Nope

The palace had finally gone quiet. The last advisor had left hours ago, the petitions had been heard, and the endless stack of documents waiting for the Fire Lord's seal had been reduced to a decent and manageable pile. Even so, when Zuko stepped into your shared chambers, he just looked so exhausted.

You noticed it immediately, of course. That's what a kind marriage does, it makes you slowly learn how to perfectly read each other. And it wasn't like Zuko was good at hiding things from you. The stiffness in his shoulders. The slight furrow between his brows. The way he rolled his neck as though trying to shake off the weight of the entire fire nation.

"Long day?" you asked softly.

Zuko let out a tired huff that might have been a poor attempt at laughter. "You have no idea."

You crossed the room and reached for his hands. His fingers were warm, calloused from years of swordsmanship despite the apparently quiet royal life he now lived. "Then come with me."

His only dark eyebrow lifted. "You're planning something, love? Should I be worried?"

"Only if you've suddenly developed a fear of a bathtub filled with warm water, some incense and wine."

A genuine smile appeared then, small but real. "Impossible."

The bath had already been prepared, you knew it was gonna be a stressful day after all. Steam curled through the air, carrying the scent of jasmine and cedarwood. Golden lantern light danced across the water's surface.

For a moment, Zuko simply stared at it, then his shoulders visibly relaxed.

You helped him untie the elaborate layers of his Fire Lord robes. Piece by piece, the symbols of his office fell away until there was nothing left but the man beneath them. Your man, your husband. Not the Fire Lord, just Zuko.

He sank into the bath with an audible sigh. "Spirits," he muttered. "I needed this."

You sat beside the tub, dipping a cloth into the warm water. "Lean back for me, please."

A look of contentment crossed his face as you gently wiped away the dust and sweat from the day. The tension slowly melted from his muscles beneath your touch.

Neither of you spoke for a while, sometimes when you're with the right person no silence can feel uncomfortable, it's a peaceful sensation, a way of love that's not loud. The kind of silence that came from knowing someone completely.

Eventually, Zuko opened one eye. "You know," he said, "when I was younger, I used to think becoming the Fire Lord would solve everything."

You hummed thoughtfully. "And so?"

A dry laugh escaped him. "And it turns out ruling a nation is a lot of work. An awful lot."

You smiled. "No way. Who could have predicted that?"

"Not me." The corner of his mouth twitched upward.

You reached up and brushed some of the damp hair away from his face. Even after all these years, your heart softened whenever he looked at you like that. Like you were a deity and he were the most devoted follower. Like you were the cure for all the world's ills. Like you were home.

His golden eyes silently followed the movements of your hands as you worked. "What's wrong?" you asked.

"Nothing in particular."

"Zuko."

His smile deepened. "I was just thinking."

"Dangerous."

"Very dangerous indeed, love." You snorted, and he laughed quietly.

The sound warmed you more than the steam filling the room. After a moment, his expression softened, he smiled to himself. "I don't say it enough you know?"

You paused. "Say what exactly?"

His hand emerged from the water, reaching for yours. "Thank you. For always making sure I remember I'm more than just my title."

His thumb brushed over your knuckles before pressing a gentle kiss to them. "For taking care of me too. Thank you."

The sincerity in his voice made your chest ache. You squeezed his hand with a smile. "Oh come on. That's what partners do, you shouldn't thank me. I'm glad I get to be the one doing this."

For a minute, neither of you moved. Zuko seemed to admire your features quietly, seeing the way the reflection of the flames danced on your skin. Then he gently tugged your hand, encouraging you closer. When you leaned down, he pressed a kiss against your forehead.

"Thank you."

When he pulled back, there was no trace of the weary Fire Lord who had entered the room, it was your husband, looking lighter than he had all day.

And as the lanterns flickered around you and the world beyond your chambers faded away, you couldn't help thinking that this was your favorite version of him.

Was it your favorite because only you had the privilege of being able to see it? Probably, but also it was your favorite cause it gave you a feeling of peace you couldn't find anywhere else.

"So, are you going to get in the tub or do I have to put you in myself?"

"Zuko!"

He smirked mischievously. "I'm just saying I would love some company, wouldn't you be so kind to join me?"

Tonight was supposed to be different. Tonight, Jason had Webster cornered between a condemned apartment block and the crumbling back wall of a laundromat that had not been open since before Batman had adopted his third Robin. The alley was narrow, slick with rain, and lit by the weak electric buzz of a single flickering sign. Webster’s men were unconscious behind him. Webster himself was bleeding from the mouth and breathing hard, one hand clamped around a knife while the other pawed uselessly at the brick wall as if he could dig his way through it.

Jason raised one of his guns. “Drop it.”

Webster laughed, but there was panic caught beneath it. “You don’t shoot people anymore.”

“Who told you that?”

“The Bat.”

“Batman also says to pull my punches. Doesn’t mean I listen.”

Webster’s grip tightened on the knife.

Jason saw the shift in his shoulders a second before he lunged. He stepped sideways, caught Webster’s wrist and twisted, but the rain made everything slick. Webster slammed his forehead into Jason’s helmet. The impact rang through the reinforced casing, not enough to hurt but enough to break his grip. Webster came at him again, faster than Jason had expected, the knife scraping across the armour over his ribs.

Jason drove an elbow into his jaw. Webster stumbled, recovered, and reached inside his coat.

Jason moved for the gun at his thigh.

Then something bright red came flying out of the darkness and struck Webster squarely in the side of the head.

Webster froze. Jason froze.

The object bounced off the wall and landed in a puddle. It was a can of tomato soup.

“What the—”

“Hey, discount Dracula!”

The voice came from above them.

Jason looked up.

You were sitting on the fire escape three floors overhead, one leg hooked through the railing, your soaked hood pulled low over your face. You could not have been older than fifteen. Sixteen at a stretch. You had one hand wrapped around the rusted metal bars and the other digging around inside a plastic grocery bag.

Webster stared at you.

You pulled out a second tin. “I’m talking to you, Nosferatu.”

“Kid,” Jason said carefully, “now is a really bad time to—”

You threw the second can.

Webster ducked this one, but the distraction was enough. Jason crossed the distance between them, caught Webster by the collar and drove him into the wall hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. The gun inside Webster’s coat clattered onto the pavement. Jason kicked it away, swept Webster’s legs from under him, and pinned him face down in the rain.

It was over in less than five seconds.

Webster groaned. Jason zip-tied his wrists.

Above them, the fire escape creaked.

Jason looked up just in time to see you swing one leg over the railing.

“Don’t,” he said. You paused. “Seriously. Stay there.”

You looked down at him, then at the fire escape ladder hanging nearly twelve feet above the ground. “I got up here fine.”

“Congratulations. Stay there.”

Webster cursed beneath him. Jason tightened the zip tie until the man hissed, then opened a comm channel to report the location to Oracle. He did not mention you. Not yet. He had learned a long time ago that the moment he told the family there was an unsupervised civilian kid in the middle of an active crime scene, the comms would become unusable.

He waited until he heard distant sirens before hauling Webster toward the alley entrance. By the time he came back, you had ignored him completely and climbed down.

Of course you had.

You were standing beside the abandoned soup cans, inspecting one for damage as if you had not just interrupted an armed confrontation between a crime lord and Gotham’s most heavily armed vigilante.

Jason stopped in front of you.

Up close, you looked younger. Not in the face, exactly. There was a sharpness around your eyes that did not belong to someone your age, the wary calculation of a kid who had learned to read rooms before entering them. But your hoodie sleeves swallowed your hands, and one of your shoelaces had been replaced with a piece of yellow string. Rainwater ran from your hood onto your nose.

You put the dented can back into the bag.

Jason folded his arms.

“What,” he asked, “was that?”

You shrugged. “Soup.”

“I know it was soup.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

Jason stared at you through the white lenses of his helmet. You stared back.

Somewhere in the distance, a police siren wailed.

“You threw canned goods at an armed criminal.”

“You were losing.”

“I was not losing.”

“He had a knife.”

“I have guns.”

“You weren’t using them.”

“I was making a choice.”

“You were taking ages.”

Jason inhaled slowly. This, he thought, was probably how Bruce felt every time one of them had been a teenager. The realisation did not inspire sympathy. It mostly inspired the urge to go back in time and apologise to exactly no one.

“What’s your name?”

Your shoulders tightened.

There it was. Not fear, exactly. More like a door slamming shut.

Jason changed tactics. “Fine. Don’t tell me. How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Nineteen.”

“You are getting worse at this.”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Kid.”

You looked away.

The flickering laundromat sign painted one side of your face an unsteady blue. There was a bruise along your jaw, yellowing at the edges. Too old to have come from tonight. Jason’s attention dropped to the plastic bag. Four cans of soup, a packet of stale crackers, two cereal bars and a bruised apple.

No umbrella. No coat. No phone visible.

He looked at the time displayed inside his helmet. Two seventeen in the morning.

“Why are you out here?”

“Shopping.”

“At two in the morning.”

“The shop’s open twenty-four hours.”

“Where’s your adult?”

You laughed, and the sound was so humourless that Jason felt something cold settle behind his ribs. “My adult?”

“Parent. Guardian. Older sibling. Whoever’s meant to be making sure you’re not wandering around Crime Alley in the middle of the night, throwing groceries at gun smugglers.”

“No one asked you to make sure.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

You shifted the bag to your other hand. “Can I go?”

Jason looked at the bruise again. Then at the worn soles of your trainers. Then at the packet of crackers visible through the thin plastic.

“Where do you live?” Your face closed completely. “Yeah,” Jason murmured. “Thought so.”

“I have somewhere.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You made it my business when you joined my fight.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You could’ve been shot.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“You could have been.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t make it smart.”

“It worked.”

Jason had to resist the sudden, powerful urge to pick you up by the back of your hoodie and carry you somewhere safe by force.

It was not an unfamiliar urge. He had grown up in Gotham. He knew how the city made children sharp at the edges. It taught them to steal before it taught them algebra, taught them which footsteps to run from and which shop owners would look the other way when they slipped a sandwich beneath an oversized coat. Gotham raised its children like weapons and then acted surprised when they came out dangerous.

Jason had been one of them.

Maybe that was why you irritated him so immediately. You stood like he used to stand, balanced on the balls of your feet, ready to bolt. You answered questions with questions and wore bravado like body armour. Even the soup had been stolen. He could see the security sticker half-peeled from the bottom of one can.

“Did you take those?”

Your grip tightened on the bag.

Jason sighed. “I’m not a cop.”

“You’re wearing a helmet and carrying guns.”

“Not traditionally part of the uniform.”

“You beat people up.”

“Cops don’t have exclusive rights to that.”

For the first time, your mouth twitched. It vanished quickly, but Jason saw it.

He reached slowly into one of the pouches at his belt.

You flinched.

It was small. Barely there. A quick movement of your shoulders and a single step backwards, but Jason felt it like a blow.

He stopped. Then he pulled out a wrapped protein bar and held it toward you.

You eyed it suspiciously. “What?”

“You look hungry.”

“I’m not.”

Your stomach growled loudly enough that even the rain could not cover it.

Jason looked pointedly at your abdomen. You glared at him.

“Traitor,” you muttered.

He almost laughed.

Almost.

“Take it.”

“I don’t need charity.”

“It’s not charity. It’s payment.”

“For what?”

“The soup.”

“You didn’t buy the soup.”

“Neither did you.”

You stared at each other.

Then you snatched the protein bar from his hand.

Jason decided not to comment on the speed with which you opened it.

He waited until you had taken three bites before speaking again. “Where you going?”

“Home.”

“And where’s that?”

“Around.”

“That’s not a place.”

“It is in Gotham.”

Unfortunately, you had him there.

Jason glanced toward the mouth of the alley. The sirens were louder now. Webster would be collected soon, along with the men Jason had left unconscious near the warehouse. He should leave before the police arrived. He also could not leave you here.

“You’re coming with me.”

You nearly choked. “No.”

“Wasn’t asking.”

“Pretty sure that’s kidnapping.”

“Pretty sure you’re a minor out after curfew with stolen food and a bruise on your face.”

“So?”

“So either I walk you home, or you come somewhere warm while we figure out who’s supposed to be looking after you.”

“No.”

“You already said that.”

“I meant it both times.”

Jason stepped forward. You stepped back.

He stopped again. There was something in your face now that had not been there before. Real fear. Quiet, controlled, but unmistakable. Your hand curled around the half-eaten protein bar until the wrapper crackled.

Jason knew that expression. He had seen it in mirrors.

He lowered his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“That’s what people say.”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “It is.”

Rain tapped steadily against the helmet.

Jason looked at the alley around them, at the black windows overhead and the overflowing rubbish bags piled near the kerb. There were a dozen ways to force the issue. He could call Batman. He could call social services anonymously. He could follow you without your knowledge, find out where you slept and investigate from there.

Every option felt like a trap closing around you. So Jason reached up and removed his helmet.

Cold rain struck his face immediately.

You stared. Most civilians knew Red Hood’s face was hidden for a reason. Even with the domino mask beneath the helmet, the gesture meant something. It was vulnerability, or as close as Jason Todd tended to get while standing in an alley at two in the morning.

“My name’s Jason,” he said.

Your eyes flicked over his face, pausing at the white streak in his hair and the scar cut through one eyebrow. “That your real name?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would you tell me?”

“Because I’m asking you to trust me for the next ten minutes.”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“That makes two of us.”

“You’re a vigilante.”

“You threw soup at a gunman.”

“He looked annoying.”

“He was annoying.”

That almost-smile appeared again.

Jason held out the helmet.

You stared at it. “What?”

“Hold this.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s expensive.”

“That does not answer my question.”

“It’ll keep your hands busy while you decide whether you’re going to run.”

You hesitated, then took it.

The helmet looked too large in your arms.

Jason turned his back on you. It was a calculated risk. You could run. You could drop the helmet and vanish into the dark. You could hit him with it, though he doubted you would get much out of the attempt.

He took two steps toward the alley mouth.

Behind him, your shoes scraped against the pavement.

Not away.

Closer.

Jason did not let himself react.

“My bike’s around the corner,” he said. “I’ve got a place ten minutes from here. Food, heat, clean towels. You stay until the rain lets up. Then you can decide what happens next.”

“Just for the rain?”

“Just for the rain.”

“And you’re not calling anyone?”

“Not without telling you first.”

“That’s not the same as no.”

“No,” Jason agreed. “It isn’t.”

You were silent for several seconds.

Then you handed him the helmet. “Your head’s weirdly big.”

Jason put it back on. “Get on the bike.”

His safehouse was not designed for guests.

It was barely designed for him. There was one bedroom, a narrow bathroom, a kitchen with mismatched cupboards and a living room dominated by weapons cases disguised as cheap furniture. Books had colonised every available surface. A leather jacket hung over the back of the sofa. Three mugs sat beside the sink, though Jason lived alone and had no idea how all three had become dirty.

You stopped just inside the doorway.

Jason locked it behind you, then immediately stepped away so you would not feel blocked in.

“Bathroom’s there,” he said. “Towels under the sink. I’ll find you something dry.”

You stayed where you were. Water dripped from your clothes onto the floorboards.

Jason pulled off his helmet and set it on the kitchen counter. “You can keep your shoes on.”

“I wasn’t going to take them off.”

“Great. Saves us both time.”

He went into the bedroom and found an old T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring. They would drown you, but they were dry. When he came back, you had moved exactly three feet farther into the room.

You were looking at the books. “Those yours?”

“No, I broke into someone else’s apartment to use their shower.”

“You’re sarcastic.”

“So are you.”

“I’m charming.”

“You threw soup at a man.”

“That was charming.”

Jason handed you the clothes. You took them carefully.

His eyes caught on the bruise along your jaw again. “What happened there?”

You touched it automatically, then dropped your hand. “Fell.”

“Into a fist?”

“Into a door.”

“Someone open it into you?”

Your expression sharpened. “Bathroom, you said?”

Jason’s jaw tightened, but he pointed down the hall.

You disappeared inside and locked the door. He heard the lock click twice.

Jason stood in the middle of the living room for a long moment.

Then he pulled out his phone.

He did not call Bruce. That would turn one frightened kid into a family emergency. Dick would start making gentle eyes. Tim would quietly run a background check on every missing teenager in Gotham. Damian would pretend not to care while preparing a list of suitable weapons for self-defence. Bruce would arrive in the Batmobile and somehow make everything ten times more intimidating simply by standing there.

Instead, Jason texted Oracle.

Need a discreet search. No alerts.

Her reply came almost immediately.

Age? Name?

Teen. No name yet. Found near Park Row. Bruise. Hungry. Says they have somewhere to live.

Three dots appeared.

Then:

That sentence has never once ended well.

No kidding.

Get me something to work with.

Jason looked toward the bathroom.

The shower had not started.

He crossed the living room and stopped outside the door. “You okay?”

Silence.

“Kid?”

“I’m changing.”

“The shower works.”

“I know.”

Another pause.

Jason leaned against the wall, careful not to touch the door. “You don’t have to use it.”

“I know.”

“You can just change and come out.”

“I know.”

He recognised the brittle edge in your voice. Too many choices could be their own kind of threat when you were used to having none.

“I’m making food,” he said. “Any allergies?”

“No.”

“Anything you hate?”

“No.”

“That’s statistically unlikely.”

“I don’t care.”

Jason pushed away from the wall. “Grilled cheese it is.”

“You said food.”

“Keep talking and I’ll burn yours.”

He heard something suspiciously like a laugh from behind the door. It was small, muffled quickly, but it loosened something in his chest.

By the time you came out, the sandwiches were done and a pan of soup was warming on the stove. Tomato, because Jason enjoyed irony and because it was the only kind he had in the cupboard.

You had rolled the sweatpants four times at the waist. The T-shirt reached halfway down your thighs. Your wet clothes were clutched against your chest.

Jason pointed toward a chair near the radiator. “Put those there.”

You did, but only after checking the pockets. Then you sat at the table and stared at the plate he placed in front of you.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Then eat.”

You picked up half the sandwich.

Jason turned away under the pretence of checking the soup. In the reflection of the microwave door, he watched you take one cautious bite, then another, then eat the entire half in less than a minute.

He poured the soup into two bowls.

“You live alone?” you asked.

“Mostly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means people ignore my boundaries.”

“Family?”

Jason set a bowl in front of you. “Unfortunately.”

You looked around the apartment again. “They know you do this?”

“They also do this.”

“You’re all vigilantes?”

“Some of us have hobbies.”

“Like what?”

“Being annoying. Emotional repression. Acrobatics.”

You dipped the sandwich into the soup.

Jason waited until you had eaten enough that your shoulders had begun to lower. “What’s your name?”

You kept your eyes on the bowl. He did not push.

After nearly a minute, you told him.

Your voice was quiet, as if the name itself was something precious you were not used to handing over.

Jason repeated it once.

You looked up sharply. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You said it weird.”

“I said it normally.”

“You said it like you were going to remember.”

Jason leaned back in his chair. “Usually how names work.”

Your gaze dropped again.

Jason texted Oracle beneath the table. He gave her your first name, approximate age and location. It was not much. Gotham had thousands of teenagers, and too many of them were unaccounted for.

Still, Oracle was Oracle. The reply came twelve minutes later, while you were scraping the last of the soup from the bowl.

Possible match. Fifteen. School absence issues. Lives with maternal aunt. Mother deceased. Father not listed. Welfare reports made twice, closed after home visits.

Jason read the message twice.

Any details?

Aunt has prior charges for possession and assault. Current address is six blocks from where you found them.

His stomach turned cold.

You noticed. “What?”

Jason placed his phone face-down. “Your aunt know you’re out?”

The spoon stopped halfway to your mouth.

There it was.

Confirmation.

You set it down carefully. “You said you weren’t calling anyone.”

“I didn’t.”

“How do you know about my aunt?”

“I have a friend who’s good with computers.”

“You looked me up.”

“I needed to know if someone was searching for you.”

“No one’s searching for me.”

The words came out too quickly.

Jason felt anger flare behind his ribs, sudden and familiar. Not at you. Never at you. At the aunt who had not noticed you were gone. At the social workers who had visited and found whatever performance your guardian offered convincing enough to close the file. At Gotham, which had been swallowing children for longer than either of you had been alive.

He kept his voice steady. “How long have you been out tonight?”

You stood.

The chair legs scraped harshly against the floor.

“I’m leaving.”

“Your clothes are soaked.”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s still raining.”

“I said I’m leaving.”

Jason rose, but kept the table between you. “I’m not stopping you.”

You froze.

He hated the surprise on your face.

Jason nodded toward the radiator. “Take your clothes. Keep mine if you want. There’s more food in the cupboard.”

You did not move.

“But,” he continued, “I need you to answer one question first.”

“No.”

“You can lie if you want.”

Your eyes narrowed.

“Is your aunt the person who gave you that bruise?”

The apartment became very quiet.

Outside, tyres hissed over wet pavement.

You looked toward the door.

Jason knew the answer before you spoke.

“She didn’t mean to.”

His hands curled into fists at his sides. He forced them open.

“What happened?”

“She was drunk.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I know.”

“Has it happened before?”

You crossed your arms tightly.

Jason softened his voice. “You can lie.”

Your mouth trembled. You looked furious about it.

“She gets mad,” you said. “Sometimes.”

“How often is sometimes?”

“She’s not always bad.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“She took me in.”

“That doesn’t mean she gets to hurt you.”

“You don’t know her.”

“No,” Jason said. “I know you’re fifteen, you’re out at two in the morning buying food you can’t afford, and you flinched when I reached for my belt. I know there are bruises on your face and nobody has called to ask where you are.”

You swallowed hard. “She’ll be better tomorrow.”

Jason had said things like that once.

Not those exact words. But close enough.

His father would be calmer tomorrow. His mother would wake up tomorrow. The electricity would come back tomorrow. Someone would notice tomorrow. Batman would save the city tomorrow. Tomorrow was a dangerous promise. It kept kids alive, sometimes. It also kept them in places that were killing them.

Jason moved around the table slowly and sat on the edge of the sofa, lowering himself until he was no longer towering over you.

“You can stay here tonight.”

Your chin lifted. “You said until the rain stopped.”

“I lied.”

“You’re bad at trust.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because if I told you I wanted you to stay before, you would’ve run.”

You glanced toward the door again.

Jason followed your gaze. “You can still go.”

“Why would you let me?”

“Because trapping you won’t make you feel safe.”

Something in your expression cracked. It was not dramatic. You did not collapse or start sobbing. You simply looked suddenly, terribly tired.

“I don’t have anywhere else,” you whispered.

Jason’s anger went quiet.

Not gone. Never gone. But sharpened into something useful.

“You do tonight.”

You slept on the sofa. Jason did not sleep at all.

He gave you the bedroom first. You refused. He offered to take the sofa. You refused that too, glaring at him as if the suggestion itself was suspicious. Eventually, he found a spare blanket in the cupboard and left it folded beside you.

You waited until he had gone into the bedroom before pulling it over yourself.

Jason left the door open.

He sat on the edge of the mattress with both guns disassembled across his knees, cleaning each piece with methodical care while listening to the apartment settle. Pipes knocked in the walls. The refrigerator hummed. Rain tapped against the window.

At three forty-two, he heard your breathing finally deepen.

At four fifteen, you startled awake.

Jason was in the living room before you could get your feet beneath you.

You were sitting upright, one hand clamped over your mouth, eyes wide and unfocused.

He stopped several feet away. “Nightmare?”

You stared at him. “Where am I?”

“My place.”

Your breathing came too fast.

“Jason,” he said. “My name’s Jason. We met in the alley. You insulted my head.”

Recognition returned slowly.

You lowered your hand. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Waking you.”

“I was awake.”

“That’s worse.”

“Probably.”

You looked toward the window. “Is it morning?”

“Not yet.”

You drew your knees beneath the blanket.

Jason sat on the floor with his back against the opposite wall.

“Do you always do that?” you asked.

“Do what?”

“Wake up when someone else does.”

Jason considered lying. “Mostly.”

“Why?”

“Same reason you do.”

You stared at him for a long moment.

Then you looked away.

Neither of you said anything else.

By sunrise, you were asleep again.

Jason made pancakes.

He had no idea why. He usually drank coffee and called it breakfast, occasionally adding toast when Alfred’s voice in the back of his mind became particularly judgmental. But pancakes felt like the sort of thing an adult was supposed to make for a kid who had woken from a nightmare in a strange apartment.

The first batch burned. The second looked diseased.

The third was acceptable if viewed from a distance.

You shuffled into the kitchen wearing his shirt and rubbing one eye. “What happened?”

“Breakfast.”

“Did it fight back?”

“Sit down.”

You sat.

Jason placed a plate in front of you.

You poked one pancake with a fork. “It moved.”

“It did not.”

“I saw it.”

“Eat your haunted pancake.”

You took a bite. Your face did something complicated.

“That bad?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m trying to be polite.”

“You threw soup at a criminal yesterday.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Jason poured you a glass of orange juice.

You watched him over the rim. “What happens now?”

There it was. The question he had been avoiding since four in the morning.

Jason leaned against the counter. “Now, you tell me what you want.”

“What I want?”

“Yeah.”

“Adults don’t usually ask that.”

“Most adults are idiots.”

You looked down at the pancakes. “I can’t go back.”

Relief and fury moved through him in equal measure. “Okay.”

Your head lifted. “Okay?”

“Okay. You don’t go back.”

“What about my stuff?”

“I’ll get it.”

“She’ll be there.”

“That sounds like her problem.”

“You can’t just break into her flat.”

“I don’t break into places.”

“You’re a vigilante.”

“I enter creatively.”

A small smile tugged at your mouth.

Then it disappeared.

“Where am I supposed to go?”

Jason had options. 

Not good ones. He could contact child services and hope the third report succeeded where the first two had failed. He could call Bruce and let Wayne money carve a clean, legal path through Gotham’s bureaucracy. He could ask Dick, who had somehow become the family expert in frightened teenagers despite still behaving like one whenever cereal was involved. He could reach out to Leslie Thompkins, who would understand immediately and ask fewer intrusive questions than anyone else.

All of those options involved handing you over. Jason found that he did not want to.

The realisation arrived whole and inconvenient.

He had known you for less than twelve hours. You had insulted him repeatedly, stolen soup and bled rainwater over his floor. You were wary, stubborn and reckless enough to involve yourself in a gunfight because a stranger in a red helmet looked like he might need help.

Jason understood you. That was the problem.

He knew what happened to kids like you when adults passed them from hand to hand, each promising safety and none willing to stay when safety became difficult. He knew the careful silence of unfamiliar homes. He knew what it felt like to keep your shoes beside the bed in case you needed to run.

“You can stay here,” he said.

You went still.

“For now,” Jason added quickly. “Until we sort something permanent.”

“You don’t know me.”

“You saved my life.”

“You said you weren’t losing.”

“I was being dramatic.”

“You had guns.”

“He had an ugly coat. Could’ve gone either way.”

You studied his face as if searching for the trick.

Jason let you.

“What do you get?” you asked.

“Headaches, probably.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“People don’t just let someone stay.”

“Someone did for me.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them.

You glanced around the apartment again, at the books and the second-hand furniture and the helmet resting on the counter.

“Batman?”

Jason grimaced. “Unfortunately.”

Your eyes widened. “You’re one of his?”

“Don’t phrase it like that.”

“You’re Robin.”

“I was Robin.”

“No way.”

“Lower your voice.”

“You’re one of the Robins.”

“I’m reconsidering the offer.”

“Which one?”

“The best-looking one.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down.”

Jason stared.

You smiled properly for the first time.

It transformed your face. The bruise was still there. So were the shadows beneath your eyes. But for one brief second, you looked your age.

Jason felt something in his chest give way.

“Finish breakfast,” he muttered.

“You’re bad at pancakes.”

“You can go back to your aunt.”

The smile vanished.

Jason’s stomach dropped.

“Hey,” he said immediately. “No. That was a joke. A bad one.”

You pushed the plate away.

Jason crossed the kitchen and crouched beside the chair. “I’m sorry.”

Your jaw tightened.

“I’m not sending you back.”

“You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“I think I do.”

You looked at him then.

Jason held your gaze.

“I’m not sending you back,” he repeated. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not when you get annoying, which I’m guessing will be frequently. Not when this gets complicated.”

“You don’t know how complicated.”

“Kid, my family tree looks like a conspiracy board.”

Despite yourself, your mouth twitched.

Jason rested his forearms on his knees.

“I’m not promising it’ll be easy,” he said. “There’ll be social workers. Paperwork. Questions. We’ll need help from people I trust. You might hate some of it.”

“I already hate most things.”

“Great. You’ll fit in.”

You looked down at your hands. “Can I keep the shirt?”

Jason glanced at the faded university logo across your chest. “It’s my favourite.”

“You have six others.”

“How do you know?”

“I looked in the wardrobe.”

“You went through my stuff?”

“I was checking for hidden cameras.”

Jason closed his eyes. “You’re going to be a nightmare.”

“You said I could stay.”

“Yeah,” he said.

The word came out softer than he intended. You heard it anyway.

The legal process took months.

Bruce tried to make it take weeks.

Jason nearly shot him when he suggested moving you to the manor “temporarily,” not because the manor was unsafe but because you had chosen Jason’s cramped safehouse. You had begun leaving your shoes beside the door instead of beside the sofa. Your toothbrush sat in a chipped mug in the bathroom. Your schoolbooks spread across the kitchen table every evening, pushing Jason’s weapons-cleaning supplies onto the counter.

Moving you again, even somewhere larger and grander, would have felt like proving every fear you carried correct.

So Bruce funded a lawyer. Barbara untangled old reports. Leslie documented the bruises, the malnutrition and the history you revealed in careful pieces. Dick brought groceries without making a big deal of it. Tim set up a laptop for school and pretended not to notice when you slept with it under the bed for the first week. Damian informed you that throwing soup was an inefficient combat technique, then spent an entire afternoon teaching you how to use a weighted training baton.

Jason established rules. You hated all of them.

No patrols. No leaving after ten without telling him. No stealing unless survival depended on it, and even then, call him first. School attendance was non-negotiable. No weapons in bed.

The last rule was added after he discovered a kitchen knife beneath your pillow.

You shouted. He shouted louder.

You told him he was not your father.

The words landed between you like broken glass.

Jason went silent.

So did you.

Your anger collapsed immediately, leaving terror behind.

You looked toward the door.

Jason saw it. The expectation. The certainty that you had finally pushed too far, that he would decide you were not worth the trouble and send you away.

He sat down at the kitchen table.

“No,” he said. You remained standing. “I’m not your father.”

Your face crumpled.

Jason continued before you could speak. “But I am the guy who checks whether you ate lunch. I’m the guy who picks you up from school when you get suspended for punching some little punk who deserved it but still shouldn’t have been punched on school property.”

“He made fun of your helmet.”

“I know. His criticism lacked nuance.”

A wet laugh escaped you.

Jason’s throat tightened. “I’m the guy who leaves the hall light on because you hate waking up in the dark,” he said. “I’m the guy who knows you pretend not to like the marshmallows in hot chocolate and steal them out of my mug when you think I’m not looking. I’m the guy who’s going to keep showing up.”

You wiped your face with the sleeve of your hoodie.

Jason pointed toward the chair opposite him.

After a moment, you sat.

“The knife makes you feel safe,” he said. You nodded. “Okay. We’ll find something else.”

“You said no weapons.”

“I said no weapons in bed. We can put a lock on your door. Alarm on the window. Panic button beside the mattress.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You won’t take the knife?”

“I’m taking the knife.” Your shoulders tensed. “And replacing it with something less likely to stab you when you roll over.”

You glared at him through tears.

Jason held out his hand.

It took almost a full minute before you placed the knife in his palm.

He closed his fingers around the handle.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he said.

“I wasn’t trying to.”

“I know.”

That night, Jason installed three locks, a window sensor and an emergency button connected directly to his phone.

You slept through until morning.

The adoption papers arrived on a Thursday.

Jason pretended it was not adoption at first.

“Permanent guardianship,” he corrected whenever Dick used the word.

Dick smiled in a way Jason found deeply irritating. “You’re adopting them.”

“It says guardianship.”

“You’re buying them school uniforms.”

“They need clothes.”

“You went to a parent-teacher conference.”

“Their maths teacher has it out for them.”

“They set fire to a worksheet.”

“It was algebra. I understood the impulse.”

“You packed them lunch in a little box.”

“It was the only clean container.”

“It had a note inside.”

Jason threatened to throw Dick off the roof.

The hearing was small. Bruce attended in an expensive suit that made the courthouse staff nervous. Leslie sat beside him. Barbara watched remotely because an emergency at the clock tower kept her away, though she sent seventeen messages before noon. Tim brought coffee. Damian brought a knife as a gift and seemed genuinely offended when the security guard confiscated it.

You sat beside Jason in clothes Alfred had helped choose, your knee bouncing beneath the table.

Jason placed one hand over it.

You went still.

“You okay?” he murmured.

“What if they say no?”

“They won’t.”

“What if they do?”

“Then we appeal.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“We appeal again.”

“And if—”

“Kid.”

You looked at him.

Jason leaned closer. “You’re coming home with me today.”

The word home caught in the air.

You swallowed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The judge asked questions.

Jason answered most of them badly. Yes, he had stable employment, though explaining the source of Red Hood’s income required creative phrasing and significant intervention from Bruce’s lawyer. Yes, the apartment met safety requirements, now that the weapons had been moved into locked storage. Yes, he understood the responsibilities involved in caring for a teenager.

That question almost made him laugh. He had been caring for you for months. He knew which cereal you liked and which nightmares left you unable to speak. He knew you studied better with music playing, that you hated socks with seams, that you became quiet before you became angry and angry before you became afraid. He knew the exact sound your key made in the lock and how long to wait before checking on you after a bad day.

He knew you.

You knew him too. You knew his nightmares made him pace. You knew he forgot to eat when cases became difficult. You knew the scars along his shoulders ached before storms and that he secretly liked the ridiculous patterned socks Alfred bought him every Christmas. You knew when to talk and when to sit nearby without saying anything.

The judge looked between you.

Then she signed the papers.

Outside the courthouse, you stood on the steps clutching the folder against your chest. The city moved around you. Cars passed. People hurried along the pavement. Somewhere nearby, a street vendor shouted about hot dogs.

Jason shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.

“So,” he said.

“So.”

“You’re stuck with me.”

You nodded. “Tragic.”

“Devastating.”

“You want lunch?”

“Can we get soup?”

Jason looked at you. Your expression was perfectly innocent.

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s sentimental.”

“It was a weapon.”

“It was our first bonding activity.”

“You assaulted a man with tinned tomatoes.”

“I saved your life.”

“You distracted him.”

“Heroically.”

Jason started down the steps. You followed.

At the bottom, you caught the sleeve of his jacket.

He stopped.

You did not look at him. “Can I call you something?”

His heart stumbled.

Jason kept his voice light. “Depends. If it’s Old Man, I’m leaving you here.”

“Not that.”

You tightened your grip on his sleeve.

Jason waited.

The city seemed to quiet around you, though he knew it had not. Gotham was never quiet. It breathed in sirens and shouted conversations, in footsteps against cracked pavement and the distant rumble of trains beneath the streets.

You looked up.

“Dad?”

Jason forgot how to speak.

Your face changed immediately. “You don’t have to—”

“Yeah,” he said, too quickly.

You blinked.

Jason cleared his throat. “Yeah. You can.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Neither of you moved.

Then you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him.

Jason stood rigid for half a second.

After that, he folded himself around you. One hand cradled the back of your head. The other pressed between your shoulder blades. You buried your face against his jacket, and Jason held on with a carefulness that hurt.

He had been many things in his life.

A street kid. A thief. A Robin. A corpse. A weapon. A warning. A son who did not know how to forgive his father.

He had never expected to become someone’s safe place. But here you were, holding him as if he was.

Jason closed his eyes.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured.

You clung tighter. “I know.”

That night, he left the hall light on.

Not because you needed it anymore. Because somewhere along the way, it had become a promise.

The family notices in pieces. Not in one dramatic, movie-scene way. Not with shouting. Not with someone grabbing your wrist or demanding answers like your pain is evidence in a case file.

It happens quietly. Cass notices the way your shoulders go still when someone mentions scars. Tim notices your search history goes carefully blank after bad nights. Dick notices the red ink on your arms and thighs and the way you stare at it for too long, like you’re trying to make your reflection finally confess something. Jason notices the hunger in your eyes when you look at his old scars, not envy exactly, but grief wearing envy’s jacket. Bruce notices everything and, for once, has no idea how to speak without making it worse.

They are not perfect about it at first. They are the Bats. Their love language is surveillance, panic, and “I made a contingency plan because I care.” So there is definitely a rough beginning where Bruce gets too quiet, Dick gets too gentle, Jason gets too angry at the world, Tim over-researches, Damian acts like he’s offended on your behalf, and Alfred has to verbally take everyone by the scruff and remind them that you are a person, not a crisis to be solved.

But once they understand, truly understand, they make one thing very clear: You do not have to prove you were hurt. You do not have to bleed history into your skin for them to believe you. You do not have to look broken to deserve care.

They build a family safety language around you that doesn’t feel clinical or humiliating. A code phrase you can text when the urge is bad. Something simple, maybe, “red weather,” or “I need a witness,” because sometimes that is what you wanted all along. Not attention in the cruel way people say it. Witness. Proof that someone saw you hurting and stayed.

They never shame you for wanting scars. They don’t romanticise it either. They hold both truths carefully: that the desire makes sense, and that hurting yourself still isn’t something they want for you.

Together, they help you find substitutes that honour the feeling without feeding the wound. Red body-safe markers. Temporary tattoos. Henna-style designs. Drawing tally marks for every day you stayed clean. A bracelet with beads for each hard month survived. A private journal where you write, “I lived through this,” over and over until the words start to feel less like a plea and more like a fact.

They start a little tradition, eventually. Every time you survive a terrible day, you get to add something to a box Alfred calls your “evidence.” Movie tickets. Notes. Polaroids. A pressed flower from the Manor garden. A stupid receipt from Batburger. A tiny plastic dinosaur Jason won from a claw machine because “every survivor needs a guard lizard.”

It becomes your proof.

Not scars. Not pain. A box full of small, stubborn, living things.

bruce wayne

Bruce is devastated, but not because he thinks you are damaged. Because some part of him recognises the logic. Pain as proof. Pain as grounding. Pain as a way to say, “I am still here,” when your own body feels unreal. Bruce understands that more than he wants to admit. His whole life is one long argument with pain, dressed in Kevlar and a cape.

At first, he handles it badly in a very Bruce way. He goes silent. His jaw locks. His eyes scan you like he can calculate grief if he just gathers enough data. Then Alfred gives him one look, and Bruce course-corrects so hard it almost gives him emotional whiplash.

He comes to your room later and knocks, even though it is his house. He asks if he can come in. He sits on the floor instead of looming over you.

“I believe you,” he says.

You tell him you didn’t say anything.

“I know,” Bruce says. “I should have said it anyway.”

That becomes his anchor with you. He repeats it whenever you start spiraling about not looking hurt enough.

“I believe you.” “You survived it.” “You do not need evidence for me.”

Bruce does not touch you without asking. Ever. Even if he is scared. Even if his hands twitch like he wants to check you over himself. He asks first, because he knows control matters. He knows being treated like a crime scene would only make you feel less human.

He makes sure you have access to help, but he doesn’t make it feel like punishment. Therapy is not framed as “fixing you.” It is framed as giving you more weapons. More tools. More exits from rooms your mind keeps locking you inside.

Sometimes, when you’re having a bad night, he sits beside you in the cave while he works. He doesn’t force conversation. The hum of the Batcomputer fills the silence. His presence is steady, dark, warm in its own strange way.

Eventually, he tells you, very softly, “There are scars people can see, and scars people have to be trusted with.”

You ask which kind counts more.

Bruce looks at you like the answer hurts. “All of them.”

dick grayson

Dick is the first one who makes you cry about it. Not because he says the wrong thing. Because he says the right thing too gently. He finds you one night sitting on the bathroom floor with red ink on your skin, staring at it like it is supposed to turn into something real. He doesn’t gasp. He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t make you cover up.

He just sits down outside the doorway and says, “Do you want company or a distraction?”

He does not assume. He does not choose for you. He gives you options when your brain has been making everything feel like a locked room.

Dick is very good at making check-ins feel casual. He’ll flop dramatically onto your bed and ask, “What’s the weather in there today?” while tapping your forehead. If you say “stormy,” he knows not to joke too much. If you say “foggy,” he knows you might need grounding. If you say “red,” his face softens, but he does not freak out.

He teaches you tricks that feel almost silly until they work. Naming five blue things in the room. Balancing on one foot. Throwing soft socks at a laundry basket. Dancing badly to a song that is too upbeat for the mood. He tells you that sometimes being alive does not feel like a grand revelation. Sometimes it feels like doing the Macarena in the hallway while your older brother sings off-key.

He is also the one who says, “Wanting someone to notice isn’t selfish.”

You freeze.

Dick keeps his voice careful. “People act like wanting attention is bad. But sometimes attention means care. Sometimes it means help. Babies cry because they need something. Adults do too, just in quieter ways.”

On hard days, he draws on your arms with washable marker if you let him. Not fake scars exactly, but vines, stars, little escrima sticks, tiny robins, lightning bolts, flowers blooming from red lines. He never makes it weird. He just lets your body become a canvas instead of a battleground.

“You don’t have to earn gentleness,” he tells you.

And because it is Dick, he then adds, “But if you did, you’d have, like, a lifetime platinum membership.

jason todd

Jason understands the scar thing in a way that makes him quiet. He knows what it is like to want your body to testify. To want the outside to match the inside. To hate looking normal when something in you came back wrong, or came back different, or barely came back at all.

When he realises you envy visible scars, his whole expression changes. Not pity. Recognition.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “I get that.”

You almost hate him for it. You almost love him for it.

Jason is the one who gets angry, but never at you. His anger turns outward. At whoever made you feel invisible. At whoever responded with cruelty when you needed care. At every person who taught you pain had to be loud before it deserved help. He is fiercely protective, but he tries very hard not to become controlling. He knows what it is like when people make choices about your body for you. So he asks.

“Do you want me to sit here?” “Do you want me to take that away, or would that make it worse?” “Do you want quiet, food, or a stupid movie where stuff explodes?”

Jason is also brutally honest in a way that helps. One night, when you admit you feel like you need scars to prove you fought, he says, “You’re not a war documentary.”

You blink.

He shrugs, uncomfortable but stubborn. “You don’t owe anybody visible wreckage. You lived. That’s the proof. You’re breathing right in front of me, kid.”

He becomes your late-night person. If the urge hits at 2:00 a.m., Jason is the one who shows up in sweatpants and a leather jacket, hair a mess, holding convenience-store snacks like emotional support contraband. He takes you on drives through Gotham when the walls feel too close. Windows down. City lights smeared gold and red. He lets you choose the music unless your taste is “criminal,” in which case he complains for twenty minutes and still lets it play.

If you need sensation, Jason helps you find safer intensity. Spicy noodles. Sour candy. A punching bag. Running until your lungs burn clean. Holding an ice-cold soda can while he times your breathing. Loud music. Kneading bread dough with Alfred. Anything that reminds you your body is alive without asking it to become evidence.

He calls you “survivor” exactly once. You tell him it sounds cheesy.

He says, “Fine. Gremlin.”

But after that, whenever you make it through a bad night, he bumps his shoulder against yours and says, “Still here.”

And you answer, eventually, “Still here.”

tim drake

Tim researches everything. Obviously. He has seventeen tabs open within an hour and a spreadsheet by morning. It would be funny if it weren’t also so painfully earnest. He is not trying to reduce you to symptoms. He is trying to build a map because Tim Drake is terrified of losing people in places he cannot follow.

But when he realises the research is making you feel studied instead of seen, he stops.

He actually closes the laptop. That is how you know it is serious.

Tim is the best at understanding the dysphoric part of it. The mirror feeling. The wrongness. The sense that your skin is missing a truth it should be carrying. He doesn’t call it vain. He doesn’t call it messed up. He says, “That sounds exhausting.”

And somehow that helps more than a dramatic speech.

Tim starts sitting with you during mirror spirals. Not forcing positivity. Not making you say affirmations in the glass like some cursed wellness podcast. He just stands beside you and says neutral, grounding things.

“That is your arm.” “That is your shoulder.” “That is skin.” “That is not a verdict.”

On days when you feel like your body looks too normal for what happened, Tim helps you create records that aren’t injuries. Encrypted audio diaries. Private photo projects. A timeline of survival. A folder called “Proof” that contains dates, screenshots of kind messages, poems, notes, tiny records of days you thought you would not get through.

He treats your pain like something worthy of documentation, not spectacle.

Sometimes you catch him looking at you with this awful, soft guilt, like he wishes he had noticed sooner. You tell him he doesn’t have to solve it.

“I know,” Tim says. He pauses. “I hate that, but I know.”

Tim checks in through texts because sometimes face-to-face is too much.

Tim: scale from 1-10? You: 6 Tim: company? You: no talking Tim: coming over with laptop. parallel misery mode. You: bring coffee Tim: terrible idea. obviously yes.

Parallel misery mode becomes your thing. You sit in the same room doing separate things. No pressure. No performance. Just existence beside existence.

For someone who runs on caffeine and repression, Tim is surprisingly good at making survival feel ordinary.

damian wayne

Damian reacts badly at first. Not cruelly. Just sharply. He is young, and he is scared, and fear in Damian often comes dressed as judgment with a sword.

“Why would you do that to yourself?” he demands, too harsh, too loud.

The room goes silent. Jason says his name in warning. Dick looks pained. Bruce closes his eyes like the universe personally handed him a parenting exam he did not study for.

But Damian sees your face, and the anger drops out of him so fast it almost hurts to watch.

He leaves. Then he comes back twenty minutes later, stiff as a soldier, holding a sketchbook.

“I spoke incorrectly,” he says.

It is the most Damian apology ever.

He sits beside you, not quite looking at you.

“I do not understand fully,” he admits. “But I understand wanting the body to obey a feeling.”

That is Damian at his best: awkward, intense, honest.

He starts drawing with you. Not because he thinks art fixes everything, but because he understands the need to put a mark somewhere. He teaches you controlled lines. Ink washes. Red flowers. Battle standards. Mythological creatures with visible cracks filled in gold.

When you say you want scars because they would prove you survived, Damian frowns deeply.

“In the League,” he says carefully, “scars were often treated as proof of worth.”

You look at him.

His jaw tightens. “They were wrong.”

That lands differently from him.

Because Damian knows exactly what it means to be taught that pain is currency.

He becomes fiercely, almost ridiculously devoted to making sure you are not alone after family arguments or bad days. He will appear in your doorway with Titus and say, “The dog requires your attention.”

Titus absolutely does not. Titus is asleep.

Damian also becomes your biggest defender if anyone outside the family makes an ignorant comment. He has zero patience for people who call it attention-seeking like that means fake.

“Attention is a valid human requirement,” Damian snaps once, sounding like he is reciting from a psychology article Tim forced him to read. “Perhaps if you had provided appropriate attention, the situation would not have escalated.”

cassandra cain

Cass notices before almost anyone. She reads bodies like books. She sees the hesitation, the longing, the way your gaze sticks to other people’s scars. She sees when your hands hover. She sees when your smile becomes a locked door.

Cass does not confront you with words at first. She sits beside you. That is all.

Her presence is quiet enough not to scare the feeling away. She does not demand a confession. She lets you exist near her until your body remembers that being seen does not always mean being attacked.

When you finally tell her, she listens with her whole face. You struggle through the explanation. That sometimes pain made you feel real. That sometimes you wanted someone to notice. That sometimes now, even better, you still want the marks. That you look in the mirror and feel like something is missing.

Cass reaches out slowly, giving you time to pull away. If you let her, she touches two fingers lightly to your wrist. Not checking. Not restraining. Just contact.

“Here,” she says.

You swallow.

She taps your chest next. “Here.” Then the mirror. “Not missing.”

Cass is the one who helps you reconnect to your body without punishment. Stretching. Slow movement. Dance. Breath. Sitting in sunlight. Letting your feet press into the floor. She makes you tea and watches bad movies with subtitles on because sometimes speaking is too much.

She does not care what your skin proves.

Cass believes bodies speak, yes.

But she also knows silence is a language.

And she hears you.

stephanie brown

Steph is furious on your behalf. In a “who made you feel like you had to carve your pain into a billboard before they would care, because I just want to talk” way.

She brings humour like a flashlight into a basement. Not to minimise it. To make the dark less smug.

When you admit that you sometimes draw red lines to imitate scars, Steph nods like this is not strange to her.

“Okay,” she says. “Then we upgrade the art department.”

She shows up the next day with body-safe markers, glitter pens, temporary tattoo paper, and an expression that says she has never under-committed to a craft project in her life. Soon your arms are covered in red vines, purple bats, little stars, fake dramatic lightning scars, and one tiny drawing of Bruce as a sad Victorian gargoyle.

You laugh so hard you almost cry. Steph’s face softens when you do.

“There you are,” she says.

She is very good at not making recovery feel sterile. With Steph, it is messy and colourful and occasionally involves eating cereal out of mugs at midnight while she tells you about the time she cried in a grocery store because the avocados were “emotionally aggressive.”

But she can be serious too.

When you say you envy people with scars, Steph does not flinch.

“I get wanting proof,” she says. “I used to wish people could see all the stuff I was carrying. Like, hello? Can I get a visible damage meter? A little Sims bar? Something?”

You snort.

“But,” she continues, gentler, “you shouldn’t have to hurt yourself to make people read the room.”

Steph is the one who reminds you that wanting to be noticed is not shameful.

“You were sending flares,” she says. “That doesn’t make you manipulative. It makes you someone who needed rescue and didn’t know how to say it yet.”

duke thomas

Duke gets the “proof” thing more than people expect. Maybe because his powers are tied to light. Maybe because he knows trauma can make the world feel unreal. Maybe because Duke has always been good at seeing what sits just under the surface.

He never pushes. He has this calm, steady presence that makes confession feel less like falling and more like setting something heavy down.

You tell him once that you feel strange for thinking scars are beautiful. Duke thinks about it.

“Maybe you’re not seeing the injury,” he says. “Maybe you’re seeing the survival after.”

Duke is the one who reframes beauty without glamorising harm. He takes you out during golden hour and shows you cracked pavement with flowers growing through it, old buildings repaired with mismatched brick, trees struck by lightning and still leafing green.

“Evidence,” he says, pointing.

You roll your eyes. “You’re so poetic.”

He grins. “Yeah, it’s a burden.”

Duke helps you find beauty in healing that still looks like something happened. Mended clothes with visible stitching. Kintsugi bowls. Embroidered patches. Art where the repair is part of the design.

He gives you a jacket one day with a small golden seam stitched near the cuff.

“What’s this?” you ask.

“A marker,” Duke says. “Not of pain. Of repair.”