damian wayne☆my beloved

Writing was common enough to earn its own chapter in school textbooks.

Anything written directly onto one soulmate’s skin would appear on the other’s moments later. Ink. Paint. Marker. Charcoal. Anything that bonded to skin.

The world adapted.

The first time a corporate lackey woke up with eyeliner because their soulmate had gone clubbing the night before, an industry had been born.

Make-up companies sold soulmate-safe eyeliner, lipstick, sports chalk, and any makeup that used synthetic compounds specifically designed not to transfer across writing bonds.

But it cost a shit tone more than the ordinary stuff, so most people didn’t bother.

It was just another part of life.

Damian Wayne had never considered himself lucky. He simply acknowledged facts.

His soulbond was uncommon, but it suited him.

Charcoal had always stained his fingertips. From the time he was old enough to hold it properly, he’d sketched anatomy, architecture, animals, weapons, portraits.

His mother insisted observation was as important as combat. His grandfather insisted beauty existed to be conquered.

Damian decided beauty should simply be understood.

As his sketchbooks multiplied, so did the messages.

A doodle across his wrist. A rough smiley face. Practice strokes. Sometimes things he assumes to be his soulmates friend’s crude humor. Occasionally an absent-minded note written during lessons somewhere across the globe.

He never replied.

Not because he lacked curiosity. He was plenty curious.

But curiosity was a weakness.

That lesson had been taught long before he could remember learning it. The League did not celebrate soulmates. They acknowledged them.

A soulmate was another variable. Another vulnerability. Another weapon waiting to be used.

Children raised within the League were instructed never to trust the bond. Never to assume affection. Never to reveal themselves first.

If your soulmate became known to your enemies, they ceased being a blessing and became a target.

His grandfather called them leverage. His mother called them responsibility. Neither called them love.

By the time Damian was ten, he’d already concluded that the outside world was naïve.

Children giggled over mysterious wounds appearing on their arms. Teenagers filled notebooks trying to guess who was on the other side. Adults got tattooed to find the other before they’d ever exchanged names.

Ridiculous. Your soulmate was simply another person. Potentially useful. Potentially dangerous. Nothing more.

Then Father took him to Gotham. The city believed in soulmates just as readily as it believed in monsters.

Robin learnt pretty quickly that civilians asked too many unnecessary questions.

“Have you met your soulmate?”

“What bond do you have?”

“Is it true you bats don’t have soulmates?”

He ignored every one.

His bond remained hidden beneath gloves, sleeves and armour. His teammates knew he possessed one, none knew which.

Which was intentional.

Dick guessed shared pain, trying to bond with him. Drake theorised dreams. Todd insisted it had to be shared aggression.

Damian allowed the misunderstanding to continue. Knowledge was power, there was no reason to surrender it.

Besides, his soulmate had never written anything worth answering.

Not yet.

You’d spent most of your childhood convinced you were defective.

Not in the way children sometimes decided they were adopted because their parents said no to dessert, no. You thought that something inside of you had been assembled incorrectly.

That fate hadn’t seen your file cause the page accidentally got stuck to another’s.

Everyone had a soulmate.

It was one of the first things children learnt in school, somewhere between tying shoelaces and basic maths. Teachers would explain the different soulbonds with colourful diagrams while students excitedly compared scraped knees and odd dreams.

“I saw them by the ocean last night!”

“My soulmate likes spicy food.”

“I broke my arm when I was five because my soulmate fell out of a tree.”

Children always had stories. You never did.

No mysterious bruises. No shared dreams. No sudden cravings. No inexplicable emotions. Nothing.

At first your parents smiled. “They’re probably just a late bloomer.” “Some bonds take longer to show.” “Just wait.”

So you waited.

You turned seven. Nothing.

Eight. Nothing.

Ten. Still nothing.

Eventually your parents stopped saying, “Just wait.” And started booking appointments instead.

Doctors asked endless questions. Had you ever blacked out unexpectedly? Experienced vivid dreams? Random pain? Hearing voices? Objects appearing? Writing?

You answered no so many times it became automatic.

Test after test came back blank. There wasn’t anything medically wrong with you.

“Symptoms usually present in early childhood,” one specialist explained gently while flicking through your file. “It’s… unusual.”

Unusual.

That was the word everyone preferred. Not broken. Not defective. Just unusual.

Children weren’t nearly as polite.

“What do you mean you don’t have one?”

“Everyone has one.”

“You must be lying.”

Some looked at you with pity. Others with suspicion. One kid had actually asked if soulmates could reject people before they were born.

You laughed along.

Then cried in the bathroom afterwards.

By fifteen, you’d stopped expecting anything to happen. You’d accepted it. Maybe fate had really skipped you. Maybe whatever invisible force connected billions of people had simply… forgotten.

Life moved on. It had to.

School still expected assignments. Friends still invited you out. The world didn’t stop just because yours felt slightly emptier than everyone else’s.

There was only one strange thing.

Your fingers.

Every now and then they’d end up stained a dusty grey-black. Not all of them. Usually just the pads of your fingers. Sometimes the side of your palm.

Like charcoal.

You’d notice it halfway through class or while eating dinner.

“…Huh.”

You’d scrub at it absent-mindedly. Soap didn’t work. Water didn’t work. Hand sanitiser didn’t work.

It never smudged onto anything else either. It simply existed. Then it’d disappear by the next morning as though it’d never been there at all.

You blamed whatever you’d touched that day.

Cheap pencils, old books, dust, maybe the graphite from your mechanical pencil had somehow stained your skin.

It wasn’t worth thinking about. There were bigger things to worry about than mysteriously dirty fingers.

After all, if you actually had a soulmate..

Surely something would’ve happened by now?

↑↓←→

The questions never really stopped. They just became less frequent. Less innocent.

Children asked because they were curious. Adults asked because they couldn’t imagine another answer.

“So..” a co-worker leaned against the break room counter, stirring too much sugar into their coffee. “Have you met your soulmate yet?”

You smiled automatically. “No.”

“They overseas or something?”

“Maybe.”

“Long-distance must suck.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

They laughed.

You laughed too. It was easier. People preferred believing your soulmate was somewhere out there rather than accepting you might not have one at all.

The truth made them uncomfortable.

Eventually the conversation drifted elsewhere. It always did. You’d become good at redirecting it. Years of practice had a way of doing that.

Nowadays, the mention of soulmates barely stung. It was more like pressing on an old bruise. Tender, but manageable. Something you’d learnt to live around.

Your phone buzzed. A message from a mate.

Movie tonight?

You smiled.

Only if you’re buying popcorn.

Hell no.

Then no deal.

A few more messages followed before the conversation inevitably dissolved into memes and poorly edited reaction images.

Normal.

Wonderfully, painfully, normal.

You slipped your phone into your pocket and reached for your bag.

Halfway there, you paused.

“…Seriously?”

Grey-black dust coated the tips of your fingers again.

You rubbed your thumb over your index finger. Nothing came off.

“Must’ve touched something.” You couldn’t even remember saying it aloud anymore. It had become a habit.

See charcoal → Blame the environment → Move on.

You grabbed your bag anyway. By tomorrow morning it’d be gone. It always was.

Outside, the city carried on around you. People hurried between work and home. Couples argued over dinner plans. Parents held children’s hands as they crossed busy streets.

A teenager absent-mindedly scribbled something across their forearm while waiting at the lights, grinning when fresh handwriting appeared beside it a heartbeat later.

Their soulmate had replied.

Lucky them.

You looked away before they noticed you staring. There was no point wondering what it felt like. You’d made peace with the fact that you’d probably never know.

Or at least, you’d gotten very good at pretending you had.

Jason had made every news station in Gotham before breakfast.

Damian hadn’t intended to watch it. He’d walked into the kitchen cause Alfred had insisted everyone eat together while they were all in Gotham, only to find the tv already running quietly in the corner. A familiar image occupied nearly every channel. Red Hood disappearing across a rooftop. The freeze-frame paused just as the damaged plating along his hip shifted enough to expose black ink beneath.

A soulmark.

The reporters seemed incapable of discussing anything else.

“The identity of Red Hood’s soulmate remains unknown…

…social media has already begun comparing the mark to historical soulmate registries…

…raising renewed questions about whether Gotham’s vigilantes are adequately protecting those connected to them…”

Damian looked away before the segment finished.

People had always been intrusive where soulmates were concerned. They asked strangers questions they’d never dream of asking otherwise. When were you meeting them? Were you together? Were you trying? Had you rejected them? Did they reject you? Had they wanted you when they saw you?

It was strange what the existence of a bond entitled complete strangers to know.

Todd hadn’t commented on it once. Neither had Father.

Though, neither needed to.

The manor simply carried on as though nothing had happened, despite the fact every member of the family had undoubtedly seen the footage already.

Alfred served breakfast. Dick complained about the coffee. Tim answered emails between bites without looking up from his phone.

Only the occasional glance toward Jason betrayed that anyone had noticed at all.

Damian appreciated that.

If the mark had belonged to him, he would have expected the same courtesy.

←↓→↑

He found himself wondering whether his soulmate had seen the broadcast.

Statistically, they probably had. Everyone watched the news after a vigilante was involved.

Would they have recognised the mark for what it was? Would they have wondered what sort of person belonged to Red Hood? Would they have imagined someone dangerous?

The thought irritated him more than it should have.

His soulmate had no reason to concern themselves with another person’s bond. Their attention belonged elsewhere.

His gaze dropped, almost unconsciously, to the inside of his own wrist.

Nothing.

No fresh handwriting wound around his skin. No absent-minded doodles.

Nothing had appeared there in years.

When he was young, the messages had arrived often enough that he eventually began expecting them.

Never on a schedule or enough to establish a pattern. Just, frequently enough that every few weeks he would wake to find unfamiliar handwriting stretching across his arm.

Are you there?

Sometimes that was all. Other times there was more.

Today’s been really bad.

I don’t want to be by myself right now.

The handwriting had always been clumsy.

Large letters that struggled to stay in straight lines, becoming neater with every passing year as childish motor skills gradually matured into something steadier. Occasionally there would be little smudges where the side of a hand had dragged through still-wet ink.

He had read every message.

Yet he had never answered one.

At the time, the decision had been obvious.

The League did not encourage soulmates. They acknowledged their existence because denying reality served no purpose, but sentiment had never held any value there. Your soulmate represented another avenue through which enemies might reach you. Another weakness to be managed.

Replying achieved nothing.

Years later, Father had reached the same conclusion for entirely different reasons.

Bruce had never instructed him not to respond, but he had agreed that anonymity offered protection. A soulmate nobody could identify was a soulmate nobody could target.

Objectively, Damian knew he had done the correct thing. Which only made one question increasingly difficult to dismiss.

Why had they stopped?

They had simply… disappeared. The last message had appeared years ago. Nothing after that.

No questions. No frustrated scribbles written during boring classes. No childish attempts to reach whoever existed on the opposite end of the bond. Just silence.

He had assumed, at first, that they were waiting. Perhaps they expected an answer. When none came, they would eventually try again. They always had before.

Except this time they hadn’t.

It should not have occupied his thoughts as often as it did.

People moved on. Children abandoned imaginary friends. Adults stopped believing in impossible things. Perhaps they had simply reached an age where writing to someone who refused to acknowledge them became embarrassing.

A reasonable conclusion.

One he found himself disliking more every time it occurred to him.

Because that implied they had given up.

On him.

Damian closed the sketchbook resting on his desk with more force than intended. The sound echoed briefly through his room before the manor settled back into its usual quiet.

He remained staring at the cover for several long moments.

He had done exactly what he was taught.

Exactly what logic dictated.

Exactly what would keep both of them safest.

So why did it feel strangely.. wrong that they had finally listened?

Your parents used to joke that they had never really known privacy.

If your father stubbed his toe in the kitchen, your mother would wince from the garden. If your mother caught the flu, your father would spend the week curled beneath blankets beside her, feverish despite never catching the virus himself.

Broken bones, headaches, paper cuts, childbirth. Nothing belonged to just one of them. The pain had always been shared.

But in a way, so was relief.

You grew up watching them laugh over bruises that appeared in matching places, your father kissing your mother’s scraped knuckles that had never touched the pavement because he had been the one to fall.

They carried each other’s suffering so naturally that neither of them seemed to remember there had ever been a time when they hadn’t.

“That’s what soulmates do,” your mother would say whenever you asked.

“No one hurts alone.”

It was spoken like a promise. A fact as certain as gravity. As ordinary as breathing.

You believed it. Everyone did. Then, slowly, your parents stopped talking about your soulmate.

First, they stopped asking whether anything new had appeared. Then the appointments became routine instead of hopeful. Then they stopped mentioning them altogether.

Your father buried himself in research.

Your mother lingered outside your bedroom more often than she used to.

One night, you woke to voices drifting through the hallway.

“…there has to be something they missed.”

“They didn’t.”

“They’re wrong.”

“They’ve repeated every test.”

“They’re still wrong.”

Silence.

Then your mother’s voice, barely louder than a whisper. “What if…”

Another silence, longer this time.

“What if there isn’t anyone?”

You had never heard your father shout before. “There has to be!”

“There doesn’t.”

His voice cracked. “Don’t.”

“You know it’s possible.”

“No.”

“If they’re right..” she whispered. “…then one day they’ll get hurt, and no one will feel it with them.”

The house fell silent.

You stared at the ceiling until morning.

After that, something changed. Your parents still loved each other. They still loved you. But grief settled into the spaces between them.

Your father refused to accept the diagnosis. He found specialists halfway across the country, obscure researchers overseas, experimental studies no one had ever heard of. Every answer that came back the same only convinced him the question hadn’t been asked correctly.

Your mother went with him every time. But eventually even she had stopped believing that there would be a different answer.

When she stopped asking for another opinion, your father never forgave her for it.

Years later, they divorced.

Two people who loved each other deeply enough to share every wound, discovering there was one pain they couldn’t carry together.

You.

Neither of them blamed you.

They looked at you with the same expression people reserved for tragedies no one had caused.

You grew older. Doctors wrote papers about you. Researchers asked for blood samples. Every form returned with the same impossible conclusion.

Inconclusive.

You tried telling yourself it didn’t matter. People survived without parents. Without friends. Without homes. You could survive without a soulmate.

Except no one else ever had. Not once. There hadn’t been a single case of someone born without a soulmate ever.

You weren’t unlucky. You were impossible. And impossibilities weren’t supposed to exist.

Sometimes you’d catch your parents looking at you when they thought you weren’t paying attention.

You couldn’t tell if it was disappointment, resentment, or grief.

You stopped wondering why fate had forgotten you.

It followed you through school. Through birthdays. Through every doctor who couldn’t explain you. Through every pitying glance. Until, one day, it stopped sounding like fear.

It simply sounded true.

You should have never been born.

The food on the plate in front of you had gone cold a long time ago.

You’d bought it mostly to justify occupying the table, pushing fries around the paper tray more than actually eating them.

Around you, the food court buzzed with the usual afternoon crowd. Children tugged exhausted parents toward the dessert stands. Teenagers laughed too loudly over shared drinks. Somewhere nearby, someone dropped a tray, followed immediately by the chorus of sympathetic groans from strangers.

You were halfway through convincing yourself to leave when a shadow fell across your table.

“Mind if I sit here?”

You glanced up.

Whoever this person is was about your age, maybe a little older. Attractive enough that a few nearby heads had already turned in their direction before looking away again.

“There are plenty of empty tables.”

“There are.” They smiled easily. “But you are sitting at this one.”

You stared for another second before giving a small shrug. “If you want.”

They slid into the seat opposite you without hesitation.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

You expected the silence to become awkward. Instead, they stole one of your fries.

“You weren’t eating them.”

“I was considering it.”

“Well, now you have to. Can’t let me win.”

A laugh escaped before you could stop it. It surprised both of you.

Then they were grinning. “I knew you could smile.”

You rolled your eyes, though there wasn’t much annoyance behind it.

This person was.. easy. Felt like the sort of person who filled silences without suffocating them.

Conversation came pretty naturally after that. Nothing particularly important. Complaints about the shopping centre. The impossibility of finding decent coffee. A movie neither of you had actually finished despite insisting you’d eventually get around to it.

It was pleasant. Dangerously so. You caught yourself relaxing.

Then your phone buzzed and you caught the time.

“I should get going.”

“So soon?”

“I’ve got things to do.”

“Fair enough.” They stood as you gathered your things, rocking back on their heels for a moment before patting their pockets.

“Damn.”

“What?”

“I don’t have any paper.”

“…Congratulations?”

They laughed. “I was trying to ask for your number.”

“Oh.”

You hadn’t expected that.

“I mean…” They rubbed the back of their neck sheepishly. “You’re hot. So I thought I’d at least give it a shot.”

You hesitated just long enough for them to snap their fingers.

“I’ve got an idea.”

Before you could ask what they meant, they reached for your wrist, uncapping a pen they’d pulled from their pocket.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Without really waiting for an answer, they turned your arm over and, with surprisingly neat handwriting, scribbled a phone number across the inside of your forearm.

The pen tickled against your skin.

“There,” they said, clicking the cap back on. “Now you don’t have an excuse.” They winked, gathering their things.

You looked down automatically to the black ink stretching across your forearm.

Their name: Ash. Their number: 0401 863. ‘Call me’ written smaller underneath.

It should have been nothing. Just ink. Just another stranger taking a chance.

Instead, it made your chest tighten. For a fleeting, impossible second, your mind brought up a memory your body hadn’t forgotten.

Small hands. Crayon pressed too hard against skin.

Are you there?

Another message.

Please answer.

Another.

I think something’s wrong with me.

You blinked hard.

The memory vanished as quickly as it had come.

“…You okay?”

You looked back up, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes.

“Yeah.”

Your fingers unconsciously drifted over the fresh ink. “I just…”

You couldn’t explain why seeing words on your arm suddenly made your chest ache.

“…haven’t written on myself in a very long time.”

The afternoon was loud. Far too loud for Damian’s liking.

He sat at the edge of the group, his posture perfect, expression a mask of practiced indifference. Public outings required a level of restraint that felt unnatural to him.

Dick was laughing at something Jason had said, and even Bruce seemed slightly less tense than usual.

Damian didn't care about the noise. Or about the conversation. He was mostly preoccupied with the sensation of the sunlight hitting his forearms. For the first time in years, he wasn't wearing the long sleeves or the tactical gloves he used to shroud his skin.

He had decided, with a cold sort of logic, that the bond was dead.

The silence from his skin had lasted so long years of nothingness that he had finally accepted the most likely reality: his soulmate had stopped looking for him. You had given up.

He was fine with that. It was efficient.

Then, the sting began.

It wasn't a sharp pain, but a slow, itching warmth, as if a heated needle were dragging across the underside of his left forearm. Damian stiffened. He kept his hands resting on the table, but his heart gave a singular, heavy thud against his ribs.

No, he thought. Not now.

He watched the skin. It started as a faint, dark smudge, then the lines began to bleed through the surface of his flesh, as if an invisible hand were pressing a pen into his muscle.

Dick was the first to notice the change in his posture. "Dami? You okay?"

Damian didn't answer. He couldn't. He was too busy staring at his own arm.

The writing was appearing in elegant, sweeping loops. Cursive. It was beautiful, flowing, and utterly offensive.

Ash

0401 863

Call me ;)

Damian’s breath hitched. His eyes scanned the script, his brain overworking with the mechanical speed of a detective.

He knew your handwriting. He had spent a decade studying the messy, jagged print of the messages he had received as a child.

His soulmate’s handwriting had always been blunt. Childish, hurried, and unrefined. You’d written in print, scrawled in desperation.

This wasn't it. This was polished. This was intentional. This was the handwriting of a stranger.

Someone had held your arm. Someone had pressed a pen to your skin. Someone had dared to claim a space on a body that belonged, by divine right, to him.

"Whoa," Jason leaned in, his eyes widening as he spotted the dark lines on Damian's arm. "Is that... is that a soulmark? Since when do you have a writing bond?"

The table went silent as the family stared. For the first time in his life, the secret was out. The quiet, private connection he had guarded like a weapon was visible for everyone to see.

"Damian?" Bruce asked, his voice low, laced with a rare note of surprise. "You never said-"

"Be quiet," Damian snapped, his voice cutting through the air like a blade.

He wasn't looking at them. He was staring at the name. It felt like a slur.

Ash

He could feel the phantom sensation of the stranger’s hand on his skin, a greasy, intrusive warmth that made him want to scrub his arm until it bled.

It had been years. He had waited in the silence, convinced you had forgotten him, convinced you had moved on to a life where he didn't exist. And then, finally, the silence broke. The bond had screamed back to life after years of dormancy.

But it wasn't a "hello." It wasn't an "are you there?" It wasn't a cry for help.

It was a phone number. It was an invitation. It was a stranger's attempt to steal the only thing Damian was supposed to truly call his own.

His hands curled into fists on the table, his knuckles turning white. The rage was quiet, but it was absolute. Someone was touching you. Someone was talking to you. Someone was trying to take the person who had spent a lifetime writing into the void, waiting for a response that wasn’t coming.

And the response was a stranger's name.

"Damian, you're shaking," Dick said softly, reaching out a hand.

Damian pulled his arm back, tucking it close to his body, hiding the elegant, loathsome cursive from their eyes.

His gaze was dark, focused, and predatory.

The sound of the city became nothing more than a dull roar in the background. Damian didn't hear Bruce's worried voice or Jason’s insensitive joke. He didn’t see Tim and Dick’s shared glances. The only thing that existed was the black ink on his skin.

He slid out of the booth, his movements jerky and frantic.

"Damian, where are you going?" Bruce asked, his voice sharp and commanding.

He didn't answer. He couldn't. If he spoke, he was afraid of what might come out.

He stormed away from the table, ignoring the confused looks from his family, and practically ran toward the restroom.

The moment he locked the door behind him, he collapsed against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold tile. He yanked his sleeve up, his fingers digging into the skin around the words.

Call me ;)

He hated it. He hated the person who had written it. He hated the precision of the cursive, how confident and sure it looked. This was a person who had no idea who they were dealing with. They had no idea that by writing on his soulmate, they had essentially written a death sentence for themselves if he could ever find them.

But as he stared at the ink, the rage began to ebb, replaced by something far worse.

He felt sick.

He felt small.

He hadn't answered his soulmate.

For years, he had read your heartbreaks, your fears, your lonely pleas, and he had met you with sterile, echoing silence. He had waited. He had played a game of patience, convinced that if he just waited long enough, you would eventually find him on your own.

And now you had. You had found someone else.

"You should have kept writing," he whispered, his voice cracking. He pressed his forehead against his knees, his eyes burning. "You should have waited for me."

He felt pathetic. The great Damian Wayne, the heir to the League of Assassins, was currently huddled in a public restroom tearing up over a phone number.

He felt like a child again, the one who would read the messages on his arm and then uselessly try to rub them away with a damp cloth, pretending they never existed, even as he felt his heart break every single time.

He reached for the paper towels on the dispenser and grabbed a handful, soaking them in water. He held his arm out, his hand shaking, and began to scrub at the ink.

At the name.

He rubbed harder. The skin turned red, the water and rough paper scratching at the surface of his flesh. He wanted it gone. He wanted the name to vanish, to disappear as if it had never been written. He wanted the stranger to be erased from existence.

But the ink wouldn't budge.

"I'll find you," he whispered, his voice ragged. "I'll find you and I'll make sure you never forget who you belong to."

He didn't have a plan. He didn't know who the person was or where you were. But as he sat there in the dim light of the restroom, his chest heaving and his arm raw and red, there was a new, sharper purpose in his eyes.

He had ignored you long enough. Now, he would be the one doing the hunting.

The evening had passed in a blur of crowds, train announcements, and familiar exhaustion that settled over Gotham once the workday ended.

By the time you unlocked your apartment door, your attention was fixed on the familia routine. Keys in the bowl beside the entrance. Bag on the chair. Shoes kicked off near the wall.

You were halfway through rubbing at your eyes when something on your arm had caught your attention.

For a moment, your brain failed to make sense of what you were seeing.

The writing was gone.

You stared down at your forearm.

The name that had been written near your wrist had disappeared beneath a thick streak of black ink. The number stretched somewhere underneath it, hidden beneath layer after layer of aggressive, uneven marker.

Whoever had done it had covered the writing completely, obscuring every letter beneath a blown-out dark smear.

A hundred explanations flashed through your head, each more ridiculous than the last. None of them made sense.

Slowly, you turned your arm beneath the light.

The ink stayed where it was. Fresh enough that it still looked almost glossy beneath the overhead lamp.

Your fingers brushed across it. Dry.

You frowned.

The stranger's number should have still been there. You'd checked it at least three times on the train ride home.

Twice because you were considering calling, then again because you couldn't quite believe someone had actually flirted with you so outright.

Now it looked as though someone had taken a marker and buried every trace of it.

Your stomach tightened. Your mind going back years ago.

To one of many small examination rooms. Familiar bright white walls. The smell of disinfectant.

You were eight years old, legs dangling from a chair too tall for you.

"Have you ever tried writing on yourself?" the doctor had asked gently.

You remembered laughing.

Of course you had.

Every kid who hadn’t gotten hurt by another yet did.

You'd covered your arms with marker for years. Names. Questions. Drawings. Entire conversations directed at a person who never answered.

Nothing had ever happened.

The specialists called it unusual. Some forums called it heartbreaking. Or fake.

Your gaze dropped back to the black ink covering your arm. Something had written over that number. Something had responded.

You didn’t feel any excitement. Or hope. If anything, what you felt seemed closer to dread.

Hope was dangerous.

Hope was what had kept your parents scheduling appointment after appointment, convinced the next specialist would finally have an answer. Hope was what left your mother crying behind closed bathroom doors after another inconclusive test. Hope was what taught you, over and over again, that wanting something badly enough didn't make it real.

You'd spent years trying not to care. Years learning how to ignore the empty space where everyone else seemed to carry certainty. One strange mark wasn't enough to undo that.

You pulled your sleeve down over your arm. The black streak vanished beneath the fabric. Better. Safer.

"Means nothing," you muttered.

You didn't believe your own words.

The rest of the evening passed normally enough. Dinner. Dishes. Television playing quietly in the background. The ordinary rhythm of a life that had long since moved on from childhood fantasies.

Yet every so often, your hand drifted toward your covered forearm.

Every time it did, the same feeling returned. An uncomfortable awareness that something had changed. After years of silence, something had finally answered.

And you had no idea whether or not that was a good thing.

→↓←↑

You shuffled into the bathroom still half asleep, already thinking about getting an energy drink more than anything else.

The mirror was fogged around the edges from the shower running in the neighbouring apartment, and the cold tiles beneath your feet made you wish you’d bothered finding your slippers.

You rolled your sleeve up almost absent-mindedly. The black streak was still there.

You reached automatically for the sink, wetting a corner of the hand towel before rubbing experimentally at the edge of the ink.

Nothing.

“Figures.” The muttered complaint barely left your mouth before something caught your eye.

You frowned. The towel paused against your skin.

You leaned closer to the mirror.

Yesterday, the marker had been solid. Messy, thick, almost violent in the way it covered the stranger’s handwriting. Now there was a gap big enough for your skin to show through.

You were certain it hadn’t been there before.

For a ridiculous moment, you wondered whether you’d accidentally rubbed some of the ink away on your sleeve.

Then you noticed the line beneath it. Fresh ink.

Your stomach sank. The handwriting wasn’t yours. It wasn’t the stranger’s either. The stranger had written in looping cursive, every letter rounded and practiced. This was precise. Almost painfully neat. Each stroke looked deliberate, measured before it had ever touched skin.

Three words.

Don’t call them.

You read them once. Then again. Your eyes drifted over the sentence a third time, as though repetition alone might make it mean something different.

It didn’t. It remained exactly what it had been the first time. An instruction.

Not a greeting. Not a question. Not even an explanation. Just…

Don’t call them.

You found yourself looking around the apartment before you could stop yourself. The living room. The kitchen. The locked front door. Empty.

“…Okay.” You laughed under your breath.

Nothing about this was funny, but the alternative felt insane.

You’d spent most of your life wishing something - anything would happen. That one day there’d be a mistake. A delayed bond. An explanation.

Now, standing alone in your bathroom with unfamiliar handwriting on your arm, you wanted a perfectly rational answer more than anything.

Your fingers hovered over the words. Careful not to smudge them. The ink was dry. As though it had been there for hours.

You swallowed.

Then, before you could talk yourself out of it, you walked back into the kitchen, dug through the junk drawer until you found an old biro, and returned to the bathroom.

The tip hovered over your forearm.

You stared at the empty patch of skin beneath the unfamiliar message for nearly a minute.

This was stupid.

You knew exactly how soulmate writing worked.

Or rather, you knew how it was supposed to work.

Children discovered it by accident. Teenagers filled each other’s arms with jokes. Adults stopped because texting was easier. Nobody your age stood in their bathroom writing into empty space. Not unless they’d completely lost it.

“Whatever.”

The pen touched your skin. Your handwriting hadn’t changed much since childhood.

Still print. Still slightly untidy. Still pressed a little too hard.

Who are you?

You capped the pen almost immediately afterwards.

Nothing happened.

You’d expected as much.

You were already turning away when warmth spread beneath your skin. It wasn’t painful, just unexpected.

You looked down instinctively.

The place beneath your question tingled, the sensation travelling slowly enough that you could follow it with your eyes.

And then Ink.

Not appearing all at once. Growing. One careful letter after another.

The ink surface beneath your skin one deliberate stroke at a time, each line settling into place before the next began. There was no rush to it. Whoever was writing wasn’t hesitating, but they weren’t hurrying either.

Like they knew you would wait.

By the time the sentence finished, your pulse had climbed into your throat.

Don’t accept things from strangers.

You frowned.

That wasn’t an answer.

Your eyes flicked up to the question still sitting above it.

Who are you?

They’d ignored it completely.

Another line began to appear. The warmth returned beneath your skin, travelling just ahead of the fresh ink.

Don’t let anyone else touch you like that again.

Your eyebrows slowly pulled together. “…That’s what you’re worried about?”

After everything. After years of nothing. After every specialist, every appointment, every unanswered question.. Whoever was on the other end had apparently decided that the pressing issue was a phone number.

You looked down at the biro still resting in your hand.

It felt strangely inadequate now.

Slowly, you uncapped it again. Your handwriting looked clumsy beside the careful precision of theirs.

You didn’t answer my question.

You hesitated, then added another beneath it.

Who are you?

The reply came quicker this time. Almost immediately.

The familiar warmth spread beneath your skin, and before you’d even finished reading your own words, fresh ink had begun to weave itself between them.

That doesn’t matter yet.

The sentence continued without pause.

Tell me whether you called them.

You blinked. “Seriously?”

The absurdity of it almost made you laugh. That was it? No introduction. No explanation. Not even an acknowledgement that this was impossible. Just another question about someone you’d shared fries with for twenty minutes.

Your fingers rubbed absent-mindedly at the bridge of your nose. “This is unbelievable.”

You looked back down at your arm. The neat handwriting stared back at you.

You sighed through your nose before writing again.

No.

The ink had barely dried before another reply began. Only two words this time.

Good. Don’t.

You stared at them. The corners of your mouth twitched despite yourself.

“You’re bossy.” There was no irritation behind the words. Mostly disbelief.

You’d finally found the person who was supposedly meant to answer every question you’d spent half your life asking, and apparently they preferred giving orders instead.

Damian hadn't realised how completely his priorities had shifted until he found himself standing in front of the Batcomputer, staring at an unfinished mission report he'd been pretending to read for nearly ten minutes.

He couldn't remember a single word.

His eyes kept returning to the faded writing winding around the inside of his forearm.

Nine messages. That was all.

It should have been insignificant.

He had exchanged more words with criminals before incapacitating them.

Yet somehow those nine short sentences had managed to uproot routines that had taken years to build.

He read them again.

Who are you?

Don't accept things from strangers.

Don't let anyone else touch you like that again.

You didn't answer my question.

Who are you?

That doesn't matter yet.

Tell me whether you called them.

No.

Good. Don't.

His thumb brushed unconsciously across one of the final words. Good.

It shouldn't have brought him relief.

But it did. An almost embarrassing amount.

The stranger had failed. You hadn't called them. Whatever smile you'd given that person, whatever polite conversation you'd entertained, whatever curiosity they’d mistaken for interest had ended there.

You had chosen not to continue it.

Damian hadn't realised how tightly he'd been holding himself together until that single word had loosened something inside his chest.

Not enough. Never enough. But enough that he could breathe again. For the first time since your messages appeared.

Then the relief faded. Because relief left room for thought. And thought was infinitely crueler.

Someone else had reached you first. Someone else had stood close enough to touch your wrist. Someone else had looked directly into your face. Someone else knew what colour your eyes were.

Damian didn't.

Someone else knew how tall you were. How your voice sounded. Whether you smiled with your mouth closed or laughed loudly enough to turn heads.

Someone else had information Damian should have had years ago.

The irrationality of the thought didn't make it disappear. He understood perfectly well that you hadn't betrayed him.

How could you? You didn't know him.

As far as you were concerned, your soulmate had ignored every message you'd ever written.

Every birthday. Every question. Every lonely evening. Every desperate attempt to find the person destined to answer.

He had been silent.

Not by choice. But silence looked the same from the other side.

He knew that.

If the positions had been reversed… If he had written for years.. If every answer had been met with nothing.. Would he have waited forever?

…

He wanted to say yes.

But he couldn’t.

His hand curled into a fist.

You'd lived an entire life while he wasn't there. Years of mornings. Of birthdays. Of scraped knees, illnesses, graduations, celebrations, disappointments.

Had someone hugged you when things became too much? Who comforted you when you cried? Who celebrated your successes? Who remembered your favourite food? Who knew your drink order? Who made you laugh after terrible days?

Questions multiplied faster than he could suppress them.

Did you live alone? Did you have roommates? Did you lock your doors? Did you own any means of defending yourself? Were you careful walking home at night? Had anyone ever hurt you?

Yesterday had already answered one of those questions.

Yes. Someone had.

Maybe not physically. But someone had ignored your discomfort long enough for you to write to a stranger instead.

To him.

You had reached for someone you couldn't even identify because the people around you hadn't been enough.

That thought settled somewhere deep beneath his ribs. Heavy and permanent.

He looked again at the sentence he'd written. Don't let anyone else touch you like that again.

He hadn't thought before writing it. There hadn't been time. Logic had come afterward. The wording had been possessive. Demanding. Unlike him.

No. Exactly like him. Just... stripped bare.

He closed his eyes. You must have thought he was insane. Some anonymous soulmate who vanished for decades only to return issuing orders. He would have been irritated too.

No.

He would have blocked himself.

Yet...

You hadn't.

You'd argued. Questioned him. Demanded answers. But you hadn't stopped writing.

Why?

Curiosity? Hope? Loneliness? Or had something inside you recognised the same impossible pull clawing through him?

He hated not knowing. He hated uncertainty. He hated relying on something as intangible as fate.

His entire life had been built on eliminating uncertainty. Gather information. Observe.Investigate. Prepare. Control what could be controlled. The League had taught him that. His father had refined it.

The soulbond ignored every single one of those principles.

It had expected him to wait. To trust. To believe.

He had. For years.

Where had it gotten either of you?

You alone in a shopping centre. Him halfway across the city learning about it after the fact.

No. Enough.

He opened his eyes.

The Batcomputer came alive beneath his fingertips. Monitors illuminated one after another, blue light reflecting across his face. Access permissions unfolded without resistance.

Traffic cameras. Retail security networks. Public transport footage. Cell tower data. Facial recognition databases. Search parameters. Time. Location. Shopping centre.

He could hear his father's voice in the back of his mind.

"People deserve privacy, Damian."

Normally, he would have agreed. He would have waited until you chose to reveal yourself. Normally.

Yesterday someone had approached you.

Tomorrow someone else might.

He had spent years believing fate would keep you safe until it brought you together. Yesterday had demonstrated exactly how fragile that assumption was.

For most of his life, Damian Wayne had believed his greatest weakness would be failing his mission.

He understood now that he'd been wrong.

His greatest weakness had a heartbeat.

That somewhere out there, someone was completely unaware that the heir to Batman was already searching every camera in Gotham just to catch a single glimpse of the face he'd imagined since childhood.

His finger pressed the key.

The search began.

↑←↓→

Finding you hadn’t been particularly difficult. Not once Damian started looking.

The shopping centre gave him a face. The face gave him transport records. Transport records became a place of work. A place of work became an address.

Within four days, he knew more about your routine than you did.

You bought the same energy drink from the convenience store three mornings out of five, apologised to inanimate objects whenever you bumped into them, and forgot to eat lunch often enough that the café downstairs had begun recognising the pattern.

You had a habit of reading while waiting for pedestrian lights to change. You wore headphones without turning any music on whenever you didn’t want strangers talking to you. You checked your pockets twice before locking your front door.

You laughed with your whole face. You rubbed your eyes whenever you became overwhelmed.

You were, Damian decided, catastrophically easy to lose.

And even easier to protect.

The first time he introduced himself, it was as Damian Wayne. Not your soulmate. Just the youngest Wayne.

Professionally interested in one of Wayne Enterprises’ newest projects.

Your company had recently entered into a partnership with Wayne Enterprises.

You’d smiled.

Held out your hand.

Introduced yourself with the same easy politeness you seemed to offer everyone.

He’d looked at your outstretched hand for the briefest moment before taking it.

His fingers closed around yours carefully. Almost reverently.

“So,” you’d said with an awkward laugh, “I guess we’ll be seeing each other a lot.”

“Yes.”

You’d mistaken the certainty in his voice for confidence.

It wasn’t. It was a statement of fact.

After that, he simply… remained.

Meetings that didn’t strictly require his attendance somehow did. Business lunches became routine. Coffee would already be waiting on your desk before you arrived.

When your workload became unreasonable, departments quietly shifted resources without anyone quite understanding why. When your apartment building’s security contract came up for renewal, Wayne Security acquired it. When your favourite café struggled financially, it received an anonymous investment.

You never knew.

You only noticed that life had become a little easier.

Financial inconveniences disappeared before they had the chance to reach you.

You thanked luck. Damian thanked himself.

The rest happened so gradually that even you struggled to pinpoint when it had changed.

His hand settled against the small of your back whenever crowds became too dense.

He began walking you to your car after evening meetings.

Your favourite snacks appeared in his office because “you always steal mine.”

He started calling you when you worked late.

Then expecting you to answer.

Then asking where you were if you didn’t.

“You don’t have to keep looking after me,” you’d laughed one afternoon as he wordlessly took the heavier stack of folders from your arms.

“I know.”

“You do realise I’m an adult?”

“I am aware.”

You smiled, shaking your head. “You’re impossible.”

Damian looked at you for a long moment.

No. He thought quietly. I’m simply making up for lost time.

You never noticed the way his eyes lingered on your forearm whenever your sleeves rode up. Or how his expression softened whenever your handwriting appeared there.

The conversations continued. Always through ink. Never in person.

You still didn’t know.

You still believed your soulmate was someone else. Someone you hadn’t met.

Damian intended to keep it that way.

Not forever.

Just until he’d repaired everything the years of silence had broken. Until you trusted him without hesitation. Until you looked for him first. Until your apartment felt less like home than Wayne Manor. Until every decision you made instinctively accounted for him. Until loving him became as natural as breathing.

Then, and only then, would he tell you the truth.

By that point, Damian no longer believed it would matter.

Because by then, there would be nowhere else in the world you would ever want to be except exactly where he’d spent the years wishing you had always been.

Beside him.

You had skipped breakfast after oversleeping, rushed through the front doors of Wayne Enterprises with your hair still damp, and spent the next four hours buried beneath spreadsheets.

Around noon, someone knocked once on your office door.

You looked up. Damian stepped inside carrying a paper bag from the café downstairs. "I noticed you didn't eat."

You smiled despite yourself. "You came all the way down here for that?"

"You become irritable when your blood sugar drops." He set the bag on your desk with the same care he used when placing files in front of Bruce during board meetings.

"I thought you would appreciate the reminder."

It was thoughtful. You thanked him.

By the second week, he stopped asking if you'd eaten. He already knew.

"I brought lunch."

"I'm actually going out with the accounting department."

"You aren't."

You frowned. "We already planned it."

Damian removed a small container from the paper bag before speaking.

"They rescheduled."

"What?"

"They've been called into an emergency budget meeting."

Your phone buzzed. Every person in the group chat was apologising.

Sorry! Something came up.

Rain check?

You stared at the messages. "...That's weird."

"It happens." Damian placed a pair of chopsticks beside your lunch. "Eat before it gets cold."

You hesitated. Then opened the container.

It kept happening.

Whenever coworkers invited you somewhere, plans somehow dissolved before they happened.

A canceled reservation. An urgent meeting. Someone suddenly calling in sick.

After a while, people simply stopped asking.

It wasn't deliberate. It was just easier to assume you were busy. So lunch became something you shared with Damian.

Every day.

Without either of you ever discussing it.

↑←↓→

It was raining when you left the office.

Not super hard, just enough to make the pavement shine beneath the streetlights. You shoved your hands into the pockets of your coat and hurried toward the subway entrance, already thinking about the leftovers waiting in your apartment.

"You'll catch a cold."

You didn't have to turn around. "I'll survive."

Damian fell into step beside you, holding a black umbrella over both of you despite the fact that he'd appeared from nowhere. You hadn't seen him leave the building.

"You've said that before."

"I've also survived before."

"That isn't the point."

You sighed. "Then what is?"

"The point is that your zipper is broken."

Instinctively, you glanced down at your coat. The zipper caught halfway, as it always did. You gave it another tug before giving up. "I know. I'll replace it eventually."

Damian's eyes lingered on the torn seam near your wrist. "No."

You frowned. "No?"

"You won't."

"I literally just said I would."

"You said 'eventually.'" His tone remained perfectly even. "That generally means you have no intention of doing it until circumstances force you to."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

Something about the certainty in his voice irritated you.

"You don't get to decide whether I'm going to buy a coat."

"I already have."

You stopped walking. "So that's it?" You laughed once, short and incredulous. "You've decided for me?"

"You require one."

"I require money more."

"You have sufficient savings for the amount you have worked."

"How would you know what my savings look like?"

For the first time since the conversation began, Damian hesitated. Only for a fraction of a second. "It isn't relevant."

"It becomes relevant when you somehow know how much money I have."

"I know enough."

The answer settled uncomfortably in your stomach. You wanted to ask another question. Instead, you started walking again.

Neither of you spoke for the rest of the trip.

←↑↓→

Three days later, the receptionist downstairs smiled as you entered your apartment building.

"A package came for you this morning."

"I wasn't expecting one."

"It didn't have a return address."

The box was surprisingly heavy.

Inside was a winter coat. Not just any coat. The exact one you'd stopped to look at in a shop window two weeks earlier.

You remembered standing outside the display for maybe thirty seconds before deciding it was too expensive.

You'd never mentioned it to anyone. Not even Damian.

There was no gift receipt.

Nothing except a small envelope tucked beneath the tissue paper.

Inside was a single card.

Your previous coat no longer provided adequate protection. Dispose of it.

No signature. There didn't need to be one.

The coat fit perfectly.

→←↑↓

"You bought me a coat."

Damian didn't look up from the documents spread across his desk. "I replaced one."

"I never asked you to."

"No."

"I told you not to spend money on me."

"I didn't." He finally looked up. "I spent money on an item."

"...Which you then gave to me."

"Correct."

"So you spent money on me."

"No." His expression remained completely serious. "I spent money maintaining an asset under my care."

You stared at him. "An asset?"

He frowned slightly, as if that wasn't the word he'd intended. "A responsibility."

"I'm not your responsibility."

"You are."

"No, Damian. I'm not."

"You arrived at work soaked twice last week because you refused to replace damaged clothing. You developed a cough yesterday."

"I would've bought one eventually."

"You were cold."

"I said I would've bought one."

"But you didn't." He spoke with the same patient tone someone might use while explaining something obvious to a child. "Intent is meaningless if the outcome remains the same."

You opened your mouth to argue but he continued before you could.

"When Titus refuses to come inside during winter, I don't leave him outside because he wishes to stay there."

"...Did you just compare me to your dog?"

"I compared your behavior."

"No. You compared me."

"I compared two living beings who consistently underestimate environmental hazards."

"One of those living beings is a German Shepherd."

"Yes."

"And the other is me."

"Yes."

He didn't understand why that distinction mattered. You could see it in his face. To Damian, the comparison wasn't insulting. It was practical.

Titus couldn't accurately judge the risk of prolonged exposure to the cold.

Neither, apparently, could you.

The fact that you could speak, hold a job, pay taxes, and argue with him didn't alter the underlying equation in his mind.

Capability wasn't measured by adulthood. It was measured by whether you could reliably keep yourself safe.

He'd already reached his conclusion months ago.

You simply hadn't realised he'd been treating you accordingly.

↑←→↓

It started with coffee.

You'd been ordering the same thing from the café in the lobby since your second week at Wayne Enterprises. Large latte. Whole milk. Two pumps of caramel. It was practically muscle memory. Every morning you'd mumble, "The usual, thanks." Tap your card against the terminal, and collect your cup without thinking.

One Tuesday, you took a sip on the way to the elevator and frowned.

Less sweet.

You glanced back toward the café, wondering if the barista had simply forgotten the syrup. It wasn't worth walking back over, so you drank it anyway.

The next morning it tasted the same.

And the morning after that.

By Friday, you assumed they'd changed the recipe.

A few weeks later, you found yourself standing in line behind two coworkers from accounting. They were chatting idly while the baristas rushed through the morning crowd.

"The usual?" the girl behind the register asked as soon as she saw you.

"Yeah, thanks."

She nodded before you'd said another word. "Oat milk latte. One pump vanilla."

You blinked.

"...Sorry?"

"Oat milk latte?" she repeated, already reaching for a cup. "One pump vanilla."

"No, I usually get caramel."

She looked genuinely confused. "You used to."

"I.." You laughed awkwardly. "No, I still do."

She glanced toward another employee behind the espresso machine. "Didn't they change it?"

"They?"

"The gentleman who usually orders for you."

Your smile faltered. "What gentleman?"

"The one who's in here all the time." She frowned, trying to remember. "Dark hair. Gorgeous. Kind of intimidating."

Your stomach sank. "...Damian?"

"That's his name!" She smiled, relieved.

"He said you'd been trying to cut back on sugar. We've been making it that way ever since."

You stared at her. "I never said that."

"Oh."

Her smile dimmed. "I just assumed.." She looked embarrassed. "I thought he was your assistant."

You didn't answer.

You took the coffee she'd already made, murmured a thank you, and walked away before she could apologise.

Halfway across the lobby, you took another sip. It wasn't even bad. In fact.. It tasted exactly the way you expected your coffee to taste.

You couldn't remember when your own preference had changed.

Or whether it ever had.

That Saturday you decided to stop at woolies on the way home.

Your fridge was nearly empty, and for once you had no plans. No meetings. No dinner at Wayne Manor. No texts from Damian reminding you that you'd skipped lunch.

You grabbed a trolley and headed toward the produce section.

Before you'd made it ten feet, someone in the green Woolworths uniform looked up from unpacking a crate of avocados.

"Oh! You're here yourself today."

You smiled politely. "I usually am."

He laughed. "No, your assistant normally collects everything."

The trolley came to a stop. "My assistant?"

"The bloke."

He pointed vaguely toward the online pickup counter.

"Tall. Black hair. Doesn't smile much."

Your grip tightened around the handle. "I... don't have an assistant."

The employee looked between you and the pickup shelves, clearly thinking he'd made some sort of mistake.

"Oh."

A pause.

"I just figured.." He rubbed the back of his neck. "He knows your order off by heart."

"My order?"

"Yeah."

He gestured toward the refrigerated section. "Every Tuesday. Same online pickup. Chicken breast, brown rice, spinach, Greek yoghurt, blueberries, eggs, almonds..."

He kept listing items one after another. Healthy. Measured. Predictable. Almost identical to what Damian packed for lunch whenever he insisted on bringing you food. Nothing like what you usually got.

"You've got one of the easiest orders to pack in the system," he continued with an easy laugh. "Never changes."

You looked down into your empty trolley. "I don't remember ordering any of that."

He blinked. "...Really?"

"I haven't done online groceries in months."

"Oh." His smile returned, uncertain now. "I guess whoever orders for you just has your account."

You wandered the aisles in a daze after that.

You picked up a box of sugary cereal, then hesitated.

Hadn't you loved this?

Or had you only bought it once?

You reached for the frozen buffalo chicken protein pizza.

No. You preferred the greasy cheesy ones.. Didn't you?

By the time you reached the checkout, your trolley contained almost nothing.

A loaf of bread. Milk. Pasta.

You couldn't remember what else belonged in your kitchen. Everything you reached for came with a second thought.

Damian doesn't buy this.

Not I don't like this. Damian doesn't buy this.

Somewhere, without noticing, you'd stopped shopping for yourself and you'd started shopping according to habits that weren't yours.

When you unlocked your apartment later that evening, you opened the pantry and simply stood there.

Brown rice. Herbal teas. Wholegrain crackers. Natural peanut butter. Every shelf was neat. Organised. Restocked.

You tried to remember buying any of it.

You couldn't.

The only thing you were certain of was that Damian liked all of it.

For the first time since you'd met him, a thought occurred to you that made your skin crawl.

You couldn't remember the last decision you'd made that had remained entirely your own.

↑→↓←

Which doors you were expected to use. Which routes you naturally took through Wayne Enterprises without thinking. Which elevators always seemed to arrive when you were alone, and which ones never did.

It wasn’t obvious enough to call it anything. That was the problem.

If someone had asked you directly whether you were being controlled, you would have said no. You still had your job. Your own apartment. Your own name on the lease. You could leave the building whenever you wanted.

Except you didn’t, not without telling Damian first.

And somehow it had become normal.

It had started as courtesy. You told him when you were heading home so he didn’t “worry about your commute.” Then it became easier to mention where you were going so he wouldn’t text. Then it became automatic, like checking the weather before leaving the house.

Now, when you didn’t say anything, things got complicated.

A car would be waiting when you stepped outside anyway. A message would arrive asking if you’d changed plans.

Once, when you’d tried to leave without telling him at all, security had stopped you at the ground floor.

“Mr Wayne requested confirmation,” the guard had said, checking a list he clearly thought you belonged on. “Just routine.”

You remembered standing there, keycard in your hand, realising you didn’t know when your movements had become something that required confirmation.

You hadn’t argued. There was nothing to argue against that didn’t make you sound paranoid.

So you went back upstairs, and sent Damian a message saying you’d “forgotten something.”

He replied almost immediately.

Good. You’re learning to check in properly.

You stared at the screen for a long time after that.

The worst part wasn’t the obvious things. It was the gaps.

Like how your phone stopped suggesting certain places because you “never went there anymore.” Or how your usual café no longer even appeared in your saved locations. Or how friends stopped inviting you out because every time they tried, schedules collapsed in ways no one could quite explain.

You told yourself it was coincidence until coincidence became too consistent to ignore.

When you asked Maya, your coworker from accounting, the one person who still occasionally tried to include you in plans, she hesitated.

“I mean… it’s always something,” she said carefully one afternoon over coffee. “You’re either busy or something comes up right after you say yes. It’s like… bad timing, constantly.”

“I don’t cancel things,” you said automatically.

She gave you a look you couldn’t quite read. “I know. That’s why it’s weird.”

She didn’t say Damian’s name. No one ever did directly when it felt like it might matter.

But it hung there anyway. Unspoken.

The moment you started to properly feel it, really feel it, was the night you tried to stay out late.

It wasn’t even rebellion. It was exhaustion. You’d been at work too long, your head aching, your phone already buzzing with reminders you hadn’t asked for. So when Maya suggested grabbing dinner nearby, you said yes before you could talk yourself out of it.

For once, nothing immediately fell apart.

No cancelled booking. No sudden emergency. No interrupted plan.

You almost relaxed.

Then your phone rang.

Damian.

You stared at the screen for a few seconds before answering.

“You’re not home,” he said without greeting.

“I’m out.”

A pause. Not surprised. Measured.

“With Maya.”

“Yes.”

Another pause, shorter this time.

“I see.”

Something in his tone made you feel sick. “I didn’t tell you because I thought it didn’t matter,” you added quickly. “It’s just dinner.”

“It matters,” he said simply.

Then, after a beat: “You’re deviating from routine again.”

“I’m allowed to have dinner with a friend.”

“You are allowed to leave the environment I’ve structured for your stability, yes.”

You closed your eyes. “There is no environment you’ve structured for me.”

Silence on the line.

When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “You’re tired. Your judgement will be impaired tonight.”

“That’s not your call.”

“It is when you don’t recognise your own limits.”

Something cold settled behind your ribs. Across the table, Maya was watching you now, pretending not to.

“I’m fine,” you said, quieter.

“You’re not,” Damian replied.

And then, almost gently, “I’ll send a car.”

“I don’t need one.”

“You do.”

You stood up so abruptly your chair scraped the floor.

“I said no.”

The line went cold.

“I hear you,” Damian said.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, he added: “But you’re still not staying out late.”

You stood there holding your phone, realising slowly that he hadn’t threatened you. He hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t even argued. He had simply stated the outcome as something already decided.

Maya said your name, cautiously, and you barely heard her..

You weren’t being managed. You were being kept track of. And you were just now realising how much of your life now required permission you didn’t remember giving.

↓↑→←

The sleek, black sedan pulled up to the curb of the restaurant with a silent, predatory grace. The driver was a man who looked like he had been trained to move without making a sound.

He simply stood by the door, waiting. He didn't look at Maya. He didn't look at the other patrons. He looked only at you, with the expectant, neutral gaze of a handler waiting for a well trained pet to finish its meal.

You felt Maya’s eyes on you, heavy with a mixture of pity and confusion. "Are you.. is everything okay?" she whispered.

"It's fine," you lied, the words tasting like ash. "Just... a long day."

As you slid into the back of the car, the scent of the interior, expensive leather, rain, and that faint, sharp undertone of mint that always seemed to cling to Damian’s presence hit you.

The seat was heated, perfectly adjusted to a temperature you hadn't chosen but always found comfortable. The door closed with a heavy, pressurized thud, sealing you into a private, silent world.

You didn't have to check your phone to know he was watching. You could feel the weight of his attention even from miles away.

When you finally reached the penthouse, the lights were dimmed to a soft, amber glow. The apartment was silent, save for the low hum of the climate control. You kicked off your shoes, feeling the sudden, overwhelming urge to just crawl into bed and disappear, but the routine wouldn't allow it.

Damian was waiting in the living area. He wasn't sitting on the sofa like you expected. He was standing by the floor to ceiling windows, a glass of dark liquid in his hand.

He didn't turn when you entered. He didn't need to. He knew the cadence of your footsteps. He knew the exact moment you crossed the threshold.

"You're late," he said. It didn’t sound like a scolding.

"The dinner ran long," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady. You walked past him toward the kitchen, but he moved with a sudden, fluid grace, intercepting your path.

His tall, lean frame cast a long shadow over you. He reached out, his hand moving to your chin, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw with gentle pressure.

His touch was reminiscent of how he handled the high bred hounds at the manor. Firm, possessive, and entirely devoid of the hesitation one might show a peer.

"You look disheveled," he murmured, his eyes scanning your face, searching for any sign of distress, any sign of 'damage' caused by the outside world. "The city is loud, chaotic. It's too much for you. You shouldn't be out there so late, where things are unpredictable."

"I'm not a child, Damian," you said, though the words felt weak even to your own ears.

"No," he agreed, his thumb moving to brush against your lower lip. "You are much more precious than a child. You are.. delicate. You require a specific kind of stewardship."

He leaned in closer, his scent that cool, sharp mint enveloping you. "When you wander without a leash, you get lost. You get tired. You let people like Maya fill your time with trivialities that serve no purpose for your well being."

A shiver ran down your spine. He spoke of your life as if it were a garden he had planted. He didn't see your independence as a virtue, he saw it as a vulnerability.

"I have dinner planned for you tomorrow," he said, his voice dropping to that smooth, harmonic register that usually calmed you, but now made your heart race with a strange, trapped sensation. "Something light. Something that will help you recover from today's.. exertion."

He stepped back, finally releasing you, but the space he left behind felt cold. He turned his gaze toward the window again, the conversation effectively over.

"Go wash up," he commanded softly. "I've already laid out your clothes. The silk ones. They're softer on your skin."

As you walked toward the bedroom, you realised with a sinking heart that he hadn't even asked how your night was. He hadn't asked if you enjoyed the food or if Maya had said anything interesting. He only cared that you had returned to the enclosure. He only cared that his most cherished thing was back where it belonged: within his reach, under his eyes, and entirely under his care.

You felt like a bird in a gilded cage, and the most terrifying part was how much you had started to rely on the bars to keep you upright.

You had found it tucked away in a drawer of a desk in the library at the manor. A drawer you were never supposed to touch, a space meant for his private ledgers.

It was a small, leather bound sketchbook. Looked to be as old if not older than Damian himself.

You had opened it, expecting business notes or tactical maps.

Instead, you found your own soul.

Every "Are you there?" you had scrawled on your skin as a lonely child was there, preserved in his precise, elegant ink. Every "Please answer" was captured in his beautiful, sweeping script. He hadn't ignored you. He had collected you. He had been reading your heart for years, documenting your loneliness as if it were a sacred text.

The notebook slipped from your hands, hitting the thick rug with a dull thud.

Page after page of your own handwriting stared back at you. Preserved.

Every childish question. Every lonely afternoon. Every desperate, humiliating attempt to convince yourself someone might be listening.

You remembered writing most of them.

You remembered crying after some of them.

You remembered eventually stopping.

Your entire life reduced to paper.

"You were always a curious one," a smooth, deep voice drifted from the doorway.

You bolted upright, your heart hammering hard against your ribs. Damian stood there, silhouetted by the warm light of the hallway. He didn't look angry. He didn't look caught. He looked... satisfied.

"You-you’re.." you breathed, the words trembling. "My soulmate..?"

Damian crossed the room, his movements silent and predatory. He didn't stop until he was hovering over you.

He sank to his knees in front of you, reaching out. His fingers tangled in your hair, petting you with that same, terrifyingly gentle devotion he gave to his most prized pets.

"I was observing," he corrected softly, his deep emerald eyes locked onto yours. "I was waiting until you were ready. Until the world had finished bruising you so that I could be the one to mend you."

"You've been mending me?" You let out a breathless, hysterical laugh. "Damian, you've been curating me! The cars, the security, the 'routines'.. you weren't helping me live. You were making sure I didn't wander off!"

"And why shouldn't you be kept close?" He leaned in, his forehead resting against yours.

His scent that cool, intoxicating mint filled your senses, making your head swim. "The world is a jagged, cruel place. It doesn't know how to handle someone as precious as you. They see a person, they see a worker, a friend, a stranger. They don't see the miracle that you are."

"I'm not a miracle," you protested, trying to push his chest away, but your hands felt weak against his lean muscle. "I am a person. I have a life. I have choices."

"You have my choices," he whispered, his hand sliding down to cup your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin with a rhythmic, soothing motion. "And they are all designed for your happiness. Is it so wrong to want to ensure your comfort? To ensure you are fed, rested, and loved without the interference of the mundane?"

He leaned forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your temple. It burned. Felt nothing like the passion you’d always hoped for.

"You're sick.." you whispered, the word feeling absurd in the face of his overwhelming tenderness.

Damian pulled back just enough to look you in the eye, a small, boyish grin the one that usually looked charming but now looked devastating touching his lips. "A harsh term. I prefer... devoted."

He stood up, reaching down to take your hand. He didn't pull you, he simply offered his palm, waiting for you to take it. It was an invitation, but you knew it was also a command.

"Come," he said, his voice a warm, melodic hum. "You've had a shock. You're trembling. Let's get you settled. I've had Alfred prepare that tea you like, and the new linens are ready." His voice was calm.

If anything, faintly disappointed when you didn’t move. Like bat-cow had wandered somewhere she wasn’t meant to and now required collecting.

You looked at him. Really looked. For the first time since meeting him, pieces that had never seemed connected began slotting together with nauseating precision.

The lunches. The phone calls. The coat. Your coffee. The security downstairs who somehow always recognised you. The reception staff who smiled before you’d spoken. The meetings that always happened to include Damian, regardless of whether they had anything to do with Wayne Enterprises. The quiet, invisible way your life had bent around him until his presence no longer felt unusual.

You couldn’t remember when that had happened. Perhaps that was the point.

“…It was you.”

It came out barely above a whisper. “The whole time.”

Damian crossed the room without hurry.

He stopped close enough that you could smell the familiar scent of mint clinging to his clothes. “I had intended to tell you.”

“When?”

“When it no longer frightened you.”

You laughed. A small, broken sound that didn’t resemble amusement.

“You’ve been lying to me since the day we met.”

“I omitted information.”

“You watched me tell you about my soulmate.”

“Yes.”

“You listened while I told you I wished I’d been born normal.”

His expression changed then. Something softened around his eyes. “I know.”

“I know,” he repeated quietly. “I read every one of those thoughts long before you said them aloud.”

He reached past you, lifting the notebook from the floor with surprising care before setting it back on the desk.

“I remember every message.” His fingertips rested against the worn leather cover.

“‘Are you there?’”

Your breathing caught.

“‘Please answer.’”

You couldn’t move.

“‘I think something’s wrong with me.’”

He recited them without looking.

He already knew them. Every single one.

“I was eight,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“I thought…” Your voice failed.

“I know.”

You stared at him. “You don’t understand.”

“No.”

He looked back at you with complete certainty. “I understand perfectly.” There was no hesitation. No apology. No shame. “I know what you believed.”

His gaze drifted briefly toward your forearm before returning to your face.

“I know how often you blamed yourself.”

He lifted a hand, brushing an invisible crease from your sleeve with the same absent care he’d shown a hundred times before.

“I know you stopped buying caramel because I preferred vanilla. I know you only pretend to like herbal tea. I know you sleep better if the room is colder. I know you become overwhelmed when supermarkets are crowded. I know you forget to eat whenever work becomes stressful.”

“You don’t..” Your throat felt painfully tight. “You don’t know me.”

A flicker of genuine confusion crossed his face. “I know you better than anyone.”

“You’ve been watching me.”

“Of course I have.” The answer came so naturally that, for a second, it almost sounded ridiculous that you’d asked.

“I lost so many years.” His voice remained even. “I have been correcting that.”

He looked around the room. At the books on the shelves. The chair by the window. The cup of tea growing cold beside the sofa. Your home.

Then he looked back at you. “I have spent every day since finding you making your life easier.” He smiled softly. “You call it manipulation because you insist on imagining the life you had before I arrived.” He stepped closer. “So do I.”

There was no triumph in his expression. Only something devastatingly gentle. “I remember the person who apologised for taking up space. The person who believed fate had simply… forgotten them.”

His hand settled lightly against your cheek. “I remember because I was the one reading it.”

“You keep looking at everything I’ve done and asking yourself how I could justify it.” His forehead rested lightly against yours. “You’ve misunderstood.”

His voice dropped into something almost unbearably soft. “I’ve never had to.”

There wasn’t the slightest doubt in him. Not after the notebook. Not after the messages. Not after so many years. In Damian’s mind, he’d already spent a lifetime loving you.

The only difference now was that you finally knew his name.

Please comment and reblog :)

13K+ words, 77K+ characters, 1K+ sentences, 1K+ paragraphs, 47 minute average reading time, 1 hour 11 minute average speaking time.

I lowkey really rushed this one to get it out before the end of the month, so I apologise if it’s obvious

Read Tim Drake’s part here.

Read Jason Todd’s part here.

Read Bruce Wayne’s part here.

↑←↓→

The most common bond was pain resonance.

One soulmate scraped their knee, the other felt sting. One broke a bone, the other suffered for it too.

Entire support groups existed for those unfortunate enough to be paired with athletes, construction workers, and adrenaline junkies.

Other bonds were rarer.

Dreamers could meet one another in sleep.

Some soulmates heard each other’s thoughts.

Others carried first words on their skin.

There were even people who saw flashes of each other’s lives through mirrors.

Every bond was different. Every bond was special.

Yours was a mark.

A simple symbol resting against your hip.

You’d spent most of your childhood believing it was a birthmark.

It resembled a bird frozen mid-flight. Two elegant wings spread wide across the dip in your skin.

When you were younger, you’d trace it absent-mindedly after baths, wondering why it looked so different from everyone else’s.

Your mother had laughed when you asked. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

At six years old, that answer had been deeply unsatisfying.

At ten, you’d become convinced your soulmate was secretly an angel.

At eleven, you’d grown embarrassed by the entire theory.

At fifteen..

The mark disappeared.

Not faded. Not lightened. Disappeared.

You remembered staring at your reflection for nearly an hour.

The skin was smooth. Unmarked. Empty.

The shape that had existed your entire life was simply gone.

Nobody knew what that meant.

There were stories, of course. There were always stories.

Old forums. Urban legends. Half-remembered articles. A bond breaking. The universe making mistakes.

None of them were verified. None of them made sense.

You tried not to think about it. ‘Tried’ being the important word.

Because something else happened that day. Something far worse.

You woke up feeling wrong.

Not sick. Or injured.

Wrong.

Like someone had reached inside your chest and scooped out everything that made you feel human.

Getting out of bed felt impossible. Breathing felt exhausting. Your limbs weighed twice what they should. Food tasted like nothing, and music sounded distant.

Your parents took you to a hospital.

The doctors couldn’t find anything. Blood tests came back normal. Brain scans came back normal. Everything came back normal.

And yet it felt as though something sharp had carved straight through the center of you and left a hollow space behind.

Weeks passed.

Then months.

The feeling never truly left.

It might have dulled. Became manageable. But every morning you woke with the same strange emptiness sitting beneath your ribs, like grief.

Except you weren’t grieving anyone.

You couldn’t. You hadn’t lost anything.

Had you?

Six months later, the mark returned.

You found it after stepping out of the shower. For several seconds, you simply stared.

Because it was there.

Those familiar wings.

The soul mark, back where it belonged.

Except.. It wasn’t exactly the same. The shape had changed. Only slightly, but enough that you almost missed it.

The elegant curve of the wings remained. But now thin fractures cut through the design, like cracks spreading through glass. Like something had shattered and been forced back together.

The mark looked older. Wounded. Broken and repaired.

You remembered touching it with trembling fingers. Remembered the overwhelming relief that nearly brought tears to your eyes.

Your soulmate was alive.

That was the only explanation that mattered.

Alive.

Somewhere.

Breathing beneath the same sky. Walking the same earth. Waiting.

The thought stayed with you through every year that followed.

Even after moving to Gotham. After learning just how cruel fate could be. Even then, some stubborn part of you couldn’t help believing.

Because soulmates were supposed to be the one good thing the universe gave people. The one person who would understand you completely. Who would never hurt you. Who would always choose you.

You didn’t know it yet, but somewhere in Gotham, your soulmate looked at the matching mark on his own body and believed exactly the same thing.

Moving to Gotham had taught you two things very quickly.

The first was that every story people told about the city was true.

The second was that nobody ever told the whole story.

The news focused on the murders. The riots. The Arkham breakouts. The masked lunatics who seemed determined to turn every holiday into a hostage situation. Every article painted Gotham as a city perpetually teetering on the edge of collapse.

What they didn’t talk about were the people.

The old woman who ran the corner store and slipped free candy to local kids when she thought nobody was looking. The mechanic who fixed single mothers’ cars for half price. The teenagers who organised food drives after winter storms. The apartment residents who pooled money together whenever somebody fell behind on rent.

Gotham survived because the people refused to die with it.

Your apartment building was no different.

The first person to welcome you was Arthur.

Arthur lived next door and seemed to possess the unique ability to start conversations with absolutely anyone. Within twenty-four hours of moving in, you’d learned about his late wife, his chronic dislike of modern television, and the fact that he’d somehow managed to get banned from three separate community centers over the course of his seventy-three years.

You still weren’t entirely sure whether that last story had been a joke.

The retired soldiers upstairs adopted you shortly afterwards. Every evening they gathered on the rooftop with cheap coffee and folding chairs, spending hours arguing over topics nobody else cared about. Weather patterns. Baseball statistics. Whether Gotham’s pizza quality had declined over the past decade.

According to them, it had.

The children living on the lower floors were worse.

Far worse.

Because children had an alarming ability to decide they liked someone and then never leave them alone again.

You made the mistake of helping one of them carry a backpack. That was all it took.

Within a week they knew your schedule, your favorite snacks, and which apartment belonged to you.

You’d accepted your fate shortly after.

The women above you remained unpleasant.

Some people simply seemed determined to be unhappy.

You’d received two separate complaints because your television had apparently been “too loud.”

You didn’t own a television.

The rest of the building ignored them. It was easier.

Then there was Jason Todd.

At first, Jason seemed normal enough. A little intimidating, maybe.

He was a large man. Not merely tall but solid in a way that suggested years of hard living rather than careful gym routines. Broad shoulders stretched the fabric of most shirts. Old scars disappeared beneath his collar and reappeared across his knuckles. There was a heaviness to him sometimes, filled with tension that never seemed to fully leave his body.

You’d caught glimpses of it occasionally.

The way he favored his left leg. The faint stiffness in his shoulders. The exhausted shadows beneath his eyes. Like someone who carried more weight than they knew what to do with.

Still, he was polite. Helpful. Generally liked by everyone in the building.

Arthur adored him. The children followed him around like ducklings. Even the veterans upstairs occasionally invited him to join their rooftop arguments.

Jason never stayed long, vut he always listened.

There was something strangely lonely about him. Not that you thought about it much.. At least not initially.

The first real conversation you’d had happened three weeks after moving in.

Arthur’s front door had jammed. Again.

The old man was muttering increasingly creative insults toward the lock when you’d returned from work.

Being a decent person, you’d offered assistance.

Being Gotham property, the door immediately declared war.

You eventually managed to force the stubborn thing open by bracing yourself against the frame and reaching up on you tippy toes for leverage.

The door finally gave way with a loud crack.

Arthur nearly fell backward.

You nearly fell forward.

And somewhere behind you, a man forgot how to breathe.

You never noticed.

Never noticed the apartment door opening across the hallway. Or blue-green eyes locking onto the sliver of skin exposed above your waistband. To the soulmate mark. The familiar black wings. The fractured lines running through them.

Jason did.

For one terrible second the world stopped. The hallway vanished. Arthur vanished. The city vanished. All that remained was the mark. His mark.

The same impossible shape he’d stared at in mirrors since childhood.

You.

The realisation hit harder than any bullet ever had.

You.

His soulmate.

Living directly across the hall. Close enough to hear through the walls. Close enough to touch. Close enough to lose.

The thought followed immediately after. Unwanted. Bloody terrifying.

Jason hated it.

Because suddenly every nightmare he’d ever had felt possible.

You could leave. You could move. You could disappear. You could die.

The Pit had returned his life, but it had never given him peace.

Now the universe had handed him something precious and expected him not to panic.

As if that had ever been one of Jason Todd’s strengths.

By the time you straightened, your shirt had fallen back into place. The mark vanished. The moment ended.

Nobody seemed to notice anything had happened. Nobody except Jason.

After that, things became strange.

Not immediately.

Jason tried very hard for them not to. He told himself he would act normal.

Normal neighbors talked. Normal neighbors said hello. Normal neighbors occasionally helped carry groceries. There was absolutely nothing strange about any of that.

The problem was that Jason had absolutely no idea what normal looked like anymore.

So he started noticing things.

You always carried exact change for the vending machines downstairs. You preferred reading digitally to hard books. You bought the same coffee every Tuesday morning. You tapped your fingers whenever you were concentrating. You hummed under your breath while checking your mail. Tiny things. Meaningless things. The kind of details most people forgot. Jason remembered all of them.

Which became increasingly difficult to explain.

You’d mention something once and he’d bring it up weeks later. You’d complain about work and somehow he’d remember every coworker’s name. You’d mention being tired and he’d somehow know exactly when your schedule changed.

The worst part was that none of it seemed intentional. Jason genuinely looked confused whenever you stared at him suspiciously.

As though he couldn’t understand why remembering things about you would be considered unusual.

Then one evening you discovered his weakness. Or perhaps he discovered yours.

You were checking the mail when he wandered into the lobby carrying a grocery bag.

“Red Hood got into another fight with Penguin’s people last night.”

You looked up immediately. The reaction was automatic.

Jason saw it.

The slight shift in posture. The sudden attention. The way your eyes actually focused on him for once.

A slow smile tugged at his mouth. “Oh,” he said. “So that’s the secret.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What secret?”

“The only way to get you to willingly hold a conversation.”

You scoffed, but you didn’t walk away.

Jason noticed that too.

Unfortunately.

From that day onward, discussions about Red Hood became alarmingly common.

You should have found it strange.

Most civilians didn’t spend this much time discussing vigilantes.

Jason always had opinions. Always had arguments. Information.

Somehow.

The conversations became routine. Comfortable, even.

And occasionally, very rarely, Jason would laugh. Not the dry, sarcastic thing he usually did. Not the sharp bark of amusement he used around strangers. A real laugh. Unexpected and bright.

For just a second it stripped years from him.

You’d catch a glimpse of someone younger beneath the scars and exhaustion. Someone who looked like they should have existed a long time ago.

Then it would disappear.

The walls would go back up. The tiredness would return.

And Jason Todd would once again look like a man carrying the weight of something nobody else could see.

You never understood why those moments stayed with you.

Across the hallway, Jason understood perfectly.

Because every time you smiled at one of them, he spent the rest of the day thinking about it.

You’d simply made the mistake of staying late at work and taking a shortcut home.

The Narrows looked different after dark.

The streets became quieter. The crowds thinned. Storefront lights reflected off rain-slick pavement while distant sirens echoed between buildings.

Most nights nothing happened.

Unfortunately, Gotham’s definition of “most” left a lot to be desired.

You were halfway down an alley when the shouting started.

Three men. Maybe four.

Members of the False Face Society if the masks were anything to go by.

They’d cornered somebody further ahead.

A teenager. Couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

The kid looked terrified.

One of the men shoved him hard enough that he nearly hit the ground. The others laughed.

You stopped.

For one stupid second, you actually considered intervening.

Then common sense returned.

You weren’t a vigilante. You weren’t bulletproof. You were just some idiot trying to get home.

You reached for your phone instead.

A mistake.

The screen lit up.

One of the masked men noticed. His head turned.

Your stomach dropped.

“Hey.” Suddenly four pairs of eyes were looking at you.

The teenager ran. Nobody stopped him. Because now their attention had shifted elsewhere. To you.

There was a very specific kind of fear that only this city could produce. The kind that arrived all at once. Immediate & primal. You felt it settle deep into your bones as one of the men stepped forward.

The alley suddenly felt much smaller.

Your fingers tightened around your phone.

Someone laughed.

Someone else told you to relax.

You took a step backward. Calculating escape routes. The odds. All of them terrible.

One of the men reached for you, and a gunshot cracked through the night.

Everything stopped. The sound echoed between brick walls. A flock of birds exploded from a nearby rooftop.

Silence followed.

Then a body hit the ground hard.

The man who’d been reaching for you collapsed unconscious. The others barely had time to react.

A dark figure dropped from above. Fast. Violent.

The first criminal went down immediately. The second lasted perhaps three seconds longer. The third tried running.

That mistake earned him a boot to the chest powerful enough to send him crashing into a dumpster.

The entire fight ended in under thirty seconds.

You’d seen videos before. Hell, everybody had.

Footage online. Security recordings. News broadcasts. None of them captured the reality of it. The sheer speed. The overwhelming physicality.

The way Red Hood moved like someone who had spent years surviving things most people couldn’t imagine.

When the final criminal hit the pavement, silence settled once more.

The vigilante straightened. The red helmet reflected nearby streetlights. Smoke curled from the barrel of a pistol.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then he turned toward you.

Your heart immediately forgot how to function.

Because it was him.

Not a photograph or old news report. Not some distant figure standing on a rooftop.

Red-fucking-Hood.

Close enough to touch. Close enough to hear breathing through the modulator.

You’d spent years reading articles. Watching footage. Defending him during arguments. None of that had prepared you.

“You’re bleeding.” The voice emerged distorted through the helmet.

Only then did you notice the sting.

Your arm.

One of the men must have grabbed you harder than you’d realised.

A shallow cut. Nothing serious.

Before you could answer, Red Hood stepped forward. His gloved hand closed around your wrist to inspect the injury.

You’d think about the touch for months.

“You’re fine.” The words sounded almost disappointed. As though he’d expected worse.

Then his attention shifted.

Already elsewhere.

Already moving.

A woman further down the street was crying. The teenager from earlier had apparently found police.

Somewhere in the distance another fight was breaking out.

Red Hood released your arm.

And just like that, the moment ended.

No dramatic goodbye. No lingering conversation. No special attention. No acknowledgement that you existed beyond confirming you weren’t seriously injured. He was already walking away. Already focused on somebody else.

Because the night never stopped needing him.

You stood there watching until he disappeared.

Continued to long after there was nothing left to see.

The obsession that followed was embarrassing. Truly embarrassing. You knew it. The rational part of your brain knew it. Unfortunately, the rational part had very little authority.

For the next week, every thought somehow led back to the Vigilante.

You replayed the encounter endlessly. The sound of his voice, the weight of his hand around your wrist, the effortless way he’d dismantled four armed criminals, and the fact that he’d barely even looked at you.

Arthur listened to your retelling twice before banning the topic entirely.

Eventually life moved on.

Work remained work. Bills remained bills. The city continued spinning. The memory dulled. Not vanished. Just settled into a quieter place. Something pleasant to revisit whenever your thoughts wandered.

Then two weeks later Gotham exploded.

Not literally for once.

The headline appeared online first. Then newspapers. Then on every Gothamites TV. Then every social media platform in existence.

RED HOOD’S SOULMATE? EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS SPARK CITY-WIDE DEBATE

You nearly dropped your phone.

The article contained several photographs from a confrontation between Red Hood and Black Mask’s men.

Most were blurry. Poorly timed. Worthless.

One wasn’t.

The image had captured him mid-fight. Armor damaged. The side of his tactical jacket torn open. And there, visible for the entire world to see, was a soulmate mark.

You forgot how to breathe.

The photograph filled your screen, the shape unmistakable.

Black wings. Thin lightning-like fractures running through the design. Like shattered glass repaired imperfectly. Exactly like yours.

Exactly.

The article itself became meaningless.

You couldn’t read it. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t fucking think.

That was Your mark.

For a long time, you simply stared.

Then slowly, almost disbelievingly, your hand drifted toward your hip. Toward the soulmark hidden beneath your clothes. To the wings you’d carried your entire life.

The same wings currently displayed across every news station in Gotham.

Your soulmate.

The realisation felt surreal. Terrifying.

.. Wonderful.

Somewhere beneath the panic, excitement bloomed. Warm. Impossible to suppress.

Because after years of wondering, desperately hoping, of believing your soulmate existed somewhere beyond reach, you finally knew.

And unfortunately for your future peace of mind,

Your soulmate was Red Hood.

You groaned, dropping your face into your hands. This was ridiculous.

You'd exchanged approximately six words. Six.

You didn't know his favorite colour. Didn't know his age. Didn't know what music he liked. You didn't even know what his face looked like.

Yet your heart had apparently decided none of those details were particularly important.

A knock sounded against your apartment door.

You nearly jumped.

The article disappeared from your screen immediately. As though hiding it somehow made you less embarrassing.

The knocking came again, four sharp taps.

You already knew who it was. Nobody else knocked like that.

Opening the door revealed Jason standing in the hallway. A grocery bag hung from one hand.

His expression was unreadable. Tired. More so than usual.

You frowned immediately. "Jesus."

Jason blinked. "What?"

"You look awful."

A strange look crossed his face. Gone before you could properly identify it.

Then he scoffed quietly. "Thanks."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I?"

"You look like you haven't slept."

Something flickered in his eyes.

For a moment his gaze shifted past you. Into your apartment. Toward the phone still sitting on the kitchen counter. Then back again. "You hear the news?"

You stared.

Jason stared back.

Neither of you said anything.

Then simultaneously: "Red Hood." The words left both of your mouths at the same time.

Jason rubbed a hand across his face.

You pointed accusingly. "See? This is exactly what I'm talking about."

"What?"

"You are weird."

His eyebrows lifted. "You brought him up too."

"That's different."

"It literally isn't."

"It is."

Jason looked seconds away from arguing.

Then something changed.

The fight left him. His shoulders sagged slightly, exhaustion settled across his features. The expression aged him. Like someone carrying old wounds nobody else could see.

You suddenly remembered all those nights hearing his apartment door open at absurd hours. The bruises he occasionally showed up with. The limp. The scars. The perpetual exhaustion.

For the first time, a thought occurred to you.

Jason always looked like he was surviving something.

You weren't entirely sure what. Only that the feeling never really left.

"You okay?"

The question slipped out before you could stop it.

Jason froze.

You immediately regretted asking.

Not because it was rude, but cause of the look he gave you. Caught completely off guard. As though nobody had asked him that in a very long time.

Then he smiled. Small, genuine, and unexpectedly soft.

"Yeah," Jason said quietly. "Yeah.. I'm okay." The smile lingered. Just for a moment.

Then the walls returned. And suddenly he was Jason again.

Your strange neighbor.

The man who remembered everything. The man who somehow always appeared at exactly the wrong moment. The man standing in front of you while your soulmate's photograph sat open on your kitchen counter.

Jason shifted the grocery bag toward you. "Arthur asked me to bring these over."

You accepted it automatically. "Thanks."

"No problem."

His gaze raked over you for a moment longer, jaw clenching as he holds back from speaking up again.

Then he stepped backwards. Retreating towards his own apartment.

His gaze lingered on you for a fraction too long, almost imperceptible. The sort of thing most people wouldn't notice.

You did.

You always did.

Weirdo. The thought followed you as he disappeared across the hallway.

The door shut behind him.

A minute later you reopened the article, the familiar photograph greeted you immediately.

The wings.

The impossible certainty.

Your soulmate.

Across the hall, Jason sat alone on his couch staring at the exact same photograph.

Only his reasons were very different.

Because while Gotham was busy trying to discover the identity of Red Hood's soulmate, Jason already knew.

And for the first time since finding you, the rest of the world was looking too.

The grocery run had been an excuse.

Arthur had asked him to bring the bag over, Jason had just.. volunteered before the old man finished speaking.

An increasingly common occurrence these days.

His gaze remained fixed on the wall separating your apartments.

Thin drywall. Cheap insulation. A handful of feet. That was all. You were right there. Close enough that he could hear the occasional creak of floorboards. Close enough that he sometimes caught the muffled sound of whatever new show you were half-watching on your laptop through the wall. Close enough to know exactly when you got home from work.

Jason dragged a hand across his face. Exhaustion settled heavily behind his eyes.

He hadn’t slept. Not really. The article had been published thirty-six hours ago.

Since then he’d spent every waking moment putting out fires.

Some literal, some not.

The Bats had questions. Villains had questions. Reporters had questions.

The entire city suddenly seemed obsessed with the possibility of Red Hood having a soulmate.

As though the revelation somehow made him easier to understand. Like a soulmate transformed him into something less dangerous.

Idiots.

Jason leaned back against the couch.

His apartment was dark. Quiet. The television remained muted. Half a dozen news articles sat open across his laptop screen. Every one of them made him angrier.

Relationship experts discussing his future. Psychologists debating soulmate bonds. Random strangers speculating about the identity of someone they’d never met.

Your identity.

His jaw tightened.

One article had suggested that Red Hood’s soulmate was probably safer remaining anonymous.

Another had argued the opposite.

Apparently Gotham had collectively decided that your existence was public property now.

The thought made something ugly twist in his chest. Fear.

Jason hated admitting it. Even to himself. Especially to himself.

Fear was harder to fight than anger.

Anger was simple. Useful. Anger could be aimed at something.

Fear just sat there. Growing.

The photograph appeared on his laptop screen again.

The damaged armor. The exposed mark. His mistake. A stupid one.

He should have replaced the plating weeks earlier. Should have noticed the weakness. Should have-

The self-recrimination stopped.

It was pointless.

The picture existed. The damage was done.

Jason’s gaze drifted toward the opposite wall. Toward your apartment.

The memory of your soulmark surfaced immediately.

Arthur’s door.

The glimpse of skin.

The feeling that had followed.

For years he had imagined meeting his soulmate.

Not often. Not even consciously. But sometimes. Late at night, during patrol. On anniversaries he’d rather forget.

He’d wondered whether they were alive. Whether they were happy. If they hated Gotham.

.. if they thought about him too.

Mostly though, he’d thought about how they deserved better.

Jason Todd wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what he was.

A resurrected crime lord with anger issues.

A vigilante who carried guns.

A man stitched together with skin he no longer recognised as his own.

Not exactly soulmate material.

Then he’d met you.

And somehow everything had become worse.

Because now you weren’t hypothetical. You were real.

You smiled at Arthur’s stories. You carried extra snacks for the kids downstairs. You argued passionately about things you cared about. You made faces while reading articles on your phone. You laughed with your whole body. You existed.

And Jason had become terrifyingly aware of how fragile that made you.

Not because you were weak, but because Gotham wasn’t fair.

Good people died here every day. Disappeared. Became leverage. Targets. Victims. The city took things.

That was what Gotham did.

A sharp knock interrupted the silence.

Jason’s head lifted instantly.

The pistol hidden beneath the coffee table was in his hand before the second knock arrived.

Old habits.

The peephole revealed a familiar face.

Dick.

Jason opened the door. “What?”

Dick took one look at him. Winced. “You look terrible.”

“Get out.”

“Bruce sent me.”

“Tell him I said no.”

“You don’t know what he asked yet.”

“I don’t need to.”

Dick sighed heavily, stepping inside anyway.

Jason considered throwing him back into the hallway.

“You’ve seen the articles.”

Jason barked out a humorless laugh. “Hard to miss.”

Dick studied him carefully.

Years of experience had taught the younger brother that particular look usually preceded unwanted emotional conversations.

Sure enough, “are they okay?”

Jason froze. The room suddenly felt very still.

Dick’s expression softened. There was no judgment there. No accusation. Just concern.

Which somehow made it worse. Because Dick already knew the answer. The family had figured it out months ago.

Jason hadn’t told them. He hadn’t needed to.

The Batcomputer had eventually connected enough dots.

They knew.

Not your name. Not where you lived. Not who you were. But they knew Jason had found you. And they knew he hadn’t introduced himself.

“..They’re fine.”

Dick waited.

Jason hated when he did that. Just sat there patiently until people talked. An infuriating habit. “They’re safe.”

Another pause.

“…Jason.” The warning sat unspoken between them.

Jason looked away first. His gaze drifted toward the apartment wall. Toward the space beyond it. Toward you.

Completely unaware of the storm currently gathering around your existence.

His grip tightened around the edge of the couch. Barely noticeable.

He wasn’t like Dick. Didn’t gush over his mate like they made stars. He kept them close, private.

To himself.

But he was beginning to realise that may not be enough anymore.

Jason swallowed hard. Then finally said the thing neither of them wanted to acknowledge.

“The whole city’s looking now.”

Silence followed. Heavy. Understanding.

Jason Todd had never trusted Gotham with things he cared about, so he wasn’t about to start now.

Sleep proved impossible.

You blamed the article. And Arthur for somehow managing to bring Red Hood into every conversation despite supposedly banning the topic.

Mostly, though, you blamed yourself.

→↓←↑

Eventually, the walls of your apartment began to feel too small. Too warm. Too crowded with your own thoughts.

So shortly after midnight, you pulled on a jacket and went for a walk.

The city never truly slept. Even at this hour, Gotham breathed around you.

Distant traffic rolled through the streets. Neon signs flickered overhead. Somewhere several blocks away, a siren wailed briefly before fading into the night.

The air was cold.

It helped. At least a little.

You wandered without much direction. Past closed storefronts. Past graffiti-covered brick walls. Past the small twenty-four-hour deli one of the kids downstairs swore had the best coffee in Gotham.

Eventually you found yourself standing beside the waterfront. The black water reflected fractured city lights.

For several minutes you simply stood there. Trying very hard not to think.

“You should be home.” The voice emerged from the darkness behind you.

Your heart stopped.

Then immediately attempted to beat its way out of your chest.

Slowly, almost afraid the illusion would disappear if you moved too quickly, you turned.

A figure stood atop a nearby shipping container. Red helmet. Dark armor. Broad shoulders silhouetted against Gotham’s skyline. Red Hood.

For a moment neither of you spoke.

You weren’t entirely convinced your brain was functioning.

“You’ve got a terrible habit of appearing out of nowhere.” The words left your mouth before you could stop them.

A surprised huff escaped the modulator. Almost a laugh.

“Occupational hazard.”

Your stomach performed an embarrassing number of flips. “So that’s your official excuse?”

“It usually works.”

“You need a better one.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

The conversation felt absurdly normal.

This was Red Hood. Standing ten feet away. Talking to you. Like this happened every day.

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. Just strange.

Heavy with things neither of you knew how to say.

His helmet tilted slightly, studying you. You wondered if he was doing the same thing you’d been doing for weeks.

Trying to fit reality beside expectation.

“You really should be home.” There was something quieter in his voice this time. Something that sounded suspiciously like concern.

You crossed your arms. “Funny. That’s exactly what my neighbor says.”

Another pause.

“..Smart guy.”

You snorted. The sound echoed softly across the water.

For a second you could have sworn Red Hood relaxed. As though hearing you laugh had eased something inside him.

The white lenses reflected distant lights.

“Get home safe.” Simple words.

Nothing special nor dramatic. Yet they settled somewhere beneath your ribs all the same.

Before you could answer, he stepped backward.

Already disappearing into the darkness he’d emerged from.

“Wait.” The word escaped fast, internally cringing at how desperate you sounded.

He paused.

You swallowed. Suddenly aware that there were a thousand things you wanted to ask and no idea where to begin.

In the end, only one managed to make it out.

“…Are you okay?” The question hung between you.

As though you’d somehow asked the last thing he’d expected to hear.

When he finally answered, his voice sounded different. Lower. Rougher. Human.

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“Yeah. I’m okay.” The answer felt suspiciously familiar. Heavy and tasting of salt from the nearby harbor. Like you’d heard it before.

The words were a hollow sentiment, a mask worn by a man who clearly knew the architecture of a lie far too well.

You watched him, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs. There was a gravity to him, a pull that felt less like curiosity and more like a physical tether snapping taut.

You didn't know that he had been watching you for weeks. Didn’t know that he even knew that you were his soulmate.

Didn't know that he had gone through your balcony window far too many times to count just to smell the clothes you leave out across the floor or side of your couch, a starving man finding the only source of light in a dark world. To you, he was a legend. To him, you were the only reason to keep breathing.

"You don't sound okay," you whispered, the coolness of the night air emboldening you.

The silence that followed was deafening. The vigilante didn't move, but the atmosphere shifted. The air grew thick, charged with a sudden, violent electricity. He didn't disappear this time. Instead, he descended.

He moved with a predatory grace, leaping from the container to the pavement with a silent, heavy thud that made the ground vibrate beneath your boots. Before you could even draw a breath to gasp, he was there. He was towering, a wall of leather and pure heat.

He didn't stop until he was inches away, forcing you to meet the white lenses of his helmet. The scent of him hit you hard. A deep musk that made your knees feel dangerously weak.

"You shouldn't ask questions you aren't prepared to hear the answers to." The modulator was off. His gloved fingers catching the edge of the crimson plating.

With a soft, mechanical hiss, he lifted the helmet just enough. He didn't take it off just yet, just freeing his mouth.

Your breath hitched. You were staring at a face that was all sharp lines and bruised shadows, eyes that burned through the helmet with a hunger so primal it felt like it could consume the entire city. He looked like a man who had been wandering a desert and had finally found water.

And then, he leaned in.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It was a collision. It was the desperate, starving act of a hunter finally catching his prize.

His lips were firm, warm, and tasted of something dark and metallic. It was a claim. He tasted you like he was trying to memorise your very essence, his tongue sweeping against yours with a possessive rhythm that sent a jolt straight to your core.

You let out a muffled whimper, your hands instinctively finding the hard, muscular planes of his chest.

He didn't care about the shadows of the alleyway or the distant sound of a passing car. He didn't care that the Red Hood was supposed to be a symbol of justice, not a man driven to madness by a single touch. He only cared about the way you melted against him.

He’d dreamt of this.

His hands, large and calloused, slid down your sides. Gripping your hips with a strength that bordered on bruising. He forced you back against the cool brick of the building, the contrast of the cold stone and his searing heat making your head spin.

He broke the kiss, his breath coming in ragged, uneven hitches. His eyes searched yours, still hidden behind the mask. Frantic and obsessed, looking for the recognition that the bond was screaming in your blood too.

You didn't understand it yet, but you felt it. A deep, aching need to be undone by him.

He dropped to his knees.

It was an act of worship and a display of dominance all at once. The great Red Hood, the terror of the underworld, kneeling in the dirt of a dark alleyway at your feet.

His hands moved frantically, tugging at your clothes, baring you to the midnight air. He didn't wait.

He didn't even ask. He simply descended.

When his mouth found you, the world vanishd.

The sensation was overwhelming. The heat of his breath, the rough texture of his tongue, and the sheer, unyielding intensity of his focus.

He ate you with a desperation that was terrifying, his tongue swirling and probing, seeking out every nerve ending as if he were trying to find the very center of your soul. His jaw aching from the stretch. He was relentless, a hunter who had found the most precious treasure and refused to let a single drop of sensation go unharvested.

You arched your back, your fingers tangling in the collar of his jacket, a choked cry escaping your throat. You were unanchored, drifting in a sea of pleasure. Every lick, every suction, every flick of his tongue was a brand, marking you as his in the most intimate way possible.

He looked up at you for a fleeting second, his eyes dark with a terrifying, beautiful madness, before burying his face in you again. He wasn't just pleasuring you, he was consuming you. And as the tension coiled tighter and tighter in your gut, you realised with a dizzying sense of awe that you didn't want to be saved from him. You wanted to drown in him.

his hands slid from your hips to your thighs, spreading you wider, anchoring you to the brick so you couldn't drift away.

He was greedy. He swallowed your gasps, he drank in the sounds you made, as if he were trying to ingest the very proof of your pleasure. The rough texture of his tongue was a beautiful friction against your most sensitive skin, a rhythmic, punishing, perfect pressure that sent white hot sparks dancing behind your eyelids.

"Please," you choked out, though you didn't even know what you were asking for. More. Stop. Don't ever let go.

You hadn’t ever felt anything this intensely since you were fifteen and it felt like you’d lost everything.

He responded by surging forward. The sensation was too much. Like a tidal wave. A sudden, violent fracturing of your senses. You felt the tension coil in your gut, tighter and tighter, a spring wound to the point of breaking, until finally, the dam burst.

You cried out, your voice lost to the shadows of the alley, as your body shuddered in the throes of a release so powerful it felt like a seizure.

You clung to him, your fingers digging into his shoulders, your head lulling back against the wall as waves of liquid crashed through you.

He didn't pull away when you came. He stayed with you, his mouth still pressed to you, drinking in the aftershocks, his breath hot and ragged against your skin. Gulping as he attempted to swallow it all down.

He stayed there until the tremors subsided, until you were left limp and breathless, trembling in the sudden silence of the night.

Slowly, he rose. He didn't stand up fully at first, lingering in the space between your legs, his eyes looking up at you from the darkness. The white lenses of his helmet were gone, replaced by the raw, unfiltered gaze of the man beneath. He looked wrecked. You couldn’t recognise him in the darkness.

He looked like he had just survived a war, or perhaps, like he had finally come home from one.

He reached up, his gloved thumb brushing a stray tear or perhaps just sweat from your cheek, his touch unexpectedly tender for a man so violent in his passion.

"Don't ever look at anyone else like that," he whispered, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that promised both protection and imprisonment. "Do you hear me? Just me."

You couldn't answer. You could barely breathe. You could only stare at him, realising with a sinking, exhilarating dread that the man you had been idolising from afar hadn't just found you.

He had hunted you down. And he had no intention of ever letting you go.

To anyone else, the apartment was just a quiet, dimly lit space in a safe corner of Gotham. To Jason, the silence was loud. Deafening.

It was a constant, rhythmic thrumming that echoed the frantic beating of his own heart every time he thought of you.

He sat on the edge of his bed, the shadows of the room clinging to his broad shoulders like a shroud. He was stripped down to his joggers, his skin still humming with the phantom sensation of your warmth. It had been weeks since that night in the alley. Weeks since he had tasted you, since he had felt the way you shuddered under his touch and the hunger had only grown.

It wasn't a hunger for food or sleep. It was a hollow, aching void in his chest that only your presence could fill.

He closed his eyes, but that was a mistake.

The moment his eyelids fell, you were there. He could see the curve of your neck, the way your eyes had widened in the dark, the way you had looked so beautifully, helplessly undone by him.

His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping in his cheek. He hated how much power you had over him. He was a man who had stared down death and spat in its face, yet here he was, a prisoner to the memory of a person who didn't even know the half of what he was thinking.

He stood up abruptly, the sudden movement sending a jolt of restless energy through his limbs. He paced the small expanse of the room like a caged predator, his footsteps heavy and deliberate.

His gaze drifted to the door.

The door was a thin, pathetic barrier. Just a few inches of wood and metal separating him from the world. And just twenty feet away, you were sleeping in a bed that wasn't his. You were breathing air that he wasn't providing.

The thought was intolerable. It felt like a physical wound, a fracture in his soul that refused to knit back together.

He wanted to tear the door off its hinges. He wanted to storm through the halls and break down your door until he could wrap his arms around you and never, ever let go. He wanted to mark you so thoroughly that the world would know you belonged to him by the very scent of your skin.

A low, frustrated growl escaped his throat. He reached for his waistband, his movements frantic, driven by a need that was as much about desperation as it was about lust.

As his hand closed around himself, he groaned, his head falling back. He wasn't just imagining the sensation of your hands or the heat of your mouth; he was visualising the way you would look if he finally claimed you properly. He imagined you pinned beneath him, your eyes searching his, seeing the madness there and choosing to stay anyway.

He closed his eyes tight, his breath hitching as he moved. You, he thought. A silent, prayer like chant in the dark. It has to be you. Has to be mine.

Every stroke was a frantic attempt to bridge the distance. He pictured your face, the way you had looked at him with that mixture of awe and terror. He wanted to protect that look, to be the only thing you ever saw, the only thing you ever felt.

He wanted to be your savior, but more than that, he wanted to be your entire world.

When the release finally came, it wasn't peaceful. It was a violent, shuddering explosion that left him gasping, his body tensing as if he were fighting an invisible enemy. He slumped back against the bed, his chest heaving, the sweat cooling on his skin.

The silence returned, heavier than before.

He stared at the ceiling, his eyes dark and predatory. The hunger hadn't faded; it had only sharpened. The "hunter" in him was tired of the chase. He was done watching from the shadows. He was done being the ghost in your periphery. Done playing the annoying neighbour.

He was going to bring you home. And once he had you, he would make sure you never had a reason to look for anyone else ever again.

The decision settled over him with terrifying clarity.

For months, Jason had told himself he was being patient.

While he learned your routines. While he watched Gotham become more dangerous by the day. While reporters dug through every corner of the city looking for Red Hood’s soulmate. Patient while criminals, mercenaries, and psychopaths searched for weaknesses they could exploit.

Patient while the universe dangled you in front of him and expected him to trust fate to keep you safe.

He was done being patient.

Jason rose from the bed.

The apartment felt suffocating. Too small. Empty.

Too far away from you.

His jaw tightened.

People always talked about soulmates as though they were something soft. Romantic. Gentle.

They never talked about what happened when a man like Jason Todd found his.

Nobody wanted to acknowledge that fate had teeth.

The universe hadn’t given him a lover. It had given him a reason. A purpose. Something precious enough to protect at any cost.

And Jason had never been particularly good at respecting limits.

He crossed the room and stopped beside the window. Gotham stretched endlessly below. A city of predators. A city that took and took and took.

His city.

For years it had stolen everything from him.

His childhood. His family. His life.

It wasn’t taking you too.

The thought settled into his bones like concrete. Absolute.

A slow breath left him.

Then another.

The panic that had haunted him since the article disappeared.

The uncertainty disappeared with it.

Because for the first time since finding you, Jason finally understood what he needed to do. Not watch. Not wait. Definitely not hope.

Act.

The realisation settled like relief.

People would worry. People always worried.

Then life would continue.

He’d experienced it firsthand.

It always did.

Nobody would know that somewhere far from Gotham’s noise sat a small house hidden among thick forests and winding roads.

A place with reinforced doors. A stocked kitchen. Bookshelves filled with things you’d enjoy. Fresh fruit by the windowsill. A home prepared long before Jason admitted why he’d prepared it.

A home waiting for its rightful occupant.

Waiting for you.

His soulmate.

His future.

His.

Jason rested his forehead against the cool glass.

For a brief moment, he imagined the future.

You arguing with him over breakfast. Rolling your eyes at his terrible jokes. Curled against him on quiet evenings. Safe. Always safe.

You’d fight him at first.

He knew that.

He’d try his best to remember not to take it personally.

You’d be angry. Terrified. Confused. But eventually you’d understand. Eventually you’d realise nobody would ever love you the way he did. Nobody would ever sacrifice what he would sacrifice. Nobody would ever protect you so completely.

You were made for him for a purpose, after all.

The soulmate bond had survived death itself. Survived shattered souls and broken destinies.

The universe had torn you two apart once. It would never get the chance to do so again.

A smile touched his mouth. Small.

Outside, Gotham continued to roar.

Inside, Jason finally felt at peace. Because the hunt was over.

He had found what belonged to him.

And this time, Jason Todd wasn’t ever letting go.

Gang I tried really hard & researched what others have done to write gender neutral smut. I’ve read it over like a quadrillion times and genuinely can’t tell if it even makes sense anymore😩

8K+ Words, 48K+ Characters, 1K+ Sentences, 647 paragraphs, 24 minute average reading time, 39 minute average speaking time.

Read Dick Grayson’s part here.

Read Bruce Wayne’s part here.

Read Tim Drake’s part here.

Read Damian Wayne’s part here.

"Here I was thinking your terrorising finally came to an end." Your voice echoes, a teasing tilt laced in its croak from hours of going unused. "It's nearly closing hour, Jay."

Despite the limp that accompanies his gait, clearly wounded somewhere beneath his large frame and thick layers of clothing, his own smirk greets your gleam of teeth. "Couldn't end a shit week without a recommendation."

Your heart skips, like the quick traitor it is. You feign a casual expression, as if you didn't have his next read hidden under your stack of orders you've yet to shelf.

"Bringing in blood to the floorboards again?" You raise a brow, gaze flickering to where his boots left imprints on the scratched-up wood.

"Nah." His smirk widens, stopping before you. "Wouldn't want you making use of free labour again to mop the dust off this place."

"Wouldn't be too difficult if we didn't have to use bleach, genius."

He shrugs, looking down at you with a pleased expression. "Useful skills I teach you, all without a price, sweetheart." His voice rolls over you like thunder, a low gravel for that mocking nickname he picked out for you like you're the only person he's ever given it to.

Your neck cranes to meet his gaze. "Right, next time I need help cleaning blood trails, I'll call my favourite potential vigilante."

"Oh, so I'm a favourite now?" His brow raises.

"You're so full of yourself." Your bite holds no mark, softening in its edge when your fingers trace over his next recommendation stuffed between the stack of new donations. Dragging it out, you hold it out with held breath.

It never gets easier, the silent exchange. The anticipation, the brief few seconds of waiting as his gaze assesses your pick. It had started out exactly like this, and like some idiotic, preening teenager—you had hoped with every right choice you made, it might heighten the chances of him coming back.

This isn't a library, an establishment where he had to return to at some point. No, he could very likely purchase your selection today, decide it was absolute shit, and never return. Yet, he always came back, and you began to lean on the crutch of a belief that he would continue to.

"Call it a profitable relationship." You joke, even as your heartbeat faintly thuds in the pads of your fingertips, digging into the spine of the copy you reserved for him.

He takes it, fingers brushing over yours. That lingering second of contact feels intentional, but the ghost of his touch disappears before you even have the chance to register its searing warmth.

His smirk dials down into something softer, more genuine. This is the part you love most, and secretly dread that you might not receive. That rare spark in his gaze, to receive something so personal based on the assumption of what he might like. All narrowed down from a history of ten minute exchanges every week in the dead of night, shared between an academic victim who likes spending too much of her time waiting for a suspicious individual to sneak into a local bookstore, and said suspicious individual.

"It's a local author." It spills out of you before you can stop it. "I know you've read most of the classics, but you haven't really delved into ones that relate more to home."

His lip curls, a hum stuck in the back of his throat, and you recognise its one of approval. It shouldn't affect you as much as it did.

"Literature that dives into the horrors of Gotham, should I expect an existential crisis tonight?"

"I'll leave the surprise to do its job.” Leaning in over the counter, your gaze drops to his cargo pants. “Any reason for the limp?"

“Jumped down from the fourth floor.” He shrugs. “Wasn’t sure you’d wait up on me.”

You stare at him wide-eyed, waiting for him to call upon a joke—and he merely returns your stare, amused.

“Jason, you’re joking.”

“I never joke about closing hours.” He shrugs.

You're ready to start, because his frequent disregard for closing hours is a whole other thing—but his gaze shifts instinctively to the clock hanging lop-sided by the ladder, before landing on you again. The crinkles of his gaze deepens, softening the shadows. "You better catch the train. Do me a favour and remember to lock your windows when you get back?”

"Yeah, so long as you come in uninjured next time."

"Worried about me? As long as you keep yours, I’ll keep mine." The point in his grin sharpens, fingers giving a lazy wave as his shoulder digs into the door. The bell rings once more, as if to signify the gravity of his departure. "More illegal activities to run. See you next week, sweetheart.”

His shadow disappears past the flickering street lamp outside the store, as if he never existed. Your heart does that little, traitorous sigh—and that’s all the physical evidence you have past the lump in your throat that the exchange even happened at all.

Your first encounter with Jason was less familiarity-conduced endorphins and more of customer service's worst nightmare.

"Sir, I'm afraid we're closed."

You don't know why you bothered with the 'we', when you're clearly the only staff here. Or why you bothered speaking at all. This man who's barged in through the door, despite the 'Closed' sign, is obviously on edge and possibly on the run? Gotham's unspoken law is to never stick your nose into other people's business, especially if the stranger radiates danger right down to his bruised knuckles. All you should be concerned about is the ten minute walk you have to embark on and how all trains in this district stops at thirty minutes past eleven.

His gaze shifts at the sound of your voice, distracted and hyper-focused all at once. You're struck by the illuminating green that disperses into pale blue, when he finally notices that he isn't alone. Intense, and otherworldly—a gorgeous lunatic who looks like he materialised out of the shadows, stepping into the night and ending up on the wrong side of Gotham.

His gaze doesn't linger for long before it maneuvers around, scoping his environment as his lips press together, some sealed sigh laced within the charged tension between you two. Eventually, a low rasp leaves his lips. "I'll buy somethin'."

Your brows furrow. "Excuse me?"

His hand shifts, waving you off impatiently. "Hand me a book, or two—whatever. I need more time."

The crease between your brows deepen, that soft irritation earlier rising again. Not only has he come in during closing hours, which is the worst of all experiences in customer service, but he had the audacity to be rude and dismissive about it.

"Sir, I'm afraid you'll have to come back another time—"

"Lady." He cuts you off, gaze shifting back towards the streets before looking back to you in warning. "It's not a request. You can charge me however much you want, but I can't leave this store till the coast is clear... and neither can you."

Great, now he's holding you hostage too.

"Are you being chased?" You question impulsively. You have a bugging suspicion that he's prone to lying to you anyways, but his cutting tone makes you unfamiliarly bold. "You're a criminal?"

He snorts, finding something amusing. "In Gotham, some would say it's an honourable profession. There's worse bad guys out there, sweetheart. You're lucky it was me that came in here."

"I wouldn't call it luck." You frown. He doesn't bother with a response, clearly tuning you out, and your growing dislike finds something new to feast on. If you're going to waste a Friday night with some asshole, you may as well squeeze some money out of his pockets. Your gaze flickers over him, scrutinising.

"What are you looking at?" He murmurs, sensing your gaze even when his own is trained on the window, hand tucked under his jacket on what you hope isn't a weapon.

"Just wondering what kind of reader you are."

That finally gets his attention. He looks back at you, surprise evident in his gaze. Without that permanent furrow between his brows, he looks almost younger, erased temporarily of the self-righteousness buried in his bones and the weight of something deadly clutched in his hands.

A moment passes, his tight expression slowly unwinding into genuine amusement. "That's kind of you but you don't have to dial up your customer service. I'm not the kind of guy who leaves reviews."

Your brow twitches, frustration slipping past the cracks of your demeanour. "It's principle. I don't recommend books half-heartedly."

His smirk twitches higher, but you make the wiser choice of storming off, deeper into the shelves before he deigns you with another unfavourable response. Your mind is already slipping into its unfolding map of genres, of the books that encompass your pathway with what you think suits a jerk like him.

"Jackass." You mutter to yourself, opting between a self-help book or a literature pick for the jerk who acts so highly of himself. You decide on the latter, doubting the hunk would even understand the reference.

"Dorian Gray?"

"Yeah, heard of it?" You respond, unamused as you glare down at him.

He's made himself real comfortable, large thighs swallowing up your seat, swirling around on the creaky wheels as he eyes the store with that same assessing look he did when he first entered, as if he was used to mapping out any place he stepped into.

“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.” He mutters lowly, blue eyes landing back on you.

You blink once, then twice, wondering if you'd misheard him. "You're a reader?"

"Enough to know what you're suggesting, sweetheart." He mocks. "I know a thing or two about mistakes of men, so if you want to cause some real harm, you'll have to hit harder."

"I wasn't—" You falter, because that was exactly what you were intending on. "Fine. You forcefully extended a long, underpaid night shift, and I indirectly called you a jackass. Let's call it even."

His lip twitches involuntarily, not expecting your honesty. "Y'know being direct is what gets you places in Gotham."

"Yeah, gets you running into bookstores and terrorising their staff, you mean?"

"Well, I haven't been insulted through a book before." He shrugs half-heartedly. "I suppose you experience something new everyday."

"Anyone ever told you that you're infuriating?"

"Pretty too." He grins then, something striking and downright filthy. His hand taps on a copy of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. "That's what you seem to be suggesting, since you're clearly intent on being honest through your recommendations."

Your scoff escapes you, less annoyed than it should be. "I think my recommendation fits you just fine if that's the only thing you're willing to take from it."

"Oh, I'm more than willing." His grin sharpens. "That's sweet of you, but I'm afraid it's a little compromising, hitting on a customer this soon? You do this with all late night visitors?"

You're tempted to drop one of your heaviest dictionaries right on his skull to sort out the serious issues going on in that head of his. "Customer?" You raise a brow mockingly. "All I see is a stranger wasting my time after closing hours, raising this month's electricity bills, refusing to pay a single cent for his book, and getting out of here as promised."

"We still have—" His gaze glimpses to the clock. "—five minutes if you want to play it safe. You're doing a horrendous job at customer service by the way. Calling me a jackass, trying to kick me out. No wonder this place is—"

Your jaw drops. "You are not insulting the very place you're hiding in like a coward right now."

He raises both hands in surrender. "So charming. Was just going to mention how charming this place is."

Your lips quiver into an almost smile and you shut it down immediately, along with the quick decision that he is dangerous. Disarming with the quickness of his tongue, and unnerving in how he handles conversation like a chess board.

"This entire situation needs more tea." You grumble to yourself, turning your back on him.

There's nothing worth stealing on that counter of yours, unless he's crude enough to steal second-hand books worth cents if he even attempted to resell them in a city like Gotham. At most, he'd take the chipped mug rimmed with your tea. Oh, stupid you forgot your mug.

Your steps retract, a groan caught in the between your lips as you turn around with the anticipation to be hit with his mocking—only to find an empty seat in your view. Your head whips around past the shelves, but there was no sight of a worn leather jacket. Of course, he didn't even bother to announce his departure.

Coming back to the counter, you check for any missing items only to spot a bookmark poking out of one of your books, left in an ajar placement on the counter. On top of it, sat a pile of cash that was worth more than any copy in this entire store.

“Hey—”

He was already gone, you forget. You flip open the book, only to find there’s handwriting on your bookmark. Scratched in impulsively, like a lingering thought he had to put down.

“Jackass left you a tip for the trouble—and the rec. - Jason.”

His condescending tone somehow translates into pen on paper. It should irritate you. Yet, when your fingers lift to trace over the drying ink, you find yourself smiling involuntarily again. Jason. What kind of a man was he? It's a useless question, as you doubt you'll ever see him again.

A likely criminal, a guaranteed jerk—and probably the most exciting visitor of your entire summer.

Jason comes back not a week after. Covered in blood, which after your initial fright, is believed to belong mostly to the other guy. That particular fact he thought to include does little to soothe your nerves.

“You should’ve seen him.” He rambles, in what you could only hope wasn't his disgruntled attempt at impressing you, whilst laying flat on the desk. “Makes mine look like child's play."

The first-aid kit, hidden somewhere in the store cabinet, is squeezed haphazardly onto your office chair. There’s nothing more nerve-wracking than your first attempt at stitching a cut, not anything close to your caliber. If his arms weren't wrecked, you suspect he wouldn't have come all the way to you, an actual stranger. His voice distracts you, and you miss your aim.

Jason hisses, half-shirtless with his black tee tucked between his canines. "No, I said you have to turn it as soon as the point disappears."

Your hand is splayed over his stomach, fingers shaking slightly as you try to focus. "Stop shifting, and just keep quiet for a second. I can't focus with you nagging me."

"Forgive me for being concerned about my wound—"

Your hand comes up to shove the t-shirt further into his mouth, muffling his words. He raises a brow, almost amused, and a trickle of sweat brushes past.

"I'm trying my best to help, when this is clearly something hospitals exist for." You huff, focusing back on the stitch. "Give me some grace, and shut up."

His muscles flex and contract, but eventually, he listens. Your work becomes easier after that, despite it being the worst position you've ever been put in, neck cramping to avoid blocking your only source of light, the flickering lamp above the surface he's laid on, his blood dripping onto the wood.

"You owe me at least five purchases to make up for the blood stains." You grumble. "That requires you to stay alive."

He grunts through the fabric, and you take it as agreement.

“Why’re you back here anyway?” You question, trying to distract yourself. “Of all the places you could’ve gone, you thought that a bookstore keeper would have medical expertise?”

“Not medical expertise.” He mutters, voice too raw to not be honest. “I wanted..”

Your hand places a cloth over his wound, soaking the fabric red. “Wanted what?”

His gaze lingers over you, somehow more haunting with how the blue shade's grown darker, pupils expanded. He winces when you accidentally put too much pressure on the stitch, but that doesn't seem to be all to his sudden stillness. “A recommendation.” He answers eventually.

You stare at him, tempted to laugh. “You came all this way bleeding out, barging in through the door, past closing hours again—for a recommendation?”

He stares at you, and your laugh slips through when you realise that he’s at least half-serious. “I knew you'd be infuriating, but I didn't expect insanity.”

He ends up buying eight later just to prove his point and to make up for the blood stains, only after you promised that they'd all be your recommendations.

The hour's long past operating train schedules, and with the quiet acknowledgement of traumatising your uneventful Friday night, the second time he's reinvented what a normal shift should have been—he offers to walk you back once warmth seeps back into his skin.

Somewhere between sitting cramped behind the shelves as you pick out his recommendations and his tracking gaze over your frame as you rant on about how he desperately needed a self-help book or two, the unspoken tension gradually fades. Eventually, your frustrations die down too—and you realise his company, minus the blood and sharpness of tongue, wasn't the worst thing in the world.

You come to expect Jason’s presence, late in the night although he does begin to respect the concept of a ‘closing hour’. He's usually your last visitor regardless—leaving the two of you alone to... continue on your charade of recommendations. Even when he begins to linger longer than any customer should, offering to walk you back, or make you tea when you're too busy shelfing to bother with a new mug to replace your over-steeped one from the afternoon. Except for today, because Margery, your least favourite customer in the whole of Gotham, decides to pick the one night Jason's visiting to start her practiced act.

Clearly intending on slithering her way into getting something for free, Margery drones on about how important her niece's education is to her, and how anything contributing to children's education should be free of charge. All over a book set costing a measly seven bucks, but you suppose to dear Margery, supporting small businesses in Gotham isn't in her check-list.

“I’m sorry, Margery.” Your voice remains perfectly levelled. “I can't hand the set to you for free, because it's against our policy."

“Can’t you understand my situation?” She huffs, annoyance flared in the fine lines of her cheeks. “No one's even interested in that set, I've surveyed it for days.”

“Which by all existing policies, still requires a purchase, ma’am.”

She scoffs, nails drumming impatiently against the counter. “I want to speak to your manager.”

Your lips quirk up. “Jason.”

Jason shifts then, his gaze lifting from the book in his hand, one which he hasn’t turned the page since he conveniently perched himself right next to your counter ten minutes ago. He places the book down gently onto the wood, bookmark slipping into place, though the slight sneer of his lips conveys none of that delicate care as he slumps against the counter, shoulder brushing against yours.

“There a problem?”

Margery blinks, affronted by his attitude. Or his sheer size towering over her. "You're the manager?"

“Policy’s law.” Jason shrugs. “If you’d like to take this further, to save yourself—“ His gaze flickers to the book set, and his smirk quirks up higher—the perfect composition of a jerk. “Seven bucks, we'll be more than happy to call the authorities.”

“I have never experienced such horrible service!” Her cheeks grow warm, sloshed with embarrassment. “Acting as if I'm in the wrong—you’ll be receiving the worst review!”

"All’s fair in Gotham, ma’am.” He calls out with a grin as he watches her turquoise skirt catch onto the end of the door hinge, releasing another shriek from her lips.

The door slams shut, bell ringing dramatically with the impact, and Jason turns back to you, smile slipping into something familiar and reserved for you. “The review will be wiped the moment she hits post.”

You snort, leaning back against the shelves. “Should I be concerned about your illegal activities invading its way into my work?”

“Nah.” He shrugs. “Last place the GCPD will look into is some shabby bookstore.”

“Shabby.” You feign offense. "Our most repeating customer doesn't even hold a shred of respect for this place."

“Oh-no, I’m beginning to like the sound of being manager of this fine establishment.” He humours, glancing around as if he hasn't already memorised the interior.

You frown, suspicious of his change in tune. “Why, cause you’ll be the boss of me?”

His smirk deepens. “One of its many perks, I imagine.”

“Oh, get over yourself, Todd.” You glance back towards the door, still unable to rid yourself of the satisfaction of watching that entire fiasco go down. "Though I suppose a thank you is in order."

"Couldn't get her out of her fast enough." He shrugs. "She was taking up our time."

"Our?" You raise a brow, almost teasing as you look back at him. "Didn't realise this was our thing now."

His gaze lingers on you, as if he knew his response would be the deciding factor of acknowledging the thinly veiled string that's begun to loop itself around the both of you. Something about your dark circles, the oil on your nose bridge, or the mess of your knotted hair—whatever he saw in you, seals his decision.

"Yeah." His voice rasps, the most unguarded you've ever heard him. "It is."

It's an instantaneous kick, one that nearly leaves you breathless as you try to regain your composure. He could’ve said nothing. He could have thrown this to the side and said that his weekly visits for recommendations during your shifts, no matter if he was bleeding or bruised at the knuckles coming from a life clearly separate from yours—meant nothing.

Yet, it does mean something. Not just to you, but to him as well.

"Oh." You mutter, because you can't think of anything appropriate to say to that.

"Oh." He echoes, a genuine smile lingering at the edge of his lips. "Haven't received my recommendation of the day, sweetheart."

You blink, feeling strangely light, as if your body has regained all the energy zapped out from long hours of rearranging shelves and stacking boxes. It doesn't help that he's looking at you like that, soft and disarmed in a way you've begun to realise he's let himself be, only around you.

You should've trusted your gut that he was dangerous, but never in the way you expected. Your heart skips traitorously, the little thing already knowing something that you refuse to admit aloud. So, you do what you always do and dig out your recommendation, waiting for that spark to light in his gaze and pretend there's nothing more to why you love it so much.

Weeks turn into months, and Jason becomes your one constant even as your shifts lessen in hours to accommodate your academics. If anything, there's something comforting now about leather jackets, the faint scent of pain ointment, the certain knowledge that Jason is most probably a vigilante, after you noticed his constant vigilance over the district you work in has significantly lessened crime rates.

His shelf at home has built its steady collection, every book representing a particular week, an ever-increasing memoir of the thing shared between the two of you, from the first time he stumbled into the store. You don't know what to call it, only that you wish for it to never stop.

He knows the store like the back of his palm, including the exact hour in which you would get up for a tea refill, or when you need a steady hand on the ladder to reach the highest shelves. It's strangely intimate, the way he slots himself into the quiet mundane of your shifts, but he never complains of boredom or having something better to do with his time. If anything, the slower the day, the more he seems to uncurl like a satisfied feline—accompanying you by your side when there's nothing more to do, catching up on his reads while you have a read of your own.

"I have a recommendation for you." Jason mutters offhandedly, legs resting on the desk, as much as home as you are now, seemingly unbothered that he's randomly switched up the unspoken rules of the thing that's shared between the two of you.

You raise a brow, gaze peering over your current read. "You—Mr. I Can't Read Without Your Recommendations, has one for me?"

He shrugs, taking something out from the inner pocket of his jacket. You never understand just how much he's able—and willing to fit inside the leather confinements, and you swear half of it belongs to his side of the world you're privy to only in the latest of nights, when his hand is gripping yours knuckle-white, and he lets you stay by his side before muttering his review for his latest read.

In his hand, is a book, one in which you recognise immediately.

"Dorian Gray." You muse. "Is it your turn to call me self-conceited?"

His lip twitches into a half-smirk, but it buries itself under what you only recognise now to be nerves.

"Jason?" You murmur, slightly startled as you place down your book.

His own hand, scarred over the knuckles and engulfing the book, places its weight gently in your hands, as if offering something sacred.

"I wrote something inside." He mutters, voice softened.

Your brows furrow, but you oblige—flipping open the very first copy you've ever recommended to him, and find a handwritten note on the first page. It's unmistakably his, and there's a few scratched out lines that you can't make out, clearly something he pondered over for a while.

"I think you've probably figured it out by now, that I am not good with my words, no matter how many books I've read with greater speeches or declarations. Still, you deserve to hear something honest, and I've always conveyed myself better through my actions than I do with my mouth.

When I first entered this store, I never expected to run into you. Fate or whatever people call it, has never been considerate of my path, or who I encounter along it. Yet, you stood right there, clearly out of place with the world I know, and I don't think I'll ever truly comprehend how our paths aligned. I told myself to forget you, but you had given me a piece of you in the book you placed in my hands, and I couldn't stop thinking of that, of you. I tried convincing myself, after considering it for seven days, that seeking you out would make the curiousity dissipate, and not because I wanted to hear your voice again.

Bleeding out over your counter, I knew that I was done for when I realised I was willing to buy the entire store if it meant getting to spend a few more minutes by your side. Every book I carried home, was me getting to keep pieces of evidence, of this thing we share that feels like it's completely ours. Proof that a person who thought about what kind of reader I'd be despite every reason not to care—actually existed.

I'll probably regret this, I do have a talent of screwing up with people, but keeping silent has never been my forte, and I would regret not telling you what I've known since the first, which is that there hasn't been a single book where a line has crossed my mind without thinking of you. That there hasn't been a day, where I don't hold myself back from wanting to see you again. I'm offering you my honesty because I do believe that's the only decency available in Gotham, and I'd like to offer you at least that."

Speechless was an understatement for the shaking in your fingers, the weight of the page in your hand when you finally look up and meet his gaze.

He's nervous, pupils dilated—body locked with tension. He's just poured his heart out to you through the page of the very first book you've given him, and he's staring at you like you’ve changed the entire trajectory of his life, and not the other way around.

“Jason.”

“I’ve never done anything like this.” It spills out of him, as if he can’t contain himself. “Our thing, falling for someone. So, before you say anything—I just want to state that I'm not expecting anything. That's the one of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn a long time ago, so don't feel you have to say something you don't mean. I just can't go on pretending that meeting you didn't change something in me—that it hasn't rewired what genuine happiness feels like. I began to read again, after all these years, because books which I once found comfort in now reminds me of you. That in every line I read, I searched for something to bring back to you."

"It scared me." He admits, and even the act seems to cost him. "To care that much. To have this lack of control over how I operate, how I should feel. You disarmed me in a way no one else ever had, and I didn't think I even had that in me anymore. To feel this terrified and to still want someone this much."

His hand lowers to the note-filled page, the book still gripped between your hands and his expression steadies. "I considered it countless times. To stop this, before I start something I'll never be able to take back. Then I looked at you, and I realised I can never go back to my life 'before' you. That I was already in this, and I'd be willing to do anything if you are too."

"Jason." You call out, and he stops with a trained halt, as if he expected the worst. That was your last straw.

"I didn't even need the note." You burst. "If you had simply told me you wanted me, I would've already said yes. Our thing, I've always wanted to be a part of it."

Before, he was tense—but now, your words seemed to have hit him like a truck. You continue, not wanting him to doubt something you realised should've been obvious from the moment you kept that very first note he left you in your wallet.

"I want to be in this with you, Jason." You confess. "You're the one person I wanted to see every night. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a mess but—every book in this store, I constantly look for something that screams you and I wait in the hopes that you'll like it, and that was the most scariest, intimate thing I've ever done for someone. So—you're an idiot if you think I don't want this as much as you do."

"...You mean I didn't have to feel physically ill to write that note out, and you would've said yes?" He mutters after a moment, a low huff of amusement leaving his lips.

“I thought you said being direct is what gets you places in Gotham.” You quote.

His smile gradually reappears. “Yeah, I suppose it got me places. Running into a shabby bookstore, getting hit on the first night.”

You raise a brow. “You and I remember that encounter very differently."

"Yeah?" He murmurs. "That'll be a problem if we aren't on the same page. Just to give it a test, what if I said I wanted to kiss you right now?"

Shock registers faintly to you, even if that thought's been circling your mind for months. A little smile pulls at your mouth. "Yeah, I think we might be on the same page there."

When he leans in, you smell faintly of gunpowder, something warm and smoky—so distinctly Jason. You don't think you'll ever tire of it, and you love it more when his fingers tangled itself into your hair, brushing against the nape of your neck. When he finally kisses you, a low rumble in the back of his throat in content, you find he was half-right that night you both met. Maybe there was luck involved after all.

"I am keeping that note." You murmur after he pulls away to press something softer against your temple.

The three-star restaurant is packed. The perfect setting for a high-end establishment. The waiters are dressed in black with immaculate white waist aprons. Just another Friday at Luca's in Copenhagen. The streets outside are lit by street lamps and the enchanting view is only visible from four tables. Small candles illuminate the white tablecloths, dishes are served, waiters move quickly and politely. Nothing is left to chance, everything is measured to perfection and the pastries are worth selling your soul to the devil for. 

You always book in advance, the table near the bay window for Friday night. It has become a ritual, a sort of gift you give yourself at the end of the week. And today is no exception.

This is already the third time you've done this since discovering the restaurant tucked away at the corner of an alley. Three times you've come and sat at the same table with your gaze lost outside, and three times you haven't finished your meal. Chef Luca doesn't pay attention at first. At least not particularly. At the end of every service, he always inspects the leftovers to see what is appreciated and what isn't, and your plates are always half full. His blue eyes scan them every single time, no potatoes left untouched or vegetables pushed to the side, just half of the dish eaten. The first time, he tells himself it's nothing serious. The second time, he takes the plate and tastes it to see if something is wrong. The third time, he frowns. Which is why today, when you sit down at your usual table and stare through the bay window, he watches you from the kitchen.

He notices your tense posture, your legs crossed beneath the table and your phone that you check far too often for his liking. When your order comes in, he takes care of it personally. A citrus avocado starter, a risotto with shavings of Italian parmesan and, for dessert, a chocolate mousse. You ask for the mushrooms and seafood to be removed from the dish. A request that leaves him confused considering they're the very heart of the plate, but his muscular arms accept the challenge and he decides to make you something special. 

The sous-chef watches him from the corner of his eye as Luca delegates the other dishes to focus entirely on yours. And about thirty minutes later, your appetizer arrives. He watches as the waiter places the plate in front of you and you order a glass of non-alcoholic wine. Strange once again, but he heads back into the kitchen to put the finishing touches on your meal. 

Chef Luca is patient, kind with his team, orders fly around but are never shouted. He handles his tools with care and cooks with his heart. The Michelin stars are there to prove his excellence and he puts his expertise into your plate in a particularly personal way. It's not an ego thing, he simply hates knowing a customer has left dissatisfied with his food.

Classical music echoes through the restaurant, cutlery clinks and quiet conversations fill the space. Your flowing dress falls along your legs all the way down to your heels. Curly hair pinned into a bun, a few strands resting against your temples and a sad look directed at your plate. You place your fork and knife to the side before picking up your phone. You're alone, not a word, not a smile, just a plate returning to the kitchen with the entire right side untouched. Luca wipes his hands on his apron, his black shirt rolled up over his tattooed forearms, then picks up the plate and inspects it. The avocado is creamy, the radish shavings are crisp, the seasoning is perfect and everything blends together in harmony despite the absence of crab. He looks at you again from afar, you sip your non-alcoholic wine without even lifting your eyes and remain glued to your phone while waiting for the main course.

Luca sighs before pressing the bell to send it out. You welcome it with a small, polite smile before beginning to eat while watching passersby walk through the streets outside. Your expression is melancholic and your movements elegant. You look like a painting frozen in time through flavors and candlelight. He glances at the silver watch on his wrist, answers a few questions and then gets to work on your dessert. You eat slowly, a good hour passes before the waiter brings your plate back and once again Luca loses patience when he sees it unfinished. He even makes his sous-chef taste it and judging by the pleased groan that follows, the dish is excellent, so why don't you finish it? He can't understand it. 

If you didn't like it, you wouldn't have eaten it. If it didn't interest you, you wouldn't have ordered it and considering the outrageous prices of his restaurant, you might as well enjoy it. He chooses to ignore his disappointment and send out the dessert instead. He practically follows the waiter into the dining room and positions himself at a reasonable distance. He shakes a few hands, those of regular customers, wealthy neighbors and simple admirers of his cooking, but he never looks away from you. No, you remain the center of his attention. At six foot three, he towers over almost everyone. He stays behind the register, arms crossed, leaning against the counter where menus and napkins are stacked.

Every bite is watched, analyzed, dissected. You barely react, no expression of pleasure, no dissatisfaction either. You eat your dessert quietly, ignoring the world around you as if there is only you inside your little bubble. He sees you as a loner. You come here alone every Friday and tonight, you somehow look even sadder than the week before. And yet he added little surprises to the chocolate mousse: caramelized hazelnuts, tiny biscuits and a sprinkle of crushed peanuts. A delight for anyone willing to be seduced by it, but you remain neutral. Every spoonful brings you closer to halfway and Luca holds his breath. 

Then suddenly, you place a hand on your throat and begin coughing. Not a pretty cough. A frightening cough. The kind of cough that makes people think something is stuck. Luca doesn't waste a second. He crosses the restaurant with quick strides. He's the only one who noticed you were struggling to breathe.

“Hey, are you alright? Need help?” His hand brushes against your arm while you cough before sliding up to your shoulder.

“I’m- cough- fine- cough- the hazelnuts- stuck.”

“No, don't talk. Drink this.” Luca fills your glass with water and places it in front of you. “Drink.” he says as he leans over you. It doesn't sound like an order, but it isn't very far from one. You hear the urgency behind it and empty the glass in one go. “Easy now. Yeah, just like that. Better? Still stuck?”

You shake your head. Your coughing is less violent but still there. You take another sip of water. Tears gather in the corners of your eyes from the effort.

“Look at me.”

You lift your eyes and your gazes connect instantly. His is soft and blue, a mixture of certainty and confidence that reassures you.

“Breathe. It'll pass.”

You nod and swallow hard and he smiles.

“See? All gone.”

He straightens up and his hand leaves your shoulder. He moves to the other side of your table and leans against the chair while watching you catch your breath.

“Thank you.” You clear your throat softly and tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

“So I suppose the hazelnuts were a bit too big.”

“No. No. It was fine. Delicious.” You push the empty bowl slightly across the table to show him you've finished eating. His gaze drops to it before returning to you.

“You're sure it was delicious? You might as well be honest with me. Any feedback is welcome.”

“Excuse me, who are you?”

“Fair.” He laughs quietly. “I'm the owner and the chef of this restaurant. My name is Luca, but you can call me Chef.” He offers you his hand. “For now.”

“Oh!” You shake it. His hand is large around yours, warm and surprisingly soft. “I'm-”

“You're Friday.”

He watches you frown.

“You've come here every Friday since last month.”

“You noticed?”

“I did. Especially when you don't finish your meal every single time. You offended a chef, that's quite an uncommon thing to do.” He smiles. “I'm kidding. I was curious about you. Well, about your taste, at least. Your satisfaction is mine. Help me achieve it.”

His hands grip the back of the chair and he leans a little closer.

“Please.”

He straightens up again and crosses his arms.

“What was wrong with the menu?”

“Nothing.” You swallow hard. “Really.”

“Try again.” The answer comes too quickly and he immediately reins himself in. “You're not obliged to answer, but I'd appreciate some honest feedback. It's the only way for me to know what you like.”

You look left, then right, then back at him. His gaze hasn't left you once. You take a deep breath and begin turning your glass slowly against the table.

“The appetizer... Good, but a little sour.”

“Too much citrus, alright.” He nods.

“The main course, too simple.”

“I should've replaced the protein instead of simply removing the grilled octopus.”

“And the dessert...”

“You nearly choked on it.” A smile stretches across his lips.

“More biscuit.”

“Interesting.” He thinks for a moment. “Good to know for next time.”

“Yeah...” You lower your eyes to your phone. It's almost ten o'clock already. And you're already thinking about the trip back home.

“Would you like some tea? Coffee? I have to make amends for the incident. The bill is on the house.”

You are about to refuse.

“Don't fight it. I'm a gentleman. It's the British side of me.”

“A tea would be nice.”

“Let me guess, green?”

“Black.”

You smile despite yourself. You have the vague impression that he's flirting, but you could be wrong, so you look away.

“Thank you.”

“The waitress will be back with your tea.” He smooths down his apron. “Have a lovely evening, ma'am.”

“You too, Chef.”

You watch him walk away, say something to a waiter while pointing toward your table and disappear back into the kitchen. A few minutes later, your tea arrives, along with a tray of miniature pastries, each one more tempting than the last. The waiter tells you they're compliments of the house and thanks you politely before leaving.

You start on the desserts with an appetite you hadn't expected and, about thirty minutes later, you push open the doors of the restaurant without knowing that the chef is watching you leave with a thoughtful expression.

The following Friday is a rainy day. Heavy drops fall over the canal, the streets are slippery and umbrellas are everywhere. Around seven thirty in the evening, you walk through the double doors of the Michelin-starred restaurant. The waiter guides you to a table you know all too well. You take off your trench coat and sit down on a comfortable chair. September is damp and slightly cold. You pull at the sleeves of your light sweater as you pretend to read the menu. You already know what you're going to order, the same thing as last time and the times before that. The brunette waiter with the mischievous eyes keeps a straight face when you tell him what you want. He doesn't write anything down as if he already knows. He brings you your non-alcoholic wine and a carafe of water. Then a bowl of warm homemade bread with salt and pepper on the side.

Your thoughts drift toward the people passing by outside. You've been holding back your tears for hours, a deep sadness pulling at your features. You swallow it down and fiddle with your phone. Videos scroll by, you don't listen, you only watch to pass the time. Some are funny, others thought-provoking. You rest your face against one hand, your expression passive when your appetizer arrives. 

The first thing you notice is that the lemon is much softer, lighter, almost bright somehow. It's no longer served as a sauce but as an airy foam. The avocado melts in your mouth and the radishes are crisp. It's good, so good that you eat more than half of it but not the entire plate. The second course arrives a few minutes later and you lift your eyes to thank the waiter automatically, but a blond man with blue eyes greets you instead. He places the dish in front of you with almost reverential grace before giving you a wink. You can't help but smile.

“Hi, Chef.”

“Evening, Friday. I came myself to check whether the risotto is to your liking.”

“You mean you'll stay here while I eat?”

“If it doesn't bother you, yes. You look like you could use some company. Though don't hesitate to tell me I'm wrong. I'm perfectly willing to hear a very polite ‘leave me alone and go back to your kitchen, Chef.’”

“I wouldn't say that.” You laugh a little but he notices your smile doesn't quite reach your eyes. “You can stay. Do you want to sit down?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Wouldn't be appropriate. I should maintain some composure while spying.”

He stands behind the chair, his hands gripping the wood. You can see his tattoos more clearly now, vegetables, drawings, all more artistic than the last. You pick up your cutlery and begin eating. You don't dare look up but you know his blue eyes are fixed on you. He's not intimidating, or maybe he is a little, but it isn't unpleasant. Something about him feels kind and there is something else beneath it, something controlled. Not in a bad way, at least not to you. The tears you've been holding back since this morning are almost forgotten. The dish is comforting, like an old grandmother's recipe he reinvented to fit within a fine dining setting. Silence takes up space as spoonful after spoonful disappears and eventually you decide to look at him. He smiles.

“Keep going. Almost there.”

You swallow the last spoonful and his smile widens.

“You did it.”

“Yeah...” You pull your sleeves over your hands and he notices. “You added bacon.”

“The very best for you. I mean for my clients.” He pauses. “I choose my suppliers myself.” Another pause. “Are you alright today?”

“Yes, why?” You smile awkwardly.

“You look... sad. May I ask why? I'm a curious sort, forgive my bluntness. You usually seem to drown in melancholy but today there's something else.”

“It's, uh... personal.”

“Right. Of course. I respect that.” He picks up your empty plate. “Your dessert is waiting for you. I'll be back with it.”

He starts walking away. Your breathing quickens and the words leave your mouth as if they had been waiting for permission all along.

“I'm pregnant.”

He turns around. Contrary to what you expected, he doesn't look surprised. He almost looks happy for you.

“That's good news. Congratulations. But it doesn't explain why you're sad.” He studies you. “The father?”

“Not in the picture.”

You pull at your sleeves again, a nervous habit or maybe he hopes you're simply cold. Luca doesn't want you to feel nervous around him and the thought intrigues him.

“How far along are you?”

“Three and a half months.”

“I see...” He nods as though he's suddenly understood something about you. “I didn't know.” He nods again. “That deserves a little treat. What's your favorite dessert? And don't tell me to surprise you, that's a death sentence for a chef. You might as well sleep here because I'd take far too long, so choose something and I'll bake it.”

“Really?” you ask incredulously.

“Come on, Friday. Try me. Don't be shy now when I can still fix it.”

“Cinnamon rolls.”

“An hour and a half wait. Does that sound fair to you?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

You smile a little wider and Luca seems to freeze.

He grips the edge of the plate harder than necessary and nods before heading back into the kitchen. The waiter comes over with tea and little pastries, you tell him you didn't order any and he replies that the chef made them for you. The cup is warm in your hands, warming both your body and your heart. The sadness inside of you seems to lose some of its space and you feel grateful. 

Finally, someone who sees you, who sees beyond the facade and acts for you. This gift may seem small but to you, this tea is worth all the gold in the world. The rain keeps falling over Copenhagen while you sip hot tea with a slightly lighter mind. The tables begin to empty as the night goes on. Conversations become rarer. Two hours later, the waiters clear the tables and there are almost no customers left apart from a couple in the corner and you. Luca returns with a plate of three steaming cinnamon rolls and places it in front of you. You slip your phone into your bag, the sweet smell makes you hungry.

“Mmm, it smells good.”

“Homemade bakery effect.” He stands behind the chair across from you as usual. “Extra butter and extra icing sugar for the lovely pregnant lady. I can add ice cream if you fancy it. And don't forget the feedback, I'm rather eager for that.”

“Alright, I taste and I tell you.”

“Please, be my guest.”

You pick up your fork and he makes a disapproving sound.

“Eat with your fingers. Better flavor. Trust me.”

You do as he asks without even arguing and he licks his lower lip.

“Good gi-... uh yeah.”

The dough is perfectly soft. The cream melts on your tongue. There is a little crunch to it, hazelnut chocolate. Sweet and not bitter. You close your eyes as you chew and a quiet moan escapes you. He watches you eat with your cheeks full, satisfying in a way that feels almost intimate. Watching you enjoy his cooking creates a kind of euphoria inside him and his smile widens. You eat one, then the second, then the last one. Your fingers are covered in thick cream and you lick them eagerly while Luca finds himself caught by your slow movements.

“Right. I'm definitely adding those to the menu. You seem to like them, Friday.”

“It’s really, really good. Oh my God! How can it be this good?!”

“Chef's secret. Want more?”

“No, no, that's enough sugar for tonight.” You laugh, happy for once. “Thank you, Chef. I'm going to wash my hands and head home. It's late.”

You stand up, move too quickly and the top of your thigh hits the edge of the table.

“Ouch!” you exclaim with a grimace.

“Hey. Hey, what happened? Did you bump yourself?”

He steps closer to you and it's only now that you realize just how tall he is. You stammer something but Luca is already crouching in front of you, inspecting your bare thigh beneath your skirt.

“Sharp edges... I should buy new tables with rounded ones.”

His warm hand moves across your skin as he checks whether a bruise is forming, too focused, too involved. You remain speechless somewhere between surprise and satisfaction. You blame your hormones because the way he touches you stirs something inside of you.

“You don't need to throw away the tables. I'm just clumsy.”

“I don't need to, no.” He rises slowly, his hand gliding over your skin, then your skirt which he adjusts slightly over your thigh before moving to your arm. “But I want to.”

“Okay...” you breathe.

The closeness is overwhelming for a few seconds. Neither of you moves and then he steps back and removes his hand at the same time.

“Doggy bag for later then. No discussion.”

“Chef?”

“No. Discussion.” He says seriously before his features soften and a smile appears. He steps back again to let you pass and you hurry away from him.

“Same time next week? I might have more surprises for you.” He laughs. “I'm talking about the menu. That came out wrong. I'd like to keep this routine. I work hard to make you finish your plates and it's surprisingly fulfilling. How does that sound?”

“Uh... good. Sounds good.”

“Will you give me the honor of coming back?”

You had just changed your scrub top for the second time in the night and it wasn't even one in the morning yet. You were at your limit and everyone could tell. As you sit at a computer typing up a chart your hear Shen behind you slurping out of his iced coffee cup. You could hear him gulp after every sip. You snap your head around quickly, "Do you mind?!"

"Sorry…" He gives a polite smile, "I just wanted to check in. How is your ecstasy patient?"

"Recovering smoothly. Trying to cool him down now with O2 and benzos. We will continue to monitor his sodium and follow the management plan." You say as you type.

"Good. Nice save with the intern pushing the benzos instead of haldol."

"He was combative. Talking about hallucinations, without the tox screen we wouldn't have known." You say flatly.

"MDMAs still have a chance of coming up false in screen tests." He smiles, "But you caught it."

"Thanks…" You mutter. You were not one to take a compliment. You just wanted to be left alone. But Shen doesn't leave, he slowly walks in front of you. You glare at him and flare your nostrils, "What. Do. You. Want?"

"Could you cover some patients for me? The intern is a little slow for my taste. I want to make sure they are on top of things."

You grimace, "Fine. Better you than me."

"Great, severe gastroenteritis in five, migraine in one, and burns when he pees in three." He taps the desk, "You're welcome."

"Fuck you." You grumble under your breath.

You think he likes to torture you on purpose. Giving you the worse cases of the day just to make you mad. You take a deep breath before getting back to work. The sooner you deal with the patients the faster they leave. You repeat the mantra in your head.

After you are finished, you go out for a smoke. You wear an oversized sweater in the cold air. You had to change your top for the third time. Your gastroenteritis was in fact not that but instead, pancreatitis. The pancreas had ruptured and was sent to the OR for emergency surgery. Not before the patient vomited on your clothes.

"I fucking hate night shift." You mumble as you take another drag of your cigarette.

"It's not too bad."

You hear the agitating voice of your attending from behind you. You squeeze your eyes shut and purse your lips as you try to keep your composure.

"You look good in green." Shen eyes your mint green scrubs

"What do you want?" You grit your teeth.

"That should be your catch phrase. I'm sorry about the gastroenteritis going full pancreatitis."

"Did you even do a physical exam before passing it off to me?" Your eye twitches.

"The abdomen did not feel tender at the time." He says, "I was waiting on an ultrasound unit."

"You just love to piss me off." You scoff.

"That's not true. I just do things and they end up pissing you off. Things happen sometimes and it's out of our control." He chuckles.

You, however, don't laugh. Instead, you take a long drag of your cigarette before snuffing it out under your foot. You go to walk inside when Shen steps in front of you, "GSW coming in less than five."

"Are you fucking kidding me? You knew I was out here. You came out here to fuck with me."

"Sorry." He pulls out goggles and a gown for you to put on. You huff as you put on the gown. The sound of the ambulance grows closer.

Throughout the trauma you stay hyper-focused on the task at hand. Unfortunately, due to the severity of the wounds there wasn't much you could do. Blood seemed to just be pouring from the poor man's body. Your gown was drenched and blood soaked through the booties. You throw off your mask and goggles and leave the room. You rip off the gown and dump it in a bin before going back outside.

You dig in your pocket pulling out another cigarette and light it. You puff on it a few times while you curse under the breath. When you hit the nicotine buzz you finally slow down. Tears well up in your eyes for a moment before the anger rises from your stomach. Why couldn't he just leave you alone for a second? One second is all you needed. A moment, a pause, some time to catch your breath.

You exhale the smoke from your nostrils before crushing the bud into the ground. You come back inside and clench your jaw when you unintentionally lock eyes with Shen. You are quick to look away and go find a patient.

Shen is quickly after you, "Can we talk?"

"No."

"I think we should have a debrief with the team about the trauma earlier."

"Then you do it. I'm fine."

"You're not fine, you're disconnected. We should debrief so we understand what happened and everyone's role. It was no one's fault so I want to make sure we all know that." He steps in front of you, "So you know that."

You purse your lips, "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because it's my job not to." He pulls you into the break room. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine. It would be better if you'd just take a goddamn hint when I say leave me alone."

"I just said I can't do that. I want to make sure you're alright. Tonight has been rough for you. I want to talk to you and help you look on the bright side of things."

Your eye twitches and grind your teeth together, "Look on the bright side? A man is fucking dead, and you want to me to look at the bright side."

"Now, I didn't mean it like that—" "Then what the fuck did you mean?! The fucking migraine or the fucking vomit, or the fucking drunks?! What the fuck could you possibly mean?!" You snap, "There is no bright side, Shen. Tonight has been a shit show. I have to change for the 4th time! My shoes are soaked to my socks in blood! And you want me to float above it like you do?! I can't do that! I'm not you! I don't want to be you!" Shen blinks in surprise as you continue to yell, "I do everything you ask of me! I take it up the ass like it's fucking nothing! I don't understand why you won't just leave me alone… It's come to a point where I want to fuck the shit out of you!"

Wait a minute, that came out wrong. You're hot in face, the nicotine buzz and anger was fading fast. You had gotten so mad your mouth was moving faster than your brain was processing thoughts. You didn't mean to say that. You take a breath and step back. Shen is looking at you shocked by all of what you had just said.

"I– I have to go." You rush out of the room and run to the women's restroom to take a breath. You don't know what happened. You started to get light headed. You take another breath. You splash some water into your face to cool down.

"Yo," Ellis enters the bathroom.

"Oh man, not now." You whine.

"Not now?! Girl, I heard you from central. 'I'm gonna fuck the shit out of you?!'"

"I didn't mean to say that. Tension was high." You lean against the wall.

"He's shell shocked. He's probably thinking about whether he should go to HR or not."

"It wouldn't matter what I said, he'd probably have to go."

"What were you trying to say?"

"I'm gonna beat the fucking shit out of you?" You sputter and cover your face, "I'm so humiliated."

"Don't be. It'll be like water off a duck's back to him." She shrugs, "You should still apologize though… Even if it was funny as hell."

"Shut up!" You shove her playfully. You take a few moments more in the bathroom before coming out. Everyone looks at you with knowing glances. Most try not laugh as you walk. You enter the main hub and clear your throat, "Lena, where's Shen?"

"Outside. I think he needed some… air." She smiles cheekily. You bow your head and walk outside to find him.

He stands by the roadside and bounces on the balls of his feet. You walk slowly behind him, "Shen?"

He stills before turning around, "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blow up like that. Tonight hasn't been a good night from me."

"Mhm."

"We should have debriefed. I should have aired out my grievances properly. It's just that sometimes…"

"You want to fuck the shit out of me?"

"No! No, I didn't mean to say that." You cover your eyes in embarrassment. You hear him chuckle. You uncover your eyes and see him smiling.

"I mean, I wouldn't mind it."

"Hm?" You blink, "You wouldn't mind what?"

"You fucking the shit out me." His eyes scan your body, "I want you to."

"You want… to have sex with me?" Your eyes move from side to side to make sure this wasn't some sort of prank. Nobody else was outside so it couldn't have been.

"Why not? You're pent up, I'm kind getting there." He shrugs, "Sometimes what people really need is a release."

It has been a while since you've gotten laid and Shen wasn't bad looking. It wasn't too weird either. Sure he was your boss, but you've also known him since your intern year. It was sleeping with a friend more so. You chew your lip as you think, "You know, I was trying to say I want to beat the fuck out you, right?"

"But you didn't. Consider it your subconscious sending you a signal. You're angry and pent up all the time." He smirks then steps closer, "You need to relax."

You narrow your eyes then smirk, "Maybe I do. You're place or mine?"

"Mine. After work, I'll text you the address."

"Good." You step back, "Just so you know, I don't go back on my word when I say it." You then turn on your heels and head back inside. He swallows the spit in his mouth and adjusts his scrubs pants before following after you.

After work, Shen shoots you a text before leaving through the bay doors. You finish your hand-off with the morning residents and head out the door. You head home to freshen up before going to Shen's place.

You knock on his door nervously debating if this was a good idea in your head. You made it this far, so why not go all the way. You chew on your bottom lip as the door swings open and Shen stands in the doorway with sweatpants and a blank t shirt on. "Welcome." He opens the door wider.

It was a large studio apartment. You look around expecting some red flag to turn you off but nothing springs up for you. You turn to face him, "Nice house."

"An apartment, actually." He corrects you.

"You always know every way to piss me off." You say through your teeth. You step closer to him, "Are you sure you want this?"

"Absolutely." He smirks. You hold his neck and kiss him roughly. He moans in surprise against your lips and moves his hands around your waist. His tongue slides into your mouth and you deepen the kiss.

You suck on his bottom lip and gently pull on it with your teeth. Shen pulls back and winces. You pulled some skin off his lip and it was bleeding now. You smirk and swipe the blood from his lip, "I told you, I was going to fuck the shit out of you."

"You said you didn't mean that."

"You're right, I meant I was going to beat you. Why not do both?" You snake your hand down to his chest over his heart. "I'm going to tire you out."

Shen licks his lips before pulling you in for a hungrier kiss. You moan into his mouth as his hands grip over your butt and squeezes your thighs. He holds you taut to his body. You can feel his hard-on against your thigh. You gasp, "Are you not wearing underwear?"

"Don't tell me you think it's gross. I bet you're not wearing either."

It was true, you weren't. Why bother if you were going to just get naked again. You roll your eyes and push him away. You walk over to his bed and pull off your sweatshirt, revealing you weren't wearing anything underneath. Shen's breath hitches as he stares at your breast. You smile and beckon him closer.

He walks to the bed and your push him into the mattress. You straddle his lap and grab one of his hands. His breath shakes as you place it on your breast. You moan as his hand squeezes your nipple.

You grind down in his lap as he does so. You lean down and lick over his neck leaving a mark. As one hand is playing with your nipple, Shen's other hand massages your ass, gripping it to grind back against you. You rake your hands through his hair and down his neck. You slide out of his lap and sit between his legs.

You pull down his pants and watch as his cock springs out. You lick your lips before kissing the head and sliding your tongue along the slit. You kiss down the shaft to his balls then with the flat of your tongue slide it back to the top.

Shen's abdomen tightens as he holds his breath and whimpers. When you put it in your mouth, a drawn out moan falls from his lips. He grips the sheets with one hand and the other finds the back of your head. Your jaw gives slack as you sink further.

"Oh fuck!" He throws his head back when he feels the back of your throat. His hips lift slightly but he stops himself. You let out a laugh through your nostrils before you begin to bob your head, getting his cock wet with your spit. Shen moans as you suck on the head every time you come up.

You liked hearing it. It started in a high tone and then it would fall into the bass of his normal voice in the end. It was strained like he was focused on something else. Like he was trying not to think about cumming. Your hand moves to his thigh then gently you grab his balls. You begin to massage them rubbing and fondling. His moans get higher and his toes curl at the sensation. He thrusts into your mouth, "Shit~ Shit~! I'm gonna cum~" He pants as his eyes squeeze shut.

With one final thrust he cums into your mouth and the back of your throat. He thrusts with the aftershocks and pulls out of your mouth. You swallow it, licking your lips and smile. Shen crawls back on to the bed. "That was amazing." He says breathily.

"It's cute that you think it's over." You remove your pants and uncover that you were not wearing underwear just as Shen thought. He smiles and sits back against his pillows. You straddle his lap and you put his cock on his stomach and rest your pussy lips on top. Slowly, you slide along the shaft causing Shen to hiss. It was clearing still sensitive from his recent orgasm.

"I was thinking I could just eat you out and finger you. Call it a day."

"You're not in charge right now, John."

The sound of his first name falling off your tongue goes straight from his ears to his cock. You feel it throb against you. You continue to move bracing yourself by putting your hand on the center of his chest. He whimpers at the feeling of the tip of his cock brushing against your clit. Your brows furrow as you focus.

Shen's hands move from your waist to your breasts massaging them gently. He can't control the sounds he's making as his cock gets harder. You remove his hands and put them back on your hips. You lean forward so you're face to face. You reach around behind you.

While making eye contact, you slide the head of his cock inside your entrance. You sigh as you push down further on his cock. Shen clenches his hands down around your waist as he pants. "You're so tight~" He says through is teeth, "I'm not gonna last."

"I don't want you to." You start to move.

Shen sinks deeper into the bed as you thrust. "Oh god~! Oh fuck~!" His back arches as he thrusts up into you. You moan with him as you rub your clit. Shen huffs as he watches.

He grabs your hand and stops you. "I want to take you there." He pulls out of you and moves you to the bed. You pout for a moment but you still try to get your way. You roll over and grab one of his pillows and place it under your abdomen. He gets behind you and teases your pussy with his cock before sliding it inside.

He begins to thrust into you, the sound of skin slapping together floods his apartment along with your moans. He hunches over and snakes his hand under you, slipping his fingers between your legs and rubbing your clit. He pants in your ear as your orgasm grows closer.

He slams into you so rough it sends shock waves up your spine. He wraps both arms around your waist as he goes. He moans in your ear and mutters, "I'm gonna cum~ Your pussy is so tight I'm not gonna last much longer. Cum with me~ Please cum with me."

You simply moan in response, you turn to capture his lips in a kiss. "Cum inside me~"

That seems to do the trick, with one final thrust, Shen cums inside you. He groans as he continues to rut. You orgasm soon after just before he pulls out. He lays beside you with his chest heaving.

You get out of his bed and head to his bathroom. Shen catches his breath, "That was nice right?"

"Yeah." You say curtly through the door of the bathroom.

"So, uh, I was thinking maybe some breakfast?"

"I can't." You come back out in different clothes then the ones you came in with, "I had fun but I've got to go."

"Oh, uh okay?" He wilts. You can't fight the smirk growing on your face.

"Maybe we could do this again sometime… Maybe." You collect your clothes and head to the door, "See you at work."

"See you…"

You look back and see the disappointed look on his face. You couldn't help but feel a bit of gratification. The ragebaiter has been successfully ragebaited.

˖⋆࿐໋₊ ☆

“I knew it!” Is Lisa’s only reply before you hear the apartment door open and close. You consider for a moment, eyes unfocused as your fingers smooth along the side of your steaming mug of coffee. 

You know that you ought to loosen up: Lisa’s a grown woman, months out from graduating from college. Besides, Joey’s stuck around longer than you thought he would—certainly longer than the last few boys Lisa brought around…Maybe you should lend him the benefit of the doubt—

The sound of the front door opening again draws your focus, and you lift your phone, feigning distraction. 

“What’d you forget?” You call out. 

“To kiss you good morning.”

John’s voice makes you smile, and you’re setting your phone down before you even finish the email that you’ve been drafting. 

“Hey,” You greet, giving John the space to shrug off his bag and toss his empty Dunkin cup into the trash. “I thought you were gonna text when you got here.” 

“I caught Lisa as she was coming off of the elevator, she let me in.” 

“Sneak.” 

John smiles, cupping your cheeks and drawing you in for a warm kiss. You let yourself lean into him, curling your arms around his middle and sighing as he gives you one more peck. John dips his head, burying his face in your neck, the prickle of his stubble sending tingles down your spine. You smooth your palm up his back, over his dark scrubs, then up to comb through the hair at the base of his neck. 

“How was your shift?” 

“Long.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Mm.” 

“You wanna talk about it?” 

“Nn-nn.” 

“Okay,” You murmur. Another two, three questions crowd behind your lips, but you force them down. John’s been dealing with questions all night, anything that you wanna know isn’t important enough to bug him with now. 

“...Time is your first call?” He mumbles. 

“9:30.” 

“Good,” He straightens up. “Plenty of time.” 

You don’t ask him what for. You just let him tow you down the hall. 

Since your appendix removal five months ago—since you and John began seeing one another again—the two of you have built up a consistent routine. 

Every Thursday, John comes right to yours after his shift. The two of you shower together, eat breakfast, and as you start your workday, John goes to bed. It’s the day that you typically have the fewest meetings, which gives you time to have a working lunch with John. You block off an hour at the end of your day so that the two of you can go for an early dinner, and you walk with him to Dunkin, then to the Pitt for his shift before getting yourself home. 

It’s your favorite day of the week. 

It feels the most like you imagine life with John would be like if you were married. You shamefully think about it that way on a weekly basis, but you haven’t been able to bring yourself to broach the subject with him. 

It’s just—things have been going so well. You’re afraid of upsetting the apple cart. The whole appendix situation has really slowed you down. It’s not a matter of healing; you were diligent about following the surgeon’s instructions to the letter. But getting that sick? Realizing in hindsight that you should’ve gone to the hospital way sooner instead of pushing through bout after bout of sickness—it’s made you so much more conscious of how you spend your time, and effort; of the arguments and conversations that you choose to chase, and which ones you’re willing to let go. 

Thoughts of a life with John aren’t something you’re going to just drop, but it’s a conversation that you can’t bring yourself to start. If you met a version of yourself from five months ago, the old you wouldn’t recognize who you’ve become. 

You’re starting to think that may be a good thing. 

--  

It’s Lilah’s midday text that shatters your sense of calm. 

11:58 AM parentals incoming. 

A half dozen questions pop into your head—Why? When? For how long? Where are they going to stay? Are they going to want to see you? Will they have time? 

You’re staring at your phone for a few harrowing moments when you hear:

“I‘m starving.”

John’s voice makes you jump about a foot in the air. Well—alright, not quite a foot, but high enough that you bash your left knee into the kitchen table, rattling your water glass and your laptop. 

“Mm,” You groan, gritting your teeth as you steady your glass, nudging it away from your tech. 

“Yow, that sounded like it hurt.”

“Did.” 

“You okay?” John is kneeling beside you before you can answer, turning your chair toward him. The heat of his palm bleeds through the fabric of your pant leg, rolling it up. His hands smooth over your calf, then brush over your knee. 

“Didn’t break any skin,” He comments, then tips his chin up toward you, a smile curling his lips. “Did you forget I was here?” 

And it takes you a moment, because John looks good on one knee—but your throbbing skin anchors you back to the present.

“No! No, of course I didn’t forget,“ You insist. “I was just—I was focused, you caught me off-guard.” 

“Sorry, baby.” John tips his head forward, pressing a kiss to your knee before rolling your pant leg back down. “Lunch smells good. What’re we having?” 

“Salmon with a tofu curry bake.” 

“Mm. You’re too good to me.” John straightens, drifting over to the fridge. You take the opportunity to pick your phone back up, replying to Lilah: [12:03 PM]  Do you know when? 

Lilah [12:03 PM]  not a clue, generalissimo 

[12:04 PM] Did they text you?

Lilah [12:04 PM]  lisa did 

You puff your cheeks out, eyes darting to a Teams message that pops up on your laptop, then back to your phone as you swipe out of your chat with Lilah and into the sisters group chat. The last message is from Lilah, one of the many reels that she goes out of her way to send over text because neither you nor Lisa spend nearly as much time on Instagram as she does. 

[12:04 PM] Please share any information about mom and dad’s visit here. 

It’s a moment before two chat bubbles pop up in unison. 

Lilah [12:04 PM]  👀 

Lisa  [12:05 PM] I was going to tell you later

“You want a diet coke?” 

“Uh—Sure,” You offer John a quick smile. “Thanks.” 

Lisa  [12:06 PM] They’ll be here next week I don’t know exact dates or anything just that they’ll be around

And that’s on par for your parents—infuriatingly so. They’d never been planners, either one of them. Hell, they’d never had to be. They eloped rather than plan a wedding; crashed with your dad’s parents for two years after marrying, as no one was pushing them to find their own apartment; kept you in a deathtrap of an antique cradle that they found someone throwing out for the first five months of your life, until your maternal great-grandmother stepped in and bought them a real one (and if a woman that was born during the Great Depression considered a cradle to be dangerous, you know that it had to be bad). 

They could barely be bothered to keep on top of your schedule when you were young, let alone Lilah and Lisa’s when they were old enough to have one. You learned early on how to coordinate the three of you—getting to school, overlapping afterschool with activities, walking home together, making sure homework was done. Lilah got good at forging your parents’ signature, signing her and Lisa’s homework when it was required, or filling out permission slips for field trips. 

So for Lisa, the golden child, to be the one told that your parents would be ‘around’ next week…Well, you aren't mad. You’re just disappointed.

The scent of salmon and curry curls around your nose, pulling your focus to the plate being set in front of you. You straighten up, brow furrowing as John reaches out, saving the powerpoint that you’ve been working on before lowering the lid of your laptop halfway.

“I was gonna do that.” 

“I got it. Besides,” John sits down beside you, thigh pressing against yours, “You made it, I plate it. Teamwork.” 

“Thank you.” 

“You could get even luckier.” 

“Oh?” 

“Oh yeah. Play your cards right and I might even do the dishes.”

“Opting in for dish duty? Wow,” You smile. “Someone slept well.” 

John shrugs a shoulder, pushing the tofu curry around to release some of the heat. 

“I always sleep better when I’m here.” 

It takes you aback as you watch John as he tucks into his food. You want to ask why he thinks he sleeps better—comfier bed? Softer sheets? 

Selfishly, you hope it’s you.

-- 

By 4:28, you’re dressed for date night, and half-hunched over your bed, hurriedly putting the finishing touches on the presentation that’s been driving you up the fucking wall all day. You can hear John in your en suite—the spritz of his body spray, the crank on and off of the faucet, the creak of the hand towel holder, and then the click of the light switch. 

Your heart ticks up in your chest as John’s hand lightly rubs your lower back. 

“How’re we doing in here?” 

“I need one more minute, hon,” You mumble. 

“Alright.”

John’s flopping onto the bed a second later, making your laptop jostle slightly beneath your fingertips. You roll your eyes a touch, pointedly jabbing the backspace key to undo the typo from the mattress’ bouncing. You can feel John watching you, but you're determined to focus solely on your work. The sooner you finish up, the sooner you can give John your full attention.

It’s a futile effort—John shifts slightly on the bed, and your gaze flickers between him and work. 

“You’re going to get wrinkled,” You warn. 

“Just the back of me.” 

“That doesn’t bother you?” 

“Nah. The back of my clothes are none of my business.”

You try to tamp down your amusement, but a smile spreads across your lips before you can stop it. 

You sigh, “All set,” as you save Group B RFP_V7_Final_FINAL to the appropriate sharepoint folder before shutting your laptop down. “I just need to put my shoes on and throw on some lipstick, and then we can go.” 

You straighten up, expecting John to do the same, but—but he’s still laying on the bed, watching you. You’re about to ask what’s wrong, what he’s waiting for, if he’s changed his mind about being wrinkled—

“You look so pretty.” 

There’s an almost dopey smile on his lips as he says it, one that sends a flurry of butterflies through your stomach. 

“Well, you know me,” You look down, picking a piece of lint from your shirt, “I like to make an effort.” 

“An unwrinkled effort.” 

“Yes,” You laugh, “Now come on.” 

John sits up, and you take a step back to let him stand—but his hands grasp your hips, guiding you closer. 

A few months ago, you would’ve wriggled out of his grip, reminded him that you’re already running late for your reservation. Now, you rest your hands on his shoulders, dipping your head obligingly for the kiss that he leans up for (secure in the knowledge that the restaurant’s policy is to hold your table for fifteen minutes after the reservation time). 

John’s hands wander lower, hooking around the backs of your thighs and squeezing gently. 

“Screw dinner,” he mumbles against your lips, and that makes you lean back with a giggle. “Come on, you’ve logged off, we’ve got the place to ourselves…” He cranes his neck, lips skimming across the skin bared by the sweetheart neckline of your shirt. And you’re tempted, but—

“We won’t be alone for long,” You warn. “Lisa has that—” Don’t call him ‘that boy’ again, don’t— “She has Joey coming over. Besides,” You curl your hand around his jaw, tipping his head up to meet your eye, “You still need to eat—” 

“You know I’ll eat—”

“Dinner!” You laugh, shoving his shoulder before finally twisting out of his grasp. “Come on, we’re running behind.” 

-- 

You’ve been working on being present. As a chronic overthinker, your mind is constantly combing through potential plans, opportunities, outcomes, pivots. You don’t like being caught off-guard. 

But this visit from your parents—this sparse bit of future knowledge—is putting a serious hitch in your efforts to live in the moment. Time and again throughout dinner, your fingers itch to reach for your phone, to check on whether Lisa has added any details to your group chat. If push came to shove, you could just reach out to your parents yourself…But you also know that they answer Lisa’s messages far more frequently than they answer yours. 

You’re not covering off on your distraction well enough. There are a couple of lulls in your conversation during dinner, moments where you realize that John is waiting for you to reply, or to answer a question. You manage to fill in when it does happen: feign that you’re considering an answer, or that the restaurant noise swelled, and you just missed what he said. 

The two of you finish dinner with enough time to stroll through the park toward the Dunkin hand in hand. When your phone buzzes in your pocket, you reach in and pull it out automatically. The message makes your stomach swoop. A date, a time. And the place? 

Your apartment. 

A moment later, the information is joined by Lisa’s ‘Sorry 😬.’

“Everything okay?”

You shove your phone away and smile up at John, fibbing, “Fine. Just Lisa checking in.” 

John’s never met your parents—never made it to Thanksgiving. You haven’t brought up his meeting them since the two of you got back together. You don’t know when your parents will be in town again; as it is, you haven’t seen them in almost six months. But—well, you should introduce John to them, shouldn’t you? You’ve met John’s mom, absolutely adore her. Hell, you have more consistent communication with her than you do your own. 

You pull a deep breath in through your nose. You can do this. You’ve pitched ideas to your boss, to clients. You can just—pitch this dinner to John. 

You clear your throat and start in.

“So, Lisa actually let me know that my parents are going to be in town next week. Given the timing of the visit, I doubt they’ll be around for the holidays, so I was wondering if you wanted to meet them this time around. I think it’s been an appropriate amount of time, I mean, cumulatively, we’ve been together for ten and a half months—” 

“Cumulatively?”

You push past John’s amusement:

“I know that meeting families is a big step, but you’ve already met Lisa and Lilah—and they’ll be there as well. I’m not sure what they’ll want to do just yet, but I’m assuming it’ll be some sort of dinner.” 

“...That’s your conclusion? No ‘in summary’?” 

Your stomach twists at the tease; your feet slow, unbidden, grip slackening around John’s hand. He only gets a half-step ahead of you before he turns to look at you, bringing you both to a full stop. The sigh John lets out makes you want to recoil, but he’s stepping fully in front of you before you can make a move. 

“I’m doing it again, aren’t I.” 

You hesitate before you give a small, dejected nod. 

“I’m sorry,” John murmurs. 

“It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not.” John raises a hand, using it to tip your chin up. “If it upsets you, it isn’t okay. I know your relationship with your parents is a bit…Tricky. I shouldn’t have joked.” 

“Thanks. And you can say no to dinner,” You hurry to add, “We don’t have to decide this right now. I know it’s a much shorter notice window than I typically like to give.” 

John pulls his lips inward, biting down, and you can’t help but smile yourself. 

“Alright, take that one as a freebie,” You sigh. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” He laughs, “It’s just cute when your corporate-isms sneak in.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” You grumble, hooking your hand through the crook of his elbow and steering him around. “C’mon, let’s get you your Dunkin. Can’t have you yawning on your patients.” 

“...What night’s the dinner?” 

“Friday. I understand if you can’t get off work.” 

“I’ll check. Can I let you know by Monday?” 

“Course you can,” You insist, squeezing his arm gently. “Monday is perfect.” 

--  

It’s going to even out, you know that, but having a Thursday without John around feels so empty. You know that it’s for a good reason—he’s swapped a shift and is pulling a double so that he can be at dinner with your family tomorrow. You’re warmed by the fact that he’s willing to do that for you, you are. 

But the overthinking, panicky part of you is worried. He’s working a double for this. What if he comes to dinner, it’s awful, and he decides that the effort wasn’t worth it? 

You talk yourself off of a ledge multiple times that day, often reaching for your phone, opening his messages, and stilling while your mind cycles through what you ought to text. 

You settle for a message around one, when the two of you would typically be sitting down for lunch. 

[1:03 PM] Hope your shifts haven’t been too hellish. Doordash should be dropping off food for you in five minutes. Can they leave it with the charge nurse if you can’t get it? 

You’re setting your phone down when it buzzes, and you fumble with it, lifting it again and eyeing the incoming call. You bite your lip, steadying yourself before answering: 

“Hello?” 

“Hey.” He sounds tired, and it kills you a little. He’s tired because of you. 

“I’m not interrupting you, am I?”

“Nah, I just stepped out to the ambulance bay to get some air. What’s this about Doordash?” 

“Uh—Yeah, I. I mean, obviously we’re not in our usual groove, but I wasn’t sure what you’d be able to do lunch-wise, so I packed up your portion and sent it over.” 

John huffs softly on the other end, and you relax a touch. You know that sound, can practically picture the smile on his lips. 

“You didn’t have to do that.” 

“Wanted to. How are you doing over there?” 

“It’s, uh…It’s alright. Some of the day shift is a little tense.” 

“Tense how?”

“It’s just a different vibe than I’m used to. I’ll—Oh, hang on.” 

You hear a few words exchanged distantly on the other end, coupled with a, “That’s me,” and a, “Thanks, man.” 

“Got the food,” John reports, “I hate to cut the call short, but I’m gonna run inside and chow down before I get pulled on to another case.” 

“No, yeah, of course, go!” You insist.

“Thank you for lunch.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

“I’m excited for tomorrow!” 

You push out a shaky laugh. “Jesus, John, don’t jinx it.” 

“Why do people keep saying that to me?” 

“Just—go eat your lunch before it gets cold.” 

“I will. Love you.” 

“Love you, too.” 

You wait for John to hang up before you lower the phone from your ear, eyeing the notification from Doordash that your package has been delivered. You open up the app to tip—and snort a laugh when you spot the proof of delivery: a photo of John holding the bag and phone with one hand, and giving a thumbs up with the other. 

He does look tired—the bags under his eyes are heavier than you’re used to seeing. But he’s grinning from ear-to-ear. You smile, taking a screenshot before returning to the tip window. You pull in a deep breath, hold it for a count of four, and then let it out slowly. 

It’s going to be fine. John’s going to enjoy his lunch, you’re going to enjoy yours, and tomorrow is going to be great.

-- 

“Do you think there’s enough food?” 

You ask it with complete sincerity, but Lilah’s withering glance from across the living room tells you that she thinks it’s a dumb question

“Do I think the professional-grade charcuterie board, spinach puffs, pigs in a blanket, and fruit crostini are enough for the six of us?” She drawls, eyes sweeping across the side table that you’ve meticulously arranged. “God, no. You need at least five more appetizers.” 

“Lilah,” You huff, turning from her to adjust the slight wrinkle that formed when you set the plate of crostini down. 

“It’s way too early for you to be this wound up,” She adds, “They’re not even gonna be here for, like, another half hour. Maybe an hour." 

You tut, turning and leaning over the coffee table, adjusting the flowers in the vase there carefully. 

“Why does everyone insist on trying to jinx my evening,” You grumble before adding, “They’ll be on-time,” More loudly.

“Doubtful.” 

“They will be,” You insist, straightening fully, planting your hands on your hips. “It’s coming up on Lisa’s graduation, they’ll want to do something for her.”

You glance toward Lilah, watch her lips purse into a pout. 

“You think so?” She asks. 

“They reached out to Lisa first.” 

“They usually do.” 

“Right, but coordinating with her on her busiest class day and making plans to come here?” 

Lilah scoffs, raising her hand to inspect her nails. “As if they know it’s her busiest class day—and they just didn’t want to make a reservation.” 

“Well, my point stands. They’re probably seeing Lisa tonight so that they don’t have to figure out coming back for her graduation.” 

“Hmph. Whatever,” Lilah pushes herself up off of the couch and strolls over to the bar cart. “At least we’ll get it out of the way so that we don’t have to fake it at Christmas. Want one?” She asks, holding up a bottle of gin. 

“Thank you, no. And for the record, it’s peach and basil.” 

“What?” 

“The crostini.”

“What did I call it?” 

“Fruit.”

“Are you telling me peach isn’t a fruit?”

“My point is that the crostini isn’t just fruit.”

“Jesus christ,” Lilah huffs, turning back to the bar cart. “Ya got tonic?” 

“It’s in the mini fridge,” You wave to the bottom of the bar cart. Lilah scoffs, crouching down and opening it.

“When the heck did you get this?” 

“Yesterday. I was thinking about the flow of traffic between the living room and the kitchen, this just made the most sense.” 

“Six people is traffic?” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Uh-huh. Lime?” 

“In the door. Ice trays are at the very top.” 

Lilah whistles low, straightening with a cold can of tonic and the limes that you precut that morning. 

“You really think of everything, generalissimo.” 

You open your mouth to retort, but you’re cut off by a knock at the door. 

“Pour that quickly, you know how mom gets when she sees you drinking,” You warn, rounding out of the living room. 

“Please, if that’s her, I’ll eat your hat.” 

“Not one of your own hats?” 

“Didn’t bring one.” 

You smile in spite of yourself, peering through the peephole and brightening when you spot John, his hands behind his back. 

“Hey!” You greet as you tug the door open. 

“Hi,” He smiles, stepping in and shutting the door behind himself. You begin to lead the way deeper inside, but John curls an arm around your waist, drawing you into his chest. You grin, leaning up for a kiss. You smooth your hands up over his shoulders, sighing softly against his lips. 

“Missed you,” He mumbles. 

“I missed you, too, hon.” 

John gives you one more squeeze before leaning away. “Something for you, too.” 

“My tupperware?” 

“Exactly.” 

You grin as John pulls the bag out from behind his back, waggling it in front of you. 

“Very kind of you—Oo,” You peek into the bag. “It’s clean, too.” 

“Only the best for my baby.” 

“Quit flirting!” Lilah calls from the other room. “I’m going to be grossed out enough when mom and dad are here!” 

You roll your eyes, taking John’s hand and towing him into the living room. 

“You want anything to drink?” 

“She stocked the bar,” Lilah adds, rattling her drink. 

“Just some water for me for now, thanks—but I’ll grab it. Anyone else here?” 

“Not yet, but Lisa texted the group chat and said she was running behind.” 

“She did?” You frown. “When?” 

“I dunno, like twenty minutes ago?” 

“I didn’t see that.” 

“You were drizzling something on the fruit crostini.” 

“Balsamic vinegar.” 

“You put balsamic vinegar on fruit?” 

“On the peaches and basil, yes.” 

“I love hanging out with the two of you,” John comments as he heads to the kitchen, “It’s like a tennis match.” 

You shake your head as John goes, reaching down and adjusting the flowers again. “...They’re gonna be late.” 

“Quit saying that.” 

“No, Lisa texted,” Lilah insists. 

“What?” You straighten up, rounding to where she’s looking down at her phone. “Just Lisa?” 

Lilah passes the phone over to you. You take it as gingerly as a grenade, reading the text through the cracks littering Lilah’s screen: 

Lisa  [6:08 PM] Mom and dad stopped by after class Grabbing a bite to eat with them before we head over

You blink down at it for a moment before wordlessly handing the phone back to Lilah.

“...You haven’t put the chicken in the oven, have you?” Lilah asks. 

“No.” 

“You can probably cut the preheat.” 

“What’s going on?” 

You can’t bring yourself to look at John as he comes back in. Grabbing a bite, you know what that means. At most your parents will be stopping in for a few minutes, if they stop in to see you at all. 

“You called it,” Lilah offers, “They’re here to see Lisa.” 

“Yeah,” You manage, but feel your throat going tight with upset. You clear it twice, pulling a deep breath in through your nose. “Okay…Well, I’m gonna put the chicken in.” 

“What?” Lilah crows. “Give it up, generalissimo, they’re not gonna come—” “Not for them, for us,” You insist, forcing a smile onto your face and looking between John and Lilah. “We’re all here, we may as well have dinner. The chicken should take half an hour, and I’ll get the veggies on as well, just,” You wave toward the side table. “Help yourselves.” 

You don’t give either of them a chance to question your decision, or to argue—just stride to the kitchen and open the fridge. You can hear John and Lilah’s hushed tones from the living room, but you don’t strain to listen. You’re not sure how well you’d manage to keep yourself together if you had to explain things to John right now. 

You putter around in the kitchen alone for a few minutes, getting the chopped vegetables into steamers, and the chicken into the heated oven. You’re setting the timer on the oven when you hear footsteps growing closer. 

“Here.” 

You turn, smiling slightly at the glass of wine John’s holding out for you. 

“Thanks.” You take it, knocking it gently against his before leaning against the counter. The each of you take sips, and fall into silence. You reach out, lightly adjusting the collar of John’s button-down, then smoothing your hand over his chest. You brace for John to ask if you’re alright, but he doesn’t. He just curls his hand around yours and raises it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back, then holding it against his chest. You can’t meet his eye; can’t bear the possibility of finding pity there. 

“Chicken should be done in forty minutes,” You report. “Have you had anything to eat?” 

“I’ll grab a bite. Have you?” 

“Nn-nn.” 

“Then let’s go.” 

-- 

Lilah and John keep up the bulk of conversation at dinner. You chime in now and again; chuckle at their jokes; smile when either of them looks at you. You don’t insist that Lilah stay for dessert, but you do make her take home plenty of the leftover chicken and vegetables, and pack a separate bag with some additional hors d'oeuvres. You hang back as John and Lilah say their goodbyes, then follow her into the hallway to see her out. 

“Well, this was a way less awkward evening than I thought it would be.” 

You huff at the insistence, offer, “Makes two of us.” 

Lilah hesitates, hand on the doorknob, before turning to face you fully again. 

“You know why I think they didn’t come?” 

And you don’t want to know, but Lilah presses on: 

“You got all of this together in a week. It would take them a month.” 

“They didn’t come because I can make dinner?” 

“They didn’t come because they don’t put any effort in unless they have to. They just take the easy way out, they’re…They’re cowards. You have a career, and a good life. It makes them feel like they’ve never worked for anything. ‘Cause they haven’t.” 

You smile a little bit. “Thanks, bean. I appreciate your insight.” 

“Yeah, well,” Lilah turns the handle, “Don’t get used to it.” 

“I love you.” 

“Love you, too generalissimo.” 

“Text me when you’re home!” You call after her, only catching her, “Yeah, yeah,” as the door closes behind her. You shake your head, scrubbing your hand over the back of your neck as you turn back into the living room. You wave John off as you see him stacking the emptied hors d’oeuvres plates from the side table. 

“We can take care of those in a minute.” 

John’s brows pop up at the insistence. 

“Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?” 

You shoot him a chastising glare as you plop onto the couch, raising your hands and wiggling your fingers toward him.

“C’mere?” 

John sets the plates down and joins you on the couch, drawing you into his side. You sigh softly, curling your arm around his middle and pressing your face into his neck. John’s hand smooths over your shoulder, thumb sweeping the strap of your top. 

“Nice flowers,” he murmurs. You turn your head to look, lips twisting at the sight of them. 

“They’re the same bouquet mom had when she got married…I don’t know why I keep getting those ones. She’s never mentioned them before, and I doubt she even remembers what her bouquet looked like.” You sigh, tipping your head back against his shoulder. “I am so sorry.” 

“What are you apologizing for?” 

“This whole—this was a disaster,” You laugh. And you mean for it to come out lightly, but it shakes as it leaves you. “You worked a double for this—” 

“Hey, hey,” John sits up, twisting to get a better look at your face, “I worked a double for dinner. We had dinner.” 

You peer up at John, biting your lips, and he winces. 

“Too silly again?” 

“No,” You reassure, reaching up and cupping his cheek. “It’s perfect this time.” 

John smiles, dipping his head down and giving you a gentle kiss. You nudge your nose against his as he breaks it, tipping your head to the side as his eyes sweep over you. 

“What time is Lisa coming home?” 

“She isn’t.” 

“Oh?” 

“Not tonight. She texted. She’s crashing at Joey’s.” You’d gotten the message midway through dinner, and you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to do anything but thumbs up the message. “She probably thinks I’m mad at her.” 

“Are you?” 

“No! No,” You shake your head. “She’s not in charge of my parents, they make their own minds up, for right or wrong. And considering the excellent company that they missed out on tonight,” You give John’s cheek a gentle, teasing pinch, “It was for wrong.” 

“So we have the place to ourselves?” 

You arch a brow. “Something on your mind, Dr. Shen?” 

“I have an empty apartment, a girlfriend that I’ve barely gotten to see in a week, and a day off tomorrow. I have a lot on my mind right now.” 

“Care to share with the class?” 

You shriek a giggle as John stands, tugging you up behind him and leading the way to your bedroom.

-- 

You’re jolted awake by your alarm, and it’s a bit of a wriggle and a twist to loosen John’s grasp and shut it off. John groans behind you, and you find him blindly reaching for you.

“Sorry,” You murmur, “I forgot to turn it off last night.” 

John just grunts in reply, sagging back against the pillows as you cuddle up against him. You rest your chin on his chest, peering up at him. You smile at the sight of his sleep-mussed hair, the lessened appearance of the bags under his eyes. He really does sleep better when he’s here. 

John pulls in a deep breath, head tipping from side to side before he blinks at you. You lean up, pressing a kiss to his lips, then another. 

“Hey,” You murmur.

“Mm.” 

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart.” 

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