Sunflowers for Vincent

At the beginning of season one, the show quickly establishes the rigid beauty standards of the time and how it influences the experiences of the cast. A prime example of this is what puts Maomao at the forefront of the rear palace drama — the poisonous powder. This toxic substance was used by both Concubine Gyokuyou and Concubine Lihua in an effort to create a perfect picture of beauty, pale smooth skin, as was the standard at the time and even now in modern-day China. The use of a cosmetic product to reduce a mother and child to such a state represents the suffocating pressure to maintain beauty at any cost. Lady Gyokuyou, after our heroine informs her of the blight, immediately ceases use; however, Lady Lihua, who lost her son due to the powder, keeps using it, despite the fact she is extremely ill. Her ladies in waiting refuse to throw it out, going so far as to hide the toxin so she can keep using it. This represents how, in spite of her devastating loss, she is expected to remain composed and quintessential. Unfortunately for the concubines in the rear palace, beauty is their greatest asset, and for Lady Lihua to lose that would be to lose everything.

Maomao herself states that she's seen it before, in the brothels, where women “trade life for beauty”. Again, she highlights that no matter your societal rank, a woman's appearance changes how people perceive her. In Maomao's case, she uses beauty to her advantage in the opposite manner. Maomao paints freckles onto her face, an ‘ugly feature’ in ancient China, due to their association with the working class. She does so to avoid attention so she can live a peaceful life, and it is only when her freckles wear off that her life is upheaved. Her kidnappers believed she could fetch a good price. This showcases the correlation between beauty and perception. This relationship goes both ways. Not only are more beautiful women valued for that attribute, but also women are harming themselves to stay that way. Maomao also acknowledges that being invisible is a form of protection, and she purposefully changes her face to become unremarkable.

In ancient Chinese society, a woman's physical appearance can change her social status, and the case isn't much different today. The show may be suggesting here that femininity is more about external presentation rather than personal identity, inner wellbeing, and the autonomy to experience life unrestrained. One character who uses this idea to explore as she pleases is Loulan, who uses mixed trends and styles to deceive everyone and live a double life. Or the Madam of Verdigris House, who used her striking appearance to gain power through the courtesan system. So many characters are forced to act within their means to gain the upper hand, some prevailing and others not so lucky, but it's this show of resilience which makes the female cast so special.

Throughout the show, Maomao uses her past experiences in the brothel to compare with life in the rear palace. One great example of this would be Maomao's own parents. Her mother (Fengxian) was a star courtesan at Verdigris House, and after beating him in a game of Go, Commander Lakan quickly falls in love. At this time, he was too poor to buy her out, so they concoct a plan: he gets her pregnant, which will decrease her value to practically zero, and he will then buy her out. When he is sent away to study abroad, the plan falls through. After giving birth, she has to resort to taking any client because she has no worth. This results in her contracting syphilis, and ultimately it takes her sanity and her autonomy away. This tragedy arises directly from the system which commodifies female bodies. Her downfall is a underscores the idea that a woman's physical worth is directly connected to male perception and sexual demand.

In the red light district, pregnancy destroys a woman's monetary value. In contrast, in the Rear Palace, a woman's entire survival depends on fertility. To bear a son is to secure status; to fail is to risk erasure. Ah-duo lost her uterus during her first birth due to medical neglect and, as a result, lost her fertility. In the end, Ah-duo was removed from the Rear Palace at no fault of her own, simply because her body had no value. The show presents to the viewer the idea that in society, a woman's worth can diminish at any point based on male perception of her use – whether that be through her reproductive abilities or the destruction that pregnancy puts the female body through, deteriorating her value as a sex symbol.

Another way that women are presented in the Apothecary Diaries is through floral symbolism; women like Ah Duo and Fengxian are seen as wilted flowers, women who were once beautiful and revered but have since lost their societal value. However, flowers can also be seen as a way The Apothecary Diaries shows women as multifaceted. This relates to the issue of women in lots of contemporary feminist media portraying one-dimensional characters, where empowerment is often simplified into flawlessness. Taking Lihua, for example, her name means 'pear blossom', which is in Chinese culture a representation for beauty. These seemingly innocent flowers have a double meaning; they also represent fragility in Chinese literature. The flowers are famous for falling fast. This parallels Lady Li Hua's relationship and how her desire to be beautiful is what nearly kills her. Fengxian is represented by balsam, an explosive flower associated with beauty, used to paint the fingernails red. Historically, the plant is used to treat skin conditions, an ode to the damage on her skin post-illness. In general, the floral symbolism enriches each character, revealing their complexity beneath outward presentation. In a society which historically expected women to be subservient and silent, giving them such diversified personalities is actually a great way of opposing the patriarchy. The flowers in the show don't only symbolise beauty and defiance but also impermanence, just like the women of the Rear Palace and in the red light district.

Our main character Maomao is represented by wood sorrel. It has a sour flavour, just like Maomao can be perceived as standoffish or sharp. The plant also has connotations of self-preservation, symbolising how Maomao focuses on keeping under the radar; she just wants to make it home alive. Wood sorrel is also a common plant, perhaps representing her humble origins; it's a weed, growing in tough conditions and neglected areas. This can be read as a reflection of how Maomao can thrive hostile environments due to her self-awareness, kindness and tenacity. One event showing her resilience was running over a kilometre to save a stranger, this behaviour contrasts her detached persona, showing her compassion and determination to help others behind her pragmatism. This is what makes Maomao such an excellent feminist character, because she has flaws and she works within the system to achieve her means, which is to live peacefully and help where she can. By refusing to frame Maomao as a revolutionary figure seeking systematic change, the series suggests that rebellion within oppressive systems can be quiet, personal and strategic. This is represented by Lakan likening her to that hardy plant.

One sentiment Maomao repeats is that some flowers are poisonous; taking into consideration the comparison of women and flowers through the show, Maomao could be implying here that women shouldn't be judged by their sexuality or looks, but rather their character. Many characters in the show reinforce this; Lady Lihua appears stuck up and prideful, but in truth, she is caring and elegant. Lady Gyokuyou is at first simply kind and courteous, but she is really very intelligent and meticulous in creating this image. Lady Lishu comes across as snobbish, but she is really a scared and sheltered child. Lady Ah-Duo strikes as graceful and refined, but at heart, she can be rather tomboyish. The Apothecary Diaries really hammers home the idea that a woman's appearance doesn't tell you her true nature.

This prejudice affects the men too, more specifically Jinshi; out of all the male characters, Jinshi can probably relate to the women the most. He is described as a celestial beauty; flowers bloom where this man walks. He chooses - like many of the ladies in the show - to use this to his advantage. He actively charms and manipulates people to do his bidding with a heavenly smile, allowing him to bypass the rigid structure of the palace. However, his looks also create issues for him. Jinshi embodies the paradox of beauty as a privilege and a burden. He is subjected to lots of harassment and inappropriate attention from both men and women. As a result of this, people also often overlook his competence and intelligence, viewing him as just a pretty face, leading to deep-seated insecurities and his strong desire to prove his worth beyond his appearance. Jinshi becomes a compelling example of the benefits and drawbacks of feminine beauty. Despite his gender, he can use it as a social currency but also face many barriers because of it.

Now, even though Jinshi is also a victim of the patriarchy, he upholds it unknowingly. The Rear Palace, which he manages, creates a culture of institutionalised objectification for women. The Rear Palace houses thousands of women and Jinshi, while empathetic, is inadvertently complicit just by managing the palace. Women are a commodity; the rear palace quite literally buys them in to work there. This creates demand, and as a result, women are kidnapped, just like Maomao. When Jinshi learns of this, he is distraught. He doesn't realise that this even happened, a representation of how men often remain ignorant in situations surrounding violence against women - Jinshi isn't personally malicious, but he's structurally complicit. Men in the show see women being treated as lesser, and even if they disagree, they cannot do anything. Often they don't realise until it happens to a loved one, and then they place blame solely on the perpetrator rather than the system that caused it, whereas women are typically more aware of the violence and thus will actively try to avoid it and immediately understand the motive to escape it. The show never villainises men for this ignorance; it is not their fault, but it handles the subject with nuance. It doesn't lecture the viewer on the patriarchy, it follows a show-not-tell structure in this sense.

Another thing about the show is that men and women may have the same goal, but the means to achieve it is different. For example, Lihaku and Pairin. Lihaku is in love with her; he decides he wants to be with her, and his path is simple: get enough money to buy her out. Granted, that's a difficult task, but achievable if he works hard. Whereas a woman, Fuyou, who is in love must go through more gruelling, humiliating means to be with the man she loves. She purposefully failed when dancing for the emperor, disgracing herself, and then faked insanity so he would never touch her, allowing her to remain pure for her childhood sweetheart, a military officer. Fuyou and Lihaku both pursue love, but the structural barriers they face differ greatly. Lihaku's path, though challenging, is linear: earn the money and set Pairin free. Fuyou's path requires self-humiliation, deception and a performance of madness which could have her executed. Also, the emphasis on Fuyou's chastity for her lover is symbolic again of the value placed upon women's bodies. Women in the show long for freedom; oftentimes they cannot seek it. A woman's desires to love, have meaningful friendships, have security, or pursue her passion are always second to those of a man, and she must find an alternative route to achieve this.

Overall, The Apothecary Diaries presents women as dynamic, exciting characters and traverses varying ideas around a woman's value, her beauty and her character. Its women are neither flawless nor revolutionary, but instead profoundly human. The series presents feminism uniquely, not as a rebellion, but as survival, intelligence and resistance. While the show explores ideas of sexism and violence against women, it never leans to misandry, instead discussing how the system also acts to the detriment of men and also how men can unknowingly uphold the patriarchy.  Ultimately, The Apothecary Diaries considers multiple aspects of feminism and challenges the patriarchal society with nuance and delicacy.

“Nothing.” You bite back a grin, heat bubbling up despite the danger. “It’s just, everyone always makes you sound… I don’t know. Taller. Broodier.”

He glares. “I’m not here to live up to your expectations.”

You can’t help it. You laugh, a nervous little sound muffled against your sleeve. “Okay, sorry, don’t get your tights in a twist boy wonder.”

His scowl only deepens, and then a crackle from his comm has him turning his head. A man’s voice, Batman, you realize with a shiver, low and commanding. Robin mutters something back, sharp and clipped, before his gaze settles on you again.

“Go home,” he says, more tired than angry this time. “This isn’t a game.”

“But my dad…” You hesitate. Your dad is still out there, talking fast, and you can’t tell if he’s winning or losing.

“Your dad’s fine,” Robin adds quickly, softer now. “Batman’s got him. But if you stay, you’ll make it worse.” 

You study him for a beat, and beneath the impatience, you catch it: the edge of worry. Not just about the mission. About you. Something inside you twists.

“Fine,” you mutter. “But only because you’re bossy.”

He doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He just takes your wrist and tugs you down a different alley, cape brushing your arm as he half-drags you back toward the safer streets. He doesn’t let go until the noise has faded and the streetlamps burn steady again.

When you reach the corner near your house, he finally stops. Folds his arms. “You’re gonna stay put this time?”

“Yes, mom,” you shoot back, rolling your eyes. For the first time, he cracks a smile. Just a twitch of his mouth, quick and bright, before he shakes his head like he can’t believe you.

“Unbelievable,” he mutters. “You’re lucky you’re not grounded for life.”

And then he’s gone, a flash of cape against the skyline.

You stand there on your street corner, heart pounding for reasons that have nothing to do with mobsters, and think, So Robin is shorter than expected. Bossier. Maybe even kind of annoying.

But also…he might just be the most interesting person you’ve ever met.

-

The second time you see him, it’s by accident. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. You weren’t looking for him. You swear you weren’t. You were only out walking because your apartment felt suffocating and Gotham, for all its broken glass and shadows, still felt like it might offer air. But when you cut down Burnside Avenue, past the flickering neon of the diner, he drops from the fire escape two feet in front of you. The cape swishes. The boots hit concrete.

“Seriously?” he mutters. “What are you doing out here again?”

You nearly jump out of your sneakers. “Oh my god! Do you always sneak up on people like that?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of my thing.” He’s glaring, but it doesn’t land right. His mouth is tight, sure, but his voice sounds more like a boy caught between annoyance and…something else. Worry, maybe. “You don’t learn, do you? Crime Alley ring any bells?”

You cross your arms. “I wasn’t in Crime Alley. I was, like, three blocks over.”

“That’s not the point.” He sighs, the sound way too old for his age. “Gotham’s not safe for late-night strolls.”

You almost tell him it’s not safe in daylight either, but then you catch it; the way his shoulders hunch, like the weight of protecting a whole city has been shoved into bones that haven’t even finished growing. And suddenly you don’t feel like arguing. Instead, you shrug, pretending casual. “You always hang around diners waiting for girls to wander by?”

His mask tilts toward you, eyes narrowing. Then, to your surprise, he huffs a laugh. It’s short, almost embarrassed. “You think I was waiting for you?”

“Well, were you?”

“No.” Too fast. “I mean…no.”

But later, when you climb the fire escape to your roof and find him sitting there, swinging his legs like he owns the place, you realize you don’t actually believe him.

-

The roof of your building isn’t glamorous. Tar paper bubbled from rain, rust stains streaking down the side of the water tank, the occasional pigeon that refuses to be intimidated by you. But when you push the heavy door open and step out, the air feels different. Gotham’s hum is still there, sirens, horns, the buzz of neon, but up here it doesn’t press as hard against your ribs.

And more often than not lately, he’s already there. Robin sits cross-legged on the ledge, or sprawled on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes, cape fanned around him like he doesn’t care how ridiculous it looks. Sometimes he drops down a few seconds after you arrive, startling you with the scrape of boots on metal. Either way, it starts to feel like a routine: your door creaking, his head lifting, both of you pretending not to be waiting for each other.

“Busy night?” you ask one evening, sliding down to sit a safe distance away.

“Busier than yours,” he deadpans. “You know, most people spend their nights doing homework. Watching TV. Not scaling fire escapes.”

“Homework doesn’t come with a view.” You tilt your head at the skyline. Gotham glitters in a way that almost tricks you into thinking it’s beautiful.

He snorts, but when you glance sideways, you catch the corner of his mouth twitching like he’s trying not to smile. That’s how it always goes. You jab at him, he pretends he’s above it, and somewhere in between, you both soften.

-

Over time, the conversations stretch longer. You tell him about your dad, how he’s never home, how he burns through notebooks and cups of stale coffee like they’re oxygen. How you’re not sure if you admire him or resent him, and how sometimes it feels like Gotham chews your family as much as it does everyone else.

Robin doesn’t laugh, doesn’t brush it off. He just sits there, chin in his gloved hand, listening like every word is weighty. When you finish, he nods once, sharp and certain, like he’s filing it away as important.

And then, in quieter moments, he lets pieces of himself slip through. Not many, always measured, always cautious, but enough. How Batman trains him until his bones ache. How his armor never feels like it fits, how the bruises bloom in places no one ever sees. How sometimes he doesn’t know if he’s saving Gotham or if Gotham is slowly eating him alive.

His voice is always lower when he says those things, almost lost to the hum of the city. Like he’s afraid of being overheard by shadows.

You never tell him, but that’s when the crush starts. Not the giggling, diary-scrawled kind your friends whisper about. This is quieter. He isn’t even cute, not really. His ears stick out, his voice still cracks if he laughs too hard, his nose looks like it’s been broken once already. But he carries himself like every problem in Gotham belongs to him, and when he looks at you, you feel like you matter in a way the city never lets you.

-

Some nights you talk about nothing at all. Pizza debates that spiral into full-blown arguments.

“New Trioni’s is better than Angelo’s. Don’t argue with me, I’m right.”

“You’re so wrong,” he shoots back, mock-offended. “Trioni’s slices flop over like wet paper. Angelo’s can hold its shape when you fold it.”

“Who folds their pizza?” you demand, eyes wide.

“Real Gothamites,” he says with all the gravitas of someone who’s fourteen and just learning what the word “gravitas” means.

The bickering lasts twenty minutes, ending with you scribbling “TRIONI’S > ANGELO’S” on the back of your notebook and holding it up in his face until he swats at you.

Other nights, you complain about teachers. Yours, who you swear has made it their personal mission to fail you, and his, who he can’t talk about too much but still slips through in hints. “It’s like… training disguised as lessons. Fail and you do push-ups until your arms give out.”

You tell him that’s got to be child abuse. He rolls his eyes. “It’s Gotham.”

-

It happens on a night when Gotham feels especially sharp. The air smells like rain on copper pipes, and somewhere far off a siren wails, long and low. You’d promised yourself you wouldn’t sneak out again, but promises don’t hold much weight in this city. You’d only been a few blocks from home when the shouting started. Two guys fighting over a busted radio, the kind of thing you should’ve ignored. You’d frozen, pulse climbing, when one of them noticed you watching.

It doesn’t take long. Heavy footsteps. A hand grabbing too close to your arm.  And then he’s there. Robin drops from the fire escape like a shadow snapping into place. A blur of red, green, and anger. His boot catches the guy’s chest, sends him sprawling. The other one bolts.

“You again,” he grits out as he drags you behind him, voice cracking just enough to remind you he’s not much older than you.

You mean to thank him, but the words catch when you see him stumble. Just a hitch, a fraction of a limp as he turns. His arm is tight against his side, hand flexing like he’s trying not to use it.

“Are you hurt?” you blurt.

“I’m fine.” He tries for firm, but it’s more defensive than convincing.

“You’re bleeding,” you insist, catching the dark smear seeping through his tunic.

“I said I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” Your voice sharpens, louder than you mean it to. “And you’re not going back out there until you let me look.”

He stares at you, eyes unreadable behind the mask, like he’s calculating the odds of you actually tackling him if he refuses. Finally, with a long, theatrical sigh, he mutters, “Fine. Five minutes.”

-

Your apartment is embarrassingly small. Peeling wallpaper. A couch with stuffing trying to claw its way out of the seams. The bathroom’s worse, barely enough room for the sink, the tub, and both of you crammed inside.

“Sit,” you order, tugging at his wrist until he perches awkwardly on the closed toilet lid, cape spilling over the floor like dark water.

“This is unnecessary,” he says, though his voice wobbles when you press a towel against his ribs.

“Unnecessary is bleeding out in a back alley,” you snap, trying to hold your hands steady. The towel comes away red. Too red. “God, do you even know how to take care of yourself?”

His eyes flick up at you then, sharp, defensive, but there’s something softer underneath. Something that makes your stomach twist.

“You sound like him,” he mutters.

“Batman?”

He doesn’t answer, but the silence is enough. You grab the first aid kit from under the sink, bandages, alcohol wipes, the kind of things your dad keeps for paper cuts and clumsy accidents, not vigilantes. Still, you make it work.

“Hold still,” you warn, tearing open an alcohol pad.

“I am still.”

“You’re fidgeting.”

“You’re bossy.”

“Better bossy than dead.”

That finally earns you the tiniest smile, quick and crooked, gone almost before you register it.

You’re close now, too close. Kneeling in front of him, hands braced against his side as you patch what you can. The smell of leather and sweat clings to his tunic, the faintest hint of smoke in his hair. His breathing evens under your touch, like he’s not used to anyone bothering to fix him up.

When you look up, his eyes are already on you. The mask gleams under the bathroom’s weak light, distorting him into something untouchable. And suddenly it feels wrong. Wrong to be this close to someone whose face you can’t really see.

“You ever get tired of it?” you ask quietly. “The mask?”

His shoulders tense. He looks away, down at the cracked tiles. For a second you think he won’t answer. Then his hands lift, hesitant and slow.

The domino comes off.

You freeze. It’s not some hardened soldier under there. Not a myth. Just a boy. Hair damp and stubborn where sweat’s plastered it to his forehead. Eyes too big, too tired, too human. A face you recognize from posters years ago—the acrobat from Haly’s Circus.

“…you’re Dick Grayson,” you breathe, the name spilling out before you can stop it.

His chin tips up, defensive. “You gonna tell anyone?”

“Of course not.” The words fall out fast, desperate to close the space between you. “I’d never.”

He studies you, eyes searching your face like he’s bracing for betrayal. Whatever he sees must be enough, because his shoulders ease, his breath lets out slow. “I shouldn’t have told you,” he mutters. “Batman would kill me if he knew.”

You nudge his knee with yours, a tiny grin tugging at your lips despite the tight knot in your chest. “Guess it’s a good thing Batman doesn’t know everything.”

For the first time, he laughs. Really laughs. It’s uneven, boyish, and it shoots straight through you, leaving you dizzy. And in that cramped little bathroom, with the hum of the city seeping through the cracked window and the smell of antiseptic sharp in the air, you realize this isn’t just Robin anymore. It isn’t just Dick Grayson either. It’s both.

And it feels like a secret only you get to keep.

-

The day you find out you’re leaving, it doesn’t feel real. Your dad doesn’t sit you down or soften it, he just mutters over cold coffee and half-packed files, “It’s not safe anymore. We’re going. End of discussion.”

That’s all you get. No details, no vote. By nightfall, cardboard boxes are stacked in the living room, your whole life folded and taped shut. Gotham shrinks to the size of a trunk and a suitcase. You don’t cry. Not right away. But when the apartment gets quiet, when your dad slams another box closed and the walls echo hollow, you slip out the window and climb.

The roof is empty at first. No cape on the ledge, no boy dangling his boots. Just the hum of the city below, as if it doesn’t care you’re about to vanish. You wrap your arms around yourself and stare out at the skyline, hoping, willing, he’ll show.

And then, like he always does, he drops into place beside you. “You weren’t gonna say goodbye?” he asks, voice soft under the gravel.

Your throat goes tight. “I didn’t know how.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just sits there, mask half-lit by the flicker of a neon sign, waiting.

So you talk. About how your dad’s stories finally drew the wrong kind of attention. About how Gotham feels like it’s about to spit your family out after chewing through you all so thoroughly there will be nothing left, and this time there’s no choice but to run. About how much you hate leaving; not the apartment, not even the city, but this. These nights. This secret. Him.

He listens like he always does, quiet and intent, the kind of quiet that means he’s holding every word.

Finally, you look at him and whisper, “I don’t want to forget this.”

Something flickers in his expression, too quick to name. He shifts, pulling the domino mask off and turning it in his hands until the edges press little crescents into his palms.

“Then don’t,” he says simply. “Don’t forget me.”

Your heart lodges in your throat. You want to tell him you won’t, that you couldn’t if you tried. You want to tell him that the crush you’ve been burying is bigger than you can hold, that you’re leaving with a piece of yourself you didn’t know you’d given away. But you’re fourteen, and the words are too big, too heavy.

So instead you nod, fiercely, until the tears blur the skyline. “I won’t.”

For a moment, you swear he leans like he might say something else. Might ask you to stay, might admit he doesn’t want to forget either. But then your dad’s voice calls up from the street, sharp and impatient, and the moment shatters.

You stand. He stays seated, mask still in his hands, like he can’t quite put it back on. You want to hug him, to make the promise tangible, but you’re not sure if that’s allowed, so you just hold his gaze for one more beat and whisper, “Goodbye, Dick.”

“Goodbye,” he echoes, voice raw around the edges.

You don’t look back as you climb down the fire escape, suitcase handle cutting into your palm. The car door slams, your dad starts the engine, and Gotham begins to slide past the windows like a dream smearing at the edges.

But when you finally let yourself glance back, there he is, perched on the rooftop, cape trailing behind him, mask dangling loose in his hands.

A boy too small for the weight he carries, silhouetted against a city that will never stop asking more. Watching you leave like it’s the last thing he’ll ever let himself do.

And then the car turns the corner, and he’s gone.

-

You’d always told yourself you weren’t keeping tabs, not really. But the truth is you couldn’t help it. Gotham’s headlines are hard to ignore. Batman never vanished; he’s a permanent fixture in the background of every crisis, every scandal, every blurred photograph of a cape against a floodlight.

Robin was there too, at least for a while. But not your Robin. This one was smaller, sharper, someone else’s kid in colors that weren’t his. The news never explained the swap. Gotham doesn’t explain anything.

As for Dick Grayson? You never let yourself look too hard. Some nights in Metropolis, you’d type his name into a search bar, just to hover over the letters. Circus boy, ward of Bruce Wayne, rumored dropout. Then you’d slam the laptop closed before the results could load. It felt like breaking some unspoken promise, like trespassing on a secret that had only ever been yours.

So you let him fade into the background of your memory. Or tried to. Life went on. You grew up. Metropolis U gave you a degree you’re still not sure you earned. You dated a little, kissed boys who didn’t make your chest ache the way rooftop laughter once did. You told yourself you were moving forward, not circling back. And yet, here you are. Returning to Gotham with a job at the paper, retracing your father’s path like a shadow.

Your dad isn’t with you this time. He’s staying behind, insisting he’s too old for Gotham’s grind. So it’s just you and your boxes, your byline, and the faint echo of footsteps on tar paper that you never really forgot.

You pause on the corner outside your new apartment, suitcase wheels caught on a crack in the sidewalk. Gotham breathes heavy around you; neon flicker, taxi horn, the muffled thump of bass from a club down the street.

You wonder, not for the first time, if you’ll see him. And just as quickly, you remind yourself: probably not. Gotham eats people. It chews them up, spits them out, and even the ones who survive don’t always stick around.

Still, when you climb the steps and let yourself into the dim little apartment, you can’t help glancing out the window at the rooflines beyond. Half of you expects to see a flash of cape, the silhouette of a boy you once knew.

But the skyline is empty.

-

By now, Gotham has settled into your bones again. It’s been months since you unpacked your last box, months since you stopped flinching at the way the city exhales smoke and sirens instead of air. The novelty wore off fast. Gotham is like that; she lets you think she’s offering something new, then reminds you it was always just grit and rot under the paint.

Your nights taste like coffee grounds and exhaustion, your mornings like stale bagels eaten while jogging across crosswalks. The newsroom smells of burnt ink and anxiety, and it clings to you even when you leave.

So when your editor sent you chasing whispers across the river, you didn’t think twice. Blüdhaven, he’d said, a smuggling ring near the docks. Gotham’s smaller, meaner cousin, the kind of place your dad used to warn you about but still sent you to buy fireworks from when you were twelve.

You’d told yourself you could handle it. Gotham-born, seasoned on backstreets and rooftops, no stranger to shadows. You’ve always been too curious for your own good.

Turns out curiosity doesn’t count for much when the alley closes in on you.

-

Blüdhaven smells worse than Gotham. Like saltwater left too long in a rusty bucket, sharp and sour all at once. The alley is narrow, brick pressing close on either side, graffiti bleeding into one another under the yellow smear of a streetlamp. You’d only meant to skirt the block, maybe snap a photo of the cargo crates stacked like crooked teeth along the waterline. Instead, you’ve got three men cutting you off, their boots heavy, their breath reeking of stale beer.

The wall is cold against your back.

“Where you think you’re going, sweetheart?” one asks, voice slick. He’s taller than you, bulkier too, the kind of man who’s never been told no in a way that stuck.

Your pulse kicks hard. Your mind tries to measure exits, two steps left, maybe a sprint to the chain-link, but they’re already tightening the circle. The sound of their shoes on wet concrete echoes too loud, too final.

Your hand clamps around your notebook, knuckles white. For one mad second you consider swinging it like a weapon. And then the air splits.

He comes from above. A shadow drops out of the night, suit a streak of ink, boots hitting the first man’s chest with a crack that rattles the brick. The impact sends him sprawling, air rushing out of his lungs in a howl. The second man barely has time to register movement before a blur of blue arcs through the dim. The escrima stick connects with his jaw, a clean, efficient crack that folds him sideways.

The third curses, steel flashing as he pulls a knife, but it’s useless. The stranger moves faster, duck, twist, wrist locked and wrenched. The blade clatters uselessly to the ground. A sharp elbow, a spin, and the man collapses onto the damp concrete, groaning. It takes less than a minute. You don’t breathe until it’s over. Then theres silence.

The three men groan in a heap, nursing their bruises, and you’re left standing in the mouth of the alley with your notebook pressed to your chest like a shield.

He straightens. Under the weak streetlight, he looks unreal. Black and blue armor clings to broad shoulders, the stylized bird spreading across his chest in sharp, gleaming lines. He spins one escrima stick in his hand like it weighs nothing, the move so casual it’s showy. The mask gleams, eyes whited out, hiding everything but the shape of his mouth, the curve of his jaw.

And then he turns to you.

“Still can’t stay out of trouble, huh?” The voice hits first. Familiar enough to send a jolt through you. It’s smoother now, deeper, no trace of the cracks it used to have, but you know it. You know it like you know your own pulse.

Your knees nearly give. “I-what?”

He steps closer, head cocked, smirk curling at his mouth like he’s been waiting years to use it. Except there’s nothing boyish about him anymore. His shoulders fill the armor like it was built for him, lines sleek and lethal. His movements hum with confidence, a looseness earned from years of knowing exactly what he can do and knowing everyone else is a step behind.

The mask hides half his face, but what it doesn’t hide is worse. The jawline is sharper, cut like someone sculpted it with glass. His mouth is curved in a smile that’s both infuriating and magnetic. His body radiates energy, command, like he could take on the whole block if you dared him.

Your brain scrambles. This isn’t the boy you knew. This isn’t the awkward kid who smudged ink into your margins and laughed too hard at your jokes. For a second you’re convinced you’ve conjured him out of memory. That your exhaustion and the shadows stitched together a hallucination just to taunt you.

And then, like he knows you need proof, he lifts his hands and peels the mask away.

The world tilts.

“…Dick?” It’s his eyes that betray him. Blue. Bright. The exact shade you’d memorized years ago under the moonlight on your roof. But steadier now. Sharper. Older.

“Hi.” His grin spreads slow, deliberate, every inch of it self-satisfied. “Miss me?”

You forget how to breathe. Because this…this is really not the boy you left. Not your awkward crush with too-big ears and a voice that squeaked mid-laugh. Not the kid who leaned stiffly when you first bumped his shoulder.

This is a man. He’s taller, towering over you in a way that makes the brick wall at your back feel unnecessary. Every inch of him looks carved, built, honed. His arms ripple with muscle that wasn’t there before, his chest fills the blue emblem like it was made to draw the eye. His hair is longer, darker, his mouth sharper, the grin edged with confidence you don’t know how to stand against.

He looks like someone who walked out of a fantasy you never would’ve dared to put on paper.

You blink once. Twice. Three times. Your brain refuses to reconcile the two images; the scowling boy with smudged gloves and this unfairly gorgeous man standing in front of you. “What… what happened to you?” The words fly out, strangled, mortifying. Heat floods your face before you can stop it.

His eyebrow arches. He tucks the mask into his belt, casual. “Puberty?”

It should be funny. And it is funny. The corner of your mouth twitches in betrayal, a laugh half-born and dying in your throat. But your chest is twisting, hard, because you can still see him underneath it all. Still see the boy who leaned too far forward on ledges, who let his laugh crack when he forgot to control it. The boy who told you secrets in the dark and asked you not to forget.

And now here he is, all swagger and charm and jawlines that should be illegal. Handsome in a way that would be arrogance if he couldn’t back it up with every move he just made. Your pulse is hammering, and the spiral is real. What do you do with a crush that was built on personality, on earnestness and laughter and responsibility, when it comes packaged now in a body like this? When it’s sharpened into something magnetic, commanding, impossible to look away from?

You stare at him, dazed, like you’re trying to catch up to reality. “You… you were not this good-looking when we were kids.”

His grin only widens, cocky and warm all at once. “So you were paying attention.”

You want the ground to open up and swallow you whole. Because Gotham didn’t just chew Dick Grayson up and spit him back out. It reforged him into something you are absolutely not ready for.

For a few stunned seconds after he speaks, you stand there and do nothing but hear your heart in your ears. The alley is wet and ringing; distant gulls, a siren far-off, the tinny drip-drip of a faulty gutter. One of the guys on the ground groans, rolls over, thinks better of it, and stays facedown. The streetlamp above you flickers like it’s chewing glass.

“Okay,” you manage finally, voice rasped thin. “Okay.”

“Yeah,” he says, softer now. He tips his head, searches your face like he’s tracing the years there. Then, practical as a tide, he tucks the mask back over his eyes. The Nightwing look clicks into place with a finality that makes your stomach dip. “Walk with me,” he adds. “This block’s loud for all the wrong reasons.”

He offers a hand. Warm leather. Callused palm. The glove creaks when you take it, and you try very hard not to catalog the new details; how much larger his hand feels than it used to, how steady it is, the easy strength under the restraint. He doesn’t tug so much as guide, falling into step beside you like your bodies remember the distance they’ve always kept.

You exit the alley into air that smells like engine oil and salt-stung wood. The docks breathe: winches clicking, a forklift grumbling, water slapping pilings in a thawed rhythm. Nightwing angles you toward the brighter avenue, keeping himself between you and the shadows without making a show of it. His presence folds around you the way his cape used to on rooftops; same instinct, different body.

“You’re really here,” you say, because it’s the only sentence that keeps starting in your brain.

“So are you,” he answers. “Thought I was hallucinating when I saw you in that alley. Journalism, huh?”

“It runs in the family,” you say, apologetic and defiant all at once.

He hums. “I noticed.”

“You noticed?”

“Hard to miss,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Bylines. Two pieces on the housing ordinance, a profile on the Jackson Street food pantry, a fire that shouldn’t have spread as fast as it did. Your ledes are cleaner. Fewer adverbs.”

You blink at him. “You… read them?”

He shrugs one shoulder. The motion makes the blue stripe arc over muscle in a way that should be illegal. “I keep an eye on Gotham. And people who used to live on rooftops with me.”

It takes a few steps to realize your face is doing the warm thing again. You look away, huff out a laugh like you can steam the heat into the Blüdhaven night. “Still a critic.”

“Still right,” he says, and there’s the grin; quick, bright, and edged with something fond. “You got sharper.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” he says, tilting his chin, “you’re not the kid who followed trouble because it glittered. You followed it in there because you had a plan. You clocked their shoes before their faces. You kept your notebook hand free. You put your back to a wall.”

You glance up at him. “You saw all that in, what, thirty seconds?”

“Ten,” he says, entirely too pleased with himself. “Give or take.”

The walk bleeds you out toward the waterfront road. Nightwing crosses you behind a stack of palettes with the same unthinking choreography he used to have on rooftops. One hand light against your elbow, a check for traffic, the quick tilt of his head as his comm crackles something at him you can’t hear. He answers it without breaking stride, then flicks the channel off and comes back to you like you’re the station he meant to tune to all along.

“Your dad?” he asks after a beat.

“Back in Metropolis,” you say. “He says he’s retired. I give it six months.”

His mouth pulls wry. “Retirement never sticks.”

“Does it for you?” The question flies out before you can leash it. You mean it to be casual; it lands heavier, threaded with too many years, too many unsent searches of his name at one a.m.

He doesn’t flinch. “Didn’t for me,” he says. “I needed… different air. A city I could learn without being measured against a cape that walks like thunder.”

“Blüdhaven,” you say. “Gotham left out in the rain.”

He huffs a laugh. “Something like that.” Then he glances at you from under the curve of the mask, gravity sliding back in. “It grows on you if you let it. Like mold. Or a stray.”

“Romantic,” you deadpan.

“Hey, I never promised romance,” he lies very badly, because even his walk is a little romantic now, loose-hipped and careful in the dark, shoulder brushing yours when the sidewalk narrows, the night clicking into place around him like it’s learned the shape of his stride.

You pass a shuttered bait shop with a neon marlin blinking. A stray cat watches you from a garbage can lid, eyes pearls in the lamplight. Your shoes squeak; his steps don’t make sound at all. Every few yards he scans the roofs with that lifted chin. You remember the gesture, how it used to be smaller on a smaller body, and you picture the mental map overlaid on what your eyes see: viable fire escapes, plausible ambushes, routes-out stitched in blue light.

“How long were you on that roof?” you ask. “Before you dropped in.”

He contemplates the question like it has a proper answer. “Long enough to count three sets of footsteps and a knife. Not long enough to forgive you later if you’d been stubborn enough to run.”

“I wasn’t going to run,” you start, then hedge, “for long.”

He barks a laugh. It slides into something softer before it’s done. “You’re… different,” he says, the word careful, as if he’s testing the edges to make sure it won’t cut.

“Older,” you offer.

“That, yeah.” The corner of his mouth tugs. “But it’s not just that. You walk like you own your space now, not like you’re renting it. You look people in the eye longer. You… speak headline and copy without thinking.” He flicks his gaze over you, deliberate enough that you feel seen rather than scanned. “You still don’t fold your pizza, I bet.”

“I will die on that hill,” you say gravely.

“You will die incorrect,” he returns, equally grave, and a piece of rooftop-laughter that you thought you’d boxed up somewhere years ago shakes itself awake and trots between you like it never left.

“Okay, Mr. Puberty,” you say, putting a hand to your chest as if to ward off the unfairness. “Since we’re making observations, what exactly are you eating to look like you could bench-press a yacht?”

“Protein bars and spite,” he says, deadpan. “Mostly spite.”

You trip on a cracked tile and he catches you without thinking, a warm bracket at your elbow and the lightest pressure of his other hand at your hip to steady you. It lasts half a blink, then he’s gone again, space restored, the afterimage of touch ringing in your nerves like a bell. The alley stench loosens for a second, and you catch the smell of him beneath leather and city: clean soap, ozone, summer heat trapped in fabric that moves like skin.

“Thanks,” you say belatedly, and hope he can’t see the flush doing somersaults up your throat.

“Occupational hazard,” he says lightly. “Saving journalists who don’t fold their pizza.”

“I saved the notebook,” you argue, brandishing it. “That counts as self-preservation.”

His eyes crinkle. “God, I missed that.”

You were not prepared for those words. They land like a warm hand on your sternum, like the exact right weight after too many years of empty space. You swallow once, twice. The docks open into a long, bleak avenue where the streetlights flock in nervous clusters. He steers you toward the brighter end.

“I kept tabs,” you admit, voice tucking itself small. “Not… really. Not like a creep. Just… Batman was always there, and then there was a Robin who wasn’t my Robin, and I didn’t…” You shake your head, chase off the tangle. “Sometimes I typed your name and closed the laptop before the results could load. It felt wrong, like prying at something that was mine because you gave it to me.”

He walks a few slow steps without answering. The night stretches, thin and elastic. When he finally speaks, it’s soft, the timbre reaching you beneath the noise. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he says. “Go looking, I mean. Part of me… needed to earn being found.”

You glance up. His expression is harder to read with the mask back on, but the mouth, older now, yes, and built for trouble, goes gentle in the corners. He kicks at a pebble; it skitters into the gutter. “The leaving was messy,” he says. “I had to be more than a shadow to a shadow.”

“And now you’re a bird,” you say. “Blue suits you.”

“Figures you’d appreciate the re-branding,” he says lightly, then, “yours does too, though.”

“What?”

“The re-brand. It suits you,” he says, and there’s a smile in his voice now that didn’t exist when he was fourteen. “You grew up into your name. Your bylines. Your whole… thing. It looks good on you.”

You stare at him, cheeks doing that heat thing again. “My… thing.”

“Your spine,” he clarifies, and the tease bumps to the side to let the truth through. “You always had one. It just… fits you better now.”

The ridiculous urge to cry chooses that exact moment to crest, so you let out a little choking laugh instead and look at a billboard for a discount mattress warehouse like it’s fascinating art. “You’ve gotten complimentary in your old age,” you mutter.

“It’s the protein bars,” he says, solemn, and you trip into laughter that tastes like your rooftop nights, cold air, the city in your lungs, the right person at your shoulder. A night bus sways past; he slow-blinks away the wind grit. You fall quiet for a block, footsteps scuffing in sync. Somewhere inland, someone’s playing a radio too loud. It spills a chorus that means nothing and everything past the brick and rebar.

“You’re staying?” he asks eventually. “Gotham, I mean. Not a six-month and run?”

“I’m staying,” you say, and feel the words set in your body like a foundation finally poured. “When I told my dad, he said it’s my turn to decide what Gotham is to me.”

He nods, thoughtful. “Blüdhaven’s an extension of the same storm. We share weather fronts.” His mouth twists, fond and rueful. “I’ll be around.”

“You always are,” you say before you can help it.

He glances sidelong, and the grin that takes his face then is uncomplicatedly pleased. It should be arrogant; somehow it just looks like sunlight found a gap in the boards. You wonder how many people get to see that one and decide maybe you don’t want to know.

A woman behind a plexiglass window sells cigarettes and bus passes. The night wind lifts the edges of the taped notices, makes them whisper. You stop under the awning, the two of you edged into the white noise of the fluorescents, and the city swivels into a gentler key.

“I can call you a car,” he says. “Or,” He hesitates, then crooks two fingers. From somewhere you don’t see, a motorcycle growls to life, a sleek, low thing that rolls obediently out of the gloom to settle at the curb like a well-trained animal. He pats the seat with absent affection. “I can take you back.”

You stare. “Did you name it? Like the Nightcycle or something equally as lame?”

“I absolutely did not,” he lies, horrendously, then swings a leg over and steadies the bike with a boot. Up close, he’s too much again; too many lines and angles that weren’t there the last time you catalogued him, too much easy strength, too much blue. “Helmet,” he says, offering one out. It’s heavier than you expect; when you take it, your fingers brush, leather over skin, static jumping.

You hesitate. “Are you going to drive like a responsible citizen?”

He gives you a look that is eighty percent angel, twenty percent criminal. “Define responsible.”

“Alive when we get there.”

“Deal.”

You settle onto the bike behind him with the kind of care that admits you are about to do a reckless thing on purpose. Your knees fit against his hips like there’s only one way to sit; your hands find the line of his jacket and pause, hovering. He reaches back without looking, takes your wrists, and draws your arms around his waist until your palms meet. The gesture is matter-of-fact and wildly intimate. You can feel him laughing, silent and low, at your ear.

“Still bossy,” you say, because your voice needs somewhere to put the tremor.

“I remember you like being told what to do,” he says, and then, so quick and soft you almost miss it, “Sometimes.”

It shouldn’t hit the way it does. It shouldn’t make heat pool low in your stomach, shouldn’t make your pulse trip against your throat, shouldn’t leave you wondering if the helmet’s padding is enough to hide the color climbing up your cheeks. But it does.

You laugh, helpless, a little breathless, because if you don’t laugh, you might actually whimper. The sound crackles in your throat and goes thin in the rush of the night air. You can feel the vibration of the engine through your thighs, the leather of his jacket under your hands, the solid line of his body in front of you, and now, layered over all of that, his words, humming through your nerves in a way that feels dangerously good.

He glances back once, eyes catching yours over his shoulder, mask bright in the streetlight. The look is quick, but it’s enough. He knows what he said. He knows how it landed. And then the bike glides into the street, smooth and certain, as if nothing in the world has shifted, even though everything inside you just did.

The city rushes at you, neon and shadow blurring into ribbons. You clutch harder without meaning to, breath hitching, and he adjusts his posture just enough to shield you from the first hard push of wind. The shift presses your chest closer to his back, your knees locking tighter against his hips.

Your chin bumps the back of his shoulder. There’s damp salt there, leather warmed by body heat, and the sound of him breathing, steady, rhythmic, the same cadence you used to fall asleep to on rooftops when he kept watch.

The bike thrums beneath you, vibration rolling up through your thighs, settling into your stomach, buzzing in places you don’t want to admit are suddenly very awake. Every curve of the road asks you to lean with him, to trust the drop of his weight and the strength in his shoulders, and every time you do, you feel him there under your hands; solid, certain, unshakable.

He doesn’t go fast. He goes sure. The kind of riding that says I know this grid with my eyes shut and my hands tied, and I am choosing to bring you home. But the steadiness only makes it worse; it gives you time to notice everything.

The way his body heat seeps into you through layers of leather. The flex of muscle when he shifts gears, the ripple of his stomach under your forearm as he leans into a turn. The casual way his hand adjusts the throttle, so close you imagine what it would feel like if he used that grip on you.

At a light, he puts a boot down, head turning just enough that you catch the angle of his jaw beneath the mask. He checks on you without a word. You don’t know if he can see the flush burning under your helmet, but you feel seen all the same, and it does nothing to calm the pounding in your chest.

When the light changes, he rolls forward, and you press into him again, tighter this time, because the vibration and the closeness are unraveling you inch by inch. Small things, all of them, his steadiness, his quiet, the way his body seems to know yours is there and adjusts like it belongs pressed against him.

They add up to something you don’t let yourself name yet, but you feel it everywhere.

The bike growls to a halt a block from your building. The engine cuts, and in the sudden hush the night feels sharp, like the air itself is watching. The silence rings in your ears after miles of vibration. He doesn’t move right away. He reaches back instead, gloved fingers brushing over yours where they’re still hooked around his waist. A silent reminder: you can let go now.

You don’t. Not immediately. Your fingers unclasp a second too late, reluctant to surrender the heat of him, the solid line of his body. He feels it, he has to, and yet he doesn’t call you out, just slides his hands free of the handlebars with a kind of deliberate patience.

He swings one leg over and plants his boots on the ground, bracing the bike steady with practiced ease. Then, before you can fumble an exit, he turns and holds a hand out. “Careful,” he says. His voice is rougher than you remember, steady but edged with something lower, something weightier. “It’s a little taller than you think.”

You could protest. Tell him you’ve managed steps taller than this since kindergarten. But the way he’s standing there, broad and sure, palm open, the easy invitation of it, undoes you in a way stairs never could.

You take it. His hand is warm through the leather, steady as you swing your leg back over the bike. You slide down too close, body brushing his chest for the briefest moment. The contact snaps across you like static. You feel the give of his armor under your shoulder, the heat rolling off him in a wave, the faint tang of leather and sweat that clings to him.

It should be over in an instant. Just a hand-off. But his grip lingers, a fraction longer than necessary, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly around yours. Enough that you notice. Enough that your breath catches, shallow and sharp, before you tug back.

You’re on your own two feet now, the pavement gritty beneath your shoes, but your body is still buzzing from the bike, from him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears, your palms hot where his gloves touched.

“Still trouble,” he says at last, because he can’t help himself.

“Still bossy,” you volley back, because you can’t either. But this time, it doesn’t feel like banter tossed across a rooftop. It feels like a line pulled taut between you, humming with something you’ve both pretended not to hear for years.

He studies you for another long, unapologetic moment. His voice, when it comes, slips a layer down. “You grew up, you know.”

You swallow. “So did you.”

“Yeah,” he says, and it sounds like he’s acknowledging an ocean and a bridge and a lot of half-built scaffolding. His mouth curves, not the cocky smirk he used in the alley, but something older, carved from relief and surprise and the joy of recognizing someone in a crowd. “Feels like we should…” He gestures, uselessly, as if the city might supply the word.

“Pizza,” you say, because the universe clearly wants callbacks. “So I can prove you’re wrong.”

“You won’t,” he says immediately, but his eyes go bright, pleased, like you just handed him the right answer to a test he wanted you to enjoy taking.

He reaches into a belt pouch, produces a small black rectangle you’d charitably call a phone if phones weren’t usually made by people not afraid of the apocalypse. He toggles it awake, thumbs something in. When he looks up, he’s all business again, but the softened corners remain. “Same roofline,” he says. “Different skyline. You call, I land.”

“Is that your way of giving me your number?” you ask, amused and a little breathless.

“It’s my way of saying I read your ledes and I don’t want to do that from far away anymore,” he says, and that’s it. That’s the line that carves through every defense like they were drawn in chalk.

“Okay,” you say, because a bigger word would crack your throat right now. “Nightwing?”

“Mmm?”

“Thanks for the rescue.”

He dips his head once, like you just pinned a medal on him he didn’t expect to care about. “Anytime, Trouble.”

He fits the mask better on his face, swings onto the bike, and then he’s gone, blurring back into the dark with a roar that falls away quick, swallowed by Blüdhaven’s wet lungs. You stand there in the sodium light, hair mussed by a wind you’ll be thinking about for hours, hands stupidly empty of leather and heat, and you try to file this under something. Reunion. Whiplash. Beginning again.

The city exhales. Somewhere a gull laughs like it knows something. You look down at your notebook; rain freckles have started to drink through the top page. On instinct, you flip to a clean sheet, jot three words at the top: Familiar. Stranger. Home.

-

You fall into a new rhythm without meaning to.  It starts with accidents, running into him on rooftops, in alleys, when your investigations overlap his patrols. But it stops feeling accidental when he begins showing up at your office at the end of your shift, leaning against the wall like he belongs there. When he texts pizza? before you’ve even decided if you’re hungry. When you start leaving your fire escape window cracked, because somehow you know he’ll be there.

It isn’t dating. Not really. But it also isn’t not.

He has made it clear, in every way except saying it out loud over the past few months, that he wants to be in your life. And you? You haven’t decided if you’re brave enough to admit that you want him in yours just as badly.

-

The first time he picks you up after work in his civilian clothes, it knocks you sideways. You’re shuffling out of the newsroom with ink on your fingers, hair pulled back in a half-hearted bun, when you see him leaning against a lamppost. No mask. No armor. Just Dick Grayson in jeans, forearms bare, sunglasses tucked into the collar of his shirt.

He waves like it’s the most normal thing in the world, like he hasn’t just shattered the delicate line you’d kept between “him at night” and “him in the day.”

“What are you doing here?” you demand, adjusting the strap of your bag.

“Picking you up.” He shrugs, casual, like the ground didn’t just shift. “What, you’d rather take the bus?”

“I’m perfectly capable of taking the bus.”

“Sure,” he says, grin tugging at his mouth. “But where’s the fun in that?”

It’s disorienting, walking beside him in broad daylight. You keep expecting people to notice, to point, to whisper Nightwing…but no one looks twice. They just see Dick Grayson, easy in his own skin, fitting himself into your day like he’s been there all along.

And when he slings a leg over the motorcycle and offers you the helmet with that cocky tilt of his head, you don’t argue. Not really.

-

The rhythm builds. Some nights it’s him dropping by your apartment, sprawled on your couch in a t-shirt while you rant about deadlines. Some nights it’s you stitching him up again, fingers brushing skin that’s too warm, too scarred, your pulse thundering at the contact.

“You’re staring,” he says once, voice sly, eyes glinting.

“I’m working,” you snap, fumbling with the gauze.

“You’re staring,” he repeats, softer this time.

You don’t deny it. You can’t. Because sometimes it hits you out of nowhere, the sheer physicality of him. The breadth of his shoulders when he leans against your counter. The casual way he tosses his escrima sticks onto your table, muscles flexing as if they’re part of the furniture. The way his laugh curls low in his chest now, rich enough to make your skin prickle.

You’d had a crush on him once, built on personality and laughter and the relief of being seen. But now that crush is packaged in arms and jawlines and a body that moves like it knows exactly how much power it has…and you don’t know what to do with that.

You catch yourself looking more often than you should. He catches you every time. And the worst part is, he doesn’t seem to mind.

-

Pizza becomes your running joke. Trioni’s booth, sticky varnish under your elbows, slices steaming on paper plates. He folds his, smirking at you the whole time, waiting for your inevitable groan of horror.

“You’re not going to win me over,” you say, waving your floppy slice at him.

“You’ll cave eventually,” he counters, leaning back in the booth, grin sharp and pleased. “I can be very persuasive when I need to be.”

“Not this time.”

He doesn’t break eye contact as he takes a slow bite of his folded slice, chewing like he’s proving a point. It’s ridiculous. It’s infuriating. It’s so goddamn attractive you want to scream.

“Stop looking at me like that,” you mutter.

“Like what?”

“Like you know something I don’t.”

He smirks. “Maybe I do.”

You throw a napkin at him. He laughs, catches it easily, and the sound rings through you like a struck bell.

-

He hadn’t planned to follow you. He hadn’t. His patrol had taken him toward the Narrows, toward the docks, a dozen other places that needed him more than one crowded strip of nightlife where you were laughing too loud in a dress that glittered like you’d stolen the stars.

But the second he spotted you, he stopped. You were walking in the middle of your pack of friends, arm hooked through one of theirs, head thrown back in a laugh that made your hair slip down your shoulders. Your dress caught every scrap of neon, sequins winking like Morse code, and for a second it was all he could see. Sparkling. Distracting. You, right there, alive and incandescent. He told himself to keep moving. To stick to patrol. 

He didn’t. He slipped into the shadows above instead, tracking you from rooftop to rooftop, his body humming with an uneasy mix of irritation and awe. You shouldn’t be out here this late, drunk and stumbling. Gotham eats people like that alive. And yet seeing you bright and unguarded, cheeks flushed, smile wide, it does something to him. Like he’s watching a life he doesn’t belong to but can’t look away from.

Then he hears it.

“Wait, wait, wait,” one of your friends slurs, catching your arm as you teeter on the curb. “You had a crush on Robin? Little Robin? Short shorts and all?” The words hit like a sucker punch. His boots still on the ledge, heart lurching up into his throat.

You groan, dramatic. “Don’t say it like that.”

Laughter erupts, loud and merciless. “I mean, Batman was literally right there,” another says. “Broody, mysterious, tall. And you went for the kid in green?”

“Listen,” you argue, slurring but determined, your hands slicing through the air as you stumble forward with them. “It wasn’t even because he was, like… hot.”

Dick goes still. Breath locked. Not hot. Not Batman. Not Superman. But… him. His fingers curl tight around the edge of the roof until the stone bites through the gloves. The city noise fades under the thunder of his pulse.

Your friends don’t let up. “You were in Metropolis for years! What about Superman? Have you seen him? Gorgeous. Dimples. Arms. Literal sunshine.”

“That’s not the point!” you insist, cutting them off with a shout, your heels clicking unevenly against the pavement. “Robin, he was… earnest, okay? Thoughtful. Responsible. He listened. He…” Your voice softens. Fragile and fierce at the same time. “He made me feel like I mattered.”

The words gut him. Because he remembers. He remembers every night on rooftops, every time you sat beside him with your knees pressed together, every secret you whispered into the dark because you trusted him to hold it. He remembers the way you looked at him like he was more than Batman’s shadow. Like he was enough. 

He’s gripping the ledge so hard he thinks it might crack under his hand.

Your friends are howling again, teasing, “God, you really do have a type. What’s next, Green Lantern?” But he’s not listening anymore. He’s locked on you, on the way your laughter shakes loose and dizzy into the night, on the memory of the boy he used to be, the boy who never believed anyone would pick him.

And here you are, years later, admitting you had. He doesn’t care that you’re drunk. Doesn’t care that you might not remember this tomorrow. Because he will. He’ll remember the conviction in your voice, the way you doubled down, the way you said he made you feel like you mattered.

Up on the ledge, hidden in shadow, Dick feels it burn through him. A match struck in the dark. And he knows he’s not letting you run from this. Next time his eyes linger, next time his hand presses at the small of your back, next time his voice drops lower than it should, you won’t get to brush it off as banter. You won’t get to hide behind excuses. Because you said it. You chose him. You always had. And he thinks you still might. And God help him, he’s not about to let you pretend otherwise.

-

The problem with Dick Grayson isn’t that he doesn’t know how to look at you. It’s that he does. He knows exactly how long to let his eyes linger before you catch him. He knows how to tilt his head so it looks like he’s teasing when it feels like something else. He knows when to let his gaze soften, how to press just enough warmth into it to make you think about things you shouldn’t, not when you’re supposed to be friends.

And this morning, as you’re face-planted into the couch cushions in a tiny, sparkly black dress, head throbbing, stomach rolling, the last thing you need is for Dick Grayson to be looking at you.

Unfortunately, he is.

“Rough night?” His voice is bright, smug, like sunshine filtered through something wicked.

You groan into the cushions. “Go away.”

“No can do.” You hear his boots cross the floor, the quiet shift of weight as he crouches beside the couch. “I figured you’d need a little… moral support. Or maybe electrolytes.”

“I need you to shut up,” you mutter.

He laughs low, warm, and irritatingly fond. “You look like roadkill.”

You lift your head just enough to glare at him. He’s crouched at your side, forearms resting on his knees, hair damp from a shower, dressed down in a t-shirt that clings a little too well. His eyes take you in shamelessly; your hair a mess, mascara smudged, sparkly dress creased from sleep.

“You’re not cute. Don’t look at me,” you mumble, shoving your face back into the couch.

“Too late.” He leans his chin into his palm. “It’s seared into my brain now. You, draped over a sofa like a tragic starlet.”

“Kill me.”

“Nah.” His grin sharpens. “Not when you give me material like this.” You don’t remember how he got in your apartment. You don’t remember much, actually, past stumbling in the door last night and half-collapsing onto the couch. But you do remember the way your friends had teased you on the walk home. Robin. Batman. Superman. And your stubborn, drunken insistence that it had always been Robin.

Heat flushes through you even now, a full-body cringe. God, what if you’d said too much? What if someone had recorded it? What if—

“You snore,” Dick says, breaking into your spiral.

Your head snaps up. “I do not.”

“Like a chainsaw.” He smirks, infuriatingly pleased. “It’s cute, though. Endearing.”

You throw a pillow at him. He catches it one-handed, effortless, then tosses it back onto your stomach, knocking the breath out of you. “Jerk,” you wheeze.

“Roadkill,” he volleys back like he is affirming his earlier statement. The banter is easy, familiar, but there’s an edge to it today. You feel it in the way his eyes keep tracking over you, softer than they should be. In the way he hasn’t moved from his crouch, too close, knees brushing the couch.

You shift, meaning to sit up, but your limbs betray you. Instead you flop sideways, head landing on the pillow, legs still dangling over the armrest, knees bent awkwardly on the floor. Your dress rides higher, glitter catching in the sunlight slanting through the blinds. His gaze flickers, quick and sharp, before snapping back to your face.

“You’re staring,” you accuse.

“You’re imagining,” he shoots back. But his voice is a shade too low, and it twists something in your stomach.

You try to change the subject. “So what, you just decided to drop by and harass me while I’m defenseless?”

“Defenseless, huh?” He leans in, close enough that you smell his soap and the faint tang of leather clinging to him. “Funny. Last night, you didn’t sound very defenseless.”

Your heart stutters. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His smile turns slow, wicked. “Oh, nothing. Just that you’ve got… interesting taste.”

It hits you like a bucket of ice water. Oh. Oh, no. He heard. He had to have heard.

“Shut up,” you say quickly, too quickly, your cheeks blazing.

“Robin, huh?” he presses, voice feather-light but edged with something deeper. “Not Batman. Not Superman. Me.”

You bury your face in your hands. “I’m never drinking again.”

His laughter curls low in his chest. He nudges your knee with his hand, playful. “Relax. I’m flattered.”

“That makes one of us,” you groan, wishing the couch would swallow you.

But when you peek at him through your fingers, his eyes aren’t just amused. They’re intense, sharp, gleaming with the memory of your drunken confession. He’s not going to let you forget it.

The comedy of errors continues when you try to sit up. Your foot catches on the armrest, your heel slips, and you pitch forward, straight into his chest. He catches you easily, an arm banding around your waist, the other braced on the couch. Suddenly you’re nose-to-nose, his grin right there, his heartbeat loud against your palm where it’s landed on his chest.

“Careful,” he murmurs.

“I hate you,” you whisper, breathless.

“Liar,” he says softly, “You have a crush on me.” And it feels like a strike.

For a second, neither of you moves. The air between you hums, heavy, loaded. His eyes flick down to your mouth before darting back up. You feel it, every millimeter, like a live wire under your skin.

“Had,” you whisper. His eyes followed the shape of your lips as they formed around the word. 

“Have.” He says again, voice more firm this time. Your gaze traces his lips this time.

Your head tilts closer, like instinct, like your body is done pretending it doesn’t want him. His arm is still locked firm around your waist, holding you steady, keeping you pressed against the heat of his chest. Your palm flattens against him, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the give of muscle under cotton, the impossible warmth of him seeping straight through your skin.

He doesn’t pull away. Just looks at you, steady, unblinking, eyes so blue they feel like they could cut you open if you let them. His breath brushes your mouth, warm, uneven. You can taste coffee and something darker on it, and your lips part without permission, every nerve in your body straining toward the last millimeter of space.

The air thickens, heavy as syrup. His fingers at your waist flex, just once, enough to draw you an inch closer. His chest rises against yours, and you feel the faintest shiver where his nose grazes your cheek, his forehead brushing yours, testing the contact without closing it.

You don’t think. Your hand slides higher on his chest, tracing over the solid line of his collarbone, up the curve of his shoulder, fingers brushing the back of his neck. His hair is still damp from his shower, soft and warm under your touch. He exhales raggedly, his whole body tightening like he’s holding back a wave.

Because the problem with you isn’t that you don’t want Dick Grayson. It’s that you do.

“You’re not fooling me,” he says, voice low, rougher now that your lips are so close you can taste the warmth of his breath. “Not with that look on your face. Not with your hand all over me.”

Your fingers twitch against his chest, traitorous, pressing into solid muscle as though proving his point. Heat curls low in your stomach, sharp and insistent, and you hate that he can read it so easily.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” you manage, though your voice shakes.

His eyes darken, his thumb tracing slow circles into your hip where his hand grips you. “Say it again. Say you don’t still want me. Say it while you’re this close.”

You can’t. The words lodge in your throat, choking on the truth you’ve been dodging for weeks. His smirk softens, just barely, eyes narrowing in satisfaction as he leans in until your noses brush, your pulse stuttering wildly under his stare.

“Had,” you whisper again, desperate, as if repeating it might make it true.

“Finish the sentence if you mean it, sweetheart.” The words vibrate out of him, certain and unshakable. His gaze dips to your mouth again, slower this time, deliberate, and the sound you make is soft, caught halfway between a breath and a plea, and it has his jaw flexing tight like he’s fighting himself.

“Dick…” His name leaves your mouth broken, trembling, and he shudders like you’ve just lit a match against his skin.

His forehead tips to yours, contact so small but devastating, heat bleeding from him into you. “You can lie all you want, Trouble,” he murmurs, his breath ghosting across your lips, “but you don’t let someone this close unless you want it.”

Your head tilts, your lips part, your palm sliding up to his collarbone in a silent answer. For one perfect, electric second, the whole world narrows to the inch of air left between your mouths, heat, and his heartbeat under your hand.

Your lips brush his, so faint it’s almost not contact, just the ghost of it, but the shock of it rattles you down to your toes. His breath shudders out, shaky and hot, and when you lean in that last fraction, his mouth finally meets yours. It isn’t clean. It isn’t careful. His teeth catch your bottom lip, tugging just enough to make your stomach flip and a whimper catch in your throat. The sound seems to break something in him, because suddenly his arm around your waist tightens, dragging you fully into his lap.

You straddle him before you realize you’ve moved, dress riding high on your thighs, his heat pressed solid between your legs. His hands slide down, big and certain, cupping your ass through sequined fabric, pulling you flush against the thick line of him. The spark between you roars into fire.

He kisses you like he’s been waiting years for it, messy, hungry, devouring. Your palms splay across his chest, clutching at the muscle under his shirt, your fingers curling into the warm skin at the nape of his neck. His tongue slides against yours, slow at first, then harder, deeper, until you’re gasping into his mouth, moving against him without meaning to.

His hands squeeze, firm and sure, guiding you into him, hips arching up to meet yours. The friction makes your head spin, your pulse pounding everywhere at once. He tastes like wine and want, and the low sound he makes into your mouth vibrates all the way down your spine.

For a breathless stretch of moments, there’s no Gotham, no rain, no history. Just this. Just you and Dick, tangled up, finally giving in, kissing each other like you’ll never get enough.

Your lips part beneath his, and he takes the invitation greedily, kissing you deeper, tongue stroking against yours with a hunger that has your head spinning. It’s clumsy in places, teeth clicking, mouths chasing, but that only makes it worse, better. It feels alive, electric, like every ounce of restraint you’ve both held onto has finally gone up in flames.

You rock into him, desperate for more friction, and he groans low in his throat, the sound vibrating into your mouth. His hands tighten on your ass, dragging you down against him, grinding you into the thick, unmistakable weight straining against his sweats. The pressure makes your breath hitch, your body clenching around the ache building low in your belly.

You clutch at him harder, fingers fisting into his t-shirt until the fabric rides up, exposing hot skin. You smooth your palms over his stomach, the ridges of muscle flexing under your touch, and he shudders, biting your lip again as though to punish you for it. You moan into him, nails digging lightly into his sides, and he hisses through his teeth, kissing you harder, like he can pour every ounce of his want straight into your mouth.

The kiss tips sideways, and suddenly you’re gasping, laughing into him when his stubble grazes your jaw. He doesn’t let up. His lips trail fire down the line of your throat, teeth scraping lightly over the delicate skin there before sucking hard enough to make your toes curl. You arch into him, dress shifting higher, sequins scratching his hips where your thighs cage him in.

“Dick,” His name rips out of you, broken and desperate, and his mouth is back on yours before you can say more, swallowing the sound like it belongs to him.

Your hips roll against him, helpless, chasing the friction, and he meets you halfway, thrusting up into you in short, sharp motions that make you whimper into his mouth. His tongue tangles with yours again, messy and wet, and your vision sparks at the edges. His hands are everywhere, palming your ass, sliding up your spine, threading into your hair to tug your head back so he can kiss you deeper, rougher.

You’re dizzy with him, his taste, his weight, the sheer size of him under you. Every breath you drag in is filled with him, every nerve alight with the demand to get closer, closer, until there’s nothing left between you at all.

When you finally break for air, your foreheads slam together, both of you panting like you’ve run miles. His lips are swollen, glistening, his pupils blown wide, his chest heaving under your palms. He looks wild. Starved. Perfect. And then he’s pulling you back down, kissing you again, hungrier than before, open-mouthed, filthy, like he’s making up for every year he didn’t.

Your body can’t stop moving against him, chasing every drag of friction. The sequined dress has ridden high on your thighs, hem bunched at your waist as you straddle him. His hands are greedy now, sliding over bare skin, thumbs digging into the soft bare curve of your ass like he’s waited his whole life to touch you here. He drags you down harder, grinding you over him, and the blunt thickness straining his sweats makes you gasp into his mouth.

He’s huge. You knew he was, the outline impossible not to notice whenever he sprawled careless in those pants, but feeling it pressed solid against you, hot and heavy even through layers, makes your stomach twist and your core clench with want. You rock down on him harder, helpless, and the sound he makes is low, guttural, and almost pained. It shoots straight between your legs.

“Fuck,” he groans against your lips, kissing you harder, tongue driving deep like he’s trying to drown himself in you. His hips surge up in answer, rutting against you, the thick head of him catching just right against the soaked center of your panties. Your cry muffles into his mouth, nails scraping down his chest until you find skin, dragging up his shirt until it’s bunched under his arms.

His abs are hot and hard under your palms, slick with sweat, muscles flexing as he thrusts up into you. You break from his mouth to gasp down his throat, and he’s on you instantly, lips latching to your jaw, your neck, sucking and biting bruises into your skin like he wants to mark every inch he can reach.

“Say it,” he rasps against your throat, his teeth grazing your pulse. His hands knead your ass, grinding you down over him, the thick bulge in his sweats perfectly aligned with your clit. “Say you still want me.”

You can’t speak, not with the way he’s rolling his hips, relentless, the pressure building sharp and unbearable. You whimper his name instead, broken and needy, and he groans like the sound undoes him.

“Fuck—yeah, you do,” he breathes, pulling you down harder, guiding you to rock over him faster. The sequins of your dress scratch at his bare stomach, your panties soaked through, clinging to your folds as you grind over the obscene bulk of him. Each pass drags his thickness right against your clit, each grind shooting sparks down your spine until you’re gasping against his mouth, trembling in his lap. “She’s honest with me, even if your mouth won’t be,” he pants. 

He kisses you senseless again, filthy and wet, tongues clashing, teeth tugging, his hips never stopping. You roll against him desperately, chasing it, chasing him, your thighs trembling where they cage him in. His cock strains against the thin cotton, massive, the outline pressed hot and unyielding against your swollen pussy, and all you can think is how good it would feel inside you.

His hand slides up your spine, into your hair, yanking your head back just enough to bite at your throat again, his breath ragged. “Thatta girl. Keep grinding, Trouble. Wanna feel you cum all over me.”

The words hit harder than anything. You moan brokenly, hips stuttering against him, the rhythm sloppy but desperate, pleasure winding sharp and tight in your belly. His hands hold you steady, dragging you over him in rough, perfect circles until you’re shuddering, mouth open against his, every nerve screaming as you teeter on the edge.

And he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t let you run. He keeps you pressed to him, grinding against the thick, straining length of his cock until you’re shaking apart in his lap, soaking through your panties, every pulse of your orgasm spilling hot and messy against him.

He kisses you through it, swallowing your cries, biting your lip until you can barely breathe. When you finally slump forward, wrecked and trembling, his hands are still on you, still firm, still wanting. And he’s still hard, throbbing against you, sweatpants damp with your release, the sheer size of him twitching under you like a promise. 

His mouth breaks from yours only to press wet, biting kisses down your jaw, your throat, your collarbone, muttering against your skin like he can’t stop himself. “Feel how wet you are,” he growls, his voice rough and ruined. One hand slips lower, his long fingers sliding under the edge of your ruined panties. You whimper as his knuckles brush your slick folds, every inch of you drenched and swollen. His groan vibrates against your neck when he feels just how soaked you are.

“Fuck, Trouble…” His middle finger drags up through your wetness, slow, obscene, parting you until he finds your clit. You jolt hard against him, crying out, and he swallows the sound in another bruising kiss. His finger circles you once, twice, then dips lower, pressing inside with a stretch that makes your whole body seize. He’s so much bigger than your own hand, so much deeper, curling at the knuckle just right until your thighs clamp tight around him.

“Look at you,” he rasps, pumping in and out, his thumb pressing cruel circles to your clit. “Soaked for me. Always were, weren’t you?”

You can’t answer. You can only grind helplessly into his hand, your hips jerking against him, your mouth open and gasping against his. He slips a second finger in beside the first, the stretch sharp, delicious, filling you in a way that makes you sob into his mouth. His thumb works you mercilessly, dragging another wave of pleasure out of your trembling body.

Then he pulls his fingers out, sudden, leaving you clenching around nothing. You whine at the loss, but before you can protest, he shoves his slick fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean. His eyes lock on yours as he groans low in his throat, tasting you, devouring you.

“You’re so sweet, baby,” he murmurs, voice dark and reverent. “Could live on this.”

Your whole body shudders. You surge forward, kissing him hard, tasting yourself on his tongue, swallowing his groan as his hands drag at your hips again. But it’s not enough. The thick weight straining his sweats is pressed solid against your soaked panties, and you need more—you need him.

“Dick,” you gasp against his mouth, clawing at the waistband of his sweats. “Out. Now.”

His laugh is harsh, breathless, wrecked. “Now who’s bossy.” But he obeys, shoving his sweats down just enough for his cock to spring free, thick and heavy and already slick at the tip.

Your breath catches. Even soft he’d been obscene; hard, he’s devastating. Long, flushed dark, veins ridging the shaft, the broad head flushed and dripping precum. Your cunt clenches just looking at him, your thighs shaking with the need to feel it.

“Fuck,” he mutters, wrapping a hand around the base, stroking once, slow, groaning through gritted teeth. “Been dying to feel you on me.”

You grind down against him, soaking panties dragging over the thick length of him, smearing wetness across his cock. The slide makes you both groan, your clit catching against his head with every pass.

He curses again, gripping your hips so hard you know he’ll leave bruises, guiding you to rock on him. His cock drags along your soaked center, fat and hot, the head bumping your clit with every grind. You can feel the pressure of him catching against your entrance, the blunt head pushing at your soaked panties, teasing what you both want.

“You feel that?” he groans, eyes wild, forehead pressed to yours as his cock slides thick and heavy under you. “So wet you’re gonna ruin me. Gonna let me in, Trouble? Let me split you open on this cock?”

Your moan is answer enough. You grind harder, desperate, the head of him pushing your panties aside just enough to catch against your opening, stretching you slightly before slipping away again. He groans raggedly, pumping his cock once against your soaked fabric, precum smearing across the sequined dress bunched at your waist.

“Gonna make you feel so good,” he pants, kissing you hard, messy, teeth clashing. “Gonna bury this cock so deep you won’t be able to say my name without cumming.” His hands slide down, fingers curling under the edge of your panties, tugging at the damp fabric. “These coming off, or can I rip ‘em?”

“Rip,” you gasp, dizzy, desperate. And he does. The lace tears with a sharp sound, shredded by his long fingers like it’s nothing, the ruined fabric dragged aside as he growls into your mouth. The sudden cool air against your bare cunt makes you shiver, but then his cock is there, thick and hot and real, dragging through your soaked folds, smearing your slick up his length.

“Fuck,” His voice breaks, guttural. “You’re dripping. Been dreaming about this for so long sweetheart, about feeling you like this.” Your hips jerk forward, chasing it, and the broad head of him catches at your entrance. He holds you still with hands locked bruisingly tight on your ass, forcing you to feel it, just the heavy pressure of him nudging in, stretching you wide, parting you slow.

The stretch steals your breath. He’s so big your body fights to take him, and the sting makes you gasp into his mouth. But underneath is heat, thick, overwhelming heat, like your whole body’s been waiting for this exact moment.

“Christ,” he groans, forehead slamming to yours, sweat dripping down his temple. “So tight. Gonna ruin me.”

You claw at his shoulders, nails biting through cotton, panting. “More…please, Dick.”

He whines softly, and then he thrusts, hard. The thick length of him drives into you, slow enough to split you open, deep enough to make you cry out. Your walls seize around him, clenching helplessly, trying to adjust as inch after inch slides into your body. The stretch burns, pleasure laced sharp through pain, but he’s groaning against your mouth, kissing you through it, muttering ragged curses into your skin.

“Taking me…fuck, you’re taking all of me so well,” he grits out, his hips jerking up, forcing the last thick inch inside. His cock bottoms out deep, the blunt head pressed right against your cervix, so deep it makes your vision blur. You sob against his mouth, your body clutching him, trembling. The fullness is as unbearable as it is addictive; like he’s rewired you from the inside out.

“Look at you,” he pants, dragging back an inch only to slam forward again, grinding deep. “My pretty girl. So good for me.”

You moan brokenly, your hips rocking without thought, meeting him. The friction is devastating; bare, raw, his cock dragging against every swollen inch of you. Slick gushes down his shaft, wetting the base of him, smearing against his stomach where your dress is bunched. His rhythm builds fast, messy. Years of wanting crashing into each thrust, hips snapping up into you hard enough to jolt the couch under you. You cling to him, legs trembling around his waist, your cunt gripping him so tight he groans with every stroke.

“Oh baby,” he whines, mouth crushed to your jaw, teeth scraping. “You’re so fucking wet, gonna make me cum so deep inside you.”

You can only gasp, moan, sob against him, every thrust lighting you up. His hands cup your ass, dragging you down onto his cock harder, grinding you into him until your clit rubs against the base, sparks exploding in your belly. You’re close again; too close, the pressure building sharp and fast. You roll your hips against him, desperate, and he feels it, feels the way your walls flutter and clench around him.

“Gonna cum?” he rasps, voice breaking, his cock driving into you relentlessly. “Gonna soak me like a good girl? Let me have it, c’mon.” Your body shatters. Pleasure rips through you, hot and unbearable, your cunt clamping down on him as you scream his name into his mouth. Slick gushes around him, soaking him, dripping down your thighs, and he curses, rutting into you harder, chasing his own end.

His rhythm falls apart, hips slamming up into you in ragged, desperate thrusts, his cock throbbing inside you with every grind. His forehead presses to yours, sweat dripping, breath coming in short, broken gasps. “God, you feel so good,” he groans, the words spilling without thought, low and raw against your mouth. “So tight around me, so wet for me. Fuck, sweetheart, you’re perfect. Perfect.”

Each word is a strike, praise so filthy and reverent your whole body shivers around him. You moan into his mouth, clutching at his shoulders, rolling against him, your cunt clenching tighter every time he speaks. He thrusts deep, almost to the hilt, then stops, shaking with restraint, his cock swelling thick inside you. His voice cracks when he mutters, “I can’t…I’m gonna cum. Please. Please, let me…inside you, I want to.”

The sound of him begging makes your breath catch, your walls fluttering around him. You feel him shaking under you, his control frayed to nothing, but still he doesn’t let go, doesn’t cross the line until you give him the word. His mouth crashes to yours, messy and frantic, his tongue tangling with yours as he whispers against your lips, “Say yes. Tell me I can. Please, Trouble, I need it. Need to fill you up.”

The plea wrecks you. Heat coils sharp in your stomach, the pressure unbearable. You tighten around him, nails raking down his back, and gasp, “Yes, yes, Dick, cum inside me, please!” The sound he makes is broken, guttural, like you’ve torn the air from his lungs. His hips jerk up violently, his whole body locking under you as he buries himself deep, cock swelling as his release rips through him. 

“Fuck, oh, fuck, thank you,” he gasps, his voice sick with praise, chanting it against your mouth as he spills inside you. Thick heat floods your cunt in heavy pulses, and the sensation drags your orgasm out all over again; you clench down hard, milking him, crying into his kiss as he moans your name like prayer.

He holds you down on him, grinding up into you, desperate to push every drop deeper. “So good…so good for me, fuck, you’re perfect. Taking all of it, all of me.”

You collapse against his chest, trembling, both of you panting hard, still joined, his cock still twitching inside you as his release drips hot between your thighs. His forehead presses to yours, his voice wrecked, almost breaking. 

His forehead presses to yours, both of you still trembling, breaths dragging in uneven gasps. His voice is wrecked, almost breaking.

“Years,” he whispers, softer now but still aching, still desperate. “Wasted years not feeling you like this.”

Your chest tightens, words lost somewhere in your throat. So you kiss him instead, messy, deep, your lips swollen and clumsy. He kisses you back with equal fervor, but slower now, as if he wants to savor, to commit the taste of you to memory. His cock is still sheathed deep inside you, twitching faintly as he softens, but neither of you makes a move to part.

You shift against him, and his hands instantly tighten on your hips, keeping you down, keeping him buried inside. His laugh is low, roughened by exhaustion and bliss. “Don’t even think about it. Not letting you go yet.”

You groan against his chest. “You’re heavy.”

“Good,” he mutters, dropping his lips to the damp slope of your shoulder. “Means you’ll stay put.” He breathes you in, deep, reverent. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you?”

You pull back just enough to search his face. His eyes are glassy, unguarded in a way you’ve never seen. “How long?” you ask quietly, brushing his long dark hair out of his face.

He swallows, thumb brushing slow along your cheek, still cupping your face as if you’re fragile. “Since fourteen,” he admits, voice soft, bare. “Since the first night you sat on that roof and talked to me like I wasn’t just Robin. Like I was… a person.” His jaw flexes, like saying it out loud costs him something. “I never stopped, even when you left. Even when you came back and seemed distracted by my face.”

Your breath catches. The weight of it hits you hard, heavy and bright all at once, knocking your chest open. You don’t have to think. You know, suddenly, fiercely, that you’re falling in love with him. Not just the boy who once unmasked for you, not just the man currently buried inside you, but all of him.

“Dick…” you whisper, cupping his jaw, thumb brushing over the rough stubble there. “You’re ridiculous.”

His lips twitch, a crooked grin breaking the tension. “What, because I’ve been in love with you since I was a scrawny circus kid?”

“Because,” you correct softly, rolling your eyes even as your chest aches, “I liked you when you were gangly and angry at the world, and awkward with your kindness. That’s what got me.” Your thumb brushes the edge of his jaw. “Not… all this.”

His smile gentles, the teasing melting into something shy, almost boyish. “Doesn’t hurt, though, right? The face.”

You huff a laugh, shaking your head, but it comes out tender instead of sharp. “No. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Good because you,” he says, kissing your forehead, your nose, the corner of your mouth in quick, playful succession, “are stuck with me now. So remember that when I get on your nerves.”

You sigh, pretending exasperation, but you can’t stop smiling. “Guess I am.”

-

You stay like that for a while, tangled and warm, the storm outside softening into a steady patter. His thumb strokes along your cheekbone, lazy, reverent, like he can’t quite believe you’re real. Eventually, though, the ache in your thighs reminds you both of reality. You shift, wincing slightly, and he feels it immediately.

“Hey,” he murmurs, kissing your temple, “don’t move. I’ve got you.”

You make a soft noise of protest when he finally pulls out, the stretch easing but leaving you empty in a way that makes your chest squeeze. Heat spills between your thighs, sticky and messy, but he’s already tucking you back against the cushions, murmuring, “Stay,” before disappearing down the hall.

When he comes back, he’s barefoot, carrying a damp towel and a glass of water, his hair even messier from running a hand through it. “Lift,” he says gently, and when you blink at him, dazed, he smiles. “C’mon. Let me take care of you.”

You do, cheeks warming as he crouches between your knees, wiping you clean with careful, unhurried motions. His hands are steady, reverent, as though the act itself is holy. He kisses the inside of your thigh when he’s done, soft and fleeting, before standing to hand you the water.

You take a sip, your throat dry, then glance at him over the rim of the glass. “You always this bossy after sex?”

“Back to bossy again?” His brows lift in mock offense as he sinks back onto the couch beside you. “But, please. I’m efficient. There’s a big difference.”

You laugh, weak but real, tucking yourself into his side. “You were efficient at fourteen too. Efficiently broody. Efficiently avoiding eye contact.”

He groans, dropping his head back against the cushions. “God. Don’t remind me.” Then, softer, with a smile that curves like memory, he adds, “And somehow you still liked me.” His face warms with a smile as he says it, looking more boyish than you’ve seen him look, like the thought of you having felt something for him all these years makes him giddy.

“I didn’t like you because of the brooding,” you tease, tilting up to meet his gaze. “I liked you because you couldn’t hide how good you were. Not from me.”

His eyes soften, his hand smoothing gently over your hip. “You’ve always seen too much.”

“And you’ve always pretended it bothered you,” you shoot back, but your smile is quiet, your chest aching.

He presses his lips to your hair, lingering there. “Never bothered me,” he admits into the crown of your head. “It scared me. That’s different.”

His lips linger in your hair, warm and steady, until your eyes slip closed. The storm outside has softened to a drizzle, a steady hush against the glass, and the room feels like it’s holding its breath with you. You set the glass of water aside, curling instinctively into him. His arm comes around your shoulders without hesitation, hand smoothing slow circles over your arm. It’s grounding, the weight of him, the heat of his body still seeping into yours.

“You should sleep,” he murmurs against your temple.

“So should you,” you mumble back, your voice heavy with exhaustion.

“Not tired,” he lies, and you can feel the smile pressed into your hair.

“You’re full of it,” you whisper, but the fight is already gone from you. Your head sinks against his chest, ear over his heartbeat. It’s steady, strong, the sound you didn’t know you’d missed all these years until now.

He shifts, adjusting you both, and before you realize it, you’re stretched across the couch together, tangled under the throw blanket. His hand stays at your hip, fingers curled there like an anchor, as if he’s afraid you’ll slip away in the night.

You reach up, tracing lazy circles over his chest. “Dick?”

“Mmm?”

“I think,” you murmur, words already blurring at the edges of sleep, “I might be falling in love with you.”

He stills, then exhales slow, his lips brushing your hair. “Good,” he whispers. “Because I’ve been in love with you for half my life.”

Your throat tightens, but your body relaxes, the truth settling into you like warmth. You smile against him, soft and certain. Outside, Gotham exhales under the rain. Inside, you let yourself drift, safe in the arms of the boy you once knew, the man you’re choosing now.

-

The city looks different from up here. It always does, under his arm.

You’re sitting on the ledge of a Blüdhaven rooftop, legs dangling over the streetlights, the night air cool against your bare skin. Dick’s beside you, mask pushed up into his hair, the blue symbol catching the glow of the skyline. His hands are warm where they rest on your hips, steadying you like you might slip, even though you both know you never would with him here. Both his thighs bracket yours. 

“Déjà vu,” you murmur, glancing at him over your shoulder.

His grin tilts sideways, boyish and wicked all at once. “Except this time I get to kiss you instead of lecture you.”

“Mm,” you hum, leaning back into his chest. “Not sure which one you’re worse at.”

He gasps, mock wounded, then dips his head to mouth at your neck. “Harsh. And here I was thinking I’ve improved since the green tights days.”

“You have,” you say, fighting a smile. “Marginally.”

“Marginally?” He nips lightly at your skin, enough to make you squirm. “You wound me.”

“You’ll live,” you tease, twisting in his hold until you’re facing him. His hands slide automatically to your waist, thumbs stroking slow against the fabric of your jacket, and his eyes soften in a way that makes your stomach flip.

“You know what hasn’t changed?” he says quietly.

“What?”

“You.” His smile curves, tender under the tease. “You still sneak out when you shouldn’t. Still get yourself into trouble. Still make me chase after you.”

You snort. “Admit it. You like it.”

“Like it?” He laughs low, kissing you once, quick and sure. “I live for it.”

The kiss deepens, sweet and unhurried, the city buzzing around you, forgotten. When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against yours, his voice soft enough for only you to hear. “Feels like we’ve been waiting years for this,” he murmurs.

“Maybe we have.” You smile, brushing your thumb along his jaw. “Worth it, though.”

He grins, eyes bright as the city lights. “Definitely worth it.”

“theseus, this is ridiculous, let go of me.”

it was a small cut, just a little one. a small mishap with alone of his creatures, that was all. such a tiny little ailment.

“it is bleeding profusely and goes all the way across your stomach, newt!” theseus exclaimed, pulling his brothers coat sleeve like a child dragging their parents through a candy store. “she’s very nice, you know that.”

oh, newt knew you were nice— that was the problem. you were so nice, so pretty, so incredibly everything that newt could hardly bare it. years and years of friendship with you and he could hardly even contain his joy at the sound of your laugh, at the mere sight of you. it made it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to exist when all he could focus on was you.

“you’re working a case, theseus,” newt sighed, allowing his brother to pull him up the stairs to your apartment. “she’s probably reviewing files or something, it would be rude to interrupt her work.”

but the scamander brothers were already outside your door, and theseus was already knocking. before newt could brace himself for the wave of love sickness that would inevitably hit him the second he saw you, the door swung open and there you were; nice, pretty, perfect.

“hi newt, theseus,” you greeted, chest heaving (you may have ran across the apartment the second you’d heard their voices coming down the hall) “what can i— oh merlin’s beard.”

newt looked down, unsurprised to see the blood had seeped through his white shirt. he gave you a lopsided smile and you rolled your eyes, a pitiful attempt to avoid eye contact with the boyish man before you.

“come inside.”

theseus all but shoved newt inside, already straightening out his suit and brushing the left over floo powder off of his shirt. he looked up to you and his brother, unphased by the confused look on your faces.

“well, i best be off.”

you gawked at him. “your— your not going to stay?” you asked. he shook his head. “theseus! your brother is injured and you’re leaving?”

“we have a case!”

“it’s really okay,” newt said, bashfully, suddenly reminding you of the reason they were there.

scoffing, you turned back to newt, waving your friend off. “workaholic,” you murdered as you began searching for your emergency bandage kit.

and with that, theseus shut the door— but not before sending his brother a mischievous wink. newt felt a shiver down his spine.

sneaky bastard.

you finally found the small red box, pulling it open and rifling through it for a disinfectant and some gaws, as well as a mini suture kit.

glancing up at newt through your eyelashes, you hummed expectantly. “shirt off,” you ordered, some foreign sort of confidence surging through you.

newt swore all the brain cells left his mind. “pardon?” he chocked, suddenly not too concerned with his injuries.

“i can’t exactly fix you through the shirt. now c’mon, we don’t have all day,” you explained.

quickly, newt obeyed, shedding his baggy coat and undoing the bloodied buttons. very quickly, he felt exposed, but the bashful look on your face made him feel more smug than anything.

you had never seen newt shirtless before now, but my lord, did you wish the sight to be engraved in your mind till the day you died. you could see the viens that traveled up his tanned arms, and as shocked to see his biceps had been rather toned under that jacket all this time. his freckles spanned all down his chest and arms as well, dancing around the thin scars across him.

for a man so cute and clever, he was sure an enthralling sight to see.

clearing your throat, you finally looked down at the wound intently, relieved to see it didn’t look like too hard of a fix. with some shallow sutures and cleaning, he’d be better in no time.

“not too bad,” you murmured without thinking, entire body going cold at the implication. shit. the clever smile on newts face grew. “i— i meant the cut isn’t too bad, doesn’t look, y’know, infected.”

“good,” newt agreed, leaning back on his arms. his abdomen tensed at the movement and he hissed at the pain. “ouch.”

before you could look at him too closely, or think too much apparently, you knealt down infront of him. however, as he opened his legs to allow you space between them, you realized the predicament you’d put yourself in.

holy fucking shit.

you looked up hesitantly, feeling your heart race at the way newt looked down at you; nervous and kind, like he was just as surprised by your position as you were.

“this might sting a little,” you announced, trying to redirect his (and yours) attention back to the real reason you were on your knees.

carefully, you wiped the cotton pad across the cut, cleaning up the blood around the wound. newt hissed again, hands gripping the blanket laid across your couch. you had to will yourself to keep your eyes on the wound.

“almost done,” you reassured, finally looking up to see newts eyes screwed shut in pain. quickly, you dabbed at the far end of the wound, bringing your hands down quickly. “all done.”

newt sighed in relief, swallowing roughly. he glanced down to his stomach, feeling his head buzz as you looked back up at him. “whatcha thinking, doc?” he teased.

you could’ve died at the irony. you could not tell him what you were thinking right now.

“well, it’ll only need a few stitches at the edges there on the left, but it should be fine otherwise. just some bandages and you’ll be good,” you answered.

“no magic?” he asked.

“sadly, my regulations to do these sorts of healing charms only spans as far as britain,” you replied. “i’m working on getting the papers here in the states, but for now, just my handy work.”

newt smiled, another grin which made you weak in the knees. “your handy work is quite good.”

you ignored the heat in your face from the praise as you began you sutures. you felt newt shiver under your hands as they fluttered across his stomach, tracing the stitches and looking for any imperfections. finally satisfied with the stitching, you taped some bandages across them, and stood up once you were done. three easy steps, and nothing went wrong—

as you took a step back, you stumbled over the edge of your rug, fumbling backwards as you tried to regain your balance. before you realized what had happened, you felt newts hands on the back of your thighs, pulling you forward.

and forward was onto his lap.

you had spoken too soon.

you caught yourself with a tight grip on his bare shoulders, the skin soft and hot under your hands. your face was barely an inch from his, and your eyes met his in a brief moment of panic.

“s-sorry, i just didn’t want you to hit your head on the coffee table,” newt whispered, eyes darting form your eyes to your lips and back again nervously. he seemed very regretful of his action at first, but he didn’t budge to move you off of him, hands gripping the flesh around your hips.

“t-thank you,” you stammered, gathering all your strength not to squirm in his arms, your heart beating faster than your blood could pump.

newts eyes found yours again, thumbs making small circles in your hip bone. “have i ever told you that you’re very pretty?” the low rasp of his voice could’ve made you faint on any ordinary day, but given that you were practically straddling him, nothing could’ve made you more lightheaded. “especially up so close.”

“newt,” you whispered.

“what, love?”

“please kiss me.”

newt closed the gap without a second thought, kissing you gently. his lips were soft, but needy, pulling away and coming back for more over and over and over again. his hands traveled from your hips all the way up to your head, resting on your jaw. you moved your hands up his neck, playing with the curls on the nape.

you whined as he pulled away entirely, pulling him impossibly closer to yourself. “why’d you stop?”

“isn’t there a rule about strenuous activities post surgery?” he teased, laughing as he pressed another kiss to your lips briefly; he had waited too long to do this and he didn’t wanna stop now. “making out seems pretty strenuous to me.”

You were still a bit nervous to head home so late. The sun was setting, and it casted the New York sky scrapers were casting such eerie shadows across the world. There was a beauty in it, but also it’s terrifying. Terrifying to be out late in the city night.

Had you picking up the pace.

As you tried to hurry home, before the street lights kicked on, you would hear the trash cans banging together. Made your heart stop, as you instinctively turned to look at the noise.

Didn’t seem like a person at least, so that gave you some calm. Still, could be a wild dog. Not that you hated dogs or anything, but street dogs are built to survive the streets for a reason.

You couldn’t help but stare, and wait, to see what would come out. Maybe it’s a kitten? A puppy? Ok now that you were cycling through the concept of a poor lost animal in the streets of the city that never sleeps had your heart ache.

Call you dumb, but you went to peak.

Was met with quite a surprise.

You weren’t entirely sure what you were looking at. It was some weird looking platypus mixed with a mole. Maybe it’s a sister species to platypi? It’s not unheard of that the rich and powerful have exotic animals. That there’s a black market for them. Maybe this poor baby escaped.

“You poor thing. New York and scraps isn’t meant for you.” You would Cooe at it, as the little creature looked up at you. Looking scared honestly. Would even reach its little arms out to you. How that made your heart explode from the utter cuteness.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. Come here baby.” You would lift up the strange creature, and opened your jacket to tuck them closer to your chest. Help them warm up from the cold streets.

They would snuggle into your chest, as they felt a little safer. Grabbed at your top even. Didn’t want to end up back to the streets again. Like hell you would.

With a baby to take care of you made your quick walk into a proper jog. A rather good motivation to help you speed up on your way home. You had a tiny little thing to care for. One that needed a bath and some food. Shit, what would it eat? Maybe you’ll leave a variety of foods out and whatever they go for first could be what they like? You’ll worry about it later. Now was to get home.

Into the apartment complex you went, up the elevator, and you were home. Made sure all your locks on your door were clicked, and you would soon drop your things off.

“You poor thing. Let’s get you cleaned up, and feed you. How’s that sound?” You swore they were nodding at you. Seeming to comprehend what you were telling them very well. Maybe it’s an exotic pet thing? Or you are tired. Probably tired.

Into the bathroom you went. You ran a warm bath for them, and kept it shallow. Didn’t quite know what to do, so you just set them down in the warm water. Didn’t really have animal safe soap, so just water and a rag will do.

Have the cutest little noises at the gentle scrubs. Poor thing was filthy. Must have been on the streets for a while. Broke your heart. Such a brave little solider. Able to handle out there for as long as they did.

“Let’s dry you off and feed you.” You would lift the little thing up, and made sure they got nice and dry. Get all that grime off them. Certainly seemed alot happier now, so you guess you did a really good job.

Once you stepped out of the bathroom you heard knocking at your door. Who’s going to be contacting you this late? Let alone you in general? Had you cautious. You first found a strange animal, and now someone was knocking at your door? That didn’t equal good.

“Don’t make a noise. I’ll be right back.” You whispered, as you quickly took them to your room. Plopped right on your bed, and you closed the door.

You would wrap yourself in a bath robe, since you had changed into your sleep wear, and peeped through the peep hole.

The sight sure was strange.

There on the other side had to be the embodiment of sunshine. Had this curious attire of blue and browns, a suit case in one hand, and a stick in the other? Why does this fluffy haired guy have a stick with him? Maybe you just couldn’t see properly from the peep hole.

“Who’s at the door?!” You called, and you watched those big sparkling eyes light up. Excited that someone was home.

“Ah yes! Uh you don’t know me but you have something of mine! A sweet little thing. His name is Teddy! He’s mine. My Ni-Uh. Mine. Just mine!” He called back, as you were confused. How did he know you had something?

“One moment!” You figured you would see if he was right. You would quickly return to your bedroom, seeing the animal still on your bed, and called out.

“Come here Teddy-!”

And like that he was running right over you. Quick to jump into your arms.

Ok, maybe this guy had some truth. Still, you had questions.

You would return to the door, only to see that all the locks on the door were undone. Had you so horribly confused. There was a number of locks in a variety of styles there. No way you forgot to lock them all. Could you?

That’s when the door opened, and the man stepped in. The way Teddy seemed to squeak for the strangers attention. Hands reaching out like a toddler who wanted their mother. Was just so human. Seemed like Teddy really loved this stranger.

So, you didn’t refuse.

“OH TEDDY I WAS SO WORRIED-!” He sounded ready to sob, as he held Teddy close. Tears in the corner of his eyes as Teddy held the man’s face. Giving his cheek plenty of Nuzzles.

“You seem suspiciously clean for running around out there. Did you wash him? Did you take care of him-?” He spoke with such enthusiasm. Was like he might burst into confetti.

“Uh yeah. I just saw him hiding by some trash cans and I just couldn’t leave him behind. He wasn’t aggressive in the slightest either. Poor Teddy was cold, and just alone. I was actually about to try and feed him even.”

You were soon yanked into a rather tight hug. Felt like he might squeeze you lifeless. Teddy made sure to crawl over his daddy’s shoulder to avoid being crushed. Just snuggled away into his neck. Happy to be back.

“Oh you are truly a gift. Oh I don’t know how I can ever repay such kindness and warmth you’ve given him. Oh he’s my everything really. He gets into trouble often, sure, but he’s mine.” He explained, before finally letting you go. Little cheek kisses were given from Teddy, and the man would happily nuzzle into them. Was so clear that this wasn’t some poacher or animal smuggler. That made you feel better.

“So uh. Who are you exactly?”

That had his ears a soft pink, and a shy laugh left him.

“Oh blimey. Pardon me. The name is Newt. Newt Scamander. I’m Ma…I uh mean a Zoologist. I travel around the world studying animals, rescuing those that I can, and just loving nature. The pay isn’t that great but it’s worth it.” He would offer you a hand, and you would shake it in return. Telling him your name as well. And your own career.

“So kinda like a nomad. Does that mean you don’t have a place to stay?” You questioned, as he seemed to avoid your eyes for a moment. As if either to embarrassed to admit it, or trying to quickly come up with a lie.

“Well um. You see…I was currently trying to get a room for myself, but someone had to go running off. Can’t really blame him though. He adores shiny things. I should have been more careful. I know he has a weakness to things that shimmer and sparkle. It was all on me.” He would admit, as you had to respect that he was taking accountability.

“I mean. One night can’t hurt, right?” You couldn’t help it. This guy seemed to not be native here in the slightest. Said he’s a world traveler, sure, but it seems he’s not used to a concrete jungle. Wasn’t dressed for it, and sure didn’t seem like he was prepared at all. Did he really just only have that suit case with him? To travel the world? Something seemed….Off.

“Oh no no. You’ve already done so much. You’ve protected my baby. I can’t be asking you more-“ He tried to persuade you away, but your curiosity was to peaked. This guy was weird. Didn’t give any bad vibes kinda weird. Just….So peculiar.

“It’s one night really. You must have been hunting Teddy for hours. You didn’t get a chance to find a room, and it’s super late now. I can’t just throw you into the streets. One night. Just one.” You tried to logically explain, only to get another near back breaking hug.

“Oh I’ll never be able to repay your kindness. Oh your heart is so full. No wonder Teddy trusted you. Teddy has always been a brilliant judge of character. He knew you were a good person. No way would he let a stranger just hold him, let alone wash him. Oh thank you-!” You could feel the tears of relief in your shoulder, and all you could do was rub his back. Letting him breathe.

So that was how you ended up with a stranger living on your couch. Well, can’t say stranger given you knew his name now. Still! Most people would call you insane for doing such a thing.

Maybe you were.

But hey! Insane people have the most fun!

Besides, he’s pretty damn cute. Cute to see him snuggled into the couch, with Teddy under his arm, and his suitcase slid under the couch. Made sure to stay out of sight. You figured it was full of valuable paper work.

Did make you wonder though.

Where the hell did those pajamas he was wearing come from then? Did he just have them in that case and papers?

He was just full of to many questions to ignore.

He’s a stranger, but you just had to learn more.

Learn what made that man tick.