fangirlgene

That was the first lesson.

The second was that someone always had to catch what was left.

Dick had built a life out of becoming that someone. He caught teammates before they hit concrete. Caught civilians before buildings collapsed. Caught the Titans when they spiralled, caught Bruce when he vanished too far inside the Bat, caught Jason’s anger when nobody else could hold it without bleeding, caught Tim’s exhaustion before it became a body bag, caught Damian’s sharp edges and pretended they did not cut.

He smiled. He joked. He opened his arms and made himself the net. It was easier that way.

People trusted nets. People did not ask if nets were tired.

You did, though.

That was one of the first things that unsettled him about you.

You always asked.

“Shoulder?” you said, appearing beside him before he had even fully made it through the medbay doors.

Dick looked down at the red line slicing through his suit, just under the joint. “Hello to you too.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Is it the shoulder?”

“It is deeply rude that you know that from ten feet away.”

“It’s my entire thing.”

“Your entire thing is being bossy and magical.”

“My entire thing is healing idiots who think flirting counts as a treatment plan.”

He gasped and pressed his uninjured hand to his chest. “You think I’m flirting?”

“I think you’re bleeding on my floor.”

“That’s not a no.”

You gave him a look.

Dick smiled.

It was easy with you.

That was the problem. Most things with you felt easy, even when they weren’t. Even in the aftermath of horror, with sirens in the distance and smoke still clinging to everyone’s suits, you had a way of lowering the temperature in a room. You came in with steady hands, soft eyes, and a voice like warm water over bruised skin.

You were the Titans’ miracle.

Not that you liked being called that. Gar had tried once, dramatically, from a medbay cot after you healed three cracked ribs and a bruised spleen.

“My angel,” he had declared, one hand thrown over his forehead. “My saviour. My divine little first-aid kit.”

You had thrown a roll of gauze at his head.

Vic had laughed for a full minute.

Kory had kissed your cheek in gratitude.

Raven had watched you with that quiet, knowing look of hers.

Dick had watched too. He watched more than he should have.

He watched the way your face tightened for half a second after you healed someone. The way you always turned slightly away before taking a breath. The way you flexed your fingers like you were shaking off static. The way you insisted on cleaning up alone afterwards.

At first, he thought healing took energy. That made sense. Every power had a cost. Every body had limits.

You told them yours was fatigue.

Dick believed you.

Not because he was careless.

Because he wanted to. Because after years of watching good people stay hurt, there was something dangerously addictive about watching wounds vanish under your hands.

When Raven came back from a mission with psychic backlash clawing through her mind, and you pressed your fingers to her temples until her breathing evened out, Dick did not ask why you spent the next hour sitting alone in the dark.

When Gar twisted his knee badly enough that the sound made everyone in the room wince, and you healed him before the panic really hit, Dick did not ask why you limped afterwards.

When Kory took a blast meant for a child, and her skin split gold-bright across her ribs, Dick did not ask why your own hand shook as you helped her sit up.

He noticed. But noticing was not knowing.

That was what he told himself later. Over and over. Like repetition could turn guilt into absolution.

He noticed. He just didn’t know.

Not yet.

The night everything changed began with rain.

Blüdhaven rain was different from Gotham rain. Gotham rain fell like a verdict. Cold, black, heavy with memory. Blüdhaven rain came down silver beneath neon signs, slicking the streets until every alley looked like it had been painted in oil. It turned rooftops treacherous, fire escapes slippery, windows into mirrors.

Dick loved it anyway.

It was his city. Bruised, stubborn, trying. A little ugly in the right light. A little beautiful in the wrong one.

The Titans had come because the call was too big for one vigilante and too strange for local police. A new metahuman trafficking ring had gotten its hands on alien tech and old magic, which was never a combination that suggested anyone involved had made good life choices.

By midnight, the docks were burning. By twelve-thirty, three warehouses had partially collapsed. By one, the sky above Blüdhaven was full of drones shaped like metal wasps, each one armed with sonic emitters strong enough to rupture glass and destabilise inner ears.

“Tell me again why crime can’t be normal,” Gar shouted over comms.

Dick flipped over a drone, brought both escrima sticks down, and sent it sparking into the rain-slick rooftop. “You want normal crime?”

“I want crime that doesn’t make my teeth vibrate.”

“You have teeth right now?” Vic asked.

“I have emotional teeth.”

“That tracks,” you said over comms.

Dick smiled despite himself. Your voice always did that to him. Cut through the noise. Found him.

“You’re supposed to be behind the barricade,” he said, ducking under a burst of sonic fire.

“I am behind the barricade.”

“You’re too calm.”

“I’m very calm behind the barricade.”

Raven’s voice came in, flat as ever. “They are not behind the barricade.”

Dick exhaled sharply. “Of course they’re not.”

“I’m near the barricade,” you corrected.

Kory flew overhead, a streak of orange through the storm. “Friend healer, there are many injured civilians near the west warehouse.”

“I see them.”

Dick’s attention snapped toward the west side of the docks.

Through the rain, he saw you moving below.

Not at the barricade. Not near the barricade. Running straight toward the worst of the damage, because apparently, self-preservation was not included in the miracle package.

“Absolutely not,” Dick said.

“You sound like Bruce.”

“That was cruel and unnecessary.”

“You’ll live.”

“Not if you keep sprinting into active combat zones.”

“Then stop watching me and stop the drones.”

A drone screamed toward you.

Dick moved before thought could catch up. He launched himself from the rooftop, grapple line firing, body arcing low through rain and smoke. The drone’s emitter pulsed once. Pain stabbed through his ears. His vision blurred.

He released the line. Dropped. Twisted.

His boot connected with the drone hard enough to crack the metal shell. It spun away and exploded against the side of a warehouse in a shower of blue sparks.

Dick landed in front of you, one knee down, rain streaming off his hair.

You stared at him.

He looked up with his best smile. “Hi.”

Your eyes narrowed. “That was incredibly dramatic.”

“I’m a performer.”

“That was incredibly stupid.”

“I’m also Batman-adjacent.”

“Unfortunately accurate.”

Behind you, a civilian groaned.

Your expression shifted instantly.

There was the healer.

The softness vanished into focus. You moved past Dick and dropped beside a woman pinned beneath a collapsed beam. Her leg was crushed at an angle that made Dick’s stomach turn. Her breathing came in panicked sobs.

“Hey,” you said gently, all teasing gone. “Look at me. Not the leg. Me.”

The woman grabbed your wrist with shaking fingers. “I can’t—I can’t feel—”

“I know. I’ve got you.”

Dick watched you place both hands over the injury.

He watched your shoulders rise as you inhaled.

Then the woman gasped.

The beam shifted. Dick lifted it enough for Vic to pull her free.

Her leg was whole. Bruised, but whole.

She started crying.

You smiled at her.

Then, very subtly, your left knee buckled.

Dick caught it.

Not much. Just one hand at your elbow, enough to steady you.

You went stiff beneath his touch.

“You okay?” he asked.

You smiled too quickly. “Fine.”

There it was. That word.

Dick hated it when Bruce used it. Hated it when Jason spat it through bloodied teeth. Hated it when Tim said it without looking up from a laptop.

He hated it most from you.

Because you made it sound kind.

Another drone shrieked overhead before he could say anything.

The docks trembled.

Raven’s voice cut through comms. “Nightwing, the central warehouse is rigged. There are people inside.”

“How many?”

“Too many.”

Dick looked up. The central warehouse stood at the edge of the pier, half its roof torn open, old brick walls glowing with intermittent blasts of alien-blue light. Through the broken windows, he saw movement.

Civilians. Hostages.

The structure groaned. Then the upper floor exploded outward.

Kory shouted. Dick ran.

You called his name.

He ignored you.

He heard you following anyway.

Of course he did.

Inside, the warehouse was chaos.

Smoke. Screaming. Sprinklers raining dirty water from cracked pipes. Drones buzzing between support beams like insects. Civilians huddled behind shipping containers while armed traffickers tried to retreat through a back exit.

Nightwing moved through them like a blade wrapped in blue light.

Strike. Dodge. Flip. Disarm. Smile, because fear spread faster when people saw the hero afraid.

“Exit to the south!” he shouted. “Go! Go now!”

Kory blew a hole through a side wall for evacuation. Vic ripped open jammed doors. Raven shielded a group of children from falling debris. Gar, currently a gorilla, blocked a collapsing beam with both massive hands and yelled, “I would like everyone to appreciate my core strength!”

You were everywhere you should not be. Healing a burned firefighter. Pressing a hand to a child’s forehead. Closing the wound across a police officer’s side. Calm, quick, relentless.

Too relentless.

Dick saw your face pale. He saw the way you pressed one hand briefly to your ribs after healing the officer.

Something in him tightened.

Then the floor screamed.

Not cracked.

Screamed.

The alien tech at the centre of the warehouse pulsed, drawing power from the old magical sigils carved beneath the concrete. The combination sent a shockwave through the building.

Every support beam lit blue.

Raven’s shield shattered. Kory slammed into a wall. Gar lost his grip.

The ceiling began to come down.

Dick saw it happen in pieces.

A family trapped near the upper catwalk. A little boy separated from his mother. The metal walkway beneath them twisting loose.

No time for the grapple. No time for a plan.

Just the fall.

Dick launched himself upward, using a stack of containers as steps. His boots hit metal. His body moved on instinct, rainwater and smoke and adrenaline turning the world sharp.

He grabbed the boy first and tossed him toward Kory, trusting her to catch him.

She did. Of course she did.

The mother screamed as the catwalk tilted.

Dick caught her wrist.

For half a second, they hung there over open air.

“Don’t look down,” he told her.

She looked down.

They always looked down.

A support cable snapped. The catwalk dropped. Dick twisted, threw the woman upward with everything he had, and felt Vic’s metal hand close around her coat.

Then the world gave way beneath him.

Falling was supposed to be familiar.

This was not.

The sonic emitters went off all at once.

His inner ear shattered into static. The building spun wrong. His grapple fired but missed the broken beam by inches. His fingers closed on nothing. His shoulder clipped metal hard enough to tear a shout from his throat.

Then he hit a lower catwalk.

Pain cracked across his back.

He bounced. Fell again.

He tried to turn. Tried to tuck.

Couldn’t.

There were too many angles. Too much debris. Too much noise.

The ground rushed up.

For the first time in years, Dick Grayson did not know how to fall.

He hit concrete.

And everything stopped.

At first, there was no pain.

That was how Dick knew it was bad. Pain was information. Pain told you what was damaged and how much time you had before the body started making executive decisions without you.

No pain meant the body had gone quiet. No pain meant the damage had passed language.

He stared up at the broken ceiling. Rain fell through the hole in the roof, silver and soft against his face.

Someone was screaming his name. Maybe several someones.

Dick tried to move.

Nothing happened.

Not his legs. Not his right hand. His chest moved, barely. Breath scraping in shallow and wrong.

Ah. That was bad.

A shadow fell over him.

You.

Your face appeared above his, wet with rain, streaked with soot, eyes wide with a terror that did not belong on you.

“Dick,” you said.

He tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if it worked.

“Hey,” he breathed.

It came out broken.

Your hands hovered over him, trembling.

That scared him more than the fall. You never trembled.

“Don’t move,” you said.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

Your face twisted.

Bad joke. Wrong moment. Classic Grayson.

He tried to lift his hand to touch your face.

Nothing.

Your eyes flicked down.

You saw.

He saw you see.

“Talk to me,” you said.

“Can’t feel…”

He stopped.

Your lips parted.

He did not want to finish the sentence.

He had spent his life moving. Flying. Running rooftops. Dancing along edges so narrow most people could not stand on them without shaking. His body was not just a tool. It was memory. Family. Language. A living echo of the Flying Graysons.

He could not feel half of it.

“Dick,” you whispered.

The building groaned around you. Distantly, Kory shouted for you both. Vic cursed. Raven’s power surged dark and bright somewhere behind the smoke.

You cupped Dick’s face. Your hands were warm despite the rain.

“I’m here,” you said.

He believed you. That was the danger.

“Don’t,” he managed.

Your expression shifted.

He was not Bruce. He had not figured it out fully. Not yet. But something old and instinctive in him understood the shape of sacrifice when it leaned too close.

You had looked pale after healing people. You had limped after fixing Gar’s knee. You had hidden your hand after Damian broke his wrist on a mission with the Supersons. You had smiled through it all.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

You shook your head. “You’re dying.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t.”

Your eyes filled. “Dick—”

“Please.”

That word hurt more than the fall. Please was not a word Nightwing used often in the field. Please belonged to civilians, to scared children, to moments too human for masks.

Your face broke. Only for a second.

Then you leaned down and pressed your forehead to his.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

His heart lurched.

“No,” he said, or tried to.

Your hands slid beneath his shoulders.

And then the pain came.

Not his.

Yours.

He knew because it came with your scream. It tore through the warehouse, raw and animal and absolute.

Dick’s body snapped back into itself. Sensation flooded his legs. His fingers. His lungs. Pain, yes, but normal pain. Bruises. Strains. Things he knew how to name.

His spine straightened. His ribs expanded. His right hand clenched.

He gasped and rolled onto his side, coughing through smoke.

For one impossible second, relief hit him.

Then he saw you.

You were on the concrete beside him, twisted at the same angle he had been. Your back arched unnaturally. Blood spread beneath you. One of your legs lay still, too still. Your hand curled against the ground, fingers shaking like they were trying to remember how to move.

Your mouth opened. No sound came out.

Dick’s world narrowed.

“No,” he said.

It did not sound like him.

He crawled to you, hands skidding in water and blood.

“No, no, no.”

Your eyes found his.

You looked relieved. Relieved. Like seeing him move was worth what had happened to you.

Something terrible opened inside him.

“Why would you do that?” he choked.

Your lips moved.

He leaned closer.

“Caught you,” you whispered.

Dick broke.

Not loudly. Not at first. The sound that left him was small. Fractured. A child’s sound buried under a man’s voice.

He gathered you into his arms with shaking hands, trying not to jostle your spine, trying not to touch anywhere wrong, trying not to look at the blood, the angle of your body, the proof.

The proof.

He had fallen. You had become the fall.

“Kory!” he screamed.

The name tore through his throat.

Orange light flashed.

Kory landed beside him hard enough to crack concrete. Her eyes went wide when she saw you.

“Oh, beloved healer,” she breathed.

Dick looked up at her, wild. “We need medevac.”

Vic’s voice came through comms, tight with horror. “Already calling it.”

Raven appeared from the smoke, her hood torn, shadows curling violently around her.

She looked at you. Then at Dick.

Her expression went white.

Not pale.

White. Like she had felt something nobody else could.

“She took it,” Raven whispered.

Dick stared at her. “What?”

Raven’s voice shook. “The injury. She took it from you.”

The warehouse seemed to tilt.

No. No, he knew that. He had seen it. He had felt his body become whole as yours broke.

But hearing it made it real in a way his mind had been refusing to allow.

Gar, shifted back into human form, stumbled toward them. “What do you mean took it?”

Raven swallowed. “Their power doesn’t erase wounds.”

Dick looked down at you.

Your eyes were half-closed now.

No.

No.

No.

“It transfers them,” Raven said.

No one spoke. Even the burning warehouse seemed to go quiet.

Dick pressed his fingers to your throat.

Pulse there.

Fast. Weak. Too weak.

“Stay with me,” he said, voice shaking. “Hey. Look at me. Come on, look at me.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

He smiled because he did not know how to do anything else with terror.

“There you are,” he whispered. “Stay with me, okay? I’ve got you.”

Your lips twitched faintly.

“Net,” you breathed.

“What?”

“You’re… always the net.”

Dick’s vision blurred.

“Yeah,” he said, voice breaking. “Yeah, baby. I’m the net. So you don’t get to fall through. You hear me?”

Your eyes closed.

Dick’s smile vanished. “No. No, no. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”

Kory knelt beside him and placed one glowing hand carefully against your shoulder, not healing, not touching the wound, just there.

“Dick,” she said softly.

He shook his head. “They’re not dying.”

“No,” Kory agreed, though her voice trembled. “They are not.”

Dick looked down at you in his arms.

He had caught you.

Too late.

But he had caught you.

And he would not let go.

Titan Tower’s medbay had seen bad nights.

This was worse.

The room was full of people trying not to fall apart loudly.

Kory stood by the window, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her glow dimmed to a low, anxious pulse beneath her skin. Gar sat on the floor with his back against the wall, knees pulled to his chest. Vic kept running diagnostics, jaw clenched, his human eye red. Raven stood in the corner with her hood up, shadows tucked close around her like grief with teeth.

Dick sat beside your bed and held your hand.

He had been told to leave twice.

He had not.

The first time, a nurse tried gentle concern.

The second time, Donna tried command voice.

Neither worked.

Finally, Raven had looked at everyone and said, “Let him stay.”

So he stayed.

You lay still beneath white sheets and too many wires, your body strapped carefully to prevent movement. Spinal stabilizers ran along your back. An oxygen line curved beneath your nose. Your face looked wrong without expression. Too empty. Too quiet.

Dick kept staring at your mouth. Waiting for it to quirk. Waiting for you to make a joke about his bedside manner. Waiting for you to open your eyes and call him dramatic.

His suit was still on. Torn, wet, stained with your blood and his own, though technically the blood was all yours now in the ways that mattered. Someone had thrown a blanket over his shoulders.

Probably Kory. Maybe Donna.

He did not remember.

He remembered your scream. He remembered your body twisting. He remembered Raven saying, It transfers them.

His hand tightened around yours. Your fingers did not move.

“Dick.”

Donna’s voice came from the doorway.

He did not look up.

“How long?” he asked.

She was quiet for a second. “The doctors don’t know.”

He nodded once.

Meaningless.

His gaze stayed on your face.

Donna came closer. “They said the injury may not behave like a normal spinal trauma. Their body processes transferred wounds differently.”

“May,” Dick repeated.

“Yes.”

“May not.”

“Yes.”

He laughed once. It was ugly.

Donna’s hand settled on his shoulder.

That almost undid him.

Dick bowed his head over your hand.

“I should have known,” he said.

Donna did not answer.

He hated her for that. Loved her for it too.

“I noticed things,” he continued, voice low. “After they healed people. I noticed.”

“Dick.”

“I noticed and I let it go.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have.”

Donna squeezed his shoulder. “That is Bruce talking.”

His head snapped up.

She looked at him steadily.

“You are allowed to be hurt without making guilt useful,” she said.

Dick stared at her.

Then he looked back at you.

“Useful is all I’ve got right now.”

Donna’s expression softened.

Behind them, Gar made a broken sound.

“I let them heal me last week,” he said.

Everyone looked at him.

He stared at the floor. “My knee. It was nothing. Like, yeah, it hurt, but it wasn’t—” His voice cracked. “It wasn’t worth that.”

Raven closed her eyes. Kory turned away sharply.

Vic’s metal hand curled into a fist. “They healed my neural interface after Psimon fried half my systems.”

“They helped me after Trigon,” Raven said quietly.

Silence fell.

Not empty.

Crowded.

Every person in the room was remembering.

Every hand you had held. Every wound you had closed. Every time you had smiled afterward and said you were tired.

Only tired.

Dick felt sick.

Not because you had lied.

Because all of them had been relieved enough to believe you.

The door opened again.

Clark Kent stepped in, rain-dark hair mussed, glasses absent, Superman suit visible beneath a jacket he had clearly thrown on in a hurry.

He looked around the room once. Then at you.

His face changed.

“Oh,” he said softly.

That was all.

Just oh.

Dick wanted to stand. Wanted to say something. Wanted to be Nightwing, team leader, eldest brother, person who knew how to make everyone breathe again.

He couldn’t.

Clark came to the other side of your bed.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he said.

Dick nodded.

Clark’s eyes lowered to your still hand in Dick’s grip.

“They healed me yesterday,” Clark said.

Dick’s breath caught.

“Kryptonite burn,” Clark continued quietly. “They looked pale afterwards. Bruce noticed. He told them to rest.”

A horrible laugh escaped Dick. “Of course he did.”

Clark looked at him with infinite gentleness. “Bruce didn’t know either.”

Dick shut his eyes.

He could imagine Bruce finding out. The silence. The rage. The way he would turn terror into protocols and guilt into surveillance. The way he would blame himself first, hardest, longest.

Dick had learned from the best. Unfortunately.

“Can you hear anything?” Dick asked.

Clark’s face tightened.

Heartbeats. That was what Dick meant.

Clark nodded. “Their heart is steady for now.”

For now.

The phrase lodged under Dick’s ribs.

He looked down at you.

“Good,” he said, like the word had weight, like saying it could make it true. “That’s good.”

Clark stayed for a while.

So did everyone else.

One by one, though, they drifted out. Not far. Never far. Titans did not abandon their own. They lingered in hallways, in waiting rooms, in corners with vending machine coffee and red-rimmed eyes.

Eventually, only Dick remained.

He was good at vigils. He hated that too.

Hours passed in monitor beeps and the low hum of machines.

Your hand was warm in his.

That became his whole world.

Warm meant alive. Warm meant here. Warm meant not yet.

Near dawn, your fingers twitched.

Dick nearly came out of his chair.

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward. “Hey, I’m here.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

He forgot how to breathe.

Then your eyes opened. Unfocused at first. Cloudy with pain and medication.

Then they found him.

You smiled. Barely.

It devastated him.

“Hi, pretty bird,” you rasped.

Dick made a sound between a laugh and a sob.

“You’re not allowed to be charming right now,” he said.

Your brow furrowed faintly. “M’dying?”

“No.”

“Then I’m allowed.”

His mouth trembled.

You blinked slowly, gaze shifting around the room. “Tower?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone okay?”

There it was. First question.

Not, Am I okay? Not, What happened?

Everyone.

Dick had never loved and hated anything more.

He leaned closer.

“No,” he said.

Your eyes came back to him.

“They’re not okay. I’m not okay. You scared the hell out of us.”

Your expression shifted with slow understanding.

Then memory returned.

He watched it happen.

The warehouse. The fall. The choice.

Your eyes filled. “Dick—”

“No.” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard and tried again. “No, don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t make it easier. Please don’t make it easier.”

You went quiet.

He pressed your hand to his forehead.

His shoulders shook once. Only once.

“I watched you become the fall,” he whispered.

Your breath hitched.

“You were—” He stopped, unable to finish. “You were on the ground. Like me. Because of me.”

“Not because of you.”

“You took my injury.”

“Yes.”

The honesty punched the air out of him.

No deflection. No lie. No, I’m fine.

Just yes.

Dick lifted his head. His eyes burned.

“How long?”

Your gaze slid away.

His stomach dropped. “How long have you been doing that?”

You were quiet.

Too quiet.

Dick understood before you answered.

“All of it?” he asked.

Your mouth trembled.

“Most of it,” you whispered.

Dick stood so fast the chair slammed backward.

You flinched.

He froze immediately.

Regret flashed through him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” He pushed both hands through his hair and turned away, pacing once before spinning back to you. “It’s not okay. None of this is okay.”

Your face had gone pale.

He forced himself to lower his voice. “You took Gar’s knee.”

You closed your eyes.

“Raven’s psychic backlash.”

A tear slipped down your temple into your hair.

“Kory’s burn.”

“Dick…”

“Vic’s neural damage. Clark’s kryptonite poisoning. Jason’s bullet wounds. Tim’s concussions. Damian’s broken bones. Mine.”

Your silence confirmed every word.

Dick felt like the room had tilted beneath him.

“How are you alive?” he whispered.

Your eyes opened.

There was something old in them then. Older than your face. Older than your smile.

“I heal faster than most people.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

“That sounds like something Bruce would say.”

A weak breath of laughter escaped you.

Dick did not smile.

The laugh died.

“I didn’t want you to know,” you said.

“No kidding.”

“Dick.”

His name in your voice hurt.

He came back to the chair slowly and sat down because standing made him want to run through walls.

You turned your head toward him.

The movement was tiny. It still cost you. He saw the pain ripple over your face.

“Don’t,” he said quickly.

You stilled.

He hated this. He hated all of it. The bed. The machines. Your body trapped under injury. His body whole because yours wasn’t.

“I need to know why,” he said.

“You know why.”

“No.” His voice came out sharper than intended. “No, I really don’t.”

Your eyes searched his face.

He let you see it. All of it. The fear. The anger. The betrayal. The love he had been carrying like a secret too fragile to name.

You looked away first.

“I didn’t want anyone to choose pain,” you said.

Dick stared at you.

“Everyone I work with is the same,” you continued. “The League. The Titans. The Outlaws. All of you. If I told you what healing costs me, you’d refuse unless you were unconscious or dying. Maybe even then.”

“Yes,” Dick said. “Because we’re not monsters.”

“You’re martyrs.”

He went still.

You looked back at him. Softly, exhaustedly furious.

“You are,” you said. “Every single one of you. You’d let yourselves bleed out if it meant I didn’t have to feel it. You’d call that noble. I call it stupid.”

Dick let out a stunned laugh. “You cannot be serious right now.”

“I am extremely serious.”

“You are lying in a medbay because you took a broken spine from me.”

“And I’d do it again.”

The room went silent.

Dick’s face crumpled before he could stop it.

You saw. Of course you saw.

Regret passed over your features.

“Dick—”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, don’t say that.”

“I can’t lie to you anymore.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to almost die for me and then tell me you’d do it again.”

“I love you.”

Dick stopped. Everything stopped.

The monitors kept beeping. Somewhere outside, someone walked down the hall. Rain tapped lightly against the Tower windows.

But inside Dick, every moving part went still.

You looked terrified now.

Not of death.

Of him. Of what he would do with the truth.

Your eyes glistened.

“I love you,” you said again, voice breaking. “And I know that’s not an excuse. I know it doesn’t make lying okay. I know it doesn’t make taking the choice away okay. But it’s the reason.”

Dick could not move. He had imagined hearing those words from you more times than he would ever admit. Usually in softer places. A kitchen at two in the morning. His apartment. A rooftop under a kinder sky. Your hand in his, your smile warm enough to make the world feel less like a thing that constantly needed saving.

Not here. Not with your spine braced. Not with your blood still dried under his fingernails.

“You can’t say that,” he whispered.

Your face went blank.

Dick realised what it sounded like and reached for you immediately.

“No. No, that’s not—” He sat on the edge of the chair, one hand hovering near yours. “That’s not what I mean.”

You looked at his hand.

He waited.

This time, he waited.

After a moment, you moved your fingers weakly toward him.

Permission.

Dick took your hand like it was made of light.

“You can’t say you love me like that,” he said, voice shaking. “Like it means your life is automatically worth less than mine.”

Your eyes filled again. “I don’t think that.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You do,” he said, gentler now. “Because I know that trick. I invented that trick. I perfected that trick. I have a whole family of emotionally repressed vigilantes who could give a TED Talk on that trick.”

A watery laugh escaped you.

Dick’s thumb moved over your knuckles.

“I know what it looks like when someone calls self-destruction devotion,” he said.

Your smile faded.

He swallowed hard. “I know because I do it all the time.”

You looked at him for a long moment.

Then you whispered, “Yeah.”

He laughed once, and this time it was almost real. “Rude.”

“Accurate.”

“Still rude.”

Your fingers twitched against his palm.

He lowered his head until his forehead rested against your hand.

“I love you too,” he whispered.

Your breath caught.

He held onto you tighter.

“I love you,” he said again, because now that the words were out, he could not bear to let them stand alone. “I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it. And I am so angry at you that I can barely breathe.”

You made a small sound.

He lifted his head.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I only wanted you alive.”

His face twisted.

“I know,” he said.

That was the worst part. He knew.

There was no cruelty in what you had done. No malice. No carelessness.

Only love. Misdirected. Secretive. Devastating love. The kind that looked too much like his own.

Dick leaned forward and pressed his lips to your knuckles.

Your eyes closed.

He stayed there.

When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

“We have to tell everyone.”

Your eyes opened. Fear flickered.

“They already know some of it,” he continued. “Raven felt it. She told us what happened.”

You looked toward the door.

Dick followed your gaze.

Through the small window, shadows moved in the hallway.

The Titans.

Waiting. Hurting. Loving you.

Your mouth trembled. “They’re going to hate me.”

Dick shook his head immediately. “No.”

“They should.”

“No.”

“I lied to them.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And they’re going to be upset. They’re going to be scared. Gar is probably going to cry on you, so prepare emotionally for dampness.”

Despite everything, your lips twitched.

“Vic is going to pretend he’s fine and then build you seventeen medical devices,” Dick continued. “Raven is going to stare into your soul until you confess every symptom you’ve ever hidden. Kory might actually lift a car.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“She might. For emphasis.”

Your smile faded, but some of the terror went with it.

“And you?” you asked.

Dick breathed in.

“I’m going to stay mad for a while,” he admitted.

You nodded.

“But I’m also going to stay.”

Your face cracked open.

He leaned closer.

“I’m not leaving because this is hard,” he said. “I’m not leaving because you scared me. I’m not leaving because you made a bad choice trying to save me.”

Your eyes searched his.

“I need you to promise me something,” he said.

“Dick…”

“No secret healing. Not with us. Not anymore.”

Your jaw tightened. “Emergency circumstances—”

“We’ll define them.”

“You sound like Batman.”

“I know. I’m devastated too.”

A weak laugh.

His heart nearly buckled under the sound.

“I mean it,” he said. “You have to tell people what they’re agreeing to.”

You looked down. “I know.”

“And you have to let us take care of you afterwards.”

“That’s harder.”

“I know.”

“I’m bad at it.”

“Baby, you are catastrophically bad at it.”

You huffed.

He smiled faintly, then sobered. “But we’re going to practice.”

“We?”

“Yeah.” His thumb brushed your hand. “We.”

Your eyes glistened.

“Okay,” you whispered.

It was not enough.

But it was a beginning.

Dick could work with beginnings.

He was a circus kid. A vigilante. A Robin. A Nightwing. A man who had lost the ground and learned to trust the air anyway.

Beginnings were just another kind of leap.

The Titans entered one at a time. Gar cried first, obviously. He tried very hard not to, which made it worse. He stood beside your bed with his arms crossed, lower lip trembling, eyes too bright.

“I’m mad at you,” he said.

Your face softened. “I know.”

“I’m, like, really mad.”

“I know.”

“And sad. And mad. And also really glad you’re not dead, which is making the mad part complicated.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“It is.” His voice cracked. “You took my knee.”

Your eyes lowered.

Gar wiped his face with his sleeve. “It was just my knee.”

“Gar…”

“No, it was. It hurt, yeah, but I would’ve been fine. It wasn’t worth you hurting.”

You looked at Dick. He said nothing.

This was yours to answer.

You swallowed.

“At the time,” you said carefully, “it felt worth it to me.”

Gar looked stricken.

“I know that doesn’t make it okay,” you added quickly. “I know I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

Gar sniffled. Then he leaned down very carefully and hugged the top of your head.

Dick almost told him to be careful.

He did not.

You closed your eyes.

Gar whispered, “You’re not allowed to die. I already decided.”

“Okay,” you whispered back.

“Cool.”

Then he backed away, crying harder.

Vic came next.

He did not cry. He brought a tablet.

“I’ve got three ideas,” he said, voice too controlled, “for a biofeedback system that can warn before a transfer exceeds safe neurological load.”

You stared at him.

“Hello to you too,” you said.

Vic’s mouth twitched.

Dick smiled despite himself.

“Also,” Vic added, “I’m mad.”

“Noted.”

“And I’m building the thing anyway.”

“Also noted.”

Vic’s expression cracked slightly. “You should’ve told us.”

“I know.”

“I would’ve let you help,” he said quietly. “Sometimes. Maybe. But I would’ve wanted to know when helping me hurt you.”

Your eyes filled again.

“I know,” you whispered.

Vic nodded once.

Then he set the tablet on your bedside table like an offering.

Raven came after him.

She stood beside your bed, silent and pale, shadows moving slowly around her wrists.

You looked nervous.

Raven looked at you for a long time.

Then she said, “You took more than injuries.”

Your face went still.

Dick’s attention sharpened.

Raven’s eyes did not leave yours. “Emotional pain too. Psychic pain. Fear. Grief.”

You swallowed.

“Sometimes,” you said.

Dick felt like the floor had dropped again.

Of course. Of course there was more.

Raven’s expression tightened. “Mine?”

You closed your eyes. The silence answered.

Raven inhaled sharply.

Dick started to reach for her, but she lifted one hand.

You opened your eyes. “Only when it was too much. Only when I thought—”

“That I couldn’t survive it?” Raven asked.

You flinched.

Raven looked away.

For a moment, she was very young.

Then she stepped closer and placed two fingers lightly against your hand.

“I understand why,” Raven said. Your tears spilled over. “But do not do it again without asking me.”

“I won’t,” you whispered.

Raven nodded.

Then, after a pause, she added, “You are loved for more than your usefulness.”

You broke then. Quietly. Completely.

Dick stood, but Raven was already there, leaning carefully over you, touching your forehead with hers.

Not a hug. Not exactly.

Something quieter. Something sacred.

Kory came last.

She tried to be gentle.

Kory’s gentleness had always been a force of nature trying to fit through a doorway.

Her eyes shone bright green as she took your hand.

“My beloved friend,” she said, voice trembling, “you have carried pain alone when you had an army.”

You gave a wet laugh. “When you say it like that, it sounds very stupid.”

“It was,” Kory said.

Everyone blinked.

Kory’s chin lifted. “It was brave. It was loving. It was also stupid.”

Gar made a tiny sound. “She said the thing.”

Kory ignored him.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“You will not do this alone again,” she said.

You nodded, crying too hard to speak.

Dick watched them surround you.

Not crowding. Not demanding.

Just there. A net, woven from people who loved you enough to be angry.

For the first time since the warehouse, something inside him loosened.

Not healed. Not yet.

But held.

Recovery was slow. Not as slow as normal spinal trauma, because your body was strange and stubborn and apparently determined to give medical science a migraine.

But not fast either.

Feeling returned in fragments. Left foot. Right toes. Thighs. Hips. Pain followed each return like lightning learning your name.

You hated it.

Dick loved every sign because it meant you were still there, still fighting, still coming back.

He also hated it because every gasp from you felt like punishment.

He spent most days at your bedside.

At first, he tried to make himself useful. He brought food. Adjusted pillows. Read medical updates. Ran interference when too many worried heroes wanted to visit. Smuggled in snacks Alfred absolutely did not approve of but definitely knew about because Alfred knew everything and permitted crimes selectively.

Then you caught him reorganising the medbay supply cabinet at three in the morning.

“Dick.”

He froze with a roll of bandages in each hand.

You stared at him from the bed, unimpressed. “What are you doing?”

“Inventory.”

“This is not your medbay.”

“Organisation helps.”

“You alphabetised antiseptic.”

“Antiseptic deserves respect.”

“You need sleep.”

“So do you.”

“I was asleep until you started stress-cleaning gauze.”

He looked down at the bandages. Then back at you.

“You were in pain.”

Your expression softened.

He hated how easily you saw through him.

“I’m often in pain right now,” you said gently.

His hands tightened.

“Don’t do that,” you said.

“Do what?”

“Make my pain your failure.”

He laughed once, humourless. “Kind of hard not to, considering.”

“Dick.”

He looked away.

You sighed. “Come here.”

He put the bandages down and came to your bedside.

You patted the edge of the mattress.

He gave you a look. “Absolutely not.”

“Sit.”

“I could hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m not risking your spine because you want cuddles.”

“I do want cuddles.”

His expression flickered.

You smiled faintly. “That one got you.”

“Cruel.”

“Effective.”

He compromised by dragging the chair close enough that his knees touched the bed. You reached for him, and he gave you his hand.

It had become familiar now. His hand in yours. Your pulse under his fingers. Your life, stubborn and warm.

“You’re doing the thing,” you said.

“What thing?”

“The smile.”

Dick blinked. “I’m not smiling.”

“The inside smile. The fake one. The one that says, ‘I’m fine, don’t look too closely, I’m very handsome and emotionally functional.’”

He stared at you. “You think I’m handsome?”

“You heard the rest.”

“I prioritised.”

Your mouth twitched.

Dick’s smile came easier this time. Realer.

Then it faded.

“I don’t know how to stop seeing it,” he admitted.

Your thumb moved weakly against his hand.

“The fall?” you asked.

He nodded.

Your face gentled.

“When I close my eyes,” he said, voice low, “I see you on the floor.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” He leaned forward. “I’m not telling you so you apologise. I’m telling you because we said no more hiding.”

You absorbed that.

Then nodded slowly.

“Okay,” you whispered. “No more hiding.”

His throat tightened.

You looked down at your joined hands.

“I still feel it sometimes,” you said.

Dick went still.

“The fall,” you clarified. “Not the full injury anymore. But echoes. Like my body remembers impact that wasn’t mine.”

Dick could not speak.

You continued, because apparently both of you had chosen emotional destruction as a bonding activity.

“I don’t regret saving you.” He closed his eyes. “But I’m starting to understand that not regretting it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

His eyes opened.

You looked at him, open and tired and honest. “I’m sorry for that part.”

Dick breathed in carefully.

Then out.

“I don’t regret being alive,” he said.

Your lips parted.

“I need you to know that. I don’t regret it. I don’t wish you hadn’t saved me if the alternative was dying in that warehouse.”

Your eyes filled.

“But I hate that you paid for it alone,” he continued. “I hate that I didn’t get to say yes. I hate that you thought love meant making yourself the place pain goes to disappear.”

You nodded, tears spilling silently.

“I’m learning,” you whispered.

He kissed your hand. “Me too.”

You studied him. “What are you learning?”

Dick huffed softly. “That apparently I have control issues.”

Your brows rose. 

“I know. Shocking. Alert the media.”

“Front-page news.”

“And,” he continued, “that being the net all the time is not actually the same as being loved.”

Your expression changed.

He swallowed. “I think I liked being needed because it felt safer than being wanted.”

You went very still.

Dick looked down at your hand.

“If people need you, you have a job. A role. Something to do. Something to offer. You can earn your place over and over.” His mouth twisted. “But being wanted? Just because you’re you? That’s terrifying.”

Your voice was soft. “Yeah.”

He looked up. Your eyes were wet.

“I know,” you said.

And there it was.

The mirror. Two people who had made themselves useful enough to avoid asking if they were loved.

Dick smiled sadly. “We’re a pair, huh?”

“A disastrous one.”

“Hot.”

You laughed. This time, it did not sound broken.

Dick felt the laugh settle into his chest like sunrise.

He leaned closer, giving you time to refuse.

You did not.

His lips touched yours softly. Carefully.

There was nothing dramatic about it. No collapsing warehouse. No blue fire. No scream. Just his hand in yours, your mouth warm beneath his, and the quiet, astonishing fact that you were both still alive.

When he pulled back, your eyes were closed.

“Was that okay?” he asked.

Your eyes opened slowly. “You’re asking after?”

“I panicked.”

“Adorable.”

“I can do better.”

“I know.”

He smiled.

You tugged weakly at his hand. “Again.”

This time, he laughed before kissing you.

The first time you stood again, everyone cried.

Gar denied it. He was lying.

Vic recorded the whole thing and claimed it was for medical documentation. Also lying.

Kory hovered with both hands out like she intended to catch you, the bed, Dick, and possibly the entire Tower if necessary. Raven stood nearby, pretending calm while her shadows formed nervous little curls at her feet.

Dick stood in front of you.

Not behind. Not beside.

In front, hands open.

A net. But not the only one.

“You’ve got this,” he said.

You glared at him. “If I fall, I’m haunting you.”

“Reasonable.”

“As a poltergeist.”

“Mean, but fair.”

“I’ll move all your cereal into different boxes.”

Gar gasped. “That’s evil.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Dick’s grin trembled.

You saw. Your expression softened.

“Hey,” you said quietly. He focused on you. “I’m here.”

He nodded.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You are.”

You took one step. Your knees shook.

Dick did not grab you. It took everything in him. Every instinct screamed. Every memory of your body broken on concrete rose up sharp and hungry.

But he did not grab you. He let you choose the step. Let you own the balance. Let you move.

You took another.

Then another.

Then your strength failed.

Dick caught you.

So did Kory.

So did Vic.

Raven’s shadows braced your legs.

Gar cheered and cried openly this time.

You ended up laughing against Dick’s chest while everyone crowded in, careful and loud and ridiculous.

The pain had gone somewhere. The fear had too.

Not away. Never fully away.

But spread out. Held by more hands.

That was the secret none of you had known at first.

Pain did not become lighter because one person carried all of it.

It became survivable when everyone carried a piece.

Later, after the others left and you were back in bed, exhausted but smiling, Dick sat beside you and traced idle circles over your palm.

“You caught me,” you said.

He looked up.

“In the warehouse,” you continued. “After.”

His face sobered. “I was too late.”

“No.” You squeezed his hand. “You caught me.”

Dick swallowed hard.

“You caught me too,” he said.

Your smile faded into something tender. “I broke all your rules when I did.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m trying not to romanticise that.”

“Good.”

“But I did catch you.”

His mouth curved despite himself.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You did.”

You looked at him in the soft medbay light. “Now what?”

Dick leaned back in his chair, still holding your hand. “Now we learn how to do the next part without almost dying.”

“Sounds improbable.”

“We can try.”

“Are there snacks?”

“Definitely.”

“Then I’m in.”

He laughed.

There it was again. That bright thing. That impossible thing.

Joy, growing stubbornly in the aftermath.

Dick Grayson still knew how to fall. He always would. But now, when he looked at you, when he felt your fingers threaded through his, when he remembered the warehouse and the scream and the terrible miracle of being saved, he understood something he had spent his whole life avoiding.

Catching someone did not mean never falling. Being loved did not mean never hitting the ground.

Sometimes love was the hand reaching down afterwards. Sometimes it was the person who stayed through recovery. Sometimes it was telling the truth when the lie would be easier. Sometimes it was a whole team gathered around a bed, furious and crying and refusing to let one person become the only place pain could live.

And sometimes, impossibly, it was you.

Alive. Healing. Learning. Smiling at him like the world was still worth saving.

Dick lifted your hand and kissed your knuckles.

“I love you,” he said.

Your eyes softened. “I love you too, pretty bird.”

His heart stumbled. “Still not over that nickname.”

“You love it.”

“I do.”

You smiled wider.

Outside the Tower windows, Blüdhaven glittered beneath the rain.

Messy. Bruised. Trying.

Still standing.

So were you. So was he.

The bright camera flashes shuttered rhythmically. Pop, pop, flash. The blinding bursts of light bounced off the polished marble floors of the Wayne Foundation Gala, a constant reminder that in Gotham, privacy was a luxury even the grandest fortunes couldn't entirely buy. It was something you and Dick Grayson had been dealing with since you were both children.

As the eldest adopted son of Bruce Wayne, Dick was Gotham’s golden boy—blessed with a devastating smile, effortless charm, and the kind of liquid-gold wealth that made high society look normal. You were his mirror image under a different family crest. Born into old Gotham money, wrapped in silk, and taught how to navigate the complex social hierarchies of a charity gala before you were old enough to speak, you were the city’s darling.

It was an unspoken law of the universe that two children raised under the suffocating weight of such massive legacies would either become bitter rivals, competing for the scraps of the spotlight, or inseparable confidants. You both chose the latter. You had traded stolen hors d'oeuvres under grand banquet tables at eight, shared a mutual, silent loathing for classical piano lessons at twelve, and protected each other's deepest vulnerabilities as the years grew heavier and the city outside grew darker.

Tonight, you stood near the edge of the sprawling ballroom, where the heavy velvet drapes offered a modicum of shade from the oppressive glare of the chandeliers. A crystal flute of champagne rested loosely between your fingers, the amber bubbles rising and popping unnoticed while you politely nodded along to whatever Mayor Hill’s wife was saying. Your family’s name carried just as much weight in this metropolis as the Waynes', which meant your entire life had been a carefully curated series of choreographed public appearances, impeccably tailored outfits, and the suffocating expectation of absolute perfection. One wrong look, one slouch of the shoulders, and the tabloids would dissect it by morning.

"Oh, look at you. You know, you and Richard would look so good together if you two finally made it official,” Mrs. Hill sighed, her eyes darting past your shoulder with a knowing, matchmaking gleam that every high-society matron seemed to weaponize. She tapped her manicured fingers against her fan, leaning in closer. "Speak of the devil. You two truly are the crown jewels of this city's youth. It is simply a matter of time."

Before you could even begin to turn, a warm hand settled on the small of your back, the heat of his palm cutting straight through the fine fabric of your evening wear. The familiar, comforting scent of sandalwood and expensive cologne washed over you, instantly lowering your guard. Dick effortlessly slid into the empty space beside you, his broad shoulder brushing yours in a familiar, comforting gesture. He looked maddeningly handsome in his tailored midnight-blue tuxedo, a single, stray lock of dark hair falling perfectly across his forehead in a way that looked entirely accidental but was devastatingly effective.

"Mrs. Hill, you're looking lovely as always," Dick Grayson’s voice was smooth, dripping with that trademark Romani charm that Gotham couldn't get enough of. It was a cadence that could disarm a room in seconds, a perfect blend of high-society polish and genuine warmth. "Mind if I steal my favourite dance partner? I promise to return them in one piece, though I might try to hoard them for the rest of the evening."

"Oh, Richard, go right ahead!" Mrs. Hill gushed, waving her hand dismissively as a sly smile broke across her face. "We were just saying how absolutely darling you two look together. Honestly, it’s a crime you haven’t made it official yet. The press would have a field day, and quite frankly, you would make the most beautiful couple this city has seen in a generation."

You offered a practiced, polite smile, the kind you had perfected in front of bedroom mirrors by the age of twelve— pleasant but utterly vacant of your true thoughts. "You're too kind, Mrs. Hill, but Dick and I are just—"

"The best of friends," Dick finished smoothly, cutting in with a flawless sense of timing that kept the conversation light. He flashed his trademark smile, the one that usually left even the toughest political reporters completely tongue-tied, and wrapped a casual arm around your waist. With a subtle pressure, he drew you just a fraction closer against his side, letting your hip rest against his. "I’d hate to ruin a good thing by forcing her to put up with me full-time. I'm afraid my charm wears off after the third hour."

Mrs. Hill let out a delighted, tittering laugh, completely enchanted by the display. "Oh, nonsense! True love always starts as friendship. Mark my words, children, it's inevitable. You can't fight a match written in the stars." With a final, knowing wink that suggested she knew far more than she was letting on, she drifted back into the swirling sea of silk and diamonds on the ballroom floor.

The moment her cloying perfume faded from the air and she was safely out of earshot, the polite, rigid posture you both held melted away. You let out a small, dramatic groan, letting your head drop against the steady expanse of Dick's shoulder for a brief second.

“If I have to hear one more socialite tell us we'd make 'the most beautiful babies’ for one more second, I'm going to fake a medical emergency,” you muttered into the fabric of his lapel, your voice a hushed, exasperated whisper. “I mean it, Dick. I’ll fake an allergy to the caviar and demand an ambulance.”

Dick let out a low laugh, a rich sound that vibrated right through his chest and against your side. His hand remained comfortably resting on the small of your back, his long fingers splaying over your waist as he began to guide you away from the crowded center of the room and toward a quieter area of the Gala.

"Oh, come on. Mrs. Hill means well," he teased, his eyes crinkling at the corners with a wicked, playful glint as he looked down at you. "She’s just obsessed with the idea of a grand Gotham dynasty. It’s the ultimate high-society sport." He paused, a slow, roguish grin spreading across his lips as he leaned down slightly. "And to be fair... we would make beautiful babies," Dick murmured, his voice dropping into a low, smooth purr right against the shell of your ear, sending a sudden shiver straight down your spine.

You froze in your tracks, your heart giving a violent, erratic thump against your ribs before you recovered and playfully shoved his chest. “Shut up, Grayson!" you laughed, though you could feel heat rushing to your cheeks, something that had very little to do with the stuffiness of the crowded ballroom. "Don't let the media hear you say that, or the Gotham Gazette will have our wedding registry published by tomorrow morning. They’ll have us married off at Wayne Manor before the weekend."

Dick didn't even stumble from the shove. He just absorbed the hit with that effortless, athletic grace of his, a soft, amused chuckle echoing in his throat. His hand slid seamlessly from your waist down to your hand, his long, calloused fingers lacing through yours with practiced ease. He squeezed your hand gently, a reassuring, familiar gesture that instantly relaxed you, as he led you toward the ornate, glass terrace doors.

"Let them print it," Dick murmured, his voice softening as he pulled you into the shadowed alcove near the exit. His thumb did a slow swipe across the back of your knuckles, his touch entirely too warm. "Think of the perks, Y/N. We’d get a great discount on a blender, and Bruce would probably finally buy us that ridiculously overpriced espresso machine we've been eyeing for the penthouse. We could spin it into a charitable tax write-off."

"You're entirely ridiculous," you sighed, letting out a soft breath as the cool night air began to bleed through the cracks of the terrace doors.

Yet, despite the exasperated words, the smile pulling at your lips was entirely genuine now. The stiff, suffocating mask you had been forced to wear all evening had completely evaporated the moment he stepped into your space. It always did. No matter how bright the camera flashes were, or how heavy the expectations of your families became, Dick was the only person who could make you feel like yourself in a room full of strangers.

"It’s part of my charm," he replied smoothly, pulling open the heavy glass door and guiding you out onto the sprawling stone terrace.

The transition from the stifling, perfume-heavy air of the ballroom to the crisp, cool Gotham night was instantaneous. The distant hum of the city’s traffic and the faint lapping of the river below replaced the classical orchestra with a peaceful sort of quiet. Out here, the paparazzi's flashes were nothing but a faint, ambient glow behind the tinted glass.

You walked over to the balustrade, resting your hands against the cool stone. You closed your eyes for a brief second, letting the breeze wash over your face and soothe the burning heat on your cheeks his comment had left behind.

Dick leaned against the balustrade next to you, mirroring your posture but keeping his body turned slightly in your direction, his shoulder brushing against yours. He reached up, his fingers working to loosen the silk bowtie at his collar. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt, taking a deep, unhurried breath of the cool air.

For over a decade, you had been each other’s safe harbour in a city built on quicksand. When his world had shattered as a boy, you were one of the few who didn't look at him with pitiful charity or morbid curiosity. When your own family's scandals had threatened to crush you under the weight of public scrutiny, Dick had been the one to drag you out of your house in the dead of night, forcing you to eat greasy diner food in your finest clothes until you laughed so hard your ribs ached.

"Seriously, though," Dick said, his voice dropping into a softer, more grounded register. The playful billionaire facade he put on for the likes of Mrs. Hill faded completely. He stepped up beside you, leaning his forearms against the stone railing and looking out over the manicured lawns of Wayne Manor and looming city ahead. "They're not entirely wrong, you know," he said quietly, his gaze shifting from the distant city skyline back to your face.

You blinked, caught off guard by the sudden drop in his tone. "About what? Mrs. Hill's terrifying obsession with our future lineage?" You tried to keep your voice light, but your heart was still racing against your ribs.

"About us," Dick murmured as he shifted, his body completely blocking out the glowing warmth of the ballroom doors behind him, creating a small, intensely private corner just for the two of you on the dark terrace. He reached out, his hand wrapping around yours where it rested on the cool stone. His fingers laced through yours, his thumb tracing a slow circle over the back of your knuckles.

"We've been playing this game since we were teenagers," Dick continued, his brilliant blue eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made the cool night air feel suddenly very warm. "Every time someone says we'd make a good couple, we laugh it off. We tell them we’re just friends, or like family. But..." He paused, his grip tightening as he gathered the courage to finally say what he’d always wanted to say to you. "Every time they say it, I find myself wishing I didn't have to lie about it."

Your breath hitched in your throat. The ambient noise of the gala—the live orchestra, the clinking of glasses, the low roar of conversation—all of it faded into static. "Dick..."

"I'm serious," he said, taking half-step closer until the faint, clean scent of his cologne enveloped you completely. "I know everything about you, and you know the worst parts of me. You've been my anchor in this city for as long as I can remember. I don't want to be just your childhood friend anymore. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life pretending that’s all we are."

The sheer honesty in his voice was staggering. Dick Grayson, the man who could charm the entire world with a flash of his teeth, was standing before you entirely stripped of his armour. There was no playboy performance left in his eyes. Only the raw, terrifying honesty of the boy who had once promised you, in a diner booth at three in the morning, that he would never let this city swallow you whole. 

"Dick," you whispered, your voice trembling slightly as your eyes darted down to his lips, then back to his eyes. "Do you have any idea what you're saying? If we cross that line..."

"I don't want to keep pretending anymore," he interrupted gently. He took another step closer, his chest nearly brushing against yours, effectively trapping you between his broad frame and the cold stone of the balustrade. The warmth radiating from him was a sharp contrast to the biting breeze. Slowly, Dick lifted his free hand, his long, calloused fingers brushing a stray lock of hair away from your face. His fingertips lingered on your jawline, his knuckles lightly brushing against your cheekbone in an agonizingly tender gesture.

"I’ve spent half my life pretending to be exactly who people want me to be," Dick murmured, his gaze dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back to lock with yours. "I put on the tuxedo, I smile for the cameras, I play the charming, carefree son. But the one lie I’m utterly exhausted of telling is the one where I pretend I don’t look at you and see my entire world. Every time someone looks at us and says we belong together, I don't see a society joke anymore. I just see what I want. I see you."

A breathy, stunned laugh escaped your lips, your hands instinctively rising to rest against his chest, clutching the fine fabric of his tuxedo jacket just to keep yourself anchored. "You're insane, Grayson. You choose a Wayne Enterprises gala, surrounded by three hundred of the nosiest people in the tri-state area, to tell me this?"

"Hey, I've always had a flair for the dramatic," he teased softly, though the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth was entirely tender, a private expression reserved only for you when the rest of the world was locked outside. His thumb traced a slow, soothing path along your cheekbone. "But I mean it. I’m done waiting for the 'right time.' There is no right time in a city like this. There’s just us. Right here, right now."

"So, what do you say?" Dick whispered, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of hope and his signature, playful charm. "Want to give Gotham society something real to talk about?"

Looking at him—the golden boy who had always held your hand through the madness of your worlds—the answer was suddenly the easiest thing in the world. Your hands tightened their grip on the lapels of his tuxedo, holding him close.

"You're sure about this?" you asked, giving him one last chance to take back his words. "There's no going back from this, Grayson."

"I don't want to go back," he murmured, his face tilting down toward yours as you squeezed his hand back. "I've been moving toward you my entire life."

When his lips finally met yours, it was slow and gentle, a dam breaking after years of carefully maintained boundaries. He tasted like champagne and mint, his hands shifting from your jaw to wrap securely around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. 

When he finally pulled back, just an inch, his forehead rested against yours. His breath was shallow, but a brilliant, genuine smile lit up his face in the moonlight as he stared down at you.

"You're going to ruin my reputation," you whispered, another breathless laugh breaking through your shock.

"I think I'm improving it," Dick countered, his voice dropping into a low, affectionate purr.

He leaned down and kissed you again. This time, it was deep, possessive, and filled with the fierce intensity of years of unspoken longing. His arms tightened securely around your waist to pull you flush against his chest, lifting you slightly until your toes barely brushed the marble floor. Your hands slid up his chest, tangling in the soft, dark hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer as the last of your defences completely dissolved. Every shared glance across a crowded ballroom and every midnight escape to a greasy-spoon diner converged into the rhythm of his lips against yours.

When he finally allowed you to breathe, his eyes crinkled at the corners with that signature, devastating charm. "Well," he whispered, his chest heaving slightly against yours. "The paparazzi are definitely going to notice we've been gone for twenty minutes."

You let out a soft laugh, wrapping your arms securely around his neck and feeling lighter than you had in years. "Let them notice. For once, let's give them exactly what they want to talk about."

You had your date at the Grand Canyon planned for several weeks. The two of you had been busy and stressed with work lately, so you were looking forward to spending a quiet weekend together even more than usual.

The only problem was that Dick had been acting incredibly nervous all morning.

When your alarm went off at seven, he was already gone. According to him, he hadn't been able to sleep all night. At four in the morning, he had apparently decided to do something productive and cleaned half the house instead (carefully enough not to wake you). Things only got stranger after that. At breakfast, he burned his scrambled eggs so badly that the smoke alarm almost went on. A few minutes later, he reached for the sugar and somehow managed to pour salt into his coffee instead. When you pointed it out, he stared at the mug for a solid five seconds before dumping the whole thing into the sink.

You had asked him more than once what was wrong. Each time, he'd smiled a little too quickly and blamed it on the weather.

"The weather?" you repeated as the two of you loaded your bags into the car.

"Yeah."

"Dick, it's sunny."

"Exactly."

You narrowed your eyes at him. He immediately looked away. That was suspicious.

Dick Grayson was many things, but subtle was not one of them.

For the first hour of the drive, he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, checked his phone every few minutes, and nearly missed two exits because he seemed completely lost in thought.

At one point, you caught him glancing at you. Then at the road. Then at you again.

You figured you wouldn't get a real answer out of him, so you let it go. Turning your head, you looked up at the bright blue sky above you. Only a few fluffy clouds drifted lazily across it. A small smile tugged at your lips.

"Look at the sky," you said.

Dick's head snapped up so fast you thought he might actually break his neck. "Oh God, what's wrong with the sky?!" he asked, panic flashing across his face.

You blinked. For a moment, you were too stunned to respond. "Dick," you said slowly, trying not to laugh, "there's nothing wrong with the sky."

His shoulders immediately sagged with relief. "Oh."

A beat passed.

"Wait, why would you think something was wrong with the sky?"

Yeah, the whole drive had been weird.

When you finally arrived, the view was magnificent. The walking trail was surprisingly quiet, with only a handful of people scattered along the route.

Dick, however, wasn't paying much attention to the scenery. His hand was clammy in yours the entire time. You had never seen someone sweat this much without actually exercising.

After about thirty minutes of walking, you emerged onto a beautiful overlook. Almost immediately, you noticed a couple standing near the edge. You stopped in your tracks and grabbed Dick's arm, pulling the distracted man to a halt.

"Look," you whispered. "I think he's proposing." At that exact moment, the guy dropped to one knee. The woman immediately covered her mouth as he pulled a ring box from his pocket.

Good thing you were standing far enough away not to disturb them. Still, you couldn't help leaning closer to Dick and whispering,

"Who the hell proposes at the Grand Canyon? I hate it."

Silence.

You frowned. That wasn't the reaction you expected.

Out of the corner of your eye, you watched the color drain from Dick's face. Instantly. His expression shifted from nervous to absolutely horrified. A strange choking sound escaped his throat.

"Dick?"

His eyes were wide. Very wide.

"Dick?"

Without a word, he dropped your hand, spun around, and sprinted toward the nearest bush. A second later, the unmistakable sound of someone violently throwing up echoed across the overlook.

You stared.

The nearby squirrels probably stared too.

"...Holy shit."

Maybe the weather really was getting to him, you thought.

Loneliness greets Damian as he steps foot in the Bat Cave. The chilling kind that makes his bones grind together in discomfort, and carries a silence that Damian should’ve been used to by now. But he isn’t, and the only greeting he receives when entering the cave is the resounding patter of his dress shoes hitting the pavement. 

The exhaustion of the double life begins to catch up to him faster than he’s imagined. The type of tiredness that seeps deep into his bones and cries out every time he slips on the cowl. In the instances when his fists are bloody and the charcoal beneath his eyes bleed further down the cowl, Damian Wayne grieves your soothing hands. 

He reminisces of the soft palms that used to tend his aching muscles after long nights. It's an array of painful memories that grip him by the horns late after midnight, and sometimes when he's busy cuffing up a thief whose hair color resembles yours, his mind rushes back to the first time you’d kissed him. He'd worn the Robin emblem with so much pride back then, and his love ran so deep that he would have let you sink your claws right through his chest if you’d wanted to. 

The Batcomputer casts a dim light upon Damian’s frowning face, monitors turning to life upon the clock of a button. When he’s done, he stays sitting before the screens a little longer with the hope that someone is going to worry for him. The time at the bottom corner of the computer screens 03:40 when Damian ultimately shuts it down. There was no one left but him in the manor to worry about anyway. 

Alfred's long gone and Damian bears the scar like a fresh wound, he's yet to even accept his late father. It’s always hard to accept falling down from the summit. The blood son, a true Wayne, the young prince heir to the infamous League of Assassins and Wayne Enterprise. And despite all the titles that Damian had borne in his life, he still believes there was no better title than being yours. 

Your nemesis, your friend, your boyfriend, your fiance. Damian's existence orbits around you, It's fun to belong when everything already belongs to you. 

When you'd first met Damian, it hadn't exactly been love at first sight. Disdain ran mutual between the both of you. He was that bratty, arrogant, snobby boy who thought everyone had to play by his rules. And you were that annoying, over-the-top girl who did nothing but stand in his way. Rivalry quickly grew into friendship, despite how much Damian always denied it.

Then one random day, between the changes in the pitch of his voice and awkwardly growing limbs, Damian made the mistake of glancing at you. It was as if years of denial and restraint had suddenly slipped away, and there, standing in the middle of his door frame he would once grumbled about, he thought you to be the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid his eyes on. 

No more of that childish girl who’d try to better him at everything, no more of that bratty boy who  lived to prove that he was better than you. Then when you’d finally gathered the courage to kiss him because you knew he’d never have the balls, one clawed hand holding a death grip around the collar of his Robin suit, he’d practically melted against you.

His arms were laying stiff against his body and it took all of your restraint not to laugh into his mouth. You were only 17 then, but you’d already known that Damian was it for you. He wasn’t the best boyfriend, had never been and would probably never be, but he tried and he did it for you, and you loved him through and through. 

Unfortunately, all good dreams have an end. 

For years of your life, you were brought to believe that you’d been good for nothing but living off of scraps and that goddamn cat suit. Selina had taught you that Gotham didn’t need you as much as you needed it, so what’s a kid must do to survive? At 15, much to your disdain, Damian started teaching you there was more to life than just surviving. 

You didn’t need to live off of scraps, you could thrive alongside Gotham. And so you did, for the next 15 years as you stayed by his side. Protecting Gotham like he himself once couldn’t have even imagined the thought of. You’d been there with him through everything. Through his siblings leaving, through his father, through Alfred. 

You’d both been playing dress-up in costumes that carried responsibilities far too heavy for children of your age to bear. In the end, you’d grown tired of playing the same, tiresome game of heroes, and your priorities started shifting. Now, you wanted to play house. 

Sometimes when Damian lies awake late at night in the manor’s master bedroom, which he’d moved in shortly after Bruce’s passing, he imagines the feeling of your palms rubbing warmth back into his shoulders. He’d been sitting on the edge of Bruce’s king sized bed, staring vacantly into the wall like it would erase all the misfortune that had occurred in Damian’s life. He could still remember the heart aching sensation of your arms snaking around his neck, feeling the weight of your knees sinking into the mattress right behind him as you held him in your embrace. If he prays hard enough, he can still recall the temperature of your body against his as you pressed your chest against his back in silence. 

He’d only sighed then, but you’d known, like you always did when it came to him, that this grief was eating at him. You couldn’t undo the past, couldn’t go back and save Alfred and Bruce or even bring back Titus, couldn’t change his upbringing or his lineage, but you’d be there for him through it all. As the sobs wracked his body in a violent heap, you’d simply embraced him tighter. He could still recall the feeling of your lips against his tear-stained cheek. 

The grandfather clock chimes behind him as the door slams shut, a once-unusual silence falls heavy upon the manor. The walk from the study to Bruce's room is filled with ghosts in the form of picture frames, Damian keeps his head down during the entire walk to the bedroom to avoid meeting the familiar faces nailed onto the wall.

He walks a little faster when he knows he’s nearing that picture that Alfred had hung of you kneeled down, embracing Titus. 

That night like many others, sleep eludes Damian. And like all other nights, he finds comfort in bloody fists and charcoal coated eyelids. When he finally sheds his clothes for the night, he does his best to ignore your ring that you left on his bedside table, and he feeds his soul with that spicy tang of bourbon to knock himself out into a dreamless slumber.

—

Damian crowds your every thought as you lay on the sofa in your apartment. Below, Gotham bustles alive with noise. You can hear your neighbor yell at her husband through the thin walls, and for the fifth time this week, it slowly drives you crazy. You try to distract your mind to stop yourself from drifting back to Damian and the argument you last shared. 

But no matter how hard you try, the TV slowly drifts into static noise in the back of your head, and serves the sole purpose of illuminating the room in a faint cast. The kettle brewing in the kitchen drowns to the furthest part of your mind, and soon that damned scarf you'd been trying to complete for the past month slips past your fingers and onto your lap.

Your phone buzzes on the sofa beside you, and you have to fight yourself not to hope too hard. Damian’s most definitely not coming back, he said it himself. He'd chosen Gotham over you and your future, and yet, you couldn't rid yourself of the love you held for him. It burns as strong as it did since you were nothing but children.

Your neighbors are getting louder now, a baby whines and then all you can hear is the infant's wailing. Your phone buzzes again. 

It’s 7 notifications in when you finally decide to pick up the phone. You find that they’re all texts from the same guy. Carter Brooks, the rising Hollywood star that started hitting you up after reading the scoop about yours and Damian’s split. 

He’s a pretty handsome dude, sure he’s got nothing on Damian, but he’s got those silky blonde strands that could entice just about anyone to run their hands through. Oh, and you’d definitely not seen those abs in the trailer of his upcoming movie. 

It’s a painful minute that passes by as you stalk his socials and compare his pictures to your memories of Damian. You reread the messages from your notifications center without opening his chat yet. You end up concluding that he seems like a sweet dude, and moreover, he seems like he really wants to know you. You’re not sure you’re thinking straight when your thumbs press onto the notification and onto his chat. 

By the time your eyelids start to flicker shut and your thumbs can’t seem to keep up with your words, you find the apartment complex to have been slumbered into a quiet silence. What was supposed to be a quick text turned into a 3 hour conversation and a promise to let him take you on a date. 

When you finally drop your phone onto the coffee table and pull up the blanket to your nose, you notice that the noise from the other side of your wall has drowned out, and that it’s been 3 hours since you’ve last had a heart aching thought about Damian and your apparently wasted years. 

If Damian wouldn’t pick you, then you’d find someone who would. 

—

Plot: it's7 months after and you're dating someone new, Damian drowns himself in work and alcohol. He finds out that you got cheated on as much as the entire news and shows up in front of your door. You're already humiliated enough. 

Damian can physically feel his heart halt to a stop as he reads the newspaper that morning. Time passes in a fury, and it had already been 7 months since you’d ended things between the two of you and that Damian had chosen this city above you and your dreams. 7 months of fighting this urge to contact you, despite this persistent ache, Damian believes that you’re better off without him. You deserve far better than a man who has dragged you on a hell ride for years only to give precedence to the very thing that’s destroying him night after night.

 Damian knows he’ll crumble to his knees and beg for forgiveness in a pitiful act the second he sees you again. It is selfish and it is all the most pathetic but it’s everything that makes him your Damian. 

His fingers clench onto the newspaper so hard that he’s crumbling the paper all the way to the middle of the page. The sound of his dress shoes resound around the big office room in a continuous tap. He's carpeted the floor, and yet, anxiety bounces all around him. 

Emerald iris retraces the headline over and over again to find a flaw, a mistake, and yet all he finds is the sting of the truth. 

“Ex Mrs.Wayne reveals new relationship with star Carter Brooks with a passionate entrance!” 

The picture on the front page rubs him in all the wrong ways when he realizes that the smile you wear on your face is meant for another man. You look as ravishing as the day you walked out on him, even got your hair done and a new pretty black dress he knows you nagged your new boyfriend for. The thought makes him want to throw up. You’d never never have to beg a day in your life with him for such trivial things, he’d buy you everything you’d ever desire. 

It’s selfish, but the muscles in Damian’s neck tenses when he shifts his focus to him. He’s got his grimy right hand clad in your ringless left hand, and he’s sports the smile of an all victorious man. 

At some point, Damian’s office door opens without his knowledge. His assistant tells him something about a meeting and an hour that his brain shuts out as his eyes trail on your hand in that Carter Brook guy’s one. Damian doesn’t hear the door shutting behind her, and doesn’t notice the effort she’s put in her appearance today. He definitely doesn’t notice the way her smile falls when he doesn’t pay an ounce of attention to her.

Instead, he’s got his brain stuck on how the entirety of the article flaunts your maiden name like you hadn’t been Mrs.Wayne to the entirety of Gotham for years now. Sure, with the way things had gone by, Damian hadn’t really had the time to make it official, but to the eyes of the Gothamite, you’d been Mrs.Wayne long before he even kneeled before you. 

That evening, Damian didn't even wait until dinner to pour himself a drink. 

—

The relationship doesn't last very long. It takes you all your might not to scratch up his face as you find him with another woman in your home. It's nothing scandalous, you don't catch him fucking her in your own bed while you're meant to be at work. You don't find underwear that's clearly not yours in the washing machine while doing laundry. No, instead you find Carter cooking her a meal in your kitchen while she cozies herself in your spot, on your own goddamn sofa. She's got her eyes fixed on your TV while she watches some comedy Carter has been talking your ear off about.  

You're not surprised to find out how little it affects you to see her on your couch making herself at home. Sure, she's got that perfect voluminous blowout and a figure you'd have killed yourself for when you were 17, but the thought of Carter betraying you doesn't hurt as much as it should have. You don't have a hard time figuring out you've never really loved the man, and there's no need to assume that he's always felt the same way. 

The only reason you feel yourself getting wound up is the thought that for weeks, if not months, he'd been fucking that 2-dollar-whore on your furniture without your knowledge. You shudder thinking about all the times you've sat up in their mess, and it suddenly makes you even more mad knowing that he'd probably fucked you right after doing her in your own home. 

Nevertheless, Carter doesn't hear the sound of your heels clicking against the floorboard as you walk up to him. His little girlfriend surely does, but that frightened look on her face tells you she's not going to ruin your surprise entrance anytime soon. Carters too busy with his face shoved into the rosemary scented fumes above the stovetop to notice that the woman standing beside him isn't who he thinks it is, and when he turns to you with that bright smile, ready to sling an arm around who he thinks isn't you, you can see the exact moment his soul leaves his body. 

“W-wow there darlin’, someone came home early.” He's stuttering up his words as he's talking to you, sweating in a way that tells you it has more to do than with the heat of his cooking. There's a paleness to his face that wasn't there when he was cooking for two, now, he's got to plate the table for an extra guest he clearly wasn't expecting to see this early on tonight. 

“Jaimie here was helping me do inventory, y’know they've been making me do a lot of overtime lately.” You can feel the woman's eyes trailing you fixedly as you round up to Carter, he's got the audacity to lean in to kiss you as if he wasn't using your own apartment to play house behind your back with another woman. You waste no time dodging his stupid advances at calming you, pushing two palms against his chest to send him back. It's not enough force to send him toppling onto the kitchen island, but it's enough to have him trip over his own feet, back landing against the countertop softly. 

He looks shocked that you haven't killed him yet, and a part of him worries when his gaze catches against your array of kitchen knives, and most importantly that you haven't yet brought up the elephant in the room. 

The woman, who you've learned to know goes by Jaimie, ogles you like you've grown three heads as you walk through the kitchen and into the living room to sit on the sofa beside her. She notices the way you promptly ignore her and mistakes it for shock and heartbreak. Denial. 

Instead, you grab the remote from beside her and change the channel mundanely like you hadn't just caught your boyfriend and his apparently coworker “doing inventory”, as he says. You wonder if they've done it in your store room, and the thought makes you want to dump all of your produce in the trash. You can feel her stare burning holes into the side of your face, and for a second, you wonder if she feels guilt. Or shame. 

Probably shame. 

Jaimie opens her mouth to say something, but the look you cast at her is enough to shut her off. You don't need a half-assed excuse or an apology. You knew that she knew. Your relationship with Carter was all over the news when you decided to make things public only 1 month after you’d both started dating. Foremost, you doubt she's even an ounce sorry. If you hadn't caught them in your house, you doubt she'd have even a pretence of respect or shame in your regard. 

A minute of awkwardly tense silence passes by before you hear Carter sigh loudly in the kitchen, his work shoes clacking against the floorboards before you inevitably hear the door shutting behind him with a loud boom. Jaimie, who's probably trying not to kill herself with the embarrassment of being abandoned by Carter in his girlfriend's home, clasps her fingers together in an attempt at soothing her nerves.

The sight makes you huff as you turn your head to look at her, prompting her to raise her own back at you. “Need help finding the door, sweetheart?” Sarcasm rolls off your tongue as she stares you in the eye, and she doesn't even give you a second before she's shuffling off your apartment in her dainty heels, muttering apologies under her breath you're not really sure are even meant for you.

The door shuts close for the third time tonight and you allow yourself for the first time since you've entered your home to breathe. Even though you're not sad about Carter himself, there's this feeling that tugs at your chest as you think of everything that just went down. Your own boyfriend has been seeing this woman behind your back. They've been in your home and God knows where else. Has he been seeing her since you guys started dating? Since he's been texting you? Were you not good enough for him to be loyal to you? Were you not enough? 

Your inner turmoil lasts for a good 45 minutes as you stare into the now black screen of the TV, and you come to the conclusion that no, maybe, you aren't enough. Because if you were, you'd never have gotten cheated on, and more importantly, if you were, Damian would have never chosen a city that’s inevitably going to kill him too over the woman who has cherished him since before she even knew she did. 

The night ends with you writing down a list of things you'd spend your weekend doing. Deep cleaning, the food bank, and probably crying yourself to sleep. You end up booking a hotel room that night. You're not sure you want to sleep in your bed ever again. 

—

It doesn’t take long for your name to feature in the hottest scoop yet again, and the press wastes no time profiting from the scandal. Just a week from then, yours and Carter's face are plastered onto thousands of magazine copies that sell out by evening. You can't even turn on the TV without finding your names all over the news. There's this humiliating feeling burning at you through your gut the longer you think about it, now that your breakup went public, everyone knew that you weren't good enough of a woman to keep.

You're not sure what to do besides wallow in your pity and drown yourself in the endless articles written about the scandal, because one day you're sure you'll kill yourself worrying about what they're saying about you.

For the first time in an entire year, Damian Wayne feels something other than nothingness. Instead, he feels that youthful anger rise in his veins as he reads the daily scoop. The same anger he used to harbour at only 10 years old while other kids his age were busy scraping their knees falling down from swinging up too high and living up their childhood. 

Damian doesn't drink that night, the sight of your face on the headlines intoxicates him much faster than the bottle of whiskey sitting on his desk. How could anyone deceive a creature as dazzling as yourself? He would've never done this to you, Damian thinks to himself. He couldn't even bare the thought of betraying the same girl who had remained by his side even when times got rough and his tongue got loose. Back when he couldn't quite grasp the concept of friends and made sure to keep you at arms length, you were the only one who hadn't given up on him.

And when he'd grown confused between who he was and who he wasn't anymore, you helped him understand without ever making him feel weak for being vulnerable. You were the only person in this damned world that understood Damian further than he understood himself, and he'd ruined it. Just a year and a half ago, he’d gotten down on one knee and slid a ring on your finger, and then you’d grown tired of playing dress up. Tired of fighting crime in dark alleys, tired of patching up Damian after making him promise that he'd be careful tonight, tired of that dead look in his eyes after he'd pushed himself past his limit again.

He could still remember the feeling of your palm against his knee, stabling and soothing, as you bore your heart out to him. Your new dreams, a family, a home. A real, stable home. Children. He could tell it was all genuine as you spoke to him. The unusual furrow of your brows, the way your lips trembled as you spoke to him. It was selfish, something you'd both avoided speaking of in the past because it was still a scar that hadn't healed properly. 

And yet, as you sat before him, you'd chosen him to be part of this dream. You'd chosen him to better the wrongs of the people who'd walked this path before the both of you. Because you weren't your parents, and you'd be damned if you'd ever be like them. 

But he couldn't. He'd never repeat the same mistakes as his father had. Would never drag a child into the same path he'd been forced to take. And you being you, had never asked him to choose between Gotham and you, you wanted him to. You wanted to matter enough to him that it didn't come as an option but as a decision. But he didn't, and in the end Damian had lost the thing that mattered the most to him.

Somewhere along the line, the dreamless sleep began shifting into images of you playing in the sand with two toddlers that shared your features. And every single time he’d wake up, a part of him would grieve the life he never even had. He’s tried blaming it on his guilt, but deep down, he knew it was because he’d warmed up to the idea. 

No longer did the thought of having children into this fucked, twisted world repulsed Damian like it once had. No longer did the thought of beholding a family with you feel unattainable. No, because he'd grown and warmed up to an idea that once wasn't his. Now when he pictured the future, it came with a dream and the faces of two children plagueing his very thought. Damian no longer had anything to live by but his dreams, and you were in every single one of them. 

And yet, how do you ask the woman whose heart you've shattered and aspirations you've dismissed to start over? Damian's not exactly sure how, but that night as he tosses the newspaper into the hearth, he places the unopened bottle back into the cabinet. The car keys of the mobile that once belonged to his father burn in his pockets, but he's got a place to be, and a dream to save.

—

Humiliation still picks at you until morning. You haven’t been taking care of your hair, which now sits messy in your head, and you haven’t gone out to breathe in some fresh air besides your balcony’s in 4 days now. At first, it was because you hadn't needed to, now it was because you were too embarrassed to face the people. You’ve been ordering takeout ever since Carter left your home a disgusting reminder of his betrayal, and even facing the delivery guy felt shameful. 

You’re scared to turn on the TV or glance at your phone because you know they’re still talking about you. You know that your face is still on the cover page of all magazines and it makes you hate yourself that you’re known as the woman who's not enough, it eats you up until you make yourself throw up. 

On the other side of the city, Damian’s in the comfort of his father’s black Porsche. He’s got no worry beside your own because he knows that the media love him, son of the late billionaire playboy, the media craved him. He spent enough time last night reading the articles to know that you’re not as lucky. 

He’s already got his assistant dealing with the press to take them down, but he knows you well enough to assume that you’ve already read them all. 

On the passenger seat, he’s got a bouquet of your favorite flowers he hopes will be enough of a peace offering for him randomly showing after a year of no contact. He’s a fool, but he’s got dreams and a drive and he still remembers the way to your apartment like the back of his hand. He’s wearing that cologne you’d always jump on him for, maybe, because he’s a little delusional that it’ll make you want to kill him a little less. 

The sports car sticks out like a sore thumb in your neighborhood, and in seconds, the photographers crowding the entrance of your apartment notice him. One of them steps so close to him that Damian’s urging to knock that camera out of his hands. Flashing lights blind him in a way he knows will end up as yet another scoop by tomorrow morning. 

Damian pushes past them with a huff, grumbling under his breath as he ignores their questions about you and him. In the crowd, a news reporter that’s been camping by your apartment complex for a day now asks something about you two getting back together and his heart starts thumping a little faster. The glass doors shut behind him with the click of a lock and the security officer shoots him an exasperated look. 

Because it wasn’t enough that he had to stop these borderline maniacal reporters from entering the complex, now the one and only Damian Wayne just  had to show up at the door and shake up some more attention. 

He ignores the man and shoves a healthy amount of cash in his hand as he heads for the stairway. Damian’s learned since young that money ruled everything and everyone in Gotham, and he’d be doomed, because he was blessed with it. 

Carefully polished dress shoes drag him up onto your floor, he decides he’s too anxious to wait in the elevator. He’s impassive, but his act starts to unravel the second his feet draw closer to your door. Number 76, he remembers. He’ll never forget, never you. 

His hand moves faster than his brain, and before he’s realized, there’s two knocks resounding against your door. Inside the room, you’re at war with yourself by the time the sound reaches you. Perched against the glass, you feel the past year catch up to you in a flash. Downstairs, the money hungry, fame-hunting reporters are out to get you. You’ve lost the love of your life just a year ago over your own selfishness and yet, you can’t seem to be able to keep a man for the sake of it. 

There’s that heart-clenching sorrow that grips you so hard you can almost physically feel your chest caving in. Just a year ago, you would’ve never imagined that you’d have ever fallen this low. You feel like you’re constantly drowning in this black hole that’s pulling you back in no matter how hard you try to swim away. It’s something you don’t know the name of, or won’t name, because acknowledging that you’re not okay just makes everything so much worse. 

Another knock shakes you up from your spiraling as you finally turn your gaze away from the mass of people waiting impatiently for you below. You’re not sure who’s waiting for you at the door, but as long as it’s not Carter or that damned side piece, you think you’ll be fine. 

On the other side of the door, Damian’s hand tightens upon the bouquet as he hears the locks turning from inside. He thinks about how unsafe it is that you’re being guarded by a simple lock, and how safer you’d be at home with him, at the manor. Finally, the door pushes open, and Damian gets to witness the exact moment you realise that he’s anyone but who you could’ve expected to be knocking on your door. 

“Damian” your words fall short on your lips as you stare at the man before you. He still towers over you in that way that makes you go weak in the knees. He looks so put together, hair gelled back in those spiky little strands of hair you’ve always loved and his suit clinging to his muscular form. But amongst everything, you don’t miss the dark circles that cup the lower part of his eyes, or that almost exhausted look in his eyes. There’s a break in his normally perfect stance, and your heart races when you notice the slight hunch of his shoulders. 

Along your inner monologue, you notice the way Damian’s eyes stay fixed on you in all of his silence, and you unfortunately remember how dishevelled you look. Your hairs a real, unwashed mess on your head that’s got flyaways sticking up in all positions. The hoodie and sweatpants you’re wearing aren’t the most flattering piece of clothing as they swallow your figure whole. You revel in the fact that you’ve at least taken the time of day to shower and brush your teeth amongst your little self-depreciating ritual you had going on for the past days. 

“I’ve seen the articles,” You bring up a hand to brush your hair into place but his words stop you short in your movement. The pit in your stomach nearly triples in size and you’re sure that with a little more shame, it’ll burst out your body and swallow you whole. Embarrassment boils in your gut because you know that he’s seen the things that people are saying about you, and besides, the scandal in itself is nothing really to pride yourself in.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you Damian. You show up at my door a year after we split and now you’re here to make fun of me?” the words take him aback, and if you didn’t know Damian well enough, you would have missed the imperceptible way his eyes widened. 

“You don’t think I'm embarrassed enough already?” Damian opens his mouth to retaliate but he backs down with a pained expression, like what you’ve said was really the nail in the coffin. That gloomy look on your face invokes a feeling in Damian’s chest that he’s been used to feeling this past year. He can tell that you haven’t been taking care of yourself like you once prided yourself in, and it’s not hard to see how quickly the past year seems to be catching up to you.  

“I am not here for any of that” the worsts come out of his mouth with a coldness you didn’t know he could ever even mutter at you, and it makes me you feel even impossiblely more horrible than you already do. Damian can tell he’s losing this war but he doesn’t relent. “You’re aware that I would never ridicule you, no matter what the circumstances are.” 

There’s a flash of shame that washes over your features as Damian realizes he’s sinking himself further into the hole he dug himself in. This time, instead, he takes a minute to breath and thinks thrice before speaking. 

“I apologize.” it comes out weak, but you don’t break eye contact or interrupt him. You’ve always been so good to him, even when he didn’t deserve it. 

“I apologize for not choosing you when all you have ever done was put me first. I’ve never meant to make you feel undervalued, or second to anything.” Damian’s eyes never leave yours as he bears his heart out to you. You realize, with the way his hands hold a distant tremble around the bouquet, that he’s laid bare and vulnerable to you in a way he’s never been before. It’s new and different, and Damian Wayne hates different, but he pushes through because that’s his way of telling you that you’re far more important to him than his own discomfort. 

If it came to it, he’d change himself a hundred times just to have a chance at being yours again. 

“You’re my everything,” the way he whispers your name nearly brings you to your knees, but you manage to catch yourself before you can even move, and Damian still flinches all the same, ready to catch you. “And I never imagined how hurtful it would be to lose you until I did. 

You can see his lips parting as-if to start apologizing again, but this time you beat him to it. 

“No, it was selfish of me to ask that of you,” you’re wrong and you both know it, because you’ve never really asked anything of him, but Damian doesn’t interject because hearing your voice speak to him so softly after a year of radio silence soothes him. And deep down in his mind, the one that only sees  rights in your wrongs, he knows that you have been selfish. But you weren’t perfect, and Damian would always love you like you were. 

“I know how much it means to you Damian, I would never ask you to abandon Gotham for me” you know you’ve been selfish before, you’d never asked, but you had deep down expected him to stop along you. To allow himself to settle down with you without having to wonder if he’d come back to you injured or worse. You wouldn’t raise your children with a half-absent father, and Damian wouldn’t leave Gotham behind because at some point of his life, that was all he’d known. 

Normalcy as such had become so foreign to Damian that he’d alienated it from his future. How could he ever raise children and be Batman all at once? He couldn’t bear the thought of ever becoming like his father. He had to be better, and ‘better’ to Damian had once meant giving up on such dreams. 

“But I would, I would in a heartbeat for you, Hayati.” his voice drops an octave as he whispers that word he’d always call you by. Devotion swims in his pupils as the bouquet now hangs upside down in his grip, half forgotten. 

“But it’s not what I want, you need Gotham just as much as it needs you. I was upset because I couldn't look past my own selfish dreams to see your fears, but I see it now, I see you.” Damian knows he doesn’t deserve you, it’s something he’s thought about multiple times in the past, but to have you stand in front of him and say that you’d renounce on something you had hoped so hard for in a distant future ruins him. It almost makes him want to retrace his steps back home because you are so much more deserving of what Damian has ever offered you. 

“I’m not scared anymore, not when I think about doing it with you. There hasn’t been a night since you left that I have imagined a future without you and felt anything but agony” the apartment complex falls silent under his words. Behind you, the herd of reporters or photographers drown under the weight of his confession. Your eyes droop down to the floor because you can’t handle looking him in the eyes as he bares his soul to you. 

Silently, you allow yourself to bask in the words you’d spent hours praying to hear just about a year ago. Your victory comes with no dramatics or surprise party, but the warm words of a man you thought was going to haunt you for the rest of your life. There was no future for you if it wasn’t with Damian. So now, as he stands before you and confesses this change of heart, your words log in your throat, unable to escape. 

“So if it’s still something you dream of, I’d love to be a part of your future.” Damian whispers, and there’s a ball forming in your throat the more the seconds go back. The irrational part of you fears that somewhere along the line, he’ll change his mind again or regret ever agreeing to doing this with you. Damian doesn’t give you a minute more to spiral, he’s a man on a mission, and tonight, he’s bringing you back home. “Tell me what you want, I'll give you everything, Habibiti.” 

You don’t think about it very long, or very hard. The reasonable part of you hollers at the back of your mind, but it’s ultimately shut down by irrationality. Sure, he’s hurt you before, but you were no saint either. The thoughts of you and Damian happy, together again, completely overshadow the images of you crying alone in your apartment a week after the split. You think that for once, you’re allowed to be irrational to let yourself be happy. 

You've done a whole year of thinking and Damian’s done a whole year of drinking on your account, you’re not sure you can last another moment as the man you’ve pictured the rest of your life with stands in front of you, at your doorframe.  

Your resolve comes crashing alongside your heart, it feels like for the first time in forever, you can finally breathe without that suffocating feeling crushing your lungs. You choke down on a sob before you can even stop it, and Damian wastes no time catching you before you fall. 

Your arms lock around his neck with no hesitation, face stuffed in the crook of his neck like you’ve done a thousand times before. His arms wrap around your waist and the back of your shoulder, the bouquet falls from his hand with little to no care, and the petals scatter into your apartment. It’s the last thing on his mind as he relishes in the smell of you. For, he’d buy you a whole garden if you asked. 

Tears drip from your eyes and onto his skin, dripping down to the collar of his shirt. Damian’s lost in the feeling of you when he feels you muttering something incoherent against his neck. The hand resting your shoulder moves up to cup the back of your neck, gently pulling you off his neck. He tilts your head up to meet his insistent gaze, filled with a love you were once so used to seeing. 

“I just want my ring back,” the whisper sails across his skin and melts his tougher exterior like warm butter. You don’t miss the way the corners of his mouth tilt slightly upwards, and the hand on your waist tightens its hold on you. Damian doesn’t say anything and he stares you in the eyes, like he’s reading all the way through your soul, and you let him because for the first time in a year, you’re staring at more than just the memories of him in the form of photos you couldn’t get yourself to erase. 

—

The second you tell him you have no intentions in sleeping in your apartment that night, Damian’s quick to pack you a duffel bag of essentials. It feels so intimate being back in your space, things that are so mundane but feel so special that you’re allowing him back into this part of your life, like grabbing a handful of underwear from your drawer to provide for your stay with him. 

It makes him feel bashful like he’s 17 all over again. 

Once he’s done, he meets you in the living room using the entry mirror to fix yourself the best you can. You both use the fire exit at the back of the building to evade the curious crowd blocking the main exit. You barely make it to the car without being noticed, and the sound of your laughter as you run to the car to take cover from their evasive cameras nearly makes Damian trip in his steps. 

The ride back to the mansion is spent in silence, and for the first time in a year, silence doesn’t feel like a punishment for his wrongdoings. Damian can feel the burn of your eyes of the side of his face as you stare at him, he doesn’t comment on it or admit that he’s noticed you staring, but deep down, he relishes in the feeling. He hopes that soon enough, you’ll feel comfortable enough to connect your phone to the carplay again and blast your favorite songs Damian always pretended he hated. 

Once you arrive, Damian opens your door and walks in front of you to unlock the door, but his steps come to a halt when he feels your hand snaking in his empty one. He’s got your duffel bag on his other shoulder and you can almost repaint the picture of him carrying your stuff into the mansion when you’d first agreed to move in with him. It already felt like that was a lifetime ago.

The door unlocks with a twist of his key and his hand tightens around yours as he pulls you inside. The Wayne Mansion has lost all of its soul without you, there’s an almost eerie silence that falls onto the both of you as you step in. The house is dark and full of ghosts that haunt Damian’s every move. But with your hand in his, the voices finally quiet down before falling silent. 

All he hears is the sound of your breathing and his heart pounding against his ribcage. 

He drags you up to the bedroom and breathes a sigh of relief when he finally places your duffel bag on the bed. Emerald eyes follow you carefully as you sit down on your side of the bed like you’ve never left, familiarity picking at his chest. His eyes quickly shift from you and to the ring on his bedside table. Before Damian can even make a move, you’re sat up before him, asking him if he can bring you something to drink. 

He’s back just as quick as he left with a glass of water for you, and by the time he makes it back to the room, the sound of the shower resounds all the way until the hallway. 

The door’s closed and your clothes are still carefully folded in the bag, now at the foot of the bed. He’s not sure how far he’s allowed to push the limits with you, how much he’s allowed to see and touch now that you’re his again. He also notes that he didn’t even get the time to give you a clean towel of your own from the wardrobe before you rushed in, he guesses that you’ve already taken one, because you know where they are.

This was your house.

This Is your home. 

Damian’s not sure how long he’s spent standing up, staring at the bathroom door, but he quickly get answers to his questions as the door opens with a twist of the knob. His feet remain glued to the carpeted floor as he watches you emerge from the room. Your hair’s wet and clinging down to you, finally clean. Your skin is shining under the ceiling light and most importantly, you’ve got his towel wrapped around you. 

It’s nothing but a towel, but the sight of you wrapped up in his things nearly brings him down to his knees. A drop of water drips down your hair and down your cleavage and suddenly he's fighting a war with himself. You’re approaching him like a predator chasing its prey and he lets you, he needs you all up in his space before he loses his mind. 

In the corner of his eyes, Damian doesn’t miss the absent shine of the ring on his table. Before he can fully turn his head and investigate, your palm settles on the side of his face. You’re perched on your toes to reach him, and the sight of you smiling up at him does it for Damian.

The cold metal of your engagement ring cools his cheek and his resolve completely slips. You feel his lips on yours before you can even comprehend that he’s leaning down, and his hands are all up on you. Gone is that restraint he was trying so desperately to keep up since you’d embraced him at the apartment, Damian doesn’t care to be chivalrous when his top lip encases your bottom one. 

Your hand slides up to tangle in his brown tuffs of hair, earning you a brief huff. The movement causes the towel to unravel at the top and slide off your body unceremoniously onto the floor. Damian makes no move to help. The sudden chilliness makes you gasp in surprise as you throw an arm down to try and rescue your - his - fallen towel. Damian wastes no time shoving his tongue down your mouth, and suddenly you need both arms gripping his arms in order to keep yourself up. 

There’s nothing romantic in the way Damian’s tongue lapped against yours. Nothing sweet to a desperate man’s kiss. It makes you weak in a way that you almost forget that you’re bare in his arms, but the thought does little to bother you. Damian, on the other hand, is completely aware. His hands draw you in and explore your body like he hasn’t already mapped the area hundreds of times before. 

The clock ticks 00:00 by the time his suit joins his towel on the floor. Your legs bracket his hips and he’s completely lost in the feeling of you, it’s carnal, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. You know by the strain in your lower stomach that you’ll wake up tomorrow morning with no regrets and a limp to your walk. Nothing matters anymore when you feel Damian’s fingers intertwine with your ring-clad ones, warm breath tickling your neck. 

In the end, the sheets are all crumbled and you’ve managed to push off the entire wall of decorative pillows to the floor. You end up on your back somewhere along the way, the bed groans, the frame bumps against the wall and Damian finishes with a deep groan that has your nails scratching at the expense of his back. 

The satin sheets welcome you back into its embrace when your arms fall limp back to your side. It's warm and it's soft and it’s the type of intimacy you grieved so hard when you were in the arms of another man, but now you’re back and Damian’s buried so deep you’re sure you’ll feel the ghost of him until tomorrow morning. 

By 00:47, you’re tempted to glance outside to make sure the Porsche hasn’t transformed into a pumpkin. It feels almost too good laying in his arms that you’re convinced you're living a fantasy. Damian’s chest heaves up and down under your palm, and for the first time in a year, you sleep tight in the arms of your lover.

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