have you ever tried this one?

But it was impossible for you to ignore your dear brother; he was clearly lost in thought, filled with anger, and that jaw you loved to stroke was clenched tightly. He definitely wasn't going to sleep tonight.

That's why, when the castle finally fell silent under a cold, overcast night sky, you went down to the courtyard. You knew you would find him there, venting his rage against the straw effigies. The air in the courtyard reeked of dampness and the tar from torches that flickered in the east wind, casting long, distorted shadows on the stone walls.

When you entered the courtyard, the only sounds were the sharp whistle of steel slicing through the air and the sharp thud of Aemond's sword against a wooden post. He was sweating despite the cold, his shirt open and his silver hair plastered to his forehead. Noticing your footsteps, he stopped abruptly. He didn't need to turn around completely; your scent and the rhythm of your walk were something his body recognized instinctively.

"You shouldn't be here," he said, his voice hoarse from exertion, plunging his training sword into the ground. His single eye scanned you from head to toe. "If Mother finds out you're out at this hour, you'll be in trouble. We're at war."

“Mother is too busy weeping before the statue of the Mother to notice my absence,” you replied, approaching with slow, deliberate steps. The flickering light of a nearby torch illuminated your features, which were a kind of reflection of hers. “Besides, you were making too much noise. I could sense your frustration from my chambers.”

Aemond let out a dry snort, but the stiffness in his shoulders lessened slightly as you approached. He walked to the table where the practice weapons rested and picked up a short dagger, blunt-bladed but heavy. He held it out to you by the pommel.

"If you're going to stay and break the rules with me, we could at least do something useful. Your defense with the dagger is still pathetic."

"Hmm." You smiled slightly, a smirk identical to his, in a mocking way, and took the weapon.

The metal was cold, but when Aemond positioned himself immediately behind you, all the chill of the courtyard vanished. His chest, damp with sweat and warm, pressed against your back. You felt the rapid beating of his heart against your shoulder blades.

With a deliberate slowness that had nothing to do with military training, his black leather-gloved hand traveled up your arm, caressing it, until it grasped your right wrist. He forced your arm upward, aligning the dagger blade with your chin. His breath brushed against the sensitive skin behind your ear, raising the hairs on the back of your neck.

"Nyke biot dāri sōvī dōvī dōvior.(I want to be like this with you forever)" she whispered in thick, harsh High Valyrian that chilled you to the bone. "If you move like that, they'll disarm you before you can taste their blood. You have to be firmer, faster."

"I know how to defend myself, Aemond," you murmured in the same language, your voice barely a whisper lost in the night wind, feeling him press your body closer and closer to his. "You just want to take advantage of me."

Instead of correcting your posture, you let yourself be drawn in by his weight, tilting your head back to rest it on his shoulder. Aemond reacted quickly. He let out a low, muffled groan, and his lips sought the line of your neck, leaving a trail of hungry, possessive kisses that made you gasp softly. His left hand abandoned any pretense of showing you fencing and moved down to your waist, digging his fingers into the fabric of your clothing, pressing your hips against his with a force that betrayed the immense tension he'd been holding inside.

​ "Ao māman...(I love you)" He began to whisper against your skin, but the phrase died in his mouth.

​Clank. Clank. Clank.

The distant but unmistakable echo of armored boots resonated in the tunnel leading to the parade ground. Someone was coming, and the rhythm of the footsteps was not that of a servant. It was the heavy, rhythmic march of a white cloak.

Adrenaline surged through your veins, but Aemond didn't freeze. In a split second, his warrior instincts and his desperation to protect the secret merged. With a fluid, brusque movement, he used his weight to slam you against the courtyard's masonry wall. His hand twisted the dagger in your fingers and pressed it with feigned force against your abdomen, leaning over you, his face contorted with artificial fury.

Just as Ser Criston Cole turned the corner, with a heavy torch in his left hand and his right hand resting on the pommel of his sword, the light illuminated what looked like an extremely violent lesson.

“Your letdown is a fatal mistake, sister!” Aemond declared in the Common Tongue, his voice echoing off the courtyard walls with cold, ruthless authority. “If I were a Velaryon bastard, you’d be lying dead on the ground before you could even scream. Pay attention!”

Ser Criston stopped abruptly about five paces away. The Lord Commander frowned, his eyes immediately scanning the scene. He saw your flushed cheeks, your ragged breathing, and the way Aemond was pinning you against the wall. The metal of the dagger was still pressing against your clothing.

“Prince Aemond! Princess!” Cole exclaimed, taking a step forward but maintaining a respectful distance. “It is unusually late. The Queen Mother has ordered all members of the royal household to remain in their quarters due to alarms in the Ghoul.”

Aemond didn't let go of you immediately. He took a deliberate second, slowly lowering the dagger and turning to face his mentor. His face was a mask of stone, obscuring any trace of the warmth he had shared with you just moments before.

"If I may say so, I think it's a rather... rough ride for the Princess."

“My sister asked me to refine her self-defense technique, Ser Criston,” Aemond replied, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his gloved hand. “It seems the peaceful life my mother imposes on her has made her soft. But she’s right. We’re done for today.”

You stepped away from the wall, smoothing your clothes with slightly trembling fingers, but forcing your eyes to maintain an expression of choreographed, dignified frustration. You looked at Cole.

"Ser Criston is right, brother. Your teaching style is... too rustic" you said, holding the royal guard's gaze.

Cole nodded slowly, though his dark eyes remained fixed on the small distance that now existed between you, and on how Aemond's silver hair looked strangely disheveled in the back.

"I will escort the Princess to her chambers, my Prince" offered Cole, stepping aside to make way.

"That won't be necessary, Ser Criston," Aemond interrupted, crossing his arms and fixing his single eye on him with an unyielding firmness. "I brought her here; I'll return her to her bed. Continue your rounds."

Cole was silent for a moment, assessing the order, before giving a tense bow. The clinking of his armor sounded again as he withdrew, leaving them alone in the dimness of the courtyard, where the danger of the secrecy was only just beginning to be felt.

.

The afternoon had been a hotbed of political paranoia. Larys Strong had spent hours locked in with the Queen Mother, delivering reports about alleged Black spies monitoring the royal family's movements. Alicent, consumed by fear, ordered the guards in the royal corridors to be tripled and that no member of the family be allowed to walk without an escort.

Aemond and you had barely seen each other all day, both of you busy with your duties, but the prohibition and tension of the castle had only fueled the urgency to be close to each other, to feel each other's warmth even in the most innocent way.

As night fell, the torches in the main corridors were kept burning at full capacity by order of the guard, eliminating any dark corner. But you still needed to satisfy that nagging need within you, so you had used the excuse of searching for a book in the library to leave your quarters in case they found you wandering around after escaping through the passageways. But the Fortress was no longer the safe haven it once was; every corner was guarded, and the echo of armor clattered constantly against the stone walls.

The atmosphere in the west wing was frigid, heavy with the smell of burnt wax and the old wool of the hangings that decorated the stone corridors. You knew Ser Criston Cole was relentlessly patrolling that area, but the need to feel your twin's warmth overcame any trace of caution. You walked with your heart pounding against your ribs, alert to every vibration in the air, until a familiar shadow fell across the stone floor.

Without a word, he took your arm and dragged you toward the blind alcove behind a huge tapestry depicting the conquests of Aegon the Conqueror. The heavy woolen fabric absorbed the echo of your footsteps and plunged them into a dusty, suffocating, and ridiculously intimate gloom.

"You're late," he chided you in High Valyrian, his voice a harsh hiss, trapping you mercilessly between the cold masonry wall and the firmness of his chest. "I've missed you enough not to make me wait any longer."

“Mother kept me here praying,” you replied in the same language, your voice barely a feverish whisper as you tangled your fingers in his long silver hair, drawing him closer. “She wants the Seven to help us, but I don’t think they’ll hear mve at all.”

Aemond let out a dry laugh, a dark and insolent sound that died directly against your lips. He kissed you with a restrained, hungry passion, devoid of any patience. His large, rough hands desperately sought the warmth of your skin beneath your heavy green cloak, impatient with the distance imposed by court robes. His hand boldly moved up your thigh, squeezing with a possessiveness so savage that it made you gasp against his mouth.

​"Ao māman nykeā dōna ( )" He whispered against your lips, his breath ragged, before biting them again with a desperate gentleness that made you lose your footing.

Then, the rhythmic, heavy, metallic sound of patrolling armor echoed in the outer corridor. Someone was approaching the exact corner where they were hiding, again, as if it were the gods' punishment for doing something so repulsive.

Barely parting your lips from his, you pressed your back against the stone, holding your breath. Aemond didn't back down an inch; instead, he stepped forward, using himself as a living shield. The breadth of his shoulders and the drape of his own black cloak completely enveloped you, erasing you from existence for anyone who passed by.

As Ser Criston Cole rounded the corner, he brushed aside the side tapestry with his left hand, flooding the alcove with the flickering light of his torch. What he saw was Prince Aemond Targaryen standing alone in the hidden passage, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and an expression of sovereign annoyance. Cole, however, was a man-at-arms, trained to notice the subtlest details; his dark eyes immediately dropped and registered the slightest movement of a green fabric peeking out from beneath the prince's heavy cloak.

“Prince Aemond? Is something wrong?” Cole asked, stopping just three paces away. The Lord Commander’s brow furrowed with stern suspicion, and his right hand instinctively descended, resting on the pommel of his sword.

Aemond turned halfway, expanding his stance to further block your figure against the stone. His single eye glared at the royal guard with utter, lethal contempt, holding the tension of the silence before speaking.

“Ser Criston. My sister had a nightmare because of the visions of Haelena, and she came looking for our mother,” Aemond said in the Common Tongue. His voice sounded so fluid, so free of guilt or hesitation, that it sent a shiver down your spine. “I found her wandering the corridors and I’m escorting her back to her room. She’s…unwell and unable to speak.”

Cole hesitated for a second that felt like an eternity. The air in the narrow corridor grew heavy, suffocating, charged with the electricity of suppressed desire and the panic of being exposed. The gentleman's gaze traveled over the prince's slightly disheveled shirt and then settled back on the trail of green fabric.

"I can escort you myself, my Lord," Cole insisted, stepping forward with a moralizing firmness in his voice, "so that you may rest and return to your quarters safely."

“I said I’ll take care of it, Ser Criston,” Aemond cut him off sharply. His voice dropped an octave, losing any trace of courtesy and transforming into a dangerously sharp warning. “Withdraw.”

Cole swallowed hard, gauging the implied violence in his student's eyes. Knowing he had no proof to challenge the word of a prince of the blood, he bowed awkwardly and dropped the tapestry, resuming his rhythmic march down the main hall.

Only when the echo of the metal faded completely into the distance did you allow yourself to release the air that burned your lungs. Under the cloak of the tapestry's darkness, your hand sought Aemond's, finding his fingers and squeezing them with feverish force, while your twin's chest rose and fell, savoring the danger of the game they had just won.

.

It was a stifling, humid heat that night, the kind that foretells storms over the Blackwater, and that did nothing to help the spirits of the people who lived in the castle, and even less so the fact that King Aegon had put on a grotesque spectacle in the great hall, drunkenly celebrating the supposed superiority of the Greens while breaking wine glasses and humiliating the servants.

Nothing to be in a good mood about at all.

And you were no exception; you hadn't been able to bear the confinement of your own room, where the walls seemed to close in on you. The oppressive air and the blind desire to be with the only person who understood the disgust your family inspired in you led you to Aemond's chambers.

By the time midnight passed, the room had become a warm sanctuary; the fireplace was unlit, but the fire between you was blazing, fueled by the risk and isolation of the past few days.

The disarray in the antechamber was a stark reflection of the frantic urgency that had consumed them the moment the bolt clicked. Your heavy green silk dress, that rigid contraption Alicent forced you to wear to look like a devout lady, lay crumpled on the stone floor, along with your shoes and the ribbons of your corset. You were left only with your white silk chemise, a garment so thin it was see-through and clung to your skin in the night's warmth.

You were sitting on Aemond's lap, your legs straddling his thighs as he reclined on the edge of his large four-poster bed. Aemond's black silk shirt was completely unbuttoned, revealing his pale chest crisscrossed with old training scars. Your fingers were tangled tightly in his long silver hair, gently pulling back to deepen a wet, slow, feverish kiss that stole your breath.

"Ao ñuhys iksā, kepa. (You are mine, little sister)" he whispered against your lips in a hoarse High Valyrian, almost a plea, as his large, rough hands moved up your bare thighs, pulling at the silk of your chemise. "To hell with everything, everything and everyone, it's just the two of us Ñuha drakona (my dragon)"

"Nothing else matters, my other half," you replied in the same language, panting slightly as his lips descended to your neck, biting with a possessive gentleness that made you arch your back on the mattress.

They were so lost in each other's warmth, cut off from the rest of Westeros behind the heavy oak doors, that the sharp sound of the antechamber doorknob turning struck them like a steel whip. Ser Criston Cole, who by the Queen Mother's express orders held the master key to the guard and had free rein to deliver urgent security reports at any hour, pushed open the door and entered without waiting.

"Prince Aemond! A raven has arrived from Oldtown and the Queen demands" Cole's voice trailed off in his throat.

The Lord Commander stood frozen in the middle of the antechamber. His eyes, trained to detect any anomaly, fixed on the stone floor. There, illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the bay window, lay your green dress. It wasn't a forgotten garment; it was strewn haphazardly beside a hastily untied corset and petticoats. An unmistakable trail of women's clothing leading directly to the archway of the main bedchamber.

Panic shot down your spine, chilling you to the bone. Aemond reacted quickly, pushing you back onto the mattress and pulling the light sheets up to cover you up to your shoulders, but this time there was no way to hide the truth. You couldn't disappear.

Before you could catch your breath, Cole's heavy footsteps advanced through the antechamber. The knight halted beneath the archway of the main bedchamber, torch held aloft. The golden light illuminated the scene with utter cruelty: Aemond, standing beside the bed, his shirt open, his chest covered in sweat, his hair disheveled; and you, the queen's perfect princess, tucked into hia bed, your silk nightgown askew, your eyes wide with shock.

The silence that followed was unbearable. There were no excuses, no absurd lies, because the evidence was devastating.

Ser Criston Cole paled, as if he had seen a ghost. His dark eyes shifted from you to your twin brother, filled with profound moral horror, but also with utter political panic. As the Greens' strategist, Cole knew perfectly well that if this secret left that room, the legitimacy of his faction would crumble completely. They couldn't accuse Rhaenyra of fathering bastards when Alicent's own children were committing the most depraved acts right under their noses. The honor Cole had fought for his entire life was rotting before his eyes.

Cole's hand slowly descended to the pommel of his sword, not to attack, but out of pure instinct for defense in the face of the tension of the moment.

Far from cowering or begging for mercy, Aemond stepped forward, positioning himself between Cole and the bed. His face transformed into a mask of pure Targaryen hostility. He held the Lord Commander's gaze with his single eye, in a stony silence that dared the guard to speak. Aemond didn't utter a word; he simply glared at him, making it clear that he wasn't going to offer any explanations or show an ounce of guilt.

Cole gritted his teeth, his jaw trembling with suppressed fury, disgust, and the crushing weight of betrayal. He stared at the prince he himself had trained, now transformed into what he considered an abomination. He wanted to speak, wanted to scream that he was a sinner, but the political implications of his own words froze his tongue. If he betrayed the twins, he would destroy Alicent and hand the Iron Throne to Rhaenyra on a silver platter.

Overwhelmed by the shock of the discovery, caught in a moral dilemma that was beyond him, and utterly unable to process the coldness with which Aemond held his gaze, Ser Criston Cole took a step back. He lowered his torch, turned on his heel without uttering a word, and left the chambers with a swift stride, slamming the door shut with a sharp clang that echoed throughout the room.

In the bedroom, the air suddenly returned to your lungs. You looked at Aemond, who turned to you immediately, sitting on the edge of the bed to take your trembling hands.

"Aemond... what are we going to do?"

Criston Cole knew everything; his silence was a ticking time bomb.

The next day, the atmosphere in the Red Keep felt thick, almost unbreathable, like the air before a forest fire. Ser Criston Cole had spent the entire morning watching them from a distance; his usual military rigidity had transformed into a grim fixity, a gaze heavy with judgment and a contained despair that made your stomach churn every time you saw him.

You know that the Lord Commander was trapped in his own mental hell, torn between his blind devotion to Alicent and the disgust he felt for the secret he had discovered in the prince's bedchamber

He was never an expressive man, but a single glance was enough to understand that something had changed. His usual military rigidity had transformed into a disturbing stillness; he was no longer the disciplined vigilance of the Lord Commander, but that of a man desperately struggling to reconcile what he had seen with the principles that had guided his entire life.

Every time your paths crossed with his in a corridor or courtyard, you noticed how his eyes lingered on you a moment longer than they should have. There was no anger in them. There was bewilderment. Repulsion. Guilt, even. As if he believed he had failed the queen by not having seen sooner what he now considered a sin impossible to ignore.

You knew exactly what tormented his conscience.

The image of the dress abandoned in Aemond's chambers had taken root in her mind. It had begun as a suspicion, then become an unbearable doubt, and finally a conclusion she refused to voice aloud.

Even Aemond hadn't managed to cross paths with you during the morning; council duties and training kept the prince busy, leaving you alone in front of Criston's inquisitive gaze.

You needed to escape. Even if it was only for a few minutes.

That's why, when the afternoon began to paint the windows of the Red Fortress orange, you headed to the royal library.

It was one of the few places in the castle where time seemed to stand still. The immense hall remained enveloped in a reverential silence, broken only by the occasional creak of ancient wood and the soft rustle of turning pages. The air was thick with the scent of aged parchment, tanned leather, and cedar—a fragrance that always managed to calm the jumble of your thoughts.

You slowly wandered along the shelves, letting your fingertips brush against the spines of ancient volumes written centuries before your birth.

You were leafing through the pages of an ancient manuscript, your hands trembling slightly, when a heavy, massive shadow fell across the wooden table, blocking the dim afternoon light filtering through the window. You slowly looked up.

Ser Criston Cole stood before you. He wasn't wearing his Whitecloak helmet, which allowed his hardened features to show, but this time his dark eyes reflected a deep and twisted confusion.

"Princess." His voice was low, respectful, but lacking the warmth he had once shown when speaking to you.

You straightened your back without taking your eyes off the book you held in your hands. "Ser Christon."

He remained motionless. "Can I talk to you?"

"I hear you, Ser Criston ." You slowly turned down the volume and held it against your chest.

Criston remained silent for a few seconds, as if carefully choosing each word. He seemed torn between the duty he had sworn to uphold and the affection he had always felt for the queen's children.

“Princess,” Cole began, taking a step forward and lowering his voice to an urgent, tense whisper. “I’ve spent the night awake, thinking… I know the darkness that dwells within Prince Aemond. I know the resentment he carries and the violence with which he takes what he desires, ever since he was a child.”

Cole leaned on the table, scrutinizing your face with an almost desperate fixity, trying to read behind your eyes.

“Tell me the truth, my Princess… Is he forcing you?” Cole’s question was heavy with a gnawing suspicion. He had no certainty, but in his rigid, gentlemanly mind, he needed to believe you were a victim before accepting that the Queen’s daughter had willingly submitted to such depravity. “I know the prince is ruthless, and you are very close, but if he is using his position, his size, or his threats to subdue you… if he is ruining your virtue against your will, I beg you to tell me now. With a single word from you, I will go before the Queen Mother. I will protect you from him.”

You felt the weight of Criston's gaze on your face, waiting for an answer that never came. The air seemed to have grown thicker among the tall library shelves, to the point that each breath required a conscious effort.

Your lips parted slightly, but no words came out.

Not because you didn't know what to answer. But because any answer meant losing something.

If you lied and claimed Aemond was forcing you, Criston would rush to Alicent immediately. The scandal would erupt that very night. Your brother would be branded a monster, a man capable of violating his own sister, and while that might protect the secret of your love, it would forever condemn him in his mother's eyes.

But telling the truth meant admitting that she had not been seduced, deceived, or subdued. It was you who had often sought out Aemond with the same desperation with which he sought you.

Nobody had forced anyone.

That thought made a painful knot settle in your throat.

Because you knew how Criston saw you.

From childhood, he had been one of the few men at court who had always treated you with a mixture of respect and almost paternal affection. He had been present during your riding lessons, at your brothers' training sessions, at countless family dinners. He had always been a steadfast, incorruptible figure, a man whose word was worth more than any oath.

And now he watched you as if trying to rescue the little girl he remembered. He didn't understand that that little girl had disappeared long ago.

You felt a pang of guilt.

Not because you loved Aemond, never for that reason.

The guilt arose from understanding the pain that truth would cause those around you. All those who had placed their faith in your family.

You looked down at the book you were still holding in your hands. Your fingertips absentmindedly traced the aged leather cover, clinging to it as if it could hold you up when the world began to crumble.

You were about to speak when a black leather-gloved hand settled firmly on the knight's armored shoulder. The grip was so brutal and sudden that the metal of the Royal Guard's shoulder guard creaked slightly. Aemond had emerged from the shadows of the adjacent shelf, silent and deadly as an ash-waving specter.

Aemond glanced at you over Cole's shoulder. In High Valyrian that sounded like a soft, protective lullaby amidst the storm, he spoke to you: “Pāza, jōor dōna” (Wait, my sweet).

Then, with a sharp movement of his arm, he forced Cole to turn around so that he was face to face with him, pushing him against the bookshelf.

With a slow, deliberate movement, laced with a demented insolence, Aemond brought his left hand to his face and removed the black leather patch. He exposed his scar and revealed the mystical sapphire set in its empty socket. In the flickering candlelight of the library, the blue jewel shone with a psychopathic intensity.

"Force her, Ser Criston?" Aemond whispered in the Common Tongue, his laugh a hissing, icy drip of venom. "You don't understand much about dragons, even having lived among them for so long."

Before Cole could reply, you stepped forward, emerging from behind the table. Under the Lord Commander's astonished gaze, you slid your hand forward to intertwine your fingers with Aemond's with fierce force.

Bruce trusted your judgment, your ability to improvise, and above all, your ability to keep up with him on patrol. He didn't need to give you orders every second; a single glance was enough to understand the plan. He also appreciated that you weren't some rebellious kid trying to impress him to stay. You were less trouble than all the others who had come before.

That's why, when the city became too chaotic or everyone else was unavailable, it was your communicator that would ring.

Over time, the police grew accustomed to seeing you alongside the Dark Knight. Commissioner Gordon wasn't even surprised anymore when, instead of Nightwing or Batgirl, it was you descending from a building with Batman.

The criminals also learned your name. They knew that if you showed up, the chances of escape would decrease dramatically.

And, in a surprisingly short time, you had already faced a long list of Gotham's most dangerous criminals. Names you only knew from Batman's files or the news a few years ago: the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and, of course, Two-Face.

You never imagined that those figures, almost mythical to any citizen, would end up becoming part of your daily routine. Each one had their own methods, their own quirks, and a different way of challenging Batman. Over time, you learned to adapt to them all, to anticipate their moves, and even to recognize when one of them was planning something big.

However, there was one who was very creative, as you had faced him at least three nights in the same week.

At first, it seemed like a simple coincidence. Two-Face frequently appeared in the operations you were involved in. Then, he started ignoring opportunities to escape in order to confront you personally. Later, he stopped being content with just exchanging a few words during battles.

Nobody paid any attention to it. After all, Gotham was full of obsessive men.

But this was not a simple rivalry; it was the beginning of a fixation that, as the months passed, would end up becoming a dangerous obsession on the part of the renowned Harvey Dent.

One night a call came in shortly after midnight.

One of Batman's informants had obtained a crucial lead: Two-Face was planning to meet with several members of Gotham's mafia at an old dockside warehouse. According to the information, a deal involving weapons and money from various criminal families would be finalized there.

So less than twenty minutes later, the Batmobile stopped a few blocks away.

The building was enormous. An old brick industrial warehouse, abandoned for years, its only light coming from a few exterior spotlights that flickered intermittently. The wind creaked the rusted sheets of the roof while the harbor water lapped gently against the wooden pilings.

Batman scanned the building through the visor of his cowl. "I see no movement."

"Perhaps we arrived ahead of schedule," you whispered.

The place was unsettling; it was too quiet and gloomy given the poor visibility due to the lack of lights. Inside, hundreds of containers, wooden crates, and machinery covered by tarpaulins formed a veritable labyrinth.

Batman raised a hand, signaling you to stop. He crouched down next to some fresh footprints.

"These ones are new."

"So someone was here."

"Or is it still here..."

They continued advancing in silence; only their muffled footsteps and the steady drip of water from the ceiling could be heard. Suddenly, Batman's communicator emitted a faint beep, and a heat signature appeared in his visor.

"Movement on the second level." he looked up at the metal walkways. "I'm going upstairs. You check the east side. If you find anything, don't act alone."

You nodded.

It wasn't the first time they had separated during a patrol; they were both used to working that way, and he knew you would take his words into account.

You waited for Batman to disappear into the shadows before continuing, as you moved forward between the containers, the feeling of discomfort increasing.

It was as if someone was watching you.

You turned slowly, but there was nothing in that area, only darkness accompanied you. You took a deep breath and continued, but a faint metallic noise resonated behind you.

Then a box fell several meters away. Instinctively you ran towards the sound, and as soon as you crossed the narrow passage formed by two rows of containers, several metal gates crashed down behind and in front of you.

You were locked in.

"Batman!" You reached for the communicator, but only heard static.

The signal had been blocked.

Before you could react, four men emerged from the shadows. They were Two-Face's men.

The first one tried to grab you, but you knocked him down with an elbow to the jaw, the second one received a kick that threw him against a container, the third one managed to fire, forcing you to take cover behind some boxes.

You knew you couldn't stay trapped there, you threw a batarang, cutting the lights in the hallway, the darkness was on your side.

For a few seconds, there were only thumps, muffled screams, and the sound of metal hitting the ground. One after another, the men fell. And when the last one finally lay unconscious, you sighed.

It was over, or at least that's what you thought.

A voice sounded behind you. "The boss said we couldn't fail."

You turned around too late; something heavy had hit the back of your head hard.

A sharp pain shot through your skull, your knees gave way instantly leaving you completely dizzy and blind, while through the ringing in your ears you heard footsteps approaching.

"Is she alive?"

"Yeah."

"Perfect... The boss made it very clear he didn't want a scratch on her, kill the idiot who shot her."

Before you completely lost consciousness, you saw a pair of elegant black boots stop in front of you.

Then a silver coin fell to the floor and Harvey Dent's face flashed before your eyes for just a second. "Take her."

Everything went black.

The return to consciousness was slow and painful.

Before you opened your eyes, a sharp thump hammered at the back of your head. The thump was still there, pulsing insistently, as if each beat of your heart echoed against your skull.

The air was cold, damp, with that unmistakable smell of old wood and dust accumulated over years.

You slowly opened your eyes. The light was dim, barely enough to make out the shapes in the room. A single lamp hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly and casting irregular shadows on the walls.

You blinked several times, trying to focus; it wasn't common to be surprised by someone hitting your head until you lost consciousness, how painful it all was.

The first thing you did was try to get up, but a strong pull in your wrists prevented you from doing so.

Looking down, you saw steel handcuffs encircling both your wrists, securing them to the armrests of an old wooden chair. These weren't makeshift handcuffs; they were reinforced and bolted directly to the chair's frame. You pulled a second time, harder, but barely managed to budge the chair a few inches off the ground.

You took a deep breath to force yourself to think clearly; you couldn't exert force, it only made your head throb even more and you weren't going to get anywhere. You had to find another way to solve it, but first, rule number one: don't panic.

You could hear Bruce's voice telling you that.

As long as you remained calm, there would always be a chance to escape. You looked up and finally took in your surroundings.

The room was enormous; several rows of wooden benches stretched out before you, covered with a thin layer of dust. To one side still stood the judge's bench, raised above the rest of the room, and behind it hung the Gotham crest, cracked in two. The windows were completely boarded up, preventing any light from entering.

An old courthouse in one of the abandoned buildings.

An almost ironic choice for Harvey Dent. The former district attorney had turned a place dedicated to administering justice into his hideout for a kidnapping.

You couldn't keep dwelling on the situation you were in because the sound of a door opening broke the silence.

The footsteps echoed on the wooden floor with an unsettling calmness. Then Harvey appeared, or at least what was left of Harvey Dent.

His figure emerged from the shadows with the same elegance he had once possessed as Gotham's district attorney. The undamaged side of his suit remained impeccably pressed, while the other half was charred and torn, as was the deformed skin of his face.

He carried a revolver in one hand and in the other, he absentmindedly twirled his characteristic silver coin between his fingers.

He entered the room, his gaze fixed on you, his attention so intense it sent a shiver down your spine, and stopped just a few feet away from you.

The only sound was the soft clinking of the coin as it passed from one finger to another.

You were the one who finally broke that awkward silence. "I have to admit, this is a pretty extreme method for starting a conversation."

The corner of his mouth, on the good side, curled slightly. "If I had invited you, you wouldn't have come." His voice was calm, as if they were talking in a coffee shop and not in an abandoned courtroom with you handcuffed in front of him.

You looked at him in disbelief. "Well... I mean, you can't blame me."

Harvey did not respond immediately.

He simply pulled a chair from among the benches in the courtroom. The scrape of the wood against the floor echoed throughout the room as he slowly moved it closer until it was right in front of you.

He rested his forearms on his knees, holding the coin between his fingers, still keeping his gaze fixed on you, and that was what was truly unsettling.

He wasn't interrogating you, he didn't want information about Batman, he didn't even seem interested in threatening you. It was as if he'd been waiting for this moment for a long time and, now that he finally had it, he didn't quite know where to begin.

Harvey remained seated in front of you without saying a single word.

The chair he had dragged until it was in front of yours creaked every time he shifted his position slightly. Between his fingers, the coin twirled with an almost mechanical skill; it seemed an unconscious movement, a habit acquired after so many years.

You, on the other hand, did not take your eyes off the handcuffs that bound your wrists.

His gaze drifted down to your wrists. "Are they too tight?"

You blinked, confused. "Pardon?"

"The handcuffs." he made a small gesture with his head, indicating them. "I didn't want them to be so tight."

You watched him, unsure if he was joking to annoy you or what was wrong with him, but his expression remained completely neutral.

"Kidnap me"

He barely inclined his head. "Yes."

You waited for an explanation or for him to continue talking so you could get some information, but nothing, and the silence became increasingly uncomfortable.

You exhaled slowly through your nose. "And you don't see anything strange about all this and what you're saying?"

The coin stopped spinning for a moment. Harvey held it between his thumb and forefinger before answering. "No."

He didn't really find anything strange about the situation.

"Batman is coming."

"I know."

"And when he arrives..."

"He'll try to get you out of here."

"So... why do it?"

Harvey looked down at the coin and rolled it slowly on his knuckles. "Because you'll be here for a few hours."

You frowned. "What?"

He looked at you again. "Without him."

You didn't understand.

"Whenever we meet, Batman is in the way." His voice remained measured. "There are always gunshots, explosions, people running; we can never finish a conversation."

You looked at him in disbelief, what the hell was happening? The signs that he was out of his mind were obvious, but this was something, you had to be smart if you wanted to get out of here alive.

Where the hell is Batman when someone needs him?

"Conversation? Harvey, every time we meet you try to shoot me."

"I've never shot at you."

The statement came from his lips with such certainty that it made you fall silent, leaving you to mentally review each confrontation.

And suddenly you realized he was right, what a strange feeling to think that a murderer and criminal like Two-Face was right, the hit and his timeshare were damaging your mind.

He had shot at Batman, at the police, at vehicles, but never directly at you.

What a romantic man, right?

Harvey noticed the change in your expression. "You remembered." He leaned back in his chair. "That's why I needed to bring you here."

"You need to?"

He nodded slowly. "It's the only way you'll stay long enough."

The casual way he uttered that sentence was far more unsettling than any threat. He spoke like someone who had reached a perfectly reasonable conclusion after analyzing all the possibilities.

You would escape, Batman would appear, and the conversations would end.

So he removed the only thing that was preventing you from staying there and

He kidnapped you.

And, judging by the serene expression on his face, it was clear that he didn't understand why that should seem like madness to you.

"Enough time for what?" you asked in a low voice.

Harvey held your gaze, the coin had stopped spinning between his fingers. For the first time since you had woken up, he seemed to hesitate.

He opened his mouth, ready to answer.

But a loud crash shook the entire room.

The old skylight exploded above their heads, sending hundreds of shards of glass hurtling to the ground.

Harvey barely had time to look up when a black figure descended, wrapped in a cloak.

Batman.

He didn't even have time to react; a punch landed squarely on the uninjured side of his jaw, forcing him back. Before he could regain his balance, Batman spun around and connected with a second, direct blow to his face.

Harvey fell heavily onto the wooden floor. The revolver slipped several meters. The coin slipped from his fingers, spinning on the floor before coming to a stop next to one of the benches.

"Are you okay?" Batman asked without taking his eyes off Harvey, making sure he remained unconscious.

Before you could answer, another figure descended using a cable from the hole in the ceiling.

"God!"

Nightwing landed almost immediately in front of you, and in two strides he was by your side. He knelt in front of the chair as he pulled a small tool from his belt. "Let me see..."

Her hands moved swiftly over the handcuffs. You could sense the confidence in every movement.

"Did it hurt you?" he asked as he tried to open the mechanism.

You shook your head. "Just... one hit."

He looked up immediately. His eyes scanned your face until they settled on the bruise that was beginning to form near your hairline. "Did he hit you?"

"It wasn't him, one of his men."

Nightwing clenched his jaw.

A metallic click announced that the first handcuff had opened. Then the second, and the chains fell to the floor with a thud.

As soon as your hands were free, Dick carefully grasped your wrists, examining the reddish marks the steel had left on your skin. "Look at me."

You obeyed.

He placed a hand on your cheek and then on the back of your head with a gentleness uncharacteristic of someone who had just stepped into an operation. "Are you feeling dizzy?"

"A bit."

"Are you seeing double?"

You smiled wearily."I only see you once, luckily."

Dick let out a breath through his nose, somewhere between relieved and frustrated. "Don't joke around now."

Without thinking twice, he placed a hand on your shoulder to help you up and held you by the waist before you could even feel dizzy. "Relax, I've got you."

Batman, who had already secured Harvey with reinforced handcuffs, looked up for barely a second. He simply checked that you were in Dick's hands and refocused on the prisoner.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he helped you up.

Still dazed from the blow to the head, you nodded."I've had better nights."

He let out a relieved smile. "Yes... I can tell"

Harvey, still dazed from the blows, slowly began to regain consciousness.

The first thing he saw when he opened the only eye he could focus on was Nightwing holding him with a closeness that did not go unnoticed.

Then he saw how, almost instinctively, you placed a hand on Dick's arm to keep your balance. And finally, he heard the phrase that made everything fall into place.

But the ease with which he found the perfect ring and his determination didn't make the task easy. Under normal circumstances, with the life of an ordinary man and ordinary responsibilities, perhaps it would have been simple. But every single time he planned to propose, something always happened to stop him.

The first time he tried, he had spent weeks thinking about how he would do it, where he would do it, and what he would say. All of those carefully prepared words vanished the moment he saw you as the two of you headed to one of his favorite restaurants. Whenever you were around, his mind had an annoying tendency to turn completely useless. Thoughts tangled together, words lost their meaning, and suddenly nothing came out the way he intended.

He had reserved a private dinner on the highest floor of the restaurant, complete with candles, flowers, and a breathtaking view of the city. He had even paid extra to ensure no one would interrupt them throughout the evening—no waiters walking in unexpectedly, no inconvenient distractions to ruin the atmosphere he had carefully arranged.

For once, Bruce Wayne was determined to do something normal, like an ordinary person, not like Batman, not like the billionaire who appeared on magazine covers. Just like a man who wanted to propose to the woman he loved.

The small velvet box remained tucked inside the inner pocket of his jacket, so close to his chest that ignoring its presence was impossible. Every few minutes, he found himself checking to make sure it was still there, as though it might somehow disappear.

As he watched you talk, laugh, and enthusiastically describe some of the activities you and Dick had done together during the week, Bruce could barely focus on anything except the question that had occupied his thoughts for weeks. He wanted to finally get it over with and give his restless mind some peace.

"And then Dick insisted he could fix it himself, and that's when I realized he's growing up way too fast."

A small smile appeared on Bruce's lips."He's always been like that."

"No, Bruce. Before, he just pretended he knew what he was doing and we let him try. Now he actually knows what he's doing."

A quiet laugh escaped through his nose.

You were right.

Dick was no longer the frightened, grieving boy who had arrived at the manor years ago after suffering a loss. Bruce understood better than anyone. He had become capable, intelligent, and strong, someone Bruce was profoundly proud of.

And you had played a part in that.

His gaze softened as he looked at you, probably didn't even realize it, but you had become a fundamental part of that family.

The smile on your face carried that familiar pride that always appeared whenever you talked about Dick. Bruce tried to think of something to say, anything that would make it seem like he hadn't completely lost track of half the conversation.

This was exactly what he wanted for the rest of his life.

Shared dinners, endlessly long conversations, the way you cared about Dick as though he had always been yours. The way you had filled spaces inside him, he never even knew existed. Bruce had spent most of his life convinced that happiness was temporary. A brief pause between tragedies. A short-lived truce before the next disaster.

But with you, he had started to believe he might have been wrong, maybe some people really did stay, maybe some things really could last. His fingers brushed against the ring box inside his pocket. This was the moment, he could do it now, he was ready. All he had to do was take out the ring. All he had to do was say the words.

He drew a slow breath. "Honey..."

Your eyes immediately lifted toward him."Yes?"

Bruce felt his heart slam against his ribs, which was completely ridiculous. He had faced murderers, monsters, and threats capable of destroying the entire city.

And yet this was infinitely more terrifying.

"There's something I've been wanting to ask you..." His hand slowly moved toward the inside pocket of his jacket. And then his concealed communicator vibrated inside his watch.

Bruce closed his eyes.

Because of course it had to happen at that exact moment.

Disappointment struck his chest with unexpected force. He couldn't believe this was happening now of all times. He had planned this evening for weeks. He had imagined every detail.

And now he was watching it all fall apart once again. But you simply smiled. That damn smile that never seemed to disappear.

That calm smile that always managed to find him, even during his worst moments."Dinner can wait. Don't worry, B..."

And you were so unbelievably understanding.

He hated himself for it. Bruce held your gaze for several seconds.

The ring box remained hidden in his pocket. The ring was still there when it should have been on your finger, and the question remained trapped on his tongue.

It would have to wait a little longer.

Because Gotham always found a way to ruin his plans.Even if he didn't know yet that this would only be the first of many attempts to propose, and that the entire universe would seemingly conspire to keep him from asking the question.

Bruce's second chance came with a different idea than before; the idea of being alone was tempting. He could try to open his heart a little more than usual, but if he did it with the whole family there, it could be remembered as a precious moment for everyone, something they would always remember and a prominent family memory.

She had taken care of everything to ensure the whole family was comfortable when it happened: a nice outfit for Dick, a lovely dress for you—that expensive suit you loved so much—she had even arranged dinner. Obviously, she wanted Alfred to be there without having to worry about anything; she had already made him suffer enough in her youth and with her nocturnal activities without making him worry about her marriage proposal.

It goes without saying that he didn't do the cooking himself; he hired the best catering company. But even though he wasn't the one doing everything, Bruce had dedicated entire days to planning every detail.

Even Alfred had agreed to sit down to dinner with you, something that didn't happen often; perhaps it was because Bruce had been forced to confess what he wanted to do at dinner since the

The small velvet box lay hidden in his jacket pocket, again, but this time it was time. He needed to release the feeling that was making him nervous, that...

And there I was again, overthinking again, more than I should have.

"This is delicious," you commented after trying one of the dishes, some pasta that seemed freshly made with the best ingredients imported from Italy.

"The catering will be delighted to know, Madam," Alfred replied with a small smile.

"See? I told you it was worth hiring him," Bruce remarked, inwardly grateful that the conversation was flowing so naturally.

"Are you sure it wasn't you who cooked?" you asked, amused.

Dick burst out laughing immediately. "It definitely wasn't him!" Bruce raised an eyebrow.

"Richard."

"What? I'm just telling the truth. "

"I'm not a bad cook."

"I didn't say that, I only said it was impossible because I've never seen you in the kitchen" he said slowly, then revealed a big smile.

Alfred, who was watching the whole situation from one side of the table, had to hide a smile behind his glass, trying not to push the boy against Bruce.

Bruce felt control of the conversation slowly slipping from his grasp; this was definitely not how he wanted things to go, and if he wanted everything to turn out alright, he had to

"You wanted us to have a normal family dinner, but we're not very normal, Bruce." Dick interrupts him again. The boy smiled proudly, completely unaware of the fact that he was...

You couldn't help but chuckle as you looked at the man. —He has a point.

"He doesn't have it," Bruce replied immediately.

"Of course," Dick insisted. "Normal families don't have a cave under their house."

"Dick..."

"They don't even have a British butler who can fight better than Superman."

Alfred raised an eyebrow. "I'll take that as a compliment, young master."

Bruce felt a headache beginning to form behind his eyes. "Richard."

"What? I'm describing the facts."

"You're talking too much."

"You always say I should express myself."

"But I think you could make an exception today."

You watched the exchange with obvious amusement, resting a hand against your cheek as you tried not to laugh. Meanwhile, Bruce watched as everything spiraled out of control again, but still,

Because that was exactly what she had imagined when she started thinking about the future. A table full of people she loved, a home.

Her gaze unconsciously drifted to you. You were smiling, relaxed, you looked happy. And for a moment the rest of the world seemed to disappear. Everything else faded into the background.

It was the moment, it was definitely the moment.

He took a slow breath. "There's something I'd like to say." The conversation gradually died away. Dick looked up immediately; you turned your head toward him curiously. Alfred remained silent.

Now.

This time, yes.

He reached inside his jacket, brushing against the small velvet box. "I wanted us to be together because there's something I've wanted to say for a long time, and I think it's everyone's business because we are..."

Bruce felt his fingers close around the small box inside his jacket. He just had to finish the sentence. However, as he spoke, he didn't notice your expression beginning to change.

"Honey?" Bruce asked, interrupting himself.

Dick turned his head towards you. —Are you okay?

"Yes, I just..." you put a hand to your forehead. "Oh god, I think..." And before you could finish the sentence, your body slumped to the side.

The chair scraped against the floor, and Bruce reacted purely on instinct. He abandoned any attempt at speech and lunged forward, reaching you before you hit the ground.

The ring box fell from his pocket and rolled under the table unnoticed. "What happened?" Dick asked, jumping to his feet. "Get some water," Bruce ordered. Alfred was already standing. "Right away, sir."

Your eyelids fluttered for a few seconds before opening again. "Bruce...?"

The relief was so immediate it almost made her legs go weak. "I'm here."

"Why am I on the ground?"

"That's an excellent question."

That had been Bruce's second failed attempt, and this time it wasn't anyone's fault, not even his; this time it had been caused by a basil salad.

The third time was entirely Alfred's fault, or perhaps largely his, but the important thing was that it was another one of those occasions where everything had gone wrong.

If Bruce were completely honest with himself—something that happened less often than he'd admit—the fault lay entirely with him. Because after three failed attempts, he'd started to get paranoid.

So much so that the ring went everywhere with him. He wore it to meetings, dinners, charity events, even on patrol, during which Alfred had had to remind him that it probably wasn't a good idea to confront criminals while carrying an engagement ring worth a small fortune on his belt. He finally decided to stop taking the risk. And, being Bruce Wayne, he chose what he considered the perfect hiding place.

A drawer in his office.

It wasn't that many people passed through there. In fact, the office was probably one of the least used rooms in the entire mansion. Not even he went in there very often; most of Wayne Enterprises' important business ended up being resolved in external meetings or sent directly to his assistants. That office existed primarily to accumulate paperwork. Foundation documents. Financial reports. Contracts he had to sign. Folders he promised to review later, which inevitably ended up piling up for months.

For that very reason, it had seemed like a brilliant idea. Nobody was looking for anything there, nobody had any reason to open those drawers. And certainly not the bottom drawer of the desk, hidden beneath a mountain of documents so tedious they could be used as a form of torture.

It was perfect.

What Bruce didn't take into account was that there was one person in the entire mansion with a habit of solving the problems he himself created.

You.

Because when Bruce couldn't find something, he asked you. When he lost documents, he asked you. When he forgot where he'd left an important contract, he asked you, too. And after living together for a while, you'd developed the uncanny ability to find anything he couldn't locate.

An extremely inconvenient skill for Bruce at that time.

It all started one perfectly ordinary morning. You needed some foundation-related documents that were due that very afternoon. Documents that Bruce swore he had prepared. Documents that, of course, no one could find.

"I'm sure I left them somewhere."

"That phrase usually precedes a search that lasts for several hours, sir," Alfred remarked.

You, on the other hand, let out a small laugh before getting up from the table. "I'll be nice and help you look for them. I'm going to check your office."

"That's a great idea, ma'am."

"Not there."

"That's precisely why I'm going to check there." Bruce frowned. It was offensively reasonable logic. And sadly, correct most of the time.

Perhaps the real problem was that too much time had passed. Much more time than Bruce was willing to admit because of his ego.

Between patrols, meetings, emergencies, failed attempts, and the constant search for the perfect moment, the months had begun to accumulate faster than expected. So much so that even he himself had forgotten where he'd hidden the ring. Not completely, of course. He knew it was still in the mansion, he knew it was safe, he knew no one would find it. But if someone had asked him exactly which drawer it was in, he probably would have needed several minutes to remember. And that was already a bad sign. Because when Bruce Wayne forgot where he kept something important, it usually meant he'd been putting off a decision for too long.

That's why, when he saw you heading towards the office that morning, he didn't even react. It wasn't until several minutes later that an idea slowly crossed his mind. As if his brain were trying to reach a conclusion that the rest of his body had already grasped.

"No..." He murmured to himself.

Alfred raised an eyebrow from across the room. "Is something wrong, sir?"

Bruce didn't answer immediately because he had just remembered exactly where the ring was. And he had also just remembered that he had hidden it in the same place where he kept most of the foundation's important documents. The same place you had just headed to.

"Shit." This time with considerably more concern. He stood up so quickly that the chair almost fell backward.

"¿Master Bruce ?"

"How long ago did he go to the office?"

"About ten minutes." Bruce felt something slowly sink in his stomach. And for the first time since he'd started planning that proposal, he understood that he wasn't running to prevent an interruption. He was running to prevent you from finding the ring ahead of time.

Perhaps I still had a chance, perhaps you hadn't found the drawer, perhaps you'd been distracted by the documents. Perhaps...

When he opened the office door, he couldn't help but stop in front of the door when he saw you there in front of the desk with that small box open, clearly revealing an engagement ring.

Bruce felt all the air leave his lungs; he was late. And you were still staring at the jewel, oblivious to its presence, your pretty face a mask of confusion, your mouth slightly agape at the sight of such a treasure lying there in the forgotten drawers of the desk. The light streaming through the windows reflected off the stone, casting tiny sparkles onto your fingers.

For a moment, neither of you said anything because, to be honest, neither of you knew what to say. You were trying to process why there was an engagement ring hidden in Bruce's office. And Bruce was trying to process exactly how he'd managed to botch a proposal he hadn't even started.

Then you looked up and your eyes met. Then you looked at the ring, then at Bruce, then back at the ring, and finally back at Bruce again.

"Oh." That was all you said. Before falling silent again. "Bruce..."

"You didn't see anything."

You blinked. "Pardon?"

Bruce took a few steps closer to you and took the box from your hands, closing it. He put it back in its place, where it should never have left: his pocket. "You didn't see anything."

"Bruce."

"Absolutely nothing."

"I think I did see something."

"No, you didn't."

"Master Bruce, I found the papers here!" Alfred's voice echoed through the mansion's hallway. And without another word, Bruce left the room, leaving you standing there in shock at everything that had happened in that moment.

"What a strange man..." you murmured to yourself as you looked at the door he had passed through.

After that monumental humiliation in the office, Bruce practically disappeared; it was as if the earth had swallowed him up.

You didn't see him again for the rest of the morning, nor during lunch, nor during the afternoon. Every time you asked about him, Alfred answered with the same exasperating calmness.

"Mr. Wayne is busy."

"Busy doing what exactly? I need to talk to him, Alf."

"That's Mr. Wayne's thing. Ma'am."

Which didn't help at all.

Because "busy" could mean anything when it came to Bruce Wayne. From signing documents to chasing criminals across the rooftops of Gotham.

And after that morning's events, your mind kept returning to the same thing. That damned ring hidden there. Because a part of you still wondered if you'd really seen what you thought you'd seen. Although, to be honest, Bruce's reaction had confirmed any lingering doubts. Nobody acted like that over just any old ring. And definitely no one ran from a room if it didn't mean something.

All afternoon that question had haunted you. Because finding an engagement ring hidden in a drawer was one thing. Finding it abandoned beneath mountains of forgotten documents was quite another. And the more time passed, the more possibilities began to surface in your mind. None of them particularly pleasant.

You were sitting in one of the mansion's rooms when that idea slowly began to take root in your mind. And once it appeared, it couldn't leave.

But now all you could think about was why he'd put it there. Had he bought it for you, or for some other woman who'd been in his life? If it was for you, why was it lying there, abandoned under things that didn't matter? Maybe it was for you, and he'd changed his mind.

The possibility caused something uncomfortable to settle in your chest.

Bruce had never been a simple man. You loved him, of course you loved him, but you also knew he was a man who spent too much time inside his own head, capable of analyzing a decision for weeks, months.

Perhaps he had bought the ring impulsively.

Maybe I had thought about asking you to marry me. And then I changed my mind, maybe that's why I was there.

Forgotten, hidden, covered in dust and documents.

The idea was more painful than you were willing to admit. Because even though you tried to be rational, even though you tried to convince yourself that there was surely another explanation, a small voice kept asking questions. What if he wasn't sure anymore? What if he had decided he didn't want to take that step? Or rather, didn't want to take it with you.

You glanced down at the teacup resting in your hands, which was already cold; you couldn't even remember when it had stopped being hot. Your mind was still stuck in the same place, in the office, on that small black box, on the expression Bruce had made when he saw you holding it, and that was what confused you most.

Because it hadn't seemed like the expression of a repentant man, it had seemed like the expression of a terrified man. As if he'd been caught doing something shameful. As if he'd been caught too soon. As if...

You stopped, frowning slightly. Because that possibility was completely different.

What if it simply hadn't happened yet? What if he wasn't hiding because he had changed his mind? What if he was hiding because he was waiting?

The thought made your heart race, but another doubt immediately arose. Waiting for what? They had been together for years, she didn't need to wait any longer, she didn't need to plan anything else, and yet there it was, that ring.

You let out a long sigh as you rested your head against the back of the sofa.

You didn't know the right answer, you didn't know what he was thinking, you didn't know why he'd disappeared all day. And the worst part was, you needed to ask him. Because until you heard the truth from his own lips, your mind would keep concocting a thousand different explanations, each one worse than the last.

You needed to talk to that damn Bruce Wayne.

That's why, when night fell on Gotham, you ended up descending into the Batcave.

Because if Bruce wasn't going to talk to you upstairs, you'd probably have better luck downstairs.

The platforms descended slowly as the mechanical sound echoed around you. The air grew colder as you went down, more humid, quieter.

The immense cavern began to unfold slowly before your eyes, illuminated by the blue lights of computers and control panels that never seemed to turn off. Years later, it was still breathtaking.

The enormous rock walls, the subterranean waterfalls, the metal platforms suspended over the void. All of it seemed to belong to another world, one that coexisted beneath the mansion, beneath the life they shared.

And yet that night you weren't there as Batman's partner, you weren't there to help with any case, nor to keep him company during a particularly difficult night. You were there because you needed to talk to Bruce.

Simply Bruce.

Most people would probably feel intimidated upon discovering a secret base built beneath a mansion. You, on the other hand, had come to associate it with something much simpler.

With Bruce, with the long nights waiting for him to return, with the discussions about impossible cases, with the improvised breakfasts after a particularly complicated patrol, with that part of him that very few people had the privilege of knowing.

Perhaps that's why the uncertainty hurt so much. Because you weren't doubting just any man, you were doubting him, and that was something you didn't know how to handle.

The man who had been missing all day, the man who had hidden a ring in a drawer, the man who had run away when you found him, the man who was driving you crazy.

You sighed as you sat down on one of the platforms near the main computer.

You would wait, because he had to come back eventually, and if Bruce intended to keep avoiding you, he was going to find out very soon that you were much more stubborn than he was, which was saying something.

The minutes began to pass slowly.

Five. Ten. Twenty.

It was precisely in the midst of those thoughts that you heard the sound of an engine approaching from a distance.

Your head immediately lifted to observe the enormous entrance of the cave beginning to open, and a few seconds later the lights of a motorcycle pierced the darkness.

Batman had returned.

The motorcycle moved along the main platform before stopping near the work area. The engine died, and silence returned almost immediately.

For a few seconds Bruce remained motionless, probably exhausted, likely convinced that the cave would be empty at that hour, ready to relax and try to turn off his brain for just a few minutes, but then he raised his head and saw you.

Even from a distance, you could see the exact moment he realized what was happening; his shoulders tensed slightly. And for a brief moment, he looked exactly the same as he had that morning in the office. Like a man who had just been caught.

Because after spending all day avoiding you, they both knew perfectly well why you were there, and they also knew that she could no longer keep running away from that conversation.

For a few seconds neither of them moved.

Bruce remained by the motorcycle, still dressed in his Batman suit, while you continued sitting in front of the computers. The distance between you wasn't particularly great, but at that moment it seemed much greater.

Perhaps because there were too many things left unsaid, perhaps because you both knew exactly what that conversation was going to be about.

Finally, it was Bruce who broke the silence. "Hello."

His voice echoed softly in the vastness of the cave. He didn't sound like Batman, he didn't sound like the man who intimidated criminals. He simply sounded tired.

You let out a small, incredulous laugh. "Hello?"

Bruce seemed to think about it for a second. "Yes."

"Is that all?" You had spent the whole day mentally torturing yourself, he had disappeared for hours, and after all that the first thing he could think to say was 'hello'.

Bruce seemed to immediately understand the reason for your reaction. "I wasn't sure how to start this conversation."

That still managed to bring a smile to your face, because it was such a Bruce response. He'd been hiding an engagement ring for months, and yet he seemed more concerned with finding the right way to start a conversation.

You stood up slowly, your footsteps echoing softly on the metal platform as you closed the distance between you.

The suit bore some recent patrol marks. There was dust on part of the armor and a small scratch near the left shoulder that he probably hadn't even noticed.

"Where were you all day?" The question came out softer than you intended.

Bruce looked down for a moment before answering. "Working."

"I thought you were going to keep avoiding me."

Bruce slowly removed his gloves. "I wasn't avoiding you."

The two remained silent for a moment.

Bruce continued removing his gloves with an almost studied calmness, as if he needed to occupy his hands to avoid looking at you for too long. It was a habit you knew well. Whenever a conversation veered toward emotional territory, he would find some absurd task to do first.

You watched him place his gloves on one of the worktables before beginning to unfasten some pieces of his forearm armor.

I kept avoiding looking at you.

And that finally exhausted what little patience you had left."Bruce."

This time he did look up. "Yes?"

That was answer enough. "I've spent all day looking for you."

"I know..."

"Bruce, you can't just run away when something happens, I have feelings, you know?" you suddenly asked. "You know what the worst part is?" You looked down for a moment. Not because you were ashamed to say it. But because admitting it out loud made it seem so much more real. "That I've spent all day trying to figure it out."

The words came out before you could stop them. It wasn't the way you wanted to say it, but you needed to let out all those feelings that were churning in your stomach. Perhaps it would have been better to use different words because of Bruce's potential reaction. They had simply been building up in your chest for too long.

Bruce stood motionless. The piece of armor he was removing hung suspended in his hands for a few seconds before he finally placed it on the nearest table.

He didn't respond immediately, and that only increased your frustration.

"I found an engagement ring hidden in your office," you continued. "Then you appeared out of nowhere, snatched it out of my hands, acted as if I'd discovered some state secret, and then disappeared for the entire damn day."

Bruce closed his eyes for a moment. Because clearly, hearing it summarized aloud didn't improve the situation. "When you say it like that..."

"And then I couldn't find you anywhere." You interrupted him.

Your voice gradually softened. Not because you were less upset, but because something much worse lurked behind the anger. Something you'd been trying to ignore for hours. "Do you know how many things can go through a person's mind after something like that?"

Bruce looked up at you. For the first time, he seemed to be paying absolute attention to every word that came out of your mouth.

"All day, Bruce." A small laugh escaped your lips, though it wasn't funny at all. "And you weren't even in a position to ask."

All day trying to understand what it meant. Trying to understand why I was there. Trying to understand why you ran away.

A flash of guilt crossed her eyes before disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared.

And that only made the knot in your stomach tighten more, because you didn't want to make him feel guilty, you just wanted to understand.

"I tried not to think about it too much," you continued after a few seconds, looking down at the metal floor beneath your feet. "I really tried." You let out a small, humorless laugh. "But every time I found one explanation, ten more appeared."

Bruce remained silent, not because he didn't want to answer, but because he seemed to be listening to every word with almost painful attention.

"At first I thought maybe you were waiting for the right moment, then I thought maybe you'd just forgotten it there, and then..." You stopped yourself, because that was the part you really didn't want to admit. The part that had taken up most of your day. The part that made you feel ridiculous now that you were saying it out loud, you felt so pathetic for being in this situation.

Bruce must have noticed, because he took a step towards you.

Enough so that his voice sounded softer when he spoke. "And then what?"

Suddenly the space seemed too small. "Then I started wondering if you had changed your mind."

The confession hit you like a ton of bricks. Bruce didn't move. He didn't even seem to breathe. That's why you continued before you lost your nerve.

"I thought maybe you bought it a while ago and then decided you didn't want to do it." Your fingers closed lightly around the sleeves of your clothes. "Or that you decided you didn't want to do it with me."

Bruce's face showed immediate surprise.

So genuine that for a moment it made you doubt everything you had been thinking.. "What?" The word came out in barely a whisper. As if he wasn't sure he had heard correctly.

"Bruce..."

"Did you think that?"

And that made you look up because he no longer seemed uncomfortable, nervous, or embarrassed.

He looked horrified. As if he had just discovered that you had spent hours suffering over something he never wanted you to think about.

Bruce slowly ran a hand over his face, a strange sadness creeping in. It was as if the thought of you alone, sitting in some corner of the mansion, coming to those conclusions, pained him.

Bruce closed his eyes. "I've spent months trying to find the perfect moment." The sentence made your heart start to beat a little faster. Bruce continued before you could reply. "Months thinking about what to say, where, how, when..." His voice lowered. "And the more I thought about it, the harder it seemed."

He watched you for a few seconds, as if gathering his courage. You found that odd because Bruce Wayne rarely needed to gather his courage for anything, but it seemed you were wrong.

Yes, there were things that scared her; she'd seen them for years. They just weren't the same things that terrified the rest of the world.

Bruce wasn't afraid of criminals, he wasn't afraid of villains, or he wasn't afraid of danger. He was afraid of losing the people he loved. He was afraid of making mistakes. And, most of all, he was afraid of being vulnerable. "Do you know what the worst part was?" he asked suddenly.

You shook your head gently.

"When I saw you with the box this morning, all I could think was that I had ruined everything."

The confession took you by surprise.

Because the situation was truly ridiculous. After all, they'd been together for years. They'd been through infinitely more difficult things than a marriage proposal.

And yet that had managed to turn the legendary Batman into a man incapable of remaining in the same room as his girlfriend for five minutes. The thought almost made you laugh. However, the smile slowly faded because there was something you needed to know. Something that had been nagging at you all day.

"Bruce."

"Yeah?"

You swallowed. "Was it for me?" The question came out much more gently than you intended, but the effect was immediate.

Bruce frowned slightly, as if the very idea was incomprehensible to him. "What?"

"The ring." Silence fell between them. "Was it for me?"

Bruce stared at you for several seconds. "Do you really think I want to spend the rest of my life with someone else?"

Bruce lowered his gaze for a moment before letting out a small exhalation. "After all these years" his head moved slightly from side to side "After everything we've been through together..." He stood directly in front of you. Close enough for you to see the accumulated weariness beneath his eyes. Close enough to notice the vulnerability he usually hid behind a thousand different layers. "Listen to me." That simple word drew your full attention to him. "There never was anyone else. Not before, not now, not at any point since you came into my life." His voice was barely a whisper, but it managed to pierce through every doubt that had haunted you all day.

For the first time since you had gone down to the Batcave, you felt you could breathe easy, leaving behind the heaviness that had been tormenting you.

Bruce was still standing in front of you.

So close you could make out every little detail of his expression. The tension that still lingered in his shoulders. The weariness beneath his eyes. And that vulnerability, so strange in him, yet it made you feel special.

For a few seconds neither of them spoke, and it was then, during that silence, that something seemed to change within him. As if he had finally made a decision.

As if after months of planning, failed attempts, interruptions, disasters, and wasted opportunities, he had finally understood something very simple.

That there would never be a perfect moment.

Because Bruce Wayne's life would never be perfect.

There would always be an emergency, something that would change her plans, and if she kept waiting for the ideal moment she would probably end up hiding that ring for another five years.

"This wasn't what I had planned; I wanted it to be something nicer."

The confession managed to elicit a small smile from you before you gently shook your head.

Bruce watched your smile for a few seconds. As if he were etching it into his memory, as if after all these years he still thought it was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. Then he let out a long breath. And before you could ask him what he was thinking, he reached for his belt.

Your heart skipped a beat because you already knew what she was going to pull out. The small velvet box appeared between her fingers. That same box that had caused chaos that morning. The same one that had been haunting them for months.

“When I met you, I thought I’d simply fallen in love, but it turns out I also fell in love with the life we built together, and I realized I don’t want to imagine a future without you in it.” Bruce took a slow breath, as if finally gathering the courage he’d been searching for for months. Then, for the first time all night, he knelt before you. “I know I’m not perfect, I know I overthink, I know I have an impressive knack for complicating simple things.”

That managed to elicit a small laugh from you through the tears that were beginning to accumulate in your eyes.

Bruce smiled. "Because that was exactly the reaction I'd hoped for." But I also know one thing with absolute certainty. I love you. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone, and there isn't a single version of my future where I don't choose you. I want to wake up next to you every morning, keep making memories with you, keep building this family together, and keep finding you in every home we have until the end of my days." His gaze remained fixed on yours, filled with a conviction he'd never had about anything else. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

And this time there were no interruptions, just the two of you deep inside the mansion where you had built the foundation of your relationship, the one that would accompany you until the end of your days.

▪︎ In that situation, if Clark had had a different personality, it would have ended up in big fights, but since he was the peaceful boy he was, he never complained, and both Mom and Dad looked at him with a bit of pity. Did they love you? Of course, but no one could say that you didn't handle a great deal of intensity and energy, which wasn't bad at all because you were like the joy of the home, but it could agitate anyone if they weren't used to it.

▪︎ Everyone thought that would change as they grew up and reached adolescence, and like anyone else, you'd want your own personal space and understand that your brother would too.

▪︎ Funny but not

▪︎ You loved teasing him even more, and now you had so many more tools at your disposal; it seemed like fate was always against him. He had to listen to guys asking you out, guys flirting with you (something you actually enjoyed and he hated, well, protective brother), but it made him even more nervous when he saw you with his great love Lana's group of friends, and he almost froze when he saw you two sitting at the house, you evil girl.

▪︎ It had to be said that most of the fun things happened in your teens, that is, even before the appearance of your powers everything was quite chaotic.

▪︎ During those years, your parents found it incredible how Clark handled your personality. They even thought Clark had developed an amazing ability to ignore you when you were being particularly annoying. It was a survival mechanism he perfected over the years. Jonathan was convinced that much of Clark's power didn't come from his Kryptonian origins, but from having survived an entire childhood with you.

▪︎ You were quite hyperactive, which didn't help you at all in class given your poor ability to concentrate, but the good thing was that Clark was extremely good at helping you study. He had infinite patience to explain something to you ten times if necessary. You, on the other hand, were an expert at helping him with social problems. If Clark needed advice on how to talk to someone, interpret a situation, or stop acting weird, he usually ended up turning to you, so it was a kind of trade.

▪︎ Since she couldn't focus on anything for very long, Clark was definitely the one driving the old farm truck, but even then, Martha would pray every time the two of you went out in it together. Not because you were irresponsible, but because you had a habit of getting easily distracted, talking about anything and everything.

▪︎ For a while you two were very calm, actually you more than anything, but both of you were suffering a lot of pain and discomfort when your powers appeared, it was a good thing to share your grievances with someone who understood you completely, and you were a great help to each other in being able to handle your new abilities, but you were sure that you could have good advantages of it.

▪︎ Clark was able to join to the football team after much insistence to your dad, and the whole team was so grateful to have such a fast and strong player as him, plus you enjoyed going to watch him play, maybe see some hot boys.

▪︎ You, on the other hand, used it to listen to the gossip of the whole town from miles away, and you found it so fun because who wouldn't if they had the chance?. You can clean quickly with your speed. Are you bored of your furniture being in the same place? You have super strength. did you lose something? That doesn't matter, you have x-ray vision.

"Clark, you should ask the neighbor's granddaughter out on a date, she likes your ugly haircut."

▪︎ Adolescence was probably the time when they annoyed each other the most, but also the stage when they became most inseparable. Because while the rest of their lives were constantly changing, they could always count on each other.

▪︎ Despite having such a happy life on the farm, that comes to an end. One day Clark decided that Smallville was too small for him, that he needed to find his purpose, and that Metropolis was the place where he could be a journalist and continue to grow.

▪︎ It was a difficult day for everyone. You didn't know a life without Clark beyond the loneliness of a few hours, but now he was going to a huge city far from home. Even if your parents had asked you to go with him, you couldn't imagine your life away from them either. All of this was too much for you.

▪︎ Even though Clark had told you he wanted to leave Smallville, you never thought it would happen so soon. Suddenly, the next room was empty, the breakfast table had one less plate, and the barn felt unnervingly quiet.

▪︎ For the first few weeks after he left, you kept going into his room out of habit. Sometimes you were looking for something to do there. Other times you'd just sit for a few minutes before leaving again. It was medieval torture; you missed your brother.

▪︎ Martha was the first to notice how much it was affecting you. Although you tried to act as usual, you were quieter than normal and spent less time bothering your parents; something was definitely going on in your head.

▪︎ Jonathan surprised you several times by looking towards the main road when you heard an engine approaching, as if a part of you expected to see Clark's old truck appear.

▪︎ Clark wasn't handling it as well as he'd hoped, either. After years of sharing practically every day of his life with you, the silence of his Metropolis apartment felt strange. For the first time in his life, he could enjoy all the privacy he wanted. But he quickly discovered he didn't like it as much as he'd imagined.

▪︎ Your parents couldn't tolerate their children spending even a minute longer in these situations, even though they thought all this change would be good for them, but they were clearly wrong, so they had to fix this.

▪︎ That's when Jonathan and Martha started talking seriously about it. Honestly, it didn't take them long to figure out the solution, and it didn't take them long to convince you either. Because, no matter how hard you tried to defend your position, everyone knew the truth: you missed Clark far more than you were willing to admit.

▪︎ You were worried about leaving the farm, worried about being away from your parents, worried about abandoning the only life you'd ever known. But you also knew that a part of you had been waiting to hear that proposal ever since the day Clark left.

▪︎ Martha was the one who finally gave you the last push you needed. After all, Metropolis wasn't on the other side of the world. The farm would still be there, they would still be there, and you could always come back and visit them.

▪︎ When you finally agreed, Jonathan and Martha seemed much more excited than they let on, not because they wanted you to leave, but because they knew exactly how happy it would make you and Clark.

▪︎ And that same day you appeared at the door of Clark's apartment.

▪︎ Clark knew nothing until you appeared at his Metropolis apartment door with several suitcases at your feet and a smile impossible to hide. At first, he stood completely still, staring at you as if trying to figure out if you were real. Then he looked at the suitcases, back at you, and finally understood what was happening. For months he had imagined what it would be like to have the only person who truly understood him close again, and here you were!

▪︎ Even though Clark spent years complaining about you when you lived on the farm, the truth was he didn't know how to live without your constant presence, and moving to the city had affected him just as much as it had you. You had arrived on Earth together, grown up together, and faced every change in your lives together. You were the only person who could fully understand who he was and where he came from.

▪︎ He had missed every part of you: how absentminded you were, seeing your smile every morning, when you scolded him for leaving his clothes lying around, your competitiveness, your company, your...

"Clark, why do you have a suit with your underwear on the outside?"

◇ It is then that the rumors about Alys Rivers reach his ears. A damned Strong bastard who has dwelled in Harrenhal for years, known for reading the flames and speaking truths no one else could possibly know. Some call her a healer; others, a witch. Aemond cares little for the names. If half of those stories are true, Alys could become the most valuable weapon in the entire war; he needs her on his side.

◇ However, from their very first meeting, he understands that convincing her will be impossible. Alys isn't impressed by his lineage, she doesn't fear Vhagar, and she doesn't seem fazed by the threats of a Targaryen prince. She observes him with an almost irritating calm, as if she already knows every word that will come out of his mouth before he even utters it; the woman is cryptic, almost mocking, before the platinum-haired prince, as if she has neither fear nor an ounce of respect. It's a dynamic that Aemond detests, that feeling of not being in control of the situation.

◇ Aemond tries to negotiate for several days. He offers her gold, protection, and even a privileged position when the Greens are victorious. Alys rejects each proposal with the same composure with which she rejects his threats, forcing him to accept a reality he detests: he cannot force her, at least not directly. So he sends his men to investigate her.

◇ It is one of the men at Harrenhal who unwittingly provides the solution. In a casual conversation, he mentions that Alys is not entirely alone, as she had appeared; she had a younger sister. The information barely occupies a moment of silence before Aemond makes a decision. It fills him with neither guilt nor satisfaction; it is simply the most logical move in a war where compassion rarely has a place.

◇ With the cold steel of his sword pressing against the skin of the young woman's neck, Aemond stares down at Alys. His face shows no remorse; he is the embodiment of the executioner of the Riverlands.

"Your magic belongs to you, witch, but the lifeblood of your blood belongs to me from this moment forward," Aemond hissed, feeling the younger girl's quickened pulse beneath his gloved fingers. "You will guide my wings and my armies to victory. If your visions fail you, if you conceal a single secret of the enemy from me, I will slit their throats in this very courtyard and have Vhagar devour what remains."

"Alys..." a trembling sob escapes your lips.

The prince shifts his gaze from the older woman to you, not with compassion or apology, but with a mocking look that would send shivers down anyone's spine. "Shh, calm down, little girl. Your sister won't let anything happen to you, will she?"

Alys was stunned, unable to believe what she was seeing. That relentless, paranoid gleam in the prince's single eye... she couldn't risk anything happening to her, she would never forgive such a thing. So, for the first time, she bent the knee. The deal was sealed by force.

"Wise decision"

◇Aemond orders you transferred to the King's Pyre Tower, specifically to the antechamber directly connected to his own quarters. It's no ordinary cell; it has amenities, but its location is purely for control: to enter or leave that room, you would have to pass through Aemond's personal space. He replaces the castle guards with his own trusted soldiers and forbids them from speaking to you or even looking you in the face. You are now his property, a high value asset to be guarded with obsessive zeal.

◇ When Alys discovers that her sister has been taken to the castle, she abandons for the first time the composure that had so puzzled the prince. She bursts into the great hall demanding to see her, and although she keeps her head held high, the worry in her voice is impossible to hide. Aemond then realizes he has been right. After days of fruitless negotiations, he has finally found the only weakness of the supposed witch of Harrenhal.

"Free her, she's innocent, she knows nothing about this."

"When the war is over you can see her again, you just have to fulfill your part of the deal," he says with simplicity and disdain to your request.

◇ Alys stares at him for a long moment, as if observing something he is still unable to see. She doesn't argue or try to attack him; she knows that would cause her to lose her mind and leave her alone with this twisted Targaryen prince, so she simply sighs wearily and withdraws.

"May the gods be with you, Prince Aemond; you will soon know if it was worth it."

◇ Aemond doesn't understand those words, nor does he waste his time trying to decipher them. He has always despised prophecies and riddles. For him, only one thing matters: the plan has worked. Alys agrees to cooperate, though she makes it clear that she's not doing so out of loyalty to the Greens, but to keep her sister alive.

◇ That same night, Aemond enters the young woman's room unannounced. He walks in his black leather armor, casting an immense shadow in the candlelight. His initial intention is to remind her of the rules of her confinement and break her spirit, but seeing her standing there, meeting his gaze despite her obvious physical fear, something shifts in Aemond's psyche. He moves too close, invading her personal space in an intimidating way. He relishes the physical power he wields over her, but a dark fascination begins to take root in his mind. She is an inexperienced young woman who cannot defend herself, and her life depends on him; she is completely in his hands.

◇However, something strikes Aemond. He had expected to find a terrified girl, docile or desperate to regain her freedom. Instead, he discovers someone who, despite her obvious fear, continues to respond to him with an almost insolent firmness. You never lowers your gaze for too long. She never begs him. And she never tries to elicit his pity.

◇ He approaches slowly, forcing you to retreat until the cold stone of the wall stops any possibility of escape. The difference in height between them makes the scene even more intimidating. Without saying a word, he raises a hand and places his thumb under her jaw, applying just enough pressure to force her to lift her face and look directly at him with the one eye he has left.

"Look at you, girl, a little bastard of Harrenhal holding the fate of a war in your hands," he says, his voice lowering a tone, becoming an almost intimate threat, "what an obedient girl, staying put and not making a fuss."

◇The young woman clenches her jaw beneath his fingers, but doesn't grant him the pleasure of pleading. The silence that returns is almost defiant, and for a moment Aemond stares intently into her eyes, observing every detail and emotion she exudes. The prince's single eye remains fixed on the girl's irises longer than it should, as if the rest of the room has vanished around them. Your gaze was so penetrating, he even experiences an uncomfortable sensation, a slight pressure behind his sapphire eye that he attributes to fatigue.

◇ That night he sleeps barely a few hours. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees her again standing by the window. He doesn't remember the color of the candles or the exact words they exchanged, but he does remember her eyes. He sees them with an almost unnatural clarity, as if they had been etched into his memory.

◇ During the following days, Aemond makes a point of staying away from the tower where the young woman is being held. He convinces himself that the visit that night was merely a reminder of his authority, a necessary act for the hostage to understand her place within Harrenhal. He cannot afford to be distracted by a nameless, insignificant girl. Yet, he discovers with some irritation that his mind keeps returning to her at the most inopportune moments. He remembers the way she held his gaze, the tension in her jaw when he forced her face up, and, above all, the fact that she never begged him. It seems absurd to dwell on it. After all, she is only a hostage.

◇On the fifth day, Alys begins to notice subtle changes in the prince regent. They are such small details that anyone else would attribute them to war exhaustion: he remains motionless for long minutes in front of the fire without uttering a word and loses track of conversations during war councils.

◇Aemond barely sleeps. When he manages to close his eyes, the dreams are never the same, and yet they always end the same way. He sees her standing by the window of that room, lit only by the dim candlelight, watching him with the same intensity as the first night. He wakes with a start, convinced he felt the touch of fingers on his face, the warmth of a breath too close to be a mere dream, or the brush of her lips that ends up causing him pain in his groin. .

◇ He tries to combat those thoughts by throwing himself into his work. He spends hours studying maps, reorganizing troops, and planning his next move against Daemon Targaryen. It only takes a moment of distraction for him to discover that, without realizing it, he has drawn the same tower of Harrenhal in the margin of a piece of parchment.

◇That's starting to become an unacceptable distraction. However, the solution he finds is even worse; if seeing her in his dreams isn't enough to silence those thoughts, then he'll have to see her while awake.

◇ Aemond begins to visit constantly, so much so that the guards have become accustomed to the frequency of seeing him cross the doors of that room; he needs to see her, to know that she is alright, that no one is trying to take her away from him.

◇At first, he stays for only a few minutes. He enters, observes the room, exchanges a few words with the young woman, and leaves. However, each visit begins to last a little longer than the last. Sometimes he finds an excuse to start a conversation; other times, he simply sits in a chair by the window and watches her silently as she continues reading, embroidering, or gazing at the gray landscape surrounding Harrenhal.

◇ But even if she eventually grew accustomed to that constant presence, it didn't make her uncomfortable. She knew of the Targaryen madness; she had heard horrifying and cruel things, but the madness that could run in their genes made everything worse. You couldn't predict their next move, and it didn't help that they looked rather terrifying.

◇ When too many hours pass without him seeing her, an unbearable unease begins to settle in his chest. He becomes irritable during meetings, loses patience with his advisors, and any setback, however insignificant, is enough to trigger his bad mood. Only when he crosses the threshold of that room again does that feeling slowly disappear, as if the mere fact of knowing she is still there is enough to restore his calm.

◇ The youngest Rivers begins to notice that the prince no longer visits her to intimidate her. His questions change without him even realizing it. The threats become less frequent and are replaced by questions that, in any other context, might seem like simple displays of curiosity. Aemond wants to know what her life was like before arriving at Harrenhal, how long she had lived with Alys, what places she frequented, what books she liked to read, and even who the few people were that she trusted.

◇ As the days passed, the questions became increasingly specific. He wanted to know about her relationship with Alys, whether she liked the weather here, whether she had ever considered leaving Harrenhal, whether there was anyone she particularly missed, and whether she had ever been in love. The last question took her completely by surprise. She took several seconds to answer; it was something she hadn't expected him to ask, but it seemed she had taken too long because the only thing she saw before Aemind stormed out the door was his angry face.

◇ After that conversation, Aemond can't stop thinking about it; he needs answers, he needs to know if there's a man in the head of his flower, a man who isn't him

◇ It is then that he begins his own investigation. He discreetly orders his men to find out what the young woman's life was like before she arrived at Harrenhal: who she spoke with, who frequented the cottage where she lived with Alys, and whether any man visited her regularly. The soldiers believe they are seeking useful information about the witch, unaware that the prince is merely trying to confirm a suspicion that keeps him awake at night.

◇ And from one day to the next, they are all dead, becoming food for Vhagar, but it doesn't really matter, she won't know, and even if she did, she doesn't need anyone but him

◇ Little by little, he begins to control every aspect of her confinement. He had allowed her to leave her room only when he was with her, but now the times for going out to the courtyard change constantly and always coincide with times when the rest of the castle is almost empty. He doesn't want soldiers, servants, or knights to have any opportunity to cross paths with her more than necessary.

◇ He also develops the habit of giving her small comforts she never asked for. A new book appears on the table after he hears her mention an ancient Valyrian text. Days later, he finds a better quality blanket to ward off the cold of Harrenhal. Then come new candles, clean clothes, and even a more comfortable chair by the window. Whenever he gives her these things, he makes it clear that they are from him; he wants her to be satisfied in all her needs, and he wants to be the only one who can do so, even before she expresses them.

◇ Aemond is no longer content with seeing her once a day. That need eventually becomes an unbearable nuisance. One night, as he returns to his quarters, he realizes that the distance between the two towers is unbearably long. Too many corridors. Too many doors. Too many people between them.

◇ So the next morning, as soon as he wakes up, he gives the order.

"Move the girl."

The soldiers exchanged confused glances. "To the dungeons, my prince?"

Aemond slowly raises his eyes. "To my chambers."

◇ When the young woman sees the guards enter to collect her few belongings, she thinks she will finally be freed or executed. Neither happens. She walks silently through the endless corridors of Harrenhal until she stops before a heavy oak door.

◇ He appears shortly after, as if he had been waiting for that moment. He watches her pace the room with evident bewilderment before speaking with that calmness that always precedes his most unsettling decisions.

"Why am I here?"

The prince closes the door behind him with a slow movement. "Because the tower is no longer suitable."

"I've been there for weeks and it's never been a problem"

Aemond remained silent for a few moments. His single eye slowly scanned the girl's face before he answered. "You're not aware of the number of eyes that stop on you when you cross this castle."

Those words send a shiver down her spine."I am nothing more than a hostage."

For the first time since they met, Aemond deliberately closes the distance between them. His steps are slow, calculated, until he's just inches from her. "You stopped being just a hostage a long time ago."

The young woman instinctively takes a step back. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Aemond holds her gaze with an almost obsessive intensity. "It means I can no longer tolerate others looking at you." He pauses briefly. "I can't tolerate them talking to you. And I wouldn't tolerate anyone trying to take you away from me."

◇ She feels the fear fully settle in her chest; she did not obey to avoid shuddering at his words and his touch. His hand gently rests on a lock of her hair, moving it away from her face with a delicacy that is infinitely more unsettling than any abrupt gesture.

◇ From the moment of her move, the young woman's routine is fully selected by the regent prince. Every morning, breakfast arrives at exactly the same time, and they both sit facing each other at the table in her room, after she has dressed in the dresses that appear in the wardrobe, which Aemond considers appropriate for a lady of the court.

◇ Before leaving the room, Aemond stops in front of her. He observes her for several long seconds, as if trying to memorize every feature of her face before departing. With a gentleness that contrasts sharply with his harsh nature, he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. The young woman remains completely still; she has learned that any attempt to pull away only makes him persist. Then, without warning, Aemond lowers his head slightly and places a brief kiss on her lips.

◇ Meanwhile, Alys Rivers loses count of the times she tries to negotiate with the prince. Day after day, she reminds him of the agreement he himself imposed upon arriving at Harrenhal: she would read the fire, reveal everything she knew about Daemon Targaryen, and, when the war ended with a Green victory, she could have her sister back. However, as the weeks pass, Alys begins to sense something unsettling. The prince has stopped talking about the future. He no longer mentions when his sister will be freed, nor does he refer to the end of the agreement. He simply acts as if that promise never existed.

◇ Alys doesn't need to see her sister to understand that something has been happening. She only needs to observe Aemond himself. The prince no longer arrives at their meetings with his mind solely on the war. Sometimes, as the flames dance before them, his gaze shifts toward the door, as if a part of him remains constantly aware of what is happening in the adjoining chambers.

◇It's an almost imperceptible change, but Alys is living in delicate situations without knowing about her sister, so seeing changes in the regent prince worries her.

◇ One afternoon, as the fire crackles in the hearth, Alys breaks the silence.

"The war was the reason you came to Harrenhal, but now I'm not so sure that's still the case..."

Aemond does not respond.

The prince continues to watch the embers, motionless. Only when the silence becomes unbearable does he speak with that calm that always precedes his most unsettling decisions. "Priorities change."

Those four words are enough to make Alys feel a shiver run down her spine.

◇ That night, the flames revealed a vision she wished she hadn't seen. She saw the blackened walls of Harrenhal shrouded in the shadow of a massive dragon. She saw her sister walking alone down a long stone corridor. And behind her, a silver-haired figure never ceased to follow her. No matter how many times the young woman tried to get away, the distance between them always seemed to disappear.

◇ From then on, rest ceased to exist for Aemond; he had a bad feeling. Every night, when he finally managed to sleep, Harrenhal seemed to open the doors of his mind. Those hallucinations, which had been like wet dreams for him, since he could see her even when they weren't in the same room, began to turn into nightmares. He no longer dreamed only of her. He dreamed of unknown people taking her, carrying her away from Harrenhal, hiding her in places where he couldn't find her. He always woke up before reaching them, his breath ragged and his hand gripping the hilt of his sword.

◇ Alys watches this transformation with a mixture of horror and helplessness. She recognizes that look every time Aemond looks at her. It's no longer the cold, calculating expression of a prince holding a hostage to secure an alliance. It's the look of a man who has begun to mistake possession for affection. And Alys knows, better than anyone, that these kinds of obsessions never end well.

◇ For days he tries to convince himself that there is still time to stop him. Perhaps, when the war is over, Aemond will remember the deal he himself made. Perhaps something of the disciplined man who came to Harrenhal seeking only an advantage against Daemon Targaryen will still remain. But every time the prince mentions his sister, every time he rearranges the castle to keep her close or alters his plans just to see her for a few more minutes, that hope fades a little more.

◇ Then she understands a truth that chills him to the bone. If sbe waits until the end of the war, it will be too late. Because Aemond no longer thinks like a strategist; he thinks like a man who has decided that no one will ever again take away what he considers his own.

◇ That certainty forces Alys to make a decision she never thought necessary. For the first time since that agreement began, she stops thinking about the war, the prophecies, or the Targaryens. She thinks only of getting her sister out of Harrenhal, no matter the cost. Because if she remains one more day under the same roof as Aemond, Alys fears that the moment will come when even her sister won't remember what it was like to live away from him. And that possibility is far more terrifying to her than any vision the fire could have shown her.

◇ Alys Rivers realizes too late that the prince has discovered her intentions. That very night, she leaves her chambers hoping to find her sister before him, convinced that there is still a way to get her out of Harrenhal.

◇ She never gets to see her again.

◇The next morning, Alys Rivers had disappeared from the castle, she had vanished without a trace, like her closest people.

◇ Rumors whisper through Harrenhal. Some swear they saw the prince return late at night, his sword still drawn. Others claim Vhagar roared before dawn, as if even the ancient dragon had sensed the violence that had just stained the castle at the hands of her rider, but no one finds Alys's body.

◇ That night, the door to the aur chambers shares the orincipe and the young woman opens with the usual creak.

She immediately looks up, noticing Aemond standing motionless in the doorway. The candlelight reveals small dark stains on the black leather of his doublet and the back of one of his hands.

The girl's heart raced. "What... what happened?"

She doesn't get an immediate response.

The prince calmly closes the door and begins to walk towards her, with the serenity of someone returning after settling an outstanding matter.

"I heard screams..." she whispers, growing increasingly uneasy. "What's happening out there?"

Aemond stops in front of her, observing her for a few seconds.

Then, a faint smile barely curved her lips. "Everything's alright. You don't have to worry anymore." Her voice was soft, almost comforting. "Everything's alright..."

◇ She wants to ask again despite all the terrifying things going through her mind, but the words die in her throat as Aemond slowly raises a hand. With a gentleness uncharacteristic of a man like him, he brushes a lock of hair away from her face and places a kiss on her forehead, a kiss that for him represented a pure and tender love, then caresses her cheek with his fingertips.

◇ Only when he withdraws his hand does he feel the moisture on his skin; instinctively he brings his fingers to his cheek and when he looks at them he sees a thin stain of blood.

◇ She looks up at Aemond, unable to breathe, anguish filling her chest and she clutches her throat, feeling as if she might choke on herself from the anguish and nerves, but he just keeps smiling in front of her, giving her a terrifying smile that she could assume was trying to cause tenderness and love, a completely pure love, as if he had just offered her the peace she so desperately needed.

Twins.

A double miracle.

For years she clung to the idea that the Seven had finally granted her a respite. Two quiet, obedient, inseparable children. There was no rivalry between them, no cruelty, only an intense and affectionate siblings love, a union too perfect to be questioned. Why would Alicent question the pair the Seven had sent her to reward her great work in life? She could never do that, and perhaps that was why the twins had always felt free to do as they pleased; they were beyond question in their mother's eyes and before anyone else.

The maesters spoke of a natural bond between twins, the septons spoke of shared souls, and the rest of the world saw them as lovely siblings who would accompany each other in the duty that each had inherited.

Perhaps that's why no one noticed the moment Aemond began looking at you the way men look at women, as more than a sister. It was subtle at first, imperceptible to anyone who didn't have a twisted gaze like his family.

The time he spent with Aegon didn't help either. His older brother filled his ear with crude jokes, tales of conquests and pleasures that Aemond pretended to despise, but which he listened to with far too much attention and interest.

And yet, that was no vulgar desire, it was something much deeper; what at fourteen years old was only a fleeting thought had become something worse, it was a possession, that silent thought that the place by your side should belong to no one but him, because they were destined to be together; if the gods had decided that their lives should begin at the same time, how could it be right that they should end separately?

The Targaryens were not like the rest of the world; they never had been. Their blood was different, their customs were different, their destinies were written in fire and guided by the same heritage that ran through their veins.

You were no different from him.

Perhaps that was why you found it easy to give in to your desires when you accepted the desires you had for your twin when he shared them with you.

But, unlike Aemond, you had felt guilty for those sinful thoughts that kept coming back, even when you tried to drown them in prayers that no longer offered you comfort.

You felt guilt for your mother's voice repeating the precepts of the Faith, for every sermon heard in the Sept, for every stern look that seemed to judge sins not yet committed. You felt dirty for a long time, even if you tried to ignore it, you knew that the Seven would still know it was somewhere in you and would take care of punishing you.

You wanted to convince yourself that it was nothing more than confusion, that it would disappear with time, that duty would eventually prevail as it always did in court.

But the closeness with Aemond never diminished; it seemed as if he had decided to torture you by remaining there by your side; that must be laughter as punishment, without a doubt.

But when he finally moved towards you, there was no hesitation in his gestures nor uncertainty in his gaze; it seemed that he had no doubts about it, so when he looked at you with such determination, as if it had been inevitable from the first day, you couldn't help but feel liberated.

The guilt that had accompanied you for years did not disappear immediately, but it began to crumble under the weight of that unshakeable certainty that he seemed to possess about the two of you.

Perhaps that's why you no longer felt afraid of your thoughts, or of feeling what you felt. You weren't afraid to love him, to imagine a life together until your last days; you wanted to give him everything, just as he gave you everything; you wanted to make him feel loved, appreciated, adored, as he always should have been.

Perhaps that's why, right now, you didn't mind having Aemond's rough hands covering your mouth while he penetrated you on one of the library tables.

His long fingers gripped your hips as his balls slapped hard against your pearl, making the only sounds in the room the wetness of your pussy and the collisions between your skins, along with that soft murmur that no one but you two could understand because of how quiet it was.

"See how well you're taking it?" he said, pressing his entire body against your back, his thin lips level with your ear. "It doesn't even look like I ruined your pussy this morning, darling."

He hears you moan his name under his hand in a voice he barely recognizes, and that sound seems to do nothing but excite him.

He fucks you like an animal, half savage, while his cock harasses that sweet spot inside you that makes it hard to breathe. You can do nothing but squeeze your hands tightly against the edge of the desk you're leaning on and let out every desperate cry that comes from feeling him deep inside your cunt while you squeeze him with all your might. He lets out a hiss between his teeth, but he does nothing to slow down, not when he's so drunk on your cunt and how good it feels.

Barely pulling away, he looks down and watches as his cock goes in and out of you, as your groin shines with the combined lubrication of both of you, and feels his cock tighten at that vulgar sight.

How grateful he was to the Gods for sending you to him, such a lovely and good little sister who enjoys carnal pleasures with her good older brother

"You have such a perfect pussy" he whispers, as he removes his hand from your mouth and lowers it to caress your clit with his fingers. "Can you be quiet for me? It would be embarrassing if anyone saw you crying over my cock."

"Aem please" you whisper with what little strength you have left, so dizzy from all the incredible sensations your brother can draw out of you. "Please, please, I'm so close." A particularly loud whimper escapes from your last words.

"You're going to give us away," he whispers to your ear as he thrusts into you again, moving his hips forward and causing your eyes to narrow. "As much as I like your little screams..." he mocks, his lips pressed to your earlobe, his voice teasing as he says, "I prefer you quiet."

His hand covers your mouth again as he penetrates you faster, the other brushing against your clit again, unable to stop you from letting out sharp moans, now against the palm of his hand.

The way he takes you is almost brutal; he's rarely fucked you like this since you started seeing each other this way. It's so primal, like his blood is driving him to this point, unable to suppress any desire he feels for you. It's as if he believes this will be the last time he has you, as if at any moment you could be taken away from him, from his desires, from his love.

He's positioned himself at the perfect angle, thrusting into you hard just the way you like it. He doesn't want to leave you wanting more of his cock, even though your desire to be ruined by him seems inexhaustible. Now he's grateful for his hand, because the sound you make behind his palm is much louder than it should be, and he's sure that without it, even the guards in the yard could hear you.

The hand over his mouth relaxes as pleasure begins to consume him, making it impossible to control him any longer. He lets just one finger remain between your lips, allowing you to guide him to his climax as he feels the warmth of your mouth and tongue around his finger, just as you always did when you took his entire cock in your mouth. His other fingers are halfcupped against your chin, busy maintaining his firm grip on something to control his pleasure; both are close, you can feel it in the way his cock contracts faster and faster inside you, in the way he begins to desperately seek his pleasure, in how his whole body heats up and becomes light.

You scream into his hand when his cock makes you feel tiny, that sensation that makes your knees tremble and writhe in his strong arms, your cunt squeezing around him to the point of pain, when his thumb finds your pearl to play with it quickly, throwing you into the spasms of your orgasm.

You no longer cared about anything else, because you loved him, you loved your twin in the same way a woman loves a man, as a wife loves her husband, and you wanted to have, you desired to give him everything a woman could give a man.

You are both exhausted as you try to catch your breath, trembling in each other's arms.

Without thinking, you tilted your head slightly, just enough to kiss him, scattering kisses along his scarred cheek and the corner of his lips until you reached his tender, delicate lips, where you intensified the kiss almost immediately, wanting to taste him. "I love you, Aemond."

His rough hand rests on your hip as he turns you around to face him, pulling you close to his sweaty body. "I love you too, dear sister."