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You'd gotten good at making yourself small.

Not physically — you were the same height you'd always been, same build, nothing about your body had changed since you stepped onto the Going Merry and then the Sunny with nothing to offer but a willingness to stay. But you'd gotten good at presence, at taking up less of it. You laughed a beat quieter than Usopp's stories deserved. You hung back when the crew hit a new island, let Nami barter and Sanji charm and Zoro get lost and Luffy make friends with every stray animal and street vendor within a five-mile radius. You cooked sometimes, when Sanji let you, and you cleaned the deck, and you kept the log entries neat in your own handwriting because somebody had to, and none of it required a devil fruit or a sword or a slingshot full of dials.

None of it required you, specifically. That was the part that had started to eat at you.

You remembered the day you joined more clearly than you wanted to. Luffy had grinned that stupid, sun-bright grin and said you're with us now like it settled something, like the matter of your usefulness was beneath consideration. For a long time that had been enough. You had him, and you had a hammock, and you had a place at a table that never seemed to run out of room for one more person.

But a place at the table wasn't the same as a place on the crew. You'd started to understand that the hard way, watching Zoro cut down what nature threw at Luffy and Nami read the sky like scripture and Sanji feed forty people out of a kitchen the size of a closet and Chopper stitch bodies back together with hands smaller than yours. You watched Luffy watch them — with pride, with the specific look he got when someone on his crew did the thing only they could do.

He never looked at you like that. There was nothing for him to look at.

You told yourself it didn't matter. You told yourself a lot of things.

Amazon Lily broke something loose in you that you hadn't known was still sitting there, half-cracked.

It wasn't that Boa Hancock was beautiful — although she was, in the specific, weaponized way of someone who'd made beauty into a blade a long time ago. It wasn't even that she looked at Luffy like he'd hung the moon, which he had, in her eyes, since he was the first man who'd ever mattered to her. It was the way Luffy received it. Easy. Unbothered. He was too busy asking her if the island had meat to even notice the way she looked at him, and that was the whole problem in miniature — he didn't have to do anything with anyone. He just existed at people, loudly, and they loved him for it, no effort required from either side.

You'd never once managed that. Every time Luffy pulled you against his side or pressed his forehead to yours or told the crew, unprompted, that you were his — some small, ugly, tired part of you flinched, waiting for the moment he'd realize the mistake. You loved him so much it frightened you, and you had never once believed, all the way down, that you'd earned it.

Watching him laugh easily with Hancock — not flirting, nothing so simple as that, just comfortable, the way you'd never let yourself be comfortable with anyone — you felt something in your chest go quiet and cold.

He doesn't have to try with her. He doesn't have to try with any of them. It's just me. I'm the only one he has to work at.

You didn't cry. You'd gotten good at not doing that where anyone could see. You just went very still, and very far away, and by the time the crew set sail again you'd already started packing the decision, folding it up small enough to carry.

Dinner that night was loud, the way it always was — Luffy with both cheeks full, Usopp mid-lie about some feat of heroism, Chopper delighted and disbelieving in equal measure. You sat in your usual seat and ate less than usual and waited for a lull that never quite came, so eventually you just said it into the noise.

"I'm leaving the crew."

Usopp laughed first, because it landed like a joke, dropped so plainly into the middle of a story about sea kings. A couple others followed. Luffy grinned around a mouthful of fish, cheeks still stuffed, not even looking up. "Wha— nooo way, you can't leave, who's gonna give me the rest of your dinner when I'm still hungry?"

You didn't laugh.

The silence that replaced it was the kind that has weight. Nami set her chopsticks down first. Robin's eyes came up slow and steady, the way they did when she was recalculating something. Sanji's cigarette stalled halfway to his mouth.

"...Wait." Zoro's one eye had gone sharp. "You're actually serious."

"Yeah." Your voice came out steadier than you felt, which surprised you. "I am."

Luffy's grin dropped clean off his face like someone had cut a string. He swallowed hard, food forgotten in his cheek, and for a second he just blinked at you, uncomprehending, the way he did whenever the world handed him something too complicated to fit through the front door of his head all at once.

"...Why?" His voice had gone small. Not angry yet. Just lost. "Did I do something? Are you mad? I didn't — did I forget something? Tell me what I did."

"I'll explain later. I'm gonna go pack." You stood before anyone could stop you, chair scraping back too loud in a room gone silent, and you were almost to the door when you made the mistake of glancing back at him — at his face, open and lost, mouth still slightly open like the sentence hadn't finished landing — and something in you cracked open and let the ugliest thought in your head come spilling out.

"Must be nice," you said, "not having to try so hard with someone like Boa."

The room went very, very still.

Luffy didn't understand the sentence at first. You could see it happen on his face — the words going in, and nothing coming back out the other side, like you'd spoken in a language he'd never learned. Then it landed, wrong and sideways, and his face crumpled into something closer to panic than anger.

"What's that — I don't get it. What's that mean?" He was on his feet now, hands opening and closing at his sides like he wanted to grab onto something and there was nothing there. "Boa's not — she's not even — what does she got to do with anything?!"

"It means exactly what it sounds like." You'd turned back around fully now, arms crossed like you could hold yourself together with them. "You laughed with her like it was nothing. It didn't cost you anything. You didn't even have to think about it."

"'Cause there's nothin' to think about! I like you!" His voice cracked upward, too loud, too fast, words tumbling over each other the way they did when he was scared and trying to out-talk the fear. "Why do I gotta think about liking you?! That's dumb! I just do!"

"That's not — " Your voice cracked and you hated it. "You don't have to think about her either, that's what I'm saying. Everyone on this ship, you know exactly what they're for. Zoro fights. Sanji cooks. Nami finds us where we're going. Even Hancock, she's not even ours, and you still get it, you still know where she fits. And then there's me."

"You're my—"

"I'm your girlfriend, I know, but what do I actually do, Luffy?" It came out too loud, too raw, years of it breaking the surface all at once. "What happens to this crew if I'm gone? Nothing happens. The ship still sails, dinner still gets made. I could disappear tomorrow and in a week everyone would still be doing exactly what they do, and I'd just be — gone. Like I was never even here."

"That's not true! Don't say that!"

His eyes had gone bright and wet, and he looked furious about it, swiping the back of his wrist across his face like the tears had snuck up and betrayed him without permission. Luffy didn't cry pretty. He cried like a kid who'd stubbed his toe on the whole world, loud and blotchy and personally offended by his own face.

"Isn't it?" Your eyes were wet now too, and you were too far past caring to stop it. "You give everyone your whole heart without even trying. And with me you're careful, and you're gentle, and you give me space — and I know you think that's kind, but it just feels like you're handling something breakable. Something you have to think about carefully instead of something you actually want."

"I gave you space 'cause I thought that's what you wanted!" His voice climbed loud enough that Sanji half-rose out of his seat like he meant to step between you, Nami's hand catching his sleeve to stop him. "You never say nothin'! You go quiet and I don't know where you go, and I ask if you're okay and you always say fine, so I thought — I thought I was doin' it right! I thought leavin' you alone was bein' nice! Nobody told me it was s'posed to be different! How am I s'posed to know if you don't tell me?!"

"Because I shouldn't have to beg you to notice I'm disappearing!"

"I'm not smart like that!" It burst out of him, raw and humiliated, both fists jammed against his eyes for a second like he could shove the crying back in. "I don't get people stuff! I don't get it when it's quiet, I only get it when it's loud, and you're never loud, so I don't — I don't know what you need, I never know, I just — " His breath hitched. "I don't want you to go. Don't go. Please don't go."

"I don't want anything from you, Luffy, that's the whole problem." Your voice dropped, suddenly exhausted, all the fight going out of it at once. "I don't have a place here. I never did. I just had you. And even that doesn't feel like it's mine anymore."

Something in his face went white and stricken, tears still running unchecked now, like he'd given up fighting them. For a second you thought — hoped — he'd cross the room. Instead his voice came out cracked clean in half.

"Fine," he said, and it wasn't fine, none of it was fine, but it was the only word left in him. "If that's — if you really think none of this matters — then go. Just go."

Nobody breathed.

You didn't argue. You'd already decided, hadn't you, hours ago, days ago, longer — so you just nodded, once, and turned, and walked out of the galley into the salt-dark night, and didn't let yourself look back to see his face fall apart the second the door shut behind you.

The galley erupted the moment you were gone.

"Luffy, what the hell—" Nami was on her feet.

"You idiot," Sanji snapped, cigarette forgotten, ash dropping onto the table. "You don't tell someone to leave when they're hurting, you ask them why they're hurting."

"She said she wanted to go!" Luffy was crying openly now, not even trying to hide it, fists scrubbing uselessly at his face. "She said none of it mattered, she said I don't gotta — "

"She said she felt invisible, dumbass," Zoro cut in, arms crossed, voice flat. "And you just proved her right."

Luffy opened his mouth. Nothing came out except a wet, ragged breath.

He sat back down slowly, hard, like his legs had stopped being reliable, staring at the space where your chair had been, still pushed back at the angle you'd left it. His shoulders were shaking. Chopper made a small, worried noise and didn't know what to do with his hooves.

If you wanna go that bad, just go.

He'd said it. He'd actually said it, and you'd actually listened, and somewhere above deck right now you were folding your things into a bag like you meant it, like you were really going to walk off this ship and not come back, and the thought hit him so hard his whole chest seized up around it.

He thought, unbidden, of Ace.

Of a body he hadn't been fast enough to save. Of a promise the sea had broken in front of him no matter how hard he'd screamed at it not to. Of learning — too late, always too late — that the people who felt like a permanent, unshakeable part of his world could simply stop being there, and that wanting them to stay had never once been enough to make them.

Not again. Not her too. Not because I said somethin' stupid.

He hadn't lost you yet. He told himself that, over and over, hiccupping around it. You were still on the ship. You were still—

He was up and moving before he finished the thought, chair clattering backward, sprinting so hard he nearly took the door off its hinges.

You were sitting on your half-packed bag when your door banged open without a knock, which meant it could only be one person, and he looked wrecked — eyes red and swollen, face still wet, breathing like he'd run the whole length of the ship twice.

"Go away, Luffy."

He didn't. He crossed the room and dropped down onto the floor right in front of you, knees pulled up to his chest, and immediately started crying again, harder this time, hiccupping through the words like a little kid who'd scared himself.

"I thought I was doin' good by you," he managed, voice thick and wobbly. "Givin' you space. I thought that's what you wanted, and I was — I was proud of myself, for not pushin' you, for figurin' out the nice thing to do. I didn't know it looked like I didn't care. Nobody tells me this stuff. I'm not — I'm not good at the quiet kind of hurting, I only notice the loud kind, and you never do the loud kind, so I never—" He scrubbed his sleeve across his whole face, useless against the tears. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please don't go. I don't got a plan if you go. I don't know how to not have you here."

"Luffy—"

"I'm not done." His fists were pressed to his knees, knuckles white, tears still falling like he'd forgotten how to stop them. "You said I don't gotta try with anybody else. That's not — Nami's my navigator, that's not trying, that's just knowin' what she's good at. Zoro fights so I don't gotta think about who's got my back. But you're not on this crew 'cause you're good at somethin'. You're on this crew 'cause I don't want to do any of it without you there. That's it. That's the whole thing. There's no job for you 'cause you're not a job. You're the reason any of the rest of it's worth doin'. I don't know how to say it smarter than that. I'm not smart. I just know it's true."

You were crying properly now too, and you'd run out of the energy to hide it.

"Then why does it feel like I'm the only thing you don't fight for?" you managed. "Everyone else, you'd burn the whole world down before you let them go. And me you just — you let me walk out the door."

"'Cause I panicked!" It came out almost like a wail, miserable and childlike. "You said none of it mattered and I didn't know what to do with my hands or my face or anything, it scared me so bad I said somethin' stupid instead of just tellin' you to stay. I always say the stupid thing when I'm scared. I'm sorry. I don't want you to go. I don't want you to go anywhere." His voice cracked clean through, fresh tears spilling. "I already lost somebody I couldn't get back. I can't do that again. Not you. Please. Don't make me do that again."

You looked at him — really looked, past the fight, past Amazon Lily, past months of quietly convincing yourself you were furniture on a ship built for heroes, at this boy who cried loud and ugly and completely without shame, who didn't have a single clever thing to say and meant every unclever word of it twice as much for that — and saw, for maybe the first time, that he'd been just as lost as you, just from a different angle. He hadn't been blind to you. He'd been so sure of you that it never once occurred to him you needed to be told.

"I don't know how to believe I belong somewhere," you admitted, voice thin. "I never have. Not really. Not all the way."

Luffy scooted closer on the floor until his knee bumped yours, still hiccupping, and grabbed your hand in both of his like it was the simplest fix in the world.

"Then I'll just keep tellin' you," he said, sniffling hard, dragging his arm across his face one more time. "Every day. I don't care if it takes forever, I'll just keep sayin' it 'til it sticks. You're mine. You're my nakama. That's not changin', no matter what you think you don't get."

You laughed — wet, exhausted, disbelieving — and it came out sounding almost like relief.

Neither of you finished packing that bag that night. It sat half-full in the corner for a week before you finally put everything back where it belonged, and nobody on the crew ever mentioned it again, except Usopp, once, who got a pillow thrown at his head for his trouble.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

this request broke my heart the second i read it 😭💔 the idea of reader quietly convincing themselves they're replaceable while luffy has absolutely no idea they're hurting?? immediate pain.

i leaned heavily into miscommunication, reader's feelings of not belonging, and luffy's inability to recognize quiet suffering until it's almost too late. don't worry though—you know i can't leave these two miserable forever, so there's plenty of comfort waiting at the end.

hope i did your idea justice. thank you so much for sending this in 🤍

“Maybe.”

You laughed. Thatch had been awake when you made your way to the galley in the morning and was more than eager to help you make Marco’s usual coffee. You were told he normally had it after his flight but he didn’t seem too bothered by the change in his routine and you had potentially helpful information now.

Not that you knew how you could use his coffee preferences to catch him (though you briefly entertained the idea of a cup under a net) but still.

The sun crept higher behind you as you stood and enjoyed your drink; your shadow was cast long over the wood of the Moby Dick as more crew members began to rouse for their morning duties.

“You’re very quiet today,” Marco commented. “No questions about my flight or…?”

You held up your own mug as though it was a reason. “Too early for that. Maybe I’ll find some inspiration later.”

“And here I thought early mornings were the best times to hunt.”

“Not when your prey has insomnia.”

He gave you a small chuckle. “I don’t have insomnia, yoi. I can sleep perfectly when I have a chance to do it.”

“I have no proof of that,” you informed him. “So, I’m currently working on the assumption that you’re permanently exhausted. Which admittedly, does make your flight speed more impressive.”

“I only seem fast to you because you’re slow.”

You rolled your eyes at the rib. “No, you’re fast. I’ve watched thousands of species of bird in my life and you are, by far, the fastest I’ve ever encountered. Maybe not in a dive… but I’ve never gotten to see you dive properly.”

“Flattery isn’t going to win you better proximity to it, yoi.”

You glanced toward your elbow, practically brushing against his and leaned the slightest amount so your arms were against each other.

“I think I have pretty good proximity,” you said. “Your overconfidence gives me that.”

He didn’t move away from the touch in the slightest. “It’s not like I have anything to be nervous about.”

“Then why haven’t you gone on your flight yet?”

“Because I’m enjoying my coffee,” he said. “I figured I should considering you wasted your time learning how to make it.”

You huffed and bumped him with your hip playfully as you straightened. “It’s not a waste of time if I can use it. I’ll leave you to transform in peace then, seeing as you clearly don’t feel safe around me when you’re a bird anymore.”

He chuckled into his drink.

You made your way to the ship’s map room without getting lost once which was honestly, impressive. As much as you wanted to spend the day with ideas of how to catch him, you simply didn’t have the time. Haruta had begun to trust you more which unfortunately resulted in you now learning more about the twelfth division and losing most opportunities to watch the pretty bird soaring around.

The hours slipped past, each one growing later and later as you stayed in a room that smelled of salt and old paper. You could have taken a break but the work consumed you long enough that the sky outside brightened and darkened without your moving.

Your first interruption came about after the stars had emerged when the door swung open and Ace stuck his head in. He looked around in disappointment.

“This ship’s too big,” he grumbled.

“Where were you looking for?”

“Anywhere quiet,” he muttered.

But he walked in, boots dragging against the wood as he did so. He grabbed a chair and dragged it next to where you were sitting, slumping into it. You did a quick check but found no injuries or water damage on him so you assumed he’d maybe taken a break from his murder attempt of the day.

You grabbed a spare map and teasingly held it out for him. He gave you a look and you laughed.

“Aw, here I thought you were coming past to help me.”

“You and Deuce both need to stop working,” he grumbled.

“I have been being lazy for the past week,” you laughed. “And this is fun. Probably less fun than the attempted murder you keep trying but still interesting.”

Ace slumped his weight against your shoulder and you adjusted yourself in case he ended up falling asleep on you. It was one of the first things you’d learned upon joining the Spade Pirates. If Ace began to lean against you, best you adjust before he passed out against your side and you lost all the feeling in your limbs.

His skin was almost boiling even through your shirt and you huffed. “You’re very hot.”

“Thanks.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

He chuckled faintly. “Yeah. You seem to prefer doctors.”

You laughed and reached for a ruler as best you could. “It would seem I do though I’ve been struggling a little with this one. He’s very ornery.”

“Probably because you’re trying to get a net on him,” Ace mumbled. “If somebody was trying to catch me, I’d be pissed by it too. Though, he actually said he found it flattering which is a bit stupid but whatever.”

You frowned down at Ace’s mop of hair – the only part of him you could see. “You asked him about it?”

“Yeah. He asked me if you were a good shot.”

You pondered that. It was a strange question unless Marco thought you planned on sniping him from the deck. You could hardly fault him for investigating though, you supposed. You were a good shot but you were probably rusty. With the Spade Pirates, most threats burned before they got close.

“Maybe I should try to become a marksman again,” you commented. “They have a whole division for that.”

“Mm.”

“Do you remember which one it was?”

“Nope.”

Oh, Ace was absolutely about to fall asleep. His voice had taken on that drawling, grumbling quality it always did when he was fighting to stay awake. You lowered yourself further into the chair and grabbed for your tools before you became locked in place.

“Have you had dinner yet?” you asked.

“Yeah.”

A few seconds later, a soft snore followed and you sighed. At least the narcolepsy had returned. It was a good sign that he wasn’t thinking this ship was completely dangerous. Deuce used to worry whenever the sleeping stopped, considering it a sure sign that Ace was wound up too tight about something.

You continued to read through the map book, writing awkwardly while Ace slept against your side. It was warm but not uncomfortably so. It reminded you briefly of how it had been before he decided to chase Whitebeard.

You worked a pencil between your teeth as you thought about it.

Somehow, you missed it a little. Even with all the excitement that had come in the past few days, you enjoyed those times.

The door creaked and you tilted your head back to meet Marco’s gaze. His eyes dropped briefly to where Ace was folded against you before returning to your face. One hand remained against the doorframe, his posture loose enough to appear casual despite the pause.

“I was wondering where he wandered off to,” Marco said. “Wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering Pops. Are you both a wild game hunter and a pillow then?”

He was keeping his voice low but there was no need. You knew Ace could sleep through a thunderstorm when he was like this. You were far from special to have him snoring against you. He’d passed out against everybody in the crew at least once.

“I’m a very comfortable pillow,” you said with a smile. “You should give it a try one day.”

Marco scoffed and leaned against the doorframe. “I think I’m alright. Does he do this often?”

“He’ll sleep anywhere and on anyone,” you said. “The only question is how long it will take. I could be here for a few minutes. Could be here for a few hours.”

Something in Marco’s shoulders eased a little. “Well, I wouldn’t advise letting it be a few hours. You’ve already missed most of dinner.”

You considered moving Ace for a second but you had nowhere to really move him to and he still wasn’t very settled on the ship. Besides, your stomach hadn’t woken just yet. You ruffled his hair playfully and he stirred for a second, blinking at you before he began to snore again.

“Ah, nothing to it,” you said. “He’s out properly.”

“I could…” Marco trailed off before he shook his head. “You should be careful about locking yourself up with work for hours.”

You gave him a look. “Hypocritical, hm?”

“I’ve never claimed otherwise.”

“How about this,” you said. “If you promise to sleep, I’ll go and find something to eat.”

“This isn’t a bad habit exchange, yoi.”

“Then I make no promises.”

He chuckled and stepped back as though to leave. “At least try not to also sleep here. That chair will be bad for your back.”

You adjusted yourself faintly and Ace grumbled. “Before you go,” you said. “I wanted to ask who’s the commander in charge of the marksmanship division.”

Marco paused. “I don’t know if I should be telling you that.”

“I’d find it out anyway,” you huffed. “Come on, please, save me a little time. I promise I’ll be absolutely awful at it.”

He smiled. “I don’t believe you for a moment, yoi. Izou is in charge of the sixteenth division. I can introduce you to him tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” you hummed. “Oh, and Marco?”

“Yes?”

“You were flying a little too high today. Could you try getting a little closer so I can see you through the window next time I’m in here?”

He laughed and left, not gracing your question with an answer.

The next morning, when you made your way out on deck, Marco was already waiting there, speaking to Izou casually. You were surprised that he’d managed it so early but smiled and made your way over.

He smiled when you arrived and held out a mug. You stared at it for a second before you took it with a laugh.

Alright. Point taken.

He could learn what drinks you preferred too.

“I suppose it’s my turn to bring drinks tomorrow,” you commented.

He inclined his head. “It is.”

Izou raised a very elegant eyebrow at the mug and you smiled in way of explanation, knowing it must look a little strange for the first division commander to be getting drinks.

“Deuce told me she was a good shot,” Marco said as a way of explanation. “So, I thought there might be use for her outside of the twelfth.”

“Is that so?” Izou asked, his voice careful and measured.

The first part was certainly a lie. The only thing Deuce might be able to tell about your shooting was that you knew how to pull a trigger but if that’s what Marco wanted to go with, you certainly weren’t going to protest it. Although it did feel as though he was setting up expectations for you.

“I was also curious to meet you,” you said. “I’ve heard a lot about your division.”

“If you show skill in it, you can consider moving over,” Izou said. “I find competence and aim to be lacking amongst most. Especially given the number of swordsmen we appear to attract.”

“May as well test it, right?” Marco asked.

Izou nodded. “Of course. I imagine you have time?”

You frowned at him for a second. “Right now?”

“Do you have somewhere else to be?”

You glanced over his shoulder at the sun as it crawled higher into the sky. You didn’t really, you supposed although you hadn’t much felt like a shooting match so early in the morning. And Marco was smirking well enough that you had to try. Just a little.

“No,” you said. “I don’t.”

Izou led you to the rear deck, far enough from any of the early stragglers on the crew. Several targets already waited there, secured to the reinforced boards along the railing.

This was feeling a little more like a set up but you didn’t mind too much. Yet.

He handed over a pistol and you turned it over in your hands. It was a newer weapon, shiny and well maintained. It wasn’t your first choice when it came to a gun but you supposed there was no complaining at a test weapon.

“Comfortable?” Izou asked.

You adjusted your grip. “Very.”

“Good. I want to see if you can at least hit a stationary target before trying anything more difficult. To ensure your crew weren’t inflating their stories.”

“If they said anything, it was definitely inflated,” you said.

“I’m not so sure, yoi,” Marco mentioned from where he stood behind you. “I think you might have some surprises.”

Izou glanced toward him. “Are you planning on staying? It’s late for your flight.”

Marco held up his mug. “I still have coffee to finish yoi.”

“Here I thought he might be part of it,” you commented. “Though that might be a little easy. Flushed birds are simple targets.”

Izou chuckled softly to himself. “Maybe. If he chooses to be noisy. For now.”

He gestured toward the targets and you stepped forward. The deck swayed gently beneath your boots. Nothing substantial but enough that you had to take a deep breath and loosen your shoulders before you fired.

The first shot splintered the centre of the target. The second landed close enough to touch it and the third passed through the first hole.

The recoil pressed sharply into your palm and the cracks rolled across the open deck, leaving the bitter smell of powder behind them.

Simple enough. You lowered the weapon.

Izou nodded. “Alright. Now we know you have eyes.”

Marco hummed and you glanced toward him. He didn’t look particularly impressed but you noted that his mug was decidedly empty. And yet, he was still standing there.

“As I said,” you noted. “That was harder than hitting a flushed bird.”

“You have to flush a bird out before it becomes an easy target.”

“If it doesn’t fly, it may as well serve itself to me,” you said. “Birds will fly when they’re startled enough.”

Izou cleared his throat. “Threaten him in your own time. Next, I want to see if you can hit this. It’s smaller so I’ll give you five shots.”

He hung the target further along the deck, suspended from a small rope that was being nudged by the wind into a lazy sway. You heard Marco move behind you but chose not to look to him yet, attention focused on the pattern.

The first bullet clipped the edge of the centre circle. The next landed just on the edge of the target. The third was close again and the fourth and fifth punched directly through the middle.

You really were rusty.

“That’s moving very slowly.” Marco’s voice suddenly came from next to you and you jumped, not having realised he was so close.

He was standing directly over your shoulder, near enough that your startle made your elbow brush against him. You tilted your head up curiously toward him and he smiled as though this was a perfectly normal place for him to be.

“It’s not meant to be speeding around,” Izou said, also clearly noticing the proximity. “Do you not have somewhere better to be?”

“I’m observing my recommendation, yoi.”

“We can try some thrown targets now,” Izou said. “To entertain our very bored audience.”

“She’s going to hit them,” Marco said. “Give her something difficult.”

You appreciated the faith though you had a feeling there was something else implied by it. Izou threw the first one over the sea and your shot clipped the edge only. The second you hit cleanly. Both the third and the fourth scattered painted wood so quickly that they didn’t even leave the edge of the deck.

“You are decent,” Izou commented. “Although a little slow. You have enough skill to train with my division. Whether you belong there can be decided later.”

“This is not the best test, is it?” Marco asked.

“For basic competency, it will suffice. We can do something more in-depth later but drills and cleaning will do for now.”

Marco stepped around you and you lowered the pistol to your thigh. Still, you couldn’t help but admire him as he moved past.

“Do you want a harder test?” he asked, grin a little too sharp.

You raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

He picked up one of Izou’s hanging targets and, before the marksman could say anything, he tossed it into the sky. Flames swept over him in an instant and the phoenix shot upwards, wings unfolding in a rush of heat and wind. The force of the first beat snapped at your clothes and sent loose hair across your face.

For a moment, blue fire filled the space above the deck so completely that the mast and sails seemed small behind him. He caught the target in one of his talons, allowing it to hang loosely by the rope.

He climbed above the ship before banking sharply around the rear mast, target swinging beneath him. He swept overhead once, edges of his wings glittering gold.

Really?

“What the hell is he doing?” Izou muttered.

He swept by, closer this time. You could practically feel the smugness glowing from him as he tipped his wing, allowing you a clearer shot. You didn’t raise the pistol yet, still mildly impressed at seeing him fly this close.

“Hey! What’s going on?”

Thatch’s voice carried from the lower deck, followed not long after by several other crew members who were staring up in awe at the enormous phoenix soaring close enough to clip the rigging lines.

You raised your pistol and Izou caught your wrist. “Don’t indulge in this. I have already accepted your performance today.”

Marco’s wings were stirring the sails, causing the Moby to sway a little unsteadily.

“I’ll hit the target and not him,” you promised.

Izou looked from you to the phoenix. Marco tipped the target farther from his body, leaving the rope stretched clear beneath his talons.

“One shot,” Izou said, releasing your wrist. “If he turns, you hold fire.”

Marco folded one wing and dropped suddenly. You watched his short dive, limited by the proximity of the mast. He was being cocky, flying around the ship this close, but it limited his movement immensely.

The target swung wildly as he changed direction, painted centre flapping around until he began to climb to regain height.

You fired.

The target shattered into pieces, painted wood scattering behind him and splashing into the sea below. You smirked, lowering your pistol.

Marco glanced down and made a sound that was almost like a trill. It rang strangely clear across the deck, bright enough to cut through the creak of the ship and the scattered voices below. You felt the sound in your chest before you decided what to make of it.

You frowned, having never heard that sound from him before and – judging by the expressions of everybody else on deck – they hadn’t either. He climbed, higher and higher, until he was back at his usual circling height, resuming his morning flight around the deck.

Izou held out his hand and you handed the pistol back.

“As I said, if you wish to train with my division, I can make space for you,” he acknowledged. “But we’ll be adjusting our training schedules to when he is busy.”

“I’ll consider it,” you said. “I had expected more time before the introduction.”

“And I expected fewer birds interfering but it seems we were both surprised. The offer stands for whenever you want it.”

Haruta caught you before you made it ten steps from the rear deck, pressing a rolled map into your hands with an expression that promised far less excitement than what you had just finished.

“You’re late.”

You glanced upward. Marco had returned to his usual circling height, blue wings cutting calmly across the sky. That strange trill still lingered in your mind.

“Fine,” you said, tucking the map beneath your arm. “What am I doing?”

Haruta’s answer trapped you in the map room for the rest of the day.

The chart should have been simple. It was only a current route, a few recorded weather patterns and enough conflicting calculations to make you wonder if three different navigators had worked on it without speaking to one another. Every time you thought you had found the mistake, another number stopped making sense.

Evening crept over the ship without your permission. One section became another. The lamps burned lower. Your eyes began to sting and the numbers blurred whenever you looked away from them, but every answer seemed close enough to keep you seated for another few minutes.

When you woke the next day, the sunlight was already far too bright against the wall.

There was little point rushing to the galley now, so you dragged yourself through breakfast with the map open beside your plate, barely tasting anything as you reconsidered the currents.

You greeted people in distracted fragments as you climbed higher, made your way to the railing and spread the map across the wood where the light was better.

A few gasps alerted you to something weird happening and you almost jumped when an enormous blue bird landed beside you immediately, talons clipping at the wood. The railing groaned beneath his weight. Heat rolled over your arm and stirred the edge of the map, while several loose sparks drifted across the paper and vanished before they could leave a mark.

Oh, right. You’d woken up late enough that you hadn’t brought coffee like you said you would.

“Sorry,” you said automatically. “I just got so absorbed into this chart.”

He made a sound you didn’t quite recognise. Something low and rumbling.

You reached out on instinct, hand brushing over the flame-warmed feathers of his head because it was close enough that you could. They were softer than the fire suggested, warm against your palm without burning. Light shifted between the strands as your fingers passed through them, blue giving way to brief flickers of gold.

He stiffened beneath your palm.

“Yes, good morning handsome,” you greeted, still far more focused on the map than him.

For a second his feathers remained stiff beneath your fingers. Then, so gradually you didn’t notice, they softened. The tension eased from his neck as his eyes slipped closed, head moving closer to your nails as you scratched through the plumage behind his crown.

Which direction was this current even coming from? Maybe… you hummed to yourself and gave him one last scratch before you made your way to the other side of the deck where the sun wasn’t reflecting as badly.

The wind was a little strong today and the waves choppier than usual so maybe…

“Have you managed to find a direction?”

Haruta ascended the last few stairs with a different map and you shook your head.

“No, this is weird. Do you think you could help me with it?”

“I’ll take a look,” he said. “Hey, Marco? You alright?”

You frowned at the name and looked back over your shoulder to find Marco still sitting exactly where he had landed. His head was still tilted to the side, gaze fixed firmly on your back. He blinked, feathers otherwise unmoving.

Oh… You almost laughed as your brain caught up with what you’d just done. You’d been distracted and scratched his head.

You shot him your most apologetic expression.

He gave himself one abrupt, full-bodied shake. Sparks scattered from his feathers and he launched from the railing with far more force than necessary. You watched as he circled the ship once more, transforming back on the lower deck far from you.

Ah well.

You were sure he’d find it in his heart to forgive you for one misplaced touch. Perhaps coffee tomorrow could smooth over the insult.

Tags: @miwn8 ; @aceincase ; @chaeisrichnow ; @mollys--stuff

His mother had cried when she first saw them.

Not because she was upset, quite the opposite. Janet Drake had spent years documenting soulmate phenomena across the globe, and a verbal bond was extraordinarily rare.

His father had immediately started researching statistics.

Less than three percent of soulmates received words. Less than .5 percent remembered hearing them.

“You’ll know them the moment they speak,” his mother told him one evening as she adjusted the cuff of his tiny dress shirt before another charity gala. “Isn’t that exciting?”

Tim looked down at his wrist.

That’s mine

“I guess.”

His mother laughed softly. “You don’t sound very excited.”

Tim shrugged. At eight years old, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel.

Soulmates mattered. Everyone knew that.

His classmates talked about theirs constantly.

Some compared phantom aches from their shared-pain bonds. Others spent recess imagining how their lives would be together.

Tim listened more than he spoke.

He preferred facts. Questions. Patterns.

How could words know who they belonged to before either person was born? Were they predetermined? Did people still have choices? What happened if soulmates never met?

His teachers rarely had answers.

His parents were usually too busy to discuss it.

The Drakes loved him. Tim knew they did. But love and presence weren’t always the same thing. His father spent most of his time working. His mother traveled constantly. Some months, he saw them more in framed photos scattered around the house than in person.

The manor was always full of staff and tutors and carefully planned schedules, yet somehow felt impossibly empty.

Tim grew used to eating dinner with adults paid to be there.

He learned early how to entertain himself.

Books, puzzles, documentaries, the small television in his room, where he rewatched recordings of the Flying Graysons until he knew every movement by heart.

People left. That was simply another fact of life.

His parents always came home eventually, but there was always another trip. Another meeting. Another promise of next week.

Sometimes, late at night, Tim would trace the letters on his wrist with his thumb and wonder.

That’s mine

Possessive. Confident.

The opposite of everything Tim felt.

Whoever they were, they sounded like someone who knew exactly what they wanted.

Someone who would point at him without hesitation and say, Mine.

The thought warmed something quiet inside his chest.

Maybe one day there would be someone who chose him first. Someone who stayed.

“Timothy!”

He glanced up from his wrist. His mother’s assistant stood in the doorway.

“Your parents are leaving for the airport.”

Tim slipped his sleeve back down. “Okay.” He followed the familiar route downstairs.

His father kissed the top of his head absentmindedly while checking his watch. His mother promised she’d bring him something back from Singapore.

Three weeks, this time. Maybe four.

“We love you, sweetheart.”

Tim smiled because he knew he was supposed to. “I love you too.”

Then the front doors closed behind them. The house settled into silence.

Tim looked down at his wrist.

That’s mine

Someday, he thought, he’d meet the person those words belonged to.

Someday, there would be someone who wouldn’t leave.

He had no way of knowing that in less than a year, standing on a crowded beach with salt in the air and sand clinging to his toes, he’d hear those exact words spoken aloud.

Or that he would spend the rest of his life trying to find them again.

Everyone had soulmates.

You grew up with the knowledge the same way you grew up knowing the sky was blue and the ocean was deep.

It simply was.

Some people shared pain. Others shared dreams or emotions or marks or memories.

Your soulmate had words.

Four of them, written in dark script along the inside of your wrist.

Can I see that?

Your dad had laughed the first time you asked what they meant.

“I don’t know, Bub. That’s the fun part.”

You traced the letters with your fingertip. “Do you think they’re nice?”

“I think,” he said, setting down the book he’d been reading, “that someone who asks permission before touching your things probably has good manners.”

You considered that very seriously. That sounded nice. Most things about soulmates sounded nice.

You didn’t think about it much. Your soulmate existed somewhere in the world. Eventually, you’d meet them.

Until then, there were more important things to worry about.

Like whether you could convince dad to cut the crusts off your sandwiches. Or whether the stray cat behind your building would finally let you pet it. Or if you’d be allowed to stay up past your bedtime to watch Cartoon Network.

Life was small in the way childhood always was.

Warm hands on your shoulders. Stories before bed. The magical fairies who always put your favorite snacks in your bag. Someone waiting for you after school.

You never doubted that you were loved. Not once.

Even when your dad got busy. Even when money was tight. Even when life became messy in all the ordinary ways life tended to.

You were never alone.

So while other children treated soulmates like missing pieces, you thought of yours more like a surprise waiting to happen.

Someone to look forward to. Who would eventually become important. But not yet. For now, your world was made up of smaller certainties.

The comfort of home. The sound of laughter from the kitchen. The warmth of sunlight spilling across your bedroom floor. And the beach.

You loved the beach.

Especially during summer.

The wind carried the sharp scent of salt through the air as waves crashed against the shore in a rhythm you could never quite predict.

Dad sat further back beneath a striped umbrella with a book open in his lap.

Every so often, he looked up to make sure you were still nearby.

You always were.

You darted along the shoreline barefoot, collecting seashells and smooth pieces of sea glass in a small plastic bucket.

The ocean foam chased your feet. Seagulls cried overhead. Children laughed nearby.

Everything felt bright.

A stronger gust of wind swept across the beach. Something light slipped from your hands and tumbled away across the sand.

You gasped.

Then immediately took off after it, your laughter carried away by the ocean breeze.

Tim almost said no when his mother asked.

Not because he didn't want to go, but cause experience had taught him not to get too excited.

Plans changed. Flights got moved forward. Meetings ran long. Emergencies happened.

He'd learned years ago that disappointment stung less when he expected it.

So when Janet Drake appeared in the doorway of the study where he'd been working through a puzzle book and said, "Your father and I have the whole weekend free," Tim had looked up suspiciously.

"The whole weekend?"

His father leaned against the doorframe behind her, smiling. "The whole weekend."

No phones. No assistants. No business dinners. Just the three of them.

Tim waited for the catch.

There wasn't one.

"Anywhere you want to go," his mother promised. "Your choice."

For a moment, Tim considered museums. The aquarium. The planetarium. Then he thought about summer heat and salty air and waves crashing against the shore.

"The beach," he decided.

His parents exchanged a surprised look.

"The beach?" his father repeated.

Tim nodded.

He'd only been a handful of times before, always during business trips when his parents could spare an hour or two.

He liked it. The patterns of the waves. The seashells hidden in the sand. The endless horizon stretching farther than he could see.

Mostly, he liked that people stayed at the beach. No one seemed in a hurry there.

"Then the beach it is."

True to their word, they left early the next morning.

The drive felt strange in the best way. His mother sang quietly along to the radio. His father let Tim pick the music. Nobody checked their watches. Nobody took business calls. For once, Tim had their full attention.

The feeling settled warm and unfamiliar in his chest.

By the time they reached the coast, the sun sat high overhead.

The beach was crowded.

Children raced through the surf. Couples crowded beneath colorful umbrellas. The air smelled like sunscreen and salt.

His parents set up their chairs a short distance from the water.

His mother pressed sunscreen into his hands with strict instructions to reapply every few hours.

His father handed him a towel for swimming.

Tim smiled.

Then headed toward the shoreline. The ocean foam curled around his ankles as he walked.

He searched carefully through the wet sand, studying each shell before deciding whether it was worth keeping.

Behind him, he could hear his parents talking softly.

Every so often, he glanced back to make sure they were still there.

They always were.

A sudden gust of wind swept across the beach.

Something colorful tumbled through the air a few feet ahead of him.

A small shovel.

Tim moved before he thought about it, stepping forward and catching it before another gust could carry it away.

He turned it over in his hands. Bright plastic swayed lazily in the sea breeze.

Then he heard a voice behind him.

"That's mine!"

The world stopped.

His breath caught. Heat rushed through his body so suddenly it made him dizzy.

Slowly, impossibly slowly, Tim looked down.

The words on the inside of his wrist burned.

That's mine

Every sound around him faded beneath the rushing in his ears.

He knew those words. He'd traced them countless times. Dreamed about them. Wondered about them. And now they belonged to a voice. To a person.

Tim turned around and saw you.

You stood a few feet away, slightly out of breath from running, your bucket swinging from one hand.

You were younger than him. Seven, maybe.

Sand clung to your knees, your hair messy from the wind, and there was a tiny gap where one of your front teeth had recently fallen out.

You looked completely ordinary.

And somehow, you were the most important person Tim had ever seen.

You frowned when he didn’t say anything. “Um… my shovel?”

Right. The shovel.

Tim handed it back with shaking fingers.

Then, before he could lose his nerve, he blurted out the question you’d imagined hearing for years.

“Can I see that?”

Your eyes widened. Then, almost immediately, your gaze dropped to your own wrist.

Tim followed it.

When you looked back up at him, confusion and wonder mixed across your face.

Slowly, you held out your arm.

His words.

His exact words.

Tim stared. His soulmate. He’d found them.

You stared at him with equal fascination. “You’re my soulmate?” The question came out small.

Tim felt something inside his chest loosen for the first time in his life. “Yeah,” he whispered.

You grinned. Just like that. No hesitation or uncertainty. Just simply joy.

“Cool.”

Cool. As though the entire universe hadn’t shifted beneath his feet.

Like you hadn’t just become the answer to every question he’d ever asked late at night while tracing words on his wrist.

Your excitement was immediate and uncomplicated. Tim envied that.

Before he could think of what to say next, an adult voice called your name from further down the beach.

You waved in their direction.

“My dad’s over there!”

Tim glanced toward the striped worn out umbrella and the man watching the two of you with open curiosity.

You turned back to him. “Want to play?”

The answer should have been obvious. Still, Tim had never been asked that question with such easy sincerity before.

He nodded. “Okay.”

And somehow, that single word changed everything.

The two-year age gap disappeared within minutes.

You talked enough for both of you, filling every quiet moment with stories while Tim listened intently.

You showed him the smooth sea glass you’d collected.

He taught you how to tell the difference between oyster shells and clam shells.

You built sprawling sandcastles connected by winding trenches that the tide eventually claimed.

You chased waves until your shorts were soaked.

You buried his feet in the sand.

He let you.

When seagulls stole one of your crackers, you laughed so hard you nearly fell over.

Tim found himself laughing too. Really laughing. Not the polite smiles he wore at galas. Not the careful amusement he showed adults. Something warm and bright spilled through him every time you smiled at him. Like sunlight after weeks of rain.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn’t feel lonely.

It was strange. How someone he’d only known for a few hours could make the world feel different. Like he’d spent his entire life holding his breath without realising it. And now, sitting beside you in the sand while you proudly displayed a misshapen seashell you’d declared lucky, Tim finally exhaled.

This was what everyone talked about when they talked about soulmates. Not destiny. Not marks. Not magic. This.

The feeling that you’d found someone who fit beside you so naturally that being apart suddenly made no sense at all.

You looked up at him and smiled.

Tim smiled back.

Mine, he thought.

For the first time in his life, Tim knew exactly what he wanted.

And for the first time in his life, he believed he could have it.

→←↓↑

The sun began to sink lower in the sky far too quickly.

Tim noticed because your father stood from his chair and started packing away towels.

No. No, it couldn’t be that late already.

You were still explaining your very serious theory that seagulls were secretly spies.

“We have to go soon,” your dad called.

You looked up, your face immediately falling. “Aww.”

Something uncomfortable twisted in Tim’s chest.

“Can we stay a little longer?” you asked hopefully.

Your dad checked his watch and shook his head apologetically. “We still have to drive back.”

You sighed dramatically before turning back to Tim. “I guess I have to go.”

The words hit harder than they should have. Tim’s eyes dropped to your wrist.

Can I see that?

Then to his own.

That’s mine

Proof.

Even if you left, the words would stay. You couldn’t disappear completely. Soulmates always found each other. Everyone knew that. His mother had told him so.

You stood, brushing sand from your shorts. “Can we see each other again?”

“Yes,” Tim answered immediately. Too quickly. His cheeks warmed.

Your smile returned instantly. “Okay!”

Of course you would. You were soulmates. That was how this worked.

Tim stood too, suddenly aware that he didn’t know your last name. Or your phone number. Or where you lived.

Panic flickered briefly beneath his ribs. “We should-”

“Timothy.”

His mother waved from several yards away. “We need to get going soon.”

Not yet.

Please, not yet.

He looked back at you. Your father had already gathered your things.

Adults were always in a hurry.

The thought came suddenly and irrationally.

Adults ruined everything.

“Can I have your number?” Tim asked.

You blinked. “My what?”

Right. You were seven.

Your dad laughed as he walked over. “I don’t think they know our number by heart.”

Heat crawled up Tim’s neck. Of course you didn’t.

Think.

Addresses. Last names. Anything.

“Maybe we can write letters!” you suggested brightly.

Your father smiled. “That’s a good idea.”

Relief rushed through Tim so hard his knees felt weak.

Yes. Letters. Of course.

Your father knelt beside you. “Why don’t you get something to write on?”

You nodded enthusiastically and ran back toward the umbrella.

Tim turned to his parents, excitement bubbling in his chest so fiercely it almost hurt.

His mother was smiling.

His father looked amused.

“Soulmates, huh?” Jack asked softly.

Tim couldn’t stop smiling.

“Yeah.”

His mother squeezed his shoulder. “We’re happy for you, sweetheart.”

Everything felt right. Perfect. As if the universe had finally clicked into place.

You returned moments later with a purple marker and a wrinkled napkin.

Tim carefully wrote down his home address. Double-checked it twice, then handed you the marker.

You copied yours beneath it in large, uneven letters. Your handwriting tilted crookedly across the paper.

Tim thought it was the most important thing he’d ever held.

You tore the napkin in half.

One for you.

One for him.

Insurance.

Smart.

His soulmate was smart.

“I’ll write first,” you promised.

Tim folded the paper carefully and tucked it into the pocket of his shorts. “I’ll write back.”

You grinned.

“Deal.”

Then your father called your name again.

This time, you couldn’t delay. You waved at him. Then at Tim.

“Bye, Tim!”

His chest squeezed painfully. “Bye.”

You ran back toward your dad.

Halfway there, you turned around one last time and waved again.

Tim waved back immediately.

Only when you disappeared into the crowd did he lower his hand.

The beach suddenly felt quieter. Emptier. But it was okay. Because he had your address.

You’d write first. Then he’d write back. And this wouldn’t be goodbye.

Soulmates always found each other. Everyone knew that.

Tim pressed a hand over the pocket holding your half of the napkin.

The paper crackled softly beneath his palm. Safe.

Everything was going to be okay.

He had no way of knowing that by the time he sent his first letter, your family would already be gone.

No forwarding address. No phone number. Nothing.

Just two words inked onto his skin.

And the memory of a summer afternoon that would define the rest of his life.

The Batcave was quiet at three in the morning.

Not quite silent. Computers still hummed softly. Monitors cast blue light across polished metal surfaces. Somewhere overhead, water dripped steadily through ancient stone.

Most people would have called the hour late. Tim called it productive.

A half-empty coffee cup sat forgotten beside his keyboard.

Three different cases waited on adjacent screens.

An unsolved string of robberies. A League of Assassins weapons shipment. A missing persons report.

Tim ignored all of them.

Instead, he stared at a photograph taken twelve years ago.

The image quality was terrible. The edges were worn from use, the colors faded by time.

Two children sat cross-legged in the sand beside a lopsided castle.

A nine-year-old Tim grinned openly at the camera. The seven-year-old beside him was laughing.

Tim had memorised every pixel.

He knew exactly where the sunlight hit your face. Knew the shape of your smile. Knew the tiny crack running through the plastic bucket sitting between you.

The original photo lived in a fireproof safe upstairs.

This was one of the digital copies. One of hundreds.

His fingers drifted to his wrist.

That’s mine

The words had never faded.

Not after his mother’s death. Not after his father’s funeral. Not after becoming Robin. Not after being pushed into Red Robin. Not after years of searching.

They remained as dark and certain as the day he’d first heard them.

Proof that you existed. That you were still out there.

Tim had built entire investigations from less.

Over the years, he’d searched for you with a determination that bordered on insanity.

School records. Property databases. Archived census information. Social media. Facial recognition software. The Batcomputer.

Every new technology became another opportunity. Every dead end became another reason to keep looking.

He’d found international criminals more easily than he’d found you.

It shouldn’t have been possible.

But all he’d ever had was a nickname, a childhood address, and a photograph.

The apartment listed on the napkin had been empty by the time his first letter arrived.

Moved. No forwarding address.

The landlord hadn’t remembered where.

Your father’s phone number had been disconnected within the year.

After that, the trail vanished.

You vanished. Just like everyone else.

Tim pressed his thumb against the words on his wrist, digging in hard enough to sting. The area was crowded with thick, old scars, but the words were still clear. Even when things were at their worst, he’d never dared to slice through the letters.

Across the cave, laughter echoed from the stairs.

Dick. Jason. Damian.

Family.

People who stayed. Mostly.

Tim minimised the photo before any of them could walk over and see.

He’d made rhe mistake once.

Dick had found him at sixteen, sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor surrounded by maps and newspaper clippings.

“What’re you working on?”

Tim had frozen for a second too long and Dick had seen the picture. Seen the soulmate mark. The pure desperation.

Tim still remembered the concern in his brother’s voice. “You know they’ll come back into your life eventually, right?”

Tim hadn’t answered. Because that wasn’t what scared him. Finding you had never been the problem. Losing you again was.

And what if, after all these years, you met Dick first? Dick, with his effortless charm and easy smiles.

What if you met Jason? Jason, who filled every room he walked into.

What if you met Damian? Brilliant. Confident. Unapologetically himself.

Fuck.

Tim rubbed a hand over his face. The thoughts were irrational. He knew that.

You were soulmates. His soulmate.

His.

The universe had written your first words onto his skin before either of you were born.

Still, the fear remained. Because soulmates weren’t guarantees.

He’d seen enough failed bonds to know that. People walked away from soulmates all the time. People chose other people. People left.

The words on his wrist proved destiny.

They didn’t prove love.

His computer chimed softly. A notification. Another failed search parameter.

Tim closed it without reading.

He’d check again tomorrow. Run new algorithms. Cross-reference new databases. Keep looking.

He always kept looking.

Because somewhere out there, you still carried four words on your wrist.

Words he’d spoken before he knew how much they would matter.

Words that had become the center of his entire life.

Can I see that?

You probably traced them absentmindedly while waiting in line for coffee. Probably laughed when people asked about them. Maybe you told the beach story sometimes. Maybe you didn’t remember it at all.

The thought hollowed him out.

He remembered everything.

The sound of your laugh. The way you buried his feet in the sand. The gap between your front teeth. The way you’d turned around to wave at him one last time.

He remembered because he’d never stopped needing to.

Because forgetting had never even been an option.

Tim opened the pic again. Zoomed in, just a little. As if getting closer to the screen could somehow bridge twelve years.

“I’ll find you,” he whispered into the empty cave.

The promise was soft. Certain. The same way those words had always been.

He’d spent more than half his life searching. And Tim Drake was not someone prone to giving up.

University wasn’t anything like you’d expected.

Everyone had promised it would be the best years of your life.

Mostly, it was just busy.

Assignments piled up faster than you could finish them. Your sleep schedule was held together by caffeine and wishful thinking. Half your meals came from the campus café because grocery shopping required a level of organisation you simply didn’t possess.

Still, you liked it. You liked the freedom. The independence. The way nobody cared if you wore the same hoodie three days in a row.

Your world had become pleasantly ordinary.

Evening lectures. Study groups. Late-night takeout with friends. Dinner with your dad every Sunday evening.

Life moved forward in small, comfortable routines.

Soulmates fit somewhere inside that routine. Not at the centre of it. Just… there. A fact of life. An eventuality.

You’d never been one of those people who obsessed over their soulmate mark.

Maybe it was because your bond wasn’t particularly unusual. Words were rare, sure, but not unheard of.

Or maybe it was because the words themselves didn’t tell you much.

Can I see that?

People asked about them all the time. Friends in high school had theories.

Maybe your soulmate worked in museums. Maybe they were an artist. Maybe they were just really nosy.

You usually laughed and changed the subject. Because the truth was, you didn’t know.

You’d heard the words once. Apparently.

You remembered flashes of a beach. A boy. Older than you, maybe.

The memory shifted every time you tried to hold onto it.

Childhood was like that.

Important moments blurred around the edges until you weren’t sure whether you truly remembered them or had simply heard the story too many times.

Your dad remembered more than you did.

Every few years, he’d bring it up with a fond smile.

“Remember when you met your soulmate at the beach?”

You always laughed. “Not really.”

His expression turned wistful every time. “You were inseparable all day.”

You believed him. You just couldn’t remember. Not properly. There were no photos. No letters. No evidence beyond four words inked onto your skin.

Sometimes you wondered if your soulmate remembered. Or if they’d forgotten too.

The thought never upset you.

Life was busy. If they were meant to come back into your life, they would.

You traced the words on your wrist absentmindedly as you sat outside the library, waiting for your next class to start.

Can I see that?

Around you, campus buzzed with life. Students hurried between lectures. Someone laughed nearby. A group passed carrying redbulls and complaining about an upcoming exam.

Your phone buzzed. A message from your dad.

Don’t forget dinner this weekend.

You smiled despite yourself.

I’m nineteen. I won’t forget the dinner we plan every week.

The typing bubble appeared instantly.

You’ll still be my kid when you’re ninety.

Shaking your head, you slipped your phone back into your pocket.

You had a lecture in ten minutes. An essay due next week. Plans with friends on Friday. A whole life unfolding in front of you.

You stood and adjusted your bag over your shoulder.

Completely unaware that, less than twenty miles away, someone was running your photograph through facial recognition software.

Unaware that someone had spent the last twelve years searching for you.

That somewhere beneath Gotham, a man who knew the exact shape of your childhood smile was whispering your name to himself like a prayer.

To you, your soulmate was a pleasant mystery.

To Tim Drake, you had become an obsession.

←↓↑→

The Batcomputer chimed again. A different sound this time.

A match.

Tim froze.

The notification sat in the corner of the screen for almost three full seconds before he trusted himself enough to breathe.

Possible facial recognition match found.

Similarity: 91.3%

His chair scraped violently across the cave floor. “No…” The word barely made it out.

His fingers were already moving. Open. Enhance. Cross-reference.

The photo filled the monitor.

Not the child from the beach. An adult. Older. Nineteen.

Your jaw had sharpened. Your hair was different. You’d grown into your features the way children always did.

But your smile..

His heart stopped. It was you. It had to be. The same eyes. The same crooked little smile he’d memorised from a photograph so faded he’d reconstructed parts of it by hand.

He didn’t realise he was crying until a tear landed on the keyboard.

“I found you…” The words cracked apart in his throat.

Twelve years of dead ends. Of wondering if he’d imagined that day on the beach.

And here you were. Real.

Tim laughed. It sounded dangerously close to a sob. “You’re okay.”

His hands shook so violently he mistyped twice trying to open the source.

A public Instagram account. Must’ve been someone else’s, since you’d been tagged.

A university friend, judging from the captions.

He clicked.

More photos. You outside a café. You in the library. You wearing an oversized hoodie while holding a coffee nearly as big as your head.

You’d always hated crusts. You pushed your sleeves over your hands. You still smiled with your whole face. Every tiny detail hit him like another heartbeat.

He couldn’t stop looking. Couldn’t stop smiling.

“I found you.”

You looked… Happy.

His chest hurt.

You’d grown up. Without him. Without a single letter. Without remembering him.

Guilt settled somewhere deep inside his ribs.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I couldn’t find you sooner.

I’m here now.

I’ll never lose you again.

He clicked the next post. His smile disappeared. You stood beside someone about your age. Their arms wrapped around your shoulders. They leaned over to kiss your cheek.

You were making the most exaggerated expression of disgust imaginable, nose scrunched, lips pulled away dramatically while the caption underneath read:

Admit it, you love me ♡

Anyone else would’ve laughed.

Tim knew it wasn’t romantic. He could see that. He understood body language. Read micro-expressions. Built psychological profiles from less. They were friends.

Just friends.

But then why were they touching you?

His breathing slowed. The cave suddenly felt much colder.

Their hand rested so naturally against your shoulder. Like they’d done it before.

They’d probably hugged you. Sat beside you. Heard you laugh. Been there while you were becoming.. you.

They’d lived twelve years Tim had been denied. Twelve years that should have been his.

Jealousy wasn’t the right word. It felt uglier than that. Hungrier.

Tim rested his forehead against his clasped hands. “That’s selfish.” His voice came out hoarse.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Of course you hadn’t. You deserved friends. You deserved people who loved you. People who looked after you. You deserved everything. He should be grateful someone had been there while he hadn’t.

He should.

…

But why did it feel like something inside him was being torn apart?

Why couldn’t he stop staring at the place their lips touched your cheek?

Why did he want to beat-

No.

Tim squeezed his eyes shut hard enough to hurt.

Don’t think that. They’re important to you. If they’re important to you…

Then they’re important to me.

The words sounded rehearsed. Like he was trying to convince himself.

Another notification blinked in the corner of the monitor.

“Replacement patrol assigned.”

Followed almost immediately by another from Bruce.

Where are you?

Tim didn’t even look. His eyes never left your face.

“I found you.” This time, the whisper wasn’t joyful. It was reverent. Almost prayerful.

“Please..”

His thumb brushed lightly across your smiling face on the screen.

“Please still want me.”

Months passed before he let himself stand within twenty metres of you.

Not because he lacked the opportunity. He just couldn’t risk ruining it.

You deserved a proper reunion. He’d rehearsed it hundreds of times.

“Hi.”

Too casual.

“You probably don’t remember me…”

Too pathetic.

“We met once, years ago.”

Too unbelievable.

So he waited. And watched.

He learnt your timetable before he ever learnt the sound of your adult voice.

Tuesday lectures started at one thirty. You always arrived a few minutes early.

You bought the same coffee every Wednesday, except during exam weeks, when you switched to doubles without even realising you were doing it.

You texted your friends while waiting for pedestrian crossings.

You hummed when you cooked.

You don’t lock your front window.

Tim fixed that after you went to sleep.

The first time he’d climbed through your garden to latch it from the inside, he’d almost laughed at himself.

This is insane. He knew that. He also knew the suburb’s burglary statistics.

The window stayed locked after that.

You never noticed.

Good.

You weren’t supposed to.

He never took anything. That would’ve made it real.

Instead he’d straighten the photo frame you’d knocked crooked. Move your forgotten wallet a little further from the edge of the kitchen bench. Replace the batteries in your smoke alarm after it chirped once at three in the morning.

Tiny enough things that you might’ve assumed you’d done yourself.

He wasn’t trying to change your life.

He was only… smoothing the edges. Helping. Protecting.

The files on the Batcomputer grew thicker.

Medical history. University records. Favourite takeaway. Allergies. Blood type. Emergency contacts. Your friends.

Every single one received their own folder.

It’s not like Tim distrusted them. It’s just that if one of them ever needed help getting to you, he wanted to know before they did.

He read their social media. Their public records. Their routines. Who they dated. Whether they drank too much. Whether they drove distracted. Whether they’d ever hurt anyone. If they were kind to you.

Tim found himself quietly grateful.

If they made you cry, he’d spend the rest of the night staring at their name.

His fingers hovering over keyboards. Databases. Background checks. One command. He could dismantle someone’s entire life before sunrise.

He never pressed Enter.

Because that wasn’t what you would’ve wanted. And your happiness mattered more than his anger. It always would.

←↓↑→

Bruce noticed first.

“You’ve stopped sleeping.”

“I’m busy.”

“You haven’t been running facial recognition software anymkre.”

Silence.

Bruce sighed. “You found them.”

Tim didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Bruce’s expression softened for only a second. “I’m glad they’re alive.”

“So am I.”

Another silence.

“You haven’t spoken to them.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Tim looked back towards the glowing monitor. Your face smiled back from a candid photo one of your friends had uploaded that afternoon.

What if you looked at him and didn’t remember? What if twelve years had turned him into a stranger?

He could survive broken bones. Gunshots. The Joker. He wasn’t sure he could survive watching confusion replace your smile.

So instead, he watched from afar. Close enough to stop anything bad from reaching you. Far enough that you never had to know there had been danger at all.

If someone followed you home, they found another route. If your tire went flat, roadside assistance somehow arrived before you’d even finished pulling over. If your wallet went missing, it appeared at the nearest police station before you’d cancelled your cards.

Tim preferred it that way. Because heroes weren’t supposed to ask for thanks.

And if protecting you was the only place he still belonged, then that was enough.

It had to be.

Because wanting anything more felt unforgivably selfish.

Some nights, though, when he watched your bedroom light switch off, he’d rest two fingers against the computer screen.

“I miss you.” A tiny, tired smile.

“You don’t even know me.” His voice cracked. “But I know you.”

He swallowed hard. “And that’s enough. It has to be.”

You’d always considered yourself a pretty lucky person.

Not lottery-winning lucky. More ‘weird little coincidences’ lucky.

Like the time your car decided to die halfway home after a late shift.

You’d barely managed to pull onto the shoulder before an RACQ van rolled around the corner.

The bloke had laughed.

“Perfect timing.”

You’d laughed too. “What are the odds?”

Or when you’d realised you’d left your wallet at the café.

You’d panicked for all of thirty seconds before the staff smiled and held it up.

“Someone dropped it into us.”

No cash missing. Cards untouched. You’d gone home convinced there were still decent people in the world.

Then there was the time your smoke alarm had stopped making that awful chirping noise before you’d gotten around to buying batteries.

You assumed you’d imagined hearing it.

Then the dodgy latch on your bedroom window had somehow started working again.

Finally.

About bloody time.

You made a mental note to thank your landlord.

You forgot.

Life just happened like that. Little inconveniences solving themselves. Disasters never fully becoming disasters.

You figured everyone had stories like yours.

Didn’t they?

→↓←↑

“You are,” Your friend declared, pointing a chip at you across the table, “the universe’s favourite.”

“Oh, piss off.”

“I’m serious.”

“You spilled an entire iced latte over your assignment yesterday.”

He crossed his arms, dropping the chip into his mouth. “And then the professor gave us a forty-eight hour extension.”

“That was for everyone.”

“Exactly.” He grinned.

“You just benefit the most.”

You rolled your eyes. “I think you’re confusing luck with chronic incompetence.”

“I think,” he replied, “you’ve got some weird guardian angel following you around.”

You snorted so hard your drink nearly came out your nose.

“Imagine.”

“Oi, don’t laugh. Nan swears everyone gets one.”

“If mine exists, they’re exhausted.”

“They’re probably on stress leave.”

You both laughed until people started looking over.

Sometimes, though, there were moments.

You’d catch yourself glancing over your shoulder after leaving uni.

It always felt like someone had said your name. But there was never anyone there.

Just people walking. Cars passing. The breeze.

You’d shake it off.

Your friends called you observant.

You noticed when someone changed shampoo. When lecturers looked more tired than usual. When strangers were having bad days.

But somehow, you’d never notice the black motorbike parked half a block away. Never notice that it wasn’t always the same bike. That the familiar silhouette perched on rooftops when you walked home after evening classes. Or the pair of blue eyes lifting from a rooftop scope the second you glanced upwards. Because every time your gaze drifted a little too close, he was already gone.

Because why would you? No one expects to be the centre of somebody else’s universe.

Not without knowing it.

Somewhere in Gotham, Tim closed another file. Today’s entry was short.

Ate lunch.

Laughed with friends.

Nearly got hit by a cyclist while reading a text.

Smiled twenty-three times.

His lips curved despite himself. “Good.”

He closed the document. Another day where nothing bad had happened to you. Another perfect day.

Exactly as it should be.

Tim wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He never was anymore. Watching you had become as habitual as checking the weather before patrol or reviewing overnight reports from the Titans.

One monitor displayed Wayne Enterprises’ quarterly projections while another quietly cycled through public posts from accounts you’d been tagged in over the past twenty-four hours.

One of your friend’s account refreshed.

A new post. Six photos.

The first was all of you crowded around a tiny restaurant table littered with empty plates and cocktail glasses, your smile wide enough to crinkle your eyes.

The second was a blurry group selfie that looked like it’d been taken after far too many attempts.

The third showed someone holding up printed boarding passes.

The fourth made his stomach tighten.

It was you, sitting cross-legged on somebody’s lounge room floor with travel brochures scattered around your knees. You were laughing so hard your head had tipped backwards, completely unaware of the camera.

The caption was simple.

Can’t believe we’re finally doing it. Goodbye Gotham. Next stop: Europe!! ✈️

The comments underneath were worse.

You’re actually leaving us.

Don’t forget us when you’re famous overseas.

Still can’t believe you’re moving.

Going to miss you so much.

Tim reread that last one. Then the one before it. Then the caption again.

His cursor hovered over the screen.

“…Moving?” The word sounded foreign in his own voice.

He opened your calendar. Nothing.

Your university timetable. Nothing.

Your employment records. Nothing.

He searched airline databases. Nothing.

He frowned. That didn’t make sense.

If you were emigrating, there would’ve been paperwork. Visa applications. Employment sponsorship. Rental listings. Passport activity beyond an ordinary holiday.

Unless you’d only decided recently. If you’d kept it private. If he’d missed something.

Tim’s fingers were already moving before he’d consciously decided to investigate.

Searches multiplied across the Batcomputer. Passport usage. Banking activity. University enrolment. Rental history. Government databases. Public records. Flight manifests.

The cave filled with the quiet clatter of keys.

Hours passed unnoticed. Eventually, one search returned a result.

Three return tickets. Departure in eleven days. Return scheduled just over three weeks later.

Tim stared at the itinerary for a long moment. Three weeks. Not forever. Just three weeks.

His shoulders sagged so abruptly it almost hurt.

He laughed once under his breath, embarrassed by the sheer force of the relief flooding through him. “You idiot…”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “They’re coming back.”

Of course you were.

He’d panicked over a holiday.

His heartbeat gradually settled.

He closed the flight information. Then his eyes drifted back to the Instagram post.

Goodbye Gotham.

Going to miss you.

Still can’t believe you’re moving.

They’d all thought it looked permanent too.

He wasn’t stupid. The wording was misleading. Anyone could’ve misunderstood.

But the thought of you leaving for twenty-one days was unfathomable. You’d be where every system he’d quietly built around your safety became useless.

Where there only needed to be one delayed ambulance, drunk driver, pickpocket in the wrong place, one stupid accident.. and he would be exactly where he’d been twelve years ago.

Too late.

His fingers folded together beneath his chin.

He remembered another disappearance. Another day he’d told himself he’d find you tomorrow.

Tomorrow had become twelve years.

He’d promised himself that would never happen again.

Slowly, almost absent-mindedly, he reopened your file. Thousands of pages. Medical records. Class schedules. Emergency contacts. Favourite cafés. The names of everyone you’d ever trusted. Months of observation. Years of restraint.

He looked at the date stamped across the oldest folder. All this time waiting, for what?

Permission?

A perfect reunion?

Some magical moment where you’d look at him and everything would make sense?

What a ridiculous fantasy.

You didn’t remember him. You never would. Not unless he made you.

He had mistaken absence for kindness. Distance for love.

He’d stood outside your life for months, convincing himself that watching you from the shadows was enough because it made you smile.

And where had that left him?

Watching another goodbye. Waiting for another disappearance. Still pretending he could survive it.

A quiet laugh escaped him. Ashamed. “I’ve been an idiot.” The words echoed through the empty cave.

He’d treated his own devotion like something shameful. Something to hide. As though loving you enough to dedicate every waking moment to your safety was a flaw instead of the truest thing he’d ever felt.

No one else loved you like this. No one else could.

Your friends loved the version of you they saw between lectures and dinners. Your family loved the child you’d once been. Tim loved every version.

The child on the beach. The teenager he’d reconstructed from scattered photographs. The adult who forgot to lock windows, who hummed while cooking, who laughed with your whole body when something was funny.

He loved the life you’d built without him. And perhaps that had been his mistake.

He’d mistaken love for spectatorship.

Love wasn’t standing fifty metres away making sure you got home safely. It wasn’t fixing broken latches in the middle of the night and leaving before sunrise. It wasn’t pretending he didn’t exist.

Love was being there.

His gaze drifted back to your smiling face.

“You’ve waited long enough,” he murmured.

For a moment, it almost sounded as though he was speaking to you. Then he smiled.

“No more.” The words weren’t a promise to himself. They were a decision.

He reached for his phone. For the first time in months, he wasn’t planning how to keep watching you.

He was planning how to finally walk into your life.

And this time, he wasn’t ever going to leave.

↑←→↓

The house had taken longer than he would’ve liked to build. Because nothing ever felt good enough.

Tim replaced every piece of furniture twice before he was satisfied. The mattress in the spare bedroom became a king-sized one after he remembered you tended to sleep diagonally whenever you had nowhere important to be the next morning. The kitchen cupboards were stocked with your favourite brands, each item selected with the quiet certainty of someone who had spent years memorising details you never realised you were giving away.

The coffee in the pantry was the same blend you bought every Wednesday.

The toothpaste in the bathroom was the brand you preferred.

The shampoo smelled exactly like the one you'd used six months ago before switching to something else.

You'd liked the old one better.

You just hadn't known it.

Fresh towels sat folded neatly on the shelves. Spare chargers waited beside every bed. Books you had once picked up in stores and put back down rested untouched on shelves already prepared for you.

Every room carried traces of you.

The wardrobe had been the hardest part.

Not expensive things. Not things he wanted. Things you would have chosen.

Soft cotton shirts. Oversized jumpers. Flannel pyjamas.

Comfortable clothes for quiet days at home.

A ridiculous pair of fluffy socks shaped like little sharks that you’d laughed at for almost five minutes in a department store before deciding they were “too expensive for socks”.

Tim had bought them the following afternoon.

There were plants in nearly every room because you’d once spent fifteen minutes helping a stranger rescue a dying fern from the clearance section at Bunnings.

Healthy, thriving ones.

Nothing in this house would be allowed to die. Not if he could help it.

Music speakers sat discreetly throughout the house.

A shelf waited half-finished in the study because you’d once mentioned you wished you knew how to build furniture yourself.

Tim had watched hours of woodworking tutorials that night.

Just in case you ever wanted to learn.

The entire house was filled with preparations for conversations that had never happened.

Future memories assembled in advance.

A life rehearsed over and over by a man who had spent too long alone.

The only parts that didn’t belong were the things that had never been negotiable.

The cameras. One in every room. Carefully hidden. The reinforced glass. The electronic locks. The steel shutters concealed inside the walls. The security system that could seal the entire house down in seconds.

The absence of anything sharp enough to become a weapon.

Tim stood in the middle of the lounge room long after everything was finished.

His gaze drifted slowly across the room.

The couch where you'd sit. The blanket folded over the armrest. The coffee mug already waiting in the cupboard. The spot beside him.

He turned slowly, searching for flaws.

His eyes landed on one of the cameras. A small black lens hidden in the corner.

His expression crumpled. "...I'm sorry." The apology came out quietly. Almost embarrassed.

"I know you'll hate these."

He stared at it for a long moment. As if he could already see the disappointment on your face. The fear. Anger. Betrayal.

His throat tightened.

"I know." His voice cracked slightly.

"I know you will."

His gaze dropped toward the front door.

Toward the locks. The barriers. The things that would keep you inside. The things that would keep you from leaving him.

His hand pressed against the wood.

"And those." The words barely escaped him.

"You'll think I'm a monster."

A small laugh escaped him. Broken and humourless.

The painful part was knowing that you'd be right.

His eyes burned. "You won't understand."

The house blurred slightly.

"You'll think this is about control."

His fingers tightened against the door. "It's not."

The lie sounded weak even to him. Because it was about control. Partly. But mostly it was about terror. The unbearable, suffocating terror of losing something he had never truly possessed.

"I just..." The words stopped. His throat worked.

He looked around the house again. At the rooms prepared for you. The meals he imagined cooking. The books waiting on shelves. The life built entirely around your absence. And suddenly the entire thing felt pathetic.

A shrine pretending to be a home. A love story with only one participant.

Tim swallowed hard.

"I tried doing it the right way." Years of restraint condensed into one broken sentence.

"I really did." His voice was barely audible.

"I waited."

For you to notice. For you to choose him. For one day to become the day. For years. Nothing.

His eyes closed. And for the first time since finishing the house, he looked genuinely miserable.

None of this felt like winning. It felt like surrender. The last desperate act of someone who had run out of ways to be patient.

His hand remained on the lock. As though he hated it. As though he needed it.

"I'll take them away."

The promise came quickly. Desperately. Like he needed you to hear it.

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

Not anytime soon.

But someday.

If you stayed.

If you smiled at him.

If you stopped looking at him like he was something frightening.

"If you trust me."

Airport security had never made you nervous before.

Annoyed, sure.

You’d complained about taking your shoes off often enough, rolled your eyes at the queue crawling forward centimetre by centimetre, and wondered more than once why your bag was always the one selected for a random inspection.

But nervous?

Not until a woman in a navy security uniform approached with an apologetic smile. “Excuse me?”

You looked up from your phone.

“Would you mind coming with me for a moment?”

Your stomach dropped. “..Sorry?”

“There are a couple of questions regarding your luggage.”

“My luggage?”

“It’ll only take a minute.”

Your friends exchanged confused looks.

“What happened?” one of them asked.

The woman simply smiled again. “It shouldn’t take long.”

That wasn’t exactly reassuring.

You followed anyway, trying to ignore the dozen increasingly ridiculous possibilities running through your head.

Had someone packed something into your suitcase?

The further you walked from the terminal, the quieter everything became. The constant announcements faded. The crowds disappeared.

Eventually, the woman stopped outside an unmarked door and opened it.

“Someone will be with you shortly.”

You stepped inside. The room looked more like an executive meeting room than airport security.

Dark timber. Leather chairs. A wall of monitors. A coffee machine in the corner.

And someone already waiting.

He stood the moment you entered.

For a second, your brain failed to process what you were looking at.

People that attractive belonged in advertisements. On giant billboards. In impossibly expensive campaigns designed by teams of professionals whose entire careers revolved around manufacturing beauty.

Not standing ten feet away. Not breathing. Not real.

He was tall enough to seem imposing without trying, dressed in a charcoal suit that looked less worn than sculpted onto him. The cut was perfect. Every line sharp. Every detail precise.

Yet somehow it wasn't the suit that drew your attention.

It was him.

Dark hair, slightly too long, falling across his forehead in a way that should have looked careless but somehow only made him more devastating to look at. It softened features that would otherwise have been almost unfairly severe.

His face looked like something an artist would've spent months trying to get right.

Strong jaw.

Straight nose.

Cheekbones sharp enough to catch the light.

Everything balanced so perfectly it bordered on irritating.

But it was his eyes that made it impossible to look away.

Blue.

Not the bright artificial blue magazines edited into existence.

Something deeper. Cooler. The colour of the sky just before a storm.

The kind of eyes people wrote poetry about when they ran out of better ideas.

And they were looking directly at you.

As though the moment you entered the room, everything else had ceased to matter.

Your pulse skipped.

This was ridiculous. You weren't sixteen. You weren't the type to lose your ability to function because an attractive man happened to exist in your vicinity.

And yet, there was something profoundly unfair about the way he carried himself.

The quiet confidence. The effortless posture. The controlled stillness that made every movement feel deliberate.

Even standing up from a chair somehow looked elegant. Like he'd spent his entire life accidentally making everyone else look clumsy by comparison.

Then your brain finally caught up. Recognition hit like a delayed collision.

You knew that face. Everyone knew that face.

Interviews. Magazine covers. Business journals. Wayne Enterprises.

"...Tim Drake?"

Something happened to his expression after you’d said it. A subtle shift.

The carefully composed businessman vanished for half a second.

Enough to reveal something underneath. Something startlingly human.

Relief.

His shoulders loosened almost imperceptibly. His gaze softened. And suddenly he looked less like the impossibly wealthy CEO you'd seen in magazines and more like a man who had been holding his breath for a very long time.

"Hi." His tone was lower than you expected. Warm. Gentle. The sort of voice that made people instinctively lean closer.

You found yourself staring again.

The newsletters had lied.

They captured the symmetry. The beauty. The impossible genetics. But they missed everything else.

The intelligence behind his eyes. The exhaustion buried beneath them. The strange sadness lingering at the edges of his smile. The tiny imperfections that somehow made him even worse. A faint crease near one cuff where he'd clearly adjusted his sleeve too many times. A loosened breath. The tension hidden beneath composure. Nervousness.

The realisation struck you so abruptly you almost laughed. Tim Drake looked nervous.

Which made absolutely no sense.

Men like Tim Drake weren't supposed to get nervous. Especially not around strangers. Yet there it was. Written in the subtle tightening of his jaw. The way his hands remained carefully still. The fractionally too-long pause before speaking.

As though meeting you mattered far more than it should. Far more than it possibly could.

Recognition fluttered strangely in your chest. An inexplicable feeling that you knew him.

That if you crossed the room and took his hand, it would fit.

You frowned at yourself.

What the hell was that?

“I’m sorry,” you laughed awkwardly. “This is probably a stupid question, but…”

Your eyes met his. For the briefest second, the entire room felt impossibly still.

“Have we met before?”

His breath caught.

As though the question alone had knocked the air from his lungs.

A thousand emotions crossed his face too quickly to name.

Hope. Relief. Grief. Love so overwhelming it almost looked painful.

Then he smiled. Small and beautiful. Heartbreakingly fragile.

“No.”

The answer came after a beat too long. “Not in a way you’d remember.”

You opened your mouth.

Before you could ask what that meant, a sharp, chemical smell drifted through the room.

Your head suddenly felt heavy.

You blinked hard.

The floor shifted beneath your feet.

“..What…”

Your knees threatened to give way. Strong hands caught you before you hit the ground.

Instinctively, you tried to pull away. You couldn’t. Your limbs refused to cooperate.

Panic surged through you.

“Hey-” Your voice came out slurred. “What.. did…”

The room blurred. You forced yourself to look up one last time.

Tim was already kneeling in front of you, one arm supporting your weight with impossible care, the other brushing your hair back from your face as though you were something precious enough to break.

The look on his face wasn’t triumphant nor cruel. It was devastated.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and his voice shook so badly it barely sounded like speech.

“I tried.”

His forehead rested against yours for the briefest moment. “I waited as long as I could.”

The last thing you saw before darkness swallowed everything was Tim Drake looking at you like a man who had finally reached heaven,

and hated himself for the path he’d taken to get there.

↑→↓←

The silence in the bedroom was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic, shallow sound of your breathing.

Tim sat on the edge of the mattress, his weight barely making a dent in the expensive linens.

His suit jacket discarded on the floor, his shirt unbuttoned halfway to reveal the tension in his chest. It was damp with sweat, clinging to the lean muscles of his back as he leaned into your space.

He looked wrecked. His hair was a mess, his eyes were bloodshot, and there was a frantic, starving look in them that made the air in the room feel thick. He looked like a man who had finally been allowed to touch the altar after years of kneeling in the dark.

He watched you. Not looking away even to blink.

His hand reached out, his fingers trembling as they made contact with your skin.

He started at your ankle, his touch light, almost hesitant, as if he expected you to bolt upright and scream the moment he touched you.

He traced the line of your leg, his thumb brushing over the softness of your calf, moving upward with a slow, agonising patience.

He wasn't just touching you; he was memorising you. He was verifying that you were solid, that you were warm, and that you were finally, truly, here.

When his hand reached your hip, his touch grew a little more firm. He slid his palm under the hem of your shirt, the heat of your skin seeping into his calloused fingertips.

He let his hand wander, trailing over the curve of your waist and the soft swell of your stomach. He moved with a desperate kind of reverence, his eyes fixed on where his hand met your flesh.

He leaned forward, his movements slow and deliberate, until he was hovering just above you.

He buried his face into the crook of your stomach, pressing his nose against the warmth of your skin. He took a long, shuddering breath, inhaling the scent of you. The soap you’d bought, the skin he’d dreamt of, the reality of you.

He stayed there for a long time, his forehead pressed against your abdomen, his breath warm against your skin.

He sounded broken, a low, jagged exhale escaping him every time he breathed you in. He gripped the fabric of your clothes, his knuckles turning white, as if he were terrified that if he let go, the entire room would dissolve and leave him standing in an empty house again.

He wasn't being careful anymore. He was greedy.

He let his hands wander upward, his thumbs tracing the line of your ribs, his touch heavy and insistent.

He watched the way your chest rose and fell, his eyes tracking the movement of your muscles with a terrifying, hungry focus. He was memorising the architecture of you.

Then, he lowered himself.

He didn't just lean in, he collapsed against you. He buried his face in the heat of your skin, his nose pressing hard into your chest, inhaling you with a sound that was half sob, half growl.

His mouth followed the path of his hands. He pressed hot, wet kisses along your side, his lips dragging over your skin with a desperate, uncoordinated hunger.

He moved lower, his face pressing into the dip of your waist, his breath hitching as he felt the warmth of you.

He was acting like a man possessed, his movements frantic yet strangely worshipful.

He shifted, his heavy thigh sliding between yours, forcing your legs apart to make room for him.

He was pressing himself against you, the hard, insistent length of him straining against the fabric of his trousers.

He reached down, his hand sliding lower, his fingers hooking into the waistband of your underwear.

He didn't hesitate. He slid his hand inside, his fingers seeking the heat of you. He wasn't being clinical, he was searching, his touch clumsy and urgent, his fingers trembling as they found you.

He let out a low, broken sound. A whimper when he finally made contact, the sound entirely too small for a boy of his stature.

He leaned up just enough to look at your face, his eyes dark and blown wide with a terrifying kind of devotion.

He looked pathetic.

Shaking, sweating, and completely at the mercy of someone who wasn't even awake to see him.

"You're so perfect," he whispered, his voice cracking. "It's not fair. It's not fucking fair."

He leaned back down, his mouth finding the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, his tongue tracing a wet, hot line that made his own body shudder. He was worshiping you, and he was doing it with the desperate, starving energy of a boy who knew he didn't deserve a single second of it.

He pulled back just an inch, his lips hovering a fraction above your skin. The heat from his mouth a stark contrast to the cool air of the room, but he was trembling with the effort of not sinking teeth into you.

He looked up at your face, his eyes searching yours even though he knew they were closed.

"I should stop," he whispered, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. "I should wait until you wake up. Until you can actually look at me."

But his hand didn't listen. His fingers were still buried deep in the waistband of your underwear, his thumb sweeping against your heat with a slow, rhythmic pressure that was meant to be soothing but felt entirely too hungry.

He watched your face, waiting for a frown or a groan, his heart hammering against his ribs so hard it felt like it might bruise.

He wanted to worship you properly, but he has also waited so long that he was practically starving to death.

With a shaky, defeated breath, he leaned down again, but he didn't go for your core this time.

Instead, he pressed his cheek against your thigh, his eyes closing as he let himself simply be near you.

He moved his hand in a steady, agonisingly slow motion, a gentle friction that was almost a tease. He wasn't trying to make you finish. He was just trying to feel the life in you, the pulse of your blood beneath his palm.

"I'll be good," he promised, his voice a wrecked, low murmur against your skin. "I'll be so good for you. Just.. let me stay like this for a little longer."

He let his hips grind weakly against yours, a desperate, uncoordinated movement that was more about seeking comfort than seeking pleasure.

He reached up with his free hand, his fingers tangling in your hair, pulling your head slightly toward him as if he could coax you into waking up just to tell him he was doing a good job.

He pressed a final, lingering kiss to the inside of your knee, his lips trembling.

"When you wake up," he breathed, his forehead resting against your hip, "everything will be different. I promise. I'll give you everything. Just.. don't leave me again."

↓→←↑

Consciousness returned in fragments.

The first thing you noticed was the weight on your mind. Everything felt slow, wrapped in thick cotton, every thought taking just a little too long to surface. Your eyelids were heavy enough that opening them felt like lifting something far larger than yourself.

The second thing you noticed was the silence.

No traffic. No voices outside. No distant hum of aeroplanes climbing into the sky. Just… Quiet.

Your eyes cracked open.

The ceiling above you wasn’t familiar.

Cream plaster. Dark timber beams. Soft morning light spilling through linen curtains that shifted lazily with the breeze.

For one impossible second, you wondered if you’d somehow slept through your holiday.

Then memories crashed back all at once.

Airport. Security. The room. Tim Drake.

Your body jerked upright. The room spun so violently you almost fell straight back onto the mattress.

A hand caught your shoulder before you could.

“Easy.”

You recoiled instinctively.

Tim immediately let go.

He stepped backwards so quickly it was almost clumsy, both hands lifting into the air like he was surrendering.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse.

“I just… you nearly hit your head.”

You stared. He looked different. Gone was the immaculate businessman from the airport.

He’d changed into a plain black jumper and loose track pants, sleeves shoved carelessly to his elbows. His hair looked like he’d run his hands through it a hundred times. Dark circles sat beneath eyes that hadn’t slept.

He looked exhausted. But he also looked terrified. Not of what he’d done.

Of you.

As though the expression on your face mattered more than the fact he’d just kidnapped someone.

“…Where am I?”

“My home.” The answer came quietly.

“Our home.” He sighed, taking his hand through his hair. “I should have said that. I meant our. Sorry.”

Your stomach twisted. “What?”

“I bought it years ago.”

He glanced around the room almost shyly. “I.. thought you’d like it.”

Silence settled between you. Then he laughed. Not because anything was funny. He sounded like he was about to cry.

“I know how insane that sounds.”

Your breathing quickened. “You kidnapped me.”

“Yes.”

“You drugged me.”

“…Yes.”

“My friends-”

“They’re safe.” The response came instantly.

“They think you missed your flight and decided to stay behind. They’ll worry for a while, but they’ll stop. I’ll make sure they’re alright.”

You stared at him. He wasn’t denying any of it. He wasn’t making excuses. Wasn’t pretending this was for your own good.

He simply stood there looking unbearably guilty.

“I know what this is.” His voice cracked. “I know what I am.”

His eyes dropped to the floor.

“I stopped trying to convince myself I wouldn’t do this a long time ago.”

He laughed again, quieter this time. “I just kept hoping I’d be stronger before it came to this.”

You looked towards the bedroom door. It wasn’t locked. You were almost certain of that.

He noticed.

“You can try.” His smile was small. Heartbreaking.

“I’ll stop you.”

The words weren’t threatening. They were apologetic.

“I’ll hate myself for it.”

Another shaky breath. “But I’ll still stop you.” His shoulders sagged. “I can’t lose you.”

You looked back at him. For the first time since waking, you really looked. His hands were shaking. His breathing wasn’t steady. His eyes were fixed on you with such desperate concentration it was almost painful to witness.

Then your gaze caught on his wrist. The sleeve of his jumper had ridden up. Black ink curved around the inside of his skin.

Two simple words.

That’s mine

Your stomach lurched. Without thinking, you looked down at your own wrist. To the words that had always stained your skin. Words you’d laughed about with your mates.

Can I see that?

Your fingers slowly brushed over the faded script.

Tim saw where you were looking. His entire body went still.

“So..” Your voice barely worked. “It was you.”

He closed his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You knew.”

“I’ve always known.”

“Since when?”

A long silence. “Since I was nine.”

You couldn’t breathe.

“I met you once.” His smile was impossibly soft.

“On Gotham Beach. You thought I was trying to steal your shovel.”

His eyes shimmered. “And then..” Very gently, almost reverently, he repeated the words that had altered both your lives. “‘That’s mine.’”

His gaze drifted to your wrist.

“I don’t think..” He swallowed. “…I took another proper breath after that.”

The room was silent again.

“So all of this..” Your voice broke. “all these years… were you?”

There wasn’t a second of hesitation.

“It’s always been me.” He stepped closer.

“I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. I know you’ll hate me.” His eyes finally met yours again. Filled with absolute, devastating devotion.

“But I need you to understand one thing.”

His voice became impossibly quiet. “I never wanted a prisoner. I wanted my soulmate.”

He laughed through tears.

“I just wasn’t strong enough to live in a world where I’d already found you.”

His lips trembled. “…and then had to spend the rest of my life pretending you belonged to somebody else.”

Another tear slipped down his cheek. “I’ve built companies. Saved cities. People think I’m clever.” He smiled weakly.

“But the smartest thing I’ve ever done..” His gaze softened with an affection so overwhelming it hurt to witness. “…was finding you.”

He looked around the room. “And the worst thing I’ve ever done was bringing you here.”

His shoulders finally gave out beneath the weight he’d been carrying for years.

He sank slowly onto his knees. His head bowed. His hands rested uselessly in his lap.

“You can hate me.” His voice was barely audible.

“You probably should.”

Another shaky breath. “But…”

He looked up at you with the same expression he’d worn in the airport. Like a man placing his entire existence into someone else’s hands. “…please don’t leave me.”

“I don’t know how to exist in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”

Outside, the wind stirred the trees beyond the window. Somewhere, impossibly far away, a plane crossed the morning sky. The holiday you’d planned would go on without you.

Photos would be posted. Memories would be made. Life would continue. Just not yours. Not anymore.

Perhaps soulmates weren’t proof that fate was kind.

But simply proof that fate existed.

Please reblog and comment!! :)

12K+ words, 70K+ characters, 2K+ sentences, 1K+ paragraphs, 43 minute average reading time, 1 hour 7 minute average speaking time.

Read Dick Grayson’s part here.

Read Jason Todd’s part here.

Read Bruce Wayne’s part here.

For Bruce, that meant a simple promise written beneath his skin.

When it reached zero, he would meet the person destined for him.

As a boy, he had imagined it the same way every child did.

His soulmate would appear one day. They would laugh together. Grow old together. Build a life together.

A future.

The sort of future his parents had possessed.

The sort of future that had died alongside them in an alley behind the Monarch Theater.

After that night, the timer became little more than background noise.

The glowing numbers continued their steady descent while Bruce attended funerals, inherited a fortune he never wanted, and watched Gotham consume itself one crime at a time. They ticked downward while Alfred patiently pieced together the shattered remains of a grieving child. They ticked downward while Bruce buried himself in studies, martial arts, criminology, forensics, and every discipline that might one day help him wage war against the city that had taken everything from him.

Years passed.

The timer remained a constant. Unchanging. Always moving. Always counting.

Sometimes he caught himself staring at it during long flights between countries. During sleepless nights spent training until his knuckles split. During lonely evenings in unfamiliar cities where he could almost pretend he was just another wealthy young man wandering the world in search of purpose.

The numbers never stopped.

And despite everything, a small part of him still wondered.

Who were they?

Who was waiting at the end of that countdown?

The thought felt dangerous.

Hope always did.

By the time he returned to Gotham and donned the cowl for the first time, Bruce had long since convinced himself that soulmates were a luxury he could not afford.

Batman had no place for dreams. No room for futures. And he certainly had no room for someone he might one day love.

The city came first.

It always would.

Gotham demanded sacrifice, and Bruce had made his choice years ago.

If his soulmate existed, then they deserved better than what remained of him.

So he stopped thinking about it.

Or at least he tried to.

The timer continued to count.

Days.

Months.

Years.

Seconds.

Its steady descent accompanied him through every chapter of his life.

It was there when Dick Grayson crashed into his world beneath a circus tent, a furious and heartbroken child whose pain mirrored Bruce’s own in ways neither of them fully understood. It remained when Dick became Robin, when he became family, and when Bruce made the selfish decision to love someone enough to let them stay.

The numbers continued falling.

They were there when Jason Todd stole the tires off the Batmobile, and somehow stole a place in Bruce’s heart soon afterward. They ticked downward through every argument, every proud moment, every hard-earned smile.

And they’d kept counting when Jason died.

Bruce remembered that night with painful clarity.

The rage. The guilt. Helplessness. The suffocating certainty that he had failed.

Even then, amidst grief so profound it threatened to hollow him out completely, the timer continued. As though fate cared little for the tragedies of ordinary men.

Years later came Tim.

Then Damian.

A family assembled from broken pieces and impossible odds. One that Bruce never intended to build and could not imagine living without.

The countdown remained through it all. A quiet presence beneath his skin. Easy to ignore, impossible to forget. Even whilst hidden from sight beneath the bulky steel of his jaeger-lecoultre reverso.

Sometimes, on particularly difficult nights, he found himself fiddling with the watch strap just enough to see the edges of it.

Not because he expected anything or believed he deserved whatever waited at the end, but because the idea lingered. A tiny, stubborn thing buried beneath decades of grief and responsibility.

The possibility that somewhere out there existed a person uniquely his.

Someone who might understand. Who might see every ugly, fractured piece of him and choose to stay.

Someone who might look beyond Batman.

Beyond the billionaire mask. Beyond the failures. And simply see Bruce.

It was a foolish thought. An indulgent one, really. The sort of fantasy he rarely allowed himself to entertain.

Yet it persisted all the same.

Perhaps because he had spent so much of his life alone. Not physically. Never physically. The Manor was full. The Batcave was full. His life overflowed with people he loved.

But loneliness and solitude were not the same thing.

Bruce had learned that lesson long ago.

For most of his life, every meaningful relationship had begun with loss.

Dick had lost his parents. Jason had lost everything. Tim had nearly lost himself trying to save Batman from his own grief. Damian had been raised as a weapon before he was ever allowed to be a child.

Every person Bruce ever loved carried scars.

All because they had stepped into his world.

And if fate truly intended to place another person in his life… What then? What kind of future could he possibly offer them?

Late nights spent waiting for him to return home alive? Hospital visits? Funerals? The constant threat of becoming a target simply because they mattered to Bruce Wayne?

No.

His soulmate deserved better.

Deserved normal.

Far away from Gotham and everything it touched.

A sensible conclusion. A logical conclusion. One he repeated to himself countless times.

The problem was that logic had never succeeded in silencing the small traitorous part of him that still watched the countdown.

Nobody truly knew him. Not completely. Not the way a soulmate supposedly could. The way destiny promised.

So the timer remained tucked away in the back of his mind.

A breath caught before it could fully form. A dream he never allowed himself to finish imagining.

And still it counted.

Drawing closer with every passing day to a future Bruce Wayne had stopped believing would ever matter.

Until the day it finally reached zero.

The countdown on your wrist had never inspired the same fascination it seemed to in everyone else.

As a child, you remembered classmates comparing bruises during recess, eagerly conspiring about how old they’d be when they finally met the person fate had chosen for them. Entire conversations revolved around it. Predictions. Theories. Daydreams.

You had participated, of course.

Mostly because everyone else did.

But even then, you never quite understood the obsession.

Perhaps it was because your bond felt so distant.

Unlike those who shared pain with their soulmates or dreamed through another person’s eyes, your countdown offered nothing tangible. No connection. No glimpses into another life. No indication of who your soulmate might be beyond the vague promise that one day, eventually, you would meet them.

It was difficult to become attached to someone who felt entirely theoretical.

The numbers counted downward. Life continued.

School became university. University became work. Friendships came and went. Apartments changed. Jobs changed. Entire years disappeared before you even noticed them passing.

The timer remained, steadily ticking away in the background.

Yet strangely unimportant.

Not because you disliked the idea of soulmates. Quite the opposite.

You supposed it was comforting to think there was someone out there destined specifically for you. Someone whose life would one day intersect with your own in a way no one else’s ever could.

But you had never been particularly fond of building your future around things you couldn’t control.

If your soulmate appeared tomorrow, wonderful. If they appeared twenty years from now, that was fine too.

Either way, life would continue.

You had plans. Goals. Responsibilities. A future that existed independently of whoever happened to be waiting at the end of that countdown.

Which was probably why you never developed the habit of checking it.

Weeks sometimes passed without you looking at the numbers.

Months, if life became particularly busy.

Your friends found that strange.

Most people tracked their bonds religiously.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had cared enough to calculate how much time remained.

Not that it mattered. Fate would arrive whether you watched the clock or not.

The thought made you smile slightly as you adjusted the sleeve of your outfit.

The invitation resting on your kitchen counter immediately drew your attention once more. Embossed gold lettering gleamed beneath the overhead light.

You had considered declining several times already.

Charity galas were not your thing.

Neither were crowds of wealthy socialites, politicians, celebrities, and Gotham’s elite pretending to enjoy one another’s company while discussing donations over champagne.

Unfortunately, declining wasn’t really an option. Your company had spent the past month preparing for the event.

Attendance was expected. Mandatory, according to your supervisor.

The memory earned a quiet sigh.

Tomorrow evening.

Wayne Foundation Annual Renewal Gala.

You stared at the familiar name printed across the card. Wayne.

One of the most recognisable names in the country. Perhaps even the world.

Bruce Wayne’s name seemed to exist everywhere in Gotham. On buildings, hospitals, scholarships, charities.

A billionaire philanthropist.

A notorious playboy.

A man whose face appeared so frequently in magazines that most of Gotham could probably identify him from memory.

You had never met him. Never expected to. Tomorrow would likely be no different.

You would attend the gala, smile politely, make small talk, and stay for the required amount of time.

Then return home and forget the entire evening ever happened.

The gala was exactly as exhausting as you had expected.

By the end of the first hour, your cheeks already ached from smiling.

The grand ballroom of Wayne Tower glittered beneath enormous crystal chandeliers, every surface polished to a shine so perfect it almost felt artificial. Waiters drifted through the crowd carrying silver trays loaded with champagne flutes and carefully arranged hors d’oeuvres. Laughter rose and fell throughout the room, blending into the soft music drifting from somewhere near the stage.

The entire event felt less like a fundraiser and more like a carefully choreographed performance.

Not that anyone seemed to mind.

Around you, Gotham’s elite mingled effortlessly. Politicians exchanged handshakes. Business executives traded stories. Reporters circulated like sharks scenting blood in the water.

You had spent most of the evening attached to a cluster of coworkers, nodding politely through conversations that ranged from quarterly profits to real estate investments and subjects you suspected nobody genuinely cared about.

You smiled. Shook hands. Made pleasant conversation. Repeated the process.

By the time you escaped toward the refreshment table, you were fairly certain your social battery had died an hour ago.

“Not enjoying yourself?”

You glanced toward the voice. One of your coworkers smirked knowingly.

You laughed. “I think I’ve had enough networking to last the rest of my life.”

“Careful. That’s practically blasphemy at events like this.”

“Then pretend I said something about synergy and market growth.”

The resulting laugh eased some of the tension in your shoulders.

Around you, the crowd continued to swell as more guests arrived. And inevitably, conversation shifted toward the man hosting the event.

Bruce Wayne.

The name surfaced repeatedly throughout the evening. Sometimes with admiration. Sometimes amusement. Occasionally frustration.

Everyone seemed to have a story.

A charitable donation. An embarrassing tabloid headline. A disastrous date. A surprise act of generosity.

The more stories you heard, the more curious you became. You had never met Bruce Wayne before.

Nobody in your social circles had.

People like him existed in an entirely different world.

The sort of world most people only glimpsed through magazine covers and news broadcasts.

Yet somehow, despite his wealth, despite his status, despite his reputation for arriving late and disappearing early, people genuinely seemed to like him.

It was strange. Most billionaires inspired resentment. Bruce Wayne inspired affection.

You found yourself wondering what he was actually like. The real version. Not the carefully polished public image. Not the headlines. Just the man.

Your gaze drifted toward the entrance more than once throughout the evening.

The subtle change spread through the crowd like a ripple through water. Conversations paused. Heads turned. Attention redirected.

You didn’t need anyone to tell you why.

Bruce Wayne had arrived.

The realisation swept through the ballroom almost instantly.

You found yourself looking too. Just like everyone else.

Oh. For a moment, you understood the fascination.

Photos had never quite captured him properly. Perhaps because photographs couldn’t capture presence.

Bruce moved through the crowd with effortless confidence, greeting donors and board members with easy smiles. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Impossibly handsome in a way that felt almost unfair.

The sort of face people built careers around. One that belonged on magazine covers. Yet none of that was what held your attention.

It was the way he carried himself. Comfortable. Natural. As though the attention of hundreds of people barely registered.

You felt oddly nervous.

Which was ridiculous. You weren’t even planning on speaking to him.

You simply found yourself watching from across the room.

Then your hand drifted unconsciously toward your wrist. Your thumb brushed the skin hidden beneath your sleeve. The countdown.

A habit more than anything.

You weren’t even sure why you checked.

Maybe because events like this always sparked conversations about soulmates. Or because seeing Gotham’s most famous bachelor had stirred old childhood fantasies you’d long since outgrown.

Whatever the reason, your fingers lingered there.

Tracing the familiar shape beneath the fabric. Feeling the steady pulse of your own heartbeat.

You smiled faintly to yourself. Foolish.

Then Bruce Wayne turned, and looked directly at you.

Everything stopped.

Your breath caught. Heart stumbled. Because beneath your fingertips.. The countdown had reached its end. 00:00:00:00.

The familiar sensation disappeared so suddenly that for a terrifying second you thought you had imagined it.

Your eyes widened.

Across the ballroom, Bruce Wayne was still looking in your direction.

No. Not your direction.

At you.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

The countdown had stopped.

Your fingers remained pressed against your wrist, your pulse hammering so violently that you could barely feel the skin beneath them.

And for one impossible, terrifying second, the rest of the gala disappeared.

The music faded. The conversations blurred. Everything narrowed to those blue eyes. To the man standing twenty feet away. To the realization crashing through your chest with enough force to steal the air from your lungs.

Him.

Every second. Every minute. Every year. All of it had led here.

You couldn’t stop smiling.

A laugh escaped before you could catch it.

You felt ridiculous.

You felt ecstatic.

You felt fourteen years old again, lying awake at night and wondering who waited at the end of your countdown.

Your soulmate.

Bruce Wayne was your soulmate.

The thought was absurd.

Wonderful.

Terrifying.

And before you could think better of it, your feet were already carrying you forward.

You barely remembered crossing the ballroom. Only that one moment he was across the room.

The next you were standing in front of him. Close enough to speak. Close enough to see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. Close enough to finally meet the person fate had spent your entire life leading you toward.

“Mr Wayne-” You stopped yourself. God, that sounded stupid.

You laughed nervously. “Sorry. Bruce. I just-”

The words tangled together. There were too many of them. How exactly were you supposed to tell someone they’d just become the most important person in your life?

How did anyone start a conversation like this?

“Hi. We belong together.”

“Hi. Fate says you’re mine.”

“Hi. I’ve waited my entire life to meet you.”

The absurdity almost made you laugh again. Instead, you found yourself smiling. A genuine one. The kind that slipped free before you could stop it.

“I think-”

Bruce looked at you. His eyes flickering over your face, your clothes, the event badge hanging around your neck.

Recognition never appeared.

Nothing softened.

Nothing changed.

It was the look people gave strangers who had interrupted them in public. Nothing more.

His gaze shifted immediately beyond your shoulder. Toward someone else.

Someone important.

Someone he actually wanted to speak to.

“I’m sorry.” The words were automatic. Polite. The sort of apology people gave when they weren’t sorry at all.

“I don’t have time right now.”

For a second you simply stared.

Still smiling.

Still trying to catch up.

“Oh.”

Bruce nodded once. Already moving.

Already done.

“If you’ll excuse me.” And then he brushed past you.

There was no cruelty. No emotion whatsoever. You hadn’t mattered enough for that.

The crowd swallowed him almost immediately.

One moment he was there and the next he was gone. Laughing with donors. Shaking hands. Moving through the room as though nothing had happened.

As though you had never existed.

As though the most important moment of your life had been a forgettable inconvenience in his evening.

You remained where you were. Frozen. The smile slowly slipping from your face.

Around you, the gala continued.

A waiter passed carrying champagne. Someone laughed nearby. Music drifted through the ballroom. Normal. Everything was painfully, horribly normal.

Your stomach twisted.

The excitement that had filled your chest moments ago curdled into something ugly. Something embarrassing.

Heat crept up your neck.

God. How stupid. How unbelievably fucking stupid.

Your hand rose to your wrist again. To the skin where the countdown had sat for your entire life.

Where it no longer moved.

You stared at it, waiting for the joy to return. For the excitement. For the certainty that this meant something.

Instead you felt sick. Because for one awful moment, you’d believed it.

You had looked at Bruce Wayne and allowed yourself to hope. Allowed yourself to think fate had chosen you.

That maybe all those stories people told were true.

Instead you’d received the same polite dismissal he would have given any stranger who got in his way.

Your throat tightened. Fuck, you felt like you were about to cry.

The hurt wasn’t coming from Bruce. Not really.

It was coming from yourself.

From the realisation that some small part of you had still believed after all these years, after all your indifference, all your insistence that fate didn’t matter, a part of you had still secretly hoped there would be magic in this moment. Something special. Worth waiting for.

And now that part of you was dying. Right there in the middle of a crowded ballroom.

The countdown had reached zero.

And for the first time in your life, you wished it hadn’t.

Two and a half months later.

The night had offered nothing unusual.

The Batcave settled into its familiar rhythm as everyone returned. Dick had claimed a corner of Tim's workstation and was ignoring increasingly pointed requests to move. Jason, having appeared midway through patrol without warning or invitation, was drinking Alfred's coffee. Damian sat nearby with a stack of reports, making notes in the margins.

Bruce stood near the medical station, removing the Batsuit piece by piece. The cowl came first, then the cape. He set the gauntlets aside and reached for the fastening at his wrist.

"Father."

Bruce glanced up.

Damian was looking at him with a faint frown. “You never informed us that your countdown had ended.”

He’d barely reacted. “What are you talking about?”

Damian looked mildly annoyed, like Bruce had forgotten something obvious.

“Your soulmate.”

Dick straightened immediately. Tim turned away from his monitor. Jason gave a short laugh.

"Wait. Seriously? You found them?”

Their Dad frowned. “What?”

Damian pointed.

Bruce followed the gesture to the inside of his wrist. The timer had stopped.

For a second, he simply stared.

Beside him, Dick grinned. “So that’s why you’ve been weirdly private.”

Jason scoffed. “Please. Like he’d tell us.”

“I assumed you were waiting until the relationship became serious,” Damian said matter-of-factly.

Tim nodded. “I figured you already had a file on them.”

A few years ago, Bruce might have responded. Might have denied it. Instead, he continued staring at his wrist.

00:00:00:00

The timer wasn’t moving.

It should have been.

For as long as he could remember, it had always been moving. Always counting. Now it sat completely still.

A strange feeling settled low in his stomach.

“When did this happen?” The words escaped before he could stop them.

The cave went silent.

Bruce looked up. Every member of his family was staring at him.

Dick’s smile vanished first.

Tim slowly lowered his tablet.

Jason blinked.

Damian narrowed his eyes.

A long moment passed. Then, “what do you mean, when did it happen?”

Bruce’s jaw tightened. His gaze dropped back to the timer. “When did it reach zero?”

Nobody answered immediately. Because the question itself was wrong.

Dick stared at him blankly. “…You don’t know?”

Tim sat up, picking at the cuticles on his hands. “When was the last time you checked it?”

Bruce opened his mouth. The answer should have come easily.

Instead, nothing.

Weeks? Months? Years?

A knot formed in his stomach. He couldn’t remember. At some point, the countdown had become part of the scenery. Like a scar. Like an old piece of furniture. Something so familiar that he no longer saw it.

Damian rose from his chair. "How is that possible?"

There wasn’t accusation in the question. Only bewilderment.

Bruce understood it.

If anyone else had presented him with a mystery this significant and admitted they had ignored it for years, he would have found it equally incomprehensible.

A soulmate was information.

Information mattered.

Yet somehow he had allowed this particular fact to drift past unnoticed.

Dick dragged a hand through his hair. "Okay. So if it's been at zero for a while..." He trailed off.

Nobody finished the thought. Bruce didn't need them to.

The timer had stopped.

Which meant they had already met.

Somewhere, buried beneath years of galas, investigations, crime scenes, interviews, witnesses, victims, allies, and strangers, there was a person connected to him in a way he had never bothered to investigate.

The thought irritated him immediately. Annoyed by his own oversight.

Bruce Wayne missed very little. Batman missed even less.

And yet he had apparently overlooked something that had been written on his own skin.

His gaze returned to the frozen digits.

Who?

The question settled into place with uncomfortable ease.

Who had it been?

A civilian? A witness? Someone from a charity board? A doctor? A journalist? A stranger he had passed on the street and forgotten by the next morning?

His mind was already moving through possibilities, assembling timelines, searching for patterns.

The investigation had begun before he consciously decided to start it.

And long after the others had gone upstairs, long after the cave had emptied, he’d remained alone before the Batcomputer.

His wrist rested against the desk, the countdown sat motionless beneath the glow of the monitor.

For decades, he had convinced himself the timer didn’t matter. That soulmates were irrelevant. That whatever waited at the end of the countdown belonged to a future he would never allow himself to have.

Now, for the first time in his life, the future wasn’t theoretical. It was real. It had been real for years. And somehow, impossibly, he’d missed it.

He stared at the timer, jaw clenched. Then opened a new search window and began looking.

Bruce had always believed that every mystery possessed an answer.

The answer might be buried beneath layers of deception. It might require months of investigation, thousands of hours of work, or sacrifices most people would never willingly make. But it existed.

Every crime scene told a story.

Every missing person left traces.

Every lie fractured under enough pressure.

Answers existed. The challenge was finding them.

Which was why the frozen numbers on the inside of his wrist irritated him more than they should have.

A lifetime reduced to eight zeroes.

For decades it had been counting.

Now it wasn’t.

Entire criminal organisations had collapsed because of details other people overlooked. Murders had been solved because Bruce noticed a footprint half a millimeter deeper than it should have been. He built contingency plans for gods.

And yet somehow he had allowed this to happen.

Somewhere, at some point, his soulmate had entered his life. And he had failed to notice.

The oversight bothered him in a way he struggled to articulate. Not because he had spent years longing for his soulmate. He hadn’t. Or because he suddenly believed fate held some profound importance. He didn’t.

But because he had missed something.

Something connected to him. That should have been obvious.

His gaze drifted back toward the timer. A person.

For most of his life, the soulmate waiting at the end of the countdown had existed as an abstraction. A hypothetical future. A distant possibility.

Now they existed beyond the realm of his mind on particularly needy nights.

Living somewhere in Gotham. Or perhaps outside it. Going to work. Paying bills. Existing. Breathing.

Perhaps completely unaware that Bruce Wayne had finally noticed them.

The idea settled heavily in his chest.

Because that wasn’t entirely true, was it?

If the countdown had stopped, then they already knew.

The moment one timer reached zero, so did the other. Meaning somewhere out there was a person who had already experienced that moment. A person who had looked at their wrist and realised they had found the person fate intended for them.

Bruce’s fingers stilled against the keyboard. A strange feeling moved through him. Difficult to define.

Because unlike him, that person would have noticed.

Normal people would have probably watched their countdowns. Would have known exactly how much time remained. Anticipated the day it would finally happen.

He imagined someone checking their wrist. Watching the final seconds disappear. Feeling the weight of a lifetime’s anticipation finally come to an end. And then what?

Had they looked around for him?

Had they searched the crowd?

Had they recognised him immediately?

The questions arrived uninvited. More troublingly, they refused to leave.

Bruce leaned back in his chair. The cave hummed softly around him. Banks of monitors cast pale light across the stone walls.

Above him, thousands of tons of earth separated the cave from the sleeping Manor. None of it held his attention.

For perhaps the first time since Damian had pointed out the frozen timer, Bruce found himself thinking not about the investigation. But about the person.

Who were they? What kind of life did they live? What had they thought when they realised? Had they been happy? Afraid? Disappointed?

The last possibility lingered.

Bruce frowned. Disappointed. The word shouldn’t have bothered him. Yet it did.

Because he knew exactly what the public thought of Bruce Wayne. The billionaire. The celebrity. The perpetual tabloid fixture.

To some people, finding out Bruce was their soulmate would be exciting. To others it would be a nightmare.

A lifetime of reporters. Paparazzi. Public scrutiny. Danger. Every enemy Batman had ever made.

Bruce knew better than anyone that proximity to him carried consequences.

The evidence sat framed across the Manor.

The thought darkened his expression. Whoever they were, they deserved better than that.

And then Bruce paused. His eyes slowly narrowed. Because that thought implied something else. Something he hadn’t consciously acknowledged until now.

It didn't matter.

That lie was what kept you going after the gala. It wasn’t grief. Grief implied loss, implied that you had possessed something to begin with.

You hadn't. Bruce Wayne had never been yours.

And yet, something inside of you had still died that night.

You still went to work. Still paid your bills. Still answered texts. Still laughed when friends made jokes.

From the outside, nothing had changed.

Inside, however, there was a deep hole where something important used to live.

Hope, perhaps.

Or whatever foolish thing had survived all those years beneath your indifference.

You had spent your entire life insisting that the countdown didn't matter. That fate didn't matter. That your soulmate was merely a possibility waiting somewhere in the distance and not the center of your universe.

Then the timer reached zero.

And you discovered exactly how much you had been lying to yourself.

Because if it truly hadn't mattered, then seeing Bruce Wayne across that ballroom wouldn't have hurt the way it did.

If it truly hadn't mattered, then his face wouldn't still appear in your nightmares. The sight of his name wouldn't make your stomach twist like someone had reached into your chest and grabbed hold of your ribs.

Yet it did. Every time, without fail.

Three days after the gala, you stopped in front of a coffee shop on your way to work.

A newspaper sat in the display window.

BRUCE WAYNE ANNOUNCES THE EXPANSION OF FOUNDATION PROGRAMMES.

The headline wasn't even particularly large, just another article among dozens. A perfectly ordinary thing.

Yet the moment your eyes landed on it, nausea rolled through you so violently that you nearly turned aroun and walked home.

You stood frozen on the sidewalk, just staring blankly. You hated yourself for pausing.

Because there he was.

Photographed beneath bright camera flashes. Smiling. Beautiful.

Shit, he was beautiful.

It would have been easier if he wasn't. Easier if fate had chosen some ordinary man. Someone forgettable, whose face wouldn't follow you everywhere.

But Bruce looked like something sculpted rather than born.

Like whoever had created him had started with every impossible standard of beauty and decided they still weren't enough.

Even frozen in grainy newsprint, he seemed unreal.

Dark hair falling perfectly despite the cameras. Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, those impossible blue eyes. The kind of watercolour people wrote poetry about. The kind that belonged to summer skies and oceans and things too beautiful to touch.

You remembered looking into those eyes across the ballroom. Remembered your heart stopping. Thinking, absurdly, that of course fate had chosen someone beautiful.

Soulmates were supposed to be extraordinary. And Bruce Wayne was sure as hell extraordinary.

Broad shoulders beneath perfectly tailored suits. Strong hands. Easy smiles. A laugh that seemed capable of convincing entire rooms to laugh with him. Not merely attractive. Handsome. Beautiful in the way ancient gods were described. The sort of beauty that made people stare before they realised they were staring.

He carried himself with the effortless confidence of someone who had spent his entire life being admired. Someone who had never needed to wonder if people found him desirable because the answer had always been obvious.

And somehow fate had looked at him, then looked at you, and declared that you belonged together.

You left the coffee shop without buying anything.

After that, you started noticing him everywhere.

It felt cruel. As though the universe had developed a sense of humor specifically to torment you.

Wayne Enterprises logos decorated entire buildings. Wayne Foundation advertisements appeared on buses. Charity campaigns featured his photograph. Magazine covers displayed his face near checkout counters. Televisions in waiting rooms played interviews. Articles appeared online. Photographs surfaced endlessly. Everywhere you looked, Bruce Wayne existed.

You couldn't escape him. Couldn't erase him.

The worst part was that everyone else saw those images and reacted normally.

Nobody understood what you saw. Nobody knew what it felt like.

Your coworkers saw Gotham's favourite billionaire. Your friends saw a celebrity. Strangers saw a philanthropist. You saw your soulmate.

You saw the man whose timer had stopped when yours did. The man who had looked directly at you, then dismissed you.

Sometimes you found yourself staring at the pics longer than you meant to.

Your eyes refused to look away. Despite everything, some awful traitorous primal part of you still recognise d him. Still instinctually saw him as yours.

The slight curve of his smile. The shadows beneath his eyes. The way his expensive suits felt designed to emphasise the width of his shoulders. The way his presence somehow dominated photographs even when surrounded by dozens of other people.

You hated that you noticed. Hated that your heart still reacted. That attraction remained long after hope had died.

Because Bruce Wayne was beautiful. Painfully, unfairly, devastatingly beautiful.

The kind that made the stinging rejection feel worse.

If he had been cruel, you could have hated him. If he had mocked you, anger could have replaced the hurt. But he hadn't done either.

He’d made living unbearable.

Bruce hadn't rejected you because he disliked you. He hadn't rejected you because you were unworthy. He hadn't even rejected you at all.

To reject someone required acknowledgment.

Bruce Wayne simply hadn't cared enough to notice. You had been forgettable. An interruption. A stranger in a crowded room.

It was fucking humiliating.

To everyone else, your countdown had finally reached zero. A happy occasion. A miracle. A dream-come-true.

People congratulated you. Asked questions. Smiled knowingly.

You learned to lie.

"Oh, I haven't met them yet." "Maybe we crossed paths without realizing." "I'm not really focused on it."

Easy answers. No one ever suspected the truth.

Didn’t know that every mention of soulmates felt like someone digging a knife into an already sore bruise.

That fate itself had started feeling so incredibly cruel.

No one knew that your countdown had ended beside crystal chandeliers and champagne glasses and the most beautiful man you'd ever seen.

Hw could you explain to anyone that he had walked away?

How could you describe the experience of finding the person the universe created specifically for you, only to discover that your existence wasn’t even important enough to remember?

There weren't words for that.

Every morning you woke up, and every day Bruce Wayne's name appeared somewhere.

On buildings. Headlines. TVscreens. Charity banners. A constant reminder. A monument to something you desperately wished you could forget.

You never admitted how much it affected you. Not even to yourself.

Instead you learned to look away. To change channels. To scroll past articles. To cross the street rather than walk beneath buildings bearing his name.

Small, pathetic things.

Yet necessary.

Because every glimpse felt like reopening a wound that refused to heal.

And somewhere deep down, beneath the humiliation and hurt and anger and disappointment, existed a truth you hated even more.

You still thought he was so disgustingly beautiful. Remembered the moment he looked at you. Could still feel the countdown reaching zero.

And no matter how hard you tried, some part of you still mourned the future that had died before it ever had the chance to begin.

Finding you should have taken longer.

Bruce expected months. Years, maybe. The list of possibilities was absurd.

A countdown bond narrowed the search considerably compared to shared pain or dreams, but it was still thousands of people. Tens of thousands, depending on the timeframe. Every person he'd spoken to. Every person he'd stood beside. Every handshake. Every conversation. Every fleeting interaction that had seemed insignificant at the time.

Ordinarily, that would have made the investigation difficult.

Instead, it became embarrassingly simple.

Because unlike other soul bonds, a countdown created a very specific moment. A beginning.

Bruce only needed to determine when his timer had stopped. Then identify everyone he'd interacted with during that period. The rest was elimination.

He discovered quickly that he had a significant advantage.

Over the past five months, Bruce had only personally interacted with nine people who possessed countdown bonds.

Nine.

One was a long-time business partner whose timer still had three years remaining.

Two were married.

Another had met their soulmate publicly several weeks prior.

The remaining names disappeared one by one beneath scrutiny.

Until only one remained.

You.

The file sat open on the Batcomputer. Bruce stared at it for a long time.

Name.

Age.

Employment history.

Education.

Address.

Nothing remarkable. Nothing that should have caused his pulse to stumble the way it did. Yet it did.

Because beside your photograph sat a timestamp. Wayne Foundation Annual Renewal Gala.

Two and a half months ago.

Bruce went still. The gala.

He couldn’t remember you at all.

He remembered the event. The schedule. The donor meetings. The practiced speeches. The endless boring conversations. The uncomfortable sensation that accompanied the recollection made his stomach tighten.

Because if the countdown had ended that night, then you had been there. Somewhere inside that ballroom.

His soulmate had stood within arm's reach, and he hadn't known.

Bruce leaned back slowly.

The photograph remained illuminated on the monitor.

You looked ordinary. Not in a bad way. Just real. A person.

His person.

The thought appeared uninvited.

His gaze lingered longer than necessary. Memorising details.

The shape of your smile in the employee photograph attached to the company website. The slight tilt of your head. The way your eyes seemed brighter in candid images than posed ones.

Ridiculous, meaningless observations.

Yet he continued looking.

Eventually, Bruce opened the gala guest registry. Cross-referenced attendance records.

Security footage. Photographs. Anything.

Everything.

He found you four hours later.

Camera seventeen. Ballroom east entrance. Timestamped twelve minutes before the countdown likely reached zero.

The footage was silent.

You stood speaking with coworkers. Laughing at something. So… bright.

Unaware that he even existed beyond headlines and magazine covers.

He watched the clip so many times that domething uncomfortable settled beneath his ribs.

He knew what was about to happen.

Your timer was about to reach zero. His timer was about to reach zero.

You found him.

You’d crossed the room.

And he walked away.

Hell, he hadn’t even properly looked at you.

Bruce stared at the paused frame.

For the first time since beginning the investigation, a deep nausea rolled through him.

He remembered that interaction vaguely now.

A stranger approaching. A voice trying to get his attention. A laugh. An interruption between meetings.

Nothing important or memorable. Nothing-

His jaw clenenched.

No.

Not nothing.

You.

It had been you.

His soulmate.

The person fate had spent decades leading toward him.

The person whose existence he had secretly imagined during sleepless nights and lonely flights and moments of weakness he never admitted to anyone.

Bruce rose from his chair.

The cave remained silent around him. Cold. Empty without his boys.

The monitor focused on your face. He couldn’t pull his eyes away.

For two and a half months, you had known.

You'd known exactly who he was.

And if Bruce understood people half as well as he believed he did, then you had probably interpreted that encounter exactly the way anyone would.

You thought he'd rejected you.

Bruce found himself imagining it despite having no desire to.

You walking across that ballroom. Excited. Hopeful. Nervous. Only to be brushed aside.

His stomach twisted.

You had spent your entire life moving toward him. And he'd made you feel unwanted.

A muscle jumped in his jaw. No. Unacceptable.

You belonged to him.

Bruce had spent most of his life convincing himself he could survive without a soulmate.

Now he found himself staring at your photograph at three in the morning, unable to look away. Unable to stop imagining your reaction when you learned the truth. To stop thinking about the hurt he had unknowingly caused. And most concerning of all, unable to stop wanting.

Not merely to meet you.

To keep you close.

Safe.

Where nothing could take you away before he had the chance to make this right.

You were halfway through answering emails when your manager appeared beside your desk.

"Got a minute?"

You looked up. "Sure."

"We've had a request come through."

That wasn't unusual. The company received requests constantly.

You nodded for them to continue.

"They specifically asked for you."

That was unusual.

Your brow furrowed. "Me?"

"Apparently." Your manager sounded just as confused.

You accepted the folder they handed over, then immediately wished you hadn't. The logo printed across the front was impossible to miss.

Wayne Foundation.

Your stomach dropped.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Your manager misread your expression immediately. "Good news, actually."

Good. Right.

You’d almost forgotten that normal people didn't feel like they were on the verge of breaking down every time they saw that name.

You forced a smile. "What's the project?"

"A community outreach initiative. They've been reviewing applicants from several companies."

It was like the name seemed determined to follow you everywhere.

"Apparently someone on their end requested you specifically."

The confusion in your manager's voice mirrored your own.

"Have you worked with them before?"

"No." The answer came too quickly. You cleared your throat. "Not personally."

Your manager nodded. "Well, whoever reviewed your profile liked something."

Maybe. Or maybe fate simply wasn't finished laughing at you yet.

You waited until they left before opening the folder.

The proposal itself looked normal. Professional. Routine. Yet a strange feeling settled low in your stomach.

Because your name appeared throughout the documentation.

You stared at the pages for several seconds then shook your head. Paranoia. Nothing more.

Bruce Wayne didn't know who you were. The Wayne Foundation employed thousands of people. This was coincidence. It had to be.

Yet later that evening, as you prepared to leave work, you found yourself looking at the folder again.

Reading your name.

And wondering why the uneasy feeling refused to disappear.

←↓→↑

The project itself was harmless. Boring, even.

Several meetings. A handful of planning sessions. Far too many emails. Just.. normal stuff.

And yet you found yourself running into the same problem repeatedly.

People always seemed to know who you were.

Not coworkers or clients, it would probably hurt your feelings if they didn’t know your name.

But Wayne employees.

The first time it happened, you ignored it. The second time, you thought about it for a bit before shaking it off. The third time, it became impossible not to think about.

A woman stood beside the refreshments table wearing a Wayne Foundation identification badge, smiling like she knew you as she called out your name.

You glanced up from your coffee, offering a polite smile. "Yeah?"

Her expression brightened immediately. "Oh good."

Good?

You waited.

Instead, she simply smiled. "Sorry. I've heard nice things."

Before you could ask from whom, someone called her name from across the room.

The conversation ended there. Leaving you standing alone holding a paper cup and feeling vaguely unsettled.

She'd heard nice things.

From who?

About what?

Then you’d received an email. Then another. And another.

Nothing inappropriate or personal. Just opportunities. Projects. Invitations. Networking events. Requests.

All connected to Wayne Enterprises or one of its countless subsidiaries.

The attention made no sense. You weren't exceptionally qualified. You weren't particularly influential. There were hundreds of people with better resumes. Thousands.

Yet somehow your name kept appearing.

Each coincidence felt harmless on its own.

Together, they felt deliberate.

There was only one explanation your brain kept returning to, and it was ridiculous.

Bruce Wayne didn't know who you were.

Bruce Wayne had never known who you were.

The memory still hurt. Less than before, but enough.

You shoved the thought away and focused on work. Unfortunately, work wasn't cooperating.

"There's a gala next month."

You nearly choked on your drink.

Your coworker blinked. "...You okay?"

"No."

You set the glass down.

"Sorry. What?"

"A gala."

Absolutely not.

The immediate response rose so quickly that you nearly said it aloud.

Your coworker laughed.

"That's about the reaction I expected."

"No."

"That's not even what I asked."

"No anyway."

The laugh grew louder. "It's mandatory."

Of course it was. You dropped your forehead onto the table.

Somewhere above you, your coworker continued speaking.

Words blurred together.

You caught Wayne Foundation. Charity initiative. Attendance expected.

Absolutely wonderful.

You closed your eyes. The universe hated you. That was the only reasonable explanation.

Because apparently surviving one Wayne gala hadn't been enough.

Now fate had scheduled a sequel.

That should have been funny. Instead, dread settled heavily in your chest.

Bruce Wayne probably wouldn't even be there.

And if he was?

He wouldn't recognise you. Wouldn't remember you. You would simply become another face in another crowd. Again.

The familiar ache returned. Duller now. Older, but still present.

You hated that even after everything, some pathetic part of you still cared.

Wondering about what could have happened if things had gone differently.

If he had looked at you. If he'd smiled. If he'd given fate even a single chance.

The thought followed you all the way home. Followed you into the shower. Followed you into bed.

And somewhere across Gotham, entirely unaware of the damage he was causing, Bruce Wayne was doing exactly the same thing.

Thinking about you.

Constantly.

Obsessively.

Unable to stop.

While you lay awake staring at the ceiling, Bruce sat alone in his study surrounded by photographs, reports, schedules, and information he absolutely should not possess.

The file on his desk had grown significantly over the past two weeks.

The silence of the study was suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic, heavy thrum of Bruce’s own heartbeat. It was a sound he usually controlled with meditative precision, but tonight, his pulse was erratic, driven by a hunger that felt less like desire and more like a fever.

His fingers, scarred and calloused from years of a life lived in the shadows, trembled slightly as they hovered over the glossy surface of the most recebt photograph.

In the light of the single desk lamp, your laughter looked almost tactile. He wanted to reach through the paper, to catch the warmth of your skin, to feel the vibration of that laugh against his own chest.

He didn't just want to see you. He wanted to own the air you breathed.

A low, jagged exhale escaped his throat as he reached for the fastening of his trousers. The silk of his shirt felt abrasive against his skin. He wasn't a man of whims, he was a man of purpose.

As he freed himself, his gaze never left your eyes in the photo.

He began to move, his hand wrapping around his length with a grip almost a little too tight, a little too desperate. He wasn't looking for a gentle release, he was looking for a way to drown out the ache of your absence. He hadn’t even met you properly yet.

Every slide of his palm was a silent prayer, a demand whispered into the empty room.

You, he thought, his eyes darkening until the blue was almost black. Only you.

He closed his eyes for a second, and the darkness behind his eyelids was filled with the phantom sensation of you. He imagined your hands replacing his own.

He imagined the way you would look at him if you knew. If you knew that he had mapped out your entire existence, that he knew the number of alarms you needed to wake up, the drinks you preferred, the way your eyes crinkled when you were truly happy.

A groan, deep and primal, tore from his throat as he increased the pace. The friction was intense, bordering on a delicious sort of pain. He pictured you in this very room, stripped of your defences, looking at him with that same devastating smile. He imagined pinning you to this very desk, marking you so thoroughly that the world would know you belonged to the Batman, to Bruce, to him.

"Mine," he rasped, the word a vow and a command. "You have to be mine."

He was spiraling, losing his composure to the sheer, unadulterated need to possess the person in the photograph.

As the tension coiled in his gut, he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the edge of the desk, his breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. He wasn't just chasing a climax, he was chasing the ghost of you. And as he finally broke, his body shuddering with a violent, lonely release, the only thing he could think about was how much longer he could stand being a stranger to the only person outside of his family who truly mattered.

He stared at the splotches of his own mess, his eyes settling back on your frozen, laughing face.

His patience was running out. And soon, he wouldn't just be looking at pictures. He would be looking at you.

The morning of the gala arrived faster than expected.

You spent most of it trying not to think about where you were going later. Work helped.

Emails needed answering. Reports needed reviewing. Deadlines continued existing regardless of personal problems.

By six o'clock, however, distractions became harder to find.

The Foundation building stood illuminated against Gotham's skyline when your taxi pulled up outside.

For a moment you remained seated. Watching people enter through the front doors. Watching security direct arrivals. Watching expensive cars arrive one after another.

The driver glanced at you through the mirror.

"You getting out?"

You sighed. "Unfortunately."

The lobby was already busy.

Employees moved through the space carrying folders, tablets, and the sort of purposeful expressions people adopted when responsible for coordinating large events.

You followed the signs toward registration.

The man at the desk smiled immediately.

"Good evening."

"Hi."

You offered your name.

Something flickered across his expression. "There you are." The words slipped out so naturally that he didn't seem to realise he'd said them.

Your brow furrowed. "What?"

His smile widened. "Nothing. Sorry."

He handed over your badge.

"Conference hall B. Someone will show you where to go."

The interaction lingered in your mind as you crossed the lobby.

There wasn't anything strange about it.

You reached the elevators just as a man wearing a Foundation lanyard stepped out.

His eyes landed on your badge. Muttering your name under his breath.

You stopped. "Yeah?"

His expression brightened. "Right this way."

You stared at him.

The conference hall was directly ahead. Visible from where you stood. So was the sign. So was every other person entering without assistance. Apparently, you were the only one receiving a personal escort. The thought made you irrationally suspicious.

"Thanks."

The man spent the walk making polite conversation.

The conference hall occupied most of the floor.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked downtown Gotham. Round tables filled the space beneath hanging lights. Staff moved between displays making final adjustments while attendees gradually filtered inside.

You recognise d a few people from previous meetings and wandered over.

Conversation came easily enough.

Work topics. Office gossip. Complaints about deadlines. The familiar rhythm settled some of your nerves.

Eventually, someone handed you a drink. Someone else told a story about the mate documentary they were watching the night before. Laughter spread around the table.

For the first time all evening, you found yourself relaxing.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

You could survive a few hours, shake a few hands, then disappear before anything unpleasant happened.

A movement near the entrance drew your attention.

The change happened gradually. A few heads turned. Then a few more.

You knew who it was before you looked.

For a brief moment, you considered keeping your eyes fixed firmly on the table.

But curiosity won.

It always did.

Bruce Wayne stood near the entrance speaking with several board members.

The sight of him harder than expected.

Four months had passed, yet he remained exactly as you remembered.

Tall. Confident. Effortlessly composed. The kind of person who never seemed out of place regardless of where he happened to be standing.

You watched him laugh at something one of the board members said. Watched him rest a hand briefly against someone's shoulder. Watched him move through the crowd with practiced ease.

The memory arrived before you could stop it.

Crystal chandeliers. Champagne glasses. The countdown reaching zero beneath your fingertips.

Your gaze dropped immediately. Heat crawled uncomfortably up the back of your neck.

This had been a mistake.

All you could think about was how little had changed for him.

Somewhere between the gala and now, Bruce Wayne had probably attended dozens of events just like this one.

Met hundreds of people.

Forgotten hundreds more.

Meanwhile, you still couldn't walk into a Foundation building without remembering the worst conversation of your life.

The thought was embarrassing enough to make you take a long drink.

Across the room, entirely unaware that you had already looked away, Bruce Wayne finally spotted you.

↑→↓←

You forced yourself to look anywhere else.

The city beyond the windows. The drink in your hand. The conversation happening beside you. Anything except him.

It felt childish.

Embarrassing, honestly.

You were an adult. Bruce Wayne wasn't some ex you were desperately trying to avoid at a party. He was a stranger.

A stranger who happened to be your soulmate.

Someone who happened to have accidentally shattered every stupid childhood fantasy you'd ever had about fate.

"So then the guy spends hours explaining how the patterns along his wrist connected-"

"What?"

Your coworker laughed. "The documentary."

"Oh." You blinked.

Right. The documentary.

Apparently the conversation had continued without you.

You offered what you hoped looked like a convincing smile.

No one seemed to notice.

People drifted between groups. More guests arrived. Staff circulated carrying trays of drinks and appetizers.

The event settled into a comfortable rhythm.

Exactly the sort of evening you'd expected.

Which was probably why it took you a moment to notice something was wrong.

The conversation around your table had started stuttering. Small pauses appearing where they hadn't before. People glancing toward something behind you.

You ignored it initially.

Then someone stopped speaking halfway through a sentence.

"...Oh."

You frowned. "What?"

Nobody answered immediately. Slowly, unease crept up your spine.

You knew that feeling.

The awful certainty that something embarrassing was happening and you simply hadn't caught up yet.

Your grip tightened around the glass.

Please don't be me.

Please don't somehow be me.

Carefully, you turned. And nearly dropped your drink.

Bruce Wayne was walking toward your table.

The room seemed to tilt.

No. That wasn't right. There were other people here. Important people. Board members. Executives. Foundation staff.

Bruce Wayne had absolutely no reason to be approaching you.

Yet each step brought him closer, your pulse hammered painfully. Maybe he wasn't.. Maybe-

Then Bruce smiled. Carefully. Almost hesitant.

"Hi."

→←↑↓

Your pulse thundered traitorously.

After spotting him near the entrance, you had gone out of your way to avoid him. And apparently, he'd made no effort to stop you.

He talked briefly with the accountant at your table before passing.

You felt stupid all over again.

You knew better than to expect anything.

No shit he wasn’t coming over to talk to you.

By the time the evening finally began winding down, your social battery had been thoroughly exhausted. Guests filtered toward the exits in small groups while staff quietly began dismantling displays around the edges of the room.

You offered your goodbyes, accepted a few last-minute business cards you would probably never use, and escaped.

Or tried to.

Halfway down the hallway toward the elevators, you changed direction.

Bathroom first.

Then home.

The corridor was blissfully empty compared to the crowded ballroom behind you. Soft lighting reflected off polished marble floors. The distant murmur of conversation faded with every step.

You were almost done. Almost free.

"Leaving already?"

You stopped so abruptly your feet nearly slipped against the floor.

The voice came from behind you. Low and warm.

Dangerously familiar.

Your stomach dropped.

Slowly, you turned.

Bruce Wayne stood at the opposite end of the hallway. Alone.

For a second, neither of you moved.

Gone was the effortless social charm he'd worn all evening. Without the crowd surrounding him, he seemed larger somehow. Broader. More imposing.

His eyes were fixed entirely on you. Watching. Like he'd finally found something he'd been searching for.

A strange tension settled between your shoulders.

"Mr. Wayne."

His expression tightened immediately.

"Bruce," he corrected softly.

The familiarity felt inappropriate.

You swallowed. "Bruce."

Something in his gaze darkened at the sound of his name on your lips.

Satisfaction.

The hallway suddenly felt much smaller.

You forced a polite smile. "I didn't realise you were still here."

"I was looking for someone."

Your heart stumbled. The answer came too quickly. Too directly. And for one awful second, hope tried to rear its ugly head again.

You crushed it immediately. "You found them then?"

The words were meant as a joke.

Bruce didn't laugh. Instead, his gaze softened.

"Yes."

The answer landed with uncomfortable weight.

The air felt thick.

You shifted your weight, suddenly aware of every inch separating you. Or rather, how little distance there actually was.

"You wanted something?" you asked carefully.

Bruce stared at you.

It was unnerving. Most people glanced away eventually. They blinked. Looked around. Got distracted.

Bruce seemed incapable of doing any of those things.

His eyes moved slowly across your face as if committing every detail to memory.

Four months ago, he couldn't spare you two seconds. Now he was looking at you like he couldn't bear to look away. It didn't make sense.

Nothing about this made sense.

"I owe you an apology." The words caught you completely off guard.

You blinked. "What?"

"The first gala."

Your breath stopped. Every muscle in your body locked.

Bruce's jaw tightened. "You approached me."

The memory flashed through your mind with brutal clarity.

The countdown.

The humiliation.

"I remember." It was a lie.

You knew it was a lie. You could hear it. He hadn't remembered. You'd seen his face that night. Seen the complete absence of recognition.

But he looked genuinely upset now.

"I handled it badly."

A laugh escaped before you could stop it. Small. Bitter.

Bruce's eyes narrowed.

"You don't need to apologize."

"Yes." His answer was immediate. "I do."

Something sharp flickered across his expression. Self-directed anger. Regret. Maybe even guilt.

You didn't understand it at all.

"You didn't know me." Your voice came out quieter than intended. The admission hurt. Even now.

"You didn't owe me anything."

Bruce went completely still. The silence that followed felt wrong. Dangerous.

His gaze dropped briefly to your wrist before returning to your face. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

Then he took a step forward.

Yet your pulse reacted like he'd crossed the entire hallway.

"I should have known you." The words came out rough. Almost painful.

Something shifted beneath the surface of his composure. You could feel it. Like cracks forming beneath ice.

And for the first time all evening, genuine unease curled through your stomach.

Because suddenly it felt less like Bruce Wayne had happened to stop you in a hallway. And more like Bruce Wayne had been waiting there. Waiting specifically for you. Waiting for the moment you would be alone. When there would be no audience. No escape.

A shiver ran down your spine.

Bruce's eyes immediately tracked the movement.

His expression softened. Like even that tiny movement meant something precious to him.

And somehow that frightened you far more than if he'd looked angry.

"Can I walk you to your car?" he asked quietly.

The question sounded harmless. Polite.

But there was something underneath it. Something hungry. Something that made it feel less like a request and more like a man trying very, very hard not to demand.

When you hesitated, Bruce's gaze darkened harshly.

You got the overwhelming impression that Bruce Wayne was not accustomed to hearing no.

And that whatever was looking at you from behind those impossibly blue eyes had already decided how this interaction would end.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. You looked at him, searching for the playboy you had seen on the news, but he wasn't there. In his place stood a man whose very presence felt like a gravitational pull, heavy and inescapable.

Your heart was a frantic thing in your chest, caught between the instinct to run and the soulmate bond that hummed under your skin, screaming that this was where you were supposed to be.

"I... I can manage, Bruce," you said, trying to inject a note of independence into your voice. You didn't want to be another person he was simply 'handling' or 'managing.' You wanted to be seen as an equal, not a charity project or a fleeting interest.

"It’s a long walk to the valet, and you have guests to attend to."

You made a move to step around him, but you didn't get far.

Before you could even clear his shadow, Bruce’s hand shot out. He didn't grab you roughly, but his fingers curled around your upper arm with a terrifying, singular purpose. It wasn't a casual touch, it was a tether. His palm was hot, even through the fabric of your clothes, and the sheer strength in his grip made your breath hitch.

"The guests are gone," he said. His voice had lost its social lilt. It was now a low, gravelly command that seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of your bones.

"They don't matter. Nothing in that room matters but this."

He stepped into your space, forcing you to tilt your head to maintain eye contact. The hallway felt like it was shrinking, the walls closing in until the only thing left in the universe was the scent of him, like the coming of a storm.

"You think you can just walk away?" he murmured, his eyes searching yours with a desperation that bordered on the frantic.

You frowned, your confusion overriding your unease. "After everything? Bruce, we haven't even spoken for more than five minutes.”

You let out a quiet broken laugh. “You don't even know me."

A dark, humorless sound escaped his throat, one that sounded more like a growl. "That is where you are wrong."

His grip tightened, making it clear he wasn't letting go.

His gaze dropped to your lips, then back to your eyes, his pupils blown wide until the blue was just a thin, electric ring.

"I know the way you tilt your head when you're thinking," he whispered, leaning so his breath fanned across your cheek.

"I know the exact shade your eyes turn when you're startled. I know the schedule of your life better than you do. I have spent every waking moment since that night trying to find a way to apologise for a sin I didn't even know I had committed."

Your heart hammered against your ribs.

How? How could he know these things? The sheer impossibility of his words should have made you laugh, or call for security, but the soulmate bond was reacting to his intensity, pulling you toward him like a moth to a flame.

It was a terrifying, beautiful pull.

A part of you wanted to demand answers, to push him away for his madness, but another part, the part that had been lonely and aching for months, wanted to collapse into him and let him devour you.

"You... you're obsessed," you breathed, the words slipping out before you could think them through.

Bruce didn't flinch. He didn't deny it. Instead, he leaned closer, his forehead touching yours, his expression one of raw, unadulterated devotion.

"I am," he confessed, the admission sounding like a vow.

"I am completely, utterly undone by you. And if you walk out of this hallway tonight without letting me make it right, I think the world might actually end."

He looked at you then, not as a billionaire looking at a guest, but as a man looking at his entire world, his eyes burning with a terrifying, beautiful hunger.

"Please," he pleaded, the word a jagged edge of vulnerability.

"Don't make me watch you walk away again. Let me take you home. Let me show you that you were never just a face in a crowd. You are the only thing that has ever been real."

He wasn't asking anymore. He was begging, and as he stood there, looming against you with a possessiveness that felt like a honeyed trap, you realised with a jolt of both fear and exhilaration that you didn't want to say no.

In the months that followed that night at the gala, the "coincidences" had stopped being coincidences and had become a reality.

You no longer had to wonder why a certain restaurant always had your favourite table reserved, or why your career seemed to accelerate with a sudden, inexplicable momentum.

You knew. You knew that every promotion, every unexpected gift, and every "chance" encounter was a thread in the web Bruce had woven around you.

And the most frightening part was how easily you had let yourself be caught.

The initial shock of his obsession, the way he looked at you as if you were a miracle he was afraid might vanish if he blinked hard enough, had slowly melted into a deep, intoxicating security. You were no longer a face in the crowd. You were the center of his universe.

You sat on the edge of the massive, silk draped bed in the master suite of Wayne Manor, watching the moonlight spill across the floor.

The room was silent, save for the distant, rhythmic sound of the Gotham rain against the glass.

A door clicked shut. Heavy, purposeful footsteps crossed the rug.

You didn't need to turn around to know it was him. You could feel him. The soulmate bond, once a source of lonely longing, was now a constant, thrumming connection that acted like a second pulse.

Bruce stepped into the light. He had shed the armor of his tuxedo, wearing only a dark shirt left partially unbuttoned.

He looked less like a billionaire and more like the man you had met in the hallway.

He approached you, his presence filling the room until there was no air left that didn't belong to him.

He sank onto the bed behind you, his large, warm hands sliding around your waist to pull you back against his chest. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply. A low, contented sound vibrating against your skin.

"You're thinking again," he murmured, his voice a deep, velvet caress. "I can feel it."

"Just thinking about how much has changed," you whispered, leaning your head back against his shoulder.

You reached up, lacing your fingers with his. "How much you've changed."

Bruce tightened his hold, his arms circling you like a fortress. "I haven't changed. I've simply finally found the right reason to exist."

He turned you in his arms, forcing you to face him. His eyes were dark, swirling with that familiar, beautiful madness. Devotion so absolute it felt like a physical weight.

"Do you still feel like you're in a trap?"

You looked up at him, searching the face of the man who had studied your every breath, the man who had turned his entire life into a pursuit of you.

You thought of the fear you had felt, the unease at his intensity, and the way he had practically begged for a chance to belong to you.

Then, you thought of the way he held you now as if you were the most precious thing in existence, as if your very survival depended on his touch.

A slow, knowing smile touched your lips. You reached up, cupping his jaw, your thumb tracing the line of his lip.

"No," you admitted softly, the truth settling comfortably in your chest. "It feels like home."

Bruce’s expression broke, a flash of pure, unadulterated relief crossing his features before it was replaced by a hunger that made your breath hitch.

He leaned in, his lips hovering just a fraction from yours.

"Good," he rasped, his gaze dropping to your mouth. "Because there is no going back. You are mine. And I am never, ever letting you go again."

As he pulled you into a kiss that tasted of desperation and promise, you realised that the universe hadn't hated you after all.

It had simply been waiting for the moment that you finally stopped running and let the storm claim you.

Please comment and reblog! :)

11K+ Words, 69K+ Characters, 1K+ Sentences, 900+ Paragraphs, 42 Minute average reading time, 1 hour and 6 minute average speaking time.

Read Dick Grayson’s part here.

Read Jason Todd’s part here.

Read Tim Drake’s part here.

The Thousand Sunny rocked softly on the calm night sea, the deck bathed in soft moonlight and a candle you had lit to better view. Most of the crew had long since gone to bed, their laughter fading into peaceful snores below deck. You, however, couldn’t sleep.

You stood at the upper deck near the figurehead, the cool ocean breeze tugging at your hair and clothes. In your fingers, a small, carefully rolled joint burned slowly. The sweet, earthy smoke curled upward as you took a slow drag, holding it in your lungs before exhaling with a quiet sigh. The weed helped quiet the endless chain of thoughts about your responsibilities as the crew’s relatively new member… and the confusing pull you felt toward your captain.

Monkey D. Luffy.

Luffy was older than you by several years, he was at his late forties, a tough man, strong and battle hardened. He had a presence that could not be ignored by anyone. You were younger, being in your early twenties. Luffy already had a reputation when you were a child. Not that you cared then, but you certainly do now.

The age gap alone made you feel shameful. He was your captain and your position on the ship depended on the respect and trust he had in you, not the unholy thoughts you had about him whenever he grinned at you or stretched his arms around your shoulders during meals. Acting on those thoughts would be reckless. Dangerous, even. It could potentially ruin the crew’s dynamic, make you lose your spot as a crew member or worse… Get rejected. What if he saw you as nothing but a kid compared to him?

You shook your head, taking another drag. You tried to tell yourself to just enjoy the smoke and not think about him. He’s the captain after all. And you’re just… You.

That’s when you heard it, the soft creak of footsteps behind you that made your heart jump.

“Oi.” Luffy’s deep, familiar voice cut through the quiet. You froze, the joint still pinched between your fingers. Before you could hide it or turn around, one of his rubber arms stretched out, wrapping firmly around your waist and pulling you against his chest. “You’re smoking?” His tone held genuine surprise, mixed with curiosity. He leaned over you, dark eyes locking onto the joint in your hand. “Didn’t know you did that.”

Your cheeks burned hot. Of all the times for him to find you… “Captain! I—I only do it sometimes. When I can’t sleep. It helps with the nerves before big voyages.” Your voice came out smaller than you wanted. You could only think about what was going on in his head, was he thinking about how irresponsible you are? As he disappointed?

Luffy didn’t pull away. Instead, he reached with his free hand and gently plucked the joint from your fingers. You watched, heart hammering, as he brought it to his own lips and took a long, slow drag. His chest expanded against your own chest as he held the smoke, then exhaled it in a thick cloud that mingled with the night air around you both.

“Hmm. Tastes nice,” he murmured, voice already a little lower. He tilted your chin up with two fingers so you faced him. His eyes were intense, studying you. “You should’ve told me. Sharing with your captain is better.” Then he took another drag, before you could respond, Luffy leaned down and captured your mouth in a kiss.

It started slow, surprisingly gentle for someone as impulsive as him. His lips were warm, the smoke he inhaled forcing itself into your mouth, you could taste it. But the moment your tongue brushed his, something in him ignited. The kiss deepened, turning hungry. He groaned softly into your mouth, one hand sliding to the back of your neck while the other kept you pressed firmly against him.

This is wrong, your mind screamed even as your body melted into him. He’s the captain. This could ruin everything. Yet the weed was already making your thoughts fuzzy, your skin hypersensitive. Every point of contact felt electric. You knew you should pull away, apologize, blame the smoke… but his tongue curling around yours felt too good, his low hum of pleasure vibrating through your chest.

Luffy pulled back just enough to speak, forehead resting against yours, breaths mingling with smoke. “Been watching you,” he admitted, voice husky. “You’re always thinking too much.” His rubber arm around your waist tightened slightly, pulling you closer so you could feel the growing hardness pressing against your stomach. “Let me help you stop thinking.”

Your heart raced with conflict. Part of you whispered that this was a mistake. He was a Sea Emperor. You were still proving yourself. The age difference, the power imbalance… it felt overwhelming. But the other part, the one buzzing from the weed, wanted nothing more than to give in. “Captain… we shouldn’t—” you started, voice trembling.

Luffy’s hand slid up to gently cup your throat, not squeezing, just holding. His thumb brushed your pulse point. “You want this,” he said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I can feel it.” He kissed you again, slower this time, coaxing your mouth open as his free hand roamed down your side, slipping under the hem of your shirt to caress bare skin.

The touch sent sparks through you. You arched towards his touch. Luffy noticed everything. He smiled against your lips, that signature sunny grin now darkened with lust.

He took his time exploring you with deliberate slowness. His stretched fingers traced patterns on your stomach, then higher, cupping your breast and teasing the nipple until you whimpered. All while kissing you deeply, sharing the joint back and forth until the world felt hazy.

Only when you were trembling, conflicted thoughts drowning under waves of need, did Luffy lift you. Rubber arms coiled around your thighs, spreading you as he pressed your back to the mast. You could feel the thick, heavy outline of his clothed cock grinding against your core, and your body reacted instinctively, hips rolling desperately, seeking more friction.

“Tell me you want your captain,” he murmured, his dark eyes locked on yours with intense, almost predatory focus. His body shook with barely-held restraint, rubber limbs trembling slightly around your thighs. Your mind screamed one last frantic warning about the age gap, the power imbalance, and all the consequences that could crash down on the crew… but the words slipped out anyway, soft and desperate. “Please, Luffy…”

That snapped Luffy’s control like a rubber band. A low, hungry growl rumbled from his chest. “Good girl.” In one fluid motion, he put you down, his hands going towards his pants, Luffy freed his thick, heavy cock, already leaking and throbbing with need. The sheer size of him made your breath hitch. He was long, girthy, veins standing out against flushed skin.

Luffy seemed amused by your reaction, your obvious surprise at his size. He used his Devil Fruit to stretch one arm, guiding your body to kneel on the floor. You did as he expected, now being face to face with his cock. “Open,” he commanded, voice rough with smoke and lust. You hesitated for half a second, looking up at him, but ultimately deciding to just go for it. You parted your lips, and Luffy didn’t hesitate. He pushed the fat head of his cock past your lips, groaning deeply as your warm mouth enveloped him.

“Fuck… that’s it,” he praised, one hand tangling in your hair. He didn’t force you all the way down at first, letting you adjust, but his hips rocked forward in shallow thrusts, feeding you more of his length with every push. “Suck your captain’s cock nice and deep. Been dreaming about this pretty mouth for months.”

His taste was salty, musky, mixed with the lingering smoke. You hollowed your cheeks, swirling your tongue around the head and taking him deeper, the high making every sensation feel amplified. Luffy’s groans grew louder, more broken. He fucked your mouth with slow, deliberate strokes. “Shit… you’re too good at this,” he panted, eyes half-lidded as he watched his cock disappear between your lips. “Gonna cum down your throat if you keep that up… but not yet.”

He pulled out suddenly with a wet pop, strings of saliva connecting your swollen lips to his glistening cock. Before you could catch your breath, Luffy spun you around, pressing your front against the mast. One strong hand wrapped around your throat from behind, squeezing with perfect pressure that made your head spin deliciously while his other hand yanked your shorts and underwear down in one rough tug. “You’re soaked,” he growled against your ear, rubbing the thick head of his cock along your dripping folds. “This pussy is dripping for your captain, huh? Even though you know it’s wrong?”

You whimpered, nodding frantically. The conflict still raged in your mind, but the need was stronger. Luffy didn’t wait for more words. He thrust in hard, burying every inch of his thick cock inside you in one powerful movement. A broken cry tore from your throat. The stretch was intense, almost too much, but the weed turned the burn into liquid pleasure. Luffy set a brutal pace immediately, hips snapping forward with raw strength. Every thrust slammed deep, the wet sounds of your bodies echoing across the quiet deck.

“Fuck… so tight,” he groaned, hand tightening around your throat as he pounded into you. “Gonna breed this little cunt. Fill you up until my cum is leaking down your thighs for days.” His free hand pressed hard against your lower belly, feeling the bulge of his cock moving inside you with every deep thrust.

“Imagine it, you, round with my kid, still sailing with me. Everyone would know who you belong to.” His words sent a fresh wave of shame and arousal crashing through you. Breeding me? He’s the Emperor… I’m so much younger… But your walls clenched hard around him anyway, betraying how much his filthy promises affected you.

Luffy noticed. He laughed darkly, low and pleased, and shifted into Gear Second mid-thrust. The sudden explosive speed made your vision white out. He fucked you like a man possessed, fast, deep, relentless. Rubber arms stretching to bind your wrists above your head while another coiled around your waist, holding you exactly where he wanted you.

The choking, the rough pounding, the way his cock dragged perfectly against that sensitive spot inside you… it was overwhelming. You came hard around him with a strangled moan, walls fluttering and squeezing his thick length. Luffy didn’t slow down. He fucked you through it, growling praises against your neck. “That’s it… milk my cock. Gonna pump you so full.”

When his own climax hit, it was with a deep, guttural groan. Thick, hot ropes of cum flooded your insides, pulse after pulse, so much that it immediately started leaking out around his cock. He kept grinding deep, pushing it further inside you, making sure it took. He stayed buried to the hilt for a long moment, breathing hard against your shoulder, hand still loosely around your throat. Slowly, his grip gentled. Rubber arms retracted as he turned you in his hold, pulling you against his chest in a surprisingly tender embrace.

“You’re mine now,” he whispered, pressing soft kisses to your temple, your flushed cheeks, the marks he’d left on your neck. “No going back.” The high still hummed in your veins, your body boneless and satisfied, but your mind was already swirling with a thousand conflicted thoughts about what tomorrow would bring.

Hey guys!! I’ll be honest, this was sooo out of my comfort zone, I’m not really into Dom!Character X Sub!Reader but this was a request so I hope it wasn’t that bad. If there’s any grammar mistakes I ask you to please ignore because english isn’t my first language. Hope you enjoyed the fanfic.

Damian, who was prone to being harsh with his words, but had never gone out of his way to hurt you on purpose. You had even considered it a charm of his, because there had always been something tender laced within his actions, that always spoke louder than his words.

When he quietly swapped his plate with yours, a quiet consideration without ever once looking up, having memorised your allergies without you realising.

When he subtly placed his hand behind your back in galas, chasing off vultures who aimed for your status, with a silent glare that places you under his direct protection.

When he carried you all the way to his bedroom after a bad sprain on your ankle from a bad fall down the stairs in his manor, with biting remarks and a tender caress over your swollen skin as he applied an ice-pack, worry creased into his brow.

Was it all a ruse?

The wound is only inflicting on itself with every memory torn apart and searched for any evidence, any signs for his dislike. You trusted Damian, which is why it hurt so much to hear him talk about you this way. As if those small moments were all mere inconveniences for him, that burdened him. You had assumed he at least reciprocated your friendship, but now… if only he had faced you instead, with an honest willingness to express how uncomfortable he was.

If it was space Damian wanted, he should have communicated it with you. Instead of mouthing it to his brothers behind your back, without allowing for your voice of input to clarify on the boundaries he wanted.

You don’t notice time passing, standing in the corner of the hallway, your heels digging into the soles of your feet—till you felt a heavy hand on your shoulder. You flinch, brushing the sudden grip off only to find Damian in your swarmed vision. Concern flickers in the green flecks of his eyes… or was it annoyance? The ability to read through his mask, it feels as if it’s been an illusion all along.

“Spaced out?” Damian taunts, one brow cocked at your strange behaviour. "I told you not to come."

I told you not to come. You’re not sure what is the appropriate response, not when you feel a clog in the back of your throat. You never had to think twice on your words before, not in front of him.

“Tired.” You admit, because at the very least, that word carried a semblance of truth. You’ve never felt more exhausted in your life, and the culprit was standing in front of you, completely unfazed. “I think I should head home.”

His eyes widen imperceptibly, not expecting you to take his words so literally. You were never one to skip out on a dance before a gala has ended, no matter how boring the event was. Often, you’d drag him by the arm as your partner, only because the look on his face was easily the best memory of the night. At least, it should’ve been.

His lips part, ready to form his signature 'I told you so', but your ghastly expression makes him hesitate. He clears his throat, offering his hand and slotting himself by your side. “Very well. I’ll escort you.”

“No.” It blurts out quick, desperate.

His surprise slips through his impassive expression. His hand still outstretched—freezes, doubt etched into the crease of his mouth.

“You should be with your family.” You reply, straining a smile. “I won’t take up more of your time.”

It was meant to sound considerate, but the quickness of your tongue made it sound like a solemn promise.

His eyes narrow in puzzlement but you’ve already turned, moving out of his reach towards the exit. He doesn’t make an attempt to stop you, and it hurts that maybe, part of you still hoped he would. To prove his statement wrong, that you mattered more than being a nuisance.

You’ll give him what he wants. Space. Maybe you needed it too, to understand the emotions weighing on you. This hurt—betrayal—shock, you needed time to process it. To reevaluate what Damian Wayne really means to you.

Damian hasn’t heard from you in two days. In the past forty-eight hours, he has tracked your location to ensure you weren’t kidnapped, or lost your phone. Both suspicions were refuted, and the only anomaly that remains is your uncharacteristic silence ever since that night at the gala.

His gaze flickers back to the opened message channel, where his text ‘Have you arrived?’ remains unread. Running a hand through his locks, this may be Damian's first—for his conclusions to come up empty. His text was a mere front, an opening to ask about your wellbeing. His confidence in your reply was absolute, and he never once considered ending up in this standstill. Despite being apart from your constant presence, he finds that you’re somehow occupying more of his mental capacity.

He should’ve went after you the moment he saw that strange, desolate expression on your face when he found you, hidden alone in the corner. Your solemn attitude rang caution bells, concern—which is why he offered to bring you back. It was instinctive, natural. He never expected your rejection. The sting caught him off-guard, words of concern trapped in his throat. He didn’t master the skill of comfort as easily as you did, with sweet, honey words easily coming to your forefront.

He’s overthinking the situation, analysing it till the details have gone runny in his hands—blurry aside from the clear vision of your back turned towards him. Still, there was something about your goodbye… that left him strangely unsettled.

"There you go again." He hears your teasing voice, already memorised in his mind—a poke of your finger against his cheek. "Overanalysing the situation. Just ask me, Dami."

He shakes his head, trying to dissuade the many possibilities that ended in zero conclusions. It’s not a big matter. Today was one of the rare occurrences where his biology classes coincided with yours, leaving a lunch break where he could demand for answers. He’s sure that once he sees your usual, brightened expression—the discomfort in his chest will disappear.

Damian waits with strained patience outside your lecture hall. Various eyes are casted onto him—a rare, Gotham Times worthy sight of a lone Wayne waiting for some mysterious figure, but the attention is none of his concern. His eyes are locked on you instead, watching you pack your bag through the open gap of the door, the AC blasting a cold breeze against his nose bridge.

You’re laughing at some unheard joke from this distance, and it should soothe his worries—to see you refreshed compared to your exhaustion two days ago. He understands better than anyone how exhausting those galas are, which is why he tried to dissuade you from attending in the first place. Still, you had insisted on accompanying him, much to his chagrin. He at least hoped you didn't flunk your midterms today by overexerting yourself, despite his previous warnings, or else he really wouldn't be able to restrain himself from saying I told you so.

All fleeting thoughts of teasing you are discarded at the sight of an unknown blond male, chatting you up and making you laugh as hard as you did. His foot taps in a repeating manner, discomfort swarming in his chest the longer he watched, before catching his own fretting and forcing himself to stay still. This unknown variable is not a problem. Once you spot him, you'll come to his side instead—naturally.

This reassurance paces his impatience, waiting for you to notice him as you made it towards the door. His chest rises, anticipation creeping in as your head raises—and meets his gaze.

You smile, like you always do, and it has the same application of a soothing balm over the minor migraine he's formed from over-checking your coordinates. Waiting for you to come to him, his lips part with a ready excuse for why he came to find you instead of meeting at your usual lunch spot.

Only for you to walk right past him.

He blinks, unable to process what just happened. Impossibly in a single moment, he became invisible to your eye. His mind works in overdrive, unable to piece the facts together that you just walked past him. The probabilities calculated don't align with reality, but his body reacts faster. His hand reaches out, grabbing onto your wrist impulsively—right as you made your turn towards the hallway.

You stumble, gaze flickering down to his grip in surprise. “...Damian?” You blink as if stunned, like you hadn’t just walked past him like he was a ghost.

“You haven’t responded to my messages.” He blurts out with almost immediate regret. Now, his position comes off as a confrontation, and that blond is staring at him with vague amusement. Pathetic, he feels shame burn in the back of his throat. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

You stare at him unblinkingly, before your mouth parts in acknowledgment. “Ah, that. Tim should've updated you, did he not?”

Tim. A heated frustration arises in his chest, but he can’t figure out what exactly is stoking the fire. The realisation that you prioritised Tim's messages over his, or your strange nonchalance to his concern. “You’ve been conversing with Drake?”

“I needed his help with finding a new collection—he’s also a fan of the series.” You shrug. "With the midterms and his constant updates about the shipment from Japan, I must’ve missed yours."

“Your business with Drake isn’t my concern.” He spits out, harsher than intended. An uncomfortable slither of emotions is writhing in his chest, and the thought that you and Tim have been conversing in secret all along these past two days, bonding to something he wasn’t privy to... it was irritating.

Why had you gone to Tim instead? If you had asked him, he could've easily gotten you the collection.

“What is our relationship then?” You implore casually, eyeing his reaction. “If your concern is so situational."

Whatever he was expecting, he didn’t expect that. His lashes flutter, his composure all but ruined as his mind tries and fails to merge the you he knows, and the you in front of him. You don't seem angry. So, why was he beginning to feel a sense of dread?

“Weren’t you the one who always decided the labels for us?” He asks after a moment, his voice rough against the unexpected impact of your question.

Your expression finally flickers, disappointment slipping through the cracks of your smile. His response has displeased you, even he could read into that.

“I’ll let you answer for us this time.” You reply, and it’s distant—cold. Unlike you. “You can choose whichever you deem fit.”

“Wait.” His rushed voice sounds desperate even to his own ears. The sight of your back turned towards him is something he never wanted to see again. His gaze flickers between you and the blond, questioning. “Are we not supposed to have lunch together?”

You turn back, staring at him with an unreadable expression. Your smile reappears, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. “I’m having lunch with Lawrence, so it’s okay. You don’t need to accompany me.”

Damian views the world akin to a battlefield. There are allies, enemies, changes in fronts and positions. He has fought hard to feel deserving of every position in his life, whether it had been his grandfather's heir, his father's blood son, or Robin. Right now, he feels as if his position beside you has been ripped out of his hands. Accompany? Is that how you saw it, like some sort of duty imposed on him that you could dismiss him of whenever you pleased?

"See you around, Dami." Even his nickname given by you comes off flat from your tongue. As if you were going through the motions, interacting with him from behind a wall that's suddenly been constructed without his notice.

You weren't completely ignoring him like he suspected, but this distance... feels much worse.

There was something, very obviously wrong.

You aren’t sitting beside him. In the seat reserved for you, that’s meant for you.

It had been set from the very start, maybe initially because the two of you were the only children ever-present during family business dinners... and later, with your constant chattering that the adults found had an amusing effect on him.

He's gotten used to exchanging cuts of his meals with yours, or swapping his glass if his had more ice cubes in them, because you liked your beverages freezing cold. Used to you whispering unrelated stories and jokes into his ear when his father talks business with your father, and he has to resist a quirk up his lips because it would mean that you won in your little game to crack his exterior. Now, it's as if an entire routine has been disrupted, and Damian was a man of routine.

He watches you, eyes like a hawk over your every movement, trying to detect any pause in this unreachable mask of yours. You slice your steak without fault, placing your cut between your lips as you nod along to your father's words, seated at his right hand. You don't blink an eye in his direction, and he's tempted to walk right over and drag you out of that very chair.

To corner you in a space without prying eyes, and... what? He swallows dryly, forcing himself to look back down at his untouched meal. What could he say without sounding like a lunatic?

That he suspects that he's done something wrong merely because you've switched seats today? Or that you've been skipping out on lunches with him. Or all the way back to that cursed gala, when you had refused his hand to escort you back home.

Another troubled ‘Tt’ slips past his gritted teeth, and that finally reaches your ears.

When he meets your curious gaze, a silly gust of hope appears so quickly in his chest at the luck that he's finally caught your attention. He raises a brow, a silent question, gesturing to head to a private room with the tilt of his head. You've always understood his silent words better than anyone else did.

Which is why it shocks him when you merely cast your gaze back to your father, leaving his question unanswered. He wasn't deluding himself in this occasion. You're clearly rejecting his gesture, pretending as if you never saw it.

His grip tightens, crumpling into the table cloth, shame colouring his features. He has to put an end to this. Regardless of your coy act, he knows you. Maybe you had a bet with one of his brothers—who knows what schemes they've configured after their constant interrogations during the gala, successfully running a fuse on his temper.

Or maybe, he’s displeased you with an inadequate response. You had mentioned it before, the term 'labels'. Honestly, he never once considered trapping you in something so jarringly concrete. Bonds, human connections—they were always needlessly complicated.

What you meant to him, it expanded beyond the limitations of languages. You, who saw past his sharp exterior and pushed him beyond his limits, and him, who found himself staying despite every rational thought pleading him not to expose his weakness so easily out in the open.

It was simply natural from the moment he met you, instinctive to remain by your side just as you always found a place to slot beside his. Terrifyingly easy, that he refused to let anyone see the softness you evoked out of him. It was meant for you, and only you. Now, the strike of your absence, despite being only a few feet away from him, is running a deeper cut into his conscience, tracing back to the questions that's been bombarded on him by his siblings.

But—what does she mean to you, Dames?

What would your life look like without her?

In a desperate attempt to brush off questions that aroused a panic he had never felt before, he came up with quick, venom-filled words to dissuade his brothers. Oddly enough, he never wished to reveal what you meant to him, not aloud.

It made it feel too real, too vulnerable. As if the world could swallow you whole if he admitted just how irreplaceable you were, that he couldn't envision a life without you by his side. His grandfather had made it so—that any weaknesses should be removed from its roots.

He did not want to remove you from his life, so you are not his weakness.

He's tempted to curse his brothers to oblivion. If only they hadn't sprung such obnoxious questions, then these thoughts wouldn't be invading him, and the universe wouldn't have punished him for it.

He had already felt the brimming inevitability of something bound to go wrong the moment he was faced with vulnerability. If it had been anyone else, he would have retreated in a similar manner as he always had. To not show weakness, to prove that he was above silly affections and attachments to others—but it's you.

He has to fix this. Whatever it is that's wrong. If only you would look at him, then maybe you'd see his desperation too and let him in.

Damian doesn't receive an opening till the next gala. A cruel twist of fate the universe has decided to play on him, as if openly mocking his distress, to end up right back where the entire fiasco started.

He's barely kept himself sane. In these past two weeks, you've only responded to his messages—horrible attempts of reconnection, with mere one word replies, and visited the manor to hang out with his other siblings. When he had caught you lounging on Tim's bed, ranting about the new series you both were so invested in, he nearly tore the door straight off its hinges.

He craves for your silly rants during lunches. Your presence dipping the corner of his bed as you sketched doodles of his family in their vigilante costumes. Your warm laughter that soothes a long night of patrol.

He misses you... terribly.

It doesn't help that you're a vision tonight, only worsening the trembling ache in his chest. Dressed in your favourite colour that make you so strikingly vivid, already seared into his mind as he stares unblinkingly, he doesn't realise he's been holding his breath till your heels click with an ever-increasing volume towards him. Your nearing approach is what finally snaps him out of his daze, and his hand immediately shifts. Out of mere habit, for you to hold onto his arm as always.

Your hand doesn't lift to meet his, remaining stuck to your side. It pushes him off balance, and he has to force himself to respond when you greet him.

"You...look beautiful." He admits, his voice a weakened imitation of itself. He hates this, and you look—you are beautiful. So much so that it hurts. Even if he tried to reach his hand out for you, he has the suspicions that you’ll only back away from his touch.

"Thank you." You smile politely, and the tone of your voice, practiced and composed, stings.

His lips part, ready to pull you aside and ask what he has done wrong. He is ready to do whatever you ask, to plead for forgiveness so long as that look in your eyes finally fades, anything to get you back. The real you, not hidden behind cruel distance and polite masks.

A familiar, dreadful face cuts in before he can. Damian’s gaze hardens, trained on the blond that's been trailing after you since two weeks ago, who currently has his hand outstretched for you. His scowl falters, panic swarming his instincts—when your own hand reaches out to take the stranger's invitation.

He utters your name, a weak pulse forming a lump in his throat.

You turn back, casting him a quick glance like his existence was an after-thought. "Lawrence offered to dance with me earlier. We'll catch up later, Dami."

His chest seizes completely. He doesn't process the alteration of his own steps, only finding your wrist captured between his fingers, his shoe stepped in between the gap of you and your dancing partner, functioning as an opposing barrier.

“I’m afraid—” His voice cuts in, deadly calm. “—she already has a partner for tonight.”

Your head whips around, unable to hide your shock. His jaw clenches, eyes narrowed at the suitor who's dared to try for your hand. Perhaps it's his building paranoia stemming from your continued absence, but the sight of someone taking you away by your willing hand is truly driving him mad.

It doesn't take long before Lawrence registers the message Damian sends with a single, warning glare. Hands off.

Finally able to breathe once the bastard's been chased off, he turns back to meet your gaze and is surprised to find the barely concealed anger in your eyes. You've never looked at him this way before.

That same discomfort that's plagued him constantly for the past two weeks builds in his chest at the thought that you even entertained the possibility of dancing with Lawrence. Damian had always been your dancing partner, no matter how much he claimed to dislike partaking in galas like these. If anyone was going to deal with sore feet from the accidental missteps of your heels, it will always be him.

“Is that the label you’ve decided on?” You ask, the first words uttered without that strange, distant tone you've used before. “Partners?”

“Does it displease you?” He presses, trying to gauge your reaction. “I will change it to whatever you prefer.”

You purse your lips, conflict arising in your gaze. “I don’t understand you.”

He exhales lowly. “I should say the same for you. You are the one who’s—” His jaw twitches, desperation slipping past his façade. “—drifting away.” From me, why are you acting as if I don’t matter—as if this doesn’t matter?

He shouldn't have drank all that wine from earlier.

Alcohol doesn’t affect him, not with its supposed dizzying sensation and loss of control when recklessly consumed, but it did make him bolder, his tongue sharper. Yet, seeing you trying to evade him—out of his reach, he found himself doing something he sworn to never do—being impulsive.

At the lack of your response, his hand still wrapped around your wrist tugs gently, a quiet plea for you to say something. He feels useless, small—and you're the only thing he desperately needs. To help him make sense of the chaos that's consumed his every waking thought, that's plunged and follow him into his dreams.

Eventually, you sigh. "We should talk."

A small hope reignites at this chance you've given him. It's automatic, already mapped out in his head as he guides you to an empty room on the second floor. You don't rip away from his hold at the very least, but from your strained steps, you're not ecstatic to be with him either.

Shielded from prying eyes once he shuts the door, you're quick to pull your hand out of his hold. His own mask fractures at the loss of your warmth—but when he forces his gaze away from your disconnected hands, he finally sees you shed your own to reveal your honest expression. You look tired, a mirrored reflection of the agony that’s been inflicted on him these past two weeks.

You settle at the loveseat, head resting on your palm as if the very weight of your unreadable thoughts have consumed you, leaving you exhausted. If only he could reach in and unravel them himself, to understand the change in you.

“Drifting away?” Your voice muses at his words, and it lands like a punch. Do you truly not understand what you've done to him? “You’ve seen me the entire week.”

He shakes his head adamantly, coming to stand before you, neck craned down to face your averting gaze. “I won't be easily fooled. You’re avoiding me. Standing in places you’re not supposed to be.”

It sounds childish. God, he was being driven insane the longer you stood there, finally in his sights and he just couldn’t stop drinking you in.

“Opting for the furthest seat. Skipping lunch breaks. Accepting another dance partner. Ignoring my messages. Not being by my side.” It pours out without stopping, even as he feels warmth burn at the back of his neck, reaching his ears. “Your behaviour has changed. Even when you're close, you’re out of reach.”

“And you say I’m the clingy one?” Your expression flickers, a mix of hurt and solemn amusement.

His brow creases. “When have I ever—”

His own voice echoes in his mind, in a taunting afterthought. “She’s clingy.”

The gala. The interrogations. Your sudden change in behaviour. You overheard his callous comment. His reckless mistake.

He calls out your name weakly. The gravity of his mistake—it feels as if the entire universe is collapsing onto him.

You let out a sigh, and the acceptance in it terrifies him. As if you’ve already prepared yourself in these past two weeks, to fully be out of his life.

“I overheard you at the charity gala.” Your admission coincides with his guess, and your unwavering gaze leaves him stripped of all his defenses.

It's dawning on him in quickening alarm, with how each passing day, you must've lost hope in him. That his careless words must've wounded you deeply, leaving you to rightfully pull away. That he is a complete and utter idiot, who has hurt the one person he swore to protect.

"Do you feel less smothered? After all, wasn’t space what you wanted?” You ask, and there is no anger in your voice—only apathy. "It was what I needed."

The admission silences him. His heart is thudding so hard that he hears the rush of blood in his eardrums.

No. It wasn’t what he wanted. Your absence has ruined him, and it wasn’t the faults of his brothers, or revealing his vulnerability. It was all on him.

“Isn’t it better for us both, if we kept our distance?” You propose. “Since we’ve gone past the line of hurting each other. It’ll be convenient for the both of us, and less burdensome for you.”

Your calm demeanour is a bigger slap to his face than you shouting at him, demanding for him to apologise or to make things right. In the face of your acceptance, it’s as if you expected that this was the outcome he wanted.

He has a paralysing realisation, that if he doesn't beg for your forgiveness, you'll never come and seek for his repentance ever again. With every passing second, he feels time running out of his hands as your expression closes at the lack of his response, ready to abandon the room. Abandon him.

Desperation strips Damian bare of his pride when his knees hit the ground, landing harshly before you in the lowest form of begging. He doesn't give you time to process what he’s done before his fingers gently wrap around yours, caressing them with a firm grip.

“Damian!" Your expression warps in shock, meeting the intensity seared in gaze. "What are you doing? Get up—"

“I was wrong.” He admits without hesitation. “All the words I said, not a single one of them holds the truth.”

Your shock dampens, and he sees the barest hurt displayed on your expression. It pushes him to strain past his walls, to keep speaking if it meant not seeing your back turned towards him.

“You asked me to define us once, by labels.” He recalls. “I am not good with words. It has always been—difficult. To understand when to push further and when to fall back. To not act as if every situation is a death sentence if I bared my vulnerabilities out in the open, but—I know that my faults are not an excuse for my actions."

"I have broken your trust and left you feeling unsure of your position in my life, and I must correct it. You are not clingy, or a burden. You are the most important person in my life."

“The lies were nothing more than a cover... my brothers had caught onto my attachment and wouldn't give up on their interrogations.” He admits through the grit of his teeth. “They were always more observant of what I tried to push down, and my behaviour around you—it was obvious that you had an effect on me. It's as if you are the center that I gravitate towards, pulling me in towards your every whim and desire.”

“They tried to help me make sense of it, and I panicked. Selfishly, I wanted to keep my weakness a secret only known to the promises I've made for you in my mind. My fondness for you felt like a curse if I revealed it.” He whispers. “I had always assumed that what you held closest to your heart is what you should guard the most."

“I uttered those foolish words because I had assumed that if only I knew the extent of my devotion towards you, you would be safe. That we could continue as we always had, without declaring a target on your back, so that the world wouldn’t rip you away so easily.”

“I was a coward.” He murmurs, pleading in earnest. “I have mistreated you and taken you for granted. I tried to convince myself that lies were better than revealing the truth, which is that I have always coveted to by your side."

"I am deeply sorry. For ever making you feel that you're anything less than.” He breaks. "That couldn't be further from the extent to which I adore you. To which I need you. I can’t imagine a life without you, so—"

"Please—" He's never been taught to beg, but he can't lose you. Even if it takes him years, decades to regain your trust, it doesn't matter. "—it is selfish of me to beg for your forgiveness, but I will do anything. I will explain the full truth to my family. I will take on any punishment but—I can’t lose you. These past two weeks have been torture, and... I miss you."

Finally, after his chest is heaving with the burn of his confessions and a lack of oxygen, does he quiet. In the face of your coming judgement, he has never been more nervous in his life.

"Damian." You mutter. "I have not forgiven you."

His breath hitches, and despite all he's done to expect this outcome, he couldn't have been more unprepared for the impact of the blow. His hands falter around yours, and his knees have gone weak.

"W—What do you want me to change?" He can barely hear his own voice over his rapturing heartbeat. "Is it something I said? My behaviour, my actions—I can improve. I can fix this."

You give him a look that signals that you're not done. He forces himself to quiet, lips pursed as he slowly—painfully waits.

"In these past two weeks..." You admit. "I really tried to reevaluate what you mean to me."

"I understand you, more than anyone else has because you've let me in." You answer. "But just because I see you—and I know that's a vulnerability you don't easily show to people—doesn't mean that you get an easier way out."

"You did hurt me. I'm acknowledging that, and because I care about you, it hurts even worse." You reveal. "It wasn’t fair that you brought up such harsh words to describe me behind my back, and it’s not going to be something I can brush over easily, no matter the reason. I don't think we can fully go back to how it was before, not without moments where I will feel doubt. That's a trust you have to rebuild, not just with one big apology, but through your words and actions, every single day."

He nods, hanging onto every word you're willing to give him, even as your vocal admission of him hurting you feels like a vicious whip.

"But I am willing to give you that chance—to heal the hurt you've caused me, to prove that you won't pull away when you're scared I'm getting too close." You declare. "I'm giving you a chance to fix your mistake, because I know you, Dami. I know you'll keep your promises, and that you have a heart. One that's willing to change."

He lets out a shaking breath, and he finds your fingers caressing over his in a gentle touch. Not forgiving him completely, but reassuring in its warmth.

"I—" Left bare after pouring his heart out, the adrenaline rush that came from his full vulnerability has finally left his chaos-ensued mind blank.

From the very moment you had entered his life, it was an undeniable fact he had only grown to understand, to not fear—and it was that he loved you. The same distant concept he once viewed through the multiple perspectives of others, now existing right there in his beating heart. Yet, it didn't feel right in this moment. Not when you were giving him this chance to rebuild the trust he has broken. He will wait, for as long as you'll let him, he will cherish anything you'll give him.

"I know." You whisper, silently reading what he’s trying to convey through a single glance. "We'll figure us out together."

He sighs, head falling against your lap, lips brushing over your intertwined fingers—a soft, imperceptible kiss to your knuckles. It's natural, instinctive, everything he could ever want. To rest in your presence that’s finally allowed him to breathe again, surrounded by your warmth and voice.

"I thought you hated dancing." You muse.

"Not when it's with you." He admits quietly. "I haven't trained myself to bear the crushing of your heels, just for someone to take my place."

"I can't believe you called me the clingy one." Your amusement doesn't displease him, not in the slightest.

"Perhaps I shall reinstate our relationship to my brothers then." He murmurs. "I'm sure they'll have a field day once I admit that I'm the one who can't bear to be without you."

Finally, he hears the familiarity of your laugh. He has missed that.

"I'd like to see that."

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dc masterlist -> damian + other dc works