Agatha

Pairing: Jason Todd x reader

Synopsis: Jason comes back from a mission bleeding and calls it a scratch. Alfred is in London, the first aid kit under the sink has seen better days, and your only medical experience is three seasons of Grey's Anatomy. You patch him up anyway, with gauze and antiseptic and Hello Kitty band-aids because that's what's left, and he sits on the kitchen table at 2 AM and lets you, which says more than either of you is going to acknowledge out loud.

Warnings: mentions of blood/injuries

divider from @vrtualseraph

The front door opens at 2:17 AM.

You know because you've been staring at your phone for the past forty minutes, unable to sleep, and the dull thud followed by a muffled curse in the hallway doesn't sound anything like Alfred doing his usual rounds.

Alfred is in London for the weekend.

You put your phone down.

"...Jason?"

Silence. Then:

"Everything's fine. Go back to sleep."

You know that tone. It's the tone of someone who is not fine at all and would rather die, literally, in his case, than admit it. You grab your hoodie off the chair and step into the hallway.

Jason Todd is leaning against the wall, still in full gear, mask pushed up on his forehead, one hand pressed against his ribs. There's blood on his glove. Not a small amount.

"What exactly does 'everything's fine' mean to you?" you ask.

"Just a scratch."

"You've got blood up to your elbow."

"It's an expressive wound."

You look at him. He looks at you. In those green eyes there's that particular mix of stubbornness and pain he carries like a second layer of armor.

"Kitchen," you say. "Now."

He sits on the kitchen table because you looked at the upholstered chair in a way that clearly meant absolutely not. The countertop lights flood the room in a cold, unflattering glow. Jason peels off his glove slowly, with the slightly stiff grace of someone whose muscles are protesting every single millimeter.

"Have you ever actually treated anyone before?" he asks, and underneath the words there's something that sounds dangerously close to hope.

"I watched three seasons of Grey's Anatomy."

"...Great."

"And I have a first aid kit."

You already grabbed it from under the sink, the one Alfred left behind with clockwork. You open it on the counter and take stock: sterile gauze, bandage rolls, regular band-aids, antiseptic solution, and buried at the very bottom, hidden under a pamphlet written in what might be Latin, a stack of pink post-its and an entire sheet of Hello Kitty band-aids.

You don't ask about the Hello Kitty band-aids. Alfred has his reasons. Alfred always has his reasons.

"Take off the top," you say.

"...Excuse me?"

You look up. Jason is staring at you with an expression somewhere between suspicion and something else you choose not to analyze at 2 AM.

"The jacket, the vest, the shirt. Everything covering the wound. I can't treat what I can't see."

A pause.

"You have absolutely no shame," he says.

"You have absolutely no minor injuries," you reply. "We're even."

The cut is long but not deep, at least you think so. You don't really have a reference point. It runs three or four centimeters along his left ribs, already clotting at the edges but still open in the middle. Jason stares straight ahead with the look of someone who has promised himself not to react no matter what happens.

"This is going to sting," you warn, opening the antiseptic.

"I've already died once. I can handle it."

"It's not a competition."

You press the soaked gauze against the cut with more care than you'd use on yourself. He doesn't flinch, but you feel the muscles in his back contract slightly, an involuntary tension that runs through his shoulder and disappears just as fast. He's good at that. Pretending nothing gets to him.

"Looks clean," you say.

"You have no idea."

"True. But it looks clean. And when in doubt, I'll go over it again."

He sighs.

You grab the bandage roll and start wrapping. Clumsily at first, too loose, then too tight, he inhales sharply and you ease back a notch , then more or less right. You don't know if it's correct. You hope it's correct. You decide it's correct.

"Hold this," you say, pressing his finger against the bandage while you look for tape to secure it.

He obeys. Without a word. It's a small miracle.

The problem is there's one more cut on his forearm, nothing serious, just dirty enough to need covering, and there are no regular band-aids left in the kit.

There are the Hello Kitty ones.

You take one. Peel it open calmly. Press it onto the cut.

Jason looks down.

Silence.

"...No," he says.

"Yes."

"Take that off."

"You need coverage. That's coverage. The fact that Hello Kitty is winking at you from it doesn't change the medical situation."

"I'm Red Hood."

"Right now you're a man sitting on my kitchen table with a pink band-aid on his arm and two more on your shin because I checked and you had stuff going on down there too. So."

He looks at his shin. Sure enough, two smiling cartoon cats are now decorating his left leg.

You didn't ask permission for those. He was practically asleep on his feet.

A sound comes out of his throat. Something hard to place. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a grunt. Something in between, in a frequency you'd never heard from him before.

"You're impossible," he says.

"You're alive," you reply. "That's what matters."

You heat up some water because Alfred would make tea and you're not Alfred but you can fake it on that one specific point. Jason takes the mug without arguing, both hands wrapped around it, and there's something slightly surreal about the whole picture, this too-tall, too-broad man in half-undone vigilante gear, drinking tea at 2:30 AM under the kitchen lights, Hello Kitty band-aids on his arm like it's the most normal thing in the world.

"You should've called someone," you say.

"I was fine."

"You were bleeding."

"That happens."

You sit across from him on the other side of the table. The tile is cold under your feet. Outside, rain has started : a light early-autumn drizzle tapping softly against the windows.

"Next time you call," you say. "Even if you think it's nothing. Even if you're sure you can handle it alone. You call."

He doesn't answer right away. He turns the mug in his hands : a habit, you've noticed, something to do with his hands when he doesn't know what to do with himself.

"You didn't have to get up," he says finally. "It wasn't your problem."

"And yet here you are with Hello Kitty band-aids and hot tea. So."

That one's clearly a smile. Small, quickly buried, but undeniable. He looks away so you won't catch it too clearly, and you pretend you didn't see it at all.

Outside, the rain keeps going. The manor is quiet. Jason Todd finishes his tea without another word, and that's enough. Alfred gets back the following evening.

He finds the first aid kit neatly put away under the sink, one bandage roll used, several gauze pads gone, and half the Hello Kitty sheet missing.

He doesn't ask.

But the next morning, a brand new sheet of Hello Kitty band-aids has appeared in the kit, next to a single post-it that reads:

Well done.

Taglist: @starrydustedwinter

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x reader

Synopsis: Cobblepot's private tier doesn't advertise. You either know about it or you don't, and if you do, you already know what it's for. The Batfamily needs someone inside. Someone who looks the part, acts the part, doesn't flinch. New money, no questions, the right kind of bored. It comes down to two people and neither of them is happy about it. So you go in as Nadia and Marcus Voss, three months married, and somewhere around night two you stop having to remind yourself to act like you mean it. That part's on Bruce. You're dealing with it.

divider from @pixopix

The file lands on the table.

Bruce says nothing for five seconds. That's his version of a preamble.

"Cobblepot." He puts his hand flat on the cover. "Eighteen months. The private tier at the Iceberg Lounge, invitation only, six figures minimum per year, has been running as a procurement network. Wealthy clients. Discreet requests. He takes a percentage and provides the infrastructure."

Nobody speaks.

You look at the network map Tim projected on the screen. The lines between the names. You know what those lines represent and you'd rather not think about it longer than necessary.

"Gotham PD tried to place someone inside three times," Tim says. "Three times the contact burned before getting close to Cobblepot."

"Because they sent cops," Jason says from his corner. "Oswald can smell a badge through a reinforced door."

"He can't smell money," Stephanie says.

Dick leans forward. "So we send him someone he wants. A couple. New money, recently relocated to Gotham, looking for..." He pauses. "Entertainment. The discreet kind. The kind his network is built to provide."

The silence that follows is the uncomfortable sort.

You catch Bruce's eye across the table.

"No," he says.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was just thinking that."

"No."

You put your pen down. "Bruce."

"No."

"It's the only angle that."

"I said no."

You look at each other. It's not the first time you've done this, this quiet standoff where you both count who's going to fold first. Usually it's him. Not always for the right reasons.

Alfred clears his throat from the far end of the cave. "If I may. The Penguin's clientele tend to share certain characteristics. A studied ease around wealth. The conviction that rules are negotiable for the right people." A pause. "You would both need to be entirely comfortable performing moral flexibility."

"I've seen Bruce at galas," you say. "He has range."

Bruce looks at you.

"That was a compliment."

"It wasn't."

"It was seventy percent a compliment."

Jason is eating something nobody offered him. "You're both going to say yes eventually, so we might as well save the time."

Bruce picks up the cover-building file.

Nobody comments on that. Except Dick, who smiles into his coffee, but he at least has the decency to look away.

The covers take forty-eight hours to build.

You're Nadia Voss. Thirty-one. Old European money, new Gotham address, recently divorced from a man twice your age who left you very well compensated and without a single explanation.

He's Marcus Voss. Forty-five. Second husband, three months in. Private equity. The kind of money that doesn't need to justify itself.

You sit on the cave floor with a notepad. Bruce is standing in front of the Iceberg Lounge floor plans. He always prefers to stand when he's thinking, you've noticed.

"We met in Monaco," you say. "Fourteen months ago."

"Fine."

"You were boring at first."

Bruce turns around slowly.

"Why am I always boring at first."

"Because it's more believable than love at first sight and it gives us something to tell." You write something down. "You were boring but persistent. Nadia was interested in the yacht, not you."

"Great."

"She came around. Gradually. People love that kind of story because they can project whatever they want onto it." You tap the pen against your knee. "If anyone asks what changed, Marcus says he's not sure exactly. That it just... settled."

Bruce is quiet for a second.

"Why wouldn't he know?"

"Because people who know exactly why they fell for someone sound fake. Real couples can't explain it cleanly." You look up. "It's a detail that lands."

He looks at you with an expression you can't entirely read.

"You've done this before," he says.

"Eighteen months undercover before I came here."

"No, I mean." He stops. "Never mind."

You write something else in the notepad. Behind you Dick says "interesting" at a volume that is absolutely not innocent, and you throw the pen at him without turning around.

The Iceberg Lounge is exactly what Cobblepot wants it to be. Cold, expensive, and beautiful in the way things are beautiful when they want you to stop asking questions.

You walk in. You feel the room recalibrate, that small collective involuntary shift when someone interesting arrives.

"Third table on the left," you murmur. "That's one of Cobblepot's managers."

"I see him."

"Don't look yet."

"I know how to not look."

"You were looking."

"I was... assessing the room layout."

You go to the bar. Bruce orders. His hand is at your back, naturally, without announcement, with the proprietary ease Marcus Voss would have and Nadia would tolerate because it's useful. It's well played. You give him that internally.

The manager clocks you in four minutes. You know because the quality of his attention shifts, it becomes targeted instead of general.

"He's coming over," you say.

"Mm."

"Be unpleasant."

"I don't need to."

"Be the specific kind of unpleasant that makes him think you're a potential client and not a threat."

Bruce picks up his glass. Surveys the room with the precise boredom of a man who has seen every room and found them all slightly beneath him. It's a good performance. Really.

"Happy?" he says.

"Genuinely impressed."

He doesn't answer but something in his posture shifts slightly. Barely. You decide not to do anything with that.

Sallow, no first name, just Sallow, the earpiece confirms it, has the professional warmth of someone whose literal job is to make dangerous conversations feel like small talk.

"First time at the Lounge?"

"First time in Gotham," you say. "We were recommended the place."

"For the cocktails, I hope."

"For something else." You let two seconds pass. "We're not really here for the cocktails."

Sallow's smile doesn't move. That's exactly what's telling about it.

"The private membership offers a more... complete experience. For guests with particular tastes."

Bruce sets his glass down. Marcus Voss looks at Sallow the way you look at someone whose time you haven't decided is worth yours yet. "We were told it was discreet."

"Completely."

"We were also told," you add, just enough boredom in your voice, "that it wasn't what we were looking for."

Sallow blinks.

"We're not looking to be serviced," you say. "We're looking to participate. There's a difference. The kind of people we'd want to meet would understand that difference immediately."

Two seconds of silence.

"I'll let Mr. Cobblepot know you're here," Sallow says.

He walks away.

Bruce exhales very quietly near your temple. "That was a risk."

"It was the right read."

"If it had."

"Look right."

Sallow is talking to a short, impeccably dressed man with a monocle. Who is already looking your way with the bright acquisitive eyes of someone who's just spotted something useful.

Bruce says nothing more about the risk.

Cobblepot is charming. Not the pleasant kind, the strategic kind, charm as a measuring tool, to see what you reflect back.

"My associates mentioned you might be looking for something the Lounge doesn't advertise," he says.

"We're exploratory," Bruce says. Marcus Voss is measured. Never eager.

"Of course." Cobblepot's gaze moves to you. "Your wife strikes me as someone who knows her own mind."

"She's the reason we're here," Bruce says. "I go where she finds interesting."

You file that away to examine later when you're not working.

"How refreshing," Cobblepot says, with a smile that doesn't reach the monocle.

The wire catches everything.

By the end of the evening Tim has three financial threads, two names that weren't in the original file, and what he describes with barely contained energy as "the structural spine of the whole network."

Cobblepot invites you back Thursday.

You accept with exactly the right level of not-quite-enthusiasm.

In the car, the covers take a while to come off. They always do, a few minutes for your eyes to readjust to normal light.

The earpiece crackles. "That was incredible. The bit about the standard membership, I thought it was going to go sideways and then it just."

"Debrief at the cave," Bruce says.

"I'm just saying you two have a."

Bruce turns off the comms.

Silence.

You lean your head back against the headrest. Rain starts up outside, thin, against the windows.

"Thursday is when he'll want something concrete from us," you say. "Proof of intent."

"We'll be ready."

"We'll need to stay in character longer. Push further."

"I know."

You look at him. He's watching the road with that particular quality of focus that isn't really about the road.

"The thing you said. About going where I find interesting."

He doesn't answer right away.

"That was Marcus," he says.

"I know it was Marcus."

A pause.

"He's not entirely fictional," Bruce says.

It's clumsy. It's the clumsiest thing he's ever said to you and you're fairly certain he knows it. The fact that he said it anyway does something to your chest that you choose not to analyse on the ring road at 11 PM.

The city slides past. Neither of you says anything else.

His hand leaves the gear shift and settles on the console, next to yours. Not on top. Next to. Like a question without a question mark.

You turn your hand over. Palms in contact.

Gotham keeps being Gotham outside.

The debrief takes two hours.

Afterward Jason eats someone else's takeout and leans in the kitchen doorway with the expression of a man who has prepared notes.

"So," he says. "I go where she finds interesting."

Bruce doesn't look up from the case board.

"It's in the transcript," Tim says. "I put an asterisk."

"It was contextually."

"You cut my comms," Dick says, from the hallway, with the tone of someone who has been waiting there for a while.

"You were compromising."

"By saying you had chemistry. Which is factual. Which is measurable. You cut my comms for that."

"You were talking during an operation."

"The operation was over."

"The car is part of."

"Eleven minutes," Damian says from the stairs.

Everyone turns.

Damian is on the third step. He looks like someone who has been waiting for the right moment.

"The hand. In the vehicle. Eleven minutes. I had the camera feed."

Bruce closes his eyes briefly. "Why were you."

"Mission protocol."

"The mission was."

"I was being thorough."

Stephanie comes in from the back corridor with an apple. She looks at you. She looks at Bruce. She looks at your hands, which separated somewhere between the car and the cave and which remember each other in a slightly awkward way.

She bites into the apple. "That's all I needed to see."

"Stephanie."

"No no. I'm good." She walks away. "I'm very good."

Jason takes another bite. "So. What happens now."

You look at Bruce. Bruce looks at you.

"Thursday we finish the job," you say.

"And after Thursday," he says.

It's not really a question. But it is one anyway.

"After Thursday," you say.

It's not really an answer either. But it is one anyway.

Jason raises both hands. "Fantastic. Is anyone else hungry because I think I ate Tim's thing and I need to talk about something else immediately."

"That was my pad thai," Tim says.

"Unfortunate."

Gotham outside. The cave doing its familiar sounds. Bruce reaching a hand in your direction, less hesitant than in the car, a little more certain, like someone who decided something while watching the road.

You take it.

Dick makes a noise in his throat that you deliberately ignore.

Taglist: @starrydustedwinter

Pairing: Jason todd x reader (+ batfamily )

Synopsis: Dick Grayson is convinced Jason Todd deserves to fall in love. Jason Todd is convinced Dick Grayson should mind his own business. Unfortunately for him, the Batfamily seems to have chosen its side. Between clumsy interventions, far too convenient coincidences, and a fate that insists on playing matchmaker, Jason finds himself caught up in a situation he no longer truly controls. The worst part? He probably figured out what was going on long before everyone else. He simply decided to say nothing.

divider from @pixopix

The problem with Jason Todd was that he was fine.

Which, in his case, didn't mean much. But for six months, Jason had stopped disappearing for weeks at a time, had answered three calls out of five, and had even agreed to come to the manor for Thanksgiving without anyone having to threaten him. It was objective, measurable progress.

It was also, in Dick's opinion, deeply concerning.

"He's bored," he said.

Damian looked up from his book. They were sitting on the floor of the second-floor hallway of Wayne Manor, because Dick had decided that was where they were going to have this conversation, apparently.

"He's bored or you're bored ?"

"Him. Look at the signs, Damian. He answers texts too fast, whereas he usually responds after 2 days. He watched eighty-two episodes of a home renovation show in two weeks. He sent me a photo of a SUNSET."

Damian considered this for a second.

"It was a nice photo."

"That's exactly my point."

He stood up, crossed his arms, and Damian recognized in his expression the precise look of someone who had already made a bad decision and was now looking for company to share it with.

"He needs someone," Dick said. "An anchor. Someone outside of all this."

"Outside of all this," Damian repeated flatly.

"Someone normal. Who lives a normal life. Who does their grocery shopping, pays their rent, has plants on their windowsill."

"You're describing an apartment, not a person."

Dick wasn't really listening anymore. Damian closed his book with the quiet resignation of a man who knows his evening has just gotten away from him.

~~~

Three days later, Dick was standing in the fourth-floor hallway of Jason's building for entirely legitimate reasons. He was returning a borrowed book, a book he had bought that very morning for exactly this purpose, but the detail didn't change anything.

The door of the apartment across the hall opened.

The girl who stepped out was carrying two grocery bags that were too heavy for her hands, keys clenched between her teeth, with the focused expression of someone who absolutely refuses to make two trips. She bumped into her doorframe, caught a bag at the last second, blew a strand of hair out of her face, and disappeared toward the elevator without having noticed Dick at all.

Dick didn't move for four seconds.

Then he pulled out his phone and sent a message to the family group chat.

Emergency meeting tonight. Manor. Mandatory.

Tim's reply came first: your definition of emergency?

Then Bruce: .

Then Barbara: Dick no

Then Jason, later: if someone's dead just say so

Dick smiled, pocketed his phone, and slipped the book under Jason's arm when he opened his door.

"Returning this," he said.

Jason looked at the book. Looked at Dick. Looked at the book again, a paperback of a novel he didn't recognize.

"That's not my book."

"That's why I'm returning it. See you tonight."

~~~

There were seven of them around the dining room table, and Dick had prepared a slideshow.

Not a big slideshow. Only five slides. But still.

"I ran into a girl today," he said. "She just moved into Jason's building. Apartment right across from his. She doesn't know anyone in the city yet, she seems nice, and I genuinely think she and Jason-"

"No," said Jason.

"You haven't even heard the rest."

"I've heard enough."

"Jason."

"Dick."

Bruce was staring at the ceiling with the expression of a man who had raised these children of his own free will and was now living with the consequences. Alfred, standing near the door, maintained the professional neutrality of a diplomat in hostile territory.

"All I'm asking," Dick said, "is that we give them a chance to meet. Naturally. Accidentally. Without it being weird."

"Nothing about that sentence is reassuring," said Tim.

"I agree with Drake," said Damian, which made Tim turn to look at him with a mildly panicked expression.

"The plan is simple," Dick continued, having decided to ignore the general atmosphere. "We arrange for situations to come up. Small things. She needs help, Jason's there. Jason needs something, she's there. Neighborly run-ins happen all the time."

"Not that many," said Barbara from her laptop screen, which she had brought and set at the end of the table because she had refused to make the trip but had still wanted to see everyone's faces.

"Slide three," said Dick.

Slide three contained a calendar, color-coded arrows, and the word synergy written in italics.

Silence.

It was Stephanie who spoke first.

"I'm in," she said. "What do we do first?"

Cassandra looked at the slideshow. Looked at Dick, and said:

"That's the stupidest plan I've ever seen."

A pause.

"I'm in too."

~~~

The first incident took place on Tuesday.

Dick's plan was straightforward: Tim would deliver a package to the wrong address, the apartment across from Jason's, meaning hers, which would force a simple, polite hallway interaction and potentially the beginning of a conversation. Tim had agreed reluctantly. Tim had also, that morning, drunk three espressos and decided to optimize the plan.

Which explained why he rang the doorbell carrying a box so large he couldn't see over it, tripped on the threshold when the door opened, and spilled the entire contents, office supplies he had bought at random online to fill the box, across the hallway floor.

There was a stapler. A pencil cup. Approximately two hundred paperclips.

"Oh," said the voice from the other side of the upended box. "Oh, do you want some help?"

"No," Tim said from the floor. "No, I-"

Jason's door opened at the same moment. Jason stepped out in sweatpants and a t-shirt, coffee mug in hand, and took in the scene : Tim on all fours picking up paperclips, and his new neighbor crouched beside him to help.

He took a sip of coffee.

"Need help?" he said.

"No," said Tim.

"Yes," you said, because the box was really very large.

Jason set his mug on the hallway floor, crouched down, and started collecting paperclips. He didn't say a word to Tim for the entire process. Tim had the feeling that was intentional.

"Thank you," you said when the box was full. "I'm your new neighbor across the hall. I moved in last week."

"Jason," said Jason.

He picked up his mug and went back to his door.

"Your brother ?" you asked Tim.

"My… yeah. More or less."

You nodded and disappeared back inside. Tim sent a text to Dick.

Contact made. Context: disaster. Todd was there. He picked up paperclips. That's it.

Dick replied with six fire emojis.

~~~

The second incident took place on Thursday, and it was entirely Stephanie's fault.

Dick's original plan for Thursday was that Stephanie would drop something off at Jason's, run into the neighbor, and strike up a friendly conversation that would organically end with oh you should really meet my brother. Stephanie had listened to this plan carefully, found it boring, and decided to improve it.

The improvement involved getting deliberately stuck in the elevator.

With you inside.

Stephanie's calculation, one that Cassandra had apparently helped develop, was that thirty minutes in a stuck elevator created the kind of forced intimacy that led to confessions, bonds, and eventual mentions of mysterious almost-brothers. It was a calculation that failed to account for the fact that the building's elevators had an alarm button wired directly to a maintenance company, that the maintenance company had a twelve-minute response time, and that twelve minutes in an elevator was too short for intimate revelations but long enough for Stephanie to start running low on air.

"Did you hit the alarm ?" you asked.

"Yes," said Stephanie, who was sweating slightly.

"Are you claustrophobic ?"

"No. Well. Maybe a little."

"Okay. Just breathe. They're usually pretty fast."

You had taken out your phone and were calmly looking something up. Stephanie watched you with an admiration mixed with guilt.

"You're the new neighbor on the fourth floor ?" Stephanie said.

"Yeah."

"Nice building, right ?"

"I mean. A lot of weird stuff has been happening since I moved in."

Stephanie smiled with the innocence of someone who had absolutely nothing to do with the weird stuff in question.

They got out of the elevator eleven minutes later. The maintenance technician looked at them, looked at the elevator, and said he couldn't find anything wrong with it.

"Mystery," said Stephanie.

She sent Dick a text on the subway.

Got acquainted. She's cool. She's also sharper than you think. Warn the others.

Dick replied: in what sense ?

Stephanie replied: in the sense that if we keep this up she's going to figure out something's going on.

~~~

The third incident took place on Saturday, and this time it was Damian who had taken matters into his own hands, which was itself a warning sign no one had anticipated.

Damian had not wanted to participate. Damian had said explicitly, at the manor meeting, that the plan was childish, that Todd was perfectly capable of managing his own romantic life, and that this was all going to end badly. But Damian had also, over the course of the following days, developed a curiosity he refused to name about the neighbor in question, based solely, he told himself, on the fact that he wanted to assess whether she was up to standard.

His plan was simple: he would stop by Jason's under the pretense of borrowing something, leave the door open, and observe.

What he hadn't anticipated was that walking down the hallway he would see you, standing in front of your door, keys in hand, and your cat, a grey cat of concerning size, sitting in the hallway two meters away from you, watching you with total contempt.

"He got out without me noticing," you said, more to yourself than to Damian.

Damian looked at the cat. The cat looked at Damian. There was a silent mutual assessment between them.

"What's his name ?" Damian said.

"Bernard"

Damian crouched down. Held out his hand. Bernard sniffed his fingers, considered, and decided in his favor. He allowed himself to be picked up.

Damian straightened with the cat against his chest, turned to you, and said:

"He lacks discipline."

"Probably."

"Cats without structure develop erratic behaviors."

You looked at him, this boy of about fourteen with a monstrous grey cat in his arms, discussing behavioral structure with the seriousness of a career veterinarian, and said:

"Do you live in the building ?"

"No. My brother does."

"Jason ?"

Damian paused for a quarter of a second. Handed back the cat.

"Possibly," he said.

He knocked on Jason's door, went inside, and sent a message to Dick from the hallway while the door closed behind him.

She has a cat. She's competent in a crisis situation. She asked if I was Todd's brother.

Then, after a second:

She's acceptable.

Dick sent twenty heart emojis. Damian read them and didn't respond.

~~~

Jason, for his part, had developed a fairly clear picture of what was going on.

There had been Tim's package. The elevator incident with Stephanie, which he'd heard about from the building's janitor. Damian's baffling visit, during which he had spent forty minutes staring at Jason's bookshelf without saying anything before leaving. And Dick, who had been calling more often than usual with casual questions that always ended with so how's the building? Nice neighbors?

Jason wasn't an idiot.

What interested him more was why he hadn't said anything.

He had an answer for that too, but it was one he hadn't quite finished putting into words. It looked vaguely like the memory of paperclips on tile, of someone crouching down to pick them up without being asked. Like a voice he'd heard through the wall on Thursday night, singing off-key to something he hadn't recognized. Like the grey cat he'd passed in the hallway once, sitting alone in front of his door as if it were a destination.

Bernard, he'd learned.

He drank his coffee and waited for the next phase of Dick's plan, which was inevitably coming.

~~~

The fourth incident took place on Monday evening and was nobody's fault, which, paradoxically, made it the most effective of the four.

The rain had started around seven. You were coming back from the grocery store, again, two bags, again too heavy, and the elevator was out of service, which this time was a real breakdown and not the work of Stephanie and Cassandra. You climbed four flights. Set the bags down in front of your door. Reached for your keys in your coat, in your bag, in your pockets.

You looked for your keys for five minutes.

You didn't have your keys.

You sat down on your grocery bags in the fourth-floor hallway and looked up at the ceiling with the specific calm of someone who has had a long day and no longer has the energy to be upset about anything.

Jason's door opened.

He looked at you. Looked at the bags. Looked at the complete absence of keys in your hand.

"I probably left them at the grocery store," you said. "Or on the subway. Both are equally possible."

Jason leaned against his doorframe.

"The super can let you in."

"He left at six. I checked."

"The locksmith down the street closes at eight."

"It's eight twenty-two."

Jason looked for a moment at the empty hallway, at the rain audible through the landing windows, at the two grocery bags that clearly contained perishables.

"Come in," he said. "While you call the store."

You looked at him.

"Are you sure ?"

"No," Jason said. "But your yogurt's not going to keep indefinitely in the hallway."

You picked up the bags. Went inside. Set the groceries on the counter while he handed you his phone, the supermarket was in his contacts, for reasons he didn't explain. You called. They had found your keys. You could come pick them up tomorrow morning.

You handed back the phone, deflated. Looked around the apartment : books everywhere, the lamp a little too bright, the window open despite the rain because Jason hadn't thought to close it.

"I'll call my landlord," you said. "She has a spare."

"Does she answer at night ?"

A pause.

"Probably not."

Jason went and closed the window. Came back. Crossed his arms.

"Couch is free," he said. "If she doesn't pick up."

It wasn't a romantic offer. It was said in the same tone he would have used to announce that the weather was going to change, or that the coffee was ready. You heard it exactly that way.

"Okay," you said. "Thank you."

"Have you eaten ?"

"No."

"Me neither."

He opened the fridge, pulled out things at random, and started cooking without ceremony while you settled at the counter with your phone. You didn't talk much. You didn't need to. The rain kept going against the windows, and the kitchen smelled like garlic and thyme, and Bernard, who had managed to escape again, was scratching at the front door from the hallway with the persistence of a creature who knows exactly what it wants.

Jason went to let him in.

The cat entered, inspected the territory, and jumped onto the couch as if it had all been arranged in advance.

~~~

At eleven forty, Dick received a text from Jason.

Canceled movie night. she's still here. landlord not picking up. key situation.

Dick read the message twice. Set down his phone. Crossed his arms. Looked at the ceiling with the expression of a man who had just realized the universe had done more in one evening than he had managed in two weeks.

Damian, sitting across from him, turned a page of his book without looking up.

"We had nothing to do with this," he said.

"No," said Dick.

"It happened on its own."

"Yeah."

"Perhaps some things don't need to be orchestrated," said Damian.

Dick smiled.

"Maybe."

He turned off the lamp, picked up his phone, and went to bed leaving the group chat quiet for the first time in two weeks.

In the apartment on the fourth floor, the rain had settled. Bernard was asleep in a ball on Jason's couch. You had called your landlord, left a message, and fallen asleep in the armchair with a blanket Jason had set there without comment. Jason was reading in the next room, and every now and then he heard your breathing deepen, and he kept still so as not to make any noise.

It wasn't much.

But it was a start.

Taglist: @starrydustedwinter

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x secretary!reader

Synopsis: You've always worked for Bruce Wayne, never crossing certain lines. But when an injury lands you in the hospital and he stays by your side far longer than he should, those boundaries begin to blur. One night of vulnerability, an unexpected confession, and a promise could change everything.

divider from @pixopix

The rain hit the windows. You weren't really watching the drops, you were listening to the radio on the nightstand, the volume low, just enough to fill the silence.

confirmed last night near the docks. Witnesses say he pulled three people out before the structure collapsed. No one knows how he got there so fast, but-

A quiet knock at the door.

Bruce walked in without waiting, a bouquet under his arm, a white envelope pressed against his chest.

The monitor skipped a faster rhythm.

Bruce stopped in the middle of the room.

"Hi," he said.

You pulled your eyes from the window. He was still dressed from the office : dark suit, the same one he'd had on at the Elliot Foundation dinner back in October, the night you'd stood by the bar the whole evening with a glass you never finished, tracking him without meaning to every time he crossed the room. It sat differently on him than it did on other men. You didn't think about why until he reached for the chair.

He set the bouquet down and rolled his jacket off his shoulders. The fabric of his shirt pulled taut for a second, then settled. He folded the jacket over the back of the chair and the motion turned his wrist up : a vein along the inside, there and gone before the cuff fell back into place.

The fentanyl made it difficult to look away.

"Are those flowers for me?"

"From Damian. He insisted."

He held them out. You took them, pressing your face into the petals. They smelled like the cold outside and something softer underneath. The monitor steadied. Bruce glanced at the screen, then at you.

He looked around the room. The overhead light was too bright. He crossed to the wall panel without asking and dimmed it until the room felt like something closer to evening.

"Better?" he said.

"Yes." You watched him pull the chair over with his foot and sit. "Thank you."

He nodded and held out the envelope. "Your card from Damian. I opened it. I hope that's okay."

You slid it out. Inside, in his careful handwriting:

You are injured. This is unfortunate. Get well soon so you can return to being useful.

Your favorite boy, Damian.

You laughed before you could stop yourself.

"He misses you," Bruce said.

You set the card on the nightstand. The medication was doing something soft and strange, not just the absence of pain, but the opposite of the ground under your feet. You knew it didn't make sense and you didn't care.

"Do you think I'm happy because of you or because of the fentanyl?"

Bruce crossed his arms. "The fentanyl."

"Are you sure?"

"It's been a while since I took any myself. But I remember. And you're taking a lot more than I ever did."

You sank a little lower in the bed. "Are you staying long?"

"Until they make me leave."

A breath left you, long, without meaning to. "Yesterday you were here for ten minutes."

He was quiet. His eyes went to his hands. "I had to get back for Damian. I didn't know."

"It's not your fault." A pause. "I still missed you."

He didn't answer. You looked at his hands, wide, resting on his knees, very still. You thought about the way he squeezed your forearm. About the Elliot dinner, his hand finding the small of your back when he crossed behind you, just the weight of his fingers for a second before he kept walking. Then you thought about the last woman he'd seen, and the one before that, and your brows pulled together without you deciding it.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I'm a bad friend."

"No."

"I have ulterior motives."

He rolled his eyes, almost fond. "Everyone does. You're the only one on the team who remembers Damian's birthday every year. And mine."

"I don't do it to be a good friend."

His hand found yours. He held it for a second, loose, then let go. "I know."

You looked away. "Can you get me water? I need water. Actually no, sushi. And spring rolls. I'm soo hungry I'm going to die."

He stood up, already reaching for his jacket. "Sushi."

"And spring rolls. Half a dozen." You paused. "And can someone bring me clothes? Real ones. Not this." You pulled at the hospital gown. "Something that isn't humiliating."

"I'll have Alfred bring something."

"With heels. I want my black heels."

He looked at you for a moment. "You're in a hospital bed."

"I know where I am."

He picked up his jacket and slid it back on, the same forearm, the same vein, gone now under the sleeve. He said he'd be back. The door closed behind him.

Thirty minutes.

You'd counted them without meaning to.

The radio had switched to something instrumental, low and forgettable. The spring rolls were getting cold on the nightstand and you hadn't touched them yet because you'd decided you didn't want spring rolls anymore, you wanted water, actual cold water, not the lukewarm cup the nurse had left, and maybe after that you wanted to unzip the garment bag Alfred had sent, you wanted to feel something that wasn't cotton percale against your skin.

You pressed the call button.

Then unpressed it.

A different knock came at the door. Shorter. More impatient.

"Come in," you said.

Damian walked in with the energy of someone who had absolutely not been waiting in the hallway for the past twenty minutes and was not going to admit it under any circumstances. He was still in his school clothes, coat buttoned all the way up, a book under his arm that he was clearly using as a prop.

"I was in the area," he said.

You looked at him. "You were in the area."

"Yes."

"Damian. This hospital is forty minutes from the manor."

"I said what I said." He pulled the chair back with his foot, exactly the way Bruce had, sat down, and opened the book to a random page. "You look terrible."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment."

"I know."

He didn't look up from the book but his eyes weren't moving either. You watched him not read for a moment.

"How did you get here?" you asked.

"Alfred drove me."

"Does your father know?"

A pause, very small. "He will."

You pressed your lips together so you wouldn't smile. "Did you run the whole way up from the lobby?"

"I walked."

"Damian."

"I walked quickly." He turned a page he hadn't read. "The elevator was slow."

You looked at him, this boy who had sent you a card calling you useful, who had come forty minutes across the city with a book he wasn't reading, who had walked quickly from the lobby and was now sitting very straight in the chair pretending he was somewhere he'd ended up by coincidence.

"I'm glad you're here," you said.

He said nothing. Then, after a moment, he closed the book and set it on his knee.

"You should drink your water," he said. "It's been sitting there."

"I don't want water anymore. I want the garment bag."

He looked at the garment bag on the chair. Then at you. "You're in a hospital bed."

"Your father said the same thing."

"Because it's true."

"Can you hand it to me anyway?"

He handed it to you without another word. You unzipped it from where you lay, pulled out the heels, turned one over in your hands. Damian watched you with the focused attention of someone absolutely not showing that he was relieved you were well enough to be ridiculous.

"He polished them," you said.

"Alfred polishes everything."

You set the heel carefully on top of the blanket and looked at it. The door opened and Bruce came back in, coat still on, a paper cup of cold water in each hand. He stopped when he saw Damian.

Damian looked up from the book he'd opened again.

A beat.

"I was in the area," Damian said.

Bruce looked at him for a long moment. Then he handed you one of the paper cups and sat down.

"The spring rolls are probably cold," he said.

"I don't want spring rolls anymore."

"I know."

"Did you eat them?"

"No."

"You should eat them."

He reached for the bag. Damian, after a moment of dignity, reached for the bag too. You watched them eat and thought about October, about the weight of Bruce's hand, about the way a room looked different when he was in it. Then you stopped thinking and just watched.

"Take me somewhere," you said. "When I'm out of here."

Bruce looked up.

"Somewhere real. Not a gala. Not a work thing. Just dinner. Or a walk. I don't care." You held his gaze. "With you."

Damian looked between the two of you and said nothing, which for Damian was essentially a standing ovation.

Bruce was quiet for a moment.

"You might want to think about that when you're sober."

"I've been thinking about it since October."

Something shifted in his face, small, almost nothing. "Then yes," he said. "When you're out."

You squeezed his fingers. "I can wait."

Damian stood up, tucked the book under his arm, and announced to no one in particular that he had somewhere to be. He paused at the door.

"Don't do anything embarrassing," he said.

The door closed behind him.

The room was quiet except for the rain and the monitor. You closed your eyes.

"I love you," you said. "A lot."

He said nothing for a moment. Then: "You might want to talk about that later too."

"No." You kept your eyes closed. "I can wait for the date. Not for that."

His thumb moved slightly across the back of your hand.

"I'm not dreaming," you murmured.

"No," he said quietly. "You're not."

"Good." A pause, your voice already going soft at the edges. "I just wanted to make sure you were real."

He didn't let go of your hand.

"I'm real," he said.

You smiled without opening your eyes. "Then I can dream now."

And you did.

Pairing: Tim Drake x reader

Synopsis : Your mom's late, you're hungry, and a cooking show convinces you that blueberry muffins are a great idea. Only problem: you call Tim Drake. What was supposed to be a simple visit turns into organized chaos in your kitchen, and Tim commenting on everything with an overly smug grin. But between the fits of laughter and the glances that linger a second too long, something slowly slips out of control. And when he finds himself too close to you for a good reason, he decides it's time to stop pretending.

divider from @pixopix

You were scrolling through your computer, looking for something worth watching, when your phone buzzed on the desk. You picked up without checking the screen.

"Sweetie, it's mom. Sorry, I'm stuck in traffic. It'll be another hour or two before I'm home."

"It's fine, mom. I'll figure something out." You heard her exhale with relief before hanging up.

Your stomach growled almost immediately. You opened the fridge and stared into it without really seeing anything. A bunch of grapes ended up on the counter while you turned on the living room TV, and landed on a cooking show. A woman was folding blueberries into golden batter with an almost hypnotic efficiency.

Blueberry muffins.

You grabbed a pen.

By the time the show ended, you had the recipe in hand and an idea forming. Doing this alone would be fine. Doing this with Tim would be better.

You dialed his number.

"Tell me you're not busy." It wasn't really a question.

"Hello to you too." There was that smile in his voice, the one he always tried to hide. "What's going on?"

"Do you like blueberry muffins ?"

A pause. "...Yes ?"

"Good. Come over."

"Now ?"

"Now."

He sighed, that resigned, dramatically put-upon sigh he reserved exclusively for you. "On my way."

You hung up and dropped onto your bed, staring at the ceiling. You were recopying the recipe into something legible when you heard a noise against your window. You spun around, heart jumping into your throat, and saw Tim on the other side of the glass, hair slightly disheveled, motioning for you to open up.

You crossed the room and pushed the window open. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Fire escape was unlocked." He swung a leg over the sill and landed in your room with an ease he had no business having. His eyes swept over the chaos, clothes on the floor, loose papers across the bed, pencils rolling everywhere. "Nice place."

"If I'd known you were coming through the window I would've cleaned up." You pushed him toward the hallway. "Come on, we have muffins to make."

"Right now? I just showered."

You handed him an apron without a word.

~~~

You made a loud, approximate team. Tim read the instructions aloud with a precision that was mildly irritating, you measured everything by eye, and somehow the batter came out right. When you shut the oven door and straightened up with a satisfied sigh, Tim laughed.

"What."

"You've got flour." He stepped closer and reached toward your forehead to wipe it away, but his fingers weren't clean either and he only made it worse. "Oh."

He didn't step back.

Neither did you.

Up close like that, you noticed things you didn't usually let yourself notice, the way he was looking at you, steadier than usual, more deliberate. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear, then his hand stayed at your jaw, tilting your face up slightly.

"I had a whole better version of this planned," he murmured. "I told myself I'd wait for the right moment." A beat. "Apparently it's now."

He kissed you before you could answer.

It was soft at first, then it wasn't, and you had no interest in it stopping. Your hands found his hair. His settled at your waist and pulled you closer, like even the smallest gap between you was unnecessary.

When you finally pulled apart, your foreheads stayed pressed together.

"I've been wanting to do that for a while," he said, a little short of breath.

You smiled and kissed him quickly on the cheek.

Then your mom came home, the front door, keys in the lock, the familiar sound of a bag dropped in the hallway. Tim pulled back half a step, not quite guilty, not quite innocent either. You heard your mom call your name from the corridor, and something in the way Tim murmured we're finishing this conversation later told you he meant it.

Taglist: @starrydustedwinter

Pairing: Tim drake x reader

Synopsis: You've never been a morning person. Then you meet Tim Drake in the shared bathroom of your university dorm, and somehow start waking up at 6:30 every day, not because you have to, but because he's there.

Warnings: college AU

dividers from @pixopix

The online quiz had been completely off. It was supposed to determine whether you were a morning person or a night owl, and it had described you as perfectly suited for early rising. A joke, honestly. Everyone knew your brain didn't really start until after ten.

In middle school, you were almost always late because your nights stretched out far too long and no alarm seemed capable of pulling you from sleep. In high school, taking the bus had forced you to get up earlier, but you still managed to miss it regularly, at least once a week. Your parents had eventually given up on any attempt at morning discipline.

So when you got to university, you'd told yourself that this time, with a more flexible schedule, you were finally going to live at your natural rhythm.

Then you met Timothy Drake.

Your university had mixed-gender dorms, with a shared bathroom for several rooms. There were individual stalls for showers and toilets, but a central area held the sinks, the mirrors, and personal lockers.

That's where you saw him for the first time.

You were putting your toiletries into a free locker when you noticed a guy already standing at the mirror. He was trying to discipline a stubborn piece of hair with near-dramatic concentration, like his life depended on it.

You figured you'd inevitably run into each other often, so you might as well introduce yourself.

"Hey, I'm Y/n. Room 206."

He looked up at you, slightly surprised, then set down his comb.

"Timothy. Room 203." His voice was calm, a little tired, like someone who hadn't had enough sleep. He wore a simple t-shirt with a discreet code or circuit board design, and something about his demeanor suggested he was observing more than speaking. He did, however, manage a slight smile. You noticed the empty, coffee mug he'd placed on the edge of the sink, his second, judging by the way he was looking at it with regret, and decided to ask him what his specialty was, hoping it would be a simple question to break the ice.

"What are you studying ?" you asked.

"Computer science and criminology. Double degree." He said it as if it were perfectly normal. "And you?" His blue eyes, remarkably bright for someone who seemed to be kept going by the strength of coffee alone, rested on you with unexpected attention.

He looked at you like he was waiting for a logical answer, already filing it somewhere in his head.

"Psychology," you had replied. You had finished putting your things away in your locker, but you had kept your hand inside, pretending to adjust the position of your products to avoid getting lost too long in that gaze.

"Useful. You could analyze why some people think it's reasonable to talk before 7 a.m.," he said in a perfectly neutral tone. You rolled your eyes.

"And you could investigate the mystery of your dark circles," you retorted, your face impassive.

A silence. Then he let out a short laugh, brief.

You laughed too, without really knowing why. And for a second, the bathroom felt less cold, less empty.

Another student walked in at that moment and looked at you both like you'd just violated an unspoken rule of the silent morning. You grabbed your things a little too quickly, embarrassed for no clear reason, and left.

On the first day of term, you'd gotten up very early, too early for your own good, hoping to make a good impression. You found him at the sinks, already awake, already somewhere else mentally.

He told you he was from Gotham, that he was an only child, and that he spent way too much time on obscure forums picking apart theories and urban surveillance patterns. You told him you had a bad habit of reading unsettling things on the internet at three in the morning.

You didn't share any classes, but you started getting up earlier anyway.

Just for a few minutes.

And those minutes began to exist every day.

At 6:30, you'd find each other at the sinks half-asleep, toothbrushes in hand, talking about everything and nothings : classes, the too-bitter coffee in the cafeteria, your questionable internet theories.

It had become a routine without either of you really discussing it.

Sometimes he was late and you waited outside his door. Sometimes it was him waiting for you.

You'd greet each other across campus with a simple nod, like it had always been obvious.

And then there were the smaller moments: a shared lunch, a comfortable silence, a presence that stayed even after the words ran out.

Tim didn't make grand gestures. He observed, he remembered, he always turned up exactly where you didn't expect him.

And you had come to understand something fairly simple:

if you were willing to sacrifice your sleep for a few minutes with him every morning, you had already started falling for him.

So one day, you stopped dancing around it.

One morning, while you were brushing your teeth side by side, you said it, too fast to take back:

"Tim… would you want to get coffee Friday at three? The place near the library."

He blinked, like he was mentally running through every possible scenario.

Then he nodded.

"Yeah. That works."

A small pause.

"And… I'm guessing this is now official, your improvised 'coffee schedule'?"

You rolled your eyes, but you were already smiling.

The date happened. Simple, a little strange, a little perfect.

After that, nothing exploded, nothing changed all at once.

It came slowly.

The mornings stayed the same.

Except that one day, without it needing to be explained, Tim pressed a light kiss to your cheek before leaning back toward his sink.

And that's when you understood that your quiz had maybe missed one essential thing.

You hadn't become a morning person.

You'd just become someone who had a reason to get up.

Pairing: (age-up)Damian wayne x reader

Synopsis: For months he had been secretly drawing her and carefully hiding his sketchbook so she would never stumble upon it. Then one day, she found it, leafed through all the pages in front of him, and then calmly handed it back, telling him that with so much talent he could draw something more interesting.

Warnings : implied nudity

divider from @dividers-are-us

The notebook peeked out from under the cushion like a guilty conscience.

You pulled it towards you because Damian had been in the kitchen for ten minutes making two glasses of orange juice, which was either an act of slowness or a silent disaster, and you had nothing else to do.

First pages: buildings. Serious, precise, the kind of drawing that makes it seem like the person has never laughed in their life. You turned.

And stopped.

Your own profile was looking back at you from the page. Well, not looking at you, looking elsewhere, which was even stranger because Damian had looked at you to produce this. The detail of your hair. The way you held your chin in your hand when you read. The little crease you made at the corner of your mouth when something annoyed you.

You turned again.

You in class.

You standing in the hallway, your back to you.

You, laughing, your mouth a little too open, something you never found very graceful, but here it looked like something someone wanted to grab before it vanished.

Then the two of you together, sitting side by side on what resembled a subway platform, shoulders almost touching, in a space between close and something else you couldn't quite name.

Hearing footsteps approaching, you wanted to put the notebook back in its place, but you didn't have time.

He came in, two glasses in hand, saw you, and his face flashed through an impressive array of emotions in half a second. He set the glasses down with the care of a bomb disposal expert.

"It was under the cushion," he said.

"It was sticking out."

"Just barely."

"Damian."

He sighed and sat on the arm of the sofa, elbows on his knees, looking like someone awaiting his fate and finding it deserved. You turned a page in his presence. Then another.

"It's just practice. You have an interesting face, geometrically speaking."

You looked up at him.

"Geometrically speaking."

"Good angles."

"There's a drawing of the two of us on the subway."

Silence. "I take the subway."

You stared at him until he stopped looking at you, which took about three seconds. He was blushing furiously.

You closed the sketchbook slowly. Turned it over in your hands.

"You draw well," you said.

"Thank you."

"No, really." You opened a random page : you again, in profile, focused on something. "It's almost a shame to stop there."

He frowned. "To what ?"

You looked up at him, a smile playing at the corners of your lips. "Faces. Shoulders. Subway platforms." You closed the sketchbook and handed it to him. "If you like, you could draw something more interesting."

The silence that followed had a particular quality.

"More interesting," he repeated.

"You know what I mean."

He took the sketchbook. Looked at it. Looked at you. "I'm not sure I see."

You got up from the sofa. "Yes, I do."

You took the two steps that separated you, took his hand, your fingers closing around his, and led him toward the hallway without checking if he was following, because you knew he would.

He followed.

On the stairs, you didn't let go of his hand. He was looking at the nape of your neck, your shoulders, the space between them, he'd drawn that space once, from memory, and told himself it was practice. He was starting to find that explanation less convincing.

"You could have just asked me," he said on the stairs.

You half-turned, without stopping. "I just did."

"You told me I saw what you meant."

"That's it, asking."

He had no answer to that.

At the top of the stairs, you let go of his hand, pushed open the door to his room...his room, you knew the apartment better than he did sometimes, and went in without hesitation, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if you'd decided this long before him and had simply let him think you were making it together.

Which was probably the case.

“Make yourself comfortable,” you said, disappearing into the bathroom with utter nonchalance. “And get a blank page ready.”

The door closed.

He stood in the middle of his own room, notebook in hand, wondering exactly how long he’d been this predictable.

He set up a chair, moved the lamp, and sharpened his pencil with the diligence of a man who needs to keep his hands busy. He sat on the bed, notebook open on his lap.

He stared at the blank page.

The blank page stared back at him.

He heard the tap. A rustle of fabric. He put down the pencil, picked it up again, and looked at his own hands, which weren’t quite steady, a slightly humiliating sight for someone who had drawn load-bearing structures without a single tremor.

The door opened.

A white towel, pressed tightly against your chest, hastily tied. You crossed the room toward him with that nonchalance that was uniquely yours, as if the situation were perfectly ordinary, as if you weren't rendering him completely silent.

You stopped in front of him. Looked down at him, amused by something in his expression.

"Are you ready ?"

"Yes," he said, which was an obvious lie.

Your hands released the towel.

It fell.

Damian didn't move. His pencil touched the page. He looked at you, really, slowly, with that way he had of looking at things he wanted to hold onto, and something in his face changed, the lightness giving way to something else, more focused, warmer.

"Well ?" you said. "Is it more interesting ?"

He looked up at your eyes.

"A little," he said.

You laugh, your mouth too open, like in the drawing, and you go lie down on the small sofa, one leg crossed over the other, perfectly at ease in your own skin and in watching him not be.

He took a breath. Placed the pencil on the page.

And began.

Taglist: @starrydustedwinter

Pairing : Damian wayne(Al Ghul) x pregnant!reader

Synopsis : Damian Wayne thought he was prepared for anything. He has survived assassins, alien invasions, and the Batfamily, which is, objectively, the most impressive of the three. Nothing had prepared him for you. Nor for a very specific craving for Romanian pickles at three in the morning. Some forms of love are unspoken. They slip on like a coat, half-asleep, without asking questions.

Divider from @pixopix

Three in the morning. In January.

Damian knows because his phone reads 3:07 when he reaches for the nightstand, and because the kitchen light filters under the bedroom door, a particularly accusing yellow.

He stands motionless for thirty seconds. Then he gets up.

You're standing in front of the open refrigerator, hair a mess, bare feet on the cold tiles, one hand on your lower back and the other methodically pushing containers along the middle shelf as if the thing you're looking for will appear if you persist.

"What are you doing ?" It's not a question. It's the tone of someone who sees exactly what's happening and still hopes they're wrong.

"I'm looking."

"It's three in the morning."

"The food is organized illogically in this refrigerator."

"You're not asleep."

"I'm hungry."

He leans against the wall and looks at you. You're thirty-two weeks pregnant and carrying his child with an energy that, some days, makes him feel like the only adult in the room, a feeling that is both absurd and perfectly true.

"What do you want ?"

You turn to him. The expression on your face is that of someone who has carefully weighed the risks before speaking.

"Pickles."

Silence.

"We have pickles. Right here. Second shelf."

"Not those pickles."

He looks at the jar. He looks at your face. "What's wrong with these pickles?"

"They're dill-flavored."

"All pickles are dill-flavored."

"No." You close the refrigerator door with the conviction of someone stating a fact. "There are old-fashioned mustard and honey pickles at the Romanian grocer ten streets away, and they're the only pickles that really exist."

Damian considers this information.

"The Romanian grocer ten streets away..." he repeats slowly.

"He opens at five. I checked."

"It's three in the morning."

"Yes. That's why I'm waiting."

There's a pause as he takes in exactly what's happening. You weren't going to wake him. You were going to stand in the kitchen, barefoot on the cold tiles, waiting for a Romanian grocery store to open for honey pickles, without saying a word to him.

"Go back to bed."

"Dami-"

"Bed, now."

"You don't have to-"

"I know."

You look at him. He holds your gaze with the patience of someone who has already made up their mind and is simply waiting for you to catch up.

"It's ridiculous," you say. "At this hour."

"Yes."

"It's cold outside."

"I know how winter works."

"I just want to say-"

"Do you want honey-mustard pickles from the Romanian grocer ?" He grabs his coat from the chair. "I can hear you. Go to bed, hayati."

Something shifts in your face, that slight release you get when you stop fighting something. You don't like asking. He's known that for a long time. He still doesn't know if it will get better with time or if it's just the way you are, but he's learned to read the moment you're about to give something up out of politeness, and he's learned not to let him.

You walk past him toward the bedroom. Your hand gently brushes his forearm as you pass.

He grabs his keys.

~~~

The grocer's name is Andrei, and he does indeed open at five o'clock. He recognizes Damian Wayne with an expression that clearly indicates customers in coats over pajamas aren't common, but they're not exactly cause for concern either.

The jar is small, the label is handwritten, and it smells of mustard and honey as soon as he takes it out of the bag in the elevator.

~~~

You haven't gone back to sleep. You're sitting in bed, knees drawn up as high as your stomach allows, pretending to read something on your phone with the app upside down. You look up when he comes in he places the jar on the nightstand without a word.

You look at it. Then at the jar. Then at him again.

"Damian."

"Eat your pickles."

"Damian, it was 3:30 in the morning-"

"3:22, technically."

"It's worse."

"I know."

You open the jar. The smell fills the room, vinegary, sweet, improbable. You take a pickle, taste it, and the noise you make is an absolute disgrace to both of you.

"Well?" he says, because he's human and some battles aren't worth losing with dignity.

"That's exactly it." Your voice has taken on that softness it sometimes has, late at night, when your guard is down. "That's exactly what I wanted."

He turns off the light on his side. You eat your pickles in the dark with quiet satisfaction and without the slightest trace of guilt, and after a while your leg rests against hers under the sheets, warm and familiar.

"Thank you," you murmur.

"Sleep, Albi."

"The baby says thank you too."

"The baby has perfectly reasonable tastes at thirty-two weeks." A pause. "You're the problem."

You laugh, softly, in the dark, the jar still in your hands, and it settles somewhere in her chest with the precision of something that has always known where it was going.

Taglist : @starrydustedwinter

Thanks for reading my fic.

Pairing: Jason todd:/Red hood x reader

Synopsis: 16 August is Jason’s birthday. Every year, that day comes round like a wound that refuses to heal. You tried to move on, to build something new with someone decent, and you almost believed it would work. But some ghosts just won’t stay quietly in their graves.

Warnings: angst, grief, mentions of death

Divider from @pixopix

The alley smelled like rain and rust.

You hadn't meant to take that route. It was a shortcut, the kind you'd taken a hundred times before without thinking, because Gotham at night had never really frightened you, not after years of patrol, not after everything. But tonight your mind was somewhere else entirely, turning over the same thoughts it always did on this day, and you weren't paying attention.

You heard them before you saw them.

Three of them, stepping out of the shadows with the unhurried confidence of people who had done this before. You had just enough time to register the situation before the first one moved toward you.

What happened next was fast and brutal and not at all what they expected.

But there were three of them, and you were tired, and it had been a long day of remembering someone who wasn't there anymore. By the time the second one grabbed your arm, you knew you were in trouble.

Then something hit the wall beside you like a thunderclap, and the alley went very quiet.

He was already standing over the last one when you looked up. Red helmet, broad shoulders, two guns holstered at his sides. He said nothing. He didn't even look at you right away, just scanned the alley with the practiced calm of someone for whom this was Tuesday.

Then he turned.

"You good?"

His voice was low, rougher than it needed to be, like he was used to making it sound like a warning.

"I'm fine," you said, which was mostly true.

He looked at you for a second longer than necessary. Then he was gone, up the fire escape and into the dark, before you could say anything else.

You stood alone in the alley for a long moment, heart still hammering, and told yourself the strange feeling in your chest was just adrenaline.

~~~

The Batcave was quiet when you found it, or rather, when it found you, the way it always did when something was wrong and your feet carried you there without asking your brain first.

The screen was already on.

Red Hood. That was what the file said. Vigilante, operating out of Gotham's East End. Extensive criminal record, the criminal kind, not the Bat-family kind, though the line was blurry. Known for lethal methods. Considered dangerous by the GCPD and, apparently, by Bruce, whose notes in the margin of the file were terse in the way that meant he was worried.

You stared at the footage for a long time. The way he moved. The way he'd stood over those men in the alley without a flicker of hesitation.

You thought about the way he'd said "you good" like it was the only thing he knew how to offer.

You went home.

~~~

Luke was already on the couch when you got back, the television murmuring in the background. You dropped your jacket on the chair and folded yourself into the space beside him, and he shifted automatically to make room, his arm coming around your shoulders the way it always did.

On screen, a journalist was speaking over shaky footage, a figure in red, moving fast across a rooftop, one hand pressed to his side.

"-the vigilante known as Red Hood, believed to have sustained injuries during an altercation in the East End earlier tonight-"

"That guy is dangerous," Luke said. He hadn't looked away from the screen. "People like him always end up hurting someone."

You watched the footage loop.

"He saved me," you said. "A few days ago. In an alley near my apartment."

Luke turned to look at you. His expression shifted, concern first, then something more complicated.

"He saved you because it suited him," he said, not unkindly. "That doesn't erase what he does. You're defending him because you're grateful. That's understandable. But gratitude isn't the same as-"

"I know," you said.

You didn't say anything else. Luke pulled you a little closer, and you let him, and you watched the footage until it cut to something else.

You didn't tell him that what you kept thinking about wasn't the violence.

It was the pause. The one second too long he'd looked at you before leaving.

~~~

You saw him again three weeks later.

Different alley, same city, same hour when Gotham couldn't decide between night and morning. You weren't in trouble this time, you were just walking, the way you did when sleep wouldn't come and the apartment felt too small.

He was crouched on a fire escape above you, and he dropped down without a sound, landing a few feet away like it was nothing.

You stopped walking.

"You following me ?" you asked.

"Careful," he said. "That almost sounded like you think you're interesting enough to follow."

"Am I wrong ?"

A pause. Something shifted in his posture, barely perceptible.

"You remind me of someone," you said, before you'd decided to.

He went very still.

"Another incredibly handsome guy ?" The voice was light, deflecting, the tone of someone who had practice at it.

"My ex," you said.

Silence.

The kind that has weight. The kind that fills up all the available space in a Gotham alley at 2 a.m. and leaves no room for anything else.

He didn't move for a moment. Then,

"Sorry to hear that."

He didn't sound sorry. He sounded like someone who had just been told something that hit too close to somewhere he didn't let people go.

You watched him disappear back into the dark and stood there for a long moment, telling yourself, again, that the feeling in your chest was something simple and explainable.

You were getting worse at believing it.

You had put it off for months.

Not because you were ashamed of Luke, you weren't. He was good and steady and real, and every time you looked at him you felt the specific guilt of someone who knows they are loved better than they deserve.

But bringing him to the manor meant something. It meant standing in those halls with someone who wasn't Jason, introducing him to people who had known Jason, watching Bruce shake his hand and Dick smile too wide the way he did when he was trying to make someone feel welcome.

It meant closing a door.

You did it anyway, because Luke deserved that much, and because you were tired of punishing him for something that wasn't his fault.

~~~

The evening went well. Dick was charming. Tim hacked into Luke's LinkedIn within the first ten minutes, which you only knew because of the look on his face when Luke mentioned his job. Alfred made the kind of dinner that made people feel immediately at home, which was its own particular cruelty because home was a complicated word in that house.

Halfway through dessert, you excused yourself.

The garden was cold and quiet, the kind of quiet that Gotham never quite managed, as if the manor existed in a slightly different version of the city. You walked without thinking, the old habit, faster than you needed to-

"You still do that."

You stopped.

"Walk too fast when you're stressed."

You turned around slowly. He was standing near the garden wall, helmet on, arms loose at his sides. Here, of all places.

"How do you know that?" Your voice came out steadier than you felt.

A sound, almost a laugh, not quite. "That's what you're worried about? Not the masked guy with guns in your garden ?"

"Answer the question."

"Still bossy." He tilted his head slightly. "Some things don't change."

"What-"

He turned to leave. Just before he cleared the wall, he paused, his head angling back toward you, just slightly.

"Because you never learned how to hide what you're feeling."

And then he was gone, and you were standing alone in the garden with the lights of the manor behind you and the sound of Luke's laugh drifting through the window, and something in your chest that you couldn't name and couldn't put down.

~~~

You slowly descended the stairs leading to the Batcave.

The hum of computers echoed through the vast, dark room, steady and cold, as always. Bruce had his back to you, already dressed in his Batman suit, focused intently on the screens.

You were about to greet him when a line caught your eye.

POTENTIAL IDENTITY: JASON TODD

Your breath caught in your throat. A small, strangled sound escaped you.

"No…" Bruce turned around immediately.

Too late.

You were already staring at the screen, pale as if something had just pierced your chest without warning.

"No," you repeated, your voice trembling. "Jason is dead… it's impossible."

The silence that followed was worse than any answer.

Because Bruce didn't deny it.

You finally looked away from the screen to see him.

"Explain it to me." “Bruce slowly removed the Batman mask before placing it on the console.

Bad sign. Very bad sign.

“Jason is dead,” he finally said.

You immediately shook your head.

“Then why is his name displayed on this screen?”

Bruce remained silent for a few seconds, as if searching for a less horrific way to tell the truth.

But there wasn't one.

"Because he came back."

"No." Your voice rose a notch. "No, it doesn't make any sense. People don't come back from the dead, Bruce."

"I know."

"I tried to help him. But Jason didn't want to be saved anymore." You stared at him. Something hardened in your eyes.

"How long have you known ?"

Bruce didn't answer.

"How long!"

"I-"

"Did you know from the beginning ?"

"No. No, I didn't know at first, I swear-"

"I don't care about your promises." A heavy, inescapable silence fell between you.

"Were you planning to tell me someday ?"

"Not now," Bruce said, more softly. “It was too soon. You’d just been happy again. I didn’t want to ruin it.” You looked at him for another second just one, then you stormed off, tears streaming down your face, without looking back.

~~~

In the days that followed, you vanished.

No Luke. No boys. No one heard from you for a long time, and those who knew you well understood it was best not to push things.

When you reappeared, it was at 3 a.m., alone in a Gotham alley.

You weren’t there by chance.

Four men emerged from the shadows almost simultaneously, with that calculated slowness that always precedes violence. You didn’t have time to get into position before Red Hood was already there. Without a word, and in a few seconds the alley was silent again.

He straightened up, dusted himself off, and turned toward you.

You didn't move.

"Take off that damn helmet."

Jason froze immediately.

"Excuse me?"

"Take off that damn mask, Jason."

A long silence.

"Bruce told you."

"You were dead."

"Technically, yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He didn't answer right away. When he spoke, his voice had lost something, that calculated roughness he wore like armor.

"To protect you." A pause. "Because when I came back… I wasn't the person you loved anymore."

You walked toward him slowly, as if each step weighed a little more than the last. Jason didn't move an inch, standing there on the Gotham rooftop like a shadow too real in a memory you thought you'd buried long ago.

The wind rushed between you, cold and sharp, but you barely felt it anymore, because all your attention was focused on that red helmet you were staring at as if it held all the answers you'd been denied for years.

Your fingers trembled slightly as you finally raised your hand to him. Jason gently grasped your wrist at the last moment. An automatic gesture to tell you to stop.

"This is going to complicate everything," he murmured, his voice low and broken.

You responded with a trembling breath that sounded more like a plea than an answer.

Then you took off the helmet.

The metal hit the ground with a sharp thud that echoed far too long in the sudden silence of Gotham.

Jason Todd.

Alive.

Real.

Everything you had buried for years came rushing back at once, without warning, without gentleness, like a wave too violent to hold back. Your legs almost buckled under the weight of what you had just understood. You brought a hand to your mouth, but your eyes filled too quickly, and tears fell despite yourself, first in small amounts, then more and more uncontrollably, until your whole face contorted in a mixture of shock, pain, and disbelief.

Jason remained frozen for a full second, as if he didn't know if he was still allowed to move, then he slowly crouched down in front of you, with the strange caution of someone who had survived too much but not this. He opened his mouth, unable to find the words at first, and when he finally spoke, his voice was softer, more human, almost fragile despite himself.

"Why ?" Your voice broke halfway through. "Why would you do this to me ? Why.."

He had no answer to that.

Some questions don't have answers.

~~~

Getting home was even harder than the revelation itself.

Because now, there was no shock to hold you together, just emptiness, thoughts looping endlessly, and this enormous weight in your chest that you couldn't even properly explain.

When you pushed open the door, the light was on.

Luke was there.

He looked up as soon as he heard you come in, and his expression changed immediately, no words were needed to understand that it wasn't just a bad day, that it was something deeper, more serious, something completely beyond his grasp.

"Hey… what happened ?"

His voice was soft, cautious, as if he were treading on shaky ground.

You stood motionless by the door. Unable to take another step. Unable to answer, because everything you'd held back until then threatened to burst forth, and you didn't know which way to throw it without breaking everything.

Jason is alive.

Jason is Red Hood.

Jason didn't tell you anything.

And now Luke was there. In your living room. In your current reality. In this life you'd tried to build afterward.

You opened your mouth, but no sound came out. You felt your hands tremble slightly as you searched for something to say, something simple, something that wouldn't destroy everything immediately.

Luke took a step closer, gently, and placed a hand on your arm.

That gesture, instead of calming you, almost made you want to break down even more.

"Tell me what's happening," he repeated, even more softly.

So you spoke.

At first, it was confusing, almost chaotic, the Batcave, Bruce, the screen, the name that appeared, Jason Todd, dead for years, impossible, absurd. Then the fall, the moment everything suddenly fell into place. You spoke of Red Hood, unable to truly separate him from Jason. You spoke of the alley, the voice, the helmet, the things he knew about you, the impossible details, and the further you went on, the more your voice broke slightly, as if telling the story made everything even more real.

Luke didn't interrupt you once.

But his expression was changing. Not abruptly. Not theatrically. Slowly, like someone assembling pieces and beginning to understand that the final picture is far more complex than he had imagined.

When you finished, there was silence.

A real silence. Not awkward. Not empty. A silence of understanding.

"Jason Todd…" he repeated finally, very softly, as if testing the name to make sure it was real.

You barely nodded.

Luke ran a hand over his face, sat down slowly, without leaving the emptiness before him.

"That's why you disappeared…"

You looked up at him, and that's when you realized something even worse: Luke didn't doubt what you were saying. He believed you.

Completely.

He stood up, briefly placed a hand on your shoulder, not to hold you back, just to say, "I'm here, I understand, and I forgive you…"

"Take all the time you need…"

~~~

Jason remained high above, motionless, clinging to the edge of a rooftop as if the entire city were suddenly weighing on his shoulders.

Against his will, he had followed you after your argument. Only to make sure you were alright…

Through the lit windows, he had seen the gestures, the tension, the tears, the words spoken too quickly and incomprehensibly. He couldn't hear everything. But he didn't need to.

Luke didn't make you tremble.

Luke didn't summon ghosts.

Luke didn't cause damage simply by existing.

Jason inhaled slowly, but the air felt too heavy. He lowered his head slightly, noticing the way Luke had placed his hand on your shoulder.

"That's it..."

Not a truly thought-out sentence. More like a brutal truth that imposed itself without permission.

He didn't deserve you anymore.

Perhaps he never truly deserved you.

His fingers tightened for a moment on the edge of the roof, then slowly relaxed, as if something had silently given way inside, just a profound weariness that filled everything.

He took a step back. Then another.

Without taking his eyes off the light in your apartment.

Because a part of him still wanted to stay.

But this time, he couldn't find a word to say against what had just been decided for him.

~~~

The door opened, but you didn't turn around.

You already knew who it was, those little footsteps that clicked too loudly on the floor, the way she ran as if every room was an emergency. Little arms wrapped around you, and you were grinning from ear to ear before you'd even seen her.

"Mommy !"

You turned and hugged her, which made her laugh, that loud, uncontrollable laughter of children who can't yet contain their joy. Her short hair, spiky at the tips. Her sparkling eyes. It was uncanny how much she resembled you, and how much she resembled him too. You twirled her around before holding her close.

You chuckled softly and gently pulled away, placing her on the floor beside you. At first glance, your daughter was the spitting image of Luke. But on closer inspection, you could clearly see something of you in the shape of her eyes, in the way they crinkled when she laughed. She was a beautiful blend of both of you. She existed because something between you was real, deeply real, and that, no one could take away.

You still thought about him sometimes. Not like before, no more of that dull ache that woke you at night, no more of that guilt that tainted every moment of happiness. Just... him. Jason, Jay...with everything he carried that you hadn't been able to see back then. The anger that was never really anger. The distance that was never really rejection. He had survived things that would have broken anyone, and he had done what he knew best, disappear before he could ruin everything. You didn't resent him anymore. You only hoped, in that quiet corner of yourself that you didn't show to anyone, that he had finally found something resembling peace.

~~~

Night fell sooner than expected.

You had fallen asleep on the sofa, your daughter nestled against you, and Luke had found you both like that, motionless, breathing in unison. He gently lifted you without waking you. Your shivers subsided as he led you to the bedroom. You snuggled against him in your sleep, a barely perceptible smile on your face, your cheeks flushed with that warmth you feel when you're safe without even thinking about it.

He looked at you for a second before turning off the light.

The corners of his lips turned up slightly.

Then he switched it off.

In the living room, where the lights were still on, the television hummed to itself.

The journalist's voice broke the silence of the apartment, neutral and detached, as it always was when Gotham became too strange to discuss otherwise.

"…Witnesses claim to have recently seen the vigilante known as Red Hood outside Gotham… alongside a female fighter identified as Artemis…"

No one in the apartment heard.

The living room light remained on for a long time, casting a soft glow on the empty sofa, on the toys scattered on the floor, on this quiet, imperfect life that went on, simply, as lives go on.

Somewhere in Gotham, on a rooftop no one was looking at, a man in red didn't move.

He knew.

And he wasn't looking toward that window anymore.

Taglist : @starrydustedwinter , @25252222

Thanks for reading my fic !

Pairing: Jason todd:/Red hood x reader

Synopsis: 16 August is Jason’s birthday. Every year, that day comes round like a wound that refuses to heal. You tried to move on, to build something new with someone decent, and you almost believed it would work. But some ghosts just won’t stay quietly in their graves.

Warnings: angst, grief, mentions of death

Divider from @pixopix

August 16

Jason's birthday. He would have turned 18.

You can't help but wonder what you two would have been like if things had turned out differently. Would he have celebrated his eighteenth birthday, or would he have thought it was too lame ? Does Bruce regret all the times he could have gotten rid of the Joker for good? Probably not. But you do.

Maybe that's why you're here, locked in your room, staring at a picture of the two of you. It was taken on Christmas Day, after you made Jason wear a reindeer headband. He never stopped complaining, even though he loved it.

You remembered the way he'd looked at you that evening, the headband slightly crooked on his head, pretending to be annoyed.

"You're insufferable," he'd said, but he was already smiling.

"And yet you're still here," you'd answered.

He'd gone quiet for a second, his eyes dropping to his hands, and then back to you.

"Yeah," he'd murmured. "I am."

You hadn't understood what he meant. Not then.

You bitterly wonder if it's all your fault. You weren't strong enough. You couldn't protect him. Tears well up in your eyes. Your hair falls across your face. You feel useless.

At the sound of the door opening, you turn around. Barbara is standing in the doorway. Her red hair is pulled back in a long ponytail, her light blue eyes fixed on you. You can't help but notice the difference between the two of you. Maybe Jason would still be alive if she had been the one to go with him that night.

"You can't stay here all day ! Come on, let's go shopping with the girls, then we'll eat, and then we'll train."

You look at her with a regretful smile. You want to open your mouth to refuse, but Barbara comes closer and takes your arm. She smiles at you as she helps you up. That smile reminds you of Jason's the day Bruce decided to pair you up for patrols. The similarities between the two are striking. You frown.

Barbara looks at you with a kind of pity. She closes her eyes and sighs.

"You really should accept that he's dead. No matter what you do, nothing will bring him back. You should meet men; there's no shame in that."

You shake your head. You could never do that. You love him too much. It's no longer just a teenage crush; it's become so much more. No one seems to understand. So, instead of explaining yourself, you let Barbara drag you around all day. One thing is certain: you'll never lose hope.

~~~

August 16

It's Jason's birthday again. This year, he would have turned 20.

You finish your laundry and sit down to think about him, soothed by the light evening breeze. You miss his spiky black hair, his blue eyes, his crooked smile. You miss his gaze. You miss his voice, his scent, his presence, his warmth. You miss his constant rivalry with Dick. You miss everything about him.

You used to sit like this together, on the fire escape of his apartment, shoulders touching, saying nothing. Jason wasn't someone who needed to fill silence. He'd just sit there, a book open on his knee, occasionally reading a sentence out loud if he thought you'd like it.

"Listen to this," he'd say, not waiting for your answer.

"And you'd listen. Not to the words, most of the time. To his voice."

"You're not even paying attention," he'd said once, catching you staring."

"I am."

"What did I just read?"

You had no idea. He'd laughed , really laughed, the kind he reserved for moments when no one else was watching, and gone back to his book without saying another word.

Luke talked all the time. You had never told him you preferred silence.

But it's in the past, and you force yourself to accept it. Four years have passed since his death, and despite yourself, you've moved on. Tomorrow at 6 p.m., you have a date with Luke, your boyfriend; it will be your one-year anniversary. You're going to celebrate at a fancy restaurant in downtown Gotham. You can't stay too long, because around 9 p.m. you have to go on patrol with Tim Drake, the new Robin. Actually, he's not so new anymore; he became Robin just a few months after Jason's death. It had been very difficult for you. You were angry at Bruce, angry that he replaced Jason as if he were worthless, angry that he didn't save him. You blamed him for still being able to breathe when Jason couldn't anymore. But as the months went by, you grew to appreciate Tim: an intelligent boy with many talents, who really should stop hacking into your email to find out who your "secret boyfriend" is.

Even though you've been with Luke for a year, even though Jason has been dead for four years, you can't help feeling guilty. So you haven't told them anything. Because telling them about Jason would be like cutting him out of your life for good, turning the page completely, and even though you love Luke, it would feel like betraying something.

~~~

Jason gets out of bed and leaves his room with a brisk step. As he passes, he glances at the photo of the two of you at the carnival, sitting on the windowsill: he'd put it back there when he'd quietly returned from Gotham an hour earlier.

Outside, clouds raced past a crescent moon suspended in a starless sky. A cold breeze nipped at his skin. Only the crackling of branches disturbed the tranquility. Gotham, behind him, still slept.

His steps were silent on the cobblestone path. He kept his back straight, alert, but his gait was measured. Beneath his red mask, his dark eyes scanned his surroundings; a single sudden movement would have been enough. He was more nervous than usual.

He'd thought about you constantly, during those years with Talia. Not softly, it wasn't a gentle kind of missing. It came in flashes, sharp and without warning. The way you tilted your head when you were pretending not to care about something. The way you'd go quiet right before you said something that mattered. Once, in the middle of a training session, someone had laughed and it had sounded just enough like you that he'd stopped moving entirely.

Talia had looked at him.

"Focus," she'd said.

He had. He always did. But he'd filed the sound away somewhere, like everything else that belonged to you, in a place he didn't let himself visit too often.

He visited it anyway.

His feet seemed to have come alive and were leading him of their own accord, incapable of changing course. It was as he turned a corner that he saw you.

You. In that restaurant, the same one where you had kissed for the first time.

But something had changed. Back then, your face would light up with an amused smile as he announced he planned to marry you as soon as you turned eighteen. Now, that sparkle had faded, replaced by maturity and responsibility, everything you used to despise. You sat alone at a table, your eyes on the menu. You had traded your comfortable clothes and your disdain for the wealthy to dine at Gotham's best restaurant, dressed in a designer gown and extravagant jewelry. You embodied everything you had once loathed.

The moonlight bathing your silhouette gave you an almost angelic appearance. Jason's posture softened.

Then a figure appeared, a dark-haired man with blue eyes, who sat down opposite you. Jason saw no surprise on your face. You had been expecting him. You were on a date, with someone other than him.

His chest tightened. Guilt clenched his jaw. He should have rushed to your place the moment he came back to life. Instead, he'd stayed with Talia and the League of Assassins, too blinded by the hatred he felt for the Joker. And now you'd moved on.

But this time, it was different. He wasn't going to abandon you again.

He'd win you back, no matter what.

~~~

At 3 a.m., you finally get home. No more patrol, no more boyfriend, no more guilt: the day is over.

You sit on your bed and think back to your date with Luke. He'd chosen the restaurant himself, reserved the table weeks in advance, proud of his find , the best place in Gotham, he'd told you with that smile he wore when he was pleased with himself. He couldn't have known. He didn't know that this was where Jason had kissed you for the first time, one November evening when you both pretended it was an accident. He didn't know, and you'd never told him. So he'd looked at you as if you were the only person in the room, laughed at your jokes, and placed his hand on yours when you least expected it. Luke was good. Luke was gentle. Luke was exactly what you needed, and you knew it.

That's what hurt the most.

The first time Jason had held your hand, it wasn't intentional either. You were on a rooftop, waiting out a stakeout that was running two hours too long, and at some point in the dark he'd just reached over, almost absent-mindedly, and his fingers had found yours. Neither of you said anything. You'd stayed like that until the comms crackled back to life and Bruce's voice cut through the silence.

"You'd let go at the same time."

"You'd never talked about it."

Luke always held your hand on purpose, deliberately, with both of his wrapped around yours. It was warm. It was kind. It made you feel terrible.

Because when he went to the restroom and you heard the door open, your body had hoped with all its heart that it would be Jason who came out. Not Luke, Jason. Always Jason. As if four years had been for nothing. As if all of Luke's gentleness meant nothing compared to a dead man who would never return.

You didn't deserve Luke. It was as simple as that. He offered you something real, something alive, and you remained staring at a closed door, waiting for a ghost.

You lie down, staring at the ceiling. You don't have the words to describe what you are...a coward, perhaps. Or simply incapable.

Too absorbed in your thoughts, you don't feel the weight of a gaze upon you : a man standing on a rooftop, motionless in the shadows, carrying four years of silence, a stolen life, and your name, which he has never stopped carrying.

Taglist : @starrydustedwinter

Part2:

Pairing: damian wayne (Al Ghul) x girly!reader

Synopsis: it's been a few weeks since the valentine's day disaster, or victory, (depending on who you ask). now damian wayne has to do something arguably more terrifying than slipping anonymous notes into lockers : bringing her home to meet the family. dick grayson has been waiting for this moment for weeks. the rest of the wayne boys are about to find out why.

Warnings: fluff / Family humor / everyone hates Dick Grayson (they'll get over it, or not).

divider from @pixopix

Damian had announced the news one Tuesday evening at dinner.

Just like that. Between the main courses and dessert, in the same tone he would have used to point out an anomaly in a report. "She's coming Saturday." And he picked up his fork.

The long silence that followed lasted exactly four seconds.

Jason put down his cutlery. "Her?"

"Yes."

"A 'she'. "

"That's what I said."

"Damian." Tim's eyes were slightly wide, like someone processing important information. "You have a girlfriend."

"I just said so."

"Since when?"

"A few weeks."

Dick hadn't moved. He had continued eating with the quiet energy of someone who wasn't surprised at all.

Jason was the first to notice.

"Wait." He put down his fork and looked at Dick. "You're making a normal face."

"I'm eating."

"Damian just announced he has a girlfriend, and you're making a normal face." Jason looked at him again. "You knew."

"So what?"

"So what? You always make that golden retriever face that just saw a squirrel when something happens." Jason looked at him again. "You knew."

Dick took a sip of his drink without replying, which was an answer in itself.

"How long?" Tim said. Not a question. A request for a report.

"A while," Dick said.

Meanwhile, Tim had taken out his phone and started typing something; he was probably telling Stephanie the news, who would tell Cassandra, who would tell Duke, creating an endless loop.

~~~

Jason adjusted himself in his chair. "He asked you for advice and you didn't tell us anything..."

"He asked me not to say anything."

"You could have given me a sign," Jason said. "A look. A raised eyebrow. Anything."

"He asked me not to say anything," Dick repeated, not at all sorry.

"We're his brothers," Tim said.

"And so am I." Dick shrugged. "He told me first. That's all."

Jason turned to Damian with an expression that was a mixture of annoyance and something that still resembled admiration. "You told him first."

"He was available," Damian said.

"I'm always available."

"You would have overreacted."

Jason opened his mouth. Closed it again. "That's true," he said finally.

Bruce, at the head of the table, watched Damian with that expression of his, the one that assesses without revealing anything. Damian looked at his plate with the serenity of someone who had anticipated this conversation perfectly and had decided not to intervene.

"What's her name?" Jason asked.

Damian said your first name.

"And she's coming on Saturday," Bruce repeated.

"Yes."

"You're all behaving well," Damian said, looking at his brothers one after the other. "All four of you. You're not scaring her off, you're not asking awkward questions, and no one's mentioning things..."

Silence.

"What things?" Jason asked.

"It doesn't matter."

"What things, Damian?!"

"It doesn't matter," Damian repeated with absolute certainty.

Dick stared at his plate with a perfectly neutral expression, which was actually the least neutral thing on the table. Jason looked at him. Dick continued eating.

"You know what it is," Jason said.

"I'm eating."

Bruce watched the scene from the other end of the table with something in his expression that, from a distance, resembled amusement.

~~~

On Saturday morning, you'd been up since six o'clock.

Which was problematic because you didn't have classes, because Damian wasn't picking you up until noon, and because six o'clock in the morning was an indecent hour to be up on a Saturday when you had no good reason to be.

Except you did have one.

You were going to meet the Wayne family.

You'd been up since six o'clock and you'd already changed your outfit three times.

The fourth was on your bed. Elegant but not too much so, feminine but not to the point of looking like you'd made too much of an effort. You put it back on the hanger.

Fifth outfit.

You called Liam.

She answered on the second ring, her voice like someone who was still asleep. "It's six in the morning."

"I know."

"A Saturday."

"I know, Liam."

A silence. Then: "Tell me what outfits you've pulled out."

You described the five options spread out on your bed, the chair, and the edge of your vanity.

"The second one," Liam said without hesitation.

"You're not even listening to me."

"The second one because it's always the second one. You pick the right one the first time, and then you agonize over it for two hours." A pause. "Breathe. It's a dinner party, not an audition."

"It's Damian Wayne's family."

"It's a dinner party," Liam repeated firmly.

You looked at the five outfits spread out all over your room.

"The second one," you admitted.

~~~

At 7 p.m you were ready.

Really ready this time. Second outfit, flawless makeup, hair styled with that quiet precision that had taken forty minutes but felt like ten. Your purse by the door, perfume on your wrist, your manicure checked twice.

You sat on the edge of your sofa and stared at the wall.

You were about to meet Bruce Wayne. The Bruce Wayne. The one who ran a multinational corporation and who, in all likelihood, had a way of looking at people that made you want to justify every decision you'd made since birth.

You stared at the wall for a moment longer.

Your phone vibrated.

"I'm downstairs."

You grabbed your bag. You checked your lipstick one last time in the hall mirror.

"It'll be fine," you said to your reflection.

Your reflection didn't seem convinced either.

~~~

Damian looked you up and down as you left the building. Not in an intrusive way, just that way he had of taking everything in.

"Are you ready?"

"Absolutely."

He looked at you for another second. "You changed your outfit several times this morning."

"No."

"You called your friend at six o'clock."

"How did you-" You stopped. "Actually, no, don't tell me."

"You dressed differently today… with even more care than usual. And you wore your favorite shoes, the ones you save for special occasions."

"I'm not putting pressure on myself."

He said nothing.

"Damian."

"Yes."

"Tell me your family is normal."

A second of silence. "It depends how you define a normal family."

"Great," you said. "Very reassuring."

~~~

Alfred was driving. You watched the streets of Gotham go by through the window without really seeing them, your purse clutched in your lap, and you took stock of everything in your mind one last time: outfit, makeup, nail polish, perfume, spare lipstick in the bag. Everything was there. Everything was in order.

Which didn't solve the problem at all, but it was something.

~~~

Wayne Manor appeared at the end of a tree-lined driveway, and you immediately realized you had underestimated the situation.

It wasn't a mansion. Well, yes, it was, but the word didn't really do it justice. that was right in front of you. It was big in the way some things are big and make you realize that your notion of big was, until now, very relative.

"It's..." You searched for the word.

"Big," said Damian.

"Yes."

"You'll get used to it."

"How long will it take?"

"A few months."

The car stopped. You took a deep breath. You pulled out your pocket mirror and checked your lipstick. Damian waited without comment.

"Okay," you said. "I'm ready."

"You already were."

You got out of the car.

The front door opened before you even reached the steps.

Dick Grayson, the famous brother Damian had told you about, was there, smiling, and he looked at you with that particular nonchalance of someone who has known exactly who you are for a while. No judgment, no Surprise. Just excitement.

"Finally," he said simply.

You looked at Damian. He was looking elsewhere.

~~~

The entrance hall was immense, and you had to make a conscious effort not to look around like a tourist.

You still looked around a little.

Damian placed his hand on the small of your back, a discreet gesture, and you refocused.

Tim appeared from a sitting room, book in hand, and paused on Dick for a fraction of a second before turning to you. "Hello. Tim."

"I know. Hello."

He nodded. Discreet, attentive, the kind of look that made you feel analyzed without malice.

Jason came from the hallway with the energy of someone who had just happened to be passing by and hadn't positioned himself there to watch. He sized you up in two seconds.

"Hi."

"Hi."

He nodded and left.

"He's happy," Dick said quietly.

"He said a word."

"For Jason, it's a speech."

In the background, Tim nodded vigorously.

~~~

Bruce Wayne was in the living room.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with that face you'd seen in photos, which in real life was more human and more intimidating at the same time. He watched you approach with an expression you couldn't yet read.

"Mr. Wayne," you said. Your voice was perfectly steady. An absolute miracle.

"Bruce." He held out his hand. You shook it firmly, like your mother had taught you. "Damian told us about you."

"Good things, I hope."

"In very few words." He paused. "Which, with Damian, amounts to the same thing."

He glanced at Dick for a second. Dick was staring at the ceiling with perfect innocence.

"Please sit down."

You sat down. Back straight, bag on your lap, hands resting one on top of the other. You probably looked like someone going for a job interview. Your body had decided on its own that this was the appropriate posture and was in no condition to negotiate.

Damian was beside you.

That detail helped you more than anything else.

~~~

Alfred served the tea with his characteristic discretion, as if he had always been there and never needed to be noticed to be indispensable. He placed the cup in front of you.

"Miss."

"Thank you, sir."

He inclined his head slightly. Before leaving, he briefly placed a hand on Damian's shoulder, a gesture so subtle you almost missed it. Damian said nothing, but he didn't move away either.

The conversation gradually settled into a rhythm. Dick asked questions, but it didn't feel like an interrogation. Tim listened more than he spoke, but when he did speak, it was insightful. Jason reappeared at one point, settled into an armchair off to the side, and participated in his own way by saying little and watching a lot.

And then there was Bruce.

He asked questions, not many, but the right ones. He really listened to your answers, without looking away, without the impatience of someone waiting their turn to speak. At one point, he asked you what you were studying, and the ensuing conversation lasted much longer than you had anticipated. Somewhere in the middle of it, you realized your shoulders had relaxed without you even noticing.

~~~

Dinner was served in a dining room that could have accommodated twenty people.

You found yourself seated between Damian and Tim. Dick was across from you. The conversation flowed naturally, with those moments typical of family meals when several people talk at once and everyone still manages to follow along.

At one point, Dick said something that made Jason laugh in spite of himself, a short, almost incredulous laugh, immediately suppressed, and Dick took on that triumphant look of someone who had just scored an important point.

"You're less intimidated," Damian said quietly, just to you.

"I wasn't intimidated."

He looked at you.

"A little," you admitted.

"I know."

"How you-"

"You've checked your lipstick four times since we got here."

You took a sip from your drink to keep your hands busy.

Across from you, Dick smiled at his plate, saying nothing.

~~~

After dinner, Jason disappeared first. Tim slipped away afterward with a sincere "good evening." Dick walked you to the front door, and as Damian went to get his coat, he turned to you.

"I'm glad you came." Sincerely, without the layer of enthusiasm he sometimes wore. "Really."

Bruce appeared from the living room. He stopped in front of you.

"Come back whenever you want," he said.

Just a few words. But coming from him, with the way he weighed each word, you understood it meant a lot. .

"Thank you," you said.

~~~

Alfred was driving home. The lights of Gotham streamed past outside, and you gazed out the window with that particular feeling of evenings that have gone better than expected.

"So?" Damian said.

"They're fine."

"I know."

"Your father told me to come back anytime."

"I know."

"Alfred put his hand on your shoulder."

"I know."

"Is it good?"

"Yes." A pause. "It's good."

You smiled. Not the smile you'd worn all day, the other one, the one you hadn't had to prepare.

"Next time," you said, "give me less notice. That way I won't have as much time to panic."

Damian looked at you with that expression he sometimes had, the one that was close to a smile but not quite.

"No."

"No ?"

"You would have gotten ready the same way. Just in less time."

You opened your mouth.

You closed it again.

He wasn't wrong.

Tag : @i-dearbambi-dxx

Pairing : Dick Grayson x jealous!reader

Synopsis : You knew exactly what you were getting into when you fell in love with Dick Grayson. Or at least you thought you did. Then you saw Barbara laughing at his jokes and you forgot everything in an instant.

Divider from @pixopix

Dick Grayson had this very particular way of looking at you, as if you were the only person in the world, as if you occupied a special place in his heart that no one else could replace. 

The problem was, he looked at everyone that way. And you realized it far too late.

~~~

Gotham at night had that unmistakable scent of cold rain and bad decisions. You were making one right now, listening to Dick talk instead of watching your right, but it was hard to do otherwise when he was speaking.

"You were great tonight," he said, landing next to you on a ledge.

"You say that every time."

"Because it's true every time." He turned to you with that smile. That charming smile, completely oblivious to the damage it caused. Embarrassed, you looked away back to Gotham.

He moved closer to adjust the attachment of your grappling hook without being asked, his fingers quick and precise. You were perfectly capable of handling your own equipment. You weren't going to mention it. 

“You could have let me handle the second guy,” he said.

“You were still thanking the first one for letting himself get caught.”

“I’m being polite.”

"You never shut up".”

He laughed heartily, ruffling your hair as he did so, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The patrol continued like this. Jokes, asides, your shoulders brushing against each other on perfectly wide rooftops. At one point, he caught your wrist during a sudden descent and held onto your hand a second too long. You looked away as if it hadn’t bothered you.

Technically, you looked away.

~~~

The Batcave buzzed with the usual post-mission activity. Tim was staring at three screens simultaneously. Jason was eating something standing up without looking at what it was. Alfred moved with the regal detachment of someone who had seen it all and long ago chosen to say nothing.

You were taking off your mask when you heard Barbara laugh.

Dick was leaning against his desk in a relaxed posture, a smile on his lips. Barbara was whispering something to him, he was responding, and they were both laughing. It was obvious, the way he was leaning towards her.

You watched that for four seconds too long.

Ah...

So there it is. The smile, the asides, the hand on the wrist. Dick Grayson was like that with everyone, and you had spent weeks building something from scratch because you had mistaken his natural warmth for something meant for you.

You slammed your gear down on the table a little too abruptly. Jason glanced in your direction for a second. Even Jason. Which meant you were handling yourself really, really badly.

Dick walked toward you.

"Hey. Good patrol, huh?"

"Yeah."

He opened his mouth to add something.

"I gotta go, I've got an errand to run."

And you stormed off.

~~~

Dick stood motionless for a second. Then he turned back to Barbara.

"What did I do?"

Barbara looked up from her screen. "How should I know?"

"I must have said something wrong."

"No kidding." She crossed her arms. "Who has errands to run at 3 a.m., seriously?" She glanced at him for a second. "You've gotten yourself into a real mess, man."

"Barbara."

"Dick."

"Give me one piece of advice. Just one."

She shrugged and turned back to her screen.

"Figure it out yourself."

~~~

Four days passed.

Four days during which you convinced yourself you'd handled it with exemplary dignity. That no one had noticed. That life went on as normal.

Then Dick sent you a message about patrol and it took you twenty minutes to reply "ok." Even a single word felt compromising. So maybe your exemplary dignity was slightly overrated.

The second patrol was similar to the first, the rooftops, the cold, Gotham below...except Dick wasn't cracking jokes. That was unusual enough to be worrying.

An hour passed.

"You've been acting strange since the other night."

"I'm normal."

"You had an errand to run at 3 a.m."

"It was urgent." 

"..."

Silence fell. Cars passed below, and only the sound of engines could be heard.

"What did I do?"

The question was direct and sincere, and that was precisely the problem with him.

"Nothing. You didn't do anything."

"Then why-"

"Because I was jealous." A silence. "Of you and Barbara. In the Batcave. The other night."

It had come out without warning, and now it was in the air, and Gotham continued to exist indifferently below you.

"I know how you are with people," you continued, because you might as well finish. "I know it's just you. I shouldn't have read anything else into it. It's fine, forget it."

"What did you see?"

He asked the question as if he genuinely cared about the answer. You would have preferred him to be less attentive.

"That it was different with me. That's it. That's all."

Dick didn't resume his patrol.

"Wait."

"Dick-"

"You really didn't understand?"

You turned around. He looked slightly incredulous in a way you hadn't seen him do before.

"Understood what?"

"The coffee." He said it simply, as if it were a given. "One Tuesday morning. Without you asking for anything. Exactly the way you wanted it."

You opened your mouth.

"And the night you didn't have enough money for a taxi." A pause. "I took the motorbike. An hour round trip. At 2 a.m. In the rain."

The silence that followed was frankly mortifying.

You thought about the coffee again. On the rainy ride where he dropped you off at your door without a single complaint, and where you just said "thank you" before going inside.

"Oh," you said.

"Yeah."

You looked at Gotham. Gotham offered you no escape.

"I felt stupid for you," you murmured, "when it was me who-"

"Yeah."

"Dick."

"Hm."

"Don't say anything."

"I'm not saying anything."

He wasn't saying anything, but he was smiling, and that was worse. You ran a hand over your face.

"You and Barbara-"

"We're friends. We've always been friends." He took a step toward you. "You're the one I was watching from the roof to make sure you got home safely."

You looked at him.

"You could have just sent a text."

"Yeah." He shrugged. "But I wanted to see you come home."

You had nothing to say to that. For once.

And this time, you didn't look away, mostly because you were too busy smiling like an idiot."

I just used Barbara for the plot!

I hate people/authors who reduce Barbara to the girl who dates EVERY boy... when she's Oracle, Batgirl... an incredible and intelligent superhero...

In short, if you want me to write about a particular person or topic, let me know.

Pairing : Bruce wayne x neglected!wife!reader

Synopsis: Being Bruce Wayne's wife is glamorous, apparently. The galas, the dresses, the mansion. What they forget to mention is that your husband is technically present but practically absent, and the only way to get his attention is for a stranger to talk to you for ten minutes. Spoiler alert: it works.

Warnings : batboys (mainly Damian ofc) and a little angst, but happy ending don't worry !

divider from @pixopix ♡

Harrison Mercer's gala was like any other gala.

That is to say, it was posh, boring, and full of people smiling for reasons that had nothing to do with joy. Waiters circulated with trays of champagne and appetizers, the band played something from the last century, and everyone talked to everyone else without really listening.

You knew all about it. Four years of marriage to Bruce Wayne had made you perfectly fluent in that language.

You were wearing a long, black, understated dress. Not understated as in invisible, understated as in deliberate. Your jewelry was discreet and probably cost more than most people's cars in that room. Your hair was styled, your makeup flawless, and you smelled of that cologne Bruce had given you for your wedding anniversary last year, which was just another way of reminding him that he could still do good things when he put his mind to it.

He was on your arm when you came in. His hand on the small of your back, an automatic gesture, present without truly being there.

Twenty-three minutes later, he was gone.

You had counted.

~~~

On the other side of the room, Bruce was laughing with three men in suits. Not his real laugh, the other one, the one he used for galas, fake, charming, and perfectly measured. He was in his element. He always was in those moments.

You took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray and looked around the room.

That was it. That had been exactly it for months. You were looking around the room while Bruce filled it.

"May I?"

You turned around. A man, around forty, with a pleasant smile, the quiet confidence of someone used to this kind of evening. "Thomas Elliot. I don't think we've met before."

You shook his hand and gave him your first name.

"I know who you are," he said. "Everyone knows who you are."

"That's the advantage and the disadvantage of being Mrs. Wayne."

He chuckled quietly.

"You seem bored."

"Not at all."

"You've been looking around the room for twenty minutes."

You looked at him. "You've been watching me for twenty-three minutes?"

"It's hard not to." He raised his glass slightly.

"Again, everyone knows who you are."

You smiled in spite of yourself. It wasn't the most subtle compliment you'd received, but it was the first of the evening.

Out of the corner of your eye, you looked for Bruce in the room. He was still with his investors, his back turned.

"Tell me about yourself," you said to Thomas Elliot.

And you positioned yourself, quite naturally, so that you were perfectly visible from where Bruce was.

~~~

Thomas Elliot was in real estate, he had a sense of humor, and most importantly, he looked at you when you spoke. You hadn't expected that detail to matter so much. And yet...

You didn't notice him coming.

It was the change in Thomas's expression that alerted you. Something slightly less at ease, a quick readjustment, and you knew before you even sensed his presence.

Bruce was there.

Not behind you. Next to you, in that space he always occupied as if the room belonged to him, one hand resting on the small of your back with a possessive pressure. He was smiling. That particular smile, polite and icy, the one you had learned to read as a warning sign.

"Thomas Elliot," he said, with that way he had of pronouncing a name as if he knew every detail. "I didn't realize you knew my wife."

"We've just met," said Thomas, his smile now clearly that of someone reassessing his options in real time.

"Ah." Bruce said nothing more. He just kept smiling, his hand still on the small of your back, and waited.

Three seconds.

Thomas Elliot wasn't stupid. "Good evening to you both." He raised his glass in your direction and walked away with a dignity that was perfectly appropriate under the circumstances.

Bruce watched him for a second too long.

"You were gone," you said.

"I had some associates to greet."

"Obviously."

He turned to you. You looked around the room. There was a moment, then: "Shall we go home?"

"With pleasure."

~~~

The limo ride was silent.

Not the silence of couples who don't need to speak. The other. The one with weight, with substance, who takes up all the space without being asked. Alfred was driving on the other side of the tinted window, and the lights of Gotham were flashing outside, and Bruce was looking at his phone, and you were looking out the window, and nobody was saying anything.

At one point, he put down the phone.

You didn't turn around.

He picked it up again.

~~~

Wayne Manor was lit when the limousine stopped in front of the entrance. Which meant the boys were still up, which at that hour meant Dick had convinced the others to wait for him.

Indeed.

Dick was in the living room with Tim, who was busy doing who-knows-what on his laptop, and Jason, who was pretending to watch television. Damian was sitting on the floor against the sofa, a book on his lap, in that position he sometimes adopted that made it seem as if he were there by chance, even though he had clearly decided to be there.

Dick stood up with that smile of his, the one that assessed a situation in a second and a half.

He saw your faces.

The smile remained but became more cautious. "Nice gala?"

"Perfect " you said with irony . "The orchestra was playing Vivaldi. Or Beethoven. I can't remember, I had plenty of time to concentrate."

Dick looked at you. Looked at you again. "Great."

Tim looked up from his screen for a second. Jason didn't move. Damian closed his book silently.

"Good night," Bruce said, crossing the living room toward his office.

You followed him.

~~~

The office door closed behind you.

Bruce was already loosening his tie, the computer on, on his way to becoming Bruce Wayne, the boss of Wayne Enterprises, before he'd even taken off his jacket. You watched him with that particular calm you had when you were too angry to show it right away.

"Can you tell me something?" you said.

"Sure."

"At what point exactly did you decide that taking me to this gala tonight was a good idea?"

He looked up. "Excuse me?"

"Because from my point of view," you said calmly, "you could just as easily have driven me there and gone home without me. The result would have been exactly the same. I would have just saved an hour in a silent limousine."

"It wasn't-"

"Twenty-three minutes, Bruce!" You placed your bag on the armchair. "Twenty-three minutes after we arrived, you were gone. I had time to finish a glass of champagne, pour myself a second, look around the room, and time exactly how long it takes your husband to forget you in a room." You paused. "The answer is twenty-three minutes. In case you were wondering."

"I had Hendricks and his associates; it's a contract that represents-"

"Oh, please." You interrupted him without raising your voice, which was actually much more effective. "Don't talk to me about Hendricks. I don't care about Hendricks. I don't care about his contract. I don't care about anything Hendricks represents for Wayne Enterprises. And I say that after shaking Hendricks' hand tonight with a smile because that's what I do, Bruce. That's what I do at every gala, every dinner, every event. I smile, I remember names, I ask the right questions, and I wait for my husband to remember I'm in the same room as him."

Bruce took off his tie. "You're exaggerating."

You looked at him.

He held your gaze for two seconds. "Okay. Maybe not."

"Maybe not," you repeated softly. "That's generous of you."

"I didn't mean to-"

"No, you didn't. That's the problem." You sat down in the armchair, not because you were tired of standing, but because you wanted this conversation to last long enough for him to really hear what you were saying. "You never want any of this. You don't decide to forget me. You don't decide to come home at three in the morning without warning. You don't decide to stare at your phone the whole way home. It just happens. And I wait. I've been waiting for months for things to change, and nothing changes because you don't even see that there's anything that needs changing."

Bruce remained standing on the other side of the desk. He didn't say anything, which with him could mean many things: that he was searching for his words, that he was processing it, that he was preparing to argue. You weren't quite sure which one it was tonight.

"And Thomas Elliot," he said.

You closed your eyes for a second.

"Really?" you said. "That's where we are."

"You positioned yourself so I could see you."

"Yes, Bruce, I positioned myself so you could see me." You looked at him. "And you know what's sad about that? It worked. A man I didn't know two hours ago noticed within ten minutes that I was looking around the room. You only crossed this room when it seemed necessary to establish that I was your wife." You paused. "I've been your wife for four years. I didn't need Thomas Elliot to tell me that." 

The silence that followed was long.

Really long.

Bruce ran a hand over his face. "I don't know how to do both at the same time."

"Both."

"Wayne Enterprises. The rest." The rest was Batman. You never spoke about it directly in this room, but you both knew. "And you. I don't know how, and instead of saying it, I let you compensate. Without saying a word."

"Without saying a word," you repeated. "Yes. Because I didn't want to be a burden. Because I know what you're carrying. Because I always thought if I waited a little longer, things would sort themselves out." You stood up. "They didn't sort themselves out."

Bruce didn't reply.

"I'm tired, Bruce." Your voice was calm, but it was the calm of someone who had held on for too long. "I'm not saying I'm leaving. I'm saying I'm tired and I need to sleep somewhere else tonight."

"Somewhere else."

"The guest room."

There was something in his face at that moment, something brief and not entirely controlled, and you saw it and didn't have the strength tonight to go there.

"Good night, Bruce Thomas Wayne."

You picked up your bag and left.

~~~

In the hallway, four pairs of feet retreated silently with suspicious synchronicity.

You stopped.

Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian looked at you with expressions ranging from slightly guilty to completely impassive, depending on the individual.

"You were listening at the door," you said.

"No," said Dick.

"Absolutely not," said Tim.

Jason shrugged. "Yeah."

Damian didn't say anything, which was his way of saying yes.

You looked at all four of them. You were too tired to be truly angry with them, and they probably could see it.

"Good night," you said.

"Good night, ummi," Damian said.

You placed your hand on his cheek for a second. Then you headed towards the guest room at the end of the hall.

~~~

The room smelled clean and empty. Not your scent. Not Bruce's. Just the smell of laundry detergent.

You turned off the light.

~~~

In the hall, the boys exchanged a glance.

Then the four of them went downstairs to the office.

~~~

Bruce looked up when the door opened. He saw Dick first, then Jason behind him, then Tim, and finally Damian bringing up the rear with that expression he sometimes had, cold and measured, the kind that was worse than any anger.

"We didn't hear you coming," said Bruce.

"We did," said Jason.

The silence that followed was uneasy.

Dick took a deep breath. "Bruce-"

"I know." 

"No." Dick shook his head. "You don't know yet. Otherwise, she wouldn't be in the guest room." He stepped forward, and for once there was no smile, no lightheartedness, just Dick Grayson looking at the man who had raised him with something close to disappointment. "She told you she was counting the minutes. Twenty-three minutes, Bruce. She was counting because she had nothing else to do in this room."

Bruce didn't reply.

"I have a question," Tim said. His voice was calm, almost gentle, which was the most formidable version of Tim Drake, and everyone in this room knew it. "Do you remember the last time you asked her how she was doing? Not how the evening went. How she was doing."

Bruce opened his mouth.

"Take some time to think about it," Tim said.

He didn't hesitate long before closing his mouth.

"Great," Jason said. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking at Bruce with that expression he reserved for situations that angered him but where anger alone wasn't enough. "So it's been a while. All this time she's been smiling at your galas, remembering your investors' names, waiting for you to come home, and where exactly were you?"

"Jason."

"No, really. Where were you? Because physically you were there, that's for sure. But the rest..." He uncrossed his arms. "She must have made her own husband jealous to get him to walk through a room. Do you realize how problematic that is?"

Damian still hadn't spoken.

He stood slightly apart, as usual, and watched his father with that peculiar patience that wasn't patience at all, but something far harder to bear.

"Ummi never asked for anything," he said finally. Slowly. Each word carefully chosen. "Not once. She came into this family and learned everything, accepted everything, carried everything without ever demanding anything in return. She loved you with all that entails." He paused. "And what did you give her tonight? A silent limousine and an argument in an office."

Bruce closed his eyes.

"She's still there," Damian said. "It's not a done deal."

The silence was long.

"I know," Bruce said.

"Then act accordingly," Damian said. "Tomorrow morning. Not after your emails."

He left the office without waiting for a reply. Tim followed him. Jason walked past Bruce without looking at him. Dick was the last to leave; he stopped in the doorway.

"She still loves you," Dick said simply. "That's why it hurts. People who don't care don't count the minutes."

He turned off the office light as he left, leaving Bruce alone in the dark.

~~~

The next morning, you woke up in the guest room with that brief disorientation of first moments in an unfamiliar place. Then you remembered. You stared at the ceiling for a moment. Outside, the park was gray, a quiet February gray.

The knock at the door was hesitant. Not the usual Bruce knock.

"Yes." 

The door opened. He was in civilian clothes, no suit, no visible phone. He looked like someone who hadn't slept much and wasn't trying to hide it.

He came in, left the door open, and stood by the wall.

"I don't know how to do both at the same time," he said. No preamble. "I said it last night, but I hadn't really said it before. Not to you. Not clearly." He paused. "I should have."

You sat up in bed. You said nothing.

"That's not an excuse," he said. "It's just the truth. And while I was trying to manage both, you were managing everything else without me asking and without me even realizing it. And I'm sorry."

You looked at him. There was something different about the way he was this morning. Less armed. It was costing him, this way of standing in the doorway of a guest room in his own mansion, searching for his words, and you knew it, and it didn't solve everything, but it was real.

"I'm not asking you to stop everything," you said. "I never asked you to."

"I know."

"I'm just asking you not to forget me."

"I know." He moved forward, sat on the edge of the bed a reasonable distance away, elbows on his knees. "I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off. The word sounded slightly foreign coming from him. "And Saturday, the six of us are going out. You choose where."

"Shopping."

He didn't flinch. "Shopping."

You looked at him. "Jason's going to hate it."

"Absolutely."

"Dick's going to love it."

"Catastrophically."

"Tim will bring his laptop."

"Tim always finds a way to have his laptop with him."

"And Damian will pretend for two hours that it's underneath him and end up carrying all the bags."

Bruce gave something that resembled a genuine smile. "Probably."

Something loosened in your chest. Not everything. But something.

"Your phone," you said.

"On the nightstand. Monday and Tuesday."

"And the weekend."

"And the weekend."

You looked at him again. He didn't look away. 

"Okay," you said.

He nodded. He stood up. He stopped.

"Are you coming back to our room?"

You thought for a second. "Maybe..."

He waited for you to get up, and as you passed him in the doorway, he placed his hand on the small of your back, that automatic gesture he'd always had, except this time he was really there. Really there.

You said nothing.

But you didn't move away either.

~~~

In the hallway, Dick was sitting on the floor against the wall with two cups of coffee, looking like he'd been waiting there for a while and wasn't at all embarrassed. He looked at both of you, assessed the situation in a second and a half, and held out a cup in your direction.

"Coffee?"

"Thanks, Dick."

He smiled. The real deal.

Further down the corridor, a door was ajar. Jason stood in the doorway, arms crossed, pretending to look away. Tim was somewhere behind him with his laptop. And Damian, at the end of the corridor, was waiting for you with that peculiar patience he sometimes possessed.

He watched you approach.

"Sabah al-khayr ummi," he said.

You placed your hand on his cheek for a second.

"Sabah an-noor, Dami."

~~~

The following Saturday, Jason spent the first three hours with his hands in his pockets, keeping a carefully calculated distance from the group. Dick tried to be the first into each shop. Tim was doing something on his laptop, and Damian pretended for exactly two hours that it was all way beneath him, then ended up carrying four bags without anyone asking him to and without making a single comment about it.

Bruce stayed by your side all day.

His phone had been on the nightstand since Monday morning.

Sometime in the afternoon, between shops, he took your hand. Just that. Without looking around to see if anyone had noticed, for no particular reason.

You didn't let him pull it away.   

Sabah al-khayr/an-noor : are terms used to greet each other in the morning ♡

Pairing: damian wayne (Al Ghul) x girly!crush!reader

Synopsis: Damian Wayne, son of Batman, grandson of Ra's al Ghul, capable of neutralizing a threat in thirty seconds flat, is completely, irrevocably incapable of speaking to the girl he loves. The solution: an anonymous note slipped into a locker. Dick Grayson finds it hilarious. Damian doesn't.

Warnings: Lots of helpful comments from Dick !

divider from @pixopix

Damian didn't write letters.

It wasn't in his nature. He was Bruce Wayne's son and Ra's al Ghul's grandson; he'd been trained to neutralize threats, not to scribble his feelings on paper. Emotions were information. You analyzed them, you controlled them, you moved on.

That's what he told himself.

It had started in September. And it had never really stopped.

You'd walked into his literature class with that designer handbag clutched to your chest, your hair styled with a quiet precision that made it seem effortless, and you smelled floral with a hint of fruitiness. He'd noticed it unintentionally and hadn't forgiven himself for a week.

Then he'd started noticing the rest. Your always-perfect manicure. Your pocket mirror that you pulled out between classes. Your lip gloss reapplied before every break. The small bottle of perfume you discreetly applied to your wrist, like others checked their phones.

And then there was the group project. You set your purse aside and dismantled the central argument of the text you'd studied in two sentences, with the quiet ease of someone who has nothing to prove to anyone.

Damian looked away.

It didn't help.

He accepted the fact that he had a problem.

Then he opened his notebook, tore out a sheet of paper, and wrote:

"I'm not one for declarations..."

He stopped. Looked at the paper. Almost crumpled it.

He didn't.

Valentine's Day was in five days. If someone else slipped a note into your locker before him, he wouldn't forgive himself.

He picked up his pen again.

You were the kind of girl who never went out unprepared.

Not prepared in the sense of being dressed up. Prepared in the sense of being impeccable. There was a difference, and you knew it better than anyone. Your powder pink handbag with a small gold chain always contained the same things: your pocket mirror, your travel-size perfume, your lip gloss, your spare lipstick, and a nail file because a chipped nail was out of the question. Your makeup was done carefully every morning, not overdone, just perfect. Mascara, evened complexion, rosy lips. You didn't go out without smelling good. It was a rule.

People who didn't know you tended to stop at the surface. The pink, the meticulous preparation, the always-fresh manicure. They were wrong, but you didn't waste your time correcting them. You knew who you were.

And apparently, someone else was starting to figure it out too.

~~~

Valentine's Day was in five days, and you adored it, no irony, no hesitation. You loved red, pink, hearts everywhere, boxes of chocolates, romantic movies. You'd already planned your day: you wrapped in your blanket surrounded by scented candles, watching a marathon of romantic comedies that would make you realize just how single and sad you really are... All while eating an unreasonable amount of chocolate, of course.

That morning, you opened your locker, and a little note fell to the floor.

You picked it up, your brows slightly furrowed. Your name was written on it, in neat, very careful handwriting, almost too controlled. You looked around. Everyone was busy with their own things.

You slipped the note into your purse and headed towards the cafeteria.

Seated at your usual table, you took out the note.

"I'm not one for declarations. Words spoken are unnecessarily complicated. In writing, it's different. So here goes: you're remarkably beautiful and, contrary to what people might think, you're not as superficial as you're made out to be. You're intelligent, even if you seem to not care. Your smile is annoying...in a good way. I can't get rid of it. I hope you don't find that strange. I'd like you to reply, if you're willing." D.

You blushed. Discreetly, you usually kept an eye on things, but still. "Annoying in a good way." Who wrote that? And that handwriting, neat and elegant, you felt like you'd seen it somewhere before.

Liam appeared at your table and sat down opposite you, his tray placed with the energy of someone who'd already noticed something was up.

"What is it?"

You wordlessly handed her the note. She read it, raising an eyebrow.

"It's weird." She paused. "But cute, in its own way."

"That's exactly what I was thinking."

"Are you going to reply?"

"I don't even know how. I don't know his locker, nothing."

"Leave yours slightly open with a note sticking out." She shrugged. "Do it before the first class tomorrow."

You looked at her, stars in your eyes. "You're a genius."

You discreetly pulled out your pocket mirror to check that the blush hadn't ruined your foundation. It hadn't. You closed it, took out your notebook, and started writing your reply.

~~~

Across the cafeteria, Damian Wayne ate half his lunch without tasting anything.

He'd watched you read. He'd seen something cross your face, subtle, controlled, but there nonetheless.

And now you were writing your reply.

It wasn't supposed to happen so soon. He had no plan for the next step.

He picked up his tray and went back to Wayne Manor with something that looked dangerously like nervousness.

Dick Grayson was sprawled on the living room couch when Damian walked in the door, glancing up from his phone with the unusually sharp social radar of someone who'd grown up in a circus.

"You look weird."

"Eat."

"You're not bringing any food." Dick sat up. "What's going on?"

Damian put down his bag, hesitated for a split second, which, coming from him, amounted to a major display of hesitation, and got the point out in three sentences. The note. Your reaction. The fact that you were going to reply.

Dick stared at him silently for exactly two seconds.

Then he smiled the kind of smile Damian cordially loathed.

"You wrote him an anonymous note."

"Yes."

"You. Damian Wayne. A secret admirer's note." Dick paused. "The guy who refused to do an oral presentation in tenth grade because it was a waste of time."

"It was."

"To a girl who doesn't even know you exist."

"She knows I exist."

"Oh yeah?" Dick crossed his arms. "Has she ever spoken to you outside of group projects?"

Damian didn't answer.

Dick smiled even wider. "You're so in love."

Damian pulled away. "I'm going to my room."

"Wait. Does she know it's you?"

"No. And it's not the right time yet."

"So what's the plan?"

Damian stopped on the stairs. "I haven't finalized this part yet."

Dick crossed his arms. "Do you want my help or not?"

"No."

"Dami."

"No."

He disappeared upstairs. Dick sat back down on the sofa with the smile of someone who was going to help anyway.

~~~

The next morning, Damian walked past your locker under the pretext of going to the restroom.

A note was sticking out. On pale pink paper, neatly folded, the edges perfectly aligned.

Of course.

He picked it up, slipped it into his inside jacket pocket, and waited for his break to read it.

"Thank you, whoever you are. To answer your question: no, it's neither weird nor scary. It's a little formal, 'contrary to what one might think'? Really? But mostly, it's lovely. I don't understand why you don't speak to me directly. I assure you, I don't bite. Who are you?" ♡

He turned the note over. In the corner, a small gold star sticker. And the paper smelled of your cologne.

Damian stared at the note for a long moment.

Then, for the first time in weeks, something vaguely resembling a smile crossed his face.

He took out a piece of paper and began to write.

~~~

That evening at Wayne Manor, Dick was waiting for him in the hallway.

"So?"

"She replied."

"And?"

"She thought the first word was condescending."

Dick winced. "Ouch."

"I apologized in the second."

Dick looked at him. "You apologized. Spontaneously."

"It was a tactical error."

"Damian." Dick took a deep breath. "Girls don't call it a tactical error. They call it being adorable."

Damian didn't reply, which meant he was taking it in.

"Did she forgive you?"

"She said it was sweet." A pause. "The note smelled of her perfume."

Dick opened his mouth. Closed it again. "You're completely lost."

~~~

In the following days, a routine settled in. Every morning, Damian dropped off a note. Every noon, he collected your reply, always on neatly folded paper, sometimes with a small sticker in the corner. And always that scent.

He had started keeping them.

He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone.

In the evening, Dick received the report.

"Did she put you on the list of suspects?"

"Yes."

"With whom?"

"Dylan. Dorian. David." A pause. "And she mentioned me as a possibility."

Dick burst out laughing. "She thinks it's you without knowing it."

"It's just one possibility among others for her."

"Dami." Dick leaned forward. "When are you going to tell her?"

"After school. On Valentine's Day."

"Good. Simple. Effective." Dick nodded. Then, "Do you need..help with what you're going to say?"

"No."

"Because, honestly, face to face, you're going to be able to say more than three words?"

"Good night, Dick."

~~~

On Valentine's Day, at noon, not a single word fell from your locker.

You closed the door. Disappointment settled in, cold and clear.

Liam joined you in the hallway and read your expression before you even opened your mouth.

"No word?"

"No word."

"If he backs out now, he's not worth it."

You didn't reply. You didn't really believe him.

In gym class, sitting in the bleachers, you couldn't stop thinking. David. No, Dorian. No, maybe Dylan. You'd taken out your pocket mirror, an automatic gesture when you were nervous, and checked your lipstick without really seeing him.

"It must be Dylan," you muttered. "He's the only one left who's really there."

"Then go ask him."

The voice came from behind you. Clear. Direct. Slightly more strained than usual.

You turned around.

Damian Wayne was looking at you, his jaw slightly clenched, his green eyes absolutely fixed on you. He was sitting two rows behind you, his notebook closed on his lap, and he looked like someone who had just jumped off a bridge and was waiting for the impact.

"It was me," he said. "I'm the one who's been writing to you all week. I wanted to tell you after class. This isn't... this isn't how I planned to do it."

Your jaw dropped slightly. You closed your pocket mirror.

"You?"

"Yes."

"Damian Wayne."

"That's my name."

"You're the one who wrote that my smile was annoying."

"In a good way. It was specific."

"You've never spoken to me," you said. "Outside of group projects."

"I know." He crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. "You're making things difficult for me."

You blushed involuntarily. *You're making things difficult for me. Which never happens.*

"What about Valentine's Day?" you whispered. "You asked me what I was doing."

His gaze didn't waver an inch. "I was asking if you were free."

"And if I am?"

A pause. Then something relaxed, ever so slightly, in Damian Wayne's expression.

"So I'm inviting you to a contemporary art exhibition."

"And a visit to an amazing ice cream parlor?"

A second of silence. "That can be arranged."

You smile, that annoying smile in the best possible way, and reapply your lipstick, which you'd unconsciously been holding.

"Absolutely."

Damian looked away for half a second, which, coming from him, was exactly the equivalent of blushing.

In the stands, Liam watched the scene with the look of someone witnessing something historic.

~~~

That evening at Wayne Manor, Damian came home to find Dick in the entryway, arms crossed, looking like he already knew.

"So?"

"We're going to an art exhibition this weekend."

Dick raised both fists in the air.

"Richard..."

"Sorry." He became serious again. Almost. "Was she happy?"

Damian stopped at the foot of the stairs.

"She smiled."

Dick smiled too. "Yes. That's all it takes."

Part2:

~~~

Part1: / Part2: / Part3: / Part4: / Part5: / Part6: / Part7: / Part8: / Part9:

That night, Y/N couldn't sleep.

It wasn't difficulty falling asleep, nor one of those restless nights that you forget in the morning. She had woken up abruptly, for no apparent reason, with the strange sensation that an invisible thread had snapped inside her. She hadn't had a nightmare, or at least, she had no memory of one… and yet her heart was pounding, as if her body still remembered something her mind refused to forget.

She lay in the dark, perfectly still, her eyes open, fixed on a ceiling she couldn't even see. The silence of the apartment seemed unusual, almost oppressive, as if it had a texture, a presence of its own. She listened involuntarily, absurdly waiting for a sound, a sign, anything that might explain the vague unease that gripped her chest.

But nothing came.

Not a creak, not a breath, not even the distant sound of a car. The world seemed suspended, frozen in a state of waiting whose purpose she couldn't comprehend. The minutes passed, slow and drawn out, and the discomfort only grew, taking root within her without ever clearly revealing itself.

Then she gave in.

It wasn't like her to take sleeping pills. She even carefully avoided them, as if admitting she needed them would be tantamount to acknowledging a weakness. But that night, fighting it seemed pointless, almost absurd. She had a very clear feeling that sleep wouldn't come to her naturally, that she would have to force it. .

She got up without turning on the light, groped her way to the kitchen, guided more by her sense of smell than by sight. The floor was cold beneath her feet, unnaturally cold, or perhaps she had simply become overly sensitive to everything. She grabbed a glass, filled it with water, then stood motionless for a moment with the pill in her hand.

A brief hesitation crossed her mind.

Then she swallowed.

She went back to bed almost immediately, and sleep overtook her this time without resistance, deep, artificial, dreamless, like a clean break in the thread of night.

Morning arrived without any particular gentleness, with the almost irritating banality of days that continue nonetheless.

The light filtered through the curtains, white and diffuse, tracing familiar shapes in the room. Y/N opened her eyes without truly emerging, as if a part of her had remained behind, trapped somewhere between night and day. Her body, however, functioned normally: she sat up, ran a hand through her hair, and put her feet on the floor.

The aches and pains were the first thing she noticed. Not severe, not alarming, but present enough for her to be immediately aware of them. She didn't try to explain them. It was the kind of sensation one accepts without thinking, like just another detail in an already bad day.

In the kitchen, she went through her usual routine without giving it a second thought. The coffee maker, the cup, the coffee gulped down standing up, still too hot. She checked her phone without any real expectation, more out of reflex than interest, then put it down without even registering what she'd seen. Everything had a strange taste of slightly off-kilter routine, as if each action had been repeated one time too many.

Finally, she went outside and descended the stairs.

Johan was waiting for her at the bottom of the building.

As always, he was there before her, motionless, hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the street with that particular expression she knew so well: that of someone observing without truly engaging, as if he were already somewhere else. He never gave the impression of waiting, simply of being in the right place at the right time.

When he saw her, he offered a faint smile.

"_You didn't sleep well..Did the sleeping pills not work ?"

y/n's cheeks flushed at the words of his partner

"_Oh yes they work, It's just... you know... our many nights together, it's given me a lot of aches and pains.  "

She shrugged, downplaying the incident with disconcerting ease. She could have elaborated, described that strange feeling in the night, but words seemed superfluous, even inappropriate. With Johan, some things remained instinctively unspoken.

He didn't press the issue. He simply resumed walking, and she followed him naturally, without thinking. Their steps synchronized almost instantly, as if this rhythm had become second nature to them without them ever having spoken of it.

They walked on for a few minutes, enveloped in a silence that held no discomfort whatsoever.

Until her phone vibrated.

Y/N took it out of her pocket, glanced quickly at the screen, and immediately felt a tightness inside her. Nina's name was displayed. A confused reaction washed over her: a mixture of annoyance and guilt that she didn't take the time to analyze. She barely slowed down, typed a quick reply, then put the phone away.

"_Who is it?" Johan asked without turning his head.

"_A..friend. Nina. We knew each other in high school, in Heidelberg."

She paused briefly before continuing.

"_We kind of lost touch since I've been in Munich...but she still texts me from time to time."

"_What's she talking about?"

Y/N shrugged, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.

"_Her 21st birthday. In two weeks. She wants me to come celebrate with her there."

She wasn't looking at him as she said this, and that's precisely why she immediately noticed the change.

The sound of his footsteps had disappeared.

She turned her head.

Johan had stopped dead in his tracks.

It wasn't a gradual slowing down, nor a hesitation. He had frozen suddenly, as if something had just cut him off mid-movement. His face was perfectly neutral, devoid of any expression, and it was precisely this neutrality that troubled her the most.

"_Johan?"

"_I won't be able to come," he said calmly. "Something's been going on lately."

Y/N frowned slightly.

"_But you were supposed to come with me to class..."

A very brief, almost imperceptible silence followed.

"_You'll go without me. It'll be better that way."

He started walking again as if nothing had happened.

He started walking again as if nothing had happened, and Y/N took a second too long to keep up, the time it took for her mind to latch onto that detail that refused to fade. Something about his reaction wasn't normal, not in the words themselves—too simple, too neutral—but in the way he'd uttered them, as if he'd anticipated the question before it even existed.

She finally joined him without a word. Insisting would have been pointless; she already knew that. With Johan, questions didn't open answers, they closed doors. Yet, a persistent feeling clung to her, a vague but tenacious intuition that refused to dissipate.

They walked for a few more minutes, but the silence had changed. It was no longer simply comfortable; it had become dense, almost opaque, as if it contained something she couldn't quite put into words. She watched his profile out of the corner of her eye, searching for a clue, a shift, but he walked with his usual ease, perfectly composed, as if nothing had happened.

At the next intersection, he stopped.

"_I have something to take care of," he said simply.

The sentence fell with an almost unsettling banality.

"_Now?"

He barely nodded, and his gaze lingered on her for a second, just long enough to provoke that vague unease she sometimes felt in his presence, that strange feeling of being observed more deeply than she would have liked. Then he turned away without waiting and walked off with a sure step, as if the conversation had already ceased to exist for him.

Y/N remained motionless for a few moments, staring at the spot where he had been just a second before. She could have called him, caught up with him, demanded an explanation, but the very idea seemed pointless. Something about the way he'd left made any attempt futile.

She finally continued on her way alone.

The rest of the day passed as if through a filter. At university, classes followed one another without truly affecting her; she wrote, replied, went along with it, but her attention remained elsewhere, clinging to that precise moment when everything had subtly shifted. Between classes, she reread Nina's message more carefully, as if the words could suddenly reveal something other than what they said.

The invitation was simple, almost joyful. A birthday, a reunion, a chance to return to something she'd left behind without really realizing it. She replied that she would come, reread her message before sending it, then stood motionless for a moment in the middle of the hallway, surrounded by voices and movements that seemed distant.

The word Heidelberg continued to echo in her mind. It wasn't the message itself that troubled her, but Johan's reaction. She had seen that moment, that tiny shift in his behavior, and she couldn't ignore it.

When she got home in the late afternoon, the silence of the apartment immediately struck her as different. Emptier, sharper, as if something had been removed without her being able to say what. She put down her bag, sat on the edge of the bed, and remained there for a moment, her hands still, her gaze lost without a fixed point.

She hadn't really made a decision, but she got up anyway, driven by a necessity she didn't try to analyze.

The door to Johan's apartment was ajar.

That detail alone was enough to send an immediate tension through her chest. Johan left nothing to chance, ever. She stopped on the landing, listened, but no sound reached her. The silence, once again, seemed too complete to be insignificant.

She placed her hand on the door and pushed it open slowly.

The interior was empty.

Not cluttered, not in a state of transition, but emptied with almost clinical precision. The walls were bare, the floor completely cleared, and no trace remained of anyone's presence. The absence was total, methodical, as if every element had been carefully removed, down to the smallest detail.

Y/N remained motionless on the threshold, waiting for reality to take shape. Then she entered, her footsteps echoing softly in the space, a hollow sound that only heightened the sense of unreality. She scanned the room, passed briefly by the kitchen, glanced down the hallway. Everything was structurally intact, but devoid of all life.

This wasn't a hasty departure.

It was a premeditated disappearance.

As she walked on, her gaze settled on a specific point in the center of the room.

A book.

Lying on the floor.

Alone.

She approached it slowly, as if the slightest movement could alter what she was beginning to understand. When she knelt down, she recognized the cover even before reading the title.

"The Sorrows of Young Werther."

Her favorite book.

The one he had taken without really asking, one evening, with that quiet ease she knew so well. She had never tried to get it back, nor to understand what that gesture truly meant. She had let it happen, as she let so much else with him.

Her fingers closed around the book, and a truth finally dawned on her, clear and irrevocable.

Johan hadn't simply left.

He had chosen to disappear.

She remained kneeling for a moment, the book in her hands, as the memories returned in no particular order. The silences, the glances, the lack of explanations she had accepted without question. Everything took on a new meaning, harsher, sharper, as if each detail were finally coming together into a coherent whole.

He had never been fully present.

Perhaps not even from the beginning.

When she stood up, her movements were slow, almost mechanical. She clutched the book to her without thinking, as if it were the only tangible thing she had left. His gaze swept through the apartment one last time, but there was nothing left to see, nothing to remember.

A phrase came back to him with unsettling clarity.

"_Do you really want to forget?"

She hadn't answered.

She hadn't understood.

Now she did.

But he was no longer there.

She left the apartment without looking back, aware that there was nothing left to wait for behind her.

It wasn't pain that struck her first, nor anger, nor even sadness. It was something colder, more subtle, a feeling of emptiness that settled in slowly, silently, but with absolute certainty.

At that precise moment, she understood that she had lost all hope.

Part8:

There were mornings when Y/N woke up with the quiet certainty that everything was alright.

Not in a dramatic way, not with that fragile euphoria that always ends up being questioned. No… it was simpler than that, more grounded. A gentle certainty, almost physical, as if her body had decided before her that the day would be good. This feeling didn't come from a specific thought, nor from a particular event to look forward to, but from an almost imperceptible alignment between what she felt and what surrounded her. As if, for once, nothing could resist.

She lay motionless for a few minutes, her eyes open, staring at the ceiling of her room, and she thought of Johan.

It had become a reflex. The first face of the morning. Not because she forced herself to think of it, but because her mind returned to it naturally, directly, like a fixed point around which everything else was organized. She found herself imagining his voice even before hearing it, reconstructing his expressions, his silences, the way he had of being present without ever giving his all.

She got up without lingering, dressed with unusual care..not out of vanity, but because the thought of seeing him later made her want to pay attention to herself, the kind of lighthearted attention one only allows oneself when happy. She spent a little longer in front of the mirror, not to transform herself, but to adjust, correct, smooth over details that, in reality, mattered very little. It wasn't about appearance; it was a silent way of marking that this day mattered a little more than the others.

She drank her coffee while gazing out the window at the still-quiet street, the soft gray sky that promised an overcast day without any real threat. Munich sometimes had that kind of beauty, that diffused light that made everything seem a little unreal, a little suspended. The few passersby, the still-cold facades, the slow movements of the city just waking up gave the moment an almost intimate quality, as if she were observing something meant only for her.

Her phone vibrated on the counter.

A message from Johan :

Meet me outside.

She smiled without realizing it. That smile was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it changed everything about her expression. It wasn't demonstrative, nothing exaggerated. Just an immediate, sincere response to something that mattered more than she was willing to admit.

Y/n had forgotten to reply to Nina's message.

And yet, this absence didn't weigh on her. Nina belonged to another part of her life, more distant, less present. Johan, on the other hand, was there, in the immediate present, in what truly occupied her thoughts.

He was waiting for her at the end of the street, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on something above the rooftops that she didn't try to identify. He seemed absorbed, as he often was, in some invisible point that only he perceived. This way he had of remaining slightly removed from the world, even in its midst, continued to intrigue her.

He turned his head when he heard her approach, and something in his gaze that morning seemed different. Not radically: Johan never changed radically, but perhaps more open. Less closed off. As if a part of his usually inaccessible attention had been reached.

"_You look rested," he said.

"_For once," she replied.

He offered that smile she had learned to recognize, the one that never quite went all the way but was real nonetheless, or at least she believed it was. She had grown accustomed to these half-hearted expressions, these unfinished gestures, and she found something sincere in them, precisely because nothing was forced.

They headed towards the lake without having really discussed it. That's how it was with Johan; decisions were made in silence, and she had long ago stopped finding it strange. There was no need to suggest or approve. The movement happened naturally, like a shared understanding.

She walked beside him, their arms sometimes brushing against each other, and she thought that was exactly what she wanted. Nothing more, nothing less. Just that. This light, unconstrained closeness, without precise definition, yet real enough to make her feel like she belonged.

The lake was almost deserted on a weekday at this time of day.

A few joggers in the distance, an old man on a bench with a newspaper he wasn't really reading, indifferent ducks at the water's edge. The scene was calm, almost frozen, where each element seemed to move at its own pace without ever disturbing the others.

Y/N and Johan stopped on the bank, side by side, watching the smooth, gray surface of the lake reflect the sky without distorting it. The water was still, like a closed surface, and this calmness further reinforced the feeling of being outside of time.

She loved these moments. Those moments when there was no need to speak, when his presence was enough, when she didn't need to fill any void. She didn't have to search for the right words, nor maintain a conversation. Everything was already there.

"_How are you sleeping these days?" he asked.

The question surprised her slightly, not by its content but by its tone—genuine attentiveness, or something very close to it. With him, this kind of question was never insignificant.

"_Not very well," she admitted. "I wake up at night, sometimes for no reason. It's recent."

"_Stress?"

"_Maybe. I don't really know."

Johan kept his eyes on the lake. A silence passed, not uncomfortable, the kind of silence that creates space. She sensed that he was thinking, or choosing his words, which, coming from him, always carried a certain weight.

“_I had the same problems for a long time,” he said.

Y/N turned her head slightly toward him. He didn’t often talk about himself…really about himself, and when he did, she always felt like she was witnessing something rare, something unseen. It was as if a door opened briefly, with no guarantee it would stay open.

“How did you cope?”

“_You learn to live with it.” He paused.. “And you find crutches, sometimes.”

She didn’t press him. She knew that pressing him was pointless. But something in that tiny admission had touched her more than she would have liked. She studied his profile, the line of his jaw, his clear eyes gazing at the water, and she thought that this, perhaps, was what falling in love was: that precise moment when the other person's flaws seem more interesting than their qualities.

They remained silent for a while longer, letting time slip by without trying to hold it back.

Then Johan said, without looking at her :

"_I have a sister."

Y/N didn't reply immediately. She waited, sensing he wasn't finished. She had learned to recognize those moments when silence wasn't an end, but a transition.

"_I haven't seen her in a very long time." His voice was perfectly neutral, but it was a different kind of neutrality than usual, more deliberate, as if something beneath the surface required an effort to remain contained. "That's my only real regret, I think. To find her again, someday."

"_Do you know where she is?"

"_No."

One word. Short, but not a closing. Y/N looked at him...really looked at him, and saw something on his face she'd never seen before. A tiny crack in the flawless surface he presented to the world. She wanted to say something, to find the right words, but none seemed adequate.

So she slipped her hand into his.

He let her.

They stayed like that for several minutes by the lake, in the gentle chill of the afternoon, and Y/N thought it was the closest moment they'd ever shared. She didn't try to analyze, to understand, to put it into words. She was simply there, happy in a way she didn't need to explain.

Time seemed to slow down around them, as if nothing else mattered.

They went back to Johan's place in the late afternoon.

The apartment was quiet, the light dim, and this atmosphere was familiar to her now, this feeling of entering a space that resembled her without quite belonging to her. Every object, every detail seemed in its place, without excess, without disorder, as if nothing had been left to chance.

She settled naturally on the sofa while he prepared dinner, and she watched him from the living room, his precise movements in the kitchen, this economy of movement he displayed in everything. He never made a superfluous gesture, never a pointless movement.

"_Can I help?" she asked.

"_No."

She smiled and didn't press the matter.

Dinner was simple, it was often simple with Johan, never ostentatious, never demonstrative... but good, and above all, calm. They talked about little things: Munich, a book she'd started, some insignificant detail she almost immediately forgot, but which had seemed important at the time because he'd said it. She absorbed his words like that, unconsciously, as if they were obvious, like water.

Time passed unnoticed, carried along by a tranquility that made her feel like nothing could possibly go wrong.

It was after dinner that he placed a small box on the table.

"_For your nights," he said simply.

Y/N looked at her, then at him.

"_Sleeping pills?"

"_I take them sometimes. They're mild, no effect the next day." He gently pushed her closer. "Take one if you wake up. It helps...but don't overdo it."

She hesitated for a second, not because she distrusted it, the very idea hadn't crossed her mind..but because the gesture touched her. This precise, practical attention, which didn't try to be romantic but was nonetheless romantic in its own way.

"_Thank you", she said.

He nodded and got up to clear the table.

She watched him, with the lingering feeling that she was experiencing something important without yet being able to say why.

She went home soon after.

In the street, the air was cool, and she walked slowly, the box in her bag, her hand still warm from the memory of his. Each step prolonged what she had just experienced, as if she unconsciously refused to let the moment end completely.

She thought back to his voice by the lake, "It’s my only real regret," and how it had made her feel to hear him say that, to her, by the water’s edge, in the soft gray of the afternoon.

She thought back to his eyes.

She thought back to everything.

In her apartment, she put down her bag, removed her makeup, put on something comfortable, and lay down on the Black, with that rare and precious feeling of being exactly where she was meant to be. No worries, no questions, no noise in her head.

Just that calm.

A deceptive calm, but she had no reason to doubt it.

She didn't need sleeping pills to fall asleep. Sleep came on its own, deep and peaceful, like a reward.

She fell asleep happy.

She didn't yet know that it would almost certainly be the last time...