iceedvenus

“Would you like to tell her.. about these feelings?” Dick tries again, settling for a more emphatic approach.

Damian winces, averting his gaze—trying to displace the sudden lodge in his throat. “I assumed there were more steps that entail to a courtship. You’re clearly well-versed in them.”

Dick clears his throat. “It isn’t like a routined dance, Damian.” At Damian’s furrowed brow, he continues. “Falling in love—dating, it comes naturally between two people. It’s the million little moments, built upon each other that no practiced motion can recreate. It happens regardless of choices, and that’s the beauty of it.”

“Naturally.” Damian tests the word on his tongue, but like he suspected, it ran off with a bitter taste. While he has been deemed a prodigy, a perfect weapon—being a normal human was not something trained into his veins, but rather suppressed.

“Maybe it is for you, Grayson—but where I was raised, details of courtship and emotional connection with another person were never discussed. My body is not programmed to have these natural decisions come forth to my mind, and I-”

It feels like swallowing glass when he mutters. “I require your assistance to explain it to me.”

Dick’s gaze softens in pity, which weighs heavier, worse than his laughter earlier. “Hey, we actually started off on the same boat. If anything, at least you didn’t have to experience Bruce’s attempt at explaining it. He’s more an expert than any of us when it comes to emotional suppression.”

“Love..” Dick ponders. “It hits you when you least expect it, but spending time together does test if the feeling is reciprocated.”

“I suppose there are some steps that you could follow.” Dick murmurs, thumb trailing his chin in thought. “Alright, here’s the plan.”

Gotham Outdoor Ice Rink, Bristol, Gotham. (Grayson's Brilliant Plan)

Damian may not be well-versed in the matters of courtship. However, standing stiffly in competition with the street lamp beside him, his nose buried into his green scarf more so to hide his shame rather than from the winter cold, his regret grows tenfold with every passing minute for even agreeing to this.

You're bound to arrive at any moment, and he'd rather suffer in his regrets than leave you stranded on a date his brother suggested. Not that he used that term, he could barely handle deeming it a hang out.

In his earpiece, Dick’s voice echoes with irritating amusement.

“Damian, you need to relax. You look like an assassin waiting for your target to appear.”

“Train to be one from the moment you were born with a family legacy on your shoulders and see how that affects your posture.” Damian grumbles.

“It’s okay if you’re nervous. I’ll guide you if you freeze, remember?”

“I’m not nervous—”

His peripheral vision recognises your silhouette before he can even finish his retort. All sound seems to fade past the stuttering in his chest, including his brother’s teasing, and maybe time slows too—he wouldn’t put you below that possibility. You’re busy with your scarf that’s loosened enough to reveal your lips, and you don’t even notice that you’re speed-walking right towards him.

It’s instinctive, not at all pleasing when his hands reach out just in time to grab onto your shoulders before you slam face-first into his coat.

Your eyes widen comically, but it doesn’t appease the thundering of his pulse, not especially when you smile at him like that, bashful and sweet. “Damian! Fancy bumping into you here." You tease.

“Perfect meet-cute.” Dick whispers to himself. “Tell her it’s fine—that you actually think it’s cute.”

“What?” He snaps, feeling ashamed at the mere suggestion.

You blink twice at his sudden reaction. He needs to recover quickly, say something.

“Watch where you’re going.” He slips out.

He can hear the sound of Dick slapping his own forehead, echoing in his eardrums.

Thankfully, you don’t seem deterred by his slow-witted response, grin still in-tact. “Apologies for almost ruining your luxurious scarf. Though I’ll must say, green looks really good on you.”

He tenses. This is the moment, he must say something right this time.

“Brings out the colour of my eyes.” Dick offers through a sigh.

Perfect. Something witty, and completely appropriate for the situation.

“Brings out the colour of my eyes.” Damian’s delivery is completely robotic, unlike the one he heard in his ears, carrying none of the light-hearted tone that made it sound right.

Miraculously, it only cracks a laugh out of you.

“She’s an angel.” Dick groans, almost pitifully.

He winces, letting you go before offering his hand. “The snow’s slippery.” His excuse is well-rehearsed, recovering back into the steps Dick gave him.

Your expression brightens, taking ahold of his hand. It’s a perfect fit, your glove in his and a warm glow is forming behind his ribs—an unsteady, pleasant feeling, almost enough to forget the mistake he made.

“Smooth recovery.” Dick comments in approval. “Bring her to the next location.”

If Damian could, he’d mute Dick's channel immediately if he was going to be reminding him every second. It was distracting and nerve wracking to be multi-tasking two tasks at once, especially when you easily compelled him to lose all train of thought.

The skating rink is crowded, more than he’d like, but he wasn’t up for improvisation after his earlier attempt. It’ll have to do, and he’s sure his withering glare can clear enough space for the two of you.

“I’ve always wanted to try ice skating.” You’re brimming with glee with your gaze glued to the ice, and his eyes trail over your excitement with a tender patience. He’d like to sketch it out when he was back home, but even the thought of ending this moment was incomprehensible, so he settles on bending down to tie your skating shoes.

”Just to warn you—” Your joyful glimmer falters into a rare bundle of nerves. “I’ve never skated—like ever. You’ll need to teach me the ropes.”

His lips quirk the slightest lift. “You have the best teacher in all of Gotham.”

“Really?” You tease, leaning down slightly that he feels the warmth of your breath over his nose, sending goosebumps down his arms. “That’s a bold claim.”

“I was raised on snow mountains since I was an infant. A skating rink in Gotham is a small feat for me, and it shall be for you.”

“Less bragging, more swooning.” Dick’s voice echoes in his eardrums.

Damian’s expression clamps shut as he leads you towards the ice. He takes the first step and balances himself perfectly on the naturally formed ice. You enter immediately on the wrong angle, and slip. He doesn’t think, his free hand wrapping around your waist before you fall.

He freezes, and you do too. Caught at the entrance of the rink in the corner where no one is watching, you’re wrapped so closely in his embrace—his body instinctively shielding and protecting you. He feels his entire face burning up from the lack of distance.

“Maybe ice and me are less compatible than you think.” You whisper, as if the ice would crack and swallow you whole if it heard you.

It’s enough to kick him back into his senses, and he quickly lifts you back up to your feet. Gently letting go of your waist, he ignores the jittering in his fingers by taking hold of your hands instead.

“Hasn’t been proven yet.” He answers, looking down at your feet. “Mirror my stance.”

Your own gaze shifts down, and you adjust the blades of your shoes into the same V position. You’re shuffling less, which is already a sign of improvement.

“Alright, now one step forward, and the other leg lifts like a kick.” Damian instructs.

You try, but your feet wobble at your first kick, making you fall into his arms again. Not that he minds.

“You’re lifting too early.” He notes. “You’ll have to glide with your other foot first.”

Your brows furrow together, an adorable concentration creased in the centre as you try again. You manage it the second time, and he finds it despite himself, vulnerable to smiling when you let out a huff of joyous laughter as you glide with him, his hands still holding onto you.

“I guess you proved yourself right.” Your focus is still on your feet, but when you lift your gaze, you’re leaning close to him just like before when he had caught you—with such pure, content bliss that the word ‘beautiful’ fails to describe your features. “You are a good teacher.”

Dick’s muttering something in his ear, but the erratic signals shooting through his brain fries all comprehension of what he’s supposed to do next other than stare at you speechless like a bumbling fool.

He messes up his next step, and before he knows it, he’s tumbling down to the ice, and you fall down with him through your connected limbs. His body shields you from the freezing ice, but nothing protects him from the shame that drowns his entire conscience—of falling onto the ice which he has never done in his lifetime, and dragging you down with him.

He hears Dick clearly now, laughing so hard that it stings his eardrums from the high frequency.

“Damian!” You call out, and your gaze is half worry, half shock. “Are you okay?”

His ears flush with blood at your question, most likely reddened as if there wasn’t enough to mope about.

“I would very much like for the ice to swallow me whole.” He mutters dryly. “Other than that, I am uninjured.”

“I so have that captured.” Dick howls through the earpiece. “I’m calling it, this is going to be the topic of discussion for our next family dinner.”

Damian discreetly rips his ear-piece out and shoves it into his coat’s pocket when your gaze averts to an elderly couple stopping by the two of you like his fall is some tourist attraction, asking if he needed any help to get back to the entrance.

He is never asking Grayson for help ever again.

The Bat-Cave, Wayne Manor (Drake’s Secondary Home)

“You sure you have the right person?” Tim guffaws, his expression a mixture of horror and fascination. “Haven’t you tried—”

“Grayson, yes. He has failed.” His scowl has dug deeper if possible, the faint memory of Dick’s laughter still penetrates his eardrums when he isn’t preoccupied with his responsibilities.

Pointing an intrusive finger to his new prey, he speaks. “You are to prove yourself more worthy than he is, as the next best in line for successful courtships.”

Tim raises a brow. “Didn’t know you kept track.”

Damian scowls. “Your methods are unconventional, but there are no other better alternatives.” Imposing and distracting with his crossed arms, casting a shadow over the littered papers, his presence eventually forces Tim to detach from the case he was working on.

“Alright, what’s her name?” Tim sighs, his fingers switching to a new tab where the identity search bar flickers.

Damian stiffens, defensive. “Why would you require her name?”

“To search for her, genius.” Tim comments as if it’s obvious that an illegal identity search is the best course of action. “I can have her interests, dislikes, and her entire profile mapped out in less than five minutes.”

“That’s dishonourable.”

“It’s efficient.” Tim fires back. “Or else we’ll be here all day. Why waste time on the uncertainties when you can already mould everything to go perfectly?”

“My respect for you shrinks by the second, Drake.”

Tim snorts. “As if you had any in the first place. Don’t act like you haven’t done your own illegal searches. Suddenly, it’s your crush and I’m not allowed to look into it?”

The back of Damian’s neck grows hot at the mere use of the word ‘crush’, dumbing his feelings down to something so.. pathetic. “Fine, I’ll do it myself. You’re not allowed to so much as glance at her.”

Tim’s hands raise in mock surrender. “I would never.”

As Damian settles into the seat, given the privacy as Tim launches himself into the spare chair, spinning it backward with his back facing the Bat-computer, he can feel the latter brewing with something to say.

“Spit it out.” Damian huffs.

“I just—” Tim starts. “Never thought I’d live to see the day of you softening up for someone. I mean—it’s even made you come all the way for my assistance.”

“I did not come for assistance.”

“Advice is practically the same thing.” Tim remarks. “You may have called it dishonourable, but can you truly claim you love a person if you don’t know them fully? I think falling in love means having a curiosity so strong for someone that you would like to know them as deeply as they know themselves. Isn’t that what it means to love?”

Damian’s gaze flickers to Tim who yawns widely, tucking his head into his elbows over a long drought from sleep after staying up for two days straight. It… resonated with him, his never-ending greed to learn the intricacies of your emotions and actions, to know the depths behind each story you held in your mind.

He’s spent long, treacherous months avoiding even the mention of your name anywhere outside the confinements of his mind, aside from the occasional scribble and tear of his paper, and his hunger has become an obstacle that even he can’t tackle any longer. With a mental push, the mere action of typing your name numbs his fingers from the anticipation.

Your social media accounts pop up—one is public with your name listed, and another is a photography account. There’s not many photos, but there’s enough that it feels like he’s peeking into something intimate, a catalogue of your life that has his heart quickening.

He remembers vividly of you asking to exchange social media accounts when you had first met, before he quickly shut it down, commenting that he refused to have such useless applications.

Yet, here he was—frozen, mesmerised at the sight of your smile captured on your digital camera, unable to scroll further past your most recent post. It didn’t capture the true essence of your joy like he remembered so clearly from that failed date, but it still struck him all the same.

Even his denial falls silent when he’s looking at you, because he’d be a fool to pretend away the quick pattering of his heart, or the small smile etched into his lips caused by you. His mind has formed a despicable habit—a quiet, dreadful longing whenever he envisions even a frame of you in his mind.

He has fallen for you quietly—strongly, and even as he scrolls further, to the latest bookstores you’ve frequented, or your blurred snapshots of sunsets along the Gotham horizon, he’s not satisfied. What is the use of seeing these images if he wasn’t there to witness it or hear from you in person?

He wants to be in your life, not just a mere bystander, but he doesn’t know how to say it.

“You’ve been deathly silent for ten minutes.” Tim comments. “It’s kind of making me curious—”

“I will gouge out your eyes myself, Drake.”

There’s only one person he has left to ask, and as he pierces a coffin-burying glare into Tim’s prying gaze, he wasn’t sure if he’d get the answer he needed.

89, Skirley Apartments, Park Row (Crime Alley) (Todd’s Rebellious Man-Cave)

Jason whistles, leaning against the door to his mess of an apartment. “You must be desperate if you’ve come to see me.”

The disgruntlement in Damian’s expression comes mostly from embarrassment and partly from the state of disarray he finds from one single swipe past the gap of Jason’s shoulder and the door frame. Motorcycle gear is splayed out over the scratched floorboards, signaling another random side project.

Barely lived in, and somehow a complete mess that would have Alfred over in a snap with his emergency cleaning set.

“Grayson’s overly optimistic and Drake’s downright creepy.” Damian huffs.

“And that leaves me..?” Jason’s brow raises, a taunting smirk on his lips.

“As the last option.” Damian grits.

Jason steps back, his back pushing against the wood to allow Damian into his less-than-adequate living quarters.

“Well, sorry to break it to you, kid—” Jason plops down onto the couch, and the pillow-seat sinks under his weight. “But my understanding of love is barely any better than yours.”

“You’re still the second oldest.” Call it desperation, Damian isn’t sure if he’s above that anymore after the failure of his two other brothers. “You must’ve had some experience.”

“Now, age matters?” Jason mocks. “Well—if you want my two cents, I suppose I can give it.”

“There’s no point beating around the bush.” Jason states. “If you really like her, you just have to say it. Even if it hurts, especially if you’re scared it’ll hurt. That means there’s something worth to lose, and to never ask, it’s always gonna hurt worse than knowing.”

“That’s the whole point of love. It takes being brave, and realising the possibility of something real right in front of you—and fighting for it. You only have so few chances in the world to experience it, and you’re going to waste something like that over fear of what—rejection?”

“Have a heart-to-heart. That’ll always mean more than some hidden message, hoping she’ll notice and give in first.” Leaning back, Jason eyes Damian with a rare look he doesn’t recognise, because there is no possibility in the world that wisdom could exist in that big-head of his. “If she doesn’t return how you feel, that sucks. You’ll live barely, then it’ll heal and you move on. If you never answer the question? It’s gonna haunt you for life. The one that got away.”

The thought of losing you to cowardice, of being a permanent outsider to your life, nearly ruins him. Damian can’t afford that, not when there’s never been a person he desired for more than you. This week has made sure of that.

Even more of a horrifying realisation is that of all people, Jason Todd was the one that got through to him. His trained eyes scan the perimeter for any signs of a secret partner, a reason for this sudden shift in his usual, thick-headed sibling. “Where did you obtain such knowledge?”

Jason’s lips quirk up. “Jane Austen, you should try her sometime.”

135, Kane Street, Otisburg (Damian's Last Resort)

Damian has only felt the urge to puke on two occasions this past year. Firstly, when he discovered old photos of Dick’s first Nightwing costume in an old album, and had to wash his hands twice with anti-bacterial soap. Secondly, when a rare poison seeped into his bloodstream that he had not already trained to be immune to.

Never had the nauseating feeling of nerves scale till the point of trembling fingers and stiff legs. He just needed to tell the truth, so why did the matter seem so petrifying?

He’s been standing outside your door, letting the winter frost bite at his exposed skin—like a pathetic loser for the past fifteen minutes and if he stood there any longer, he might as well brand himself as one. His hand comes up to knock in three measured beats, and he waits with the patience of Dick’s pit-bull for a belly rub.

The door unlocks, and your tousled hair greets him first. His heart tugs at the sight of you in your home attire, with your loosened shirt and pajama pants dragging against the floor. You’re utterly beautiful, even as you’re slapping your cheeks lightly to coerce yourself awake. It takes a few seconds for the realisation to hit your half-asleep features before your eyes nearly pop out.

“Damian? It’s five in the morning! What are you doing here?”

“I have romantic feelings for you.” He blurts with the subtlety of a ramming gun.

“If you reciprocate, I would like to..” He pauses, his thoughts competing with the rapid pace of his heartbeat. “Wait, I didn’t think this through.”

You blink slowly, shock blasted over your face, before a soft, warm smile creeps over your lips. “No-no, go on.”

He wants it to be perfect, but his words were too direct, too harsh. He wasn’t like Dick, who was naturally charismatic with others, or Tim who thought two steps ahead for every interaction, or Jason who bulldozed through without a care in the world. He doesn’t want to risk losing you over his own incompetence. “No, I feel like I’ve started it all wrong.”

“It’s five in the morning, even Damian Wayne is human enough to mess up his words at this hour.” You tease. His shoulders sag in relief at the sound of your comforting voice, which he suspects is the purpose of your teasing. To calm him, tell him it’s okay.

“Right.” He mutters. “May I start over?”

“I’m all ears.” You grin.

He cracks a soft smile in return. It is difficult for him to be human, to feel his faults bubble to the surface, but in front of you, he is willing to try. “I am unfathomably, undoubtably.. and completely in love with you. Romantic feelings don’t even come close to describing the knowing in my heart that it has chosen you from the very moment you entered my life.”

“When I am around you, it’s as if the world disappears, and all I envision is you.” He admits. “From the moment you approached me with your maddening smile and charming wit, I don’t believe I could have ever fought against it, against you.”

“Your laughter brings joy to me, your sadness distracts me of all my senses, and your very existence is a gift in my life that I cherish deeply and.. I’m terrified at the idea of losing that, losing you.”

“Love..” He hesitates. “..is a difficult concept for me to understand, because it has never been shown to me outright. So when I felt this desire—this constant want to be in your presence, I sought for understanding.”

“I see now—that love can’t be explained in just mere words. It is the shared moments between us that I replay in my mind, the small details I find myself noticing of you and cherishing deeply, and the fear of losing that privilege of knowing you. I realised.. that I can’t fathom continuing my life without you in it.”

“I don’t know if I deserve to be by your side, but I would like to try.” His gaze finds yours, and he hopes. So desperately, he hopes. “Would you have me, even if I am a fool who doesn’t know the right things to say?” His plea is quiet against the silent rustle of the trees, the dark twilight sky that watches over them.

Your eyes soften, filled with warmth and that same, brimming happiness he has memorised from the time spent on the ice. “You’re only an idiot if you think you didn’t say all the right things, Damian.”

His chest, tight till the point of rupturing, feels like it’s finally able to breathe.

Leaning in slowly, right across the barrier of the doorstep that separates you from him, you gift him with a soft kiss pressed against his lips and his entire world falls apart, not that it ever truly existed before you.

He takes you into his arms, lifting your feet off the doorstep as his boots crunch against the melted snow when he kisses you back. He has never kissed anyone before, but the feeling of wanting you so close to his soul only feels natural when you’re here in his arms.

It’s sweet, clumsy—and out of all the moments he’s spent with you, he truly wished he could replay this over and over.

When you break the kiss, he has to remind himself to not follow after you when you whisper softly against his lips. “You never finished. What did you want to do if I reciprocated?”

Visions, blurred and incoherent, flash through his mind but it’s nothing compared to the real thing right in front of him. “Everything. As long as you’re mine, the possibilities are endless.”

“Of course I’m yours, Damian.” Your eyes crinkle into that puddle of warmth that melts through all his defences. “No one has ever come to my doorstep, at five in a winter morning, professing their love before.”

His brows furrow, lips nearing to a pout. “Has anyone ever tried professing their love in other ways?”

You laugh, and he can get used to that. Making you smile and laugh as if it’s his one purpose on this planet. “No—I think my heart was too busy being taken by the person in front of me, who just conveyed what love is so perfectly that I can never think of anyone else.”

He relaxes at that, feeling his own smile deepen at the relief of finally having you in his arms, and in the comfort of the warmth shared under the dim streetlights, he thinks he’ll have to temporarily bump Jason to the number one spot in his long line of siblings.

Not that he’d ever tell him that—but he supposes if a limited edition of Jane Austen's collection ends up at Jason's doorstep tomorrow, it would have simply been the universe's divine gift.

likes, reblogs, and comments are highly appreciated! <333

You were not dressed like one of them. That was the first thing he noticed. No tactical insignia, no gang colours, no theatrics. Just dark clothes, a hood pulled low, a half-mask covering the lower part of your face, and a long knife held loosely in one hand as if violence bored you.

The second thing Damian noticed was that you were looking directly at him. Not at the gunman. Not at the fire.

At him.

“Robin,” you said, dry as dust. “You look terrible.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed behind his domino. “Who are you?”

You tilted your head. “Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

Two more men rushed from behind a stack of crates. You moved before Damian could.

You moved like someone who had stopped caring whether the world saw them coming.

The first man lost his gun hand. The second lost his breath when your knee cracked into his sternum. Damian lunged for his fallen sword, pain detonating white-hot through his shoulder, but by the time his fingers closed around the hilt, both attackers were on the ground.

One dead. One bleeding out.

Damian stared.

You wiped your blade against the dead man’s coat with an expression that suggested the fabric had personally offended you.

“You kill,” Damian said.

“So do they.” You glanced at him. “I’m just better at it.”

“You are not sanctioned.”

A laugh slipped from you, low and sharp. “By who? Your father? Cute.”

Damian stepped toward you. His vision blurred. The smoke, he realised too late. Too much of it. His lungs seized. His injured shoulder throbbed. His balance faltered.

You were in front of him in an instant.

“Don’t be dramatic,” you muttered, catching him before he could hit the concrete.

“I am not—”

“Currently collapsing in a burning warehouse? Yeah. Very dignified.”

Damian tried to shove you away. His arm refused to obey. You looked down at him, and for one impossible second, your sarcasm cracked.

Something ancient and tired moved behind your eyes. “Stay awake, Robin.”

“Who,” Damian forced out, “are you?”

Your grip tightened. “Nobody.”

Then you dragged him out of the fire.

By the time Batman arrived, Damian was alone. Three bodies were inside the warehouse. His sword was at his side. His shoulder had been reset.

And Damian Wayne had absolutely no memory of how he had escaped.

The report was unacceptable. Damian knew it before Bruce said anything.

He stood in the cave with one arm strapped across his chest, jaw clenched, while his father reviewed the footage on the main computer. Or, more accurately, the lack of footage.

“Your body camera cut out at 23:41,” Bruce said.

“The smoke disrupted the lens.”

“The audio went out three seconds later.”

“Interference.”

“And then?”

Damian’s mouth tightened.

And then nothing. He remembered the gun. The heat. The pressure beneath his jaw. The moment he had calculated his odds and found them unpleasant. Then he remembered waking outside beneath the rain, coughing ash onto the pavement while Batman’s cape blocked the streetlights overhead.

Between those moments lay a void.

Damian hated voids.

“I escaped,” he said.

Bruce looked at him. Damian hated that look, too. “Your shoulder had been reset.”

“I am aware.”

“Did you do that yourself?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

Damian’s fingers curled. “I do not know.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the low hum of the cave systems and the faint chittering of bats overhead.

Bruce replayed the broken footage again. Gun beneath Damian’s chin. Smoke. Static. Black.

Damian watched the blank screen with a fury that felt embarrassingly close to fear.

Someone had been there. Someone had touched him. Moved him. Saved him.

And he could not remember.

That was unacceptable.

You watched him from the roof across the street.

He returned to the warehouse the next night. You should have known he would. Robins were like mould: persistent, invasive, and very hard to kill.

This one was different, though. Older than the rumours still liked to call him. Not a boy anymore, though Gotham had a bad habit of keeping its children trapped in headlines. Nineteen, maybe twenty. Tall enough now that the cape sat differently on his shoulders. Sharper through the jaw. Still too proud for his own good.

Still alive because of you.

You hated that part. Saving people was always the beginning of trouble.

He moved through the remains of the warehouse like a ghost with a grudge, scanning scorch marks, blood patterns, boot prints. He crouched near the place where the gunman had died and touched two fingers to the concrete.

You had cleaned your blade before leaving. Burned the fibres. Taken the shell casings. Broken every camera in a four-block radius.

Still, Damian found something. A thread, maybe. A scratch. A breath you had left behind.

His head lifted. You went still.

There it was. That flicker. Not recognition. No one recognised you. Recognition required memory, and memory slipped off you like rain from glass the moment eyes turned away.

But Damian’s gaze sharpened toward your rooftop.

Instinct.  Annoying. Impressive.

Loneliness, treacherous little beast that it was, stirred inside your ribs.

“No,” you whispered to yourself.

Below, Damian stood. His hand drifted toward his sword.

You stepped back from the roof’s edge.

For one heartbeat, the moon touched your face.

Damian looked directly at you.

Your stomach dropped. You should have run. Instead, you froze like an idiot.

He fired a grappling line.

“Seriously?” you muttered.

Then you ran.

You were good at vanishing. You had to be. When you were eight years old, your teacher looked away from you during roll call and forgot you were in the classroom. At nine, your neighbour saw you fall from your bike, turned to call for help, and came back wondering why there was blood on the sidewalk.

At eleven, your parents started leaving notes on the fridge. Child. Name unknown. Lives here? And by thirteen, there were no notes. By fourteen, you stopped waiting at dinner tables. By fifteen, you learned that criminals were easier to live around than civilians. Criminals did not ask why you slept in abandoned buildings. They did not remember your face long enough to betray you. And when they hurt people, no one grieved if they disappeared.

By seventeen, you had a knife. By eighteen, you knew how to use it.

Now, you moved through Gotham like a rumour with teeth.

Someone would see you in an alley. Look away. Forget. Someone would hear your voice. Turn their head. Gone. Someone would bleed beneath your blade and die terrified, not because of death, but because in the last second of life, they understood they were being killed by someone the world itself refused to hold.

You had spent years pretending that it did not hurt.

Pretending worked, mostly.  Right up until Robin started chasing you. He chased you across three rooftops, over a skybridge, down a fire escape, and through the top floor of an unfinished apartment complex.

He was fast. You were faster. He was trained. You were desperate.

“Stop,” Damian ordered.

You laughed, breathless. “Wow. Has that ever worked for you?”

He threw a birdarang. You ducked. It sliced through your hood, pinning fabric to a wooden beam behind you. You slipped out of it and kept moving.

Damian landed hard in front of you, sword drawn. “Enough.”

You stopped because the blade was pointed at your throat. Also, because, for the first time in years, someone had chased you long enough to get tired. It made something in your chest ache.

Damian’s eyes narrowed. “You were at the warehouse.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

His grip tightened. “Do not lie to me.”

“Fine. I was near the warehouse.”

“You saved me.”

“Technically, gravity did most of the work.”

“You reset my shoulder.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You killed those men.”

“They were going to kill you.”

“That was not your decision to make.”

Your expression flattened. “I forgot. Bats love moral lectures. Very on-brand. Do you practice in mirrors, or does brooding just come naturally?”

His blade did not move. “Who are you?”

You smiled behind your mask. There it was. The question everyone asked once.

Only once.

“Look away,” you said.

Damian did not. “Answer me.”

“Look away.”

“No.”

Your laugh came out softer than you intended. “Smart.”

His eyes flicked, just once, to the shadow behind you. A tactical glance. Less than a second.

It was enough.

His face changed. Not dramatically. Damian Wayne had too much discipline for that. But his brow furrowed. His mouth tightened. The sword at your throat shifted as confusion passed through him. He blinked. Then focused on you again as if seeing you for the first time.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

There it was. The old familiar knife. You should have been used to it. You were used to it.

You were.

“Wow,” you said lightly. “Déjà vu. Embarrassing for you.”

Damian’s eyes darkened. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“You did something.”

“Story of my life.”

He looked away again, scanning the room for traps. When his eyes returned to you, the confusion reset.

His sword lifted. “Identify yourself.”

Something inside you curled up small and cold.

You stepped closer to the blade until the edge kissed the fabric over your throat. “My power,” you said, voice suddenly flat, “is that nobody remembers me.”

Damian stared. “You are a metahuman.”

“Sure.”

“What is the mechanism?”

“Do I look like a scientist?”

“You appear insufferable.”

“Aw. You remembered an opinion for three seconds. Progress.”

His eyes narrowed. You waited.

His gaze flicked down to your hands. Gone. Again. When he looked back up, his expression sharpened with renewed alarm.

You laughed before he could speak. It sounded ugly.

“Don’t worry,” you said. “This is the part where you threaten me, interrogate me, look away, forget what you were asking, and then I leave. Classic. Very popular sequence.”

Damian did not answer. Instead, without looking away from your face, he slowly reached into his utility belt.

You tensed.

He pulled out a marker. Then, with his gaze still locked on yours, he uncapped it with his teeth and wrote on the inside of his left wrist.

You watched despite yourself.

DO NOT LOOK AWAY. PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.

Your mouth went dry.

Damian finished writing. Then, deliberately, he looked at his wrist.

You vanished from his mind. You saw it happen. You always saw it happen. His pupils shifted. His body went rigid. His eyes scanned the words.

DO NOT LOOK AWAY. PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.

Slowly, slowly, he looked up.

He saw you. He did not remember you. But he believed himself.

That was new.

“Explain,” he said.

Your heart, stupid and starved, gave one fragile little kick. You crushed it immediately. “No.”

Damian’s jaw set.

You stepped backwards into shadow. “Don’t follow me.”

“I will.”

“I know.” You sighed. “That was more of a polite suggestion.”

Then you dropped through the unfinished floor before he could stop you.

By the time he reached the lower level, you were gone. But on his wrist, in his own handwriting, proof remained.

PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.

Damian did not sleep. This was not unusual. What was unusual was the wall.

Three nights after the warehouse, Damian’s room contained forty-seven handwritten notes, twelve printed maps, six blood-spatter diagrams, and one sketch of a figure he could not remember drawing. The figure wore a half-mask. The lines were precise, though incomplete around the face. Every time he tried to sketch the eyes from memory, the image dissolved. Not physically. The paper remained.

His mind simply refused to hold the connection. It enraged him.

So he adapted.

At the top of the wall, he wrote: SUBJECT: FORGET-ME-NOT Then, beneath it: Known effects: Memory loss triggered when direct attention breaks. Written records persist. Video uncertain, beed test. Physical evidence persists. Emotional response may persist after memory loss. Subject saves civilians but uses lethal force. Subject saved me. Subject is alone.

Damian stared at the last line for a long time. He did not remember writing it. That bothered him more than the rest.

There were other notes too.

Do not trust first instinct upon seeing Subject. You have met before. Subject uses sarcasm defensively. Irritating. Possibly deliberate. Subject appears resigned when forgotten. Do not forget: forgetting harms them.

The final note was carved harder into the paper than the others. Damian ran a thumb over the indentation. He had no memory of the conversation that caused it.

Still, anger rose in him. Not at you.

At the fact that the world could look at a person and let them disappear.

You should have left Gotham. You knew that. You had left cities for less.

A cop in Blüdhaven once remembered the shape of your hand for nearly four seconds after looking away. You were on a train by morning. A telepath in Metropolis once frowned at you and said, “That’s strange.” You were out of the state within the hour.

Survival was simple: never wait to be wanted. Wanting was a trap.

So, naturally, you stayed.

Because Damian Wayne kept leaving evidence that he was looking for you. A chalk mark on a rooftop you used often. A camera angled toward an alley with a handwritten sign taped above it IF YOU SEE THIS, I AM TRYING TO SPEAK WITH YOU. A packet tucked beneath a gargoyle containing protein bars, medical supplies, burner comms, and a note. I do not know whether you need these. Take them anyway.

You threw the protein bars away. Then retrieved them ten minutes later. You were lonely, not stupid.

The burner comm you kept for three days before turning it on.

Immediately, a message appeared. This is Robin.

You stared at it.

Another message followed. If this device is active, I assume you have it.

Another. I will not ask you to meet in person unless you agree.

Another. I do not remember you. That does not mean you are not real.

Your throat tightened.

You hated him a little for that one.

So you typed, This is extremely dramatic.

The reply came thirty seconds later. You have met my father. I assure you this is restrained.

A laugh escaped before you could stop it. It startled you. The sound felt foreign. Like opening a door in a house you thought had burned down.

You typed, Your handwriting is terrible btw.

My handwriting is exceptional.

Your R looks like a stabbed insect.

A pause. Then, Noted.

The next chalk message you found two nights later had perfect block letters.

Smug little freak.

Damian learned around the shape of you. That was the only way to describe it. He could not remember you directly, but he built scaffolding around the absence.

Notes on his gloves. Voice memos recorded while staring at you, played back after he forgot. Sketches done in real time, each labelled with date, location, and emotional impression.

Subject looked tired tonight. Subject pretended not to care about antiseptic. Lied poorly. Subject dislikes being thanked. Continue thanking them. Subject laughed at 02:13. Remember that this matters.

You found that one in his notebook when you absolutely were not snooping.

“You are snooping,” Damian said.

You snapped the notebook shut. “I am investigating.”

“You are holding my private notes.”

“You left them where anyone could read them.”

“They were in my hand.”

“Skill issue.”

Damian looked unimpressed.

You were perched on the edge of a rooftop HVAC unit, swinging one leg like you had not just been caught reading the closest thing anyone had ever made to a record of you. He stood three feet away, refusing to break eye contact.

He had learned that trick too. It made conversations tense. Intimate. Weird.

“You should not kill,” he said.

You groaned. “We were having such a nice moment.”

“We were not.”

“You were writing about my laugh.”

His ears went faintly pink. Fascinating. “I record relevant behavioural data.”

“My laugh is relevant?”

“It is an indicator of trust.”

“Wow.” You placed a hand over your heart. “Talk dirty to me, Robin.”

His blush deepened. Your smile faded before he could see how much you liked it.

Dangerous. Hope was dangerous.

Damian stepped closer. “You use humour to redirect.”

“You use analysis to avoid feelings.”

“I do not avoid feelings.”

“You dress like a bat-themed traffic warning and punch people at night.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.  “That is irrelevant.”

“That is what people say when things are relevant.”

He glared. You smiled. Then his gaze flicked, involuntarily, to the notebook in your hands.

And it happened. His expression emptied of you. Just slightly. Just enough.

He looked back up. His hand went to his sword. “Who are—”

You tossed the notebook at his chest. He caught it.

“Read page twelve,” you said.

Damian looked down.

You watched him reconstruct you from ink. Watched his own words pull him back to the edge of belief. Watched him breathe in slowly.

His eyes returned to yours. Not remembering. Choosing anyway.

“I apologise,” he said.

You flinched. It was small. He noticed.

“Don’t,” you said.

“I forgot.”

“Everyone does.”

“That does not make it acceptable.”

You laughed once, but there was no humour in it. “Careful, Wayne. You keep saying things like that, and I’ll start thinking you mean them.”

“I do.”

That was the problem.

You looked away first. The second you did, you knew he would forget the exact softness that had passed between you.

But you remembered. You always remembered.

Lucky you.

Damian’s family noticed eventually. Of course they did. A Bat could hide a stab wound for six hours, but not a new obsession. The dramatic irony was almost cute.

Tim found the wall first. He stared at the notes. Then at Damian. Then back at the notes.

“Okay,” Tim said. “Not to be rude, but this is either a case board or the beginning of a gothic romance.”

Damian snatched a sketch off the wall. “Leave.”

“Gothic romance. Got it.”

“Drake.”

“Does your mysterious murder cryptid have a name?”

Damian went still. “No.”

Tim’s expression shifted. Gentler. More dangerous. “You don’t know?”

“No one does.”

That shut him up. For almost three seconds, which for Tim Drake was basically a vow of silence. Then Tim stepped closer to the board. “You think there’s a cognitive effect?”

“I know there is.”

“On everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Even you?”

Damian’s jaw tightened. “Especially me.”

Tim read the notes in silence. Then said, “That’s horrifying.”

“Yes.”

“And lonely.”

Damian looked at the sketch in his hand. The eyes were incomplete again. “Yes,” he said.

Later, after Tim left, Damian added another note. Ask Subject what they want. Do not assume rescue equals cure.

He underlined it twice.

“What do you want?” Damian asked.

You stopped sharpening your knife. That question was worse than who are you. At least who are you had an easy answer. Nobody. Nothing. Gone already.

“What?” you said.

Damian sat across from you on the rooftop, knees bent, forearms resting loosely against them. He had taken off the domino. You hated when he did that. It made him look too human. Too young. Too beautiful in a way that was absolutely none of your business.

“What do you want?” he repeated.

“A vacation. Better coffee. The Joker dead. A nap long enough to be classified as a coma.”

“I am serious.”

“That’s tragic.”

“Forget-Me-Not.”

You froze.

He had never called you that out loud before. The name should have sounded clinical. It should have sounded like one more label pinned to the body-shaped hole you left in the world.

But Damian said it like a promise. Quiet. Careful. Yours, almost.

You looked away. The city blurred beneath you. “Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you?”

You laughed under your breath. “Doesn’t matter. You won’t remember.”

“I will write it down.”

“That isn’t the same.”

“No,” Damian said. “It is not.”

The honesty almost hurt worse than comfort would have. You swallowed.

“My parents had a name for me,” you said. Damian went very still. “I don’t use it anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because they stopped.” You hated the silence that followed. You hated that he did not rush to fill it. You hated that some part of you wanted him to. “I was little,” you continued, because apparently your mouth had decided to betray the whole fortress. “When it started. At first, people just… misplaced me. Teachers skipped over me. Kids forgot games halfway through playing them. My parents thought it was stress. Then a phase. Then a curse. Then…” You smiled thinly. “Then I became a note on the fridge.”

Damian said nothing.

You picked at a loose thread on your sleeve. “One day, I came home and there were no notes. No dinner plate. No bed made up. My room was storage. My mother looked right at me, turned to call my father, and when she turned back, she screamed because there was a stranger in her house.” Your voice did not break. You were proud of that. “She forgot me faster than she could love me.”

Damian’s hands curled.

You looked at him then. Big mistake. His face held rage, but not the kind people usually aimed at you. This was not fear. Not suspicion.

This was fury on your behalf.

Hope sparked again. Tiny. Stupid. Cruel.

You crushed it badly this time. Not enough.

“That’s why you kill,” he said.

You snorted. “No. I kill because some people deserve to stop breathing.”

“Your loneliness informs your methods.”

“Careful. That almost sounded like empathy.”

“It was.”

“Gross.”

Damian’s mouth twitched. There. A near-smile. The kind of thing a person could get addicted to if they were very dumb and had no self-preservation.

You stood too quickly. “I should go.”

Damian stood too. “Stay.”

The word struck between you like a thrown blade.

You stared at him. He looked startled by himself. Then determined, because of course he did. Damian Wayne would fight God before admitting a feeling caught him off guard.

“Stay,” he repeated. “For ten minutes.”

“Why?”

“So I can remember you for ten minutes.”

Your chest hurt. “Damian.”

His name came out before you could stop it.

He inhaled sharply. You had never said it before.

Not Robin. Not Wayne.

Damian. Like he was a person. Like you were a person.

His voice softened. “Please.”

You hated hope. You hated it.  You hated how it bloomed anyway.

So you sat back down. For ten minutes, Damian Wayne looked at you and did not forget. For ten minutes, you existed in someone else’s mind.

It was not enough.

It was everything.

The breakthrough came from a mistake. Damian was injured. Not badly, he insisted, which meant badly enough that anyone sane would seek medical attention. You found him in an alley behind the Iceberg Lounge, bleeding from a cut across his ribs and trying to staple himself shut with one hand.

“You look terrible,” you said.

He looked up sharply. For half a second, his face relaxed.

Not recognition. Never recognition. But something close.

“Forget-Me-Not.”

“You remembered?”

“No.” He glanced at the writing on his wrist. “I prepared.”

Of course he did.

You crouched beside him and slapped his hand away. “I can do it.”

“I’ve seen you try to stitch with your off-hand. It was like watching a raccoon defuse a bomb.”

“Your concern is touching.”

“My concern is impatient.”

You cleaned the wound while he stared at you. The eye contact had become easier.

No. That was a lie. It had become more unbearable.

Because Damian watched like attention was devotion. Like looking could be a form of shelter. Like if he just tried hard enough, the universe would be forced to admit you were there.

“You’re going to need stitches,” you said.

“I know.”

“This will hurt.”

“I know.”

“Don’t do that macho thing.”

“I do not do a macho thing.”

“You were raised by Batman and assassins. You absolutely do a macho thing.”

His lips twitched.

You started stitching. His breath hitched once, controlled and sharp.

Without thinking, you placed your free hand over his.

A stupid comfort. A forgettable comfort.

Damian looked down at your joined hands. You felt the moment his memory dropped.

His fingers tensed. You tried to pull away.

He caught your hand.

Not hard. Just enough.

His eyes were still on your hands. He should have forgotten you. He had forgotten you.

But he did not let go.

Slowly, he looked back up. His expression was confused. Then he saw your face. Then the note on his wrist. Then your hand in his. His thumb moved once against your knuckles.

“I forgot,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“But I did not release you.”

You stared at him.

He looked down again, testing. Memory vanished from his face. His hand remained around yours. Up again.

Reconstruction. Understanding.

“Physical contact,” he said.

Your pulse stumbled. “What?”

“Physical contact may preserve some continuity. Not memory, but intent. Somatic anchoring.”

“You are such a nerd.”

“Yes,” Damian said, eyes bright now in a way that made him look younger. “And you are holding my hand.”

You dropped it immediately. He looked smug for exactly one second before wincing because smugness apparently pulled stitches.

“Don’t get excited,” you said. “It was medical.”

“Of course.”

“I would hold anyone’s hand while sewing their ribs shut.”

“Your bedside manner is abysmal.”

“You’re welcome.”

That night, Damian wrote seventeen pages about somatic anchoring. You pretended not to read them.

You read them three times.

After that, things changed. Not fixed. Never fixed. This was not a fairy tale. Gotham ate fairy tales, picked the bones clean, and sold them back as cautionary graffiti.

Damian still forgot you. Every night. Every conversation. Every time his gaze broke, even for a breath too long.

But now he built ways back. A touch to his wrist. A note in his palm. A recording in his own voice, You trust them. Do not reach for your sword. Ask whether they have eaten.

The first time that recording played, you nearly threw his comm off a roof.

“Ask whether I’ve eaten?” you demanded. “What am I, a stray cat?”

Damian looked you up and down.

You hissed, “Don’t.”

“You do frequent rooftops.”

“I will stab you.”

“You also resist care despite needing it.”

“Damian.”

“And you accepted tuna from Brown last week.”

“That was sushi, you rich gremlin.”

He looked pleased. It was awful.

You started staying longer. That was the dangerous part. Five minutes became ten. Ten became an hour. An hour became patrol routes where Damian would glance at you every few seconds, stubborn as sunrise, refusing to let you vanish if he could help it.

Sometimes he failed. A lot of times, he failed. You learned the shape of his forgetting. The slight tightening of his stance. The way his eyes flicked cold before his notes thawed him. The apology he gave every time, even when you told him to stop.

Especially then.

“I apologise.”

“Don’t.”

“I hurt you.”

“You forgot me. That’s different.”

“No,” Damian said once, quiet beneath the rain. “It is not.”

You had no joke for that. So you stood beside him in silence while Gotham glittered wet and cruel below.

Your shoulder brushed his. He did not move away.

Neither did you.

The first time he kissed you, he forgot you halfway through. It was, objectively, a disaster.

You were laughing when it happened, which made it worse.

Damian had been trying to explain a new theory involving tactile recall, mnemonic loops, and Zatanna, because apparently the Bats’ solution to metaphysical trauma was “call a magician and make three spreadsheets.”

“You made a spreadsheet about me?”

“Several.”

“That is either romantic or a federal concern.”

“You are deflecting.”

“You are flirting with data.”

“I am flirting with you.”

You stopped breathing. Damian stopped too. The city wind moved between you.

“Don’t say things you won’t remember,” you whispered.

His expression changed. Softened. “I may not remember saying them,” he said, “but I have written them in twenty-three places. I have recorded them in my own voice. I have told Drake, Cain, and Pennyworth. I have carved reminders into my routines until my life bends around the fact of you.”

Your eyes burned. “Damian.”

“I do not remember you the way I should,” he said. “But I know this: every version of myself that finds the evidence chooses you again.”

Oh. That was unfair.

That was so unfair.

You stepped back, but he caught your hand.

“Do not run.”

“I’m very good at running.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know anything.”

His thumb pressed against your pulse. “I know enough.”

You laughed once, broken and small. “You’re going to look away one day and not look back.”

“No.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he agreed. “I do not. But I know I have looked back every time so far.”

There was no defence against that. None.

You kissed him first. Because you were tired of being a ghost. Because you wanted one thing before the world took it. Because hope was a cruel little weed growing through concrete, and maybe you were tired of ripping it out.

Damian made a soft sound against your mouth, startled, then certain. His hand rose to your jaw. His other hand stayed locked around yours. For one blazing second, you were held in memory and body both.

Then a siren wailed below. His eyes flicked toward the street.

You felt him forget. His mouth stilled. His hand tensed.

You pulled back before his confusion could finish forming.

Damian blinked at you, alarmed. Then looked at your joined hands. At the note written across his glove. You love them. Breathe. His face went scarlet.

You stared. He stared.

“Oh my god,” you said hoarsely. “You wrote that on your glove?”

Damian cleared his throat. “It seemed practical.”

“You are insane.”

“Likely.”

“You forgot me during our first kiss.”

His eyes widened. Then narrowed at himself, offended. “Unacceptable.”

You laughed. You laughed so hard your eyes spilled over.

Damian looked stricken.

“No,” you said quickly, wiping your face. “No, I’m not— I’m not laughing because it hurt.”

Though it did. Of course it did. Everything did. But not only. Not anymore.

“I’m laughing because you look personally betrayed by your own brain.”

“I am.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I will do better next time.” Next time. The words landed softly. Carefully. Like a coat around cold shoulders.

“You want a next time?” you asked.

Damian looked at the glove again. Then at you. He did not remember the kiss. But his mouth curved faintly. “I apparently insisted upon it in writing.”

You smiled despite yourself. “Okay, Wayne.”

His hand tightened around yours. “Okay?”

You leaned in until your forehead touched his. “Next time.”

He closed his eyes.

Panic shot through you. But his hand stayed in yours. His forehead stayed against yours. And when he opened his eyes again, the confusion came. Then the note. Then the choice.

Always the choice.

“There you are,” he said softly.

Your breath caught.

He did not remember saying it before. Maybe he never had. Maybe he would say it again.

Maybe that was enough to survive on. For now.

Zatanna could not cure you. Not fully.

You expected that. You told yourself you expected that. Still, when she stood in the cave beneath the cold blue light and said, “I’m sorry,” something in you folded inward.

Damian’s hand found yours immediately. Anchoring. Always anchoring.

Zatanna’s expression was gentle in a way you did not know what to do with. “It isn’t just magic,” she said. “There’s magic in it, yes, but also metahuman biology, trauma response, maybe even a curse that attached itself to your ability when you were young. It’s tangled.”

“Great,” you said. “Love being a group project.”

Tim, from behind three laptops, whispered, “Honestly, same.”

Damian glared at him.

Zatanna continued, “I may be able to help reduce the effect. Create anchors. People who consent to remembering you may be able to retain emotional continuity longer. Names may hold power. Touch helps. Written records help. Repetition helps.”

You swallowed. “But no cure.”

“Not today.”

Not today. It was not a yes. It was not a no.

Hope, again. That annoying little weed.

Damian looked at you. You knew he was waiting for you to break first. To scoff. To run. To turn cold before disappointment could touch you.

Instead, you looked at your hand in his. At the ink on his wrist. At the wall of notes behind him. At the sketch he had redrawn so many times the eyes were finally starting to look like yours.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you admitted. Your voice sounded too small in the cave.

Damian’s thumb moved over your knuckles. “Neither do I.”

“You hate not knowing things.”

“I do.”

“This could take years.”

“Then we will require more notebooks.”

You laughed wetly. He looked proud of himself.

Little menace.

“You’ll forget me,” you said.

His expression sobered. “Yes.”

No pretty lie. No softening the blade. Just truth.

Then he lifted your joined hands. “And I will find you again.”

You closed your eyes. For once, when someone looked away, you did not disappear completely.

Damian forgot. Then read the note. Then remembered enough. His hand stayed around yours.

When you opened your eyes, he was watching you with that familiar, stubborn, impossible focus. Like the universe had made a rule, and Damian Wayne had taken it personally.

“Hello,” he said carefully. Your heart broke. Your heart healed. Both, maybe.

“Hi,” you whispered.

His gaze dropped to the note on his wrist. Then back to you.

A small smile touched his mouth. “There you are.”

And for the first time in a very long time, you believed him.

The first thing Damian remembered was your laugh. Not your face. Not your voice. Not the exact shape of your hand in his.

Just the laugh.

It came to him three days after Zatanna’s visit, in the middle of sparring with Cass. He was blocking a strike to his ribs when the sound flickered through his mind—quiet, sharp, unwilling, like joy had snuck into your chest and gotten caught trying to escape.

Damian froze. Cass’ foot stopped half an inch from his knee. She tilted her head. Damian lowered his sword.

“I remember something,” he said.

Cass blinked once. Then smiled. Small. Knowing.

Damian hated being known by people who could read body language like scripture.

“What?” she asked.

His mouth opened. For one terrifying second, the memory slipped. Not gone. Slipping.

Damian’s hand snapped to his wrist, where his notes were written in dark ink. FORGET-ME-NOT EXISTS. DO NOT TRUST ABSENCE. THEY ARE REAL.

But he did not need them. The sound returned. A laugh on a rooftop. Rain on metal. Your voice saying, You are flirting with data.

His heart struck hard against his ribs.

“Their laugh,” he said, stunned.

Cass lowered her foot fully. Damian stared at nothing.

He remembered. Not because of a note. Not because of a recording. Not because his past self had left breadcrumbs like a man wandering through a cursed forest.

He remembered something of you.

On his own.

You did not believe him. Naturally.

“That’s adorable,” you said flatly. “Have you considered brain damage?”

Damian stood across from you on the roof of Gotham Central Library, arms crossed, jaw set in the particular way that meant he was either offended or about to confess something emotionally devastating with the energy of a murder accusation. Sometimes both.

“I am not concussed.”

“You say that a lot for someone who gets hit in the head professionally.”

“I remember your laugh.”

You looked away. It was instinct by now. A survival reflex. If someone said something kind, you made sure they forgot it before it became real.

Damian’s breath caught. You heard it. That tiny shift.

You closed your eyes. There it was. The moment. The curse. The world’s old cruel joke, winding itself up again.

When you opened your eyes, Damian was staring at you. Still. Focused. Shaken.

“I remember,” he said.

Your chest tightened. “No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“You read a note.”

“I did not.”

“You listened to a recording.”

“No.”

“You’re guessing.”

“Your laugh is quiet at first,” Damian said, voice low, “as if you resent it for existing. Then it catches. Barely. You look away when it happens, because you do not like being seen wanting to stay.”

The city went silent. Or maybe you did. Your whole body locked around the words.

Damian took one step closer. “You called me a rich gremlin.” Your mouth parted. “And a bat-themed traffic warning.”

“That one was objectively true,” you whispered.

His mouth twitched. “And you told me my handwriting looked like a stabbed insect.”

You stared at him. The wind moved between you, cold and sharp, tugging at his cape and your sleeves. Far below, sirens wailed. Gotham kept being Gotham, rude as ever. But above it, the impossible sat between you like a candle in a ruined church.

“You remember that?” you asked.

“Yes.”

You searched his face for the lie. There wasn’t one. That was the problem with Damian. He could be arrogant, difficult, blunt, dramatic in a way he would deny until the sun died, but he did not give you comfort he could not defend.

Hope stirred. You hated it. You hated how quickly it had learned his name.

“Maybe it’s temporary,” you said.

“It may be.”

“Maybe it won’t last.”

“It may not.”

“Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow, and it’ll be gone.”

His expression softened. “Then I will begin again tomorrow.”

Your throat burned. “You don’t get tired of that?”

“Yes.”

The honesty hit harder than a pretty answer would have.

Damian stepped closer. “I get furious,” he said. “I get impatient. I get…” His jaw tightened. “Afraid.” You stared. Damian Wayne said the word like it had been dragged out of him by the throat. “But I do not get tired of you.”

Your breath caught. He looked startled by his own words, but he did not take them back. You laughed once, brittle and small. “That’s a terrible line.”

“I was not aware we were exchanging lines.”

“You’re doing a tragic rooftop romance. You should at least be good at it.”

“I will improve.”

“Don’t make that sound like a threat.”

“I make no promises.”

There it was again. The almost-smile. You wanted to touch it. You wanted to run from it. Both urges lived in you at once, twin animals baring teeth.

Instead, you pulled your knees to your chest and sat on the edge of the roof. After a moment, Damian sat beside you.

Not too close. Close enough.

You glanced at him. “Do you remember my face?”

His silence answered before he did. “No,” he said. You nodded like that didn’t hurt. “I remember impressions,” he continued. “Your eyes when you are annoyed. The angle of your head when you are about to insult me. The way your shoulders rise when someone says something kind and you do not know where to put it.”

“Wow. Drag me, why don’t you.”

“I remember the scar on your left thumb.”

Your hand curled instinctively. Damian noticed.

“You told me it was from a knife fight,” he said.

“I lied.”

“I know.” You looked at him sharply. He glanced at your hand, then quickly back to your face, as if afraid to lose you. “You cut yourself opening a can of peaches when you were twelve.”

The world fell out from under you. You had told him that on a bad night. A stupid night. A night where you had been tired and bleeding and too lonely to keep every door locked. You had told him about the abandoned apartment you stayed in that winter, about eating canned fruit with a stolen pocketknife, about slicing your thumb open and crying more because there was no one to hear you than because it hurt.

You had told him. Then he had looked away. And forgotten. You had regretted saying it for weeks.

Damian remembered.

Your hand trembled before you could stop it. He saw. Carefully, slowly, he offered his hand palm-up between you.

Not taking. Asking.

Damn him. Damn him for learning you this gently.

You stared at his hand like it was a trap. Then you placed yours in it.

His fingers closed around yours. The contact steadied something in the air. Or maybe in you.

“I remember that,” Damian said.

You swallowed hard. “How?”

“I do not know yet.”

“Of course you added ‘yet.’”

“I am consistent.”

“You’re impossible.”

“I have been called worse.”

“By me.”

“Mostly, yes.”

A laugh escaped you. Soft. Unwilling.

Damian’s eyes sharpened, not like a hunter this time, but like a boy watching the first star appear in a dark sky.

“There,” he whispered. You went still. “I will remember that one too.”

Your heart hurt so badly you almost hated him for it.

Almost.

The second thing Damian remembered was your voice.

It happened badly. The Narrows were soaked in rain, neon bleeding down dirty windows and alley walls. You had been tracking a weapons shipment tied to Black Mask’s old network. Damian had tracked it too, which meant the two of you ended up on opposite sides of the same warehouse skylight, glaring at each other through wet glass like the world’s least normal meet-cute.

“You followed me,” you said through the comm he had given you.

“I was here first.”

“I was here silently.”

“I was here competently.”

“That’s debatable.”

“You set off the pressure sensor on the south entrance.”

“That sensor was ugly and deserved it.”

Damian sighed. You grinned despite yourself. Then the floor beneath him exploded. The comm cut out. Your body moved before your fear could name itself.

You dropped through the skylight into smoke and gunfire, landing hard on a steel beam. Below, men shouted. Red emergency lights flashed. Damian was on one knee near the centre of the room, one hand braced against the concrete, blood bright against his temple.

For one horrible second, he looked younger. Not Robin. Not Batman’s heir.

Just Damian. Your Damian.

No. Not yours.

You threw three blades in quick succession. Three men dropped.

Damian looked up. His eyes found you.

Relief flickered across his face. Then a flashbang detonated. White swallowed everything. When your vision returned, Damian was standing with his sword drawn and no recognition in his eyes.

Of course. You knew this part. You could survive this part.

Then he pointed the blade at you. “Identify yourself.”

Something inside you snapped.

“Are you kidding me?” you shouted.

He froze. Not because he remembered.

Because your voice did something to him.

You saw it happen. His shoulders shifted. His grip faltered. His eyes widened, not with knowledge, but with impact. Your voice had gotten through before his mind could slam the door.

“Robin!” one of the smugglers barked from behind him.

Damian did not turn. Good. Learning.

The man raised a gun. You shot him in the shoulder.

Damian’s gaze flicked instinctively toward the sound. Lost.

His face emptied. Then his jaw clenched. He looked back at you.

“I know your voice,” he said.

You almost missed your next throw. “What?”

“I know your voice.”

“You don’t know me.”

His eyes narrowed, frustrated. “I know your voice.”

The fight surged around you. This was a terrible place for a revelation.

“Great,” you snapped. “Use that knowledge to duck.”

He ducked. A crowbar swung through the space where his skull had been. Damian moved like water after that, violent and precise. You covered his blind spots. He covered yours. Every time he looked away, his body reset—but not completely. Your voice pulled him back faster each time.

“Left.” He moved left. “Behind you.” He spun. “Duck, pretty bird.”

He ducked, then glared at you mid-fight. “You did not just call me—” He knocked a man unconscious with the hilt of his sword. “You did,” he said.

You shrugged while kicking someone in the knee. “Adrenaline. Don’t read into it.”

“I will read into it extensively.”

“Focus.”

“I am focused.”

“You are flirting while concussed.”

“I am multitasking.”

You laughed. He heard it. And this time, when he looked away, he still smiled.

Only for half a second. Only barely. But you saw it.

And after the last man dropped, Damian stood in the wreckage, rain pouring through the broken skylight, blood sliding down his jaw, and said your name. Not your real name, but the one he had given you.

“Forget-Me-Not.” You froze. His eyes widened. “I remembered.”

You stared at him. “No notes?”

“No notes.”

“No recording?”

“No.”

“No contact?”

“No.”

Your pulse roared in your ears.

Damian lifted a hand to his own mouth, stunned by himself. “I remembered the name.”

You should have made a joke. You always made a joke. Instead you crossed the space between you and grabbed him by the front of his suit. His eyes dropped to your hands.

You knew the risk. His memory flickered. You felt him begin to lose you.

“Damian,” you said.

His gaze snapped back to your face. There. He stayed.

You kissed him. It was not graceful. It was wet from rain and sharp with fear, his mouth startled beneath yours for one breath before he kissed you back with a kind of fierce, trembling focus that made your knees weak. His hands hovered for half a second, like he was afraid touching you wrong would make you vanish. Then one settled at your waist. The other came up to your jaw.

You felt him try not to look away. Felt the concentration in every line of him.

It should have been funny. It was devastating.

You pulled back just enough to breathe. His eyes were still open. Still on you.

“Did you forget?” you whispered.

His fingers tightened. “No.” Your world cracked open. Damian’s voice dropped. “I remember kissing you before.”

You stopped breathing.

His brow furrowed, like the memory was fighting him, like he was dragging it up with both hands from deep water. “Rooftop,” he said. “Siren. I looked away. You laughed at my glove.”

A sound left you. Half laugh. Half sob. “You wrote ‘you love them’ on your glove.”

His face flushed. Even now. Bleeding, soaked, standing over seven unconscious criminals and three dead ones, Damian Wayne blushed because you remembered his dramatic little love note to himself.

“I was being thorough,” he muttered.

“You were being insane.”

“I was being correct.”

You looked at him. He looked back. The rain softened the edges of him. Made him less blade, more boy. Fewer weapons, more want. Your hands were still fisted in his suit.

“You love me?” you asked. The question came out smaller than you meant it to.

Damian’s expression changed. He looked briefly, openly terrified. Then certain. “Yes,” he said.

No hesitation. No escape route. Just yes.

Your eyes stung. “You barely remember me.”

“I remember enough to know what the rest of me keeps choosing.”

“That is the most Damian Wayne answer imaginable.”

“I assume that is favourable.”

“It’s obnoxious.”

“You’re crying.”

“I’m rain-adjacent.”

“It is indoors.”

“There’s a hole in the roof.”

“Because you crashed through it.”

“Romantically.”

His mouth twitched. Then softened. “Beloved,” he said quietly.

You forgot how to be clever. Damian noticed. A dangerous amount of satisfaction entered his face.

“Oh, shut up,” you whispered.

“I said nothing.”

“You looked smug.”

“I am allowed to be pleased when I render you speechless.”

“I’m going to stab you emotionally.”

“You already have.”

And there it was. The ache beneath the banter. The years of loneliness. The curse. The forgetting. The way every soft thing between you had teeth marks in it from trying not to die.

You touched his cheek. His eyes closed for one second. Just one.

When he opened them, panic flashed. Then recognition followed. Slowly. Painfully. But there.

“I remember,” he said, wonder breaking through his voice.

Your thumb brushed his cheekbone. “Damian?”

“I remember.”

His hand covered yours. “I closed my eyes,” he said. “And I remembered.”

You stared at him.

The silence after that was not empty. It was full of every impossible thing neither of you dared to name.

Then Damian leaned forward and kissed you again. This time, he closed his eyes. This time, when he opened them, you were still there.

He became unbearable after that. Scientifically unbearable. You had never seen a man so smug about emotional progress. Damian walked around the Batcave like he had personally defeated the laws of metaphysics through discipline and cheekbones.

“I remembered their voice for fourteen minutes without visual confirmation,” he told Tim.

Tim stared at him over his coffee. “Good morning to you, too.”

“This suggests the effect is weakening.”

“It suggests you’re in love and making it everyone’s problem.”

Damian sniffed. “I am conducting research.”

“You wrote their name in the margin of a case file.”

“That was accidental.”

“You surrounded it with little flowers.”

Damian’s face went blank. Tim’s grin widened. “They were tactical flowers,” Damian said.

You, hidden in the rafters above them, nearly choked trying not to laugh.

Damian’s head snapped up.

He could not see you. Still, he smiled. Tiny. Private. Like his body knew where you were before his eyes did.

Tim followed his gaze and sighed. “You two are going to be disgusting, aren’t you?”

“I do not know what you mean,” Damian said.

“You’re already doing the secret rooftop eye-contact thing.”

“Your jealousy is unbecoming.”

“I’m not jealous. I’m sleep-deprived and surrounded by emotionally constipated vigilantes discovering romance like it’s a new martial art.”

From the rafters, you whispered, “He’s not wrong.”

Damian looked directly at your hiding place. “I heard that.”

Tim startled. “You heard them?”

Damian paused.

His expression changed. Not confusion. Astonishment. He had heard you without seeing you. And remembered who the voice belonged to.

You dropped lightly from the rafters, landing beside the computer platform.

Tim looked at you. Then away by accident. When his gaze returned, he frowned at the empty space his mind insisted on making.

“Right,” Tim muttered, immediately looking at his tablet. “Wow. That is annoying.”

“Welcome to my whole life,” you said.

Tim winced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You wrote a twelve-page theory about me involving quantum attention decay. That was worse.”

Tim brightened. “You read that?”

“No.”

“You did.”

“Unfortunately.”

Damian stepped closer to you. His hand brushed yours. Not because he needed to anchor himself.

Because he wanted to. That difference nearly ruined you.

Tim looked between you and Damian. Or tried to. Mostly, his eyes kept snagging on Damian’s hand and then sliding away from the rest of you.

“So,” Tim said slowly, “he’s remembering more?”

“Yes,” Damian said.

You looked at him. “Sometimes.”

“More than sometimes.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“I am accurately confident.”

“You remembered I hate lilies and decided that made you a wizard.”

“You said lilies smell like funeral homes and rich guilt.”

Tim pointed at you with his coffee. “That is incredibly specific.”

Damian’s eyes stayed on you. “I remembered because it mattered to them.”

The cave went quiet. Even Tim had the decency not to ruin it.

You swallowed. “Stop being sincere in public.”

“This is my home.”

“There are bats in it.”

“They are family.”

Tim whispered, “See? Disgusting.”

Damian ignored him. You tried to, but your mouth twitched. And Damian remembered that too.

Your real name came on a night without costumes. That was not planned. Most important things with Damian were either meticulously planned or happened with the emotional timing of a car crash. This was the second kind.

You were at Wayne Manor because Alfred had decided you were underfed. Alfred Pennyworth, you quickly discovered, was immune to approximately sixty per cent of your nonsense through sheer British stubbornness. He forgot you, yes. But he did not forget the place setting he had arranged. He did not forget the extra cup of tea. He did not forget the note he had written in elegant script beside the tray, Our guest takes honey, not sugar. Do not allow Master Damian to brood overmuch.

You read it three times. Then blamed allergies.

There were no allergies.

Damian found you in the library after dinner, standing near the window with a cup of tea cooling in your hands.

“You fled,” he said.

“I relocated.”

“You were overwhelmed.”

“I was avoiding your brother asking whether I’m your partner.”

Damian went still. “He asked that?”

“He tried to. He forgot halfway through and asked why you were smiling at a chair.”

Damian grimaced. You turned from the window.

The library was warm, gold-lit, lined with books that looked older than several Gotham neighborhoods. Rain tapped against the glass. Somewhere far down the hall, Dick laughed at something Jason said. It sounded painfully normal. Too normal for you. Too much like a life.

Damian approached carefully. “You may leave whenever you wish.”

“I know.”

“No one will keep you here.”

“I know.”

“You are not a prisoner of being wanted.”

You looked down at your tea. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“I can.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I might believe you.”

Damian was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “Good.”

Your grip tightened around the cup. The ceramic warmed your palms. You hated how badly you wanted to stay. You hated how much of your life had been built around leaving before anyone could prove you were impossible to keep.

“Damian,” you said.

He stepped closer. “Yes?”

You looked at him then. No mask. No hood. No blood. No rooftop distance. Just Damian in a dark sweater, hair still damp from the rain, eyes fixed on you like attention was the first language he had ever learned.

“I want to tell you my name,” you said.

His face changed. Softened. Sharpened. Almost reverent. “You do not have to.”

“I know.”

“If you tell me, I may forget it.”

“I know.”

“I will write it down.”

“I know.”

“It still may hurt.”

You laughed under your breath. “It already hurts.”

Damian looked pained. You set the tea aside. Then you stepped close enough that your shoes nearly touched his.

You told him. Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just a name. A small sound. A human thing. The first thing ever taken from you.

Damian closed his eyes like receiving it hurt.

Then he opened them. Said it back. Perfectly.

Your breath shook. “No one has said that to me in years,” you whispered.

Damian’s hand rose, then stopped. “May I?”

You nodded.

He touched your cheek. Your eyes closed on instinct. His thumb moved softly against your skin.

Then he turned his head. Just slightly. A glance toward the door at a distant sound.

Your stomach dropped.

There. The curse took its bite.

Damian went still. His hand remained on your face. His eyes returned to you. For one second, there was no recognition. Then something fought through.

Not notes. Not touch alone. Something deeper.

His brow furrowed. His lips parted. Then he said your name.

Your whole body went cold. Then hot. Then weightless.

“You remember,” you breathed.

Damian stared at you as if he were afraid moving would break the world. “Yes.”

“Say it again.”

He did.

You covered your mouth. He said it again, softer. Like a vow. Like a prayer. Like he was teaching the universe how to behave.

You made a sound you could not swallow.

Damian pulled you into his arms. Not too tight. Never trapping. Just holding.

You buried your face against his shoulder and shook. He pressed his mouth to your hair.

“I remember,” he whispered.

You clutched the back of his sweater. “You remember me.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I will not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he said, voice rough. “But I know your name.”

You broke then. Not prettily. Not quietly. Years of vanishing tore out of you all at once. You cried like a child. Like the child who had waited at a dinner table no one set. Like the teenager who had learned knives because hands were never offered. Like the ghost who had survived being forgotten by pretending they did not want to be known.

Damian held you through all of it. And when he looked away once, twice, three times—

He still knew who you were when he looked back.

He asked you properly two weeks later. Because apparently, Damian Wayne could confess love in a burning warehouse but needed a formal strategy for dating.

You found the list by accident. Mostly accident. Fine. Thirty percent accident.

It was in his notebook, beneath a heading written in his sharp, perfect block letters, COURTSHIP PARAMETERS You stared. Then slowly turned the page.

Ask directly. Do not assume existing emotional intimacy equals consent to romantic partnership. Avoid phrasing as a tactical alliance. Drake says this is “weird.” Flowers? Not lilies. Possible alternatives: forget-me-nots, though they may be too obvious. Consider irony? No. Too painful? Ask. Dinner? Public spaces may increase discomfort due to memory effect. Rooftop picnic? Too much like patrol? Do not say “I have selected you.” Brown laughed for four minutes.

You had to sit down. By the time Damian entered the room, you were on his bed, laughing silently into his pillow.

He stopped in the doorway. “You are invading my privacy.”

“You wrote ‘do not say I have selected you.’” His entire face went red. You clutched the notebook to your chest. “Damian.”

“Give that back.”

“You asked Steph for dating advice?”

“I consulted multiple sources.”

“Did you ask Jason?”

His expression darkened. “Todd suggested kidnapping you from yourself.”

“That’s almost poetic.”

“He also suggested leather.”

You wheezed.

Damian lunged for the notebook.

You rolled away, laughing harder. He caught your ankle. You shrieked, half-laughing, and kicked at him without real force. He climbed onto the bed with the terrifying determination of a man fighting for his dignity and losing badly.

“Return it,” he demanded.

“You made a courtship battle plan.”

“It is not a battle plan.”

“It has numbered objectives.”

“It is a list.”

“You were going to ask me out with logistics.”

“I was going to ask you with respect.”

That stopped you. Damian froze too, one hand braced beside your shoulder, the two of you suddenly close enough that laughter became breath. His blush lingered high on his cheeks.

Your smile softened despite yourself. “You were?”

“Yes.”

You looked down at the notebook. Then back at him. “Okay. Ask me.”

“Now?”

“No, Damian. Next fiscal quarter.”

His eyes narrowed. “Your sarcasm is a defence mechanism.”

“Your face is a defence mechanism. Ask.”

He took the notebook from your loosened hand and set it aside. Then, because he was Damian, he straightened even while kneeling on his bed like this was a boardroom and not the most ridiculous romantic moment in recorded history. He looked directly at you. Softer this time.

“I love you,” he said. Your heart tripped. Still. Every time. “I remember you now more often than I forget,” he continued. “But even before that, I knew you. I knew you from the evidence you left behind. I knew you in what my hands refused to release. I knew you in the anger I felt when the world failed to keep you.” You swallowed. “I do not want you as a mission,” he said. “Or a mystery. Or a wound I am arrogant enough to believe I can close. I want you as you are. Difficult. Violent. Irritatingly funny.”

“Careful. I’m swooning.”

“You interrupt when uncomfortable.”

“I’m on brand.”

His mouth curved. “I want to be with you,” he said. “If you will have me.”

For a moment, you could not answer. Your chest felt too full. Too bright. Like hope had stopped being a weed and become a garden overnight, and you had no idea how to tend it.

“You’re sure?” you whispered.

“Yes.”

“What if it gets worse again?”

“Then we adapt.”

“What if you forget for a whole day?”

“I will come back.”

“What if you don’t?”

Pain crossed his face. No offence. Understanding. “Then you are allowed to be angry with me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the only honest one.” He touched your hand. “I cannot promise perfection. I can promise effort. I can promise records, anchors, magic, research, and my own unbearable persistence.”

“You are unbearable.”

“I know.”

“You’re smug.”

“Frequently.”

“You brood.”

“Productively.”

“You’re bad at casual affection.”

“I am improving.”

“You tried to label kissing as positive tactile reinforcement.”

He closed his eyes. “I apologised for that.”

“You did.”

“I will never say it again.”

“You better not.”

His eyes opened. Your hand turned beneath his, fingers sliding between his.

“But yeah,” you whispered. “I’ll have you.”

Damian went very still. Then, quietly, “Yes?”

“Yes.”

His face changed. You had seen Damian angry. Injured. Focused. Afraid. Tender in flashes he tried to hide.

You had never seen him happy like this. It was not loud. It did not transform him into someone else. It simply loosened something around his eyes, lit something beneath his skin. A sunrise with discipline. A miracle standing at attention.

Then he leaned down and kissed you. Slowly. Carefully. Like he had all the time in the world and planned to use it well.

You smiled against his mouth.

He pulled back just enough to frown. “You are laughing.”

“I’m dating a man with courtship parameters.”

“I rescind my vulnerability.”

“No take-backs.”

He kissed you again, firmer this time. Your hand rose to the back of his neck, fingers slipping into his hair. He made a quiet sound that you immediately filed away for future bullying.

Then his eyes closed. Your body tensed automatically. He felt it.

His forehead rested against yours. Eyes still closed, he said your name. Perfectly.

You shuddered.

Again, he said it.

Then opened his eyes.

“There you are,” Damian whispered.

And this time, he remembered saying it.

The curse did not vanish. Life was not that kind. Strangers still forgot you. Cameras still blurred if no one watched the footage with intention. Tim still had to write your name on his coffee cup when you visited the cave, and Jason still got annoyed every time he forgot who had stolen his ammo.

“You,” Jason snapped once, pointing at empty air beside you, “better be the reason my smoke bombs are missing.”

You held one up.

Jason looked away. Looked back. Forgot. Then saw the smoke bomb floating in your hand.

“Oh, come on.”

You laughed for ten minutes.

Damian remembered the sound all day.

That was the difference now.

Not a cure.

A beginning.

Some days were worse. Some days, Damian forgot your face after blinking too long. Some days, your name dissolved on his tongue and came back only after he touched the bracelet Zatanna had spelt for him.

Some days you spiralled. Some days he did.

But more often, he remembered.

Your voice from another room. Your hand without looking. Your name in the morning, sleep-rough and certain. Your laugh. Your scars. Your tea. Your hatred of lilies. Your habit of sharpening knives when anxious.

The way you still stood near exits. The way you looked stunned every time he reached for you simply because he wanted to.

And every time he remembered, some old frozen piece of you thawed.

Not all at once. Not cleanly.

Healing was ugly sometimes. It limped. It snapped. It forgot the way home and had to be led back by hand.

But Damian was good at difficult paths.

And you, despite everything, were still here.

One evening, months after the warehouse, you found him on the same rooftop where he had first remembered your laugh. He was waiting with a thermos of tea, two paper containers of takeout, and a small pot of blue flowers.

You stared at it. “Are those forget-me-nots?”

Damian looked almost defensive. “Too obvious?”

“Horribly.”

“I suspected.”

“Very dramatic.”

“I was informed romance requires some drama.”

“By who?”

“Grayson.”

“That explains everything.”

Damian held out the flowers. You took them carefully.

“They’re pretty,” you admitted.

“I know.”

“Smug.”

“Accurately confident.”

You sat beside him, shoulder pressed to his.

Below, Gotham glowed like a bruise full of stars.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then Damian said your name.

Softly.

No prompt. No note. No spell.

You looked at him.

He was watching the skyline, not you.

He had said it while looking away.

Your breath vanished.

Damian turned his head. Saw your face.

Remembered why you looked like that.

His expression softened.

“I know,” he said.

Your eyes burned. “You looked away.”

“Yes.”

“And you remembered.”

“Yes.”

You laughed once, wet and disbelieving. “Show-off.”

He smiled.

Actually smiled. Small but real, and yours to remember even if the world forgot.

You leaned into him. His arm came around you.

This time, neither of you called it anchoring.

This time, it was just holding.

“I love you,” you whispered.

Damian went very still.

You felt the breath leave him.

Then his hand tightened around yours.

He said your name again. Then, “I love you.”

No curse took it. No silence swallowed it. No forgetting followed.

The words stayed. You stayed.

And when Damian looked away toward the city, then back at you, his smile returned like dawn breaking over a place that had only ever known night.

“There you are,” he said.

You smiled through the ache.

WAYNE MEDICAL WING LIGHTS WERE TOO BRIGHT for someone who’d just stopped being technically unconscious, but damian surfaced like someone annoyed at being dragged from a nap he didn’t consent to, an insult so personal his eyelids twitched before they even opened. the brightness pressed through his skull like it was trying to etch itself directly into his brain. sterile white, the kind that had never once existed in a place he trusted. he cracked his eyes open anyway.

bad choice.

the ceiling came into focus in pieces: harsh tiles, vents humming cold air downward, a hairline crack near the corner he’d catalogued months ago during someone else’s medical emergency. except this time it wasn’t someone else lying flat on their back in a bed built for recovery and compliance. it was him. which meant something had already gone terribly wrong.

the sheets were tucked too tightly, pinning him with all the subtlety of a net trap. the IV line tugged whenever he moved his fingers. his throat tasted dry, surgical dryness, not dehydration, and every breath carried that over-sterile antiseptic scent that hospitals diffused like perfume. it stung in a way memory recognized before consciousness did.

he hated it. he hated it viscerally, instinctively, the way you hate an enemy you’ve fought before.

a chair creaked. dick. of course. no one else sat that way, half-slouched, half-alert, like a golden retriever trying to look responsible. “hey, baby bat,” dick welcomed softly, which was exactly the wrong volume. “back with us?”

damian squinted at him as if being spoken to was rude. his voice, when it came, sounded like someone had replaced his mouth with cement. “why,” he croaked, blinking slowly, “are you here.”

“you had surgery.”

damian paused like the word needed to be decoded. then his eyebrows knit together, slow, offended, gradually outraged. “i didn’t agree to that.”

dick huffed a tired laugh. “yeah, well… it was kind of an emergency. and you were unconscious. and also? you literally signed the consent form before the anesthesia.”

damian stared at him, long and unimpressed. “forged.”

“it wasn’t forged.”

“i do not sign things.”

“you sign things all the time.”

damian shut his eyes briefly, like acknowledging that was beneath him. then he opened them again, narrower, sharper, but the effect was ruined by how unfocused the pupils were, drifting like his thoughts kept hitting walls before reaching their destination. the air was too clean. the lights too white. the smell coiled into his chest and pulled memories he’d rather leave buried, metal tools, cold hands, the way the world looked when he was small and helpless and expected to endure instead of resist. nothing specific, just impressions. sensations. hospitals always woke old ghosts.

his jaw tightened. he wasn’t supposed to be the one in this bed. he didn’t get hurt. not enough to be downed like this. the last patrol replayed in flashes — a blade catching him off-balance, the impact hot, surprising. he remembered the pain, but not falling. not blacking out. that made his stomach twist.

failure. vulnerability. unacceptable.

dick watched him with that older-brother sensitivity that always made damian bristle, like being perceived was an attack. “before you say anything,” dick added, “you did not lose the fight. you didn’t mess up. you got blindsided by a meta with a strength boost and you still managed to take him down. you just… didn’t stay upright afterward.”

damian glared. “i don’t recall being horizontal.”

“because you passed out.”

another glare. this one personal. dick raised his hands. “don’t look at me like that. i didn’t make you lose consciousness.”

damian’s fingers twitched against the sheets. the fabric felt wrong, stiff, overwashed, hospital-issue. the kind meant for patients who stayed still. he hated being still. he shifted slightly, and something tugged sharply at the back of his hand. his gaze snapped downward.

an IV. taped in place. tubing snaked up to a bag overhead, dripping fluid into his bloodstream without permission. his entire expression went cold. “remove it.”

dick inhaled sharply. “damian—”

“remove it.”

“don’t— okay, don’t—” dick took two hurried steps forward as damian’s fingers curled around the line. “don’t you dare pull that out. i mean it. don’t.”

“i am not a lab specimen.”

“you’re not,” dick agreed. “you’re someone who needs fluids and pain meds because you were— what’s the word— oh yeah— stabbed.”

“it was minor.”

“it was internal.”

damian blinked at him, insulted. “i don’t want it.”

“too bad.”

there was tension in damian’s shoulders. that hyper-focused alertness from childhood, when beds were places you recovered because you weren’t allowed to move, not because someone cared. his muscles remembered even when he didn’t think about it. his back never fully pressed to the mattress, his hands never fully relaxed. his breath always came measured, as if steadying itself for violence. the medical wing amplified that tension. the smell. the lights. the machines. everything too reminiscent of control.

he’d been so busy cataloguing exits and shadows and the exact height of the IV stand that he hadn’t even noticed how his own body felt until—

oh.

there it was.

the meds hit him. that soft, warm fog rolling in, blurring everything he tried to focus on. his thoughts glitched, trying to line up in formation and instead tripping over themselves. “grayson,” he said, voice suspicious, “did you put something in my blood?”

dick, who’d been leaning on the side of the bed like a worried parent pretending not to be one, blinked back. “uh—no, bud. you were asleep during the operation, remember? anesthesia? pain meds?”

damian stared at him like dick had just recited a riddle in an unfamiliar dialect. “i was… asleep,” damian repeated. “you let them do that.”

“you needed them to do that.” dick corrected.

damian’s eyes narrowed, though the effect was ruined by how glazed they looked. “i do not need unconsciousness to survive.”

“you do when your insides are trying to become your outsides.” dick muttered.

damian ignored him entirely, still watching him with a narrowing-bandwidth intensity. “you allowed it.”

“you signed the form.”

“forged,” damian said, again, instantly, with the complete confidence of someone who barely remembered what a pen was. “i would not voluntarily be medically compromised.”

“it wasn’t forged,” dick sighed. “you filled it out. you even wrote your full name at the bottom—very neatly, might i add.”

damian frowned like he was conspiring against him. he opened his mouth to deny it… but then a wave of dizziness rolled through him, like someone had tipped the room on its axis. he went still. his eyes went a little wide. “i feel… peculiar.”

“that’s the painkillers.”

“i dislike them.”

“i can tell.”

damian shifted, which was a mistake, his brain lagged behind the movement by a full second, like his consciousness had to sprint to catch up with his body. “my head is—” he paused, searching the ceiling as if the correct vocabulary word was written there. “—float-adjacent.”

“you’re high, dami.”

“i am not—” damian began, then stopped mid-denial, staring at the wall with deep betrayal. “i am.”

“yep.”

“i dislike this.”

“we’ve got that part,” dick said gently. “but you’re safe. and you’re okay. and it’s temporary.”

damian’s eyes tracked dick’s face like it was the only stable object in a shifting landscape. his brow furrowed with an almost childlike confusion. “i… don’t remember agreeing,” he murmured. “or anything. i was… focused. then pain.” he paused, blinked. “…then nothing.”

“that’s normal.”

“…where’s—”

but the name got lost on damian’s tongue.

not forgotten, more like the conveyor belt of his brain jammed halfway through delivering it. he blinked, confused, mouth still slightly open like the word might tumble out if he waited long enough. dick straightened, alert. “where’s who, bud?”

damian stared back at him, unfocused. something flickered behind his eyes, something searching, reaching. but whatever it was refused to surface. his brows knit, annoyed at his own mind for failing him. “…i don’t—” he frowned, as if the thought had slipped between his fingers. “i knew it. i know it. i just… can’t… hold it.”

dick softened. “hey. it’s okay. you’re still coming out of anesthesia.”

“i dislike that.”

“i know.”

“it makes me stupid.”

dick smiled. “you’re not stupid.”

“i am,” damian insisted, deadly serious. “my brain is… delayed. treacherous.”

“you’re just drugged, kiddo.”

damian frowned. the door opened before dick could say anything else, tim walking in first, rubbing his eyes, followed by cass. tim raised his coffee cup. “look who’s conscious.”

cass tipped her head.

damian’s eyes snapped to them—well, halfway. they snapped, stalled, then drifted into their direction like his neurons were buffering. “you are loud,” damian announced.

tim blinked. “we… didn’t say anything.”

“your face is loud.”

tim nodded solemnly. “makes sense.”

cass stepped closer, tracking damian’s micro-movements with an ease that came from years of knowing how to read bodies better than minds. damian tried—tried—to push himself up. his arm trembled. his shoulder lifted a fraction. cass reached out with one finger and pressed it lightly to his sternum. damian went down like gravity had increased selectively on his body alone. his eyes went wide. “that is unfair.”

cass offered a tiny smile. “doctor’s orders.”

“i do not listen to orders.”

“you listened to hers.” tim added dryly.

damian glared at him. or tried to. the effect was softened by the fact his eyelids kept drooping like they were too heavy. “she cheated,” damian muttered.

cass watched the way damian’s eyes refused to work with him and smiled shyly. “you’re high.”

“i am not—” damian started, then hesitated, as if realizing halfway through the lie that he didn’t have the cognitive precision to pull it off. “i am… moderately under the influence.”

“that’s one way to put it.” tim mumbled.

damian’s head tilted back toward dick like his mind was circling back to unfinished business. “i was asking.”

“about who?” dick asked.

damian stared at him again. long, slow, pondering with the full force of a malfunctioning operating system. he opened his mouth, then closed it. frustration etched across his face. “…gone,” he said finally. “i lost it.”

“it’ll come back.”

“i hate this,” damian declared. “i hate hospitals. i hate beds. i hate drugs. i hate this room. i hate—”

“oh boy,” tim breathed. “here we go.”

damian lifted one hand. studied it. flexed his fingers—delayed, clumsy. he stared like his own hand had betrayed him. “my reaction speed is compromised. this is humiliating.”

“don’t worry,” tim said cheerfully. “we’re taking mental notes.”

damian shot him a bleary glare. “i will end you.”

“in your current state?” tim asked. “you couldn’t even end a game of tic-tac-toe.”

“i could,” damian insisted, leaning forward as if to intimidate him, except his torso only made it two inches up before cass’s finger sent him right back down again. damian let out a low, affronted noise. “stop that.” he told her.

she shook her head.

damian’s eyes narrowed, then drifted, then narrowed again as if the glare needed to be reinstalled every few seconds. he sighed, long and dramatic. “i should not be in this bed.”

“you were stabbed,” dick said gently.

“everyone gets stabbed.”

“not in the liver.” tim said, absolutely delighted to be here, absolutely delighted that damian wasn’t at full power to stop him.

damian blinked. “my liver?”

“yes.”

he frowned, deeply betrayed. “i use that.”

“not today you don’t.”

damian ignored him, attention wandering again, circling back toward the hole in his memory like a bee drawn repeatedly to the same window. tim rocked back on his heels, arms crossed, grin already sharpening. “so,” he began casually, “speaking of things you ‘use,’ want to talk about the stuff you were saying while you were unconscious?”

dick’s head snapped toward him. “tim. no.”

tim ignored him completely. “because wow. i didn’t know you had a romantic side. like—it was actually kind of sweet? a little embarrassing? honestly extremely embarrassing.”

damian’s face twisted. “what are you—”

“you kept saying,” tim continued, pitching his voice into a dreamy falsetto, “‘my beloved… come back… come here… where are you…’” he clutched his chest dramatically.

“I did not say that,” damian barked, though it came out slightly slurred, tragically soft, devastatingly unthreatening. “drake is lying.” damian announced to the ceiling, as if the ceiling could issue a rebuttal.

except —- then damian froze, not visibly, internally, like someone had pulled the emergency brake on his thoughts. the hazy warmth in his veins pulsed, rising like heat behind his ears. something in his chest tightened, memory stirring sluggishly but insistently. the drugs softened everything except that. that memory. that wanting.

the warmth in his bloodstream pulsed again, stronger, like a tide he couldn’t fight. he blinked slowly, vision blooming and fading at the edges, and in the middle of that blur, something clear rose to the surface. you.

your face. your voice. your hands brushing the hair off his forehead last week. your breath against his neck in the quiet hours. your laugh that he pretended didn’t undo him. he inhaled sharply, like the thought of you punched through the haze. tim, seeing the shift, took a step back. he knew this was no longer teasing territory, this was damian’s guard dissolving in real time. dick moved a little closer. “damian?”

damian blinked again. confusion, longing, frustration, and beneath all of it, a tenderness so raw it seemed to surprise even him. “where’s…” his voice wobbled, more breath than sound. “(y/n)?”

tim’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. cass’s head tilted, studying him. damian didn’t notice their reactions—didn’t even register that he’d slipped. the meds made the truth feel natural, inevitable, impossible to contain.

“i want her here.”

dick blinked rapidly. “her?”

“yes, her,” damian muttered like they were stupid for being confused, tone clipped but dreamy, like he was trying to be irritated through marshmallow fog. “she should be here.”

dick tried gently, “who—”

“(y/n).” damian snapped. “the one i— the one who—” he cut himself off, annoyed at how hard the words suddenly were. his tongue felt slow. his brain fuzzed.

everything except the wanting.

“i’d much rather be with her than you guys.”

damian pushed on, voice dipping into something warm and unrestrained and utterly unlike him. “she doesn’t talk so loudly,” he mumbled, glaring at tim for existing. “and she doesn’t hover.” a pointed look at dick. “and she’s gentle.” he added, a little dreamily, glancing at cass.

cass’s eyes softened. dick’s heart did a little somersault. tim opened and closed his mouth like a stunned goldfish. damian continued, because the drugs had him rambling, pouring out affection he’d buried so deep even he forgot it was there. “and she smells nice,” he said, brows furrowing like this was deeply important. “and she holds my hand when i’m hurt. why isn’t she here.”

“d,” dick said softly, “we… didn’t know she existed.”

“that’s not my problem.” damian glared at the wall. “she should be here.” he shifted, trying to sit up, but cass stopped him again. he slumped back instantly, blinking up at her like she’d just used dark magic. “i need to talk to her,” damian insisted. “she’s probably worried.”

damian’s face, already soft from the medication, creased in a way none of them had ever seen. not anger, not annoyance, something else. something gentler. unguarded. dangerously unguarded.

he frowned. a slow, heartbreakingly earnest frown. “…she should be here,” he murmured again, more wounded this time, as if the room’s failure to produce you was a insult.

tim whispered, “we’re in uncharted territory,” like a man narrating a nature documentary about a dangerous, delicate creature.

dick pulled a chair closer. “we’re not keeping her from you,” he said. “no one knew you wanted her here.”

damian scowled. “i always want her here.”

tim choked on a laugh. cass elbowed him. but damian wasn’t done—if anything the words were pouring out faster now, because every thought of you made the meds tug him deeper into that warm, floaty honesty. “she knows how to touch my hair the right way,” he admitted, cheeks flushing faintly. “you don’t just— you have to go with the grain, not against the—” he gestured vaguely at his head, missing by several inches. “she knows. why isn’t she here.”

“she doesn’t know you’re awake.”

“you should have told her,” damian argued, scandalized. “you should have— obviously you should have—” his breath stuttered, foggy frustration ripping through him. “i want her.” he repeated, smaller.

“okay,” dick said. “okay. we’ll get her. just… try to relax.”

damian tried to glare, but it melted halfway into a woozy pout. “i won’t relax until she’s here.”

dick exhaled, long-suffering but soft. “i’ll call her. just—stay in the bed. stay horizontal. stay… not ripping out your IV.”

damian made a grumpy sound that was supposed to be dignified and was absolutely not.

you arrived like someone who had run every red light between your apartment and the wayne medical wing. you hadn’t even finished tying your shoes when the call came—an unfamiliar number flashing on your screen, a clipped voice saying, “hi, uh, this is dick grayson—damian’s brother—please don’t panic, he’s okay, but he’s asking for you and we… think you should come.”

you barely remembered hanging up. or grabbing keys. or the elevator door almost closing on your shoulder. ten minutes, maybe eleven, but it felt like one long breath held in your chest. in those ten minutes, everything in your head spun: damian doesn’t get hurt. damian doesn’t call for anyone. damian doesn’t need.

so what could’ve happened for dick to sound like that? what could’ve happened for damian to ask for you?

the security staff let you through without question—dick must’ve put your name on some list, because no wayne employee is normally that chill about strangers sprinting through sterile hallways with fear in their eyes.

your boots echoed off polished floors. the medical wing always had that cold, expensive, unnecessarily white look—a place built to fix bodies, not calm nerves. you followed the signs, heart hammering, palms damp.

room 3B.

your hand hovered on the handle for half a second—half a breath—because you had no idea what version of damian you’d find on the other side of the door. injured damian? angry damian? scared damian?

you pushed the door open.

damian had not relaxed. if anything, he had stewed, curled miserably in a hospital bed that looked like it was offending his entire lineage by existing. his hair was a mess. his eyes were half-lidded and glassy. a deep, irritable crease sat between his brows.

when you stepped in, the room shifted. dick straightened in his chair, relief flooding him. tim blinked like he couldn’t believe you were a real person. cass smiled at you like she’d expected this all along. but damian—

damian’s eyes snapped open like someone had turned the sun directly toward him. the transformation was instant. his whole face softened and brightened all at once, surprise flickering into recognition, recognition melting into something warm and wreckingly tender. “beloved,” he breathed.

and it was so quiet.

then he tried—immediately, stupidly, disastrously—to sit up. “no—no, no,” dick sputtered, grabbing his shoulder, flattening him instantly.

damian blinked up at him, betrayed for the thirtieth time today.

but then his gaze dragged back to you, heavy, warm, intoxicated—not just by meds but by relief. “you’re here. finally.”

your heart dropped somewhere into your stomach. “of course i came,” you started, glancing wearily at everyone in the room but stepping closer. “you called for me.”

“i needed you,” he said, so matter-of-factly it felt like the room stopped breathing. “i told them. repeatedly. they were slow.”

“hey—”

dick shot tim a glare.

damian reached for you without hesitation, fingers outstretched, messy and uncoordinated but desperate. cass gently caught his wrist to keep him from yanking at his IV. “come here,” damian insisted, eyes locked on yours. “i hate this place. i hate all of them.” he gestured vaguely at his siblings. “i want you.”

your lungs forgot how to work. “dami,” you murmured, stepping to his bedside, taking his free hand carefully—careful because he was loopy, careful because he was fragile, careful because he was looking at you like you were the only real thing in a world made of fog.

he exhaled, shoulders sinking in relief the moment your skin touched his. “yes. that. stay.”

and suddenly you’re the idiot standing in a hospital room surrounded by the waynes. you don’t look at any of them. you can’t. eye contact feels like a trapdoor.

because this is the exact scenario damian spent months avoiding. the one he insisted would “complicate matters” or “invite unnecessary scrutiny” or “destroy our operational advantage,” which was his very dramatic way of saying he didn’t want his family to know he had feelings like a human being.

and now he’s clinging to your wrist like a toddler afraid you’ll evaporate. your voice tries to work but it comes out small. “uh… okay. i’m here. not going anywhere.”

dick makes a soft, amazed sound, like he’s watching a wild animal eat out of someone’s hand for the first time. tim is frozen in place, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to run a facial-recognition scan on the situation. cass just looks deeply entertained. damian doesn’t notice any of it. he’s too busy hauling your hand into his chest like he needs the pressure to stay anchored.

he nudges closer to you on the pillow—well, he attempts to, but he’s so high that the movement is less “smooth shift” and more “gentle toppling.” you catch him before he face-plants, hands awkward around his shoulders, and he… softens. actually softens. melts into your touch like he’s never heard of pride in his life. “don’t leave,” he mutters. “they’re awful. you’re the only tolerable one.”

his siblings watch this happen with the energy of people witnessing a natural disaster in slow motion. your heart does something inconvenient. “i’m not going anywhere,” you say again, softer.

he’s going to regret every single word of this when the pain meds wear off. damian relaxes immediately, head tipping toward you, completely unconcerned that half his family is witnessing this emotional striptease he’ll definitely deny later. then his hand paws clumsily at the air until it finds yours again. he drags it to his chest, then up toward his jaw, nudging, nudging, nudging like a disgruntled cat demanding to be held exactly the right way. you blink down at him. “what are you doing.”

“you know what i’m doing,” he mutters, pushing your palm against his cheek like he’s molding clay. “closer.”

“i am close.”

“not enough.” a pout forms soft lower lip pushed forward in wounded royalty. “you’re supposed to…” he gestures with his other hand, fingers fluttering like he’s trying to summon the word. “kiss me.”

your body goes rigid. “damian. your entire family is three feet away.”

tim chokes on spit. dick makes a strangled noise. cass is already covering her smile with her hand. dick, bless him, claps his hands together. “alright! great time to take a break. we’re gonna… uh… give you two some space.”

“a lot of space,” tim adds, sprinting for the door like the room is on fire.

cass pauses beside the doorway, gives you a thumbs-up, then closes the door behind them. immediately, muffled bickering erupts.

“you didn’t record that?”

“i’m not filming our brother in the hospital!”

“coward.”

“guys, shut up—”

“i can’t believe he said kiss me—”

“cass stop laughing—”

“OH my god—”

you drag a hand down your face. “this is mortifying.”

damian doesn’t care. damian cares zero percent. damian is busy guiding your hand back to his cheek and pressing into it like it’s a heat source keeping him alive. “they’re idiots,” he announces, voice thick with anesthesia and indignation. “loud. insufferable. invasive.” he blinks heavily, lashes brushing your wrist. “i’m glad they’re gone.”

“they’re right outside the door still arguing.”

“they’re always arguing,” he says, sleepy venom coating every syllable. “they argue about toast.”

you try not to smile. “and you don’t?”

“i argue with purpose.” he says this with the gravitas of a dying king. “they argue because they’re incompetent.” his fingers curl around your wrist and he tries to tug you closer again. “come here,” he murmurs, cheeks pink from more than medication. “you’re being difficult.”

“i’m being respectful.” you correct.

he frowns. actually frowns, like you’ve just informed him gravity is optional now. “disgusting.” he sighs like a martyr. “just kiss me.”

his fingers skate clumsily up your wrist, slipping twice before finally hooking behind your hand, dragging it back to his cheek with the determination of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline. his pulse flutters beneath your palm, fluttery in that way that tells you the meds are hitting harder. “i need one,” he murmurs, barely audible. “just—one.”

“damian—”

“please,” he whispers. he looks at you like you’re the single point of focus in a world that’s tilting. pupils blown, cheeks flushed with medication and emotion he can’t register enough to restrain. he’s trying so hard to keep his eyes open, to hold onto you, to stay with you in the haze.

the battle between logic and instinct lasts all of four seconds. maybe less. you lean in, careful, so he can pull back if he wants. he doesn’t. he meets you halfway, or at least tries to, except he misjudges the distance and bumps your chin first, blinking like the world betrayed him again. you soften. cup the side of his face, steady him, then you kiss him.

it’s gentle. warm. barely there at first, just the press of your mouth against his, letting him feel it, understand it. his breath catches, a soft inhale against your lips like he can’t believe he got what he asked for. then the tension melts out of him all at once. his shoulders sag. his hand slides up to clutch weakly at your shirt. he makes this tiny, involuntary sound—half sigh, half relief—like the kiss untied some knot inside him he didn’t know was choking him. he kisses you back clumsily, lazily, chasing the contact with unfocused devotion. the kind of kiss that says i’m not fully here, but what i feel for you is.

when you finally pull back—because he’s still recovering—his eyes remain closed for a moment, like reality hasn’t quite caught up. they open, glazed and adoring in a way he will absolutely deny to the grave. “that,” he murmurs, voice dropping like he’s drifting toward sleep. “better.”

you smooth his hair back gently. “yeah?”

he nods against your hand, eyelids lowering again. “you fixed the… everything.” his lips twitch like he wants to smile but doesn’t have the energy. “kiss me again later.”

you can’t help it. you laugh. “we’ll see.”

he hums—hums, like he’s some exhausted, medicated cat settling into sun-warm sheets instead of a post-surgery assassin with a reputation to maintain. for a few minutes, everything is strangely easy. soft. he drifts in and out, eyes half-lidded, expression mellow in a way that would terrify gotham’s criminal underground. he asks you three questions in a row (“what time is it… why does the ceiling breathe… can you make the bed stop tilting?”), only for his attention to wander halfway through the third answer.

you stroke his hair and he melts like warm wax, that stiffness he always carries dissolving like you’re seeing a piece of him that only exists under anesthesia and around you. “you should rest,” you observe.

“i am resting.” he sounds offended you’d suggest otherwise. “i’m the picture of—” he yawns without warning. “—discipline.”

“sure,” you say, hand smoothing down his cheek. “very disciplined.”

he narrows his eyes, but the effect is ruined by how heavy his eyelids are. “mockery is unbecoming.” he drifts again, fingers twitching once like he wants to pull you even closer but can’t muster the energy. ten more seconds pass before he murmurs, barely audible, “don’t be gone long.”

your chest folds in on itself. “i won’t.”

but you still have to go. he needs his siblings updated. you need to breathe something other than recycled medical-wing air. and—let’s be honest—you need to apologize for walking in and accidentally detonating a family-secret bomb.

you pry his hand gently off your shirt, not easy, because he makes a soft, grumpy noise at the loss, and settle it over his blanket. “i’ll be right back,” you whisper.

he scowls, soft and half-asleep. “you better.”

you slip out. the door clicks shut behind you, and immediately, the hallway noise stops. immediately. like a switch. one second there’s muffled arguing, sharp whispers, annoyed sighs, something that sounds suspiciously like tim saying “that’s not fair, cass, you can’t hit people in a debate—”

and the next? dead silent.

you step fully into the corridor. three faces turn to you at once, frozen mid-conflict like you just walked in on a crime scene. dick stands with his arms out like he was physically separating people. tim looks defensive, hands half-raised, mouth half-open. cass is calmly holding what looks like tim’s hoodie string, like she’s been yanking him back into line.

they all stare. you blink. “…hi,” you say. it comes out small. painfully polite. the kind of greeting you use when you’ve just barged into the batfamily’s private meltdown because your secret boyfriend couldn’t keep quiet on morphine.

dick straightens so fast you actually hear the click of his spine. “hi! hey! um. hi. wow. okay. you—you came out.”

tim elbows him. “of course she came out, she used the door—”

cass smacks the back of his head without looking.

“ow???”

you exhale slowly. “so… um. i guess i should say—sorry? for all of that? he’s… not usually like this.”

three pairs of eyes give you the exact same expression:

oh we know.

you swallow, fingers twisting together because suddenly you’re seventeen again and meeting someone’s parents in a too-small living room where everyone is staring. “right,” you say. “um. so. i’m—” the word lodges in your throat. girlfriend.

technically true. emotionally true. secretly true. publicly, though… this was supposed to come out months from now. carefully. intentionally. maybe after damian finished having a internal breakdown about letting anyone know he had feelings at all. definitely not in a fluorescent hallway with him high on enough pain meds to take down a rhinoceros.

you clear your throat. “i’m… his—”

they all lean in a fraction. like wolves scenting vulnerability.

“—girlfriend.”

silence. not the casual kind. not the “oh okay” kind. no. this is the thick, suffocating, batfamily kind of silence, where shock ricochets between them. you want to die.

“wow,” dick finally says, voice high and bright and absolutely panicked. “so you’re—uh—wow. okay.”

tim takes a step back from you like you’re a rare cryptid. “wait, wait. damian—our damian—has a secret girlfriend and he didn’t tell anyone?”

“it wasn’t—” you rub your face. “it wasn’t my idea to keep it secret.”

every head turns toward the door behind you. the door damian is behind. three simultaneous: “of course it wasn’t.”

you sigh. “he didn’t… want the attention. or the questions. or the—” you gesture vaguely at the cluster of energy in front of you “—this.”

dick nods so hard you’re briefly concerned for him. “yeah. okay. right.”

tim crosses his arms. “he trusts none of us with his personal life. unbelievable.”

cass tilts her head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “he likes her,” she says simply.

everyone turns to her, startled by the rare verbal input. she shrugs. “i watch him.”

you’re still mortified.“i’m sorry,” you say again, because apologizing feels easier than existing in this moment.

“no, no,” dick insists. “don’t apologize. we’re just—processing.”

“poorly.” tim adds.

“yes, poorly.”

you glance at the door, then back to them. “he… didn’t mean to tell you. he’s just… really high.

tim snorts. “yeah, we noticed.”

but then—dick softens. visibly. his whole posture loosens. “we’re… glad you’re here. really.”

cass nods once. tim looks like he wants to be annoyed, but deep down, he’s already building a spreadsheet called damian’s girlfriend: things to investigate. you inhale, steadying yourself. this is fine. you’re here. damian’s safe. they’re… intimidating, but also weirdly welcoming in a way. dick takes a half-step toward the door. “he’s probably freaking out that you’re gone.”

you grimace. “…yeah. he’s not subtle right now.”

tim snorts. “understatement of the century.”

you all slip back into the room—well, you walk in, and the batfamily kind of fans in behind you like an unnecessarily dramatic procession—and immediately you’re met with a very specific sound: damian huffing.

he’s upright again, God knows how he managed it with stitches and sedation, blanket bunched around his waist, hair a complete disaster, eyes sharp but unfocused and dark with irritation. he looks like someone who’s been abandoned in a desert for hours, not eight minutes. the second he sees you, everything in him unclenches. the frown softens. the shoulders drop. the tension behind his eyes dissolves like sugar in tea. “finally.”

you take a slow breath. “i was gone for like ten minutes.”

“ten minutes,” he repeats, scandalized. “i could have died.”

dick, behind you, mouths jesus christ into his hands.

you step closer and damian instantly reaches for you, hands out, grabby, zero dignity, all instinct. he looks like he’s two seconds from climbing out of bed and onto you. “i told you,” he mutters, leaning toward you with the gravity of someone confessing state secrets, “i can’t sleep without you.”

your brain stalls. his siblings collectively short-circuit behind you. “you’ve… never said that.”

“i’m saying it now.” he tries to sit up even straighter, immediately winces, then stubbornly ignores the pain. “i hate it when you disappear. it’s—” he squints, trying to find the word in the fog of anesthetic swimming through him, “—unacceptable.”

“unacceptable,” tim echoes under his breath, shaking his head like this is the best day of his life.

damian hears it and snaps—not very effectively, because it’s slurred and soft and deeply non-threatening—“shut up, drake.” then he turns back to you, expression going gentle again so fast it’s whiplash. “come here,” he says, voice lower, sleepy, warm. “please.”

you move without thinking. “better,” he mumbles, leaning into your palm. Leaning. “i hate hospitals.”

“i know you do.”

“they smell like fear and bleach. drake smells like bleach too. it’s suspicious.”

tim throws both hands up. “what—why—what did i even do?!”

damian doesn’t answer, mostly because something else catches his attention. his gaze drifts back toward the IV taped to his hand like he’s just spotted an enemy combatant. “…it’s still there,” he mutters darkly.

you can practically hear dick’s soul leave his body. “damian—”

too late.

damian’s fingers curl, determined and clumsy, reaching for the line like he’s about to solve all his problems via self-sabotage “nope,” you say quickly, sliding your hand over his before he can yank. “don’t start with that.”

he blinks at you, startled. “but it’s in me.”

“yes,” you say calmly, “and it’s supposed to be. if you pull it out, it’s going to hurt, you’ll bleed everywhere, and dr. thompson will throw a fit.”

damian glowers at the IV like it personally betrayed him. “i do not consent to its presence.”

“tough,” you say softly. “leave it.”

and something miraculous happens.

he listens.

he actually stops. his fingers relax under yours, he gives one final deeply offended exhale, then slumps back against the pillow, letting you guide his hand away from the tubing entirely. dick stares at the exchange like he just watched a unicorn descend from the ceiling. “you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

tim narrows his eyes. “yeah, no, I want that in writing. he listened? willingly?”

damian doesn’t even look at them. his attention is fully back on you, as if he’s forgotten anyone else exists. “you’re better at giving orders,” he mumbles, voice slurred and honest.

your eyebrows shoot up. “i didn’t give an order.”

“yes you did,” he insists, even poutier now. “and i liked it.”

tim chokes. you press a hand over damian’s, trying not to laugh. “okay. well. thank you for listening.”

“i listen to you,” he says, like it’s obvious. “you make sense.”

and then—inevitably—damian’s gaze drifts, catches something on the wall-mounted TV across from the bed, and brightens in a way that is actually alarming. “tch. finally,” he mutters. “something decent.” it’s… an anime. some shonen fight scene paused on a commercial break. “they always have commercials on. americans have no discipline.”

“do you—watch that one?”

“i watch everything,” he says, as if this is another well-known fact. “i have criteria.”

“criteria,” tim echoes. “oh this I gotta hear.”

damian lifts a finger dramatically, like he’s addressing a senate hearing. “strong character arcs. accurate sword technique. no filler episodes.” he narrows his eyes like the concept personally offended him. “most of them… disgraceful.”

and then—god help you—he turns his head toward you and says, in a tone so earnest it almost knocks you over: “if i recommended shows to you, you would watch them. properly.”

tim inhales sharply. “are you ASKING her to watch anime with you? publicly? in front of witnesses?”

damian blinks once. twice. “yes?” he says, baffled that this is even a question. “why wouldn’t i? she listens.”

dick puts a hand over his heart. “this is the most emotion he’s displayed since he was born.”

damian ignores him completely because a new thought has struck him, and he must share it immediately or die.

“and she likes animals,” he says. “this matters.”

you look around. “…does it?”

“yes.” he nods, solemn. “people who don’t like animals are not to be trusted. it is… foundational.”

“i mean—true,” you mumble, trying not to laugh.

“she,” he says, pointing at you again, “lets titi sleep on her jacket. on purpose.”

tim freezes. “wait. the demon cat? on their clothes? and—no blood?”

you shrug awkwardly. “she’s actually very sweet—”

“HA,” damian cuts in, triumphant. “i told you.” then, with no transition at all: “titi likes her more than she likes you.”

this is addressed to the entire batfamily.

gasps. outrage. betrayal. you pat damian’s arm, trying to settle him down. he looks up at you instantly—immediate, instinctive. “don’t go again,” he says, like you abandoned him for years instead of stepping outside to apologize to his siblings.

“i’m right here,” you soothe.

he exhales, satisfied. “good. if you leave, they talk. they always talk.” his voice drops to a whisper, conspiratorial. “they gossip.”

“WE DO NOT.”

damian waves a dismissive hand. “yes you do. you gossip like… hens.”

“hens??”

“LOUD hens,” damian corrects, settling further into your side. “and idiotic.”

you choke on a laugh as all three brothers erupt in overlapping offended noises. and you’re just sitting there thinking—

yeah. he is absolutely, utterly, painfully doomed when he sobers up.

STARTED 11.22.2025. POSTED 11.24.2025.

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