Bitter fury is an emotion he's gotten used to fueling his veins, carrying his broken body past the long winding roads where empty land stretched on for miles before he made it to the damned borders of Gotham. This was something different.

An anguish-filled regret envelops his senses, choking oxygen out of his lungs. It comes out winded, like a gut punch without any armour.

He may have blamed Bruce for his insolence. There wasn't anyone to blame but himself for not being by your side, from protecting you from that bastard's hands.

Even the thought of you surviving the monster, to stand ten feet away picking flowers with a matching scar, was enough to make bile build at the back of his throat.

His vision blurs, and his hand grips cold steel, the streetlamp stabilising him. Odd looks cast onto his toppling frame, but all he can focus on is the shaking. He hasn't had tremors this bad since the day he saw his replacement.

The world could take out all of its sinful miseries and pour it onto him just to prove that wrath was a punishment worthy of being broken over and over. He thought foolishly that his pain was a sacrifice enough for it to never lay its hands on you.

He never thought of the obvious. When has the world ever been kind?

He forces himself to look, he deserves it. He had been prepared when he went into that warehouse. A rage, never truly quelled since his youth, formed as his battered shield in his final moments.

You never held anger the way he did. Your imprecise and worn scar—he's all too familiar with the Joker's games and how much he liked to earn each scream.

He hears your voice thanking the florist, sweet and unknowing—and he breaks. Your back turns fully to face his failing vision, and the sight of you walking away—out of his reach, raptures a feral fear hidden so deep, he doesn't stop to think.

His feet move on their own, and he grabs you.

He sees it first. Your uncharacteristic fear.

You scream—loud, involuntarily. Jerking out of his grip, it's easy for him to let go at the sound of such a nauseating noise. He's never heard you sound this way, terrified for your life.

Multiple passersby are now staring, phones whipping out in instinct. Some are inching back, gaze locked onto him in caution, the perpetrator.

He deserves it, he thinks again. He's at as much fault for your terror as the bastard that caused you the trauma-induced reaction in your entire body.

He calls your name once, soft. Despite not having used it for years, it forms itself easily on his tongue, engraved into his ribs—as easy as breathing.

It's only then that you look up. Tears pool between your lashes—confusion etched in your gaze—then horrified recognition.

"Jason?" Your voice cracks. Goosebumps unravel over his arms at the sound of his name addressed to him.

He hasn’t felt real in a long time, but when it’s you looking at him, he feels mortal again. He feels your gaze burning into his cheek, the same jagged letter you must've seen in the mirror.

"No.” You croak out. “This can't be real."

His heart—deformed and shattered—might as well have been torn out of his chest. He doesn't care for the concerned gasps that echo when he practically drags you into his arms, shielding you from the sight of him.

He feels how much you're shaking, and it only wills himself to be steady. For you.

"I'm here." His voice rumbles against the crown of your head, and it doesn't feel real. That you're in his arms. "I'm here now."

"I think—I'm going to pass out." You gasp, words poorly enunciated in your hyperventilation.

"Bird?" He calls out, and he feels you going limp.

He doesn't remember much after that. Brief intermissions of the police being called, the pushing of limbs out of the crowd to his apartment, with you gently shielded in his arms. His face might end up on the news tomorrow, words of 'local kidnapping' running as its headline, but he could give two shits about something he knows Bruce will sweep under the rug with a bribe to Gotham Times.

The world is closing in on him, but he'd be damned if he let himself fail you again.

—

Your eyelids twitch by the second hour. Blinking hazily, he’s simultaneously relieved and unprepared to be faced with your gaze.

“Hey, Bird.” He greets. It comes out stiff, wrong. Like an old routine twisted by lack of practice.

“Jay.” Your voice is hoarse, sleep still battling with your conscience. “Wasn’t a dream?”

“We can keep it as one if you want it to be.” He answers softly, hand coming up to brush away the hair that’s fallen over your lashes.

You shake your head weakly, brushing your damp skin against his fingers. “I never dreamt you this clearly.”

His heart stills. He’d never dare say it aloud, but he dreamt of you too. In the lucidity of his terror during the first few months of his waking, his mind soothed him with memories of you, replayed over and over whenever he needed reprieve from reality.

He just never dreamt you like this—with guilt consuming his sight when he sees the result of his complacency carved into your skin. A scar only made possible from the absolute belief that you’d be better off—unharmed—if he wasn’t around. Forgetting that the only person who’s ever made a promise to protect you was him.

“You saved my flowers?" Your smile reappears weakly, gaze flickering to his kitchen counter. It was the only pop of colour in the entire apartment, aside from the various books tossed onto the shelves, accompanied by scattered cases and littered boxes, still left to be unpacked.

"Not exactly." His hand retreats from your skin, fingers tingling at the edges. "They're a little trampled on."

Your smile softens into something more genuine. "Keep them. They suit your place."

He raises a brow. "Trying to spare my feelings on the psychopathic interior?”

"I was putting it in a nicer way, but yeah." You muse.

The normalcy ends there. Your gaze hesitates when you look back at him, and his smile drops.

“So.” You start.

“So.” He murmurs.

“Is fainting in the streets a common occurrence for you?” It comes out wrong again, and he winces. He wasn't good at doing this, being the version he thought you remembered.

“It’s not everyday you run into your deceased best friend.” Your accusation doesn’t even require poison from your tone to hit.

Cat got his tongue there. He swallows down his worry, bottled till the point of rapturing. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“You don’t need to.” You offer. “I rather you didn’t.”

“Why?” He pushes. “Don’t you want to hear it? The reason I’m alive, why I hadn’t come sooner to find you?”

“No—because hearing you rush out an explanation makes it feel as if it’ll be your last. I don’t want to hear the ending, and watch you slip out of my grasp.”

Looking him in the eyes, your voice softens. “I’m giving you a reason to stay, Jay.”

How is it that you’re still able to read him, when he can’t even see past the warping edges of himself in the mirror?

“Tell me in bits, disconnected, I don’t care.” You continue on. “Give me the time to relearn you, connect the pieces together and place you in my life again. Don’t be a phantom.”

His exhale shakes. “You’re not mad?”

“Of course I’m mad.” You grumble, exhaustion plaguing your features. “I’m just tired, and hungry. Fainting does that to a person."

His lips quirk up involuntarily, and he finds his hand reaching for yours. Your fingers extend, and he grasps them, gently intertwining them together.

You tug him with little strength, but he falls to his knees beside you anyways.

“You’re mistaken if you think my anger will get in the way of me wanting you back in my life, idiot.” You sigh.

His heart stutters.

“I missed you.” You whisper, eyes tracing over his features, not even stopping at the scar that others always see first. No, you look him straight in the eye, and you don’t even flinch.

His defences crumble, and his arm comes up to your shoulder, pulling you into his embrace. He inhales your scent, feels your weak grip wrapping around his neck.

“I’m sorry.” His voice is muffled, a small mercy to hide how truly broken he feels.

“Jason, don’t tell me you’re blaming yourself.” Your shock is evident, and he doesn’t understand why. Why not blame him? It’d be easier to hate someone, if it meant carrying the anger rather than the fear.

“I made a promise to protect you.” Pulling back, he's ashamed to meet your eyes. “I never intended on breaking that promise, for as long as I lived. I had only forgotten, that even in death, the thought of you getting hurt would bring me back just to punish those who wronged you.”

“The bastard’s dead, and I’ve never been more sorry for it.” He spats. “I should’ve been worse. Made him regret it. Made him have a reason to lose his twisted smile, for daring to lay a hand on you.”

You’ve never seen him like this, the true depths of how badly his wrath has warped into the very essence of who he is now. He should hide it, lessen the chances that you’ll regret your choice of forgiveness.

Yet, he can’t. Not in front of you. He’s never learnt to hide his weaknesses in front of the one person who tore down all his defenses.

So, he’s angry. At many things. Himself, that scar on your cheek, the unbearable weight of not being able to erase your pain, the world, that bastard who’s long turned to ashes.

He looks at you, and he’s shocked to find anger held in your gaze too.

“Jason.” Your voice comes out heavy.

This is it. His long-awaited trial, his punishment for abandoning his promise. You’ll hate him, and he’d be better off with it.

“I don’t blame you. The thought's never crossed my mind.”

The frantic noise in his mind stops.

“When—” You swallow, and he wishes he never made it a topic of conversation, forcing you to relive your nightmare. “—I was taken. The Joker didn’t even know who I was. Just a stranger picked off the street. My lucky day.”

“It was only when he started to get bored, thinking I was too quiet for a toy, that he wanted to make me talk.” Your voice is devoid of emotion, going through the motions of the story as if it wasn’t yours. “I said your name. Somewhere in all of it. I don’t know—I was barely conscious then.”

“He was so happy.” Your voice warps, twisted in pain. “Found someone to accompany the little bird he killed. He wanted you to recognise me when he was sure I was going to die. Said he’d give me a matching souvenir before I went.”

Jason’s grip unintentionally tightens. His head is spinning, and only the feeling of you in his grip is keeping him from falling.

“And throughout all of it—I kept thinking of you.” Your admission comes out resolute. “I imagined it so many times. How alone you must’ve felt, how hard you must’ve tried to hold on.”

“At least I knew then, when I met you—I could see your scars and understand how terrified you must’ve been.” You admit.

“I see you, Jason.” Your gaze never falters and he realises he’s underestimated one thing. Your strength. “I see the way you treat yourself as a monster he created, a permanent reminder of how the system failed you. I see how brave you are, for coming back to fight it anyways.”

“So, don’t draw the line between our scars.” You force out, fire burning in the rims of your gaze. “You don’t get to paint me as the victim, and you as the monster. Not when I see your truths and your lies, and I still do.”

His lips part, at a loss for words. "How... is it possible? This world doesn't allow for good things to stay, but... you're here."

"Maybe I held out for you." You answer.

Something finally breaks past his thick exterior, and he falls into you, hands wrapping around your frame. Maybe you're right. There's something broken in him, but if you can see it without fear in your honest gaze, maybe he could still deserve the only thing he ever wanted.

You.

—

It starts tentatively. The visits to your fire escape, still covered in crimson tainting his helmet, tremors in his fingers after a long day of tension gripped around his guns.

It's physically impossible for him to go back to his apartment, not without checking on you first. The moment his boots come in contact with your floorboards, every nerve in his body screams for him to stay. So, he does. Selfishly, obsessively pouring over every inch of your apartment—checking the doors, the windows, the streets.

You never question, because you understand. That alone is terrifying, how quickly he became accustomed to you again. Stories slip out of his mouth on his own accord, following you around your apartment like a lost puppy wagging its tail. His helmet finds an empty spot between your bookshelves, his gloves over your counter.

The glances linger longer than necessary, only because he can't help himself from tracing over your features like a silent prayer. The scar on your cheek, once enough to make the invisible dirt under his nails come alive again, now serves as his permanent reminder to take care of you.

If only you'd let him. It's as if you've been waiting for his return all this while—even unknowingly—as all your worry, the grief trapped inside you, has been replaced with something warmer, more insistent. His hands somehow find themselves intertwined with yours by the time morning breaks through, still feeling the traces of your fingers over his tremors, finding the spots to ease them.

It wasn’t like before—when you used to let him rest on your lap after patrols, or the suffocating hugs in an attempt to see who could hold out longer without oxygen. It was new, uncharted territory. Terrifying, yet strangely instinctive. He never had a label for it. The way his heart has memorised your existence as an anchor.

Before he died, it was simply fact that the two of you were bound to each other the same way the sun promised to rise over Gotham’s horizons.

It's only been two weeks, and he hates that every visit feels like a taut string, bound to snap in its fragility. You tell him that life isn't watching as closely as he thinks, that you're living proof of it. You found a routine while he was gone, one not covered in blood or over-prepared schemes. You think he'll find his too.

Maybe he could. These past two weeks have been evidence of that. He doesn't let himself think too long on how his version of peace is whatever you're apart of.

It's his turn to cook tonight, in exchange for staining your windowsill yesterday when his new stitches snapped. Focused on juggling the groceries and the spare key, it only hits him that something is wrong when he doesn't automatically find you in the kitchen, sat on top of the counter flipping through another classic.

He calls out your name, and he hears the harsh bark of his fear echoed right back. A glimpse of your face, lifeless and covered in blood, is enough for him to drop the bags and scour through the entire apartment. When you don't answer by the third call and every door has been personally greeted by his palms, his hand immediately digs for his phone, pressing on your contact.

"Pick up the phone." He mutters, running a hand haphazardly through his hair, tugging at the knotted locks.

He hears the ringing dial, and he's long lost the art of begging, but every breath churned from his lungs is an internal plea, that you'll pick up and tell him he's worried for nothing. That he'll hear your voice, and the nightmares conjured from the worst scenarios will disappear.

He can't lose you. He won't. There's nothing left for him to lose, nothing else that matters.

It's only then that he hears it. The jingling of your own set of keys.

His feet dash to the door, phone tossed somewhere onto the counter that guarantees another destroyed screen. Twisting the lock with sudden force, he doesn't even give you a chance to insert the key. Nearly tearing the door right off its hinges, his heart-rendering relief falters at the sight of your face. You're pale, lips shaking in over-exertion.

"Bird?" He asks, and it snaps you back to your present.

You're trying to form words, but one of your hands comes up to your chest, fingers shaking. He recognises it immediately.

A panic attack. It's instinct, the way he reaches for you and lifts you into his arms, his foot slamming the door close. Carrying you over to the couch, he sets you down gently.

Your hands tremor violently, and he's quick to envelop them in his own.

"Breathe." He mutters, forehead pressed to yours. He pulls you into his chest, and one of his hands comes up to wrap around your back, pressing you chest to chest. "Synchronise with me, Bird, c'mon."

"This was such a good week." Your voice finally pulls through, and it's a wreck. "I didn't flinch on my walk home. I bought myself flowers at a new store. I didn't miss any days at work. So—why?"

He understands more than you think. The why that rings louder on days like this.

"It's still a good week." He forces out, pushing down the helpless agony of being unable to take your pain for himself instead.

You shake your head, tears running down your cheeks uncontrollably. "I feel weak. Could barely—make it home."

"You are not weak." He reminds you, slowing down his words in the hopes that your breathing will follow. "You're the complete opposite—strength defined. You've just been holding out on your fear, and now, your body needs you to listen."

"I don't want it to feel like holding on." You plead. "I just want to be okay."

"I know." He whispers. "I know."

"Jay, I'm so tired of feeling scared." He feels your strength leaving you, your body loosening in his hold. "Of waking up in cold sweat, double checking my doors and still feeling like someone's coming to get me if I don't look hard enough."

He should've known. That's all that keeps repeating in his head as he massages your tremors. Maybe that's why you insist he visits every night—even if it meant having to stay up late waiting for him.

"It’s like saying ‘I'm okay’ has been pre-built in me." You whisper. "Maybe because it's easier to avoid the questions, because I get so fucking scared when someone starts tip-toeing around me, like I haven't woken up from that nightmare."

"But I'm not okay." Your admission comes out in a shaky exhale. "I haven't been okay in a long time, and I'm scared I never will be."

"Then, we'll be not okay together." He offers.

At that, you finally force yourself to look into his gaze. The pieces of you shattered doesn’t frighten him or make him want to coddle you. It only reminds him that you need his sturdy hands to hold you, even when he’s faced with the side you’ve been desperately trying to bury.

"I'm so proud of you for being here, even when it's hard to take a step forward without feeling like everything's going to fall apart." He reminds you. "And I want you here, no matter what. If you're feeling like shit, you don't have to do it alone. If you want to scream at the top of your lungs or cry the entire night, I'm with you for all of it."

Your gaze flickers, torn between the static in your head and his words.

"That's why I came back." He reminds you, forcing you to look at him by lowering his head, close enough that your noses brush. "Because I—”

I love you.

I love you, and the thought of you disappearing from my life physically paralyses me just from the possibility of losing you.

I love you, and the sight of your pain shatters all my rationality in the desperation of wanting to take it all away.

I love you, and the devotion I hold for you is so mindlessly instinctive, that my heart knows there isn't anyone else to give its devotion.

He looks at you, and he realises there's no difference even if he buried the truth. It wouldn't make you less vulnerable to the world if it knew how much you mattered to him. It only made him a coward—that he hasn't told you just how deserving you were of a love that even he couldn't describe right.

"I love you." His heart is thundering, slamming against his ribcage but he doesn't break his gaze. "I've been fighting life for as long as I have known it. It's beat the shit out of me, and taken the broken pieces and shoved it all back together. Yet, with you—I still hope. To a second chance, even if it terrifies me."

"As long as you're on this Earth—" He admits. "—there's a reason for me to try. Getting to come back to you, and waiting for you to come back to me, it's what makes all the hardships worth it."

"When you're scared, I lose my mind." He mutters. "When you're happy, it feels like I'm finally breathing. Your existence is the reason why mine makes sense. So even if it's your worst day, I'll bear it with you. Even if you want to disappear from life and just let everything stop, I'll follow you."

"If you need someone to feel not okay with, I'll be that person." His fingers come up to caress your cheek, hearing your relieved exhale at his touch. "Because I love you, and I always will. Let me take care of you."

When he stops, his fingers are shaking too. Yet, there's no fear in his heart that his vulnerabilities will deconstruct another horror and hurt him—or worse, you. No, because he's too busy feeling relieved when he sees that your tremors have stopped, and that you're finally breathing again.

"...Jay, say it again." You plead. "That you're not a dream."

He wonders how many times you must've dreamt him for you to ask him twice. "I'm right here. All yours."

He doesn't remember when the distance closes, when he pulls you to rest against his chest, or when your fingers wrap around his neck. He only knows that when his lips finally crash onto yours, he could feel just how much time he's wasted being scared. One hand comes up gently to cup your jaw, holding you with shaking fingers in the same treatment his eyes have always envisioned you, his lifeline.

He can't physically get any closer, but he wants to. There's this inexplicable space between you and his heart, thundering right under his ribcage, that he wants you in, close enough that he'll never have to part from you again.

He kisses you with a familiar desperation, a fear harnessed from the thought of nearly losing the chance to ever hold you in his arms, to have you here, breathing and wrecked under his touch.

It's addicting, and there's nothing he wants more than to lose himself in you, to let time pass and for the lack of oxygen to leave his lungs bare, and still, he wouldn't be able to get enough.

A minute or maybe more passes before you're pressing against his chest, begging for air and he has to remind himself not to chase after you. Your forehead drops against his, heaving slightly from his over-exertion in taking all the oxygen out of your lungs.

Your hands unravel from his neck to caress the sides of his face, your eyes tracing over him in that same desperation he's felt before, like you're terrified you'll lose the chance. Pressing a soft kiss to the tip of his crooked nose, you whisper. "I love you, Jason. I had so many regrets. On not being able to tell you."

He holds you, tight and steadying. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You can't." You plead. "Not when it feels like I'm finally living again."

He shakes his head softly. "I'll always be here, as long as you'll want me."

His promise to remain by your side has never changed. Only now, the promise of forever extends past the barrier of the living. His fingers caress your cheek, a quiet, soft claim over your scar that no longer belongs to the monster who tried to erase the both of you. It's now a reminder of his promise, that he'll never let you go.

"I'll always be your protector. Not even death will stop me now."

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dc masterlist -> jason + other dc works

Like ice through the center of your chest.

Holding you still as your eyes scan each aisle. Bodies, young and old, checking books and magazines. Are they pretending?

"Okay." You pile all your belongings into one hand. Voice trembling, "Damian, I.... I love you."

"I love you too."

That in itself somehow feels like a death sentence. Saying it in case it's the last time.

The line cuts out.

Restrained as you tell the girls—whose shifts you're supposed to be managing—that a family emergency has occurred.

Chest tight once you're back in the open air. Knees knocking together as you sit at the stop and later aboard the bus. Neck straining. Refusing to look over your shoulder or out the windows. For Tim or Dick. Maybe worse.

Hands buried in your purse, playing with the wire of a pair of earphones. Looping them around your fingers. Pulling so hard the tips turn purple.

You jump when your stop arrives, tugging the wire again until the silicon splits. Quick to your feet, but struggling to move. Bracing yourselves on the stanchions and seats as you pass.

On the verge of throwing up as you enter the building. Key card for the lobby. Keys for the front door that you can't seem to insert no matter how hard you try.

Breath withheld. Grip trembling. The key scraping the lock. Side and side. "Come on," you mutter.

"Need some help?"

A full bodied scream leaves your lips.

Jason's eyes widen.

You clench your chest. Legs regaining feeling at a rate that makes you want to crumble.

"Not the worst reaction I've received when I show up," he says.

"Sorry. You just walk quietly." His presence calms you enough to finally get the key in the door. "And to be honest, I was expecting Tim."

He nods, lips pulled in a wry sort of way. There's a duffel hanging from his left hand. "I think Damian wants someone meaner than Tim around right now."

Jason heads inside before you do—keeps his shoes and jacket on. "Lock the door."

He checks each room. Closes the blinds to every window except the one in the living room corner. Pulls a chair next to it, dropping his duffel with a heavy clank.

When he zips it open, there's knives and what looks like a gun piled inside. A red helmet. Other intense looking items you can't recognize.

He sits down. Folds his arms. Legs crossed beneath himself.

"What, um," you rub your palms against your pants, "what should I do?"

His gaze flickers at you from the window. Still by the door. Antsy, but carefully still.

"Whatever you normally would," he says. "It'd make my life easier, though, if you stayed in the living room."

You sit down on the couch for a while. Upright and mostly watching Jason. Looking away when he'd look at you.

Around the fourth round of look away, he sighs, "This is what you normally do?"

"You can understand nothing about right now is normal for me, right?"

He exhales. Back pressing into the chair, making it creak. "How bad did he make it sound?"

"He didn't, really." Hands fidgeting in your lap. "He just said I'm being watched."

"We think you're being watched," Jason says pointedly. "And it's not just you; it's a number of people linked to us. For all we know, it's a tactic they're using to divide our resources."

"They?" you repeat.

"Some purist group," he says, "Call themselves 'Null'."

"Are these the ones who attacked Damian's mom?"

He breathes deeply. "Yeah."

"Would they kill me?"

"Not without using you as bait first."

A thick swallow rolls down your throat. Passing the heart that's pounding out of your chest. Down into your stomach that's twisted in knots.

"You'll be fine," he says. Lazily even.

"Promise me something, Jason."

"Hm?"

"If I die, make sure Damian mourns me for at least five years."

This wins you more than a sideways glance. Neck craning entirely towards the couch. Full view probably necessary to figure out if you're crazy.

"And I mean like, really mourning me," you say. "Like hugging my picture when he goes to bed and everything."

Your eyes lock, innocent and staring. Then, simultaneously, you both start laughing. Restrained snorts breaking the tension.

"Maybe that was inappropriate," you say, thinking aloud more than anything else. "But thanks."

"For what?"

"You've told me more about what's going on in five minutes than Damian has in years," you say. "I know I can't do anything about it, but still... thanks."

Jason blinks at you, then looks back out the window.

You remain dutifully at the couch. Thinking. Immediately de-escalating every thought that forms.

He glances sideways one more time—your fidgeting hands.

"You're not going to die," he says, watching the window. "No one's getting within ten feet of you while I'm here."

The first semblance of reassurance you've felt in hours. Enough for you to soften against the couch, pick your copy of My Year of Rest and Relaxation up from the coffee table.

The two of you are sitting for so long that you've gone horizontal along the couch and finished the remaining hundred pages.

You set it down as Jason chimes, "What did you think?"

"What?"

"Of the book," he clarifies.

"Oh." You eye the woman on the cover, slouched and unaffected. "Well, it's three hundred pages of subdued misery. How could I not love it?"

"Nobody changes by the end," he points out.

Eyebrows raised. "Would not have pegged you for a Moshfegh guy."

Another crooked glance. "Why not?"

"It's your first time at our place and you brought a gun." Your eyes narrow. "You tell me."

His lips thin. "Back to my original point: nobody changes. A year's worth of induced sleep and all you get is her selling her clothes and commemorating her friend's beauty. That proves she's just as vain as she was in the beginning."

"But I like that." You sit up. "You have a protagonist that tries to solve her emotional stagnancy with physical stagnancy. And when she finally decides to change, she doesn't—not really."

You play with the now-unused bookmark between your fingers. "There's no pretending that wanting to get better means getting better."

Though he's facing the window, you can see the corner of his lip. Upturned in a smile. Fond even.

And then your stomach growls. You realize you haven't eaten since morning. "I'm gonna assume ordering dinner is a bad idea."

He shrugs. "I could eat."

It almost makes you laugh. "What if one of these 'Null' people replaces the delivery man to get to us?"

His brows crease. "What's stopping them from breaking down your door right now?"

"The lack of creativity?" you suggest.

He shakes his head, re-adjusting himself on the chair. "Just have them deliver it to an apartment down the hall."

You grab your phone. "Anything in particular?"

"Just order me whatever you get," he says.

"If you say so." You scroll through your list of nearby restaurants. Places you've bookmarked because Damian enjoyed the food.

The line rings. Picks up.

"Hi, can I order for delivery?"

"Yes, for Jason."

You provide the address of the apartment furthest down the hall. Tell them not to knock or ring the bell.

"One sweet and sour pork, sesame noodles, and then fried rice."

"Is there pineapple on the pork?" Jason whispers.

You nod.

"Ask for extra."

"And do you mind adding extra pineapple to the sweet and sour?" you say, legs shifting against the couch cushion.

He whispers again, "Crab rangoons too."

"Crab rangoons too." You cover the end of the phone. "Anything else?"

He thinks. "Sing me a song?"

You roll your eyes, "Yeah, that'll be all," give your card info then hangup.

You and Jason stand up for the first time in hours when the delivery arrives. He strides down the hall with you a step behind, hidden by his wide frame. Checking over your shoulder again and again as you slip back into the apartment.

"Stop walking like that," he says, returning to his corner seat, "People will think you're having an affair."

You take two plates from the kitchen, slide a chair near Jason in the corner.

He looks at you funnily.

"What?"

His eyes shift between you and the window.

"Oh," you nod. "I get it."

You lower yourself onto the floor, head beneath the windowsill, using your chair as a makeshift table.

"Just sit at your dining table."

"But it's our first meal together," you frown.

"Second," he corrects.

"I don't count the first," you say, scooping sweet and sour onto your plate. "We didn't even get to talk."

He helps himself straight from the carton, picking at the pineapple first. "About what?"

"Anything," you say. Portioning rice for yourself. Leaving the rest for him. "What did it feel like when you left Park Row?"

His hand stills, pineapple balanced between his chopsticks.

"We just started eating."

"Sorry." You pick the peas out of your rice, suddenly missing Damian, who would eat them for you—lecture you about their nutritional value. "What do you like to do for fun?"

He snorts. "You ever get a gift you didn't ask for."

You still. Think of your phone. The apartment. Damian. Him especially.

"Yeah."

"Like that," he says.

A piece of pork balled up in your cheek, "Would you return it?"

His chewing slows. "No." Straightens up in his chair. "It's just uncomfortable sometimes."

You throat feels tight as you swallow. "Yeah."

The small talk comes after. Funny stories about Damian and yourselves. A little bit about your childhoods in Park Row. Feeling pleasantly full as you wash the dishes. Jason, still in his seat, eyes on the window.

But your hands come to a stop when a massive bang sounds down the hall. Frozen as water slips past your palms.

Jason stands up, creeps towards the door. There's a knife in his palm. His other hand pressed to his lips.

You nod. Water still running. Shaking now.

He unlocks the door slowly, disappears into the hall.

Don't go, you almost say.

Limbs locked throughout every minute that he's gone. Chest heaving. Faucet behind, still running. What feels like a wave about to swallow you whole.

Jason returns multiple minutes later with an easy expression. "You're safe."

Unable to hold yourself up longer. Sinking down to your hands and knees. Taking in deep, piercing breaths.

He comes over and turns the water off. Kneels down in front of you. Surely notices the way your arms tremble. "You sure he's still worth it?"

You take your first real breath. A steady in and out. Gaze still on the floor. All your weight into the heel of your hands. "A lifetime of struggling in Park Row or five years with Damian?"

You lift yourself up, lean your back into the cabinet behind. "I can live with being scared every now and then."

Jason's eyes sort of light up. Amusement, pride, or maybe neither. But he smiles widely and helps you back to your feet. "You're crazy."

"But I left Park Row to fight crime at fourteen," he adds. "So, I get it."

You hear a key slip into the lock. Squeeze down on Jason's hand still in yours.

Damian strides in through the doorway and takes you up into his arms. "Qalbi," he breathes.

Your hands press into his back. "There's sesame noodles for you on the table."

He lets go of you, immediately rounding on Jason, "There's a threat on her life, and you let her get takeout?"

Jason folds his arms, "Relax, we were careful."

"He was a very good babysitter," you affirm.

"I never said anything about 'babysitter'," Jason protests.

"I'm in one piece," you point out. Nudge Damian, "Say 'thank you'."

Damian's expression twists.

Jason grins, "Yeah Dame. Say thank you."

The silence stretches. Then, stiffly—

"Thank you."

"Sorry," Jason leans in, "What was that?"

Damian grits his teeth, "Don't push it."