I Fuckin Love Reader Insert Fanfic

↑←↓→

The most common bond was pain resonance.

One soulmate scraped their knee, the other felt sting. One broke a bone, the other suffered for it too.

Entire support groups existed for those unfortunate enough to be paired with athletes, construction workers, and adrenaline junkies.

Other bonds were rarer.

Dreamers could meet one another in sleep.

Some soulmates heard each other’s thoughts.

Others carried first words on their skin.

There were even people who saw flashes of each other’s lives through mirrors.

Every bond was different. Every bond was special.

Yours was a mark.

A simple symbol resting against your hip.

You’d spent most of your childhood believing it was a birthmark.

It resembled a bird frozen mid-flight. Two elegant wings spread wide across the dip in your skin.

When you were younger, you’d trace it absent-mindedly after baths, wondering why it looked so different from everyone else’s.

Your mother had laughed when you asked. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

At six years old, that answer had been deeply unsatisfying.

At ten, you’d become convinced your soulmate was secretly an angel.

At eleven, you’d grown embarrassed by the entire theory.

At fifteen..

The mark disappeared.

Not faded. Not lightened. Disappeared.

You remembered staring at your reflection for nearly an hour.

The skin was smooth. Unmarked. Empty.

The shape that had existed your entire life was simply gone.

Nobody knew what that meant.

There were stories, of course. There were always stories.

Old forums. Urban legends. Half-remembered articles. A bond breaking. The universe making mistakes.

None of them were verified. None of them made sense.

You tried not to think about it. ‘Tried’ being the important word.

Because something else happened that day. Something far worse.

You woke up feeling wrong.

Not sick. Or injured.

Wrong.

Like someone had reached inside your chest and scooped out everything that made you feel human.

Getting out of bed felt impossible. Breathing felt exhausting. Your limbs weighed twice what they should. Food tasted like nothing, and music sounded distant.

Your parents took you to a hospital.

The doctors couldn’t find anything. Blood tests came back normal. Brain scans came back normal. Everything came back normal.

And yet it felt as though something sharp had carved straight through the center of you and left a hollow space behind.

Weeks passed.

Then months.

The feeling never truly left.

It might have dulled. Became manageable. But every morning you woke with the same strange emptiness sitting beneath your ribs, like grief.

Except you weren’t grieving anyone.

You couldn’t. You hadn’t lost anything.

Had you?

Six months later, the mark returned.

You found it after stepping out of the shower. For several seconds, you simply stared.

Because it was there.

Those familiar wings.

The soul mark, back where it belonged.

Except.. It wasn’t exactly the same. The shape had changed. Only slightly, but enough that you almost missed it.

The elegant curve of the wings remained. But now thin fractures cut through the design, like cracks spreading through glass. Like something had shattered and been forced back together.

The mark looked older. Wounded. Broken and repaired.

You remembered touching it with trembling fingers. Remembered the overwhelming relief that nearly brought tears to your eyes.

Your soulmate was alive.

That was the only explanation that mattered.

Alive.

Somewhere.

Breathing beneath the same sky. Walking the same earth. Waiting.

The thought stayed with you through every year that followed.

Even after moving to Gotham. After learning just how cruel fate could be. Even then, some stubborn part of you couldn’t help believing.

Because soulmates were supposed to be the one good thing the universe gave people. The one person who would understand you completely. Who would never hurt you. Who would always choose you.

You didn’t know it yet, but somewhere in Gotham, your soulmate looked at the matching mark on his own body and believed exactly the same thing.

Moving to Gotham had taught you two things very quickly.

The first was that every story people told about the city was true.

The second was that nobody ever told the whole story.

The news focused on the murders. The riots. The Arkham breakouts. The masked lunatics who seemed determined to turn every holiday into a hostage situation. Every article painted Gotham as a city perpetually teetering on the edge of collapse.

What they didn’t talk about were the people.

The old woman who ran the corner store and slipped free candy to local kids when she thought nobody was looking. The mechanic who fixed single mothers’ cars for half price. The teenagers who organised food drives after winter storms. The apartment residents who pooled money together whenever somebody fell behind on rent.

Gotham survived because the people refused to die with it.

Your apartment building was no different.

The first person to welcome you was Arthur.

Arthur lived next door and seemed to possess the unique ability to start conversations with absolutely anyone. Within twenty-four hours of moving in, you’d learned about his late wife, his chronic dislike of modern television, and the fact that he’d somehow managed to get banned from three separate community centers over the course of his seventy-three years.

You still weren’t entirely sure whether that last story had been a joke.

The retired soldiers upstairs adopted you shortly afterwards. Every evening they gathered on the rooftop with cheap coffee and folding chairs, spending hours arguing over topics nobody else cared about. Weather patterns. Baseball statistics. Whether Gotham’s pizza quality had declined over the past decade.

According to them, it had.

The children living on the lower floors were worse.

Far worse.

Because children had an alarming ability to decide they liked someone and then never leave them alone again.

You made the mistake of helping one of them carry a backpack. That was all it took.

Within a week they knew your schedule, your favorite snacks, and which apartment belonged to you.

You’d accepted your fate shortly after.

The women above you remained unpleasant.

Some people simply seemed determined to be unhappy.

You’d received two separate complaints because your television had apparently been “too loud.”

You didn’t own a television.

The rest of the building ignored them. It was easier.

Then there was Jason Todd.

At first, Jason seemed normal enough. A little intimidating, maybe.

He was a large man. Not merely tall but solid in a way that suggested years of hard living rather than careful gym routines. Broad shoulders stretched the fabric of most shirts. Old scars disappeared beneath his collar and reappeared across his knuckles. There was a heaviness to him sometimes, filled with tension that never seemed to fully leave his body.

You’d caught glimpses of it occasionally.

The way he favored his left leg. The faint stiffness in his shoulders. The exhausted shadows beneath his eyes. Like someone who carried more weight than they knew what to do with.

Still, he was polite. Helpful. Generally liked by everyone in the building.

Arthur adored him. The children followed him around like ducklings. Even the veterans upstairs occasionally invited him to join their rooftop arguments.

Jason never stayed long, vut he always listened.

There was something strangely lonely about him. Not that you thought about it much.. At least not initially.

The first real conversation you’d had happened three weeks after moving in.

Arthur’s front door had jammed. Again.

The old man was muttering increasingly creative insults toward the lock when you’d returned from work.

Being a decent person, you’d offered assistance.

Being Gotham property, the door immediately declared war.

You eventually managed to force the stubborn thing open by bracing yourself against the frame and reaching up on you tippy toes for leverage.

The door finally gave way with a loud crack.

Arthur nearly fell backward.

You nearly fell forward.

And somewhere behind you, a man forgot how to breathe.

You never noticed.

Never noticed the apartment door opening across the hallway. Or blue-green eyes locking onto the sliver of skin exposed above your waistband. To the soulmate mark. The familiar black wings. The fractured lines running through them.

Jason did.

For one terrible second the world stopped. The hallway vanished. Arthur vanished. The city vanished. All that remained was the mark. His mark.

The same impossible shape he’d stared at in mirrors since childhood.

You.

The realisation hit harder than any bullet ever had.

You.

His soulmate.

Living directly across the hall. Close enough to hear through the walls. Close enough to touch. Close enough to lose.

The thought followed immediately after. Unwanted. Bloody terrifying.

Jason hated it.

Because suddenly every nightmare he’d ever had felt possible.

You could leave. You could move. You could disappear. You could die.

The Pit had returned his life, but it had never given him peace.

Now the universe had handed him something precious and expected him not to panic.

As if that had ever been one of Jason Todd’s strengths.

By the time you straightened, your shirt had fallen back into place. The mark vanished. The moment ended.

Nobody seemed to notice anything had happened. Nobody except Jason.

After that, things became strange.

Not immediately.

Jason tried very hard for them not to. He told himself he would act normal.

Normal neighbors talked. Normal neighbors said hello. Normal neighbors occasionally helped carry groceries. There was absolutely nothing strange about any of that.

The problem was that Jason had absolutely no idea what normal looked like anymore.

So he started noticing things.

You always carried exact change for the vending machines downstairs. You preferred reading digitally to hard books. You bought the same coffee every Tuesday morning. You tapped your fingers whenever you were concentrating. You hummed under your breath while checking your mail. Tiny things. Meaningless things. The kind of details most people forgot. Jason remembered all of them.

Which became increasingly difficult to explain.

You’d mention something once and he’d bring it up weeks later. You’d complain about work and somehow he’d remember every coworker’s name. You’d mention being tired and he’d somehow know exactly when your schedule changed.

The worst part was that none of it seemed intentional. Jason genuinely looked confused whenever you stared at him suspiciously.

As though he couldn’t understand why remembering things about you would be considered unusual.

Then one evening you discovered his weakness. Or perhaps he discovered yours.

You were checking the mail when he wandered into the lobby carrying a grocery bag.

“Red Hood got into another fight with Penguin’s people last night.”

You looked up immediately. The reaction was automatic.

Jason saw it.

The slight shift in posture. The sudden attention. The way your eyes actually focused on him for once.

A slow smile tugged at his mouth. “Oh,” he said. “So that’s the secret.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What secret?”

“The only way to get you to willingly hold a conversation.”

You scoffed, but you didn’t walk away.

Jason noticed that too.

Unfortunately.

From that day onward, discussions about Red Hood became alarmingly common.

You should have found it strange.

Most civilians didn’t spend this much time discussing vigilantes.

Jason always had opinions. Always had arguments. Information.

Somehow.

The conversations became routine. Comfortable, even.

And occasionally, very rarely, Jason would laugh. Not the dry, sarcastic thing he usually did. Not the sharp bark of amusement he used around strangers. A real laugh. Unexpected and bright.

For just a second it stripped years from him.

You’d catch a glimpse of someone younger beneath the scars and exhaustion. Someone who looked like they should have existed a long time ago.

Then it would disappear.

The walls would go back up. The tiredness would return.

And Jason Todd would once again look like a man carrying the weight of something nobody else could see.

You never understood why those moments stayed with you.

Across the hallway, Jason understood perfectly.

Because every time you smiled at one of them, he spent the rest of the day thinking about it.

You’d simply made the mistake of staying late at work and taking a shortcut home.

The Narrows looked different after dark.

The streets became quieter. The crowds thinned. Storefront lights reflected off rain-slick pavement while distant sirens echoed between buildings.

Most nights nothing happened.

Unfortunately, Gotham’s definition of “most” left a lot to be desired.

You were halfway down an alley when the shouting started.

Three men. Maybe four.

Members of the False Face Society if the masks were anything to go by.

They’d cornered somebody further ahead.

A teenager. Couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

The kid looked terrified.

One of the men shoved him hard enough that he nearly hit the ground. The others laughed.

You stopped.

For one stupid second, you actually considered intervening.

Then common sense returned.

You weren’t a vigilante. You weren’t bulletproof. You were just some idiot trying to get home.

You reached for your phone instead.

A mistake.

The screen lit up.

One of the masked men noticed. His head turned.

Your stomach dropped.

“Hey.” Suddenly four pairs of eyes were looking at you.

The teenager ran. Nobody stopped him. Because now their attention had shifted elsewhere. To you.

There was a very specific kind of fear that only this city could produce. The kind that arrived all at once. Immediate & primal. You felt it settle deep into your bones as one of the men stepped forward.

The alley suddenly felt much smaller.

Your fingers tightened around your phone.

Someone laughed.

Someone else told you to relax.

You took a step backward. Calculating escape routes. The odds. All of them terrible.

One of the men reached for you, and a gunshot cracked through the night.

Everything stopped. The sound echoed between brick walls. A flock of birds exploded from a nearby rooftop.

Silence followed.

Then a body hit the ground hard.

The man who’d been reaching for you collapsed unconscious. The others barely had time to react.

A dark figure dropped from above. Fast. Violent.

The first criminal went down immediately. The second lasted perhaps three seconds longer. The third tried running.

That mistake earned him a boot to the chest powerful enough to send him crashing into a dumpster.

The entire fight ended in under thirty seconds.

You’d seen videos before. Hell, everybody had.

Footage online. Security recordings. News broadcasts. None of them captured the reality of it. The sheer speed. The overwhelming physicality.

The way Red Hood moved like someone who had spent years surviving things most people couldn’t imagine.

When the final criminal hit the pavement, silence settled once more.

The vigilante straightened. The red helmet reflected nearby streetlights. Smoke curled from the barrel of a pistol.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then he turned toward you.

Your heart immediately forgot how to function.

Because it was him.

Not a photograph or old news report. Not some distant figure standing on a rooftop.

Red-fucking-Hood.

Close enough to touch. Close enough to hear breathing through the modulator.

You’d spent years reading articles. Watching footage. Defending him during arguments. None of that had prepared you.

“You’re bleeding.” The voice emerged distorted through the helmet.

Only then did you notice the sting.

Your arm.

One of the men must have grabbed you harder than you’d realised.

A shallow cut. Nothing serious.

Before you could answer, Red Hood stepped forward. His gloved hand closed around your wrist to inspect the injury.

You’d think about the touch for months.

“You’re fine.” The words sounded almost disappointed. As though he’d expected worse.

Then his attention shifted.

Already elsewhere.

Already moving.

A woman further down the street was crying. The teenager from earlier had apparently found police.

Somewhere in the distance another fight was breaking out.

Red Hood released your arm.

And just like that, the moment ended.

No dramatic goodbye. No lingering conversation. No special attention. No acknowledgement that you existed beyond confirming you weren’t seriously injured. He was already walking away. Already focused on somebody else.

Because the night never stopped needing him.

You stood there watching until he disappeared.

Continued to long after there was nothing left to see.

The obsession that followed was embarrassing. Truly embarrassing. You knew it. The rational part of your brain knew it. Unfortunately, the rational part had very little authority.

For the next week, every thought somehow led back to the Vigilante.

You replayed the encounter endlessly. The sound of his voice, the weight of his hand around your wrist, the effortless way he’d dismantled four armed criminals, and the fact that he’d barely even looked at you.

Arthur listened to your retelling twice before banning the topic entirely.

Eventually life moved on.

Work remained work. Bills remained bills. The city continued spinning. The memory dulled. Not vanished. Just settled into a quieter place. Something pleasant to revisit whenever your thoughts wandered.

Then two weeks later Gotham exploded.

Not literally for once.

The headline appeared online first. Then newspapers. Then on every Gothamites TV. Then every social media platform in existence.

RED HOOD’S SOULMATE? EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS SPARK CITY-WIDE DEBATE

You nearly dropped your phone.

The article contained several photographs from a confrontation between Red Hood and Black Mask’s men.

Most were blurry. Poorly timed. Worthless.

One wasn’t.

The image had captured him mid-fight. Armor damaged. The side of his tactical jacket torn open. And there, visible for the entire world to see, was a soulmate mark.

You forgot how to breathe.

The photograph filled your screen, the shape unmistakable.

Black wings. Thin lightning-like fractures running through the design. Like shattered glass repaired imperfectly. Exactly like yours.

Exactly.

The article itself became meaningless.

You couldn’t read it. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t fucking think.

That was Your mark.

For a long time, you simply stared.

Then slowly, almost disbelievingly, your hand drifted toward your hip. Toward the soulmark hidden beneath your clothes. To the wings you’d carried your entire life.

The same wings currently displayed across every news station in Gotham.

Your soulmate.

The realisation felt surreal. Terrifying.

.. Wonderful.

Somewhere beneath the panic, excitement bloomed. Warm. Impossible to suppress.

Because after years of wondering, desperately hoping, of believing your soulmate existed somewhere beyond reach, you finally knew.

And unfortunately for your future peace of mind,

Your soulmate was Red Hood.

You groaned, dropping your face into your hands. This was ridiculous.

You'd exchanged approximately six words. Six.

You didn't know his favorite colour. Didn't know his age. Didn't know what music he liked. You didn't even know what his face looked like.

Yet your heart had apparently decided none of those details were particularly important.

A knock sounded against your apartment door.

You nearly jumped.

The article disappeared from your screen immediately. As though hiding it somehow made you less embarrassing.

The knocking came again, four sharp taps.

You already knew who it was. Nobody else knocked like that.

Opening the door revealed Jason standing in the hallway. A grocery bag hung from one hand.

His expression was unreadable. Tired. More so than usual.

You frowned immediately. "Jesus."

Jason blinked. "What?"

"You look awful."

A strange look crossed his face. Gone before you could properly identify it.

Then he scoffed quietly. "Thanks."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I?"

"You look like you haven't slept."

Something flickered in his eyes.

For a moment his gaze shifted past you. Into your apartment. Toward the phone still sitting on the kitchen counter. Then back again. "You hear the news?"

You stared.

Jason stared back.

Neither of you said anything.

Then simultaneously: "Red Hood." The words left both of your mouths at the same time.

Jason rubbed a hand across his face.

You pointed accusingly. "See? This is exactly what I'm talking about."

"What?"

"You are weird."

His eyebrows lifted. "You brought him up too."

"That's different."

"It literally isn't."

"It is."

Jason looked seconds away from arguing.

Then something changed.

The fight left him. His shoulders sagged slightly, exhaustion settled across his features. The expression aged him. Like someone carrying old wounds nobody else could see.

You suddenly remembered all those nights hearing his apartment door open at absurd hours. The bruises he occasionally showed up with. The limp. The scars. The perpetual exhaustion.

For the first time, a thought occurred to you.

Jason always looked like he was surviving something.

You weren't entirely sure what. Only that the feeling never really left.

"You okay?"

The question slipped out before you could stop it.

Jason froze.

You immediately regretted asking.

Not because it was rude, but cause of the look he gave you. Caught completely off guard. As though nobody had asked him that in a very long time.

Then he smiled. Small, genuine, and unexpectedly soft.

"Yeah," Jason said quietly. "Yeah.. I'm okay." The smile lingered. Just for a moment.

Then the walls returned. And suddenly he was Jason again.

Your strange neighbor.

The man who remembered everything. The man who somehow always appeared at exactly the wrong moment. The man standing in front of you while your soulmate's photograph sat open on your kitchen counter.

Jason shifted the grocery bag toward you. "Arthur asked me to bring these over."

You accepted it automatically. "Thanks."

"No problem."

His gaze raked over you for a moment longer, jaw clenching as he holds back from speaking up again.

Then he stepped backwards. Retreating towards his own apartment.

His gaze lingered on you for a fraction too long, almost imperceptible. The sort of thing most people wouldn't notice.

You did.

You always did.

Weirdo. The thought followed you as he disappeared across the hallway.

The door shut behind him.

A minute later you reopened the article, the familiar photograph greeted you immediately.

The wings.

The impossible certainty.

Your soulmate.

Across the hall, Jason sat alone on his couch staring at the exact same photograph.

Only his reasons were very different.

Because while Gotham was busy trying to discover the identity of Red Hood's soulmate, Jason already knew.

And for the first time since finding you, the rest of the world was looking too.

The grocery run had been an excuse.

Arthur had asked him to bring the bag over, Jason had just.. volunteered before the old man finished speaking.

An increasingly common occurrence these days.

His gaze remained fixed on the wall separating your apartments.

Thin drywall. Cheap insulation. A handful of feet. That was all. You were right there. Close enough that he could hear the occasional creak of floorboards. Close enough that he sometimes caught the muffled sound of whatever new show you were half-watching on your laptop through the wall. Close enough to know exactly when you got home from work.

Jason dragged a hand across his face. Exhaustion settled heavily behind his eyes.

He hadn’t slept. Not really. The article had been published thirty-six hours ago.

Since then he’d spent every waking moment putting out fires.

Some literal, some not.

The Bats had questions. Villains had questions. Reporters had questions.

The entire city suddenly seemed obsessed with the possibility of Red Hood having a soulmate.

As though the revelation somehow made him easier to understand. Like a soulmate transformed him into something less dangerous.

Idiots.

Jason leaned back against the couch.

His apartment was dark. Quiet. The television remained muted. Half a dozen news articles sat open across his laptop screen. Every one of them made him angrier.

Relationship experts discussing his future. Psychologists debating soulmate bonds. Random strangers speculating about the identity of someone they’d never met.

Your identity.

His jaw tightened.

One article had suggested that Red Hood’s soulmate was probably safer remaining anonymous.

Another had argued the opposite.

Apparently Gotham had collectively decided that your existence was public property now.

The thought made something ugly twist in his chest. Fear.

Jason hated admitting it. Even to himself. Especially to himself.

Fear was harder to fight than anger.

Anger was simple. Useful. Anger could be aimed at something.

Fear just sat there. Growing.

The photograph appeared on his laptop screen again.

The damaged armor. The exposed mark. His mistake. A stupid one.

He should have replaced the plating weeks earlier. Should have noticed the weakness. Should have-

The self-recrimination stopped.

It was pointless.

The picture existed. The damage was done.

Jason’s gaze drifted toward the opposite wall. Toward your apartment.

The memory of your soulmark surfaced immediately.

Arthur’s door.

The glimpse of skin.

The feeling that had followed.

For years he had imagined meeting his soulmate.

Not often. Not even consciously. But sometimes. Late at night, during patrol. On anniversaries he’d rather forget.

He’d wondered whether they were alive. Whether they were happy. If they hated Gotham.

.. if they thought about him too.

Mostly though, he’d thought about how they deserved better.

Jason Todd wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what he was.

A resurrected crime lord with anger issues.

A vigilante who carried guns.

A man stitched together with skin he no longer recognised as his own.

Not exactly soulmate material.

Then he’d met you.

And somehow everything had become worse.

Because now you weren’t hypothetical. You were real.

You smiled at Arthur’s stories. You carried extra snacks for the kids downstairs. You argued passionately about things you cared about. You made faces while reading articles on your phone. You laughed with your whole body. You existed.

And Jason had become terrifyingly aware of how fragile that made you.

Not because you were weak, but because Gotham wasn’t fair.

Good people died here every day. Disappeared. Became leverage. Targets. Victims. The city took things.

That was what Gotham did.

A sharp knock interrupted the silence.

Jason’s head lifted instantly.

The pistol hidden beneath the coffee table was in his hand before the second knock arrived.

Old habits.

The peephole revealed a familiar face.

Dick.

Jason opened the door. “What?”

Dick took one look at him. Winced. “You look terrible.”

“Get out.”

“Bruce sent me.”

“Tell him I said no.”

“You don’t know what he asked yet.”

“I don’t need to.”

Dick sighed heavily, stepping inside anyway.

Jason considered throwing him back into the hallway.

“You’ve seen the articles.”

Jason barked out a humorless laugh. “Hard to miss.”

Dick studied him carefully.

Years of experience had taught the younger brother that particular look usually preceded unwanted emotional conversations.

Sure enough, “are they okay?”

Jason froze. The room suddenly felt very still.

Dick’s expression softened. There was no judgment there. No accusation. Just concern.

Which somehow made it worse. Because Dick already knew the answer. The family had figured it out months ago.

Jason hadn’t told them. He hadn’t needed to.

The Batcomputer had eventually connected enough dots.

They knew.

Not your name. Not where you lived. Not who you were. But they knew Jason had found you. And they knew he hadn’t introduced himself.

“..They’re fine.”

Dick waited.

Jason hated when he did that. Just sat there patiently until people talked. An infuriating habit. “They’re safe.”

Another pause.

“…Jason.” The warning sat unspoken between them.

Jason looked away first. His gaze drifted toward the apartment wall. Toward the space beyond it. Toward you.

Completely unaware of the storm currently gathering around your existence.

His grip tightened around the edge of the couch. Barely noticeable.

He wasn’t like Dick. Didn’t gush over his mate like they made stars. He kept them close, private.

To himself.

But he was beginning to realise that may not be enough anymore.

Jason swallowed hard. Then finally said the thing neither of them wanted to acknowledge.

“The whole city’s looking now.”

Silence followed. Heavy. Understanding.

Jason Todd had never trusted Gotham with things he cared about, so he wasn’t about to start now.

Sleep proved impossible.

You blamed the article. And Arthur for somehow managing to bring Red Hood into every conversation despite supposedly banning the topic.

Mostly, though, you blamed yourself.

→↓←↑

Eventually, the walls of your apartment began to feel too small. Too warm. Too crowded with your own thoughts.

So shortly after midnight, you pulled on a jacket and went for a walk.

The city never truly slept. Even at this hour, Gotham breathed around you.

Distant traffic rolled through the streets. Neon signs flickered overhead. Somewhere several blocks away, a siren wailed briefly before fading into the night.

The air was cold.

It helped. At least a little.

You wandered without much direction. Past closed storefronts. Past graffiti-covered brick walls. Past the small twenty-four-hour deli one of the kids downstairs swore had the best coffee in Gotham.

Eventually you found yourself standing beside the waterfront. The black water reflected fractured city lights.

For several minutes you simply stood there. Trying very hard not to think.

“You should be home.” The voice emerged from the darkness behind you.

Your heart stopped.

Then immediately attempted to beat its way out of your chest.

Slowly, almost afraid the illusion would disappear if you moved too quickly, you turned.

A figure stood atop a nearby shipping container. Red helmet. Dark armor. Broad shoulders silhouetted against Gotham’s skyline. Red Hood.

For a moment neither of you spoke.

You weren’t entirely convinced your brain was functioning.

“You’ve got a terrible habit of appearing out of nowhere.” The words left your mouth before you could stop them.

A surprised huff escaped the modulator. Almost a laugh.

“Occupational hazard.”

Your stomach performed an embarrassing number of flips. “So that’s your official excuse?”

“It usually works.”

“You need a better one.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

The conversation felt absurdly normal.

This was Red Hood. Standing ten feet away. Talking to you. Like this happened every day.

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. Just strange.

Heavy with things neither of you knew how to say.

His helmet tilted slightly, studying you. You wondered if he was doing the same thing you’d been doing for weeks.

Trying to fit reality beside expectation.

“You really should be home.” There was something quieter in his voice this time. Something that sounded suspiciously like concern.

You crossed your arms. “Funny. That’s exactly what my neighbor says.”

Another pause.

“..Smart guy.”

You snorted. The sound echoed softly across the water.

For a second you could have sworn Red Hood relaxed. As though hearing you laugh had eased something inside him.

The white lenses reflected distant lights.

“Get home safe.” Simple words.

Nothing special nor dramatic. Yet they settled somewhere beneath your ribs all the same.

Before you could answer, he stepped backward.

Already disappearing into the darkness he’d emerged from.

“Wait.” The word escaped fast, internally cringing at how desperate you sounded.

He paused.

You swallowed. Suddenly aware that there were a thousand things you wanted to ask and no idea where to begin.

In the end, only one managed to make it out.

“…Are you okay?” The question hung between you.

As though you’d somehow asked the last thing he’d expected to hear.

When he finally answered, his voice sounded different. Lower. Rougher. Human.

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“Yeah. I’m okay.” The answer felt suspiciously familiar. Heavy and tasting of salt from the nearby harbor. Like you’d heard it before.

The words were a hollow sentiment, a mask worn by a man who clearly knew the architecture of a lie far too well.

You watched him, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs. There was a gravity to him, a pull that felt less like curiosity and more like a physical tether snapping taut.

You didn't know that he had been watching you for weeks. Didn’t know that he even knew that you were his soulmate.

Didn't know that he had gone through your balcony window far too many times to count just to smell the clothes you leave out across the floor or side of your couch, a starving man finding the only source of light in a dark world. To you, he was a legend. To him, you were the only reason to keep breathing.

"You don't sound okay," you whispered, the coolness of the night air emboldening you.

The silence that followed was deafening. The vigilante didn't move, but the atmosphere shifted. The air grew thick, charged with a sudden, violent electricity. He didn't disappear this time. Instead, he descended.

He moved with a predatory grace, leaping from the container to the pavement with a silent, heavy thud that made the ground vibrate beneath your boots. Before you could even draw a breath to gasp, he was there. He was towering, a wall of leather and pure heat.

He didn't stop until he was inches away, forcing you to meet the white lenses of his helmet. The scent of him hit you hard. A deep musk that made your knees feel dangerously weak.

"You shouldn't ask questions you aren't prepared to hear the answers to." The modulator was off. His gloved fingers catching the edge of the crimson plating.

With a soft, mechanical hiss, he lifted the helmet just enough. He didn't take it off just yet, just freeing his mouth.

Your breath hitched. You were staring at a face that was all sharp lines and bruised shadows, eyes that burned through the helmet with a hunger so primal it felt like it could consume the entire city. He looked like a man who had been wandering a desert and had finally found water.

And then, he leaned in.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It was a collision. It was the desperate, starving act of a hunter finally catching his prize.

His lips were firm, warm, and tasted of something dark and metallic. It was a claim. He tasted you like he was trying to memorise your very essence, his tongue sweeping against yours with a possessive rhythm that sent a jolt straight to your core.

You let out a muffled whimper, your hands instinctively finding the hard, muscular planes of his chest.

He didn't care about the shadows of the alleyway or the distant sound of a passing car. He didn't care that the Red Hood was supposed to be a symbol of justice, not a man driven to madness by a single touch. He only cared about the way you melted against him.

He’d dreamt of this.

His hands, large and calloused, slid down your sides. Gripping your hips with a strength that bordered on bruising. He forced you back against the cool brick of the building, the contrast of the cold stone and his searing heat making your head spin.

He broke the kiss, his breath coming in ragged, uneven hitches. His eyes searched yours, still hidden behind the mask. Frantic and obsessed, looking for the recognition that the bond was screaming in your blood too.

You didn't understand it yet, but you felt it. A deep, aching need to be undone by him.

He dropped to his knees.

It was an act of worship and a display of dominance all at once. The great Red Hood, the terror of the underworld, kneeling in the dirt of a dark alleyway at your feet.

His hands moved frantically, tugging at your clothes, baring you to the midnight air. He didn't wait.

He didn't even ask. He simply descended.

When his mouth found you, the world vanishd.

The sensation was overwhelming. The heat of his breath, the rough texture of his tongue, and the sheer, unyielding intensity of his focus.

He ate you with a desperation that was terrifying, his tongue swirling and probing, seeking out every nerve ending as if he were trying to find the very center of your soul. His jaw aching from the stretch. He was relentless, a hunter who had found the most precious treasure and refused to let a single drop of sensation go unharvested.

You arched your back, your fingers tangling in the collar of his jacket, a choked cry escaping your throat. You were unanchored, drifting in a sea of pleasure. Every lick, every suction, every flick of his tongue was a brand, marking you as his in the most intimate way possible.

He looked up at you for a fleeting second, his eyes dark with a terrifying, beautiful madness, before burying his face in you again. He wasn't just pleasuring you, he was consuming you. And as the tension coiled tighter and tighter in your gut, you realised with a dizzying sense of awe that you didn't want to be saved from him. You wanted to drown in him.

his hands slid from your hips to your thighs, spreading you wider, anchoring you to the brick so you couldn't drift away.

He was greedy. He swallowed your gasps, he drank in the sounds you made, as if he were trying to ingest the very proof of your pleasure. The rough texture of his tongue was a beautiful friction against your most sensitive skin, a rhythmic, punishing, perfect pressure that sent white hot sparks dancing behind your eyelids.

"Please," you choked out, though you didn't even know what you were asking for. More. Stop. Don't ever let go.

You hadn’t ever felt anything this intensely since you were fifteen and it felt like you’d lost everything.

He responded by surging forward. The sensation was too much. Like a tidal wave. A sudden, violent fracturing of your senses. You felt the tension coil in your gut, tighter and tighter, a spring wound to the point of breaking, until finally, the dam burst.

You cried out, your voice lost to the shadows of the alley, as your body shuddered in the throes of a release so powerful it felt like a seizure.

You clung to him, your fingers digging into his shoulders, your head lulling back against the wall as waves of liquid crashed through you.

He didn't pull away when you came. He stayed with you, his mouth still pressed to you, drinking in the aftershocks, his breath hot and ragged against your skin. Gulping as he attempted to swallow it all down.

He stayed there until the tremors subsided, until you were left limp and breathless, trembling in the sudden silence of the night.

Slowly, he rose. He didn't stand up fully at first, lingering in the space between your legs, his eyes looking up at you from the darkness. The white lenses of his helmet were gone, replaced by the raw, unfiltered gaze of the man beneath. He looked wrecked. You couldn’t recognise him in the darkness.

He looked like he had just survived a war, or perhaps, like he had finally come home from one.

He reached up, his gloved thumb brushing a stray tear or perhaps just sweat from your cheek, his touch unexpectedly tender for a man so violent in his passion.

"Don't ever look at anyone else like that," he whispered, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that promised both protection and imprisonment. "Do you hear me? Just me."

You couldn't answer. You could barely breathe. You could only stare at him, realising with a sinking, exhilarating dread that the man you had been idolising from afar hadn't just found you.

He had hunted you down. And he had no intention of ever letting you go.

To anyone else, the apartment was just a quiet, dimly lit space in a safe corner of Gotham. To Jason, the silence was loud. Deafening.

It was a constant, rhythmic thrumming that echoed the frantic beating of his own heart every time he thought of you.

He sat on the edge of his bed, the shadows of the room clinging to his broad shoulders like a shroud. He was stripped down to his joggers, his skin still humming with the phantom sensation of your warmth. It had been weeks since that night in the alley. Weeks since he had tasted you, since he had felt the way you shuddered under his touch and the hunger had only grown.

It wasn't a hunger for food or sleep. It was a hollow, aching void in his chest that only your presence could fill.

He closed his eyes, but that was a mistake.

The moment his eyelids fell, you were there. He could see the curve of your neck, the way your eyes had widened in the dark, the way you had looked so beautifully, helplessly undone by him.

His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping in his cheek. He hated how much power you had over him. He was a man who had stared down death and spat in its face, yet here he was, a prisoner to the memory of a person who didn't even know the half of what he was thinking.

He stood up abruptly, the sudden movement sending a jolt of restless energy through his limbs. He paced the small expanse of the room like a caged predator, his footsteps heavy and deliberate.

His gaze drifted to the door.

The door was a thin, pathetic barrier. Just a few inches of wood and metal separating him from the world. And just twenty feet away, you were sleeping in a bed that wasn't his. You were breathing air that he wasn't providing.

The thought was intolerable. It felt like a physical wound, a fracture in his soul that refused to knit back together.

He wanted to tear the door off its hinges. He wanted to storm through the halls and break down your door until he could wrap his arms around you and never, ever let go. He wanted to mark you so thoroughly that the world would know you belonged to him by the very scent of your skin.

A low, frustrated growl escaped his throat. He reached for his waistband, his movements frantic, driven by a need that was as much about desperation as it was about lust.

As his hand closed around himself, he groaned, his head falling back. He wasn't just imagining the sensation of your hands or the heat of your mouth; he was visualising the way you would look if he finally claimed you properly. He imagined you pinned beneath him, your eyes searching his, seeing the madness there and choosing to stay anyway.

He closed his eyes tight, his breath hitching as he moved. You, he thought. A silent, prayer like chant in the dark. It has to be you. Has to be mine.

Every stroke was a frantic attempt to bridge the distance. He pictured your face, the way you had looked at him with that mixture of awe and terror. He wanted to protect that look, to be the only thing you ever saw, the only thing you ever felt.

He wanted to be your savior, but more than that, he wanted to be your entire world.

When the release finally came, it wasn't peaceful. It was a violent, shuddering explosion that left him gasping, his body tensing as if he were fighting an invisible enemy. He slumped back against the bed, his chest heaving, the sweat cooling on his skin.

The silence returned, heavier than before.

He stared at the ceiling, his eyes dark and predatory. The hunger hadn't faded; it had only sharpened. The "hunter" in him was tired of the chase. He was done watching from the shadows. He was done being the ghost in your periphery. Done playing the annoying neighbour.

He was going to bring you home. And once he had you, he would make sure you never had a reason to look for anyone else ever again.

The decision settled over him with terrifying clarity.

For months, Jason had told himself he was being patient.

While he learned your routines. While he watched Gotham become more dangerous by the day. While reporters dug through every corner of the city looking for Red Hood’s soulmate. Patient while criminals, mercenaries, and psychopaths searched for weaknesses they could exploit.

Patient while the universe dangled you in front of him and expected him to trust fate to keep you safe.

He was done being patient.

Jason rose from the bed.

The apartment felt suffocating. Too small. Empty.

Too far away from you.

His jaw tightened.

People always talked about soulmates as though they were something soft. Romantic. Gentle.

They never talked about what happened when a man like Jason Todd found his.

Nobody wanted to acknowledge that fate had teeth.

The universe hadn’t given him a lover. It had given him a reason. A purpose. Something precious enough to protect at any cost.

And Jason had never been particularly good at respecting limits.

He crossed the room and stopped beside the window. Gotham stretched endlessly below. A city of predators. A city that took and took and took.

His city.

For years it had stolen everything from him.

His childhood. His family. His life.

It wasn’t taking you too.

The thought settled into his bones like concrete. Absolute.

A slow breath left him.

Then another.

The panic that had haunted him since the article disappeared.

The uncertainty disappeared with it.

Because for the first time since finding you, Jason finally understood what he needed to do. Not watch. Not wait. Definitely not hope.

Act.

The realisation settled like relief.

People would worry. People always worried.

Then life would continue.

He’d experienced it firsthand.

It always did.

Nobody would know that somewhere far from Gotham’s noise sat a small house hidden among thick forests and winding roads.

A place with reinforced doors. A stocked kitchen. Bookshelves filled with things you’d enjoy. Fresh fruit by the windowsill. A home prepared long before Jason admitted why he’d prepared it.

A home waiting for its rightful occupant.

Waiting for you.

His soulmate.

His future.

His.

Jason rested his forehead against the cool glass.

For a brief moment, he imagined the future.

You arguing with him over breakfast. Rolling your eyes at his terrible jokes. Curled against him on quiet evenings. Safe. Always safe.

You’d fight him at first.

He knew that.

He’d try his best to remember not to take it personally.

You’d be angry. Terrified. Confused. But eventually you’d understand. Eventually you’d realise nobody would ever love you the way he did. Nobody would ever sacrifice what he would sacrifice. Nobody would ever protect you so completely.

You were made for him for a purpose, after all.

The soulmate bond had survived death itself. Survived shattered souls and broken destinies.

The universe had torn you two apart once. It would never get the chance to do so again.

A smile touched his mouth. Small.

Outside, Gotham continued to roar.

Inside, Jason finally felt at peace. Because the hunt was over.

He had found what belonged to him.

And this time, Jason Todd wasn’t ever letting go.

Gang I tried really hard & researched what others have done to write gender neutral smut. I’ve read it over like a quadrillion times and genuinely can’t tell if it even makes sense anymore😩

8K+ Words, 48K+ Characters, 1K+ Sentences, 647 paragraphs, 24 minute average reading time, 39 minute average speaking time.

Read Dick Grayson’s part here

You didn't probe the topic right away, instead waiting until dinner was starting to wrap up before poking the bear.

This time around, Jason didn't do any of that weird bullshit about serving you food, only because Alfred had taken that responsibility beforehand.

Well, kinda. Your worries about upsetting your already unhappy stomach with a heavy Sunday roast turned out to be unnecessary, since Alfred had made you an entirely separate meal.

Your food consisted of warm miso soup and a side of some kind of seasoned tofu. For a second, you couldn't believe that Alfred had taken the time to make you something separate from the others, it was out of character for the man.

For the gang of vigilantes, Alfred regularly made specialized meals, but since you weren't usually recovering from massive injuries, you just went along with whatever was on the table that day. Regardless of the dish, the food was always high-quality and delicious.

You'd never complained, and he'd never deviated, until today.

You supposed that a concussion was reason enough to get a different meal, but it was still odd to have that kind of direct attention on you, doubly so from Alfred.

Whatever, at least it saved you from Jason playing Jenga with your food again.

You still felt intensely watched by the people around the table, but kept your head buried firmly down at your plate until it was time for dessert. Only after Alfred had set out the Bread Pudding (you got a platter of cut fruit) did you clear your throat and look up at Bruce, who was already looking straight at you.

This was it. You'd had the craziest three days of your life. Your boundaries (built over years of careful movement through a house that wasn't yours) had been violated repeatedly, you'd had not a smidge of autonomy (upon reflection), the people you'd come to accept as unfortunate constants had completely flipped their personalities, and you'd been kidnapped by the fucking Riddler because he thought that Bruce would come for you.

And craziest of all was that he was right.

You'd put up with it only because you had to, it wasn't like these fuckers let you get a word in edgewise, instead dragging you along like a passenger on the rollercoaster of your life.

And now, they were essentially threatening to isolate you entirely, after 3 days of completely insane behavioral changes.

You weren't quite sure if you were the one going through psychosis or they were.

Inhale, exhale.

You cleared your throat again and started slowly, "Tim said you had my phone? That the doctors gave it to you at the hospital or something?"

Bruce answered back just as calmly, cutting into his dessert as he responded, "Yes, that's right."

This asshole really wanted you to spell it out, huh? World's greatest detective my ass.

"Could I have it back?" No please, no explaining yourself. You didn't need to, the request was perfectly reasonable. Somewhere inside you knew Bruce didn't care much about reasonable. This was the same man that dressed up as a Bat and beat the shit out of criminals every night.

"No."

Like father like son.

Inhale, exhale.

"Why not?"

The rest of the table was quiet, watching the exchange carefully.

Bruce lifted his bite toward his mouth, "No screens, remember? That's what the doctor said." He frowned, "You do remember that, correct?"

Funny how Tim had said the same thing, huh? These people either thought you were stupid or were banking on you not to question them.

"I do. I also remember her saying that I could have them back after 48 hours."

"Ah and therein lies the problem. It hasn't been 2 days yet, sweetheart, you're not cleared for screens."

Sweetheart?

Inhale, exhale.

"Yeah, funny, Tim said the same thing." You pretended not to notice the withering glare the others sent his way. "He also said that you're not planning to give me my phone back even after the time's up, so uh what's the deal there?"

Bruce continued to fix his icy blue eyes at a point through you. "For smoothest recovery, we'll be increasing your screentime slowly. It wouldn't do you any good if you immediately went back to the numbers you had before, and- hours a day? Really? It'll be good for you to find some other hobbies."

At that you had to laugh, something disbelieving and forced.

"You know, its not even really about the phone, it's..." You trailed off, waving your hands around towards the table.

Your father leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and bringing his hands into a clasp in front of his face. Terrible manners and a guarded pose, he was gearing up for something and while you couldn't put a name to it, so were you.

He raised a brow, "It's what, exactly?"

Inhale, exhale.

Maybe when you were younger, still licking your wounds from being tossed to the side, you would have lost your bravado there, clamming up and holing back up in your room.

But you'd worked hard to get away from that, becoming someone who wasn't deathly afraid of confrontation. You wouldn't start the fight, but that didn't mean you'd let someone walk all over you.

That said, when it came to Bruce, phrasing was important. You'd been a silent bystander to many of his fights with the others, slinking around the manor and listening in to them play mental gymnastics.

The second any of them heard something that could be twisted in their favor, they would take it and twist, you knew that.

So you paused a second to think about how you could say this. Again, he'd find some way somehow to misconstrue anything you could possibly say, but from your side, you had to be smart about this. You didn't have years of experience fighting Bruce like the others, but he'd never had the chance to study you the way that you had been doing to him.

You were, at the end of the day, his child.

"You tell me, Bruce. for the past three days, you've been...like a whole different person. Is that what this is? Are you dosed with something? Are all of you doused with something? Because you have to recognize none of this is normal."

"What part exactly isn't normal?"

"The part where you care."

At that, Bruce worked his jaw.

"I care more than you think."

"Really?"

Jason had given up part way through the conversation and lounged back in his seat, slowly working through his dessert with a smug set to his lips. Tim's eyes were wide, bouncing between yourself and Bruce, the gears in his head visibly at work. Damian was still perfectly poised, his stance coiled up in preparation for a fight you wouldn't be having.

Dick, ever the martyr, stepped in to diffuse the palpable tension around the table. Or maybe he was just an attention whore who lived for the fantasy of trying to stitch his broken family together every time.

Probably the second.

"Wait. Both of you, calm down. (Name), of course Bruce cares, we all care-"

Inhale, exhale.

"Really? I mean, sure, fine, I concede, maybe you think you care, but that doesn't change the fact that you nothing you've done has been normal since Friday!"

"Friday? You mentioned you thought that was a PR stunt, is that was this is all about? You believe that any intention to be a father must be because of some external influence? Or that I have to be dosed in order to want to spend time with my child?"

Bruce's volume didn't get any louder, a dangerous illusion of calm, even though by the end he was practically hissing through his teeth, eyes narrowed into something sharp.

"Yes." The words slipped out before you could stop them, quiet but they seemed to echo around the room.

You continued, "I do think there has to be something foul at play for you to talk to me because why wouldn't I? I can count on two hands the amount of times we've had a conversation over the last 8 years!"

"You don't care about me! And I was fine with that! I was finally fine with that! I made my peace with it. With you. But then you come back, demanding to—what, get breakfast, sit through family dinners, follow medication schedules? For fucks sake, Bruce! Why couldn't you just let me live in peace?"

"You threw me to the side, you gave up on me. But why'd you have to come back."

The words weren't stopping, not even as you watched, tunnel vision on your father, as Bruce's face turned shades paler (no small feat), his knuckles white around his utensils.

"Now that's not fair, (Name)." Dick again butted in, hands raised with his palms up, staring intently at you, cornflower blue eyes unblinking. "This is family, and that means understanding that-"

You were tired of this conversation already, head starting to pound a steady thrum in the back of your skull, but you'd tussle the verbal 5v1 if needed, no going back now.

Inhale, exhale.

But it wasn't you that responded. It was Jason, hands scrubbing over his face, grin gone, looking more exhausted than he was a minute ago.

"No, they're right. They're right, Dickie, you know that. We knew this was going to happen, and you can try to pull as much bullshit as you want around them, but the little bird's smart. Always has been."

"Jason-" Tim started, urgency in his tone.

But Jason never listened once he got started.

"No, Timbers, I'm not-" he exhaled harshly, clearly frustrated, "I put up with this shit because you all said it would work out. That (Name) wouldn't ask questions, and when I said that this would blow up in our faces, you told me that we'd come clean. "

You felt frozen, like the room was revolving around you, time becoming syrupy and slipping right through your fingers.

"What? Come clean? Come clean about what? Jason-"

"Jason. Stop." Bruce this time, barking sharply at Jason from the head of the table. "This is not how we agreed to tell-"

Dick looked pissed, glaring daggers into Jason from across the table, "Wow, Little Wing, well done. Now they're even more confused, you were the one harping on about a gentle appr-"

Inhale, exhale.

Jason cut them both off, "You heard them! You heard what happens when (Name) slips through our hands, you know this! Right now, concussed, sitting at a table with people that are practically strangers, is this a gentle approach? You want to lose ours too, you fuckheads!"

Lose...you? And who was 'them'? And why was the room starting to spin even faster?

Tim was looking straight at you, the only one at the table that was still focusing on you, Damian watching the exchange between the three oldest, still bickering, with clear disgust and disbelief.

"(Name), listen to me, I know you're confused, but you need to stop and breathe, you're panicking. Stop-"

Oh. He was right, you weren't breathing properly anymore.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

While you tried to suck down some actual air, head pounding, Tim just continued to say something at you, words too quiet to be heard over the thump in your ears and Dick, Jason, and Bruce's fighting.

"(Name) is on the verge of passing out. Congratulations to all of you, we've done exactly what we most feared. Now if you could stop acting like imbeciles for ONE SECOND, you'd see that they're swaying in their seat."

Damian, making a stunning debut in the ring.

But he was right, get yourself together, you have shit to do.

Inhale, exhale.

You were going to get your answers, no taking the easy way out and passing out this time.

"From the top, no bullshit, no lies, what happened? Who are 'they'? And what do you mean lose me?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(A/n: OMG WE'RE HERE, WE FINALLY MADE IT, the (so far) climax of the series, where I get to deliver to you my rendition of "the big one", the fight that gets you some answers. Answers that are coming....next time, YAY! (sorry i wanted to answer them in this chapter, but I'm not happy with how that went, and you guys deserve a better draft than I currently have) so until we meet again!

Also, I hope I've redeemed myself with reader finally gaining a backbone! I've heard the people, I know you guys have wanted to see reader stand up for themself and so have I! This is how I see it going down, but as always all feedback is more than appreciated! <3)

He was infatuated with you, and since Steph was his "best friend", insisted that you two had to meet. He sung your praises the whole way to the cafe where you were waiting for the two of them.

He'd said that when he was with you all the weight that seemed to cling onto his bones went away and he could finally breathe.

Steph just scoffed at first, but in due time, she understood exactly what he meant.

You'd been sweet to her, never once acting like a bitter partner—insecure over how close he was to his ex. Instead, you'd embraced every time she tagged along on your dates with him, making sure she felt included at all times, even if it was something as small as sitting with her on a ride at an amusement park. (Tim wasn't the happiest at having to sit in the row behind you two, but you made it up to him easily enough with a peck on the lips.)

You were good.

Full stop, no more discussion.

Tim knew it. Steph knew it. Hell, even Tim's family knew it, studying you with an almost hopeful gleam in their eyes when you came over for dinner, hoping that finally somebody untainted would enter their orbit and stay there.

But you didn't, breaking up with Tim after half a year of being together. Tim was heartbroken, spending long nights crying in Steph's apartment while her mom was working the night shift.

He wasn't the only one. Bruce had looked visibly disapointed when he'd asked Tim about you after patrol once, only to be met with a stiff "webrokeup". Neither the father nor any of his sons seemed to be very good at holding down a relationship, but the whole family had hope for this one.

Of course, Steph was also heartbroken, since after her 5th time tagging along with the two of you, she'd identified that familiar warmth inside her heart that told her she'd fallen hard.

When Tim first told her the two of you were finished, she was selfishly happy, assuming that she was clear to make a move now. The two of you had become close friends, it wouldn't be weird, right?

But no, apparently things hadn't ended on good terms. You'd sent Tim a text, asking him to meet you at the park where you told him in no uncertain words that what you had wasn't working out.

You didn't offer him much other than a gentle parting kiss, patting his hair one last time and telling him to take care of himself.

Of course, Tim had broken down then, yanking you back by a hand and begging you to tell him what was wrong, overall starting to cause quite a scene.

You cracked, begging him to please leave you alone and that it was because you couldn't stand how overbearing he was, constant interrogations and a lack of boundaries starting to suffocate you. Apparently it was the fourth tracker you'd found in your shoes that pushed you over the edge.

So when she sent Tim away for the night, after two weeks of him moping around her apartment, she made a plan to at least secure her spot on your good side (and hopefully in your bed if everything worked out).

She'd texted you, asking if you wanted to swing by her apartment, writing a heartfelt message about how much she still wanted to be your friend despite what had happened between you and Tim.

You took the bait—hook, line, and sinker.

She waited for you to come over that Friday night, a pack of beer in one hand and takeout in the other.

A few hour into the night and suddenly you were ranting, drunk and loose-lipped, about how much your relationship with Tim had upset you.

He was perfect at first, you'd wined at her, tears in those pretty eyes, but then you found the photos he'd taken of you from before you were dating and the eyes of the teddy bear he'd given you turned out to be cameras, so you knew you had to break it off.

Steph only listened, nodding along at the right times, and agreeing with you when you'd said that it was just too much. Inwardly, she couldn't help but scold Tim for getting greedy, soft things needed gentle hands, and Tim was always a little too rough with what he considered his. He'd put his own urges before you, and she's make sure to smack him upside the head for it next time.

It wasn't until you'd woken up the next morning, very much not on the couch you'd passed out on last night, instead in one of Tim's familiar high-rises somewhere in the city, that you began to panic.

Because while you thought you were safe getting drunk with a friend, Steph had never touched the alcohol, instead nursing a can of Zesti.

Zesti was Tim's favorite.

~~~~~~

Steph was ecstatic, watching you struggle against your restraints on the cameras. Tim would figure out where you were soon enough, but she wasn't worried.

He'd given her the key to this apartment a little while ago, since it was closer to Gotham U and she wouldn't have to pay for utilities.

He was sweet like that.

She'd let you out of the restraints when you calmed down, for now content to let you tire yourself out.

She couldn't wait until you realized that it was just her, and Steph would never hurt you.

You must know that, right?

Anyway, taking care of a whole person was hard enough, but juggling your adjustment period (inevitably messy) and her coursework at Gotham University? That would be quite a bit of work, especially considering her night job as Spoiler.

....Well you said Tim was perfect at one point right? And no matter the label they had on their relationship, Steph and him were a little closer than friends, anyway.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have some help with this.

God knew how much Tim had missed you, and she'd be sure to keep him in line this time (no more sneaky panty-huffing, she'd be making sure he took care of you first and foremost.)

When the familiar number flashed across her home screen, she picked up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

yum yum yum yum timsteph x reader yum steph x reader yum

"I don't look in the packages!" You tried to reason as you're pinned to the ground. "I'd get fired! Please!"

He had used caltrops to take out your delivery scooter. Did he think you were going to make a run for it? You couldn't even take that thing on the freeway, it was so slow.

"Never heard that one before," the masked man snickered. The pressure eased off the back of your neck, but you dared not move. You were promptly hauled up by your shoulders.

The man was tall, and lithe, from what you could make out of the shadows. He had a wide grin of perfect, sharp teeth; it was almost more threatening than the arsenal strapped to his person.

"While I can't just take your word for it," Fuck. "I don't think anyone needs to get their legs broken over some fudged order tickets. You mind helping me believe you on this?"

"Yeah. Okay, okay. What do I need to do here?"

"Good." He ruffled your hair. "Go put your hands on the wall. Feet apart"

Right. A search. He was going to see if you had anything incriminating on you, and when he didn't, he was going to let you go. You positioned yourself on the wall.

"Anything I should know about before we start?"

Was cash incriminating?

"I — uh — have cash in my left pocket. Tips from tonight."

He chuckled behind you. "Was that a bribe?"

Shit. "NO. No — I thought — I -I-I… I didn't want you to think it was drug money."

He was laughing in earnest, now. You flinched as a gloved hand clapped down on your shoulder. You kept your hands on the wall. His other hand snaked into your pocket, withdrawing the money. "Fourteen dollars." He patted your shoulder. "If you were a dealer, you'd be in the wrong business." He tucked the bundle back, lingering in your pocket just a moment too long.

He began the search in earnest, after that, sliding his hands over your clothes. You were pretty sure they were supposed to use a patting motion for this, but you were too scared to argue. If letting the vigilante cop a feel got you home safe tonight, so be it. His hands slowed as he lightly grabbed your chest. He smoothed a hand over your stomach, before abruptly shoving it down your pants. You yelped and instinctively tried to back away from the invasion. In no time at all, he had you pinned to the bricks, fingers still feeling around your underwear.

"'M gonna need you to put your hands back on the wall." His breath was hot against your ear.

You wanted to grab his wrist, but a pointed squeeze to your crotch deterred you. You pressed your palms into the cold brick.

"Please hurry. I'm already late." You wanted to scream, but it would only bring more trouble.

"Can't rush justice, I'm afraid." You wouldn't even acknowlege that.

He continued on, stroking, squeezing, and occaisionally prodding you under what clothing he could easily slip past. You bit your tongue and waited for it to be over.

"Alright." He finally backed away. You looked over your shoulder questioningly. "You can get off the wall."

You felt dirty. It made sense; those gloves probably touched every surface in Bludhaven before they graced you. You needed to readjust your… everything you were wearing, but you weren't going to give him the satisfaction of watching you fidget. You forced yourself to stare back into that empty domino mask.

"So, are we good?" You weren't going to risk getting pinned a third time.

"Well," he blew out a low whistle. "I'm afraid not. I can't help but think you're hiding something in there."

He couldn't be serious.

While you hope for him to actually get the message and stop chasing you, he doesn't give up. You manoeuvre your way between the students, steps filled with care and bounce to make you faster.

Careful to not bump against anyone, you frantically search a spot to hide from him, sweat building on top of your skin because of the movements and anxiety to get away from him as soon as possible.

Although you are fast to round the corner, trying to blend with the people as soon as you are out of sight — Dick is a man built for the chase. He weaves through the crowded hallway and students with the ease.

Suddenly, he's a man on a mission, someone who tries to catch you as quickly as possible. He ignores the people around him, calling after him to talk about the party last night or the upcoming party today.

For all he cares, this is a talk for later because his priority one is you at the very moment. He instantly spots you when he turned the corner, eyes locked with your back and seeing how your pace quickened again, his lips curving into a grin.

Do you really expect to outrun him?

Someone who spent half his life performing acrobatics?

Just like you, he picks up the pace again and as soon as he closed the distance, he catches up with you — hand grasping your sleeve, fingers curling around your elbow gently to tug you back.

"Aren't you a fast one?" he pants slightly, amusement a vivid gleam in his eyes.

"Only when I want to get away from... someone." you breathe out and glance behind your shoulder, furrowing your brows slightly in annoyance.

Dick Grayson. In all his glory — not even breaking one sweat, but pretending to pant a bit to pity you. The boy, who has been chasing you since the start of the year for whatever reason.

"Get straight to the point. What do you want?"

He steps into your personal space while an earnest and confident grin forms on his lips. "Since you seem to in such a hurry, I thought I could walk you to the next class." he beams like the sun.

It sounds like a suggestion you could refuse but eventually, it isn't one because he would do it anyways. You twitch, frown etches deep into your face as you continued to stare at him.

"No, thanks." you still try to refuse straightforwardly.

"What?" his face drops into a puppy-eyes one, "are you going to keep treating me like a golden retriever?"

He was, and still is. In all seriousness and honesty and fairness.

You rub your temple to calm yourself down, pinching the bridge of your nose and breathing out again. "You disgust me." you comment at the innocent expression that is supposed to bring in guilt instead of disgust.

Unfortunately for you, it doesn't really faze him. Instead — it amuses him, as he begins to smile at you again. He doesn't try to defend his honour and lets out a delighted, easy chuckle.

"Disgust you, huh? This is a first." he repeats, voice lowered and a mere whisper, enough to make your skin prickle. "I like that."

"Okay, so. Don't word it like this, you make it very weird."

"Only if you donate some of your time to this sad and pathetic and lonely and apparently disgusting puppy."

"Eugh—did you just seriously say that?"

The deadpan turns into a grimace as you take one step back from him, not believing what your ears just took in. Yet that comment makes him chuckle again, the atmosphere between the two of you seems light and friendly, something that actually eases him after all the tension between social circles and drama among the popular students.

Until your time is cut short by a group of boys and girls, who approached him the moment the laid their eyes on him. Their smile and grin are bright, voice boisterous loud, talk long and boring.

"Dick, what's up man—!"

It doesn't take long at all, only a few seconds pass before they're involved in a conversation. His friends drape their arms around Dick's shoulder while the girls hold a respectful distance, only chirpy giggles leaving their lips.

How should you leave? you blink, standing a few inches too close to the center of attention.

The infamous boy is in the middle of a laugh, responding to a joke his friend just made, but he isn't actually listening. His attention seems split, trying to perform the role of the social butterfly the charismatic Dick Grayson. The other half of attention is wondering how he can get out smoothly with you.

You sigh out and let your gaze flicker before they eventually land on one girl. Because she was undeniably pretty — beauty from another world even, on another level.

Warm and angelic smiles that has drawn anyone in who looked into her direction, radiating a soft yet bright aura, gentle and adorable doe eyes. She was dressed the modest, style casual and pretty fitting for her aura she emitted.

Head titling slightly, your gaze goes back and forth between Dick and the girl. If your friends told you right, that girl had a crush on Dick.

You couldn't help but twitch when your gazes clash, noticing how she was staring at you as well. You send her a little smile as soon as she notices how close you stood next to Dick.

Maybe you should leave him at that.

A hum leaves your lips while unfortunately finding yourself amidst the little group, eyes wandering to the open space.

Before you could make an attempt to slip away quietly and unnoticed, Dick doesn't let you — his instincts kick in and he doesn't even have to think about it. For him, it's a reflex as natural as breathing.

His hand subconsciously finds the edge of your shirt, fingers hooking into the fabrics before a firm but gentle tug pulls you back into his orbit. You yelp, quiet enough to not interrupt the ongoing conversation as stumble — back hitting his shoulder lightly.

"Woah there, princess," he murmurs, his voice equally quiet enough that it's almost lost in the chatter of his friends.

"Let go, Grayson." you hiss in annoyance, feeling how your eye starts to twitch because of him.

Dick doesn't pull his hand away though, barely takes in your demand. His grip softens ever so slightly around the edge of your shirt before his hand finds itself behind your lower back.

He turns his head slightly to meet your glare. His lips curve into a bright grin, brighter than the shine of the sun. You frown at that, corner of your lips weighing down.

There's silent challenge in your clash.

Stop gluing yourself to me you narrow your eyes.

Then try to escape his smile looks innocent.

© 2026 kumasakka — do not plagiarize , copy , modify , translate our work ⸝⸝

divider source — @cursed-carmine ⸝⸝

author’s note — bro this idea was a lot better in my head and i just added so unnecessary many elements that aren’t even important imma kms haha ⸝⸝

He knew it.

He knew it.

Everyone said he was delusional.

Everyone said you hated him.

Bruce.

Barbara.

Jason.

All of them.

But look.

Look at this.

Look at you.

You're taking care of him.

His throat tightens.

"You don't have to do that."

His voice comes out weak.

You don't answer.

Just keep cleaning dried blood from his skin.

His eyes burn.

He hates that.

He hates crying.

But God.

He wants to.

You don't know what this means to him.

You don't know.

Months.

Months of hatred.

Months of screaming.

Months of being told you wished he'd die.

Months of watching you shrink away whenever he entered a room.

And now—

This.

Your fingers brush his jaw.

Dick nearly melts.

His entire body goes warm.

His mind immediately begins building castles from sand.

She's coming around.

She's finally coming around.

I knew she would.

I just needed more time.

You touch his face again.

His heartbeat becomes ridiculous.

Fast.

Painful.

Hopeful.

His eyes flutter shut.

Just for a second.

Just to feel it.

Just to pretend.

Because this is what he dreamed about.

Not the kidnapping.

Not the screaming.

Not the locks.

This.

This right here.

You choosing him.

You touching him because you wanted to.

You move closer.

Dick's pulse becomes thunder.

Your hand remains against his cheek.

Your face inches nearer.

His brain stops functioning entirely.

Everything becomes static.

Everything becomes noise.

You're so close.

You're so close.

His lips part.

Disbelief.

Hope.

Terror.

Need.

All mixed together.

Then—

You kiss him.

For a second the world ends.

Literally ends.

Dick forgets how to think.

For one impossible moment he feels seventeen again.

Young.

Stupid.

In love.

His chest hurts so badly he almost laughs.

Because this is real.

This is actually happening.

You kissed him.

You.

Not because he asked.

Not because he begged.

Not because he forced it.

You kissed him.

His entire future rearranges itself instantly.

He can already see it.

Movie nights.

Morning coffee.

Your hand in his.

You laughing.

You smiling.

You loving him.

Finally.

Finally.

Finally—

Your fingers remain against his cheek.

Your forehead almost touching his.

And then you whisper.

"Why didn't you die?"

Everything stops.

No.

Not stops.

Shatters.

Dick stares.

His brain doesn't understand the words.

It hears them.

But refuses them.

Like a computer rejecting corrupted data.

"What?"

His voice cracks.

You don't look angry.

That's the worst part.

You look tired.

Exhausted.

Broken.

Your thumb brushes his cheek again.

Almost lovingly.

"I thought maybe this time you'd die."

Silence.

The room becomes impossibly still.

Dick feels cold.

Suddenly.

Violently cold.

Like someone opened a hole in the universe.

His heartbeat stumbles.

"You kissed me."

The sentence escapes before he can stop it.

Stupid.

Pathetic.

You actually laugh.

Not happily.

Not kindly.

Just tired.

"I wanted to see your face."

The smile falls from him.

Slowly.

Like something dying.

You look directly into his eyes.

No fear.

No hesitation.

No uncertainty.

Just honesty.

Pure honesty.

The thing he's wanted from you most.

"I hate you."

His stomach twists.

"I know."

"You don't."

Your voice is quiet.

"So I wanted you to feel happy for a second."

Every word lands like another knife.

"I wanted you to think I loved you."

His breathing becomes uneven.

"You don't mean that."

Immediately.

Instantly.

His brain rejects reality.

Because that's easier.

Much easier.

You stare at him.

Almost pitying.

Almost.

"I do."

"No."

"You kidnapped me."

"No."

"You destroyed my life."

"No."

"You took everything from me."

"No."

No.

No.

No.

No.

His thoughts become frantic.

Panicked.

He can feel the cracks spreading.

Because somewhere deep down—

Deep, deep down—

He knows you're telling the truth.

And if you're telling the truth...

Then none of this was love.

Not yours.

Not ever.

Your hand leaves his face.

The absence feels like amputation.

"You should've died."

The words are barely above a whisper.

Dick sits frozen.

Unable to move.

Unable to speak.

Watching you walk away.

The bedroom door closes.

And he's left alone on the couch.

Still bleeding.

Still injured.

Still staring at the place where you stood.

His cheek still remembers your touch.

His lips still remember your kiss.

His heart still remembers that single impossible second when he thought he had finally won.

For hours afterward he sits there.

Motionless.

Replaying it.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The kiss.

The smile.

The words.

The hatred.

Until eventually the painkillers wear off.

The injuries start hurting again.

And for the first time since he kidnapped you—

The physical pain is the easier thing to survive.

Whatever brought you to the produce aisle slips cleanly from your mind. You step away from the neat rows of fruit and crisp vegetables, drawn toward him without thinking. You probably should’ve grabbed something, anything, for your basket. It was your responsibility, after all. The cabin cupboards would be bare without your foresight, and cooking had never been your family's strong suit. But all of that feels distant now, rendered insignificant by the unexpected closeness of him.

“I’m just spending a few nights away with my family. Needed a break from Gotham for the weekend,” you say, the explanation slipping out with a faint huff of amusement. You barely manage to stifle a laugh—because of course you’d try to escape Gotham only to run into someone who embodies it so completely. Some things, it seems, cling tighter than distance ever could. Tim nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose, a small, instinctive gesture you recognize immediately. An easy smile curves his mouth, softening the sharp focus he so often wore. The sight loosens something in your chest.

“What about you?” you ask, your voice quieter now.

You and Tim were never close in high school. Different circles. He’d been the quiet, brilliant presence tucked behind a laptop or a tower of textbooks, and you—well, you’d spent those years trying not to draw attention in a school where everything felt too expensive, too carefully curated to ever feel welcoming. You’d shared the same halls, orbited the same space, without ever truly colliding. It wasn’t until university that your worlds finally collided. Somehow, by sheer cosmic accident or the universe’s questionable sense of humour, Tim Drake ended up in nearly every one of your classes. After years of never so much as brushing shoulders in high school, he was suddenly everywhere: a row ahead of you, the desk beside yours, offering a quiet nod or a small smile whenever your eyes met.

Your opinion of him shifted gradually, almost without you noticing.

If someone had asked you the day before university began what you thought of Tim Drake, you would’ve pictured the tall, handsome, undeniably brilliant boy from high school—and nothing beyond that. No strong opinions or lingering impressions. Just a sharp-edged presence who moved through the halls like a ghost with perfect grades. But the boy you remembered and the man you came to know were not the same. Where you’d once assumed distance and quiet mystery, you found instead an awkward, gentle warmth. A man who listened more than he spoke, who smiled softly when a joke landed a beat late, who pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose every time he grew flustered. And the angles of him—God, the angles. Time had sharpened them, his frame filling out just enough that when summer came and he dared to wear T-shirts to class, his toned arms were impossible to ignore. The butterflies were new. It felt absurd to experience that magnetic pull toward someone you’d barely looked twice at just a few years earlier. He hadn’t been unattractive back then—far from it. You just hadn’t been interested. Not until he stopped being an idea of a person and became the real thing: complicated, quietly charming, and standing right in front of you.

Tim shrugs lightly, the motion snapping you back to the present. “Touché.”

He guides his cart a few steps forward to clear the aisle as a couple squeezes past, the wheels clicking softly against the linoleum. When he settles again, he’s closer—near enough that you’re suddenly aware of the space between you, or rather, the lack of it.

“It’s been a while since we talked, since break started,” he says, offering that small, earnest smile again. “What have you been up to? It’s nice seeing someone from our class.”

It isn’t exactly an answer to your question—but the clumps of snow melting into his jacket seams and scattered through his cart say enough. He must be here for the same reason you are: to breathe air that isn’t thick with Gotham’s noise. A quiet escape.

“God, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” you say, keeping your tone light, easy—the practised softness of casual conversation. It isn’t awkward, not really. You’re just… inelegant when things veer unexpectedly personal. Before you can cringe at yourself, something else slips free. “Did I mention you look good? I mean—uh—what have you been up to?”

For a heartbeat, something flickers across his face. It isn’t the reaction you expect. It’s something sharper, something that lands low in your gut with an instinctive jolt of unease. His lips twitch, just barely, the ghost of a smirk. There’s a fleeting, almost triumphant glint in his eyes, a look that feels like confirmation. Like he’s just proven something to himself. Something you were never meant to notice.

Then it’s gone.

Wiped clean so quickly you almost doubt it was ever there at all. Blink, and he’s Tim again: polite, mild, harmless. Familiar. You tell yourself it’s exhaustion, the long drive, the shift in scenery, the mental fog settling in like static. It’s Tim. You’ve known him for years.

“Thanks—and nothing much,” he says easily. “Just work for me too. Finally got a bit of free time, so I figured I’d get away for a while.” His tone is casual, almost breezy, but something about it feels deliberate—too smooth, too carefully sanded down. Before you can pull the thread, another shopper shoulders past, casting you both an irritated look for clogging the produce aisle, as if your quiet catching up is an unforgivable obstacle to their urgent vegetable-related mission. You take the hint, lips stretching into a small, apologetic smile. “I get that. Anyway—I should probably finish up before the others get here and empty the pantry with junk food. It was nice seeing you, Tim.”

His answering smile comes easily, practised warmth softening the sharp lines of his face. His arms uncross, hands dropping to his sides as he shakes his head lightly. “Nice seeing you too. Have fun at the cabin—and don’t get caught in the blizzard.”

You dip your head in acknowledgement, already stepping away, retreating toward the next aisle. But before you turn fully, you glance back and offer one last smile. And then you’re gone, leaving behind the faint, unsettling sense that something just passed between you—something unnoticed… and very much not accidental.

It’s noon, technically.

The clock on the microwave insists on it, glowing a stubborn 12:07 PM, but outside the cabin windows the sky has already collapsed into something dark and heavy, clouds bruised purple-Gray and rolling low over the trees. Snow drifts sideways past the glass, thick and relentless, blurring the world into a smothered white hush. The phone call comes just as the kettle begins to scream. You fumble to answer, cradling the phone between shoulder and ear while you reach for a mug. Your mother’s voice crackles through the line, strained, apologetic. It turns out something had stalled them on the way to the cabin. A burst tire. Everyone’s safe, no injuries, but the car’s been towed miles away, and the parts they need are delayed because of the storm. They won’t be coming. Not today and certainly not tomorrow. A few days, at least. They try to reassure you over the phone, voices light despite the strain beneath it. They’ll figure something out, get there another way if they can, make the most of the holiday anyway.

“Oh,” you say, stupidly, as if that single syllable might rearrange reality. You reassure them, promise you’ll be fine, that the cabin’s stocked and warm and—

The call ends with a soft click, the screen going dark in your hand. For a moment, you just stand there, phone still pressed to your ear, as if the conversation might resume on its own if you wait long enough. It doesn’t.

The kettle continues to shriek on the stove, sharp and insistent, cutting through the sudden quiet like a reprimand. You flinch and reach for it, shutting it off a little harder than necessary. The sound dies abruptly, leaving behind a ringing silence that makes your ears ache. You pour the water into your mug, the stream unsteady. Your hand trembles—only slightly, just enough that you notice. Tea sloshes dangerously close to the rim, steam curling up around your face, fogging your vision for a second. You manage not to spill, though it’s a near thing. A single drop splashes onto the counter, darkening the wood.

Alone, then.

The word settles heavily in your chest.

Not alone alone—you remind yourself of that quickly, stubbornly. Your family is coming. They’re just… late. Delayed. Stuck an hour out, according to the last text you’d received before the signal began to waver. Roads are closing fast, the storm swallowing everything in its path. You’d volunteered to come up early, to unlock the cabin, start the heat, make it feel lived-in before everyone arrived. It had seemed harmless at the time. Responsible, even.

You cradle the mug between your hands, letting the warmth seep into your palms, and drift toward the window. Outside, the snow comes down thick and sideways, driven by a wind that bends the trees until they creak and groan in protest. Branches sway like dark, skeletal arms against the bruised sky, their shadows stretching and distorting across the glass. The cabin answers in kind—soft pops and groans as the wood settles, adjusting to the cold. The sounds are normal. Expected. And yet each one lands a little too loud, a little too close, in the hollow quiet that follows the call. You take a sip of tea, barely tasting it. You’re halfway through the mug when the knock comes.

Three firm raps against the door.

Your stomach drops, a cold weight sinking low and sharp.

Don’t be ridiculous, you tell yourself immediately. This is a cabin in the middle of a snowstorm, not the opening scene of a horror movie. There are reasonable explanations. A ranger checking on occupied cabins. One of your family members who managed to get closer than expected before the roads worsened. Still, your grip tightens around the mug as you turn toward the door, heart beating just a little too fast.

"Tim?"

The name escaped you in a breath of unmistakable relief, the tension that had been coiled tightly beneath your ribs easing almost instantly as recognition settled over you. Surprise coloured your voice as you stared at the man standing on your doorstep, and for a brief moment all the unease that had accompanied the unexpected knock at your isolated cabin simply melted away. It was only Tim. Familiar, trusted, and entirely out of place in the middle of nowhere, but nevertheless a far more welcome sight than any of the possibilities your imagination had conjured in the seconds before opening the door.

"Hey."

His response was accompanied by a small smile, his tone carrying an almost absurd level of calm considering the circumstances. There was something remarkably casual about the way he greeted you, as though the two of you had happened to run into one another while shopping for groceries rather than meeting on the porch of a remote cabin during a winter storm.

Snow dusted his dark hair and shoulders, tiny white flakes still caught in the fabric of his coat despite the shelter provided by the overhang above. The cold had painted his cheeks a vivid shade of red, the colour stark against skin that was already pale from the freezing weather. A thick winter coat concealed most of his frame, hiding the details of his physique beneath layers of dark fabric, but it did little to disguise the athletic build underneath. Tim had never been particularly imposing in terms of sheer size, yet there was a quiet strength to him that years of training had etched into the shape of his body. It was clear he worked out. Even beneath the heavy coat, you could still make out the broadness of his shoulders and the subtle definition of muscle beneath the fabric if you looked closely enough.

"What are you doing out here?" you asked, your voice noticeably steadier now that the initial shock had worn off.

The smile lingering on his face widened slightly before he answered. It came easily to him, softening the naturally sharp angles of his features and lending him the kind of approachable warmth he usually held towards you. Yet now that you were actually looking at him rather than simply reacting to his presence, you noticed something beneath that easy charm. The confidence he had displayed when the door first opened seemed to falter ever so slightly, replaced by a faint nervousness that revealed itself through small, almost imperceptible movements. His hands dropped from where they had been tucked against his body, his posture opening up as though he were unconsciously trying to appear less threatening. The shift was subtle enough that most people likely wouldn't have noticed it, but it was there all the same.

"My car broke down a little way down the road," he explained, glancing over his shoulder toward the snow-covered stretch of forest behind him. "I couldn't get any signal, so I figured I'd keep walking until I found somewhere."

For a brief second, the smile on his face seemed oddly misplaced. There was something almost pleased about it, a flicker of an expression that didn't quite align with the story he was telling. The feeling was gone so quickly that you almost convinced yourself you had imagined it. An apologetic smile replaced it a moment later, softer and more natural, settling comfortably across his features. "Pretty ironic that it ended up being your place, huh?" His laugh was quiet, accompanied by a small shake of his head as snow continued to drift down around him. Standing there beneath the porch light, framed by darkness and falling snow, he looked every bit like someone who had stumbled across the cabin by sheer chance. Yet something about the coincidence felt almost too unlikely, even if you couldn't quite explain why.

His hands fell to his sides as he shook his head slightly, sending a scattering of snowflakes from his dark hair. The movement drew your attention immediately, your gaze lingering for a moment on the melting droplets caught amongst the unruly strands. Up close, he looked even colder than you had first realised. The tips of his ears were red from the wind, and there was a stiffness to the way he held himself that suggested he had been outside for far longer than was comfortable.

"Anyways," he said, offering another small smile, "sorry to ask, but would you mind if I stayed here until the signal comes back?"

The question snapped you from the dazed state you had found yourself drifting into since opening the door. Your mind seemed to stumble over itself trying to catch up with the situation, and you quickly stepped aside to make room for him. "Oh! Yeah, of course. Sorry—come in. Let me get you a towel." The words came out in a rush as you ushered him inside, suddenly aware that you had left him standing out in the freezing weather while you stared at him in disbelief. As soon as he crossed the threshold, a gust of cold air followed him into the cabin before the door swung shut behind him, cutting off the howling wind outside.

You took his coat as he shrugged out of it, hanging the heavy, damp garment by the entrance before hurrying down the hallway towards the linen closet. Your movements felt clumsy, driven more by instinct than thought as you rummaged through the shelves in search of spare towels. It wasn't difficult to justify your concern. Tim looked half-frozen, and the last thing you needed was for him to come down with a cold while stranded out here. Being snowed in with a sick classmate in the middle of nowhere, with no phone signal and limited access to help, sounded like exactly the sort of situation you wanted to avoid if possible. By the time you returned to the living room, Tim had settled himself on the couch. He sat with an ease that suggested he was trying not to inconvenience you, despite the fact that melting snow had already begun dripping from his clothes onto the wooden floorboards beneath him.

"Sorry about the mess," he said, glancing down at the damp footprints and small puddles trailing behind him. There was a hint of embarrassment in his voice, accompanied by a sheepish smile.

You dismissed the concern with a wave of your hand.

"It's fine. Trust me, the floors will survive." The reassurance seemed to ease whatever lingering guilt he felt, and he relaxed slightly against the cushions. Outside, the storm continued to rage against the cabin walls, wind rattling the windows and sending snow swirling through the darkness beyond the glass. Just to be safe, you grabbed a few extra towels before heading back into the living room. The trail of melted snow stretching from the front door to the couch wasn't particularly dramatic, but it was enough to make you nervous. The cabin wasn't yours, after all, and if the owners decided to charge an additional fee because water had soaked into the floorboards, your parents would never let you hear the end of it. It wouldn't matter that a snowstorm was currently burying the entire area under several inches of snow or that you had unexpectedly found yourself sheltering a stranded classmate for the night. Somehow, they would still find a way to make the conversation about responsibility and property damage.

With that thought in mind, you set about drying the floor, following the damp footprints and small puddles left in Tim's wake. The task gave you something practical to focus on, which was a relief after the strange whirlwind his appearance had thrown you into. Outside, the storm continued to batter the cabin, the wind occasionally rattling the windows hard enough to draw your attention. Inside, however, everything felt warm and oddly peaceful. The fire crackled quietly, filling the room with a comforting glow, while Tim sat on the couch behind you, the simple presence of another person making the cabin feel considerably less isolated than it had only half an hour ago.

By the time you reached the last traces of water, you had gradually worked your way closer to where he was sitting. Kneeling beside the couch, you focused on wiping away the final damp marks from the wood, only for the sound of Tim clearing his throat to draw your attention upwards. The movement was automatic. Before you could stop yourself, your gaze lifted from the floorboards and settled on him.

Immediately, that familiar fluttering sensation returned.

From this angle, he looked annoyingly attractive. The warmth of the cabin had softened some of the harsh effects of the cold, leaving a faint flush lingering across his cheeks that contrasted against the paleness of his skin. His hoodie, borrowed from the collection of clothes he'd brought for the trip, stretched across shoulders that seemed broader than you remembered, the fabric outlining the shape of his frame in a way that made it difficult not to stare. Tim had never been the kind of person who deliberately drew attention to his appearance, but there was something almost unfair about how effortlessly put together he always seemed. Even after being stranded in a snowstorm and arriving at your cabin soaked through, he somehow still managed to look good.

Your attention drifted higher, settling on his hair. Usually it was kept at least somewhat neat, pushed back enough to keep it from falling into his eyes, but the weather had thoroughly ruined that effort. Damp strands hung loosely across his forehead, darker than usual from the moisture. Tiny droplets of water still clung to them despite the towel you'd given him earlier, and without meaning to, you found yourself following one as it slid downward. The droplet traced a slow path from his hairline, moving across the curve of his cheek before continuing lower. When it finally caught briefly against his lips, reflecting the warm light from the lamp beside him, your gaze lingered for a second longer than it should have.

Far longer than it should have, actually.

The realization didn't fully hit until his eyes lifted and met yours. Heat immediately rushed into your face as awareness crashed back into place. You had been staring. Not absentmindedly looking in his direction. Staring. There was no way around it. Your mouth opened as you scrambled for something to say, some completely normal explanation that would make the last several seconds disappear from existence, but before you could form a single coherent word, the sharp whistle of the kettle suddenly cut through the room. The sound startled you both, though you were fairly certain your reaction was stronger. Relief flooded through you so quickly it was almost embarrassing. Right. The kettle. You had completely forgotten about it after the knock at the door, the water probably having sat boiling for several minutes while your brain occupied itself with far less productive matters.

Clearing your throat, you pushed yourself upright and brushed your hands against your knees, focusing perhaps a little too intently on the now spotless floorboards. "Well, that's the floor sorted," you said, gesturing vaguely towards the area you'd just cleaned before turning in the direction of the kitchen. The comment felt absurdly mundane after the awkwardness of the last few moments, but perhaps that was exactly why you clung to it. Normal conversation was significantly easier to handle than whatever had just happened.

Pausing at the entrance to the kitchen, you glanced back over your shoulder at him. "Do you want tea?" you asked, grateful to finally have something else to focus on besides the fact that you'd nearly been caught admiring your classmate from two feet away.

Arguably, looking at him from above was even worse. From the couch, Tim had looked attractive enough, but standing over him only seemed to highlight every detail your brain insisted on focusing on. Damp strands of dark hair hung across his forehead and occasionally dipped in front of his eyes, no longer styled into the neat, controlled appearance he usually maintained. The remnants of melted snow still clung stubbornly to him despite the warmth of the cabin, tiny droplets visible along his skin as it melted and caught in the ends of his hair. Combined with the faint flush lingering across his cheeks from the cold, it gave him an oddly dishevelled appearance that should have made him look worse. Instead, it somehow had the opposite effect. There was something distinctly unfair about it. The entire look gave him the appearance of a soaked stray cat that had wandered in from the storm, and you were entirely certain there were people on campus who would lose their minds over it. Considering how many people already found Tim attractive under normal circumstances, seeing him looking like this would probably be enough to cause an incident.

"Tea would be nice."

The sound of his voice pulled you from your thoughts before they could become any more embarrassing. You nodded a little too quickly and turned towards the kitchen, grateful for the opportunity to put several walls between yourself and whatever was currently happening to your common sense. The warmth lingering in your face hadn't faded in the slightest, and you were becoming increasingly concerned that it was far more obvious than you wanted it to be. Leaving Tim in the living room, you crossed into the kitchen and immediately abandoned all pretence of composure.

The moment you were out of sight, you leaned forward against the sink and squeezed your eyes shut. Reaching for the tap, you ran cold water over your hands before splashing some across your face. The chill immediately cut through the lingering heat, and you stayed there for a few seconds longer than necessary, staring down into the sink as water dripped from your chin. It was nothing. Seriously, it was nothing. You were snowed in at an isolated cabin with one of the most objectively attractive people you knew. Anyone would be having a slightly unusual reaction under the circumstances. Cabin fever was probably a real thing. If it wasn't, it should be. There was no reason to read into any of this beyond being stuck in a confined space with a classmate who happened to be annoyingly good-looking.

Satisfied with that explanation, or at least willing to accept it for the time being, you straightened up and focused your attention on making the tea.

The process was familiar enough that it required very little thought. You retrieved a second mug from the cupboard before dropping tea bags into both cups, following them with sugar. The kettle was still hot from boiling, and the steady stream of water filled the mugs with a comforting hiss of steam. After allowing the tea to brew for a minute, you removed the bags and added milk, watching the colour shift from dark amber to a softer brown as you stirred. The routine was simple, repetitive, and reassuring. There was something comforting about following familiar steps when everything else felt slightly off balance. Measuring sugar, stirring the tea, lining the spoons neatly beside the mugs; each small action gave your mind something tangible to focus on. By the time you finished, the frantic embarrassment that had sent you fleeing from the living room had dulled into something far more manageable.

At the very least, making tea gave your hands something to do other than stare at Tim Drake.

You had calmed considerably by the time you returned to the living room with the mugs balanced carefully in your hands. The short retreat to the kitchen had given you the opportunity to collect yourself, and the familiar routine of making tea had done wonders for settling your nerves. At the very least, you no longer felt as though every glance in Tim's direction was capable of completely short-circuiting your ability to think.

"Here," you said, passing one of the mugs over.

Tim accepted it with an appreciative smile, his fingers curling around the ceramic almost immediately as he welcomed the warmth. You smiled back automatically, but as your eyes met his, something caught your attention. It lasted only a fraction of a second before disappearing, replaced by his usual easy expression, yet you were almost certain you had seen it. There had been a strange glint in his eyes, something that looked remarkably like satisfaction. Not arrogance or smugness, but the quiet, private sort of triumph someone might feel after succeeding at something they had invested a great deal of effort into. The expression was so out of place that it left you momentarily confused, and by the time you had properly registered it, it was already gone. Deciding you were probably reading too much into things, you lowered yourself into the armchair opposite him and wrapped both hands around your own mug. "So much for getting away from Gotham, right?" you joked, gesturing vaguely towards him with the cup.

A laugh escaped him, soft and genuine. "Apparently not."

The conversation fell into a comfortable lull after that. The fire crackled steadily in the hearth, filling the room with warmth that contrasted sharply with the storm still raging beyond the windows. Snow continued to strike the glass in intermittent bursts whenever the wind picked up, but from inside the cabin it felt distant and strangely peaceful. You took a sip of your tea and allowed yourself to relax into the cushions, enjoying the warmth spreading through your hands.

"Thanks, by the way," Tim said after a moment. "You left your cup over there."

You blinked before following the direction of his gaze. Sure enough, your original mug sat abandoned on the small table beside the window.

"Oh."

A quiet laugh escaped you as you shook your head.

"Thanks. I honestly don't even remember putting it there."

Considering how distracted you had been since the moment Tim had first knocked on your door, it really should not have come as a surprise that you had managed to misplace something as simple as your own mug. Your thoughts had been scattered in every direction at once ever since opening that door, constantly catching on the storm outside, the unexpected arrival of a classmate, and the uncomfortable awareness of just how isolated the two of you were in the middle of it all. If Tim had not casually pointed it out, there was a very real chance you would have gone through the rest of the evening without even noticing its absence, only to eventually find it hours later and feel mildly defeated by your own absent-mindedness.

You retrieved the mug without much fuss and settled back into your seat, allowing yourself to sink into the cushion as the warmth of the drink gradually settled into your hands. The silence that followed was not uncomfortable in the slightest. It sat easily between you both, softened by the crackle of the fire and the distant, persistent presence of the storm outside, which now felt more like a backdrop than a threat. There was something unexpectedly grounding about it, about simply sharing a room with another person without the need to fill every pause with conversation, especially after having spent so much of the day alone in the quiet of the cabin.

Eventually, however, Tim spoke again, his voice cutting gently through the stillness.

“Did you say you and your family were staying here?”

The question pulled your attention back with ease, and for a moment your mind was transported to earlier that afternoon, to the supermarket aisles filled with bright lights and neatly stacked produce, where the conversation had seemed so casual and unremarkable. At the time, it had been nothing more than passing small talk between two people comparing holiday plans without any real significance. Now, however, it felt strangely distant, almost as though it belonged to a different version of the day entirely, one that had not yet been disrupted by snowstorms and stranded cars.

“Oh, right,” you said after a brief pause, shifting slightly in your seat as you adjusted the mug against your knees. The heat from it grounded you as you briefly searched through the chain of events in your mind, trying to make sense of how quickly everything had unravelled into the current situation. “Yeah. Funnily enough, they got caught in the blizzard too.”

A soft laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it, more from disbelief than humour, as the absurdity of it all settled more firmly in your thoughts. “We were supposed to meet up here a couple of days ago, but the weather completely ruined those plans. Last I heard, they were stuck further down the mountain waiting for the roads to reopen.” You shook your head slightly, staring into the surface of your tea as if it might offer some kind of explanation for the situation. “Honestly, at this point I am starting to think this entire trip was cursed from the beginning.”

“It’s the opposite for me,” Tim replied after a brief pause, his tone shifting into something a little lighter as he adjusted his posture on the couch. He sat up slightly straighter, as though unconsciously mirroring the way you had settled in, giving you his full attention in a way that felt unexpectedly deliberate. There was an easy attempt at humour in the way he continued, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as he added that, if anything, he was glad you were here, because otherwise he would have likely frozen to death in the storm outside. The joke was light enough to pass on the surface, but there was a steadiness in his voice underneath it that made you pause without quite knowing why. It was not the kind of statement that sounded entirely casual, even if it was dressed up as one. For a second, the weight of it lingered in the air between you, softened only by the crackle of the fire and the warmth of the room around you.

In response, you found yourself relaxing further into the cushions of the sofa, your body sinking more fully into the unfamiliar softness as the tension you had been carrying without realising began to ease. The material still had a slightly scratchy texture against your clothes, something you had noticed when you first sat down, but now it barely registered at all. Your muscles loosened as you exhaled slowly, letting the comfort of the moment settle in properly for the first time since he had arrived. The tea had cooled considerably now, no longer steaming as it had been when you first made it, but instead sitting at a lukewarm warmth that was still comforting enough to hold between your hands. Nevertheless, your hands made up for the lack of warmth, wrapped firmly around the mug as you let its residual heat seep into your palms. The cabin itself was comfortably warm now, the fire doing more than enough to counteract the storm still raging outside, and you found yourself beginning to feel almost too warm in your own clothes. The thick sweater you had thrown on earlier suddenly felt heavier than necessary, clinging slightly as the heat built beneath it, and you became increasingly aware of the faint discomfort of it sticking to your skin. It occurred to you, distantly and without much urgency, that you probably should have taken it off earlier. The combination of the fire, the tea, and the enclosed space had turned the room into something bordering on stifling, and you shifted slightly on the couch in an attempt to get more comfortable. A thin layer of warmth had gathered beneath the fabric, enough that you could feel the beginnings of sweat at your back and collar, and the thought alone was enough to make you consider finally shedding the extra layer.

You glanced at Tim properly then and offered a small smile, one that came more naturally than the earlier awkward ones had. “What are friends for?” you said, lifting your mug slightly before taking another sip.

If you had been paying closer attention, you might have noticed the way Tim went quiet for a fraction of a second too long. There was a brief stillness in his expression, something unreadable passing across his face before it smoothed itself out again. A faint twitch at the corner of his mouth suggested the beginning of something different from his usual smile, something that he quickly settled into place as though correcting himself.

“Yeah,” he agreed after a beat, his tone perfectly even once more. “What are friends for.”

You had just been on the edge of excusing yourself when exhaustion finally settled over you properly, no longer something you could ignore or outpace. It arrived all at once, heavy and insistent, as though the long day had simply been waiting for a moment of stillness to collapse into you. You had already begun forming the words in your head, something about needing to lie down for a while and letting Tim keep the couch until the blizzard passed, when your phone suddenly rang out in your pocket. The sound startled you more than it should have. You fumbled for it quickly, pulling it out and squinting at the screen as the name of your mother lit up in the dim light of the room. The timing felt oddly relentless, as though the world outside the cabin had decided it could not stop interrupting you. You glanced from the phone to Tim, offering him an apologetic look as you lifted it slightly in explanation.

“I’ll be a few minutes,” you said as he nodded, his expression attentive. His voice followed you softly, telling you to take your time, but you were already ready to get up to move toward the corridor, phone pressed to your ear but it was only when you pushed yourself up from the couch that something in your body shifted sharply. The movement, so simple and ordinary, seemed to tilt the world in a way it shouldn’t have. Dizziness washed over you in an uneven wave, sudden enough that your vision fractured at the edges, dark spots blooming across your sight like ink spreading through water. You reached out instinctively, your hand catching the arm of the sofa to steady yourself, and for a brief moment everything seemed to narrow into the pressure of your palm against fabric and wood.

Behind you, you could hear Tim shifting, the faint rustle of movement suggesting he had stood up or was about to, concern likely pulling him forward before you quickly lifted a hand in his direction without turning fully around. “I’m fine,” you managed, though your voice came out thinner than intended. “I just stood up too fast.” It wasn’t entirely convincing, even to you, but the sensation began to ebb just enough for you to convince yourself it was manageable. You forced your breathing to steady and continued toward the corridor, each step feeling slightly more deliberate than the last as you focused on the phone still pressed to your ear.

“Hey, Mom, what’s going on?” you asked, attempting a tone of casual normality as you reached the front of the cabin.

Her response came through slightly distorted by the line, but clear enough to make you pause mid-step.

“We’re just outside the cabin, honey. I don’t see any lights on. Did the blizzard knock the power out?”

A short laugh left you almost automatically, born more from disbelief than humour, and you shook your head as you reached for the door. “You need to get your eyes checked,” you replied lightly, though there was a faint strain beneath it now that you couldn’t quite place. “The porch light is literally on.”

Your hand closed around the door handle and turned it, the lock giving way with a familiar click as you pulled the door open. The moment it swung outward, the storm hit you like a physical force. Cold air surged into the cabin, sharp and immediate, cutting through the warmth and pressing against your skin with an intensity that stole the breath from your lungs. Snow-laden wind rushed past you, carrying with it the soundless weight of the blizzard, and for a moment you simply stood there in the threshold, bracing yourself against the frame as your body reacted to the sudden temperature shift. But something was wrong. Not just cold, not just wind, but a deeper, more unsettling sensation spreading through you as though your body was no longer responding properly to your commands. Your limbs felt distant, as if they belonged to someone else, the strength draining out of them in a way that made no logical sense. The sensation crept upward through your legs and into your chest, numbing rather than weakening, leaving you suspended in an uncomfortable state of detachment.

You tried to focus your eyes beyond the doorway, searching for the familiar outline of the porch, the road beyond it, anything that confirmed the world was still as it should be. Instead, there was only darkness and shifting white, the storm swallowing every recognizable shape and replacing it with endless, chaotic movement.

“Mom?” you called again, but the word felt strange leaving your mouth, distant even to your own ears.

The phone remained pressed to your hand, but your grip on it felt uncertain, your fingers slow to respond as though they were losing coordination one joint at a time. The last thing you registered clearly was the overwhelming sense that something fundamental had shifted beneath you, that the ground was no longer entirely where it should be.

Then the world tilted without warning.

You never felt yourself hit the floor.

You blinked awake slowly, consciousness surfacing through a haze so thick and oppressive that for several long moments you couldn't properly distinguish dream from reality. For a fleeting moment, exhaustion tries to make itself known once more, you found yourself fighting the overwhelming urge to simply close your eyes again. The bed beneath you was warm, the mattress soft, and the heavy comforter draped across both of your bodies seemed determined to pull you back beneath the surface of consciousness. Everything felt distant as though there was cotton packed behind your eyes and beneath your skin. Your thoughts came sluggishly, dragging themselves into coherence one at a time while you stared unfocused at the ceiling above you. A loose strand of hair had fallen across your face at some point, brushing irritatingly against your cheek, and instinctively you tried to lift a hand to move it. The command left your mind but seemed to die somewhere before reaching your muscles. Confused, you tried again, concentrating harder this time, willing your arm to move, willing your fingers to curl, but the effort yielded the same result. Your body felt impossibly heavy, every limb weighed down by a strange numbness that left you feeling disconnected from yourself. A slow pulse of unease began to spread through your chest as you stared upward, struggling to understand why something as simple as moving suddenly felt beyond your ability.

The sensation of a hand against your face finally dragged your attention away from your own body. Warm fingers rested gently against your cheek, the touch soft enough that for a moment your exhausted mind accepted it without question. It wasn't until several seconds later that realization arrived. The hand wasn't yours. Those fingers belonged to someone else entirely. A cold knot formed in your stomach at the discovery, and although every instinct immediately urged you to pull away, to recoil from the unfamiliar touch and put distance between yourself and whoever had placed their hand on you, your body remained stubbornly still. You couldn't even turn your head. All you could do was lie there and feel the weight of the palm against your skin while your pulse gradually began to accelerate beneath it. Awareness came in pieces after that. First the warmth pressed against your side, then the unmistakable weight of another body partially draped over your own, a head was buried against your shoulder, tucked comfortably into the space between your neck and collarbone as though it belonged there, one arm was looped securely around your waist beneath the blankets while a pair of long legs had been carelessly thrown over yours, effectively trapping you beneath their weight. The realization settled over you slowly but completely, each detail making the situation clearer than the last. Someone was lying on top of you, someone had been lying on top of you long before you woke up.

"I missed you."

The words were spoken directly into your skin, muffled by the curve of your neck. Warm breath ghosted across your throat as the voice vibrated softly against your shoulder. Under different circumstances the confession might have sounded affectionate. Sweet, even. Instead, the words settled heavily in your stomach.

"Bruce would've noticed me missing from patrol," Tim continued, speaking with the casual ease of someone discussing the weather. "But I was clearly distracted." There was a subtle shift against you as he spoke. You felt it more than saw it, the faint movement of his jaw against your shoulder and the slight adjustment of his weight as he settled more comfortably against you. His voice softened further when he spoke again, losing some of its amusement and becoming something quieter, more thoughtful.

"It's fine if he comes by. We won't be here."

Until that moment, confusion had still lingered around the edges of your thoughts, clouding your understanding of what was happening. Those few words shattered whatever remained. Panic arrived all at once. It surged through your chest so violently that it nearly made you nauseous, your heartbeat slamming against your ribs hard enough to hurt. The implications crashed together inside your mind with horrifying clarity. You wanted to sit up, to shove him away, to demand what he meant and where he intended to take you. Instead, your body remained motionless beneath him, every desperate command ignored by numb, uncooperative limbs. The helplessness of it was almost unbearable.

Tim, meanwhile, seemed perfectly content. If he noticed the change in your breathing or the way your pulse had begun racing beneath his touch, he gave no indication of it. Slowly, almost lazily, he shifted closer. It shouldn't have been possible considering how little space remained between your bodies already, yet somehow he managed it. The hand resting against your cheek slid away only to travel lower, fingers tracing along the line of your jaw before settling against the side of your neck. His palm curved there naturally, thumb resting beneath your ear while the rest of his hand spread across the opposite side. It wasn't a threatening grip, that was what made it so unsettling. It was the kind of touch that suggested he simply expected to be allowed to hold you this way. The room was silent enough that you could hear everything. The slow rhythm of his breathing and the faint rustle of fabric whenever he shifted. The steady beat of his heart somewhere against your side and time seemed to stretch unnaturally, every second dragging into the next until it felt impossible to measure. Without meaning to, you found yourself counting anyway, one second, then another, then another. The numbers became something to cling to amidst the panic threatening to consume you whole. Somewhere during that endless stretch of silence, you became aware of how dry your mouth felt. Your tongue seemed strangely heavy, unfamiliar in a way that made speaking feel impossibly complicated. Even so, you tried. You forced your lips apart and struggled to form words, desperate to ask a question, to demand an explanation, to say anything at all. The effort produced nothing but a weak, broken sound that barely resembled speech.

The arm around your waist tightened ever so slightly. The hand at your neck shifted too, his thumb brushing slowly against your skin in a gesture that might have been comforting if it didn't make your stomach turn. You kept your gaze fixed stubbornly ahead, staring at some indistinct point beyond the room because you couldn't bring yourself to look down. You already knew what you would find if you did. You could feel his attention on you with an almost physical certainty. It lingered heavily against your skin. The thought alone made your chest tighten because deep down you knew that if you gathered enough courage to lower your gaze, if you finally forced yourself to look at him, you would find Tim already staring directly back at you. "It's fine, you don't need to say anything." His voice was soft, almost unbearably gentle almost as if carrying the careful cadence of someone attempting to soothe a frightened animal. Under different circumstances it might have worked. Instead, every syllable seemed to settle beneath your skin like a splinter. The warmth of his breath brushed against your throat as he spoke, and the proximity made it impossible to ignore how completely he had surrounded you. The blankets, the weight of him, the arm still wrapped around your waist, everything combined into a suffocating reminder that there was nowhere for you to go. Even the comfort of the bed had become something oppressive. "Even if you did, it wouldn't matter." The words were accompanied by the faintest trace of amusement. You couldn't see his face, but you could hear it in his voice and feel it in the subtle movement against your shoulder. It was as though he had shared a private joke with himself.

"Honestly, I feel like you could say anything to me and I'd find a way to love you for it."

For a moment your mouth parted on instinct. A response rose automatically, driven by panic and disbelief, only to die before it could take shape. There was something disturbingly sincere about it, something that made it impossible to dismiss as a joke or an exaggeration. He wasn't trying to convince you. He sounded as though he were simply stating a fact he had accepted long ago.

"You're so beautiful."

The words emerged so quietly that you almost didn't hear it. They felt less like part of a conversation and more like a thought that had slipped free without permission. His attention remained fixed entirely on you, you could feel it as surely as you could feel the arm around your waist. The silence that followed seemed to stretch endlessly. Your pulse thundered in your ears while tears gathered slowly at the corners of your eyes. You hadn't even realized they were there at first, one moment your vision was merely blurred by exhaustion, and the next there was a sharp sting behind your eyelids, pressure building until it became impossible to ignore. You blinked hard, trying to force it away, but the effort only made the tears swell further, fear sat heavy in your chest, tangled together with helplessness and exhaustion until you could no longer distinguish where one feeling ended and the next began. You didn't want to cry. More than that, you didn't want him to see it. Yet the tears continued gathering anyway, betraying you as thoroughly as your own body already had. The room seemed distant and unreal around the edges, narrowed down to the space occupied by the weight of his body. Every instinct screamed at you to do something, to move, to push him away, to make him understand that this wasn't right. But your limbs remained heavy, your thoughts sluggish beneath the lingering fog clouding your mind. Even speaking felt impossibly difficult.

Still, somehow, you managed it. The words clawed their way upward from somewhere deep inside you, rough and uneven from disuse. Your throat burned with the effort. "I don't— stop." Three small words spoken in a voice so weak it barely sounded like your own. The tears finally spilled over as soon as they left your mouth, warm tracks slid down your cheeks while your vision blurred completely. The effort of speaking had drained what little strength you possessed, but the terror remained, lodged firmly beneath your ribs. Yet even as the words hung between you, fragile and trembling in the silence, a terrible uncertainty settled over you. Because nothing in his tone, nothing in his behaviour, suggested that your refusal would change anything at all. It didn't change anything. If anything, the words seemed to draw Tim closer, as though your refusal had only reinforced something in his mind. He pressed himself further into your space, burying his face against your neck until his breath fanned across your skin in uneven bursts. The desperation in him was palpable, threaded through every movement and every quiet sound he made. It felt suffocating. You had finally managed to force words past your lips, had finally found enough strength to tell him to stop, and yet nothing around you shifted. The room remained unchanged and his arms remained wrapped around you. The weight of his body remained draped over yours.

"Please," he breathed against your skin, the word emerging strained and almost pleading. "I'll be gentle." The promise settled heavily in your stomach.

You kept your gaze fixed on the floor beyond the bed, unable to bring yourself to look at him as you felt his hand dip lower, fingers tracing your folds before pushing in. Staring anywhere else felt dangerous. Your arms remained stiff at your sides, your fingers weakly curled into the sheets beneath you as you fought to maintain some semblance of control over yourself. Panic and exhaustion churned together inside your chest until it became difficult to distinguish one from the other. Every instinct urged you to pull away, to escape, to do something, yet your body felt disconnected from those desires, sluggish and unreliable beneath the lingering haze clouding your thoughts. The worst part wasn't the fear, it was the humiliation. The awful awareness that your body no longer felt entirely your own, that every involuntary reaction filled you with a sense of betrayal you couldn't properly put into words. You wanted to be angry, wanted to direct that anger somewhere, at him, at yourself, at the situation that had led here. Instead there was only a crushing sense of helplessness settling deeper into your bones with every passing second.

Tim seemed completely consumed by you as he eased two digits into your cunt. The distracted quality he'd possessed earlier disappeared, replaced by an intensity that bordered on obsession. It was as though nothing else existed beyond this room, beyond you. The realization made your chest tighten painfully. When your body finally responded enough for movement to return, it wasn't in any way that mattered. Your limbs remained weak, your thoughts sluggish, your strength nowhere to be found. The small motion that escaped you felt less like a decision and more like instinct, born from exhaustion rather than intention. Tim reacted immediately, tightening his hold around your middle and pulling you closer against him, supporting your weight as though you belonged there.

A broken, humiliating sound escaped you before you could stop it, low and strained as it clawed its way from somewhere deep inside your chest. The reaction seemed to encourage him, drawing a noticeable shift in his focus, his fingers curling against something soft inside of you. The worst part was the way your body continued betraying you. Moments ago you had felt trapped inside yourself, unable to command your own limbs no matter how desperately you tried. Now movement returned in frustrating fragments, just enough to make your helplessness feel even more acute. Your back arched involuntarily, your body seeking stability and warmth despite the panic flooding your mind, pressing you closer against Tim's chest before you could stop yourself. The motion was small, barely noticeable, but he reacted immediately. His arm tightened around your waist, drawing you firmly against him as though afraid you might somehow disappear if he loosened his grip for even a second.

"Used to kill me," he murmured quietly, his voice rough with emotion. "Having to stand there and watch you stress without me able to take care of you." The confession sounded old, worn smooth from being repeated silently inside his head for far too long, the only distraction was the way he was fucking his fingers into you. "There were days it was unbearable." His lips brushed your cheek.

A sob escaped before you could stop it, broken and miserable as it left your throat. The sound seemed to affect him immediately. His arms tightened around you, holding you closer, almost protectively despite the fact that he was the source of your distress. The contradiction made your stomach twist. Your eyes squeezed shut. For a moment everything blurred together, the warmth of the room, the pressure of his arms, the tears sliding endlessly down your cheeks, the exhaustion threatening to drag you under once more. By the time the tension finally broke and you came around his fingers, relief never came. There was only a sickening sense of panic in your stomach.

The thought of being trapped out here with him was somehow more frightening than anything that had already happened. What terrified you wasn't the present. The present was awful, but it was familiar. Fear was easier to endure when it had clear boundaries, when you could identify the shape of it and understand where it might lead. Somewhere outside these walls stood a cabin isolated in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of wilderness you had never seen and couldn't navigate even if you were somehow capable of leaving. No one who might hear you if you screamed. The realization settled heavily in your chest because if nobody knew where you were, then nobody knew where to look. Your thoughts drifted unwillingly toward the future, toward all the possibilities waiting beyond tomorrow and the day after that. The questions came one after another, each more terrifying than the last. How long did he intend to keep you here? What had he told everyone else? Had he told anyone anything at all? Was someone looking for you already, or had he planned carefully enough that your disappearance wouldn't raise alarms for days? You couldn't stop imagining the endless number of paths your life might take from this moment onward, each one branching into another until the possibilities became impossible to count.

The future was waking up tomorrow in this same cabin.

That uncertainty frightened you more than anything else. Your exhausted mind continued turning the possibilities over and over until they blurred together, each scenario bleeding into the next. Eventually the effort became too much. Fear demanded energy, and you had none left to give. Every muscle ached with exhaustion. Your thoughts felt sluggish, dragged down by a heaviness that had been pulling at you since the moment you woke. Even your panic was beginning to dull around the edges, worn thin by sheer fatigue. Tim's hold on you loosened slightly, you felt him move, just enough to tilt your chin upward. The gesture was gentle.

A moment later, soft lips brushed against yours.

You didn't respond. Your eyes drifted shut instead, the last fragments of resistance finally slipping through your fingers. The fear remained, lodged deep inside your chest where it would be waiting when you woke again, but for now exhaustion proved stronger. It wrapped around you like a heavy blanket, pulling you steadily downward into darkness. The last thing you were aware of was the steady rhythm of Tim's breathing beside you and the feeling of his arms tightening around you as your consciousness slipped away, holding you close as though he was afraid that even sleep might somehow take you from him.