nic☆verse

Something is wrong.

Jason feels it like a pressure change—subtle, almost polite—but it crawls under his helmet and settles behind his eyes. It hasn’t clicked, not cleanly. Not yet. He hasn’t asked. Hasn’t said a word through the harbor sweep, through the cold iron stink of saltwater and oil and Christmas rot. A small job. The kind that should feel easy. The kind that still manages to choke the air out of his lungs anyway.

Everyone’s moving like the night might shatter if they stop.

Tim keeps choosing his words too carefully, syllables slowed and smoothed like he’s sanding down sharp edges. Dick’s doing that thing where he smiles first and speaks second—but the timing’s off, the warmth a fraction too late, like a recording lagging behind the video. Damian watches Jason more than the perimeter, eyes sharp, calculating, guarded. Stephanie hasn’t joked once. Not even a cheap jab to him, not even under her breath. That alone feels wrong enough to tilt the world sideways.

Bruce didn’t come.

That absence is loud. A hollow where a presence should be, echoing through comms and instinct alike. The Cave, he’d said. As if that explained anything. As if Bruce ever sits things out without a reason that claws.

Cassandra says nothing—but she’s closer. Close enough that Jason can feel her awareness like static along his spine. When the group splits, she falls into step beside him without discussion, without a glance. Just there. Solid. Protective in a way that feels less like trust and more like vigilance. As if she’s guarding him.

That’s when unease really sinks its teeth in.

Bruce didn’t need all of them.

Didn’t need six sets of boots scraping concrete, six heartbeats crowding the same dark. Dick alone could’ve dismantled this whole thing with half the effort. Hell, Jason himself could’ve wrapped it up fast and bloody and been home already. Instead, they’re stacked together, overlapping, slowing each other down like they’re afraid to let him out of their sight.

He agreed because no one argued about his presence. Because no one questioned whether he was needed. Because the silence around that decision felt intentional.

That should’ve been his first real warning.

Between two groups of thugs, he had ducked behind a row of shipping containers, Gotham’s lights bleeding gold across the black water. He had pulled out his phone and called you, already rehearsing the apology in his head. Late for presents. Again. You’d tease him, pretend to scold, maybe force him to wrap some gifts for your co-workers. 

You didn't answer.

Probably a bath, he told himself. You’d mentioned one. Candles. The fancy bath salts you bought. Something soft to push the cold out of your bones. The thought settles him, briefly. He sends a text instead—short, careful. An apology. An I love you so much that he doesn’t overthink, because with you, he never has to.

You always know what he means.

The phone stays quiet in his pocket.

No buzz. No vibration brushing against his thigh like it usually does, grounding him, tethering him back to something warm and real. He told himself it’s nothing. That you’re relaxed, distracted, asleep. That the night is just heavy, that Gotham is doing what Gotham always does—making ghosts out of shadows and dread out of coincidence.

Still.

When he looks back at the others, he notices the way Dick avoids his eyes now. The way Tim’s gaze flicks to Jason’s pocket and away again. The way Damian’s jaw tightens when Jason shifts his weight, like he’s bracing for impact. Cassandra meets his eyes once—just once—and there’s something there that twists low and sharp in his chest. Not fear. Not exactly.

Knowing. Jason doesn’t ask. He doesn’t press.

But the harbor feels too quiet, the night stretched thin and listening, and for the first time since he sent that text, a cold, irrational thought curls in his gut—

That whatever is wrong didn’t start here.

And that somewhere far from the water, far from the mission, something precious has already slipped out of reach.

“That was the last of them,” Jason says, voice rough through the helmet, as Tim finishes cinching zip-ties around the final goon and anchors him to a rust-flaked shipping container. The plastic bites down with a sharp click that echoes too loudly across the concrete. The man mumbled insanities through spit.

The harbor exhales around them—cold wind off the water, carrying brine and diesel and something rotten that’s been sitting too long. Sodium lights flicker overhead, casting everything in jaundiced gold and long, distorted shadows that stretch and tangle at their feet. The concrete is damp beneath Jason’s boots, slick with mist and old oil, the kind of surface that never really dries no matter how many ‘sunny’ days Gotham pretends to have.

“We should do another check around the harbor,” Dick says.

He’s already kneeling, already breaking the man's phone in half with practiced efficiency, grinding it into the concrete with his heel until the screen spider webs and dies. He doesn’t look up when he says it. Doesn’t grin. Doesn’t even sound casual about it.

Jason lifts an eyebrow, slow, deliberate. His gaze slides to Damian automatically—because Damian is usually the first to shoot an idea like that down, sharp and impatient and blunt as a blade.

Instead, Damian just mutters, “Tim could be wrong.”

Mumbles it. Like he’s afraid the words might carry.

That alone sends a small, unpleasant chill up Jason’s spine.

Tim doesn’t argue. Doesn’t bristle. He straightens from the goon and dusts his gloves together, eyes flicking—not to Jason—but to Stephanie. The movement is quick, practiced, like muscle memory.

“Do you want to take the gates with me?” Tim says, too smooth. Too rehearsed. “Jason and Dick could go along the—”

“What?” Jason cuts in before he can finish, blinking once. “You two were perched on the gates the entire op. What’re you talking about?”

The wind gusts harder, rattling loose chains and setting a tarp snapping somewhere down the dock. Water slaps against concrete pylons in a slow, hollow rhythm. 

Jason suddenly feels like the sound is counting something down.

“It wouldn’t hurt to double-check,” Tim says, rising to his feet.

He still won’t meet Jason’s eyes.

Jason’s jaw tightens. He shifts his weight, the concrete cold and unforgiving through the thinning soles of his boots, and for a split second his mind drifts—unbidden—to you. To the warmth of your kitchen lights. To the way you’d probably be halfway through setting out plates by now, humming something low and off-key, waiting for him in that way that makes him want to claw his soul out and hand it over to you. 

The thought lands soft, intimate, grounding—and then slips through his fingers when he remembers his phone, silent and heavy in his pocket.

“…You guys don’t need me for that,” Jason says, firmer now. There’s an edge to it, something protective and stubborn. He already has plans. A timeline. A promise he intends to keep. “Seriously. If you want to sweep again, even one person could—”

Dick finally looks up.

It’s just a glance, quick and loaded, the kind Jason’s learned to read over a lifetime of almosts and unsaids. Cassandra shifts closer at the same moment, her shoulder nearly brushing his, her presence steady and deliberate. Jason doesn't think she's ever willingly touched him in his life. Stephanie opens her mouth like she’s about to say something—anything—then closes it again.

The harbor feels tighter suddenly. Smaller. Like the stacks of containers have leaned in, hemming them closer, their corrugated sides looming like silent witnesses. The wind cuts sharper off the water, needling through the seams of Jason’s jacket, and somewhere deep in his chest, that pressure builds again.

Jason turns fully to Damian.

“Kid, I swear to God, tell me what—”

Damian snaps at the exact same moment Cassandra moves. Her hand closes around Jason’s shoulder, firm and sudden, fingers digging in through armor like she’s trying to anchor him to the concrete before he does something irreversible. The contact is intimate in a way that feels wrong, alarmed.

“How the hell should I know? They didn't tell me—” Damian bites back, voice sharp, flaring too fast, too hot.

“Damian!” Dick hisses, the sound cutting through the night like a blade dragged too quickly from its sheath. He’s already moving, stepping between them without quite committing to either side, hands up in a placating gesture that lands closer to panic than calm. He turns to Jason almost immediately, words tumbling over each other. “Come on, dude, let’s just go check the security towers and—”

“That’s going to take another hour,” Jason cuts in.

The words come out flat, but there’s steel underneath. He shrugs Cassandra’s hand off—not rough, but final—and reaches into his pocket. The harbor lights blur for a second as his fingers close around his phone, the familiar shape of something that connects him to you grounding him. It’s 10:20. He knows that without looking but checks anyway. He’s been counting the minutes since the mission dragged past its supposed end.

“I had plans,” he says, quieter now, but more dangerous for it. “Let me at least—”

The batarang whistles through the air.

Jason barely has time to register the movement—Damian’s arm snapping forward, wrist precise, expression tight and furious—before metal slams into his hand. The impact jars up his arm, sharp and biting, and the phone slips free, spinning once before it hits the concrete.

Crack.

The screen fractures instantly, a spiderweb of dead glass blooming beneath the sodium lights before the device skids to a stop near Jason’s boot. The harbor seems to hold its breath. Even the wind falters, the water’s slap against the pylons momentarily muted, as if the night itself is listening.

Jason stares down at it.

At the dark screen. On the way his reflection breaks apart in the shattered glass.

Jason’s gaze lifts slowly from the ruin at his feet.

It settles on Dick.

“Call Bruce.”

The words aren’t loud. They don’t need to be. They cut anyway—clean, controlled, edged with something that’s starting to slip. Dick falters under it, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, eyes flicking anywhere but Jason’s face. The harbor lights stutter overhead, one of them buzzing like it’s about to give out, bathing Dick in a sickly gold that makes him look younger. 

Guilty.

“What, you gonna tattle?” Dick says, trying for levity and missing it by miles. His laugh lands wrong, brittle against the cold. “C’mon, Damian's just in a mood. I was going to surprise you with burgers but I thought the kid would spill. I’ll buy you a new phone, okay? Just—”

“Call Bruce,” Jason repeats.

This time it’s a hiss, dragged out through clenched teeth, something feral and fraying around the edges. The wind picks up again, slicing between the containers, rattling loose metal and carrying the sharp tang of rain that never quite falls in Gotham. Jason turns his head, slow and deliberate, until his eyes find Cassandra.

She hasn’t moved. She’s watching him like she’s afraid he might break.

“…He’s busy,” Cass says.

Her voice is barely there. Smaller than usual. Soft enough that Tim, standing a good ten feet away, doesn’t hear it at all. The words dissolve into the night almost as soon as they leave her mouth, swallowed by wind and water and distance—but Jason hears them. Every syllable.

Busy.

Something inside him tightens, winding down to a thin, dangerous thread.

His hand comes up to his comm without conscious thought. He adjusts it once, fingers steady despite the way his pulse thuds too hard, too fast. The harbor seems to lean in again—the stacked containers looming like watchful giants, the river below churning black and endless. 

Gotham breathes around him, damp and unforgiving.

“B,” Jason says.

Sharp. Precise. A single syllable fired into the dark like a flare.

Static answers him. Wind whistling through steel corridors. The distant cry of something alive and miserable echoing off the water. No voice. No correction. No irritation crackling back through the line.

Just silence. It stretches. Pulls thin. Grows teeth.

Jason exhales through his nose, a humorless breath that fogs faintly in the cold air. He thinks of you again—too vividly now. The way your voice softens when you say his name. The way you always pick up, even when he thinks you shouldn’t. The way silence has never belonged between the two of you.

His jaw locks. Fuck this shit, I should be at home with her.

Jason moves before anyone can stop him—before anyone even realizes he’s decided something.

He’s across the concrete in three long strides, boots splashing through shallow puddles that mirror Gotham’s jaundiced lights in broken pieces. Damian doesn’t flinch when Jason grabs his comm. Doesn’t pull back. Doesn’t protest. That, more than anything, makes Jason’s teeth grind.

He clicks the emergency signal to the Batcomputer—once, twice, a break, two clicks hard enough that it hurts his thumb—then rips the comm free. His helmet follows, clattering against the concrete with a hollow, echoing crack that ricochets between the shipping containers. The sound feels too loud, too exposed. Jason presses the comm to his bare ear, cold metal biting into skin.

No one stops him.

Not Dick. Not Tim. Not Stephanie. Cassandra watches with that same quiet intensity, hands flexing like she’s bracing for impact. They stand there and let it happen, like this is how it was always meant to go—like they’ve already accepted that Jason finding out is inevitable, but telling him would be worse. Like this is some twisted test, or penance, or family tradition he never agreed to.

The harbor hums low and restless. Wind slides through steel corridors, rattling chains, carrying the stink of oil and brine and rain-soaked concrete. Gotham feels awake in that way it only does when something bad is already in motion.

“Robin?” Bruce’s voice cuts through the static, sharp and immediate. Too immediate. There’s an edge to it Jason hasn’t heard in years—tight, almost nervous, parental. “Robin, what’s wrong?”

Jason almost laughs.

Instead, his mouth twists.

“I’m going home, old man,” he hisses, already turning away from Damian. “What was this? Ya trying to tire me out, or did you get mind-controlled again? ‘Cause everyone here apparently likes you enough to not tell me the truth.”

“Jason—”

“Red Hood,” Jason snaps, the correction coming fast and mean. He bends, scoops his helmet up by the chin guard, and starts walking toward the exit between the containers where the harbor opens up to the road. “What happened to keeping hero names on comms? Or are you the only one allowed to break rules tonight?”

“Red Hood, just give me—”

“It’s a lousy gang!” Jason shouts, voice tearing loose now, bouncing off steel and concrete and dark water. “They don’t even crack the top twenty. Damian could’ve done this shit by himself.”

He doesn’t look back, but he knows they’re following him. He can feel it—the weight of their footsteps, the way they trail just close enough to intervene if he breaks. Later, it’ll hit him why Tim made sure every single goon was double zip-tied, wrists biting white beneath plastic. Insurance. 

Tim knew Jason would find out. 

Knew none of them would be coming back to clean this up.

“Red Hood—”

“Merry Christmas, B,” Jason cuts in, bitter and sharp as broken glass. “Please don’t call.”

“JASON—”

Bruce’s voice snaps through the comm like a gunshot, dragging Jason straight back into another life, another night, another version of himself that answered to that tone. “She’s in danger. And if you want any chance of seeing her again, get to the Batcave—”

The line goes dead.

Not static. Not interference.

Bruce cut it himself.

Jason stops, because there's only one person he could be talking about to send all five of them with him.

The harbor seems to lurch, the world tilting just enough to make his balance feel theoretical. The wind howls between the containers, louder now, like Gotham exhaling something foul and satisfied. Water slaps hard against concrete pylons below, relentless, counting seconds Jason no longer owns.

Slowly—too slowly—he turns.

He looks at them. At Dick’s pale face. At Tim’s clenched jaw. At Damian’s rigid stillness. At Stephanie, eyes bright with unshed panic. At Cassandra, whose gaze is already on him, steady and mournful, like she’s watching something crack.

They look at him like he’s glass.

Like he’s a bomb they’re waiting to defuse—or clean up after.

Jason doesn’t give them the chance.

“Fuck all of you,” he spits, the words coming out broken and small despite his best efforts.

Then he runs.

Out of the harbor. Out of the sodium lights and rust and the weight of too many eyes. Jason runs like Gotham itself is on his heels, boots striking concrete in a brutal rhythm that drowns out thought—or tries to. The city stretches around him in jagged silhouettes and wet stone, skyscrapers looming like blackened ribs against a low, churning sky. Clouds hang heavy and swollen, bruised purple and gray, threatening rain they never quite release. Gotham loves the anticipation of pain more than the act itself.

His blood is loud in his ears. Too loud. Every heartbeat punches through his ribs, frantic and unforgiving, as if his body already knows something his mind refuses to accept.

Toward the manor. Toward answers.

Toward the awful, creeping certainty settling into his bones that whatever Gotham has taken this time, it didn’t take lightly—and it didn’t take something he can afford to replace.

He takes the shorter way.

Fire escapes. Rooftops slick with mist. Narrow alleys that smell like old rain and older sins. He vaults gaps without slowing, coat snapping behind him like a torn banner, the city blurring into streaks of shadow and light. This route cuts close to your place. Too close. He doesn’t consciously choose it; his body does, muscle memory dragging him along a path his heart has memorized better than any map.

And then—

Mid-leap, suspended between one rooftop and the next, he sees it.

Your building sits quiet against the skyline, dark in a way it never is. Your lights are off. All of them. The windows—your windows—are shattered, glass glittering weakly under the city’s glow like fallen stars. The balcony rail is smeared with something darker than shadow.

Blood.

The word doesn’t form. Not fully. His brain skids around it, refuses to give it weight. At most, he tells himself, you’re hurt. Something small. A cut. A scrape. A stupid accident that looks worse than it is. You’ll laugh it off when he gets there, scold him for worrying, tell him he’s being dramatic again.

Because you’re untouchable.

That’s the rule his mind has always clung to. Gotham can drown him in filth and violence and rot, but you—you—are clean. Untarnished. Something soft the city hasn’t learned how to bruise yet. You exist outside its reach, outside its hunger. Gotham takes things like Jason. It breaks people like him. It doesn’t get to put its hands on you.

It can’t have you.

Because if you’re hurt—if you’re really hurt—then everything Jason has built inside himself caves in at once. Every fragile structure, every careful compromise, every promise he’s made to stay standing for you. There’s no version of the world where you’re broken and he survives it intact.

He lands hard, barely absorbing the impact before he’s running again, lungs burning, throat raw. The manor rises ahead of him through the trees like a dark monument, windows glowing warm and oblivious against the night. Too slow. The gates are too slow. The doors are too slow.

Jason doesn’t bother.

He barrels straight for a ground-floor window and drives his elbow through it without hesitation. Glass explodes inward, sharp and screaming, biting into skin. He doesn’t feel it—not really—until he’s inside, boots skidding onto the polished floor, breath tearing out of him in harsh, uneven pulls.

Blood runs freely down his forearm, drips onto the pale carpet in dark, blooming stains.

It looks wrong there. Violent. Out of place, just like the blood on your balcony.

Jason stares at it for half a second too long, chest heaving, and something in him splinters quietly—because now he knows. The city has already touched you and it has never, not once, let go without breaking something in return.

Jason doesn’t slow down in the Cave.

The platform is still lowering when he’s already moving, boots striking metal too hard, too fast, the sound ricocheting off stone and steel. The Batcave yawns around them—vast and echoing, all cold water and colder rock, computer screens throwing pale blue light across jagged walls. The waterfall roars like it’s trying to drown the night itself, a constant, punishing noise that usually steadies him.

Tonight it only sharpens the edges.

Bruce turns at the last possible second. His eyes flick first to Jason’s face, then to the blood smeared down his arm, dripping steadily onto the pristine metal floor. Bruce’s mouth tightens. Not in anger. In calculation. In fear he refuses to name.

Jason shoves him.

Hard.

Bruce’s back slams into the Batcomputer console, screens rattling, data stuttering for half a heartbeat. A lesser man would’ve been airborne. Bruce Wayne could have thrown Jason across the Cave without effort—could have ended this in a clean, controlled second.

He doesn’t.

Jason knows he won’t.

“Where is she,” Jason spits, the words tearing out of him raw and shaking. His hands fist in Bruce’s cape, knuckles white, trembling despite the strength coiled beneath them. The fabric bunches beneath his grip like it might rip if he pulls any harder. “Where is she?”

Bruce lifts his hands slowly, carefully—not in surrender, but in containment. Like approaching a live wire. His voice, when he speaks, is measured to the point of pain.

“…Jason.”

The name alone is an attempt. An anchor. Bruce is already running scenarios, already gauging angles and exits and how much damage Jason could do if this slips another inch. He knows Jason’s tells. Knows the way his breathing has gone uneven, the way his eyes are too bright, too fixed. Knows this isn’t rage yet.

This is terror.

“Don’t,” Bruce says quietly. Not commanding. Pleading, buried deep beneath control. “Just—listen to me.”

Jason laughs once, short and broken, the sound scraping his throat raw. “No. You don’t get to slow this down. You don’t get to prepare me.”

Bruce swallows. “…Joker—” he begins.

And the world fractures.

The word lands heavy and obscene between them, fouling the air of the cave like poison gas. Joker. The name crawls under Jason’s armor, past muscle and bone, straight into the place where you live inside him.

Suddenly, you’re not untouchable.

You’re not the one clean thing Gotham never got its hands on. Not the soft place Jason runs to when the city claws at him too hard. Not the warmth in his bed, the light in his kitchen, the voice that says his name like it belongs to something human.

You’re not safe.

You’re not distant.

You’re not protected by the simple, impossible belief that the worst things in the world know better than to touch you.

You’re real.

You’re fragile.

You’re reachable.

Jason’s grip tightens without him meaning to, breath hitching violently in his chest. His mind fills with images he refuses to finish forming—broken glass, blood on pale surfaces, your windows shattered open to the night the same way his chest feels split open now. He thinks of your hands. Your laugh. The way you look at him like he’s something worth keeping.

And now—

Now you’re the blood he’s already wearing.

The blood he’s going to feel soaking into his gloves tonight.

Bruce sees it happen. Sees the moment Jason slips past anger and into something far more dangerous. His own heart lurches, sharp and traitorous. This—this is what he’s been afraid of since the second he knew Joker was involved. Not Jason lashing out blindly.

Jason focused.

Emotional.

Unanchored.

“Jason,” Bruce says again, softer now, steady as bedrock despite the fear tightening his chest. “I need you to stay with me. I need you here. Because if you go out there like this—”

Jason’s eyes snap back to him, glassy and feral and devastatingly alive.

“If I don’t go,” Jason says hoarsely, “she dies.”

“If you go,” Bruce says, low and sharp, the words cutting through the roar of the Cave, “you die—and you could lose her at the same time.”

The Batcave hums around them, fluorescent light washing the rock walls in cold blue, computer screens flickering with restless data. The waterfall crashes endlessly behind Bruce, mist clinging to the air, dampening everything it touches. It feels like the Cave is breathing—slow, heavy, watchful.

Bruce moves closer and grips Jason’s jacket with both hands, fingers clutching the leather like it’s the last solid thing in the world. He holds on the way a man holds a ledge he’s already slipping from, hoping friction alone might be enough to keep someone from falling.

It isn’t.

“Where is she,” Jason says.

His voice is flat. Too controlled. His eyes have already left Bruce, already slid to the Batcomputer, to the glowing map littered with red and yellow pings like open wounds across Gotham’s body. Each marker pulses faintly, alive and accusing.

He doesn’t notice his siblings closing in—Dick’s careful steps, Tim’s rigid stillness, Damian hovering sharp and coiled like a drawn blade.

“She’s alive,” Bruce says quickly, desperately. “She wasn’t the only one—at least four other children and three women—”

Jason turns his head.

The look he gives Bruce is devastating in its emptiness. Eyes glassed over, jaw set too tight, brows drawn together like the world has narrowed to a single, unbearable point.

“Do you honestly think I give a damn about them right now?”

The words aren’t shouted. They don’t need to be. They land heavy, obscene in their honesty, and Bruce’s grip tightens reflexively, knuckles whitening against Jason’s jacket.

“I know you don’t,” Bruce snaps back, frustration bleeding through control. “Which is why I didn’t tell you she was taken. Because we need a plan that keeps everyone who was captured safe—”

“At the risk she dies in the process?” Jason cuts in.

Then—he stills.

Something shifts. His hands loosen, falling away from Bruce’s cape as if the fabric has suddenly burned him. His gaze slides, sharp and intentional, and locks onto Tim.

“How long,” Jason says.

The question is steady. Solid. Frighteningly calm.

Tim swallows and flicks a glance at Bruce—a silent check, a plea, a habit Jason has seen a thousand times. Jason shoves Bruce’s hand aside and crosses the distance in two strides, grabbing Tim by the shoulders, fingers digging in through armor.

“Don’t,” Jason hisses, thumbs pressing hard, grounding, painful. “Don’t look at him.”

The words aren’t just for Tim. They’re for Jason too.

He vaguely registers Dick saying his name, Stephanie’s voice tight with panic somewhere behind him, but it all dissolves into a dull ringing as he stares down at Tim. Tim doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. He meets Jason’s gaze head-on.

“How long,” Jason repeats. “Where.”

Tim exhales, slow and controlled, the way he does when delivering bad news. “Two hours,” he says quietly. “Warehouse two blocks from Crime Alley. Behind that busted playground.”

Crime Alley.

The name echoes through the Cave like a curse, sinking into Jason’s chest and blooming outward, cold and malignant. Of course it’s there. Of course Joker chose that place—layers of history piled atop rot, a shrine built from other people’s pain.

Jason releases Tim slowly, hands trembling now, control finally beginning to crack.

Two hours.

Two hours of you alone with the man who taught Gotham how to laugh while it kills.

The Batcomputer hums on, indifferent. Gotham’s skyline glows faintly on the monitors—jagged towers under a bruised sky, rain finally starting to smear the camera feeds, streaking the city in gray. Somewhere out there, windows are broken. Somewhere out there, that cashmere scarf he wrapped and placed under your tree stays un-wrapped.

Jason understands then—with a clarity so sharp it almost feels merciful—that plans are a luxury meant for people who still believe time is something they own.

Time has never belonged to him.

Because you—you—aren’t alone. You’re trapped with seven other people. Four of them children, Bruce had said, like that word didn’t rearrange Jason’s insides completely. His mind does something traitorous then, something he hates himself for even acknowledging: it calculates. It knows how these things go. It knows Joker’s sense of theater, his appetite for cruelty, his fondness for leaving one survivor behind as punctuation.

And the last one standing is never the strongest.

It’s the smallest. 

Those kids would by dying before you do.

Jason’s breath stutters, just once.

“Jason,” Bruce says from the Batcomputer, voice tight, forced into calm the way it always is when he’s terrified. The blue glow paints him hollow, all sharp angles and restraint. “Don’t make me stop you. The cops are on their way. Joker just wants cash.”

For the first time since the harbor, the noise in Jason’s head goes quiet.

Not peaceful—focused.

Everything narrows down to Bruce. To the way his shoulders are squared like a barricade. To the way his hands hover, uncertain, like he’s trying to decide whether to reach out or brace for impact. Jason’s heart hammers so hard it hurts, louder than the waterfall, louder than any threat Batman could ever make.

“If you even try, Bruce,” Jason says.

He doesn’t look at him when he says it. He can’t. The name comes out wrong in his mouth—too raw, too intimate, scraped down to bone. Instead, he keeps his eyes on Tim, standing rigid in front of him, small in a way Jason suddenly can’t stop seeing. He hopes—distantly, uselessly—that he isn’t glaring at his little brother. Hopes Tim understands this isn’t anger.

Just pure desperation. His last attempt, his last shot.

“Ill fucking shoot myself. I’ll make sure you know it’s your fault,” Jason continues, voice low and shaking despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’ll use my gun. And if you tie me up today, I’ll wait until next week. If you lock me down for a week, I’ll wait a month. I’ll do it.”

He swallows.

Because that’s the only thing that’s ever worked. The only language Bruce Wayne never ignores.

Dick moves fast—too fast—grabbing Jason’s arm where it’s still braced near Tim, fingers digging in hard. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouts, panic cracking straight through his anger.

Jason turns on him then, eyes blazing, voice breaking loose at last.

“Would you be this still?” Jason yells back. “If that was me with Joker again? If it was me instead of her—would you have left me there for the police to find? Again?”

The word hangs between them, heavy and damning.

Again.

Jason knows Dick well enough to see it land. To watch his brother’s grip falter, fingers loosening like they’ve forgotten what they were holding onto in the first place. Dick’s face goes pale, mouth parting uselessly, and Jason twists the knife—not because he wants to hurt him, but because he needs them to understand.

“This,” Jason snaps. “This is why none of you fucking knew about her.”

He looks at all of them now—really looks. At Bruce, frozen behind the console like a man staring down a live bomb. At Dick, wrecked with guilt.

“If you can’t even see me beyond a mistake you made,” Jason says, voice hoarse, “there was no way you wouldn’t have seen her as that too. And I love her too much for that.”

The words leave him hollowed out.

Then he’s gone.

The Cave swallows the echo of his footsteps, leaving only the roar of the waterfall and the hum of machines that suddenly feel pointless. No one moves to stop him. No one even tries.

It takes Tim a full minute to cross the platform and reach the Batcomputer, fingers hovering uselessly over keys he knows by heart.

It takes Cassandra four times as long to find a part of Bruce that still moves—some small, human place in his arm or shoulder that isn’t locked rigid like a man bracing for an explosion he knows is already ticking down.

Dick follows Jason’s trail almost immediately. And Damian follows Dick.

You don’t remember the last five hours.

They’re gone—hollowed out—like someone reached into your head and scooped the time away with a careless hand. The last thing you have is small and warm and ordinary: the coffee table between the couch and the window, set for two. Plates aligned just so. The new glasses you bought with Jason on that stupidly perfect thrift-store date, thin and elegant and impractical. You’d laughed about them, about how easy they’d be to break. Jason had pretended to scold you, fingers warm around yours as he tugged you toward the bookshelves, already stacking paperbacks in his arms like treasure.

You’d bought homeware. A vintage mirror with a gold edge, slightly warped, the kind that makes everything look softer than it is.

Jason always said you needed better locks. You realize it numbly.

He always said it gently, like a suggestion instead of a warning. Like he was talking about replacing a lightbulb or buying better coffee. You brushed him off every time, smiling, pressing a kiss into his shoulder, telling him Gotham wasn’t that bad. That you were fine. That you were safe.

And you were right. You always are.

Because an extra lock wouldn’t have stopped the man with the red smile.

It wouldn’t have stopped hands tangling in your hair, fingers tight and merciless as he dragged you across your rug, skin burning where it scraped against the fibers. It wouldn’t have stopped the way your mirror shattered when he slammed you against it, glass singing as it broke, your own reflection splintering into a hundred terrified pieces that stared back at you with wide, unbelieving eyes.

It wouldn’t have stopped the way he looked at you.

He crouched in front of you like this was intimate. Like this was a secret. His smile stretched too far, paint cracked and smeared, eyes bright with something wrong and delighted and ancient. 

Joker tilted his head, studying you the way a child studies an insect pinned to cork.

“Here’s the other lovebird,” he murmured, voice lilting, almost fond. “Ohhh… how cute you are.”

You remember thinking—absurdly, desperately—that Jason would hate that word. That he’d bristle at it, roll his eyes, pull you closer just to prove a point. You remember the ache of missing him hitting harder than the pain at first, your mind reaching for him the way it always does when the world goes wrong.

Jason would know what to do.

Jason would make this stop.

The thought is a comfort even now, curled tight in your chest, fragile but stubborn. You cling to it as the man stands, as one of the shadows behind him passes up an old, rusted crowbar. The metal is pitted and dark, flaking with age and something older still. It smells like iron and damp and rot.

It doesn’t take a lock to stop that.

It doesn’t take a security system to stop the sound your bones make when he brings it down.

The pain comes in blinding flashes—white-hot, nauseating, wrong. Your legs scream before you do, nerves lighting up in protest, your body trying to fold in on itself, trying to protect something already broken. You taste blood, copper and thick, your teeth chattering even as your throat burns raw from crying out.

Through it all, you think of Jason.

Of his hands—gentle despite their strength. Of the way he says your name like it’s something precious, something he’s afraid to drop. You think of his laugh, low and surprised, the way he softens when it’s just the two of you and Gotham can’t see him. You think of the books still stacked on the table, waiting to be read, of the glasses that shattered just like the mirror did.

Of how he warned you.

Of how he would be here already if he knew.

The room feels wrong—tilted, smeared with shadow, the air thick and sour. Blood pools where it shouldn’t, dark against your floor, soaking into the rug you picked out together. The city hums outside your broken windows, indifferent and vast, neon bleeding into the night like nothing is wrong at all.

You breathe when you can. You hold onto Jason’s name like a prayer you’re afraid to say out loud.

Because if he comes—when he comes—you need to believe there will still be something left of you for him to find.

Your consciousness returns in fragments, drifting in and out the same way you remember nights with him. Not clean breaks. Not mercy. Just gaps.

A void of sleep.

Jason easing your window open like the city might hear him, hands raised in mock surrender, voice low and careful. I didn’t mean to wake you… shh… go back to bed. The mattress dips, familiar weight settling beside you, warmth bleeding into your back.

A void of sleep.

Jason in your bathroom, the light too bright, the mirror fogged. Gotham’s blood and grime rinsed down the drain while he rubs his hair dry with one of your soft, ridiculous pink towels. He smiles at you through the doorway, sheepish and fond, promises he’ll be there in a second. He always is.

A void of sleep.

Jason shifting beside you, breath warm against the delicate skin beneath your ear. His arm tightens in his sleep, possessive without knowing it, like even unconscious he’s afraid the world might take you if he lets go. He murmurs your name—broken, reverent.

A void of sleep.

White hands. Cracked paint. Fingers threading through your hair, slick and tangled with blood. The touch is intimate in the worst way, scalp burning as he hums—no, sings—a childish tune about robins, voice lilting and wrong, laughter bubbling beneath it like rot under sugar.

A void of sleep.

Concrete tearing at your skin as you’re dragged, knees bouncing, spine jolting with every crack in the ground. A van door yawns open, metal teeth waiting. A child sobs near your ear, small and hiccuping. A woman screams at the child to shut up—panic sharp and desperate—until a gunshot rings out like punctuation. The woman goes silent. The child doesn’t. The word mommy repeats, thin and broken, drilling into your skull.

A void of sleep.

You wake choking on pain.

Your body is bound to a chair, wrists cinched tight, ankles screaming. Barbed wire coils around you like something alive, biting deep with every involuntary twitch. The metal is rusted, flaking, cruel—tearing skin open in ragged kisses that burn and throb and never quite stop bleeding. Your legs are numb in places, screaming in others. You can feel blood soaking into fabric, sticky and cooling as it trails downward.

He’s in front of you.

Smiling.

Head cocked, eyes bright with interest, like you’re a puzzle he’s just started enjoying. He steps closer, crouches until he’s eye-level with you, hands clasped together as if in prayer.

“You do love your sleep, don’t you?” he says, voice almost gentle.

Your vision swims. The room smells like iron and oil and damp concrete. Somewhere nearby, something drips steadily—water, or blood, or both. The walls feel too close, the shadows stretching and curling like they’re listening.

“The other birdy,” he continues, grinning wider, “wouldn’t even sleep if I cracked his skull. Such a shame.” He sighs theatrically, tapping the barbed wire with one gloved finger, delighted by the way you flinch. “I suppose I’ll have to find a way to keep you awake.”

Through the haze, through the pain, one thought stays stubbornly intact.

Jason is coming.

And you cling to that like a lifeline, even as the horror closes in, even as the night tries to peel you apart—because if you let go of that belief, if you let the void take everything—There will be nothing left for him to save.

You can’t see farther than four feet in front of you.

Anything beyond that dissolves into smears of color and motion, the edges of the room bleeding into one another. When you try to focus, your vision tilts violently, the world pitching sideways as warm blood slips down from your temple, sticky and insistent. It drips into your eye, blurring everything further, each blink making it worse. The ceiling swims. The walls breathe.

He notices.

Of course he does.

He steps into what little clarity you have left, face snapping into focus like a nightmare finally deciding to be seen. His hand comes up fast, fingers prying your jaw open with impatient familiarity. Something chalky presses against your tongue.

You gag immediately.

Your throat spasms around his fingers, saliva thick and useless as panic claws up your chest. Your head jerks instinctively, barbed wire biting deeper in protest, fresh pain flaring white-hot along your wrists and ankles. He doesn’t pull away. He shoves the pill back, past your tongue, past your resistance, until your body betrays you and swallows.

You choke.

Tears spill from your eyes, hot and humiliating, streaking through the grime on your cheeks. Your lungs burn as you suck in air in sharp, broken pulls.

Jason, you think, distantly, desperately. The name is a reflex now. A prayer you don’t dare say out loud.

His hand withdraws at last.

Then—

Smack.

Your head snaps to the side, vision exploding into sparks. Before you can react—

Smack.

The second strike lands harder, ringing through your skull, teeth clacking together as pain blooms anew. The world steadies just enough to be cruel about it.

“That’ll keep you awake, birdy,” he croons, pleased.

Your heart slams against your ribs, frantic and trapped. Already you can feel it—the way the haze pulls back just a little too much, the way your thoughts sharpen against your will. Your eyelids burn, heavy but refusing to close, nerves screaming as the drug seeps in and denies you even the mercy of darkness.

“Now.”

He leans back into his own chair like this is a rehearsal, like he’s bored of waiting for his cue. The legs scrape loudly against the concrete, the sound sharp enough to hurt. He reaches forward and adjusts the camera in front of you with careful precision. A small red light blinks every few seconds—steady, patient. Watching.

“We’re going to make a deal, okay?”

You don’t answer.

Your eyes refuse to cooperate, swimming uselessly as you blink through blood and tears. Every attempt to focus sends a wave of nausea through you, the room tilting, your pulse roaring in your ears louder than his voice. Your jaw trembles. Your tongue feels thick, wrong in your mouth.

“Okay?”

Nothing comes out.

The barbed wire strung cruelly across your throat digs in deeper with every breath you take, a quiet reminder that sound would cost you skin. Air hisses past your teeth in shallow pulls. You can feel your heartbeat there, fluttering and frantic against metal.

His smile thins.

He stands.

The rusty crowbar tightens in his grip as he rises from a stupid, bright orange folding chair—out of place, obscene against the filth of the warehouse. He steps into frame, then closer, until the camera, until you, are all that exist. He hooks two fingers under your chin and lifts your face, forcing your eyes up.

“Answer.”

You try.

Your mouth opens. Nothing happens.

All you can see is him—cracked white makeup creasing around his eyes, green hair greasy and limp, age showing in the lines around his mouth where smiles have lived too long. He smells like oil and metal and something sour beneath it all. The warehouse stinks of rust, damp concrete, old fuel. It crawls into your lungs.

And then—

You hear it.

A sound that doesn’t belong to him.

Crying.

Your head turns slowly, painfully, vertebrae protesting as the wire shifts against your throat. The movement costs you another sharp breath. Your vision blurs again—but this time, shapes resolve.

A cluster of bodies huddled together against a dented equipment container. Two teenage girls with their knees pulled tight to their chests, faces streaked with dirt and tears. Four little boys wedged between them, shaking, hands bound too tight, mouths open in silent sobs like they’ve already learned screaming doesn’t help.

Something in your chest caves in.

You don’t even see the crowbar move.

The impact comes out of nowhere—white-hot, brutal. The hooked end of the bar slams into your shoulder with a wet, tearing sound, metal biting deep as it pierces flesh. Pain detonates through you, ripping the air from your lungs. He yells as he does it, manic and delighted, like the violence startled even him.

Your body jerks against the restraints.

Barbed wire bites deeper. Blood spills warm and fast down your arm, soaking into your sleeve, dripping to the floor in thick, uneven drops. Your vision fractures, stars bursting behind your eyes.

You clamp your teeth down hard on your lip to keep from screaming.

You taste iron immediately—sharp and overwhelming—as skin breaks beneath your bite. Tears spill freely now, blurring everything, mixing with the blood already clinging to your lashes. It burns. It hurts. Your whole body shakes with the effort of staying quiet.

Behind you, the crying gets worse—fractured, panicked.

“Okay,” you choke out.

The word scrapes your throat raw on the way out, barely more than a breath. It tastes like blood and rust and surrender.

Immediately, the pressure is gone.

The crowbar pulls free with a wet sound that makes your vision white out, pain screaming down your arm as the hooked metal tears away from muscle and skin. You shudder hard, a broken gasp ripping out of you despite your best effort to swallow it down.

He steps back like a magician deciding on the next trick.

Then he leans in again—careful, deliberate—and pats at the wound where the bar pierced you. Not gentle. Never gentle. His palm presses just enough to make you flinch, fingers smearing warm blood across your torn clothes.

“See?” he says brightly, turning slightly so the camera gets a better angle. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Your breath comes shallow and fast, chest stuttering against the wire. Every inhale sends a fresh bloom of pain through your shoulder, the edges of it pulsing in time with your heart.

His hands come up next.

Dry. Cracked. Too warm.

He grabs your face, fingers digging into your cheeks, thumbs pressing at your jaw as he tilts your head from side to side. The movement drags the skin of your neck against the barbed wire, a searing, intimate pain that makes your eyes flood instantly.

“What a dumb dumb birdy you are,” he croons, affectionate in the way predators are. “It’s okay. Joker can teach you.”

Your body trembles uncontrollably now. Your fingers spasm uselessly against the wooden arms of the chair, nails scraping shallow grooves into the surface. You can feel blood slicking your palm and you don't even want to think about how you got hurt there too.

He releases your face.

Pats your head once.

The gesture is almost worse than the violence.

“Now,” he says softly, pleasantly, “say thank you.”

Your vision swims. The room feels too loud, too close. Somewhere behind you, one of the children sobs so hard it turns into hiccupping gasps. You swallow around the wire, throat burning.

You look up at him with shaking eyes, lashes heavy with tears and blood. Your mouth opens. Your lips quiver.

“Thank—” Your voice breaks completely. You force it back together, dragging the word out of yourself like it’s being pulled through glass. “Thank you.”

His smile spreads slow and satisfied, stretching the cracks in his makeup wider.

“Good birdy,” he coos, pleased. “So much more compliant than your love bird already!”

“Now—” Joker announces, voice lifting into a theatrical lilt, like he’s stepped beneath a spotlight instead of flickering warehouse fluorescents. He turns toward the camera, gives it a jaunty little nod, then looks back at you, grin splitting wider. “I was gonna let you go for some cash. Thought your little boy bird might get scared shitless—just a fun little bonus, really—buttt—”

He drifts away from you, footsteps light, almost playful. You can’t turn your head far enough to see what he’s doing. The wire bites when you try. Your vision pulses, dark at the edges.

Then—

A scream.

Sharp. High. A girl’s voice.

It cuts off halfway through, collapsing into a thin, broken cry that echoes far too long in the hollow space of the warehouse.

Something in you fractures.

Joker reappears at your side, breath brushing your ear, laughter bubbling out of him like it’s a private joke the two of you share. “Got lucky with a rich bitch on the road,” he cackles, delighted. “Gotham really does keep on givin’.”

Your stomach twists violently. You taste bile. The crying behind you swells again, panicked and animal, and you can feel your own body trying to fold in on itself despite the restraints, like if you curl inward hard enough you might disappear. 

His hands slide to your throat and at the same time your eyes land onto his hands. Diamond earrings.

He ripped her earrings out of her ears. 

Before you can flinch at the sight of pieces of skin in his open hand, he yanks.

The chain snaps free with a sharp tug, metal biting into your skin as the necklace tears away. You gasp, the wire at your neck punishing you for it, and the sudden cold where the chain used to rest feels obscene—too exposed. You feel lucky that you took off your earrings when you were doing your hair.

He dangles it in front of the camera, letting it glint under the harsh light, gemstones smeared faintly red from your blood. “This could go for a couple hundred too!” he sings. “Ohhh, how delightful!”

He leans closer, eyes alight, savoring every tremor that runs through you. “At least one of the birdies knows how to decorate their nest. Found a few rings at your place as well.”

Joker pockets the necklace with a satisfied hum.

“Well, now that I don’t need the money,” he croons, voice lilting, playful, like he’s deciding which joke to tell next, “what should I do with you?”

His fingers drag along your cheek again, slower this time, the pad of his thumb pressing just hard enough to bruise. His touch leaves heat behind, a crawling sensation that makes your stomach revolt. You feel contaminated where he’s touched you, like your skin is remembering something it shouldn’t.

“…I’ll give you more,” you whisper. Your voice fractures around the word, splintering into something pitiful and thin. “However much you want—just—”

“Oh, I don’t need money.”

The change is instant. His tone drops, sharp and venomous, and when he leans in his eyes are blown wide and empty, pupils swallowing the green like oil slicks. A hawk spotting movement. A blade finding flesh.

“I was looking for some fun, love bird,” he hisses. “You can’t give me that?”

You whimper around the grip on your jaw as his fingers tighten, nails biting into your skin. The wire at your throat digs deeper when you gasp, its teeth kissing something vital. Pain blooms hot and bright, stars bursting behind your eyes.

“Jason— Jason will—”

He doesn’t even flinch at the name.

Maybe that’s mercy.

His fingers move higher, rough and invasive, smearing through the makeup you’d put on hours ago with careful hands. The eyeshadow burns as it’s ground into your skin, sweat and blood turning it into a dark, ugly paste. His thumb drags through the faint blush on your cheeks, erasing it like it was a mistake.

“How pretty you are,” he murmurs, almost tender. “I do makeup on myself too, you know.”

Then his hands leave you entirely.

He grabs his own face, fingers digging into the cracked greasepaint, stretching the red grin wider, tearing at the corners until the white creases and flakes. For a second you think you see real skin underneath—white, lined, angry. Horrid.

“Do you like mine?” he asks brightly. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Your mind blanks.

Your eyes flick helplessly to the camera instead—the blinking red light pulsing steadily, patiently. Recording. Waiting. You try to speak, to say yes or no or anything that might stop what’s coming, but your throat locks around the wire and all that comes out is a wet, useless sound.

Then—

“Very pretty!”

The voice is behind you.

Too young.

A teenage girl, no older than seventeen. Her voice trembles, thin and frantic, the words tumbling over each other. “So—so pretty—”

You feel something inside you tear open.

She’s trying to survive. You can feel that hope radiate off of her. The hope of throwing words into the dark and praying it lands somewhere safe.

Joker’s head snaps toward her.

His eyes narrow, sharp and wrong, smile freezing into something predatory. “You think so?”

There’s a frantic nod you can hear more than see—the quick intake of breath, the shuddering little sob that follows.

Joker bends down.

The crowbar scrapes loudly as he lifts it, metal screaming against concrete. You catch a glimpse of it as he moves past you—rusted, pitted, darkened in places where it’s already been used tonight.

Then he’s gone from your line of sight.

The scream that follows is immediate and unbearable.

It’s not just pain—it’s shock, terror, the sound of someone realizing too late that they were wrong. The metal wall amplifies it, throws it back at itself until it feels like the warehouse is screaming with her.

There’s a wet, sickening crack.

A sound like meat hitting concrete.

“Why don’t we match?” Joker coos from behind you, voice light and delighted. “I did one side, now the other!”

The crowbar hits again.

You hear bone give this time—feel it in your teeth, in your chest. Her scream fractures into something animal, then into choking sobs, then into a raw, bubbling sound that makes bile rush up your throat.

Your own crying breaks free, ugly and uncontrollable. Your body jerks against the restraints, fingers cramping, nails tearing uselessly into the wood of the chair. Hot tears spill down your face, mixing with blood, dripping off your chin in thick, dark drops.

The camera’s red light blinks again.

Once.

Twice.

It taunts you by matching every sound that breaks out of you.

Every gasped sob, every wet, hitching breath. The camera’s red light blinks in time with your chest, like it’s learned your rhythm, like it’s decided to breathe with you instead of for you.

And then the Joker comes back.

You smell him before you see him—iron-thick blood, old rust, sweat gone sour. His hands are slick, red to the wrist, fingers shining under the warehouse lights. The crowbar hangs loose in his grip, darker now, clotted, strands of hair caught cruelly in its curve.

He crouches in front of you, bringing himself eye-level, like he’s talking to a child.

“Well,” he hums thoughtfully. “I can’t give you her look, can I?”

Your vision swims. You can’t stop shaking. Tears slide down your face in hot, unstoppable streams, carving clean paths through blood and grime. Your mouth opens, but nothing coherent comes out—just a broken, animal sound that folds back in on itself.

His smile twitches.

“What should I do with you?” he asks softly. “Hm?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. You just cry harder, chest stuttering against the wire, throat raw and burning.

That seems to irritate him.

He clicks his tongue, disappointed, and lifts the crowbar. The cold metal taps against your cheek once—tap—just enough to make you flinch violently. He pauses, head tilting.

“Oh—”

His eyes light up.

“Oh yes, that’s wonderful! Oh—” He erupts into laughter, sudden and explosive, clutching his stomach as if the joke is too much to bear. Spit flies from his mouth, warm and disgusting as it lands in your hair, streaking through blood-matted strands. “Oh, isn’t my brain just splendid?”

He straightens, still laughing, wiping his eyes like he’s genuinely amused. “You bats are all poetry, I say—pure poetry!”

Then he turns.

Walks away.

His footsteps fade, echoing hollowly through the warehouse, until there’s only the hum of the lights, the distant crying behind you—and the camera.

You’re alone.

One last sob claws its way out of your throat, wet and choking. Blood follows it, dribbling down your chin, splashing darkly against your chest. You force your eyes open, drag them upward, lock them onto the camera.

You don’t know who’s watching. You don’t know if anyone is.

Your voice comes out steadier than it has any right to be.

“How—”

“Shut up!” someone whisper-yells behind you, frantic and terrified. “There’s other men!”

Your mouth snaps shut.

And the red light keeps blinking.

The metal door slams open with a shriek of abused hinges, the impact shuddering through the warehouse floor and straight up your spine. Dust rains down from the rafters in a thin, dirty veil, catching in your hair and sticking to the blood already drying there.

He’s laughing before you even see him.

Not distant laughter—close. Moving. Each step accompanied by a wet, dragging sound, like something heavy being pulled across concrete. His cackle ricochets off the shipping containers, off the steel beams, off the low ceiling that traps the sound and forces it back into your skull.

A little boy cries out behind you as Joker passes him. A sharp, panicked sound that fractures into a sob and then cuts off abruptly, like someone clamped a hand over his mouth.

The air grows hotter.

Through the warped reflection in the camera lens, you see it clearly now: a long metal bar burning red-hot, so bright it hurts to look at directly. Heat ripples distort the image around it, the glow painting the walls in feverish streaks of crimson. The smell hits you next—burning iron, scorched metal, something faintly organic beneath it that makes bile crawl up your throat.

Joker taps the brand against the concrete behind you.

It doesn’t clang.

It hisses.

The sound is sharp and alive, like meat on a skillet. Tiny sparks spit outward where it kisses the floor, leaving blackened scars in the cement. The red glow doesn’t dull. Doesn’t cool. It stays furious and bright, as if fed by something endless.

Whatever fragile hope you were clutching evaporates in that moment, leaving you hollowed out, lungs burning as you exhale something that feels like your last prayer.

He’s behind you in the next second.

Joker’s hand comes out of nowhere, clamping over your mouth, palm slick and hot. The copper taste floods you as his fingers press into your cheeks, nails digging in just enough to hurt—just enough to remind you that restraint is a choice he’s making. Your head is forced back, neck screaming as the wire saws deeper, the barbs biting into tender skin.

“Would you like to match your birdy?” he murmurs.

His voice is serene. Gentle. Almost affectionate.

He angles the brand around the arm of the chair so you can see it clearly. The letter is unmistakable now, its edges glowing white-hot, heat radiating off it in suffocating waves.

A ‘𝙹’.

Your body reacts before your mind can—your stomach convulses, gagging against his hand, breath stuttering uselessly through your nose. Your skin feels too tight, like it’s already shrinking away from what’s coming.

“We’re going to make the deal now,” he coos.

In the camera’s reflection, you can see his eye—wide, bright, utterly focused on the blinking red dot. Performing. Enjoying the audience if there even is one.

“You either get a matching look…” The brand drifts closer, close enough that the heat kisses your cheek, nerves screaming in anticipation, sweat instantly breaking out along your spine. “…or you tell me who you hate.”

His hand peels away from your mouth.

Air rushes in too fast. You choke on it, coughing hard enough that the wire grinds into your throat, pain blooming hot and blinding. Your voice comes out shredded. “Who… who I hate?”

“Who put you here?” he hums thoughtfully, as if the answer delights him. “It wasn’t me.”

The brand pauses, hovering inches from your skin. You can feel the heat burrowing inward, like it’s already memorizing you.

“Why do you think I found you?” he continues lightly. “Do you know how sloppy he is?”

Silence stretches, thick and oppressive.

You stare at the glowing red letter, your mind drifting somewhere distant and numb to survive. Absurdly, irrationally, you think of Jason’s helmet—the same violent red, the same defiant color. You wonder if he’s thinking of you right now. If he can feel this, somehow.

“Tell me who you hate.”

The words don’t just reach you—they enter you, heavy and cold, sinking past bone and settling somewhere deep and irreversible. They press the air flat, make the warehouse feel smaller, closer, like the walls are leaning in to listen.

He stands before you in all his wrongness, and up close there is nothing theatrical left. The Joker’s makeup has melted into something corpse-like, white cracked and flaking into the grooves of his face as though his skin is trying to shed it. The red smile is no longer a grin so much as a wound, smeared unevenly, darker where blood has mixed in, the corners dragged downward by age and use. His hair hangs limp, green dulled to the color of mold, clinging to his scalp in greasy strands. His eyes are too bright—glass-bright, feverish—never still, never soft, reflecting the warehouse lights like knives.

The space around you hums with misery. The concrete beneath your feet is slick with blood and oil, cold seeping up through the chair and into your bones. Shipping containers loom like coffins, their metal sides scarred and rusted, shadows pooled so thick between them it feels like something could step out at any moment. The air reeks—burnt iron, old sweat, copper, rot—and every breath feels like inhaling something alive and hostile.

You look at the camera.

That red eye blinks steadily, rhythmically, a heart that isn’t yours. It sees the way your chest shudders, the way your fingers twitch uselessly against the bindings, the way your body is already bracing for pain it knows is coming. Your thoughts drift, slow and exhausted, slipping through your hands like water you can’t quite hold.

You think of Jason.

Not the helmet. Not the blood. But his hands—warm, callused, careful when they touch you. The way he looks at you like the world might soften if you stay. The way he says your name like it’s something solid.

You could say his name now.

You could offer it up like a sacrifice and pray that this monster believes in deals, that you might walk out of here broken but breathing. You could lie and hope he lets you go.

Or you could say Jason’s name and watch Joker’s smile vanish as he switches off the camera and kills you quietly, preserving this horror to show your sweet boy later.

Or you could stay silent and take the brand—feel your skin burn, your body marked, watch the ecstasy bloom in Joker’s eyes as he claims you like an object he’s improved.

None of them feel survivable.

Something inside you twists—not courage, not bravery, but love sharpened into something desperate and ugly and defiant. You gather what spit you can in your blood-wet mouth and turn your head as far as the wire allows.

You spit in his face.

It lands wet and unmistakable, dragging a slow line through the cracked white paint, cutting through the red smile like an insult carved in flesh.

For a heartbeat, everything freezes.

The Joker goes utterly still, his expression emptying out in a way that is far more frightening than his laughter. Then his eyes widen, pupils dilating, fury flaring bright and feral—pleased.

You lean forward, neck screaming as the wire bites deeper, and you whisper because your voice will not survive being louder.

“You know,” you murmur, breath shaking despite everything you do to steady it, “he’s never mentioned you before.”

His breath stutters.

“You must not have left quite an impression.”

It’s a lie. A reckless, transparent lie.

You have lived in Gotham long enough to know exactly what he is—his name written in blood across the city’s history—but lies can still cut, and you see it land. You see the way his smile stretches wider, hungry and thrilled.

You’ve given him a reason.

A reason to prove himself.

A reason to keep you alive.

A reason to make you hurt longer.

His hand tangles in your hair and yanks your head back violently. Your neck slams into the barbed wire, spikes tearing in with a wet, intimate sound that makes you sob despite yourself. Warm blood spills down your throat, choking you, slicking your chest.

Then the brand descends.

The heat is indescribable—ancient, total, a pain so vast it consumes thought itself. Your flesh screams as it burns, the smell of seared skin rising thick and sweet, smoke curling upward as the letter is carved into you slowly, deliberately. Your body arches uselessly against the restraints, every nerve on fire, and the sound that leaves you is not a scream so much as something torn out of your soul.

You hate that he hears it. And when that drug denies you the void of sleep you so desperately need, you allow yourself to think numbly as the man pulls it away that at least Jason can't dwindle his appearance anymore.

Your tears stripe down your cheeks, burning as they touch your skin.

We match. You think numbly, Atleast we match.

He strokes over the brand with more delicacy than he has ever had in this whole nightmare, mumbling, “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”

When you wake again, it’s to the weight of tears landing on your face—warm, uneven drops that pull you out of the dark in slow, reluctant pieces. For a moment you don’t know where you are. The world rocks gently, like it can’t decide whether to keep moving or stop altogether. There’s the low hum of an engine beneath you, vibration traveling through bone and bruised muscle, and the smell of old leather surrounds you—worn, familiar, grounding in a way that makes your chest ache.

Leather is good.

Leather is not acid.

Leather does not burn your lungs on the way in.

“Hurts,” you mumble, the word barely surviving the journey out of your throat. You offer it up like an apology, like a peace offering, half-expecting pain to answer you back.

Instead, the crying breaks harder.

It comes undone above you, raw and ugly, and through the haze you realize you aren’t lying flat on concrete, waiting for the Joker to press a cinder block to your stomach. Your body is stretched across someone, your legs draped over another set of knees, your weight distributed carefully, reverently, like something fragile that might shatter if shifted wrong. 

An arm is braced beneath your neck, steady and strong, keeping your head from lolling, and your cheek presses into a leather jacket that smells unmistakably like gun oil, sweat, rain—

Jason.

The knowledge hits softer than it should, cushioned by exhaustion and shock, and when your eyes finally manage to open, everything swims. Light smears at the edges, colors bleeding into one another, but his face is there anyway, hovering close, carved with terror and relief and something so naked it almost scares you more than the warehouse did.

“Am I in heaven?” you mumble.

He lets out a sound that isn’t quite a sob and isn’t quite a laugh, choking on it as his chin trembles. “You don’t even believe in heaven.”

“Well,” you murmur, trying—and failing—to pull your mouth into something that resembles a smile, “what else could you be?”

Your jaw burns when you speak. Everything burns. It feels like your body has been filled with broken glass and lit from the inside, and you’re dimly aware of warm liquid slipping from your mouth, darkening the leather beneath your cheek every time you breathe wrong. You hate that you’re staining him. You hate that you can’t stop.

“I’ll kill him,” Jason whispers, like a prayer he’s been holding onto with both hands. His fingers shake as they brush your hair back, careful to avoid places he knows are hurt. “I’ll kill him. I promise.”

“Can I have hot chocolate first?” you mumble. The words feel distant, like they belong to someone else. “I bought that expensive kind… from Finland. Asshole knocked it all over my carpet…”

Jason’s breath fractures completely at that. He nods too hard, tears spilling freely now, dropping onto your cheeks, your neck, your collarbone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll buy you hot chocolate. I’ll buy you all of it.”

Somewhere near your feet, another voice cuts in, low and strained with concern. “Hey, Jay—breathe—”

Jason doesn’t hear them. Or maybe he does and simply can’t afford to listen. His chest is rising too fast beneath you, breaths sawing in and out like he’s drowning on dry land, his eyes glassy and unfocused, the green in them shifting with every frantic blink.

Or maybe that’s just your vision still failing you. That would make sense. The powder. The smoke. The way light hurts now.

“Stop crying,” you murmur weakly. “I can’t die with you looking like that.”

That breaks him.

His face crumples completely, grief spilling over into something fierce and desperate as he bends closer, forehead almost touching yours. “Good,” he chokes. “Fuck you. I’ll cry even more, so–so stay with me, yeah?”

“No,” you whisper, your voice scraping raw against your throat. “Wanna sleep.”

“You slept an awful lot,” he snaps, but there’s no anger in it—only terror wearing sharp edges, only love clawing its way out however it can.

“Well,” you murmur, your voice thin but soft, like you’re afraid of startling him, “You show up in my dreams an awful lot.”

That does it.

Whatever fragile control Jason had left fractures clean through. He folds over you instinctively, shoulders caving as he tries—fails—to hide the sound of it. His breath comes apart against your hair, his forehead dipping close to your temple like if he presses himself near enough, he can keep you here by force alone. You feel the tremor of him through your whole body, every hitch of his chest echoing in your ribs.

You smell blood on him then. Copper and iron, sharp beneath the leather and sweat and rain. For a distant, numb second you think it’s yours again—until the scent is too heavy, too layered.

Oh.

Was this—

“Did I interrupt family bonding?” you whisper.

Your lips barely move. The words slip out half-asleep, half-dreaming, and they earn you a startled huff from somewhere behind you. Jason doesn’t answer. He can’t. His arms tighten instead, one hand splayed carefully at your back like he’s afraid even breathing too hard might hurt you more.

A voice comes from the seat behind, dry and unimpressed, because Jason is currently incapable of speech and whoever has your legs resting in their lap is rubbing slow, grounding circles into his back.

“If this is what you think family bonding is, you’ll fit right in.”

“Damian, be quiet,” another voice snaps.

“She’s the one shamelessly flirting with him in front of all of us, Tim” Damian continues anyway, undeterred. “And Father isn’t even saying anything, so—”

“Well she’s the one dying!” Tim blurts, voice cracking sharp with fear.

Jason chokes on the words that come from Tim’s mouth, breath stuttering hard, and a deeper voice cuts in from the front seat—controlled, measured, holding itself together by sheer will.

“She’s not going to die, Tim.”

“I want hoya bellas on my grave,” you interrupt softly.

Jason lets out a broken sound that might have been a laugh in another universe. He shakes his head over you, forehead brushing your hair, and through your blurry vision you think you catch a gloved hand popping up behind him in a solemn thumbs-up.

“Got it.”

Another voice joins in from the front, exasperated and strained. “Cassandra, she’s not being serious.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispers, over and over, like a mantra, like something he’s trying to carve into reality. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His thumb strokes your hair away from your forehead again, impossibly gentle, avoiding the places he knows hurt, the places he doesn’t want to know at all.

“I’m gonna sleep now,” you murmur. It takes effort to shape the words. The dark is getting heavier again, tugging at you, warm and deep. “Can one of you give Jason water?”

“Hey—” Jason breathes, panic flaring sharp as his voice cracks. “Hey, no—no, no, no, stay with me, come on—”

But you’re already slipping.

Your eyes flutter closed despite him, despite the warmth of his arms, despite the way his heart is racing beneath your ear like it’s trying to outrun fate itself. His glove comes off hurriedly and you feel his bare fingers press to your pulse, grounding himself in the steady beat there, in the fact that it’s still happening.

After a few minutes, Dick leans forward and taps Jason’s shoulder gently, offering a water bottle. His uniform is torn and scorched like the rest of them, a thin cut bright against his cheek, but his voice is soft when he speaks.

“Drink.”

Jason doesn’t look up. He doesn’t let go. He just nods once, tight and shaky, eyes fixed on you like if he looks away for even a second, the world might take you again.

He forces himself to take a full gulp of water, the plastic bottle crinkling loudly in the too-quiet car, his throat working like it has to remember how swallowing goes. His hands are still shaking when he passes it off to Tim.

“Hey, I don’t need any—”

Jason looks at him.

Not sharp. Not angry. Just steady in a way that leaves no room for argument, the kind of look that says do this or I will fall apart next.

Tim takes a long swig immediately. Somewhere in the background, Damian lets out a low, satisfied cackle.

The digital clock on the Batmobile reads 4:00 a.m.

The numbers glow cold blue against the dark interior, reflected faintly in the windshield like a second set of eyes staring back at them. Gotham outside is hollow and half-dead at this hour—streetlights flickering, rain-slick asphalt stretching endlessly, buildings slumped together like they’re exhausted too.

Bruce’s voice is calm as he calls Alfred, clipped and precise, already listing supplies like this is something he can control if he names enough of it out loud.

Jason doesn’t listen.

He keeps his focus on you.

On the shallow rise and fall of your chest. The warmth is still clinging stubbornly to your skin. On the way your weight settles into him like it belongs there, like it always has. One hand stays firm at your neck, holding you upright because you need it—because you need him steady, and that knowledge anchors him harder than anything Bruce could ever say.

You need him here. You need him present. You need him not to break.

He knows that, because once—once—that was all he ever wanted too.

And that’s the cruel part of it.

Because the weight of you in his arms has only ever meant safety. Home. Sleep curling warm and heavy in his bones. His body doesn’t know the difference between holding you safe and finally being allowed to rest.

Jason Todd passes out with his forehead dipping gently toward yours, his grip loosening only by a fraction, like even unconscious he’s afraid to let you go.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is Tim’s voice, sharp with panic and disbelief.

“Dude—what the fuck—”

“Hold his head up—don’t let him fall on her!” Bruce barks from the front, voice cracking sharp through the Batmobile like a snapped cable.

All at once, everyone moves.

Damian fists the back of Jason’s T‑shirt, knuckles white as he yanks him upright with a strength born of panic he’d never admit to. Dick stretches impossibly from the passenger seat, arm braced awkwardly as he cups the back of Jason’s head, careful, reverent, like he’s afraid one wrong angle will shatter him. Tim presses a steadying hand to Jason’s chest, feeling the uneven rise and fall beneath his palm, grounding him the way he’s learned to do with bombs and brothers alike.

Jason is dead weight. Heavy. Still clinging to you even in unconsciousness, his arm slack but stubborn around your shoulders, like muscle memory alone refuses to let you go.

The Batmobile hums on, tires slicing through wet streets, Gotham blurring past in streaks of sodium light and rain-slick concrete. The city feels distant now, muffled, like it’s holding its breath with them.

“…Did someone check if the Joker was—uh—breathing?” Stephanie asks from the back, her voice small in a way it rarely ever is.

She hadn’t stayed for the end. Her job had been triage—getting the kids out, shouting orders, dragging civilians through blood and broken glass while the rest of them stayed behind in the warehouse with the laughter and the screaming. She’d smelled the aftermath on them when they regrouped. She didn’t need details then but...

Bruce doesn’t look back. His hands tighten on the wheel.

“Jason didn’t hit any vital points,” he says quietly, like he’s reciting a report he’s already memorized. “Just… ah—”

“Carved his face like a jack‑o’‑lantern,” Damian supplies, entirely too calm. “Heated up a crowbar to do it too. Very effective.”

There’s a beat of silence.

The city lights flash over Bruce’s face—old stone and deep eyes that are hollowed by relief he doesn’t let himself feel yet.

“…Yeah,” Bruce exhales, short and rough. “That.”

The Batmobile keeps moving.

Jason breathes.

You breathe.

And for now, that’s enough to keep the night from swallowing them whole.

You wake up in bed.

Not the thin, borrowed kind your body has learned to tolerate at your apartment, but something deep and indulgent—clean sheets tucked tight, the mattress yielding just enough to cradle you instead of swallowing you whole. The pillow beneath your cheek feels stupidly expensive, cool and smooth, smelling faintly of detergent and something old and comforting, like cedar and money and quiet hallways that echo.

For a moment, you think you’re dreaming again.

Then you feel him.

Jason is asleep beside you, solid and unmistakable. You don’t need to move—you can’t really anyways—to know it’s him. The arm wrapped around your waist is heavy with familiar strength, protective even in unconsciousness. His hair brushes against your arm every time he breathes, soft, tickling your skin in a way that makes your chest ache.

He’s breathing.

That fact alone nearly undoes you.

God. You really need to raise your standards, you think hazily. You’re reduced to this—listening to him breathe, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest, and already you want to curl into him and coo like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong.

Then you see Bruce.

He’s standing near the bed, still as a statue, watching you with the careful intensity of someone afraid to spook a wild animal. It takes effort to focus on his face, your vision dragging itself into clarity inch by inch.

When you try to lift your head—manners resurfacing before sense—your body protests sharply.

Bruce moves instantly.

“Hey, hey—no,” he murmurs, hands gentle but firm as he presses you back into the mattress. “Relax. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Your head sinks back into the pillow, and the moment stretches. You swallow thickly before managing a small, hoarse sound of politeness.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne. Jason—”

“Hasn’t told you much about me,” Bruce finishes for you, a faint, tired chuckle slipping out. “That’s alright. I just need you to sleep right now.”

You glance downward as best you can, feeling something sharp dig into your side.

“…I can’t sleep if your son’s elbow is in my ribs.”

Bruce blinks.

Actually blinks—surprised enough that it breaks through the carefully assembled calm. “Ah—” he starts, then reaches for Jason, trying to rearrange him with the same precision he uses on everything else.

It doesn’t work.

Jason huffs in his sleep, a low, irritated sound, and somehow manages to make it worse—his arm tightening, his leg hooking over yours possessively, like you’re something he’s afraid the world might steal back if he lets go.

Bruce freezes.

You mumble, exhausted but soft, “It’s alright. I’m sure he hasn’t slept… I’ve gotten quite a lot, so…”

Bruce looks like he wants to argue. His jaw tightens, then loosens, the fight draining out of him. He exhales and sits back in the chair by the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together.

“It’s the 26th,” he says quietly.

Oh.

You missed Christmas.

What a shame.

After a moment, Bruce speaks again, and his voice is heavier now—careful, deliberate, like every word costs him something.

“I… want to apologize to you.” His fingers interlace, knuckles whitening. “I knew you’d been taken. And I didn’t tell him. Possibly… he could have been there sooner. But I needed to make sure the others would be saved as well.”

“Well,” you murmur, the word barely more than breath, “I don’t exactly blame you for that.”

It isn’t forgiveness exactly—nothing so grand—but it’s honest, and it lands heavier than anger ever could.

Bruce doesn’t relax. If anything, his shoulders pull tighter, like he’s bracing for a blow that never quite comes. He’s spent his whole life learning how to de‑escalate men with guns, gods with vendettas, cities with teeth—but you unsettle him in a quieter, more dangerous way. You’re calm. You’re lucid. You’re something Jason had threatened to shoot himself for.

He clears his throat, trying to give you something solid, something measurable. Facts are safer.

“Jason… got him,” Bruce says carefully. “Badly. I think—” He hesitates, eyes flicking once toward Jason like he’s checking for movement. “I think the Joker may be blind now. Or at least permanently impaired.”

“You let him?” you ask.

Still no accusation. Just a soft, stunned curiosity, as if you’re piecing together a story you were never meant to survive.

Bruce nods. Once. The motion costs him. “I did,” he admits. “But I—”

“Then that’s enough,” you whisper, interrupting him gently, like you’re afraid the words themselves might hurt. “Jason will realize that too.” Your lashes flutter; exhaustion tugs at you like a tide. “I mean… he probably won’t. He’ll still try to kill him.” A faint, crooked exhale. “But you did everything you could yesterday.”

Your gaze drifts—not to Bruce, but to Jason. To the way his arm is still locked around you, even in sleep. To the stubborn set of his jaw, the crease between his brows that never fully smooths out anymore.

“Thank you,” you add quietly. “For finding me.”

That’s when Bruce goes still.

Not rigid. Not defensive.

Still.

Because he’s been looking at you, yes—but now you realize he hasn't been looking you in the eye while he speaks. His eyes have been caught in one place, drawn there again and again like a bruise you can’t help but press.

Your cheek.

The skin there is angry beneath the bandage’s edge—raw, faintly swollen, discolored in a way he winced at while he bandaged it. Bruce didn't let anyone else tend to it, not even Alfred. 

Because this was a wound he inflicted, one that he needed to tend to.

“It’s still fresh,” he says, softer now, stripped of the Bat and the rules and the fear. Just a man speaking carefully around something fragile. “I’ll get you better medicine. The pigment should fade.” A pause. His voice lowers. “I can’t promise about the texture.”

You don’t look away. You don’t flinch.

“That’s okay,” you say.

And Bruce doesn’t know if you mean the scar, or the pain, or the fact that you’ll carry this forever—but Jason shifts in his sleep then, brow tightening, arm drawing you closer like he sensed the weight of the moment and refused to let it settle on you alone.

Bruce watches that. Watches how Jason anchors himself to you without waking, how his breathing steadies when yours does, how it pauses even in sleep when yours hitches.

“He loves you a lot.” Bruce mumbles.

“...And you too Mr.Wayne.”

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Jason could already imagine it—polished marble floors, Diana’s patient, diplomatic smile, Donna cracking jokes to keep the peace, Cass pretending not to laugh, and Bruce sitting at the head of the table like he was running a board meeting instead of a family dinner. Dick would show up five minutes early with a bottle of wine he didn’t even drink. Tim would have brushed up on Themysciran customs just to avoid offending anyone. Damian would probably arrive in full formalwear like the miniature assassin he was.

Bruce is tense like he has taken a punch, thirty minutes before Diana’s expected arrival and the rest of the boys, already present by the time Jason gets there, look as concerned as him. 

No questions are asked, not even if Artemis would be there, if you would be there, or if both of you would be there at the same time– a disaster, truly, but with Alfred’s playful banter and everyone helping with setting up the dining table, the weird tension in Jason’s chest mellows down for a soothing second too long.

It’s half past nine when the doorbell rings and the second it does Bruce starts acting like a mess again. Any composure he had gathered a while ago is thrown into thin air and the only confirmation Jason needs for that is his gaze that’s set directly on him

“Behave.”

He hadn’t even needed to look at Jason for a moment longer—just that single word, heavy and pointed, rolling off his tongue like a warning shot. Still, when Bruce’s eyes flicked toward Dick, all calm and composed, Jason caught the shift. The kind that said you especially.

And well, truthfully, if you’d ask him by the end of the night Jason would say he did try his very best to behave and if there’s a reason as to why he’s acting the way he is now, the blame is all yours.

Diana and the girls are visibly upset when Alfred opens the door, yet still they’re all grace and composure in their greetings, while they’re waiting for you to catch up with them to enter the manor.  You seem too preoccupied with juggling your bag, your phone, and a bottle of wine you’d promised to bring. 

“Hello Alfred” you say, bluntly, no expression on your face as you stand hidden behind Diana.

“Well long time no see dear”

“We’re terribly sorry we’re late Bruce. But we were stalled by a lash extension appointment” Diana says gently, though there is something almost regal in the way she adjusts the tray with goodies in her arms. “A warrior never rushes to the battlefield unprepared it seems.”

“Right,” you mumble, dabbing at the wine with a napkin. “Next time I’ll bring a sword instead.”

The silence that follows is sharp enough to cut glass. Bruce buries his face in his palms and mutters that “it’s alright”

Jason swears he isn’t laughing. Not out loud, anyway.

But the slight arch of Diana’s brow, the subtle look exchanged between Donna and Cassie—yeah, that is when the whole night starts going off-script.

You stand there in the doorway like you’ve just walked off the wrong movie set — perfume sharp enough to make Bruce blink, your heels clicking against the marble as you finally step into the manor. The coat you’re wearing is half-slid off one shoulder, your lip gloss catching every drop of light in the foyer. The dress you’re wearing, black, skin tight and short, turtleneck but arms out makes Jason gulp. You look like trouble dressed as —very questionably— good manners.

Jason catches the way Bruce’s jaw tightens. The way Dick shifts uncomfortably beside him, like he’s watching a car crash in slow motion and can’t look away.

Diana greets Alfred again, her voice soft but clipped — that tone she uses when she’s balancing diplomacy and disappointment. “I hope what you made hasn’t grown cold. We weren’t informed about how late we’d be either” she tells him, but she’s looking directly at you.

You just smile, small and defiant. “Didn’t want to track mud on your battlefield.”

There it is again— that crack in the air, that beat of silence where everyone pretends not to react. Alfred clears his throat. Tim coughs into his sleeve.

Jason’s biting the inside of his cheek just to keep from grinning.

You glance past the room, eyes skimming over everyone without lingering. Not even a flicker of recognition when they land on Jason. Not a hello, not a smirk, not even that teasing spark you used to have when you saw him —just blank, plain right indifference as you hand the bottle of wine to Alfred with a careless, “It’s Merlot. Don’t spill it, it stains.”

“Of course, miss,” Alfred replies smoothly, though there’s a flicker of amusement in his eyes that only Jason catches.

Diana’s patience thins by the second, her smile all grace, her eyes all azul steel. “Perhaps you’d like to join us in the dining room now?”

You shrug, finally tucking your phone into your bag. “Sure. I’m starving.”

And that’s how you walk in — chin high, hip cocked, completely unbothered —while Bruce looks like he’s aged five years in thirty seconds and Diana’s aura of divine calm starts to crack just a little around the edges.

Jason watches it all unfold, hands shoved in his pockets, heart doing that stupid thing where it beats too fast for no reason. He tells himself it’s just the tension in the room, but it’s not. It’s you.

Because somehow, in a room full of gods and heroes, you’re the only one who looks untouchable, changed.

Dinner is the kind of formal that only Bruce can host—crystal glasses, polished silver, a centerpiece that looks like it costs more than Jason’s bike. Everyone’s sitting in their assigned civility, pretending this isn’t already a disaster waiting to happen.

You take the seat Diana gestures toward, right across from Jason. Perfect. Of course it’s across from Jason.

He’s in his usual black crewneck shirt, sleeves rolled, trying way too hard to look relaxed. You don’t give him the satisfaction of even a glance as you drink some of your wine.

“Jason,” Diana says pleasantly, “I heard you’ve been keeping busy with the Outlaws.”

Great. Maybe downing the whole glass is going to taste better than the thought of that.

“Something like that,” he answers, but his eyes are already on you. You’re pretending to scroll through your phone under the table, your glossed nails tapping idly on the screen.

“Phones away, please,” Diana adds without looking at you.

You give a slow, sarcastic but syrupy smile. “Oh, sorry. Force of habit. I usually get bored faster.”

That earns a cough from Dick that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. Bruce sends him a look sharp enough to wound.

Diana breathes through her nose, serene as a saint. “We value presence here,” she says, tone gentle but carrying the weight of an Amazonian blade.

“Right,” you reply, folding your hands neatly, still not looking at Jason. “Wouldn’t want to disrespect the battlefield.”

Jason nearly chokes on his drink. You don’t look up.

Alfred intervenes, ever the savior. “Miss, would you care for more wine?”

“Please. It’s the only way I’ll behave.”

That line lands like a live grenade. Bruce stares down at his plate. Cassie hides a smile. Diana’s lips tighten.

Jason’s staring at you now, openly, trying to read what’s underneath the act—whether you’re just being difficult or if this is about him. Probably both. You can feel it, his gaze; it prickles against your skin like static. But you keep your chin high, voice light, eyes fixed anywhere but him.

You swirl the last of your second glass of wine in seconds, eyes unfocused, the soft chatter around the table barely reaching you. Alfred is saying something polite about the roast; Dick laughs too loud at something Tim mutters under his breath. Everything sounds muffled, like you’re underwater.

And then Diana sets her glass down.

The crystal barely touches the table, but the silence that follows is deafening.

“So, Bruce,” she begins, voice steady but pulsing with restrained fury, “how exactly did Lex Luthor obtain your anti-superpower injectables, and why did he target my sister specifically?”

Jason’s hand stills halfway to his mouth.

Bruce doesn’t flinch, but something sharp flickers in his eyes. “We’re still tracing the breach,” he says evenly. “Nothing leaves the cave without my authorization.”

Diana leans forward, that Amazonian calm starting to splinter. “Then explain how she ended up in a hospital bed two weeks ago with your tech in her bloodstream.”

You feel the air in the room thicken, every eye sliding toward you.

You smile —that glossy, careless, wrong kind of smile. Lips pressed together in a thin line, tucked tightly underneath your teeth. You look at Alfred with absolute plea in your eyes for more alcohol before speaking “Oh, we’re doing this now?”

“Enough,” Diana warns quietly. “You should rest, not play dress-up and pour wine like nothing happened.”

“I’m fine,” you say, your tone flat, brittle around the edges. “You don’t need to keep telling people I almost died. It’s getting old.”

Diana’s voice lowers, almost trembling with control. “You lost your powers.”

You laugh, too loud. “And? Maybe I want a vacation from divine expectations and saving the world”

That’s when Jason looks up. His gaze catches yours. Hard, searching, a little haunted.

You meet it for half a second, then look right past him, the way someone does when they’ve memorized a face too well to trust themselves with it.

Bruce exhales, rubbing his temples. “Let’s not do this here.”

Diana doesn’t move. “No, Bruce. Let’s. Because my sister was targeted because of your weaponized paranoia against the league—”

“Because of Luthor,” Bruce cuts in sharply. “And because she made herself visible when she shouldn’t have.”

The table jolts. You set your glass down, eyes narrowing. “Excuse me? I made myself visible while tracking down a whole ass human trafficking gang between him and Penguin? With Jason?”

Jason mutters under his breath, “Shit.”

Diana turns to Bruce, horrified. “Don’t you dare blame her for your mistakes.” But Bruce doesn’t answer. The silence that follows feels nuclear.

You push your chair back with a scrape of wood. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to come.”

Diana stands too. “You can’t keep running from accountability.”

“And you can’t keep running my life!”

The words hit the room like a slap.

You grab your coat, ignoring the stunned faces of Donna, Cassie and the boys, and walk out of the dining room— head high, eyes stinging, your throat burns with a lump that’s stuck inside it, pumping white hot pain every time you take a breath.

Jason’s up a second later, mumbling something about “getting air” but everyone knows he’s going after you.

Bruce doesn’t stop him and even gestures to a half standing Dick to sit down. He just looks tired— like he’s seen this exact kind of disaster before. Like He's been expecting this exact moment all night long. Even if he’s never been responsible for a slip up like this. Even if he was the one who allowed you and Jason to work together on this case almost a month ago.

Outside, Jason finds you on the balcony, the night pressing close, your breath fogging the air. You don’t turn when you hear him, but you know it’s him —you can feel that quiet weight of his stare everywhere, heavy as regret. Jason has a way of filling a space even when he doesn’t speak.

The night air bites against your skin, sharp enough to sober you. You press your palms to the cold railing, staring down at the glittering sprawl of Gotham on the far edge. Somewhere far below, a siren wails and fades.

The door closes behind you, hinges whispering.  For a moment, he says nothing. The silence stretches thin. Then,

“You didn’t tell me you lost your powers. I thought you dropped the case”

“Why would I tell you anything?” You hiss “I have other people to parent me”

“Diana’s just worried,” he finally mutters, voice rough. “She doesn’t know how else to show it.”

You snort. “Yeah, well, she can show it without trying to parent me in front of a dinner table full of bats.”

“She’s not wrong, though,” he says quietly. “You should be mad at Bruce, you shouldn’t even be standing out here, not after—”

“After I got lucky?”  You glance back at him, lip gloss catching the light. “You don’t get to lecture me. Not when you lied to me about Artemis..”

That lands. He looks away, jaw flexing. “That wasn’t—she and I were done before—”

“Before I woke up in a med bay without powers? Sure. Such convenient timing.”

You turn back to the view of the garden. The wind lifts your hair, carrying the faint smell of smoke and winter.

He takes a step closer; you can feel the heat of him on your shoulder. “You’re angry. I get it. But acting like you don’t give a damn about anyone isn’t helping you or them.”

You laugh softly, bitter. “Says the king of pretending not to care.”

He exhales through his nose, defeated. “Yeah. I’m not exactly the guy who should be giving advice.”

The quiet returns. Just the hum of Gotham in the background and the ache of things neither of you know how to say.

Jason’s voice drops lower.  “For what it’s worth, I didn’t come out here to fight.”

“Then why did you?” you ask without turning.

“Because you looked like you were about to disappear,” he says. “And I’ve seen enough people do that.”

Something in you stirs—an old warmth, or maybe a bruise that never healed. You tighten your grip on the railing. “Don’t worry. I’m not running off to die dramatically. That’s your thing.”

Your words sting; a meticulous weave to weaponise anything against him. What hurts him the most, used against him. There’s shame streaming inside your whole body when you mouth them. Immediate regret.

Jason almost laughs, then doesn’t. “Yeah, well. Guess we both have bad habits.”

You finally look at him, the city lights flickering across his face. There’s exhaustion there, and guilt, and something else—something that used to be yours to read.

For a second, you let the silence hold the both of you. Then you say, softer, “You should go back inside. Bruce probably thinks we’re breaking the no-violence rule.”

Jason shakes his head, but he doesn’t argue. He just leans beside you on the railing, close enough that his sleeve and your shoulder brush. Neither of you speak for a second, but the atmosphere between you feels suffocating, heavier than words could describe.

Then, he breaks the silence “If you’re mad about Artemis I should be mad about Dick”

As if, he has a right to be mad about who you dated while mourning him. While he was dead.

You look at him and then, bitterly, you look away. “Then I should be mad about both you and him confessing to Barbara and abandoning me for her?”

Jason flinches, a quick, involuntary jerk of his head. The name Barbara hangs in the air, sharp and painful. He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture of panic. “I—”

“Save it.” The words peel off your tongue, thick with acid. You turn, and your eyes aren't just angry anymore—they’re glowing with a searing, white-hot envy that feels corrosive. “I'm not going to be your second to last choice. I’m not your rebound when the better Amazonian warrior leaves, or the safe distraction when the original Batgirl won't choose you.”

“But you're not, i—“

“And I'm not gonna help finish the Penguin and Lex mission. You're on your own”

The wind carries your final words away, leaving a vacuumed hollowness where the tension had been. It isn't a threat, just a flat statement of fact. You are done. Done with the mission, done with the dinner, and done being a secondary consideration in the messy, complicated world of Jason Todd.

Jason doesn't flinch, but the faint light of the city catches the moment his expression fractures. The small, guarded defenses he's put up—the rough voice, the casual lean against the railing—collapse. He knows what it’s like to be powerless, rejected, humiliated. He is very well acquainted with the horrendously green ogre of jealousy. He has come second to last before, hell, he has even come last. And he’s the reason you feel that way now.

Jason hates himself in more ways than you can think of.

He should shut up. Let you go. Rethink of any choice he’s taken that’s condemned you cold and disheartened. But it’s you. 

You who he met in the Tower all those years ago when Bruce saw fit Robin accompanied him to a meeting with the league, both looking like fish out of water, even if you surpassed him by two years of age. You who feared Superman just as much as he did. You who let him hide behind your body when the big ‘S’ came to meet you. When he first noticed your bangles were too big for your arms, while his suit fit him perfectly.

A troubled child turned into a soldier. Just like him.

He should shut up. But he simply can't.

“Don’t say that,” he says, his voice dropping from a rough murmur to something quiet and raw, barely loud enough to carry over the city hum. He straightens, turning to face you fully. “You can be mad at me. You should be mad at me. But you can’t walk away from the case because of this, not after what we saw. They’re trafficking. I can’t do this alone”

This time, in his eyes, it’s your first time in the cave and you’re even more scared than you were when meeting Superman. For a kid, your facade of bravery makes you look like an adult.

“Then your little girlfriends should help you”

You meet his gaze, and for the first time since you walk into the manor, the indifference is gone. Only hurt and simmering anger remain. Jason knows what jealousy is— an obsessive notion of care, love. But it’s still you. To let you walk away now, so broken, would be a second death— a final, self-inflicted execution of the best part of a self of his that died once already. That terrified, armored kid he met in the Tower? He’d promised himself he’d always have her six like she did for him. And he shouldn’t be using the mission as a reason to keep you in his life. 

“The mission is what gets me stuck here, Jason. It’s what Luthor uses to put a target on my back and it’s what allows Bruce to watch while Diana and my sisters tear me down. I’m not playing Batfamily field agent anymore, especially when I’m just the collateral damage. No one cares about the forgotten Wonder Girl.”

“You’re not collateral damage,” he insists, taking a step closer. His hand lifts, a hesitant, familiar movement, but he drops it before he can touch your arm. He looks so visibly upset “You’re the one who finds the warehouse. You’re the one who gets me the intel on the smuggling routes. We catch them together. If you walk away now, they get off clean. Is that what you want?”

“I want a break from this life,” you retort, your chin lifting stubbornly. “I’m de-powered, Jason. I’m a liability now, not an asset. You don’t need me; you have Dick and Tim and Damian, and Bruce will step in. He always does.”

He laughs, a single, harsh sound devoid of humor. “I don’t want them. I want you.”

The words hang between you—simple, heavy, and too late.

“Well, you should have thought about that before you, what was it, confess your undying love to Barbara?” you shoot back, the bitterness sharp in your tone. “Or before Dick decides to join in. I hear the whole thing. Do you really think I don’t know? You all treat me like an emotional pit stop, somewhere you stop when the main road is closed.”

Jason runs a hand over his jaw, the sound of the stubble rough under his palm. “It’s a mistake. A massive, stupid, cowardly mistake to not just be honest with you. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you. It’s… I’m trying to avoid this exact conversation. Because I know if I say it out loud, I lose you.”

He is looking at you with that open, unguarded intensity that has always been your undoing.

“You’ve already lost me,” you say quietly, your voice cracking only slightly as you turn back to the cityscape. “And you lost the Artemis you loved so much. Right? You try to hedge your bets and end up with nothing. Now I need to figure out how to live a normal life with an Amazonian mom and a god complex sister watching my every move.”

Jason sighs, the sound heavy and tired. He doesn’t try to argue about Artemis, or about Dick, or about Barbara—not anymore.

“Okay,” he finally concedes, his voice barely a breath. “Fine. You want a break? Take it. I’ll finish the case myself. But I’m not going back inside while you’re out here. And I’m not letting you walk out of my life because I mess up. Not when you need me.”

“I don’t need you,” you whisper, but the lie feels flimsy, like spun sugar in the cold air. “I never needed you”

Lies—you needed him every time Diana would get mad at you. When her anger would turn into silence, he was always one phone call away. You needed him to convince Bruce to tell Diana that you should study at Gotham Academy. You needed him on your first day of the last class of middle school. You needed his help with math. You needed him more times than you’ll ever admit.

He moves again, one last step, until he is right behind you. His presence is a solid, undeniable heat against your back. He doesn’t touch you, but the closeness is an invasion.

“Don’t push me away,” he pleads, the low, gravelly sound a ghost of the growl you hear from Bruce earlier. This one is different, though—it’s all need and very little threat. “I’m sorry, goddammit. I’m sorry I’m a selfish idiot. I’m sorry I put my foot down on this case and get you hurt. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings and I’m sorry about Artemis. But right now, you’re in a wonderbat intervention with no powers, talking about abandoning your life’s work. You can be mad at me, but you can’t be reckless.”

“I wanna leave”

He pauses, letting the silence hang.

“Let me take you home. Or at least somewhere warm. We can figure the rest out tomorrow. Just… let’s get you warm. Please.”

“No Jason,” you say, turning sharply, the chill air catching the skin of your biceps, making you wrap your arms around yourself.

You don't get far. His hand flashes out, his grip firm on your forearm—not hurting you, but absolutely stopping you. The heat of his fingers is a shocking contrast to the cold air and your exposed skin.

You whirl back around, your eyes blazing with the same furious defiance you showed Diana inside. “Let go of me.”

His jaw is set, his eyes dark and unwavering. “I told you, I’m not letting you walk out there alone right now.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore!” you hiss, pulling against his grip. The black dress is no match for the Gotham wind, and a sudden shiver races through you, which only infuriates you more. You hate that he can still affect you, that he's still right about you needing warmth. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done it before, and I can sure as hell do it now that I don’t have an arrow and a bow breathing down my neck.”

“You are wearing seven-inch heels, you've had too much wine, and you are radiating fury,” Jason counters, his voice low and dangerous, holding an echo of Bruce’s own protective growl. He doesn't budge. “Let me drive you. Or let Alfred call a car. But you are not walking out the front door and into the city while you’re like this.”

You lean in, your voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “You think a ride home is going to fix a night where your whole family watches mine fall apart because of our screw-up?”

He releases your arm, the touch replaced by a sudden, heavy pressure of air as he steps even closer. His shadow engulfs you.

“No,” he admits, the word a weary exhale. “I know it won’t fix it. But it stops you from getting arrested for public intoxication or mugged, which would be a colossal pain in the ass to explain to Diana. Just one good decision, okay? Let me make one good decision tonight if you don’t want to do it yourself.”

He looks completely defeated, his earlier defiance gone, leaving behind only raw fatigue and a stubborn concern.

You yank your arm back completely, the lingering heat from his touch a sharp contrast to the biting cold. "Just because i don’t have my powers doesn’t mean I’m useless," you state flatly. "And I'm not calling anyone. Diana and the girls are leaving soon. I’ll wait."

You turn your back on him and head for the main exit, your heels clicking rapidly on the marble. You move past the foyer, bypassing the dining room where the heated fiction of dinner is still playing out, and walk straight toward the front doors.

Jason watches you go, his body frozen in defeat on the balcony. He doesn't move to follow. He can’t. He knows that line—I don’t need you—even if it was a lie, or something you drunkenly said, was the deepest cut. He stares out at the cold, unfeeling Gotham skyline, thinking he could actually burn the entire city down in what remains of tonight to match the ache in his chest.

You stand in the echoing expanse of the manor foyer, your exposed arms now, truly feeling the chill of the marble and the night seeping in from the heavy oak doors. Your coat, half-slid off your shoulder, feels more like a burden than a comfort. You focus on the glossy black of the wine stain on the rug where you spilled the Merlot, counting the seconds until you hear the dining room chairs scrape back.

A moment later, the dining room doors open, and Alfred emerges first. He sees you standing there, a defiant, shivering silhouette in a flimsy mini dress, and his expression softens, a flicker of true worry crossing his normally composed features. He carries a small, empty tray and no seemingly anger for the way you spoke to him earlier.

“Miss,” he says quietly, his voice a low hum that won't carry back to the room. “Perhaps a blanket, or a cup of warm tea while you wait?”

“No, Alfred. I’m fine,” you manage, your voice brittle. You hate that he can see the lie in your posture.

He nods, accepting your prideful refusal, but he pauses before retreating. He meets your gaze, and his eyes, so rarely judgmental, hold an unmistakable depth of compassion. “I believe I heard Miss Diana mention that they would require at least a quarter hour. She is still finishing a rather pointed conversation with Master Bruce.”

You simply nod, grateful for the honesty, but the knowledge that they are still inside, picking through the rotting carcass of your failure, makes your skin crawl.

The conversation eventually breaks. First, you hear the low rumble of Bruce’s voice, heavy with exhaustion. Then, the clear, crystalline authority of Diana’s voice, which cuts through the air like a knife.

Then, they appear.

Diana is first, her posture impeccable but her features drawn tight, the regal calm finally shattered. She doesn’t look at you. Donna and Cassie follow, their expressions mirroring a mixture of discomfort and concern. Donna gives you a brief, apologetic glance, while Cassie, ever perceptive, meets your eyes with a flicker of raw understanding before quickly looking away.

Bruce lags slightly behind Diana, looking exactly as Jason had imagined—like he’d aged five years, his tie loosened, his composure hanging by a thread. He meets your eyes, and his gaze is heavy with accusation, the silent affirmation of the disaster you caused.

Diana stops directly in front of you. Her blue eyes finally lock onto yours, not with anger, but with a profound, terrifying disappointment.

“We are leaving,” she states simply. She glances at your exposed arms, the full eyelash extensions, the nails you've manicured to the most extreme length you possibly could and the too-short dress, and puckers her lips. You look all but ready to entirely give up the hero life and commit to just being pretty.

“I will not discuss this here.” She sighs “You will return to Themyscira with us, immediately. This 'break from divine expectations' ends now. I will not have my sister vulnerable in Gotham.”

“I’m not going back,” you reply, your voice a determined whisper, unwilling to break under her stare. “I don’t belong there right now.”

Bruce finally steps forward, his voice a quiet command aimed squarely at Diana. “She can stay here, Diana. She’s just as protected here as she would be in Themiscyra”

Diana turns on him, her control snapping. “You have already proven your protection is worthless, Bruce! Her vulnerability is because of your paranoia, and your weapons!”

The silence that follows is absolute. The front door of the manor feels miles away, and you are trapped between two warring titans.

Bruce’s face is granite, his eyes heavy with the weight of her truth. He opens his mouth, undoubtedly to double down or apologize with the economy of a CEO, but before he can, another voice slices through the brute tension—bright, easy, and completely out of place.

“Hold up. Everyone take a breath.”

Dick emerges from the dining room, moving with the acrobatic grace of someone determined to prevent a diplomatic crisis. He’s all charm and composure –as usual–, though the strain around his eyes shows he’s ready for a fight. He places himself casually between Diana and Bruce, offering Diana a small, genuinely concerned smile.

“Diana, look, you’re right to be upset. Bruce, you’re… well, you’re Bruce. But this isn’t a divorce court on who gets the kid. Plus she’s cold” Dick says, his gaze sweeping quickly over you and your shivering form. He takes in your defiant posture and the cold marble floor. He seems to understand immediately that what you need least is another debate over your short term future.

He turns to you, his eyes gentle but firm. “You look like you’re about to catch a cold. And you’ve had a night, to put it mildly. I’ve got an extra guest room that is definitely not in a cave, and it’s miles away from any Amazonian or Wayne Enterprises boardroom. How about you crash at my place tonight? No questions, no arguments. Just a solid lock on the door and maybe some really bad takeout.”

Diana’s glare doesn't soften, yours does, at the expense of a friend that you trust. “Richard, she is not a child to be babysat. She needs to be secured.”

“She is family, Diana, and she’s not going to feel ‘secure’ in the middle of a war zone,” Dick counters smoothly, glancing pointedly from Bruce's rigid form to Diana’s tense one. “She needs space. A safe, neutral space. My apartment is the definition of neutral.”

Bruce finally speaks, his voice a low, heavy rumble of reluctant agreement. “It’s acceptable. I need to handle the situation with Luthor and the tech breach, and Dick’s apartment is monitored.”

You seize the lifeline immediately. It’s better than being trapped on Themyscira or in the Batcave. “Fine. I’ll go with Dick.”

Dick offers you a look that says, ‘thank you for not making me argue for another hour’. He turns to Diana. “I’ll bring her back to you when she’s calmed down, Diana. You can have your conversation then, in private, where no one else is listening in.” The final shot is subtle, but it's aimed at the core issue: the public dismantling of your dignity.

Diana stares at Dick, then at Bruce, then finally back at you. She knows when she’s been checkmated by bureaucracy and common sense. She gives a clipped, formal nod. “Very well, Richard. But I expect a full report, and she is to remain inside your sight.”

Donna steps forward and gently puts a hand on your arm. “We will call you tomorrow.” 

“I liked the lashes by the way” Cassie gives you a small, genuine smile before following Diana out.

Dick immediately turns and holds out his hand to you, his concern shifting from diplomacy to pure practicality. “Alright, let’s get you out of those heels and into the Nightwing mobile!”

You take his hand and a chuckle roams out of your throat. The touch on his skin is simple, a promise of escape. As you let him lead you out, you steal a glance toward the balcony where you last saw Jason. It’s empty.

As the front door closes behind you with a heavy, final thud, two younger voices drift from the hallway connecting the foyer to the den.

“Todd is gonna freak out,” Damian tells Tim.

“Oh yeah,” Tim agrees, already sounding exhausted by the impending drama. “He is absolutely going to freak out.”

“Wait- You support them together too?”

“Do I support her with Jason or Dick?” Tim asks, puzzled.

“Todd obviously”

“Oh yeah yeah, they’re literally made for eachother”

Jason is a gargoyle on the cold marble of the balcony, his jaw clenched so tight he feels a dull ache behind his teeth. He hasn't moved since you yanked your arm away and strode back inside. He watches the light of the foyer from the corner of his eye, listening to the muffled, escalating confrontation between Bruce and Diana.

When Dick’s voice cuts through the argument—calm, collected, and impossibly right—a fresh, horrible wave of possessive anger washes over Jason.

Dick, the golden boy. The one who always knows exactly what to say to disarm a god or diffuse a bomb. The one who knows how to make everything right, the one who is calm and collected, the one you dated after his death. Dick Grayson, the epitome of a big brother, who knows how to slip between cracks, steps in to be the savior once again, offering the neutral ground that Jason couldn't.

He watches Dick emerge, moving with that easy confidence, placing himself between the heavyweights. Jason doesn't hear the exact words, but he doesn't need to. He sees the gesture: Dick’s hand reaching out, not to restrain, but to guide.

He sees you take that hand.

The gesture is simple, but it feels like a punch to Jason's gut, twisting the knot of jealousy he already carried into the past into something sharp and new. Dick gets to be the hero, the protector, the temporary, safe sanctuary. Dick gets to take you home.

Safe, neutral space. That’s what Dick calls his apartment. Jason scoffs under his breath. It's a space free from expectations, free from the Batfamily baggage Jason is currently buried under. A space where you can both talk about shared trauma—the kind that brings people like Dick and Barbara and you closer—while Jason is left out here, alone, smelling the failure and cold air.

He watches until you and Dick are just two dark shapes moving toward the front doors.

"I don't want them. I want you," he'd said. It is too late. Dick is the better choice, the easier escape. The one who hasn't been juggling an Amazonian ex, after confessing love to Batgirl, and generally making a mess of your life– twice.

Jason finally pushes off the railing, the friction of the stone a pointless sensation against his ruined nerves. He doesn't go back toward the dining room. He turns and walks to the far end of the balcony, resting his head against the cold glass of the window, unable to watch anymore. The city lights blur into streaks of indifferent color.

He has just given Dick the ultimate victory: the one night where you will be vulnerable, safe, and most importantly, with him. And how can he be sure Dick and you have nothing going on anymore? That there aren’t any lingering feelings from a teenage love that ended just as fast as it begun?

Jason closes his eyes, the memory of your furiously fuming face the last thing he sees. He loses you not because he isn't strong enough or smart enough, but because he is a cowardly idiot who tries to hedge his bets and ends up with nothing.

Outside, the air bites sharper than you expect. Gotham’s winter creeps in through the seams of your dress as you follow Dick down the steps, heels clicking against the wet stone. The manor looms behind you, silent, ancient, and heavy with everything unsaid. You don’t look back.

Dick presses the key fob and his car chirps, headlights washing gold across his face. He opens the passenger door for you without comment—other than a side eye because he knows you hate men that do that—just a faint grin that’s meant to be comforting but lands somewhere closer to tired. You slide in, pulling your coat tighter, watching him circle to the driver’s side.

The city unfolds in streaks of sodium light as he drives. Gotham at night feels like it’s always mid-breath; never asleep, never alive. You rest your head against the cold window, eyes tracing the blurred reflection of your face in the glass. The silence stretches until Dick breaks it, soft but steady.

“I’m sure Jason didn’t mean it,” he says, eyes fixed on the road. “Whatever went down upstairs. He’s just…” He exhales through his nose, searching for the word. “Jason.”

You huff a faint, humorless sound. “You don’t even know what he said. And him being himself's not an excuse.”

“Didn’t say it was,” he replies, tone light but edged with something older. “I just need context.”

The car hums, steady. You don’t answer. You don’t want to talk about Jason—not when his shadow still feels like it’s pressed against your ribs.

Dick glances at you once before turning back to the windshield. “But you know,” he says, voice low, “you’re allowed to be the one who walks away for once.”

The words settle like static. You keep your gaze on the glass, on the city lights flickering like heartbeats.

Soon, Gotham’s black and white has been replaced by Blüdhaven’s blue and purple neon on almost every building.

Inside Dick’s small, aggressively cheerful Blüdhaven apartment, the tension finally begins to bleed away.

You are curled up on his couch, wrapped in one of his soft, oversized college hoodies, with a chunky knit blanket pulled up to your chin. Your elaborate dress and ridiculous heels are forgotten in a pile near the door. Dick sits in his favorite armchair, equally casual in sweats.

In an attempt to earn best friend kudos, he makes you a massive mug of tea—Earl Grey with milk and an obscene amount of honey—and puts on some terrible 90s action-comedy that demands exactly zero attention. The only light in the living room comes from the television and the orange glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds. It feels like a sleepover, a decade too late, and you almost forget that outside this apartment, your entire life is in crisis.

He sips his own tea, the steam warming his hands, and watches the TV for another moment, letting the comfortable quiet settle. Then, he presses the mute button on the remote.

“Okayyyy, the silence is officially driving me crazy,” Dick chirps, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze is gentle but direct, his eyes batting with an annoyingly sweet blink-blink-blink, the big brother concern back in full force. “And I know you’re using that terrible movie to avoid the last three hours of your life.”

You exhale slowly, clutching the mug tighter. “It was a very good terrible movie.”

“It was not. It was just loud. Look, I’m not Bruce, and I’m definitely not Diana. I just want to make sure you’re okay, and maybe get a hint of what the hell happened out there on the balcony.” He pauses, then lowers his voice. “What did you say to Jason? Tim messaged me he’s trying to unscrew his whole bike and screw it back together.”

You look down at the swirling surface of your tea, the honey turning the golden liquid cloudy. “I told him the truth.”

“Which truth? The 'I’m de-powered and scared' truth, or the 'I hate being stuck between two dysfunctional hero families' truth?” Dick asks, hoping it’s at least one of the two.

You lift your head, meeting his eyes. The anger is mostly exhausted, leaving behind a deep, aching vulnerability. “The one about me knowing about Barbara.”

Dick winces, leaning back. The casual posture instantly dissolves. He sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Ah. He told you that?”

“You both did,” you correct, your voice flat. “I heard everything in the cave when I last visited. The kiss, the letter, the shared trauma, the whole ‘I wanted to be better for her’ mess.” You take a shaky breath. “I told him I’m done being the second choice, the emotional pit stop, or the convenient rebound when Artemis leaves or when you two are too scared to commit to Babs. I told him I’m done with the mission. I told him he lost me.”

Dick runs a hand through his perpetually messy hair. He doesn't try to defend himself or Jason; he simply accepts the accusation. A few years ago, he would have acted defensively regarding his stance when it comes to you. Now, when what’s left behind for him and you is friendship, he only says, “That’s… rough.”

“Well i don’t think he cares anyway”

“Don’t say that” Dick says, playfully shoving your side. You barely move when he nudges you, but the corner of your mouth twitches, betraying the tiniest crack in your armor.

“Come on. Don’t say thaaat,” He repeats, quieter this time. “You know he cares. He just doesn’t always know what to do with it.”

You stare at the muted television, where two badly CGI’d helicopters chase each other through an explosion. “Yeah. That’s kind of the problem.”

He exhales, settling back in his chair. “Jason’s whole thing is pushing away the people he doesn’t want to lose. It’s his one consistent talent. That and brooding on rooftops.”

“That makes two of you,” you mutter.

He grins faintly. “Touché.” Then, after a beat, “You know, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you were ever a second choice.”

Dick speaks for himself first, then for Jason. Though it hurt once upon a time, he has accepted your tenderness lies with the latter. 

You scoff, half a laugh, half a defense. “Please. You all orbit Barbara like she’s the North Star. I’m just… what? A temporary moon?”

“More like the eclipse that screws up all our schedules,” he says, voice softer than the joke ever deserves. “You came in and changed everything, and Jason—he doesn’t know how to live in the light of that yet.”

Your response is simply a pout.

Dick studies you for a long moment, the playfulness slowly fading. He pauses, then his expression shifts, turning probing, his eyes squinting. “But you wouldn’t have thrown away the Luthor case just over that. Yeah you lost your powers but you’re not that reckless. This is about more than just Jason’s bad decisions, isn't it? You’re punishing him, aren’t you?”

You look away, but the words hit harder than you want to admit. “I’m not.”

He tilts his head. “Then why don’t you just tell him you love him instead of hiding up here and pretending you don’t care?”

“What!?”

His grin snaps back, too wide, too knowing. “Ha! You do love him. You loooove him.”

“Dick, are you five years old?”

He leans back, hands raised in mock defense. “Emotionally? On a good day.”

“Yeah well. I love him. What about it?”

He laughs at his own joke, but the sound fades quickly, leaving only the quiet hum of the city beyond the window. The smile slips. His tone levels out, steady, serious in that rare way he gets when he stops performing.

“Hey,” he says, softer now. “I’m not trying to make fun of you. I just… know what it looks like when someone’s scared to admit how deep they’re in.”

You exhale through your nose, eyes fixed on the skyline. “I’m not scared.”

“Yeah, you are,” he says. “Because if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be sitting up here trying to convince yourself that pushing him away is strength. You’d be down there telling him he screwed up and figuring it out together.”

You press your lips together. “It’s not that simple.”

“It never is,” Dick agrees. “But the thing about Jason is—he’s a mess, sure, but he’s not a liar. If he’s showing up, it’s because he means it. You scare him, and that’s saying something. The guy died once and came back, and somehow you are what freaks him out.”

Your throat tightens. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You’re the first person he hasn’t been able to out-brood. The first one he’s had to actually face. And now you’re running from him the same way he runs from everyone else.”

You glance at him, sharp. “You think I don’t have a right to walk away?”

“I think you’ve earned the right to stop fighting people who want to love you,” he says quietly. “Especially the ones who don’t know how to say it right.”

Dammit, you hate that Dick knows you too well. He waits patiently, letting the silence hang and meddle about, warm and heavy in the dim apartment.

You stare at Dick, finally unable to sustain the protective indifference you’ve managed to upkeep for so long now. The tears come suddenly, hot and stinging against your cheeks, a shocking betrayal after hours of rigid control. You quickly raise the mug, using the steam to hide your face.

“Aw, hey, come on don't cry”

You lower the mug, your eyes red and glistening with fat, salty tears. "I hate it, Dick. I hate that I care what he does. I hate that the thought of him being happy with someone else, someone safer, makes me feel like I did when I was fourteen and Bruce wouldn't let him talk to me for a week because we tried to drive the batmobile on our own"

Dick slides out of the armchair and moves to sit beside you on the couch. He doesn't hug you; he simply rests his hand firmly on your shoulder, anchoring you.

“You love him,” Dick states like it’s a fact that stings him, not as a question, but as the unavoidable truth of the night.

You stay silent, letting the confession—Dick’s words and the unspoken truth behind them—settle over you like a weight you can’t shrug off. The mug in your hands grows cold, forgotten, steam curling into the dim light above.

He doesn’t push. He doesn’t speak again. Just the quiet press of his hand on your shoulder, steady, unyielding, reminding you that someone sees you, really sees you, and isn’t letting go.

Your tears slow, leaving streaks over flushed cheeks, your breath ragged from hours of holding in more than just frustration. You swallow hard, voice small and raw. “I… I don’t know how to stop myself from feeling like this.”

Dick tilts his head, eyes soft but sharp, tracking every tremor of your body. “You don’t have to stop,” he says. “Not yet. And not alone. You just… need to admit it to yourself first.”

The words prick at something you’ve been keeping buried. You glance at him, half-expecting a smirk, a joke, anything to shield you from the vulnerability. But he’s serious, impossibly steady, and it terrifies you more than you expected.

“I do love him,” you whisper finally, so quiet it almost disappears into the shadows of the apartment. Your chest tightens at the sound, as if saying it aloud makes it irrevocable.

Dick’s hand doesn’t move, but the pressure shifts subtly, just enough to say, I know. And it’s okay.

You bury your face in your hands, the confession shaking you, and Dick finally wraps an arm around you in hopes to hold you through this as tears stream down your eyes and into the palms of your hands. For the first time in hours, you allow yourself to breathe fully, knowing the truth is out—and that someone who understands is sitting right beside you, not judging, not teasing, just being there.

You look at Dick, tears still tracking through the dry anger on your face. "He just ran from me one too many times, Dick. And I am tired of waiting for the day he realizes the risk is worth it."

Dick squeezes your shoulder. “He knows the risk is worth it,” he says quietly, his eyes dark with regret. “He’s just an idiot. And a coward sometimes. And I think he was afraid of losing you by telling you he has feelings for you.”

He shifts, looking toward the hallway. “Look, I can’t fix Jason. I can barely fix my own relationships. But I can tell you this: the jealousy you’re feeling—don’t deny it— is the clearest indicator of where your heart is. And you just gave him the shock he needed to actually look at what he lost. Also… I think we should order burgers.”

“Jason’s favorite?” Your lip quivers. A tear escapes your wide, sadness blown eyes, streaking down your cheek, and you sniffle, trying to pull yourself together.

Dick stands, stretching exaggeratedly. “Shit– I’m going to make you some actual food. For tonight, you’re safe. You’re warm. The lashes are still killing it. The universe hasn’t collapsed. You focus on the fact that you still have a whole Amazonian sisterhood to help you figure out how to be an ass-kicker without the powers. And tomorrow, we figure out how to perhaps confess to Jason before the whole Batfamily ends up without vehicles.”

The weeks following the confrontation at the Manor have been a cold war. 

You and Jason exist in parallel universes, both working the Luthor and Penguin case—yes the one you dramatically declared you dropped out of—  but never, ever meeting. You've become a ghost, working from Dick's secure Blüdhaven apartment or remote safe houses, reporting only to Diana and Bruce. 

Jason, meanwhile, has been relentless on the streets, turning his guilt into destructive, high-impact patrols. Last week he sent a singular, unanswered text that just said, "Talk to me."

You ignore it, of course taking the much preferred route, to deal with it in an infinitely more childish way of coping which is whining incessantly to Dick about how utterly immature Jason is, and bubble about it for quite a few days. Something about you taking pride in Jason ‘breaking no contact first’ and being a ‘yearner’

The city feels smaller when you don’t have him on your radar. You can move through Gotham—or Blüdhaven, more often than not—without the pull of his gaze, without the low hum of his judgment lingering in your spine. You can pretend, for weeks at a time, that you don’t care that he’s out there, cracking skulls, raining down vengeance for your stupidity. Spoiler alert– you do care.

Jason won’t let Tim breathe about it. He talks about you non-stop, a continuous, high-volume drone, always, always making it explicitly clear that all the information he’s sharing is strictly confidential and shall not be shared with Grayson or anyone else. Said information usually consists of him absolutely going through the five stages of grief about you. One moment he’s angry, then he wonders where he went wrong, then he says he’s okay with it, that he’s gonna let it go. 

Damian happens to be caught in the fire when he finds you asleep before the batcomputer hugging a suspiciously looking, very well known edition of Pride and Prejudice. The one Todd lent him. When he rips it off your hands and wakes you up he swears your eyes well up with tears.

Naturally, the stress is too much for the younger generation and golden boy older brother to bear. So they decide to do something about it.

Thus Dick, Tim, and a begrudging Damian have been meeting covertly in the Manor Gym night after night, the only place where Bruce's eyes and ears can't easily follow them while he’s off with the League on some Darkseid intergalactic business.

After days of conspiring and many mid-day Alfred snacks, they come to a foolproof plan. The one that always works.

Their plan is simple, efficient; They're going to lock you down. Or well, in.

Tim calls you late Friday night. 

His voice is tight with engineered panic. "It's the final piece of data on the Luthor encryption key and it relates directly to the Penguin case you took on. It's stored locally in the Cave—Bruce never uploads this stuff. Pffft, This guy right? We need you to review it now before the scheduled scrub. Dick is tied up. Can you get here?" 

Knowing the Luthor and Penguin files overlap with your current focus, you reluctantly agree despite finding it very hard to believe the comment about Bruce.

A nationwide human trafficking scandal is on the stake anyway.

Dick texts Jason a single, non-descript message: "Warehouse 12. New weapons shipment. Big." 

Jason, already on patrol, takes the bait instantly. He speeds to the location only to find a single, cheap plastic toy gun inside. Frustrated, he receives Dick's follow-up text: "Psych. Now meet me at the Cave. Emergency Batcomputer update."

Damian is in charge of actually powering off facial recognition to get you out of the cave. And then, he is forced to fleet under Grayson’s order because the following events might not be very ‘PG-13’

You descend into the Batcave via the elevator, annoyed at Tim's urgency but focused on the screen of your phone.

You step out onto the smooth concrete floor and immediately spot Jason, standing near the main terminal. He's still in his Red Hood gear, helmet resting on the console, his posture coiled and furious.

“Dick? What the hell is going on?” Jason demands, his voice a low growl. "I just wasted an hour chasing a—"

Before he can finish, the heavy steel door of the elevator shaft clangs shut. Simultaneously, the airlock doors on the vehicle bay slide closed. The main power lights flicker, settling into the emergency red glow.

Then, Tim's voice crackles over the loud, unfiltered comms system, echoing throughout the massive cavern.

“Alright, the doors are sealed. Red Hood, she's not leaving until you talk” 

You shoot a panicked look at Jason before Tim continues by calling your name, “he's not getting out until he talks. We disabled the auxiliary controls. You have all night. Batman’s off with the League. Don't touch the Batwing.”

Jason whirls toward the Batcomputer, where Dick looks at him through the screen, leaning casually against a gargoyle on the other end of the city, giving a tight, unrepentant shrug. Damian is visible beside him, arms crossed in self-satisfaction. The little brat mocks him– going as far as to shove his tongue out of his mouth and give him a clowning expression.

“You little shits! Open this now, or I swear I will turn this whole cave into a grease fire!” Jason roars, taking a step toward the deck.

“You won't,” Dick counters, his voice calm and clear. "And we know you two are both too stubborn to call a truce on your own. Consider this a mandated therapy session. The only way out is through, Jay. And we're all very tired of the brooding."

The comms click silent. Dick gives you a tiny, apologetic wink before he and the others disappear behind the glitching screen.

“I’m gonna kill him” You mumble, heart stammering inside your chest. The panic is quickly being replaced by a surge of defiant anger—anger at Dick, at Tim, at Damian, and most of all, at the man standing ten feet away who just had to be the reason for this absurd, humiliating trap.

“Texting me is one thing” you say, raising your voice in his direction “But having your brothers trap me here with you? That’s a new low”

Jason turns from the now-silent Batcomputer screen, flipping his helmet off the deck and letting it fall with a deafening clatter onto the concrete floor. His eyes, raw and shadowed by weeks of anger and guilt, bore into yours.

“I ain’t done shit!”

Jason’s chest heaves with the force of it— a short, ugly sound that could be grief if it weren’t so close to anger. The concrete smells like dust and ozone and the cold from the night. He plants his boots, both a challenge and a plea.

“I ain’t done fucking shit!” he repeats, louder, and the words ricochet off steel and glass. 

You take a step closer despite everything, because you’re maddened and exhausted and the heat of him is a furnace you can’t help leaning toward. “Then why the hell—” you start, but stop midway when you see the way Jason’s jaw tightens.

He runs a hand through his hair, then looks at you properly, something raw and ragged in his eyes. “Yeah. I texted you.” The admission is too quick to be prideful, too honest to be strategic. You blink in confusion “Said ‘talk to me.’” He swallows. “I didn’t— I didn’t set this up. I just talked to Tim about it”

“Don’t lie to me,” you spit. “Don’t make me the idiot who walked into a fucking playset you staged.” Fury is a blunt instrument and you wield it too well; it keeps the tremor from your hands steady. “If this was a ‘talk to me’ thing, then why the theatrics?”

“So I’m the liar again?”

“You know what? I had regretted calling you a liar during our talk in the balcony but after you not admitting you trapped me here with you, I’m glad I didn’t believe it when Dick said you’re not a liar”

In a quick moment of realisation Dick’s name dies on your tongue. Twice.

“What the hell?” Jason demands, his voice a low, rough growl, skipping past the immediate crisis to the source of his misery. "You've been ignoring me for three weeks. You won't answer my text. What did you tell Dick that convinced him to pull this kind of juvenile bullshit?"

“Me!?”

You cross your arms tighter, refusing to let the panic of him turning this on you show. Your pride—the pride in his single, unanswered text, the pride in being the 'winner' of the no-contact—is the only defense you have left.

You hold his stare, refusing to let him turn this into an attack on your character. The surge of anger, though, is mixed with a chilling, sudden confusion about what Jason is actually denying.

“Yeah you. If you wanna talk to me then answer my text. Don’t involve my brothers”

All the self restraint you’ve got is needed at this moment not to snap again. You look at Jason, really look and decide to believe he probably knows nothing about the fact that his brothers locked you in the cave. You can’t deny the desperate sincerity in his voice, and the possibility that Dick and the boys actually acted on their own initiative is a sudden, dizzying thought.

“Okay Jason,” you start “Let’s say you didn't orchestrate this” 

“I didn’t!” 

“I’m not blaming you,” you snap, stepping closer, heat crawling up your spine. “I’m just… I’m pissed that my whole life gets invaded by third parties. I don’t need this, Jay!”

His eyes soften, almost imperceptibly, and the fury bleeds into something taut, heavy. “You think I wanted this either?” he mutters, voice lower now, rougher with exhaustion and something closer to hurt. “I’ve been trying to reach you, okay? Three weeks! You vanish, you ghost me, and I’m left here—wondering if you’re okay, wondering if you even care!”

The words hit you harder than his anger. Your chest tightens, and for a moment, the only sound is the echo of your own ragged breathing. You want to argue, to push, to retreat behind the armor of pride, but it’s too raw, too real.

“I do care,” you whisper, almost ashamed of the vulnerability. “But you can’t just—just—fuck okay screw this. I can’t say it”

You push past him, walking towards the Batcomputer terminal, the red light glinting off the tears you refuse to shed.

You gesture vaguely towards the locked doors.

"You and I are locked in here for the night. You're the one with the reputation for solving impossible situations with pure, bloody-minded force.” You turn back to the Batcomputer, your fingers already flying across the keyboard, bringing up the Luthor/Penguin data. 

“If we’re going to fix anything. Let’s start with working. I'm fixing the mess we made. I'm not going to sit here and waste the night on your emotional cowardice." you finish, your voice cool and professional. 

Jason stands frozen, helmet on the ground, trapped between the walls, your work, and your unforgiving challenge. He has the words, but you’re demanding the action.

Jason’s hands clench into fists, his whole body taut with the impulse to smash something. He could still argue, yell, or simply walk away and find a quiet corner of the cave to brood. 

But your words of challenge and a devastating thought that you'd confessed your love to Dick first—have landed too clean. Like the sharp edge of a knife. You’ve taken his pain and turned it into a mission.

He looks at you, hunched over the Batcomputer terminal in the aggressive red light, already focused on the work, already moving on. He sees the flicker of tears in your eyes, but also the resolute set of your jaw. He knows you mean every word. He has to prove he can solve the problem.

He takes a deep breath, forcing the raw anger down, replacing it with a cold, almost detached focus.

“Fine,” he says, his voice low, gravelly, but controlled. He walks toward the Batcomputer, not toward you, but to the equipment bay. He grabs a spare headset and clips it on, accessing the private comms channel.

“You want to work? We work,” he mutters, pulling up a schematic on a secondary monitor. “You said the Luthor key overlaps with the Penguin location data. Let's see if we can find a back-end exploit that lets us override this lock without tripping an alert. Tim and Dick didn't think about the code redundancy loop in the original Batcave schematics.”

He glances at you, his eyes hard but focused entirely on the screen, accepting the truce of work. “But don’t think this means you win, either. You’re working out your pride on a crisis that could actually kill us. Now look at the timestamp on that data scrub. Is it the Penguin’s own timer, or Luthor’s contingency?”

Jason is working with an intense, surgical focus, navigating the complex Batcave network with practiced ease. He pulls up a series of nested code streams related to the Penguin’s use of Luthor’s encryption for shipping. For a few minutes, the only sound is the frantic tapping of keys and the quiet, technical murmur of Jason talking to himself through the headset.

You, meanwhile, are intensely trying to focus on the work, your adrenaline and hurt still raging under your professional exterior. You're analyzing a timestamp, trying to ignore the proximity of his shoulder inches from yours.

Jason hits a sequence of commands and the secondary monitor flashes with a section of compressed code.

"There," he mutters, leaning in, his voice slightly muffled by the headset mic. "See that signature? It's not Penguin. It's a derivative of the code Luthor used in the '09 banking raid. Old school. Why would Penguin use—fuck! Fuck this shit."

He cuts himself off, his frustration spilling over, and he rips the headset off, throwing it back onto the console with a sharp clatter. He turns, planting his hands on the console table, forcing his stare onto the opposite wall, but his anger is still laser-focused on you.

“You know what the worst part is?” he demands, his voice low and tight with venom, finally snapping the work truce. “The worst part of standing there on that stupid balcony, drowning in my own failure, wasn't Bruce’s face. It was Dick.”

You finally stop typing, your spine rigid. You knew, for better or for worse, that this was coming.

“You looked like you were about to collapse, and Dick—golden boy Dick—he just walks in, calm, collected, with his stupid, gentle grin, and plays the savior. And you just... you took his hand. You walked right out with him.”

His head snaps back to you, his eyes burning with accusation. He doesn't wait for your response. The floodgates are open, and the weeks of internalized humiliation and possessiveness pour out “He gets to be the easy choice, the easy way out. The hero pass”

“I’m the one who has to stand there and watch Bruce and Diana carve you up while I freeze, and Dick gets to be the reward for your pain. Dick gets to put the blanket on you. He gets to comfort you and listen to you confess all the things you won’t even say to me. It’s happened before, when I died.”

He pushes off the console, taking a menacing step toward you. “I knew you were safe, yeah. But you were safe with him. You’ve made your point clear about Artemis. I’ve spent the last three weeks on patrol picturing you in Dick’s apartment, wrapped in his clothes, talking about shared trauma while I was out here losing my mind because I didn’t know how to apologize.”

He finally looks at you, his eyes wide and burning with raw, agonizing jealousy. "Tell me you don't look at him and think, 'Why can't Jason be like this?' Tell me you don't feel a flicker of that old, easy history when he is sitting there, playing the perfect, uncomplicated friend!"

He stops, chest heaving. He has finally said the worst thing: he has admitted his deepest, terrified belief that you choose Dick's comfort over his own complex, frightening love.

You stare at him. The fire of your own anger—the pride, the defense, the calculated indifference—suddenly goes out, leaving behind a profound, aching realization. He isn't lashing out to hurt you; he is tearing himself apart because he truly believes Dick is a better man for you. Just like you thought Barbara and Artemis were better women for him.

This Jason is still the kid you hurled behind you when you first met Superman, muttering something about being discreet. The teenager that Joker tortured and killed and took away from you. The one you mourned before you even turned 18 years old.

The best friend who convinced Bruce to tell Diana to let you enroll at Gotham Academy. He listened to you cry when she would be mad at you because you were a reckless kid with newfound powers or when that girl from your Maths class tried to bully you.

Maybe, in the end, no Barbara, no Artemis, no Dick can come between you.

The frustration of his stupidity is too much. The pain in his eyes is too real. His self-loathing is too close to your own secret fear that he is right. You don't want the easy comfort; you want the hard, chaotic, terrifying truth of him.

You take the one step that closes the distance between you. Your hand, which was steady seconds ago, comes up and cups the side of his jaw, thumb resting gently on the sharp edge of his cheekbone. The other wiggles across your body and entangles your fingers with his, guiding his hand to the small curve of your lower back. His other hand follows respectfully.

“If you’re in love with Dick then give me back the Nirvana shirt I gave you in middle school!” He pouts, petty.

Your eyes widen, shock written all over your face in a matter of seconds. A hiccupy sound of surprise exits your throat "You're taking this too far.”

Jason’s eyes, burning with raw agony moments ago, narrow in genuine confusion. The intensity of his rant shatters. He leans into your touch, the heat of his skin familiar and grounding.

“Am I?” he asks, his voice thick with bewilderment, the earlier roar gone. “I gave it to you because I liked you. And you didn’t even get it”

The words reach an unhealed part of your past. The cut that always bleeds. At sixteen you didn’t want to date a fourteen year old. At eighteen, when Jason dies, Dick’s face is like an endless possibility of what Jason might have looked like when he’d turn twenty. You spend days locked up in Jason’s room, wearing his shirt until Dick convinces you to eat something, drink water. But you keep the shirt as the only relic of Jason you could ever have for the rest of your life.

You wouldn’t give him back that shirt, even if you had to write it off in your will.

Your breath hitches, the tears you’ve been holding back for weeks stinging your eyes. The absurdity of arguing over a moth-eaten tee shirt while trapped in the Batcave by his brothers is devastatingly close to home. 

“This is the only thing I’ve got from before you died. You're not taking it from me. I need it.”

A faint, broken smile touches Jason’s lips. It’s not a cruel smile, but one of relieved realization. He’s looking past the fight, straight at the raw, vulnerable heart of your attachment.

The shirt isn't just clothing; it's the physical relic of unrequited history and the tangible proof of your mourning. Your refusal to give it back is the first and most powerful clue that Jason’s fears about Dick are unfounded.

“Ha!” He chuckles, the sound raspy. “I knew you didn’t mean that you never needed me.”

The smile is too much. The relief in his voice is too much. You snap, the three-week dam of fear and anger finally bursting.

“I'm in love with you Jason!” You cry out, your voice echoing off the cavern walls. “Not Dick! I’m keeping the shi—” You clap a hand over your mouth, cutting off the confession too late, your eyes wide with the shocking betrayal of your own protective silence.

Jason freezes.

For once, the constant restless movement that defines him, the pacing, the half-steps, the clenched fists, stops dead. The words hang between you, fragile and burning, like a live wire neither of you can touch without getting hurt.

His eyes go wide, a thousand emotions crossing his face so fast they blur together: disbelief, shock, anger, and something far more dangerous that lies at the end of Pandora’s chest—hope.

He stares at you. He doesn't move, doesn't speak. All the rage, the jealousy, the self-pity—it all evaporates, leaving him stunned. His gaze is desperate, searching your face for any sign that the words weren’t just another angry lie.

He drops his hands from your waist, only to immediately raise them, framing your face with his palms. His thumbs gently wipe the tracks of your glossy tears.

“Say it again,” he demands, his voice a low, rough whisper, barely audible over the hum of the computers. His eyes are shining green now, dark like a forest under a crescent moon and impossibly open. “Look at me. Say you love me. Say it again.”

You shake your head quickly, heart hammering so hard it feels like your ribs might split apart and let the vital organ slime down the floor of the cave. 

“No,” you mutter, hand still over your mouth. “Forget it. I didn’t— I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t lie to me now,” he interrupts, surging forward, making you trip a step back towards the computer deck. His voice isn’t angry anymore. It’s raw, stripped of every defense he’s ever built. “You can call me every name in the book, you can hate me, you can ignore me for weeks, but don’t take that back.”

You lower your hand, your breath trembling. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

Jason huffs out a laugh that sounds like it hurts. The corner of his lip twitches “Yeah, well. You’re the one who yelled it.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then another. The kind that feels endless and your heart still wants to split your chest apart.

Jason does the least expected thing in the world at this given moment— he pulls you in. Hugs you. Right into his chest. Enormous biceps trap your back onto him, pressing you close, close, close until you feel like your lungs will collapse.

He’s not thinking in full sentences at that point. It's all static and pulse. Yours? His? He doesn’t even fucking know.

The hug isn’t even a decision that he takes; it’s instinct, a grab at proof that he’s real and that you didn’t mean to wound him and that he understands. The anger that’s been driving him burns out mid-motion, replaced by a kind of stunned quiet. The air in the cave still tastes like gun oil and adrenaline, but what he’s holding isn’t a fight anymore —it’s someone who said the one thing he’s wanted to hear since he crawled out of his own grave.

In his head, it’s chaos. But his body’s language is simpler: hold, breathe, anchor. His chin finds the top of your head, his heart is hammering like it’s still trying to outrun death. He smells the faint detergent on your shirt, your shampoo, the salt from your tears. It’s so small, so human, that it breaks something open in him.

His heart wants to crawl out of his chest too and if it’s a race between your vitals on which is going to give in to failure first, he’s definitely winning.

He pulls back just enough to lean his forehead against yours, both of you gasping for air, but his hands roam on your face, the back of your head, to hold you place. He wants you to look at him in the eyes when he says,

“I’m in love with you too. Have been, forever”

The words land and just… stay there. No thunderclap, no music cue. Just the thrum of the cave’s machines and his breath shaking against your temple.

You don’t move at first. You can’t. You feel the tremor in his chest before you hear it—the uneven rhythm of someone who hasn’t said I’m in love with you out loud in years. Someone who’s been holding it in. 

The warmth of his hands on your face doesn’t feel like possession; it feels like someone holding a miracle too tight, afraid it’ll vanish.

Your eyes trace the new softness in him, the way the fight has bled out but left him raw, eyes red-rimmed, mouth parted like he’s still bracing for you to take it all back.

So you don’t say a word. You just breathe, steady, until the static in your head fades enough to find his pulse beneath your fingers. Then you tilt your chin up, slow. His breath catches. 

You look at his lips, chapped, a fading powdery pink draft of skin, then that freckle on his left eyelid. The one on the eye bag underneath his right one. 

The whole world has shut off for one second.

And then, when you kiss him, the clocks start ticking again.

You’re not giving in to prove him wrong or to make a promise—just an answer.

The kiss doesn’t feel like triumph— it feels like recognition. He freezes for half a heartbeat, then exhales into it, the weight of you lifting just enough for him to kiss you back, slow and trembling. He doesn’t deepen it yet; he just stays there, lips pressed softly to yours like he’s afraid a bigger movement might ruin the fragile truth sitting between you.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his breath warm on your skin. “I love you. I won't run. I swear I won’t run again. I promise.”

The way he kisses you next could only be described as blasphemy. A sin. Unholy.

It is not sweet or tender. It is a desperate, consuming plunge that feels like a violation of the sterile, rule-bound space you inhabit. It is the raw, unedited violence of his resurrection funneled into an act of love. It’s rough, lip-numbing.

You press into him, gasping, your fingers digging into the tough, corded muscles of his neck. This kiss is uneven, and tastes like the salt of old tears and the fierce, bitter copper of an adrenaline spike. It's too fast, too sloppy and too hungry—the emotional equivalent of the Batwing takeoff—and it shatters the last remaining piece of your composure.

It is blasphemy because it makes a mockery of all the 'clean' relationships you're supposed to have: the sisterly Amazonian bonds, the measured partnership of the Justice League kissing the outlaw that’s back from the dead. This is a covenant sealed in stolen moments and self-destruction.

It is a sin because it makes you crave the chaos. You feel the answering darkness in you rise up, matching his hunger, and for a terrifying second, you want nothing more than to burn down the entire world with him.

It is unholy because it feels like two people who have been fighting death finally choosing to fight for life—and choosing the most dangerous, unstable way to do it.

The second Robin. The second Wonder Girl. Pulled together by strings of fate.

He finally pulls away, the urgency of the moment—and the impending elevator doors—forcing him back to reality. His eyes are dark, blown wide with an intensity that matches the sheer, terrifying depth of what just passed between you. He is breathless, and his jaw is clenched.

“God,” he rasps, his voice a low vibration against your ear. He kisses your temple once, quick and hard, a possessive gesture. “We need to go upstairs. Now.”

Jason ignores the security system, using his own code for situations just like this one —getting out of the cave during emergency lockdown— and bypasses the main foyer, dragging you up the stairs to the manor and into his old childhood room.

The door slams shut behind you. The room is dark, lit only by the cold, indifferent glow of Gotham's lights filtering through the blinds. It’s barerer than you remember: a bed, a desk buried under old patrol maps, and a tactical rack where his Red Hood armor hangs like a silent, metal sentinel. His mini library that Bruce built.

You are leaning against the door, breath coming in ragged gasps, still shaken by the altitude, the escape, and the kiss. You are suddenly acutely aware of your figure that's trapped inside and in between both of his arms.

Jason fumbles with locking the deadbolt. The adrenaline has not burned out, but it has shifted. His movements are slower now, predatory. He parts from you and crosses the room in three strides, but stops just short of touching you.

He doesn’t ask for permission. He simply reaches you and unzips your compression jacket in one smooth, decisive movement. The fabric sighs open, pooling around your feet. His leather jacket shares the same fate hitting the floor with a soft, dull thud.

Your eyes meet his. In the dim light filtering through the blinds, his gaze is dark, searching, stripped bare of the anger and the excuses.

You could tell him you’re scared. 

You won’t.

Since he came back four years ago, you and Jason have had sex twice, maybe thrice if you decide that most recent the time you absolutely nuked each other dry through your clothes on top of his bike matters at all, or even counts. You didn’t look at him for weeks after, never risked seeing what it did to him, or to you.

Now he’s right here, close enough that every breath you take brushes against his. His hands are still on your face, steady but trembling at the edges. The hum in the air fades until it’s just that shared pulse, that quiet between heartbeats where you both realize no one’s running this time.

His eyes search yours, as if waiting for you to flinch, to joke, to find a way out. You don’t. You just hold his gaze until the fear blurs into something heavier.

When you finally move, it’s not a decision—it’s gravity. Your lips find his, slow and sure, and for once there’s no heat or mask to hide behind. Your hands wrap around his neck, your fingers tangle through his hair, pulling him down.

The kiss is a blur of need and desperation, a claim staked in the only territory that matters now. Your lips. The patted space between them. He groans,  low, guttural, and the sound vibrates against your lips. He breaks the kiss, pulling away just an inch, his eyes locked on yours in the dim light. His pupils are wide, black pools swallowing the faint light of green around them.

“Bed, now” he dictates, his voice rough, heavy with the weight of the last three weeks and the unholy truth of their confession. It isn’t a question; it's a command.

You don’t need to say yes. You answer by hurriedly pulling your tank top over your head, letting it join the growing pile of forgotten clothing on the floor.

He tries to work on your jeans but his fingers tremble slightly as they brush against the button of them, hesitating before completely undoing it. 

The sound is loud in the tense silence between you both. He doesn’t look up at you—doesn’t meet your eyes—as he works on pulling down the zipper. He grins, leaning back just an inch, a breath of space, before yanking your pants off in a single motion.

Jason’s gaze burns over you, an inventory of everything he nearly lost. At the cost of it not happening again, he doesn't waste another second. He lifts you, not gently, but with a sudden, powerful surge, trapping your legs around his waist and grabbing the plush skin of your ass so violently that you know it’s going to bruise. 

He carries you toward the bed, stumbling slightly on his way—a reminder that he is not the golden, graceful crispy ironed duvet, shifting you so you are pinned beneath him. The cold metal of the buckles on his belt presses into your hip when he rolls his hips into yours experimentally, a tangible reminder that his cock is pulsing through his cargos, just for you.

His hands are everywhere—possessive, reassuring, demanding.

You lay there in your underwear, your body trembling slightly from the cold of the room, the adrenaline, and the consuming pull of his presence.

Just as the kiss deepens, just as the last barrier of composure threatens to shatter, Jason draws back. It’s a deliberate, agonizing retreat that leaves you suspended in need. He doesn't move off of you, though, even if you moan in protest; he just props himself up on his elbow above you, his chest heaving, his eyes heavy with a teasing, wicked hunger.

He pushes a strand of your bangs away from your forehead and lets you brush your lips to his before flinching his head back, denying you another kiss

“This reminds me,” he starts. An evil chuckle escapes his mouth “the other time, you said you never needed me”

“Jace”

“Uh-ah” he shushes you, bringing a finger to your lips that you threaten to suck into your mouth “I’m gonna need you to take it back. And beg.”

A soft, sudden growl escapes him. He grabs the back of your thighs, effortlessly pinning you to the bed beneath his body in one swift, fluid motion, your legs over his shoulders, locked.

He doesn't kiss you. He doesn't move. He simply lets out a slow, satisfied exhale that brushes your ear, a sound of absolute, predatory triumph.

You refuse to look away, the burning heat in his eyes mirroring the consuming need in your own chest. The position he’s put you in is undeniably worse than a headlock, leaving you entirely open, entirely his. He's asking you to admit defeat, but your pride is the last thing you have left.

You swallow, the tremor in your voice betraying your composure. “I won’t beg,” you whisper, the words an act of final, desperate resistance. You grab his wrist, your fingers digging into the strong pulse point there.

You dig your fingernails in, but he barely flinches. The pressure doesn't bother him; he just leans in closer, his smirk turning sharp.

You grit your teeth, the effort to hold back a sob making your jaw ache. His victory is palpable, the cruel warmth of his bulge pressing down on your cunt.

“Really?”

“I bet, you can't make me say please.”

He snorts, reaching down to grip your chin, forcing your gaze to meet his. His eyes hold a dangerous look of pure lust.

"Oh, trust me, princess. I haven't even begun, yet. I think I should play with you a little longer, hm? Until you're begging me to give you what you really want. Then, and only then, will I decide to give in. And when I do, it'll be so worth it."

A malevolent laugh escapes him. He leans in to nip at your sensitive throat, finally relenting with a smirk.

His hand leaves your thigh and rises, the movement slow and deliberate. You track it, helpless, as his fingers hook beneath the strap of your bra where it meets your shoulder.

He doesn't tug or rip. He simply pulls the strap down your arm, exposing the side of your breast to the cool air, leaving the fragile fabric bunched up at your elbow. His eyes never leave yours, waiting for the capitulation.

His free hand wiggles underneath your back—hot, too hot—and moves to the center of your back, his fingers deftly finding the clasp of your bra. A quiet, metallic click, and the garment goes slack. He slides the now unfastened fabric from beneath you, discarding it with a casual flick of his wrist onto the floor.

The predatory triumph in his eyes is back, intensified, and he finally lowers his head, not to kiss, but to claim.

He nips at your earlobe, a promise and a threat. "You have no idea what I've been imagining doing to you."

“Like what?” You ask, voice barely above a whisper.

He growls, his voice dropping to a husky whisper right against your ear "Like teasing you until you’re begging me to cum. Like marking every inch of this perfect body as mine." 

He bites down gently on your shoulder, then continues in a darker tone "And like making sure that when I finally give in and let myself have what we both want so damn badly? You’ll never forget who owns you."

He bites at your earlobe again, his voice husky, hands groping your ass to adjust you better against him as he grinds against you. "Maybe I'll start with some of the, ah... less intense things, first. That way you won't be overwhelmed all at once. I know how sensitive you are." 

Jason doesn't wait. The second the admission is out, the second the bra is gone, his mouth descends.

He doesn't attack with fury, but with a calculated, devastating hunger. His lips and teeth find the tip of your exposed breast first, a harsh, possessive tug that makes your entire body arch up impossibly into his. A moan rips from your throat, swallowed instantly by the charged air between you.

He sucks hard, using his tongue and teeth to work a tight circle around the nipple, drawing the heat and blood to the surface. The deep, wet sound of his mouth against your skin is deafening in the silence of the room. Your hands tighten around his shoulders, your fingers digging into the hard muscle, trying to anchor yourself as a wave of intense, focused sensation washes over you.

He pulls back to look at his handiwork—your breast is perked, the nipple rigid and glistening. His eyes, dark and heavy-lidded, burn with satisfaction. Your clit gives you a warning pulse when he grinds you against the seam of his pants again.

"God. You’re so damn beautiful." His eyes rake over you. "Seeing you all spread out beneath me like this... I could stare for hours." 

“Jason come on—”

“Sssht—Now let’s see,” Then he nips at your throat, his voice dropping to a low purr. "That pretty little spot on your hip... maybe I'll give that special attention. Or that sensitive bit on your inner thigh. I can’t tell you how many times I've imagined it."

You’re… speechless to say the least. The very few times the two of you have had sex have been normal. Almost talkless. The much needed foreplay and an exchange of words that could boil down to not even sweet nothings.

What’s happening now is feral. An instance that’s making you embarrassed and flustered in all the wrong ways. Telling him how much you want him, begging him—it feels stupid, embarrassing, it’s making you—

“You're making me—“

Jason growls against your skin, smirking as he feels the undeniable shiver that runs through you.

"Making you what, sweetheart? Finish your sentence. Tell me what I'm doing to you." His teeth graze your collarbone, a gravelly whisper.

“Nghhh” you moan

"Come on…Tell me how badly you want it, princess. Tell me just how badly you crave it— We both know it. You want it. It's just a matter of when you'll beg for me."

“You're making me wet, Jay.”

He laughs, immediately satisfied. His fingers trail down your side before suddenly gripping the inside of your thigh and squeezing possessively.

He presses open mouthed kisses down your body, trailing his tongue on every spot his lips wrap around and each kiss makes you jolt, cunt squeezing around nothing.

"Oh? Really now? Thought so,” He bites the soft skin of your hip with a smirk when he reaches the band of your cotton underwear. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear, babe. And we haven't even gotten started yet."

Then, with an abrupt change of focus, he begins to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses across your sternum, up the soft dip between your breasts, and up the other side. His tongue sweeps up to the second peak he left untouched before, and he takes it into his mouth with the same intensity, demanding the same raw, breathless response.

You stop fighting. Your body is a nerve pulled taut, trembling under his focus. The demanding pull, the wet heat—it’s too much. Your head falls back against the mattress, your defense completely shattered.

The second Jason brings his hand to your clothed slit, pressing two fat pads of his fingers right oover your aching clit, your whole body shivers.

“Ready to say please?” He waits, letting the silence and the proximity do the rest of the work.

You shake your head in denial and his fingers press onto your clit harder in one, two, three, four swirls before he shifts. He removes his hand entirely, sitting up slightly. He leans forward, right next to your ear 

“Maybe I could use my mouth on you,” Jason whispers.

The words are soft, a sudden break in the harsh tension. The quiet invitation—the shift from his aggressive challenge to a devastatingly intimate offer—slams through your last bit of composure.

He watches you, a smug triumph flashing in his dark gaze.

He trails his fingers back down your body, slowly, before his hand settles on the inside of your thigh. His head follows as he leans in close, his mouth hovering just over the inside of your thigh, claiming his generosity.

“See, I can be nice,” he murmurs, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper as he begins to trace the sensitive skin near the edge of your underwear close to your center. "But nice doesn't mean patient. It just means I'll make sure you're damn near screaming for me before I even bother with those pretty little panties."

He shifts, his eyes never leaving yours, watching for the exact moment the resistance breaks. You expect him to move slowly, to prolong the agony of the hover, but Jason is done with subtlety.

"Fine," he grits out, the word raw. "You want to know what I risk for a sound? Here."

He pushes your hips down, his leg weight heavy and commanding. He lowers his head, and the cold air is immediately displaced by his hot, broken breath against your soaking wet cotton.

His tongue is a sudden, scorching press against your inner thigh—a sharp, wet line drawn right up to the edge of your underwear. He doesn’t go over the fabric. Instead, he uses his teeth, tugging the damp cotton down just enough to expose the slick, sensitive skin beneath.

The pressure is agonizing. You gasp, arching your back against the mattress, your fingers sinking into the duvet.

"Don't you dare bite that pretty lip, princess," he dictates, his voice muffled, a low vibration against your hip bone. "I want to hear every sound I pull out of you."

Then, he commits. He sweeps his tongue over the pulsing, aching nub of your clit. It's a possessive demand, and the shock is so intense that your entire body snaps taut, your hips lifting into the air without conscious thought.

He pulls back an inch, his eyes flashing up to your face, triumph and a dark, raw need burning in his gaze. He smiles, a savage, satisfied curve of his lips.

The sound that tears from you—that high, desperate, broken whimper—is only half the admission he’d been waiting for. You didn't even know you were capable of making it.

The pleasure, the shame, the sheer overwhelming focus of it all snaps your control completely. You don't try to speak. You don't dare challenge him again.

Instead, your hands shoot out, gripping the sides of his head, your fingers burying themselves in the dark, damp strands of his hair. You pull him down—hard—a wordless, frantic plea for him to return, for him to finish what he started.

He groans, the low, guttural sound rattling against the mattress. The savagery in his eyes doesn't fade; it sharpens. He doesn't go back to your throbbing center, not yet. Instead, he settles his mouth against the wet heat he created on your inner thigh, taking a possessive, teeth-grazing bite of the sensitive skin.

"Beg for it, sweetheart," he dictates, his voice muffled against your flesh, heavy with the promise of more. "Tell me what you want me to do next."

"Take my panties off, Jason, please."

The demand is strained, not the begging whimper he wanted, but close enough to shatter the last barrier. He grunts, a raw sound of satisfaction tearing from his throat.

He pulls back an inch, his eyes flashing up to your face, triumph and a dark, raw need burning in his gaze. He smiles, a savage, satisfied curve of his lips.

"That was a damn good first attempt, but you’re gonna have to do better than that, sweetheart,” he says, his fingers already working on the cotton band of your underwear.

He doesn't bother with finesse. With a sharp, possessive yank, he tears the uselessly wet fabric down your thighs and kicks them off the end of the bed.

“I’ll still reward you” He doesn't pause, doesn't wait. He immediately replaces the cotton with his mouth. The cold air hits your slick skin for one agonizing second before his hot, wet tongue takes a slow lick from the bottom of your pussy to the tip of your clit. 

He starts with a devastating pressure right over the source of the ache, then uses the rough pad of his tongue to rake across your core.

A genuine scream—raw, broken, and utterly involuntary—tears from your lungs, muffled only by the worn duvet beneath your head. Your hips surge off the mattress, seeking the relentless pressure.

He stops, pulling back just enough to look at you, his eyes dark with the finality of victory.

"There it is," he breathes, his voice thick with triumph. “Do we like?”

“Yes!”

“Mhhhm” He grunts in satisfied acknowledgment against your pussy, his eyes staring right into yours, still heavy with that raw, victorious lust. He doesn't pull back again. He dives back down, relentless, using his tongue, rubbing it in figure eights over and over on your puffy clit.

You’re only gasping and sobbing against the mattress. A slurry mess is what you’ve become, with fat tears gathering at the corners of your tightly shut eyes

The sounds you make are primal, unedited, and for better or for worse, belong only to Jason. You can only pray, amidst your mind that’s already turning into goo, that Alfred is not anywhere near this wing of the manor.

Jason doesn't move off your pussy, not wanting to shake the immense wave of pleasure he's creating. His tongue is suddenly everywhere—slick, insistent—pushing you past the final point of thought, past the edge of control. The rhythmic pressure of his groaning every time he dips his tongue into your syrupy hole, is forcing a continuous, broken whine from your throat.

You are completely lost to the sensation, clinging to the fabric of his duvet, your hips bucking instinctively. The world narrows to the heat of his mouth, the rough pad of his tongue, and the shocking sound of his satisfied moans against your clit. Every muscle in your body locks, tightening against the consuming force of his attention.

He shifts his head once, a slight movement that changes the angle and pressure, and the world shatters. Your chest heaves with short breaths and Jason bullies a thick finger inside you with vigilance.

He twists it once, thrice, twice –you don’t even know how words work and in which order right now– and your legs start shaking, locking around his neck, urging him to put his mouth on you immediately. 

And fuck, if that’s not the hottest thing Jason has ever seen. Fuck being told he has the best thighs in the world on the regular; It’s your thighs he wants to die in between of.

So he complies with you, only because he’s so close to actually breaking you; His lips find your clit again and suck subtly. Your fingers leave the duvet and claw uselessly at his hair. You can't breathe, can't think. Every muscle is pulled like a rope, your thighs trembling as you try to press yourself harder into his face. The pressure builds, a tight, coil of pure hedonism winding tighter and tighter in your core.

He uses his thumb—the same thumb that had been teasing you earlier—and presses down hard on your swollen, sensitive clit, even as his mouth continues its ruthless, focused assault.

The contrast is dizzying. The soft kitten licks of his combined with the mixture of wetness of you and his tongue versus the roughness of his thumb. He is just everywhere, missing nothing, taking everything.

You shutter. Or, you’re going to shutter. Very soon and very suddenly. And you can't even shut up about it. 

“It’s coming– I’m gonna come Jay– fuckfuckfuck” You repeat, over and over, like a mantra.

Jason pulls away in one swift move and at first you don’t realise he’s not just taking a breath. You try to push his head back onto you, hips bucking, missing the warmth of his mouth on you, his fingers not even anywhere close to being enough for you. 

You look at him, panicked, eyes surging to search his face for a reason as to why he’s not mouth to mouth with your pussy yet, only to see him smiling at you with his eyes squinted, wiping the string of wetness connecting him to you. 

He sniffles, then wipes his nose, lips parting with cockiness, despite the fucked out expression on his face, as he swipes his thumb over your clit one final time, only to trace a line of slickness up your thigh, his eyes locked on yours.

Your whine of his name could only be described as a scream, really. Not Jace or Jason, but a sound closer to a wounded animal's cry.

“I told you,” He rasps “Good things come to those who beg”

Your legs kick, your body bows. You’re only left wondering– Where the fuck did Jason learn how to eat pussy like this?

The rush of his words, the conceited, arrogant confidence of his claim, cuts through the haze of your pleasure. He leans back, expecting you to simply concede, to fall silent under the weight of his control. His fingers trap your chin, forcing your face into his.

“What do you say, pretty?”

“Fuck” You start mumbling “’m sorry, i need yah Jay, please– Please–”

He swallows the sound you both make ,with his lips on yours and only pulls back once the shudders begin to subside. He rises, his chest heaving. He looks down at you—limp, spent, glistening—and his eyes are dark with victory. 

“Please what ‘Jay’?” He asks, mockingly.

"Please, fuck me!" The word tears from your throat, raw and broken, a sound that finally holds the deep, true desperation he’s been hunting for. "Please, Jason. Don't stop. I need you inside me, now. Please. Please. Please, I need you."

You don't just say the word; you choke on it multiple times. Your hips are bucking again, frantically trying to bridge the small, agonizing distance between his body and yours. The sound is ragged, humiliating, and just perfect. Giving in feels so. fucking. good.

Jason goes utterly still.

His eyes widen, the triumphant smirk freezing on his face before it melts into an expression of pure, unadulterated shock and yearning. He stares at you, absorbing the sound of the word he earned.

"God," he growls, the sound thick and final. “Look at you.”

He doesn't waste another second. He yanks his boots off, kicking them carelessly onto the floor. With one fluid motion, he strips off his own cargos, the kevlar under armour and boxers, tossing them aside. The cold metal of his belt buckles finally clatters away, leaving him fully exposed, completely vulnerable, just like you.

His body is hot, hard of sculpted muscle and littered with scars that vary in size, and so very immediately pressed between your legs. He braces his hands on the mattress beside your head, leaning over you, his gaze intense as he slaps the eight of his dick on your pussy and finally, lines himself up with your entrance.

But instead of slipping inside, like he could have done sooo easily, he pushes himself to tease you a little more, even if his bulge is begging him not to.

He slugs his body over yours, his weight heavy and intoxicating. His cock drags, slowly, excruciatingly, from your throbbing, squelching hole to your clit, smearing slickness across your hypersensitive core. He goes to repeat the motion, twice, the rough texture of him drawing a sharp, frustrated gasp from your throat.

"Fuck," he rasps, his hips pushing into the friction again. “Can I put it in?”

You nod frantically in response, saying yes, yes, yes, yes, like it’s the only word you know how to say.

He moves once more, his cock sliding just past the swollen entrance, riding the delicate ridge of your sex. The friction is unbearable, building the pressure you thought had already peaked.

Your hand reaches over his tip, fast. Pressing it down against your clit in heated need, desperate for some more friction and Jason’s just taking it, shimming his hips back and forth until he slips, once, inside your velvety pussy.

Jason groans. A long, trembling broken whine of a sound that lasts as long as it takes for him to bottom out inside you. Your pussy splits around him, pulling him in tight, clenching impossibly. Nothing has ever felt this good in his entire life.

Your breath is punched out of your lungs. The other wise sound of an “ooof” escapes you once your walls stretch just enough to accommodate him.

The silence that follows Jason's groan is only broken by the frantic, heavy rhythm of his own pulse hammering where your bodies meet. The way his chest stutters by his broken breathing.

He waits, not moving, savoring the feeling of being completely sheathed inside your throbbing walls. His hands slide from the mattress to your waist, gripping you hard enough to bruise.

"Mine–ffffuck," he rasps, the word a vibration that starts deep in his chest and echoes through your core.

Then, he moves. It’s not a graceful rhythm, but a hard, punishing thrust that forces another gasp from your lips. He pulls back almost completely, then slams home again, deep and desperate, seeking friction where you are already raw and sensitive.

You can't do anything but cling to him, your back arching off the bed with every collision. The intensity is immediate, sharp, overriding the lingering exhaustion of how badly he’s teased you prior. You feel the familiar, dizzying spiral starting again—faster this time, rougher, fueled by the desperation of his entry and how snug every ridge of his cock fits inside you.

"Look at me," he commands, his hips pausing, his fingers digging into your flesh. “How long has it been since we did this?”

The pleading in his eyes could actually, irrevocably destroy you.

“One year. Four months” you slur the words strained, the numbers sounding immense and tragic as they exit your mouth.

He doesn't let the emotion interrupt the act. He takes your answer and weaponizes it.

"Too damn long," he growls, shoving his hips forward with bone-jarring force. He starts the relentless tempo again, faster, heavier, each deep thrust punishing the long separation.

He pulls back, his hips rotating sharply, then fucks forward with piston-like thrusts. The headboard behind you thuds against the wall, a heavy, rhythmic declaration of their collision.

He is all angles and power, driving into your core with extreme speed. Your arms wrap automatically around his torso, holding on for dear life.

Jason doesn't slow, even when your nails dig into the skin of his back –he only hisses– maintaining the depth and impact of fucking into you, aiming to smash the lingering haze of your previously ruined release and rebuild the climax with his sheer force.

Your hips rise to meet him, an involuntary response to the violence of his tempo. Your thighs lock around his waist, trying to anchor the sensation, but you are just along for the ride. Moaning his name over and over, trying to be louder than the wet sounds of skin on skin that fill the room a hundred times a second.

He shifts his grip, one hand flattening against your stomach, pushing down slightly, forcing him deeper into the curve of your body. The pressure is intense, focused entirely on the friction. And then, he leans his weight down, grinding his chest against your already sensitive breasts.

He pulls back, again his jaw tight with effort, and delivers three sharp, stuttering thrusts, so deep they make your vision swim.

He’s lost all his ability to speak. All of his cockiness and authority, gone, to the sound of his own moans. He leans down, taking your mouth with a bruising, desperate kiss that swallows your ragged gasps. It's a claim, meant to silence everything but the collision of your bodies, the drop drip drip watery sound of him fucking into you. His tongue sweeps inside your mouth, mirroring the invasion below, giving you not a spec of space to hide.

The way his hips rock you make your ass lift with each movement, each roll of his waist and hips inside you. Everything condemns him impossibly deeper– your sugary walls keep clamping around him so intensely that you feel every vein, every curve of his dick molding you to his shape completely.

The sensation is too much, too fast. Your lungs lock, your chest heavs in short, broken gasps “Please touch me” you tell him, voice barely above a whisper

“Where baby?”

“My p-pussy-”

He half-laughs, amused at your sudden stammering, but he doesn't even use the mocking princess title. He breaks the kiss, only to drop his head and press his mouth against your ear. At the same moment, his hips shift slightly, and he brings his free hand down. His thumb finds your swollen, sensitive clit, pressing down hard and working it in a tight, merciless circle while he drives deeper inside you.

The simultaneous pressure—the internal crushing force of his thrusts combined with the external, focused torture of his thumb—sends you spinning.

You feel the familiar tightening deep in your belly, the warning signs of a secondary peak that is rougher, more demanding than the first and find solace in the fact that this time, you’re going to get your release.

You try to move your hand to his shoulder, to slow him down, but he simply catches your wrist and pins it above your head with his other hand, maintaining the relentless drive.

He delivers a broken series of hard, long and shattering thrusts and the world dissolves into noise and pressure. Your climax is explosive, a violent, full-body surrender that makes your back bow and your legs lock around his waist with uncontrollable force. You scream his name, the sound muffled against his skin giving him the final victory he demanded.

Jason collapses on top of you for a moment heavy, spent, his breath sawing raggedly against your neck. The intensity of the climax still pulses all around him, and you're left limp and boneless beneath his weight.

He rocks mindlessly into you as you buck your hips against him too, riding your orgasm into a sweet prolonging that feels like eternity.

"On your knees," he commands, pulling out of your slick core in one agonizing, slow withdrawal. He gives your face a playful pat on the cheek.

He doesn't move far though, just rising enough to help you stand as you wobble and shuffle, to bring his pulsing length to your face, his gaze burning into your own. "I wanna cum in your mouth."

You open your mouth, looking up at him, wordless. Your body is still shaking and the sudden vertical shift makes your head swim, but the ingrained obedience to his command is absolute. You are too spent to argue, too raw to refuse.

Jason watches you for a beat, his expression a complicated mix of being utterly spent and yearning for what you’re about to do to him, and grabs his cock at the base to rub it back and forth onto your swollen lips.

The motion is slow, possessive, smearing the remnants of your own release across your mouth. The contact is an intimate claim, a shared secret between the two of you in the dark, quiet of his room.

You remain kneeling, your eyes locked on his, accepting the gesture entirely. The heat is intoxicating, the taste a visceral reminder of the pleasure he just surrendered in and the absolute dominance he exerted only moments ago.

You reach up, one hand circling his hard wrist, holding him steady, keeping the friction exactly where he put it. You use your tongue, flicking out to clean a path along the underside of his length.

He groans, a low sound pulled deep from his chest, and his eyes briefly slip shut.

He leans forward, gripping the back of your head firmly but ever so gently, guiding you to his rigid length. You tuck your lips over your teeth and suck, taking him fully into your mouth.

Your tongue dances over every vein, every single rigid of dick that you can reach without breaking the suction you’re creating.

The first buck of his hips into your face is slow, his hands tangling through your head to come and cup your jaw tenderly. The action alone sends you into frenzy— you bob your head and hollow your cheeks out until he fills your mouth completely.

You’re making sounds you never thought you could possibly make. Lewd slurping and the occasional smooching whenever he makes a move that slightly breaks the suction of your mouth around him.

Jason allows you to pull away for air just once, your hand coming to form a ring over the base of his cock and his balls. You let the weight of it slap your cheek as you take both balls onto your mouth and lick.

He hisses, utterly spent, but his eyes refuse to leave yours for a second.

Popping his balls of your mouth, you gather enough spit to pool it at the edge of your parted lips before rubbing his swollen tip over them again.

“Fucking hell,” he moans “You’re pure sin.”

Jason stops you from teasing him any more– He brings his hands up, gripping the back of your head with a sudden, powerful grip and thrusts forward, driving deep into your throat. The move is so forceful, it makes you choke. He sets a hard, desperate rhythm, pushing himself to the edge quick, quick, quickly.

His breathing turns into sharp, broken gasps. He is focused entirely on the explosive feeling building inside him, his eyes squeezed shut against the sensory overload.

"That's it, babe," he chokes out, his voice thick with struggle "I'm cumming—God!"

He empties into your mouth—a thick surge of hot white that lasts agonizingly long. You feel him shudder violently above you, his whole body locking as he spends himself completely, every muscle straining. You swallow, obediently, to the very last drop.

Jason finally leans back in an arch of his back, and you downright ogle at the way his abs flex. Then, he pulls out of your mouth with a thick, shuddering gasp. He doesn't move far, though, just standing there, spent, sweaty and out of breath, watching you. His eyes blink open, irises blown with exhausted satisfaction.

He holds you for a moment, his hand tight in your hair.

"Stay," he rasps.

Then, with a rough, sudden move, he shifts. He uses the hand gripping your hair to pivot your head sharply, then your hips, while his body weight executes a rapid turn. He manhandles you on your chest, moving you in one fluid motion so you are now pressed onto your stomach, flat on the mattress beneath him.

“I’m not done,” Jason rasps against your back, placing a kiss onto the middle of it.

You can only groan as you brace yourself against the mattress, heart hammering, your sex immediately slick and open for him.

Jason’s hands both land on your ass, making you hiss, then, he uses his thumbs to spread your cheeks open, making a loud hissing sound at the sight of your wet and already ruined pussy.

He grips your hips—hard—his fingers digging into your flesh to anchor you to the bed. He pulls back slightly, then plunges. 

His shimmies inside you, with a force that makes your knees slip slightly on the bed and an uncontrollable gasp is knocked out of you by the motion alone.

He drives into you, hard and fast. The angle is brutal, leveraging his full weight, and the sensation is a squelching friction, the peak you thought you could only reach once tonight starts coiling again deep and low inside your tummy.

Jason pulls your hair, this time to keep your neck arched and exposed, and repeatedly growls against your ear, "all mine." Each syllable punctuated by a deep, relentless thrust, your neck coated with saliva from his open mouthed is kissed on every spot he can latch onto.

“Jay..” you interrupt him with a slur 

“Yeah baby?” 

“Jay, pillow…ah— hips”

Jason gasps, too keen to follow the rhythm of his hips fucking into yours, too focused on how tight your pussy feels around him. He doesn’t even have the energy to tell you how solid his cock pumps with blood at the though of having already fucked you stupid. How much his chest shudders at the feeling.

He does the only thing he can— he shows you.

Instead of grabbing a pillow, he bends his back, lifts your hips and snuggles one thick forearm under your hips to support you, while the other drives your hips onto him repeatedly.

You claw at the covers underneath you, the fabric bunching in your fists. You're unable to maintain any thought outside of the explosion point, your mind finally a puddle of goo. The pressure of this new angle builds sharply, vibrating all focus at your core, right where his hips meet yours again and again.

He feels like heaven inside you. Too thick, too hard. Each thrust bruises your sugary walls and makes you scream almost exactly like a pornstar.

Then— he slides the hand from your hip, reaches forward, and finds your clit, pressing his middle finger down hard against the slick, sensitive nub. He keeps up his rhythm, achingly slow, trapping you between the mattress and himself.

The sensation is too much, too immediate. Too everywhere. Your hips buck backward, desperate to find the bottom of his thrusts, and a high, uncontrolled moan rips from your throat as his tip finds and violates that one spongy spot inside you that feels just right. 

He lets out a series of thick, guttural grunts as he unleashes a final, shattering barrage of strokes. He feels the inevitable clenching deep inside you, hits it over and over again.

He just loves how your pussy clamps around him when you come, how you just gush so perfectly for him. How slippery and hot you feel, just for him. How—

“Fuck, fucking shit I’m gonna cum again” JJason throws his head back, all muscles locking, his body pitching forward as he spends himself entirely inside your tight core.

The climax is almost simultaneous and that to him is devastating on its own.

You both scream, the sound swallowed by the mattress and the dark walls of his room. The world dissolves into white noise and pulsing, and his body collapses, heavy and spent, trapping you beneath his sweaty weight.

The only movement left now is the shaking release of his muscles and the pulsing aftermath in the form of sticky, white cum deep within you. He rests his head against the crook of your neck, his breath coming in hot, ragged gasps. The silence is finally complete.

He places a kiss underneath your chin and groans when you start shaking. 

Fuck— As he watches you twitch, he realises, he completely forgot you don’t have the stamina that comes with your powers anymore.

“‘M sorry” he apologises, trying to make you turn your head to him, but you're limp, breathless. Shaking against him, like you’ve been hit by a tidal wave and barely survived.

“‘S‘Kay” you manage to say.

Jason shifts, his cock pulling out of you with a slow, gentle withdrawal that is the opposite of everything that just occurred. 

He rolls slightly to the side, his cum immediately dripping out of you when he pulls you close to him, spooning your exhausted body tightly against his chest.

His arms wrap securely around you, one hand coming up to stroke your hair, pushing the damp strands back from your face. His breathing is slowing, evening out. He doesn't speak; he just holds you, anchoring you to the present.

The only exchange between you that could be considered a conversation is the kiss you seek when you shove your face right into his.

He doesn’t deny it. He needs it as much as you.

He hasn’t felt this safe and sound with you in years.

You don’t know how long you sit there, laying in each other’s arms, but at one point you manage to get inside the covers. Eventually, the chill of the room on your sweaty skin forces the move. Jason shuffles, pulling the duvet up over your shoulders, his movements now slow and meticulously careful.

He lies there for a long moment, completely still, letting the moment settle around the ruins of where you both stood contrary to each other when the night started.

His breathing is slow, evened out. Yet— he wants to do the unfathomable right now. 

"Come on," he murmurs, his voice raw, finally breaking the silence. “Let’s go clean up”

In your sleepy state you protest. Your muscles ache all over in dull little spasms. You want to sleep and stay asleep in Jason’s arms for at least a week.

Your eyes keep shutting, sweet sleep enlacing you under his warm blanket. Jason’s chest is warm, his skin is soft like a feathery pillow and you sink deeper into him as your eyelids finally betray you and shut completely. Sure, cleaning up can wait. Right?

Just fiiiive more minutes. 

When your eyes open again Jason is leading you into the adjoined private bath of his bedroom and is already turning on the hot water in the shower. He doesn't bother with the harsh main light, in fear of ruining your sleepiness, relying instead on the soft, dim glow from the hall as steam fills the small space.

He guides you into the stall, stepping in behind you. He finds a bottle of body wash, one that smells so much like him, but is still better on his skin than inside the bottle, working it into a rich lather on a washcloth between his big hands. He takes a moment, simply running the scalding water over your back, letting the heat seep into your tight muscles, softening you up.

You sheepishly moan at the sensation 

He starts with your back, washing the sweat and tension from your shoulders and spine, his movements slow and mesmerizing. He works down your body, meticulously cleaning your legs, thighs, and finally, reaching between your legs. 

He cups you gently, even if you tremor through it, running the washcloth over the raw, sensitive skin he has so savagely claimed. His eyes are kind as he rinses the last remnants of hot, sweaty sex away from your body, meeting yours briefly—a moment of profound intimacy, acknowledging the space you just shared.

Your lips form a sleepy pout as you go to hold onto his beefy shoulders. A silent plea to get back under warm covers soon.

A dangerous thought crosses him— he loves ruining you on his cock, he’s sure now, but he absolutely hates seeing you this weak.

He takes care of himself quickly, then helps you step out, wrapping you in a thick and very very soft, fuzzy bath towel. He pulls on a pair of loose boxers, ignoring the rest of the discarded tactical gear littering the floor.

He dresses you accordingly. A pair of tighter boxers and a tee that’s just too big for you.

He doesn't let go of your hand until he's settled you back into the warmth of the bed. He climbs in beside you, pulling the covers up to your chin, and immediately gathers your shivering body back into his embrace, pulling you over his chest.

You settle into the familiar contours of his body. The scent of him—smoke, leather has vanished and is replaced now with clean, damp skin, and that ridiculously cheap axe cookie smelling body wash and deodorant—it’s the only anchor you need, really.

He runs his fingers along your spine, tracing lazy, possessive patterns, his movements mesmerizing. His lips find your forehead, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your skin.

You cling to him, burying your face against the hollow of his neck, feeling the steady, powerful beat of his heart beneath your ear. He is no longer the aggressive dom, but the man holding onto the one thing he feared losing most.

He squeezes you tight, then loosens his grip just enough to tilt your chin up with one finger. He kisses you again, soft this time, a slow exploration that holds all the tenderness the last hour lacked.

The light is the first thing that changes. Not the cold, indifferent glow of Gotham filtering through the blinds, but a weak, pale morning sun attempting to break through the perpetual glooming clouds that loom over the city.

You wake slowly, your exhaustion still deep. Your body is a map of all sensations—a dull ache in your hips, a lingering throb in your inner thighs, and the profound, comforting weight of Jason’s arm thrown intimately across your stomach. His head lays perfectly onto your chest, eyes closed still and you hold out a breath as not to wake him.

You shift slightly, testing the security of his hold. His arm tightens instinctively, a low, incoherent rumble vibrating from his chest.

He's not letting go.

You bow your head just enough to study his face. The tension and savage hunger that defined him last night are gone, replaced by a rare, almost startling softness. His expression is too peaceful, his upper lip, bunched and tucked underneath his lower one, his brows smooth, looking closer to the boy you remembered than the brutal man who drove you to your knees hours ago.

Your heart pulls at your chest.

You trace the sharp line of his jaw with one finger, then move to gently brush the hair back from his forehead. The duvet is tangled around your legs, and the cool air hits your bare skin, but the heat emanating from his body is that of a fireplace.

He stirs, his eyes fluttering open.

He doesn't smile, but his hand moves from your stomach to cup the side of your face. He pulls you gently forward and presses a long, slow, sleepy to your lips.

You slightly smile against his lips.

And Jason? Jason doesn't need words right now. No. He tightens his arm around you, burying his face deeper into your chest with a low, satisfied sound. He's clearly drifting back to sleep, content in the knowledge that you are pinned exactly where he wants you. And that he’s the small spoon.

The peace lasts all but thirty seconds.

Then, a loud, rhythmic knocking starts on the bedroom door—heavy, insistent, and totally unapologetic.

Jason’s body instantly tenses beneath you. The peace vanishes, replaced by the familiar, coiled alertness of a predator disturbed. His eyes snap open, cold and annoyed.

"Are you serious," he mutters, the sound is a low, murderous growl from the depths of his chest.

You shift, and Jason immediately tightens his arm around your waist, pulling you back against him.

“Five more minutes,” he growls into your skin, his voice heavy with sleep.

He ignores the knocking completely, settling his chin on you and pulling you even closer, his leg hooking over yours.

“Jayyyyybird”

A cheerful, far-too-loud voice calls through the thick wood of the door “We brought coffee and the good doughnut stuff—the raspberry jelly ones!"

That's Dick. 

Seriously, who lets him be in charge when Bruce is out of town?

Jason lets out a long, slow breath—the sight of someone contemplating homicide, while you run your nails in soothing lines across his scalp. He looks up at you, his eyes flashing with a mix of fury and resigned apology. He is completely naked, you are completely naked –after a very sleepy, very five am round of sex that got you to remove all clothing he worked so hard to get you in last night– and two of his brothers are standing on the other side of the door.

This is exactly why he hates sleeping at the manor.

“Go away,” he growls, pressing himself further into your chest

“We’re not going away,” Tim speaks from the other side of the door.

"They're not going away," Jason confirms to you, rubbing his thumb along your jaw. He sniffles, pulling the duvet over your shoulders like a fortress wall. "Stay here. Don't move."

He throws himself out of bed, grabbing the first piece of messy, discarded fabric he finds—one of his own boxer briefs—and yanks them on with aggressive speed and a jump. He glances pointedly at the tactical rack where a spare Red Hood helmet hangs, looking like he wants to solve this problem with ballistic speed and force.

He stomps to the door, unlocking the heavy deadbolt with a dramatic, resentful thunk. He yanks the door open, blocking the entryway with his wide, muscular frame. He's shirtless, sweaty, one eye is still drifting with sleep and he’s radiating pure, lethal irritation. 

Dick is standing there, bright-eyed and entirely too cheerful, holding a tray with two large coffees and a box of pastries. Tim is beside him, looking perpetually tired and carrying a tablet.

"Good morning, Sunshine," Dick chirps, immediately trying to step sideways to peer past Jason’s hip.

"Don't," Jason growls, his voice low and dangerous. He plants his foot, making himself a solid, immovable barrier between the two idiots and the inside of his room. "The door stays open an inch, and you talk fast."

Tim, ever the detective, ignores the threat and leans around and under Dick's shoulder, eyes narrowed as he tries to scan the interior. He catches sight of the rumpled duvet and the pile of discarded tactical pants near the desk.

"Woah, wait a minute," Tim starts, a tired smirk playing on his lips. "The plan actually worked? Did we interrupt—"

Jason doesn't let him finish, although the confirmation that they set last night up is something he is going to circle back around later. He reaches out, grabs both brothers by the scruffs of their shirts, and physically shoves them back into the hallway.

"The coffee, the food, and then you get the hell out of this wing for the rest of the day" Jason snarls, snatching the tray from Dick's hands before the former Robin can even protest. He sets the tray just inside the doorframe, still blocking the view of the bed. "Take your damn selves away and go debrief Bruce."

“Whoah, a simple thank you wouldn’t hurt” Tim broods, fixing the collar of his shirt. “If Bruce comes back and finds his security protocols compromised and his cave locked, we’re dead. Be glad I set everything back to normal.”

“Fuck oooooffffffff” Jason whines.  

"Come on Dick, they had hate sex and are now dead from exhaustion!"

“Scram Drake. We’re busy doing it again.”

Dick laughs, utterly unapologetic. "Okay, okay! Message received! Just needed to confirm the trajectory of the mission!" He winks hugely at the obscured room.

Jason’s face darkens. He slams the door, the deadbolt locking with a decisive, final clack, cutting off the rest of their smug laughter.

He leans against the wood for a moment, letting out a heavy sigh that holds the weight of his irritating family lurking around the worst moments. He turns around, looking back at the safe harbor of the rumpled bed and your still resting form. Yeah, that sets him back on track.

He picks up the tray, grabbing both mugs of coffee but pointedly ignoring the box of jelly doughnuts. He stomps back to the bed and climbs under the covers, pulling the thick duvet covers back over both of you.

He shoves one mug into your hand, settling his large body comfortably against the pillows. He looks supremely annoyed, but the hand he rests on your hip is loose, possessive.

You kiss his collarbone in hopes of softening him a little.

He shrugs and you look at him with big, blown eyes, "At least we have breakfast."

~All rights reserved: @/strawberry-nugget, 2025. Please do not copy, over write or steal my work.

Likes and reblogs are so appreciated but comments are the fuel my heart needs to keep pumping fics like this

an oversized pantera t-shirt (jason’s) keeps you barely warm and a pair of old panties hug your ass. you stop, arms crossed against your chest and you bounce your right leg in sleeping agitation.

there he is. jason todd. your ex-boyfriend. this is not shocking. you knew he would show up, eventually. he stands inside your kitchen as if he still lives here: his muddy leather boots set at the entrance, jacket on the coat hanger, mask and dirty gloves thrown on the floor.

it’s been a while since jason last showed up. three weeks, to be more precise. you’ve been keeping count. every day. ever since your last encounter on the fire escape, your heart’s been aching heavy inside your chest; missing him and what you used to have.

knowing jason, you bet he’s snuck inside your apartment more than you could ever imagine. watching you sleep. using your shower. dozing off on your couch for a few hours. reading your books. you swear he’s been messing around with your plushies. he’s been hiding gifts inside your house or leaving bouquets of flowers on your dinning table. last time, you had no choice, but write him a note on a small piece of paper:

‘DEAR JASON PETER TODD,

stop breaking into my apartment. i’m SERIOUS!!!

(thanks for the flowers) ’

to which he replied with a note placed on your fridge, yours kept in his inside pocket.

‘DEAR EX-GIRLFRIEND,

stop leaving so many dishes in your sink.

ALSO, jason jr. was hungry. he was crying.

you’re very welcome.’

jason jr. your soft, cute plush puppy. you picked the name and your ex-boyfriend loved it.

─── Ი︵𐑼 EX-BOYFRIEND JASON TODD .ᐟ who stands over the stove, with his broad shoulders and muscular back, hugged by a tight black t-shirt, a strong hand gripped around a pan handle and a spoon full of red sauce stuffed in his mouth. this view, you took it for granted and the realization hits you immediately.

you used to sit on that counter at midnight while he spoon fed you and cooked for you. some nights, you’d wait for him to come back from his nightly patrols, windows wide open, because you knew he’d never in his life use the front door.

“jay, the door is right there.”

he used to wrap you arms around your waist and press his lips on top of your head and his mouth would wander down your neck, soft breaths hiking up your skin.

“and the window is right here.”

you used to feel something. but you won’t take him back and it’s a painful truth you are both aware of.

the kitchen drowns in the smell of tomatoes, meat and freshly chopped garlic. some vegetables rest on a cutting board while he waltzes the ingredients around with the spoon in his mouth.

“mornin’, sunshine. took you look enough to get out of bed.” his senses are sharp, quick. he doesn’t have to turn around, he’s heard you toss and turn in your bed.

“christ, jason, it’s 4am. what are you doing here?” you rub your eyes and make your way across the kitchen.

“cooking pasta. hungry, babe?”

“jason, please. what are you doing here?”

─── Ი︵𐑼 EX-BOYFRIEND JASON TODD .ᐟ who makes you climb up the kitchen countertop with your legs wrapped around his large frame, one scarred hand firmly gripped around your plump ass. the other, he sneaks it underneath your t-shirt, playing with your boobs. the kiss is too aggressive; two mouths crashed against each other with the most primal need.

hunger.

hell, he’s been spending his time thinking about you, sulking or with a hand fisted around his cock until he couldn’t cum anymore.

jason wants you now and you need him more and more and more. there’s too much space between you and nothing can fill it up, unless you really want to. unless you claw onto his body like it’s the only way to keep living. your clothed clit rubs against jason’s body and you hold onto his t-shirt, pulling him closer and closer and closer.

this is the last time. he’s been gone for three weeks, but every day, he’s been thinking about you. your relationship ended four months ago. this will be the last time. and then, he’ll let you be.

“i worry about you all the time, y’know, jay-”

“you worry about me, huh?” he interrupts.

“you know i do!”

his fingers motion sweetly around you clit, teasing your soft spot through the soaked fabric of you panties. you part your lips, still stuck to his and every moan falls muffled into his mouth.

“ and i-i miss you. but you can’t keep sneaking up like this!”

“give me a solid reason and i’ll do it, doll.” he pulls your panties to the side and his fingers dip straight into the wetness between your thighs, sweet folds stretching nicely around him.

you’ve missed it so much.

“ jason, i- you feel so good inside me. but- you have to stop this. i hate it!”

“hate what?”

“my life without you.” you cry, “i can’t stand the way you come and go,” and you moan, fingers inside you, “you know we can’t be together.”

─── Ი︵𐑼 EX-BOYFRIEND JASON TODD .ᐟ who forgets about his food, because there’s a different type of hunger burning inside him. who fucks you with your hands pressed against the countertop; he squeezes your thighs shut together, letting you feel how thick and big his cock is— how good it feels to be filled up to the brim and be loved by him. how amazing it feels to miss him and finally get him like this.

there’s no surface in the kitchen and livingroom left untouched.

he spreads your legs wide open on the dinning table, pulling you closer to the edge with his calloused hands locked around your ankles. the perfect meal. he makes you sit on top of his body and your hips roll, while he sits with his arms behind his head, strong muscles flexing and veins pulsing, watching how deep he sinks inside your cunt. he likes it when you turn greedy, mindlessly digging your nails in his chest, eyes rolling in illicit pleasure when you come on his cock.

“that’s my pretty girl.”

“rough night?” you use a fork to play around with the leftovers pasta, but you’re no longer hungry. you sit at the dinning table next to jason and suddenly, a feeling of wholeness takes over you. but this feeling will go away as soon as he leaves early in the morning.

jason is staying over tonight. a part of you wants to invite him in your bed and let his body press into yours, arms around your waist, warm, cozy. he’ll sleep on the couch and this decision to push him away makes your heart ache.

“not anymore.”

now that he’s with you.

“you look like shit, jay.” you bury your face in the nape of his neck, placing a soft kiss.

and you look just as beautiful as ever, he thinks.

“go shower before i change my mind. you’re not getting in our bed like this.”

ours.

you promised yourself he’ll sleep on the couch.

“yes, ma’am.” he mumbles, stuffing more pasta in his mouth.

he takes a brief pause and then, he continues, suddenly so shy, “wanna join me?”

it’s impossible to escape your ex-boyfriend, jason todd. he always finds his way back to you, like a sick, needy puppy.

“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.”