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Winx!AU, where Bloom's consciousness merges with her dark entity. Part 1.
To be continued.
English is not my first language, so I hope the translation doesn't feel clumsy.
Also soundtrack to the chapter because I love listening to music while drawing: Hayloft by Mother Mother
— The Three Times Wally West comforts you (and the one time you comfort him)
Pairing: Wally West x gn! reader
Summary: the first time you meet Wally West, it's with tears, and every time after that seems to go exactly the same, until it's Wally himself coming to you
Word Count: 2.7k
Content/CW -> gn! reader, emotional scenes + lots of crying, reader is dick's bsf, robbery + scary moments
froggi yaps -> needed me some wally after the weekend i had and this simply came to me in a dream...basically a much longer version of this but i hope you guys enjoy nonetheless <3 also totally not posting this from work on my lunch break >.<
You’re already in tears by the time you’re turning the key to Dick Grayson’s apartment. The clicking of the lock brings relief, the promise of your best friend on the other side. After the day you’ve had, he’s the only person you want to see.
You swing the door open only to be met with a tall, red haired man on the other side. He blinks at you, brilliant eyes framed by a smattering of freckles and a handsome jawline.
Jesus, Dick really needs to stop giving a spare key to everyone.
You find yourself self consciously rubbing away the fat tears on your cheeks. “You’re not Dick,” is all you manage to say.
“Funny,” he cracks a smile, crossing his arms over his old band t-shirt. “I was gonna say the same to you.”
You nod, tight lipped and awkward. “Do you—“ Your voice breaks slightly, “do you know when he’ll be back?”
“No clue, I just got here.”
Your heart sinks further in your chest, more tears burn at the back of your eyes. You scrub a hand over your face, pinching the bridge of your nose and taking a deep breath.
You speak quieter now, words muffled by the lump in your throat. “Can you just let him know I stopped by?”
“Sure thing.”
You turn around to leave, taking another deep breath to compose yourself, when he speaks again.
“I know it’s none of my business but—“ He pauses, like he’s struggling to find the right words. “Are you okay? It just—you seem like you’re having a bit of a rough day.”
You look back at him, “that obvious, hey?”
He nods solemnly. “I heard I’m a good listener, if you want someone to talk to.” He laughs slightly, “well, no, that’s not exactly true but you don’t need to know that.”
Your heels spin back towards him. He gestures towards the big sectional in Dick’s living room, plush and inviting.
You give in. “Alright, Mr. Not-so-good-listener.”
He flashes you a toothy grin, “just Wally is fine.”
He reaches out a hand and you shake it, offering up your own name. Something glimmers behind his eyes like the start of something new.
It’s hours before Dick finally comes home, his arrival going unnoticed by the two people sitting on his couch that he very much did not invite over.
He’s not sure he’s ever seen a more confusing sight than you and Wally West sitting on his couch, talking like you’ve been friends for years.
“I guess I missed my invite to the party,” he calls out, setting his backpack down on the chair.
Your head snaps up, looking at him like a dear in headlights. Wally barely reacts, more than likely having heard Dick’s arrival and just choosing to ignore it.
“You’re late,” Wally calls back, looking him up and down. “And not even fashionably.”
That draws a laugh out of you, a little colour coming to Wally’s cheeks at the sound. Dick frowns, tugging off his coat and giving his outfit a once over.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?”
Wally shrugs, a perfect picture of nonchalance, and turns back to you. You’d stopped crying hours ago, your conversation shifting away from your terrible, no-good day to casual conversation with Wally.
Dick shuffles off to his room to change out of his outfit—a plain t-shirt and jeans, not dissimilar to what Wally’s wearing—and Wally thrusts his phone at you.
“Here,” he says, “so you can call me next time you have a bad day.”
You offer him a coy smile, “you know for being a not great listener, you actually listened pretty good.”
“It helps when the person speaking is good looking.”
You snort, fingers pausing on the keyboard of his phone. You glance up only to see he’s being dead serious, not a hint of nervousness on his face. You go back to filling out your name and number for him, sending yourself a quick message from his phone before handing it back.
He grins when he sees your contact. “Alright, Good Looking, well played.”
You and Wally text regularly after that, just quick messages to see how your day’s going, or little things that remind you of each other.
There’s a few things you’ve learned about Wally West since you’ve met. One being that he’s an incredibly disorganized person, his texts coming in sporadic bursts rather than consistent conversation. The other being he has the most unusual sleep schedule known to man, seemingly asleep and awake at all hours of the day.
Unfortunately for you, you’ve come to find both endearing.
It’s at a party you see him next. A small mixer held on the roof of Dick’s building, a group of friends you’d never met before all talking like they know each other.
It should be fun and yet, here you are, tucked away on the fire escape, sipping on a glass of water in the hopes it’ll stop the simmering under your skin. It doesn’t, and does nothing to quell your thoughts going a million miles an hour.
Dick had been too busy chatting with Kory—a tall woman who was also probably the most beautiful person you’d ever seen—to notice you slip out of the party. A different set of eyes, however, had noticed.
You’re sitting with your eyes squeezed shut, taking deep breaths when you feel a sudden warmth settle in next to you. Your eyes snap open only to find a familiar pair of brilliant ones staring back at you. Wally.
“And here I thought the party was upstairs.” He nudges you slightly, and despite his joking tone, his face is a perfect picture of concern. “What’s going on, Good Looking?”
A sigh passes through your lips. “Just…a little overwhelmed. Lots of people I don’t know and—” You play around with a frayed string from your pants, twirling it around your finger, “it’s silly, really.”
“Hey, I love silly.”
It’s like a bucket of cold water over your head, clarity washing over you. For the first time since you stepped away from the party, you take a deep breath. You go quiet for a minute, letting the silence of the night fill the cracks between you.
“I hate parties,” you say finally. “I always end up following Dick around like a child, hoping he introduces me to people.”
Wally hums, “why’d you come then?”
Another beat of silence, comfortable but stretched a little too thin.
“I was really hoping you’d come,” you admit quietly.
“Yeah,” he says, that playful demeanour gone for the moment, “so was I.”
You shift closer to Wally, absorbing his body heat through the cold night air. He drapes an arm over your shoulders, inviting you in.
“You could always follow me around, you know.” He rubs a hand up and down your arm, “I know people, too. And I’m better company than Dick.”
“You know people here?”
“All kinds of people,” he flashes you a grin, “Dick and I go way back, I pretty much know all his friends.”
“You didn’t know me.”
“Touché.”
You giggle slightly, and sometime during your conversation, you’ve come to rest your head on his shoulder.
“I think Dick was hiding you.”
You shift your head just enough to meet his eyes. “Oh? Why’s that?”
“I have a bit of a—“ He cringes, “reputation, I guess.”
“A reputation? Anything I should be worried about?”
Wally takes a minute to think, weighing his own history with the dozens of people he’s lost and regained over the years. In the short time you’ve known him, this is the quietest he’s ever been.
“No,” he says finally, resting his head over yours. “Nothing at all.”
Wally’s just finishing up stopping a bank robbery when you call, pausing on top of a building to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Wally?” Your voice sounds shaky.
“Hey, Good Looking.”
“I think—“ You let out a sound of surprise, your voice coming through slightly more muffled, “I think someone’s trying to break into my house.”
Wally’s heart rate picks up. “Why are you calling me and not the police?”
“I live in Bludhaven.”
“Shit.” He hates that you have a point. “Why aren’t you calling Dick?”
“He didn’t answer.”
Wally would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little disappointed at that, hoping you’d come to him first and not his smoking hot best friend.
“What do you think I’m gonna do? I live in a different city.”
“I don’t know,” you trail off, a rustling noise coming in the background. “Just…stay on the line with me while I check it out?”
Wally’s breath catches in his throat. “Check. It. Out?”
“Yes?”
“Okay, absolutely do not do that.”
“I have a bat.”
“You have a—” Wally groans and pinches the bridge of his nose, already planning his route to Bludhaven. “Do not investigate.”
“What, and let them just rob me?”
There’s shuffling, sounds of movement, and Wally curses. You’re going to get yourself killed.
There’s silence on the line while you case your apartment, slowly pushing open your door with the tip of the bat. You’re braced and ready, the banging you’d heard on your front door having ended as soon as you called Wally.
Either someone got in, or someone gave up. You hope for the latter.
It must be your unlucky day because the minute you turn the corner to the entry, a tall figure dressed in dark clothes greets you. You cover your mouth with your free hand, stifling a gasp as you duck back around the corner.
“What is it? What’s happening? Are you okay?” You scramble to turn down the volume on your phone. “Are you there?”
In your panicked haste to mute Wally’s voice, your phone slips from your hand and clatters to the ground, sliding out from around the corner. You press your hand tighter against your lips and flush yourself to the wall.
There’s a clicking sound, followed by heavy footsteps coming closer. You’re so fucked, you’re so fucked, you’re so—
There’s a flash of lightning, all of the hairs on your arms standing up. A blur of red races through your living room. One minute, there’s a shadowy figure and the next, it’s gone, replaced with the Flash.
The Flash is in your living room.
He’s breathing heavily, hands on his hips, face slightly red under the mask from exertion. “Are you—“ He clears his throat, “are you okay?”
You blink, suddenly lightheaded. “You’re…The Flash.”
“I am.”
“You’re in my house, I—why are you in Bludhaven?”
“Are you,” he says slowly, moving to rest a hand on your shoulder, “okay?”
“Where did the—the robber go?”
He says your name, loud and familiar. You stare at him, brows furrowed. The Flash knows your name.
“How do you know me?”
And Wally sighs, because he shouldn’t be here, because he shouldn’t have come back to check on you, because he’s completely screwed himself. But he couldn’t help it. Not when he thought you might be in danger, not when he could hear your time running out.
“Don’t freak out.”
“Why would I—“
Your words die in your throat when the Flash rips off his cowl to reveal Wally West, eyes concerned and face void of his usual smile. You stagger slightly, head spinning as you take in the sight.
“I said,” he catches you against him, walking you down the hall to your bedroom to set you on your bed. “Don’t freak out.”
“You’re the Flash.”
“I am.”
“You—you saved me.”
“It’s what I do.”
You sigh, shaking your head. “You…you got here so fast.”
“They don’t call me the Flash for nothing,” he laughs awkwardly. “You never answered my question.”
“Question?”
“I asked if you were okay.”
You swallow, nodding. “I’m fine, I just—I don’t think I’ll get much sleep after that.”
“I could stay,” he offers just a little too quickly. “If you’re scared.”
Wally’s grateful you don’t seem to notice his sudden eagerness.
“Really? You don’t have bigger, more superhero-y things to do?”
He laughs, cheeks flushing slightly. “I think I could spare a few minutes to make sure you sleep easy tonight.”
And true to his words, Wally steps away for a minute to change, coming back in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that definitely came from the Flash museum. You raise an eyebrow at his choice of attire, no longer self conscious about your own pyjamas he’d caught you in.
Wally climbs into bed after you, keeping a respectful distance despite how badly he wants to pull you into his chest. He lays perfectly still, counting his breaths.
“Are you sure I’m not like,” your voice is tired and thick with sleep, “dooming someone to a horrible fate by keeping you here?”
“You’d be dooming me to a horrible fate by sending me away.”
You drift off soon after that, Wally like a furnace next to you.
At some point in the night, you wake up to a pair of arms around you and Wally’s face nuzzled into your neck. He snores softly against you, body pressed flush to yours.
You can’t help but push yourself closer to him, greedily drinking up his presence.
Things with Wally become routine from that night onwards. He comes over a couple times a week, checks in on you, occasionally stays for dinner. Sometimes, after a particularly bad night, you’ll even wake up with him in your bed, curled around you.
He never talks about the bad nights, at least not to you, but you can always tell.
The last thing you’re expecting on a Tuesday at well past midnight is for the Flash to be standing in your doorway. You flinch when you notice him, sitting up quickly in your bed and flicking on the lamp.
“Wally?”
His head is hung low, his cowl off and red hair covering his face. He doesn’t respond, only stands there like a zombie.
“Wally, are you okay?”
You’re on your feet in an instant when he doesn’t respond again, bare feet against the cold floor as you rush to his side. You cup his chin in your hands, lifting his head so you can look at him.
“Walls?”
A tear slips from his eye, his hands shaky as he brings them to rest on your shoulders. You swipe away his tear, the concern in your throat growing thicker.
“Wally, are you—“
You’re cut off by his lips pressing to yours, a messy desperate kiss connecting him to you. His hands meet at the back of your neck and clasp, pulling you tighter into him while his tongue swipes at the backs of your teeth.
You pull away, stumbling back from him like you’ve been burned. “Wally?”
“Let me pretend,” he mumbles.
“Huh?”
“Let me pretend,” he repeats, stepping towards you. “Just for tonight.”
“Pretend what?”
His hand catches your hip. “That you’re mine, that this—this is okay, that things aren’t terrible.”
“Why are things terrible?”
He steps closer, chest touching you now. His grip on your hip tightens. “I fucked up tonight,” his voice catches in his throat. “People got hurt, I—I couldn’t help them and—“
“Shhh,” you cup his cheeks, looking at him seriously, “it’s okay.”
He shakes his head, more tears coming. “It’s not, it’s really not.”
“You’re a hero, Wally, through and through.”
He brings his head to rest on your shoulder, wet eyes rubbing against the side of your neck. You stroke his hair, rubbing soothing patterns into his scalp. Somehow, you manage to walk him back towards your bed.
He flops backwards onto your mattress, tugging you after him and pulling you into his chest. He breathes in your scent, rubs his hands up your sides, memorizes your shape.
“Wally?”
“Hm?”
“We don’t have to pretend,” you say quietly.
He lifts his head just enough to look at you, confusion written all over his features.
“Earlier,” you say, “you said you wanted to pretend that—that we’re together.”
All of the breath stills in his body.
“We don’t have to pretend,” you repeat. “We can—I can—“
Wally saves you from your own embarrassment by leaning in and pressing his lips over yours. It’s less desperate than before, less messy, but he burns for you nonetheless.
“Let me stay tonight?” He asks softly.
“Always.”
And Wally knows you mean it.
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thanks for reading & have a wonderful week /ᐠ > ˕ <マ ₊˚⊹♡
a moment of your smile is worth a night in the dungeons
in which richard grayson, a sharp witted court jester hiding behind paint and bells, falls for a queen trapped in a gilded cage, and risks everything to pull off the ultimate escape
court jester!dick x queen!reader, medieval au
tw physical and domestic abuse
The hall of the castle glittered with gold that night, candles flickering from every wrought-iron chandelier, music echoing faintly through the corridors, and laughter rolling off the stone walls like a wave meant to distract from the dullness of reality. But to you, it all felt like a masquerade, a gaudy, glittering attempt to disguise the rot beneath. Your husband, the king, leaned back in his chair, his expression heavy with wine and impatience. He’d already lost interest in the feast, the dancers, and, most painfully, in you.
Your fingers rested around the rim of a goblet, idly tracing the edge as nobles chattered and clinked glasses. You smiled when required, nodded at every passing compliment, but your mind drifted somewhere else, toward silence, toward freedom, toward anything but this suffocating throne room filled with eyes that saw you as decoration.
And then the fool entered.
The court jester, late to the performance, spun through the open doors like a gust of color and sound. His bells jingled, bright and reckless, breaking through the monotony. He wasn’t like the others you’d seen before, no sloppy makeup or drooping cap, no tired routine of juggles and rhymes. He was young, strikingly so, his features hidden beneath a streak of painted laughter but his eyes, his eyes were piercing blue, sharp and alive like summer lightning. He moved with a kind of rhythm that didn’t belong to the dimly lit hall but to something freer, lighter.
“Ah,” the king said with an irritated drawl, motioning lazily with his goblet, “the fool finally joins us. Entertain, or I’ll have your bells cut off.”
The jester bowed low with exaggerated grace. “Your Majesty, if you cut them off, how will you know when I’m coming? That seems a tragedy far greater than any I could perform.”
The nobles laughed cautiously, watching for the king’s reaction. The king smirked faintly and waved a hand. “Proceed, before my patience expires.”
He began with a dance, playful yet artful, every motion deliberate. He balanced upon one hand, flipped, caught a dagger mid air, and balanced it on the tip of his nose before tossing it into the rafters where it stuck perfectly between two beams. Gasps, laughter, applause.
But it wasn’t the trick that caught you, it was the way he looked at you while he did it. A flicker of his gaze, a subtle pause, as though he performed not for the room, but for you alone. It was bold. Reckless. Dangerous.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
As the crowd laughed, you found yourself smiling, truly smiling, for the first time in weeks. He caught it. You saw his lips twitch beneath his painted grin, satisfaction curling there.
The jester’s name, you learned moments later when he bowed low again before the throne, was Richard, or as the people called him, “Grin” for his unshakable humor and habit of twisting trouble into laughter.
But even as he played the fool, there was nothing foolish in the way he moved, graceful, trained, deliberate. His humor masked something sharper. You could tell instantly. Years at court had taught you how to read people, how every smile could be a blade, every bow a defense. His wit was quick, but his eyes were watchful. Observing. Calculating.
When the king leaned over and whispered something lewd about the jester’s ability to “juggle more than knives if ordered to” you turned your face aside, the bitterness of your husband’s voice cutting through whatever small joy you’d felt. You excused yourself from the table before he could grab your wrist again, rising with regal poise.
You were halfway down the hallway, a long, dim corridor draped in velvet and silence, when you heard the faintest echo of bells. You turned, instinctively, expecting one of your handmaidens, but instead, there he was.
The jester stood a few paces back, still in his motley garb, his face half-hidden by the flicker of torchlight. “Your Majesty” he said softly, and though the words were respectful, the tone wasn’t. It was… gentle. Curious. As if he were testing how the title sounded when spoken without fear.
“You shouldn’t follow me” you replied quietly, your voice careful, measured. “The king would not take kindly to it.”
He tilted his head, his painted grin softening into something more human. “Ah, but I’m not following” he said lightly. “Merely wandering. Fools do that often. We stumble into forbidden places and somehow survive to tell the tale.”
Your lips curved despite yourself. “Do you often wander into hallways where queens happen to be?”
He tapped a finger to his chin as if considering it. “Only when the queen looks like she’s dying of boredom in her own court.”
The words landed like a spark in dry grass. For a moment, you forgot the title between you, forgot the rules, the crown, the layers of silence you wore like armor. You turned slightly, studying him. Without the performance lights of the hall, you could see more clearly, the faint smudge of paint on his cheek, the calluses on his fingers, the shadow of something far too thoughtful in his eyes.
“You have a dangerous tongue” you murmured.
“And you,” he countered smoothly, “have dangerous eyes.”
You held his gaze for a long moment, the tension fragile, trembling like a tightrope between danger and intrigue. Then you looked away, the faintest ghost of a smile crossing your lips.
“You may be clever, fool, but cleverness has its cost here.”
He gave a mock bow, the bells on his hat chiming softly. “Then let me pay it gladly, Your Majesty. A moment of your smile is worth a night in the dungeons.”
You shouldn’t have laughed. You shouldn’t have looked back at him as you turned away. But you did, and the way he was watching you, half smirked, half awed, burned into your mind like candlelight.
That night, long after the music faded and the king fell asleep beside you in his wine-stained slumber, you couldn’t stop thinking about the jester with the blue eyes and reckless tongue.
And somewhere below, in his small chamber at the edge of the servants’ quarters, Richard Grayson lay awake too, the fool who had dared to speak to a queen as if she were just a woman.
He replayed your laugh in his head, soft and fleeting, and smiled to himself in the dark.
He’d seen hundreds of faces in his life, nobles, knights, courtiers, but yours? Yours had looked at him like he was not a fool at all.
And that, he realized with a strange tightening in his chest, was far more dangerous than any blade.
The next morning broke with the sound of bells, faint, distant ones from the chapel tower, tolling for morning prayer. The sun slid lazily through the draped windows of your chamber, painting the silks in pale gold and amber. You sat before the mirror, still half dressed, your maids fussing behind you.
You felt the same dull ache you always did at dawn, the weight of duty, the practiced calm, the constant awareness of eyes waiting for you to perform perfection. But beneath all that, something new pulsed faintly in your chest. You’d dreamt of laughter, a voice teasing in the dark, a blue-eyed jester who bowed too low and spoke too boldly. You had woken with your heart still echoing from it.
“His Majesty has departed early for the hunt” one of the handmaidens murmured, fastening the last clasp on your gown. “He took most of the guard with him.”
Your eyes lifted to the mirror at that. “How long?”
“Three days, Your Grace. Perhaps four, if the weather turns.”
Three or four days. You exhaled quietly. The castle would be quieter. The air easier to breathe.
You spent the morning in council chambers, nodding through petitions, listening to nobles drone on about grain and tariffs. But around midday, the steward entered with an announcement that caught your attention.
“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing. “The king left orders before his departure. He requested that the court jester remain in the castle, to… amuse Your Grace in his absence.”
You blinked. A dozen thoughts collided at once. The court snickered behind their hands, they assumed it was the king’s cruelty, assigning a fool to keep his wife entertained. But you caught the undercurrent of it, the sting of insult wrapped in command. He wanted to remind you of your place, of your isolation.
You merely inclined your head, serene as ever. “Very well. Have him sent to the gardens after luncheon.”
The court murmured. You didn’t flinch.
When the hour arrived, the royal gardens were drenched in sunlight, sprawling mazes of roses, fountains whispering between marble paths, the air heavy with the perfume of late summer. You stood beneath the shade of an old willow, dismissing your attendants with a wave. The guards stayed at a distance.
And then came the soft jingle of bells.
He emerged between the hedges, head slightly tilted, a wry smile on his painted lips. He wasn’t in full motley today, no exaggerated colors, no painted tears. Just a loose shirt, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, a leather belt slung carelessly around his waist. The bells on his wrist still chimed faintly when he moved.
“Your Majesty” he greeted with a bow that was mocking only in its perfection. “You sent for your humble fool?”
“I did not” you corrected, voice even. “My husband did.”
“Then it seems I’m doomed to serve two masters” he quipped softly. “One who drinks too much, and one who hides her laughter like treasure.”
Your gaze flicked toward him, sharp enough to silence most men. He didn’t flinch. He smiled instead, faint and mischievous.
You turned away, walking deeper into the garden’s maze. “If you intend to amuse me, you’ll have to do better than flattery.”
He followed, not too close, not too far. “Then allow me to try honesty instead.”
You glanced over your shoulder. “Honesty is not a fool’s trade.”
“No,” he said, his tone suddenly quieter, “but it’s mine when the queen deserves it.”
There was something in the way he said it, simple, unadorned, dangerous. You stopped before a marble fountain, the water catching sunlight like shards of glass, and looked at him.
“Do you speak to all queens that way?”
He tilted his head, thoughtful. “There’s only one I’ve met worth speaking to.”
You wanted to smile, but you didn’t. Not yet. Instead, you asked, “Tell me, jester, where did you learn such words? From a book you stole? Or a heart you broke?”
He chuckled, eyes glinting. “From both, perhaps. Books are safer to steal. Hearts, less so.”
“Then you should tread carefully” you said softly, turning back toward the fountain. “Mine is not easily stolen.”
His voice followed, low and amused: “Then I’ll consider it a challenge.”
The words hung between you, charged and uncertain. For a moment, you were no longer queen and fool, just two people standing beneath sunlight and scent of roses, circling each other like predators dressed in civility.
You tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground. “Tell me, Richard—”
He blinked. “You remembered my name.”
“It’s my duty to remember everyone in my court.”
“Ah,” he murmured, “and am I in your court, or merely haunting it?”
“Perhaps both.”
He laughed, a soft, rich sound that made something in your chest tighten unexpectedly.
He told you stories after that, wild, ridiculous tales of traveling troupes and towns that smelled of bread and rain. You knew half of them were lies, but he told them so well you didn’t care. You asked questions. You listened. He watched your face as you did, memorizing the subtle things, the way your eyes softened when amused, the way your hand brushed absently against the marble railing when you tried to hide a smile.
When you laughed, finally, a real laugh, quiet but unrestrained, he froze. Just for a heartbeat. As if he’d never heard anything like it.
You caught him staring. “You’re supposed to be the one making the noise” you teased lightly.
“I think I just forgot how to breathe for a moment” he said, so softly you almost didn’t hear it.
The air stilled between you. The sound of water and birds filled the pause. You felt something shift, dangerous, fragile.
“Your words are reckless, jester.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“And you enjoy testing your luck?”
“Only when it looks like you.”
You turned away before he could see the faint warmth rising in your cheeks. The sun had begun to lower, spilling amber light across the hedges. It was late. You knew you should leave. But you didn’t. Not yet.
Instead, you walked to the edge of the fountain, dipped your fingers briefly into the cool water, and said, “Tell me, Richard. If you were not a fool, what would you be?”
He hesitated, for the first time since you’d met him. His voice dropped lower, quieter.
“I’d be free.”
You looked up at him, surprised by the honesty. There was no performance in his tone now, no mask, no painted grin. Just the truth.
You wanted to ask more, but a guard’s voice broke through the garden entrance, calling for you. The spell shattered.
You straightened, regal mask sliding back into place. “You’ve done well, jester” you said evenly. “Perhaps you’ve earned your keep for today.”
He gave a half-bow, but his eyes stayed on you. “And what of you, Your Majesty? Did I win even the smallest smile?”
You didn’t answer. You turned and began walking toward the castle, the sound of your gown brushing the stone path. But as you reached the archway, you spoke without looking back.
“More than you think.”
He grinned, not the painted grin of the fool, but something softer. Real.
And as the sun sank beyond the garden walls, he watched you disappear into the shadows of the castle, bells chiming faintly at his wrist.
That night, neither of you slept well. You thought of the way his eyes had changed when he said free. He thought of the way your voice softened when you said his name.
The castle slept in silken silence, the torches guttered low in their sconces, their light reduced to trembling gold that licked the edges of shadow. The corridors were hushed, save for the faint whisper of wind moving through the high arches, and the slow, tired sighs of a fortress at rest.
Your chambers were awash in moonlight. The air was cool, carrying the scent of night-blooming jasmine from the gardens below. You sat at your window, the great velvet curtains drawn back, crown discarded on the nearby table. The crown had always felt heavier at night.
You tried to read, but the words blurred on the page, your mind wandering elsewhere, to a voice that had been too bold, a pair of blue eyes that had seen you not as a queen, but as something alive.
You hated that you kept thinking of him. The way he had moved in the sunlight. The quick, clever humor in his tone. The rare gravity that had surfaced when he’d said he wished to be free. You had met knights, princes, scholars, but none who carried laughter like it was armor.
You turned from the window, closing the book, and that’s when you heard it.
A sound, low, soft, carried by the wind.
At first you thought it was the breeze. But no, it was deliberate, notes strung together like silver threads. Music.
You froze, heartbeat fluttering as the melody deepened. It was a lute, delicate and warm, the tune simple but aching with something unspoken. The kind of song sung by those who had seen too much and still smiled anyway.
You moved to the window again, barefoot on the cold stone, and peered down.
There he was.
Richard Grayson, your fool, stood in the moonlit courtyard below your window. His painted mask was gone. His motley discarded. He wore a plain white shirt, the collar open, sleeves rolled, and the faint glint of his bells at his wrists. The lute was cradled in his hands, the wood gleaming softly under the light.
He looked up once, just once, and though you were hidden behind shadow, he seemed to know exactly where you stood. He didn’t stop playing.
The song was wordless, but it spoke. Of quiet defiance. Of loneliness wrapped in jest. Of something that neither of you had dared name that afternoon.
It was reckless. Dangerous. You should have called the guards, should have closed the window and silenced the world back into obedience. But you didn’t move. You stood there, one hand against the window frame, and let him play for you.
He played until the last note trembled and faded into the air, leaving only the sound of water from the fountain below. Then he lowered the lute, resting it against his thigh.
For a heartbeat, neither of you spoke. The night stretched long and silent between you.
Then, softly, he said, “Does Your Majesty approve of her fool’s music?”
You leaned forward slightly, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re a fool indeed, to stand in the queen’s courtyard after midnight.”
He smiled faintly. “Then I must be a fool twice over, for I knew the risk, and came anyway.”
You hesitated, torn between reprimand and fascination. “Why?”
He tilted his head, thoughtful. “Because there are words I can’t say in daylight.”
The admission fell between you like a secret prayer. The air shifted, heavy and charged. You glanced back toward your door, no guards nearby, no servants stirring.
And then, before you could stop yourself, you whispered, “Wait there.”
You turned quickly, slipped from the window, pulled a dark cloak over your nightgown, and opened the hidden side door that led down the narrow stairway, an old servant’s passage that twisted along the wall of the keep. You moved silently, heart hammering. Every step felt like trespassing in your own life.
When you reached the courtyard, the air was cold and clean. The moonlight washed everything silver, the fountains, the ivy, even the cobblestones. He stood at the base of the stair, half shadow, half light, the lute still in his hand.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Then he said softly, “You came.”
“You’re fortunate I did” you murmured, drawing the cloak closer around you. “If any saw you here—”
“They’d say the fool has lost his mind” he interrupted lightly, “and they wouldn’t be wrong.”
You gave him a look that was meant to be stern but softened almost instantly. “You risk too much.”
He stepped closer, slowly, carefully, as though afraid to startle you. “So do you.”
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It hummed. You could hear the faint dripping of water, the rustle of leaves, the sound of your own pulse.
He broke it first. “I used to play this song for my mother,” he said, voice quiet. “When I was small. She was a dancer. Said the world didn’t deserve her steps, so she kept them hidden. I suppose I learned my tricks from her, how to make laughter when your heart is elsewhere.”
You looked at him, the moonlight catching the blue in his eyes. “You hide it well.”
He smiled faintly. “And you, Your Majesty—you hide sorrow even better.”
You froze. No one dared speak to you like that. Not your handmaidens, not your council, not even the king.
He took another step, now close enough that you could see the fine tremor of his breath. “Tell me, do you ever tire of pretending?”
Your throat tightened. “Careful.”
He leaned in, his voice almost a whisper. “Always.”
You should have stepped back. But you didn’t. You looked at him, really looked, and saw the faint scar just beneath his jaw, the roughness on his fingers, the fire that made him speak so boldly to a queen.
“I could have you thrown in the dungeon for that” you murmured.
He smiled. “Would it make you sleep better?”
You said nothing. You couldn’t. The sound of his voice, low and unafraid, had woven itself around your breath.
Instead, you looked away, toward the moon, the roses climbing the wall, anything but him. “Why do you do this, Richard?”
He exhaled, half laugh, half confession. “Because the way you looked at me in the garden made me forget I was a fool.”
The words struck deep.
You felt something stir in you, an ache that had been dormant for years, buried under jewels and etiquette and duty. You weren’t supposed to feel this. You weren’t supposed to want anything.
And yet, here he was.
You stepped back just slightly, enough to breathe. “You must forget it, whatever this is” you said quietly, though your voice trembled faintly. “It cannot be.”
He nodded once, slowly. “I know.”
But he didn’t move. Neither did you.
The moonlight fell between you like a fragile thread, binding you in silence.
He finally looked down, half smiling again, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Then I’ll play instead. It’s safer than speaking.”
He lifted the lute again, his fingers brushing the strings, the melody soft and hesitant, like a heartbeat trying to find its rhythm again. You stood still, cloaked in night and indecision, listening to him play until the world itself seemed to still around you.
When the final note faded, he looked up, his voice a whisper: “Goodnight, my queen.”
You hesitated. Then, softly “Goodnight, Richard.”
You turned before you could say anything more, before you could do something reckless, and walked back through the archway, up the stone stair, heart trembling.
He watched you go until the last trace of your cloak vanished behind the wall.
Then he exhaled, eyes closing, and whispered into the night, “Fool, indeed.”
He left the courtyard before the guards made their rounds, slipping back into shadow as easily as he had stepped into your thoughts.
And when you finally returned to your chamber, the lute’s melody still lingered in your ears, haunting and impossible to silence.
You sat before the mirror, crown glinting on the table beside you, and for the first time in years, perhaps ever, you smiled to yourself, quietly, as though keeping a secret.
The hunt ended sooner than anyone expected.
By the third morning, the horns echoed through the valley announcing the king’s return, and the castle, so peaceful these few days, snapped awake. Servants rushed through the corridors, banners were hoisted, braziers relit. You stood before your mirror again, the calm you’d stolen from the garden and that single moonlit song already slipping away beneath the weight of protocol.
Your ladies dressed you in crimson silk, heavy and regal. They wove jewels through your hair until you barely recognized yourself. When the heralds called that His Majesty approached the gates, you moved toward the grand hall, each step measured, every movement carved in composure.
He arrived with the noise of hooves and laughter, smelling of wine and smoke. The king swept through the hall surrounded by his men, holding a dead stag’s antlers aloft as a symbol of victory. His eyes found you at once, bright, fevered, possessive.
“My queen,” he said, his tone loud enough for all to hear, “did you miss your husband, or did the fool keep you well entertained?”
The court tittered. You smiled as you were expected to, bending your head in deference. “I am gladdened by your safe return, my lord.”
He cupped your chin, rough fingers pressing harder than affection required. “Always so proper” he murmured, eyes narrowing. “I should leave you alone more often. It seems to remind you whom you belong to.”
You did not flinch, though your pulse burned in your throat. When he turned away, laughing with his knights, you let the air out slowly, your expression unreadable.
From the corner of the hall, hidden behind the musicians’ dais, a flicker of movement caught your eye, just the smallest glint of brass from a jester’s wrist. He was there, back in his motley again, silent among the servants, his posture bowed in mock servility. But even across the noise and torches, you felt his gaze.
He didn’t smile. He only inclined his head slightly, an acknowledgment so small no one else could see.
It was both a comfort and a knife to the heart.
That night, the king held a feast to celebrate his return. You sat beside him, the hall roaring with song and drunken laughter. He drank deeply, boasting of the hunt, boasting of his strength, his dominion, of everything except kindness. When he laughed, you laughed too. When he touched your wrist, you stayed still. Every gesture rehearsed, every breath controlled.
Richard performed when called upon. Tricks and riddles, cartwheels and tales, his bells chiming in rhythm with the king’s laughter. But you saw through the mask. You saw the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands trembled just slightly when he poured wine, the careful distance he kept from your side of the table.
Once, while pretending to stumble near your chair, he let his hand brush the hem of your gown, just a fleeting touch, invisible to all but you. It was nothing, and yet it felt like fire.
You didn’t look at him. You couldn’t.
When the feast ended, the king rose, heavy with wine, and took your hand to lead you from the hall. “Come,” he said, “you’ll sit with me tonight. A queen should not sleep alone.”
You followed because you had to, your spine straight, your eyes blank. Behind you, the fool bowed low, bells jingling softly as the doors closed between you.
Hours later, when the castle had sunk into darkness and the king finally slept beside you, snoring softly, the smell of wine thick in the air, you slipped from the bed. Barefoot, silent, you wrapped yourself in a cloak and crossed to the window. The moon was full again, spilling light across the courtyard.
You didn’t expect him to be there. But he was.
Down below, half hidden in shadow near the stables, he stood with his lute slung across his back, looking up. No smile this time, no gesture, only stillness, waiting.
Your heart kicked against your ribs. You glanced back at the bed. The king didn’t stir.
You moved quickly, every step an act of treason. Down the servant’s stair again, through the lower corridors where the guards were dozing, until you reached the courtyard.
He stepped forward when he saw you, relief flickering across his face before he masked it again.
“You shouldn’t have come” you said, though your voice betrayed how much you wanted to be there.
“I didn’t call for you” he answered quietly. “But I hoped.”
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The night smelled of damp stone and roses, of the smoke from torches guttering low.
He studied your face, the faint line between your brows, the tension that never left your posture. “He hurts you" he said softly.
You shook your head, too fast. “You mustn’t—”
“I see it” he interrupted, voice low but fierce. “I see what the others pretend not to. You smile because it’s safer. You breathe because it’s required. But you’re drowning, and they call it grace.”
The words broke something inside you. You turned away, blinking hard, gripping the edge of the fountain for balance.
“Stop,” you whispered. “If you care for me at all, stop saying such things.”
He moved closer, his voice gentler now. “If I stop, you’ll forget there’s another way to live.”
You looked back at him then, eyes shining in the half-light. “There is no other way. Not for me.”
He reached out, hesitated, then let his hand fall short of touching yours. “Then let me at least remind you that you’re not invisible.”
You drew in a slow breath, the kind that trembles at the edge of breaking. “Do you know what you’re risking by speaking to me like this?”
He nodded once. “Everything.”
For a long moment, the world held still, no sound but the distant rustle of leaves and the faint clink of his bells swaying in the breeze.
Then, softly, you said, “Go, before someone sees.”
He stepped back, but his eyes didn’t leave yours. “If he hurts you again, send for me. I’ll come, no matter the hour.”
You didn’t answer, but your silence was not refusal.
When you turned to go, he called quietly, “My queen?”
You paused.
“I’ll keep playing,” he said. “Even if you can’t listen.”
You walked away without looking back, your heart heavier and lighter all at once.
He stood there until your shadow vanished inside the castle, then slung the lute over his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness that had always hidden him.
The next day, the court pretended nothing had changed. The king was in good humor, pleased with his trophies. The queen sat beside him, calm as ever. The fool performed when called, laughing too brightly, bowing too low.
But between the lines of every polite exchange, something electric hummed, secret, fragile, dangerous.
And in that fragile current lay the truth neither of you could speak aloud: the queen who could not leave her cage, and the fool who would rather die than let her fade unseen.
The castle had grown colder since the King’s return. Not in temperature, though autumn crept through the stone walls and turned the corridors drafty, but in presence. Every torch that burned along the hall seemed to do so under scrutiny; every servant that passed by did so with lowered eyes. The King’s shadow was heavy, his temper unpredictable.
He had returned from the northern campaigns a man swollen with pride and bitterness, his armor dulled but his arrogance brighter than ever. He drank more. Laughed less. His victories, though sung by minstrels, had left him paranoid and cruel,a ruler hungry for worship, yet suspicious of every whisper. And you felt his gaze like a chain.
He had not asked how you’d managed the court in his absence. He had not thanked you for the treaties you secured, or the famine you had quietly prevented in the southern provinces. His only question had been if you’d remained faithful. The insult had burned beneath your ribs.
And Richard...he had gone silent the moment the King’s banners appeared on the horizon. His performances, once full of reckless laughter and sly wit, became quieter, humbler. You rarely saw him during the day now. Only sometimes, in the corner of the Great Hall, masked in motley and jest, he would catch your eye, and his blue gaze would flicker like a secret flame before darting away.
You had thought that perhaps the bond you’d built would fade under the King’s return, that duty, fear, and time would smother it. But something about the distance only deepened it. It was in every glance you weren’t supposed to exchange. Every moment your voice softened when addressing him before others. Every night you lay awake, hearing faint echoes of laughter from the courtyard, knowing he was somewhere out there, alive, hidden, watching.
Then came the feast.
The King demanded one to celebrate his victories, and it was as opulent as his vanity required. Musicians filled the air with string and drum, servants spilled wine until the floors gleamed crimson, and courtiers laughed too loudly. You wore your crown, heavy and cold, the gold biting into your temples.
And there he was.
Richard standing before the throne with that familiar careless grace, juggling flaming torches as if danger itself bowed to him. The court roared. The King clapped his meaty hands and leaned back, delighted by the spectacle.
But Richard’s eyes never left you.
He performed like a man possessed, dancing on the edge of danger, each flick of his wrist deliberate, each jest a hidden message. When one of the torches fell near your feet, his reflex was instant: he caught it, dropped to one knee before you, and looked up, smiling that small, secret smile that made your breath catch.
“My apologies, Your Majesty” he murmured, loud enough for the hall to hear, but soft enough that only you felt the pulse of it. “It seems I nearly burned what I worship.”
The King laughed, roaring. “Careful, jester, that tongue of yours will hang you one day.”
Richard bowed, eyes never leaving yours. “Then I pray it dies having spoken the truth.”
The laughter went on. But you knew the meaning buried beneath it, dangerous, blasphemous.
That night, you couldn’t breathe within your chambers. The King had retired to his own wing, too drunk to notice your absence. You paced near the balcony, every shadow outside whispering his name. The moonlight painted the courtyard silver, and then you saw it: the faintest glimmer near the stables. A flicker, like a signal.
You hesitated only a moment before pulling your cloak tighter and slipping into the hall.
The castle at night was a labyrinth of echoes. You moved quickly, through the servants’ passages, down the worn stone steps, across the narrow corridor that smelled of hay and earth. Your heart pounded louder than your footsteps.
And then he was there.
Richard stood beneath the archway, his jester’s bells muted by strips of cloth, his mask half-removed. His hair fell in soft waves, his eyes catching the torchlight. He looked both exhausted and alive, the same way you felt.
“My Queen” he whispered, bowing with exaggerated grace. “Forgive my intrusion. I could not sleep knowing you might be suffering the company of your lord husband.”
You wanted to reprimand him, for the risk, for the words, but your voice trembled too much to sound like authority. “You shouldn’t be here” you whispered.
“Then why are you?”
The air between you stilled. Somewhere far above, a guard’s boots echoed against the walls. You stood close enough to see the faint bruise of exhaustion beneath his eyes, the faint curve of his smile.
“You think I don’t see it?” he said quietly. “The way he treats you. You deserve more than a crown, my lady.”
You turned away, fighting to keep your composure. “You speak treason.”
He stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “Then let the gallows have me. I’ve been dying a little every day watching him break you.”
The words struck harder than any touch. You turned back to him, and the moonlight painted the lines of his face in silver and shadow, the honesty, the danger, the ache.
“This cannot happen” you whispered. “If he finds out—”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m not asking for forever. Just tonight… let me remind you what it’s like to be seen.”
And before you could stop him, his hand reached up, not touching your skin, but hovering near it, trembling with restraint. It was not lust. It was reverence. A prayer he dared not voice.
For a moment, the world was silent, no court, no crown, no kingdom. Just the sound of your breathing, and the weight of something forbidden blooming between you.
But fate is cruel to those who reach for light.
From somewhere beyond the stable doors, voices rose, guards. The torchlight flickered across the hay, footsteps quickening. Dick’s head snapped toward the sound, then back to you.
“Go,” you hissed. “Now.”
He caught your wrist, just once, his thumb brushing your pulse. “Tomorrow,” he whispered. “At the chapel ruins.”
And then he was gone, melting into the dark like a ghost, leaving only the echo of his promise.
You returned to your chambers before the guards turned the corner, heart still racing. When you lay in bed beside the King, his snores heavy and graceless, your hand still tingled where Dick had touched it.
And you realized something terrible.
You weren’t afraid of being caught anymore. You were afraid of what you would do next.
The chapel had long since been abandoned to ivy and dust. Once a place of prayer, it now stood as a forgotten skeleton at the edge of the royal gardens, halfcrumbled arches, stained glass shattered into jeweled shards on the floor, a single altar still upright beneath the ribs of the roof. By day, it was a ruin. By night, it was sanctuary.
You slipped through the outer gate cloaked and hooded, the guards none the wiser. A thin fog rolled through the grass, catching the moonlight. Somewhere, an owl hooted, the air smelled of rain on old stone. You had not seen Dick since the night of the feast, only stolen glimpses from across the hall, brief glances that felt like confessions neither of you could speak aloud.
Now, under the quiet weight of the chapel, the sound of your footsteps echoed against the ancient floor.
“Your Majesty” a voice murmured from the shadows.
He stepped out from behind one of the fallen pillars, no motley, no mask, just dark clothes that fit close to his frame. His hair fell untamed over his brow, his eyes lit faintly by the lantern he held. He looked less a jester and more a man untethered from his cage.
“You came” he said softly, as though he hadn’t quite believed you would.
“You asked” you replied. “And I…” You stopped. Words felt dangerous. “No one followed me.”
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “I trust your skills more than my luck.”
You removed your hood, and for a long heartbeat, you simply looked at one another, the silence thick with everything unsaid. He took a step closer. You could hear the small creak of the floorboard beneath his boot, the faint catch in his breath. The ruin around you felt alive, like the stones themselves were listening.
“You shouldn’t risk this” you whispered.
He tilted his head. “You say that, and yet you’re here.”
You let out a trembling laugh. “You have a way of making disobedience sound like virtue.”
“Only when it saves your soul.” His voice gentled. “Tell me, my Queen — has anyone asked you if you’re happy since he returned?”
You said nothing. You didn’t need to. He saw it in the way your shoulders sank, in the shadow behind your eyes.
He reached out then, slow, deliberate, and took your hand, his fingers brushing against the edge of your sleeve as if seeking permission. You didn’t pull away. For the first time in weeks, the air didn’t feel cold. He brought your hand to his lips but didn’t kiss it, he simply breathed against it, as though that alone were sacred.
“You don’t have to bow” you murmured, the words shaking.
“Then let me kneel for my own reasons.”
He sank to one knee, still holding your hand. Not as a servant, but as someone making a promise he couldn’t voice. The gesture stole your breath. The Queen in you wanted to lift him, to preserve the order of things. But the woman in you, the one the King had never truly seen, wanted to stay in that suspended moment.
“Richard…” you whispered.
At his name, his eyes lifted, impossibly blue, impossibly close. “Say it again.”
You did. Quietly. And it felt like a confession.
He rose then, his hand still in yours, and the space between you shrank until you could feel his warmth through the fabric of your gown. He reached up, brushing a strand of hair from your face, a touch so light it made your skin ache. His fingers lingered at your jaw, tracing the tremor there. When you leaned into it, only slightly, only once, his breath caught, and for a long second, the world narrowed to that point of contact.
“I shouldn’t” he said. It wasn’t a warning; it was a prayer.
“I know” You didn’t move away.
The rain began to fall, soft at first, tapping through the gaps in the roof, turning dust to scent and stone to mirror. He laughed under his breath, the sound low and disbelieving. You looked up, droplets catching in your lashes, and when you looked back at him, he was smiling, not the jester’s grin the court knew, but something raw and human.
He reached up again, this time tracing the line of your cheek with his thumb, following a raindrop down until it rested at the corner of your mouth. You could feel the shiver in his hand, the restraint fighting against longing.
“Every time I see you,” he whispered, “I forget who I am supposed to be.”
“You’re the only one who remembers who I am” you said. “Not a crown. Not a title. Just—”
You couldn’t finish. He understood anyway.
He leaned in, so close his breath mingled with yours, but he didn’t close the distance. Instead, he pressed his forehead to yours, a gesture that said everything the world forbade. The rain fell harder, muffling the sound of your hearts against the roof, washing away words.
For a few stolen minutes, you stood there, Queen and jester, sinner and saint, wrapped in silence and storm. His hand rested at your back, yours against his chest, feeling the pulse that mirrored your own. It wasn’t a kiss, not yet. It was the promise of one, fragile and endless.
When you finally stepped apart, it was only because you had to breathe.
“We can’t meet again” you whispered, though even as you said it, you knew it was a lie.
He looked at you, rain darkening his hair, his jaw tight. “Then I’ll see you in every shadow until you call for me.”
The words followed you all the way back through the garden, through the echoing corridors, into the hollow chill of the royal chambers. The King slept heavily beside a goblet of wine, unmoved by thunder. You stood at the window, watching the storm, your pulse still trembling where his fingers had been.
And somewhere beyond the walls, under the same rain, Richard Grayson looked up at the same sky and smiled, not because he’d been reckless, but because for the first time, he’d seen the Queen smile back.
The storm had passed, but the castle had not slept.
Word spreads in ways no walls can contain, whispers carried by servants, fragments of overheard conversation twisted by fear. The King had returned from a council meeting earlier than expected that afternoon, and in his eyes burned something crueler than suspicion.
You had felt it before he spoke. The weight of his stare when you entered the Great Hall, the silence that followed every step you took. The courtiers had bowed, but their gazes darted away too quickly. Something had changed.
He dismissed the entire court before the meal was done.
You remained standing at the far end of the table, your pulse uneven beneath your ribs. The King poured himself a goblet of wine, then another. His hands trembled with fury he refused to name.
“I hear stories,” he said finally, voice thick with false calm. “That my queen enjoys the company of fools.”
Your heart froze.
“I speak with many” you said, carefully. “It is my duty to listen to the people.”
He smiled, but it was a thin, dangerous thing. “Do the people make you laugh, wife? Do they make you—”
You never heard the end of the question. His hand struck the goblet from the table, red wine splattered across your gown like blood. The echo of it filled the hall, followed by silence so deep you could hear your own breathing.
He stepped closer, his shadow stretching over yours. “You shame me” he hissed. “You dare lay hands on a jester — a man with no name, no coin, no power.”
“I did no such thing” you whispered, even as his voice cut through you.
“Liar.”
The word was a blow by itself.
He didn’t strike again, not that anyone saw, but the hand he seized your arm with left its mark, darkening beneath the silk sleeve before the night was over. His breath reeked of anger and wine.
“You will smile,” he said, low and venomous, “you will dine, you will bow — and you will forget him. Do you understand?”
When he finally left you alone, the chamber door locked behind him, you stood frozen by the window, your reflection pale in the glass. The ache in your arm was nothing compared to the one twisting in your chest.
You thought of Richard, of the chapel, of the rain, of his hand at your cheek.
You couldn’t call him now. Not tonight. Not when the castle itself was listening.
Dick didn’t know.
He waited in the chapel ruins long after the moon rose. The night was clear, the air cool and silent. Every sound, every rustle of leaf or whisper of wind, made him turn toward the path, expecting your figure in the doorway.
When you didn’t come, he smiled to himself. “She’s cautious” he murmured, trying to believe it. “She knows better than I do.”
But as the hours dragged on, the laughter faded from his voice.
He’d risked so much already. He’d lied to the guards, bribed a kitchen boy to bring word when the King’s patrols shifted, even hidden his costume to keep from being recognized outside the walls. None of it mattered now. The ruin felt emptier than ever.
He sat on the altar where you had stood together, running a hand through his hair. His fingers brushed against the small token you had left him once, a ribbon from your gown, forgotten after a performance, pale silk frayed at the edge.
He closed his hand around it and stared at the place where your shadow had been.
“She’s safe” he told himself. “She has to be.”
Inside the castle, safety was a lie.
The King had ordered new guards stationed near your wing. They watched your door through the night, blades drawn. No message could leave the chamber; no visitor could approach. You lay still on the edge of the bed, the world spinning faintly around you.
The King spoke little. When he did, his words were cold, measured. A punishment in civility. You answered in silence, because anything more could cost lives.
When the torches dimmed, you closed your eyes and pretended sleep. Every heartbeat was an echo of the chapel, of what you’d almost had, of what might still be waiting.
And then came the knock.
Three soft taps, so faint you almost believed you imagined them. But you knew that rhythm.
Your hand trembled as you rose, careful not to wake the King. You crossed the room in darkness, pressing your ear to the door.
“Your Majesty” a voice whispered on the other side. Young. Nervous. The kitchen boy. “He sent word — said he’ll wait again tomorrow. He doesn’t understand why you—”
A sharper voice cut him off, a guard’s, rough and suspicious. “Who’s there?”
The boy fled. You stepped back just as the door creaked under the guard’s hand.
“Everything all right, Your Grace?” he asked.
You forced your voice steady. “I heard nothing.”
He nodded, retreating, and you sank against the wall, breath shallow. You’d never been so close to ruin.
The next morning, Richard noticed the change before anyone told him.
The King’s expression at breakfast was poison. The courtiers whispered more than usual, their eyes darting toward the Queen’s empty seat.
And then he saw it, the guards posted outside your private corridor.
He froze mid-step, juggling pins falling from his hands. The laughter of the crowd dulled. Something inside him went very still.
He didn’t perform again that day.
By nightfall, he found his way to the upper courtyard, climbing a narrow passage between the roofs. From there, he could see the faint light burning in your chamber window. He waited, an hour, two, for a sign, any sign.
None came.
But he swore he could see you, standing at the glass for just a moment, the pale outline of your hand pressed against it. And though the distance between you was filled with danger, that small, fragile gesture felt like a heartbeat passed through stone.
He raised his hand in answer, whispering to the night.
“I’ll find a way,” he said. “I swear to you, I’ll find a way.”
The wind carried the promise away, across the dark gardens, through the same ruined chapel where your memory still lingered, two souls bound by what they could never speak aloud.
The night was so still it felt carved from glass, the kind of silence that breaks if one breathes too hard. Richard waited beneath the outer wall, hidden among ivy and old mortar, watching the guards trace their lazy patrols along the ramparts. He had studied the rhythm of their steps all week, memorized the turn of each torch and the sliver of darkness that followed; he had counted shifts and footfalls and the time it took for a shadow to return to the same stone. He shouldn’t have come. He told himself that with every breath. And still, his hands found the old servant’s passage, the narrow stair used for late pranks and midnight escapes, now the same crooked stone that would let him risk everything for one stolen hour. He climbed until the cold stone gave way to the softer glow of candlelight leaking from under a door, until the corridor outside your chamber lay quiet and empty because the guards had been coaxed elsewhere for the changing of posts. He moved like a shadow, breath small in his chest, heartbeat honest and loud enough to betray him if he weren’t careful. Your door was locked, of course it was, but he had fingers for locks from a lifetime of learning which way keys liked to turn, in moments the latch gave with a soft, sullen click and he slipped inside.
The chamber smelled of lavender and candle-smoke and something older: the powdered perfume of expectation and the heavier metallic tang of fear. The fire had burned low; moonlight pooled across the floor, silvering the hem of your gown. For a long suspended second, you did not turn. He stood still at the threshold, watching the shallow rise and fall of your breath, the faint shiver traveling down your shoulders, and his chest tightened with a relief so sharp it mixed with dread.
Then you turned, and the world that had been only threat and plan dissolved into a single image, you, small and human and hollowed at the edges. There was a shadow along your jaw, a dark bruise that bloomed bruised and unforgiving beneath the skin, and the silk at your wrist hid darkened marks that hadn’t been there when he’d last seen you. You drew the cloak tighter, as if the fabric could stitch closed how badly the world had torn.
“My Queen” he whispered because the air needed a name and he couldn’t find any other word that didn’t make him want to roar. You met him with an expression that was both warning and relief. “You shouldn’t be here” you said before he could speak, an order wrapped in searing shame. He crossed the room anyway, because none of the rules mattered now; fury and grief wrestled across his face until it was impossible to tell which would win. “Who did this?” he breathed, voice broken into ragged syllables that might have been prayer or threat. Your eyes flicked to the door, always the first question, always the first calculation, and then back to him. “You shouldn’t be here” you repeated, softer. The silence answered him enough.
“Gods,” he said, because there were no other gods to call. He ran a hand through hair that had fallen into his eyes, paced once, twice, like a trapped thing. “I’ll kill him” the words came out raw and foolish and bone-deep honest. You flinched the way people flinch at thunder; the nearest hearth might have put out the fires in the world if he had meant it. “Don’t” you said at once, voice cracked so small it might as well have been a prayer. “Please, Richard, don’t even think it. You’ll die before you reach the throne.” The blunt practicality of it, the ugly mathematics of power, fell between you like a blade. He looked at you then not as the Queen on a dais but as the woman he’d met in the rain-washed chapel: exhausted, defiant, heartbreakingly alive.
His hand came out to take yours, not as a jester kneeling for show but as a man making a vow small enough to fit between two palms. “You called me a fool once,” he murmured, and the memory of your laughter, and the way you had looked at him when you thought no one else watched, sharpened the edges of his voice. You couldn’t help the small, bitter smile that tried to form. “Maybe you were right. Because even knowing what he’s done, I’d risk everything just to be here.” There was no boast in your words, only the terrible simplicity of truth. The room seemed to lean close: the curtains, the crown on the dressing table, the still-glowing embers in the hearth all listening to what lay between your breath.
He reached out again, this time to the bruise along the side of your jaw, fingers hovering an inch away as if the mere touch might cause some irrevocable shudder. You didn’t move. “I—” you began and stopped, the sentence collapsing under its own danger. He tasted the salt of rain and smoke and sorrow when he pressed a thumb gently at the bruise’s edge, testing warmth and meaning. “You shouldn’t see this” you breathed. “You shouldn’t know.” “I know now,” he answered simply. “And I know what kind of man hits a woman who is his queen — who is the mother of his image and the prisoner of his bed. I should have done what I do best,” he said, voice thickening into a humorless laugh, “and set the candles on the wrong pile, burned a tapestry, broken a lute, anything to make him look away. But I couldn’t stand to see it on you.” The words cracked like old wood.
You drew a slow breath and pulled your hand from his, wrapping both hands around the cloak at your throat as if to stitch yourself together again. “Richard, you must go,” you said at last, voice steadying with the terrible discipline of someone who had practiced unreadable faces for years. “It is too dangerous. If they find you here—” Your sentence died because you both knew how the rest would end: for him, for you, for any foolish heart that tangled itself with the crown. “I could not sleep if you were punished for me” you finished, and the confession sat between you, bitter and luminous.
He looked at you, really looked, and there was something in him that wanted to scoff at the idea of caution. “I don’t care,” he said. “I came because when the night is made of glass, I could not bear the thought you might fall through and no one would catch you.” You closed your eyes for a moment, the briefest surrender, and when you opened them you were steadier. “You must leave” you said, and it was not weakness but strategy: there would be other nights, and in order for there to be other nights you needed him whole.
He stepped back like a man obeying a command he did not accept, rage and longing and calculation crosshatched in the set of his jaw. His voice lowered until it was a hush, “Tell me where to go. Tell me when. Give me something that keeps me away from killing him.” You gave him a scrap: a cryptic schedule of the castle’s chapel oil deliveries, the time the kitchen would be empty before the dawn bell, the name of a stable hand who owed you a favor. Small things that could be weapons or whispers. You spoke carefully, because the map of the next nights had to be kept out of sight of ears that would sell it to the throne. He listened like a man memorizing a life-line.
For a moment, the smallest possible, your foreheads came together, the touch feather-light and devastating. Rain from the memory of another night clung to the edges of both of you; the stone around you hummed with the kind of silence that can hold a confession. He would have stayed. He would have argued, or tried to carry you past the doors and out into the dark with him. He did not, because when the risk’s ledger was opened, there was a column called you that always read the cost in human lives. He bowed his head slightly, a jester’s movement turned solemn, and whispered a promise that felt like breaking and mending at once: “I will not let you down, not if I can help it. I will come when the moon is right and the guards look elsewhere. I will bring a rope, or a plan, or a dozen foolish tricks. I will be the shadow you need, even if I must be nothing more.”
You hid a shaking smile in the crook of his shoulder, and for an instant, absurdly, dangerously, he felt whole. The moment was broken by the faint scrape of a boot on the outer hall, a sound that sliced clean through both the tenderness and the treason. He froze, eyes wide and bright. You flinched and then moved, pulling your cloak tighter around him as if to make him less visible, slipping a thin ribbon from your hair and pressing it into his palm, pale silk, a private thing for him to keep. “When you leave,” you said between the syllables of panic, “take the passage by the servant’s well, the watchmen never bother there tonight.” He kissed the ribbon and then stepped back, already dissolving into the dark he’d spent his life moving through.
“You’ll write,” he said, voice low, “if they press you, if you fall into the mouth of their cruelty, send a word. Swear on whatever you have left that you’ll call.” His fingers grazed your wrist, warm and insistent, and the pressure was an unspoken plea. “I swear” you answered, and the word felt like a traitor and a lifeline both. He slipped into the narrow stair, you heard the soft echo of his steps, the faint ring of bells muffled by cloth and night. The chamber door whispered closed behind him and then the corridor was empty and shallow as a held breath. You pressed your back to the door and slid down, the floor cold and unforgiving beneath your skirts, and for a long time you sat with your knees drawn to your chest, counting the moments until the world shrank into day.
He left by the servant’s well as you’d suggested, slipping along shadowed eaves and ducking under gutters, heart pounding with the reckless certainty of a man who had chosen the wrong thing for the right reason. He kept to the roofs until the roofs felt like a second skin; he moved through alleys where dogs slept and across walls where ivy wove like the hands of the city itself, and when at last he put distance between himself and the castle he did not feel relief so much as a bright, hollow ache. He slid into the hidden tavern where the troupe slept, where old ropes and cheap ale softened the edges of his world, and he sat with the ribbon in his palm until morning bled into the stones. He would plot and scheme until the sun drove him back into masks and motley, he would craft diversions and bribe cooks and barter for a tired man’s mercy. He would train his fists and his wit until both were sharp enough to cut through armor, and he would learn to keep a secret that might kill him if it were found.
That night brought the small rebellion of a note tucked beneath the bread plate, written in a hand you recognized without opening: a single line in a jester’s cramped script. I will light three lanterns at the eastern gate at midnight.
If the moon hides, I will wait at the old well. Do not come if the guards are heavy. I carry the rope when needed. — R.
The paper trembled slightly when you read it, you folded it once and hid it beneath a dress pin. It was both promise and plan and the smallest defiance you could keep.
And from somewhere in the city, under soot and song and the sour stench of tavern ale, Richard began to arrange a dozen dangerous little miracles, a stable boy who owed a debt and would be willing to leave a door unlatched for a coin, a mason who would pretend to drop his trowel at the right moment, a distracted pageboy who would send a carriage the wrong way. He thought of knots and ropes and the theatre of misdirection, he thought of the weight of a crown and the brittleness of a man who thought a beating could fix humiliation. Every plan he wove was an answer to the bruise beneath your jaw. Every prank became a small act of war.
Neither of you spoke of the marks in public. Neither of you let them define your grief. But in the hush between day and night, when the castle exhaled and the torches were guttering low, you would press your hand against the place where his fingers had been and remember how he had promised to be a shadow. You would picture him on the roofs, the ribbon in his palm, the moonlight in his hair, and you would choose, again and again, the impossible path of small rebellions that might, in the end, make an escape possible.
The game had changed. The stakes were sharper. But so was the truth you had traded your silence to keep, that you had found somebody who saw you, bruises and all, and would not let you be only a piece on a board.
The night held its breath.
Neither of you moved at first. The candlelight trembled across the chamber walls, gilding the air between you in shades of gold and sorrow. He stood where the shadows met the hearth, one hand half raised as if to reach for you and yet too afraid to bridge the distance.
You were still by the window, cloak slipping from your shoulders like a dark tide. The faint bruise along your jaw caught the light, and he ached at the sight of it, not just for what had been done to you, but for the way you hid it, the way you tried to stand straight despite it all.
“Why did you come?” you whispered, voice softer than the flame.
“Because I couldn’t stand not knowing” he said. “Because I thought—” His breath faltered. “I thought he might have taken you from me.”
Your gaze lowered. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Then why does it feel true?”
The words lingered between you, dangerous and tender all at once. He took a cautious step closer, then another, until he was close enough to see the shimmer of tears you refused to let fall.
“I told you to stay away” you murmured.
“I tried,” he admitted with a sad smile. “But I’ve never been good at doing what I’m told.”
You let out a quiet, trembling laugh, the first he’d heard from you in days, and it broke something in him.
When his hand lifted again, it hovered near your face, hesitant. “May I?”
You nodded, barely.
His fingers brushed your cheek like a question, reverent and weightless. The callouses of his hand met the silk of your skin, soft in a way he’d never known softness could be. He had spent his life in coarse linen, dust, and the scrape of rough rope, you smelled of lavender and rain, of everything he’d thought belonged to another world.
He withdrew his hand almost instantly, as if he’d touched something holy. “Forgive me.”
“For what?”
“For forgetting what you are.”
You looked at him, really looked, the way his eyes shone with something purer than any vow, the way his hair fell into them when he lowered his head, the quiet storm of devotion in a man who should never have dared to stand this close.
“I’m a woman,” you said softly. “A woman who is tired of being a queen.”
He shook his head, stepping back before he lost the strength to. “Don’t say that. You have a crown, a country—”
“And no one to hold my hand when I’m afraid.”
The confession slipped out before you could stop it. For a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe.
You turned toward the window again, eyes on the dark courtyard below. “You think I don’t see how they look at me? The King’s jewel, the smiling lie. But I would trade every piece of gold in this castle for one night of peace.”
He wanted to tell you you’d have it, that he’d steal you away if he had to, but the words died in his throat.
“I’m nothing” he said instead, voice low. “A jester with borrowed clothes. I can’t offer you a kingdom.”
“I never asked for one” you whispered.
The silence that followed was the kind that bends the world.
You turned then, slowly, and for the first time there was no wall between you, no title, no vow, no fear of discovery. Just the truth neither of you could keep buried any longer.
He reached for you again, but stopped an inch from your face, eyes searching yours. “If I do this,” he breathed, “there’s no going back. Say the word, and I’ll leave. I swear it.”
You didn’t speak. You just reached up and took his hand, the same one that trembled when it touched you, and placed it against your cheek.
That was your answer.
His breath hitched. The world seemed to slow, candlelight flickering like a heartbeat between you. His thumb brushed over your skin once, twice, before he leaned in, still hesitating, still giving you the chance to pull away.
You didn’t.
And when his lips finally met yours, it wasn’t desperate, it was gentle, almost reverent, the kind of kiss that feels like a vow whispered into the dark. His hand slid to the side of your neck, the warmth of his palm grounding you to this moment, this miracle you both knew you shouldn’t have.
You breathed him in, smoke, parchment, rain, the scent of someone real in a world built on pretense. He kissed you like he was afraid you might break, or vanish, or wake and tell him this was all a dream.
When you finally drew back, your foreheads rested together, both of you breathing too fast, both of you smiling in disbelief.
“I shouldn’t have” he murmured, eyes still closed.
“I wanted you to.”
He let out a shaky laugh that was half relief, half heartbreak. “Gods, you’ll undo me.”
“Then let me,” you said. “For once, let something be ours.”
The words settled between you like a promise.
Outside, a bell tolled in the distant tower, warning of the coming dawn. The sound broke the spell, but only just.
Dick stepped back, reluctant, his hand lingering in yours until the last possible second. “When they wake, I’ll be gone,” he said. “But if you call for me again—”
“I will” you whispered. “I swear I will”
He hesitated once more, eyes tracing your face as if trying to memorize it, the soft curve of your mouth, the light still clinging to your skin, the strength beneath your sorrow.
Then, with one last stolen glance, he turned and slipped back through the door into the shadows he called home.
You stood there long after he’d gone, one hand over your heart, the echo of his kiss still warm on your lips, a secret softer and more dangerous than any blade.
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request elsyageorgia damian / jason when they find out that you were some sort of prodigy but then you stopped whatever you were good at because something tragic or traumatic happened and you couldn't bare the sight of the thing because you were too scared. and then they kind inspire you to play again and they didn't even realize that you were doing the thing and just watched from the doorstep.
content jason todd x violin prodigy!reader, gn!reader, parental death, car accident, grief/bereavement, trauma responses, panic attacks, vomiting mentioned, references to jason’s death/resurrection, patrol injuries/blood, self-blame, emotional breakdowns, hurt/comfort
word count 5.9k
masterlist | jason masterlist
The violin had lived beneath your bed for three years before Jason learned it existed. Not hidden, exactly. Hidden suggested intention: hands pushing it into darkness, a choice made with a steady heartbeat and a clear mind. You had not made any choice concerning the violin in a very long time. You had simply arrived at your apartment with the case clutched against your chest, lowered it to the floor, and nudged it beneath the bed with your foot.
Then you had spent three years pretending there was nothing under there except dust.
Jason found it because the radiator started leaking.
It happened at two in the morning, because disasters enjoyed an audience and Jason Todd was apparently Gotham’s preferred late-night entertainment. You woke to the sound of metal clanging, water hissing, and your boyfriend swearing with such venom that you briefly wondered whether one of his enemies had broken into the bedroom.
Instead, you found him crouched beside the radiator in grey sweatpants and an old Gotham Knights shirt, one hand wrapped around a pipe wrench and the other pressed over the narrow stream of water escaping from a valve.
“Morning,” he said through clenched teeth.
“It’s two.”
“Time’s fake.”
“The floor is flooding.”
“That’s more difficult to philosophise away.”
You helped him drag towels from the bathroom. Jason shut off the water, muttering darkly about landlords and infrastructure and how he knew at least three people who could make your building manager disappear without leaving enough evidence for a warrant. You reminded him that murder was not an acceptable substitute for property maintenance.
“Debatable,” he said.
The water had spread beneath the bed. Jason dropped to his stomach to reach the towels into the narrow space, his shoulder pressed against the floor and his cheek squashed into the rug. He made a disgruntled noise when his fingers struck something solid.
“What’ve you got under here?”
Your body knew before your mind did. Every muscle locked at once.
Jason tugged the case into the light. It was black beneath the dust, rectangular with curved edges, the leather worn smooth around the brass clasps. A peeling sticker clung to one corner—an old silver star, the sort teachers handed out to children for being exceptional in ways they did not yet understand would become cages.
Jason sat back on his heels.
For a moment, he only looked at it. Then he looked at you.
There were people who would have opened it without asking. There were people who would have laughed with surprise, demanded explanations, filled the silence with questions until it had nowhere left to breathe. Jason did none of those things. His hand remained on the handle. His expression changed almost imperceptibly, the humour fading from his eyes as he took in the way you had gone still.
“This yours?” he asked.
You had to swallow before you could answer. “It was.”
Jason glanced down at the case again. He did not touch the clasps.
“Want me to put it back?”
The relief was so sudden that it nearly hurt. “Please.”
“All right.”
No questions. No insistence that an instrument could not stop belonging to someone. No observation that the case looked expensive, or old, or loved. Jason wiped the bottom dry with one of the towels, pushed it carefully beneath the bed, and returned his attention to the radiator.
He behaved as though nothing had happened.
You loved him a little desperately for that.
Unfortunately, loving Jason Todd meant knowing that his silence was never the same thing as ignorance.
He noticed things. He catalogued them without appearing to, filing away shifts in tone and unfinished sentences, the precise angle at which someone held their shoulders when they lied. He had spent too much of his life surviving people who treated warning signs like invitations. Now he read them instinctively.
He did not mention the violin the following morning. He did not mention it while making coffee or when he left for patrol. He kissed your forehead, reminded you to lock the balcony door, and stole the blueberry muffin you had been saving for breakfast.
Three days passed. You began to believe the moment had been allowed to die.
Then Jason found the newspaper clipping.
It had been tucked inside a battered copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, pressed between pages four hundred and sixty-two and four hundred and sixty-three. You had forgotten it was there. You had forgotten you still owned it, just as you had apparently forgotten that avoiding something was not the same as erasing it.
Jason was stretched across your sofa when it slipped free. You were in the kitchen, slicing vegetables for dinner, when the room went quiet.
Not ordinary quiet. Jason was rarely entirely silent when he read. He scoffed, muttered, turned pages with unnecessary aggression whenever a character made a choice he considered particularly idiotic. This silence felt careful.
You looked over. The clipping lay open in his hand.
Even from across the room, you recognised the photograph. You were fourteen, dressed in black concert clothes, holding the violin beneath your chin. Your smile looked enormous and terrified. Beside the photograph, a headline described you as Gotham’s Youngest Musical Prodigy, a phrase that had once appeared on posters, programmes and scholarship applications until it seemed more like your name than the one your parents had given you.
Jason raised his eyes.
“I wasn’t snooping,” he said immediately. “It fell out.”
The knife trembled against the chopping board.
He lowered the clipping to his lap, keeping it visible, as though he wanted you to know he was not hiding what he had seen. “You were good.”
You stared at the half-cut pepper beneath your hand. “That’s what people said.”
“Article says you played with the Gotham Philharmonic when you were twelve.”
“I did.”
“And toured Europe at thirteen.”
“For six weeks.”
Jason’s gaze moved over the photograph again. “You hated that dress.”
A startled laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
His mouth softened at the corner.
“It had sequins,” you said.
“Unforgivable.”
“They scratched my arms whenever I moved.”
“Then the real tragedy here is obvious.”
The humour was a rope placed gently within reach. He did not tug on it. He only held the other end and waited to see whether you would take it.
You set the knife down.
Jason folded the clipping along its existing crease, careful not to create another. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He waited.
That was one of the things Jason did best, although no one would have guessed it from meeting him. He had the temperament of a wildfire and the patience of a man who had spent years sitting on rooftops, watching doors that might never open. When it mattered, he could make stillness feel like shelter.
You wiped your palms on a dish towel and crossed the room.
Jason shifted upright, leaving space beside him. You sat, though you could not bring yourself to lean against him. The clipping remained between his fingers.
“My father died while I was playing,” you said.
Jason became perfectly motionless.
The words had never grown easier. Time had rounded none of their edges. They remained exactly as sharp as they had been the first time someone in a dark suit had taken you into a quiet room backstage and told you there had been an accident.
“It was the final round of an international competition,” you continued. “There was a storm. Roads were flooding, and he’d been delayed at work. He called me before I went onstage and said he might not make it.”
Jason’s thumb moved across the crease in the paper.
“I got upset. I’d practised for almost a year. Everyone else had family there, and I…” You looked down at your hands. “I told him he always missed the important things. I told him I didn’t want to see him after the competition if he couldn’t be there for the performance.”
“You were a kid.”
“I was sixteen.”
“A kid,” Jason repeated.
“He came anyway.”
Outside the apartment, a siren wailed in the distance. The noise rose and fell, swallowed gradually by Gotham’s endless night.
“The police said he was probably driving too fast for the conditions. His car skidded across the centre line. He died before the ambulance arrived.” Your throat tightened around each word. “I didn’t know. I went onstage and played the entire concerto. I remember thinking it was the best I’d ever performed. I remember the applause.”
Jason’s jaw flexed.
“They told me afterwards. I was still holding the violin.”
The memory returned not as a sequence but as a collision: rosin dust on your fingers, stage lights burning white across your vision, someone taking your elbow because your knees had stopped working. Your teacher trying to remove the violin from your hand. The sound of the bow striking the tiled floor.
Jason placed the clipping on the coffee table.
“After the funeral, everyone kept telling me he would’ve wanted me to continue. My teachers. The conductor. People I barely knew.” You pressed your nails into your palms. “They said it would honour him. They said I shouldn’t waste everything I’d worked for.”
“Jesus.”
“I tried.” Your voice cracked, and you hated it for betraying you. “I would put the violin beneath my chin, and suddenly I was backstage again. I could smell the dust in the curtains. I could hear people applauding while he was lying on the side of the road.”
Jason’s hand shifted closer to yours without touching.
“I started shaking whenever I saw the case. Sometimes I threw up. My teacher said I needed to push through it before the fear became permanent.” You laughed, but the sound came out brittle. “So I quit. Cancelled the tours, turned down the conservatory offers, stopped answering calls. People said I was throwing my life away.”
“They were wrong.”
You looked at him. Jason’s expression had hardened, but not toward you. It was the same dangerous stillness he wore when someone he loved had been injured and there was no target available for his anger.
“You survived something,” he said. “That’s not the same as throwing your life away.”
“My father would still be alive if I hadn’t made that call.”
“No.”
“I told him to come.”
“You told your dad you wanted him there. He made the decision to drive.”
“He made it because of me.”
“He made it because he loved you.”
The words struck too close. You stood abruptly and moved toward the kitchen, needing distance from the clipping, the case beneath the bed, Jason’s impossible gentleness.
He did not follow.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“I heard you.”
You gripped the edge of the counter until the laminate bit into your fingertips. “You don’t get to make it sound simple.”
“I’m not.”
“You said it wasn’t my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You weren’t there.”
“No,” Jason said. “I wasn’t.”
His voice remained quiet.
When you looked back, he had not moved from the sofa. His hands rested loosely between his knees, his shoulders lowered, his body deliberately unthreatening despite the breadth of him.
“But I know what it’s like,” he continued, “to replay the moment everything went bad until you convince yourself there had to be a version where you stopped it.”
The anger left you as quickly as it had come.
Jason rarely spoke about his death directly. He spoke around it. Through it. Sometimes he made jokes sharp enough to draw blood, sometimes he woke with his fists clenched and the sheets twisted around his legs. He could describe the mechanics of an explosion, list injuries from memory and criticise Bruce’s choices with ruthless clarity, but the boy in the warehouse existed behind a door Jason opened for almost no one.
“I know what it’s like to think being smarter would’ve saved you,” he said. “Or being quieter. Faster. Less angry. More obedient. Whatever version hurts most that day.”
“Jason…”
“I’m not saying it’s the same.” His eyes dropped to the floor. “I’m saying guilt’s a greedy bastard. It’ll take every piece of the story you give it and still tell you it needs more.”
You crossed the room before you realised you had decided to move.
Jason looked up as you stopped between his knees. This time, when he reached for you, you let him. His hands settled at your hips, warm and steady, his forehead resting against your sternum.
Neither of you spoke. There was nothing left to say that would not turn the moment into something smaller.
Jason never asked you to play. He did not suggest therapy as though it were a key he could press into your hand. He did not send you recordings of violin concertos or surprise you with tickets to the Philharmonic. He did not retrieve the case from beneath the bed, clean the dust from its surface, or tell you that fear became stronger each time you obeyed it.
He knew better than most that healing offered by force was only another kind of violence.
He simply remained.
Sometimes, remaining looked like making dinner while you sat on the counter and complained about work. Sometimes it looked like returning from patrol at four in the morning and crawling into bed beside you, bruised and exhausted, his cold nose pressed against the back of your neck. Sometimes it looked like leaving novels open around the apartment because he had run out of bookmarks and refused to admit this was a solvable problem.
A week after he found the clipping, you discovered him repairing the broken binding of an old book at the kitchen table.
The book had belonged to Catherine Todd. Jason had told you once, late at night, when honesty seemed easier in the dark. It was a cheap paperback collection of poems with pages browned by age and the lingering scent of cigarette smoke. The cover had detached years ago. Several pages bore water stains, and something dark had marked the bottom corner.
You paused in the doorway.
Jason glanced up. “Don’t say it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“My face asked why you have glue in your hair.”
He lifted one hand to his curls and found a dried smear near his temple. “Occupational hazard.”
“You shoot criminals for a living.”
“I contain multitudes.”
You stepped closer. The book lay open beneath a row of carefully positioned clips. Jason had reinforced the spine with archival tape, his large hands moving with unexpected delicacy.
“I thought you couldn’t read that anymore,” you said.
His fingers slowed.
He did not pretend to misunderstand. “Couldn’t.”
“What changed?”
Jason considered the question.
“Nothing dramatic.” He adjusted one of the clips. “I used to open it and remember every bad night in that apartment. Her passed out on the couch. Me checking whether she was breathing. All the shit I did to keep us fed.”
You rested one hip against the table.
“Then I started remembering other things too. Her reading one of these poems out loud, getting half the words wrong.” A faint smile crossed his face. “She’d make up definitions when I asked. Complete bullshit, every time.”
“That explains a lot about your vocabulary.”
“Watch it.”
“Sorry. Continue.”
He rolled his eyes, but the smile remained.
“I guess I realised the book wasn’t only where the bad memories lived.” He touched the repaired spine. “They were just louder.”
Your gaze settled on the stained pages. “Doesn’t it still hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why keep it?”
Jason looked down at the book for a long moment.
“Because it’s mine,” he said. “What happened doesn’t get to own every part of it forever.”
He returned to his work.
The conversation moved on. Jason complained about the cost of archival tape. You ordered food. He stole half your chips and denied it while actively eating them.
He never looked beneath the table, where your hands were trembling.
Two nights later, you pulled the violin case from beneath the bed.
Jason was on patrol.
You chose the timing deliberately, although you told yourself otherwise. The apartment felt safer without witnesses. If you failed, no one would see. If you opened the case and found yourself transported back to that backstage corridor, you could put it away before Jason returned and preserve the illusion that his words had not reached somewhere tender.
You sat on the bedroom floor with the case in front of you. Dust clung to the black leather. You wiped it away with the sleeve of your jumper. The silver star sticker had begun to peel further. Beneath it, someone had written your initials in permanent marker. Your father’s handwriting.
Your chest constricted.
You almost pushed the case away.
Instead, you placed both hands flat on the lid and breathed until your vision cleared.
The first clasp opened with a metallic snap.
Your stomach rolled.
The second followed.
You lifted the lid. The scent reached you immediately: old wood, velvet, rosin and years of trapped air. The violin lay within its blue lining, amber varnish gleaming despite the dust. One string had snapped and curled away from the bridge. The bow’s hair hung loose and yellowed.
It looked smaller than you remembered.
You had spent years imagining it as something monstrous, a dark shape beneath the bed with teeth concealed inside the case. Yet it remained what it had always been: carved maple and spruce, four strings stretched across a hollow wooden body.
An object. An instrument.
Yours.
You did not touch it that night.
But you left the case open for eleven minutes.
The next week, you touched the neck with two fingers. Three days after that, you lifted the bow.
Progress was not a staircase. It did not rise neatly. Some evenings, you could sit beside the open case and breathe without difficulty. On others, the sight of the polished wood sent you stumbling into the bathroom, palms sweating and heart pounding as rain struck an imaginary road somewhere far away.
Jason noticed you were distracted.
He did not discover why. He had learned long ago that love was not the same as surveillance, even if his instincts occasionally struggled with the distinction. When you said you were fine, he looked unconvinced but let the answer remain yours.
The first time you lifted the violin from its case, Jason was asleep in the living room.
He had returned injured from patrol, a shallow knife wound stitched across his side and purple bruises blossoming beneath his ribs. He refused the bed because he claimed the sofa supported his back better. You suspected the actual reason was that he did not want his restless sleep to keep you awake.
You sat on the bedroom floor with the instrument resting across your lap.
Your fingers remembered before the rest of you did. They curved naturally around the neck. Your thumb settled against the polished wood. You adjusted the angle automatically, body reaching for a posture drilled into you through thousands of hours.
Then you saw your father waiting in the audience of a recital hall when you were ten, holding a bouquet of supermarket flowers because he had not known what else to bring.
The violin slipped from your hands.
You caught it before it struck the floor, but the movement jarred your entire body. You folded over the instrument, gasping, your forehead pressed against the cool wood.
A floorboard creaked outside the bedroom.
Jason did not enter.
He sat on the other side of the closed door. You knew it was him from the weight of his steps, from the faint grunt as his injured side protested the movement.
“I’m okay,” you called, though you were crying hard enough to make the words uneven.
“Okay,” he answered.
You waited for a question.
None came.
Minutes passed.
“Are you sitting on the floor?”
“Maybe.”
“Your stitches.”
“Still stitched.”
“You shouldn’t be bending like that.”
“I’m not bending. I’m sitting very badly.”
A laugh broke through your tears.
Jason leaned his head against the door. You heard the soft impact.
“Want me to come in?”
You looked down at the violin in your arms. “Not yet.”
“All right.”
He stayed outside until your breathing slowed.
Later, when you emerged, the violin had been returned to its case. Jason did not look past you into the bedroom. He held out his hand, and you helped him to his feet.
Neither of you mentioned the faint line the strings had left across your fingertips.
You took the violin to a repair shop in Blüdhaven.
Not Gotham. You could not bear the thought of someone recognising your name, even after all these years. You chose a narrow shop wedged between a bakery and a second-hand clothes store, where an elderly woman examined the instrument without glancing at you twice.
“She’s been neglected,” the woman said.
Shame twisted low in your stomach.
Then she smiled. “But not ruined.”
You left the violin with her for two weeks.
When you collected it, the wood shone. New strings crossed the bridge. The bow had been re-haired, the winding replaced, the mechanism cleaned. The woman played a scale to check the sound, and although your pulse spiked, you did not run.
You carried the case home in both hands.
Jason saw it as soon as you entered the apartment.
He stood at the stove, wooden spoon suspended over a pan of tomato sauce. His gaze moved from your face to the case and back again.
For one terrible second, neither of you spoke.
Then the sauce bubbled over.
“Shit.” Jason spun toward the stove, yanking the pan from the heat. You laughed so suddenly that your knees nearly gave way. He pointed the spoon at you. “You saw nothing.”
“I saw the great Red Hood defeated by pasta sauce.”
“Keep talking and you’re eating dry noodles.”
He did not ask about the case. He did, however, make enough food for three people and pretend not to notice when you barely managed half a bowl.
You began practising when he was gone.
At first, you could only hold the violin.
Then you played open strings, each note raw and unsteady in the apartment’s quiet. The sound made your teeth ache. It seemed too large for the room, too familiar, slipping beneath your skin to wake parts of you that had been sleeping for years.
You played scales. Badly. Your left hand remained agile, but the muscles had weakened. Your bow shook. Intonation that had once been instinctive now required concentration. Every flaw felt like evidence of what you had lost.
The prodigy within you had been a cruel little creature. It had never accepted imperfection. It whispered that there was no value in playing unless you could stun an audience into silence, unless critics wrote your name in newspapers, unless every note was clean enough to justify the sacrifices made for it.
You nearly stopped again.
Then Jason came home furious after a difficult patrol.
He paced the living room, helmet abandoned on the table, blood drying at the edge of his jaw. Some trafficker had escaped because Jason had chosen to save a child rather than continue the pursuit. The decision was obviously correct, yet he treated it like a failure.
“I was slow,” he said.
“You were carrying a six-year-old.”
“Should’ve been able to do both.”
“You saved them.”
“And lost him.”
“You saved them,” you repeated.
Jason turned away.
You recognised the shape of his anger because it resembled your own. Different origins, same hunger. The certainty that worth depended upon flawless execution. The belief that one imperfect outcome could erase everything you had managed to save.
“You once told me surviving isn’t the same as failure,” you said.
“That was different.”
“Convenient.”
His shoulders lowered a fraction.
“You don’t have to do everything perfectly for it to matter, Jay.”
Jason glanced at you, exhausted and sceptical.
You crossed the room and wiped the blood from his face with your sleeve.
The following afternoon, you played a scale and allowed the third note to land slightly sharp.
You did not start again. You continued.
Weeks passed.
The violin no longer remained beneath the bed. You kept it in the bedroom wardrobe, where you could see the case whenever you reached for a coat. Some days, that was enough. Some days you opened it.
Jason continued not to ask.
You suspected he knew more than he revealed. There were traces. Rosin dust on the dresser. A music stand folded behind the bedroom door. The faint red mark along your jaw when he kissed you after patrol.
Yet he guarded your secret as carefully as if you had spoken it aloud.
The night he finally heard you, rain was falling.
Of course it was. Gotham rain had always possessed a sense of drama. It streaked silver across the windows and gathered in the gutters, filling the apartment with a steady rushing sound. Jason was supposed to be out until dawn. A weapons exchange near the docks had demanded his attention, and he had left with his helmet beneath one arm after kissing you twice.
The operation ended early. You did not hear him enter.
You stood in the living room with the violin tucked beneath your chin. The lamps were off. Only the city’s blurred light filtered through the windows, pale gold and red reflections trembling across the floor.
You had not intended to play anything complicated. A scale, perhaps. A short exercise. Something without memories attached.
Instead, your fingers found the opening notes of the piece you had played the night your father died.
Your bow stopped.
The rain struck the glass.
For years, the concerto had existed in your mind as a sealed room. You had believed that entering it would mean returning to sixteen forever: stage lights, applause, the sudden hand on your shoulder.
Your fingers remained in position.
You thought of your father arriving late to childhood recitals with his tie crooked. Your father clapping too loudly. Your father listening to you practise the same four measures for hours and insisting each attempt sounded better, despite possessing no musical ear whatsoever.
The bad memories were louder.
They were not the only ones.
You drew the bow across the strings.
The first phrase emerged quietly. Your technique was not what it had been. The shifting lacked its former precision. Your vibrato trembled in places where it had once been effortless. There was no orchestra supporting you, no conductor, no crowd holding its breath.
Only rain. Only the room. Only you.
The music unfolded slowly, altered by every year you had spent away from it. At sixteen, you had played the piece to win. You had attacked each difficult passage with furious precision, chasing perfection as though it were something waiting to love you once you became worthy.
Now you played it like a question. You played for the child you had been. For the father who had loved you imperfectly and completely. For every night the violin had waited beneath your bed without demanding that you return unchanged.
Halfway through the second movement, you felt someone watching.
Your bow faltered.
Jason stood in the doorway. He was still wearing his patrol clothes, though the helmet hung loosely from his hand. Rain darkened his hair and clung to his leather jacket. A bruise shadowed one cheekbone.
He had gone completely still.
You lowered the violin.
The silence that followed felt vast.
“How long have you been there?” you asked.
Jason swallowed. “Not long.”
It was a lie. You could tell from his face.
Heat rushed through you, followed immediately by panic. “You weren’t supposed to be back.”
“Deal went sideways. We wrapped early.”
“You should’ve said something.”
“I was going to.” His voice sounded rough. “Then you…”
He stopped.
You became painfully aware of everything wrong with the performance. The missed shift. The uneven bow pressure. The notes that had wavered when your breathing changed.
“I’m out of practice.”
Jason stared at you as though you had said something incomprehensible.
“I haven’t played properly in years,” you continued. “My hands aren’t strong enough yet, and the phrasing was—”
“Beautiful.”
The word silenced you.
Jason set his helmet on the floor.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know enough about classical music to judge.”
“I know what beautiful sounds like.”
Your vision blurred.
Jason remained in the doorway, hesitant in a way you had rarely seen him. He looked as though approaching might frighten the moment away.
“I didn’t do this for you,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“I’m not fixed.”
“I know.”
“I might not be able to play tomorrow.”
His expression softened. “I know.”
You looked down at the violin. Your fingers were still resting against the strings, the tips tender from practice. “I thought it would feel like that night again.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.” You breathed through the ache in your chest. “But not only that night.”
Jason crossed the room then.
Slowly. Carefully.
He stopped within reach and lifted one hand, waiting until you nodded before touching you. His palm cupped the side of your face that was not resting against the violin. His thumb brushed beneath your eye.
“You did that,” he said.
“What?”
“Came back to it.”
“You helped.”
“I sat outside a door and ruined pasta.”
“You made it feel possible.”
Something vulnerable flickered across his face. Jason had always struggled to believe he could inspire anything gentle. He understood fear, rage, vengeance and survival. He knew how to teach someone to throw a punch, clean a wound, recognise a tail. But hope seemed too delicate for his hands. He treated it as something other people created.
“You told me what happened didn’t get to own every part of it forever,” you said.
“I was talking about a book.”
“You were talking about yourself.”
His mouth pulled into a crooked, aching smile. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“And me.”
“Didn’t know that at the time.”
“I know.”
He glanced at the violin tucked beneath your chin. “Can I touch it?”
The question almost broke you.
You nodded.
Jason placed two fingers against the instrument’s curved side. His touch was reverent, lighter than the rain against the window. He traced none of the scratches or old marks, made no attempt to take it from you. He simply allowed his hand to rest against the wood.
“My dad chose it,” you said. “We went to six shops. I kept saying they all sounded the same.”
Jason huffed softly. “Bet that went down well.”
“He was horrified. Spent weeks reading about violins so the sellers couldn’t overcharge us.”
“Smart man.”
“He pretended he understood everything they said.”
“Smarter man.”
You laughed through your tears.
Jason leaned forward and kissed your forehead. The violin remained between you, not an obstacle but a bridge neither of you had known you were building.
“Will you listen?” you asked.
His eyes widened slightly.
“Yeah,” he said. “Course I will.”
“There’s a chance I’ll stop halfway through.”
“Then you stop.”
“I might play the same part repeatedly.”
“I’ve listened to Roy tell the same story about stealing a helicopter fifteen times. I can handle repetition.”
“You hate that story.”
“He wasn’t even the one flying.”
You shifted the violin back into position. Jason moved toward the sofa, then paused.
“Where should I sit?”
The question carried more weight than it appeared to.
Not where do audiences sit. Not where did your father sit. Not what position should I take so this resembles the life you had before.
Where should I sit?
Here. Now. In this new version of the room.
You pointed toward the floor beside the window.
Jason lowered himself there, back against the wall and one knee raised. His wet jacket creaked when he settled. He looked enormous and slightly ridiculous beneath the music stand, a masked vigilante stripped of his armour except for the blood still drying on his knuckles.
He did not take out his phone. He did not speak.
He waited.
You lifted the bow.
The first note trembled. The second held. By the fourth, Jason’s face had gone soft in that rare, unguarded way he allowed only when he forgot anyone could see him. His attention never drifted toward the rain or the city beyond the glass. He watched your hands move, watched your shoulders loosen, watched the fear pass through you without carrying you away.
You played until your fingers ached. You played until the old memory came apart, no longer a single terrible night but one moment among thousands. You played until the apartment held something other than absence.
When the final note faded, Jason remained still.
You lowered the violin.
“Well?” you asked, trying to sound lighter than you felt.
He cleared his throat and looked suspiciously toward the window.
“You crying?”
“No.”
“Jason.”
“Rain.”
“We’re indoors.”
“Gotham infrastructure’s terrible. Could be leaking.”
You smiled.
He rose and crossed the room, taking the violin only after you offered it. His hands looked too large around the delicate neck, scarred fingers careful against the polished wood.
Jason placed it in the open case.
He did not close the lid.
When he turned back, you stepped into his arms.
He held you tightly, one hand cradling the back of your head and the other spread across your spine. You pressed your face into the damp leather of his jacket and listened to the stubborn rhythm of his heart.
“I think he would’ve liked you,” you murmured.
Jason’s breath caught. “Yeah?”
“He’d hate the guns.”
“Reasonable.”
“And the crime.”
“Alleged crime.”
“He’d ask what your intentions were.”
Jason tightened his arms around you. “Could tell him.”
“What?”
“That I intend to be here.” His voice dropped, roughened by all the things he rarely knew how to name. “When you play. When you don’t. When it hurts. When it doesn’t.”
Your hands curled into the back of his jacket.
“I don’t know what this becomes,” you admitted. “I don’t know whether I’ll ever perform again.”
“Then don’t.”
“What if I want to?”
“Then I’ll sit in the front row and make everyone uncomfortable by glaring at them.”
“You’re meant to applaud.”
“I can multitask.”
You pulled back enough to look at him.
There were people who believed love was the hand that dragged someone out of darkness. They wrote stories about rescue as though the wounded were passive things, waiting for someone stronger to arrive.
Jason had never dragged you anywhere.
He had sat outside the door. He had waited in the doorway. He had asked where you wanted him to be.
You touched the white streak in his hair, smoothing the damp curl away from his forehead.
“Stay there next time,” you said.
“Where?”
“In the doorway.” His brows drew together. “I liked looking up and seeing you.”
Understanding softened his expression.
“Yeah,” he said. “I can do that.”
The violin rested in its case behind you, the lid open to the room.
It was not an ending. Healing rarely had those. Tomorrow, the strings might frighten you again. Next week, the rain might sound too much like tyres against wet asphalt. There would be days when the case remained closed and days when guilt returned with fresh teeth.
But the music had returned, too. Quietly at first. Unevenly. No longer polished for competitions or measured by applause. It belonged to no newspaper, no conductor, no expectation left behind by the life you might have lived.
It belonged to your hands. It belonged to the small apartment and the rain on the windows. It belonged to the man who watched from the doorway as though witnessing something sacred, never once realising that he had helped teach the strings how to remember you.
playfighting your bf satoru is like trying to inconvenience a mountain that won't leave your face alone.
genre: fluff
cw: established relationship, power struggle, wrestling teasing, playfulness, domesticity, kissing, biting
wc: ~2k
you had him. you definitely had him—at least, that’s what a normal distribution of weight, physics, and human biomechanics suggested.
“oh no,” satoru drawled, not even moving. “i’m being attacked. whatever shall I do?”
“you can start by losing—”
he was standing up like you weighed absolutely nothing.
your arms locked tighter around his neck from behind, your legs snaking around his waist, all your might thrown into the tackle, but satoru didn’t budge. not an inch. it was like you were trying to wrestle a marble statue that happened to be wearing something way out of most people’s price range.
“go. down.”
satoru laughed at you, that bright and unfair you-are-so-screwed chuckle slipping right out of him.
no matter. you ignored the sound, holding your ground as you put your back into the motion, digging your heels into his hips, trying anything you could muster to throw him off balance.
satoru stood up straighter, not an ounce of wobble in him.
one second you were clinging to his back like a koala with a vendetta, the next, you were fully dangling, feet far off the ground, one of his big hands casually gripping the back of your thigh to keep you from slipping.
“form’s good,” he mused, bouncing you once like he was testing a new dumbbell. “little shaky on the follow-through, though. seven out of ten.”
“PUT ME DOWN—”
you thrashed. you squirmed. you tried to hook your ankle around anything to drag him down—feet only meeting the air.
“alright.” satoru lowered you, pressing you into his back, arms enveloping you in what could only be described as a reverse bear hug.
“this was NOT what i meant—”
“no?” he cooed, craning his neck with blindfold still in place, and pressed a loud, obnoxious smooch to your forearm.
“stop—”
“i’m rewarding the effort.”
“this isn’t—” a kiss on your bicep. “—a participation—” a kiss on your knuckles. “—sport!”
“it can be. you’re cute enough.”
you made a sound of pure, unfiltered rage.
satoru laughed, turning his back towards your couch and releasing you. your body dropped gently—annoyingly gently, bouncing on the cushions with a soft oof.
the furniture dipped once, and his shadow was already over you before you could scramble away, his elbows planting on either side of your head.
“y’know,” he said, voice dropping into something silky and quiet. “winner gets real kisses.”
your heart did a stupid little backflip.
“you’re not gonna win,” you lied, breathless.
he tilted his head, his lips pulling into that slow, dangerous, i-know-something-you-don’t grin.
“then stop me, baby.”
and you tried.
you bucked your hips in an incredible attempt to flip him, used your thighs to scissor his waist and reverse the position he had pinned you down into. he let you get almost there—let you think you had an opening—and then just shifted his weight with maddeningly little effort.
satoru’s weight settled on you like an iron anchor, no neutral barrier keeping you at arm's length—just the raw, menacing density of a guy who knew he was completely unshakeable.
your body was giving its heart and soul in an attempt to grapple him; his, on the other hand, had yet to register your attempt as something worth exerting himself over.
but before he could claim his victory, you did the only logical thing left in your arsenal. your teeth came down on the high collar of his t-shirt.
“ow! hey! unfair conduct! referee!” satoru squawked, flinching just enough for you to yank one hand free.
“no rules in street fighting!”
satoru grinned, his hand catching your wrist mid-air with scary speed. “oh, so we’re playing dirty now? excellent.”
you could barely process the wicked tilt of his mouth as he adjusted his grip—sliding one arm under your lower back and the other under your knees, scooping you up like a barbell made out of fury, bicep-curling your entire body into the air like a horizontal maraca. no effort, no strain, not even a slight change in his breathing.
“...three,” he counted, lowering you an inch before pumping you back above eye level. “four... mind-muscle connection...”
“SATORU—”
“not bad,” he mused, holding you at the peak of the curl as if testing your weight distribution. “you’re about... three bags of rice. four if i count the spite,”
“LET GO—”
he didn’t. you were beginning to suspect ‘training to failure’ wasn’t a concept satoru had ever personally encountered—and if asked, you were almost certain he’d define it as 'deciding when he’d had enough.'
satoru kept your entire body suspended mid-air with that single, immovable arm of his while the other pulled his phone out from his pocket.
“...just a sec.”
he flipped it around, his thumb tapping across the screen as he skimmed a notification. you hung suspended in mid-air, watching in horrified fascination as his brow furrowed with a level of concentration he hadn’t bothered to give your entire mass during his tiny, impromptu workout session.
“ah. spam email.” he slid the phone right back into his pocket, his lifting arm having not so much as trembled the entire time.
you just stared, utterly paralyzed at the cosmic audacity of a man who apparently considered you light enough to multitask around, casually managing his inbox while you were still fighting for your dignity.
satoru leaned back against the top cushion as though he'd merely paused between sets, locking eyes with your stunned expression.
“rule number one of fighting the strongest,” he chirped up, wearing that impossibly pleased and unrepentant grin. “don’t bite the equipment. it voids the warranty.”
“you’re ridiculous—!” you swung a leg over, trying to find leverage, still very much airborne, held aloft by an arm that felt like steel in human form.
“i don’t know. i kinda like it up here. fine view," he said, pulling his blindfold down past his nose. the striking glow of his eyes locked onto yours, sparkling with unveiled mischief. “can’t chomp on me from all the way up there.”
you glared down at him, but the sheer absurdity of the situation—and the way his t-shirt stretched over his shoulder where your teeth marks probably still were—cracked your composure. a snort escaped you.
“you have a mark on your shoulder.”
that made him pause for a second—barely enough to notice had you not been looking for it.
“yeah?” he tilted his head, his silvery hair falling across his brow. “are you gonna kiss it better?”
“i was thinking more along the lines of biting it again.”
the sigh that left satoru’s body was almost too entertained. he lowered you slowly, almost teasingly, letting your feet brush the floor before he let go entirely. you dropped the last inch, landing on your own two feet, ready to lunge—
and then he was behind you.
you didn’t even see him move as his arms wrapped around your waist from behind, chin hooking over your shoulder. his chest barely moved behind you, exasperatingly relaxed despite the fact that you were still actively trying to escape. “missed me?”
“YOU—” you elbowed backward, but he absorbed the impact, tsking as he tightened his grip around your waist and dragging you back until you were flush against his chest.
“illegal move number two: strike to the kidney. that’s a five-minute penalty in the kiss bin.”
“there is no kiss bin!”
“there is now,” satoru hummed, resting his heavy chin right on your shoulder, his nose nuzzling into the side of your neck. “i’m the founder, president, and sole referee. your sportsmanship is atrocious today.”
you huffed, trying to pry his thick arms off your stomach, but it was like trying to unbend rebar. every frustrated tug only made the muscle beneath his shirt tighten beneath your hands. zero traces of any cursed technique—just surprisingly irritating lean muscle.
his heartbeat thudded slowly against your back in an unbothered rhythm, as if manhandling you across his own body didn’t even seem to qualify as light cardio.
“this isn’t over,” you pointed out, tilting your head back against his shoulder to glare at him.
“you were so brave,” satoru mumbled, his voice softening as he peered down full of affection. his lips met the side of your neck, a peck right over your pulse point. “a true warrior. a feral, teethy one.”
you shivered despite yourself—the traitorous little jolt that always happened when his mouth found the spot. you hoped he had missed it.
“ah,” he breathed against your skin, the word vibrating through you. “found it.”
“found—found what? there’s nothing to find—”
“your off switch.” another kiss, slower this time. “right... here.”
you elbowed him again, weaker this time. “there isn’t an off switch.”
his lips curved into a smile against your neck. “mhm, that’s why you just went all melty.”
“i did not go melty.”
“you went so melty. turned into a puddle of... of...” he paused, clearly searching for the most ridiculous possible comparison. “pudding.”
“that is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
“no, wait.” he reconsidered. “custard. vanilla. crème brûlée if you're feeling fancy. i’m a crème brûlée kind of guy, honestly. the caramel on top?" he sighed dreamily. “chef's kiss.”
apparently that counted as enough justification for another smooch beneath the side of your jaw.
“i’m going to commit a crime.”
“you already did. general assault on a beautiful man.” he squeezed you tighter, almost cuddly now. “i’m just trying to reform you through physical love.”
“you’re not reforming anything—”
“true,” he said cheerfully. “i wanna make it worse. that’s the goal.”
you gave up struggling, slumping back against him with a defeated groan. “i despise you.”
“you love me.”
“hate.”
“love.”
“hate.”
“love love love—” he was peppering kisses along your shoulder now, each one punctuating the word. “—love—you—so—much—”
your resolve was crumbling. you could feel it, like sand slipping through your fingers.
“this doesn’t mean i forfeit,” you managed.
“no, of course not.” he was grinning against your skin—you could feel it. ”you’re still fighting. very formidable. extremely intimidating.”
“i am—”
“especially the part where you went completely boneless the second i kissed your neck.”
“THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN—”
you tried to twist away, but he just laughed and held you tighter, burying his face in your hair.
“your favorite thing is watching me suffer.”
“mm. top three. right behind sugar and my own reflection.”
you shook your head. “unreal.”
“yeah well, tell it to the judge,” satoru teased, easing his grip just enough to spin you around in his arms, ungraciously falling back against your couch with you on his lap.
you expected him to strike another cocky pose or drop another infuriating one-liner, but as his palms settled loosely on your waist, his expression softened.
the blindfold was resting around his neck, and those endless light blue eyes were looking down at you with so much fond that it made your chest ache in the best way possible.
”eight out of ten.” he said softly, his thumb tracing a slow, soothing circle against your hip.
you raised an eyebrow, crossing your arms over your chest to keep up the facade. “is the referee issuing a revised statement?”
“mhm. bonus points for the biting,” he purred, looking entirely too satisfied with himself. “still went down, but at least you made it interesting.”
that smug little smirk was your final straw.
you uncrossed your arms, hands snaking upward as you pretended to adjust your posture, before your fingers hooked firmly into the black fabric of the blindfold dangling around his throat in a yank.
satoru’s head pitched forward, but he didn’t even stumble—just let himself be pulled down completely unfazed, those glowing blue eyes blinking at you in mild, amused curiosity.
“i’m trying to choke you into submission,” you informed him, holding the fabric as taut as your knuckles would allow.
“and you’re doing great, sweetface, truly,” he was all smiles, not resisting the pull at all—in fact, the tension on the blindfold was only helping close the remaining space between you, until his lips were barely an inch from yours. “except you forgot one tiny detail.”
“which is?”
“you’re directly in the kiss range.”
satoru closed the final inch.
the kiss wasn’t the victorious, smug-enough- to-power-tokyo-for-three-days-straight standard he usually went for. his lips met yours, lingering just long enough to steal whatever breath you had left.
he slid up his hands from your waist to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone as he pulled back just an inch, grinning down at your thoroughly dazed expression.
“ten out of ten,” he breathed against your lips, gleaming with pure satisfaction. “ref’s ruling is final.”
especially now with all the bullshit going on in Kansas, in Texas, in Iran, with Israel and Palestine, this ICE shit, this Epstein shit, it is essential to remember that evil and violence is not the natural state of humanity. this is not what humanity is like. if it was, there would be no reason to be disgusted or fight against it. most people are good and decent, and are victims of this, and by reducing it to a "carte blanche humanity is fucked anyway" you are casting aside the good, decent, loving people with rich inner lives who these cowardly fucks think are disposable
Damian Wayne, Whitewashing, Linguistics and the Use of Akhi in Fanworks
ok, listen. i say this with all the love in my heart, because i know it comes from a place of compassion, but i gotta level with you all:
please stop using akhi in your batfamily fanworks.
genuinely.
i don’t know who will actually see this or even care and i'm not even the first person to bring this up, but akhi is not a familial term of endearment.
full disclosure, i myself am nowhere near an expert in all Arabic dialects and while i do not have an extensive knowledge of all the dialectical terms for “brother” that serve the purpose you're looking for, i do know there are some out there.
however, akhi is not one of them. it’s not even an nickname. so please, please stop using it like it is.
fair warning, this will be a long post because there are a lot of layers to this issue and to understand why it's even an issue at all, you have to understand all of those layers. so stick around, i guess, if you have questions and feel like being interrupted in your daily tumblr scroll by a very specific rant (though i did try to break it up into sections so it's at least somewhat navigable).
otherwise, if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve already read my main request and hopefully taken it to heart which is what i really care about, so feel free to continue on with your day if you so please.
if you happen to be sticking around, let me first outline the linguistic issue for you:
yes, akhi does mean “my brother.” that’s really the best and most literal word-for-word translation anyone could possibly give you.
in more grammatical terms, it is the first-person possessive form of the word akh, which, you could probably guess, means “brother”. the -i suffix at the end is what denotes possession and who - in this case, the speaker - is in possession of the object.
another word you might be more familiar with is habibi, which means “my beloved”. habib is the object, the noun form of “beloved” and -i is the possessive suffix, the “my”. and that’s pretty much how the suffix is used - it essentially serves the same function as putting “my” in front of “book” or “cat” or “brother” in English. only, possession is indicated at the end of the given word rather than as a separate predicate. hence why phrases like “his akhi” are a whole mess of grammatically incorrect in both languages, because you’re basically saying “his my brother.”
it is also important to note that while akh and its various forms are sometimes used in colloquial settings when talking about one’s brother, it is a word that comes from and is used primarily in formal Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic), or fus7a. fus7a is used in a number of ways - you'll find it in the news, books, speeches, official documents, formal letters and whatnot and most importantly, in the Qur’an, from which it originates. but it's not used in everyday conversation. while the dialects share many basic similarities with formal Arabic, there are entire grammatical rules, words and conjugations in fus7a that don’t ever get used in colloquial Arabic. as such, akhi takes on several different meanings across the colloquial dialects that diverge from the literal meaning in fus7a. and even if someone is using it to speak about their actual brother, it's a pretty formal way to do so and it does not have the meaning you’re all ascribing to it. if you want an actual term of endearment, you’ll have to dig deeper.
and that's where i'll leave you to do your own research, because i’m not here to give you an Arabic lesson. that’s what WordReference and Reddit threads are for (just be on the lookout for bots).
but do yourself a favor and don’t just rely on those (and definitely do not go to Duolingo, i wouldn't trust AI with George Clooney's birthday, let alone the linguistic structure of an entire language). look up language guides and forums online. there’s actually some really good and reliable stuff out there from native speakers. fuck it, even Urban Dictionary is a better resource than wherever the first of you got the word akhi from - no, really, it actually contains several entries that define how it's used in certain contexts (none of which, you will find, include familial terms of endearment). and there are plenty of other Arab users on this site who have already talked about this and have provided detailed explanations of how it’s used in formal and dialectical Arabic. there are even entire blogs on tumblr that are dedicated to teaching Arabic. if you don't trust the internet, patronize your local library's language section (though they're unfortunately more likely to have books on just Modern Standard Arabic).
i promise you, however unapproachable internet and library databases might seem when it comes to learning languages, it is not as difficult to navigate as you think it is. the information is 100% there if you bother to look for it. and it’s free.
now, why am i making such a big deal out of this?
because if you actually gave a shit about writing Damian as explicitly and meaningfully Arab, you’d recognize that Arabic is not some accessory you can adorn your characters with however you like and hope no one notices you've put it on backwards.
Arabic is a real, living language that is used by real, living people every day.
and listen, i really don’t want to discount the good intentions so many of you have in using this word. i know that a lot of you using it aren’t intentionally using it incorrectly (or at least, i assume that’s the case), that you really just want to acknowledge what DC itself is shit at acknowledging. but i need you to understand that it is not enough. it's not enough to copy + paste from Google Translate and hope for the best.
the first and most important rules of linguistics will tell you that direct, literal translation is a discrepancy in and of itself. for example: if you put the Iliad or, idk, Proust through Google Translate, what came out would be pretty shitty and incoherent. it wouldn't entirely make sense. that’s why translation exists as a profession. to make sense of colloquialisms, grammar and diction that lack cross-language equivalents.
anyway, back to your good intentions: of course it sucks that many of DC’s writers tend to avoid meaningful engagement with the cultural backgrounds of the characters they write, particularly their characters of color.
of course it sucks that they tend fall into harmful stereotypes and tropes that could be avoided with just a little bit of intentional, respectful research. hell, they have the means to hire professional cultural and linguistic consultants if they wanted - they have absolutely no excuse.
and of course it sucks ass that many don’t treat Arab stories with care or compassion, especially considering that the very origins of the al Ghuls as DC villains are deeply rooted in the orientalist demonization of Asians and Arabs. that beyond that, they are also consistently whitewashed by both writers and fans alike. Damian and Talia in particular, when they are portrayed as morally good (and sometimes even when they’re not), tend to be drawn with lighter skin, which is a whole other level of fucked up. not to mention the majority of actors who have portrayed both Talia and Ra’s al Ghul are not Arab and, in fact, the only Arab actor to portray Ra’s al Ghul is Alexander Siddig (shoutout, by the way, to an absolute legend and cinematic treasure).
and before any of you folks crawl your way out of the woodwork to inform me that “actually, white and white-passing Arabs exist, you ignorant, uncultured heathen”, i’m just gonna cut you off at the pass here to let you know that i know. i should fucking hope i’d be aware of my own existence.
in all seriousness, though, wholistic representation of Arabs cannot center only those of us who are light skinned, white or white-passing. to do so stinks of Westerners’ tendency to fetishize, aestheticize and appropriate ethnic cultures while giving less than a rat’s ass about the people they come from, like a kind of cherry picked whitewashing, if you will. like, "it's okay to celebrate and take part in your culture, but if you do it while being dark skinned, you're either primitive and barbaric or some kind of noble savage." obviously, skin color has no bearing on the legitimacy of Arab heritage. but leaving dark skinned Arabs out of the picture erases the real and immense diversity of the Arab world. and it makes representation dependent on proximity to whiteness and palatability to white audiences, which is entirely antithetical to the whole point of representation.
yes, we need representation, too - Arabs are not a monolith. but the fact remains that dark skinned people of color are consistently underrepresented across the board - fans of color on this and other hellsites have been saying this for literal years. and if you don’t believe that’s true of DC comics, i'm sorry, but you haven’t been paying attention.
so, yeah. both the current canon and fanon, in many ways, leave a lot to be desired when it comes to representation. but that is exactly why diving headfirst into the now fandom-wide phenomenon of using akhi in your fanworks doesn’t actually do anything to counteract the harm done. frankly, because many of you have no historical, cultural or linguistic context for this and other words, it often exacerbates and replicates it.
and idk, maybe this all seems a bit over-the-top for a word that literally just means “my brother.” but because so many of you forego background research entirely and just parrot each other, the way you’re using it is harmful. because you’re completely disregarding all of that historical, cultural and linguistic context in favor of portraying what you perceive to be a more accurate Damian. which is especially damaging when many of you show no inclination or desire to examine just how enshrined racism and orientalism are in many canon and fanon portrayals of Damian or how your own headcanons might reinforce the stereotypes that fuel those portrayals.
Arabic is a heavily racialized language in the West. the choice to use it in your works as non-Arab creators is one you make in a world full of stigmatization for people, languages and cultures that do not meet standards of European whiteness. the fact that the maximum level of effort English speakers are barely required to put into including another language in their work is to open the most laughable language resource on the internet and copy + paste is indicative of the imperial system that requires the rest of the world to be multilingual while the majority of those for whom English is their first language hold fluency in only one.
multilingualism is far more common outside of Western centers of imperialism because the system in place is designed to keep it that way. and the West’s xenophobia ensures that we view it as a kind of liability, rather than the strength that it is. and on top of that, the racialization of certain languages further reinforces that xenophobia by wrapping them up in a mess of simultaneous fetishization and denigration. which is how you end up with the expectation that immigrants do the cultural, intellectual and emotional labor of bridging language barriers. in other words, writing something even as innocuous as “Damian missed his akhi” in your fanfiction because you saw someone else do it without doing any research of your own is a privilege of ignorance that native Arabic speakers do not have. i wouldn’t be surprised if more than half of you English speakers using it don’t even know how to pronounce it properly because you’ve never been forced to learn the phonetics, much less the alphabet, of a language that isn’t your own.
again, i understand where it’s coming from. i understand the impulse to expand upon what DC has given us and actually explore Damian’s cultural heritage. i understand the desire to do his Arab roots justice. i wish DC was better at the job they literally gave themselves, too. seriously, i get it.
but by not doing the research necessary to understand what you're putting in your fanworks, you’re just repeating the same irresponsible mistakes that DC’s writers make. and not only is that reductive of the Arab character you’re trying to honor, but from a viewer’s perspective, it’s indicative of a lack of creative integrity. it’s just sloppy writing. it says that you’re not actually committed to creating accurate or compassionate Arab representation with Damian. you just care about making him believably Arab to a primarily non-Arab audience. and continuing to do it even after being informed tells me you don’t actually give a fuck about Arabs or our representation because you don’t respect our language enough to learn how we actually use it.
and i hope i can trust you to know the difference between an honest mistake and willful ignorance, here. i completely understand if this is your first time learning about any of this. but again, all the information you could possibly want is available 24/7 on the very same device you’re using to write your fanfiction and create your fanart. you know, the one you’re using right now to read this post?
if you have the time to write a 100k word fanfic you have more than enough time to learn how the word akhi is actually used.
and if you did your research, you would see that there are so many actual, beautiful terms of endearment you could be using instead. Arabic has no shortage of them - there are so many i couldn’t possibly provide you with a full, comprehensive list of them all. but i will give you a tiny bit:
khayye is a Levantine term usually reserved for a close brother - i could actually see Damian calling Dick this and it means the same thing as akhi, just more affectionate. and of course, there are plenty of other terms in other dialects, but i’m not as familiar with those yet and really, you should do your own research. i also mentioned habibi before, which is a very popular term of affection and it’s often used casually even with strangers as it’s not strictly platonic or romantic, though i personally don’t believe Damian would use it towards his family, at least not frequently or without sarcasm (which is the best way to use it, imo).
and there’s also more poetic ones like 3ayouni (my eyes), hayati (my life), qalbi (my heart, though don’t get it confused with kelbi, iykyk), ruhi (my soul), najmi (my star), nouri (my light), azizi (my treasure/precious one). and hundreds of others that are dialect- and family-specific.
there is so much to work with that y’all have left virtually untouched. don’t be afraid to get creative! that’s what fanfiction is all about, right?
that said, if you do choose to use Arabic in your fan works, remember that language doesn’t exist in a vacuum. use it as a character study. use it to ask those questions DC doesn’t. like:
does Damian speak Arabic?
why does Damian speak Arabic? and what dialect(s) does he speak? because yes, there are regional and national dialects all over the place. don’t limit yourself in your research.
was Arabic the primary language he spoke back in the League? and if it was, how has living in Gotham, a predominantly English-speaking environment, changed his relationship with the language?
does he experience culture shock at all and how has that effected his experience of Gotham?
does he use it around his Gotham family? why or why not? does his Gotham family use it with him? why or why not?
does he have different terms of endearment for each of the people he cares about in his life? do they each have terms of endearment for him?
what does Talia call him? some of DC’s writers have her call him “my heart”, which i have written in romanized Arabic above. you’re welcome.
does he also speak any Chinese dialects? and what role does that play in his life and identity? you don’t have to focus on just his Arab roots. Damian’s heritage is a combination of multiple ethnic backgrounds - do better than DC and find ways to make your work reflect that. as a canonically mixed character, Damian and mixed readers like him deserve to have that respectfully represented. though, as per the main point of this post, please do some conscientious research before using any Chinese dialects.
what’s his favorite Middle Eastern dish? shoutout to that one artist i saw (whose name i can’t remember, i’m so sorry) who drew Damian and Jason sharing a pot of mjaddara, one of my personal favorite easy meals to cook when i’m missing home.
does he read any Arab poetry and who is his favorite poet? does he prefer the classic poets or the modern ones? i personally think he might enjoy Imru’ al-Qays but i’m biased because we had a cat named after him and i kinda like the idea of Damian being a fan of one of the most notoriously sappy and melodramatic romantic poets history has to offer.
has he been able to use Arabic around other Arabic-speaking folks in Gotham? and on that note, where are Gotham’s Arab populations from and what dialects do they speak?
endless avenues to explore!
or, you know, if you truly, madly, deeply do not give a single flying fuck (though if you’ve made it this far into my rant and still don't care, i'm... impressed?): how about you try this nifty thing i like to call not using Arabic in your work at all?
i can’t imagine you’re anywhere near your wits’ end if you’re using Google Translate as your linguistics consultant, but you know what takes even less effort? not using it. which is perfectly fine. you don’t have to delve deeper if you don’t want to. i’m not gonna hunt you down and force you to study Arabic grammar.
but using a language that isn’t your own, especially if English is your first and only language, comes with a responsibility to do it justice. no one is forcing you, dear English speaking fanfic writer/fanartist, to use a language you don’t speak. and i mean that quite literally. the world is already built to save you the inconvenience of having to speak other languages. so if you’re gonna go in, go all in. don’t needlessly embarrass yourself, habibi.
if doing any further research just seems a bit too daunting for you, remember that language isn’t the end-all-be-all of cultural ties. it can be a bridge, a connector, at times a vessel and often a reflection of culture. but culture is more than the language(s) tied to it. people and their relationships to their culture(s) are more than the languages they speak. it’s entirely possible to write meaningful Arab representation without using Arabic.
and let me be so, so clear: language is, for many reasons, a very important part of preserving, nurturing and restoring culture, particularly for the world’s Indigenous and diasporic communities, of which Arabs are a part. but it has also been weaponized against those very same communities by imperial and colonial powers. including a random Arabic word in your fanart or fic, the meaning of which you have only a vague understanding, is not the ultimate signifier of Damian’s Arab heritage some of you seem to think it is. and i know most of you just use it as a cute little nod to his cultural background in your headcanons, but it means nothing without the context behind it, especially the way i see it used with reckless - albeit mostly well-meaning - abandon.
honestly, it’s just really fucking annoying to see so many people constantly misuse your language and be unwilling to correct themselves. kinda feels like you’re losing your mind, sometimes. which is a bit how i feel making this post.
look, i’m not asking you to do college thesis level research on the Arabic language before you make the art you create for zero financial compensation in your own free time. that’s not what this post is about.
but i am asking many of you to examine why you want to have Damian or Talia or whoever speak Arabic in your non-Arabic fanworks in the first place. as non-Arab fans and creators, determine what preconceptions of Arabs you might hold, question why they’re there and where they come from and do your best to learn about how they might influence your portrayal of Arab characters like Damian. if you’re desperate for a jumping off point in that regard, i recommend checking out TV Tropes’s pages on the al Ghuls.
again, language doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it’s irresponsible to treat it like it does. if you want to make meaningful content of Arab characters, i encourage you to go out there and build your creative integrity by doing enough research to at least feel confident that you understand what you're putting in your fanworks.
and, lastly, if you do choose to use Arabic in your work, please use it with respect.
.
anyways here are some resources to start off with for anyone interested:
Free online dictionaries - Spanish, French, Italian, German and more. Conjugations, audio pronunciations and forums for your questions.
TV Tropes, the all-devouring pop-culture wiki, catalogs and cross-references recurrent plot devices, archetypes, and tropes in all forms of
Khallina – An open source website for teaching and studying Arab culture.
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Summary:
Dick Grayson and Hal Jordan’s former protégée have been successfully hiding their relationship from the Justice League for six months.
Then a Lantern-hunting siphon locks down the Watchtower with an alien assassin inside, half the League trapped, and two men who would rather fight an intergalactic war than admit their children are seeing each other.
Author’s Note:
Written for this request
DCAMU-inspired rather than strictly canon-compliant, featuring an older Nightwing who works regularly with the Justice League and a Lantern Reader who has long since earned her own sector.
The first indication that something had gone wrong was not the alarm.
The Watchtower sounded alarms often enough that most members of the Justice League had learned to distinguish between them without interrupting whatever they were doing. The two-note pulse that signaled an unidentified vessel near the station barely made Clark look up from the report floating above the conference table. The sharp descending tone for an unauthorized teleportation made Barry stop eating but did not convince him to put down the sandwich in his hand.
The first indication that something had gone wrong was the sudden absence of green light.
One moment, you were suspended several feet above the observation deck, using your ring to rotate a projection of the damaged Lantern outposts through the center of the room. The next, the construct vanished, the platform beneath your feet disappeared, and gravity remembered that the Watchtower had artificial floors.
You dropped.
Dick caught you before you hit the deck. His arm closed around your waist with practiced accuracy, and your hands landed against his shoulders as naturally as though the two of you had rehearsed the movement. There was no startled collision, no awkward attempt to recover your balance. Dick absorbed your weight, turned with the momentum, and lowered you onto your feet without loosening his hold until he was certain your knees would support you.
For one dangerous second, neither of you remembered the room was full. His eyes searched your face.
“You okay?”
The concern in his voice was too quiet and too immediate. You stepped out of his arms. “My ring went dead.”
Across the table, Hal Jordan had become very still. Bruce had not moved at all, which was worse.
Barry finally lowered his sandwich. “Dead as in temporarily unresponsive, or dead as in the most powerful weapon in the universe just became jewelry?”
You raised your hand. The ring sat dark against your finger. There was no answering current beneath your skin, no familiar pressure at the edge of your awareness. It felt heavier without the energy running through it, as though the metal had remembered it was only metal.
“Completely unresponsive.”
Hal crossed the room in three strides and caught your wrist. He turned your hand beneath the light, checking the ring as though external damage might explain the silence. His own ring shone steadily.
“That isn’t possible.”
“You’ve said that before,” you reminded him.
“Usually right before something explodes,” Barry said.
Hal ignored him. “When did you last charge?”
Dick answered before you could. “Four hours ago.”
Silence settled over the observation deck. You closed your eyes. Dick’s expression did not change, but you could feel the moment he realized what he had said.
Hal’s head turned slowly toward him. “How do you know that?”
Dick released a breath through his nose. “She mentioned it.”
“I did not,” you said.
There were times when lying to Hal was useful. There were other times when the lie was already dead and continuing to defend it only gave him something to dismantle.
Dick looked at you. You looked back. That silent exchange lasted perhaps half a second. It was still enough for Bruce’s attention to sharpen.
Hal released your wrist. “Why does Nightwing know your recharge schedule?”
“Because I pay attention,” Dick said.
“That did not answer the question.”
“It answered the question exactly.”
“Then I dislike the answer.”
The alarm began before Hal could ask anything else. This one was not subtle. Red light flooded the observation deck as the Watchtower’s emergency systems engaged, and a mechanical voice announced a stationwide lockdown. The viewing panels shuttered over the curved windows. The doors sealed simultaneously, cutting off the corridor beyond.
Clark abandoned the report. “Watchtower, identify the threat.”
There was no response. Bruce was already at the nearest terminal. His hands moved across the controls, but the display remained blank except for a single pulsing line of alien characters.
Victor stepped beside him and pressed one hand to the console. Silver circuitry spread from his fingertips across the dark screen. He jerked back immediately.
“Something’s in the system.”
“Malware?” Barry asked.
“Not exactly.”
Victor stared at his hand. The circuitry across his palm flickered an unhealthy violet before returning to blue.
“It reacted to me.”
Hal lifted his ring. A grid of green light swept across the room. “No biological signatures apart from ours.”
“The Watchtower has been compromised,” Bruce said. “The attacker may not be biological.”
A violent shudder moved through the station. The lights dimmed. Somewhere beyond the sealed door, metal screamed.
Your ring remained dark as Dick shifted closer to you, not enough for anyone unfamiliar with him to notice. You felt the heat of his shoulder near yours and resisted the instinct to lean into it. Six months of careful entrances, separate departures, and deleted messages, and Dick had given everything away because you fell three feet.
You should have been annoyed. Instead, a small, foolish part of you wanted to smile.
The Watchtower shook again. A seam of violet light appeared along the far wall. Bruce turned from the terminal. “Move.”
The wall ruptured.
Dick caught your arm and pulled you behind the conference table as shards of metal tore through the observation deck. Clark moved in front of the group, taking the worst of the debris against his body. Diana crossed her bracers, deflecting a concentrated beam that burned a black line through the ceiling.
Something stepped through the breach. It was humanoid only in the broadest sense. Long limbs folded from a narrow armored body, each joint bending in one direction too many. Its face was hidden behind a smooth silver plate. Violet circuitry moved beneath translucent sections of its armor like blood beneath skin.
Hal fired first. The construct struck the creature squarely in the chest and dispersed without leaving a mark.
The violet circuitry brightened. Hal’s ring flickered. “No,” he said.
The creature lifted one hand. Every screen in the room flashed with the same alien text.
Your ring burned suddenly against your finger, not with energy but with heat. You tore it off before it could sear the skin and caught it in your other hand.
Hal staggered as his construct collapsed. The creature was feeding on Lantern energy.
“Jordan, cut your ring output,” Bruce ordered.
“I noticed.”
The creature crossed the room with impossible speed.
Dick vaulted the table. One escrima stick left his hand, spinning end over end before it struck the side of the creature’s head. The impact did not injure it, but it altered its path long enough for Diana to meet it with her shield. The collision drove her backward.
Clark seized the creature from behind and carried it through the ruptured wall. Metal buckled as they vanished into the adjoining corridor.
Victor slammed his hand into the terminal again. “I can open the doors, but the system keeps rebuilding the lock.”
“How long?” Bruce asked.
“Longer if you keep talking to me.”
Barry vanished in a streak of red, circling the perimeter of the room. “No secondary exits. Shutters are reinforced. Air system is still running, which feels like good news.”
“It means the attacker wants us alive,” you said.
Dick landed beside you. “Any idea what it is?”
You watched the violet current still moving across the damaged wall. “Kharidian siphon technology.”
Hal’s attention snapped toward you. “That was destroyed.”
“The Corps destroyed the known prototypes.”
“That is not the same thing,” Bruce said.
Hal scowled. “Thank you, Batman.”
“You’re welcome.”
A burst of violet light filled the corridor. Clark flew backward through the wall and struck the floor hard enough to dent it. The creature followed, moving without hurry now that it understood the strength of everyone in the room.
Diana met it again. This time, when her sword cut across its shoulder, the armor opened. There was nothing beneath it but light.
The creature caught Diana by the throat and threw her across the observation deck.
Dick moved before she landed. He slid beneath a sweeping arm, drove one escrima stick into the open seam at the creature’s shoulder, and discharged the weapon.
Blue electricity crawled through violet circuitry. The creature convulsed.
“Again,” you shouted.
Dick struck the same point with his second stick. The damaged armor cracked further.
The creature turned toward Dick, and you had never hated the absence of your ring more as it reached for him. You caught a broken section of the conference table and swung it with both hands. The metal edge struck the opening Diana had made. Violet energy burst outward, throwing you and Dick in opposite directions.
Your shoulder hit the floor first. Pain tore down your arm. You rolled onto your back and saw the creature looming above you.
Then Hal was there. He formed a shield despite the way his ring flickered under the siphon’s pull. The creature’s hand crashed into the construct, driving Hal to one knee.
“Move!” he shouted.
You pushed yourself upright as the construct fractured. Dick appeared behind the creature and looped a cable around its throat. He planted both boots against its back and pulled, using his weight to drag its head away from Hal as the shield collapsed.
Bruce threw an explosive charge, and Dick released the cable and flipped clear a moment before it detonated inside the damaged shoulder joint. The blast tore one arm from the creature’s body. It made no sound. It only turned its silver face toward Bruce.
“Victor,” Bruce said.
“Working.”
“Work faster.”
“I’m going to install a mute function in your cowl.”
The Watchtower shuddered so violently that the artificial gravity failed. Everyone lifted from the floor.
The creature adapted instantly. Its remaining hand opened into hooked blades, which it drove into the ceiling. Dick had nothing to anchor himself with. He drifted toward the breach, momentum carrying him toward the corridor where exposed wiring spat violet sparks.
You kicked away from the table.
Without the ring, there was no controlled flight, only direction and force. You caught Dick around the middle as you passed him. He twisted in your grip, fired a grappling line toward the opposite wall, and caught both of you before you reached the breach.
The line went taut. Your injured shoulder screamed. Dick’s arm locked around you.
“Let go with that hand,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
You looked down. Blood had soaked through the shoulder of your uniform where a piece of metal had cut across it. You had not noticed the warmth spreading down your arm.
Hal had.
Even while bracing himself between the floor and ceiling with a green construct that looked increasingly unstable, he found enough breath to say, “Why is his hand under your shirt?”
Dick’s hand was not under your shirt. It was beneath the torn edge of your uniform, pressed over the wound to slow the bleeding.
“This is not the time,” you said.
“It is never going to be the time.”
Bruce caught the edge of the table with one hand. “Jordan.”
“What?”
“Priorities.”
“Your son’s hand is on my kid.”
You nearly lost your grip on Dick.
“I’m not your kid.”
“You were fifteen when I met you.”
“And I am not fifteen now.”
Dick adjusted his hold. “Also, not his son.”
Bruce looked at him, and Dick grimaced. “This is going great.” Above them, the creature pulled itself along the ceiling toward Hal.
Clark launched himself from the floor and drove both feet into its chest. With no gravity, the impact sent them spinning through the room. Diana caught the creature’s remaining arm in her lasso. Barry anchored the opposite end around a support beam.
“Victor,” Clark called.
The doors opened. Every unsecured object in the observation deck flew into the corridor as emergency decompression alarms joined the stationwide warning. The breach in the adjoining section had reached the outer hull.
Victor sealed the corridor again before the air could fully escape.
Gravity returned without warning. You and Dick dropped together. He turned beneath you, taking the impact against his back. The grappling line recoiled as soon as you hit the floor.
“Dick.”
“I’m good.”
“That sounded painful.”
“Occupational hazard.”
Hal stared at you both from the other side of the room. Dick’s arm was around your waist, your hand was spread across his chest, and his other hand remained pressed against your bleeding shoulder. There was no plausible version of professional concern left.
The creature slammed Clark into the floor.
Bruce threw another charge into its exposed chest cavity. “Containment bay three.”
Victor understood immediately. The doors behind the creature opened. Barry moved in a red blur, striking it from every direction too quickly for its sensors to follow. Diana used the lasso to pull its legs from beneath it. Clark seized the damaged torso and drove it backward through the open doorway.
Victor sealed the bay.
A violet hand struck the small observation panel from the other side. The reinforced glass cracked.
“That will not hold,” Diana said.
“It doesn’t have to,” Bruce replied. “The containment bay has an independent launch mechanism.”
Victor’s eye brightened. “You want to eject it.”
“It entered the station by accessing our systems. Remove it from the station.”
“I like this plan,” Barry said.
Victor merged with the terminal. The lights flickered across the observation deck, alternating between red and violet as the creature fought him for control.
Your ring pulsed once in your palm. The faintest green light appeared around its edge before violet static swallowed it again.
“It’s still drawing power,” you said.
Hal looked toward the containment bay. “From both rings.”
“The siphon is using the Watchtower as an amplifier. Launching the bay won’t stop it unless we separate the connection first.”
“How?”
You studied the circuit patterns moving across the sealed door. The technology was familiar in the way a scar was familiar. You had spent three months dismantling a Kharidian network after they tried to drain an inhabited planet’s electromagnetic field. Their systems did not distinguish well between energy sources once they had established a link. They consumed whatever they could reach and converted it into the same violet current.
“We overload it.”
Hal’s mouth tightened. “Absolutely not.”
Bruce looked between the rings. “Explain.”
“The siphon has adapted to Lantern energy. If Hal and I feed it everything at once, the system will exceed its conversion threshold.”
“And both rings shut down completely,” Hal said.
“Until we can reach Oa.”
“If the overload doesn’t kill you.”
Dick went still beneath your hand.
“It won’t.”
“You do not know that.”
“I know the technology.”
“You’ve seen a siphon after it consumed one ring, not two.”
You pushed yourself to your feet. Dick rose with you, his hand moving from your waist to your elbow when your injured arm trembled.
Hal noticed that too. His expression darkened.
“Stop touching her.”
Dick stared at him. “She’s hurt.”
“I can see that.”
“Then you should understand why I’m helping.”
“I understand more than you think.”
“Do you?”
“Dick,” you said.
“No, I’d actually love to hear this.”
The station shook again. Another crack spread across the containment bay window.
Bruce stepped between them without appearing to move. “You can discuss this after we survive.”
Hal pointed at Dick. “This conversation is not over.”
“I assumed that when you started it during an alien attack.”
The corner of Clark’s mouth twitched until Bruce noticed and Clark quickly looked away.
You slipped the ring back onto your finger. The metal was still hot, but the faint current had returned. Somewhere beyond the walls, the siphon was trying to force its way deeper into the station’s primary power systems.
Dick caught your hand. He did not care who saw this time.
“What are the odds?” he asked.
You looked at his fingers closed around yours.
The first time you met Dick Grayson, you had been nineteen, newly assigned to an Earth-based investigation and furious that the Justice League had sent someone without powers to supervise you.
He had smiled when you told him exactly what you thought of the arrangement.
Then he had disarmed three smugglers before your ring finished identifying the weapons in their hands.
You had spent four years pretending that the warmth low in your stomach whenever he stood too close was professional respect. Dick had spent most of those years finding reasons to stand closer.
Six months ago, he had kissed you on the roof of a Blüdhaven apartment building after a mission that should have killed both of you. Neither of you had mentioned Hal or Bruce until the following morning.
The secrecy had seemed sensible at first. Then it became fun.
Now Dick’s thumb moved over your knuckles, and there was no humor in his face.
“The odds,” he repeated.
“Good enough.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“You don’t like numbers when they’re honest.”
“I like them better than evasive Lantern bullshit.”
Hal inhaled sharply. “Watch your—”
“Hal.”
You did not raise your voice. You did not need to.
He stopped.
Dick lowered his forehead briefly toward yours, close enough that only you heard him.
“Come back to me.”
You squeezed his hand. “Always do.”
The containment glass broke, and Victor shouted a warning as the creature forced its remaining arm through the opening. Violet circuitry spread along the door and into the surrounding walls.
You and Hal raised your rings. Green light filled the observation deck.
For one breath, your ring felt alive again. Energy flooded your body, fierce and familiar, answering the shape of your will. Beside you, Hal built a construct around the containment bay: overlapping bands of green energy designed not to restrain the creature but to give it more power than it could process.
You joined him.
Your construct threaded through his, reinforcing every connection. The creature absorbed both streams immediately. Violet light swelled beneath its armor.
The pull struck you like a hook beneath the ribs, buckling your knees. Dick caught you from behind, one arm locked around your waist while the other braced your injured shoulder without touching the wound.
“Stay with me, baby.”
You forced more power through the ring. The creature expanded. Cracks spread across its armor as the violet circuitry brightened toward white.
Hal grunted beside you. His ring sparked.
“Now, Victor!”
The containment bay released. The outer wall separated from the station, carrying the creature into space. For a moment, the severed bay hung beyond the shuttered windows, visible only through the security feed that Victor had forced onto the damaged terminal.
The creature reached toward the Watchtower. The siphon link stretched between the station and the drifting bay, a twisting line of violet light.
You closed your fist.
Every remaining trace of power in your ring discharged at once. Hal did the same.
The feed turned white. Your ring went dark. So did everything else.
The Watchtower lost power completely.
In the sudden absence of artificial gravity, Dick’s arms tightened around you.
You heard Hal curse somewhere to your left.
Then the emergency systems restarted. Dim blue lighting replaced the red alarms, and the gravity returned at half strength. Everyone settled toward the floor as Victor restored essential functions one system at a time.
The security feed came back last, revealing that the containment bay was gone. Only a fading cloud of violet energy remained beyond the station.
Your legs gave out. Dick lowered you before you could fall. He knelt on the deck and pulled you back against his chest, his hand covering yours where the dead ring rested against your thigh. “Hey.”
You opened your eyes. His face was too pale.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“You like that about me.”
“I like other things more.”
Hal stood over the two of you. He looked exhausted, furious and frightened enough that the anger barely disguised it. His ring was as dark as yours. A thin burn circled the finger where the siphon had drawn power through the metal.
His gaze dropped to Dick’s arms around you. Dick met his stare, and nobody spoke until Bruce said, “Medical bay.”
The argument was postponed for eleven minutes.
That was how long it took to move from the observation deck to the nearest functional medical station, confirm that the creature had not left any secondary programs in the Watchtower’s systems, and convince Hal that having his ring examined did not constitute surrender.
You sat on the edge of an examination bed while a medical scanner passed over your shoulder. Your uniform had been cut away from the wound. The gash was long but shallow, requiring a sealant strip rather than stitches.
Dick stood between your knees, holding a compress against the injury while the automated unit prepared the sealant.
There were six other chairs in the room. He had not considered using one.
“You’re pressing too hard,” you said.
“You said that when I was barely touching it.”
“I was hoping you would become discouraged.”
“You know me better than that.”
You did, and that was becoming increasingly obvious to everyone else.
Hal occupied the opposite side of the room while Victor examined both rings beneath a suspended field. Bruce stood beside him, reviewing station diagnostics on a portable screen.
Neither of them was pretending not to listen.
Clark had left to inspect the exterior damage. Diana was coordinating repairs. Barry had announced that the tension in the medical bay was more dangerous than the assassin and escaped before anyone could assign him work.
The automated unit chimed, and Dick removed the compress, leaving his fingertips stained with your blood. Hal’s eyes fixed on them, making you nearly sigh. Dick noticed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t a nothing face.”
“You know my recharge schedule and my nothing face. Very impressive.”
His mouth curved. “I also know you keep emergency chocolate in the upper-left cabinet of your apartment and that you pretend not to like reality television.”
“I do not watch reality television.”
“You complained for twenty minutes when they eliminated your favorite contestant.”
“The judging was inconsistent.”
“Of course.”
Hal stepped away from Victor. “You have the access code to her apartment?”
The medical unit applied the sealant strip. You barely felt it.
Dick looked toward Hal. “Yes.”
“Why?”
You answered before he could. “Because we’re dating.”
The room became silent enough to hear the hum of the scanner. Dick’s eyebrows rose slightly. He had expected more preamble.
You were tired, injured, temporarily stranded without a functioning ring, and no longer interested in behaving as though loving him required an apology.
Hal stared at you. Bruce looked at Dick. Victor became deeply interested in the suspended rings.
“For how long?” Hal asked.
“Six months.”
“Six months.”
“Yes.”
“You have been seeing Batman’s son for six months.”
Dick glanced at Bruce. “This feels like a bad time to revisit the terminology.”
Bruce ignored him. “When?”
Dick turned back. “When what?”
“When did this begin?”
“Six months ago,” Hal said. “She just told us.”
“I am asking for the circumstances.”
“You want the date?”
“The location.”
Dick’s expression changed, and you recognized the exact moment he decided that honesty would be funnier.
“Roof of my apartment building.”
Hal looked at you again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
There was enough hurt beneath the question to drain the amusement from the room as you reached for the edge of the examination bed.
“Because you react like this when Dick holds pressure on a wound.”
“He had his hand under your uniform.”
“I was bleeding.”
“I know why his hand was there.”
“Do you?”
Hal folded his arms. The dark ring on his hand made him look strangely incomplete. You had known him without a uniform, without confidence, and once without memory, but you had rarely seen him without the constant green light accompanying his gestures.
“You think I object because he’s a Bat,” he said.
“I think you object because he’s Bruce’s.”
“I object because he is exactly charming enough to convince people he’s less dangerous than he is.”
Dick nodded thoughtfully. “That was almost flattering.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I heard charming.”
“You would.”
Bruce lowered the diagnostic screen. “Jordan is correct.”
Dick looked at him. “About me being dangerous or charming?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
You held out your uninjured hand. Dick gave you his without hesitation. His fingers settled between yours, blood cleaned away but his skin still warm.
Hal watched the movement. “It wasn’t supposed to stay secret this long,” you said.
Dick leaned his hip against the examination bed. “We were going to tell you.”
“When?” Bruce asked.
Dick considered it. “Eventually.”
“That is not a date.”
“We hadn’t selected one.”
“Because every time we considered telling you,” you said, “you and Hal were already arguing about something.”
“We do not argue that often,” Bruce said.
Hal turned toward him. “Last week, you called my patrol strategy reckless.”
“It was reckless.”
“It saved the eastern seaboard.”
“It endangered the eastern seaboard first.”
“You see the problem,” Dick said.
Bruce’s attention returned to him. “You concealed an operational conflict.”
Your temper sharpened. “Our relationship has never interfered with a mission.”
“You caught her instead of assessing the attacker,” Hal said.
“She was falling.”
“Three feet.”
“She didn’t have her ring.”
“She can survive a three-foot drop.”
Dick’s hand tightened around yours. “I know.”
The words were quiet. Hal stopped. Dick’s expression had lost its amusement again.
“I know what she can survive. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stand there and watch her hit the floor when I can catch her.”
You looked down at your joined hands.
For years, people had praised Lanterns for surviving. The Corps trained its recruits to function through vacuum exposure, radiation, torture, and isolation. Hal had taught you how to build a shield around a collapsing star before he taught you how to ask for help.
Dick had never been impressed by what you could endure. He cared about what you should not have to endure.
Hal saw something in your face, and his shoulders lowered by a fraction, although Bruce was less easily moved.
“You knew her ring was recently charged,” he said.
Dick nodded.
“You know where she stores personal items.”
“Yes.”
“You have access to her residence.”
“Yes.”
“Does she have access to yours?”
Dick glanced at you. “She has a key.”
“Two,” you corrected. “You gave me the spare to the loft.”
Bruce looked at Dick.
“The building key and apartment key are separate.”
“You also gave her access to the cave.”
“I did not.”
“You gave me your emergency code,” you said.
Dick closed his eyes. “Thanks.”
Hal’s head snapped toward Bruce. “She has access to the Batcave?”
Bruce’s stare turned glacial. “Apparently.”
“In fairness,” you said, “I haven’t used it.”
“That is not helping,” Dick murmured.
Victor detached himself from the rings and set them carefully onto the tray. “They’re intact.”
Everyone turned toward him as Victor continued, “The siphon burned out the active charge and damaged the internal conduits, but the rings should function once repaired and connected to a central battery.”
“How long?” Hal asked.
“Not something I can do here. You’ll need Oa.”
Hal exhaled. “Communications?”
“The station’s long-range systems are still offline.”
Bruce consulted the diagnostics. “The teleporters are damaged. Docking controls are inoperative.”
“So we’re stuck,” Dick said.
“For several hours,” Victor replied. “Possibly longer.”
Hal looked at your hand in Dick’s again.
“No.”
You stared at him. “No what?”
“No being alone together.”
Dick blinked.
You laughed before you could stop yourself. The sound pulled at your injured shoulder, but it was worth the pain for the offense on Hal’s face.
“You cannot be serious.”
“You concealed this for six months.”
“Because of exactly this reaction.”
“You have demonstrated that my reaction was necessary.”
Bruce returned his attention to the portable screen. “Their relationship has no bearing on the station repairs.”
Hal looked at him in disbelief. “You’re allowing this?”
“They are adults.”
Bruce considered that. “Reasonable.”
Hal stared at him. “Whose side are you on?”
“There are no sides.”
“You developed contingencies for me before you learned my middle name.”
“I still don’t know your middle name.”
“That is not the point.”
Dick leaned closer to you. “Would this be a bad time to mention I keep clothes at your apartment?”
Hal’s head turned sharply. “Grayson.”
Dick smiled at him. “Jordan.”
“You are not helping yourself.”
“I stopped trying ten minutes ago.”
Bruce turned back to the screen before anyone could determine whether the slight movement at the corner of his mouth was amusement.
The Watchtower required seven hours to restore basic docking systems.
The first two were spent repairing the breached observation deck and confirming the siphon had not transmitted its location to anyone else. The next three were occupied by an increasingly hostile attempt to rebuild the station’s communications network.
The final two involved Hal following you and Dick through every corridor with the determination of a man who had spent years patrolling entire sectors of space and had finally discovered a threat he could not punch.
You tried to be patient. For the first forty minutes.
“What does he call you?” Hal asked.
You looked over your shoulder. “What?”
“He used a nickname earlier.”
Dick became extremely interested in the relay.
“You are not getting a list of nicknames,” you said.
“That implies there is a list.”
Hal looked between you. “This has been happening for six months?”
“Longer,” Dick said.
You turned toward him as Hal froze. “Longer?”
“The dating has been six months.” Dick picked up the relay again. “The rest of this has been happening for years.”
You felt heat climb your throat. There were some aspects of your relationship that had never been spoken aloud in front of anyone else. The years of wanting each other were one of them, largely because Dick refused to call it pining and preferred to describe the four years before your first kiss as an extended tactical assessment.
Hal’s expression shifted. “You had feelings for her before you started dating.”
Dick looked at you, the amusement fading from his face and leaving something warmer. “Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“Hal,” you warned.
Dick answered anyway.
“Since she threatened to throw me off the Watchtower.”
“I did not threaten you.”
“You said the next time I touched your controls, I’d be taking the fast route to Earth.”
“You rerouted my patrol assignment.”
“You were overworking.”
“You did not know me well enough to decide that.”
“I knew you hadn’t slept in thirty hours.”
Hal looked at you. “You hadn’t?”
“That is not the relevant part.”
“It is to me.”
Dick’s voice softened. “She slept.”
You remembered waking in one of the Watchtower’s private quarters, your boots off, a blanket pulled over you, and Dick asleep in the chair beside the door. He had claimed he remained because the security system was malfunctioning.
You had believed him for almost ten minutes.
Hal studied Dick with new attention. It did not resemble approval. It was, however, less openly murderous.
“How long?” he asked again.
Dick returned to the damaged relay. “Four years.”
The answer settled inside you. You had known. Of course you had known. You knew the shape of Dick’s desire as intimately as you knew his body now. You knew the way his gaze lingered before he learned you wanted it to, the way every joke became gentler when he aimed it at you, the way he found reasons to contact your sector even when your assigned route was nowhere near Earth.
Knowing was different from hearing him admit it.
“You waited four years?” Hal asked.
“She’s intimidating.”
You threw a piece of insulation at him. He caught it without looking.
Hal’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Nightwing.”
“Very observant.”
“You fight assassins.”
“Yes.”
“You have gone into combat against Darkseid.”
“Didn’t enjoy it.”
“But asking her on a date was too dangerous.”
Dick finally looked at you. “You weren’t ready.”
The room quieted because you had not been. The Corps had given you responsibility before it taught you how to stop trying to earn your place. You had spent years measuring your worth through completed missions and sectors kept safe, convincing yourself that intimacy was merely another vulnerability hostile forces could exploit.
Dick had understood without forcing you to explain. He had waited until your hand lingered in his after a rescue. He had waited until you began visiting Blüdhaven without inventing a League-related excuse. He had waited until you kissed him first.
Hal knew enough of your history to understand what Dick meant. He looked away.
The stationwide communication system activated with a violent burst of static.
Victor’s voice followed. “Docking bay controls are online. Also, I can hear all of you, and Batman wants you on the command deck.”
Dick touched his comm. “How long have you been able to hear us?”
A pause.
“Long enough.”
“Delete the recording,” you said.
“What recording?”
“Victor.”
“I’m offended.”
“Delete it.”
“Already sent it to Flash.”
Hal strode toward the door. “I am going to dismantle him.”
Dick offered you his hand. You took it. Hal looked back. Neither of you released the other.
The command deck had survived with less damage than the observation level, although several consoles still displayed lines of alien text beneath Victor’s replacement interface. Bruce stood at the central terminal beside Clark and Diana. Barry occupied a chair several stations away, staring determinedly at a blank screen while failing to conceal his grin.
You pointed at him. “Delete it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Dick glanced at you. “That’s my line.”
“You don’t own it.”
“I use it the most.”
Bruce interrupted before Barry could contribute. “A Lantern vessel responded to the emergency beacon. It will arrive within twenty minutes.”
Hal’s relief was visible despite his attempt to suppress it. “Good.”
“They will transport both of you to Oa.”
You nodded. “Once the rings are repaired, I’ll return to my sector.”
Dick’s hand shifted around yours. The movement was small, but both you and Hal noticed it.
Bruce tapped the central display. A map of the damaged Lantern outposts appeared.
“The assassin’s navigation system retained three coordinates before it was destroyed. One corresponds to the outpost attacks. The others are outside mapped Corps territory.”
You stepped closer. “Kharidian space.”
“The Kharidian network is supposed to be gone,” Diana said.
“It was fragmented, not eliminated.” You studied the coordinates. “Someone rebuilt the siphon program using surviving technology.”
“And sent it to the Watchtower because you were here,” Dick said.
Hal’s expression hardened. “It tracked her.”
“The projection she was displaying included data from the attacked outposts,” Bruce said. “The program may have transmitted through the files.”
You felt a cold pressure settle beneath your ribs. “I brought it aboard.”
“You didn’t know,” Dick said.
“That doesn’t change what happened.”
“It changes the part where you blame yourself.”
Hal and Bruce looked at him simultaneously.
Dick sighed. “Could both of you stop doing that?”
“Doing what?” Hal asked.
“Looking at me like I’m trespassing every time I know something about her.”
Bruce’s gaze shifted toward you. “Does he often correct you?”
“He tries.”
“Does she listen?” Hal asked.
Dick laughed. You elbowed him. He caught your wrist before you could pull away and pressed a kiss to your knuckles.
The entire command deck witnessed it: Barry made a strangled noise, Clark briefly closed his eyes, and Diana smiled.
Hal pointed at Dick. “No.”
Bruce said nothing, and the silence carried more weight than Hal’s objection. Dick looked toward him. “You have something to add?”
Bruce’s attention rested on your joined hands before moving to Dick’s face. “No.”
The Lantern vessel arrived eighteen minutes later.
Two members of the Honor Guard boarded the damaged station, inspected your ring, and confirmed Victor’s assessment. The conduits required a direct connection to the central battery. Hal’s ring was in slightly better condition, which he found personally offensive.
Dick walked with you to the docking bay. Hal walked three paces behind.
The corridor lighting had returned to normal, but portions of the walls remained open where damaged panels had been removed. Repair drones passed overhead. Somewhere beneath the deck, heavy machinery worked to restore the primary life-support systems.
You slowed near the docking hatch. Dick stopped with you.
The Honor Guard continued toward the waiting vessel, giving you more privacy than Hal intended to.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” you said.
“That’s optimistic.”
“You dislike optimism now?”
“I dislike Oa’s sense of urgency.”
“You’ve never been to Oa.”
“I’ve dealt with enough bureaucracies to understand the universal principles.”
You smiled. “I’ll contact you once the ring is functional.”
“On our usual channel?”
“Unless you’d prefer Hal to listen.”
Behind you, Hal said, “I can still hear you.”
Dick did not look away from you. “Our usual channel.”
Your uninjured hand moved to his chest. The blue insignia beneath your palm was scratched from the fight. A tear in the material exposed a bruise forming along his ribs.
“You should have that looked at.”
“It’s fine.”
“You hit the floor hard enough to dent it.”
“The floor was already damaged.”
“Dick.”
His hand covered yours.
“I’ll get checked.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
You searched his face. He was lying.
“Bruce,” you called.
Dick’s expression changed. “Don’t.”
Bruce emerged from the adjoining corridor with Clark beside him.
You kept your eyes on Dick. “He has bruised ribs and took the full impact when we fell.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“That is not a medical clearance.”
Bruce approached. “Medical bay.”
Dick exhaled. “I already went.”
“For her injury.”
“I was examined by proximity.”
“That is not how medicine works,” Clark said.
Dick looked at him. “I liked you better when you were quiet.”
You rose onto your toes and kissed Dick before he could continue arguing. His hand slid around the back of your neck, deepening the kiss for one brief, hungry moment before the docking bay reminded both of you that there were witnesses.
When you drew back, his eyes had darkened.
“Tomorrow,” you murmured.
“Tomorrow.”
Hal made an impatient sound.
You kissed Dick once more because of it.
Then you followed the Honor Guard onto the vessel.
The last thing you saw before the hatch closed was Bruce directing Dick toward the medical bay while Hal attempted to decide which of them required closer supervision.
Oa restored your ring in six hours.
The work itself required twenty minutes. The remaining time was spent submitting reports to the Guardians, answering questions from the Corps’ science division, and refusing three separate requests that you surrender the ring for extended study.
You had been awake for forty-three hours by the time you returned to Earth.
The ring carried you through the atmosphere toward Blüdhaven, its energy once again settled beneath your skin. The familiar connection should have eased the restlessness that had followed you from the Watchtower.
Instead, the closer you came to Dick’s apartment, the more difficult it became to ignore how badly you wanted to see him.
You could have contacted him, but you didn’t.
You landed silently on the roof of his building.
The city spread around you in wet neon and reflected headlights. Rain had passed recently, leaving the rooftop slick and the air cold enough to bite through the thin places in your uniform.
The door to the stairwell opened. Dick stepped onto the roof wearing black sweatpants and nothing else.
Your ring translated the startled rhythm of his heartbeat before you dismissed the scan.
His torso was marked with bruises. Dark purple spread across his ribs and shoulder, with a smaller line near his hip where the harness had caught him during the gravity failure. You stared at the damage.
Dick followed your gaze. “It looks worse than it is.”
“You were supposed to get checked.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Bruised ribs. Nothing broken.”
“That is not nothing.”
“I learned from Batman.”
You crossed the distance between you and caught his face between your hands. He smiled just before you kissed him. Dick’s arms closed around your waist and lifted you against him. Your ring flared instinctively, creating a thin green shield beneath his feet when he slipped on the wet rooftop. He laughed against your mouth, and the sound broke something open inside you.
You kissed him harder. His hand slid into your hair, angling your head while his mouth moved over yours with six months of familiarity and one night of restrained fear. You felt his relief in the way he held you, too tight around your waist despite the bruises along his ribs.
You drew back enough to breathe.
“You’re hurting yourself.”
“Worth it.”
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“Dick.”
“You were gone too long.”
“I told you Oa was slow.”
“You said you’d be back tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow.”
“It’s nearly midnight.”
“Still tomorrow.”
His mouth found the side of your neck. You tilted your head before you could pretend otherwise. He kissed the sensitive place beneath your ear, then dragged his mouth lower until his teeth grazed your pulse.
Your fingers tightened against his shoulders.
His grin softened as his gaze moved over your face, the humor fading. “You’re really okay?”
You understood what he was asking. The medical scan had been clean. The ring had been repaired. Your shoulder no longer hurt beneath the healed fabric of your uniform. None of that answered the question.
You rested your palm against his cheek. “I’m okay.”
Dick closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, the fear was still there, but quieter.
“I hated watching your ring go dark.”
“I hated watching that thing reach for you.”
“I had it handled.”
“You were drifting toward an exposed hull.”
“Strategic repositioning.”
“You are impossible.”
“You like that about me.”
You kissed him again. He carried you toward the stairwell without setting you down. The door swung open before he reached it, held by a green construct you created over his shoulder.
“Show-off.”
“You climbed the stairs with bruised ribs.”
“The elevator is slow.”
“You could have waited inside.”
“I knew you were coming.”
“You did not.”
“I hoped.”
The honesty quieted you.
Dick carried you down one flight and through the door into his loft. The apartment was dim except for the city light entering through the windows. An abandoned mug sat on the coffee table beside two tablets, one of them displaying a League incident report. Your spare uniform was folded over the back of the couch where you had left it three weeks earlier.
Your boots touched the floor, but Dick did not release you. His forehead rested against yours.
“You could stay here while your sector has temporary coverage.”
“You mean tonight?”
“I mean longer.”
Your breath caught as Dick’s thumb moved along your cheek. “You already have a key. Half your things are here. You complain about my kitchen and reorganize my medical supplies whenever you visit.”
His hand dropped to your waist. “I’m saying you don’t have to keep pretending this is temporary.”
You stared at him. The relationship had never felt temporary. It existed between missions and beyond them, woven through his patrol schedule and your sector rotations. You knew which nights he woke from dreams he would not describe. He knew when silence meant you needed company and when it meant you needed space. You had built something serious while refusing to name its shape.
Perhaps hiding from Hal and Bruce had given you an excuse not to.
“You want me to move in?”
“I want you here.” Dick’s mouth curved faintly. “The logistics can be negotiated.”
“My sector is several thousand light-years away.”
“You commute fast.”
“I can’t store a power battery in your closet.”
“We’ll move the shoes.”
“You have more shoes than I do.”
“That is not relevant.”
“It becomes relevant when they occupy an entire wall.”
“We’ll build another wall.”
You laughed, and Dick’s expression softened with relief. “Yes.”
He went still. “Yes?”
“Yes. I want this too.”
His kiss nearly drove you backward into the door. You caught his waist, careful of his ribs, while he cupped the back of your head and kissed you until every remaining thought of Oa and damaged rings dissolved beneath the pressure of his mouth.
The green light around your uniform flickered. Dick pulled back. “I like where this is going.”
“You like anything involving that uniform disappearing.”
“I like the uniform.”
“You complain about it constantly.”
“It has no convenient zippers.”
“It is created by the ring.”
“My point exactly.”
You dismissed the uniform. Green light swept over your body, replacing the armored fabric with the clothing you had worn beneath it: a thin black tank top and underwear designed to remain comfortable during long patrols.
Dick looked down, his hands tightening on your waist. “I love alien technology.”
“You said that about the shower last month.”
“I contain multitudes.”
You slid your hands over his bare chest, carefully tracing the spaces between the bruises. His stomach tightened beneath your fingertips.
“You should be resting.”
“I was.”
“You were reading reports.”
“I was in bed.”
“With a tablet.”
“Technically resting.”
You pressed your mouth to the bruise near his collarbone. His breath caught. The mark darkened the skin above his heart. You kissed its edge, then moved lower, following the spread of purple across his ribs without pressing enough to hurt.
Dick’s fingers entered your hair.
“You’re trying to distract me from making you rest.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
You kissed the center of his chest.
“Liar.”
“Terrible one.”
His hand tightened gently at the back of your neck.
You lowered yourself to your knees. Dick stared down at you. The humor left his face with startling speed. “Baby.”
The nickname made warmth gather low in your stomach. Hal had heard it once in the chaos aboard the Watchtower, but here, inside the apartment that was becoming yours as well, it belonged only to the two of you.
You hooked your fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants.
“You caught me when my ring failed.”
“I’d catch you anyway.”
“I know.”
You pulled the fabric down. His cock was already hard, springing free against his stomach. Dick inhaled when your hand wrapped around him, his head tipping back as you stroked slowly from base to tip. He was warm and heavy in your palm. A bead of precum gathered at the head, and you spread it with your thumb before leaning forward.
The first touch of your tongue made his hips jerk. You smiled against him.
“Careful,” you murmured. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
“You’re cruel.”
“You like that about me.”
“Starting to reconsider.”
You took him into your mouth. Dick’s hand flexed in your hair, not forcing, only holding as you drew him deeper. His breath broke above you. You hollowed your cheeks and worked your tongue along the underside of his cock, listening to every quiet sound he failed to suppress.
He had been restrained since the rooftop, careful with your shoulder and his ribs, speaking around the fear that still lingered after the Watchtower.
You wanted that control gone. You took him deeper until the head pressed against the back of your throat.
“Fuck.”
His hips moved instinctively. You swallowed around him.
Dick’s free hand caught the edge of the table beside him. His knuckles whitened as you pulled back, letting your lips drag slowly along the length of his cock.
He looked down at you. His eyes were dark and unfocused, the blue nearly swallowed by black.
“You have any idea what you do to me?”
You licked the tip. “Four years, apparently.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You waited.”
“You were worth waiting for.”
The tenderness in his voice struck harder than desire.
You took him into your mouth again before he could see too much in your face.
Dick groaned. His hand guided your rhythm now, fingers tangled in your hair while you worked him with your mouth and hand together. Saliva gathered at the base of his cock. You felt his thighs tense beneath your palms, his breathing becoming rougher with every stroke of your tongue.
Then his hand pulled you away. You frowned up at him. “Why?”
“Because I’m not finishing like this.”
“You seemed close.”
“I was.”
“That was generally the intention.”
Dick caught your chin and drew you to your feet. He kissed you with no concern for the taste of himself on your mouth. His tongue swept between your lips, one hand sliding down your back to cup your ass through your underwear.
“You came home after nearly dying,” he murmured against you, “agreed to move in with me, and immediately got on your knees.”
“You are welcome.”
“I haven’t thanked you yet.”
Before you could ask what he meant, his arm moved beneath your thighs.
You caught his shoulders before he could lift you. “Your ribs.”
“Ring,” Dick said.
You stared at him until he glanced pointedly toward your hand.
“You want me to carry myself.”
“I was thinking of it as assistance.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
Dick smiled. “You love me.”
The words came so easily that neither of you reacted at first. Then Dick’s expression changed as he realized what he had said. He had told you he loved you through his actions so often that the admission should not have felt new, but he had never said it directly.
His arms remained around you.
“I do,” he continued, quieter now. There was no joke waiting behind the admission and no charm to soften its vulnerability. “I love you.”
You touched his face. “I love you too.”
His answering smile was small and almost disbelieving.
Then your ring lifted both of you from the floor. Dick laughed as the construct carried you through the loft and toward the bedroom. He kept his arms around you despite no longer supporting your weight, kissing every part of your face he could reach until you dismissed the construct above the mattress.
You landed together. Dick rolled carefully, avoiding his injured side as he settled over you. The city light painted his shoulders in pale lines. You traced one of them before pulling his mouth back to yours.
His hand slid beneath your tank top. He cupped your breast, thumb moving over your nipple until it tightened beneath his touch. You arched into him. Dick pulled the shirt over your head and lowered his mouth to the newly exposed skin.
His lips closed around one nipple. The first slow pull sent heat down your stomach.
You tangled your fingers in his hair while he moved between your breasts, licking and sucking until your breathing became uneven. His hand traced the line of your ribs, gentler where bruises would have formed if the uniform had not absorbed the worst of the impacts.
“You sure you’re not hurt anywhere else?” he asked.
“You intend to inspect everything?”
“Thoroughly.”
“That sounds inefficient.”
“I have time.”
His mouth moved down your stomach. You lifted your hips as he hooked his fingers into your underwear. Dick dragged the fabric down your legs and tossed it toward the chair without looking.
He settled between your thighs. The sight of him there made your stomach tighten. His hair was already disordered from your hands. The bruises along his side remained visible, incongruous with the hunger in his expression.
Dick pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee and then another higher, taking his time as his mouth traveled along your inner thigh while his hands held your legs open, thumbs stroking your skin whenever your muscles tensed beneath them.
“Dick.”
“Patience.”
“I crossed several thousand light-years.”
“Then a few minutes won’t hurt.”
“You objected when Oa said that.”
“Oa wasn’t about to put its mouth on you.”
You laughed, and Dick used the distraction to lick through your folds.
The sound broke into a gasp. His tongue moved slowly from your entrance to your clit. He circled it once, watching your reaction, then repeated the movement with more pressure.
Your thighs tightened around his shoulders when Dick hummed against you, the vibration lifting your hips from the mattress.
He pressed one hand across your lower stomach and held you down while his mouth worked over you. His tongue alternated between slow, deliberate strokes and tighter circles that left you unable to settle into any rhythm.
You had missed this.
Not merely sex, although the ache building inside you had become difficult to separate from everything else. You had missed the privacy of his bedroom, the familiar scrape of his sheets against your skin, the way Dick touched you as though pleasure deserved his full concentration.
His fingers traced your entrance. You spread your legs wider.
“Please.”
Dick lifted his head, his mouth shining. “What do you need, baby?”
“You know.”
“I want to hear you.”
You glared at him. His fingers pressed lightly against you without entering.
“Dick.”
“Use your words.”
“I need your fingers.”
His smile was devastating. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
He pushed one finger inside you. Your head fell back against the pillow.
Dick watched your face as he began to move, curling his finger until he found the place that made your stomach tense. He added a second finger and lowered his mouth to your clit again.
The combination stole the breath from your lungs. You caught the sheets in one hand. The other reached for Dick, fingers closing around his hair while he pumped his fingers into you with a steady rhythm.
“More.”
He sucked your clit into his mouth. You cried out.
Green light flared across the ceiling, and Dick glanced upward without stopping. “Show-off.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
His fingers moved faster. The pressure built too quickly. You tried to hold it back, wanting more time beneath his mouth, but Dick knew every sign of your approaching orgasm. He pressed his fingertips harder against the sensitive place inside you and flattened his tongue over your clit.
Your body tightened. The ring projected a burst of green light through the room as you came.
Dick worked you through it, his mouth gentling only when your thighs began to tremble around him. He withdrew his fingers slowly and kissed the inside of your leg while you struggled to breathe.
“You nearly made a construct,” he said.
You covered your face with one hand. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.”
Dick moved up the bed. You reached for him before he could settle beside you, pulling him over you until his weight pressed you into the mattress. He braced himself on his forearms to protect his ribs.
His cock slid against your wet entrance. Both of you stilled.
You hooked one leg around his waist. “Dick.”
He kissed you as the head of his cock pressed inside. Your body stretched around him slowly. Dick’s forehead dropped to yours, breath uneven as he pushed deeper one careful inch at a time.
You held his shoulders. He filled you completely and stopped. The stretch bordered on overwhelming after weeks apart, but the discomfort softened quickly beneath the pleasure of having him inside you again. You moved your hips experimentally.
Dick made a strained sound. “Don’t.”
“You stopped.”
“I’m trying not to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
“You say that every time.”
“You ask every time.”
“I’m going to keep asking.”
You touched his cheek. “I know.”
Dick withdrew nearly to the tip and thrust back inside. Your mouth opened against his.
He began slowly, each movement controlled despite the tension across his shoulders. His cock dragged against every sensitive place his fingers had already awakened. You tightened your legs around him, pulling him deeper.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
“Harder.”
His eyes searched yours. You lifted your hips to meet him. “I’m not injured.”
“Your shoulder.”
“Is healed.”
“My ribs.”
“Are your problem.”
He laughed breathlessly. “Compassionate.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
You pinched his side. Dick caught your wrist and pinned it beside your head.
His next thrust drove you into the mattress. The change in pace tore a cry from you.
“There,” you gasped.
“I know.”
He did. Dick adjusted the angle and fucked you harder, his hips striking yours with enough force to shake the bed. The restraint disappeared from his movements. His hand remained around your wrist while the other gripped your thigh and drew it higher against his side.
You felt every inch of him.
The room filled with the wet sound of his cock moving inside you, the uneven rhythm of your breathing and the occasional creak of the mattress beneath you.
Dick lowered his mouth to your throat. “You scared me,” he said against your skin, the confession emerging between rough, breathless thrusts.
“I know.”
“Couldn’t get to you.”
“You did.”
“Your ring went dark.”
“I’m here.”
His teeth caught gently against your pulse.
You turned your face toward him. “Dick.”
He lifted his head.
“I came back.”
Something fierce and vulnerable moved through his expression. Then he kissed you as though he could press the truth into both of you.
His thrusts became faster. The head of his cock struck the place inside you that made your legs shake. You tightened around him, already too sensitive from his mouth.
Dick felt it. “Close?”
You nodded.
His hand released your wrist and slid between your bodies. His fingers found your clit. The first firm circle made you cry out his name.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Let me feel you.”
Your ring brightened. Green light flowed over the bedframe, forming thoughtless shapes that vanished before becoming complete. Dick watched the constructs flicker across the walls.
“You’re losing control.”
“You’re distracting.”
“Good.”
He fucked you through the rising pressure, fingers moving in time with every thrust. Your body tightened around him. The pleasure sharpened until it became almost unbearable.
“Dick.”
“I’ve got you.”
You came around his cock, your back arching beneath him. The ring filled the room with green, and for one vivid second a flock of glowing birds swept across the ceiling before dissolving into sparks.
Dick groaned as your walls clenched around him. His rhythm broke.
“Where?” he asked.
“Inside.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He thrust twice more, deep and uneven, then pressed fully into you as he came. You felt the warmth of him spill inside, his body trembling above yours while he buried his face against your neck.
For several moments, neither of you moved. Dick’s breathing gradually slowed. Your hand drifted through his hair. The green light faded until only the ring itself glowed against the sheets.
Dick lifted his head.
“Birds?”
You closed your eyes. “Do not.”
“You made birds.”
“I was distracted.”
“They looked like robins.”
“I will throw you out the window.”
“Robin-shaped constructs. You’re obsessed with me.”
“You waited four years.”
“Worth it.”
He kissed you softly. When he shifted, you felt his cock move inside you and tightened instinctively around him.
Dick stopped. His eyes darkened again. “You did that on purpose.”
“I did not.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
You smiled.
He remained inside you as he rolled carefully onto his uninjured side, taking you with him. You settled against his chest with one leg draped over his hip.
“We should clean up,” he said.
“In a minute.”
“You hate sleeping like this.”
“I didn’t say I was sleeping.”
Dick’s hand moved slowly down your back. “Stay like this for a minute?”
“You should be resting.”
“I am resting.”
“You have bruised ribs.”
“And you’re being very careful with them.”
You kissed the bruise beneath his collarbone. His fingers traced slow circles over your hip.
“Hal and Bruce are coming tomorrow,” you said.
Dick groaned. “Of course they are.”
You settled back against him.
Your ring gave a soft pulse. A message appeared inside your thoughts.
Jordan: STATUS.
You sighed.
Dick felt it. “What?”
“Hal.”
“Already?”
“He wants a status update.”
Dick’s mouth curved.
“Tell him you’re in bed.”
“He will come here tonight.”
“Tell him you’re asleep.”
“He’ll know I’m lying.”
Dick considered the problem. Then he reached for your ring hand and brought it between you.
“Can he receive images?”
You narrowed your eyes. “Dick.”
“Nothing explicit.”
“That qualification is not reassuring.”
He settled more fully against the pillows and closed his eyes.
“Send him proof I’m resting.”
“You are not resting.”
“I’m horizontal.”
“You are still inside me.”
“He doesn’t need that part.”
Your face heated. Dick laughed quietly. The movement made his cock shift, and both of you inhaled.
You sent Hal a deliberately narrow image of Dick lying against the pillow with his eyes closed, one bruised shoulder visible at the edge of the frame.
Three seconds passed.
Jordan: WHY ARE YOU IN HIS BED?!?!
You turned the message so Dick could see it through the ring. He smiled.
“Tell him logistics.”
“I hate both of you.”
“You love one of us.”
You sent the reply.
You: Batman identified a logistical requirement.
The ring remained silent for almost a full minute. Then another message appeared.
Jordan: I AM GOING TO KILL HIM.
Dick kissed your forehead.
“See? He’s not even mad at me anymore.”
Bruce and Hal arrived at ten the following morning.
Dick was awake before the knock. You knew because his arm tightened around your waist beneath the blankets, though he kept his eyes closed as though denying consciousness might make them disappear.
“Grayson,” Hal called.
“No,” Dick answered without opening his eyes.
Bruce’s voice came from the living room. “Your secondary window lock is inadequate.”
Dick’s eyes opened.
The bedroom door followed a moment later, and your shield formed across the doorway before Hal could enter.
“You’re naked.”
Dick pulled the blanket higher over both of you. “What gave it away?”
Bruce stood behind Hal, already dressed for the day and entirely unsurprised by the construct blocking the entrance. His gaze moved from your face to Dick’s, then to the unfamiliar clothing scattered across the floor.
“Your uniform is functional,” he said.
You glanced toward the chair where it had landed.
“Yes.”
“The ring?”
“Fully repaired.”
Hal pushed against the shield. It did not move.
“You stayed here all night.”
You stared at him. “I am an adult.”
“That is becoming a very repetitive defense.”
“It remains accurate.”
Bruce stepped closer to examine the construct blocking the doorway. His attention shifted briefly toward your discarded uniform and the ring glowing on your hand.
“If this is going to become her primary residence on Earth, you will require a secure battery chamber,” he said.
Hal stopped pushing against the shield. The room went quiet. You looked at Dick. Dick looked back. Neither of you had told them.
Hal slowly turned toward Bruce. “Why would she need a battery chamber here?”
Bruce regarded him in silence.
Hal’s gaze snapped back to you. “You agreed to move in with him?”
Dick pulled you closer beneath the blanket. “We’re still discussing the logistics.”
“You cannot move in here.”
“I maintain a residence on Oa and quarters in my sector,” you said.
“Then you have enough homes.”
“That is not how homes work.”
“The existing structure cannot safely contain a power battery discharge,” Bruce continued.
Dick’s mouth curved. “Are you offering to renovate?”
“I am identifying a vulnerability.”
“Which you intend to correct,” you said.
Bruce’s silence was answer enough.
Hal stared at him. “Stop encouraging this.”
“A Lantern battery stored in Blüdhaven requires adequate security.”
“It does not require storage in Blüdhaven.”
“I think it does,” Dick said.
Hal looked at him. Dick looked back, unbothered. Then Hal’s gaze dropped briefly toward the shape of your bodies beneath the covers. His expression changed. “Is he—”
“Do not finish that question,” you said.
Bruce turned away. Dick buried his face against your shoulder, laughing silently.
Hal pointed at the bed. “This is exactly why I said no to being alone together.”
“You do understand that your opinion did not become legally binding,” you said.
Hal turned on Bruce. “He is provoking me.”
“He does that.”
“You’re his father.”
“Not according to him.”
Dick looked over the edge of the blanket. “You really held onto that.”
Bruce ignored him.
Hal released his construct. “I want to speak with her alone.”
“No,” Dick said.
The answer came too quickly. The humor left the room.
Hal’s expression hardened. “I was not asking you.”
“I know.”
You placed a hand against Dick’s chest, and he looked at you. “I’ll be fine.”
His jaw tightened. You understood the fear beneath it. Yesterday, he had watched your power disappear. He had watched Hal challenge your choices as though your relationship were something requiring defense.
You kissed his shoulder. “Give me a minute. I’ll talk to him.”
Dick searched your face before nodding. He pulled on the sweatpants beside the bed, then stepped through the shield to join Bruce. Hal retreated into the living area while the two of them stopped at the kitchen counter across the loft.
You dismissed the barrier only after pulling on Dick’s discarded shirt and a pair of shorts.
Hal looked at the shirt when you emerged from the bedroom.
You walked past him toward the windows. He followed you to the far end of the loft, where the windows overlooked the narrow streets below. Bruce and Dick remained in the kitchen, examining the wall where a battery chamber could theoretically be installed.
Hal folded his arms. You waited.
He looked older without the bravado he had worn on the Watchtower. The repaired ring glowed steadily on his hand, but exhaustion remained in the lines around his eyes.
Hal asked about the things that mattered: whether Dick respected your work, understood that the Corps could call you away without warning, and accepted that duty sometimes had to come first. The answers seemed to ease something in him, although the final question took him longer to ask.
“Are you happy?”
You looked toward Dick again. He had finished arguing with Bruce and now stood with one hip against the counter, pretending not to watch you and Hal from across the loft.
“Yes,” you said. “I am.”
Hal exhaled. “All right.”
You blinked. “All right?”
“I didn’t say I approve.”
“You said all right.”
“I said I understand.”
“That sounds dangerously close to approval.”
“Don’t tell him.”
Dick called from the kitchen, “I heard that.”
Hal raised his voice. “No, you didn’t.”
Dick smiled.
Bruce closed the medical cabinet. “The wall behind the storage unit can support a reinforced chamber.”
Hal stared at him. “You’ve been planning renovations while I was having an emotional conversation?”
“I assessed the structure.”
“You encourage him.”
“He does not require encouragement.”
“That may be the first intelligent thing you’ve said.”
Dick started across the loft toward you, but Hal stepped into his path before he could reach you. Dick stopped, and you gave Hal a pointed look.
He remained there for one stubborn second before moving aside.
Dick came to stand beside you. His hand found the small of your back beneath the hem of his shirt.
Hal watched it happen. His eye twitched, but he didn’t object.
Bruce opened the apartment door.
“I’ll send the specifications.”
“For the battery chamber?” Dick asked.
“For the window locks.”
“You broke through them.”
“They were inadequate.”
“You are the threat model.”
Bruce looked at you. “The cave access code will be updated.”
Dick frowned. “Why?”
“She should have a personal code rather than yours.”
You stared at Bruce as Hal made an outraged sound and Bruce left without another word. Dick slowly looked toward you.
“That was definitely a blessing.”
Hal followed Bruce into the hallway. “It was not a blessing.”
“You didn’t threaten me once,” Dick called.
Hal turned back. A green fist appeared beside his shoulder.
Dick shut the door. The construct struck the other side hard enough to rattle the frame.
You looked at him, and Dick grinned. “You’re going to make this difficult.”
“He was starting to like me. I panicked.”
“You provoked a Green Lantern while half-dressed and injured.”
“Bruised,” he corrected.
You caught his face between your hands. The grin softened.
“What?” he asked.
“You told me you loved me.”
His arms slid around your waist. “I did.”
“You asked me to move in.”
“You said yes.”
“Bruce is building a battery chamber in your apartment.”
“Our apartment.”
Warmth spread through you.
“Our apartment,” you repeated.
Dick laughed softly and kissed you.
There was no alarm, no failing gravity and no one watching from the other side of a conference table. Only his mouth against yours, his hands beneath the shirt you had stolen and the steady green light of your repaired ring.
Your ring gave a soft pulse.
Jordan: I CAN STILL HEAR GRAYSON LAUGHING FROM THE HALLWAY.
You smiled against Dick’s mouth.
“What?” he murmured.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t a nothing face.”
You dismissed the message and pulled him closer.
This time, when he caught you, there was no one left to ask why.
synopsis: A civillian loving a vigilante always ends in a deficit. Trapped in the crossfire of an old vendetta, you are forced to pay the price for Jason's double life. But as you shrink away from the bloody armor of Red Hood, the mask slips, revealing a guilt ridden face face of the man who promised nothing bad would ever happen to you
The first thing that returned to you was the taste. The bitter, synthetic chemical, coating the back of your throat and making your tongue feel thick and heavy.
When you finally managed to drag your eyelids open, the familiar comfort of your apartment was gone. There was no lingering scent of the vanilla candle, or the soft hum of the refrigerator, or the reassuring rustle of Jason's leather jacket draped over the couch. Instead, the air was thick with the stench of the heavy industrial grease and old flaking rust.
You tried moving your hands to rub the burning sensation from your eyes, but your arms wouldn't budge. Sharp pain flared in your wrists. You were sitting on a cold, damp rusted metal chair, your arms pinned roughly behind. You can feel the thick, industrial zip-ties dug directly into your skin, cutting off the circulation until your fingers felt numb.
The space around you was massive. An abandoned warehouse swallowed by dark shadows. The only light in the entire building came from a single, harsh halogen spotlight positioned directly above your head. It beamed down with blinding intensity, trapping you inside a circle of light while the rest of the world remained pitch black.
You tried to take a deep breath to call out, to scream for help, to ask for Jason, but your lungs felt heavy, still reeling from whatever had been on that cloth in your kitchen.
"Oh, would you look at that," A voice rasped from the darkness just beyond the harsh ring of light. It was a high and theatrical sound that made the hairs on your arms stand up instantly. "The audience is awake! And right on time for opening night."
Slow footsteps clicked against the cold concrete, getting closer to where you were tied up. Your heart violently hammered against your ribs, a frantic thudding that echoed in your ears as a figure stepped into the light. He was exactly as the news broadcast had described him. He wore a tailor-made purple suit, a garish green silk tie, and a flower pinned to his lapel. His face, however, is what made your breath get stuck in your throat. His skin was painted a bleached white, contrasted by bruised circles around his manic eyes and a jagged red grin carved so wide across his face it looked like an open wound.
The Joker.
In his right hand, he swung a heavy, full-sized iron crowbar. The metal rang out with a sickening clang each time the tip tapped against the concrete floor.
"You know, Jaybird must think you're soft," The Joker spoke, his voice dropping into a whisper as he leaned down. The sharp scent of cheap hair dye and chemical cosmetics filled your senses. He reached out, tapping the cold, jagged tip of the crowbar right beneath your chin, forcing your head up until you were staring directly into the madness of his eyes. "He really thought keeping you tucked away in Crime alley would hide you. But I love a good sequel, don't you? I think you're going to break beautifully."
You pulled away from the metal tool, your teeth chattering from sheer terror and the cold spreading through the warehouse. Your mind was racing, desperate and completely confused. Why was the joker here? Why did he care about Jason? Jason was just a civilian. He worked odd jobs. None of what's happening made sense.
"He'll find you," You choked out, your voice sounding small against the vastness of the empty room. "Jason will call the police. The Bat… Batman will find you."
The joker froze for a fraction of a second, the manic grin vanished, replaced by a terrifyingly vacant expression. Then, he threw his head back and laughed. It was a ridiculously loud sound that echoed off the walls of the warehouse, bouncing back at you until you could almost feel your ears ring.
"The police? The Batman?!" He sprung around his heel, swinging the crowbar through the air like a conductor's baton. "Oh, that's priceless! She doesn't know! Oh, the little bird kept his prettier feathers completely hidden! She thinks he's just a regular citizen!"
He leaned down into your face, his grin stretching so wide it looked ready to tear around the corners.
"Oh, my dear, your precious Jason isn't going to call the cops. He is the cop, the judge and the executioner around here! He'll tear this city apart because he thinks he's a big, scary crime lord now! He thinks he has something to lose. But the look on his face when he realizes he's just a few minutes too late… again? Oh that's comedy gold!"
Your head spun. Crime lord? Big and scary? None of it made sense. You thought of Jason holding a worn copy of his favorite book, his thumb gently brushing your hair out of your face, his soft voice as he told you not to worry about him. It didn't track. It couldn't be.
"But a story needs structure," The Joker murmured, his face suddenly dropping into a chillingly, serious expression. He dragged the heavy crowbar across the concrete. "And Jaybird forgot his roots. He forgot where he came from. He forgot the feeling of the iron. So, I think it's only fair that you help him remember. If you lived what he lived… Well, then you two will have something to talk about over tea, won't you?
Then, he raised the crowbar, but you didn't look away. You couldn't.
The first blow didn't hit your face - The Joker was careful enough for that, he wanted Jason to still be able to recognize you. But it shattered your left shoulder. A sickening crack echoed through the space, followed immediately by a blinding explosion of agony that tore a horrified scream from your throat. The chair tilted, crashing sideways onto the floor, pinning your broken shoulder beneath your weight.
"One!" The Joker shouted gleefully, standing over you. "A bit sloppy on the delivery, but excellent vocal projection from the audience!"
You lay on the freezing concrete that's pressing against your cheek, sobbing, as you felt everything spinning. Every breath you took felt like inhaling smoke. Your shoulder was on fire, a slow, painful burning that made it impossible to move. Through the haze of pain, you heard him dragging the iron again. You braced yourself, closing your eyes, accepting that you're about to experience the same wave of grinding agony a second time, waiting for the impact that would end it all.
But the blows didn't come. Instead, a heavy, mechanical hum groaned through the darkness, interrupting what might've been your last moment.
"Oh, look at that!" We're ahead of schedule!" The Joker clapped his hands. "Time for the intermission!"
His rough, gloved hands grabbed the frame of your chair, dragging you across the concrete. You groaned, the painful sensation in your shoulder flaring until your vision went entirely dark for a few seconds. When they cleared, you weren't under the spotlight anymore.
You were looking at a massive, vertical glass tank, about eight feet tall, filled to the brim with murky harbor water. A metal grate hung open at the top, connected to a heavy pulley system.
The boy wonder always had a flare for the dramatic," The Joker sighed dramatically, gesturing to the tank. "Last time, he went out in a blaze of glory, literally! A beautiful, roaring fire. Boom! But for you, my dear? Let's see how his little anchor handles the deep end. From fire to water... oh, I just love a good theme!"
Before you could understand what he was talking about, before you could even scream, the henchmen lifted the chair - and you with it, slicing the zip-ties on your legs just enough to shove you vertically into the glass cage. The metal grate shut over your head and a padlock clicked into place.
Water rushed over your face, but your instincts took over. You tried to kick frantically against the bottom of the tank, but the movement sent a jolting spike of agony through your shattered shoulder. You couldn't swim since your wrists were still tied behind you, you could only flail, your head breaking the surface for a fraction of a second to gasp a mouthful of air before sinking back down.
Everything looked blurry through the thick glass. You could see the Joker standing there, holding a stopwatch, his painted red smile stretched into a silent caricature of amusement.
Jason, your mind screamed into the water, a desperate, silent plea. Jason, please.
The gunfire started instantly. The joker's men didn't even have time to yell a warning before a series of deafening, rapid fire cracks echoed off the metal doors. Bodies hit the floor one after the other, but your eyes couldn't focus through the thick glass of the tank.
Your lungs were completely flat. The freezing harbor water was suffocating you as your body slowly gave up the fight. Your head drifted downward, your hair floating around your face, and your hands were uselessly pinned behind your back by the metal frame of the chair.
Through the murky, gray depth, you saw a massive silhouette cut through the remaining guards, but as he reached the foot of the platform, Joker stepped directly into his path, the iron crowbar was raised high, his face held an expression of pure manic glee.
"Jaybird! You're just in time for the final curtain!"
An armored hand intercepted the iron bar mid-swing, wrenching the tool out of the Joker's grip, he threw it across the room and slammed the clown violently into a steel pillar. Red Hood's massive hand crushed his windpipe, pinning him off the floor.
"I will paint this room with your blood." His voice growled, so full of rage.
The Joker choked out a rattling laugh, pointing a trembling, white-gloved hand toward the glass cage behind them. "Then.. she… drowns…"
Red Hood froze, looking back through the glass. Your movement had stopped completely. Your body was floating, and your eyes were closed. If he stayed to finish what he's doing, you would die. If he left to break the glass, the devil would run.
It wasn't a choice. It was never a choice.
He struck the thick glass once, and a second time, and a third time. With a deafening roar, the front of the tank shattered into a million pieces. The Red Hood didn't care about the flying shards. He threw himself forward, his massive frame sliding across the wet concrete, catching your limp body before you could slam into the hard ground.
He immediately tore the industrial zip-ties from your wrists with a single, desperate pull. And as your system felt the sudden absence of pressure, and the freezing air slamming into your face, a cough tore through your chest. You rolled onto your side, vomiting cold water, your lungs burning like fire as they begged for more oxygen.
However, the moment you tried to shift your weight, a spike of pain shot from your left shoulder straight through your body. You curled into a tight ball on the wet floor as you let out a weak, choked whimper.
"I've got you," A voice buzzed over you.
You forced your eyes open, blinking away the tears mixed with the dirty water. Standing over you wasn't Jason. It was a terrifying figure dressed in tactical gear, his suit splattered with fresh blood, wearing the unmistakable crimson mask.
The Red Hood.
A wave of pure panic crashed over your brain. Your mind, entirely fractured by the assault you had just survived, didn't recognize Red hood as a savior. It saw another predator. It saw the butcher of Crime alley.
As those large, blood-stained hands reached down to pull you against his chest, every instinct in your body screamed for you to run.
"No! No, stay away…" You cried, dragging your body backwards across the concrete, completely ignoring the screaming agony in your shoulder. You were hyperventilating , you couldn't breathe. All you could see was the blood on his chest, and that blank red mask.
He stopped, his frame went completely rigid.
For a moment, the only sound in the empty warehouse was your shallow wheezing. The helmet tilted downward, staring at your trembling, scared form. You were shrinking away from him the exact same way people shrank away from the monsters of Gotham.
Slowly, he raised his hands to the base of his jaw, and with a pressurized hiss, he lifted the crimson helmet off his head leaving it to clatter to the floor. Beneath it was a pale face. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead. His eyes were wide, filled with a heartbreaking mixture of guilt and terror.
It was Jason.
"Sweetheart," He whispered, his real voice cracking. It was the soft voice from the library. The voice that argued over Jane Austen. "It's me. It's just me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
You stared at him, your breath trembling, still catching in your throat, your brain trying to reconcile the two realities. The gentle man who loved you was the bloody butcher of Crime alley. He had kept you completely in the dark while he had a double life? and now your shoulder was broken, your lungs were burning, and the illusion of your quiet, safe life shattered completely into pieces.
synopsis: For six months, you were Jason's anchor to a normal life. But in a city of vigilantes, loving Jason Todd is a luxury a civilian cannot afford. The monster who stole Jason's first life, who condemend him to aliving nightmare, has returned to steal his second. And this time, you were the punchline.
warnings/tags: library meet-cute, soft Jason Todd, domestic fluff, emotional whiplash, fluff to angst, kidnapping, chloroform / chemical drugging, mention of past torture (Jason's canon trauma), cliffhanger ending.
The Gotham public library's north wing smelled permanently of damp brick and the cheap copper pennies left in the wishing well out front. It was the only place in Crime alley where humidity didn't feel like a personal insult, which was why you spent your Thursday afternoons there, wedged between the oversized art folios and a radiator that clanked like a dying engine.
You certainly didn't expect the man with the white streak in his hair to be there. Or for his knuckles to look so bruised you're almost convinced he had broken several jaws, or for those hands to be holding a library-bound copy of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.
"He's an insufferable, self-righteous bore," you muttered, not quite realizing you'd spoken aloud until the spine of the book creaked all of a sudden.
The man lowered the book just enough for his sharp intense blue gaze to lock onto yours. "Pardon?"
"Edmund Bertram," You said, gesturing vaguely with your pen. "He spends three-quarters of the novel insisting he knows what's morally best for everyone around him while falling headfirst for someone who repeatedly proves she doesn't share his values. Then he spends so long chasing Mary Crawford that he nearly overlooks the person who's understood him all along. He's Austen's most frustrating hero."
"He's not a saint," the man said, finally looking up. His eyes were startlingly blue, too intense for a place that smelled this much like old paper. "He's a man trying to become one in a house where everyone else mistakes status for character. Fanny's the only person who sees the difference from the beginning. Edmund's just stubborn enough to believe Mary Crawford might."
"He tries to dictate her conscience," You shot back. "He's a hypocrite."
"He's a man trying to find a moral compass in a house full of people who think money replaces a soul." He growled, his voice low enough to make the shelves seem quieter. "Mary isn't evil. She's charming enough that he convinces himself her values will eventually match the woman he wants her to be. That's the tragedy. He keeps believing in the version of her that never actually existed."
You stared at him, unbelieving. "You make him sound tragic."
"He is."
"He's still insufferable."
One corner of his mouth twitched. "Those aren't mutually exclusive.” The silence stretched between you. Then he added, almost as an afterthought, "Besides, you don't have to like someone to understand why they became who they are." He just gave you a boring look that suggested he found your entire existence slightly inconvenient, tucked the book under his massive arm, and walked out without another word.
You hated him instantly. You thought he was arrogant and entirely wrong about nineteenth-century literature.
You also suspected,with no small amount of annoyance, that he would be back next Thursday.
The second time it happened, it was over Persuasion.
He was sitting at your table. He didn't ask, he just dropped a heavy duffel bag on the floor and pulled out a notebook that looked like he owned it for years.
"Captain Wentworth is a coward." You said, setting down your coffee with a click.
He didn't even look up from his notes. "Wentworth spent eight years believing the woman he loved chose everyone else's opinion over him. He has every right to be angry."
"He wrote her a letter because he couldn't face her!"
"He wrote her a letter because he'd spent years convincing himself he'd stopped loving her," the man barked, finally looking up. "Then he heard her say one sentence and realized he'd been lying to himself the whole time. What exactly was he supposed to say after that?" The anger in his eyes was defensive, a thick wall he threw up because the book hit something raw inside him. "You think it's easy coming back from the sea to find the person who gave up on you still sitting in the same room, looking like nothing changed?"
You blinked, the heat of the argument dying in your throat as you caught the small, white scar crossing his right eyebrow. "I... no. I suppose it isn't."
If he was surprised by your compliance, he didn't show. He simply cleared his throat, his broad shoulders dropping a bit. "Jason," he muttered, reaching out a hand that was twice the size of yours, the knuckles dark with old bruising, probably the same ones you saw the first time you met him.
That was the day the war turned into a treaty. Thursdays became an unwritten rule. You learned that Jason read with the intensity of a man trying to diffuse a bomb. He studied sentences like clues, looking for some hidden logic to a world that clearly hadn't given him any. You learned he liked his coffee black with no sugar, that he always sat with his back to the wall, and that he held a strangely beautiful, poetic mind hidden beneath the layers of Crime alley leather.
The transition from the library to the diner across the street was seamless.
It happened on a rainy day Thursday when the library's radiator finally gave out, forcing the staff to close the north wing for emergency construction. Jason hadn't asked if you wanted to go, he had simply muttered "Coffee's terrible across the street, but it's dry."
It wasn't officially a date. You told yourself that three times as you watched the neon sign of the diner buzz against the fog. But sitting in an old vinyl booth, you realized the silence between you had shifted, it wasn't uncomfortable. It was the kind that allowed you to look for the magical spark every time his blue eyes met yours over the rim of the ceramic mug. You felt it in the electric jolt that traveled up your arm whenever your fingers accidentally brushed while passing a book back and forth.
You stared at each other, coffee mugs and books forgotten. The air smelled of leather soaked rain and burnt hazelnut, a mix that made your head spin just enough to make you brave, to have the courage to do what your mind was telling you.
You slowly leaned forward, sliding your hand across the table to his side. Jason didn't flinch, but you caught the exact moment his shoulders shifted beneath his wet leather jacket as he cut down the remaining distance separating you, to nothing. He leaned in, his massive frame completely blocking out the rest of the noisy diner until his face was merely inches from yours.
His eyes drifted down, his intense gaze locked onto your lips for a second. Your breath hitched as his large, bruised hand slid across the table. His knuckles brushing against your wrist, his touch was incredibly gentle that it made your pulse spike beneath his skin.
You leaned into his touch, head tilting instinctively as you felt his hot breath on your lips the closer you got to him. It was all too much, even the scent of his black coffee against your skin made your heart beat in a disparate rhythm against your ribs as you waited for the heavy impact of his mouth against yours-
The violent sound of a stray brick shattering through the diner's side window from a street fight down the block tore through the air like a gunshot.
The soft, gentle man that was about to kiss you vanished, getting replaced by the hyper vigilant protector of Crime alley. His grip mocked securely onto the collar of your jacket, effortlessly pulling you out of the booth and down, protecting you from any harm.
'Stay down.' He hissed as his eyes scanned the foggy sidewalk through the hole in the broken glass.
You sat frozen, your heart beating so fast it could come right out of your body. You looked up at Jason, watching his eyes track the danger outside. He didn't look like the gentle man who had just been holding your face, the man who had almost kissed you; he looked completely different. He was entirely focused on the street while your lips still tingled from how close he had been.
You really did hate him. Because as you sat on the floor watching him protect you, you realized you were hopelessly, completely in love with him. And it terrified you.
The transition from the diner to his place, his safehouse, happened on a night where the rain was coming down so hard the streets looked like lakes.
He had held an umbrella over you the entire walk to his home, his own left shoulder soaking wet by the time you reached the door. And when you tried to point it out, he'dd just looked down at you, his thumb brushing a drop of water from your cheek with a gentleness that didn't belong to a man his size.
"Don't worry about me, sweetheart," he whispered. "It's only some water."
Six months later, you were living in the space between his ribs. You were a civilian, living a small life that involved checking expiration dates on milk, paying electric bills and working a shift at the local pharmacy.
Jason was something else. You didn't ask about the numerous guns in the duffel bags, or why every apology he never spoke arrived folded into the way he tucked the blankets around you before dawn. You didn't ask why he sometimes smelled like burnt rubber when he crawled into bed at four in the morning.
You just loved him. You loved the way his large body grew completely still when you rested your head on his chest, as if he were afraid that breathing too hard might disturb you. You loved the way he memorised your routine, how he'd leave a fresh box of your favorite tea on the counter before he disappeared for thirty-six hours, or how he'd double-lock the deadbolts from the outside with a small click.
"You're too soft for this city." He'd told you one night, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his fingers tangled in your hair. He was shaking slightly; the aftermath of some hidden violence he wouldn't name. And you hoped that one day, when he's ready, he'd answer all your unasked questions.
"I have you." You whispered, pressing a kiss to his head that lasted long enough that he let out a sigh of relaxation. "You won't let anything bad happen to me."
All he'd done in response was tighten his grip until it almost hurt, holding you like a man drowning, using your warm body as his only anchor.
Usually, when you came home from a late shift, the small space smelled like the scented candle you used the night before, or the coffee that was left forgotten on the counter, or the faint, metallic scent of Janson's leather jacket.
However, tonight, the apartment smelled like nothing. That was the first mistake.
Tonight, the door was unlatched. It didn't look broken. It was just swinging open by three inches, which was weird because Jason always made sure to lock the door whenever he left.
"Jason?" You called out, your voice dropping into the quiet space like a stone into a well.
No response.
You pushed the door open. Everything in the living room was exactly as you left it; the copy of Frankenstein still sitting on the coffee table with your bookmark on page ninety-four. Only the kitchen was different.
The counter had been completely clean, only a single object sat at the center.
It was a small, plastic flower; a forget-me-not, painted a neon green, that was tied to a rusted iron crowbar with a piece of dirty twine.
Your breath caught in your throat, and a sudden cold terror seized your chest before you could ever understand why. With a trembling hand, you picked up the small card tucked beneath the iron tool.
Written in a smeared, purple ink, the handwriting was large and entirely erratic:
Playing the hero again, Jaybird? You couldn't even save yourself! I’ve got your little thing now. I wonder how many hits she can take before she breaks just like you did? Let's see if she has a better bounce! Time for our favorite family game! HA HA HA —J
The window behind you shattered. Before you could scream, before you could even drop the card, a heavy, chemical-soaked cloth was shoved against your face. And the last thing you felt was the cold, hard floor rising to meet you, while a low, high-pitched laugh echoed through the empty kitchen.
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summary: Jason is running out of time. Desperate to break the curse that's killing him, he kidnaps the woman responsible for it, only to discover she's far more stubborn, and far less guilty, than he expected.
content: fantasy, angst, curses, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, violence, blood, kidnapping, harassment, probably inaccuracies about pirates and pirate life, allusions to sexual harassment, reader is very educated and bold to the point of stupidity, Jason is amused but doesn't want to show it, if i missed any lmk
words: 10.330
Jason always hated the way Tortuga smelled.
The stench of rum, fish, waste and death invaded his senses, making it impossible to ignore. Most of all he hated how he added to it. The splatters of blood on his knuckles was fresh. Bile rushed up his throat at the reminder.
The crack of his neck echoed in the empty bedchamber as he stared at the man sprawled at his feet, illuminated by the soft glow provided by the oil lamp. The only other sounds were the quiet snores of the whore, naked and asleep, and the shallow, ragged breaths of the man lying at his mercy.
He rolled his shoulders as he squatted to the floor, yanking the man by the collar. “Is your tongue feeling loose yet?” Jason tilted his head, green eyes cold. Uncaring.
The man wheezed, blood splattering from his mouth, staining his chin that ugly shade of red. Blue and purple bruises bloomed under his skin. Jason watched as he struggled but did no motion to help him, or lessen his pain in any way.
He stared at him trying not to think about the person he had become. He couldn't bare to.
Once upon a time he would have felt bad for this. For beating a man to an inch of his life. For nearly condemning an otherwise innocent man to a fate he had already suffered from.
But not anymore. Not him. Not when he was this close to tasting the end. Not when the secrets the man held could be his salvation.
Jason watched as the man's lips moved, trying to form words but was unable to, as he fell in and out of consciousness.
He rolled his eyes at the sight before him. Pathetic.
He pulled the man up from the collar, immediately dragging him back to the land of the living.
“Speak,” he demanded, ignoring the sharp sting on his fingers and the pain shooting up his spine. His fist instinctively tightened its grip, grounding him.
“Go- The Gov-” the man slurred, a stray tear trickling from the corner of his eye, mixing with the blood and soot on his face. “The Governor's wife.” he rasped, hand slowly raising, clasping over Jason's.
His eyes glinted at the answer, a small smirk gracing his face, “Wasn’t that hard, aye?” he says immediately letting go of him.
He wiped his hands on the man’s shirt —not that it did him any good, it looked filthier than his hands had ever been— and stomped to the door, the cacophony invaded his ears when he opened it.
Jason stilled for a moment, as his hand touched the hat he had left on the door handle. The thought of calling someone to treat the poor bastard choking on his own blood crossed his mind if only for a second. It disappeared just as quickly.
He was a pirate, not a nurse. Besides, that whore would wake up soon enough, and he liked to think she’d be gracious enough to take care of him.
He quickly left the room, placing his hat back on his head, calling his crew to make for the ship, descending the stairs two at a time.
There was no time to waste—not when the curse still clung to his bones like rot. Not when he knew how to put an end to it.
You hissed as the needle pricked your finger, drawing it immediately to your mouth sucking on the blood. Just as quickly you pulled it away, manners engraved too deep into your bones to allow yourself such an indecency. You stared at it instead, watching as the blood trickled down your finger before it stopped.
You recall your late mother saying how you’ve always seemed to recover faster than other people. Your father called it a gift from God. You never paid it any mind.
“Perhaps, if you held it like a needle, milady, and not like a dagger, it wouldn’t see fit to bite you.” the velvety voice of Margaret Reed, one of your ladies and long time friend, interrupts your thoughts, forcing you back to reality.
You raise your gaze to lay eyes on her. To anyone else she would have seemed uninterested as she sat on the settee, hand moving with precision as she embroidered yet another flower on a piece of cloth that would be forgotten as soon as she was finished with it. But to those that knew her, the glint in her eye was unmistakable, and what would have otherwise been a reprimand, was teasing words between friends.
"At least the needle possesses spirit,” you exhale as you pick up the needle again, slowly pulling on the thread, “Unlike those spineless dandies you keep calling 'prospects'." you say, your lip tugging into a smile.
“Milady!” she gasps scandalized at your words, hands falling on her lap, as she tried desperately to hide the amusement she felt.
You giggle at her reaction. You always thought it was curious how you ended up being so close to her. Sure, you run in the same social circle, but other than that you were nothing alike.
Where she was the perfect example of a high society woman, always poised and refined, you were trying everything to get away from the role fate had assigned you. You knew how to embroider—although badly— and how to play the piano and lute. You learned how to horseback ride from a very young age, and if anyone were to ask you about science, you would most likely know the answer.
You had received the education fitting to someone of your status. The problem lied with the other things you learned along the way.
Like which door creaks the least at night. Or the shift change of the guards, when your father was fast asleep –although that last one wasn't anything remarkable, everyone in the estate knew by the small earthquakes that followed.
You had also learned how to deter suitors, much to you father's disdain.
Turns out men don't enjoy being told they're lacking in intelligence, regardless of how easy some made it.
“Oh, calm yourself Margaret. There is no one here but the two of us.” you brush her off, “Besides, not a word I’ve spoken is false.” you close your eyes, awfully sure of your words.
You saw her take a deep breath in from the corner of your eye, “True or not, milady, it is your duty to behave like a proper lady—and secure a good match.” she says pointedly.
You scoff at her words, there she goes again. You discard the cloth, rolling your eyes, “And I am to do so by hemming handkerchiefs for men that think embroidery is the height of my ambitions?” you say, words sharp, “It’s pointless, wouldn’t you think?” you stand up, straightening out the blue dress your maid, Anne, had picked out for you this morning.
“The point is being a good wife.”
You offer her a tight lipped smile, as you carefully walk towards the library you had installed in your room, “As you shall be soon, I daresay.” you smirk, staring as her face turns into all different shades of red from the corner of your eye.
"And, besides,” you continue, seeing she was too flustered to even talk, “of what use is needlepoint, when men govern a colony with half a brain and no manners?" your fingers scan the covers of the well loved books in your collection.
Her gasp filled the room, “Mind your tongue!" she exclaims, "Heaven forbid your father heard you.”
“He should recover, no doubt.” you say, tone dismissive.
Your father had survived much worse than your words.
“You’ll set the world alight someday” she exhales resignedly, “if the men don’t throw water on you first.”
“Oh, I do hope they try! I’ve always wanted to see a powdered wig catch fire.” you giggle as you walk back to the settee, falling back onto it. Margaret shakes her head in disapproval.
“Milday, you must—” she begins to say, but the knock on the door interrupts her. You both turn towards it, seeing the bright red head of a young servant girl peeking through the crack.
“Pardon the interruption milady, Lord Smythe requests the presence of Lady Margaret.” she says, looking at the floor, too new and scared to look at either of you in the eye.
Margaret snaps towards you, her eyes bright at the sound of her betrothed's name, silently asking for permission to go. As if you would ever keep her from running to him.
Lord Smythe had asked her hand in marriage not too long ago, whilst they were on a walk in her fathers estate. And Margaret seemed ecstatic to begin her new life as a wife, and eventually, a mother. You didn’t understand her, but were happy for your friend nonetheless.
“Run along Margaret, I promise nothing will be set ablaze in your absence” you say giggling, as she hurriedly stands up and heads to the door, saying a rushed thank you and goodbye, before the door closes behind her.
Once you were officially alone you exhaled at the silence that surrounded you, the soft waves crashing against the rocks, hardly audible.
You stared at the closed door, wondering how it would feel to be excited to get married like Margaret was. How it would feel for your eyes to light up at the mention of someone's name. To be excited at the thought of seeing someone.
But all the ‘prospects’, as Margaret liked to call the men your father presented you to, were bland, to put it simply. And, besides, you weren’t keen on giving up your freedom. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Better a spinster, than a wife.
Despite your wishes, you also knew you didn’t have a choice. Not really.
You were the daughter of the Governor, every day of your life has been leading up to the moment of your wedding, to whoever that might be.
Your feelings didn’t matter half as much as your status, if even at all.
You tear your gaze away from the intricately carved door, as you stand up heading towards the balcony.
The salt air was a welcome sensation on your skin, your eyes locked on the horizon. You watched as the sun slowly descended to the sea, painting the sky in hues of orange and yellow.
You close your eyes, leaning against the rail. You let the sounds of the sea and the birds fill your ears, completely ridding your mind of all unwanted thoughts as you start wondering how life would be if your fate wasn't your own.
You exhale, smiling at the chance of being free. To do what? You don't know yet. But it’ll be exciting. And new. And maybe a little terrifying. But it’ll be your own.
You smile as you open your eyes, staring at the beautiful picture that had been created before you, completely missing the hooded figure staring up at your balcony ominously.
Waiting.
Jason knew that it wasn’t very ‘piratey’ of him to sneak into the estate in the dead of the night, and while he’s sure his crew would love to ransack the place and then go get drunk, he couldn’t have anyone following his trail.
The reward was too high for the risk.
He looks around, grimacing at the sight of bust statues of men whose names he couldn’t bother to remember, littered around the hall, lifeless and judgemental, much like the guests in the countless balls his father used to host. His stomach turned at the deja vu, the governor's estate being much too similar to the one he used to call home once upon a time.
The memories crashed into his mind, like the waves against the bow of his ship, angry and unforgiving.
He remembers the way people danced, created something akin to an illusion, leaving him mesmerized by it. Leaving him wanting, wishing to be like them.
He can almost see, his older brother amongst the dancers, some high society girl in his arms, blissfully twirling around, oblivious to how her partner seemed more interested in the sea, than her.
He can almost feel the weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder, as he looked over the party.
Jason shakes his head, being pulled back into the present by the chilly air entering through the window he left open, shoving the memories back to where they belonged, locked away and buried beneath years of grime and saltwater. All that happened in another lifetime. He’s a different man now, nothing like the boy donning silk and jewels.
Thankfully, after this was over with, he wouldn’t have to think about any of that ever again.
Slipping in the shadows was second nature to him at this point, disappearing between the paintings decorating the walls, leaving no trace of his presence behind.
His footsteps were muffled by the velvet carpet, as he sneaked around the estate, looking for the room he found out to be yours earlier that day.
He’d be quick. Get in. Muffle you while you were asleep. Get out.
Child’s play for the man the entire Royal Navy was searching but could never find.
Jason's eyes shine in the dark once your door slips into view, a smile slowly creeping up his face.
He walks towards the ornately decorated door, reaching for the handle. He could almost taste freedom on his togue.
But the sound of footsteps, make him stop in his tracks, resembling the statues along the hall.
They are quick as they echo, bouncing against the walls.
Jason curses as he dives behind the curtains, hidden from the sight of whoever is walking the estates hall at this hour.
"Miss Anne, see to it that the young mistress is prepared in good time for Lord Whittemore's arrival” a deep voice ordered.
Lord Whittemore? Jason hadn’t heard that name in years, but he did remember the man. He was prissy, and what his crew, him included, would call a molly. Always dressed to the nines and always looking at young women, despite the fact was already greying under that God awful wig of his.
He grimaces in disgust at the implication of his arrival.
"And might I trust you to ensure that she properly conducts herself? None of her usual antics." the man continues, not allowing the woman to answer first, "I should hate for the Governor to be met with any measure of embarrassment.”
“Yes, my Lord.” a much younger female voice answers. She sounds timid. Like she’s scared to say anything else.
Jason holds his breath as he listens closely to the footsteps growing quieter, as the pair of them leave to torment some other poor soul he assumes.
This wasn’t part of the plan. If he takes you now, everyone will know by the morning. Every ship in the area will be searching for you.
But if he doesn’t, you’ll be basically sold off, and he’ll have to make both a new plan and bypass whatever security that prick Whittemore will have protecting you. And God forbid the old man gets you pregnant before he’s able to get to you.
So he might as well get it over with now and spare you in the process. Not that you would care. He's seen his fair share of breakdowns over failed courtships. You'd probably be mad if you didn't get to marry that geezer.
Jason takes a deep breath as he quietly leaves the safety of the curtains, his calloused hand grabbing the door handle. Your room comes into view soon after.
You are sitting at the canape, holding a book in your hands, the warm light of the candle by your side illuminates your figure.
He holds his breath as you stop yourself from turning the page, his hand immediately reaching for his sword, ready for you to start screaming. You stare at nothing as you listen in closely to his movements. But it only seems to last a moment before you continue reading.
Jason cannot see what the book is about, but it must be interesting enough for you to not pay him any mind.
He takes a moment to stare at you, as he slowly unsheathes his sword, creeping behind you.
He couldn’t quite understand how you could be the solution to all his problems, or how you were the cause of them in the first place. You didn't look any different from other daughters of aristocratic families. He can’t imagine you’d act any different either.
He didn’t mind that at all. Hell, it made his job easier.
He’d lock you in a cell, get you to the Pit and break his curse. Simple as that.
Yet, he found himself stilling as he stood above you, breath ragged. Sword in hand. Ready to strike.
You hummed a tune as you turned the page of your book, eyes scanning the page.
“Miss Anne?” you called, not raising your gaze, “Might you be so kind as to see that the bed is properly prepared?” your voice was soft, thinking you were talking to your maid.
Jason watched you for a second longer, reveling at your obliviousness. Then, the hilt of his sword struck the back of your head, a sickening thud echoing in the room. You fell limp right into his arms.
He almost felt bad.
Almost.
You don’t think you’ve had a headache quite like this before. Your whole head was throbbing, like a thousand little hammers were pounding away in your skull. And the ringing in your ears only made it worse.
You groan as you try to open your eyes, a hand immediately shooting up your face, as if that could help in any way.
You blink, trying to focus, your hands barely visible as the dizziness hits you again, the second wave stronger than the first.
“Miss Anne?” you call out, sitting up slowly, managing to feel the hard surface beneath you. You must have fallen to the floor while you were sleeping, “Would you be kind enough to fetch me something for the pain?”
You wait for her soft voice, her usual flurry of movement as she scurries to help. But nothing comes. Just silence.
“Anne?” you call out again, ignoring how your head couldn’t stop spinning. Silence still.
You slowly move your head away from the light, ready to call out to her again, but another voice, unfamiliar and rough, cuts through the silence.
“I’m no maid lassie,” it calls and you feel your blood run cold. Why is there a man in your quarters? “And this ain’t your fancy estate.”
Your hands scramble trying to find something to grab, but you only find wood and dust surrounding you.
You force your eyes open, the adrenaline rushing through your veins, wiping the pain away, sharpening your vision. You take a frantic look around, scanning your surroundings.
It’s dark. Darker than it should be, the only sliver of light spilling from a tiny window high above you. The floor is rough beneath your fingertips, eroded and stained with blotches you’d rather not think the origin of.
Your gaze darts to the far end of the room and that’s when you see it.
Bars. Thick, rusted iron bars.
“Who are you?” you demand, the man sat on the other side, hidden by the shadows. You see him lean against the wall, his clothes covered in grime, his boots caked with mud. His face is not visible behind the layers of darkness.
A low chuckle echoes in the room, “Not important,” he says, fingers tapping on his leg, “What matters is who you are.”
You scramble to stand up, immediately noticing the room shifting from side to side as you lose your footing.
Ship. You were on a ship. Which only means-
“I demand to be let go at once!” you yell, grabbing at the bars, all your loathing and clawing desperation directed at your captor.
But yet again, he laughs.
“You’re aint in a position to bark orders lass.” he says and you watch him like a hawk as he steps into the light.
You didn’t know what you expected from the assumed pirate that had captured you for no apparent reason, but a boy, barely older than you, donning a smirk, wasn’t it.
He was taller than you, he probably was taller than most people, strands of white hair falling over the red head scarf he had tied around his forehead, the rest of his hair hidden by a hat. His green eyes looking down at you in derogation.
You knew you couldn’t fight him, you didn't know how. And you definitely couldn’t outrun him, not when you’re behind bars. So all is left bargaining.
“What is it that you want? Gold? A pardon? I can arrange that for you!” you rush to get out before he can harm you.
“It ain’t gold I seek lass.” he steps closer, his face clearer now, green eyes contrasting the filth on his skin, “I need something else entirely…” he says, and you feel the back of his fingers against your cheek.
Your stomach turns at the sensation and the smile on his face, disgusted at what might happen to you. Before you know it, you open your mouth and bite down at his hand, dirt filling your mouth.
Jason yelps, pulling his hand away, his gaze hardened as he looks down at you,
“Wench!” he calls out and then starts laughing maniacally.
He couldn’t wrap his head around what just happened. You, dainty, aristocratic, talking with manners he had forgotten existed, bit his hand. He stared at you, eyes wide with surprise, as you seemingly mastered all your courage to look at him, a scowl decorating your face.
Funny.
“You’re bold, I’ll give you that.” he said, smirking.
His reaction only fills you with more rage, “Release me! Or I will see that you and your entire crew swing from the gallows!” you yell, shaking the bars that confided you. But it only seemed to encourage him.
“Ballsy!” he says, “I like that in a woman.” he smiles at you, but only gets back a disgusted look on your part.
If Jason said he didn’t find this amusing he’d be lying.
He steps closer, hands raised with the intention of leaning against the bars, but you don’t seem to notice that, recoiling at the proximity.
“Don't touch me, pirate!” you exclaim.
This got tiring too soon for his liking. A shame if you'd ask him, he hadn't had a good laugh in a while.
He rolls his eyes, arm sticking through the bars, grabbing your jaw before you can even react.
“I’ll make you a deal, savvy?” he spits, dragging your head closer, “You’ll tell me how to break the curse, I’ll make sure you get fed tonight.”
You stare straight into his eyes, gulping down the fear that seemed to cloud your head, like the mist clouded the port in the early hours of the morning. But you don’t let it show, glaring at him, keeping eye contact.
“Tongue not feeling loose yet?” he asks, expecting you to fold.
But you don’t. Instead, he feels the warm stick of your spit on his cheek, slowly trickling down.
Jason turns his head away, trying with every fiber of his being to keep his composure. To not break the door of the cell and beat you to an inch of your life. Instead, he raises his free hand wiping his face.
You hear him chuckle as he lets go of your head aggressively, making you lose balance for a moment.
He stays still. You see him take a deep breath and turn around, heading towards the door.
You feel like crying at the sight, more than ready to allow yourself to break down finally. But then he stops and your breath is caught up to your throat again.
“Let’s see how feisty you are when pride is all you’ve got left, milady.” he says, and before you know it, he’s out of the door.
You huff, falling as your knees give out. Your head is still spinning by the pirate's taunts.
You would have never thought that your life you would dissolve into this. Stuck, trapped, in a cage of a pirate ship.
You let out a shaky breath, staring at the door, waiting, dreading, of someone coming in. You try to get it under control. But every breath becomes shakier than the last, and the weight in your chest only seems to be getting heavier.
You slowly reach up, your hand trembling as you search through your hair, gaze locked on the door. You breathe out in relief when you grab one of the countless pins your maids had used to keep the strands in place, making sure your head looked more like a painting than hair.
You pull it out in a rush, immediately pulling it apart, fingers working quick.
He couldn’t keep you in here. You wouldn’t allow it.
You kneel before the lock, the wood creaking beneath your knees, breath held tight in your chest.
You have to work fast. It’ll be dark soon.
Every time the ship rocked, you found yourself trying to keep the pin from falling out your hand. Trying to keep your composure despite all the failed attempts to pick the lock.
The smell of saltwater and mold clings to your lungs, much like the corset on your undergarments.
“Blasted thing!” you curse under your breath, grabbing the pin again, jamming it into the lock.
Picking locks isn’t a skill you possess, and if you were being honest, it wasn’t a skill you’d thought you’d ever have to use.
You had tried, however, to pick the lock of your fathers study more than once, wanting to be in his presence whenever you felt lonely.
But this wasn’t your fathers study. This was the brig of a pirate ship, and behind the door wasn’t his warm embrace, but criminals that would kill you without a second thought.
Your eyebrows furrow, as you slightly bite on your tongue in concentration, moving the pin carefully, trying to hear the mechanism.
And then you do. A soft click rings in your ears, your eyes widening at the sound.
Your fingers immediately start moving slower, with more intention behind them, twisting the pin in your hands carefully. One more twist and you're out.
But the floorboards above you creak. Your blood runs cold. There’s a voice.
Someone is coming.
You can clearly hear the footsteps growing nearer to you, the voice louder. Your hands are moving in panic, trying to get it to open before whoever it is opens the door.
You stare at the lock obsessively, as if it would cower under your gaze, give up and open at last.
And then you feel it. The light resistance.
You turn your head towards the door, terrified as you hear the handle move. And with a swift motion, you twist the pin, the characteristic sound of it opening overtaking your senses.
You feel the tears streaming down your face in relief as you scramble to the other side of the cell, leaving the cell door closed.
You hide your face in your skirts, as the person descends the stairs into the room.
You listen as the heavy steps move closer, their sound overpowered by the ringing of your ears.
And suddenly, it stops.
You raise your head when you feel something hitting your feet.
Before you, you see a piece of stale bread, the shadow of your captor surrounding you.
You turn your head, shocked, staring at him, as he starts heading out without saying a word.
“Thank you.” you say, grabbing it, but he only grunts before slamming the door behind him.
You sit there, slowly eating the bread he threw at you, piece by piece. By no means was it good, but your hunger overpowered whatever tastes you had grown up with and the fear of the possibility that he would try to poison you.
You sit there, ignoring the numbing pain clawing up your body, waiting for the ship to fall silent, along with its crew.
You’re sure you’ll find at least 3 people on deck, but three people is better than 50, and you need the chances to be in your favour if you are to escape this wretched ship.
You stay, still as a statue, listening closely until the footsteps cease sounding above you.
The only thing you can hear are the waves crashing against the barrel of the ship.
You tumble on your skirts, as you rush to stand up, falling on your feet as you get to the door.
Your hands immediately reach for the cell door, pulling it wide open.
You feel hot as the adrenaline rushes through your veins, sweat trickling down your face. Your eyes sting with tears you won't allow to escape.
You tiptoe up the stairs, hand trembling as your hand touches the handle, cringing at the creaking sound. Hoping, no one is standing guard.
You breathe a sigh of relief when you find the corridor empty.
The air outside the room wasn’t much different than within it, if only for the characteristic pungent of alcohol added to it. You ignore the bile that rushes up your throat, lightly stepping outside.
You walk slowly, a hand constantly brushing against the weathered wood, splinters pricking your fingers, as you try to keep balance within the shifting ship.
You pass by the hammocks the crew slept on, thankful their drunken snores muffled your hurried steps.
It only takes you a minute before you find the trap door leading to the deck, the cold air of the night kissing your face. You smile at the sight of it, reaching up to open it, more than ready to-
“What d’ye figure the Cap’n wants with ‘er?” a gritty voice above you catches your attention, as you immediately shoot to the side, scared he’ll come down and catch you.
You hold your breath, listening in, hoping they'll what you are here for.
“How in blazes should I know?” you hear a second voice answer, sounding much younger than the first, “Gold, mayhap.”
“Aye…” the first man sighs, “or maybe he’s longin’ for a woman’s touch.” he laughs, a wet rattling sound that makes your skin crawl.
You’re going to throw up, the sharp feeling of your corset digging into your ribs becomes more noticeable.
“ ‘thought the Cap’n were a molly.” the voice sounds farther away this time, shocked at the apparent intentions of his captain.
“Shut yer gob! He’s wedded to the sea, he is.” you hear the younger one curse as he stumbles, after being slapped probably.
You wonder if they’ll fight.
You hoped they would. Maybe then they’d be too distracted to notice you fleeing.
“Aye, that’s what they say.” the voice fades, your breath still stuck in your throat, scared that even the slightest sound will make them come back.
You can hear the chatter in the distance still, but it's too far to decipher what they’re talking about.
Taking a deep breath in, you step under the trapdoor again, staring up at it. You slowly lay both your hands on it, sweat clinging on your palms as you push it lightly, smiling as you see it give away to pressure.
You peek your head outside, just enough to scan your surroundings.
Clear.
You grit your teeth in anticipation as you push it further up, sliding quietly on deck.
The cold air sticks against your nerve riddled skin, relief flowing through your body.
You could finally breathe easy again.
For a moment you stare up to the night sky, letting the sound of the sea overtake your senses. You would have loved to see the stars this clear again but under different circumstances. Sit under them, draw and study them, until the sun returns to the sky, letting light touch everything within the horizon. You immediately find the North Star. Familiarity floods you. As long as it is in the sky, you'll make it out of here.
A particularly strong gust of wind wakes you up, as if it is reminding you that you weren’t safe, that you needed to leave this place.
You rush, hiding behind the nearest mast, safe from wandering eyes. You search for a boat you could escape with.
You grin widely when you catch a glimpse of it.
Without a second thought you run towards it. Your eyes dart across, looking at all the intricate knots that kept it in place. Your hands immediately reach towards them.
You don’t know how to lower it peacefully, opting for just letting it fall to the water. Then, you could jump in, climb up and row away before anyone can see you.
Your brain buzzed with the feeling of your imminent freedom.
One of the knots gives away. The boat tilts. You grin.
One more knot. One more knot and you’ll be free.
One more knot and—
You scream when someone picks you up, throwing you over their shoulder. You feel the rough fabric of his shirt against your face as you’re hauled away, the scent of salt and leather mixed with something darker.
You were so close to freedom. So close.
First thing you notice is the red head scarf, tears pooling in your eyes at the realization of who had caught you.
“Let me go!” you start squirming immediately and he tightens his hold on you. You hit and punch his back, as digs his fingers in your flesh in annoyance.
“You think you’re real smart don’t ya?” he says, as you continue screaming and kicking your feet.
You can barely hear the laughing of whatever crew is awake in the background as he brings you to a room you can't recognise.
“Why me?” you yell at him, your fists hitting his back, “What is it you want?” you yelp as he throws you.
You expect the pain that follows being thrown to the floor like a sandbag, but it never comes. You open your eyes slightly, seeing that you have been thrown on a bed, and instead of a cell you see a polished room.
“You really have no clue-” he laughs.
You watch him rush to the middle of the room where a desk is laid, as he throws the things on it around in search of something.
Your eyes immediately dart around, in search for the door, vision blurry with tears.
From the corner of your eye, you see him stomping towards you, dread filling you at the sight of a knife in his hand. “What are you-” You immediately scoot backwards, trying to put as much distance as possible between you.
“Wh- What is happening?” you ask as you see him pulling up his sleeve.
You start yelling and writhing when he reaches for your arm. But you weren’t quick enough to pull away, his rough and calloused hands grabbing your wrist.
You bite your lip, refusing to let the tears of pain fall, but your whole body trembles with the force of it. Every inch of your skin burns where the blade touches, and the noise of the knife cutting through flesh feels like a jagged echo in your head.
He is precise as he cuts through your warm flesh, throwing the knife away once he’s done.
“Look.” he says, noticing your head tilted away from the injury he inflicted on you, “Look!” he screams this time, shaking you.
You tentatively turn your gaze on it, your whole body trembling. Your pained expression is quickly replaced by a shocked one.
The cut on your arm had slowly started to close, the blood ceasing to flow. The skin knitting itself closed before your eyes.
You raise your gaze to look at the man before you, but he isn’t looking at you.
The pained expression on his face is directed at his own arm. Teeth visibly gritting, jaw clenched.
You slowly look at his hand this time, restlessness cursing through you at the sight.
At the same place where he had cut your arm, blood flowed on his. Skin ripping apart, flesh slashed open.
The surrounding area turned that rotten shade of black, a putrid scent filling your nostrils.
Where your own wound closed up, a whole new appeared on him, the knife nowhere in sight.
“This is what you have to do with this!” he says, throwing your hand away, groaning, like it pained him to even stand, “It’s between your life and mine, sweetheart,” he glares at you and you feel shivers rising up your spine at his words, eyes never leaving his. “And I choose mine.”
You spend the better part of the night sitting by the bed, staring at your feet, wondering how long it would take for someone to find you if you just jumped off deck. Maybe you should wait for another ship to appear before you do so. At least then you’ll have a vague idea of how much time it'll take for you to swim close enough to be seen and rescued.
But what if that’s days from now? What if a worse fate awaits you there. The situation at hand isn’t a good one by any means, but at least no one has tried to take advantage of you.
Yet.
You close your eyes letting your head hit the wooden wall of the cabin.
“This is what you have to do with this!” he says, throwing your hand away.
You open them as quickly as you had closed them, the memory of his hand spontaneously bleeding crossing your mind every time you did so.
You let a breath leave your lungs looking around the cabin trying to occupy yourself with anything else.
There were books on the table in front of you. Lots of them. And you could see some photographs stuck on the gaps. You turn your head up, a chandelier with little shells hanging from it. You look down, your dress. You reach and pick up the hem. You run your fingers over the black and brown spots, spoiling the light blue fabric. Any other day, you'd be annoyed at the state of it. You’d drop whatever you were doing and immediately go change. But today? Today you just stared at it unbothered.
No use crying over spilt milk.
You let the hem back on the floor, redirecting your gaze at the porthole, looking through it. Not that there was much to see. The North star was still shining bright and unchanged.
You don't know how many hours have passed since you got locked in the cabin, but by the darkness outside it mustn't have been nearly as long as it felt. The thought of it is comforting in a way. There's still a chance this is all a bad dream and that you’ll wake up soon.
You startle awake from your position on the floor at the loud bang that echoes through the cabin as the door slams open.
You snap your eyes at the sound, watching as the man you had learned was the captain walks in.
He looks… different under the morning sun. Younger. Softer almost.
Whatever you noticed as he walked in, immediately disappeared as he laid eyes on you, his features hardening, posture straightened in a way you’re all too familiar with.
His boots echoed, despite the room being filled with all kinds of things from top to bottom.
He crosses the room standing right in front of you as he extends his hand. Only then you notice the plate he was holding.
“Eat.” he says, averting his gaze from you. Your eyes dart between him and the plate before you scoff.
“You’re mad if you think I’m touching that.” you turn your head away from his offering.
You feel him tense up, annoyance radiating off of him, “Too rough for that silver-plated tongue of yours?” he spits out. Heat crawled up your neck.
“No, I simply have no desire to blacken it with poison.”
“If I wanted to kill ya, I would have done so already, lass.”
You roll your eyes, turning to look at him, eyes hard trained on him, “Why have you not done so?”
He opens his mouth but the answer dies on his tongue. His jaw clenches as he turns around. “That is of no concern to you.” he says as he throws the plate on the table and storms out of the room, the familiar jingle of keys following the shut door.
You fall back as the sound of silence envelopes you.
You feel the corner of your lip twitch upwards as you try to suppress a smile.
Seems like you’ve won this time. Pity you're still locked in there.
The satisfaction doesn't last for long as you remember the fact. You're still being held captive in the middle of the sea after all. Any positive emotion dims in comparison to the situation in hand.
The fact that the captain seems to have some paranormal score to settle with you doesn't help either. What's that about anyway?
It can't be true, that much you know. You've never seen this man before and you've never been out of town. He’s just a heathen after the gold your father will be paying to get you back.
Yeah. That sounds about right.
As for what you saw, or think you saw, it was simply your mind playing tricks on you. You have been abducted after all, and you have been scared and anxious. Yeah. It was a trick of your mind. Or the light. Or anything really. What matters is that it wasn’t real.
Regardless of tricks and magic you're still stuck on this stupid ship, sitting on the stupid bed.
That won't do. You jump off the bed, immediately losing your footing as you struggle to stand up. You haven’t been on board a ship ever. And you’ll never set afoot off land if you’ll have anything to do with it.
You hold onto the desk as you look around for anything that could possibly help you. It was a mess. Not surprising, though it made your search significantly harder. A feather was left next to a small glass bottle of ink, small black blots decorating the map it laid upon.
You take a closer look at the map. It looked a lot like maps you've seen hanging in your fathers office. Only this one was a mess. The noon observation of what you assume was yesterday's measurement is wrong. You scoff, aren't pirates supposed to be good at navigating living in a ship and all?
You look further down, a small inscription is written in the corner. It is in what seems to be Arabic. You exhale annoyed at this, your head cocking at the side. You had always thought learning the language would prove handy. Your governess disagreed.
You move past this quickly. You raise your head, eyes skipping over the plate that was filled with what looked like porridge, instead they land on gold.
Books.
Relief floods through you as you scramble to get closer. If anything could help you out of this, it would be those.
The books were typical. Collections of maps. Astronomy. Atlas Maritimus. History. Spencer. Shakespear. Navigation.
Shakespear? Interesting. You lean closer, straining your eyes. Much Ado About Nothing.
An amused breath escapes you picking up the copy, flipping through it. Your eye catches something as you do so. Ink seems to decorate some of the pages. You stop at the next one you notice.
A laugh escapes you as you read the line he had underlined. “I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?”
You blink. Surely not. You quickly turn the page.
“I love you with so much of my heart, none is left to protest.” you read, “Well, I’ll be damned!” you exclaim, a smile threatening to break out on your face.
You stare at it. The man who surely had killed people before annotated Shakespeare.
You close the book, your cheeks tingling upwards at this newfound information.
You look back at the porridge he had left you, the thought of eating momentarily crossing your mind before you look away again. You won't be falling for such cheap tricks.
Your stomach, however, would. A whine escapes your lips as you look at the plate from the corner of your eye, stomach growling.
…It’s just porridge. How could he possibly have tampered with porridge?
You shake your head not willing to spend time or energy thinking of all the different ways one could. Instead you decide that possibly poisoned food is better than no food at all and sit down, reaching for the plate. Besides, he seems to think that he needs you. He wouldn’t poison you. You think.
Despite that you take a spoonful into your mouth and immediately regret it, your stomach tightening. Why does it taste like fish?
You can feel your stomach churning for all the wrong reasons this time. You go to stand up, find something to spit it out before your body decides the same. But you don't manage to.
The door slams open and you accidentally swallow the atrocity insulting your taste buds, hand flying to your mouth in disgust.
The captain stills at the door at the sight of you sitting behind his desk, his eyes traveling from you to the plate.
“You’re eating.” he notes, his eyebrows shifting before he catches his expression.
You lower your head before he catches the horror written all over your face, “I am.” you say, the words catching at your throat, the taste not subsiding one bit. His gaze lingers for a moment before his usual demeanor shifts back into place.
You look at him through your eyelashes as he closes the door behind him, “Here I thought I was trying to poison you” he says with a smirk dangling from his lips.
You clear your throat. “You said it yourself.” you move the porridge around, trying to control your face. “If that were your intent, you would have done it by now” he hums in acknowledgement leaning on the wall. “Or you’re just doing a remarkably poor job at it.”
His eyes crinkle lightly as his cheekbones rise. A small smile appears slowly and this time he doesn’t hide it.
Wonderful. You felt like the porridge is going to take you out and he found something amusing. He either deliberately messed with the food or the salt from years at sea had finally gotten into his brain and thought this was a proper meal. You don’t know which is worse.
The captain draws closer to you, looking at the map you dug out the mess he had left, “Ya wanna tell me why yer at my desk lassie?” he asks, any sort of amusement he might have felt long gone. You look up at him from your seat, an eyebrow raising up.
“Your map is mistaken.” you say refusing to let yourself be intimidated. Especially now that you know how he spends his free time.
“It ain’t”
“It is.”
“And ya know that, how?” he scoffs, a hand placed on the desk, as he leans over you. You can see it in his eyes clear as day that he doesn't trust you. Why would he afterall? You may as well be trying to derail his course and whatever plan he had.
But you were not. The map was wrong.
“Because your navigator seems to think that we are twenty-eight degrees north.”
“And?”
“And we are not.” you sit up straighter, pushing the plate as far away from you as possible.
“And how can ya tell?”
“Polaris.”
“What about it?” He stands straight again, crossing his arms, looking down at you.
“It’s too south.” you bite back. You are not going to give him the satisfaction of backing down, however foolish that was. If you'd let him live in obliviousness, you might have escaped easier. But it's too late now.
You hear him smack his teeth. looking at the ceiling, “Get up.” he says, grabbing the map.
It was your turn to scoff and cross your arms over your chest, "You're mad if you think- Let go of me!” you exclaim when he grabs your wrist, yanking it away. But he's quicker grabbing at your arm.
Your breath catches as he brings you close enough to his face for you to see the glint of madness in his eyes.
“Listen lass, I ain't got time for games.” he spits out, “Ya either come with or I drag you, your choice.” he says. Your eyes widen as something flashes behind his eyes for the briefest moment before it disappears as it had never been there. You blink in disbelief.
You gulp down the fear that was stricken into you, “I’ll walk.” you say simply and he lets go of you.
“Smart.” He turns around and heads towards the door with long strides. You follow behind him, holding your arm where he had grabbed you in pain. You looked up at his back as he towered over you even from a distance. What the hell was that?
The salt in the air is the first thing you notice the moment you set foot on deck. You inhale in relief, the stuffy room you had been locked into seemed claustrophobic after having been in fresh air.
You raise your hand over your eyes, ignoring the stares you've been getting from his crew as you tailed after their captain.
“Flynt!” he calls out as he climbs up the stairs to the wheel.
“Aye Capt’n!” you strain your eyes against the sun looking at the man that had answered. He looked sickly to say the least. His hair was thinning, and he was littered from head to toes with open wounds. You have heard about this affliction before. You take a step back not recalling whether or not it's contagious.
“The lass says we're at the wrong place.”
The man, Flynt, turns and looks at you standing behind the captain in contempt, “We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.” he spits out still not taking his eyes off of you. Shivers rise on your back at this.
The captain looks down at you before you speak up, “We’re too far south.” you stand straighter.
“And how do ya know?”
“Polaris.” you answer him despite the toothless smirk he throws your way. You feel the porridge inkling to come out. At this point you’ve gathered an audience.
“And ya think you know better?” he cackles, the rest of the crew following him. You cringe at the cacophony, stepping forwards, standing right next to the captain that hadn't said a word still, holding out your hand.
“May I borrow your quadrant?” you ask. You might have been held hostage on a pirate ship and dirtier than the stable boys back at your estate had ever been, but you're still a woman of your standing and you won't let a bunch of no-good heathens change that.
He scoffed, throwing the tool at you dismissively. You manage to catch it before it falls to the ground and breaks into pieces. You clear your throat as you bring it close to your eye and point it to the sky, carefully using it.
“Thirty-one degrees.” you say offering it to the man gently, but he grabs at it and looks at your measurement dismissively.
He grumbles something you couldn't quite understand as he copies your movements. After a moment he brings it down and looks at the measurement, his shoulders slumping.
“Thirty-one…” he grumbles, throwing an annoyed glance at you, not daring to say another word. The rest of the crew follows his silence.
You look up at the captain who seemed more annoyed than mad, “Correct it.” he says shoving the map into the man's hands before storming off.
You follow behind him trying to escape the unwanted stares.
“Back to your posts!” you jump as he yells and everyone scrambles off.
The silence that follows the both of you on the way back to the cabin was deafening. He opens the door for you to enter the room first and out of habit you do so, "That's not a very bright crew you’ve gathered.” you say against your better judgement.
“Shut your mouth and eat your fish porridge.” he says and slams the door shut the moment you are inside, locking you into the cabin once more.
You stare at the door eyes wide. So he did give you that porridge on purpose.
You stomp around the cabin annoyed. You thought that after helping him he might have let you out of this suffocating cabin. Instead he just locked you in once again. He might as well have let you rot at this point.
The rest of the day you had managed to entertain yourself. You snooped through his stuff, which is not very ladylike, but he's a pirate so does it really matter?. You read some of his books. You analysed maps. Then you started staring out the porthole, looking at the sky, looking at the sea, then looking at the sky again.
That was during the day. But now? The sun had set a while ago and the oil had run out, leaving you surrounded by darkness.
You were starting to contemplate if death is a good solution to boredom.
It could be. Then you’d be off this stupid ship and you would have pissed off the captain. Two birds with one stone.
Your thoughts are halted by the sound of the door opening. You still at the sound.
Finally he’s back. He might have taken pity on you and brought some oil with him.
You turn quickly towards the door expecting to see his tall frame, “Don’t you know its improp-” but instead you’re met with a far lankier figure. One you recognise from earlier that day, on the deck. Flynt.
“What happened lass?” he spits as he draws closer, “Cats got your tongue?”
You take a step back as he moves, hands searching for anything that could be helpful, but you find nothing.
“Get away from me!” you exclaim looking towards him, straining your eyes to see. But the room is dark and the moon shine doesn’t do much to help you out. One thing is clear however. The knife he seems to be holding. “I’ll scream!”
He cackles at your words, the disgusting sound reverberating through your skull, “Don’t worry, you’ll be doing that pretty soon sweetheart.” you feel like throwing up.
Your back hits the wall soon after. Having left nowhere to go, you stare at him, hands trembling.
“What?” he asks, now so close to you that you can feel the heat emitting from his body in waves, “You were pretty mouthy earlier, what happened?”
You take in a ragged breath when you feel the point of the knife pressing on your chest, “You’re scared?” he says, dragging it lower, as you try your best to not let the tears fall.
“You should be.” you feel your skirts being dragged up, and soon enough the cold metal is pressed against your thigh.
You ball your hands up as you choke back a sob, feeling the warm blood trickle down your leg.
“Still not talking?” he taunts you as you turn your head away from him, “It’s alright.” he laughs and pulls the knife away from your leg, “I’ll make you talk.”
You close your eyes awaiting for the impact. But nothing comes.
Instead you hear heavy footsteps and something being dragged against the floor.
Your eyes shoot open watching as the captain dragged the navigator out of the room.
Suddenly you feel the air return into your lungs. You fall on your knees, a hand clasping at your chest as you struggle to control your breathing.
He wanted to kill you. He would have killed you.
You almost died. You almost died. You almost died. You almost die-
“I said she’s not to be touched!” the booming voice of the captain pulls you out of your stupor. You snap your head towards the door.
You raise your arm grabbing at the nearest point, forcing yourself up, bracing yourself for the pain to shoot up from your leg.
But nothing comes. With shaking hands you pull the skirts up, fingers tracing where he had maimed you. Smooth. Not even a scar. No…
Your eyes widen in realisation, an involuntary gasp escaping your lips.
You rush outside the room and onto the deck staring at the two men. The captain and Flynt seemed to be fighting.
And surely enough, the captain seemed to have a limp.
You feel your throat swell up. He was telling the truth.
You yelp as you see the smaller man lunge towards the captain. His eyes immediately snap towards you as he hears the sound.
Next thing you see, the navigator is pushing the knife he had threatened you with into the captain's abdomen. His maniacal laughter following the attack.
Jason turned his attention back at him, looking between the crewmate and the knife, eyes hardening.
Without saying a word, he lifts his sword up and cuts the navigator's neck open.
You stared in shock as he stopped laughing, taking several steps back, a hand raising to hold his neck.
Flynt chokes as blood splutters from his mouth. He is looking at the captain, his captain, as the younger man swings his sword, slicing through his abdomen, whilst holding his own wound.
They both fall on their knees, blood pooling around them. Only one of them is groaning and the other one falls to the front and soon enough stops moving.
You watch in horror, nauseated by the scene you lean over emptying your stomach's contents on the deck.
You cough at the acidic taste as you raise your head, eyes immediately landing on the captain, who is breathing heavily looking at the night sky.
And then it hit you. He saved you. He saved you. And now he looks like he’s on death's door.
“Why would you do this!” you scramble over him, fully disregarding the newly dead body laying between you two.
“Dont ‘ya remember lass? I need you.” he says as your eyes searched frantically over him, trying to assess the damage done.
“And that's more important than your life?” you ask as he lifts his torso, trying to get up, “Don’t move!” you say but he pays you no mind. You huff as you push your hair out of your face, and bring your arms around him, trying to lift him. Soon enough you realise that you’ve overestimated your strength. He doesn’t seem to mind however, using you as a crutch as the two of you walk into a nearby room.
“Have you no fear of death?” you ask, sweat trickling down your temple as you help him sit on a chair.
“I woulda if I could die.” he laughs, followed by a pained cough.
You inhale in annoyance as you throw cabinets open looking for a bowl and water. “Would you stop speaking in riddles?” you ball your hands up, eyes lighting up when you find what you’ve been looking for.
“Am not.” he groans and you tread towards him, falling on your knees, “Let's be honest, no human could survive that.” Your head snaps up at him, eyebrows furrowing.
Silence falls upon you at his words. He’s right of course. Not that you’d ever tell him that. He just got stabbed. He had an open hole in his abdomen, one that was slowly closing before your eyes. He should be dead by any means.
Instead he is laughing and antagonizing you.
You give him a strained nod as you empty the water into the bowl. You don't dare speak, your mind running a million thoughts per minute.
He was telling the truth. About his… condition. Strange as it was, you’ve seen it in action twice now. It’s the unmistakable truth.
You look down at your lap as you rip a piece of your dress off, immediately dipping it in water.
“You were telling the truth.”
“Told ya.” you raised your head again. You see the captain looking down at you, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. You looked away, focusing instead on dapping the blood that stained his skin clean.
“That shouldn’t be possible.”
“Aye,” he hissed at the contact and your hand trembled at the sound. But you were quick to regain composure and continue as you were.
“Thank you.” you mumble, not baring to hear the sound of his flesh getting stitched back together.
“For what?” he asks, looking at you still.
“For saving me.” you mumble ignoring his stare. You don’t want to know what human expression he might have right now, preferring to visualise him as the angry pirate that abducted you.
He laughs at your words, “I was saving myself lassie, don’t take it personally.” he moves around, throwing his head back. You hear him inhale as he does so. You look at the blackened tissue that paints his abdomen. You don’t want to imagine how painful this must be for him.
“Well, you still did,” you swallow, “I’ll repay you.”
“I don’t need no gold.”
“I know.” you raise your head, lips furrowed, “I’ll help you break this curse of yours.” you’re met with an expression that you could only describe as shock.
For a heartbeat, he simply stared. The smirk returned a second later, but it didn't quite reach his eyes, “You’ll regret that,”
You exhale, keeping your eyes on the blood stained cloth, “I know.”
After a very long wait, it's here! Unfortunately is was getting waaaay too long so i broke it in half
