five hours ago, roses in hand, pretending the world hadn’t tired to chew him up first.

“I— I’m sorry,” he blurts, the words tumbling over each other. “I need— I can’t walk, babe—”

He hears movement immediately, fabric shifting, something clattering as you scramble to your feet. “Hey—what—where are you? Jason, what’s wrong?”

“I need blankets. Water—” His gaze drops to Damian, slack and frighteningly still in his lap, blood darkening the fabric beneath him. Jason’s voice accelerates, tripping over itself until his throat burns. “Medical supplies. A heater, maybe? There should be an outlet up—”

“Jason—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeats, the apology coming apart at the seams. “I can’t go into a drugstore like this with the kid, anyone could be there and—and they could— I don’t know—do something? I could fight back but— but I don’t want him hurt more in a tumble and I can’t just leave him here to get supplies so—”

“JASON!”

Your voice cracks through the night like a gunshot.

He jerks, yanking the phone away from his helmet, wincing as the sound rings through his skull. The city seems to pause with him—sirens distant, wind howling low, Gotham holding its breath.

“Send me your location!” you snap, sharp and steady and terrifyingly competent.

Jason swallows, chest heaving, fingers slick as they fumble across the screen. Relief hits him so hard it almost makes him dizzy. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t apologize again.

He sends it.

And then he looks back down at Damian, tightening his grip just a little, bracing himself against the water tower as the cold creeps closer—counting every second until you arrive, because right now, you’re the only thing standing between them and the night swallowing them whole.

“How—how bad is he hurt?” Your voice comes out smaller than you mean it to, fraying at the edges. “Is it—wait, is it Tim or Damian—”

There’s a pause, thin and awful, stretching just long enough for your stomach to drop.

“I need to know if I’m buying painkillers since they make adult and kid—”

“It’s Damian,” Jason exhales into the line, the sound tired and wrecked and heavy with things he isn’t saying. “It’s the kid.”

Your breath catches.

You’ve never even spoken to Damian before. Not once. He’s always been a name—sharp-edged and distant, orbiting Jason’s life like something dangerous and untouchable. Tim, at least, is familiar in passing: the accidental mall run-in, Stephanie’s laughter, Cassandra’s quiet smile, Jason trying—and failing—to tug you into a store like proximity alone might shield you from the madness of his family. Dick you met once, briefly, waiting outside Wayne Manor, polite and warm and watching Jason like he was something fragile.

But Damian—

Damian is a child you don’t know, bleeding somewhere in Gotham’s dark, clutched in Jason’s arms.

“Oh,” you whisper, the word hollow. “Okay.”

You don’t ask why. You don’t ask how this happened. There will be time for that later—when the night isn’t pressing in, when no one’s breath is shallow and wrong.

“Stay with him,” you say instead, steadier now, resolve snapping into place like a blade locking open. “Don’t let him fall asleep if you can help it. I’m on my way.”

Jason closes his eyes at that, forehead tipping briefly against the cool metal of the water tower. The city groans beneath them, sounds of people bleeding into the distance, but your voice cuts through it all—real, solid, terrifying in its calm.

“He’s already unconscious,” Jason says, voice flat, distant, like he’s reading it off a report instead of holding a bleeding kid together with sheer stubbornness. “But he won’t die. Won’t have any major injuries either.”

There’s a beat of silence on the line.

“…Jason,” you hiss, sharp and furious, and for a second he thinks—dimly—that if laughing wouldn’t crack his ribs clean through, he might’ve tried.

“Honey,” he answers instead, soft and stupid and dopey, because his head feels like it’s splitting open and the world keeps tilting sideways.

And somehow—somehow—you still melt at that. He can hear it in the way your breath stutters, the way the anger doesn’t quite stick. Maybe that means he’s not a lost cause yet.

“…How bad are you?”

Jason drops his gaze to his leg. To the two bullet wounds, ugly and swollen. To the slash at his knee, raw and half-congealed. He’s still using that leg to brace Damian in his lap, muscles screaming every second he asks them to hold.

“I’m okay.”

“Jason.”

He hears it then—the click of a car door, the rush of movement, your breathing going too fast, too tight. For a second, the thought of your fear scares him more than the blood.

“I’ll be okay,” he repeats, quieter now. He sets the phone down beside him and fumbles with the clasps of his helmet, fingers clumsy and slick. When it comes free, the Gotham night slams into his skin, cold and wet and real. He hesitates only a second before lowering it over Damian’s head instead—too big, swallowing his small face whole, ridiculous and wrong and necessary all at once if it means shielding him from the cold slightly better then the kid’s hood could do.

“I just need ya to kiss the boo-boo,” he adds weakly, because deflection is easier than admitting how bad it hurts.

“I hate you,” you say, exasperation thick in your voice, edged with fear.

Jason smiles.

Then winces immediately, sharp pain blooming across his mouth. He lifts a hand, comes away with red. Ah. Right. Of course.

“Give me twenty,” you snap, and now he can hear the engine, the unmistakable sound of you driving like the city owes you something. “We are not doing this on a rooftop. Stay on the line.”

Jason leans back against the water tower, exhales slow and shaky, and tightens his hold on Damian just a fraction more.

Twenty minutes.

He can do twenty minutes.

“What if someone breaks into the car?” he asks, the words slipping out before he can stop them. He lets his temple rest against the cool metal of the water tower, the chill seeping into his skull like a weak attempt at relief.

“You have a gun,” your voice cuts back immediately, sharp and unyielding. “Use it.”

The blunt certainty in your tone lands harder than reassurance ever could.

Jason huffs out something like a laugh, breath scraping. Yeah. Right. Of course he does. He adjusts his grip on Damian, fingers tightening reflexively.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, eyes sliding shut for half a second. “Yeah. I know.”

The city groans beneath them, distant and uncaring, but your voice stays in his ear—firm, present, real—keeping him upright when his body is more than ready to fold.

“Mm… sorry about our date,” he murmurs after a moment, the words slow and slurred at the edges, half apology, half anchor—something to keep himself awake, to keep the dark from creeping in too close.

“You should be,” you answer after a beat. Softer now. The edge dulled, worn down by worry.

“I— I’ll take you to the botanical garden?” he offers, grasping for normalcy like it’s a lifeline.

There’s a pause.

“The last one you took me to, they had litteral poison ivy next to the lilies because the tulips died and that was all they had.”

“She was hiding from Catwoman,” Jason says, forcing the joke out past the ache in his jaw, past the copper taste pooling in his mouth. “G-Get it? Cuz Poison Ivy? You know the villain and…cats and…”

“Jason.”

The joke doesn't land.

“Babe…” he starts, slow and heavy, like each syllable has to be dragged up from somewhere deep in his chest. “I— I think I’m gonna take a nap, okay?”

“Jason—” Your voice cuts in immediately, sharp now, edged with panic. “Hey—no. Stay awake.”

“Just… just a quick one,” he murmurs, eyelids fluttering despite himself. The city feels distant, muffled, like he’s sinking underwater with every breath. Damian’s weight in his lap is warm and real, but even that is starting to blur at the edges.

“Jason?” you say again, louder this time. “Hey—Jason!”

He tries to answer. He really does. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. His tongue feels thick, useless. His head slips further against the cold metal, the chill no longer biting—just dull, just quiet.

“Jason!” you shout, his name breaking over the line, fractured and scared.

The phone slips slightly against the rooftop concrete, your voice echoing tinny and distorted through the speaker as the night closes in. Jason exhales, long and shallow, and lets his eyes fall shut—not because he wants to, but because his body finally stops asking his permission.

–

Your fingers are brushing blood from his brow by the time Jason drifts back into something like awareness. Consciousness comes in pieces—warmth first, then sound, then the steady hum of an engine fighting the cold. His body aches in places he hasn’t catalogued yet, but he’s not on a rooftop anymore.

That’s something.

The car is parked crooked in some narrow alley, illegally close to a dumpster, the heater blasting like it’s trying to resurrect him through sheer spite. The passenger seat is laid all the way back, giving him just enough room to exist without hurting worse. Every breath fogs faintly in the air before the heat catches up.

Damian is in the back seat.

Jason’s eyes slide toward him slowly. The kid’s bundled in lightweight throw blankets—yours, he realizes dimly—the kind that usually live folded over the arm of your couch. Clean bandages peek out where blood used to be. You must’ve patched him up somewhere in the blur between panic and movement, hands steady even when your heart clearly wasn’t.

The back seat light is on. Just one.

It casts a soft glow over your face, turns your eyes glassy, makes your skin look unreal and warm in the dim car. Jason smiles, stupid and unguarded, because even through half-lidded vision and a pounding skull, you look perfect.

“Prince Charming saved me,” he murmurs.

You sniff.

It’s small. Broken.

Oh.

You’re crying.

Jason’s brows knit together slowly as he notices the way your hand shakes, the way you dab gently at the corner of his mouth, wiping away blood like it offends you personally. Your thumb trembles, betraying everything you’ve been holding in since you heard his voice crack through the phone.

“Idiot,” you whisper, voice thick.

Jason exhales something close to a laugh, then thinks better of it. He reaches—slow, clumsy—and lets his fingers curl weakly around your wrist, grounding himself there.

“Hey,” he mutters, softer now. “I’m okay. You're okay.”

It’s a lie.

But you’re here. Damian’s breathing. The heater’s on. And for the first time tonight, the fear loosens its grip just enough for him to stay awake.

“He’s so tiny,” you whisper, the words barely louder than the hum of the engine. The alley presses in around the car—brick walls slick with old rain, shadows pooling thick and oily where the streetlight can’t quite reach. Somewhere nearby, water drips steadily, each plink echoing like a countdown. “Who would do that to a baby?”

Jason doesn’t respond how that ‘baby’ almost put those men six feet under if they even landed one hit. Torture to the line of honoring Bruce’s wishes to not kill. That honoring of Bruce’s wish is the only reason that ‘baby’ is passed out right now.

“He’s okay,” Jason says softly instead. His head rings like it’s been struck with a bell, sound warping at the edges. He shifts slightly and pain lances up his leg, bright and nauseating. The bandages you wrapped are already blooming dark again—blood seeping through in slow, stubborn stains. Beneath them, his flesh aches where bullets tore through muscle, where you dug metal out with shaking hands and grim determination. There’s a deep, angry slash at his knee too, stitched tight but swollen and raw, skin pulled red and uneven like it might split if he moves wrong. Much better stitching than he’s ever done on himself.

Jason glances down, jaw tightening. “You got the bullets out,” he murmurs, half impressed, half stunned. “Didn’t think you’d be so good at that.”

“I’m dating you,” you say quietly. “Gotta be.”

Your voice sounds scraped raw, like the alley itself has clawed at it. Jason’s chest tightens when he realizes—again—that you’ve been crying this whole time. Not loud. Not hysterical. Just silently falling apart while you worked, while the dark watched.

“…He’s patched up fully?” Jason squints as a flicker from outside—the passing headlights of some distant car—cuts through the windshield, making his skull throb. The alley smells like rust, oil, and old blood that doesn’t belong to him, it seeps into the car even as your car freshener tries to fight it. “How long was I out?”

You swallow. The sound is loud in the confined space.

“An hour and forty-two minutes,” you say softly.

The number settles between you like something alive.

Jason exhales, slow and shaky, the sound rattling in his chest. Too long. Long enough for the alley to feel like it could have swallowed all three of you whole. Long enough for the blood to cool and the fear to sink its teeth in.

Said exact enough that he knows he’s going to owe you for a life time.

“Do you need help with him?” Jason asks gently.

You shake your head on instinct, shoulders tightening, but Jason is already moving—gritting through it as he forces his body to turn, muscles screaming, wounds pulling wet and hot beneath the bandages.

“Jason, I said no—”

“I’m here,” he cuts in, voice low, deliberate, stripped of humor. He’s breathing harder now, jaw clenched, but his tone stays careful, steady. “I can help. Just tell me what to do.”

You stare at him.

The car feels impossibly small, the alley outside pressing close like it’s listening. The heater rattles softly, fighting the cold that seeps in through rusted metal and cracked seals. Somewhere beyond the brick walls, something skitters loudly—rats, maybe. Or just the city settling around its secrets.

Your eyes shine in the dim backseat light, tears gathered but not falling, and Jason hates that look more than any gunshot wound. He’d take another bullet before seeing it again.

Your gaze shifts—not to him, but to Damian. Like the kid is safer to talk to. Like if you speak toward him, your voice won’t break.

“…I patched him up as best as I could,” you say quietly. “It was… a lot of blood loss.” Your throat tightens. “He has a fever. We—I need to buy medicine. I didn’t go to the drugstore. Once you passed out, I just… I came straight to your location, so—”

Jason nods once, rough and immediate, cutting you off before the guilt can finish forming.

“I’ll go.”

The words are simple. Certain.

Your body snaps toward him so fast it’s almost violent. Fear flashes across your face, sharp and immediate, like you’ve just watched him step back toward a cliff’s edge. Jason can feel blood sliding warm down his leg again where the bandage’s loosened, can feel the deep ache in his ribs grinding with every breath—but none of that matters.

He’s already reaching for the door.

“Are you an idiot?!”

Your hands snap up to grab his shoulders before you can stop yourself, and Jason lets out a sharp groan, pain flaring bright and nauseating. Immediately, you recoil—hands flying away like you’ve been burned—only to settle again at his sides, grip gentler now but no less firm.

“You can barely walk,” you hiss.

“I’ll be fine,” Jason grunts, breath hitching as he steadies himself. “The kid— the damn brat needs the fever gone by morning or B is gonna—”

“I will kill Bruce Wayne myself if he is the reason you’re getting up right now,” you snap, voice low and lethal as you tug uselessly at him.

Jason actually pauses at that.

Raises a brow. Even now. Even bleeding.

“You think you can kill Bruce Wayne?”

“I have two of his bleeding sons hostage,” you say plainly, pinching hard at his side until he jerks and lets out a small, involuntary, “Ouch—!” “What do you think?”

Despite everything, something like a breathy laugh escapes him—cuts off immediately when his ribs protest.

“Look—” Jason starts, slower now, choosing his words carefully. “The… the kid doesn’t want Bruce to be mad at him.” His jaw tightens. “So it’s best we at least try to get him back to something normal by tomorrow morning. So B doesn’t notice.”

The alley outside seems to lean closer at that, darkness pressing against the windows like it’s listening. Damian shifts faintly in the back seat, blankets rustling, a small sound slipping from his throat.

Jason’s hand curls against the door frame, knuckles white. Blood seeps again through the bandage at his thigh, slow and inevitable, but his eyes stay fixed on Damian in the rearview mirror.

“This isn’t about me,” he adds quietly, glancing back at you. “I…I don't want the kid to be scared to go home.”

“You—” You start, then stop, exhaling hard through your nose. Because this is how all of Jason’s worst ideas are born—not from recklessness, but from care twisted into something self-sacrificial and stupid. You still try, though. You always do. “Why can’t I go?”

Jason’s smile is stiff, pulled tight at the edges like it hurts to hold. “Babe, I— I’d rather have you in a locked car where you’re safe,” he says gently. “Not out in Gotham at three in the morning.”

You scoff, sharp and disbelieving. “I can protect myself. I dragged you and Damian off a fucking water tower.”

“I know…” Jason murmurs, nodding even though the motion makes his face pinch, pain flaring behind his eyes. “But that was when I was unconscious.” He pauses, breath shallow. “And I wasn’t able to worry about you.”

The words settle heavy between you.

Outside, the alley exhales—trash shifting, a distant siren wailing and then cutting off too abruptly. The shadows beyond the windshield feel thick, hungry. Gotham at its most honest.

Jason looks at you then. Really looks. Like he’s committing your face to memory in case this is the last quiet moment he gets. His voice drops, rough around the edges.

“If something happened to you while I was awake,” Jason continues, slowly, like he thinks it sounds stupid but says anyways. “I wouldn’t survive it.”

Not the night. Not the guilt. Not himself.

The heater hums on, Damian breathes softly in the back seat, fevered and alive. You stare at Jason, jaw tight, eyes shining again despite your best efforts.

He reaches for one of the guns you left on the driver’s seat—careful, deliberate, like his hands don’t entirely trust themselves anymore. The keys are still in the ignition. You’re in the back seat. Another reason he doesn’t exactly trust you loose in Gotham at two in the morning, because what the fuck, babe. Yeah—leave guns in a car with the key in and drivers seat empty.

Jason moves slowly, almost hunched as he opens the door, the cold knifing in immediately. His leg protests viciously when he puts weight on it, blood tugging warm and sticky beneath the bandage. Jason locks his jaw, breathes through his teeth, and forces himself upright anyway.

Before he closes the door, he turns his head just enough to look back at you. His neck is stiff, movement jerky—like it still remembers the way it hung uselessly while he was out cold.

“Just medicine?” he asks, voice low, roughened by pain and exhaustion.

“And more gauze if you can,” you reply softly. You don’t raise your voice. You don’t rush him. Like you’re afraid sudden sound might shatter him. “And get a change of clothes if they have any… I know that store. It’s full of random shit.” A beat. “Buy some soup from the 24/7 place next to it.”

Jason nods once, committing the list to memory. Antibiotics. Fever reducers. Gauze. Clothes. Soup. Simple things. Normal things. Things that feel unreal against the blood still crusted under his nails.

“I’ll be quick,” he says, though neither of you believe it.

The door closes with a soft, final thud. The lock clicks.

You watch through the window as he limps away into the alley, silhouette swallowed piece by piece by shadow. The brick walls loom tall and damp, graffiti bleeding into darkness, trash bags shifting in the wind like something breathing. A flickering streetlight buzzes overhead, casting Jason in and out of existence as he goes.

He keeps one hand near the gun. Keeps the other tight against his side, pressing where it hurts the worst.

Behind you, Damian stirs faintly, fevered breath fogging the blanket.

Ahead of you, Gotham opens its mouth.

And Jason steps into it anyway.

You watch him disappear into the alley, figure swallowed by shadow, then slowly shift your gaze to Damian’s sleeping form. His chest rises and falls unevenly, breaths shallow and rattled. You murmur softly, almost to yourself, “I guess it’s just you and me now, huh, bud? This wasn’t exactly how I thought I’d meet you.”

The boy stirs, a faint twitch in his head, eyelids flickering, as if the pain in his sleep is clawing at him from the inside. You let out a quiet sigh and reach to lower the window, the cold biting your fingers even through the glove. Carefully, you lift Damian’s small body, resting his head outside the frame. His brow scrunches at the chill, but your hands move quickly, smoothing and adjusting, trying to steal comfort from the night itself.

You had two thermoses of hot water with you. Even cooled slightly, steam curls upward in lazy spirals as you unscrew the lid. One hand steadies the boy; the other pours, careful not to scald, letting the warmth seep into his hair. Dirt, grime, and streaks of blood run down in small rivulets, slipping through your fingers like a cruel reminder of the alley’s violence.

And for the first time all night, Damian’s shoulders sag—not fully awake, not fully conscious, but somehow lighter. Relief seeps slowly into his small form as you run your fingers through the dark strands, gentle, deliberate, trying to scrub away the horror of the night with nothing more than warmth, water, and your touch.

“You’re so tiny,” you murmur again, in the dark, for what has to be the twentieth time that night.

Because he is. So small. Too small for burns across his ribs, too small for deep slashes on his arms. Too small for the cut on his lip, the scrape on his temple, the blood matted into his dark hair.

You hope whoever did this to him is dead. If not… this might be the first time in your life you actually encourage Jason to kill.

“So stupid,” you whisper softly, letting your wet fingers brush the blood from his brow. “So small and so stupid… who do you think you’re fighting, hm? Elmo? You think Joker is Elmo?”

Your voice is ridiculous. Maternal, soft, broken—but it’s the only thing you have that feels safe.

Maybe that’s why Damian’s eyes flicker open, just barely, through the haze of steam and heat you’ve conjured around him. They’re so slight you almost don’t notice—he doesn’t look conscious, not really.

Not until a soft, hoarse whisper escapes, barely audible over the faint hiss of the water and the heater.

“…Mother?”

The word lands in your chest like a punch you didn’t expect. Small, trembling, impossibly young. And you realize your heart has been holding its breath this entire night—and now it doesn’t know how to stop.

You don’t say anything. Nothing. Words feel wrong here—clumsy and insufficient. You don’t know this boy, and he doesn’t know you. And yet… if you were ten, alone, hurt, and cold, you would have called for your mother too.

Maybe that’s why your hands move almost on instinct. You snap the thermos closed, slide the window up, and gently lower him fully onto the back seat again. Carefully, like he might shatter, you settle on the floor of the car beside him. One hand tugs the blanket higher over his small frame, the other brushing his damp hair in slow, patient circles, using Jason’s jacket to dry it.

The alley outside presses against the glass, dark and hungry, but inside, it’s quiet. Only the heater hums. Only the distant thrum of the city filters in.

“Sleep…” you murmur, voice low, soft, steady. “You’re safe.”

“It’s not my fault,” Damian mutters, voice hoarse, eyelids fluttering as he finally closes them fully again. “…M… it’s all Todd’s fault.”

“I know,” you whisper, fingers brushing lightly over his brow, gentle and deliberate. “A true idiot he is.”

He exhales slowly, a tiny weight leaving his body, like he had been bracing to defend himself from more blame than the words could carry. “…M’not sorry,” he mumbles, stubborn even in exhaustion.

You can’t help the small smile tugging at your lips. What a brat. Of course this little boy is Jason’s brother. Who else could be like this?

“Sleep,” you murmur again, voice soft as velvet, wrapping around him like the blankets, like the warmth you’ve coaxed into him, trying to shield him from the dark waiting outside the car.

“Will… will you be here when I wake up?”

The words hang in the air, soft and fragile, and before you can even start to answer, Damian is asleep again—his breathing shallow but steady, chest rising and falling beneath the blanket.

You let yourself focus on something else, anything else, and continue to dry his hair, tracing the dark strands with the soft interior of Jason’s leather jacket. Each stroke is careful, slow, a small ritual to keep yourself from spinning.

Your arms ache from holding them, dragging them down from the roof. Your feet throb from the rush of movement, your head pounds from the fear. But your fingers can’t stop themselves, and they move over every feature like memorizing a map you’re terrified of losing.

Brows just like Jason’s, dark and expressive. The small bump along the bridge of his nose—you hesitate, heart tightening, because it’s swollen and red and he winces whenever your fingers graze it. You pray it’s not fractured, that he just took a hit there, that the world hasn’t carved him up any further.

His lashes are impossibly long, dark and silky, catching the dim glow of the backseat light in a way that makes you pinch your own face in envy, just like you do with Jason’s.

You trace every line that belongs to the love of your life—small echoes in Damian, the same stubborn, defiant, beautiful bloodline that somehow betrays the laws of adoption—because it’s the only thing keeping your body still, keeping you from spinning apart while you wait, counting the seconds until Jason comes back through the alley, bruised, bleeding, alive.

And you’re crying again after five minutes of silence.

Because your life is never this quiet. Not like this. No sirens bleeding through the walls, no voice in your ear, no weight shifting beside you. Just the low hum of the heater and the soft, fevered rhythm of a child’s breathing. Maybe the tears are your body’s way of filling the space—something small and controlled, something only you can hear. You keep them silent, careful, so gentle that Damian doesn’t even stir.

You’re not scared.

That surprises you, a little.

You knew what you were signing up for the moment you watched Jason fire a gun with such effortless precision it was almost disarming. The ease of it. The familiarity. The way violence sat on him like a second skin he never bothered to shrug off for you—only softened, reshaped, made gentler where he could.

You knew this life came with blood. With nights like this. With waiting.

So you cry anyway. Quietly. Practiced. Letting it leak out without letting it take you apart. Your fingers keep tracing Damian’s features, grounding yourself in something real and warm and breathing, while the alley presses close outside the car and Gotham holds its breath with you.

You wipe your face with the back of your hand, inhale slowly, and stay right where you are.

Waiting.

There’s a sharp knock on the window about twenty minutes later. You jump, heart hammering, and almost fly off the floor when you see Jason standing there, smiling stiffly despite the blood, sweat, and grime clinging to him. When you lean over the passenger seat, he gestures for you to open the door.

The moment you slide it open and help him inside, he crawls toward you, still unsteady, and presses a firm, grounding kiss to your forehead.

“There’s my Penelope,” he murmurs, voice rough but warm.

“I’m not waiting twenty years for your ass,” you whisper, voice cracking as he carefully wipes away the tears still streaking your cheeks. “You’re broke as fuck. At least Odysseus was a king.”

“Well…” Jason hums, brushing his lips across your cheek where he just wiped your tears, “the Gods made you stuck with me.”

You can’t help the small laugh that bubbles up through the tension and exhaustion. He’s bleeding, bruised, and exhausted beyond reason—and still somehow grounding you in the middle of the chaos, a tiny sun in a Gotham night that refuses to stay quiet.

The plastic bag full of supplies crinkles between you as you share a slow, lingering kiss, the sound pulling you both out of the moment. You break away, fumbling for the contents inside.

“Put on this hoodie,” you instruct, tossing it toward him.

Jason blinks, holding it awkwardly. “I bought this for you.”

You pause, staring at the fabric in his hands. “Baby… it’s a men’s large.”

“Is this… not the size you like?” he asks, genuinely confused.

You blink at him, letting your disbelief settle.

“You steal all of my hoodies that are this size,” he reminds you.

You snort, shaking your head. “Yeah, babe, because they’re yours. Wear it. Make it smell like you. Then I’ll wear it, hm? How about that?”

Jason opens his mouth to protest, but whatever argument he’s forming dies when he notices you reaching into the bag for the plastic container of soup. It’s not gourmet, but it’s hot and exactly what you need right now.

“Isn’t he still out?” Jason asks softly, glancing toward the back seat where Damian is bundled in your blankets and Jason’s jacket. His eyes flicker to the faint stains of blood on the fabric, and his chest tightens. Fuck. He’s going to have to buy you new ones. And a hundred more things you’ve patched together in this ridiculous, exhausting night.

“It’s not for him,” you say softly, popping open the center armrest box to fish out a packet of mild chilli oil and a tiny sesame seed packet from past fast food runs. One goes into the soup, along with the seeds for the vegetables. “I’ll make the kid real good soup at home. This? This is for you.”

Jason snorts, shaking his head, still leaning against the seatbelt. “Babe, it’s fine, I’m—”

You glare at him.

The first time all night.

Because of course. Of course you wouldn’t be mad at Jason for calling in the middle of the night, bloodied and panicked, after missing your date. Of course you wouldn’t be mad at him for passing out in the alley, forcing you to drag him and Damian down from a water tower with nothing but sheer will and a handful of blankets.

No. You’d only be mad if he refused to eat shitty soup.

“And don’t even think about saying no,” you hiss, poking him lightly with your elbow. “You will eat it. I don’t care. Otherwise, no sex for a month.”

Jason groans, but there’s a flicker of a smile, tired and bloody, as he finally takes the soup from you.

“Go to the back with Damian,” you murmur softly, eyes on the road. “I need to make sure the kid doesn’t roll off the seat—the seatbelt would hurt too much if I strapped him in.”

Jason nods, pressing a quick kiss to your temple before sliding into the backseat at the same time you crawl into the driver’s seat.

He settles carefully, broad back brushing against Damian’s small frame, right arm stretched to keep the boy from slipping, left hand cradling the soup bowl. Small sips escape his lips every now and then, careful, deliberate, like the weight of the night isn’t enough without this little ritual.

A few minutes in, Damian shifts, sliding until he’s resting fully against Jason. The older boy doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t mind. Not at all.

And then the little boy’s eyes flicker open again, hesitant, small. “Father…?”

Your hands tighten on the wheel. Heart pinching painfully, even as your eyes stay fixed on the road.

Jason, as usual, doesn’t care about shame. He leans a little closer, voice low, measured, coaxing the small flicker of life from Damian.

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Why are you here?”

“Mm… always here,” Jason replies, and you notice the subtle change—the slow, deep cadence, the careful inflection he borrows, unintentionally echoing Bruce’s tone. “M’Batman. You’re my son.”

Damian blinks once, eyes heavy but curious, and for a fleeting heartbeat, the dark Gotham streets outside fade into quiet. The backseat becomes its own small world—blood, fear, and all.

“You’re… you’re warmer today,” Damian mutters softly, his voice matching his age for once.

“Yeah,” Jason shrugs, shifting slightly so he’s closer to where Damian’s head rests. Steam rises from the soup, curling around the boy’s face. “Probably the soup.”

“Did… did Mother cook that…? Can I have some?”

Jason glances down at the soup—bought with your card, warmed in a hastily scavenged container—and then at Damian. Talia wasn’t exactly known for her cooking. He suppresses a smirk, letting the boy take a small sip from the corner of the bowl. One hand steadies Damian’s neck, careful, protective.

A sharp cough escapes Damian as a streak of chili oil hits him wrong.

Jason glances toward you, catching your hands twitching at the steering wheel like you want to jump in and help.

The sight makes him smile, quiet and fond, even as the Gotham’s shadows press close outside the windows.

By the time the apartment building comes into view, Damian has fallen completely asleep against Jason. His small body is impossibly light, yet heavy in all the wrong ways—slumped, warm, limp against the older boy’s chest.

“I’ve got him,” Jason mutters automatically as you reach the car door, moving to help.

“No,” you cut him off sharply, eyes narrowing. “You’re not carrying him yourself.”

Jason frowns, just a fraction, confusion and pride clashing. “I can—he’s not that heavy.”

“Jason,” you snap, voice firm enough to make him pause, “your leg.”

He shifts slightly, the wound at his thigh protesting sharply. He swallows, eyes flicking to Damian’s sleeping face and back to you. “I can manage—”

“Nope. I’m helping. And you’re not arguing,” you insist, sliding your arms beneath Damian’s small torso and legs, careful not to jar the boy. His head lolls slightly against your shoulder, warm and soft, hair damp and smelling faintly of the soup and Jason’s jacket.

Jason groans, rubbing the back of his neck as he steps forward to help support Damian’s upper body, but you turn away to get him off. “You’re hurt. You need to let me do this.”

He huffs, half exasperated, half defeated, and lets you take the lead.

Together, you maneuver Damian securely on you, careful not to wake him. His small hands twitch in his sleep, one brushing lightly against Jason’s chest, and you notice the way the older boy stiffens, heart twisting with worry that the kid might stir.

Once you’re inside the apartment, you guide Damian carefully to the couch, laying him down beneath fresh blankets. Jason flops onto the floor beside the couch, groaning in pain as he stretches his leg out, still leaning close to Damian.

“See?” you murmur softly, brushing a strand of damp hair from the boy’s forehead. “Much easier when you’re not trying to kill yourself doing it.”

Jason mutters something under his breath, but there’s no bite to it—just the tired resignation of someone who’s been through too much in the last few hours and knows you’re right.

Damian shifts slightly in his sleep, a soft whimper escaping him, and both of you freeze, watching, hearts tight.

It shouldn't surprise Jason, the way you rush to the little boy's side and stroke his brow to get him to calm in his sleep. But it does. Because he's never seen someone able to care for Damian that easily.

“Okay,” you say after a long, careful minute of settling Damian, “you’re filthy. You need a bath before you pass out on the couch like some injured soldier in a cheap war movie.”

Jason groans, flopping back against the wall like the weight of the night is finally catching up to him. “Im…not that stinky.”

“No arguments,” you say, voice soft but firm. “You can’t stay like this. Your hair and skin is wet with puddle water that was on that rooftop. You’re going to freeze, you smell like alley and smoke and it might help your muscles stop aching so… no. Just get in the bath.”

He drags himself to the bathroom slowly, every movement careful, deliberate, like each step reminds him of the bullet holes in his leg, the ache in his ribs.

“Dont use my bodywash.” You whisper yell before Jason closes the door.

He does use your bodywash.

—----

Damian wakes while Jason is still in the tub, the sound of water muffled behind the closed door. His eyes flutter open, heavy and slow, but a familiar scent draws his attention immediately—a faint, soft sweetness clinging in the air, like perfume he vaguely recognizes, like a memory tugging at the edges of his mind.

His lips quiver involuntarily as he forces his eyes to focus, muscles stiff from sleep and fever. And there, in the dim glow of the lamp, they land on you.

You’re asleep on the coffee table, curled slightly, a precarious stack of books tucked under you as a makeshift pillow. The blanket you’d thrown over yourself barely covers the curve of your shoulders. Every breath you take is soft, measured, steady—a quiet, human rhythm that Damian realizes he’s been holding his own breath against for hours without noticing.

Then it hits him. Dumbly, slowly, as if the world outside could wait: You’re Jason’s.

The image clicks into place like a puzzle he hadn’t known he was assembling. The photo in Jason’s wallet—one that had fallen out after a mission, grabbed by Stephanie, tossed to Tim, and then laughed at mercilessly by all of them—your face had been there. Now, here you are. Real. Alive.

Damian’s gaze drifts to the small chaos surrounding you: a newly opened package of gauze, a tiny cup of fever medicine, half-empty and sitting just beside your hand. You must have given it to him while he was asleep. Every careful, impossible movement you made to tend to him without waking him floods through Damian’s mind, and for the first time that night, his tense body relaxes a fraction.

He shifts slightly on the sofa, still bundled in blankets and Jason’s jacket, staring at you with wide, dark eyes, his small chest rising and falling unevenly.

“She’s almost as good as Alfred,” Jason’s voice cuts through the quiet, and Damian’s head snaps toward the sound despite the ache in his neck. Every muscle tenses as he listens, wary but curious.

“Patched us up in no time,” Jason continues, wet hair plastered to his forehead, a towel wrapped around his waist, another in his hands as he methodically dries his hair. The casual ease of it makes the room feel warmer somehow, less like the chaos of the alley outside.

“Does—” Damian starts, his voice small and strained, throat catching unexpectedly, raw and fragile.

“Don’t talk,” Jason interrupts softly, a quiet authority threading through his words. His gaze flickers to Damian only for a fraction of a second before he leans down, careful and deliberate, and scoops you up from the coffee table. Your body is light in his arms, limp from exhaustion, and he moves like he’s balancing both a feather and a brick at the same time.

He lays you gently on the opposite end of the sofa from Damian, tucking the blankets around you with the precision of someone who has done this a thousand times, though this is the first time it’s been you.

“No one knows what happened,” Jason murmurs, voice low, almost intimate, as he straightens. “I texted B that you’re sleeping over at Jon’s.”

Damian blinks at him, the words and the quiet authority sinking in despite the fever and fatigue. His small chest rises and falls unevenly, shoulders slackening just a fraction as Jason steps back, towel in hand, keeping watch like a silent sentinel.

“Im not going to yell at you right now.” Jason says after a moment, grabbing a throw and tucking it around you. “Ill do it in the morning.”

Damian’s brows furrow in frustration, sharp and tiny, and Jason mirrors the expression instantly, leaning into it like a seasoned older brother that he isn't.

“Damian,” he says, voice low but firm, “you scared her half to death. You’re staying until morning and thanking her at the very least.”

“I didn’t ask her to do anything,” Damian hisses back, words brittle with fever and pride. “I told you to leave me there. You didn’t listen. That’s not my fault.”

Jason blinks at him, momentarily caught between exasperation and something softer, then mutters under his breath, moving toward the kitchen. “Kid… she cried her eyes out at the sight of you. You can think it’s dumb all you want, but I’m asking you to stay until morning so she at least gets the peace of knowing you’re okay.”

Damian’s small chest rises and falls, voice cracking despite the bravado. “I didn’t say it’s dumb.”

Jason pauses mid-step, eyebrows raising in mock surprise. “Oh? Really?”

“I said you’re dumb,” Damian snaps, words sharper than intended, honesty raw and jagged, fever and frustration threading through each syllable. “You could have spared her all of this if you just left me there like I asked. I get it. You love her, but this isn’t my fault—”

“I’m not blaming you for her, Damian!” Jason blurts, voice rising to be firm but still a whisper in fear of waking you. “I didn’t bring you here because she told me to, I brought you because—…”

There’s a long moment of silence, broken only by the quiet hum of the apartment and the faint rhythm of your breathing from the coffee table. Jason exhales, hanging his head and rubbing the back of his neck, voice tired.

“I’m going to make pasta,” he mutters, more to himself than anyone else.

“I hate pasta,” Damian whispers under his breath, small, resentful, almost pained.

“I know,” Jason grumbles without turning back, the scrape of his steps fading as he moves into the kitchen.

The apartment settles into a different kind of quiet. Damian’s gaze drifts back to you, to the way you’re sleeping, curled slightly on the coffee table beneath the thin throw blanket. Every blink, every soft inhale reminds him painfully of Talia—the same warmth, the same scent clinging faintly in his memory, the same question if hes even going to be able to feel this again in a day.

His small hands fidget with the blanket around him, tightening it slightly as if to anchor himself to something solid and human. The fever still weighs him down, every movement a little sharp, a little slow, but he can’t pull his eyes from you.

You blink your eyes open softly, and Damian almost jolts, caught off guard by the sudden warmth of your gaze. With the way Todd had been barking orders and how exhausted you looked last night, Damian had been sure you wouldn’t stir for hours.

“Damian,” you murmur gently, voice low and even, carrying the weight of calm and care.

“...Hello,” he replies, voice hoarse and small, pulling the blanket closer without thinking, as if the fabric alone could shield him from the world.

You study him in that way—the way his mother used to, scanning for bruises or scratches, checking for injuries with a practiced tenderness—and it tightens something in his chest. He flinches slightly, half-expecting the sharp reprimand he deserves for getting blood on your sofa, for all the chaos he’s caused.

Instead, your voice remains soft, elegant in a way he’s only ever glimpsed in Talia during rare quiet moments.

“Would you like me to make you some soup?” you ask, each word deliberate and gentle, a soft anchor in the dim apartment.

Damian hesitates, small, fevered fingers tightening around the blanket, eyes flicking between you and the sofa cushions. Something in the way you hold yourself—steady, patient, unshakably calm—makes him feel like it’s safe to nod, safe to accept, even if it’s just a little.

“…Yes,” he whispers finally, voice barely above a breath, and you can see him relax fractionally, the tension in his shoulders easing as the promise of warmth, of care, settles around him.

⤷ series masterlist

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