＊•̩̩͙🦋r a i n🦋•̩̩͙˚

"So pretty, even when you're mad at me," he whispers, a rough hand coming up to fiddle with the leg of your shorts. "Let me hear your voice, please, doll..."

You humph, eyes focused firmly on your book. You refuse to look at him, interact with him...

"I'm just gonna keep sitting here until you talk to me."

Silence.

"Baby?"

More silence.

He grumbles. "Okay. Fine." You're a little surprised when you feel his weight lift from your lap and you finally spare him a glance as he stands up and round to the other side of the bed.

You tilt your head curiously, eyes widening as you see your big, brooding, 6'0" boyfriend sink to one knee and then the other. He looks up at you through his thick lashes, looking absolutely devastated.

His big hands come up, feeling up and down your thighs and hips as he keeps his eyes locked to yours. Your book is long since forgotten, shut without a bookmark on the other side of the bed. You swing your legs over the edge of it, sitting facing Jason.

"I can't go any longer without hearing your voice, mama," he sighs in distress. His forehead falls forward to rest against your plush thighs. "Please. I need you. I need your touch and your love and...you."

He stares up at you with big, sad eyes. Your heart aches despite yourself—he looks much like a fluffy, lonely puppy pleading for his owner's attention.

He all but whimpers when your fingers reach to brush through his dark hair. "Oh, baby," he whines, nuzzling his nose into your leg. His hands drag up to your waist, arms encircling you. "More, please..."

Your hands continue their ministrations, but you still do not speak to him. He hasn't earned it quite yet. That is, until you hear...sniffles?

"Jay?"

"Oh–" he whimpers, burrowing closer to you. Yep, you definitely feel wetness begin to soak into your shorts, and he's definitely sniffling. "Yes, ma? What is it? I'm sorry."

"Are you crying?" you ask him softly.

He sighs deeply. "Doesn't matter. I finally get to hear my baby's voice."

You frown. You thought before that he was just being dramatic, trying to annoy you with his whining and constant bargaining for your attention. But now, seeing the man cry in your lap like a baby... "You were really upset?"

He looks up at you with wet lashes and pouty lips. "Of course I was, doll. My sweetest, most beautiful girl wasn't talking to me and I can't do with that. I need you."

Despite yourself, you let out a little snort. "Jesus, you're pathetic."

He mewls. "Baby– please," he sits back on his knees. He's...really begging. On his knees. On your bedroom floor. "Forgive me, forgive me, please," he pleads.

"I don't know..." you decide to tease him a bit. "Should I?"

More tears fall from his big eyes. "Yes! Please, please, please—I'll do anything, my love. You're my everything and I didn't mean to ruin your day off," he locks his hands together, holding up praying hands. "I'll plan the most perfect day and I'll let you fuck me to sleep, baby, please. Just...love on me again, I beg."

You smirk. "I never thought I'd see the Jason Todd on his knees."

"Only for you, my angel," he sniffles, eyes never leaving yours. "I'm only pathetic for you, nobody else. Nothing else."

Alas, you let up. "Oh, my boy, c'mere," you open your arms. "Come to mommy."

"Oh, thank god–" he lets out the biggest sigh of relief and rises from his knees, crawling atop you in the bed as you lay down.

"Thank you," he whispers, tucking his head into your neck and kissing the skin there. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, mama."

Your hand cards through his hair, the other arm wrapping around his broad waist. "Shhh...no more crying, Jay."

"I can't help it. I lost you."

"For like 36 hours," you giggle.

"36 hours too long," he scowls up at you, but it's weightless with his soft-as-silk eyes. "I'm sorry for upsetting you," he murmurs again, hands feeling you up and down—it'd been too long since he was this close.

"I know, love, I forgive you," you reply. "Let me hold you, yeah?"

"Yes, babygirl, hold me, please," he sighs. "Fuck, I missed you..."

"My pathetic boy," you whisper, kissing his forehead softly and then his soft lips. "I love you."

"I love you more. Don't ignore me like that again. Please?"

Nobody around you looked up.

The broker had called the neighborhood “up-and-coming.” Your mother had called it “a cry for help.” Your aunt had sent you four articles about Gotham crime statistics and then followed up with a voice memo that began, “I know you think we’re overreacting, but—”

You had deleted the voice memo at South Station.

That was not fair, maybe. Your family loved you. They loved you so much it had become advice, warnings, opinions, emergency plans, blind dates, shared locations, and a constant chorus of questions about whether you had really thought this through. By the end of college, home had become less a place than a committee meeting about your future.

Gotham had been a decision made from exhaustion, stubbornness, and the frightening clarity of being twenty-two years old with a degree, a checking account that made you anxious, and no desire to move back into your childhood bedroom.

The Wayne Enterprises listing had appeared between two administrative assistant jobs and a communications coordinator position at a nonprofit that required 3 years of experience for entry-level pay. You had laughed when you opened it.

Personal Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer.

Wayne Enterprises.

Competitive salary.

Discretion required.

Ability to manage complex scheduling needs, executive communications, high-pressure situations, confidential materials, and rapidly shifting priorities.

You had assumed the listing was either fake or meant for someone whose résumé included phrases like “family office” and “international liaison.” Still, you had applied because it was one in the morning and your standards had been damaged by panic. You had written a cover letter that was honest enough to embarrass you in daylight, attached your résumé, and hit submit before you could talk yourself out of it.

Two weeks later, you were in Gotham.

Three interviews after that, you were standing in the lobby of Wayne Tower in your best blazer, trying not to look as if the polished black floors and vaulted ceiling had personally insulted your tax bracket.

The receptionist smiled at you with the serene calm of someone who had seen billionaires bleed on marble and still knew where the spare visitor badges were kept. “You can go up now. Mr. Drake-Wayne is expecting you.”

Your stomach performed an athletic maneuver.

“Great,” you said, in the tone of someone for whom nothing had ever been great.

A woman in a cream blouse met you near the elevators. “You must be here for the PA interview.”

“Yes,” you said. “That’s me.”

“I’m Tam Fox.” She shook your hand firmly. “I work in executive operations. Tim is running two minutes late, which is actually early for him.”

You smiled because she smiled, and because “Tim” seemed too casual for the name Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, who had spent the last week existing in your mind as a LinkedIn profile with cheekbones, a terrifying job title, and a net worth you tried very hard not to think about.

“Fair warning,” Tam said as you approached a corner office. “He reads fast, talks faster when he’s tired, and forgets that most people cannot follow three conversations at once.”

“That’s weirdly comforting.”

“That was the goal.”

Inside, Timothy Drake-Wayne stood behind his desk with one hand braced on a stack of folders and the other wrapped around a coffee cup. He was younger than he looked in official photographs, or maybe he looked exactly twenty-three, and the rest of the world had decided CEOs were not supposed to. His tie was slightly loose, his sleeves were rolled to his forearms, and he looked tired enough that the alertness in his eyes felt almost unfair.

“Hi,” he said, setting the coffee down as if remembering he needed a free hand. “Sorry. That was a terrible start. Tim Drake-Wayne.”

You shook his hand. “I know.”

His mouth twitched. “That would be the building with my family’s name on it.”

“One of your names,” you said before you could stop yourself.

For half a second, you were certain you had ruined your life.

Then he laughed.

After that, the interview became less terrifying and more impossible to read. Tim asked about scheduling, confidentiality, difficult personalities, crisis logistics, and the conference you had once helped salvage after it lost its venue forty-eight hours before opening. When he asked who had handled the vendors, transportation, catering, and revised schedule, you admitted, “Mostly me.”

Tim leaned back in his chair. “Why wasn’t your supervisor doing any of this?”

Because she had cried in the bathroom and told you she trusted you, which was the sort of thing people said when they wanted you to accept responsibility without being given authority.

You chose the diplomatic version. “She delegated.”

Tim looked at you for a moment. Then he wrote something in the margin of your résumé.

Three hours later, Tam called to offer you the position.

The salary was high enough that you asked her to repeat it, then accepted before anyone at Wayne Enterprises could realize they had made a clerical error. By the next week, you were officially Tim Drake-Wayne’s personal assistant, and your new life in Gotham had become less theoretical and much more terrifying.

You had no idea that, ever since your interview, Tim Drake-Wayne had not quite managed to stop thinking about you.

The first two weeks were a trial by calendar.

“You have a nine with Lucius Fox, a nine-thirty with legal, a ten with Applied Sciences, a ten-fifteen with the mayor’s office, and a ten-thirty with the children’s hospital board,” you said on your fourth day, standing in his office with a tablet in one hand and a file tucked under your arm.

Tim looked up from his laptop. “That can’t be right.”

“It is.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

He rubbed both hands over his face. “The ten-fifteen was supposed to be next week.”

“The mayor’s office says you confirmed yesterday.”

“I was, for all practical purposes, concussed yesterday.”

You stared at him.

Tim went still.

The office went quiet around the sentence.

Then he said, very carefully, “That was a figure of speech.”

You lowered the tablet. “Do you often confirm meetings while metaphorically concussed?”

“Only when I’m operating on two hours of sleep and a questionable amount of caffeine.”

“That is not better.”

His mouth twitched. “Can you move the mayor’s office?”

“I already did.”

“You did?”

“They’re now Friday at two. Legal is sending someone to sit in on Applied Sciences, and the hospital board is getting a written statement from you by end of day. You still need to call Lucius, because apparently he can tell when you’re avoiding him.”

“Everyone can tell when I’m avoiding Lucius.”

“Then maybe stop making it obvious.”

Tim looked at you for a long moment, and you wondered if you had gone too far.

Finally, he said, “You’re very good at this.”

Your heart did something stupid.

That was when you should have known you were in trouble.

Your feelings for Tim did not appear suddenly or dramatically. They accumulated.

It was in the way Tim listened to you even when his mind had clearly moved three steps ahead. It was in the way he never made you feel stupid for asking questions, only concerned when you did not ask them soon enough.

After that, wanting him became harder to pretend away. You told yourself it was normal to admire someone you worked closely with. Tim was brilliant, and brilliance was attractive when it came with kindness instead of cruelty. He was also your boss, which made the whole thing inconvenient, inappropriate, and something you intended to manage quietly until it died of starvation.

It did not die.

It adapted.

Learning Gotham itself became another part of your job. What you did not learn, at least not quickly enough for Tim’s blood pressure, was how to live in Gotham like someone who understood that survival was not supposed to be optional.

It came to his attention on a Tuesday evening in your third week, when you left Wayne Tower late and decided to walk home in the rain. 

You made it four blocks before your phone rang.

Tim’s name appeared on the screen.

You frowned, shifted your tote higher on your shoulder, and answered. “Is something wrong?”

“Where are you?”

“Walking home.”

There was a beat of silence. “You’re what?”

“Walking home.”

“From the office?”

“Yes.”

“In the rain?”

“It’s water, Tim.”

“What route are you taking?”

You glanced at the street signs. “I don’t know, the normal one?”

“The normal one,” he repeated.

“The one my phone suggested.”

Another silence. This one was worse.

“Are you wearing headphones?”

You touched one earbud. “Only one.”

“Take it out.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re walking home alone after dark in Gotham and outsourcing situational awareness to Google Maps.”

You stopped under the awning of a closed tailor shop. Rain dripped from the edge in a steady line. “That feels a little dramatic.”

“Tell me what street you’re on.”

You did, and Tim made a sound that could only be described as a restrained scream.

“Okay,” he said, in the tone of someone trying very hard not to scare a civilian. “Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around, walk back to the intersection, and go into the diner on the corner. It should still be open.”

“Tim, I’m six blocks from my apartment.”

“You are two blocks from a corridor that empties after six-thirty because the streetlights have been out for a month and GCPD response time there is abysmal.”

You looked toward the next block. It was quieter than you had realized. Not empty, but thin in a way that made the street’s damp shine suddenly look less cinematic and more like a warning.

A car rolled slowly past. You watched it until it turned the corner.

“I’m going to the diner,” you said.

“Good. Stay on the phone.”

“You’re being a little intense.”

“I’m aware.”

“And bossy.”

“I’m also aware of that.”

The diner was exactly where he said it would be. You sat in a booth near the window, ordered fries because you felt bad taking up space, and tried not to feel like a child who had been caught doing something reckless.

“Are you at the diner?” Tim asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m sending a car.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

“Tim.”

“You can be angry at me from the car.”

“I’m not angry.”

“You sound angry.”

“I’m embarrassed.”

His voice softened. “That wasn’t what I wanted.”

You watched rain bead on the window and realized how much you had not noticed before.

“I didn’t know,” you said.

“I know.”

“I’m not helpless.”

“I know that too.”

The simple certainty of it made your throat tighten, which was deeply inconvenient because you were in a diner with fries on the way and your boss in your ear.

Tim exhaled over the line. “Gotham has rules. They’re not fair, and they don’t always make sense until something happens. People who grew up here learn them early. You didn’t, so I’m going to have to teach you.”

“You personally?”

“I’m very qualified.”

“You’re the CEO of a Fortune whatever company.”

“Which means I’ve survived a lot of board meetings in Gotham.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” he agreed. “The board meetings are worse.”

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

When he spoke again, his voice had shifted, quieter around the edges. “The car’s two minutes out. The driver’s name is Marcus. He’ll have your name.”

“Okay.”

“And tomorrow we’re talking about your commute.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It is.”

The car arrived exactly when he said it would.

When you reached your building, Tim said, “Text me when you’re inside your apartment.”

“You’re still being bossy.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll text you,” you said.

“Thank you.”

Upstairs, after locking both locks, you texted him.

Inside.

His response came almost immediately. Good. Sleep well. And don’t use the alley door. Ever.

You looked toward the kitchen window, which faced the narrow black cut between buildings.

How did you know about the alley entrance?

Tim answered, It’s Gotham.

That was not an answer.

It was, however, the first time you wondered whether there was more to Tim Drake-Wayne than bad sleep habits and executive stress.

After that, Gotham lessons became part of your routine. Tim taught you not to stand too close to the curb, not to trust empty streets, not to ignore changes in sound, and not to ask questions if a shopkeeper started lowering the gate in the middle of business hours.

“I’ll make you a list,” Tim said.

He did.

It was three pages long, with the heading Basic Urban Safety Considerations. 

You wrote under the heading: Gotham for People From Cities That Have Normal Problems.

Tim laughed so hard he had to set his coffee down before he spilled it across three quarterly reports.

You liked his laugh. That became a problem. Then you liked making him laugh, which became a much worse problem.

The phone appeared on a Thursday.

Your own phone was perfectly fine. It was a previous-generation smartphone you had bought refurbished during senior year, with a battery that had developed opinions of its own.

Tim noticed it, because of course he did.

When it buzzed against his desk one morning and immediately dimmed, Tim looked at it.

“What?” you asked.

“Your phone battery is at twelve percent.”

“It has character.”

“It’s eleven in the morning.”

“I charged it last night.”

“That’s worse.”

“It works.”

“It works badly.”

“It works economically.”

“It dies before lunch, and you live in Gotham.”

That was unfair because it was reasonable.

“It’s fine,” you said.

He smiled, but it faded faster than usual. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are.” You softened because he did look serious, and because his concern had a way of getting under your defenses before you could lock them properly. “But I can’t just buy a new phone because my boss has Gotham anxiety.”

“I’m not asking you to buy one.”

“Tim.”

He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a matte black box with no branding.

“What is that?”

“A phone.”

“I gathered.”

“WayneTech prototype. Technically.” His expression was careful in a way that made you immediately suspicious. “Better battery life, satellite fallback, emergency routing, panic button. Three presses sends your location and live audio to a secure response line.”

“What secure response line?”

“A private one.”

“Private like Wayne Enterprises security?”

“Private like people who can get to you faster than standard emergency services in certain parts of Gotham.”

You stared at him.

Tim’s face did something very small and very guilty.

“Timoth Drake-Wayne, I know that you did not just offer me a phone with secret features that connects to a private line used by, what, Bruce Wayne? Robin? Red Robin? Batman? Some terrifying combination of all of the above?”

“It can also call standard emergency services,” he said quickly.

“Tim.”

“And you can disable anything you don’t want. Location only sends if you trigger the alert. Same with live audio. I’m not trying to track you.”

“You understand why this is weird.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m just hoping it’s redundant and you never have to use it.”

“You’re my boss.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t give me secret billionaire technology because my battery sucks.”

“I can if it’s issued as an employee safety device.”

“Is it?”

“It can be.”

You stared at him.

He winced. “It isn’t yet.”

“I’m not saying no forever,” you said. “I’m saying do it properly.”

Tim took the box, his fingers brushing the edge where yours had been a moment before. “Okay.”

The box went back into his drawer, but the weight of it stayed between you.

The employee device policy appeared three business days later.

It was, annoyingly, excellent. Wayne Enterprises issued upgraded phones to several employee groups, with privacy protections, emergency-only location sharing, access logs, and an option to decline without penalty.

Tam stopped by your desk and set a matte-black box down. “Before you ask, yes, I made Legal explain the access logs twice.”

Tam studied you for a moment. Then she tapped the box with one finger. “Set it up before you leave tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You set it up at your desk after most of the floor had emptied. The process walked you through privacy terms, emergency contacts, medical information, and the secure response option.

There was a field labeled Preferred Wayne Security Contact.

Below it, already listed, was Timothy Drake-Wayne.

You stared at the screen.

Then you deleted his name and selected the general Wayne Security line instead.

Five seconds later, your desk phone rang.

You looked toward Tim’s office. His door was open. He was standing behind his desk, phone to his ear, looking through the glass wall at you with the blank expression of someone who had been personally wounded.

You answered. “Yes?”

“You removed me.”

“I selected the appropriate professional contact.”

“I am an appropriate professional contact.”

“You are the CEO.”

“I’m also the person most likely to answer when you need help.”

“That is not as comforting as you think it is.”

“It should be.”

“You are the least available person I’ve ever met.”

“I would answer for you.”

The words arrived quietly.

Your hand tightened around the phone.

He looked as if he regretted saying it aloud, or as if he had not meant to say it with that much truth in it. Through the glass, across the dim office floor, he seemed younger and more tired than the city believed him to be. He also seemed impossibly far away.

“That’s the problem,” you said.

Tim was silent.

“I need this job,” you continued, keeping your voice even because the alternative was worse. “I like this job. I like working for you. I also need you to know where the lines are.”

His face changed. Not dramatically. Tim was too controlled for that. But something in him went still and careful, as if he had finally heard the thing underneath everything you had not been saying.

“You’re right,” he said.

You let out a breath.

“I’m sorry,” he added.

“You don’t have to be sorry for caring.”

“I do if I make it complicated for you.”

You looked at him through the glass and said, “Thank you.”

He nodded once.

The call ended.

You kept Wayne Security as your preferred contact.

Tim did not bring it up again.

That was the first time you thought he might feel something too.

After that, Tim became almost painfully careful. He still looked after you, but through policy, security protocols, and practical adjustments that applied to more people than you. He stopped calling after hours unless it was work-related.

You hated how much you missed it.

Then came the gala.

The Wayne Foundation’s annual winter benefit took over a museum three weeks later, turning it into a glittering maze of flowers, security checkpoints, and donors whose clothing probably cost more than your first car. 

You were working, which made it easier: tablet in hand, earpiece in place, comfortable shoes hidden under a formal black dress.

Tim, unfortunately, looked like a problem.

He wore a black tuxedo with the resigned elegance of someone who had been put in formalwear since childhood and had never forgiven anyone for it. His hair was neater than usual, his smile was more practiced, and every time he slipped into charming-rich-boy mode, you felt a private grief for all the tired, sharp, funny parts of him the room did not get to see.

He looked composed. He also looked exhausted.

At nine-thirty, you intercepted him near the staff corridor with a glass of water and two minutes of unscheduled silence.

“Drink,” you said.

His eyes flicked down to the glass. “Is that an order?”

“A professional recommendation.”

“Those are scarier.”

He took the glass and drank half of it. The polished mask slipped a little as soon as he was out of the donors’ sight.

You smiled, and his gaze caught on it in a way that made the noise of the gala seem to recede.

“You look nice,” he said.

Your brain emptied itself like a drawer dumped onto the floor.

Tim seemed to realize the same thing one second too late.

“I mean,” he said, “you look very—” He stopped, as if every available adjective had become a legal hazard. “Appropriate for the event.”

“Appropriate for the event,” you repeated.

He closed his eyes briefly. “That was worse.”

“It was.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You can tell an employee she looks nice at a formal event without HR rappelling through the ceiling.”

His eyes opened. “HR doesn’t rappel.”

“This is Gotham. Don’t be too surprised.”

That got him. His laugh was quiet, but it loosened something in his shoulders.

Then he looked at you again, and the humor softened into something that was harder to pretend away.

“You do,” he said. “Look nice.”

Your pulse moved to your throat.

“Thank you,” you said, because that was safe, and because you wanted too many unsafe things.

A crash sounded from the main hall.

You and Tim both turned at once.

It was not a small crash. It stopped music, conversation, and every heartbeat in the room.

Tim’s expression changed so fast it frightened you.

The exhausted CEO vanished. Something colder and sharper took his place.

“Stay here,” he said.

“Tim—”

“Staff corridor. Door locks from the inside. Stay away from the main hall.”

He was already moving.

You grabbed his sleeve before you could think better of it. “Where are you going?”

His gaze dropped to your hand, then lifted to your face.

For one impossible second, he looked torn.

Then the lights went out.

Emergency lighting washed the corridor red. The museum alarm began to shriek. Tim caught your wrist, not hard, but with immediate certainty, and pulled you through the staff door as people began running in the main hall.

“Move,” he said.

You moved.

The staff corridor was narrow, red-lit, and loud with the muffled chaos of the main hall. Tim guided you into a service alcove near the freight elevator, already typing one-handed on the black phone you had only seen once.

Then laughter crackled over the museum’s PA system.

Not the Joker. You knew that much, and it was horrifying that you knew enough about Gotham to be relieved by the wrong kind of laughter.

“Wonderful,” Tim muttered. “Pantomime.”

“Who?”

“Low-tier thief with high-tier commitment to theme.”

“Should I be comforted?”

“No.”

He pulled something from inside his jacket and pressed it into your hand.

A phone.

Not the one Tam had given you earlier. That one was in your pocket.

This one was matte black, unbranded, and horribly familiar.

“Tim,” you said slowly.

“I designed it for you.”

The words landed too carefully to be casual.

You looked down at the smooth black screen, then back up at him. “This is the one you offered me the first time.” 

His hand stayed near yours for half a second before he drew it back. “Yes.” 

“Tam already gave me one.” 

“I know. This one is different.”

“Different how?”

“Extra emergency routing. Nothing invasive,” he said quickly. “Your privacy terms are built in.”

“You designed a custom phone for me and just carry it around in your jacket?”

His expression barely changed, which meant he was probably embarrassed. “I was waiting for a reasonable time.”

“And this is the reasonable time?”

“No,” he said. “But it is the available one.”

“Tim—”

“Listen to me.” His voice was low and urgent, and every word landed with terrifying precision. “Stay here. Keep low. This hallway leads to the east loading dock if you need to run. Wayne security will eventually come to this corridor. If anyone comes through that door who is not security or me, you go straight down the hall to the last door on the left. Do not wait. Do not let anyone redirect you.”

“And you?”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” Tim said. “It’s an instruction.”

Your fingers closed around his phone. “You’re scaring me.”

His expression flickered.

“I know,” he said, and the apology inside it hurt worse than the fear.

Another sound came from the hall. Metal striking marble. Someone sobbed. Security shouted. The PA system squealed with feedback.

Tim touched your shoulder, brief and steady. “I need you safe.”

Then he was gone.

You crouched in the red-lit service alcove with the phone in your hand and the horrible certainty that Tim had just run toward a crime scene with the focus of someone who knew exactly what to do.

Minutes changed shape during a crisis.

You learned that quickly.

You stayed where he had put you for what felt like an hour but was probably less than five minutes. Voices moved through the corridor twice. Once, two catering staff hurried past, whispering frantically. Once, a security guard ran by with his radio pressed to his mouth. You tried to follow the instructions in your head. Stay down. Watch the door. East loading dock if you need to run.

Then someone slammed into the staff door at the end of the corridor.

You flinched so hard your shoulder hit the wall.

The door rattled. A voice cursed on the other side. Another voice said something you could not make out. The lock held.

The phone Tim had pressed into your hand buzzed.

You looked down.

A notification had appeared on the previously black screen.

EMERGENCY MODE ACTIVE.SAFE ROUTE: EAST LOADING DOCK.

A simple map blinked to life, leading you toward the east loading dock.

In the corner was the name of the active safety profile.

DRAKE PROTOCOL.

You stared at it for half a second too long.

Your thumb hovered over the words longer than it should have.

The door rattled again. This time, the lock cracked.

You did not think. You moved.

Tim had told you to go to the east loading dock, so you went east. You kept low, one hand against the wall, Tam’s phone heavy in your pocket and Tim’s clutched so tightly in your other hand that your fingers hurt. Behind you, the door gave way. People entered the corridor laughing and arguing about whether the “rich idiots” had gone through there. You slipped through the next door before they saw you and found yourself in a storage room full of folded tables and museum display equipment.

There was another door on the far side. You crossed to it, eased it open, and nearly collided with Red Robin.

You stopped so abruptly that your shoulder clipped the frame. 

You knew him from news footage, blurry photos, and distant rooftop sightings. Gotham’s vigilantes occupied a strange space in public consciousness, half emergency service and half urban myth. You knew Batman, obviously. Everyone knew Batman. You knew Nightwing because the internet had feelings about Nightwing. You knew Red Robin as the one with the staff, the cape, and the reputation for being frighteningly smart.

He stood in the doorway in red and black armor, domino mask cutting sharp lines across his face, cape settling around him like a shadow. He was taller up close than he looked in news footage, all dark armor and sharp angles in the dim service hallway.

For half a second, you were relieved.

Then he said your name.

Not “ma’am.” Not “miss.” Your name.

Your grip tightened around the phone.

Red Robin went still.

The silence was tiny. Maybe less than a second. Maybe nothing to anyone else.

To you, it was everything.

“Oh,” you said.

Red Robin’s mouth pressed into a line.

You knew that mouth.

You knew that stillness.

You knew the way his shoulders carried responsibility like it had been fitted there by hand.

The storage room door behind you opened.

Red Robin moved before you had time to turn. His staff snapped out with a metallic hiss, striking the first intruder in the chest and sending him backward into the second. He caught your arm, pulled you behind him, and the fight became motion. Efficient, brutal, almost silent compared to the chaos outside. Two men went down before either could shout. A third reached for something at his belt, and Red Robin’s cape cut across your view as he disarmed him with a precision that made your stomach drop.

It was over in seconds.

Red Robin stood over three unconscious men and did not look at you.

You stared at him.

The museum alarm kept screaming.

Finally, he said, “Are you hurt?”

Tim’s voice, altered slightly by the mask or the suit or his own effort, but not enough.

You swallowed. “Are you kidding me?”

He turned then. Even with the mask, you saw the wince.

“Now is not the best time.”

“You’re Red Robin.”

“Now is really not the best time.”

“You’re Red Robin.”

“I heard you.”

“You gave me a panic-button phone.”

His mouth tightened. “Yes.”

“That goes to you.”

“Yes.”

“Not Wayne Security. Not some private corporate response line. You.”

A fractional pause.

“As Red Robin,” you said.

His silence was answer enough.

“And if you don’t answer?”

“It routes to me first,” he said. “If I don’t respond, it escalates.”

“To who?”

Another pause. His mouth tightened.

You stared at him. “Oh my god.”

The comm at his ear crackled. He tilted his head slightly. “I have her. East storage, three down. Moving to loading dock.”

A pause.

“Yes, I know.”

Another pause.

His jaw tightened. “Nightwing can stop laughing anytime.”

You made a sound that was not quite hysteria but had ambitions.

Red Robin held out a gloved hand. “We need to move.”

You looked at his hand, then at the unconscious men, then at the door behind him.

There would be time later. There had to be, because if you let yourself process this now—really process it—you were going to stop moving, and Tim had been very clear that stopping was not an option.

You took his hand.

He led you out.

At the loading dock, Red Robin guided you straight into Tam’s waiting arms.

Tam hugged you once, hard. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” you said honestly.

Red Robin said, “Stay with her.”

Tam nodded once. “Go.”

He looked at you one more time, then vanished into the rain.

You stood there with the phone in your hand and your entire understanding of your employment contract rearranging itself into something insane.

By midnight, the official story was that Tim Drake-Wayne had been evacuated with several major donors and spent the rest of the incident coordinating with security from a safe location.

You heard it while sitting in a Wayne Tower conference room, wrapped in a shock blanket you did not remember accepting.

Tim appeared forty minutes after Red Robin disappeared.

He came in through the main conference room doors wearing his tuxedo again, tie missing, hair damp, a shallow cut at his jaw, and the expression of someone who knew he was walking into consequences.

You looked at him.

He looked at you.

Tam and Bruce left with suspiciously convenient excuses.

Tim stayed near the door.

You sat at the conference table with the shock blanket around your shoulders and the phone on the polished wood in front of you.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then you said, “You’re Red Robin.”

Tim closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

There it was.

No denial. No corporate language. No careful sidestep into things you were not cleared to know. Just yes.

Your eyes stung suddenly, which made you angry because fear had passed, danger had passed, and apparently now your body had decided to be dramatic in a conference room.

“You said my name,” you said.

“I know.”

“You could have pretended.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Tim’s face softened with something that looked painfully like regret. “Because you were scared, and I needed you to listen.”

That was the worst answer because it was good.

You looked down at the phone. “How many people know?”

“Family. A few allies. Lucius. Alfred.”

“Of course the butler knows.”

Tim winced. “Technically.”

You pressed a hand over your eyes. “I’m angry.”

“I know.”

“I’m also relieved you’re alive.”

His expression shifted.

“And confused. But mostly angry.”

Tim came closer slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal or a bomb. Maybe both. He stopped on the other side of the conference table, leaving distance between you that you hated and appreciated in equal measure.

“You can resign,” he said. “With full severance, references, whatever you need. If you want another job somewhere else, I’ll help arrange it without interfering. If you want to stay at Wayne Enterprises but not work for me, that can happen. You don’t have to decide tonight.”

Something twisted in your chest.

“You already thought through my exit options.”

“Yes.”

“Because you’re prepared.”

“Because I care what happens to you.”

The room went very quiet.

Tim looked down, jaw tight. “That was inappropriate.”

“Was it untrue?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to resign,” you said after a long pause.

Tim looked up.

“I don’t know what I want long-term,” you continued. “But I don’t want to leave because something complicated happened.”

“Complicated,” he repeated.

“You’re Red Robin, my boss, and possibly the most sleep-deprived man in America. That’s complicated.”

“Fair.”

“I do think I shouldn’t be your PA forever.”

Pain flickered across his face before he controlled it.

You hated that too.

“I don’t mean because of tonight,” you said. “I mean because I’m good at this, and I don’t want to become someone whose whole career is being useful to one man, even if that man is—”

You stopped.

Tim’s attention sharpened.

“Even if that man is what?” he asked softly.

Dangerous ground. Worse than alleys, scaffolding, and laundromats that were not laundromats. This was the kind of danger you had walked toward willingly for weeks.

You chose honesty, because apparently near-death experiences made you stupid.

“You.”

Tim went still.

The conference room felt too bright, too corporate, too full of glass walls and secrets.

Finally, he said, “I can talk to Tam about a promotion track. Executive operations, maybe special projects. You’d report to her, not me. It would be real, not a favor.”

“You don’t have to solve it tonight.”

“I know.”

“You’re doing it anyway.”

“I’m trying not to do anything else.”

The words landed between you with devastating precision.

Oh.

You stared at him, and Tim held your gaze like he had already decided to accept whatever damage the truth caused.

“You feel it too,” you said.

His breath changed. Barely, but you heard it.

“Yes,” he said.

The answer was quiet. It still wrecked you.

You pulled the shock blanket tighter around yourself because otherwise you might reach for him, and that seemed like a bad idea while you were still shaking and he was still bleeding from his jaw.

“We can’t do anything about that right now,” you said.

“I know.”

“And you need stitches.”

“I don’t.”

“You absolutely do.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You are still lying about injuries to the person who knows your calendar, your caffeine intake, and your fake workout blocks.”

His mouth twitched.

You picked up the phone from the table.

“I’ll keep this,” you said.

Tim’s gaze flicked to the phone, then back to your face. “Okay.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m done being angry.”

“I know.”

“Or confused.”

“I know that too.”

You slipped the phone carefully into your bag, as if the wrong movement might shatter something already fragile and cracked.

“Medical first,” you said.

“Okay.”

“Then we discuss my job.”

“Okay.”

“And then, eventually, when there is no active crime scene, no head wound, and no direct-reporting relationship, we can discuss the other thing.”

Tim’s eyes lifted to yours.

There was something in them now that you had never seen so openly in his office. Want, yes, but also restraint. Hope under discipline. A man with too many masks allowing one of them to slip because you had asked him for honesty and he had given it.

“The other thing,” he said.

“Don’t make me say it in a conference room.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“You absolutely would.”

His smile came back, small and real.

Your heart, traitorous and exhausted, leaned toward it.

Two weeks later, you were promoted.

It was not because you knew Tim’s secret. You made absolutely sure of that.

Tam brought you into her office with an offer letter, a revised title, and a salary increase that made you stare at the page for a full ten seconds without breathing.

Executive Operations Coordinator, Special Projects.

You would report to Tam, not Tim. It was a real job with real responsibilities, and Tam made sure you understood that before you could ask.

“You earned it,” she said. “And before you start thinking Tim pushed this through because he is emotionally compromised, he recommended you for advancement two weeks before the gala.”

She turned a printed memo toward you. You caught only a few phrases before looking away.

Exceptional crisis judgment.

Operational instincts exceed current role.

Should be placed where she can build institutional authority.

You looked away before your face could do something embarrassing.

“Tim has many flaws,” Tam said. “Undervaluing competence is not usually one of them.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes if you want the job.”

You looked at the offer again. You thought of Boston, your packed boxes, your family’s concern pressing against every decision you made until Gotham had seemed less like a city than an escape hatch. You thought of your first day in Wayne Tower, your panic in the elevator, Tim laughing when you said one of his names was on the building.

Then you thought of the storage room, Red Robin saying your name, and Tim across a conference table telling you he cared about what happened to you.

You signed the offer.

You found Tim on the roof of Wayne Tower at sunset, which was not where CEOs were supposed to be but was exactly where vigilantes apparently spent their emotional processing time. He was in shirtsleeves, jacket abandoned on the low wall beside him, tie loose, wind tugging at his hair. The grotesques along the roofline loomed dark against the bruised evening sky.

“Do all Waynes brood on rooftops,” you asked, “or is this a you thing?”

Tim turned. His expression changed when he saw the envelope in your hand.

“You signed.”

“I did.”

The tension in his shoulders eased so visibly that it hurt your chest.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“You earned it.”

“That seems to be the company line.”

“It’s the truth.”

You walked to the wall beside him, leaving enough space between you for sense and not enough for comfort.

You looked at him. “I think I’m staying.”

Tim’s gaze held yours. “In Gotham?”

“At Wayne Enterprises. In Gotham. In the life I apparently live now, where my former boss is Red Robin and my new phone has emergency settings designed by a vigilante with a corporate email address.”

He huffed a laugh. “Former boss.”

“That’s the part you heard?”

“It’s an important part.”

“It is.”

The wind moved between you, cold enough that you folded your arms.

Tim noticed. Of course he noticed. “Do you want my jacket?”

“No.”

“You’re cold.”

“I am establishing independence.”

“You can be independent and warm.”

“That sounds fake.”

“It’s not.”

He held out the jacket.

You stared at it, then at him.

“Tim.”

“It’s a jacket, not a marriage proposal.”

You laughed despite yourself and took it. It was warm from his body and too expensive to just drop on the roof, and putting it on felt like accepting something you had been refusing in pieces for weeks.

Tim watched you, careful and quiet.

“I report to Tam now, but you’re still the CEO.”

“Yes.”

“And Red Robin.”

“Also yes.”

“So this is still complicated.”

“I know.”

His patience should have made this easier. It did not. It made you want to step closer.

So you did.

Tim’s attention dropped briefly to the movement, then returned to your face.

“I don’t remember what it’s like to not love you,” you said.

He went completely still.

You could not believe you had said it. Once the words were out, though, you refused to take them back. You had spent too long managing feelings privately, folding them into professional smiles and calendar updates, pretending every kindness did not land somewhere tender.

“I tried not to,” you continued. “You were my boss. You’re rich in a way that makes me want to audit reality. You have a family name that opens doors by existing. And I’m…not. I’m new to Gotham, new to this job, and trying very hard not to confuse the first person who made me feel steady with someone I was allowed to want.”

Tim’s voice was low. “Did you?”

“No.”

His expression softened.

“That was the problem,” you said. “I knew exactly what it was.”

For a moment, the city seemed to fall away beneath the sound of the wind.

Then Tim said, “I don’t know when it became love. I only know that it did.”

Your breath caught.

He looked almost embarrassed by the confession, which made it worse and better and impossible.

“I didn’t understand what was happening at first,” he said. “I thought I was relieved to have someone competent. Then I thought I was worried because you were new to Gotham. Then I thought about you walking home in the rain so much that Nightwing threatened to block my number after I texted him at three in the morning for the third night in a row.”

A laugh slipped out of you, unsteady.

Tim stepped closer. “I tried to keep it professional.”

“You did.”

“Not because I didn’t want you.”

The words hit with enough force to make you forget the cold.

He seemed to hear it after he said it. His mouth parted slightly like he might apologize, but you shook your head.

“Don’t you dare take it back.”

“I won’t.”

The space between you had become very small.

Your hand moved first. Not far. Just enough to touch the front of his shirt, your fingers resting over the place where his tie had been loosened. Tim looked down at your hand as if it were more dangerous than anything he faced in a mask.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

You had imagined Tim asking like that. Careful, direct, almost formal with the effort of giving you a choice.

You had not imagined how much it would undo you.

“Yes,” you said.

He kissed you as if caution were the last thing standing between him and disaster.

For one breath, it was almost unbearably gentle. His mouth touched yours, then paused there, asking without words. The city moved around you in sirens and wind and distant traffic, but Tim stayed still, giving you room to choose.

So you chose.

You rose onto your toes and kissed him back.

Something in him changed then—not snapped, not broke, but gave way. His hand found the lapel of the jacket he had put around your shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric as if it were the only safe place to hold on. You felt his breath catch before he kissed you again, deeper this time, less like a question and more like an answer he had been trying not to write down for months.

By the time you pulled apart, his forehead was almost touching yours, and neither of you seemed willing to be the first to remember the rest of the world.

His gaze dropped to the jacket around your shoulders, then back to your face.

“I should not be thinking about how good that looks on you right now,” he said.

Your breath caught.

“That’s your takeaway?”

“I’m trying to be normal.”

“You are failing.”

“I know.”

You smiled, and he kissed you again just because he could, because some impossible permission had been granted and neither of you knew how to be sensible with it yet.

Eventually, you made it back inside. Sensibility returned somewhere between the rooftop door and the executive elevator, mostly because the building had cameras and you both remembered at the same time.

Tim walked you to your office because it was late, because he was still Tim, and because you let him. The new space was smaller than his but bigger than your old desk, with a door, a window, and your name already printed on a temporary placard.

He stopped outside.

You stood in the doorway, still wearing his jacket.

“This is where I say goodnight,” he said.

“Is it?”

“It should be.”

You looked at him for a long moment. The professional part of you admired the restraint. The rest of you resented it.

“What do you want?” you asked.

Tim’s eyes darkened.

The hallway was empty. The office floor beyond it was dim, most of the staff gone for the night. Somewhere far away, the cleaning crew moved down another corridor.

“That’s a dangerous question,” he said.

“I know.”

“I want to kiss you again.”

“That seems manageable.”

“I want to do more than kiss you.”

Your pulse jumped.

Tim did not move closer. That was the thing about him. Desire was there, clear and intense, but so was the discipline. He would stand in a hallway and let honesty burn through him before he would use it to corner you.

You loved that.

The realization arrived without ceremony and with terrible timing.

You did not say it. Not yet. There were some truths too large for office hallways.

Instead, you stepped into your office, turned on the light, and looked back at him.

“Come in, then.”

Tim’s composure cracked.

Only slightly. Only enough.

He entered and closed the door behind him.

For a few seconds, neither of you moved.

Tim’s gaze stayed on you.

“You’re very careful,” you said.

“With you? Yes.”

Heat curled low in your stomach.

You crossed the office and stopped in front of him. “You can touch me.”

Tim’s hand came to your waist first, over your dress, warm and steady. Then the other settled at your back. He drew you in slowly, and when you lifted your face, he kissed you with all the care he had promised and all the hunger he had not.

The office disappeared by degrees.

There was his mouth, his hands, the press of your back against the door when he guided you into position with a soft sound and swallowed your gasp. There was the slide of your fingers into his hair, the way he shuddered and made a noise deep in his throat when you tugged, the sudden knowledge that Timothy Drake-Wayne, brilliant and controlled and impossible, could come undone if you touched him just right.

He kissed along your jaw, then stopped.

“Still okay?”

“Yes,” you said, breathless. “Tim, please.”

His eyes closed for a second, as if the word did something to him. Then his mouth found your throat, careful at first, then less so when your hand tightened on his shoulder.

Your hands found the buttons of his shirt. He went still beneath your fingers.

“Is this okay?” you asked.

A laugh broke out of him, low and strained. “Yes.”

“You’re allowed to answer faster.”

“I’m trying not to embarrass myself.”

“That might be my favorite thing you’ve ever said.”

He kissed you again, and the buttons became less cooperative under pressure. When his shirt opened beneath your hands, you found warm skin, hard muscle, and the faint raised evidence of a life you were only beginning to understand. You touched one scar lightly before you could stop yourself.

Tim’s breath caught.

You looked up. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

There was a story under your fingertips. Many stories, probably. Too many for one night. You kissed the place instead, gentle enough that his hand flexed against the door beside your head.

He said your name like a warning.

You smiled against his skin. “What?”

“If you do that again, my plan to be responsible is going to suffer.”

“Your plan sounds boring.”

“My plan is respectful.”

“I respect it.”

“You are actively undermining it.”

“Yes.”

Tim looked down at you, and the heat in his face made your knees feel unreliable.

Then he picked you up and turned, placing you onto the edge of your desk.

The movement startled a laugh out of you, but it dissolved when he stepped between your knees. His hands slid along your thighs, still over fabric, still giving you time. You pulled him closer by his open shirt and kissed him until the careful rhythm broke into something messier.

His phone buzzed.

Both of you froze.

Tim dropped his forehead to your shoulder. “I’m going to kill him.”

You were breathing hard. “Who?”

“Statistically, Dick.”

The phone buzzed again.

You started laughing and could not stop.

Tim groaned, but there was laughter in it too, helpless and frustrated and young in a way you rarely got to see. He pulled back enough to check the screen, then made a face.

“Emergency?” you asked.

“No. He sent a bat emoji.”

You laughed harder.

Tim typed something one-handed.

“What did you say?”

“That I’m resigning from the family.”

“He’ll believe that?”

“No.”

The interruption should have killed the moment. It did not. It softened it, turned the sharp edge of want into something warmer, more sustainable, less likely to burn through every careful choice you had made.

Tim put the phone facedown on your desk and looked at you. “Can I take you to dinner?”

“Now?”

“Not now. Now I should walk you home and behave like someone who remembers that tonight was a lot for you.”

Your expression softened despite yourself. “Do you always have to be reasonable?”

“No,” he said. “I’m making a deliberate effort.”

You touched his open collar. “Dinner sounds good.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I have plans tomorrow.”

His eyebrows rose. “Do you?”

“I do have a life outside this building.”

“I know. I’m proud and devastated.”

“Saturday.”

“Saturday,” he agreed.

You slid off the desk, and he steadied you with both hands. For a second, you stayed close, neither of you willing to end the contact completely.

You buttoned his shirt because someone had to, and because the intimacy of doing it made him quiet in a way kissing had not. When you reached the last button, his hand covered yours.

“I’m glad you came here,” he said.

You had no clever response, so you kissed him once more, soft and lingering, then stepped back before one of you forgot where you were.

Tim walked you home.

At your building, the flickering light above the door had been fixed. The bulb burned steady and warm over the entrance, catching on the old brick and the damp railing.

You stopped on the first step and looked up at it.

“Tim.”

“Yes?”

“Did you fix my building light?”

“I did not personally.”

You turned to look at him. “That is not a denial.”

“No,” he admitted.

“You know, most people flirt with flowers.”

“I can do flowers.”

“You fixed exterior lighting.”

“You said the hallway was dark.”

“I said that once.”

“I listen.”

That one got under your skin.

For a moment, you only looked at him. He stood one step below you, which made you almost level. His tie was loose, his hair still slightly mussed from your hands, and his jacket was back on by then, though he had only put it on after making sure you were not cold on the walk over. He looked nothing like the polished CEO from the gala two weeks ago. He looked tired, careful, and very real.

You reached for the door.

Tim did not move to follow.

Of course he didn’t.

He stood on the sidewalk with his hands still at his sides, waiting. The restraint should have annoyed you by now. Instead, it made the desire sharper, because every step closer to him had to be yours if you wanted it to be. He would not take a single inch you did not hand him.

“Tim.”

His eyes lifted to yours.

“Come upstairs.”

The words landed quietly between you, but they felt heavier than anything you had said in your office. There was no company logo behind you now. No executive floor. No desk with your new title waiting outside the door. Just your building, your key, your choice.

Tim’s gaze searched your face. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You can change your mind at any point.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.” You opened the door and held it. “Come upstairs.”

This time, he did.

The stairwell smelled faintly of old paint, rain-damp coats, and someone’s dinner from two floors down. It was not glamorous. The third-floor landing had a cracked tile near the railing. The radiator pipes clanked behind the walls. Your neighbor’s dog barked once as you passed, then apparently decided you were not worth the effort.

The key shook once in your hand before you got it into the lock. You hoped he did not notice. He almost definitely noticed. He was kind enough not to say anything.

Inside, your apartment was warm in the uneven way old buildings were warm. Tim entered behind you, closed and locked the door, then looked around with the same attentive curiosity he brought to everything.

“It feels like you,” he said.

Your throat tightened unexpectedly. “Messy?”

His laugh was quiet and warm.

“Alive.”

You reached up and loosened his tie the rest of the way.

“I’m still sure,” you said.

The last of his restraint shifted.

He stepped closer, slowly enough that you could have moved away, and lifted one hand to your face. His thumb brushed your cheek, light and reverent. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

“I want you to.”

He kissed you.

The first touch of his mouth was soft, almost controlled, but the gentleness did not last. You knew now what it felt like when Tim gave himself permission. You felt it in the way his hand slid to the back of your neck, in the way he drew you closer, in the quiet sound he made when you opened for him.

You gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him closer until there was no polite distance left between you, only the warmth coming from his body.

His free hand found your waist, firm enough to make your breath hitch when he drew you in. Tim caught the sound against your mouth and went still for half a second, as if he had to survive it.

Then he did it again.

Your head tipped back, his hand warm at the nape of your neck. “Tim.”

“I know,” he said, though his voice had gone rough.

“You don’t, actually.”

His mouth moved to your jaw. “Then tell me.”

You threaded your fingers into his hair, and his breath caught. “Touch me.”

His hand slid down your side, over the curve of your waist, then lower to your hip. He paused there, fingers flexing once through the fabric of your skirt.

You kissed him again because you wanted to, because you could, because this was your apartment and your choice and you were tired of wanting carefully.

Tim’s hand slipped beneath the hem of your skirt.

The first touch of his fingers against your bare thigh made your whole body respond. He felt it. You knew he did because his mouth faltered against yours, and for one breath, all the careful intelligence in him seemed to short out.

“You’re very distracting,” he murmured.

“You’re one to talk.”

His smile brushed your cheek, then disappeared against your throat. He kissed his way down slowly, learning your responses with every press of his mouth. When his teeth grazed the sensitive place beneath your ear, you gasped and tugged at his hair hard enough to make him groan.

The sound undid the thing that told you to be careful.

You pushed his jacket off his shoulders. It hit the floor somewhere near your shoes. His shirt followed badly, buttons undone between kisses, your hands impatient and his no better. When you finally got the fabric open, you slid your palms over his chest and felt the hard shiver that moved through him.

He was beautiful like this. Warm, scarred, and breathing unevenly under your hands.

Your fingers found one of the pale marks near his ribs. You touched it softly, and Tim’s hand closed around your wrist.

For one second, you thought you had hurt him.

Then he brought your hand to his mouth and kissed your palm.

The tenderness of it almost ruined you.

“Bedroom?” he asked.

Your pulse jumped.

You nodded.

You grabbed his hand, and this time, when you got to your bedroom, you were the one who walked him backward until the backs of his knees hit the edge of your bed. He sat, looking up at you with his shirt open, hair mussed, mouth flushed from kissing, and you had the sudden, dizzying realization that Timothy Drake-Wayne was in your room because you had invited him there.

Desire moved through you with startling clarity.

You reached for the buttons of your blouse.

Tim’s gaze dropped to your hands, then lifted back to your face immediately, as if he were trying very hard to be respectful and suffering for it.

“You can look,” you said.

His laugh came out strained. “Thank you.”

You undid the buttons slowly, then let the blouse slip from your shoulders. Tim stopped breathing for a second.

Tim stopped breathing for a second.

That was worth everything.

You stood in front of him in your bra and skirt and watched the last of his practiced composure fall away.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

You touched his hair. “You’re overdressed.”

That got you a smile, quick and devastating.

“Fix it, then.”

So you did.

You pushed his shirt down his arms, and he let it fall somewhere beside the bed. His undershirt followed. You took your time because you wanted to, because he was letting you look, because every scar and line of muscle told a story you would not ask for tonight but wanted to learn someday. When your hands reached his belt, he caught your fingers gently.

“Still sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Because we can slow down.”

“I don’t want to slow down.”

His eyes darkened.

“I want you,” you said.

That did it.

Tim pulled you into his lap.

You gasped, arms going around his shoulders as his mouth found yours again. Sitting perched on his thighs made everything feel closer, hotter, harder to control. His hands moved over your back, then down to your hips, guiding you against him until the hard line of him pressed between your legs through too many layers of fabric. The friction was blunt and maddening, enough to make your hips move again before you could think better of it.

The pressure made you moan into his mouth.

He broke away with a sharp breath. “I need you to keep making that sound.”

You smiled, breathless. “Bossy.”

“Former boss.”

“Still bossy.”

He kissed you again, and his hand slid between your bodies.

When his fingers touched you through your underwear, your hips jerked. Tim watched your face as he did it again, slower, firmer, learning you with that devastating focus you had seen in boardrooms and crisis calls and rooftop confessions. Your head fell forward against his shoulder.

“That’s it,” he said softly.

The praise made your body tighten.

His fingers moved with patient precision, stroking you through the thin fabric until you were clinging to him, breath coming unevenly against his neck. It would have been embarrassing how quickly he figured you out if he hadn’t looked so undone by it, too.

“You’re so responsive,” he murmured. “God, you’re—”

He stopped himself.

You lifted your head enough to look at him. “So what?”

His fingers pressed more firmly, and the question dissolved into a gasp.

“So much better than anything I let myself think about,” he said.

You kissed him because if he kept talking, you were going to come before he had even taken your underwear off.

Tim seemed to like that. His free hand slid up your back, unclasping your bra with a competence that would have annoyed you if you had not been so distracted by his mouth. He drew the straps down your arms, slow enough to make your skin prickle, and when he looked at you, the hunger in his face was edged with something almost tender.

“Can I?” he asked, his hand hovering.

You nodded.

“Say it.”

Your breath caught. “Yes.”

His mouth closed over your breast, and the first wet heat of it made you arch against him. Tim’s hand tightened on your hip, holding you steady as his tongue moved over your nipple, then his teeth grazed carefully enough to make you gasp without hurting. You could feel him smile against your skin before he did it again.

“You’re smug,” you said, though it came out weaker than you intended.

He lifted his head. “I’m observant.”

“You are very pleased with yourself.”

“I’m pleased with you.”

That was unfair enough that you kissed him to shut him up.

The next few minutes became a blur of hands and heat, his mouth moving over every place he could reach while your underwear stayed frustratingly in the way. Tim laid you back carefully, as if your bed were something sacred and not a mattress you had ordered online with free shipping. He kissed down your body with devastating patience, over your throat, between your breasts, along your stomach, until your fingers twisted in the sheets and your breath turned uneven.

When he hooked his fingers into your skirt and underwear, he looked up at you.

You nodded before he could ask.

He still asked. “Can I take these off?”

“Yes.”

He drew them down your legs slowly, kissing your thigh once as he did. By the time he settled between your knees, his eyes had darkened, and you were trembling with anticipation and the unbearable tenderness of being desired by someone who kept asking because your answer mattered.

Tim kissed the inside of your thigh.

Then higher.

The first touch of his mouth against your clit made your whole body jolt.

He paused immediately, one hand spreading over your hip. “Okay?”

“Yes,” you said, almost laughing because your nerves had nowhere else to go. “Very okay.”

His smile turned wicked for one brief, breathtaking second. “Good.”

Then he stopped being careful in all the ways that mattered least.

He lowered his mouth again. Pleasure built slowly at first, then faster as he found the rhythm that made your thighs tense around his shoulders. One of his hands slid up to lace with yours against the sheets. His other arm hooked across your hips, firm enough to hold you in place when you started to move against his mouth. You said his name once, then again, and the second time, he groaned like hearing it hurt him.

That was what pushed you over.

You came with your fingers locked around his, your free hand buried in his hair, your body tightening as he worked you through it with slow, careful strokes of his tongue. When it was too much, you tugged weakly at his hair, and he lifted his head at once, kissing your inner thigh with a gentleness that made the aftershocks worse.

For a while, you only breathed.

“You are dangerously good at that,” you said eventually.

His laugh was low and a little wrecked. “I’m taking that as positive feedback.”

He climbed back up your body, kissing you on the way, and when his mouth met yours again, you could taste yourself on him. The intimacy of it made you shiver. Tim felt it and kissed you deeper, his body settling over yours with careful weight.

You reached for his belt.

This time, he let you.

His breathing changed as you opened it, then his briefs, your fingers brushing over his cock through the fabric. He was hard enough that the first touch made his hips shift despite the control he was clearly trying to maintain.

His mouth found your neck as you pushed his slacks and briefs down far enough to wrap your hand around him. He groaned into your skin, low and rough, and the sound made heat gather in your core again even though you were still sensitive from his mouth.

You stroked him slowly, learning the weight and heat of him, the way his breath caught when your thumb passed over the head, the way his hand fisted in the sheet beside your shoulder. Tim was beautiful like this too, undone in pieces, control unraveling under your touch.

“If you keep doing that,” he said, voice rough, “this is going to end very quickly.”

You smiled. “Is that a threat?”

“It is a warning.”

“Very civic-minded of you.”

His laugh broke into a groan when your hand moved again.

Then he kissed you, and the humor burned away.

“Condom?” he asked against your mouth.

“In the nightstand,” you said, then hesitated.

Tim went still immediately. “What?”

You looked up at him, suddenly aware of how close he was, how warm, how careful. “I’m on birth control. I was tested after my last relationship. There hasn’t been anyone since.”

His breath changed, but he did not move. “I’m clean too.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated, voice rougher.

You touched his cheek. “I don’t want anything between us.”

For one second, the restraint on his face looked almost painful.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He kissed you then, deep and unsteady, and when he settled between your thighs again, your legs opened for him almost instinctively.

Then he guided himself to you. The first press of him made you both go still.

You had expected him to be careful. He was. But careful did not mean unaffected. His forehead dropped to yours, his breath shaking as he eased inside you, slow enough to make you feel every inch. Your hands gripped his shoulders, your body stretching around him, pleasure and pressure tangling until your eyes closed.

“Okay?” he asked, voice strained.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “Just give me a second.”

He did. Of course he did. He held still with impossible control, kissing your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. It was almost worse than movement, the tenderness of it, the way he seemed determined to make room for every part of you. Desire. Nerves. Trust. The frightening softness underneath it all.

When you shifted your hips experimentally, Tim groaned.

“You can move,” you whispered.

His eyes opened, and the look on his face stole the rest of your teasing.

He moved.

Slowly at first, giving you time to adjust, each thrust deep and careful enough to make your breath catch. Your fingers slid into his hair. His mouth found yours, and the kiss turned messy as the rhythm built between you. 

You hooked one leg higher around his hip, and the angle changed.

Pleasure struck with such sharp intensity that you gasped.

Tim froze for half a breath. “There?”

“Again.”

He obeyed, and your back arched off the bed.

The careful rhythm fractured after that. His control held, but barely, worn thin by the way you clung to him and the sounds you could no longer fully hide. One of his hands slid beneath your thigh, holding you open for him, and his mouth dropped to your shoulder as he thrust deeper.

“You feel so good,” he said, his voice rough enough to scrape. “I thought about this too much. About you too much.”

Your nails dug into his back. “Tim.”

“I know.” His mouth brushed your jaw. “I know, sweetheart.”

The endearment should not have hit as hard as it did. It did anyway. You clenched around him, and Tim’s rhythm faltered for the first time, a harsh breath breaking from him as he fought not to lose himself too soon.

“Say that again,” you whispered.

His eyes found yours. “Sweetheart?”

You nodded, breathless.

Something in his face went devastatingly soft.

He kissed you, then slid a hand between your bodies, fingers finding the place his mouth had left sensitive and aching. “Come for me again, sweetheart.”

You did not stand a chance.

The pleasure built faster this time, driven by his fingers, his voice, the deep, steady movement of him inside you. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, then clawed at his back, then the sheets as the tension wound tighter and tighter. Tim watched you as long as he could, his own composure breaking apart with every sound you made.

When you came, your orgasm hit you hard.

Your body tightened around him, your cry muffled against his shoulder as pleasure rolled through you. Tim groaned, losing rhythm for one breath, then another, his hips stuttering as he followed you over. He buried his face against your neck, one hand braced beside your head, the other holding you close as he came with a broken sound that made your chest ache.

Afterward, the room went quiet except for your breathing and the clank of the radiator.

Tim stayed over you for a moment, careful not to crush you, his face tucked against your throat. You could feel his heartbeat where his chest pressed to yours, too fast and very human.

Eventually, he lifted his head.

His hair was a disaster. His mouth was swollen. His expression was so open that you wanted to look away and could not.

“Okay?” he asked softly.

You laughed, exhausted and warm. “You can’t ask me that like you didn’t just rearrange my insides.”

A smile broke across his face, tired and real and a little dazed. “Positive feedback?”

“Glowing review.”

He kissed you once, smiling against your mouth, then carefully withdrew. You missed him immediately, which was embarrassing, but Tim did not go far.

He came back with a warm washcloth and cleaned you up with the same quiet focus he brought to everything else, gentle enough that your throat tightened. Then he disappeared once more, returned with a glass of water, and waited until you had drunk half of it before he seemed satisfied.

Only then did he look toward the window. A sliver of Gotham showed through the gap in the curtains, dark and wet and flickering with distant light.

“I should probably go,” he said, sounding like he hated every word.

You looked up at him. “Do you want to?”

“No.”

“Then don’t.”

His hand stilled where it rested on the edge of the mattress.

“My heating is terrible,” you said. “And my bed is small. But you can stay if you want.”

Tim looked back at you with that same carefulness, though it was softer now. “Are you sure?”

You touched his cheek. “Yes.”

He turned his face and kissed your palm. “Then I want to stay.”

“Good.”

He climbed back into bed, drew the blanket over both of you, and tucked you carefully against him like he had every right to be there and still could not quite believe he was allowed.

For a while, neither of you said anything.

Outside, Gotham kept moving. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, low and familiar now, threading through the night with the hum of traffic and the occasional groan of old pipes. You had once thought the sound meant you had made a mistake. That you had come too far, too fast, chasing independence into a city that did not know how to be gentle with anyone.

Now Tim’s arm was around you, your door was locked, the phone he had given you was charging on the nightstand, and the city beyond your window felt dangerous and strange and yours.

For the first time since moving to Gotham, the sirens outside did not make you wonder whether you should have gone home.

They sounded like the city continuing around you.

They sounded, strangely, like home.

SFW!!

(Solo Scaramouche)

𓏵 He still has his puppet joints, but only on his wrist, hence why he constantly wears those arm sleeves to cover them.

𓏵 The others faded, formed into human skin, human joints, but the wrists stayed like some fucked up joke towards him.

𓏵 He's insecure about them, really insecure. He hates anything about him that makes him seem less human, hates anything that gives people the right to call him uncanny, creepy.

𓏵 His skin is cold, corpse-like most of the time, but it does run warmer if he's been near you for a while, like your own body heat transferring to him.

𓏵 His skin is unervingly smooth. Not a single pore in sight, zero texture, no imperfections. It looks like real human skin from a distance, but if anyone dares to even get close enough, it's too perfect. Like it was glazed by porcelain.

𓏵 Ei can't cook for shit, and he's made it his life mission to do everything that she can't do.

┊ He's an amazing cook, although he doesn't need to cook because he has no one to cook for (before he met you). He cooks for himself. Inazuman dishes, of course, ones that bring him closer to his home, where he was created.

┊ He doesn't need to eat, but he does it anyway because the act of cooking grounds him and gives his hands something to do that isn't violent.

╰┈┈┈➤ He'll cook elaborate meals and eat the entire thing, satisfied not by the food but by the proof that he can create something instead of just destroying.

𓏵 As much as he hates Inazuma, he gets homesick, rarely though, only when he witnesses people in Sneznhaya doing things that would never pass in Inazuma…

┊ Eating while walking, littering, spitting on the ground, coughing or sneezing, especially in his place of work, especially in his office, right in his face.

╰┈┈┈➤ Needless to say, he does get back at them in ways that shut them up permanently (since murder seems to be justified in Teyvat).

𓏵 Flips off the door to Dottore's lab constantly when he passes by it.

╰┈┈┈➤ Both hands, if his hands aren't busy with something, muttering things like "rot", or "die" in Japanese.

𓏵 He's a clean freak who'd even be considered a germaphobe. Just obsessively, aggressively clean.

╰┈┈┈➤ His quarters are immaculate, every surface wiped, every object aligned and in place, every piece of clothing folded perfectly.

𓏵 He reads a lot in his free time. Poetry, mostly, but he'd never admit to it.

𓏵 He doesn't play instruments, but he hums sometimes when he thinks no one's listening. The melodies are always Inazuman, always… old, always songs he heard before he understood what sadness was.

When you're dating the Harbinger

(HC'S - SFW)

𓏵 He isn't that affectionate... at first.

𓏵 He knows how relationships are; he wasn't born yesterday. He's witnessed PDA more times than he could count in his area of work; it's disgusting.

┊ disgusting.

╰┈┈┈➤ until he met you.

𓏵 He learns from how humans interact, the way they blink, when they blink, the way they breathe at certain moments, tense moments, happy moments. But those are all from him observing others from afar. 

╰┈┈┈➤ Now he has you.

𓏵 You're the one who initiated the first kiss, and he let you.

┊ He stood perfectly still while your lips found his, his arms at his sides, his eyes open because he didn't know you're supposed to close them (he learned that later, from you, and now closes them so aggressively it looks like he's bracing for impact).

┊ He didn't decide to like it until you pulled back with a look in your eyes that told him you loved it.

┊ That look, the soft, dazed, slightly breathless expression, that's what converted him. Not the physical sensation. Your reaction to the physical sensation.

╰┈┈┈➤ Only then did he start kissing you just to see that look again, and again, and again.

𓏵 The first time he held your hand was when you initiated it. He was awkward about it at first, his hand stilling in yours, and he acted as if he were a statue. But, as much as he felt like he should, as much as he wants to rip your hand out of his and scold you and tell you to never touch him again… he just took it.

┊ He let you drag him around, and he grew to love the fact that he could feel you without looking to make sure you're still at his side.

┊ It took him 3 weeks to let you hold his hand without thinking about it…

╰┈┈┈➤ … It took him 3 months to be the one to reach for your hand first.

𓏵 Japanese is his main language; it's what he speaks when no one is around, obviously to himself.

𓏵 Even though it'll take a lot of time to learn and master, he teaches you Japanese when he isn't at work. He wants it to be a secret language you both share, and he just wants someone to understand him and listen when he speaks his native language.

┊ He's a good teacher, but not a fun one, the type that makes you speak in a different language when you ask to go to the bathroom.

┊ He's mean until you get it you get it right, he does get intrusive thoughts of shocking you, just a tiny bit with electro, but that thought always does conviently get shut up when you get something right.

╰┈┈┈➤ He rewards you with kisses (primarily because he knows you like them) and with breaks.

𓏵 The kisses started as brief, closed-mouth presses to your forehead. But then they migrated… forehead to your temple… then down to your cheek… then cheek to the corner of your mouth. And then one day, you conjugated a particularly difficult verb perfectly on the first try, and he kissed you full on the mouth.

┊ He looked more surprised than you did, like his body had made a decision he didn't approve of yet.

╰┈┈┈➤ And that's when the kisses started being rewarded solely on the mouth and nowhere else. He's aware of it when he does it, and he forces himself to keep the kisses short, 2 seconds, before he pulls back and says, "Next word."

𓏵 But sometimes, when you get something particularly difficult right on the first try, the kiss lasts longer than 2 seconds.

┊ Sometimes you feel his hand come up to the back of your neck… sometimes you swear you can feel him smile against your mouth.

╰┈┈┈➤ He never acknowledges the longer kisses, but if you even make the mistake of mentioning them, that's when they stop.

𓏵 Will, and I mean will, trick you into saying you love him over and over in Japanese. He won't tell you why he's grinning; he'll just repeat it back and kiss you. You won't realize what you've been saying until you hear him whisper it against your mouth in the same language, and the context finally clicks.

𓏵 He doesn't say "I love you" in Russian, even though that is the common tongue here. He says it only in Japanese. Outside of that one occurrence during the lessons, he doesn't say it a lot. He says it when you're sleeping… or when you're falling asleep. He says it when your back is turned, or when there's noise around to block it out.

𓏵 He's a light sleeper, even though he doesn't technically need to sleep.

┊ He sleeps because you sleep, and he doesn't want to give you the real experience of waking up next to your lover.

┊ He sleeps because the act of lying next to someone with his eyes closed requires a vulnerability he's still learning to embrace.

╰┈┈┈➤ He sleeps because, sometimes, when you shift in the night and press your face into his chest, and mumble something incoherent, the sensation of being needed by an unconscious person who chose him even in sleep is the closest he's come to understanding what warmth feels like from the inside.

𓏵 The more affectionate you become, the more he learns from that, and gets 10x more affectionate than you.

┊ His affection isn't like other people's affection.

╰┈┈┈➤ He doesn't do grand gestures.

𓏵 Absolutely would never buy flowers. (Because he'd prefer to buy things that last longer, things that won't die. Because he hates impermanence.)

╰┈┈┈➤ His affection is structural, like it has a routine of its own.

𓏵 He adjusts your outfit when something's crooked, completely without prompting.

┊ You have bangs? Expect him to randomly adjust them.

╰┈┈┈➤ Headband tilting? He'll adjust that also.

𓏵 He'd fix anything, based on whatever preference you have, because he can't stand seeing something wrong with you; he could make it right.

𓏵 He learns from anything you like, and this could be anything. Even if you subtly, in a conversation, mention that you like a particular trinket, a particular flower, a specific food from a stall you passed once three weeks ago, expect him to bring back the exact thing after a long day of work.

╰┈┈┈➤ He won't make a big deal out of it either. He won't present it or expect any gratitude. He'll just set it on the table, or on your nightstand, and walk past like he didn't just spend an hour after work retracing your steps to a market stall you mentioned once in passing.

𓏵 He memorizes your cycle, how you sleep, your eating habits, and what stresses you.

┊ He isn't controlling (lie), he just likes understanding you.

┊ He notices when you haven't eaten.

╰┈┈┈➤ He notices the difference in your laugh if something's actually funny or if you're pretending that it is.

𓏵 He doesn't get jealous of people flirting with you because he cannot fathom you wanting anyone else (the arrogance is insane… but also true). (if you forget about lohen.)

𓏵 He's jealous of your time. Of the things you do that take your attention from him.

╰┈┈┈➤ You caught him once glaring at a book you were reading because you'd been looking at it for 2 hours instead of at him. (He'll never admit this.)

𓏵 He memorizes which side of the bed you prefer and never takes it. Not once. Not even when you're not there.

𓏵 He doesn't dream… or if he does, he doesn't remember them at all.

╰┈┈┈➤ He's jealous of your dreams in a way he'll never express, because dreaming implies a subconscious that processes and imagines and wanders, and he's not sure he has one. He's not sure there's anything beneath his surface programming. The fear that he's all surface, all code, all function, and no soul, is the thing that keeps him up on the nights he chooses not to sleep.

𓏵 He falls asleep faster when you play with his hair. It's something you discovered one day when you experimented with it, and he surprisingly let you.

╰┈┈┈➤ If you ever told anyone, he would deny it with the fervor of someone on trial for their life.

NSFW!!

(Solo Scaramouche)

𓏵 I HC, as many people do, he has detachable parts (big, thick, not so thick ones, smaller, whatever he’s feeling that day).

𓏵 But, what I mainly like/use in my fics is that he has a real dick of his own. Ei wanted to make him as human as possible, right? So she gave him one. But it wouldn't look normal. It would look too perfect, too symmetrical, too... doll-like.

┊ No curve to it at all, perfectly straight, long, and almost slender like his fingers. (not skinny though, it has girth, enough to stretch).

╰┈┈┈➤ Pink tip that's flushed darker when he's hard. Perfectly manicured veins mapping the shaft, and a little over 7 inches to make up for his height.

𓏵 Even though he's had a dick for 500 years, he's never gotten urges, nothing. No arousal, no curiosity, no reaction to the stimuli that drive humans to do insane, desperate, embarrassing things.

𓏵 He's watched humanity lose its mind over sex for centuries and felt nothing but contempt.

𓏵 But of course, as a stressed-out Harbinger with 5 centuries of tension stored in a body, he wanted to see what the hype was about.

𓏵 He killed the prostitute afterward. It didn't feel as good as humans made it seem, and because the woman tried to sleep in his bed afterward. IN HIS BED.

┊ Like the transaction entitled her to his sheets, his pillow… his space.

╰┈┈┈➤ The disgust he felt wasn't at the act itself but at the presumption of intimacy where none existed.

𓏵 Sex without actual connection was just... maintenance. A biological function performed on a body that wasn't even biological.

𓏵 He cleaned his room for 6 hours after, replaced the sheets and the pillows, scrubbed the floor, and burned incense.

𓏵 He never, ever, wanted to try or even have sex again after that.

𓏵 Ei forgot to install in him whatever makes him want to be touched, apparently…

When you're intimate with the Harbinger

(HC'S - NSFW)

𓏵 He's not into sex or even subtly mentioning it in conversations; you could be dating for 5 years, never going beyond just kissing, unless you initiate the act.

𓏵 He doesn't think about it, doesn't crave it.

𓏵 The kissing is enough, more than enough, because kissing you is the most intimate thing he's ever experienced, and he genuinely doesn't understand why humans need more than that.

┊ And when you do initiate?

┊ When your hands wander past the boundaries he's set without realizing he set them. When your kisses get more intense, and your breathing gets heavier, and you pull back with a look in your eyes that so clearly says, "I want more of you."

╰┈┈┈➤ He doesn't understand why he hated it in the first place.

𓏵 He gets to see you in a way no one else could. He gets to see you, underneath him, looking up at him with trust so absolute it terrifies him.

╰┈┈┈➤ The vulnerability you're offering to him… the gift of your body when his body has never felt like a gift to anyone.

𓏵 That rewires something in his programming that he didn't know could be rewritten.

┊ He gets to touch you, be skin to… puppet skin to him.

┊ Every time you don't flinch at the cold of his hands…

┊ Every time you press closer instead of pulling away…

┊ Every time your body responds to his touch as if it were designed for it…

╰┈┈┈➤ A piece on the wall he built around his part of himself dissolves.

𓏵 He always felt like when he'd kiss you or cuddle with you, it was never enough, and he never understood why. Like there was something he couldn't reach, access, or understand that existed beyond the physical proximity he'd already achieved.

╰┈┈┈➤ He understands the minute he's inside you.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

This is what they were all losing their minds about.

𓏵 He does whatever makes you feel good. He memorizes which angels make your eyes roll back, which pace makes your breath catch, which depth makes you grab at his arms hard enough that he can feel the pressure through the joints he hates.

𓏵 He keeps it sensual and sweet. Keeps it at a pace that lets him catalog every reaction, every sound, every shift in your expression. Because even during sex, he wants to learn you thoroughly.

┊ But if you beg him to go faster, harder, then that switch flips.

╰┈┈┈➤ He's a puppet with inhuman precision, and "harder" from him means something different than "harder" from a human.

𓏵 It was a mistake to ask that on the first time, because he definitely did deliver, and the morning after… let's just say you couldn't walk for 2 days straight!

𓏵 He ejaculates. Actually cums inside you in a way he never thought was possible in his puppet body.

┊ But it isn't because of the sensations, not entirely.

┊ It's because of how much he saw you enjoy it.

┊ Because you wanted to be closer to him, because you kept trying to pull him in, wrap your legs around him, pressed his forehead against his not at all breaking eye contact as you moaned out his name.

┊ He's needy for that.

┊ Needy for your enjoyment and your approval, and the evidence that he's making you feel good, and that is what triggers the release.

╰┈┈┈➤ His body solely responds to your response. His pleasure is a mirror of yours.

𓏵 He doesn't just fuck... 

┊ Because once he discovers pussy eating, fingering, all the ways to pleasure a girl without penetration… he does it too much.

┊ To the point where you have to physically pull him up from between your legs because he'll stay there for hours if you let him.

╰┈┈┈➤ Not because he's insatiable, but because he's a perfectionist, and he's not done until he's gotten you to that specific pitch of a moan that he's made his favorite.

𓏵 He does it to help you sleep because he genuinely does care about your sleep hygiene, and he has read that orgasms release hormones that promote rest.

┊ He does it when you look stressed…

┊ He does it especially when you get too needy, when you're too clingy and handsy, and won't stop pressing against him.

╰┈┈┈➤ He's learned the fastest way to settle you is to take you apart and put you back together.

𓏵 It's creepy how much he takes note of the little things

┊ Left side of your clit- counterclockwise circles at a medium pressure

┊ Two fingers inside your pussy- crook upward at a thirty-degree angle

╰┈┈┈➤ The specific rhythm that builds you fastest versus the one that builds you the slowest… (he uses the slow one when he wants to drag it out, which is sadly most of the time, because watching you grow desperate is a form of entertainment he never gets tired of).

𓏵 He doesn't care about his own pleasure or release.

┊ Eating you out, making you cum, watching your face when you fall apart, that's enough for him.

╰┈┈┈➤ The look on your face when he does something right is more rewarding than any orgasm his body could produce.

𓏵 But when you suggest how much you want to please him too, pay him back for all the times he makes you feel good?

┊ He doesn't exactly protest…

╰┈┈┈➤ … Because you're already between his legs when you ask, and he can't keep himself together at the image of you looking up at him from that angle with that expression.

𓏵 When you go down on him, his hand lands on the back of your head and stays there, holding. His fingers are threading through your hair, and the sounds he makes are quiet. He suppresses any that dare to come out.

╰┈┈┈➤ But he isn't good enough at suppressing them. They escape from time to time. A sigh, or a grunt, he bit down on, or just your name, once whispered, and he finds out that saying it makes the sensation so much better for him.

𓏵 These acts strengthen the bond between you both, especially the trust. He's showing you parts of himself that he's never shown to anyone.

𓏵 The vulnerability of pleasure, of wanting, of needing. For a puppet who spent centuries believing he was incapable of these things, every orgasm is an act of faith.

𓏵 He isn't kinky unless you teach him to be.

╰┈┈┈➤ It's like you're training him, which, ironically, is a kink in itself that neither of you will acknowledge.

𓏵 He'll be anything you want as long as you seem to love it.

𓏵 Degradation Kink? That's his fucking specialty.

┊ He doesn't have to learn how to call you pathetic, desperate, needy, a mess. He's been doing that since before you started dating. The only difference now is context and the fact that you're moaning when he says it instead of throwing any object you can find at his head.

╰┈┈┈➤ "Look at you… You can't even form a coherent sentence. Five minutes ago, you were telling me to hurry up… And now? Now you can't even remember your own name." His thumb presses against your clit while he talks, circling, and he sounds like he's perfectly in control, while you're falling apart. "Pathetic, truly."

𓏵 Praise kink? Ehh… He's a little awkward at first.

┊ He'll learn if you're actually serious about that. He'll try as hard as he can to fight back on his mean tongue.

╰┈┈┈➤He tries because you asked, because it's what you want, and making you feel good is his primary directive, and if that means telling you you're beautiful while he's inside you… He'll choke the words out even if they taste foreign in his mouth.

𓏵 It goes without saying he's shitty about it.

╰┈┈┈➤ "You're... adequate." "That was... not terrible." "Your body is... functional."

𓏵 You stared at him, and he stared back, and neither of you spoke for 10 seconds.

┊ And then you burst out laughing, telling him, "Scara… that's not praise at all."

╰┈┈┈➤ "I said you were adequate! In what language is that not praise?"

𓏵 He gets better, slowly…

┊ "You feel good…" "You feel perfect…"

┊ "Not terrible." "You're so beautiful it makes me angry."

╰┈┈┈➤ "Adequate." "I didn't know something could feel like this, and I need you to know that you're the reason why I know now."

𓏵 He says these things against your skin, into your neck, against your mouth, never looking at you in the eye, because the vulnerability of genuine praise still makes him feel like he's handing someone a loaded weapon.

𓏵 Ever since having sex became a part of his existence rather than a thing he tried once and regretted, he took a break from reading basic poetry and focused on books about female pleasure.

┊ And then he started to have a mind of his own.

╰┈┈┈➤ Got meaner.

𓏵 A new kind of mean that isn't the same as he always is. The kind that knows exactly what you like and weaponizes it, withholds it, makes you beg for things he was planning to give you anyway, just because watching you grow desperate is intoxicating in a way nothing else has ever been.

𓏵 He'd blindfold you a lot once he found out how it might heightens senses.

┊ Removing your sight makes you feel ten times as much pleasure as you'd feel if you could see what he was doing.

┊ He loves the way you gasp louder when you can't predict where his mouth will land next. Loves the way your hands grab at sheets, at pillows, at him, searching for something to anchor you when the darkness makes everything float.

╰┈┈┈➤ He uses his arm sleeves for the blindfold. The ones that cover the joints he's insecure about. There's something poetic about it that he'd never acknowledge out loud, using the thing he hates most about himself to give you pleasure, repurposing his shame into something that makes you moan.

𓏵 He'd tie you up if you squirmed too much. He could hold you down himself, but there's something about restraints that satisfies the control freak in him.

┊ You, laid out, unable to move, completely at his mercy, trusting him so entirely that you let yourself be helpless with the one person in Teyvat who could destroy you without effort.

┊ He checks the bindings constantly.

┊ Between every act, between every change in position, his fingers find the knots and test them, making sure they're secure but not cutting off circulation, not leaving marks that'll last longer than a day.

╰┈┈┈➤ If you asked him why he checks so often, he'd say something mean about not wanting to deal with a medical situation. The truth is that he'd rather stop entirely than cause you discomfort you didn't ask for.

𓏵 He discovered orgasm denial entirely on his own.

┊ No books, no research.

┊ He figured out that if he brought you to the edge and stopped, your body would react in ways that he found fascinating.

╰┈┈┈➤ He'd edge you for so long that you're crying, begging, saying things you'd be mortified about if you could think clearly, and he'll watch the entire time with a calm expression, loving the way you break apart, fully.

𓏵 He'd always let you finish… eventually.

╰┈┈┈➤ He's sadistic, not cruel.

𓏵 He always holds you after.

╰┈┈┈➤ Always makes sure the tears were the good kind, that the begging was the fun kind, that the desperation was the kind that makes you come back wanting more instead of the kind that leaves scars.

𓏵 He figured out overstimulation next.

┊ Instead of denying you, 'punishing' you by giving you too much.

╰┈┈┈➤ Making you cum, and cum, and cum and never stopping.

𓏵 Keeping his mouth on you, his fingers inside you, keeping the stimulation so high it almost grows painful.

╰┈┈┈➤ He does this when you've been particularly bratty, when you've pushed his buttons outside the bedroom, and he's been storing the irritation all day, saving it, converting it into something 'productive'.

𓏵 Toys.

𓏵 He has… opinions about toys.

┊ Specifically, he thinks most of them are poorly designed, cheaply made, and inefficient.

╰┈┈┈➤ He's bought you exactly three toys that meet his standards, and all three were tested (by you, while he observed and took mental notes) before being approved for… regular use.

𓏵 He uses them on you when he's busy.

┊ When he has paperwork to finish, and you're needy and won't stop pressing against him. He'll set you up with a toy, position you where he can see you from his desk, and work while you work yourself into a state.

╰┈┈┈➤ He watches you while he reads and fixes documents. Pretends he's not watching… but his handwriting does get messier the closer you get.

𓏵 He never talks about sex outside the bedroom.

╰┈┈┈➤ He never references it in public, never makes innuendos, never acknowledges that the person standing next to him at Fatui meetings is the same person who was screaming his name into a pillow six hours ago.

𓏵 The compartmentalization is absolute.

╰┈┈┈➤ In public, you're his partner… in private, you're everything.

𓏵 The only exception is when someone flirts with you.

┊ Because that's what makes the avoidance of it break.

╰┈┈┈➤ It breaks just enough that his hand finds the small of your back and his thumb presses against the exact spot where he left a bite mark last night. The pressure makes you inhale deeply, and he smirks, and the person flirting with you suddenly feels very, very small.

𓏵 Aftercare is non-negotiable.

┊ He does it. Every time. Without fail.

┊ Warm cloth… water… whatever food you want brought to bed.

╰┈┈┈➤ He cuddles with you after, his fingers in your hair, combing through the tangles he caused, undoing the mess he made.

𓏵 He checks the writs if he tied you.

┊ He checks your neck if he bit you.

╰┈┈┈➤ Asks questions like: "Can you feel your hands? Do your legs work? You're not going to faint on me, are you? I'm not carrying you to the bathroom; you have functioning limbs."

𓏵 He carries you to the bathroom every single time.

"Ugh, quit blinking, you keep making me mess up, Kuni!" You snap, yanking your boyfriend by the jaw closer to you.

He opens his right eye, the one you already applied eyeliner on, and glares, his eye rolling before closing back again. "I'm not blinking, and I'm staying perfectly still. It's your fault if you mess up, not mine. Don't get mad at me that you're shitty at this."

You take a deep breath, repressing the urge to slap him hard in the face, because you know it's useless. Your boyfriend lives to ragebait the shit out of you. You don't say anything in response; you scoot closer to his standing frame, your feet dangling off the bathroom counter as you continue working on his left eye.

"Do you want the wing straight up or straight out?" You ask, pausing with one hand on his jaw, and the other on his cheek, with the eyeliner hovering right above his lashline.

Kuni opens both of his eyes this time, stares straight at you, and rolls his eyes at your question like it should be obvious, "Neither? Obviously." He narrows his eyes, crossing his arms as he adds, "When have you ever seen me with that? You're my girlfriend, you're supposed to know that it goes out slanted. Not up, not straight. Slanted."

You narrow your eyes back at him, tightening your grip on his jaw in retaliation, "How am I supposed to know when you're ultra specific about everything and change your answer every time I ask? Two days ago, you told me to make it straight."

He flicks his eyes to the side like he's side-eyeing some invisible camera, and his eyes look annoyingly perfect when he does it. With the base shadow on his lids and the dark smudge along his lower lash line, and the contacts he doesn't need to wear.

His natural eyes are blue, but he insists on wearing indigo colored contacts because it's "more accurate", and you've learned not to argue with him about Scaramouche lore because you will lose. Every single time.

He glances back at you, his tone dry, "I told you that because last time was Xiao, not Scaramouche like today. Obviously. How many times do I need to say it for you to understand?"

You glance at him, copying his dry tone, "Just one more time, and I'll poke this pen through your eyelid. You wouldn't need someone to do your eyeliner by then."

He gives you a challenging smirk in response, "Do it, then. You wouldn't get that far to do any actual damage. I'll sue you and use the settlement money to hire someone who can actually do eyeliner."

You don't dignify that with a response. You tilt his head back with your grip on his jaw, angling it so you can drag the liner across his lash line in one smooth stroke.

You smile involuntarily when it comes out clean and matches the other side perfectly. It always comes out good when he stops being a little bitch about it… which is never, but today sufficed that never.

"The other side matches," you say, leaning back to check your work, watching as his eyes open slowly like he's unsure if you're done or not. "Perfect, like always, because I did it. Not you."

He scoffs, stepping back and moving toward the bathroom mirror, examining just what you're calling 'perfection'. You watch as he tilts his face to the left, then right, and as he leans in, he narrows his eyes.

The eyeliner is actually the last step of a much longer process. This part, the eyeliner, takes ten minutes tops. The puppet joints took an hour.

Every time he cosplays Scaramouche, Kuni sits in front of his vanity mirror with a palette of dark shadow and a thin, angled brush that he uses to paint puppet joints onto his own skin.

Knuckles first, every finger, dark, then his wrists, then his belows. He does his shoulders himself too, twisting in the mirror to get the angle right on the backs of them, and the concentration on his face while he does it is almost scary.

He's already head-to-toe in cosplay, minus the hat. As cringeworthy as it is to say, your boyfriend does look like Scaramouche reborn, and it's not just because of how accurate the clothes look on him, or how invested he is in cosplaying him. He looks exactly like Scaramouche would if he were real and not 3D.

The height… the weight… even his fingers match Scara perfectly. Skinny and long, the puppet joints make him look more biblically accurate.

He hates wigs, absolutely despises them, and as any person who finds their 'celebrity lookalike', or any 'lookalike' in general, he dyed and cut his real hair to match Scaramouches.

His hair is naturally black, and after an abnormally long hair appointment, the hairdresser was able to cut and style Kuni's hair to match Scaramouches without looking like some botched bowlcut.

"It's not a bowlcut," Kunikuzushi told the hairdresser, probably 4 times, just to get his point clear, "It's a mullet, mixed with a hime-cut in the front, and don't you dare forget the lighter colored streak in the back."

You remember being told that day to stick around, not in the waiting room, but in a chair beside the table your boyfriend was getting his hair done at. You had to get up at least 9 times to reassure Kuni that the hairdresser was getting the back right.

And after that day, after every time he put on his cosplay for this character that he's so obsessed with… he didn't look like your boyfriend anymore.

But you don't really complain.

"It's… acceptable," Kuni says to his reflection, the tiniest praise for the war you just went through, while doing his eyeliner.

You hop off the counter, tossing your hair back, while holding eye contact with his gaze in the mirror, "It's perfect, actually. You're welcome." You poke his arm from behind, giggling at the way he makes a disgusted face in response. "I love you too, you ungrateful man."

He doesn't respond to that; he just walks out of the bathroom and into his room.

He's already in the corner when you step in, adjusting his tripod and ring light, and you know the drill by now. Stay out of frame, stay quiet during takes, and entertain yourself until he's done being internet famous.

You grab your phone off his nightstand and settle onto his bed on your stomach, feet up, pulling up Genshin Impact. It feels like a chore to open this game up now, but you have to, for that stupid free constellation event where you have to complete your commissions and spend 120 resin.

You spawn in Nod-Krai, already moving your joystick to run towards the crafting bench, planning to craft your resin into condensed resin, but to your dismay, you already have 5 crafted resin from the previous days you tried this trick.

Domains it is.

You can hear your boyfriend in the background recording the same TikTok, over and over, trying to get the perfect take while you're teleporting to a random domain. It's annoying, and all you can focus on while you wait for people to join your world.

Once people join your world, and you start the domain, you move on autopilot. You don't really pay attention, probably fighting air every now and then, until a notification pops up from the top of your screen.

Even though you're in a co-up domain, your thumb his the notification before you can even finish reading.

The video loads, and it's what seems to be some sort of POV shot. It's like you're some enemy Lohen just knocked flat, because the view is from below, on the ground. His hand reaches down and grabs you, or the camera's face, dragging you to his height, and you spot his other hand raising a weapon, but you aren't even focused on the weapon… you're focused on the face he makes.

A grin with manic eyes, the expression of someone who doesn't just enjoy violence… someone who's aroused by it.

It happens so quickly that you watch it again, on loop. You watch the jaw grab again, the way he yanks whoever it is upward, the way his grin widens before the hit. You screenshot the maniac grin on the 4th loop… then watch it play through again.

Your thighs press together.

You scroll to the comments after the 7th rewatch, needing to see if everyone's losing their minds as hard as you are.

@scaramouchewho okay so we're all in agreement that lohen is what scaramouche COULD have been if hoyo let him be unhinged, right?

@kuniscaraworshiper everyone in the lohen tag better remember who paved the way. Scaramouche is the ORIGINAL unhinged short king… y'all are so disrespectful

@touchinggrassfearsme i just want lohen and scara to kiss… then me at the same time next… then they can kiss each other again after THEN THE SAME THING AGAIN

@mpreglover6769angie GET PREGNANT GET PREGNANT

You laugh seeing this comment, and when you tap on it, you're left with…

(This comment has been deleted.)

@lohennation BREED ME LOHEN. BREED ME. TEASE ME. USE ME. DEGRADE ME. oh and scara can watch ig… (yes i changed my user because of this video)

@wanderermybeIoved, you people don't know one thing about Scaramouche, and I don't want people talking about him when you clearly don't care about his character development or lore. He's more than just a "hot angry guy." Lohen fans (who just became fans of him less than an hour ago, mind you) wouldn't survive 5 minutes of scara's actual story because their reading comprehension is lower than a 4th grader's due to their goon-rotted brains.

@fatuiworshipper the way Lohen is just Scaramouche if he wasn't busy being sad all the time. he's happy to be evil… that's so hot

You scroll back up and watch the burst animation again. Your thighs squeeze together, and your bottom lip is caught between your teeth. You've watched this video at least 20 times now, and around the 10th time, your underwear became a wet, sticky mess.

"Hey."

You don't hear him, you don't even flinch.

"… Hello??"

Nothing.

"Did you actually die? Should I call someone or check your pulse first?"

You don't hear your boyfriend because you're still on that Lohen video, grinning at some dumb comment of yet another person leaving scaranation for lohennation.

"You've been ignoring me for like ten minutes," Kuni says from across the room, and you can hear the shift in his tone, the way it goes from casual annoyance to genuine irritation, "what is so interesting about your phone that you can't look up for even a second?"

You look up from your phone before he can accuse you of cheating, which technically, in some tiny way… You kinda were.

He's standing by his setup, ring light off, his phone in his hand with his arms crossed. His expression looks like he's in between choosing to be mean about it, or letting it slide. He looks annoyed enough that he won't let it slide, and 10 minutes is a long time, unless he was just exaggerating.

"…Hi." You say, sweet and innocent, still lying on your stomach, still with the phone in your hand as you glance at it just once, like a random comment, before looking back at him, not fully engaged.

His gaze drops to your phone in your hand, then lifts back up to your face. The corner of his mouth lifts with slow, unbelieving amusement, like your delayed little “hi” is almost too stupid to be real. "Welcome the fuck back. Where did you go?"

"Remember Lohen from that one quest in Mondstadt?" You don't wait for a response, voice breathier than intended because your brain is still stuck on that video, "His burst animation just got leaked…"

You watch as your boyfriend's face changes into reluctant curiosity that fights with the irritation of being ignored. He walks over to his bed and drops down next to you. "Really? Show me."

You sit up, holding your phone out, and he just takes it, angling the screen toward himself. You watch his face as the animation plays, how his jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly, and his gaze cuts back to you once it's over. "It's okay." He says, tone devoid of any emotion you can pick up on.

"Just… okay? Kuni. Did you see the grab, the way… the way that the angle is like a POV, like that's you, he's grabbing… the way he just, his hand goes like-" You mimic the way Lohen's hand, holding the weapon, goes from behind and towards who he's about to stab.

Kuni glances at your hand, then back at your face, your phone still in his hand. "Mhm. I saw the exact same video as you." His tone feigns nonchalance.

You drop your hand, continuing to yap while not reading the room, "And the grin… Kuni, the grin? It looks like he's about to-"

"I said I saw it." He hands your phone back, using his own to open TikTok, scrolling through his feed with such focused intensity that it doesn't do a good job of hiding how little he cares about this. "People are going to lose it over this."

"They already are, have you seen the comments?" You're already scrolling through them on your phone, looking for one that doesn't say anything about Scaramouche, but it's practically impossible. "Everyone's saying-"

"I know what they're saying, I don't need to see the comments to know." His thumb flicks through posts, and you can see his jaw working, yet again. "Same shit that infected my feed when Lohen was in that quest, and people barely had info on him. 'Scara's done.' 'We're switching.' Like their loyalty has a shelf life of milk."

He keeps scrolling through his TikTok feed, and annoyingly enough, every video that comes up is about Lohen. He's talking, ranting about character depth versus surface-level hype, something about Scara's arc having actual emotional complexity while Lohen is, "just a boy with a violence kink." He is making good points, but you aren't fully paying attention.

You're still scrolling through Twitter, lying back against the pillows, reposting mindlessly on fan art that already exists of Lohen, and trying not to laugh at the posts comparing Lohen to Scaramouche.

He turns his head to you, and he stops talking, because he notices your attention is elsewhere. You don't notice the sudden silence because your brain is so far inside your phone that the real world doesn't exist right now.

His lips touch your neck, a soft, tiny kiss with the warm press of his mouth against the spot below your ear, and he shifts closer. His hand lands on your thigh, his thumb drawing a slow line along the inside where the hem of your sleep shorts sits.

You tilt your head up slightly, giving him access without giving him your attention, as your gaze is still on your phone. Your body just responds to him on autopilot because of months of this exact pattern, him kissing your neck while you doomscroll, except this time you're scrolling through posts and posts of his… replacement.

His tongue touches the skin at your neck, a quick and wet drag followed by his teeth grazing that same area. His fingers itch higher under your shorts, pushing the fabric up your thigh.

"Kuni, not right now, I'm looking at something-"

He cuts you off with a "Mmhmm," not stopping at all because just a second after, he's sucking on your neck. His fingertips graze the edge of your underwear, tracing the elastic back and forth, back and forth. It's light enough that it could be an accident, but what he's doing to you is clearly intentional.

You're still scrolling even as your boyfriend, in cosplay, is practically making love to your neck, and his fingers… they slide down from the hem of your underwear, to where your slit is, through the fabric.

You let out a soft, quiet, "Mm…" moan, still not looking up. The only reply he gets is the little sound you make and the wetness between your legs.

His middle finger traces your clothed slit in a lazy back-and-forth, that's designed for teasing and nothing else. His mouth is still at your neck, and he bites softly at it while that Lohen video coincidentally pops up on your feed again. Involuntarily, your hips shift up against his hand while your eyes are still glued to the screen.

His fingers slide up from your slit, back up to your waistband. You let out the tiniest whine, but that whine turns into your breath catching when his fingers dip beneath your underwear and make direct contact through your folds.

"You're so soaked," he says against your neck. His tone makes your thumb pause just as you're about to click on the comment section. His cadence shifted into something that sounds less like your boyfriend and more like the boy he's currently cosplaying as. "And it's not because of me. It's hard to believe a pixel on a screen could make you this turned on… but I guess anything's possible with someone like you."

You feel his middle finger circling your clit, slow and teasing, not giving you anything that you want while you watch that video on loop, again. The pattern of it doesn't stop, but the desperation and need to have him stroke you properly makes your hips twitch, and your focus shifts from your phone to his hand, and only his hand, at an alarming rate.

"It must be embarrassing," he starts, the same condescending drawl Scaramouche's voice has, and it fits in his mouth uncannily well, "getting this worked up over a character animation. Over something that can never," the same index that was teasing at your clit pushes inside you, knuckle deep, and you clench around it, "touch you."

He's quick to add a second finger, his ring finger, because one isn't ever enough for you. He curls them upward, finding that spot he mapped ages ago. Your phone screen goes dark from inactivity.

He doesn't leave any achy part of your cunt unoccupied, especially if his thumb is currently being useless. His thumb finds your clit, and he rubs in circles while his fingers curl inside you. The dual stimulation makes your mouth fall open, and your phone falls out of your hand. Your phone hits the side of your stomach and falls down face-first beside you.

"There it is," he says against your skin, pressing a kiss to the mark he left on your neck. "Phone's finally down. Took you long enough."

He pulls his fingers out, and before you can even whine about it, he shifts on top of you, sliding down between your legs. You look down at him, and the visual of Scaramouche slipping under the covers and pulling at the waistband of your shorts is doing something to you that ten replays of Lohen's burst animation could never replicate. Because this is actually real.

He's sliding your shorts down when you mistakenly whimper out, "Kuni…"

He stops, hands pausing on the fabric at your knees. "Mm… no. That's not my name tonight." He pulls the shorts off completely, tossing them wherever without looking in his room, and his fingers hook into your underwear next.

"It's Scaramouche. That's who you're looking at… That's who's touching you. And, that's the only name I want to hear coming out of your mouth. Not Kuni, and definitely not Lohen. If you even try saying his name, I'm cutting your tongue out." He drags your underwear down your thighs, his eyes never leaving your face. "Scaramouche. Understood?"

You nod, too distracted by what he was saying to even realize you're bare from below, and you realize that the moment his mouth is on you.

His tongue drags flat across your clit, and you let out an involuntary, unfiltered moan at the contact. You'd care about his neighbors hearing if his mouth wasn't making you forget that other people exist.

It feels like he's reformatting your brain as he eats you out. Like every lick is deleting thoughts about Lohen and replacing them all with himself. His tongue works on your clit in patterns that make you let out dumb, uncontrollable moans. Two fingers slip inside you without warning, curling against your spot, and you can't help but grab onto his hair, that perfectly styled, dyed Scaramouche hair, and hold on.

Your hips twitch up, grinding into his face while your head tips back. "H-aah… f-fuck… Sca-"

He pulls back from your clit, fingers still working inside you, but at an even faster rhythm, "Louder than that."

You listen, brainless, doing whatever he says, "Scara… Scaramouche, I'm… hah… s-so close…"

He dives back onto your clit, mouth sealed on it, making you cum embarrassingly fast with his fingers curling inside your spongy walls. Your thighs shake around his head, and your grip on his hair tightens as you grind onto his face, clenching around his fingers. He goes slower once the aftershocks are over, and when you finally let go of his hair, completely out of breath, he pulls his mouth off your clit with a wet pop.

He wipes his chin with the back of his hand, the cosplay sleeve dragging across his face from his cosplay. The sight of that is so absurd and so hot that you almost cum again from that visual alone. The puppet joints look slightly faded on the two fingers he was fucking you with, and somehow that makes it worse.

He grabs one of the detached sleeves and slips it off his outfit. You watch him, brain still sluggish from the orgasm, fold it into a thick band, and you furrow your brows, confused. "What are you…"

"Scaramouche wouldn't let you see him lose composure." He slides up from between your legs, wrapping the fabric around your eyes, tying it behind your head before you can even protest. You can't see anything now, just darkness, and the sound of his breathing close to your face. "So you don't get to either."

You feel him move back and settle between your thighs, sliding them apart. You're still so sensitive from your orgasm that feeling his cock suddenly press against you makes an involuntary whimper slip out. He wastes no time slipping in, but he does it slow, stretching you open inch by inch, and you grab fistfuls of his sheets because the fact that you're missing one of your senses is making everything amplified.

"Oh my god…"

"Say my name," he says, and he feels deep enough inside of you that you can't tell how much more of him there is. You only know the stretch, the pressure, and how full you already feel.

A faint moan slips out of you before you manage, breathless, "Scara…"

"Yeah?" He says, and you can hear the smirk in his voice, he knows you can barely think. "Too full to say it properly?"

Your fingers curl helplessly in the sheets. "Sc… Scaramouche…"

He starts moving, and because of the blindfold, every thrust feels amplified tenfold, so much deeper. His hands are gripping at your hips hard enough to bruise. You feel him closer, by your ear, voice still in character, "You think some new character is going to replace me?" He puncuates the end with a hard thrust, and your mouth hangs open with a gasp.

"Some battle maniac with a grin? Pathetic. I've been your favorite since 1.1," another thrust, and it hits you deep, he grinds into that same spot, "and no amount of leaked animations is going to change that."

"I know… hah… I know-"

He pulls back just enough that you feel the loss of him even though he's still inside. Your hips chase him up, a needy whimper spilling out because you don't feel him moving anymore, and you wonder why. You feel his hand leaving your hip to pull the blindfold off your eyes.

Light hits your pupils, and you squint, disoriented, and the first thing you see isn't him. It's your phone, held inches from your face, bright and open on the password screen. In a flash, your phone's unlocked from just your face, and just as fast as that happens, he turns your phone back to him.

"Wha… what are you doing?" You're still catching up, blinking through your vision that's trying to adjust, even more now that a phone was shoved up in your face. He's swiping through your apps with one hand while the other pins your hip to the mattress. His cock is still inside you, not moving at all, and it almost feels painful with how much you're craving him to.

He pulls up Twitter, looking at your feed first before checking your reposts, because of course, the first thing that comes up is someone reposting that Lohen burst animation for the millionth time, like people haven't seen it already. He scoffs, tapping on your profile picture on the side, and looking through your reposts.

"This one says," he starts, scrolling with his thumb, his tone almost bored as he reads your reposts out loud, while he finally starts grinding into you, but it's slow, painfully slow. "I would let Lohen degrade, breed me, use me, and rearrange my insides until I pass out… You liked that one, reposted it from the same account that has your face on it. How dense can you be?"

You face heats up realizing just how embarrassing that is, only after doing it a while ago, "That's… that was just a joke-"

"Let's go to your replies tab and see if you did anything other than mindlessly repost whatever you saw," you watch as his thumb moves across your phone, he shifts his hips forward in a slow grind that makes your breath hitch, "Oh, so you did comment on something… that's it? Three fire emojis and a fucking… crying emoji? That's your contribution to the discourse? Really? Was your brain rotting that badly that you couldn't even type words?"

You don't even try to come up with a coherent response for that, and he doesn't wait for one. He throws your phone somewhere on his bed and leans down, propping himself up on his forearms on either side of your head, and the closeness of him in full cosplay makes your breath catch in your throat.

"You know what's funny to me?" His eyes never leave your face as he rolls his hips, still a slow grind that drags his cock against your walls in such a way that keeps you in between being able to think and not. "You have a cosplayer. An actual, real person who dresses up as your favorite character and fucks you in it. And instead of appreciating that… you're reposting about a character that doesn't even have a release date yet."

A weak protest slips out before you can stop it. "I do appreciate-"

"Do you?" He thrusts hard this time, and it makes your back arch, your hands flying up to grab his shoulders as he continues at the same deep pace, watching your face change with every thrust. "Because I'm literally inside of you in a Scaramouche cosplay right now, and 20 minutes ago you were eye-fucking a burst animation while I was standing 12 feet away."

Your face burns, "That's not…" You swallow, trying to gather a thought that doesn't sound pathetic, "That's not fair, he's just a character, you're-"

"I'm right here." Another deep thrust, his hand slides up to cup the side of your face, tilting it so you're looking directly at him. At the eyeliner you did for him, the contacts, and the hair you even helped style. "And I'm the closest thing to a fictional character you're ever going to get. So maybe," he grinds into your spot, and your eyes roll, "act like it."

Humiliation and want feel like they're tangling so tightly that you can't separate them anymore. You can't even form a proper response for that, only being able to muster out a, "F-fuck… Scara…." as your fingers curl harder into the sheets.

"Mm." He keeps the angle, keeps rolling into that same spot, watching as it makes you go stupider quicker while his thumb traces your cheekbone. "You know what you should repost? A video of this. Me, in cosplay, between your legs. See how many likes that gets compared to a leaked animation."

Your brain decides this is the moment to let something slip. Completely irrational. "A lohen cosplay would probably get more likes because he's… trending." You don't even mean it as a dig; you say it in the normal, supportive tone you always give when he talks about content, while getting dicked down.

And the second those words leave your mouth, everything goes silent. He stops, completely. Cock buried inside you, and his hand on your face tightens. His thumb presses harder into your cheekbone. His expression doesn't change, but his eyes do. It's this flat, cold look you can see even with the contacts, and the silence stretches long enough that you realize what you just did.

You scramble to backtrack, "I didn't mean-"

"No, don't backtrack now," he cuts in, voice eerily calm, tilting his head like he's studying any new reaction you'd make, "You sounded very sure of yourself a second ago. I want the same answer you gave before you realize I didn't like it."

You sink back into the pillows, head shaking, "Scara, you know that's not what I meant…" but you stop at the end when you see the look in his eyes darken.

He lets go of your face and pulls almost all the way out to slam back in, both of his hands gripping on the backs of your thighs, pushing them apart. He's fucking into you at a new pace that's faster and rougher than anything before this, every thrust feeling like a point he's making without words.

"He's an animation," he says between trusts, his voice strained, but he's still in character. "He doesn't feel like this…" A thrust so deep it pushes you closer to the headboard. "He doesn't sound like this." Another one, harder, and the sound that comes out of you is almost unrecognizable.

"And he doesn't know that if he hits this angle," he shifts his hips and nails your spot dead-on, and your vision whites out at the edges completely, "you make that exact face."

Your legs are shaking around his grip, your hands grasping at anything, his shoulders, his arm, the sheets, the only thought in your mind is him, the body between your legs trying to prove a point with his entire being.

Then, your phone lights up next to your head. It's a Twitter notification, something about Lohen, and the timing is so cosmically cruel. He sees it, and before you can even squint to see what it's about, he scoots back, letting your head fall off the pillow. You look at him, confused, completely innocent to the change of position that's about to happen.

His hands leave your thighs to grab at your hips, and in one inhuman motion, he lifts you off the bed almost entirely. Your back leaves the mattress, the entire room feels like it's tilting as he hauls your legs over his shoulders, your full weight being suspended against his body. His hands grip the front of your thighs, your arms scrambling for anything, and they end up gripping at the backs of his thighs. Your head is still on the mattress, and your arms, but everything else is up in the air.

He's about to fuck you upside down.

You yell out of panic, "Wha… SCARA-"

"You were about to check your phone." He says, voice unbothered like he isn't holding you in the air with his dick buried inside of you. "While I'm inside of you… While Scaramouche is inside of you." He adjusts his grip, his fingers digging into the meat of your thighs, and slides his hips back before slamming into you hard, forcing himself so deep that you see white. "Do I not have your full attention?"

Even as full, and thought empty as you are, you still try to defend yourself, "You do… hah… You do, I wasn't-"

"You were reaching for it," another hard slam, and you cry out, your nails digging into the backs of his thighs. "Your hand almost moved. Almost. You were going to look at a notification while im fucking you."

He fucks into you, over and over, your legs dangling on his shoulders, the angle hitting something so deep inside of you that your body doesn't know how to process it apart from going completely boneless.

You're limp, even being fucked upside down. Your muscles gave up, and now you're just a body he's holding in the air and fucking into.

Your weight being nothing to him, your pleasure being everything.

"Scara… Scara, oh my god, I can't… f-fuck… I can't-"

"Can't what?" His voice is annoyingly steady, controlled, even though he's holding you up and thrusting into you with a force that should effect both of you, but it seems like you're the only effected one. Moaning sounds that aren't even words anymore, just vowels and air. "Can't think? Good. You shouldn't be thinking. The only thing in your head right now should be my name, and the fact that no pixel on a screen," he thrusts up, sharp, and the sound you make is practically a scream, "has ever made you feel like this."

Even with your mind blank, you can process his words enough to know that he's right. Because he's here, and real, and holding you in the air and fucking the coherence out of your skull. "SCARAMOUCHE- fuck, please… please don't stop-"

His pace only grows faster, his grip on your thighs tightening in such a way that you know it will end in bruises when you wake up tomorrow. You cum with the lower half of your body, suspended in the air. Your body locks up, ankles rolling, feet clenching around his shoulders as the orgasm rips through you in waves so intense that you can't even keep your eyes open, can't even suppress or care for how dumb you sound.

You can do anything except convulse around him while he holds you through it like you weigh nothing.

He cums exactly five seconds after, the way your walls clench around his cock not letting him pull himself back any longer. He buries himself deep with one final thrust up that pins you against his hips. You feel every pulse of it, hot and thick, filling you up as his fingers flex on your thighs.

There's so much that your body can't contain it, even in this position, you can feel some of his cum leak around where he's still inside you, dripping down between your ass cheeks.

He holds you there for a moment, catching his breath and you still catching yours, and then he finally sets you down. He moves back, lowering you, and you bounce back on the sheets, still out of breath, gasping, legs shaking, cum pooling more properly between your thighs now that you aren't in the air.

He's already pulling at the cosplay before his breathing even levels out.

"Finally," he mutters, yanking at the chest piece with the urgency of someone escaping a straitjacket, "I can take this stupid fucking thing off."

The outer layer comes off first, and he gets out of bed to toss it onto his desk chair without looking. Then the arm pieces, what's left of them, since one sleeve is still tied in a crumpled blindfold shape somewhere in the sheets. He pulls the one he's wearing off and throws it on top of the outer layers on the chair.

He's left in the sleeveless undershirt, the tight black one that sits flush against his chest and shows the puppet joints he spent way too long on at his shoulders. The shadow has smudged from the sweat, the edges bleeding where the lines used to be clean.

"I was literally cooking alive in that," he says, working at the fabric that sits on his hips next, "do you know how many layers this cosplay has? About four. Four fucking layers in a room with one fan and a broken AC because Ei cares more about being at work all the time than actually caring about a home she's barely at."

You don't respond because you are, at this moment, a puddle of a human being with no functioning brain cells and shaking legs. You're lying exactly where he put you down, staring up at the ceiling, legs still open because closing them feels like an exercise right now.

He glances at you once the majority of the cosplay is off, just the undershirt and shorts, and he gets quieter. He disappears into the bathroom that's connected to his bedroom and comes back with a warm, damp towel.

He sits on the edge of the bed and pushes your thigh to the side, wiping between your legs without saying anything. His movements are careful, clinical, almost, like the same precision he gives his cosplay goes into this too.

He cleans the cum off your inner thighs, the crease where your thigh meets your hip, folds the towel to the clean side, and gets the rest.

You flinch at the contact, still sensitive, and his other hand presses flat against your lower stomach to keep you still. "Stop squirming."

"But… It's sensitive," you say, finally, voice weak.

"I know it's sensitive. I'm the one who made it sensitive. Stay still."

He tosses the towel onto the bathroom floor when he's done, then goes to his dresser, pulling out a sleep set and underwear that are yours. A cropped top and matching shorts that somehow migrated into his drawer because you're here more than your actual house.

He comes back and slides the underwear up first, lifting your hips with one hand to pull them over your ass. Then, the shorts come next, doing the same motion he did for the underwear. He grabs the top next, and this part requires sitting you up, and you're not cooperative.

You're practically dead weight.

He pulls you up by the arms like a ragdoll, gets the shirt over your head, and guides each of your arms through the sleeves. You keep going limp on purpose, and it's irritating him. "You're not helping," he says, which isn't a helpful remark on his part.

You can't do anything but let out a tired, annoyed sigh, voice moving slowly as you say, "I can't feel my legs, Kuni."

He pauses as he's trying to pull the top down, giving you a sideways look, "That's a you-ca n't-help problem, that's a you-won't-help problem. Your arms should work fine."

You give him a fake, straight smile, shrugging at a languid speed, "They don't, actually. You broke those too when you held me upside down, and I had to hold onto your thighs for dear life."

He scoffs, dropping you back against the pillows, and you sink into them, boneless, dressed, clean, happy that you've trained him well enough to do this much after sex, because it pays off every time.

He pulls the covers out from under you, and this time you actually scoot to give him space to tuck them over your body. He grabs both of your phones and plugs them in, then walks to his closet to take the top off and replace it with a plain black t-shirt, and tugs on a pair of grey sweats. When he's done, he always backs toward the bed to get into the covers beside you, but you stop him.

"Kuni, can you please get me water?" You ask, with a tiny pout.

The exhale he lets out is so deep it could qualify as a controlled breathing exercise. He stands there for a full three seconds, covers still bunched in his hand, staring at you with the expression of a man who wants to only pass out in bed and rot.

"You couldn't have said that before I walked toward the bed?"

You look up, pretending to think, mouth curling up when you glance back at him, "I wasn't thirsty before you walked toward the bed."

He rolls his eyes, his hand coming up to rub his fingers at his temple in annoyance at all of this, "That doesn't even make sense."

You clasp your hands together, pouting, again, putting on a sweet expression just to mess with him further, "Please?"

He drops the covers and leaves the room. You hear his footsteps down the hallway, and they're loud enough that you know he's being loud on purpose.

Because Kuni doesn't make noise when he walks unless he wants you to know he's annoyed.

His house is massive; you spend 99 percent of your time in his room, so you actually get jumpscared every time you leave it. The hallways are long, or probably longer than an apartment floor in general, with marble flooring and clear walls with art on them that his mother picked out and he's never looked at once.

The kitchen is insane. Countertops that stretch for what feels like miles, a center island bigger than your own bed, and appliances that look like they belong in a once luxurious restaurant. Every surface is spotless because the housekeeper comes three times a week, and Kuni is already a clean freak on his own, so the combination creates a kitchen that looks perpetually unlived in.

He opens the cabinet, grabs a glass, fills it from the filtered tap, and when he turns around, his mother is sitting at the island.

She's been there the whole time, apparently.

Ei is on a barstool at the center island, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of red wine in her right hand and her phone in her left. Her hair is long and ink-black, pin-straight, falling over one shoulder, and in the dim kitchen light, she looks less like a person and more like a portrait someone painted and forgot to hang.

She looks up from her phone at the sound of the glass filling.

Her eyes move over him, at the messed-up hair, the contacts he forgot to take out, and the faded puppet joints still visible on his knuckles.

And also the fact that he's getting a glass of water at one in the morning in a post-sex haze that he thinks isn't obvious but is extremely obvious.

"You're still awake," she says, her voice carrying that same low, unbothered tone that makes everything she says sound like an observation.

"You're home," he replies, matching her energy beat for beat, turning off the tap without looking at her. "When did your flight land?"

"Three hours ago." She takes a sip of wine. "I didn't want to interrupt."

The silence that follows is loud. He knows what that means, she knows that he knows, and neither of them will say it directly because everyone in this family treats emotional honesty like it's some disease.

"Right." He grabs the glass and turns to leave as fast as possible.

"Kunikuzushi."

He stops, but he doesn't turn around, his grip on the glass tightening.

"Eat something tomorrow. The fridge is stocked." She pauses to take a sip before continuing, "And take your contacts out before you sleep. They'll irritate your eyes."

He stands there for a second, then another, then another, then walks away without responding. And his footsteps down the hallway are quieter this time. Not on purpose.

He gets back to his room and shuts the door behind him with his foot. He walks up towards the bed and reaches over to hand you the glass. You take it, sitting up slightly, drinking half of it in one go while he stands there watching you like you just made him walk a marathon for a cup of water.

"Happy?" He asks, pulling the covers back.

You roll your eyes and hand him back the glass. He sets it on the nightstand and gets into bed, lying flat on his back. You immediately roll onto his chest like a magnet, your cheek pressing against the cotton of his t-shirt, and you can hear his heartbeat, still a little fast, coming down.

His hand finds your hair, starts that absent, repetitive thing he does, threading his fingers through the strands over and over. You press closer to him, tangling your legs with his under the covers, and his arm tightens around your back.

You close your eyes, and his fingers never stop moving through your hair.

He doesn't tell you he loves you; he never does first. But his thumb traces a slow circle against your scalp, and his breathing evens out underneath you, and he doesn't move even when your weight goes fully dead against his chest.

That's how you know.

You're in your room today, not at your boyfriend's house like you usually are. You do like being in his room and hanging out with him constantly, but it's also constantly exhausting. Some days, you'd just prefer to be… alone.

Your room is the complete opposite of Kunikuzushi's aesthetic. Light beige walls so you can hang up cute pink miscellaneous things on your wall without them clashing. A fluffy, soft, pink bed that used to be a canopy until you woke up to a fat spider next to your face, as if it was their bed too. Plushies… lots of them, on your bed, some kept on a large shelf you bought to store the expensive anime figures Kuni always buys you. Long story short, the general vibe of your room makes you seem like someone whose entire personality is soft and sweet.

You're lying on your stomach on the bed, phone in hand, scrolling through the fallout of the Lohen leak from 3 days ago. The internet has still not calmed down… if anything, it's worse.

@scaranation4LIFE scaranation we STAND. Every character had their tiny moment of fame… our show lasted four years. FOUR. We were even on the news… lohen's gonna last one patch and you're all going to be crawling back

@lohenxscarabeliever i don't want lohen OR scara… i want them BOTH to ruin my life SIMULTANEOUSLY. Why is this so hard to understand

@wanderersfavoritebuttplug scara… I’d never replace you for that sadistic twink (maybe) (we’ll see)

The comments are always talking about the same thing, at least every comment section under a Lohen Twitter post, as the diehard simp, the one who wants Lohen and Scara to fuck each other, the one who wants to cuck Scara in front of Lohen, and the very few actual loyal Scara fans.

… You feel like you're a bit of both.

You're deep in the comments, simultaneously looking at edits of Lohen on TikTok, then taking a Twitter break, then TikTok, when at some strange point, your bedroom door opens.

You don't look up, you assume it's Kuni because your parents aren't home, and you gave him the key ages ago. "Hey, Kuni," you say, still scrolling, legs swinging behind you, "if you're here to yell at me about using your newest Flower Knows palette before you did, it's not that big of a deal-"

You stop because when you look up, what you see is something you'd never, ever expect from a surprise visit from your boyfriend.

Kunikuzushi is standing in your doorway in full-on, perfectly accurate, as always, cosplay. But it's not Scaramouche, or some other male in the game… It's Lohen.

Your phone hits the mattress.

The character you've been losing your mind over for 3 days, the one you've seen on your phone screen a genuinely convincing number of times, is here, in real life, standing in your pink bedroom doorway.

"When did you-" your voice comes out strangled, your mouth feeling dry, and your throat feeling so tight that you cut yourself off. Your eyes scan the cosplay, again and again, confused at why he didn't tell you about this. Especially ordering a unique cosplay of a character that hasn't even fully come out. "When… when did you order this??"

He grins, a toothy, sharp-eyed grin that looks nothing like Scara's smirk. It's so strangely accurate to the expression Lohen would make, and you wonder if he's spent the last 3 days practicing for this.

"I've been tracking you all day," he says, and his voice is different than normal, more confident, louder, less… restrained on what's deemed as good. "You've been hard to pin down."

He crosses the room, and your body does something it doesn't do with Kuni. It tenses out of something close to fear, but closer to not knowing what's coming next. His hand grabs the front of your tank top and yanks you off the bed. You yelp in a way that's higher, more startled, more genuinely caught off guard than anything Scara has gotten out of you in months.

"Nervous?" He questions, his grin widening, and his fists twist in your shirt, pulling you closer, until your chest is against his. He can feel your heartbeat… at least you assume he can, because you can hear it going haywire through your ears to the point that you'd believe it's audible even if he wasn't this close.

You deny because you hate admitting things to him when he's acting smug, even though anything you could say would be utterly pointless, as your face and the way you're barely moving prove his point way too well. "I'm not nervous…" You try a distraction, any, "Are you really wearing a wig, Kun-" but it gets cut off quicker than you can even finish the last word.

"Your heart feels like it's about to explode out of your chest." He leans in, his mouth next to your ear, and his voice drops, but he still keeps the edge of it in character, "What's different? You let Scaramouche do whatever he wants to you. But Lohen shows up and suddenly… You can't even talk?"

You knit your eyebrows, staggering to say anything that sounds like you're not any less dumb, "That's… it's different, you're usually-"

"Usually what? Predictable?" He pulls back to look at you, and you glance up and down at his cosplay once more, and it's even more annoyingly perfect up close. You seriously don't know how he does it; he even looks good in a wig, even though he hates them. "You know every move Scaramouche makes before he makes it. You're comfortable with that, and that's boring." He says it like an insult, and his grin drops suddenly, his eyes not leaving you once as he says, "I'm not comfortable. Are you scared of me?"

You answer a simple, "No." But the way you still haven't moved on your own since he appeared at your door proves without words otherwise.

"Liar." He shoves you, and you fall back before you can catch yourself on the bed, bouncing on the pink sheets, your tank top riding up slightly in the process. "Your voice had the tiniest crack in it."

He's on top of you before you can sit up, his knee between your thighs, his hand going to your jaw… and he does it.

The burst animation.

His fingers close around your jaw as he lifts your face toward his, slow, and the grin is right there, a perfect replica of the video you've watched on your screen more than 100 times.

"There's my favorite prey," he says, holding the pose for three seconds, and instead of reaching his arm back and stabbing you, he leans in to kiss you.

It's violent, that's the only word to describe it. Non ceremonial, just teeth, tongue, and a lot of force by him. His hand is still gripping your jaw, controlling the angle, and also making sure you don't pull away so soon. You make a sound into his mouth that's between a moan and a whimper, that's even more vulnerable than anything you've made during sex when he cosplays as Scaramouche.

He pulls back, unbuckling one of the belts on the cosplay, a strap that's a part of Lohen's design, and he wraps it around your wrists, binding them above your head against the bed.

"Every battle maniac needs a sparring partner," he says, tying the knot with one hand while the other shoves your tank top up above your breasts. "And you looked at me like you volunteered."

He strips your shorts, then your underwear, and he doesn't bother about being sweet with it. He yanks them down your legs and throws them somewhere behind him, and then his hands grip the backs of your thighs, and he pushes them up toward your chest.

Mating press, that's what he's doing.

Your knees are at your shoulders, your hips are tilted up, and he's on the bed, kneeling over you. His weight is driving your thighs down, folding you in half. Your wrists are bound above your head; you're just completely open and trapped.

"L.. Lohen…" You whimper out in the voice of both someone in awe, and in the tiniest fear of what's coming next.

"Hmm." He unzips his pants, frees his hard cock from his underwear, which he slides down just enough, and positions himself at your entrance, and he pushes in.

The first thrust is the full length of him burying himself deep inside you in one stroke; the angel of the mating press makes it feel deeper than it should. His cock presses against your cervix, and the sound that leaks out of you is closer to a sob than a moan.

"AH- oh fuck oh fuck oh-"

"Too much?" He asks, and his grin, that fucking grin, is right there, his face inches from yours because the mating press puts him on top of you… over you, covering you entirely.

"N-no, just- hah-" You get cut off with the way he pulls back and slams back in, your eyes rolling to the back of your skull, before just fully closing.

"Not convincing." He pulls back, again, slamming into you harder than the last one, like he's powering up his thrusts, and your back tries to arch off the bed, but his weight is pressing you flat, and you have nowhere to go. You feel his hands at your face. "Your eyes are watering."

You open your eyes back up to look at him, head shaking, even though you do feel something hot and wet sliding softly down your cheeks. "You're lying, they're n-not-" You're studdering from the way he's repeditely fucking into you, especially hitting your deeper spots on purpose when you try speaking, but he cuts you off anyway.

"They are." He leans down and licks a tear off your cheekbone. The act is so different from the way he's currently fucking into you, brutally, and you're turning incoherent faster than ever, moans spilling out uncontrollably as the sound of his hips plaping against your ass fills the room.

"You cry for Scaramouche because it feels good. You're crying for me because you don't know what I'm going to do next." Both of his hands leave your face; one goes back onto your thigh, the other finds your throat. "And that scares you… Doesn't it?"

His fingers close around your neck, and he doesn't choke you the same way Kuni does during normal sex. This version is different, new, something you've never felt before. Lohen's choke. His fingers press into the sides of your throat, squeezing the muscles, not your windpipe, but the tissue around it. The difference, the way this feels new, is because it feels like it's designed to hurt, not to just cut off air. The pain is sharp, and you can still breathe, technically, but every inhale aches, and the compression makes the blood rush to your head in a way that amplifies every sensation that a blindfold never could.

You can't move your hands, even as they itch to grab or instinctively hold at his wrists, you're reminded that they're bound together by his belt. Your moans just get more amplified thrust after thrust after squeeze, "Nghh- Lohen… hah…"

"You can barely even say my name." He squeezes harder, his thumb pressing into the hollow of your throat, and the pressure pushes you right to the edge of too much. "Scaramouche gets full sentences out of you… Full moans… Full 'please'. But me?" He thrusts deep, grinding, holding himself inside you while his hand tightens on your throat. "I get syllables… Half-words… or just plain denial over anything I say. You're so nervous you can't even beg for anything properly."

He fucks you into the mating press until your thighs are shaking against his hands, and your voice is hoarse from the sounds he's pulling out of you. His hand stays on your throat. The pressure of his squeeze fluctuates a lot, from him tightening when he thrusts hard, loosening when he grinds slowly, a cycle of both pain and relief that keeps you permanently on the edge of too much without ever crossing into too much.

Because Kuni knows your body, he knows how much it can take. He pushes you close enough to passing out that your vision darkens at the edges, your mouth falls open, your eyes lose focus, and then he loosens his grip and lets the blood rush back.

And the gasp you take is almost an orgasm on its own. "Please- hah… please, I can't… too much-"

"You can handle it, you just don't know it yet." He squeezes your throat and fucks into you hard enough that a plushie falls off the bed. The grin on his face is still, still beautifully intact, and it's the most terrifyingly perfect thing you've ever seen from this close.

"You know what's funny? You were scared when I walked in. Nervous. Couldn't even talk to me." He leans down until his lips brush yours, his hand still on your throat. "But you're not trying to stop me, are you? Your hands are tied, your legs are pinned, and we have a safeword you could've used at any point, and you won't, because you and I both know this is exactly the type of 'too much' that you crave."

You cum with his hand on your throat and his cock buried so deep you can feel him in your stomach. The orgasm hits different in a mating press, so much more intense. Your walls clench around him in rhythmic pulses that you feel in your entire pelvic floor, and he fucks you through it, his pace not slowing, his hand not loosening.

And by the time the aftershock fades, you're boneless, twitching, and making sounds that are barely human.

He cums inside you, you feel the heat of it, thick, pulsating, his hips pressing flush against yours and staying there while his cock throbs. His hand finally loosens on your throat, and his forehead drops against yours.

His breathing is ragged, and it's the first time you've ever heard him lose the composure of the character, and for one second, between the last pulse and first exhale, it's just Kuni.

Then the Lohen grin slides back. He stays inside you for a moment more, his cock still twitching with the last of it, before pulling out in one motion that makes your body clench around nothing.

You feel the immediate emptiness, the warmth of his cum already starting to leak, but you don't get to process that because his hands are on your hips and he's flipping you.

Your stomach hits the mattress, your face presses into your pillow, and the shift of his cock inside you during the rotation makes a wet, obscene sound that you both pretend not to hear. Your wrists are still bound with the belt, and they're now pinned beneath you. You feel him reach under you, fingers finding the leather, working the buckle loose with one hand, while the other grips your hip to keep you from sliding forward.

The belt falls away from your wrists, you roll them instinctively, flexing your fingers, and before you can even appreciate the freedom, you feel the belt loop around your neck instead.

He pulls it taut from behind. He doesn't choke you with it just yet; he just lets it sit snug against your throat with his fist gripping the trailing end like it's some sort of handle.

"Ass up," he says, and you barely get your knees under you before he gives up on waiting and pulls your hips back toward him.

He slams in at a rough, fast, punishing pace. The sound of his hips against your ass is echoing off your room in a rhythm that makes your plushies at the edge of the bed vibrate, causing a couple of them to fall.

He uses the belt as a way to anchor his thrusts while he rails into you with a force that has your fingers twisting in your sheets, and your neck being forced to arch back.

"Fu- oh my g-god, Loh-" You can't even finish his name, it just dissolves into a broken moan as he hits your spot from this angle. The deepness of the backshots makes your toes curl against the bedsheets.

He keeps going, his pace not slowing down at all, and you're too far gone that you barely register it when his rhythm stutters for a second, especially when you hear him mutter something under his breath that doesn't sound like Lohen.

"This stupid fucking…"

Your brain is somewhere between your legs; the only sound that's audible and coherent to you is the sound of his hips against your ass, and your endless moans.

He thrusts hard, and you let out a whimper, your fingers flexing on the sheets, and your feet coming up, clenching, then dropping again. But between the next few thrusts, you catch pieces of something that doesn't match the character he's trying to play.

His voice sounds like it's shifting, not into Scara like it's some muscle memory he has, but into Kuni, your boyfriend, sounding genuinely irritated about something that has nothing to do with sex.

"I swear to god, it keeps sliding," he mutters, and his grip on the belt loosens for a second as his other hand does something behind you that you can't see. He does another hard thrust, and your face falls against the pillow now that he isn't yanking on your neck. But he doesn't pull you back, choke you, or do whatever you expect him to do.

He complains.

"This is the last time I'll wear a wig. The last fucking time. I told you I hate these things and you always ignore it and tell me to suck it up when it's a character that isn't him-" a thrust that makes your spine arch, "and now I have gross, synthetic hair scratching at my face, and I'm going to lose my mind."

You're barely processing any of this, still, it all sounds like fragments to you that don't make sense because of the thick haze of being fucked into your mattress.

He grunts, clear frustration, and you hear something that sounds like a clip, or whatever mechanism that's keeping his wig attached to his actual hair, and his pace slows down enough that curiosity overtakes the pleasure for one stupid second.

You turn your head.

And it's Kuni behind you, one hand still on the belt at your neck, and the other holding the Lohen wig that he just pulled off his head. His real hair is back, dark indigo, messy, slightly matted from the wig cap he also tore off. He hasn't noticed you looking yet; he's too busy glaring at the wig with genuine contempt.

He's out of character, fully, completely, for once mid-fuck. He never breaks character, and something comes over you… Maybe it's the absurdity of the visual, maybe it's because you're fucked stupid enough that impulse control is just completely gone.

Maybe it's because the opportunity is just too perfect to pass, and you've seen that TikTok audio one too many times.

You gasp, loud, dramatic, your voice coming out in that exaggerated, scandalized tone that you know he's going to hate, "he's BALD. He's bald, and he's torturing people who have HAIR!"

The silence that follows lasts exactly one and a half seconds.

His eyes snap to you, and you're looking at him over your shoulder, half of your face pressed into the pillow, and you're grinning. That kind of stupid, shit-eating grin that you know is about to have severe consequences.

His expression goes through several stages in rapid succession. Disbelief comes first, processing it comes second, then recognition of the reference, and on the last and final stage, something dark and focused appears that makes your grin falter just slightly.

He throws the wig, and it hits your vanity mirror, sliding off somewhere that you don't care to watch, and his now-free hand shoves your head back down into the pillow. It's not gentle. His palm is flat against the back of your skull, pressing your face into the fabric, and your giggle gets muffled by cotton.

"You think that's funny?" His voice drops back into Lohen's, but it's rougher now, meaner, the edge of genuine irritation soaking through the character because you made a dumb joke while he was inside of you. "You think you're clever?"

You're trying to respond, but your face is pressed into a pillow, and his hand is keeping it there. What comes out next is a muffled, "Mm srrhyy-" that dissolves into a yelp when he slams into you so hard your knees slide forward on the sheets.

"Every prey animal thinks it's funny right before the teeth close." He fucks into you at a pace that's brutal, and way faster than anything before. Each thrust is showing you further into the mattress while his hand keeps your head pinned, and the belt around your neck pulls tight from the motion. "You want to make jokes? I'll give you something to scream about instead."

His other hand leaves the belt to grab at your hip, yanking you back onto his cock with every thrust, and the force of being pushed down and pulled back simultaneously has you making sounds into the pillow that are just broken, raw sounds. Your hands claw at the sheets above your head, your back arching down, while your ass stays up, and you can feel his fingers digging bruises into your hip while the belt drags against your throat.

"Mmph- wait, f-fuck, I'm sorryyy, I was k-kidding-" you manage between thrusts, your words slurring against the pillow, saliva starting to collect at the corner of your mouth because your jaw won't close properly. "Loh-hen, please, 'm sorry, I didn't m-mean-"

"You have a funny way of apologizing," he grinds out, and his hand on the back of your head shifts, his fingers curling into your hair and pulling your face just barely off the pillow, enough that your moans aren't muffled anymore. "Usually, people apologize without laughing. You're still smiling about it, I can hear it in your voice."

He's not wrong. You are still smiling, with tears in your eyes, getting absolutely destroyed because the image of your boyfriend ripping off a wig mid-sex with that look on his face will live in your brain rent-free forever. "Liar… 'M not smiling-"

"You are." A thrust so deep your smile actually drops because your eyes roll back and your mouth falls open around a moan that's more of a wail. "There… fixed it."

His other hand releases your hair and goes to his own head. You can feel the shift in his movements, slightly distracted, one-handed thrusts that are still devastating but less focused as he runs his fingers through his real hair, fixing it through the vanity mirror on the far side of your room.

Because even while he's railing at you, Kunikuzushi will not be caught dead with bad hair.

He's multitasking, fucking you into the mattress with one hand on the belt, and styling his hair with the other… the worst part is, he doesn't even slow down.

He pulls the belt back just enough that you're forced to arch your spine, the pressure on your throat lifting your chest slightly off the mattress, and the angle change makes his cock hit differently, shallower but dragging against your front wall with every stroke, and the sound that comes out of you is embarrassingly close to a squeal.

"Ah ah AH, oh m-my god, oh my god, right there, don't- nghhh don't move from that, please plea-hease..." Your words are tumbling out in a slurred mess, your brain is completely out of your control, and your hips are pushing back against his on their own because the angle is too good.

He cums with a groan, pressing into the back of your shoulder, biting down on your skin through a moan he clearly didn't want to let out. You feel his cock pulse inside you, the heat spreading, and his hips grind forward in small, lazy rolls as he empties everything. His hand goes slack on the belt, and his forehead drops against the space between your shoulder blades.

He stays there for a second, breathing, then he pulls back, letting go completely of the belt, and you fall forward because he was the one pulling your practically limp body against him. Your ass is up in the air, and you feel him slide out, and the gush of cum that follows is immediate. It's thick, warm, spilling out of you and down between your thighs.

He sits back and watches it, you know, because you hear the sheets shift, and you can tell by the way he doesn't move or speak, just watches the mess he made ooze out of you.

His thumb presses against your entrance at the rim, and more cum leaks out around the pressure, sliding down in a slow trail toward your clit. "Look at that," he murmurs, his voice back in character for Lohen, in an amused, fascinated tone. "You can't keep any of it in."

His other hand comes up and spreads you open with his thumb and forefinger, holding your folds apart, and you can feel the cool air hit the mess inside you. You feel more of his cum spill out from being exposed. You bury your face deeper into the pillow because the visual you can't even see is somehow still the most embarrassing part of this entire night.

"Lohen, don't just… stare at it-" You mumble into the pillow, voice a bit pitchy as your thighs try to close, but his knee is in between your legs before you can even try to hide.

"Why not?" His thumb traces through the cum leaking down your folds, collecting it, spreading it in a slow circle around your clit, and your hips jerk at the contact because you're so overstimulated. "It's mine, I put it there, and I'll stare at it for as long as I want."

He leans down, and you feel his breath warm against your swollen, sensitive skin. Then you feel his tongue, a single slow lick from your clit up to your folds that collects everything in its path. You let out a sound that's halfway between a moan and a sob, your fingers crushing at the sheets. His mouth seals around your clit and sucks one, hard, before pulling off with a wet pop that's so loud it echoes.

"Ahh- hhah, that's... you c-can't just do that and stop..." You whine, your hips chasing his mouth, but he's already sitting up, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

"I can do whatever I want." He says, like it's a fact, and his thumb pushes inside you lazily, scooping cum out and watching it drip off his finger before sliding it back in. "And right now I want to watch you try to keep it together while I play with the mess I made."

He does this for longer than is reasonable. Sliding his finger in, pulling it out with cum on it, pressing his thumb against your clit, watching you flinch and twitch and moan into the pillow while your body can't decide if it wants more or if it wants him to stop.

When you finally lift your head enough to look back at him, your vision is blurry, and your cheeks are wet, and your hair… let's not talk about that. But his hair, however…

It's perfect.

His actual hair, styled in Scaramouche's cut, falls over his forehead in a way that makes him look like a character rendered by someone who accidentally released him into the real world. He fixed it while he was fucking you, which means at some point of the most brutal backshots of your life, your boyfriend was simultaneously running his fingers through his hair to make sure it looked good.

And it does, it looks like Scaramouche wearing Lohen's clothes, the dark blue and silver of the cosplay framing his face differently than Scara's outfit does, and the combination of his real hair with Lohen's costume is somehow hotter than either one on its own.

"Your hair…" You start, breathless, head tilting, staring at him.

"I know." He doesn't elaborate, and for a second you did forget just where his fingers still are, but then you get instantly reminded when his thumb circles your clit again. His expression is annoyingly smug for someone who was complaining about a wig 4 minutes ago.

He slides back into you without warning, and you gasp, your head dropping back down, because you're still so unbelievably sensitive. Even though he did slurp some of it out, you still have his cum inside of you, and the re-entry just pushed every bit of the leftovers deeper. He does exactly two, slow thrusts from behind, enough to hear the wet sound of it, and enough to feel you clench around him involuntarily, and then he moves.

His hand wraps the belt tighter around your neck and pulls backward toward him. Your upper body lifts off the mattress as the leather digs into your throat. And at the same time, as if he's some pro multitasker, his other hand hooks under your thigh, and hauls you up.

The room tilts as he rearranges your body like you're a doll getting repositioned on a shelf.

He sits back on his heels, then further, his legs extending toward the foot of the bed, and he pulls you down onto his lap with your back against his chest. His cock is still inside you, and the angle of his cock in your folds shifts as gravity does the work of seating you fully onto him. Your weight pushes him impossibly deep.

"Oh my- f-fuck..." Your head falls back against his shoulder, your mouth open, eyes unfocused on the ceiling. You can feel him everywhere. The depth of this position, your full weight on his lap, is the kind of full that makes your brain actually go blank.

The belt is still around your neck. He grips the loose end in one fist, his other hand settling on your hip, and he snaps his hips up.

It's different from behind, and the mating press, and just any position he's ever tried with you. Every thrust pushes up into you while your own weight pushes down. The collision of both forces means he's hitting your cervix with almost every stroke. The belt pulls at your throat in time with his rhythm, and it's like a constant tug that keeps you slightly alert. He's using it as a leash while he fucks up into you.

"Lohen… Lohen, oh my g-god, that's so… hhh…" Your hands grip his thighs behind you for leverage, your nails pressing crescent moons into his skin through the dark fabric of the cosplay pants. Every thrust forces a sound out of you that you didn't choose. The sound ranges from breathy moans to hiccuped whimpers to full, unfiltered whines that bounce off your bedroom walls.

"Mm, good girl… Keep saying my name just like that." He says against the shell of your ear, his grin pressing into your hair, and his hips don't slow down at all while his free hand leaves your hip to cup your breast, squeezing it through your bunched-up tank top.

Then, suddenly, the pace changes. It slows like someone pressing on the brakes. The frantic upward thrusts melt into something grinding, deliberate, circular. His hips roll instead of slamming. His hand on the belt adjusts, and you can feel the leather pulling higher on your throat, the pressure shifting from the side of your neck to the front, directly on your windpipe, cutting your air down. It makes the room tilt and your head go light.

"Lohen is fun. I'll give him that."

Your walls clench around him so hard that you feel his breath catch, a tiny fracture in his composure that he covers immediately. The shift from Lohen's energy to Scara's is like someone swapped an entire soundtrack mid-song, same instruments but a completely different vibe.

"But fun is temporary." His hips roll in that slow, calculated grind that's purely Scaramouche. The one that doesn't just find your spot but sits on it, presses into it, with the exact amount of pressure needed to make your eyes cross. "Chaos without control is just noise."

He thrusts so deep that your vision goes white at the edges and your mouth opens around a shameless sound you can't hold back. "I'm not noise." He pulls the belt tighter, your air growing thinner as your head feels floaty and warm. "I'm the only voice in your head that stays."

"Scara…" It comes out of your mouth before he can ask for it, before he can demand it, your body just defaulting to the name it knows and has moaned out more times than you can count. Just the same as muscle memory.

"There she is." His voice sounds satisfied in a way that Lohen's never was. It's settled, fully sure, like something just got confirmed that he already knew. His thumb traces the edge of the belt for exactly one second.

Then his pace goes feral, the leash yanks tight, and you can feel the grin return against the curve of your neck, his teeth grazing over your skin. The whiplash of Scara's controlled grind slamming into Lohen's chaos makes your entire body jerk against his chest.

Then he goes back to Scara, slow, precise, the belt adjusting to hit your windpipe just like before, and your vision goes soft and dreamy.

Then Lohen, again, fast and reckless, the belt pulling to the sides, sharp and painful. Your vision snaps back, too clear… too much.

Then Scara.

Then Lohen.

The switches accelerate, and you're caught between two different rhythms that you don't even have time to get used to either one before it switches back and forth, and you're left shaking, trembling, your thighs quivering helplessly on either side of his.

"You feel so fucking good-" you can hear Lohen's signature grin in his tone, his hips snapping up hard enough that you bounce on his lap, "You think you can handle more?"

And then, like a light to a switch, Scara's back, his thrusts slowing into a grind that feels torturous. "Of course you can't… You never could. You just pretend."

"Mm… mmnhh, I c-cant, it's too much," you're babbling, the words coming out in disconnected fragments that don't form a single coherent thought, "both of you at the s-same time… I can't… my brain… can't…"

Your body is trying to process two characters and one cock, and one belt on your throat that keeps changing how tight and how rough it's being pulled, and the gravity pinning you down, and his hands on you everywhere. "Please jus- hha, pick one, p-please, I can't think when you keep switching, I-"

"No." It doesn't sound like either character he's playing as he says that, almost himself. "You don't get to pick, you get both."

You cum on the fault line. On the exact millisecond where Lohen's chaos collides with Scara's control. The two rhythms are crashing together inside your body like a wave hitting a wall. The orgasm rips through you so hard that your vision actually blacks out for a second.

Your walls seize around him in rhythmic, violent clenches, your back arching against his chest, the belt pulling taut as your body contorts, and the sound you make is raw, unformed, the kind of noise a person makes when their brain short-circuits.

He cums with you, his groan is buried in the crook of your neck as his teeth bite down on your shoulder. The belt goes slack in his hand, and his hips stutter up as he fills you again. You feel every pulse of it, hot and thick, and his hands grip your hips hard.

His breathing is ragged against your neck, not in character, just Kuni, just like before, catching a breath he doesn't need to catch because the adrenaline is still making his body do human things.

He lets go of the belt and unloops it from your neck. The leather slides off your skin, leaving a warm, raw line that you'll see in the mirror tomorrow. His hands settle on your hips, gentle, all the urgency gone.

He turns you around, rotating you by your hips without pulling out. Your legs swing around until you're facing him, straddling his hips. When your eyes meet his, it's your boyfriend looking at you, Kuni, with his makeup smudged, his real hair messy and falling into his eyes, wearing another character's clothes with his own face underneath.

He grinds up into you, slow, not thrusting, just rolling his hips with his cock still inside you, his cum still inside, and the wet sound fills the quiet room.

He kisses you, a slow kiss where his hand cups the back of your neck. His tongue slides against yours, and your hands find his face, holding his jaw the same way you hold it when you do his eyeliner. Your fingers on his cheekbones, your thumbs at the corners of his mouth… the grip is so familiar that your chest aches with it.

He pulls out, the gush of everything between you spills onto his thighs, and you whimper at the loss, your hips chasing him involuntarily, still kissing him, before settling.

He leans back, lies flat, and looks up at you. "Sit on my face." He instructs, his hands already going for his bottoms, shoving the waistband down with both hands, lifting his hips, and kicking the pants and underwear off in one motion that sends them somewhere on the bed. He settles back onto the mattress with his cock resting against his stomach and the rest of Lohen's cosplay still on his upper half.

You're still on top of him, and you start to move toward his face, swinging your leg over to straddle his chest, and just as you're about to lower yourself down facing the wall, he stops you.

"Other way." His hands catch your hips, holding you in place before you can settle. "Face my cock, not the headboard."

You turn, shifting on your knees so you're facing his legs instead, and the second your thighs are on either side of his face, his hands pull you down. He doesn't ease you into it, his fingers dig into your hips and yank you flat on him. His mouth meets your cunt like he's been starving for it. His tongue is on you immediately, flat and broad, licking through the mess of his cum and yours that's still leaking, and the groan he lets out against your folds vibrates through your entire lower half.

"Ah- oh my god, Loh-" Your hands brace against his stomach, fingers splaying across his chest, your body jerking at the contact because you're still so overstimulated that even his breath against you would be too much, let alone his entire mouth sealed to your cunt like he's trying to milk you dry.

He doesn't let up; his tongue pushes between your folds, lapping at the cum he left inside you, alternating between long drags up your clit, and pointed flicks that make your thighs clamp around his head. His hands keep your hips pinned to his face, and every time you try to lift yourself even slightly because it's too much, he pulls you back down harder.

You look down past his stomach, past his lips, and his cock is right there. Hard again, flushed at the tip, twitching every time you moan. It looks helpless, which is a stupid word to use for a dick, but that's what it looks like.

Just lying there… hard… neglected, pulsing at nothing while his mouth does all the work on you. The visual of that all, combined with the way his tongue just circles your clit makes your mouth water and your body move on its own.

You lean down, lips pressing against the tip, soft, barely any contact, and you feel his hips twitch upward at even that little touch. You open your mouth wider, about to take him in, settling your weight forward onto your forearms on either side of his hips, and then his hands move.

They leave your hips, and you feel them slide down your back, his arms wrapping around your torso, his palms pressing flat against your shoulder blades from behind, and before you can even register the shift in grip, he lifts you.

Your knees leave the mattress, your thighs slide up his shoulders until they're hooked over them, his arms anchored around your back. You aren't straddling his face anymore; you're suspended above him, upside down, your entire lower body held up by his arms, and your upper body hangs between his legs with his cock directly in front of your face.

"KUNI- what the HELL-" Your hands scramble for something to hold, and the only thing available is his back, his sides, your fingers digging into whatever part of him you can reach. "Stop putting me upside down!! How are you even this strong??"

He ignores you, his mouth is still on your cunt like the position change was nothing, like rearranging your entire body didn't interrupt the rhythm of his tongue.

Your thighs are wrapped around his shoulders, your calves pressed against the sides of his head, and his arms are locked around your lower back and hips, creating a cage of muscle that keeps you from falling. Your stomach is pressed against his chest, your breasts squished between your body and his, and your face is hovering directly over his cock with your hair hanging down.

He doesn't pause to let you adjust; his tongue pushes inside you from below, curling, and the moan that rips out of you vibrates against his inner thigh because your mouth is right there, inches from his cock, and you can't even hold back the sound.

You take him in your mouth because his cock is right there, hard, flushed, leaking from the tip, and this is the only logical response you can think of.

Your lips close around the head, and you can hear, feel, his groan vibrate against your clit from below. The sensation travels through you, making your thighs tighten around his shoulders, and you take him deeper in response, your jaw stretching as you slide down his shaft.

His hips start moving, and he's fucking up into your mouth with thrusts that push his cock past your tongue and into the back of your throat. The angle of being upside down makes your gag reflex hit differently, sharper, your throat constricting around him with every push.

"Mmph-" You gag around him, saliva pooling at the corners of your mouth and running up toward your nose because gravity is working against you, and your eyes water as he pushes in deep enough that your lips press flush against his base.

He pulls your hips down against his face at the same time, grinding your cunt onto his mouth, and the dual sensation of his tongue on your clit and his cock in your throat creates a never-ending loop.

Every sound you make around him vibrates through his cock and makes his groan against you, and every groan he makes against you vibrates through your clit and makes you moan louder, and the cycle just keeps building on itself until neither of you is making sounds that qualify as human.

Your hands grip the backs of his thighs, nails biting into his skin, your only anchor while the rest of you is suspended in the air, getting destroyed from both ends. His arms tighten around your back whenever your body jerks too hard, keeping you steady, and the strength required to hold you like this while simultaneously eating you out and thrusting into your mouth is something you'll think about later, when you have brain cells to think with.

His tongue circles your clit and then seals over it, sucking hard, and your entire body arches in his grip. Your moan around his cock is muffled and obscene, a wet, gargled sound that would be embarrassing if you had any shame left, and the vibration of it makes his hips stutter up so hard you choke.

"Mmngh-" Spit drips down your chin, or up your chin technically because you're upside down, and his cock slides out of your mouth for a second while you cough and gasp, strings of saliva connecting your lips to his shaft.

He doesn't give you a break. His mouth doesn't leave your cunt, his tongue pressing harder, faster, relentless, and your mouth finds his cock again through the haze, taking him back in because even choking on him feels better than the alternative of not having him in your mouth.

His hips roll up in longer strokes now, less frantic but deeper, and you can feel the tension building in his thighs, the muscles tightening under your fingers. His arms squeeze around your back, pulling your hips down harder against his mouth, and his tongue works your clit in tight, focused circles that are designed to break you.

Everything builds at the same time. His cock pulsing heavier against your tongue, your walls clenching against his mouth, the pressure in your core climbing toward something massive, and his breathing getting faster against your cunt, his groans getting louder, less controlled, desperate in a way he only gets when he's close.

You cum first, barely, by maybe a second.

Your walls seize, and your thighs clamp around his shoulders, and the orgasm crashes through you in a wave so intense your jaw locks around his cock. The constriction of your throat, squeezing around him, plus the vibration of your moan, plus the way your entire body shakes in his grip, is what sends him over.

He cums in your mouth with a groan so deep you feel it in your spine. His hips push up one final time, his cock pulsing thick against your tongue, and you swallow around him because there's nothing else to do in this position, the cum sliding down your throat (or up, gravity is still confusing) while his tongue works you through the last aftershocks.

His arms loosen, not all at once, because if he did, you'd drop violently onto the bed. He eases the tension gradually, lowering your hips back toward the mattress, and you let his cock slip from your mouth with a wet sound that you're too brain dead to be embarrassed about.

"Put me down," you mumble against his thigh, your voice wrecked, your arms shaking. "Please, Kuni, put me down before I die in this position, and you have to explain it to my parents."

He lowers you down carefully, his hands guiding your hips and legs until your back is flat on the mattress beside him. Your head is at the foot of the bed, and your feet are near the pillows, but you don't really care because you're horizontal and alive, and that's enough.

He sits up, looks at you sideways on the bed, completely destroyed, and he doesn't say anything. He just moves you, his hands sliding under your back and your knees as he repositions you properly to put your head up against the pillows where it belongs.

He's quiet when he cleans you up this time, zero commentary about you squirming, no dry remarks about sensitivity, just the warm cloth from the bathroom, careful movements between your legs while his other hand stays on your hip to keep you still when you flinch.

He brings new clothes from your dresser, a pair of underwear, which goes on you first, slides up your legs, then shorts, then a top he pulls over your head and feeds through your arms without asking for your cooperation because he's already learned you won't give it.

He doesn't talk the whole time, which is unusual, because Kuni always has something to say, always has a complaint or a remark or a correction. But right now he's just doing it quietly, focused, tucking the hem of your top down with his fingers before standing up and walking toward your closet.

He changes into the pajama pants and black shirt he keeps in your drawer, and he pulls the Lohen cosplay off in pieces as he does it, dropping each part onto the chair by your desk.

"I'm never wearing that thing again," he says, pulling the top layer of Lohen's outfit off his shoulders with a grimace, his tone flat and final. "Whoever designed this character hates the human body. It feels like it's over 6 layers, especially with the long-sleeve, the cape thing… everything." He drops the last piece and kicks it under the chair. "Scara's cosplay isn't even that heavy because Scara was designed by someone with common sense."

You watch him from the bed, half-lidded, sinking into the pillows, your body so heavy that you feel like you're melting into your own mattress.

He walks back and pulls the covers up, sliding in beside you without ceremony. The second he's horizontal, you're already moving toward him, pressing your face into his chest, your hand curling into the front of his shirt, and his arm wraps about your back.

He kisses your forehead, soft, and then the bridge of your nose when you lift your face up enough, then the corner of your mouth. It's small, quiet presses of his lips against your skin that feel nothing like Scaramouche or Lohen. These are Kuni kisses, the ones he gives when no character is being performed.

The ones he probably doesn't even realize he's giving because they come out of him the same way breathing does.

He tips your chin up with his finger, and his eyes are just blue. Not indigo contacts, not the ones he wore for the Lohen cosplay, just his natural, stupid, annoyingly pretty blue that you fell for before you even knew that you cosplayed.

"Who do you want?" He asks, his voice low, and it's the softest you've heard it all night.

You look at him, at the messy hair, at the body who dyes his hair for a fictional character and hates wigs and complains about having to style his hair everyday and who buys you an abmormal amount of primogems, and probably would get you c6 r5 Lohen the minute he drops because he does that for every character, even when he gets jealous when you simp for a character that you don't just ask him to cosplay like any other logical person dating a cosplayer.

"Kuni," you say, and your voice is small and sure. "Just Kuni."

His mouth twitches, and you can see the shape of a smile trying to form before he catches it and pulls you closer, tucking your head under his chin and pressing his lips to your hair.

"Good answer," he murmurs into your scalp, so quiet that you almost miss it.

You close your eyes, your face against the fabric of his shirt, and you're asleep before you can respond. He stays awake for a minute more, his hand moving through your hair in slow repetitive movements. He stares at the ceiling fan, and he doesn't say anything.

He doesn't need to.

I have a Discord now! 18+, for readers, writers, and anyone who wants early wips and a place to chat!! (link)

taglist: @vvalentiqq, @jellyfishesandroses, @staarflowerr, @literallyibanny, @justwandererforever, @hanakokunzz , @bvlletwound, @kas1sh1bas1ke, @maomaoyuki, @xaeevie @pwushizz, @txyyyyyyyyyssssssss, @livvysoxytocin, @ventiij, @ruoussss, @kunimooch, @morangosdocesdsuki, @yumi-rxiden, @heavyonsloth, @saviiamzz129, @hilaryinumaki1

You reached out, curling your fingers around his, and he pretended not to melt at the contact. “You’re avoiding Bruce” you murmured. Jason snorted, looking anywhere but at you. “He’s avoiding me. I just make it easier by not being around when he’s pissed. It’s a favor, really.” You squeezed his hand, and his jaw tensed, eyes flicking down to where your fingers laced with his. Even with his gloves off, even in the quiet of the empty streetlight glow, you could feel the remnants of tension humming under his skin, the leftover adrenaline of a boy who trained to break bones and catch bullets. But he let you hold him anyway. “He just worries about you” you added softly. “He thinks you’re too reckless.” “I am reckless,” he answered, shrugging one shoulder, “but I’m good at it.”. That was Jason, full honesty delivered like a punchline. You looked at him, really looked, and even in the dim you could pick out the constellation of bruises scattered along his cheekbone, the faint purple at his throat, the line above his eyebrow from last week’s blow that he refused to let Alfred stitch. His hair was messy, wind roughened from the ride over on the bike, a new thing Bruce didn’t know about and would absolutely murder him over. You pushed a bit of his hair back, and Jason swallowed hard, eyes dragging over your face like he was memorizing something he didn’t want to lose. He always looked at you like that when he thought you weren’t noticing, as if each second he got with you was both a miracle and a countdown. He didn’t know how to hold good things without clenching his fists.

The rain began as a soft tapping at first, then steadier, heavier. “Great” he muttered. “Perfect Gotham night.” You laughed because he said it bitterly, but the way he slid his jacket off and draped it over your shoulders was anything but. “You’ll get cold” you began, but he cut you off, “I don’t get cold. I’m built different.”

“You’re built stupid,” you teased. “You love it.” “Yeah,” you said softly. “I do.” Jason blinked, stunned for a fraction of a second, which was cute considering you two had been together for months. You’d said those words before, but every time you did he reacted like you’d knocked the air out of him.

He didn’t say “I love you” lightly, not because he didn’t feel it, but because he felt it so deeply it scared him. He was studying your face now, the rain giving everything a slick sheen, making the world quieter. His voice dropped, lower and rougher than before, the part of him only you ever got to hear. “Hey,” he said, tugging you toward him by the hands still joined. “C’mere.” You stepped into his space, and Jason dipped his head enough for your foreheads to meet. He smelled like leather, smoke from the bike, and that faint clean scent of the Manor’s soap he pretended not to like. “You know I’d pick you every time, right?” he said. “Over the job, over Bruce, over the cape, over all of it.” Your breath hitched. Jason never said things like that outright. Not unless he meant them with a terrifying amount of truth.

“Jason…” “Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered, voice cracking with emotion he didn’t know how to carry. “I’m not good at this.” “You’re perfect at this,” you whispered. “You let me in.” “Cause I don’t want you to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Jason rested his mouth against your temple, lips warm despite the cold rain. “Good” he murmured. But the city never let peace last too long. A motorcycle sped past, splashing a wave of dirty water over the sidewalk.

Jason instinctively stepped in front of you, shielding you even though he got hit by every drop. He muttered a curse, flicking water off his hair. “See? Built stupid” you joked. “Built heroic,” he corrected, rolling his eyes. You didn’t miss the way he subtly scanned the rooftops afterward, checking shadows, body tensing in a way that told you he’d heard something, or sensed something, he didn’t like. “Jason.” “It’s nothing,” he said quickly. “Just—look, can we go to your place? I wanna be with you for a bit before I have to deal with Bruce’s latest ‘Jason, you’re grounded from the entire city’ speech.” You smiled, tugging him along by his jacket sleeve.

When you reached your building and slipped inside the stairwell, Jason followed close, one hand on the small of your back, protective without displaying it. He didn’t admit fear, but he had plenty of it. Fear for you. Fear because of you.

Inside your apartment, the world softened. The quiet lit warmly around the edges, rain tapping the window, faint city hum underfoot. Jason always relaxed here, just enough to remind you how young he still was, carrying weight meant for someone far older. He pulled off his soaked shirt, tossing it over a chair, utterly unbothered. You tried not to stare at the bruises, the scars, the toned muscle built from training and survival. Jason caught you anyway. “If you’re checking me out, at least be honest about it.”

“I was checking the bruises.”

“Liar.” He grinned as he said it, stepping forward until the space between you shrank. He didn’t kiss you immediately, he never rushed this part. Instead he let his thumb slide along your jaw, studying you with those storm colored eyes that hid tenderness underneath all the chaos. “You saved me tonight” he whispered. “From what?” you asked. “From being alone in my own head.” And then he kissed you, slow at first, then deeper, fuller, as if he wanted to pour everything he couldn’t say into the press of his mouth against yours. Jason Todd was always intense, always too much, but with you he was soft. With you he didn’t have to be the sharp edged boy Bruce didn’t know how to handle.

He broke the kiss only to lean his forehead against yours again. “If anything ever happens to me” he breathed, voice barely holding “Jason, don’t—” “No, listen,” he insisted gently, lifting your face so you had to meet his eyes. “I need you to know that loving you… it’s the best thing I ever did. The only thing I never regret.” Your chest tightened painfully. “Nothing is going to happen to you.” He gave a crooked smile, the kind of smile that looked like it belonged to someone who knew better. “I like that you believe that” he whispered. “I need you to keep believing it.” You cupped his face. “Stay with me tonight?” “Always.” And he meant it. He always meant it.

You settled together on the couch, his head against your shoulder, your fingers combing through his damp hair. For once he wasn’t tense, wasn’t preparing for a fight or bracing for an argument with Bruce. He was just Jason, warm, tired, human, breathing steadily against your skin. He fell asleep like that, his hand still wrapped in yours, grip soft but certain.

And you didn’t know, couldn’t know, that this was one of the last nights you’d ever get like this. But if Jason did… he didn’t show it. He only held on to you as if you were the one thing anchoring him to the world, the one thing he had chosen for himself, the one thing he loved without fear. And in the quiet of that rain-soaked Gotham night, before fate stole him away, he whispered it in his sleep, so soft you almost thought you imagined it. “I love you.”

Jason never told you everything. He never did. Not because he didn’t trust you, God, he trusted you more than he trusted himself, but because he loved you with that dangerous kind of devotion that made him keep all the sharp edges of his life pointed toward himself instead of you. That’s why when he discovered the truth about his mother, he didn’t open with the whole truth the night before he left.

He sat on your bedroom floor with his back against the bed, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed while you sat behind him on the mattress, fingers slowly threading through his hair like you always did when he wasn’t okay. He’d been quiet all night, eyes far away, expression hardened like someone trying not to give into hope. Hope was dangerous for Jason. You felt him inhale sharply. “Hey,” he said, voice too soft, too shaky. “Can I ask you something?” “Anything.” He turned slightly, looking up at you, and his eyes were a storm.

“If there was something I needed to do… and it was important… would you be mad if I didn’t tell you everything?” You froze. He never talked like that unless he was scared. Really scared. “Jason, what is it?” He swallowed. “I just… I found something out. Something big. Something about my family.” Your heart jumped. Jason never talked about his family unless pressed. He always locked that door tight. “Jason,” you whispered, cupping his cheek. “Tell me.” He leaned into your hand like he needed the grounding. “I think… I think my birth mother might still be alive.” Your breath caught, and your heart clenched, because the hope in his eyes was so fragile you were scared it might break him. “Are you sure?” you asked gently. “I don’t know,” he admitted, voice cracking. “But I have a lead. She’s in Ethiopia.” Ethiopia. Far. Too far. Too far from help, from Bruce, from you. “And you want to go,” you said quietly. He looked down. “I need to know. I need to know where I come from. Who I come from.”

“Did you tell Bruce?” “Yeah.” His jaw tightened. “Big surprise, he told me to wait. Told me he’d send someone else to check the lead first. That I wasn’t thinking clearly.” “Were you?” “Doesn’t matter,” Jason muttered. “It’s my life. My past. My mother.” He rubbed his forehead, pacing the small room like a soldier trapped in a cage. “He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know what it’s like—to want to know so badly it hurts.” “Jason…” He stopped in front of you, breathing uneven. “I have to do this.”

“Then let me come with you.” He froze. His whole face twisted, love, fear, guilt, all at once. “No.” “Jason—” “I said no,” he snapped, but his voice broke immediately. “I can’t bring you into this. I won’t.” You stood, reaching for him, and he grabbed your hands like they were the only thing holding him together. “I’ll be back” he said, trying to sound light, trying to sound like the fight with Bruce didn’t matter, like his entire world wasn’t tilting. “I just need to know the truth. Then I come home. To you.”

“Promise me.” He hesitated, and the hesitation alone was the first warning you didn’t notice at the time. Then he whispered, “I promise.”

You kissed him, long and slow, and he kissed you back with a desperation he tried to hide, like a boy terrified he wouldn’t get another moment like this. Later, when he slipped out your window, he looked back. Just once. And that look… that was the second warning you missed. Because it wasn’t a promise. It was a goodbye.

Jason met Bruce at the Manor before he left. You weren’t there to watch it, but you’d hear it later in fragments, the shouting, the accusations, Bruce yelling that Jason was acting out of emotion, Jason yelling that Bruce didn’t trust him, didn’t believe in him, didn’t understand. The last thing Jason said before storming out was, “She’d want me to find her. She’s my mother. You don’t get to take this from me.” And he left.

Bruce tried to stop him, he did, but Jason was too fast, too stubborn, too sure he was finally going to find something in the world that belonged to him.

Except the Joker found him first. Sheila was his mother, she was okay, but she was also compromised, blackmailed by the Joker. Jason walked into a trap wearing Robin’s suit, believing in the kind of hope you give to family even when they haven’t earned it. And the Joker beat him. Beat him with a crowbar until the world went red, then black, then silent. Jason died trying to save her from the bomb Joker left, he died still trying to help.

Bruce didn’t know immediately. That’s the worst part. He lost contact with Jason hours earlier but he had no idea Jason was with the Joker. And you… You only knew Jason wasn’t answering your messages. The first hour you pretended he was busy, the second hour you blamed the time difference, the third hour you felt a cold, horrible tightness in your chest.

When the Batcomputer flagged an emergency alert from Ethiopia, Bruce left alone, he didn’t tell you, he didn’t tell anyone. He raced across a continent trying to get to his son in time, but he was too late. When Bruce found the warehouse, it was smoke and dust and firelight. The bomb had gone off. The building collapsed. He dug through wreckage with his bare hands, screaming Jason’s name through smoke and tears, until he found him. Broken. Still. Already gone. He carried Jason’s body out of the ruins.

You were pacing your apartment, staring at your phone, waiting for a message that never came. When midnight passed, you put on your jacket and went to the Manor. Alfred’s face when he opened the door was the third warning, the one that shattered you. “Miss,” he whispered, voice trembling. “Something’s happened.”

“Where’s Jason?” you asked. Silence. Thick, suffocating silence. “Where is he?” Alfred’s eyes filled. “Master Bruce… he’s bringing him home.” You felt your knees weaken. “He’s hurt?”

“Miss…” Alfred’s voice cracked. “He’s gone.” The world stopped.

Everything inside you ruptured.

You didn’t scream, not at first. You went silent, chest heaving, mind blank, everything inside you collapsing inward like a dying star. And when Bruce arrived… When he stepped into the Manor carrying Jason’s body in his arms… You broke. You screamed then, raw, ripping, unforgettable, because no part of you could accept that the boy who left your room last night with a promise on his lips would never walk back through your window again.

Bruce blamed himself. You blamed yourself. Gotham mourned a Robin who never got to grow up. But your grief was different, sharper, deeper, because you loved him before he died, because you knew the warmth of his heartbeat, the softness of his laugh, the weight of his head on your shoulder when he fell asleep. And now all you had left was the memory of the way he said “I’ll be back” and the awful truth that he meant it… he just never got the chance. You never found peace in the answers. Because the only answer you ever wanted was impossible, why didn’t he stay with you just a little longer? Why did he go alone? Why did the world take him? Why him?

But in the end, one thing became clear: Jason didn’t die angry. He didn’t die reckless. He didn’t die as the violent, furious boy Gotham misunderstood. He died trying to save someone, because that’s who he was, because that’s who you loved.

And because even at the very end, he kept the promise he made on your bedroom floor, he never stopped trying to do the right thing. Even when it cost him everything.

The world didn’t end the day Jason died… but it stopped making sense. Sounds still existed, but they came through muffled, like you were underwater. People still spoke, but their voices felt a thousand miles away. The city still moved, taxis, sirens, neon signs flickering in puddles, but none of it reached you.

The first three days were the worst. You didn’t leave the Manor. Alfred barely left your side, hovering with tea you couldn’t drink, blankets you didn’t feel, quiet touches on your shoulder when you shook without realizing it.

Bruce was a ghost, walking the halls silently, not eating, not sleeping, disappearing into the cave for hours at a time, coming back covered in dust and blood that wasn’t his. Dick returned from Blüdhaven the same night Bruce brought Jason’s body home. You remembered the moment he saw you standing in the Manor foyer, hands trembling, face wet with days-old tears you no longer felt. He didn’t say a word, he just crossed the room and pulled you into his arms, and you collapsed.

You cried so hard your lungs burned, so hard you thought you might tear something inside yourself. Dick held you through all of it, jaw clenched, tears running down his own face and dripping into your hair. “I’m sorry” he whispered over and over, voice breaking. “I am so… so sorry.” But grief isn’t kind. It isn’t gentle. And it doesn’t take turns. It comes in waves, violent, suffocating, cruel. At night you couldn’t sleep because every time you shut your eyes, you saw Jason, smiling, laughing, kissing you with that ridiculous smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, and then the image snapped to the reality Bruce brought home, the horrific contrast that made your stomach twist until you couldn’t breathe.

The nightmares started next.

You saw him trapped under rubble, calling for help, calling for you. You saw the Joker’s face in flashes, too white, too wide, too red, and woke up screaming. Dick was always the one who ran to your room first. Sometimes he sat on the floor beside your bed until dawn, making sure you slept again. Sometimes you didn’t sleep at all and just stared out the window while he talked quietly, stories about Jason, memories from their time as brothers. You needed those stories, you needed to remember him as alive. But grief does something else, too, it sharpens into obsession.

And yours sharpened into investigation.

You started going downstairs to the Batcave. The first time, Bruce didn’t acknowledge you. He stood over the computer, face blank, staring at mission logs and satellite scans from Ethiopia long after the point where they held no answers. You stepped beside him quietly. “I want to see the footage” you said. Bruce didn’t move, Alfred turned from the medical table, eyes widening. “Miss, I don’t think—”

“I need to see it.” Bruce finally spoke, voice hollow. “No.”

Your throat tightened. “He was my boyfriend.” Bruce’s jaw clenched. “He was my son.” The silence that followed was deadening. You could see it all over him, the guilt, the pain, the self-hatred, but you weren’t thinking about his grief, only your own. “Show me” you whispered, begging without pride. “Please.” Bruce closed his eyes. “I can’t.”

You left the cave shaking, furious through the tears. That night, Dick found you sitting on the Manor roof in the cold, staring out at the city Jason loved to patrol. “You know he’s trying to protect you” Dick said softly behind you. “I don’t need protection” you muttered. “I need answers.”

He sat beside you, legs dangling over the ledge. “I know. I do too.” You took a shaky breath. “Why did he go alone?” Dick swallowed hard.

“Because Jason was stubborn. Because he was hurting. Because… because he cared too much about everyone except himself.” “He promised me he’d come back.” Your voice cracked and the tears came again. Dick turned to you gently, eyes soft in the moonlight. “He wanted to. I know he did.” But that wasn’t enough, mourning wasn’t enough. You needed to do something.

The next morning, you walked into the cave again. Bruce wasn’t there. Dick was. Sitting in front of the computer. He swiveled when he heard your steps. “I thought you might come back” he said. “I need anything you have” you said. “Notes. Maps. Reports. Names.”

“You’re not going after the Joker,” Dick said firmly. “I’m not stupid,” you snapped. “I know I’d die.” Dick flinched faintly, the mention of death was still raw. “Then what do you want?”

“I want the truth.” Dick looked at you for a long moment, jaw ticking as he weighed his loyalty to Bruce against his loyalty to Jason… and to you. Then he turned back to the console and pulled up files Bruce hadn’t given you access to. “This is everything we have” he said quietly. You didn’t breathe. He handed you a tablet, GPS coordinates, timestamps, last movement signatures from Jason’s tracker, medical summaries, details about the remains of the bomb, the confirmed presence of the Joker in the region. And then… photos. Dick hesitated. “Maybe don’t—” “Give them to me.” He did. Your hands shook as you scrolled, the warehouse, the rubble, the shattered pieces of metal and concrete, the blood. You couldn’t look long. You dropped the tablet, pressing both hands to your mouth as a choked sound ripped out of you. Dick caught you before you slid to the floor, pulling you against him. “I know” he whispered, tears slipping down his cheeks. “I know. I miss him too.”

“I can’t… I can’t do this,” you sobbed. “I loved him. I loved him so much.” “He loved you,” Dick said fiercely. “He talked about you all the time. He thought he didn’t deserve you.”

That broke you even harder. Because of course Jason thought that, of course he did, and now he would never hear you tell him how wrong he was. You spent the next week studying the files, desperate for something Bruce missed, any clue, any detail. You didn’t sleep, barely ate. Alfred worried. Dick hovered. Bruce avoided you, not cruelly, but because he looked at you and saw his own failure reflected back. You learned everything: the Joker’s movements, the supply shipments Sheila Haywood signed off on, the blackmail documents, the timing of the detonator, the exact minute Jason’s heartbeat stopped on the tracker.

One night, your ninth day of sleepless grief, Dick came into the cave and found you sitting on the floor, surrounded by printouts and maps, eyes red, hands trembling. “You need to rest” he murmured. “If I rest, I’ll fall apart” you whispered. “You’re already falling apart” he said gently, sitting beside you. You let your head fall onto his shoulder, exhausted beyond tears. “Nothing makes sense without him.” Dick rested his cheek against your hair. “I know,” he whispered. “I know, because he was my brother. And you were the only person who made him feel like he wasn’t broken.”

“Then why did he leave me?” Dick exhaled shakily. “He didn’t leave you. He left a question he needed answered. It just… cost him everything.” You closed your eyes, the ache unbearable. “I hate the Joker.” “We all do.”

“I hate Bruce too,” you whispered. “Is that wrong?” Dick shook his head. “No. It’s human.” Silence settled, heavy and suffocating. Then Dick’s voice softened. “You know… he would want you to live. Jason. He’d want you to eat, to sleep, to yell at him for being reckless.” You let out a broken, humorless laugh. “He’d make fun of me for crying this much.”

“He’d pretend to,” Dick corrected softly. “But he’d hold you until you stopped.” You looked up at Dick, eyes blurred. “Who’s going to hold me now?” Dick’s face twisted, grief, sympathy, helplessness. “I will” he whispered. “As long as you need.”

And he did. For weeks. He carried you through every breakdown, every nightmare, every moment your knees gave out because grief was heavier than your body could bear. You never forgot Jason, you never stopped missing him, you never stopped loving him. But slowly, painfully, reluctantly, inch by inch, you started breathing again. Grief doesn’t end, it just changes shape.

Some days it felt like a bruise. Some days like a stab wound. Some days like an empty space beside you where Jason should have been. But every day, you carried him. In your memory. In your heart. In the ache that would never fully heal. And Dick walked beside you, the only person who understood the exact shape of your pain, helping you survive the love that ended too soon.

Jason wouldn’t have wanted your life to end with his. He loved you too much for that. And somehow, unbearably, beautifully… that love is what kept you alive.

It had been exactly one month since Jason died. One month of waking up every day with your heart in shards, one month of Bruce retreating into the cave like a ghost, one month of Dick trying to hold both himself and you together, one month of Alfred quietly crying in the kitchen when he thought no one could hear, one month of Gotham losing a Robin and gaining a wound. And then you heard it. The whisper. The rumor. The thing so unthinkable you refused to believe it until your shaking hands forced open the front doors of Wayne Manor and carried you inside, you heard there was a new Robin. You didn’t want it to be true. You didn’t want to believe Bruce could possibly, possibly replace Jason like that, like a uniform, like a mask, like a role to fill rather than a son he buried with his own hands. But the moment you stepped into the foyer, you felt it. A shift. Something unfamiliar. Someone unfamiliar. Voices echoed down the hall, Bruce’s low, quiet tone, and a boy’s voice. Young. Younger than Jason. You froze at the corner, heartbeat pounding in your ears. Bruce stood in the training room doorway, arms crossed, talking to… him. A boy, black hair, bright eyes, nervous posture, wearing practice gear with faint green and red accents, like a costume not yet complete. He looked so small. So innocent. So painfully misplaced in a home soaked in grief. Bruce noticed you first. His expression didn’t changed, it was carved from stone these days, but you saw his shoulders tighten.

“You shouldn’t be here” he said quietly. “The hell I shouldn’t” you almost hissed. The boy turned, startled. He looked at you with wide, open eyes, the kind of eyes that didn’t yet understand death the way you did. “Hi,” he said, voice soft, hopeful. “I’m—” “Don’t.” The word came out sharp enough to cut. He blinked. “I… I’m Tim,” he tried again, awkwardly stepping forward. “Tim Drake.” You stared at him like he was a ghost wearing Jason’s colors. Your hands shook, your throat tightened, your heart cracked open all over again. Tim swallowed, clearly trying to be friendly, polite, normal. “I’m… um… I’m the new Rob—” Your vision went red. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault. But grief is rarely rational, and nothing about this, this child standing where Jason should be, felt fair. “No” you whispered. Then louder “No. You’re not.” Tim froze mid sentence. Bruce exhaled slowly, like he’d been dreading this moment. “Bruce” you breathed, staring at him with betrayal burning under your skin, “tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t replace him.” “It’s not like that” Bruce tried. “He needed help. Gotham needed—” “I DON’T CARE WHAT GOTHAM NEEDED” you screamed, voice splintering. “JASON NEEDED YOU!” Tim flinched at the name. Bruce’s jaw tightened. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly.” Your throat burned. Your chest dug inward. “Your son died. And one month later you found another one to put in his suit.” Tim looked horrified. “Wait—no— I’m not trying to replace— I just wanted to help, I swear, I—”

“Shut up.” The boy’s face crumpled in confusion. “I… I didn’t mean—” “I SAID SHUT UP!” You stepped toward him without realizing it, grief fueling your body like fire. Dick’s voice echoed distantly down the hall, “Hey, what’s happening—?” But he was too far away. Tim opened his mouth to explain again, something soft, something kind, and something inside you snapped. The same way it used to snap inside Jason when he felt cornered, overwhelmed, hurting too much to contain it. Before you processed it, your fist flew. A clean, sharp hook, the one Jason drilled into you a hundred times when you sparred in alleys after school, laughing breathlessly between hits. The same punch that always made him grin and say, “Atta girl.”

Your knuckles connected with Tim. Hard. Harder than you intended. The boy gasped, stumbling backward, hand flying to his chest as shock flooded his features. He hadn’t even lifted a guard. He didn’t know he needed one but the suit protected him enough that it didn't hurt him.

Bruce stepped forward instantly, grabbing your wrist mid-swing when you almost hit him again. “Enough” Bruce snapped, voice low and dangerous, but beneath it, beneath everything, you heard it: shame.

But you weren’t ashamed. Not yet. You ripped your hand out of his grip. “He’s a child, Bruce” you spat. “You put a child in Jason’s suit.” “I didn’t—” “YES YOU DID.” You turned on Tim again, tears blurring your vision. “Do you know what happened to him?” “I…” Tim looked terrified but didn’t run. “I know he died. I know he was Robin before me. I know he—” “You don’t know anything.” Your voice trembled violently. “You don’t know how he laughed. How he fought. How he hated mornings but always showed up anyway. How he never walked away from someone who needed help. How he died alone in a warehouse because he wanted to save his mother.” Your breath cracked. “You don’t know how it feels to see the boy you love lowered into the ground and then watch another kid try on his colors like a Halloween costume.” Tim’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m not trying to replace him” he whispered. “I just… I thought maybe I could help. Batman needed help. I thought…” He swallowed, voice tiny. “I thought Jason would want someone to help Batman.” The words sliced you open. Because part of you knew it was true, Jason would have wanted Batman to have backup. He would have wanted Bruce to have support. He would have wanted Gotham to have a Robin.

But right now, none of that mattered. Because Jason should have been here. He should have been alive. He should have been wearing that suit, not this trembling boy in front of you. Dick’s voice finally reached you as he ran into the room. “Stop!” He rushed to Tim, putting an arm between you. “What the hell happened— Tim— you okay?” Tim nodded shakily. Dick turned to you, eyes wide with shock and pain. “Why did you—?” “He said he’s Robin. You knew that dinner you?” you choked. Dick’s face softened instantly. “Oh… oh god.” You shook your head, backing away, chest tight and breath shaking. “I can’t do this. I can’t watch him— I can’t see anyone— I can’t—” Dick reached out for you. You flinched back like his touch was fire. “Don’t” you whispered. “Please don’t. I’ll break.” Dick’s eyes filled. “You’re already breaking.” Your knees buckled. Breath shuddered. Tears blurred the world into watercolor. Tim stood small and silent behind Dick, not angry, not defensive, just hurt, scared, and heartbreakingly compassionate for someone who didn’t even know you. Bruce stepped closer, voice quiet. “I never meant to replace him.”

“But you did.” He didn’t argue. He didn’t deny it. His silence said everything. “I can’t be here,” you whispered, voice collapsing. “Not with— not with a new Robin walking these halls.” Tim looked like you’d stabbed him. Dick took a step toward you again, slower this time. “Please,” he murmured, “don’t go. Not like this.” You wiped at your face with shaking hands. “I loved him” you whispered. “I loved him, and he’s not even cold in the ground before everything moves on.” “No one is moving on,” Dick whispered. “We’re surviving. Barely.” But it didn’t matter.

The room was shrinking, the walls felt too tight, the grief too big. You turned and left without looking back, the Manor echoing behind you, Bruce frozen in guilt, Dick torn between two hurting kids, and Tim standing bruised and trembling with a single whispered apology on his lips that you weren’t there to hear. “I’m sorry,” Tim whispered to the empty doorway. “I’m so, so sorry.”

And for the first time since Jason died… you weren’t sure who you were angrier at: Bruce, for moving on, or the universe, for taking Jason in the first place.

But one thing was certain, the grief wasn’t done with you. Not even close.

The cemetery always felt colder than Gotham proper, as if the air around Crime Alley’s dead knew exactly who they were burying and refused to get any warmer out of respect.

You stood where you always did, boots half sunk in the patch of grass you'd slowly carved by returning every single day since the funeral. The months after Jason’s death had blurred into a single long scream, too hoarse, too exhausted to sound out loud anymore. Now it was just silence. Silence and paper.

You knelt, the way you always did, your knees clicking against the stone path as you opened your bag, fingers trembling in the repetitive muscle memory of heartbreak. Jason Todd, a Good Soldier.

Beloved Son. Beloved Brother. A Robin Who Fell. They’d written that last part small, almost hidden, because Bruce had refused for weeks to choose wording and in the end Dick stepped in and handled the stone, shoulders shaking the entire time. You remembered him apologizing over and over that day, voice cracking, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m trying.” You had been too numb to answer.

You swallowed as you placed today’s letter down. The envelope was soft, edges slightly bent from being held too tight. And like always, before you could stop yourself, yoy whispered “Hey, Jay”

Your voice broke halfway through his name. It always did.

You sat beside the headstone, pulling your knees to your chest like he used to sit on rooftops, elbows on them, chin tucked down, waiting for danger with that cocky little smirk that drove you crazy. The fall wind cut through your coat, you barely felt it anymore.

You opened the envelope and reread today’s letter before leaving it. You always reread them, as if making sure your words were worthy of him.

Jason, I had another dream last night. You were laughing, not loudly, just under your breath the way you did when you were trying to be quiet but couldn’t help yourself. You asked me why I was crying, and I told you, “Because you’re dead.” You punched my shoulder and said, “Not dead enough to be rid of you.” I woke up smiling. Then it hit me again. I miss you. I miss you every single second. Gotham doesn’t sound right without you yelling at Bruce. My apartment doesn’t feel real without your jacket on the floor. Nothing feels real at all. If there’s anything after this, I hope you’re not alone. I hope it doesn’t hurt anymore. I hope you know I loved you. I still do.

—Yours, always.

Your handwriting wavered near the end, you remembered your vision blurring while you wrote it the night before, but you never rewrote them. He deserved the truth, even if the ink shook.

You exhaled slowly, folded the letter, tucked it beneath the small smooth stone you always used to weigh it down.

And then you froze.

Because the space beneath that small stone, the space where the letter you left yesterday should have been, was empty.

Completely empty. The letter was gone.

Your brain immediately tried to explain it logically, desperately, violently: the wind, a stray animal., rain, someone visiting another grave stepped on it, a cleaner picked it up.

But you had been coming here for years.

Nothing ever touched the letters.

Nothing moved them. Nothing disturbed them. Nothing took them.

Your breath hitched sharply, but you swallowed it down, forcing yourself not to spiral. You hated hope. Hope was cruel, hope was what Jason had the day he ran after the possibility of his mother, hope got him murdered.

And yet, you couldn’t stop staring at the empty patch of grass like it had bitten you.

“No,” you whispered, to yourself, to the empty air. “No. Don’t… don’t start that.”

But your hands were shaking.

You left another letter the next day. A simple one, shorter.

If someone took yesterday’s letter, please put it back. That’s all. Please.

You checked it eleven times that night in your memory before finally sleeping.

And the next day, you returned early, wearing the same coat, same boots, breath fogging. You walked the stone path automatically, because your body already knew the way.

Your knees hit the ground before your mind caught up.

The letter was gone again.

No wind. No rain. No footprints. No disturbance. Just gone.

And something in your chest, something you had been keeping buried deeper than Jason himself, struck like a fist to your ribs.

“No” you whispered again, this time almost a plea. “Jason’s dead. They… they buried him. I saw… I saw…”

But you couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t say out loud what you saw in that warehouse. What Bruce dragged out of there, what they put in the coffin.

You pressed your fists to your mouth and shook until your shoulders hurt.

You knew about resurrection, in theory. Ra’s al Ghul. The Lazarus Pit. The League. Jason had ranted once about how Bruce didn’t care enough to use that pit on anyone, not even Jason’s biological father. You remembered Jason calling it “a crock of mystical green shit” but also admitting, very quietly, that “if it’s real, B would never let anyone he loves near it.”

Your mind began spinning through every detail you knew. Every possibility. Every impossibility. Your breath quickened. You curled over the grass until your forehead nearly touched his name carved in stone.

“Jason,” you whispered, “if you’re alive… if you’re alive, why aren’t you coming home?”

It hurt to even speak it.

And even worse, a horrifying new fear curled inside you.

Because if Jason was alive…

And not coming home…

Then something was keeping him from it.

Or someone was.

And you knew Gotham well enough to know what that meant.

You stayed until the sun set and the cemetery turned blue purple, numb fingers tracing the carved letters of his name like you could memorize them into your bones. Your breath came uneven, the cold air scraping your lungs.

Finally, you pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. Your hands trembled as you wrote:

If this is you, Jay… please… just give me something. Anything. I don’t care what you look like. I don’t care what happened to you. I don’t care what’s wrong or what hurts or what changed. I just want you. I’ll take you any way you are. Please. Please come home.

You folded the letter carefully, placed it under the familiar stone.

You stayed for an hour. Two.

Three.

Nothing happened.

You finally walked away, shoulders caved, every step heavy with grief sharpened into a new, unbearable shape: what if.

Behind you, five minutes after you left, the branches near the grave stirred, part wind, part something heavier, something that breathed.

A gloved hand slipped from the shadows.

Scarred. Calloused. Shaking.

Jason Todd, older, angrier, alive in the wrong way, stepped close enough that the toe of his boot brushed the grass you had knelt on.

He reached down, picked up your letter with slow, trembling fingers, his breath broke in his chest as he read your handwriting, his name written the way only you wrote it. A cracked sound escaped him, half choke, half something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in years.

He touched the stone marking his own grave, then he disappeared back into the darkness before anyone could see him, letter crumpled in his fist, your voice echoing through him like a ghost he didn’t know how to fight.

And you, miles away, felt the faintest hollow echo in your ribs, like something familiar had shifted in the world, but you couldn’t name it yet.

The night you finally saw him again didn’t feel special at first.

It was one of those Gotham nights where the air tasted like smoke and rain, where the sky pressed low as if trying to suffocate the city into silence. You'd been out late, too late, following a lead on a gunrunner you suspected might be connected to the same network that had once spread Joker’s weapons.

You weren't part of the Batfamily, not anymore, not since the day you punched Tim. Bruce hadn’t banned you, exactly, but he didn’t reach out. Dick checked on you from time to time, but even that had slowly faded, swallowed by grief and time and the kind of pain people don’t know how to touch.

You walked the rooftops like Jason used to, boots scuffing the ledges in that same restless pattern, the one he taught you when you were fifteen and bulletproof with love. Your breath fogged as you scanned Crime Alley. The place always felt like an open wound. His wound. Yours too.

The rain had started, faint, misty droplets gathering in your hair. You took a breath, ready to move but froze.

Someone else was in the alley.

Someone tall. Broad shouldered. Wearing a leather jacket darkened by rain, combat boots planted steady on the cracked concrete, and a helmet, a red one, glossy, sharp-lined, entirely out of place in the dark.

Red Hood.

The guy Gotham’s criminals whispered about. The one who left bodies where Batman left bruises. The one whose voice on police scanners sounded exactly like a ghost learning how to breathe again.

He stood with his back to you, tense, head tilted slightly as if he’d known you were following him long before you realized you were doing it.

Your stomach plummeted. Something ancient and instinctive in your bones twisted hard.

You didn’t know why, you only knew you couldn’t breathe.

You voice cracked out before you could stop it.

“Why are you taking them?”

He didn’t move.

Your heart thrashed against your ribs, painful and wild. You took a shaking step closer.

“The letters” you whispered, each word like peeling back your own ribs. “Why are you taking the letters from Jason’s grave?”

His shoulders stiffened, a violent, involuntary reaction.

You had spent years watching Jason Todd’s body language.

You knew that flinch, you knew that breath, the sharp inhale he tried to hide, you knew that stillness, the kind he used when he was lying or scared or both.

You didn’t breathe, couldn’t.

“It’s you.”

Barely a sound, but it broke the world open.

Red Hood didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. Rain slid over the helmet in quiet streaks, like tears the metal couldn’t feel.

You stepped closer, boots echoing on wet pavement. Your chest hurt so badly you thought you might collapse from it.

“Turn around” you whispered. “Please.”

Nothing.

You swallowed, voice cracking, “Jason.”

It was like you’d shot him.

His breath punched out of him in a sound you felt in your bones, raw, choked, the noise of a man who had avoided his own name for years. His shoulders curled inward, his hand lifting to the side of his helmet like it hurt him.

Slowly, he turned his head. Not fully. Just enough.

The red helmet caught the streetlight, a distorted reflection of the boy you once loved.

He didn’t move again.

You took the last few steps until you were right in front of him, close enough to touch him but too terrified that if you reached out, he’d vanish like all your nightmares of him.

Your voice was barely breath.

“Take it off.”

He shook his head once, a tiny, tight movement. Fear. Shame. Guilt. You read all of it. He was the same and not the same. Taller. Broader. Harder. The leather jacket strained against his shoulders. His stance was older, weighted by something heavy and violent.

You stepped closer until you could see your own reflection warped in the helmet.

“Take it off” you repeated, softer this time. Not a demand. A plea.

His breath stuttered.

Then, with a slow, shaking hand, he lifted the helmet. The hiss of the seal breaking echoed strangely loud in the alley.

He held it at his side.

And the world dropped open beneath your feet.

Jason Todd stood in front of you. Alive.

Older, scarred, hair a little longer and messier, jaw sharper, shoulders wider. His skin was pale like he hadn’t seen sunlight in years. There were faint scars along his cheekbone, another crossing his eyebrow. He looked like someone had rebuilt him from broken glass and rage.

But the thing that froze you, the thing that stole your breath entirely, were his eyes.

Eyes that had seen death and that now had the faintest green in them, probably an effect from the pit.

You choked on your own breath. "Your eyes…”

He looked away immediately, jaw clenching, throat bobbing as he swallowed hard.

“I know” he muttered, voice rough, deeper, damaged. “They changed.”

You stepped even closer, so close their boots nearly touched. “It is you.”

He flinched again. He still wouldn’t look at you.

You reached out, slowly, like approaching a wild animal, and touched the edge of his jacket sleeve. His arm tensed like he was made of live wire.

"You took my letters.”

His eyes squeezed shut.

You continued, voice trembling, “All those years. All those letters. You were reading them.”

His breath broke. A sharp exhale through his nose, like he was trying not to fall apart.

“Yeah” he whispered. “I— I tried to stop. I told myself to stop. But… it was the only thing that…” He swallowed hard. “The only thing that still felt like… like I was human.”

Your throat tightened so violently you tasted blood.

“Why didn’t you come home?” you whispered.

He finally looked at you.

And the pain in his eyes, haunted, bottomless, almost knocked you backwards.

“Because I’m not him anymore” he said, voice low, cracked. “The Jason you loved… the kid you waited for… he died in that warehouse. What came back—” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to see this.”

You stepped forward and grabbed his jacket, not gently, yanking him closer until you were chest to chest.

“I waited for you” you whispered, fury and heartbreak bleeding into each word. “Every day. Every night. I brought letters to your grave like an idiot because I couldn’t stop loving you. You think I wouldn’t want you just because you’ve changed?”

His breath caught, completely caught, frozen in his throat.

“I killed people” he whispered, like a confession. “I kill people. I’m not what you wanted. I’m not what you—”

You cut him off by grabbing his face in both hands, forcing him to meet your eyes.

“I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care what’s broken. I don’t care how you came back. You’re here. You’re alive. And if you think for a second I’m scared of you, you really never knew me at all.”

He stared at you like you had hit him, something cracking wide inside him, disbelief, grief, yearning, guilt, love he thought he’d killed years ago.

His hands hovered near your waist, not touching, trembling as if he didn’t dare.

“You shouldn’t love me” he whispered.

You leaned your forehead to his. Your breaths mingled, shaky, uneven.

“I never stopped.”

Jason’s breath shattered in his chest, he sucked in a ragged inhale, eyes squeezing shut, jaw trembling. He was fighting tears so hard it shook his whole body. He pulled back half an inch, looking at you like he was memorizing your face for the first time and the second time and the last time all at once.

“It was me” he whispered. “All the letters. I kept every single one. I couldn’t let them get ruined by the rain and disappear"

Your knees went weak.

You pressed your forehead to his shoulder, overwhelming relief crashing into you like a tidal wave.

Jason hesitated for one fractured heartbeat, then his arms wrapped around you, crushing, desperate, trembling so hard he nearly dropped the helmet. He buried his face in your hair and exhaled a broken sound that was half sob, half laugh, half prayer.

The moment you finally felt his arms around you, solid, warm, trembling, something inside your chest snapped open so violently you thought you might collapse against him and never get up again. It wasn’t just relief. It was grief, resurrected. It was years of begging stone and air for something that could never answer. It was hope yoj had buried with your own hands clawing its way back to life.

And Jason felt it.

He froze for half a second, startled by the way you clung to him, fists buried in the back of his jacket, arms locked around him like you werrified that if you blinked, he’d vanish. Then, slowly, everything in him softened. His shoulders lowered. His jaw unclenched. The violent tension that lived in his spine, the constant readiness to kill or die, melted under your touch.

His chin dropped onto your shoulder, and he inhaled like he’d been drowning for years and finally found air.

You started crying first.

It was the grief she’d held in for years, years of writing to a grave, years of nightmares, years of blaming herself and Bruce and fate and the entire world. It came out in a sound so raw it made Jason flinch as if he wasn’t sure he deserved to hear you cry for him.

Your fingers curled tighter into his jacket until the leather creaked.

“You’re alive” you sobbed into his shoulder.

His breath stuttered. And then you felt it, the tiniest tremor in the muscles of his back. Jason Todd, who had been rebuilt out of rage and vengeance, who killed men with his bare hands, who hadn’t cried since the day he woke up in a coffin, he was shaking.

“Don’t cry” he whispered hoarsely, but his voice cracked halfway through, betraying him. “Doll, please don’t… I can’t— I can’t take that.”

You pulled back just enough to see his face.

Tears were clinging to his lashes.

Jason Todd was crying.

But what broke you wasn’t the tears, it was the way he tried to hide them, turning his head away, swallowing hard, blinking fast like he had to force each one back down his throat.

“No,” you whispered, holding his face gently, “look at me.”

He resisted. you didn’t let go.

“Jason.”

Slowly, painfully, he met your eyes.

He looked at you like he was starving. Like he had spent years imagining your face and now couldn’t bear how real you were. His bottom lip trembled, just barely.

You cupped his cheeks, your thumbs brushing the wet tracks under his eyes.

“You’re here” you repeated, sobbing harder. “My god, Jason— you’re here.”

His breath broke completely.

He moved before he could think, his hands came up to cradle your head, fingers sliding into your hair, pulling you close like he needed the contact to stay upright. His forehead pressed to yours, breaths mingling, both of you shaking so hard it felt like the world was trembling with you.

“You still smell the same” he whispered, voice shattering, as if that was the one detail that killed him most. “You still… you still sound like you.”

You cried harder at that, because that was the kind of thing Jason noticed, the kind of thing Jason loved in the quiet, secret ways he was never good at saying out loud.

“You came back to me” you whispered.

“I didn’t mean to.” His voice was thick, ruined. “I didn’t plan any of this. I wasn’t— I wasn’t supposed to see you. I told myself I wouldn’t. I told myself you’d moved on, or— I don’t know— that you deserved someone actually good.”

Your fingers tightened in his hair.

“Don’t you ever say that” you whispered fiercely. “You hear me? Don’t you ever say that again.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, chest heaving.

“But I’m not him anymore” he said, trembling. “I’m not— I’m not soft. I’m not good. I’m—”

“You’re Jason” you said. “That’s all I ever wanted. That’s all I ever needed.”

Something inside his eyes cracked wide at that, something he had built like armor, something he had needed to survive. It broke cleanly, beautifully, painfully.

He kissed your forehead.

It wasn’t a romantic kiss.

It wasn’t heated or passionate.

It was desperate.

A prayer.

A plea.

A homecoming.

He pressed his lips there and stayed perfectly still, like if he moved too fast he’d shatter into pieces you couldn’t put back together.

You collapsed against him again, arms wrapped tight around his torso.

He wrapped both arms around your waist and held you the way a dying man would hold a lifeline, strong, shaking, terrified to let go.

“Don’t leave” you whispered.

His breath hitched, and he buried his face in your neck.

“I never wanted to leave” he whispered, voice tearing. “They took me from you. I swear, they took me from you.”

You cried again, fresh, violent tears and he held you through all of it.

No Red Hood, just Jason, your Jason.

Alive. Terrified. Soft only for you.

Minutes passed, or hours, neither of you caring about traffic or sirens or the fact that Gotham was still dangerous. The world shrank until it was just you, holding onto each other like you could rewrite fate itself.

Finally, when the rain softened to a drizzle, Jason pulled back slightly, just enough to see your face. His thumb brushed a tear from your cheek, slow and tender.

His voice was barely audible.

“Say my name again.”

You swallowed, breath trembling as you did it.

His eyes closed, as if the sound itself hurt him and healed him at the same time.

He leaned his forehead to you again.

“Only you,” he whispered. “Only you get to call me that.”

Your breath caught. “Why?”

“Because you’re the only person left who loved me before I died.” His voice broke. “And the only one who still wants me now.”

You kissed his cheek, soft, trembling, a promise. “I never stopped wanting you.”

He didn’t breathe for a moment.

Then his hands tightened around your waist, pulling you against him again, and he let out a soft, broken laugh, half relief, half disbelief, half a sob.

“It’s really you,” he whispered into your shoulder. “I… I can’t believe you’re real.”

You shook your head against him. “I could say the same.”

He held you tighter.

The city could have exploded around you and neither would’ve noticed.

You had each other again, nothing else mattered, nothing else ever would.

Jason doesn’t let go of your hand even once on the way to his place.

He keeps you tucked under his arm while you move across rooftops, slower than his usual rooftop run because he keeps glancing at you like he still needs proof you're real, alive, warm. The city is loud beneath you, Gotham’s heartbeat pounding in sirens and wind and neon, but around you it’s oddly quiet, like the world is holding its breath.

You don't ask where you're going. You don't care, you’d follow him anywhere and you already proved that, years ago, when you walked into war zones with a teenage Robin who had a grin too sharp and a heartbeat too fast.

He lands on a roof next to a worn-down warehouse, kicks open a rusted door, and leads you inside. It’s one big loft, half weapons-cache, half home. A couch that’s seen too many nights. A mattress thrown in the corner. A kitchenette with mismatched mugs. A helmet on the table, red and gleaming like something alive.

It’s messy, cold, lonely.

You look around as he watches you the whole time.

“…This is you now?” you ask quietly.

He shrugs one shoulder, suddenly awkward. “It’s temporary.”

“It looks like you’ve been here for years.”

“Yeah, well. Temporary for me is… different.”

You step closer, fingers brushing the edge of his jacket, grounding him. He exhales shakily, something heavy in his chest slowly unclenching. He doesn’t kiss you yet, he looks like he wants to, like he’s starving for it, but he’s giving her room, letting you choose.

You choose by stepping into him completely.

Jason’s arms go around you instantly.

He buries his face in your hair, inhaling like he hasn’t breathed since he died.

“You read all the letters” you whisper into his neck.

He nods.

“I memorized them,” he corrects softly, voice cracking. “Every single one. I… I needed them more than oxygen.”

Your throat tightens. You squeeze his jacket in your fists.

“So…You didn’t stop loving me” he says quietly, like he still doesn’t understand it.

“Not for one day.”

He swallows hard. His hand comes up, slow, hesitant, brushing your cheek with his knuckles. Like he’s afraid you'll vanish. Like he doesn’t trust the universe anymore.

He whispers, “Then stay with me tonight. Just—stay.”

You nod.

He leads you to the worn couch, sits, and gently tugs you into his lap, like it’s instinct, like he needs your weight to convince him he’s not dreaming. You curl against him, head under his chin, legs pulled up sideways, his arms a cage around you, protective, desperate, reverent.

For a long time, you don’t talk. The silence isn’t empty, it’s full, overflowing.

You run your fingers along his jaw, tracing the faint scar near his mouth, the one you don't recognize. He closes his eyes, leaning into the touch like a cat starved for warmth.

“You’re bigger,” you murmur, half teasing, half stunned. “Broader.”

“Yeah well,” he huffs softly, “death is a great bulking program.”

You smile weakly. “Jason.”

“Sorry,” he mutters. “Old habits.”

You continue tracing him, the lines of his neck, the curve of his shoulder, the calluses on his hands. Every inch you memorize again, relearns, reclaims. He watches you do it, eyes half-lidded, expression soft in a way he’s never shown anyone else.

“You always did this” he says quietly.

“What?”

“Touched me like I was something worth… holding.”

“You are.”

He kisses your forehead. Just that. A soft, lingering press. The kind that says more than words ever could.

“Lie down with me” he murmurs.

He shifts, bringing you with him, until you're stretched across the couch together, bodies fitting in that old, familiar way you used to when you were teenagers sneaking naps between patrols. Except now there’s more muscle, more height, more scars, and more ache underneath all of it.

You rest your head on his chest. He strokes your back in gentle, slow lines, like he’s counting your breaths.

“You scared me” she whispers.

“I know.”

“I thought you left me.”

He tightens his arms around you until you melt into him completely. “Never you. I never left you. Even when I was gone, I came back to you. All I did was come back to you.”

Your eyes sting. You nuzzle into his shirt, gripping the fabric.

He tilts your chin up with two fingers.

And finally he kisses you.

It’s slow. Tender. A confession and an apology and a resurrection all at once. His lips are warm and soft and trembling just a little. He kisses you like he’s afraid to ruin you, like he’s relearning how to be gentle.

You kiss him back, hands sliding to his jaw, holding his face as if to say you’re real, you’re here, you came back to me.

When you part, he rests his forehead against yours.

“You’re the only thing that makes me feel human” he admits, voice raw.

He exhales shakily and pulls you back down into his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head like you're the most precious thing he’s ever held.