jt.

That was the first lesson.

The second was that someone always had to catch what was left.

Dick had built a life out of becoming that someone. He caught teammates before they hit concrete. Caught civilians before buildings collapsed. Caught the Titans when they spiralled, caught Bruce when he vanished too far inside the Bat, caught Jason’s anger when nobody else could hold it without bleeding, caught Tim’s exhaustion before it became a body bag, caught Damian’s sharp edges and pretended they did not cut.

He smiled. He joked. He opened his arms and made himself the net. It was easier that way.

People trusted nets. People did not ask if nets were tired.

You did, though.

That was one of the first things that unsettled him about you.

You always asked.

“Shoulder?” you said, appearing beside him before he had even fully made it through the medbay doors.

Dick looked down at the red line slicing through his suit, just under the joint. “Hello to you too.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Is it the shoulder?”

“It is deeply rude that you know that from ten feet away.”

“It’s my entire thing.”

“Your entire thing is being bossy and magical.”

“My entire thing is healing idiots who think flirting counts as a treatment plan.”

He gasped and pressed his uninjured hand to his chest. “You think I’m flirting?”

“I think you’re bleeding on my floor.”

“That’s not a no.”

You gave him a look.

Dick smiled.

It was easy with you.

That was the problem. Most things with you felt easy, even when they weren’t. Even in the aftermath of horror, with sirens in the distance and smoke still clinging to everyone’s suits, you had a way of lowering the temperature in a room. You came in with steady hands, soft eyes, and a voice like warm water over bruised skin.

You were the Titans’ miracle.

Not that you liked being called that. Gar had tried once, dramatically, from a medbay cot after you healed three cracked ribs and a bruised spleen.

“My angel,” he had declared, one hand thrown over his forehead. “My saviour. My divine little first-aid kit.”

You had thrown a roll of gauze at his head.

Vic had laughed for a full minute.

Kory had kissed your cheek in gratitude.

Raven had watched you with that quiet, knowing look of hers.

Dick had watched too. He watched more than he should have.

He watched the way your face tightened for half a second after you healed someone. The way you always turned slightly away before taking a breath. The way you flexed your fingers like you were shaking off static. The way you insisted on cleaning up alone afterwards.

At first, he thought healing took energy. That made sense. Every power had a cost. Every body had limits.

You told them yours was fatigue.

Dick believed you.

Not because he was careless.

Because he wanted to. Because after years of watching good people stay hurt, there was something dangerously addictive about watching wounds vanish under your hands.

When Raven came back from a mission with psychic backlash clawing through her mind, and you pressed your fingers to her temples until her breathing evened out, Dick did not ask why you spent the next hour sitting alone in the dark.

When Gar twisted his knee badly enough that the sound made everyone in the room wince, and you healed him before the panic really hit, Dick did not ask why you limped afterwards.

When Kory took a blast meant for a child, and her skin split gold-bright across her ribs, Dick did not ask why your own hand shook as you helped her sit up.

He noticed. But noticing was not knowing.

That was what he told himself later. Over and over. Like repetition could turn guilt into absolution.

He noticed. He just didn’t know.

Not yet.

The night everything changed began with rain.

Blüdhaven rain was different from Gotham rain. Gotham rain fell like a verdict. Cold, black, heavy with memory. Blüdhaven rain came down silver beneath neon signs, slicking the streets until every alley looked like it had been painted in oil. It turned rooftops treacherous, fire escapes slippery, windows into mirrors.

Dick loved it anyway.

It was his city. Bruised, stubborn, trying. A little ugly in the right light. A little beautiful in the wrong one.

The Titans had come because the call was too big for one vigilante and too strange for local police. A new metahuman trafficking ring had gotten its hands on alien tech and old magic, which was never a combination that suggested anyone involved had made good life choices.

By midnight, the docks were burning. By twelve-thirty, three warehouses had partially collapsed. By one, the sky above Blüdhaven was full of drones shaped like metal wasps, each one armed with sonic emitters strong enough to rupture glass and destabilise inner ears.

“Tell me again why crime can’t be normal,” Gar shouted over comms.

Dick flipped over a drone, brought both escrima sticks down, and sent it sparking into the rain-slick rooftop. “You want normal crime?”

“I want crime that doesn’t make my teeth vibrate.”

“You have teeth right now?” Vic asked.

“I have emotional teeth.”

“That tracks,” you said over comms.

Dick smiled despite himself. Your voice always did that to him. Cut through the noise. Found him.

“You’re supposed to be behind the barricade,” he said, ducking under a burst of sonic fire.

“I am behind the barricade.”

“You’re too calm.”

“I’m very calm behind the barricade.”

Raven’s voice came in, flat as ever. “They are not behind the barricade.”

Dick exhaled sharply. “Of course they’re not.”

“I’m near the barricade,” you corrected.

Kory flew overhead, a streak of orange through the storm. “Friend healer, there are many injured civilians near the west warehouse.”

“I see them.”

Dick’s attention snapped toward the west side of the docks.

Through the rain, he saw you moving below.

Not at the barricade. Not near the barricade. Running straight toward the worst of the damage, because apparently, self-preservation was not included in the miracle package.

“Absolutely not,” Dick said.

“You sound like Bruce.”

“That was cruel and unnecessary.”

“You’ll live.”

“Not if you keep sprinting into active combat zones.”

“Then stop watching me and stop the drones.”

A drone screamed toward you.

Dick moved before thought could catch up. He launched himself from the rooftop, grapple line firing, body arcing low through rain and smoke. The drone’s emitter pulsed once. Pain stabbed through his ears. His vision blurred.

He released the line. Dropped. Twisted.

His boot connected with the drone hard enough to crack the metal shell. It spun away and exploded against the side of a warehouse in a shower of blue sparks.

Dick landed in front of you, one knee down, rain streaming off his hair.

You stared at him.

He looked up with his best smile. “Hi.”

Your eyes narrowed. “That was incredibly dramatic.”

“I’m a performer.”

“That was incredibly stupid.”

“I’m also Batman-adjacent.”

“Unfortunately accurate.”

Behind you, a civilian groaned.

Your expression shifted instantly.

There was the healer.

The softness vanished into focus. You moved past Dick and dropped beside a woman pinned beneath a collapsed beam. Her leg was crushed at an angle that made Dick’s stomach turn. Her breathing came in panicked sobs.

“Hey,” you said gently, all teasing gone. “Look at me. Not the leg. Me.”

The woman grabbed your wrist with shaking fingers. “I can’t—I can’t feel—”

“I know. I’ve got you.”

Dick watched you place both hands over the injury.

He watched your shoulders rise as you inhaled.

Then the woman gasped.

The beam shifted. Dick lifted it enough for Vic to pull her free.

Her leg was whole. Bruised, but whole.

She started crying.

You smiled at her.

Then, very subtly, your left knee buckled.

Dick caught it.

Not much. Just one hand at your elbow, enough to steady you.

You went stiff beneath his touch.

“You okay?” he asked.

You smiled too quickly. “Fine.”

There it was. That word.

Dick hated it when Bruce used it. Hated it when Jason spat it through bloodied teeth. Hated it when Tim said it without looking up from a laptop.

He hated it most from you.

Because you made it sound kind.

Another drone shrieked overhead before he could say anything.

The docks trembled.

Raven’s voice cut through comms. “Nightwing, the central warehouse is rigged. There are people inside.”

“How many?”

“Too many.”

Dick looked up. The central warehouse stood at the edge of the pier, half its roof torn open, old brick walls glowing with intermittent blasts of alien-blue light. Through the broken windows, he saw movement.

Civilians. Hostages.

The structure groaned. Then the upper floor exploded outward.

Kory shouted. Dick ran.

You called his name.

He ignored you.

He heard you following anyway.

Of course he did.

Inside, the warehouse was chaos.

Smoke. Screaming. Sprinklers raining dirty water from cracked pipes. Drones buzzing between support beams like insects. Civilians huddled behind shipping containers while armed traffickers tried to retreat through a back exit.

Nightwing moved through them like a blade wrapped in blue light.

Strike. Dodge. Flip. Disarm. Smile, because fear spread faster when people saw the hero afraid.

“Exit to the south!” he shouted. “Go! Go now!”

Kory blew a hole through a side wall for evacuation. Vic ripped open jammed doors. Raven shielded a group of children from falling debris. Gar, currently a gorilla, blocked a collapsing beam with both massive hands and yelled, “I would like everyone to appreciate my core strength!”

You were everywhere you should not be. Healing a burned firefighter. Pressing a hand to a child’s forehead. Closing the wound across a police officer’s side. Calm, quick, relentless.

Too relentless.

Dick saw your face pale. He saw the way you pressed one hand briefly to your ribs after healing the officer.

Something in him tightened.

Then the floor screamed.

Not cracked.

Screamed.

The alien tech at the centre of the warehouse pulsed, drawing power from the old magical sigils carved beneath the concrete. The combination sent a shockwave through the building.

Every support beam lit blue.

Raven’s shield shattered. Kory slammed into a wall. Gar lost his grip.

The ceiling began to come down.

Dick saw it happen in pieces.

A family trapped near the upper catwalk. A little boy separated from his mother. The metal walkway beneath them twisting loose.

No time for the grapple. No time for a plan.

Just the fall.

Dick launched himself upward, using a stack of containers as steps. His boots hit metal. His body moved on instinct, rainwater and smoke and adrenaline turning the world sharp.

He grabbed the boy first and tossed him toward Kory, trusting her to catch him.

She did. Of course she did.

The mother screamed as the catwalk tilted.

Dick caught her wrist.

For half a second, they hung there over open air.

“Don’t look down,” he told her.

She looked down.

They always looked down.

A support cable snapped. The catwalk dropped. Dick twisted, threw the woman upward with everything he had, and felt Vic’s metal hand close around her coat.

Then the world gave way beneath him.

Falling was supposed to be familiar.

This was not.

The sonic emitters went off all at once.

His inner ear shattered into static. The building spun wrong. His grapple fired but missed the broken beam by inches. His fingers closed on nothing. His shoulder clipped metal hard enough to tear a shout from his throat.

Then he hit a lower catwalk.

Pain cracked across his back.

He bounced. Fell again.

He tried to turn. Tried to tuck.

Couldn’t.

There were too many angles. Too much debris. Too much noise.

The ground rushed up.

For the first time in years, Dick Grayson did not know how to fall.

He hit concrete.

And everything stopped.

At first, there was no pain.

That was how Dick knew it was bad. Pain was information. Pain told you what was damaged and how much time you had before the body started making executive decisions without you.

No pain meant the body had gone quiet. No pain meant the damage had passed language.

He stared up at the broken ceiling. Rain fell through the hole in the roof, silver and soft against his face.

Someone was screaming his name. Maybe several someones.

Dick tried to move.

Nothing happened.

Not his legs. Not his right hand. His chest moved, barely. Breath scraping in shallow and wrong.

Ah. That was bad.

A shadow fell over him.

You.

Your face appeared above his, wet with rain, streaked with soot, eyes wide with a terror that did not belong on you.

“Dick,” you said.

He tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if it worked.

“Hey,” he breathed.

It came out broken.

Your hands hovered over him, trembling.

That scared him more than the fall. You never trembled.

“Don’t move,” you said.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

Your face twisted.

Bad joke. Wrong moment. Classic Grayson.

He tried to lift his hand to touch your face.

Nothing.

Your eyes flicked down.

You saw.

He saw you see.

“Talk to me,” you said.

“Can’t feel…”

He stopped.

Your lips parted.

He did not want to finish the sentence.

He had spent his life moving. Flying. Running rooftops. Dancing along edges so narrow most people could not stand on them without shaking. His body was not just a tool. It was memory. Family. Language. A living echo of the Flying Graysons.

He could not feel half of it.

“Dick,” you whispered.

The building groaned around you. Distantly, Kory shouted for you both. Vic cursed. Raven’s power surged dark and bright somewhere behind the smoke.

You cupped Dick’s face. Your hands were warm despite the rain.

“I’m here,” you said.

He believed you. That was the danger.

“Don’t,” he managed.

Your expression shifted.

He was not Bruce. He had not figured it out fully. Not yet. But something old and instinctive in him understood the shape of sacrifice when it leaned too close.

You had looked pale after healing people. You had limped after fixing Gar’s knee. You had hidden your hand after Damian broke his wrist on a mission with the Supersons. You had smiled through it all.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

You shook your head. “You’re dying.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t.”

Your eyes filled. “Dick—”

“Please.”

That word hurt more than the fall. Please was not a word Nightwing used often in the field. Please belonged to civilians, to scared children, to moments too human for masks.

Your face broke. Only for a second.

Then you leaned down and pressed your forehead to his.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

His heart lurched.

“No,” he said, or tried to.

Your hands slid beneath his shoulders.

And then the pain came.

Not his.

Yours.

He knew because it came with your scream. It tore through the warehouse, raw and animal and absolute.

Dick’s body snapped back into itself. Sensation flooded his legs. His fingers. His lungs. Pain, yes, but normal pain. Bruises. Strains. Things he knew how to name.

His spine straightened. His ribs expanded. His right hand clenched.

He gasped and rolled onto his side, coughing through smoke.

For one impossible second, relief hit him.

Then he saw you.

You were on the concrete beside him, twisted at the same angle he had been. Your back arched unnaturally. Blood spread beneath you. One of your legs lay still, too still. Your hand curled against the ground, fingers shaking like they were trying to remember how to move.

Your mouth opened. No sound came out.

Dick’s world narrowed.

“No,” he said.

It did not sound like him.

He crawled to you, hands skidding in water and blood.

“No, no, no.”

Your eyes found his.

You looked relieved. Relieved. Like seeing him move was worth what had happened to you.

Something terrible opened inside him.

“Why would you do that?” he choked.

Your lips moved.

He leaned closer.

“Caught you,” you whispered.

Dick broke.

Not loudly. Not at first. The sound that left him was small. Fractured. A child’s sound buried under a man’s voice.

He gathered you into his arms with shaking hands, trying not to jostle your spine, trying not to touch anywhere wrong, trying not to look at the blood, the angle of your body, the proof.

The proof.

He had fallen. You had become the fall.

“Kory!” he screamed.

The name tore through his throat.

Orange light flashed.

Kory landed beside him hard enough to crack concrete. Her eyes went wide when she saw you.

“Oh, beloved healer,” she breathed.

Dick looked up at her, wild. “We need medevac.”

Vic’s voice came through comms, tight with horror. “Already calling it.”

Raven appeared from the smoke, her hood torn, shadows curling violently around her.

She looked at you. Then at Dick.

Her expression went white.

Not pale.

White. Like she had felt something nobody else could.

“She took it,” Raven whispered.

Dick stared at her. “What?”

Raven’s voice shook. “The injury. She took it from you.”

The warehouse seemed to tilt.

No. No, he knew that. He had seen it. He had felt his body become whole as yours broke.

But hearing it made it real in a way his mind had been refusing to allow.

Gar, shifted back into human form, stumbled toward them. “What do you mean took it?”

Raven swallowed. “Their power doesn’t erase wounds.”

Dick looked down at you.

Your eyes were half-closed now.

No.

No.

No.

“It transfers them,” Raven said.

No one spoke. Even the burning warehouse seemed to go quiet.

Dick pressed his fingers to your throat.

Pulse there.

Fast. Weak. Too weak.

“Stay with me,” he said, voice shaking. “Hey. Look at me. Come on, look at me.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

He smiled because he did not know how to do anything else with terror.

“There you are,” he whispered. “Stay with me, okay? I’ve got you.”

Your lips twitched faintly.

“Net,” you breathed.

“What?”

“You’re… always the net.”

Dick’s vision blurred.

“Yeah,” he said, voice breaking. “Yeah, baby. I’m the net. So you don’t get to fall through. You hear me?”

Your eyes closed.

Dick’s smile vanished. “No. No, no. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”

Kory knelt beside him and placed one glowing hand carefully against your shoulder, not healing, not touching the wound, just there.

“Dick,” she said softly.

He shook his head. “They’re not dying.”

“No,” Kory agreed, though her voice trembled. “They are not.”

Dick looked down at you in his arms.

He had caught you.

Too late.

But he had caught you.

And he would not let go.

Titan Tower’s medbay had seen bad nights.

This was worse.

The room was full of people trying not to fall apart loudly.

Kory stood by the window, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her glow dimmed to a low, anxious pulse beneath her skin. Gar sat on the floor with his back against the wall, knees pulled to his chest. Vic kept running diagnostics, jaw clenched, his human eye red. Raven stood in the corner with her hood up, shadows tucked close around her like grief with teeth.

Dick sat beside your bed and held your hand.

He had been told to leave twice.

He had not.

The first time, a nurse tried gentle concern.

The second time, Donna tried command voice.

Neither worked.

Finally, Raven had looked at everyone and said, “Let him stay.”

So he stayed.

You lay still beneath white sheets and too many wires, your body strapped carefully to prevent movement. Spinal stabilizers ran along your back. An oxygen line curved beneath your nose. Your face looked wrong without expression. Too empty. Too quiet.

Dick kept staring at your mouth. Waiting for it to quirk. Waiting for you to make a joke about his bedside manner. Waiting for you to open your eyes and call him dramatic.

His suit was still on. Torn, wet, stained with your blood and his own, though technically the blood was all yours now in the ways that mattered. Someone had thrown a blanket over his shoulders.

Probably Kory. Maybe Donna.

He did not remember.

He remembered your scream. He remembered your body twisting. He remembered Raven saying, It transfers them.

His hand tightened around yours. Your fingers did not move.

“Dick.”

Donna’s voice came from the doorway.

He did not look up.

“How long?” he asked.

She was quiet for a second. “The doctors don’t know.”

He nodded once.

Meaningless.

His gaze stayed on your face.

Donna came closer. “They said the injury may not behave like a normal spinal trauma. Their body processes transferred wounds differently.”

“May,” Dick repeated.

“Yes.”

“May not.”

“Yes.”

He laughed once. It was ugly.

Donna’s hand settled on his shoulder.

That almost undid him.

Dick bowed his head over your hand.

“I should have known,” he said.

Donna did not answer.

He hated her for that. Loved her for it too.

“I noticed things,” he continued, voice low. “After they healed people. I noticed.”

“Dick.”

“I noticed and I let it go.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have.”

Donna squeezed his shoulder. “That is Bruce talking.”

His head snapped up.

She looked at him steadily.

“You are allowed to be hurt without making guilt useful,” she said.

Dick stared at her.

Then he looked back at you.

“Useful is all I’ve got right now.”

Donna’s expression softened.

Behind them, Gar made a broken sound.

“I let them heal me last week,” he said.

Everyone looked at him.

He stared at the floor. “My knee. It was nothing. Like, yeah, it hurt, but it wasn’t—” His voice cracked. “It wasn’t worth that.”

Raven closed her eyes. Kory turned away sharply.

Vic’s metal hand curled into a fist. “They healed my neural interface after Psimon fried half my systems.”

“They helped me after Trigon,” Raven said quietly.

Silence fell.

Not empty.

Crowded.

Every person in the room was remembering.

Every hand you had held. Every wound you had closed. Every time you had smiled afterward and said you were tired.

Only tired.

Dick felt sick.

Not because you had lied.

Because all of them had been relieved enough to believe you.

The door opened again.

Clark Kent stepped in, rain-dark hair mussed, glasses absent, Superman suit visible beneath a jacket he had clearly thrown on in a hurry.

He looked around the room once. Then at you.

His face changed.

“Oh,” he said softly.

That was all.

Just oh.

Dick wanted to stand. Wanted to say something. Wanted to be Nightwing, team leader, eldest brother, person who knew how to make everyone breathe again.

He couldn’t.

Clark came to the other side of your bed.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he said.

Dick nodded.

Clark’s eyes lowered to your still hand in Dick’s grip.

“They healed me yesterday,” Clark said.

Dick’s breath caught.

“Kryptonite burn,” Clark continued quietly. “They looked pale afterwards. Bruce noticed. He told them to rest.”

A horrible laugh escaped Dick. “Of course he did.”

Clark looked at him with infinite gentleness. “Bruce didn’t know either.”

Dick shut his eyes.

He could imagine Bruce finding out. The silence. The rage. The way he would turn terror into protocols and guilt into surveillance. The way he would blame himself first, hardest, longest.

Dick had learned from the best. Unfortunately.

“Can you hear anything?” Dick asked.

Clark’s face tightened.

Heartbeats. That was what Dick meant.

Clark nodded. “Their heart is steady for now.”

For now.

The phrase lodged under Dick’s ribs.

He looked down at you.

“Good,” he said, like the word had weight, like saying it could make it true. “That’s good.”

Clark stayed for a while.

So did everyone else.

One by one, though, they drifted out. Not far. Never far. Titans did not abandon their own. They lingered in hallways, in waiting rooms, in corners with vending machine coffee and red-rimmed eyes.

Eventually, only Dick remained.

He was good at vigils. He hated that too.

Hours passed in monitor beeps and the low hum of machines.

Your hand was warm in his.

That became his whole world.

Warm meant alive. Warm meant here. Warm meant not yet.

Near dawn, your fingers twitched.

Dick nearly came out of his chair.

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward. “Hey, I’m here.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

He forgot how to breathe.

Then your eyes opened. Unfocused at first. Cloudy with pain and medication.

Then they found him.

You smiled. Barely.

It devastated him.

“Hi, pretty bird,” you rasped.

Dick made a sound between a laugh and a sob.

“You’re not allowed to be charming right now,” he said.

Your brow furrowed faintly. “M’dying?”

“No.”

“Then I’m allowed.”

His mouth trembled.

You blinked slowly, gaze shifting around the room. “Tower?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone okay?”

There it was. First question.

Not, Am I okay? Not, What happened?

Everyone.

Dick had never loved and hated anything more.

He leaned closer.

“No,” he said.

Your eyes came back to him.

“They’re not okay. I’m not okay. You scared the hell out of us.”

Your expression shifted with slow understanding.

Then memory returned.

He watched it happen.

The warehouse. The fall. The choice.

Your eyes filled. “Dick—”

“No.” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard and tried again. “No, don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t make it easier. Please don’t make it easier.”

You went quiet.

He pressed your hand to his forehead.

His shoulders shook once. Only once.

“I watched you become the fall,” he whispered.

Your breath hitched.

“You were—” He stopped, unable to finish. “You were on the ground. Like me. Because of me.”

“Not because of you.”

“You took my injury.”

“Yes.”

The honesty punched the air out of him.

No deflection. No lie. No, I’m fine.

Just yes.

Dick lifted his head. His eyes burned.

“How long?”

Your gaze slid away.

His stomach dropped. “How long have you been doing that?”

You were quiet.

Too quiet.

Dick understood before you answered.

“All of it?” he asked.

Your mouth trembled.

“Most of it,” you whispered.

Dick stood so fast the chair slammed backward.

You flinched.

He froze immediately.

Regret flashed through him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” He pushed both hands through his hair and turned away, pacing once before spinning back to you. “It’s not okay. None of this is okay.”

Your face had gone pale.

He forced himself to lower his voice. “You took Gar’s knee.”

You closed your eyes.

“Raven’s psychic backlash.”

A tear slipped down your temple into your hair.

“Kory’s burn.”

“Dick…”

“Vic’s neural damage. Clark’s kryptonite poisoning. Jason’s bullet wounds. Tim’s concussions. Damian’s broken bones. Mine.”

Your silence confirmed every word.

Dick felt like the room had tilted beneath him.

“How are you alive?” he whispered.

Your eyes opened.

There was something old in them then. Older than your face. Older than your smile.

“I heal faster than most people.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

“That sounds like something Bruce would say.”

A weak breath of laughter escaped you.

Dick did not smile.

The laugh died.

“I didn’t want you to know,” you said.

“No kidding.”

“Dick.”

His name in your voice hurt.

He came back to the chair slowly and sat down because standing made him want to run through walls.

You turned your head toward him.

The movement was tiny. It still cost you. He saw the pain ripple over your face.

“Don’t,” he said quickly.

You stilled.

He hated this. He hated all of it. The bed. The machines. Your body trapped under injury. His body whole because yours wasn’t.

“I need to know why,” he said.

“You know why.”

“No.” His voice came out sharper than intended. “No, I really don’t.”

Your eyes searched his face.

He let you see it. All of it. The fear. The anger. The betrayal. The love he had been carrying like a secret too fragile to name.

You looked away first.

“I didn’t want anyone to choose pain,” you said.

Dick stared at you.

“Everyone I work with is the same,” you continued. “The League. The Titans. The Outlaws. All of you. If I told you what healing costs me, you’d refuse unless you were unconscious or dying. Maybe even then.”

“Yes,” Dick said. “Because we’re not monsters.”

“You’re martyrs.”

He went still.

You looked back at him. Softly, exhaustedly furious.

“You are,” you said. “Every single one of you. You’d let yourselves bleed out if it meant I didn’t have to feel it. You’d call that noble. I call it stupid.”

Dick let out a stunned laugh. “You cannot be serious right now.”

“I am extremely serious.”

“You are lying in a medbay because you took a broken spine from me.”

“And I’d do it again.”

The room went silent.

Dick’s face crumpled before he could stop it.

You saw. Of course you saw.

Regret passed over your features.

“Dick—”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, don’t say that.”

“I can’t lie to you anymore.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to almost die for me and then tell me you’d do it again.”

“I love you.”

Dick stopped. Everything stopped.

The monitors kept beeping. Somewhere outside, someone walked down the hall. Rain tapped lightly against the Tower windows.

But inside Dick, every moving part went still.

You looked terrified now.

Not of death.

Of him. Of what he would do with the truth.

Your eyes glistened.

“I love you,” you said again, voice breaking. “And I know that’s not an excuse. I know it doesn’t make lying okay. I know it doesn’t make taking the choice away okay. But it’s the reason.”

Dick could not move. He had imagined hearing those words from you more times than he would ever admit. Usually in softer places. A kitchen at two in the morning. His apartment. A rooftop under a kinder sky. Your hand in his, your smile warm enough to make the world feel less like a thing that constantly needed saving.

Not here. Not with your spine braced. Not with your blood still dried under his fingernails.

“You can’t say that,” he whispered.

Your face went blank.

Dick realised what it sounded like and reached for you immediately.

“No. No, that’s not—” He sat on the edge of the chair, one hand hovering near yours. “That’s not what I mean.”

You looked at his hand.

He waited.

This time, he waited.

After a moment, you moved your fingers weakly toward him.

Permission.

Dick took your hand like it was made of light.

“You can’t say you love me like that,” he said, voice shaking. “Like it means your life is automatically worth less than mine.”

Your eyes filled again. “I don’t think that.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You do,” he said, gentler now. “Because I know that trick. I invented that trick. I perfected that trick. I have a whole family of emotionally repressed vigilantes who could give a TED Talk on that trick.”

A watery laugh escaped you.

Dick’s thumb moved over your knuckles.

“I know what it looks like when someone calls self-destruction devotion,” he said.

Your smile faded.

He swallowed hard. “I know because I do it all the time.”

You looked at him for a long moment.

Then you whispered, “Yeah.”

He laughed once, and this time it was almost real. “Rude.”

“Accurate.”

“Still rude.”

Your fingers twitched against his palm.

He lowered his head until his forehead rested against your hand.

“I love you too,” he whispered.

Your breath caught.

He held onto you tighter.

“I love you,” he said again, because now that the words were out, he could not bear to let them stand alone. “I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it. And I am so angry at you that I can barely breathe.”

You made a small sound.

He lifted his head.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I only wanted you alive.”

His face twisted.

“I know,” he said.

That was the worst part. He knew.

There was no cruelty in what you had done. No malice. No carelessness.

Only love. Misdirected. Secretive. Devastating love. The kind that looked too much like his own.

Dick leaned forward and pressed his lips to your knuckles.

Your eyes closed.

He stayed there.

When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

“We have to tell everyone.”

Your eyes opened. Fear flickered.

“They already know some of it,” he continued. “Raven felt it. She told us what happened.”

You looked toward the door.

Dick followed your gaze.

Through the small window, shadows moved in the hallway.

The Titans.

Waiting. Hurting. Loving you.

Your mouth trembled. “They’re going to hate me.”

Dick shook his head immediately. “No.”

“They should.”

“No.”

“I lied to them.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And they’re going to be upset. They’re going to be scared. Gar is probably going to cry on you, so prepare emotionally for dampness.”

Despite everything, your lips twitched.

“Vic is going to pretend he’s fine and then build you seventeen medical devices,” Dick continued. “Raven is going to stare into your soul until you confess every symptom you’ve ever hidden. Kory might actually lift a car.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“She might. For emphasis.”

Your smile faded, but some of the terror went with it.

“And you?” you asked.

Dick breathed in.

“I’m going to stay mad for a while,” he admitted.

You nodded.

“But I’m also going to stay.”

Your face cracked open.

He leaned closer.

“I’m not leaving because this is hard,” he said. “I’m not leaving because you scared me. I’m not leaving because you made a bad choice trying to save me.”

Your eyes searched his.

“I need you to promise me something,” he said.

“Dick…”

“No secret healing. Not with us. Not anymore.”

Your jaw tightened. “Emergency circumstances—”

“We’ll define them.”

“You sound like Batman.”

“I know. I’m devastated too.”

A weak laugh.

His heart nearly buckled under the sound.

“I mean it,” he said. “You have to tell people what they’re agreeing to.”

You looked down. “I know.”

“And you have to let us take care of you afterwards.”

“That’s harder.”

“I know.”

“I’m bad at it.”

“Baby, you are catastrophically bad at it.”

You huffed.

He smiled faintly, then sobered. “But we’re going to practice.”

“We?”

“Yeah.” His thumb brushed your hand. “We.”

Your eyes glistened.

“Okay,” you whispered.

It was not enough.

But it was a beginning.

Dick could work with beginnings.

He was a circus kid. A vigilante. A Robin. A Nightwing. A man who had lost the ground and learned to trust the air anyway.

Beginnings were just another kind of leap.

The Titans entered one at a time. Gar cried first, obviously. He tried very hard not to, which made it worse. He stood beside your bed with his arms crossed, lower lip trembling, eyes too bright.

“I’m mad at you,” he said.

Your face softened. “I know.”

“I’m, like, really mad.”

“I know.”

“And sad. And mad. And also really glad you’re not dead, which is making the mad part complicated.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“It is.” His voice cracked. “You took my knee.”

Your eyes lowered.

Gar wiped his face with his sleeve. “It was just my knee.”

“Gar…”

“No, it was. It hurt, yeah, but I would’ve been fine. It wasn’t worth you hurting.”

You looked at Dick. He said nothing.

This was yours to answer.

You swallowed.

“At the time,” you said carefully, “it felt worth it to me.”

Gar looked stricken.

“I know that doesn’t make it okay,” you added quickly. “I know I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

Gar sniffled. Then he leaned down very carefully and hugged the top of your head.

Dick almost told him to be careful.

He did not.

You closed your eyes.

Gar whispered, “You’re not allowed to die. I already decided.”

“Okay,” you whispered back.

“Cool.”

Then he backed away, crying harder.

Vic came next.

He did not cry. He brought a tablet.

“I’ve got three ideas,” he said, voice too controlled, “for a biofeedback system that can warn before a transfer exceeds safe neurological load.”

You stared at him.

“Hello to you too,” you said.

Vic’s mouth twitched.

Dick smiled despite himself.

“Also,” Vic added, “I’m mad.”

“Noted.”

“And I’m building the thing anyway.”

“Also noted.”

Vic’s expression cracked slightly. “You should’ve told us.”

“I know.”

“I would’ve let you help,” he said quietly. “Sometimes. Maybe. But I would’ve wanted to know when helping me hurt you.”

Your eyes filled again.

“I know,” you whispered.

Vic nodded once.

Then he set the tablet on your bedside table like an offering.

Raven came after him.

She stood beside your bed, silent and pale, shadows moving slowly around her wrists.

You looked nervous.

Raven looked at you for a long time.

Then she said, “You took more than injuries.”

Your face went still.

Dick’s attention sharpened.

Raven’s eyes did not leave yours. “Emotional pain too. Psychic pain. Fear. Grief.”

You swallowed.

“Sometimes,” you said.

Dick felt like the floor had dropped again.

Of course. Of course there was more.

Raven’s expression tightened. “Mine?”

You closed your eyes. The silence answered.

Raven inhaled sharply.

Dick started to reach for her, but she lifted one hand.

You opened your eyes. “Only when it was too much. Only when I thought—”

“That I couldn’t survive it?” Raven asked.

You flinched.

Raven looked away.

For a moment, she was very young.

Then she stepped closer and placed two fingers lightly against your hand.

“I understand why,” Raven said. Your tears spilled over. “But do not do it again without asking me.”

“I won’t,” you whispered.

Raven nodded.

Then, after a pause, she added, “You are loved for more than your usefulness.”

You broke then. Quietly. Completely.

Dick stood, but Raven was already there, leaning carefully over you, touching your forehead with hers.

Not a hug. Not exactly.

Something quieter. Something sacred.

Kory came last.

She tried to be gentle.

Kory’s gentleness had always been a force of nature trying to fit through a doorway.

Her eyes shone bright green as she took your hand.

“My beloved friend,” she said, voice trembling, “you have carried pain alone when you had an army.”

You gave a wet laugh. “When you say it like that, it sounds very stupid.”

“It was,” Kory said.

Everyone blinked.

Kory’s chin lifted. “It was brave. It was loving. It was also stupid.”

Gar made a tiny sound. “She said the thing.”

Kory ignored him.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“You will not do this alone again,” she said.

You nodded, crying too hard to speak.

Dick watched them surround you.

Not crowding. Not demanding.

Just there. A net, woven from people who loved you enough to be angry.

For the first time since the warehouse, something inside him loosened.

Not healed. Not yet.

But held.

Recovery was slow. Not as slow as normal spinal trauma, because your body was strange and stubborn and apparently determined to give medical science a migraine.

But not fast either.

Feeling returned in fragments. Left foot. Right toes. Thighs. Hips. Pain followed each return like lightning learning your name.

You hated it.

Dick loved every sign because it meant you were still there, still fighting, still coming back.

He also hated it because every gasp from you felt like punishment.

He spent most days at your bedside.

At first, he tried to make himself useful. He brought food. Adjusted pillows. Read medical updates. Ran interference when too many worried heroes wanted to visit. Smuggled in snacks Alfred absolutely did not approve of but definitely knew about because Alfred knew everything and permitted crimes selectively.

Then you caught him reorganising the medbay supply cabinet at three in the morning.

“Dick.”

He froze with a roll of bandages in each hand.

You stared at him from the bed, unimpressed. “What are you doing?”

“Inventory.”

“This is not your medbay.”

“Organisation helps.”

“You alphabetised antiseptic.”

“Antiseptic deserves respect.”

“You need sleep.”

“So do you.”

“I was asleep until you started stress-cleaning gauze.”

He looked down at the bandages. Then back at you.

“You were in pain.”

Your expression softened.

He hated how easily you saw through him.

“I’m often in pain right now,” you said gently.

His hands tightened.

“Don’t do that,” you said.

“Do what?”

“Make my pain your failure.”

He laughed once, humourless. “Kind of hard not to, considering.”

“Dick.”

He looked away.

You sighed. “Come here.”

He put the bandages down and came to your bedside.

You patted the edge of the mattress.

He gave you a look. “Absolutely not.”

“Sit.”

“I could hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m not risking your spine because you want cuddles.”

“I do want cuddles.”

His expression flickered.

You smiled faintly. “That one got you.”

“Cruel.”

“Effective.”

He compromised by dragging the chair close enough that his knees touched the bed. You reached for him, and he gave you his hand.

It had become familiar now. His hand in yours. Your pulse under his fingers. Your life, stubborn and warm.

“You’re doing the thing,” you said.

“What thing?”

“The smile.”

Dick blinked. “I’m not smiling.”

“The inside smile. The fake one. The one that says, ‘I’m fine, don’t look too closely, I’m very handsome and emotionally functional.’”

He stared at you. “You think I’m handsome?”

“You heard the rest.”

“I prioritised.”

Your mouth twitched.

Dick’s smile came easier this time. Realer.

Then it faded.

“I don’t know how to stop seeing it,” he admitted.

Your thumb moved weakly against his hand.

“The fall?” you asked.

He nodded.

Your face gentled.

“When I close my eyes,” he said, voice low, “I see you on the floor.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” He leaned forward. “I’m not telling you so you apologise. I’m telling you because we said no more hiding.”

You absorbed that.

Then nodded slowly.

“Okay,” you whispered. “No more hiding.”

His throat tightened.

You looked down at your joined hands.

“I still feel it sometimes,” you said.

Dick went still.

“The fall,” you clarified. “Not the full injury anymore. But echoes. Like my body remembers impact that wasn’t mine.”

Dick could not speak.

You continued, because apparently both of you had chosen emotional destruction as a bonding activity.

“I don’t regret saving you.” He closed his eyes. “But I’m starting to understand that not regretting it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

His eyes opened.

You looked at him, open and tired and honest. “I’m sorry for that part.”

Dick breathed in carefully.

Then out.

“I don’t regret being alive,” he said.

Your lips parted.

“I need you to know that. I don’t regret it. I don’t wish you hadn’t saved me if the alternative was dying in that warehouse.”

Your eyes filled.

“But I hate that you paid for it alone,” he continued. “I hate that I didn’t get to say yes. I hate that you thought love meant making yourself the place pain goes to disappear.”

You nodded, tears spilling silently.

“I’m learning,” you whispered.

He kissed your hand. “Me too.”

You studied him. “What are you learning?”

Dick huffed softly. “That apparently I have control issues.”

Your brows rose. 

“I know. Shocking. Alert the media.”

“Front-page news.”

“And,” he continued, “that being the net all the time is not actually the same as being loved.”

Your expression changed.

He swallowed. “I think I liked being needed because it felt safer than being wanted.”

You went very still.

Dick looked down at your hand.

“If people need you, you have a job. A role. Something to do. Something to offer. You can earn your place over and over.” His mouth twisted. “But being wanted? Just because you’re you? That’s terrifying.”

Your voice was soft. “Yeah.”

He looked up. Your eyes were wet.

“I know,” you said.

And there it was.

The mirror. Two people who had made themselves useful enough to avoid asking if they were loved.

Dick smiled sadly. “We’re a pair, huh?”

“A disastrous one.”

“Hot.”

You laughed. This time, it did not sound broken.

Dick felt the laugh settle into his chest like sunrise.

He leaned closer, giving you time to refuse.

You did not.

His lips touched yours softly. Carefully.

There was nothing dramatic about it. No collapsing warehouse. No blue fire. No scream. Just his hand in yours, your mouth warm beneath his, and the quiet, astonishing fact that you were both still alive.

When he pulled back, your eyes were closed.

“Was that okay?” he asked.

Your eyes opened slowly. “You’re asking after?”

“I panicked.”

“Adorable.”

“I can do better.”

“I know.”

He smiled.

You tugged weakly at his hand. “Again.”

This time, he laughed before kissing you.

The first time you stood again, everyone cried.

Gar denied it. He was lying.

Vic recorded the whole thing and claimed it was for medical documentation. Also lying.

Kory hovered with both hands out like she intended to catch you, the bed, Dick, and possibly the entire Tower if necessary. Raven stood nearby, pretending calm while her shadows formed nervous little curls at her feet.

Dick stood in front of you.

Not behind. Not beside.

In front, hands open.

A net. But not the only one.

“You’ve got this,” he said.

You glared at him. “If I fall, I’m haunting you.”

“Reasonable.”

“As a poltergeist.”

“Mean, but fair.”

“I’ll move all your cereal into different boxes.”

Gar gasped. “That’s evil.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Dick’s grin trembled.

You saw. Your expression softened.

“Hey,” you said quietly. He focused on you. “I’m here.”

He nodded.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You are.”

You took one step. Your knees shook.

Dick did not grab you. It took everything in him. Every instinct screamed. Every memory of your body broken on concrete rose up sharp and hungry.

But he did not grab you. He let you choose the step. Let you own the balance. Let you move.

You took another.

Then another.

Then your strength failed.

Dick caught you.

So did Kory.

So did Vic.

Raven’s shadows braced your legs.

Gar cheered and cried openly this time.

You ended up laughing against Dick’s chest while everyone crowded in, careful and loud and ridiculous.

The pain had gone somewhere. The fear had too.

Not away. Never fully away.

But spread out. Held by more hands.

That was the secret none of you had known at first.

Pain did not become lighter because one person carried all of it.

It became survivable when everyone carried a piece.

Later, after the others left and you were back in bed, exhausted but smiling, Dick sat beside you and traced idle circles over your palm.

“You caught me,” you said.

He looked up.

“In the warehouse,” you continued. “After.”

His face sobered. “I was too late.”

“No.” You squeezed his hand. “You caught me.”

Dick swallowed hard.

“You caught me too,” he said.

Your smile faded into something tender. “I broke all your rules when I did.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m trying not to romanticise that.”

“Good.”

“But I did catch you.”

His mouth curved despite himself.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You did.”

You looked at him in the soft medbay light. “Now what?”

Dick leaned back in his chair, still holding your hand. “Now we learn how to do the next part without almost dying.”

“Sounds improbable.”

“We can try.”

“Are there snacks?”

“Definitely.”

“Then I’m in.”

He laughed.

There it was again. That bright thing. That impossible thing.

Joy, growing stubbornly in the aftermath.

Dick Grayson still knew how to fall. He always would. But now, when he looked at you, when he felt your fingers threaded through his, when he remembered the warehouse and the scream and the terrible miracle of being saved, he understood something he had spent his whole life avoiding.

Catching someone did not mean never falling. Being loved did not mean never hitting the ground.

Sometimes love was the hand reaching down afterwards. Sometimes it was the person who stayed through recovery. Sometimes it was telling the truth when the lie would be easier. Sometimes it was a whole team gathered around a bed, furious and crying and refusing to let one person become the only place pain could live.

And sometimes, impossibly, it was you.

Alive. Healing. Learning. Smiling at him like the world was still worth saving.

Dick lifted your hand and kissed your knuckles.

“I love you,” he said.

Your eyes softened. “I love you too, pretty bird.”

His heart stumbled. “Still not over that nickname.”

“You love it.”

“I do.”

You smiled wider.

Outside the Tower windows, Blüdhaven glittered beneath the rain.

Messy. Bruised. Trying.

Still standing.

So were you. So was he.

You were not the loudest member of the League. Not the strongest, not the fastest, not the one reporters chased with microphones and wide eyes. You did not wear a cape or a symbol bright enough to turn hope into branding.

You were usually found in the aftermath.

In the ash. In the medbay. In the quiet corner of the Watchtower, where someone was trying not to scream.

You would kneel beside them, place your hands carefully over the damage, and breathe in like you were bracing for winter. Then the wound would close. Poison would vanish from the bloodstream. Bones would knit. Burns would fade. Panic would ease. Pain would leave.

On paper, your ability was simple.

You could heal anyone. No matter the wound. No matter the cause. Human, alien, magical, divine, chemical, psychic — it did not matter.

The League called you a gift. The Titans called you a lifesaver. The Outlaws called you a cheat code.

Clark once called you “mercy with a pulse,” and you had laughed so hard that Bruce had looked up from his tablet just to watch.

Bruce called you reckless.

Mostly because you were.

You would walk into active fire to reach an injured teammate. You would ignore direct orders when someone was bleeding. You would put your palms against flesh torn open by things that should not exist and say, “I’ve got you,” as if that alone were enough to bully death into backing off.

The worst part was that it usually worked.

The second worst part was that Bruce could never decide whether he hated you for it or loved you for it.

Tonight, he decided he hated it.

Mostly because you were bleeding. Again.

Not severely. Not enough for anyone else to notice. A thin line at your temple. A split on your lip. A tremor in your left hand that you kept hiding against your thigh.

You stood in the Watchtower medbay beneath cold white lights, smiling softly while Clark thanked you for sealing a kryptonite burn across his ribs. The wound had been ugly enough to make even Diana go quiet. Green veins. Blackened skin. Clark’s breathing gone ragged and wet.

Now he stood whole and sheepish, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“You didn’t have to take care of it so quickly,” Clark said. “I could’ve waited.”

“No, you couldn’t,” you replied, like this was obvious. “You were turning a shade of green that even Hal couldn’t pull off.”

Hal, from the next bed over, raised a hand. “Rude, but fair.”

Clark smiled. “Thank you.”

You smiled back.

Bruce watched the tremor in your hand worsen.

He said your name.

Your eyes shifted to him immediately.

It always did something strange to him, that. The way you heard him, no matter how softly he said it. The way your attention arrived like a hand settling over an open flame.

“You need to sit down,” Bruce said.

You blinked. “Hello to you too.”

“Sit.”

“Wow. Full sentences tonight. I’m honoured.”

Hal made a low whistle. “Careful, Bats. They’re armed with bedside manner.”

Bruce did not look away from you. “You’re injured.”

“So are half the people in this room.”

“Not after you get to them.”

Your smile thinned.

There it was. A flicker. Small enough that anyone else might have missed it. But Bruce had built a life out of noticing what people tried to bury.

You looked away first.

“I’m fine,” you said.

Bruce hated those two words more than almost any others. They were a locked door. A smokescreen. A blade held behind the back.

Jason used them like armour. Dick used them like a performance. Tim used them like a spreadsheet refusing to load. Damian used them like a dare.

You used them like a prayer.

Bruce stepped closer. “Let Alfred examine you when we return to Gotham.”

Your expression softened in that infuriating way it always did when he worried about you. Like his concern was something precious and breakable. Like you had no idea what to do with it except hold it carefully until he looked away.

“Bruce,” you said quietly, “I’m okay.”

He lowered his voice. “You’re lying.”

Your gaze held his.

For a moment, the medbay noise faded around you both. No monitors. No League chatter. No hiss of sterilisers or distant hum of the Watchtower’s engines.

Just you. Just him. Just the secret Bruce knew you were keeping and the terrible feeling that one day it would cost more than either of you could pay.

Then the alarm screamed.

Red light washed over the medbay.

Clark straightened instantly. Diana reached for her sword. Hal cursed.

Batman was already moving.

“Report,” Bruce snapped into comms.

J’onn’s voice came through, strained. “Breach in Gotham. East End. Magical signature. Multiple civilian casualties. Zatanna is unreachable.”

Bruce’s blood went cold.

Gotham.

Of course, it was Gotham. The city had a way of calling him home with broken teeth.

He turned toward the exit, cape snapping behind him. He heard your footsteps follow.

“No,” he said immediately.

You scoffed. “Excuse me?”

“You’re staying here.”

“I am absolutely not.”

“You’re injured.”

“I’m useful.”

“You’re compromised.”

“And you’re emotionally allergic to common sense, but we all cope.”

Hal muttered, “Damn.”

Bruce turned on you fully. The others moved around you, preparing, but he could only see the blood at your temple. The way your hand still shook.

“You are not going into another combat zone.”

Your face sharpened. “People are hurt.”

“That doesn’t override your safety.”

“It usually overrides yours.”

“That’s different.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Bruce regretted them.

Your expression went still.

Not angry.

Worse.

Understanding.

“Right,” you said. “Because you’re Batman.”

Bruce’s jaw tightened.

You stepped closer, lowering your voice so only he could hear. “And I’m just the person who puts everyone back together afterwards.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“But it is what you believe.”

“No.”

“Then move.”

He did not.

Your eyes flashed.

“Bruce.”

His name in your mouth was not a plea.

It was a warning.

Diana’s voice cut through the tension. “We need to go.”

Bruce looked at you for one more second.

You looked back, chin lifted, blood drying at your lip like a signature.

He knew that look. He had seen it in mirrors.

There was no stopping you.

Only failing to protect you loudly enough to pretend it counted.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

Your smile returned, quick and grim. “Cute.”

Then you were gone, following the League into the red-lit corridor.

Bruce let himself breathe once.

Only once.

Then Batman took over.

Gotham was burning blue.

Not orange. Not red. Not the familiar hungry gold of fire eating through old wood and older sins.

Blue.

The flames crawled along brick walls without consuming them. They licked over pavement, curled around street lamps, danced across windows with a strange, weightless hunger.

Magic.

Bruce hated magic.

A creature stood at the centre of the East End intersection, too tall to be human and too thin to be alive. Its limbs bent wrong. Its face was a polished black surface with no features except a mouth full of white light.

Around it, civilians lay scattered across the street.

Some moved. Some did not.

Batman landed hard on a rooftop overlooking the intersection. Clark hovered to his left, jaw tight. Diana landed beside him, sword already drawn. You dropped from the Javelin last, boots hitting gravel with a muted scrape.

Bruce glanced back at you.

You were already looking at the wounded.

Of course you were.

“Assess first,” Bruce ordered. “No engagement without—”

The creature opened its mouth.

The sound that came out was not a scream.

It was worse.

It was every scream at once.

Every person in the intersection arched in agony. Civilians. Police. Firefighters. A young paramedic dropped to their knees, hands clawing at their own throat. Clark grunted and clapped both hands over his ears. Diana staggered.

Bruce’s vision went white.

Pain ripped down his spine.

It was sudden. Absolute. Like something had reached inside him and pulled every nerve taut until his bones sang with it.

He hit the rooftop on one knee.

You shouted his name.

He tried to answer.

Couldn’t.

His comm crackled with overlapping voices.

“Batman—”

“Bruce—”

“Status—”

He forced his head up.

The creature’s mouth widened.

The street split.

A line of blue fire shot through the asphalt, up the building, across the roof beneath Bruce’s feet.

He moved too late.

The roof collapsed.

For a moment, there was only falling.

Not fear. Bruce rarely had time for fear during impact.

Only calculation. Distance. Angle. Debris. Cape. Grapple. Left hand functional. Right shoulder compromised from earlier strain. Avoid exposed rebar. Protect head. Roll through—

Something hit him midair.

Not stone. Not steel.

Magic.

Invisible force slammed him downward like the hand of a god.

He crashed through three floors.

The first impact shattered his ribs. The second stole the air from his lungs. The third broke something deep.

Something final.

Bruce hit concrete and knew before he tried to move.

His legs were gone.

Not gone from his body. Worse.

Present. Silent. Dead weight below a line of fire in his spine.

The world narrowed to breath.

In.

Broken glass.

Out.

Blood in his mouth.

He blinked at the ceiling far above, where blue flames crawled like veins through the cracks.

His cowl’s diagnostics flickered.

Spinal trauma: severe.

Lower limb response: absent.

Internal bleeding: probable.

Respiration: impaired.

Bruce closed his eyes. Only for a second.

When he opened them, you were there. Dust in your hair. Blood at your temple reopened. Eyes wide, terrified in a way he had never seen from you.

He tried to say no.

It came out as a wet rasp.

You dropped to your knees beside him.

“Don’t move,” you said, voice shaking.

He would have laughed if he could.

You pressed your hands to his chest, then stopped.

Your gaze flicked downward.

You knew.

Of course, you knew. You always knew where the pain lived.

“Don’t,” Bruce managed.

Your face crumpled for half a second before you controlled it. “Bruce—”

“Don’t.”

The word cost too much. Pain flared behind his eyes. His fingers twitched uselessly against the concrete.

You swallowed hard. “Your spine—”

“I know.”

“You’re bleeding internally.”

“I know.”

“Your lung is—”

“I know.”

You stared at him.

The building groaned around you.

Above, Clark shouted your name. Diana called for Batman. The creature screamed again, and the whole city seemed to twist beneath the sound.

Bruce forced his fingers to curl around your wrist.

Weakly. Not enough to stop you.

Never enough.

“Evacuate,” he breathed.

Your eyes filled. “No.”

“That’s an order.”

“You don’t get to order me to watch you die.”

“I’m not—”

His breath hitched. Something inside him shifted wrong.

Agony tore through him so violently his vision blacked out at the edges.

When the world returned, your hands were on either side of his face.

“Stay with me,” you said. “Bruce, stay with me.”

He wanted to tell you that he was trying. He wanted to tell you to leave. He wanted, absurdly, to apologise.

For the blood on your hands. For the fear in your eyes. For every time he had treated your kindness like a tactical flaw because admitting what it really was would mean admitting how much it mattered to him.

You bent closer.

Your forehead touched his.

“Forgive me,” you whispered.

Panic cut through him sharper than pain.

“No.”

You kissed him.

Not like a goodbye.

Like a promise made with shaking hands.

Then your palms pressed over his spine.

And you breathed in.

Bruce’s world exploded.

Not with pain.

With absence.

The fire in his back vanished. His ribs snapped into place. His lung opened. The blood in his throat cleared. Feeling surged back into his legs with such sudden force that his whole body jerked.

He gasped.

The cowl display stabilised.

Spinal trauma: resolved.

Internal bleeding: resolved.

Respiration: normalising.

Lower limb response: restored.

Bruce stared up at you in horror.

Because you were no longer kneeling.

You were collapsing. Your body folded exactly the way his had. Your breath broke on a sound he would hear for the rest of his life.

Blood spilled from your mouth.

“No,” Bruce said.

This time, the word came out whole.

He caught you before your head struck concrete.

You convulsed in his arms, eyes blown wide with agony. Your hands clawed weakly at his cape, not pushing him away. Holding on.

Your legs did not move.

Bruce’s mind went quiet.

Not calm.

Quiet. The kind of quiet that came before violence. Before grief. Before the part of him that wore a bat-shaped shadow took all the pain in the room and turned it into a weapon.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

You tried to answer. Only blood came out.

Bruce pressed two fingers to your throat. Pulse rapid. Weak. Too weak.

Behind him, debris shifted. Clark dropped through the hole in the ceiling, eyes blazing red until he saw you.

The heat vanished from his stare.

“Great Rao,” Clark breathed.

“Get us out,” Bruce said.

Clark moved instantly.

Bruce held you against his chest as Clark lifted them both through the wreckage. Diana met them on the street, blue fire reflecting off her armour.

Her face changed when she saw you.

That was when Bruce understood.

The horror did not belong to him alone.

Everyone was watching. Hal hovered above the intersection, ring dimming. Flash stood frozen near an ambulance. J’onn’s expression had gone remote with shock. Civilians stared from behind barricades.

And you lay in Bruce’s arms with his broken spine.

His blood. His death.

The creature screamed again.

Bruce did not look at it.

“Diana,” he said.

His voice was Batman’s. His arms were Bruce’s, shaking around you.

Diana’s gaze hardened. “Go.”

Clark reached for you. “Bruce, I can fly them faster.”

“No.”

Clark stopped.

The word had come out too sharp. Too raw.

Bruce adjusted his grip carefully, terrified to jostle you. Terrified not to.

“I have them,” he said, quieter.

Clark looked at him, and Bruce knew he understood.

Not everything. Not yet.

But enough.

Clark nodded once and turned back toward the blue fire.

Bruce carried you to the Javelin.

Every step was steady.

Every breath was not.

The Cave had never felt so cold.

Alfred met them before the landing platform fully opened. He did not ask questions. That was one of the many reasons Bruce trusted him more than anyone alive.

One look at you, pale and bloodied in Bruce’s arms, and Alfred’s face became very still.

“Medbay,” Alfred said.

Bruce carried you there.

Your head rested against his shoulder. Your breath came in shallow, uneven pulls. Every few seconds, your body trembled as if some invisible current was passing through you.

His injury. His pain. His consequences.

Alfred cut away your suit with clinical precision. Bruce stood beside the bed, cowl pulled off, gauntlets still on, blood drying at his jaw.

Your blood. His blood.

He could not tell anymore.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said, “I need room.”

Bruce did not move.

Alfred’s eyes lifted to his. “Now.”

The word cracked like a whip.

Bruce stepped back. Barely.

Alfred worked.

Scans. IV. Oxygen. Stabilisers. A spinal brace. Blood transfusion. Drugs strong enough to knock out most people and still not enough to fully touch what you had taken.

Bruce watched every monitor like it owed him obedience.

Heart rate too high. Blood pressure too low. Inflammation along the spine. Nerve shock. Internal trauma.

All copied from his body.

No. Not copied.

Stolen.

No, not stolen.

Given.

No.

Taken.

His mind circled the word like a predator unable to find the throat.

He had been healed. You had been hurt.

It had to go somewhere.

The thought arrived fully formed, and Bruce nearly staggered beneath it.

It has to go somewhere.

Every mission. Every miracle. Every closed wound. Where had it gone?

He turned sharply and crossed to the Cave computer, fingers flying over the keys.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said.

He ignored him.

Mission reports. Medical logs. Watchtower footage. Your check-in records. League debriefs. Gotham patrol incidents. Titan Tower emergencies. Outlaws extractions.

A pattern bloomed across the screen in timestamps and blood.

You healed Clark’s kryptonite poisoning on March 4th. Later that night, you requested private quarters and refused medbay assistance. The next morning, security footage showed you leaning against a corridor wall, vomiting into your hand.

You healed Dick’s fractured femur after a Titans mission in Blüdhaven. Two hours later, you were limping.

You healed Jason’s gunshot wound in Qurac. You vanished for three days afterward.

You healed Tim’s concussion and neural toxin exposure. You spent the next week avoiding bright lights.

You healed Damian’s broken wrist. The next morning, your hand shook so badly you could not hold a mug.

Bruce kept digging.

Burns. Poison. Panic attacks. Chronic pain. Magical backlash. Broken bones.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Your smile in every debrief. Your “I’m fine” in every recording. Your steady hands on everyone else.

Your hidden suffering afterwards.

Bruce gripped the edge of the console until the metal groaned beneath his fingers.

He had built systems to monitor everyone. He had missed this.

No. Worse. He had accepted the miracle because it was useful.

Because the people he loved came back whole when you touched them. Because when Jason’s breathing evened out, Bruce had been too relieved to ask why your hands shook afterwards. Because when Clark stood healed, Bruce had looked at you bleeding from the lip and let you say you were okay.

He had let himself believe you.

A sound came from the medbay.

Small. Broken.

Bruce was at your side before he realised he had moved.

Your eyes were half-open. Unfocused.

“Don’t try to move,” Alfred said immediately.

You made a faint, pained noise.

Bruce leaned over you. “You’re in the Cave. You’re safe.”

Your gaze dragged toward him.

Recognition flickered.

Then relief.

Relief.

Bruce nearly broke.

“You’re alive,” you whispered.

His throat closed.

Alfred adjusted the oxygen cannula beneath your nose. “Against his better judgment, yes.”

Your mouth twitched.

Even now. Even like this.

Bruce wanted to beg you not to smile.

“Can you feel your legs?” Alfred asked gently.

Your expression shifted.

Not fear.

Knowledge.

You already knew.

Bruce watched the answer settle behind your eyes before you spoke.

“No,” you said.

The word hollowed out the room.

Bruce turned away for half a second, jaw clenched so hard pain shot through his skull.

Alfred’s face remained composed, but his hands were not quite steady as he checked your reflexes.

“This may be temporary,” Alfred said. “The injury was transferred through metahuman means. We cannot assume it will behave like standard trauma.”

You looked at Bruce. He hated that you looked at him. Hated that you cared more about his face than your body.

“You’re angry,” you murmured.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

His eyes snapped to yours.

You swallowed, wincing. “Means you’re okay.”

Bruce stared at you.

Then he said your name so softly it sounded more like damage than language.

You closed your eyes. “I had to.”

“No.”

Your eyelids fluttered open.

Bruce leaned closer. His hands gripped the rail of the bed because if he touched you, he did not know whether he would hold on too tightly or fall apart completely.

“No,” he said again. “You chose to.”

Your face went still.

“And you didn’t tell me the cost.”

Your gaze slid away.

That hurt more than he expected. Which was absurd. Everything hurt more than he expected. He had spent years training pain into something useful, something clean, something he could fold into mission parameters and scar tissue.

This pain was not clean. It had your blood in it.

“I never tell anyone,” you said.

Bruce’s voice dropped. “I’m not anyone.”

Silence.

Alfred paused.

Your eyes came back to his slowly.

Something raw moved through your expression. Something soft and terrible.

“No,” you whispered. “You’re not.”

Bruce could not breathe around it.

He wanted to touch your face. He wanted to hold your hand. He wanted to shake you. He wanted to wrap you in every blanket in the Manor and lock every door between you and the world.

He wanted, uselessly, to go back. To stay broken. To stop you.

Instead, he said, “How does it work?”

Your mouth tightened. “Bruce—”

“How does it work?”

Alfred gave him a warning look. Bruce ignored it.

You were quiet long enough that the monitors filled the space between you.

Then you sighed. “It transfers.”

Bruce closed his eyes.

There it was. The word he already knew and still did not survive hearing.

“When I heal someone,” you continued, voice thin, “I take the injury into myself. Usually not permanently. Most things pass faster in me than they would in someone else. Burns fade in hours. Breaks heal in days. Poison burns out. Pain drains eventually.”

“Eventually,” Bruce repeated.

You gave him a tired look. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Sound like you’re about to cross-examine my bloodstream.”

Alfred, traitor that he was, murmured, “A fair description of your tone, sir.”

Bruce did not look away from you. “You’ve been suffering every injury you healed.”

“Not suffering.”

His stare hardened.

You exhaled. “Not always for long.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

“You lied.”

“I omitted.”

“You lied.”

Your eyes flashed, a spark beneath exhaustion. “And you don’t?”

Bruce went silent.

You tried to shift, and pain tore across your face. The monitor spiked. Alfred moved quickly, adjusting medication, his voice low and calming.

Bruce stood frozen as you breathed through agony that had belonged to him.

When it passed, sweat shone at your hairline.

You looked very small in the medbed. You had never looked small before.

That frightened him more than the blood.

“I didn’t tell you,” you said, quieter, “because all of you would have stopped letting me help.”

“Yes.”

You laughed once. It sounded like it hurt. “Exactly.”

“You should have told us.”

“So you could make the choice for me?”

“So we could make an informed choice for ourselves.”

That landed.

Bruce saw it in the way your mouth parted slightly. In the sudden guilt that crossed your face.

He pressed on, because he was cruel when afraid. Precise when wounded.

“Clark would not have asked you to take kryptonite poisoning into your body.”

“He was dying.”

“Jason would not have asked you to take a bullet for him.”

“He was bleeding out.”

“Tim would not have asked you to absorb neurotoxin.”

“He was seizing.”

“Damian—”

“Would rather cut off his own hand than let someone else suffer for him,” you snapped. “I know.”

Your breathing hitched.

Bruce looked down.

Your hands were clenched in the sheets.

“I know,” you said again, softer. “I know who they are. I know what they’d choose. That’s why I don’t ask.”

Bruce felt something in his chest fracture.

Not because he understood.

Because he did.

You were surrounded by martyrs who would rather die than be saved at a cost. So you hid the price tag. You became the loophole.

Bruce looked at you and saw every terrible part of himself reflected back through gentler eyes.

Sacrifice dressed up as duty. Pain hidden under competence. Love turned into a weapon and aimed inward.

No wonder he had missed it.

It looked too much like him.

“You don’t get to decide that your life is worth less,” he said.

Your eyes shone. “Neither do you.”

The Cave went quiet.

Somewhere above, rain began to strike the Manor windows. Soft at first, then harder. Gotham weather, dramatic as ever. The city had never known how to read a room.

Bruce lowered himself into the chair beside your bed.

He removed his gauntlets slowly. One finger at a time. Armour coming off always felt like losing an argument.

You watched him warily.

He reached for your hand. Paused. Asked, because he should have asked before, “May I?”

Your expression cracked. Just slightly.

Then you nodded.

Bruce took your hand with a care that felt almost violent in its restraint.

Your fingers were cold.

He covered them with both of his.

“I was dead weight,” he said.

You blinked. “What?”

“In the building. I couldn’t move.”

Your throat bobbed.

“You were dying,” you said.

“I know.”

“No, Bruce. You were dying.”

He held your gaze. “I know.”

Your face twisted with something like grief. “Then why are you looking at me like I did something wrong?”

“Because you nearly died.”

“So did you.”

“I’m used to it.”

The words came too easily.

Your stare sharpened, even through the pain.

“That,” you said, “is the saddest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Bruce looked down at your hand.

You turned your fingers weakly against his palm. “You think your death would be easier for me because you’ve rehearsed it more?”

He had no answer.

You continued, voice trembling but steady enough to cut. “You think I could watch you die and call it respect? Call it consent? Call it honouring your choices?”

Bruce’s jaw tightened.

“I couldn’t,” you whispered. “I’m sorry if that makes me selfish.”

Selfish. The word was so wrong that Bruce almost flinched.

“You call this selfish?”

“I wanted you alive.”

His grip tightened carefully around your hand.

You looked at him like the confession had cost you more than the injury.

“I wanted you alive,” you repeated. “Not Batman. Not the mission. Not the symbol. You.”

Bruce closed his eyes. In the dark behind them, he saw you kneeling in rubble. Your face above his. Your forehead against his. Your whisper.

Forgive me.

He had thought, for one blinding second, that you were saying goodbye.

Maybe you had been.

When he opened his eyes, you were still watching him.

“You should have let Clark take me,” you said after a moment.

“No.”

“He’s faster.”

“Yes.”

“Bruce.”

“I couldn’t.”

The honesty left him rough. Bare.

Your face softened. He hated that too.

He was not the one in the bed. He was not the one with a stolen wound curled around his spine like a curse. He did not deserve your tenderness right now.

“I couldn’t give you to someone else,” he said.

Your eyes filled again.

“Oh,” you whispered.

Bruce lifted your hand and pressed his mouth to your knuckles.

It was not enough. It was nowhere close. But it was what he could do without breaking every monitor Alfred had attached to you.

“I’m sorry,” he said against your skin.

You breathed in shakily. “For what?”

“For not seeing it.”

“You weren’t supposed to.”

“I should have.”

“No.” Your thumb moved weakly across his hand. “Bruce, no.”

He looked up.

You gave him the saddest smile. “You don’t get to be responsible for my secrets too.”

Something in him rebelled against that. Responsibility was the shape he gave to love when love was too dangerous to name. He could hold responsibility. Measure it. Use it. Bleed for it.

But this? This was only terror and your cold hand and the knowledge that you had loved him violently enough to become his wound.

“I’m responsible now,” he said.

Your smile faded. “Bruce.”

“There will be protocols.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Limits.”

“You’re doing it.”

“Medical oversight.”

“You’re making my spinal trauma administrative.”

“Transfer thresholds.”

“Romance is alive and well in Gotham.”

Alfred coughed. It sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Bruce ignored him. “You won’t heal anyone alone again.”

Your expression sobered. “That’s not always possible.”

“Then you don’t heal.”

“You know I can’t promise that.”

His voice hardened. “You will.”

“No.”

The word was quiet. Final.

Bruce stared at you. You stared back.

There you were, barely conscious, temporarily paralysed, still prepared to fight him from a medbed.

He should have been angry.

He was angry.

But beneath it was something more helpless.

“You would do it again,” he said.

Your silence answered before you did.

“If it was you?” you whispered. “Yes.”

Bruce’s chest tightened.

He stood abruptly, because sitting still had become impossible. He paced once, twice, then stopped at the foot of your bed.

“You don’t get to say that like it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“You took my broken spine.”

“Yes.”

“You took my internal bleeding.”

“Yes.”

“You could have died.”

“Yes.”

His hands curled into fists. “Why?”

Your eyes widened slightly, like the answer was obvious. Like he was the impossible one.

Then your face softened.

Because of course you knew. Of course, you saw the question beneath the question.

Why me? Why would you choose me? Why would anyone look at the ruin of him, the sharp edges, the locked doors, the blood-soaked mission that had eaten most of his life, and decide he was worth carrying?

Your voice was barely audible.

“Because I love you.”

Bruce stopped breathing.

Alfred became very interested in the IV line.

Rain filled the silence.

You looked away first, cheeks flushed with fever or pain or embarrassment. Maybe all three.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you murmured. “Actually, please don’t if you’re about to be noble and emotionally unavailable. I’m very injured and cannot escape the room.”

Bruce moved before he decided to.

He came back to your side, leaned over the bed, and touched your face.

Carefully. Always carefully.

You went still beneath his palm.

He brushed his thumb along your cheekbone, avoiding the bruising near your temple. Your eyes lifted to his.

“I love you,” he said.

You stared.

For once, you seemed genuinely speechless.

Bruce would have appreciated that more under different circumstances.

Then your face crumpled.

“Oh,” you whispered again, smaller this time.

He bent and kissed your forehead.

Your eyes closed.

He stayed there for a moment, lips against your skin, breathing you in beneath antiseptic and blood and rain-damp Cave air.

When he drew back, you were crying silently.

Bruce wiped the tears away with his thumb.

“I’m still angry,” he said.

You laughed weakly. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“I’m going to be angry for a while.”

“Hot.”

His mouth twitched despite everything.

Then his expression broke serious again. “But I love you.”

Your fingers curled around his.

“And we are going to find a way,” he continued. “A safer way. A limit. A counterbalance. Something.”

“You can’t solve everything.”

“No.”

You gave him a look.

Bruce sighed. “I can attempt to solve many things.”

“There he is.”

“I can also sit here.”

Your expression changed.

He saw the exact moment you realised what he was offering.

Not a plan. Not a protocol. Not a war against the impossible.

Presence.

Bruce Wayne’s rarest currency.

“You hate sitting still,” you said.

“I do.”

“You’re bad at it.”

“I am.”

“You’ll brood.”

“Likely.”

“You’ll scare the nurses.”

“Alfred isn’t scared of me.”

“Alfred raised you. He’s immune.”

“Unfortunately.”

Your smile was small and exhausted, but real.

Bruce sat back down.

He did not let go of your hand.

You woke and slept in pieces.

Pain made islands of time.

Sometimes Alfred was there, changing medication, murmuring dry commentary that made the Cave feel less like a tomb. Sometimes Clark visited, guilt written so plainly across his face that you had to spend ten full minutes reassuring Superman, which felt frankly illegal.

He stood at the end of your bed with his hands folded too tightly.

“I should have known,” Clark said.

From the chair beside you, Bruce made a low sound.

You pointed weakly at him. “Do not start a guilt club. I will revoke everyone’s membership.”

Clark’s mouth twitched.

“I mean it,” you said. “No matching jackets.”

“I could design a logo,” Bruce said dryly.

You turned your head slowly toward him. “That was almost a joke.”

“No.”

“Growth.”

Clark looked between you both, something soft dawning in his expression.

Bruce glared. Clark wisely pretended not to notice.

Diana came next. She held your hand between both of hers and bowed her head over it.

“You have carried warriors without allowing them the honour of carrying you,” she said.

You swallowed. “That sounds bad when you put it like that.”

“It was meant to.”

“Cool, cool, love the honesty.”

She smiled faintly. “You will allow us to help now.”

It was not a question.

You glanced at Bruce. He raised an eyebrow.

You sighed. “You told her.”

“I told the League.”

Your stomach dropped. “You what?”

Bruce’s expression did not shift. “They needed to know.”

Anger flashed hot enough to cut through the pain. “That wasn’t your secret to tell.”

“No,” he said. “It was their bodies.”

You froze.

The anger did not vanish. But it changed shape.

Bruce leaned forward. His voice lowered. “They had a right to know what happens when you heal them. You were not wrong to save us. But you were wrong to take the choice away.”

You looked at Diana.

Her face was gentle. Not accusing.

That made it worse.

“I would not have asked this of you,” she said softly.

“I know.”

“And yet I am grateful.”

Your throat tightened.

Diana squeezed your hand. “Both can be true.”

After she left, you refused to look at Bruce for nearly an hour.

He sat beside you anyway.

Brooding. Predictably.

Finally, you said, “I’m mad at you.”

“I know.”

“You had no right.”

“I know.”

“I understand why you did it.”

His eyes moved to yours.

“That does not make me less mad,” you said.

“I know.”

You watched him for a moment.

He looked exhausted. Not the usual kind. Not the clean-lined fatigue of patrols and board meetings and nights spent chasing monsters through the city’s veins.

This was deeper. He sat like a man keeping vigil at the edge of a grave he had almost been lowered into, except you were the one lying down.

“You’re allowed to sleep,” you said.

“No.”

“Bruce.”

“No.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

His face went still.

You realised your mistake immediately.

Bruce looked down at your joined hands. “You don’t know that.”

The words were quiet. So quiet they hurt more.

Your anger softened, unwillingly and all at once.

“Hey,” you whispered.

He did not look up.

You squeezed his hand as hard as you could. It was not very hard.

“Bruce.”

His eyes lifted.

“I’m here.”

His jaw worked.

“I’m here,” you repeated.

“For now.”

“For now is what everyone gets.”

He hated that. You could tell. Hated it with his whole controlled, grieving, impossible heart.

But he did not argue.

That was how you knew he was truly afraid.

On the third day, feeling returned to your left foot.

It was not pleasant.

You woke from a dead sleep with a strangled gasp, pain lightning up your leg. Bruce was on his feet instantly, one hand on your shoulder, the other reaching for the call button.

“What happened?”

“My foot,” you choked out.

Alfred appeared within seconds.

Bruce looked like he might personally fight your nervous system.

“Pain?” Alfred asked.

You nodded, tears springing to your eyes.

“Scale?”

“Six,” you said.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed.

“Seven,” you amended.

Alfred gave you a knowing look. “Nine, then.”

“Betrayal,” you whispered.

Bruce’s hand remained on your shoulder, warm and steady.

After Alfred adjusted your medication and confirmed the return of nerve response was a good sign, the pain settled into something bearable.

Bruce did not. He stayed tense beside you, jaw locked, eyes fixed on your legs like he could command them back into obedience.

“Stop glaring at my spine,” you mumbled.

“I’m not.”

“You sure are.”

He exhaled through his nose.

You studied him through the haze of medication.

He had not shaved. His hair was messy from running his hands through it. His shirt sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and there was a coffee mug nearby that looked untouched and deeply depressed.

“You look terrible,” you said fondly.

“Thank you.”

“Very Victorian widower chic.”

His eyebrow twitched.

“You need sleep.”

“I’ve slept.”

“Microsleep while threatening medical equipment doesn’t count.”

“I didn’t threaten anything.”

“Bruce.”

“A monitor was malfunctioning.”

“You told it to try harder.”

“It did.”

You laughed, and it hurt, but the hurt was worth it because Bruce’s face changed.

Only slightly.

But it changed.

The tightness eased around his mouth. His eyes warmed with something fragile.

“There you are,” he murmured.

Your breath caught.

He seemed to realise he had said it aloud, because he looked away.

Too late.

Warmth spread through your chest, soft and aching.

“Come here,” you said.

His gaze returned immediately. “What do you need?”

“You.”

That stopped him.

You shifted carefully, making room on the narrow medbed.

“No.”

“Bruce.”

“You’re injured.”

“I’m aware.”

“I could hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m not getting into a medbed with you while you have spinal trauma.”

You stared at him.

He stared back.

You sighed. “Okay. Chair closer, then.”

He hesitated.

“Please,” you added.

That did it.

Bruce moved the chair until it was close enough for you to touch him without straining. You lifted your hand. He took it.

“No,” you said. “Closer.”

He leaned in.

You reached up and touched his face.

His eyes closed.

The sight of it nearly undid you.

Bruce Wayne, who held himself like a locked room, leaning into your hand in the cold glow of the Cave.

“You’re alive,” you said softly.

His eyes opened. “So are you.”

“Yeah.”

“You nearly weren’t.”

“As were you.”

His mouth tightened.

You brushed your thumb over his cheek.

“We’re a mess,” you whispered.

“Yes.”

“Like, a medically concerning mess.”

“Yes.”

“Emotionally, too.”

“Obviously.”

You smiled.

He turned his face and kissed your palm.

Your heart stumbled.

“I meant what I said,” he murmured.

Your smile faded into something softer. “About loving me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Your voice shook. “Because I meant it too.”

Bruce leaned forward until his forehead rested gently against yours.

No pressure. No demand.

Just contact. Just warmth. Just the mercy between bones.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted.

“Love me?”

“Let you risk yourself.”

You breathed out. “I don’t know how to stop.”

“I know.”

“You can’t lock me away.”

“I know.”

“You can’t make every choice for me.”

His eyes opened. “I know.”

“And I can’t keep taking choices from everyone else.”

Bruce went very still.

The confession sat between you.

Ugly. Necessary. True.

You swallowed. “I thought if I told people, they’d choose pain. Death. Permanent damage. I thought they’d make the noble choice because all of you are allergic to being loved safely.”

Bruce’s mouth twisted.

“But I think…” Your voice thinned. “I think maybe I was making the same choice for them.”

He did not speak.

His hand tightened around yours.

“I don’t regret saving you,” you said. “I won’t lie about that.”

Pain flickered in his eyes.

“But I’m sorry I made it something you had no say in.”

Bruce closed his eyes.

For a moment, he looked younger.

Not young. Never young.

But younger. Like grief had loosened its grip just enough to reveal the boy beneath the bat. The child in the alley. The man still trying to make every loss mean something.

When he opened his eyes again, they were damp.

He did not let the tears fall.

That was fine. You knew him.

You saw them anyway.

“I would have chosen you,” he said.

Your breath caught.

“If you had asked,” Bruce continued, voice rough, “if you had told me the cost, I would have chosen your life over my legs.”

Your vision blurred. “I know.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” you whispered. “That’s why I didn’t ask.”

He flinched.

You hated yourself for it, but the truth was there now, sharp and breathing.

Bruce absorbed it in silence.

Then he nodded once.

Not forgiveness. Not yet.

Understanding.

That was a beginning.

“We do it differently now,” he said.

You nodded.

“We make rules.”

“Guidelines,” you countered weakly.

“Rules.”

“Strong suggestions.”

His stare flattened.

You smiled. “Fine. Rules.”

“No healing without disclosure unless the person is unconscious and the injury is immediately fatal.”

“Reasonable.”

“No solo transfers above a threshold we determine with testing.”

“Mostly reasonable.”

“No hiding symptoms.”

You grimaced.

His eyes narrowed. “Non-negotiable.”

“You’re so hot when you’re a bureaucratic nightmare.”

“Deflection.”

“Accurate deflection.”

“And,” Bruce said, ignoring that, “when you are injured, you let us help.”

Your smile slipped.

There it was. The hardest one.

Not the pain. Not the risk. Not the blood.

Receiving. Letting care come toward you and not turning it aside.

You looked down at your joined hands.

“I don’t know how,” you admitted.

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

A laugh broke out of you, small and wet. “God, we’re doomed.”

“No.”

He said it so firmly you looked back up.

Bruce’s eyes held yours. “We’ll learn.”

The words should have sounded impossible. From anyone else, maybe they would have. But this was Bruce. Bruce, who had rebuilt himself from blood and pearls and gun smoke. Bruce, who turned grief into a citywide vow. Bruce, who loved like a locked door but stayed, always stayed, once you found the key.

If Bruce Wayne said he would learn, then God help the universe, he would.

You let your head sink back into the pillow.

“Okay,” you whispered.

He kissed your forehead again.

Then, after a pause, your mouth.

Softly. Carefully. A kiss shaped around the IV line, the spinal brace, the bruises, the terror. A kiss that did not ask for more than you could give. A kiss that said, with aching restraint, I am here. I am not leaving. I am furious. I love you.

When he pulled back, your eyes were closed.

“You need to sleep,” he said.

“So do you.”

“I’ll stay.”

“That wasn’t the argument-ending statement you thought it was.”

You felt, rather than saw, his faint smile.

A blanket shifted. The chair creaked. Then Bruce’s hand was still in yours, his thumb resting over your pulse.

Guarding it. Counting it. Trusting it, maybe.

You drifted toward sleep.

At the edge of it, you murmured, “Bruce?”

“Yes?”

“If you tell Jason, he’s going to yell at me.”

“He already knows.”

Your eyes snapped open. “Bruce.”

“He yelled at me first.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Then he yelled at Clark.”

“That tracks.”

“He’s waiting upstairs.”

You groaned. “I’m critically injured.”

“He brought soup.”

“Jason made soup?”

“Alfred made soup. Jason is taking credit.”

You smiled despite yourself.

The Cave hummed around you. Rain whispered above. Somewhere in the Manor, the family you had saved too many times waited to be angry, relieved, and unbearably present.

You had thought the pain had to go somewhere.

Maybe it did.

But maybe care did too.

Maybe it could move from hand to hand, body to body, not as a wound but as warmth. Maybe, this time, you did not have to be the only place suffering landed.

Bruce’s fingers tightened around yours as if he felt the thought pass through you.

“Sleep,” he said.

“Bossy.”

“Yes.”

“Love you too.”

His breath caught softly.

Then his mouth brushed your knuckles.

“I love you,” Bruce said, like a vow. Like a wound closing. Like the first honest miracle he had ever believed in.

And for once, when you slept, you did not have to carry the pain alone.

Bruce held your hand through every hour of it.

Batman stood over the corpse in silence.

Nightwing crouched near the shattered remnants of a fear toxin canister, expression stripped of its usual brightness. Red Robin moved through the room in slow, exact lines, scanning everything twice, then a third time because Tim Drake did not trust anything that behaved too neatly. Red Hood leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, helmet angled down at the body.

“Gotta say,” Jason said, voice crackling through the modulator, “I’ve seen worse interior decorating.”

“Not helpful,” Nightwing muttered.

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Batman said nothing.

That was the second strange thing. Bruce had gone still in that terrifying way he did when the world presented him with an answer he didn’t want to understand. His cape pooled around him like a shadow trying to remember how to be human.

Tim straightened, tablet glowing pale across his face. “No forced entry. Security disabled from inside the system, but not remotely. Whoever did this physically accessed the building.”

“Crane has guards,” Dick said.

“Had,” Jason corrected.

No one laughed.

There were twelve of them, all unconscious. Alive. Bound with their own belts, positioned where they would wake slowly and painfully, but wake. No unnecessary casualties. No collateral damage.

A clean path through chaos. A blade through the throat of a monster.

Damian stood apart from the others, frozen near the far wall.

At first, Dick thought he was staring at Crane. Then he realised Damian wasn’t looking at the body at all.

He was looking at the cut.

A single wound. Precise. Merciful, almost, in its efficiency.

Damian’s face had gone pale beneath his mask.

“Robin?” Bruce asked.

Damian did not answer immediately.

Jason’s helmet turned toward him. “Kid?”

Damian swallowed. “I know this work.”

The cave went colder than winter.

Tim’s fingers paused over the tablet. Dick rose slowly. Bruce turned his head, just enough to make the cowl’s white lenses catch the dim light.

“Explain,” Batman said.

Damian’s mouth tightened.

“That is not merely League technique,” he said. “It is older. Ceremonial. Reserved for correctional executions.”

Jason pushed off the wall. “Correctional?”

“When an enemy of the League acts beyond the bounds Grandfather permits.” Damian’s voice was flat, but something underneath it trembled like a wire pulled too tight. “When an example must be made quietly.”

Tim looked at Crane’s body again. “Scarecrow stole from the League?”

“Or poisoned something they wanted,” Dick said.

Bruce’s gaze did not leave Damian. “Who would Ra’s send?”

Damian’s silence answered before he did.

A small, terrible thing passed across his face.

Not fear. Not exactly.

Recognition.

“There were rumours,” Damian said softly. “In Nanda Parbat.”

Jason went still.

Damian never sounded young when he spoke of the League. He sounded carved. Like every memory had been sanded down until only edges remained.

“Rumours of an heir before me,” Damian continued. “A child raised deeper within the citadel. Not displayed. Not praised. Not allowed failure.”

Bruce’s jaw tightened.

“Talia’s child?” he asked.

Damian did not look at him.

“My mother’s,” he said. “Not yours.”

The words landed like a blade placed gently on a table.

Dick inhaled. “Damian…”

“I never met them,” Damian said quickly, too quickly. “Not properly. I saw them only once.”

His eyes flicked toward Crane again.

“They were training in the eastern courtyard. Seven assassins against one. They were older than me. Perhaps by five years. Perhaps more. It was difficult to tell. The League does not allow children to remain children.”

Jason’s hands curled at his sides.

Damian’s voice lowered. “They won.”

Silence swallowed the room whole.

Then Tim’s tablet chimed. He looked down, and every bit of colour left his face.

“Bruce,” he said. “You need to see this.”

On the screen, a symbol appeared. Not carved. Not painted. Burned into the underside of Crane’s desk, hidden where only someone investigating properly would find it.

A black blade crossed through a green flame.

Damian stepped back like he’d been struck.

Bruce saw. “Robin.”

Damian’s lips parted.

“That is them,” he said.

Jason looked between them. “Them who?”

Damian’s eyes lifted, and for the first time since entering Crane’s hideout, he looked afraid.

“The Blade of Al-Ghul.”

You left Gotham before dawn.

Not because you were afraid of the Bats. Fear was a tool. A chemical. A weakness in the breath before pain. You understood fear intimately, the way a surgeon understood the body: by opening it, studying its shape, learning what made it stop.

You left because the mission was finished. Jonathan Crane had taken a vial of Lazarus compound from a League caravan six months ago. He had diluted it, corrupted it, tried to lace it with fear toxin and sell the result to the highest bidder. He had not known what he carried. Men like Crane rarely did. They saw the sacred and wondered how much it would fetch in dirty money.

The Demon’s Head had spoken. You had obeyed.

That was the whole world.

A command. A target. A blade. Silence after.

Gotham sprawled beneath you, ugly and glittering, all bruised neon and rain-slick rooftops. It was a city with too many heartbeats. Too many witnesses. Too many ghosts.

You understood, now, why Damian had changed here.

The city was a disease.  Or perhaps a cure. You had not decided.

The wind shifted.

You stopped walking.

Three rooftops away, a shadow moved wrong.

Not civilian. Not police. Not League.

Bat.

You tilted your head.

“Come out,” you said.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the shadow detached from a gargoyle, and the Red Robin stepped into view.

He was smaller than you expected.

No. Not smaller.

Young.

Sharp-eyed. Tired. Dangerous in the way of people who had taught themselves to survive by noticing everything.

“You’re hard to find,” he said.

You watched him.

He smiled faintly, but it did not reach his eyes. “That was almost a compliment.”

“You followed the wrong trail.”

His expression flickered.

Then something clicked behind you.

A gun.

You did not turn.

“Did I?” Red Robin asked.

Red Hood stood at your back, weapon trained between your shoulder blades. His stance was aggressive, but not careless. He had positioned himself outside the most obvious range of your reach.

Good.

Not good enough.

“Hands where I can see them,” Hood said.

You lifted your hands slowly.

Red Robin’s gaze narrowed.

He knew.

Smart one.

The wire around his ankle went taut.

You moved.

Not fast.

Perfectly.

That was what the League had carved into you. Speed was sloppy when worshipped. Strength was crude when indulged. Perfection was not the rush of movement. It was inevitability.

You stepped sideways as Red Hood fired. The bullet struck the rooftop exactly where you had been standing. You pulled the wire, and Red Robin hit the ground hard enough to lose breath but not consciousness. Hood advanced; you turned into him, caught his wrist, redirected the second shot into the sky, and drove your elbow into the seam beneath his ribs.

He grunted.

You almost admired him for staying upright.

Almost.

Red Robin swept for your legs. You let him catch one, let his hope bloom for half a second, then twisted with the momentum and dropped your knee beside his throat.

Not on it.

Beside it.

A warning dressed as mercy.

Hood lunged again.

You threw one of your blades.

It pinned his jacket to an exhaust vent.

His helmet snapped toward the knife, then back to you.

“Okay,” he said. “Rude.”

Red Robin’s staff extended beneath your arm.

You caught it.

For one breath, the two of you stared at each other over the weapon.

His eyes widened slightly.

He knew he had lost.

Before you could break the staff, a body dropped from above.

Blue and black.

Nightwing came down like a falling star.

You released Red Robin and rolled away from the strike, cloak snapping behind you. Nightwing flowed after you, escrima sticks sparking to life. His movements were acrobatic, beautiful, almost joyful.

You hated that. Combat was not meant to be joyful.

Combat was prayer.

He struck high. You ducked. He spun. You moved inside the arc, fingers finding the pressure point beneath his arm. He saw it coming at the last possible second and shifted enough that you caught muscle instead of nerve.

Impressive.

He smiled despite himself.

“You’re definitely related to Damian.”

That name did what bullets had not.

It made you pause.

Only slightly. Only for the width of a heartbeat.

But a heartbeat was an eternity to the Bat.

Smoke exploded across the rooftop.

You held your breath before it bloomed fully. Standard concealment tactic. Irritant compound. Mild sedative underlayer. Designed for human reflexes.

You had been trained out of those.

Something moved in the smoke.

Small. Fast. Familiar.

A sword rang against your blade.

You turned.

Robin stood before you, cape whipping around his slight frame, katana held in both hands.

Damian Wayne.

Blood of your mother. Son of the Bat. The child who escaped.

For the first time in years, you felt something that did not have a name.

He stared at you through the white lenses of his mask. His jaw was clenched so hard it must have hurt.

“You,” he said.

You inclined your head. “Little brother.”

Everyone froze.

Nightwing’s escrima sticks lowered a fraction. Red Robin stopped trying to rise. Hood, still pinned by his jacket, went utterly silent.

Damian flinched as though the words had touched bare skin. “You are not permitted to call me that.”

“Am I not?”

“You do not know me.”

“No,” you said. “I know what you were meant to be.”

His grip tightened on the sword.

You studied him. He was smaller than you had imagined. Not weak. Never weak. But there was softness in him now, hidden badly beneath all that anger. Gotham had infected him thoroughly. It had put warmth in the cracks the League left behind.

How strange. How terrible. How lucky.

Damian lifted his chin. “Surrender.”

Behind you, Red Hood gave a rough laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll work.”

You ignored him. Your gaze stayed on Damian.

“And if I do not?”

“Then I will stop you.”

You looked at his sword. His stance. The tremor he thought he was hiding.

“You will try.”

He attacked.

For half a second, he was magnificent. The League had not wasted its training. Damian moved with the precision of a prince raised in war. His blade cut the air in clean silver arcs. His footwork was disciplined, his rage contained, his eyes always searching.

But he had left too early. Or perhaps you had stayed too long.

You caught the first strike, redirected the second, avoided the third by less than an inch. He pressed you toward the edge of the roof, exactly as he had been trained to do. He expected resistance.

So you gave him none.

You stepped backwards off the roof.

Damian’s eyes widened.

He lunged after you on instinct.

Predictable. Painfully brave.

You caught his wrist as you fell, hooked your line around a gargoyle, and swung both of you hard into the side of the building below. Glass cracked beneath your boots. Damian gasped, but did not cry out.

You pinned him against the wall with one arm across his chest, blade angled beneath his chin.

Above, the others shouted.

Damian glared at you, breathing hard.

“You should not have followed,” you said.

“You should not have come.”

“I go where I am sent.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one I have.”

Something shifted in his face then.

Not pity. Damian would never insult you with pity.

Recognition. He saw the shape of the cage because he had once lived inside it.

“You can leave,” he said, very quietly.

The words were absurd. Almost cruel.

You stared at him.

Below, Gotham traffic whispered like distant rain.

“No,” you said.

His brows drew together.

“You think you cannot,” he said.

“I know what I am.”

“You are not a weapon.”

You smiled. It felt unfamiliar on your face.

“Then why does everyone keep reaching for me?”

The grappling line above you jerked.

Batman descended through the fog like judgment.

You released Damian and kicked away from the wall before the Bat could reach you. Your boots hit the side of the neighbouring building; you ran three steps across the vertical surface, launched yourself upward, and landed on a fire escape.

Batman landed opposite you.

No flourish. No wasted motion.

You understood immediately why the League had spoken of him like a storm given bones.

“Enough,” he said.

You drew your second blade.

Batman’s gaze flicked to it. Then to your stance. Then to your face.

“You’re Talia’s child.”

It was not a question.

You said nothing.

His voice lowered. “Damian’s sibling.”

Still, you said nothing. Words were openings. Openings were weaknesses. Weakness got children locked in rooms beneath mountains until they learned to stop crying.

Batman stepped closer. “You killed Crane.”

“Yes.”

“On Ra’s al Ghul’s orders.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Crane stole from the League.”

“That doesn’t justify execution.”

You tilted your head.

“No,” you said. “It explains it.”

His mouth tightened beneath the cowl.

There. Anger. Controlled, but present.

He cared too much. Damian’s father cared so much it bled through armour.

How inefficient. How devastating.

“How old were you,” Batman asked, “when they started training you?”

The question was so unexpected that you almost answered.

Your silence was answer enough.

Batman’s cape shifted as the others arrived around him. Nightwing first, landing light. Red Robin next, staff in hand. Hood last, knife gone from his jacket, gun lowered but ready.

Damian climbed onto the fire escape behind them.

He did not look away from you.

“They won’t let you keep killing,” he said.

“No,” you agreed. “They will try to stop me.”

“You don’t have to make this a fight.”

You looked at the five of them.

The Bat. The golden one. The detective. The dead man. The heir who ran. A family made of broken things that had chosen, impossibly, to hold.

Then you looked at Damian. “You already have.”

The fight lasted four minutes.

Later, Tim would replay the footage seventeen times and hate every second of it.

You fought like you had been built in a room without love. Every strike had purpose. Every dodge became an attack. Every attack became a lesson in anatomy. You used their hesitation against them, their teamwork against them, their mercy against them most of all.

Dick tried to bind your wrists; you dislocated your thumb without flinching and slipped free. Jason tried brute force; you turned his strength into momentum and sent him through a rusted railing. Tim tried distance; you closed it. Bruce tried pressure points; you knew counters older than his training.

Damian tried to face you alone. That was when you made your only mistake.

You could have cut him.

You didn’t.

Batman saw.

He adjusted instantly, changing strategy mid-breath. Not aiming to beat you. Aiming to protect Damian long enough for Tim to deploy the modified restraint foam across the fire escape supports.

You noticed too late.

The foam burst upward, hardening around your boots, your knees, your left arm.

You cut through the first layer.

A taser line struck your shoulder.

Your body locked.

Not enough.

You tore free with a soundless snarl and nearly reached Damian again before Nightwing wrapped both arms around your waist from behind.

“I’m sorry,” he said in your ear.

You slammed your head back into his face.

He held on.

Jason caught your right arm. Tim caught the left. Bruce stepped in front of you, one hand raised, waiting for the instant your balance shifted.

Damian stood behind him, sword lowered.

You met his eyes.

He looked horrified.

Not by what you had done.

By what had been done to you.

That was worse.

You bared your teeth. “Do not look at me like that.”

Damian’s voice broke around the edges. “Like what?”

“Like I am a warning.”

His silence was a blade.

Batman struck.

A precise blow to the nerve cluster beneath your jaw.

The world went white.

Then black.

You woke in the Batcave. You knew this before you opened your eyes.

The air was too damp. Too metallic. Too alive with machines breathing softly in the dark. Somewhere nearby, water dripped in slow, patient intervals.

You catalogued yourself first. Wrists restrained. Ankles restrained. Shoulder bruised. Thumb reset while unconscious. Three ribs tender but not broken. No sedative fog in your mind. They had either underestimated your tolerance or chosen not to drug you further.

Interesting.

You opened your eyes.

The Bat stood across from you.

No mask this time.

Bruce Wayne looked less like a storm without the cowl. More like a man haunted by every child he had failed to save.

You disliked him immediately.

Damian stood at his side. You disliked that more.

The others lingered at the edges of the cave. Nightwing had bruising along his nose. Red Hood’s jacket was torn. Red Robin watched you with the expression of someone solving a puzzle and hating the picture it made.

“You are in no danger here,” Bruce said.

You almost laughed.

Instead, you looked at the restraints.

“Is that what you tell all prisoners?”

“You’re not a prisoner,” Dick said gently.

Your eyes moved to him.

He stopped talking.

Good.

Bruce stepped closer. “We need to know what Ra’s is planning.”

“Ask him.”

“We’re asking you.”

“I heard.”

Jason snorted. “Oh, this one’s fun.”

Damian shot him a glare.

You looked at Damian again. He had changed out of uniform. No mask. No sword. Just a boy in dark clothes trying to stand like a soldier and failing because his hands kept curling and uncurling at his sides.

You wondered if your mother knew he did that. You wondered if she missed him. You wondered when you had started allowing yourself such useless thoughts.

“You called me little brother,” Damian said.

Bruce’s face tightened.

You said nothing.

Damian took one step forward. “Did Mother tell you about me?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“That you were gifted.”

His mouth twisted. “That is all?”

“That you were arrogant. Undisciplined. Brilliant. Precious to her plans.”

Damian swallowed. “And after I left?”

You studied him carefully.

This was a trap, though perhaps not one he knew he had set.

“She said,” you answered, “that Gotham had made you weak.”

Damian’s eyes flashed.

Then dimmed.

“And what do you think?”

The cave seemed to lean closer.

Even the bats above were silent.

You looked at him.

Really looked.

At the green eyes identical to your mother's. At the posture that had once been beaten into both of you. At the boy who had escaped the mountain and found a father waiting in the dark. At the Robin who had pointed a sword at you and offered you freedom like freedom was something you could simply hand another person.

Weak, the League would have said.

You thought of him pulling his strike when Red Robin crossed too close behind you. You thought of him saying you are not a weapon. You thought of his horror when Batman knocked you unconscious.

You looked away first.

“I think,” you said slowly, “that Gotham has made you inefficient.”

Jason gave a low whistle. “Ouch.”

Damian did not react.

Because he had heard what the others had not.

Not weak. Never weak.

Bruce heard it too.

His expression shifted, subtle as moonlight through water.

“You protected him,” Bruce said.

You looked at him sharply.

“You had three chances to injure Damian badly enough to end the fight,” he continued. “You didn’t take them.”

“Sentiment is not the only explanation.”

“No,” Bruce said. “But it is one.”

You leaned back against the chair.

The restraints hummed faintly with electricity.

“You want me to be redeemable,” you said.

No one answered.

So you smiled again, colder this time.

“How very Gotham of you.”

Dick’s face softened. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is a foolish thing.”

“Usually,” Tim said quietly. “But not always.”

You looked at him. He held your gaze, brave and exhausted and breakable in ways he had somehow weaponised.

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” you said.

Bruce’s voice was steady.

“No,” he said. “But I know what was done to you.”

For the first time, you felt anger. Real anger.

Not mission heat. Not defensive calculation. Not the clean, cold violence the League preferred.

Anger.

It rose in you like a struck match.

“You know nothing.”

Bruce did not move. “I know children are not born blades.”

Your hands curled against the restraints. “They are forged.”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “And forging is violence.”

The words hit something buried so deep inside you that for one impossible second you could not breathe.

Damian took another step closer.

You could see it in him now. The awful hope. The desperate, childish thing he tried to bury under discipline and sharp words.

He wanted you to be saved because if you could not be saved, then maybe some part of him had never escaped either.

Poor little brother. Still looking for proof that cages could open.

You turned your face away from him.

“Send me back,” you said.

“No,” Damian answered before Bruce could.

Your eyes snapped to him.

His chin lifted.

“No,” he repeated. “I left. You can too.”

Your laugh came out too soft. “You think leaving is the same as being free.”

Damian flinched.

Good. Cruelty was safer than tenderness. Cruelty had handles. Tenderness was a blade with no hilt.

Bruce watched you like he knew exactly what you were doing. Annoying man.

“You are not returning to the League,” he said.

You stared at him.

The cave seemed suddenly smaller.

“You cannot keep me here forever.”

“No,” Bruce said. “But I can keep you here tonight.”

“Ra’s will come.”

“Let him.”

Jason laughed once. Sharp and delighted. “Oh, I love when he gets dramatic.”

Dick sighed. “Jay.”

“What? I do.”

Damian did not smile.

He was still looking at you.

Like a warning. Like a wound. Like family, which was worse than both.

“You should have stayed away from Gotham,” he said.

You looked at him for a long moment.

Then you gave him the truth. A small piece of it. So small it should not have hurt.

“I wanted to see what stole you.”

Damian went still.

The cave fell silent again, but this silence was different.

Not tactical. Not fearful.

Grieving.

Bruce’s face changed first. Then Dick’s. Tim looked down. Jason turned his helmet away.

Damian’s eyes shone, but he did not let anything fall.

Of course not. You had both been raised better than that.

At last, Damian stepped closer until he stood directly in front of you.

“You were not stolen from,” he said, voice low. “You were abandoned with them.”

Your throat tightened. You hated him for that.

You loved him for it too, though you did not yet have the courage to know.

Above you, the bats shifted in the dark. Below them, machines hummed. Water dripped. Gotham breathed.

And for the first time in your life, you sat in a cage that someone else was trying to open from the outside.

Ra’s al Ghul came before sunrise.

Men like him did not knock. They arrived like prophecy, certain the door had always belonged to them.

The first warning was not an alarm.

It was you.

You sat restrained in the Batcave, head bowed, wrists locked in humming cuffs, and went utterly still.

Damian noticed first.

He had not left. Bruce had tried to make him. Dick had offered tea, rest, a blanket, anything that sounded soft enough to pretend this was not a hostage situation with family trauma wearing ceremonial blades. Tim had hovered near the computer. Jason had leaned against the medbay entrance like he was only there for tactical reasons, which fooled exactly no one.

But Damian stayed in front of you. Guarding you.

Or guarding everyone else from you.

You were not sure he knew the difference.

Then your breathing changed.

Damian’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

You lifted your head. “They are here.”

The cave lights shifted red a second later.

Tim spun toward the computer. “Outer perimeter just went dark.”

Jason straightened. “League?”

Bruce was already moving. “Positions.”

Dick reached for his escrima sticks. “How many?”

Tim’s fingers flew over the keys. His face went grim. “Enough.”

Damian did not move.

Neither did you. Your gaze stayed fixed on the far tunnel where the shadows deepened.

“He did not send soldiers,” you said quietly.

Bruce paused. “What do you mean?”

You swallowed once. “He came himself.”

A silence fell.

Heavy. Ancient. Green-edged.

Damian’s hand went to his sword.

You looked at him. “Do not fight him angry.”

His jaw tightened. “Do not presume to instruct me.”

“You lower your left shoulder when emotionally compromised.”

Jason barked a laugh despite himself. “Oh, they are definitely related.”

Damian glared at him, then back at you.

For half a second, something almost like a smile touched your mouth.

Then the cave exploded.

Smoke poured from the tunnel. Not Tim’s smoke. Not Batman’s. This was darker, threaded with bitter herbs and the scent of old mountain incense. League smoke. The kind you had learned to breathe through when you were seven and crying was considered a disappointing use of oxygen.

Assassins dropped from above. Green and black. Curved blades. Silent feet.

The cave became motion.

Nightwing launched himself into the first wave with a bright, furious grace. Red Hood opened fire with rubber rounds, cursing in three languages. Red Robin vanished into the smoke and turned the cave itself into a trap, lights flickering, platforms shifting, drones waking overhead.

Batman moved like a wall given vengeance.

Damian stayed between you and the tunnel.

You hated that most.

You could have helped. You could have ended half the attackers in less than a minute. You knew their forms, their blind spots, the way League assassins were taught to favour the killing strike over the disabling one. You knew because you had been the lesson they failed against.

But the restraints held.

Then the smoke split.

Ra’s al Ghul stepped into the Batcave.

He wore no armour. Only dark robes, a green cloak, and the serene expression of a man walking through a garden he intended to burn for warmth.

His eyes found Bruce first. “Detective.”

Bruce’s face became stone. “Ra’s.”

Then Ra’s looked at Damian. “Grandson.”

Damian’s sword lifted.

Finally, Ra’s looked at you.

And smiled.

Not warmly.

Proudly.

“My blade.”

Something inside you went quiet.

Not peaceful.

Dead.

Your spine straightened before you told it to. Your breathing evened. Your face emptied. The cave vanished at the edges until there was only the Demon’s Head and the command he had not yet spoken.

Damian saw it happen.

His eyes widened.

“No,” he said.

Ra’s took one step toward you. “You have performed well. Crane’s theft has been answered. The League’s honour remains intact.”

Bruce moved in front of him. “You’re not taking them.”

Ra’s almost looked amused. “You collect children now as trophies?”

Jason’s gun snapped up. “Oh, I hate this guy.”

Ra’s ignored him.

His gaze remained on you.

“Come.”

One word.

That was all it took.

A word with ten thousand days of training behind it. A word carved into your bones. A word that had opened doors, sealed graves, ended lives.

Come.

Your body moved before thought could catch it.

The restraints sparked.

Your wrists twisted.

Damian turned sharply. “Stop!”

You did not.

You dislocated your thumb again.

The pain was clean. Familiar. Almost soothing.

Bruce lunged toward you, but two assassins intercepted him. Dick shouted your name—no, not your name, because none of them knew it, not really. Tim triggered the restraint override, but you had already shifted your weight exactly enough to crack the locking hinge.

Metal snapped.

You stood.

Damian stepped in front of you.

His sword was lowered.

That was his mistake. Or his mercy.

“Don’t,” he said.

Your eyes met his.

Little brother, you thought. But you did not say it.

Ra’s voice came from behind him. “You see, Detective? You cannot rescue a weapon from its purpose.”

Bruce slammed an assassin into the cave wall hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. “They’re not a weapon.”

Ra’s smiled. “All children are weapons. The only question is whether their parents have the discipline to sharpen them.”

Damian flinched. Just slightly.

But you saw.

The dead quiet inside you cracked.

Not much.

Enough.

Ra’s noticed too.

His gaze cooled.

“Blade,” he said.

You turned your head toward him.

“Kill Robin.”

The cave stopped.

Even the fighting seemed to falter around the edges.

Jason’s voice went flat with horror. “No.”

Dick’s face drained of colour.

Tim whispered, “Bruce—”

Bruce moved.

Too far. Too late.

Damian stood before you, sword still lowered.

His eyes did not leave yours.

You could kill him. You knew seventeen ways from this distance. A strike to the throat. A blade under the ribs. A broken neck. A nerve severed beneath the jaw. Quick. Clean. Merciful, if mercy meant efficiency.

Damian knew it too.

He did not raise his weapon.

“Do it,” Ra’s said.

Your hand moved to your blade.

Damian inhaled.

But he did not step back.

“Look at me,” he said.

You did.

His voice shook once, then steadied.

“You are not what he made you.”

The blade slid from its sheath.

Ra’s watched with satisfaction.

Bruce fought like the cave itself was trying to hold him back.

Damian lifted his chin.

“If you must kill me,” he said softly, “then let it be your choice. Not his.”

Choice.

The word entered you like a foreign object.

Choice was not a thing the League gave. Choice was what undisciplined people called hesitation. Choice was the space between command and obedience, and you had been trained to erase that space so completely no one could find where the child ended and the blade began.

Your hand trembled.

Ra’s saw it.

His face hardened.

“Obey.”

The command struck deeper this time.

Your knees nearly buckled.

Memories flashed, brutal and bright.

Stone floors beneath your palms. Talia’s voice telling you pain was information. Ra’s standing over you while you held a blade too large for your child’s hand.

Damian, small and furious in a courtyard, watching you win against seven assassins.

Your mother saying Gotham made him weak. Your grandfather saying weakness could be cut out. Your own voice asking, years later, what stole him.

Damian’s voice answering: You were abandoned with them.

Abandoned.

Not chosen. Not honoured.

Left.

Your grip tightened on the blade.

Damian closed his eyes.

That broke you.

Not because he was afraid.

Because he trusted you.

You turned.

The blade left your hand.

It flew across the cave and buried itself in Ra’s al Ghul’s cloak, pinning the green fabric to the stone behind him an inch from his throat.

Everyone froze.

Your voice came out raw.

“No.”

Ra’s stared at you.

For the first time since entering the cave, he looked truly displeased.

Not angry.

Worse.

Disappointed.

“My blade,” he said softly.

You lifted your chin. “Not yours.”

The cave erupted again.

Ra’s tore free of the pinned cloak and drew his sword in one fluid motion. Damian moved first, stepping beside you, blade raised now. Not in front of you.

Beside you.

A strange thing happened then.

You fought with Damian.

Not around him. Not despite him. With him.

He was smaller, quicker, all sharp angles and righteous fury. You were older, colder, built from discipline he had survived and escaped. Together, you were terrible.

You knew the League’s rhythms. Damian knew how to break them.

An assassin lunged for his left side; you intercepted. Another came for your back; Damian cut their blade away before it landed. You moved like a sentence finished in two voices.

Across the cave, Jason laughed breathlessly while punching someone into a storage cabinet.

“Okay, that’s horrifyingly cool!”

“Focus!” Bruce snapped.

“I am focused! On how horrifyingly cool that is!”

Ra’s watched you and Damian carve through his guard, and something ancient twisted across his face.

Possession. Rage. Loss.

“You shame your blood,” he said.

Damian’s blade met his with a ringing clash. “No. I am improving it.”

Dick, somewhere behind him, made a wounded little sound. “That was so good. I hate that I’m proud right now.”

Ra’s pressed Damian backwards. He was stronger. Taller. Crueller with every strike.

You came in from the side.

Ra’s caught your wrist.

For a moment, you were close enough to see your reflection in his eyes.

“You could have been perfect,” he said.

There it was.

The hook in the wound.

Perfection. The holy word. The altar you had been raised upon and sacrificed to, piece by piece, until nothing remained but the shape of what they wanted.

Your wrist strained in his grip.

He twisted.

Pain flared white.

Once, you would not have made a sound.

Now you gasped.

And Damian heard.

He slammed the hilt of his sword into Ra’s ribs with a furious snarl.

Ra’s released you.

Batman arrived like judgment.

The fight between Bruce Wayne and Ra’s al Ghul was not beautiful.

It was history with fists. Every strike carried years. Every block answered an old argument. Ra’s fought like a king. Bruce fought like a father.

And fathers, you were beginning to learn, were far more dangerous when their children were watching.

Ra’s drove Bruce back toward the Lazarus containment case. Bruce caught the blade between armoured gauntlets, twisted, and forced Ra’s to one knee. For one breath, the Demon’s Head looked almost mortal.

Then he smiled.

“Detective,” Ra’s said, “you remain sentimental.”

He pressed a hidden trigger.

The cave lights died.

Not dimmed.

Died.

Complete darkness swallowed everything. You moved by instinct, grabbing Damian and pulling him low just as a volley of darts cut through the space where his throat had been.

He stiffened at your touch.

Then, incredibly, he leaned into your grip.

Only for balance.

Probably.

Maybe.

“Tim!” Bruce shouted.

“Working on it!” Tim called back.

Emergency lights flickered on in harsh red pulses.

Ra’s was gone. So were three of his assassins.

The rest were unconscious, bound, or being sat on by Jason, who looked deeply satisfied with himself.

The cave smelled of smoke, blood, and old ghosts.

For several seconds, no one spoke.

Then Damian turned to you. “You saved me.”

You released him immediately. “You were in the way.”

Jason groaned. “Oh my God, it’s like listening to Damian argue with a mirror that has more knives.”

Dick wiped blood from his nose. “A scary mirror.”

Tim, bruised and breathless at the computer, looked between you and Damian. “A mirror that can dislocate its thumb on command, apparently.”

You flexed your injured hand.

Bruce approached slowly.

You tensed.

He noticed and stopped two steps away.

Ra’s had come to collect you. You had refused. Which meant you were no longer a blade of the League.

You were something worse.

A loose end. A traitor. A child who had stayed too long and finally stepped out of line.

You looked toward the tunnel Ra’s had vanished through. “He will not stop.”

Bruce’s voice was quiet. “No.”

“He will send others.”

“Yes.”

“You cannot protect me forever.”

“No,” Bruce said.

Something cold settled in your chest.

Then Bruce continued.

“But we can teach you how to protect yourself without belonging to him.”

You stared.

That was not how protection worked. Protection was ownership. Investment. Utility. No one guarded a blade unless they intended to use it.

Dick stepped closer, gentle but steady. “You could stay.”

Jason crossed his arms. “Or don’t. But maybe don’t go back to Murder Mountain with Grandpa Cult-Vibes.”

Tim blinked. “That might be your worst name for Ra’s yet.”

“I’m workshopping.”

Damian did not laugh.

He looked at you like the answer mattered more than he wanted to admit.

You wanted to say no. No was clean. No was safe. No meant no debt, no hope, no soft-eyed vigilantes trying to pry open the armour welded to your skin.

But your body remembered the command.

Kill Robin.

Your hand remembered trembling. Your blade remembered turning.

Not his.

The words lived in your mouth like the first breath after drowning.

Not yours.

Not yours.

Not yours.

“I do not know how,” you said.

It was not an answer. It was worse.

It was the truth.

Damian’s expression changed.

Small. Careful. Almost young.

“Neither did I.”

You looked at him.

He shifted, uncomfortable beneath your attention.

“Tt. I am still learning.”

Jason muttered, “Understatement of the century.”

Damian ignored him with royal intensity.

“You will be irritating,” he said.

Your brows lifted.

“You will be arrogant,” he continued. “Violent. Condescending. Emotionally stunted.”

Dick coughed. “Damian.”

“You will attempt to escape at least twice.”

Tim raised a finger. “Statistically, probably more.”

“You will insult Father.”

Jason perked up. “That part’s encouraged.”

“You will find our methods inefficient,” Damian said, voice quieter now. “You will think mercy is weakness. You will hate it here.”

You studied him. “And yet?”

Damian swallowed.

“And yet,” he said, “you should stay anyway.”

The cave softened around the edges.

Not physically. The stone remained stone. The machines kept humming. The bats above kept shifting in the dark like scraps of living night.

But something changed. 

A door did not open. Not yet. But maybe, somewhere deep beneath the mountain inside your chest, a lock turned once.

Bruce held out his hand.

Not to grab. Not to command.

Just offered.

You looked at it for a long time.

Then you looked at Damian.

He gave a single stiff nod, as if granting permission to survive was something he could do without falling apart.

Your injured hand twitched.

You did not take Bruce’s hand.

Not yet.

But you did not step away.

For tonight, that was enough.

The first week was war.

Not open war. Not blades in the hallways or poison in the tea, though Alfred did catch you studying the spice cabinet with “strategic suspicion,” as he called it, and banned you from unsupervised kitchen access with the politest death glare you had ever witnessed.

It was quieter than that.

You slept facing the door. You stole three knives from the Cave and hid them around the manor. You mapped every exit. You refused to eat anything you had not watched someone else consume first.

You nearly broke Tim’s wrist when he woke you from a nightmare. You did break Jason’s nose when he startled you during training.

Jason, to his credit, only held a towel to his face and said, “Okay, fair, but next time aim for literally anyone else.”

Damian watched you with the grim satisfaction of someone seeing his worst qualities reflected back at him in 4K.

“You are impossible,” he told you on the fifth morning.

You looked at the breakfast plate Alfred had placed in front of you. “What is this?”

“Pancakes,” Damian said.

“Why are they shaped like animals?”

Across the table, Dick’s face lit up. “Oh, Alfred does that when he’s emotionally adopting you.”

Alfred, from the kitchen doorway, said mildly, “Master Richard.”

You stared at the pancake. It was shaped like a bat.

Poorly. Lovingly.

An inefficient food.

You ate it anyway.

Damian pretended not to notice.

He noticed everything.

The first time you laughed, it was Jason’s fault.

This surprised no one more than Jason.

He had dragged you into the Cave’s training area after you informed Bruce that firearms were “cowardly tools for those with poor wrist discipline.” Jason took this personally, spiritually, and with great volume.

He spent twenty minutes explaining why guns were not inherently cowardly, actually, and then tried to demonstrate.

You disarmed him in four seconds.

He stared at the empty space where his gun had been.

You held it by the barrel.

“Poor wrist discipline,” you said.

Tim made a strangled sound from the computer.

Dick turned away.

Damian looked like he was trying not to ascend to a higher plane through sheer smugness.

Jason pointed at you. “You know what? I liked you better when you were unconscious.”

And you laughed.

It was small. Barely a breath.

But it was there.

Everyone froze so abruptly that you stopped too.

“What?” you demanded.

“Nothing,” Dick said too quickly.

Tim looked intensely at his screen. “Nope. Nothing. Normal cave sounds.”

Jason grinned.

Damian’s expression softened by one treacherous inch.

You scowled at all of them.

It only made Jason grin wider.

“Oh, you’re stuck with us now,” he said.

You threw the gun at him.

Safety on.

Mostly.

Ra’s sent assassins on the twelfth night.

You knew before the alarms.

This time, when you woke, you did not run.

You went to Damian’s room first.

He was already awake, sword in hand.

For a moment, you stood in the doorway looking at each other.

No words. No old commands. No mountain between you.

Then Damian nodded. You nodded back.

Together, you went to wake the others.

Later, after the attack failed spectacularly and Jason declared the manor’s security “a group project from hell,” Bruce found you on the balcony overlooking the grounds.

Dawn bruised the horizon purple and gold.

You stood with your arms folded, watching the trees.

Bruce joined you but did not stand too close.

He was learning. Annoying man.

“They will come again,” you said.

“Yes.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep being right.”

You glanced at him.

His mouth almost curved.

Almost.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then Bruce said, “You need a name.”

Your body went very still. “I have a title.”

“You deserve a name.”

You looked away.

The League had given you many names.

Blade. Heir. Asset. Shadow. Failure, once, when you were nine and your hands had shaken too hard to hold the knife steady.

Your mother had called you child only when no one else could hear.

Ra’s had called you perfect only when you bled.

“What did Talia call you?” Bruce asked quietly.

Your throat tightened.

You almost did not answer.

Then you said it.

Not loudly.

The name felt strange in the air. Too soft for the life you had lived. Too human for the thing you had been made into.

Bruce repeated it once.

Carefully. Correctly. Like it mattered.

You hated him a little less.

Maybe.

A month later, Damian found you in the library.

You were sitting on the floor with three open books, a mug of untouched tea, and a knife hidden beneath your thigh.

Damian noticed the knife.

You noticed him noticing.

Neither of you mentioned it.

He stepped closer. “What are you reading?”

“History.”

“Which era?”

You looked down at the book. “All of it.”

Damian huffed.

He sat beside you.

Not close.

Closer than before.

For several minutes, you read in silence.

Then he said, “I used to wonder about you.”

Your eyes stayed on the page. “No, you did not.”

“Yes,” Damian snapped. “I did.”

You looked at him.

He scowled at the carpet.

“I saw you once. In the courtyard. You defeated seven assassins.”

“You said this already.”

“I thought you were extraordinary.”

Something in your chest shifted.

Damian’s voice became quieter. “I also thought if I became like you, Mother would be proud.”

You closed the book.

Damian’s hands were clasped too tightly in his lap.

“I am glad,” he said, each word dragged out like it cost him blood, “that I did not become like you.”

The old you would have taken offence.

The new you—still raw, still half-formed, still sleeping with a blade under the pillow—heard the grief beneath it.

“So am I,” you said.

Damian looked at you sharply. You looked back.

The silence held.

Then he leaned sideways, just enough that his shoulder brushed yours.

It was not an embrace. It was barely contact.

But Damian Wayne did not offer comfort casually.

You sat very still.

After a while, you allowed your shoulder to press back.

From the doorway, Dick made a muffled sound suspiciously like crying.

Damian threw a book at him without looking.

Ra’s came one final time in winter.

Snow fell over Gotham in thin, silver sheets, softening the city’s ugliness into something almost gentle.

He did not bring an army. Only himself.

He stood in the manor gardens beneath a dead tree, robes dark against the white ground. Bruce went out first. Damian followed. Then you.

The others watched from the shadows.

Ra’s looked older in the snow.

Not weaker. Never that.

But older.

“My blade,” he said.

You did not flinch this time. “That is not my name.”

His eyes narrowed.

Then he said your name.

It sounded wrong in his mouth.

You hated that it had ever lived there.

“You have been corrupted,” Ra’s said.

Damian stepped forward. “They have been freed.”

Ra’s glanced at him. “Freedom is a story weak men tell their children so they do not have to teach discipline.”

Bruce’s voice was cold. “You don’t get to speak about children.”

Ra’s smiled faintly. “And yet, Detective, here we stand among yours.”

His gaze returned to you.

“I offer you one chance. Come with me, and your betrayal will be corrected. Refuse, and the League will consider you an enemy until your final breath.”

Snow gathered on your shoulders.

Once, the threat would have hollowed you out.

Now, you only felt tired.

All that power. All that immortality. All those centuries. And still, Ra’s al Ghul could not imagine love except as possession. Could not imagine loyalty except as obedience. Could not imagine family except as inheritance sharpened into a knife.

You stepped forward.

Damian tensed. Bruce did too.

But neither stopped you.

You walked until you stood close enough for Ra’s to see your eyes clearly.

“I was your blade,” you said.

His expression remained unreadable.

“You honed me. Used me. Named my wounds discipline and called my silence devotion.”

The snow fell harder.

Your voice did not shake.

“You taught me perfection meant having no self left to save.”

Ra’s said nothing.

You drew a blade.

Behind you, Damian inhaled sharply.

But you did not raise it.

You turned it in your hand and offered it hilt-first.

Ra’s stared.

“This is yours,” you said. “The weapon. The title. The obedience.”

The blade dropped into the snow between you.

You stepped back.

“I am keeping the life.”

For a moment, Ra’s looked at you with something almost human in his eyes.

Then it was gone.

“Sentiment has ruined you.”

You looked past him, toward the manor.

Dick in the window, pretending not to hover. Tim on comms, pretending not to worry. Jason in the shadows with a rifle he absolutely claimed was “just decorative.” Alfred waiting inside with tea.

Bruce beside you, steady as stone. Damian at your shoulder.

Your brother.

Not little, not weak, not stolen.

Alive.

You looked back at Ra’s.

“No,” you said. “It found me late.”

Ra’s’s mouth hardened. “This is not over.”

Bruce stepped forward. “For tonight, it is.”

Ra’s looked at all three of you.

Then he vanished into the snow like a ghost too proud to admit it had been exorcised.

No one moved until the garden was empty.

Then Damian exhaled.

“You were dramatic,” he said.

You looked at him. “You carry a sword and wear a cape.”

“Tt. That is tactical.”

Jason’s voice crackled over comms. “For the record, that was dramatic as hell, and I support it.”

Dick added, “Ten out of ten emotional symbolism.”

Tim said, “The blade in the snow was a little much.”

You frowned. “Should I retrieve it?”

Everyone shouted, “No.”

You blinked.

Damian sighed. Then, after a long moment, he reached for your hand.

He did not hold it properly. Just hooked two fingers around yours like you were both still too proud to need anyone.

You looked down at the contact. Then at him.

He stared straight ahead, ears faintly pink from the cold.

“You are still irritating,” he said.

“You are still inefficient.”

“I am improving.”

“So am I.”

His fingers tightened around yours.

Behind you, Bruce said nothing.

But when you turned toward the manor, he walked beside you, not ahead.

Not leading. Not commanding.

Beside.

Snow covered the garden behind you, hiding the blade beneath white.

For the first time in your life, you left a weapon where it fell.

Tim says stuff like, “Yeah, there was a mugging near my school once,” or “I learned to tail people pretty young,” or “My parents were out of the country a lot.”

And Kon is like, “Okay, that’s sad and mildly insane, but it’s Tim. He makes everything sound like a chess move anyway.”

Tim’s Gotham trauma is polished. Organised. Alphabetised. It comes with contingency plans and a little PowerPoint in his brain.

So Kon assumes Gotham childhoods are bad in a rich-kid-detective-sad-eyes kind of way.

Then he meets you. And you are not polished about it.

You are casual. Way too casual. You say things in the same tone someone else would use to complain about a bad dentist appointment.

The first time it happens, you and Kon are hanging out with Tim at the Tower. Tim is working on his laptop. Kon is pretending not to hover over your shoulder while you make instant noodles because he likes watching you do normal things. It makes his chest feel warm and weird.

Tim mentions Gotham traffic.

You snort and say, “At least it’s not as bad as when the city shuts down for a rogue attack and everyone panic-buys bottled water.”

Kon laughs at first.

Then he realises Tim does not. Tim has stopped typing.

Kon looks between you two. “Sorry, panic-buys what now?”

You glance up. “Water. Batteries. Canned food. Sometimes gas masks if Scarecrow was out.”

Kon blinks. “Gas masks?”

“Yeah. They sold out fast, though. You had to know which corner stores had emergency stock.”

Kon slowly turns to Tim.

Tim is staring at you with the expression of someone hearing a familiar song in a much darker key.

Kon points weakly. “Did you guys have gas mask corner stores?”

Tim says, “Not in my neighbourhood.”

And that’s when Kon realises something important.

Tim’s Gotham and your Gotham were not the same Gotham.

Tim’s Gotham had distance. Manor walls. Boarding schools. Wealth. Alfred. Bruce. Eventually Batman-adjacent protection, even if Tim would never frame it that way.

Your Gotham had bus routes during Arkham breakouts.

Your Gotham had apartment buildings with broken locks.

Your Gotham had neighbours who taught kids which alleys to avoid.

Your Gotham had sirens as background noise.

Your Gotham had survival skills disguised as common sense.

Kon’s brain just kind of… pauses.

Because he thought he knew Gotham trauma.

He did not know Gotham trauma: civilian edition.

And he is immediately unwell about it.

You don’t notice at first.

That makes it worse.

You just stir your noodles and add, “It wasn’t always that dramatic. Sometimes it was just regular crime.”

Kon makes a sound.

Tim closes his laptop.

You look up. “What?”

Kon says, “Regular crime?”

“Yeah.”

“Babe, what is regular crime?”

You shrug. “Non-themed.”

Tim puts his face in his hands.

Kon stares at you like you have just revealed Gotham had a loyalty rewards program for childhood trauma.

“Non-themed,” he repeats.

“Like, not Joker or Riddler or Two-Face. Just normal gang stuff.”

Kon looks physically pained.

“Just normal gang stuff,” he says.

You nod.

Tim mutters, “That is, unfortunately, a Gotham distinction.”

Kon points at him. “Do not normalise this, Rob.”

Tim lifts both hands. “I’m not. I’m contextualising.”

“You’re both insane.”

You and Tim, at the same time: “It was Gotham.”

Kon throws his hands up. “That is not an explanation! That is a cry for help with gargoyles!”

After that, Kon becomes weirdly obsessed with comparing notes.

Not because he wants to make you relive anything. He just cannot wrap his head around the idea that Tim’s childhood, which he already considered bleak as hell, was apparently the premium subscription version of Gotham.

He asks Tim about it later, when you’re not there.

Kon tries to be casual. Fails immediately. “So, uh… was Gotham always like that?”

Tim doesn’t look up from his tablet. “Like what?”

“Like—” Kon gestures helplessly. “Like your city was trying to speedrun traumatising every kid in it.”

Tim is quiet for a second.

Then he says, “Depends where you lived.”

Kon hates that answer. He hates how calm Tim is when he says it.

Tim continues, “My childhood wasn’t great, but I had resources. Security systems. Money. Escape routes. Adults who were absent, but not usually physically dangerous. That’s different.”

Kon sits with that. It makes him feel sick.

Because he knows Tim’s childhood hurt him. He’s seen it in the way Tim overworks, overthinks, overprepares, and acts like needing affection is a security flaw.

But then there’s you.

You, casually mentioning that your school had “rogue drills.” You, knowing how to identify fear toxin symptoms. You, laughing about how Gotham kids had playground rumours about which villains were “better” to be near during an attack.

Kon does not know what to do with that. He is a clone. He has his own complicated origin. He was made, not born. He knows what it’s like to have your early life shaped by other people’s choices and experiments and expectations.

But he was not a little kid in Gotham. He did not have to learn that an ice cream truck playing music too slowly might be suspicious. He did not have to know which siren meant fire and which siren meant chemical exposure. He did not have to pack emergency snacks in case a villain shut down the bridge again.

And you say it all like it was annoying, not terrifying.

That is the part that destroys him.

Because Kon is loud. Emotional. Heart-first. He feels things in bright colours.

So when your past starts unfolding in front of him, he cannot just file it away.

He feels it. All of it. Hard.

The second big casual drop happens when you’re alone together.

You’re in his room, lying upside down on his bed, scrolling through your phone. Kon is floating three feet off the floor because he says it helps him think, but really he just likes making you roll your eyes.

A video plays on your phone with a carnival laugh track.

Your smile disappears for half a second.

Kon notices instantly. “You good?”

You wave it off. “Yeah. Just don’t love carnival music.”

He lowers himself to the floor. “Because Gotham?”

You snort. “Everything weird about me is not because of Gotham.”

Kon raises an eyebrow.

You pause. “Okay, a lot of it is because of Gotham.”

He sits beside you. “Carnival music?”

You shrug. “Joker thing. Not directly. I wasn’t, like, front row for anything. But there was an incident near my neighbourhood when I was a kid. For weeks after, everyone got weird about circus stuff.”

Kon’s expression goes blank. That is his processing face.

Then he says, very carefully, “How old were you?”

“I don’t know. Eight?”

“Eight.”

“Maybe nine.”

“Oh, yeah, nine is famously the emotionally mature age for clown-based domestic terrorism.”

You blink.

Kon looks upset enough that you immediately try to soften it.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

Kon’s face changes.

He looks wounded by the sentence itself.

“Don’t do that.”

You frown. “Do what?”

“Make it smaller because I reacted.”

That shuts you up.

Kon’s voice gets softer. “I’m not mad at you. I just… I don’t know what to do when you say something like that and then look at me like I’m the weird one for being horrified.”

You look away.

He leans closer, not touching yet.

“I knew Tim had Gotham stuff,” he says. “But Tim talks about it like he’s reading a case file. You talk about it like you’re telling me the weather was bad.”

You laugh weakly. “Sometimes the weather was bad too.”

“Babe.”

“What?”

“Focus.”

You sigh.

Kon waits. He is not always patient. In fact, he is famously not always patient. But with you, he tries so hard.

Eventually, you say, “It was normal there.”

Kon’s eyes soften.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what’s messing me up.”

Because Kon understands being built for something you didn’t choose. He understands having people look at you and see the result instead of the damage. He understands being called strong when what they mean is you survived something you shouldn’t have had to survive.

And suddenly, he sees that in you.

Not as a concept. Not as a sad backstory.

As real.

You were a kid. A civilian kid. No powers. No cape. No Robin training. No alien DNA. No super-hearing. No tactile telekinesis. No team.

Just you. In Gotham. Trying to get through the day.

Kon lies down beside you, staring at the ceiling.

After a while, he says, “I hate that city.”

You turn your head. “You barely know that city.”

“I know enough.”

“You know Tim.”

“Exactly. I thought Tim was the worst-case Gotham childhood.”

You laugh despite yourself. “Tim?”

Kon looks at you, dead serious. “Tim became Robin because Batman was sad and somebody had to fix it. That’s insane.”

“Okay, true.”

“And somehow you’re making his childhood sound like the deluxe edition.”

You laugh harder.

Kon smiles, but it’s soft around the edges.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Tim had it bad. You had it bad differently.”

That lands.

Because people usually compare pain like there’s a scoreboard. Like someone has to win most damaged, which is the worst prize ever. Gotham loves that. Gotham practically runs on “someone had it worse.”

Kon does not do that. He just says differently.

And somehow that makes it easier to breathe.

After that, he starts noticing the differences between you and Tim.

Tim prepares like a strategist. You prepare like someone who once had no backup.

Tim has contingency plans labeled by scenario. You have emergency cash hidden in three places and never let your phone drop below 40%.

Tim distrusts people because he has analysed their motives. You distrust crowds because crowds in Gotham could turn into hostages in under ninety seconds.

Tim sits with his back to the wall because Batman training. You sit with your back to the wall because civilian survival.

Tim knows fear intellectually, tactically. You know it bodily.

Kon starts clocking how your body reacts before your brain explains.

A loud bang, and your eyes go to exits. A sudden laugh, and your shoulders tighten. Fog rolling in low over the street, and your hand finds his sleeve.

You always say you’re fine.

Kon starts understanding that “fine” is a Gotham word meaning not currently bleeding.

He hates it.

He starts gently challenging it.

You say, “I’m fine.”

He says, “Gotham fine or actual fine?”

You stare at him.

He smiles a little. “Yeah, I made categories.”

“That’s annoying.”

“Accurate, though.”

You sigh. “Gotham fine.”

“Cool. Want to get out of here?”

You blink. “You don’t mind?”

Kon looks genuinely confused. “Why would I mind?”

“I don’t know. It’s inconvenient.”

His expression shifts into something soft and almost hurt. “You’re not inconvenient.”

You look away.

Kon ducks into your line of sight. “Hey. You’re not.”

And because he’s Kon, because he is earnest enough to be embarrassing and sweet enough to get away with it, he adds, “I can fly. Literally nothing is inconvenient to me except emotional repression and waiting in lines.”

You laugh.

He beams, relieved.

Kon becomes incredibly focused on giving you control.

That is one of the first things Tim advises him on.

Not in a patronising way. More like Tim sees Kon spiraling and takes pity.

Kon says, “I don’t know what to do when they talk about it.”

Tim says, “Ask what they need.”

Kon frowns. “What if they don’t know?”

“Offer options.”

“Like what?”

“Listen. Distract. Leave. Stay. Physical comfort. No physical comfort.”

Kon absorbs this like holy scripture.

The next time you casually mention that you hate blackout curtains because they remind you of city lockdowns, Kon visibly glitches for half a second, then takes a breath.

“Do you want me to listen, distract you, or threaten Gotham as a concept?”

You blink. “What was the third one?”

“I’m workshopping it.”

You smile. “Threaten Gotham as a concept.”

Kon nods solemnly. “Gotham, count your days. You creepy little gargoyle swamp.”

You burst out laughing.

He lights up.

From then on, that becomes his thing.

He does not always know the perfect response, but he always tries to give you a choice.

“Do you want comfort or jokes?”

“Do you want me close or over there?”

“Do you want to talk about it or should I tell you what Bart did today?”

“Do you want me to call Tim and ask him if this is normal so we can both yell at him when he says yes?”

That last one is used often.

Tim gets dragged into it more than he deserves.

You: “One time my school bus got held up because Two-Face’s gang blocked the bridge.” Kon, already pulling out his phone: “Tim.” Tim, answering: “No.” Kon: “You don’t even know what I’m asking.” Tim: “Is it Gotham-related?” Kon: “Yes.” Tim: “Then no.” Kon: “Was bridge gang stuff normal?” Tim: “Define normal.” Kon: “I hate you.” Tim: “Valid.”

You find this hilarious.

Tim does not, but he tolerates it because he secretly likes that Kon cares enough to be annoying.

Kon’s protectiveness is raw. He is young in some ways. Not immature exactly, but new to so many kinds of love. New to building a life that wasn’t assigned to him. New to the terror of realising someone you love was hurt before you ever knew them.

He wants to go back in time and save you. He cannot.

He wants to punch every villain who ever scared you. He could, maybe, but that is apparently “not productive” and “legally complicated.”

He wants to wrap you in his jacket and fly you somewhere sunny where cities don’t have cursed vibes. That one he can actually do.

So he does.

The first time you mention that Gotham winters were the worst because cold weather plus city-wide emergencies meant people got trapped without heat, Kon gets quiet.

Then he asks, “Have you ever been somewhere warm just because?”

You blink. “Just because?”

“Yeah.”

“Not really.”

Kon is on his feet immediately. “Pack a bag.”

“What?”

“We’re going to the beach.”

“Kon, it’s almost midnight.”

“So? Beaches don’t close emotionally.”

“That sentence makes no sense.”

“It does if you’re romantic.”

He takes you somewhere warm. Not crowded. Not fancy. Just a quiet stretch of sand where the air smells like salt instead of smoke and the sky is huge.

You stand there barefoot, wind pulling at your clothes, and for a while you don’t say anything.

Kon watches you carefully.

Not like you’re fragile.

Like this matters.

You finally whisper, “Gotham didn’t have skies like this.”

Kon looks up. “What were they like?”

“Low,” you say. “Heavy. Like they were waiting for something bad, too.”

Kon’s chest hurts.

So he reaches for your hand.

You let him take it.

He squeezes gently. “This one isn’t waiting for anything.”

You look at him.

He smiles, a little shy. “It’s just sky.”

That becomes one of the safest things anyone has ever said to you.

Just sky.

No signal lights. No smoke. No bat-shaped shadow against the clouds. No sirens below.

Just sky.

Just Kon’s hand in yours.

Just warmth.

Kon starts collecting those moments for you.

Not in a “fixing you” way. In a “Gotham does not get to be your only archive” way.

He gives you memories Gotham can’t touch.

Beach at midnight. Flying above clouds. Eating greasy diner food at 3 a.m. because neither of you could sleep. Watching stupid movies where the villains are too ridiculous to be scary. Farm visits with Ma Kent, where the quiet is soft instead of threatening.

That last one really gets him.

He takes you to Smallville eventually.

At first, you’re tense. 

Too open. Too quiet. Too few places to hide.

Kon notices. “Too much?”

You shake your head. “Just different.”

Ma Kent, because she is Ma Kent, takes one look at you and seems to understand more than anyone should. She doesn’t fuss. She doesn’t ask invasive questions. She just gives you warm food and tells Kon to stop hovering because he’s “about as subtle as a flying tractor.”

Kon blushes.

You laugh.

Later, you sit on the porch with him, watching the fields move under the wind.

You say, “It’s weird.”

“What is?”

“No sirens.”

Kon leans back beside you. “Good weird or bad weird?”

You think about it. “Suspicious weird.”

He nods gravely. “We can work with suspicious weird.”

You huff. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but I’m emotionally supportive.”

“You are.”

He goes pink at the ears.

Kon gets flustered when you acknowledge his care. Like, badly.

He can lift cars, fight monsters, and stare down world-ending threats, but you saying, “I feel safe with you,” makes his brain turn into dial-up noise.

The first time you say it, he freezes.

You’re half-asleep against him after a long day. He thinks you’re already out, but then you mumble, “I feel safe here.”

Kon stops breathing.

Not because he needs to breathe that much.

Because his whole body forgets how.

“You do?” he whispers.

You hum. “With you.”

Kon stares at the ceiling like he’s just been entrusted with the nuclear codes to your heart.

He does not move for the next two hours. His arm goes numb. He does not care.

Tim finds him later, still sitting in the same position, looking emotionally devastated.

Tim whispers, “Are they asleep?”

Kon nods solemnly.

Tim eyes him. “Are you crying?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“Shut up.”

Tim’s mouth twitches.

Kon whispers, “They said they feel safe with me.”

Tim’s expression softens. “That’s big.”

“I know.”

“No, Kon. For someone from Gotham? That’s big.”

Kon looks down at you, tucked against him, relaxed in a way he rarely sees.

His voice is tiny. “I know.”

And he does.

By then, he really does.

He understands that trust from you is not casual. It is not automatic. It is not easy.

It is something built from proof. Again and again.

Kon showing up when he says he will. Kon telling you before he touches you. Kon not laughing at your emergency habits. Kon keeping snacks in his jacket because you once mentioned Gotham lockdowns could last hours. Kon learning the difference between your normal quiet and your danger quiet.

Kon asking, not assuming.

Kon staying.

He is so proud when you let him stay.

Not in a smug way. In an awed way. Like he knows he has been handed something precious and slightly dangerous, like a tiny star.

The funniest part is that Kon starts getting personally offended on your behalf by Tim’s “that’s just Gotham” energy.

You’ll say something alarming.

Tim will, from across the room, say, “Yeah, that tracks.”

Kon will whip around. “Stop saying that!”

Tim looks up. “What?”

“That tracks? That tracks? They just said their elementary school had a no-ransom-note-without-calling-an-adult policy.”

Tim pauses. “That one’s weird.”

You point at him. “Thank you.”

Kon gestures wildly. “That one? That one is weird? What’s the baseline here?”

Tim opens his mouth.

Kon points harder. “No. Don’t answer. I’ll get mad.”

Tim closes his mouth.

You are laughing so hard you’re crying.

Kon looks betrayed. “This is not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“It is Gotham funny, which I’m learning means horrifying.”

You wipe your eyes. “You’re catching on.”

Tim mutters, “He’s adapting.”

Kon groans. “I don’t want to adapt. I want Gotham to stop sounding like a child-endangerment theme park.”

Tim says, “Good luck with that.”

Kon throws a pillow at him. Tim dodges without looking.

That becomes a running theme.

Kon vs. Gotham normalisation.

He loses often. But he fights valiantly.

You: “It was only a minor evacuation.” Kon: “No evacuation involving children is minor.” Tim: “In Gotham—” Kon: “You are on thin ice, Drake.”

Or:

You: “I learned to pick locks because sometimes landlords chained emergency exits.” Kon: “I’m sorry, what?” Tim: “That is extremely illegal.” Kon: “Oh, NOW you know normal.” Tim: “I didn’t say it was surprising.” Kon: “I’m going to scream.”

He talks to Cassie about it once, because he needs someone outside the Gotham ecosystem to confirm he is not overreacting.

Kon says, “They told me their school had a Scarecrow protocol.”

Cassie stares. “A what?”

“THANK YOU.”

Bart, overhearing, says, “Oh, Gotham kids are built different.”

Kon points at him. “Not helping.”

But even through the jokes, Kon struggles with the helplessness of it.

One night, you wake from a nightmare at the Tower.

It’s bad.

Not loud. Not dramatic.

You just sit up, breathing too carefully, eyes scanning the room like you’re looking for smoke.

Kon wakes immediately.

He can hear your heartbeat.

Too fast. Way too fast.

His instinct is to grab you, to pull you close, to shield you with his body.

But he remembers.

Choice. Control.

So he sits up slowly.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft. “It’s me. Kon.”

You don’t answer.

He keeps his hands visible. “You’re at the Tower. My room. Door’s locked. Window’s closed. No alarms.”

Your eyes flick toward him.

He adds, “No gas.”

That does it.

Your face crumples just a little.

Kon hates Scarecrow with a clarity that surprises even him.

Not in the abstract superhero way. In the deeply personal, you scared someone I love when they were small and now I want to throw you into the sun way.

But he keeps his voice gentle. “Can I come closer?”

You nod.

He moves slowly, like he is approaching something sacred.

When he sits beside you, you lean into him immediately.

His arms come around you, careful and warm.

You whisper, “Sorry.”

Kon’s throat tightens. “Nope.”

“I woke you up.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m being stupid.”

“No.”

He says it so firmly you blink.

Kon pulls back just enough to look at you. “You’re not stupid. Your brain is trying to protect you because Gotham taught it too much weird information.”

Despite everything, you laugh. A tiny, broken sound.

Kon smiles softly. “There you are.”

You press your face into his shirt.

He holds you until your breathing slows.

Then, very quietly, he says, “Was it one of the old things?”

You nod.

“Do you want to tell me?”

A pause.

Then: “Not yet.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to ask?”

“Not yet means not yet.”

Your fingers tighten in his shirt.

That matters more than he knows. Or maybe he does know. Kon has had so much of his life defined by other people deciding what he is ready for. What he is made for. What he owes. What he should become.

He will never do that to you.

If you say not yet, he respects it. If you say stop, he stops. If you say stay, he stays like it is the easiest thing in the world.

Eventually, you tell him pieces.

That’s how it happens.

Not one big tragic monologue.

Pieces.

You tell him about the time the Narrows flooded and emergency services took too long.

You tell him about learning which adults in your building were safe.

You tell him about city-wide curfews.

You tell him about the smell of smoke after rogue attacks.

You tell him about keeping your shoes by the bed in case you had to run.

That one ruins him.

He tries not to show it too much.

Fails.

“You kept your shoes by the bed?”

“Yeah.”

“How old were you?”

You shrug.

Kon closes his eyes. “I hate that question now.”

“What question?”

“How old were you. Because the answer is always too young.”

You go quiet.

He looks at you. “You were always too young.”

It hits like a bell.

Clean. Brutal. True.

You whisper, “Everyone was.”

Kon’s face hardens, not at you but for you. “Then everyone was too young.”

And that’s Kon.

He refuses the Gotham logic. He refuses the scale where pain only matters if it was the worst version possible. He refuses the idea that survival makes it okay.

You half expect him to get used to it, eventually.

He doesn’t.

He learns how to respond better, but he never becomes numb.

That is strangely healing.

Every time you say something terrible, part of him still reacts like, What the hell? And oddly, that helps.

Because it reminds you that it was terrible. That Gotham was terrible. That maybe the things you filed under “normal” were never normal at all.

Kon becomes a mirror that doesn’t distort.

Not pitying. Not horrified by you.

Horrified for you.

And he loves you loudly enough that you slowly start believing some of it.

He tells you, “You’re allowed to hate what happened.”

He tells you, “You’re allowed to miss parts of Gotham and still hate it.”

He tells you, “You’re allowed to be scared.”

He tells you, “You don’t have to be chill about your own trauma to make me comfortable.”

That last one comes after you apologise for “dumping too much” on him.

Kon looks genuinely offended. “You’re not dumping.”

“I kind of am.”

“No. You’re telling me your life.”

You look down.

He ducks his head to catch your eyes. “I want to know your life.”

“You say that now.”

“I’ll say it again tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. That’s why it counts.”

Kon’s relationship with Tim also shifts because of you.

Not badly. Just… deeper.

He starts understanding that Tim’s Gotham stories were also bad, even if Tim frames them like “mildly inconvenient origin lore.”

But now Kon can see the layers.

Tim had privilege, yes. Tim had neglect, yes. Tim had resources, yes.

Tim was still a kid in Gotham.

Kon gets softer with him too.

He notices when Tim minimises things. He calls him out more gently.

Tim says, “It was fine.”

Kon says, “Actual fine or Gotham fine?”

Tim freezes.

Then glares. “Did they teach you that?”

Kon smiles. “Maybe.”

Tim mutters, “Traitor.”

But he answers.

“Gotham fine.”

Kon nods. “Yeah. Thought so.”

You have accidentally made Kon emotionally smarter about the entire Bat ecosystem.

Terrifying. Beautiful. 

He still loses it when you and Tim compare experiences.

You: “Our lockdown room had emergency crackers.” Tim: “Ours had bottled water and first-aid kits.” Kon: “Why are you both saying this like you went to rival summer camps?” You: “Did yours have gas masks?” Tim: “Only after the second Scarecrow incident.” Kon: “THE SECOND?” Tim: “Different school.” Kon stands up. “I need air.” You say, “We’re outside.” “I need different air.”

He flies straight up for thirty seconds, comes back, and says, “Okay. Continue. I’m emotionally prepared.”

He is not.

But he tries. That’s what makes him good for you.

Kon tries. Messily. Loudly. With his whole chest and zero chill.

He does not always get it right. Sometimes he overreacts. Sometimes he looks too sad and you feel exposed. Sometimes he asks a question too quickly and then immediately apologises.

But he learns. He listens. He lets you correct him. He never makes his discomfort bigger than your history.

And when he does get overwhelmed, he tells you honestly.

Not in a way that blames you.

He’ll say, “I’m not upset with you. I’m upset because I love you and I wish none of that happened.”

That is hard to argue with.

So you stop trying.

Eventually, you start telling him things before they slip out.

Not always. Not everything.

But sometimes.

One night, you say, “I want to tell you something, but I don’t want you to make the sad face.”

Kon immediately rearranges his face into something absurdly blank. “This face?”

You laugh. “That’s worse.”

He tries another expression. “This?”

“Now you look constipated.”

“I’m doing my best.”

You’re laughing before you even start.

And somehow, that makes it easier.

You tell him about a bad memory.

He listens. His eyes get sad anyway, because of course they do. But he also smiles when you need him to. He holds your hand.

He says, “Thank you for telling me.”

Not I’m sorry first. Not that’s awful first.

Thank you. Like your trust is a gift.

Because to him, it is.

Kon’s love becomes a place where Gotham logic slowly loses power.

In Gotham, fear was practical. With Kon, fear is something you can name.

In Gotham, silence meant danger. With Kon, silence can mean his heartbeat under your ear.

In Gotham, looking up meant checking rooftops. With Kon, looking up means sky.

In Gotham, “fine” meant alive. With Kon, fine starts meaning fine.

Actually fine.

Not perfect. Not magically healed. But warm. Safe. Loved.

There is one moment that seals it.

You’re with Kon and Tim, walking through a city that is not Gotham. There’s a street performer nearby making balloon animals. A kid laughs. Someone drops something metal behind you.

You flinch.

Not badly. But enough.

Kon notices. Tim notices too.

For a second, you brace for the usual embarrassment.

But Kon just shifts closer, shoulder brushing yours.

Tim, very casually, steps to your other side.

Neither of them makes a scene. Neither of them asks if you’re okay in that heavy public voice.

Kon just says, “Hey, I think there’s a bakery down the block.”

Tim says, “There is. Good reviews.”

You look between them.

Kon smiles. “What?”

You shake your head. “Nothing.”

But it isn’t nothing. It is being understood without being exposed. It is Gotham kids and almost-Gotham kids and clone boys with too much heart making a tiny protective formation on a sunny street.

It is ridiculous. It is sweet. It is yours.

Later, Kon asks, “Was that okay? Back there?”

You nod. “Yeah. It was.”

He looks relieved.

Then you add, “You and Tim flanked me like bodyguards.”

Kon grins. “We looked cool.”

“You looked obvious.”

“Cool and obvious.”

“You looked like emotionally constipated meerkats.”

Kon gasps. “I am telling Tim you said that.”

“Please do.”

He does.

Tim just sighs and says, “I’ve been called worse.”

Kon points at him. “Gotham fine.”

Tim groans.

You laugh. And Kon watches you laugh with this soft, impossible look on his face.

Because he knows now. He knows Gotham hurt you. He knows you might always carry pieces of it. He knows there are stories you haven’t told him yet. He knows some jokes are shields. He knows some silences are old alarms.

But he also knows Gotham did not get the final word.

Because you are here. With him. Laughing. Letting yourself be loved by someone who once thought Tim Drake was the baseline for Gotham trauma and then met you and immediately had to mentally redesign the whole scale.

Kon still thinks Tim’s childhood was bad. He thinks yours was bad too. He thinks comparing them is useless unless the comparison helps someone understand where the wounds are.

Mostly, he thinks both of you deserved better.

But you are the one he gets to hold at night.

You are the one who curls into his chest and slowly, slowly stops listening for sirens. You are the one who taught him that some people survive haunted cities and still become kind.

And Kon? Kon loves you like sunlight with a heartbeat.

Warm. Earnest. A little blinding.

Always reaching for you. Always reminding you, with every touch and every terrible joke and every flight into open sky: You got out. You’re here.

He knows about the Court rumours. The Lazarus whispers. The Arkham hauntings. The curses buried under old money. The family names that sound less like genealogy and more like invocations.

He’s seen Gotham chew up cops, criminals, magicians, monsters, and heroes.

So when you tell him you were born there, he gives you a long look over the top of his cigarette and says, “That explains a few things.”

You roll your eyes. “Rude.”

“Observant.”

He thinks he understands what Gotham does to people.

Then you start talking about what Gotham did to you. And suddenly it’s different.

Because Gotham as a concept? Gotham as an occult sinkhole? Gotham as Batman’s rain-soaked problem child? That’s one thing.

Gotham as the place that made you learn fear before you learned peace? That gets under John’s skin in a way he does not enjoy.

The first time you casually drop something horrific, you’re in his flat. It’s late. Rain scratches against the windows. John is looking for a book he swears he left “right there,” which means it is either under a stack of takeaway menus or currently possessed.

You’re sitting cross-legged on his couch, watching him search.

He mutters, “Bloody Gotham binding rituals. Always overcomplicated. City can’t even curse someone without making it theatrical.”

You snort.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing. Just reminded me of my old apartment.”

John glances over. “Your old apartment was cursed?”

“No. Well. Maybe? The pipes screamed sometimes, but that was probably just Ivy’s vines.”

John stills. “Poison Ivy’s vines?”

“Yeah. She grew through the plumbing during this whole city block thing.”

John slowly straightens. “In your building?”

“Mm-hm.”

“While you lived there?”

“Yeah. My uncle almost got strangled in the shower.”

John stares at you.

You add, completely casually, “He was fine. Hated loofahs after that, though.”

John’s cigarette burns forgotten between his fingers.

Then he says, very flatly, “Love.”

“What?”

“People’s plumbing isn’t meant to develop a body count.”

“It didn’t have a body count.”

“Attempted body count, then.”

You shrug. “Gotham landlords never fixed anything.”

John looks at you for a long moment.

And that’s when something shifts.

Because he expected Gotham stories from you. Of course he did. Everyone from Gotham has them. They come out like coughs. Half joke, half warning.

But you don’t tell it like a story.

You tell it like weather. Like rent prices. Like a weird childhood inconvenience.

And John, who has heard people describe demonic possession with more emotional distance than you just used for “botanical attempted murder,” feels something cold and ugly curl in his stomach.

Not surprise.

Recognition.

He knows that tone. He uses that tone. The one that says, If I make it funny, it can’t still have teeth.

After that, he starts paying attention.

Not in a sweet, obvious, heroic way. John Constantine would rather eat glass than look openly tender before breakfast.

But he watches. He notices how you sit near exits. How you hate sealed windows. How you can tell the difference between a normal siren and a panic siren from blocks away. How you clock every stranger who laughs too loudly.

He notices that you call things “classic Gotham stuff” that would qualify as life-altering trauma anywhere else.

And because he knows Gotham better than the others, some of your stories hit him in layers.

John is shocked because he knows exactly how insane Gotham is, and somehow your stories still make it worse.

Because he can place them.

You mention a street corner, and John knows it. You mention an old theatre, and John remembers the séance he crashed there in 2009. You mention a church basement, and John knows there’s a binding sigil under the foundation. You mention your school being evacuated because of a “gas scare,” and John knows which Scarecrow formula was circulating that year. He knows what it did to people. He knows what nightmares it left behind.

That knowledge makes him quieter. Meaner, too, but not at you. Never at you.

One night you’re making tea in his kitchen, wearing one of his shirts like you belong there, like you haven’t accidentally become the softest curse he’s ever invited in.

You say, “I still don’t like the smell of wet burlap.”

John’s head lifts.

He knows before you explain. He wishes he didn’t.

You continue, casual as sin. “Scarecrow’s people used to stash stuff in abandoned buildings near my school. One time some kids found a mask. Whole block got quarantined.”

John sets his mug down.

Carefully. Too carefully.

“How old were you?”

You think about it. “Nine? Ten?”

John exhales through his nose. “Course you were.”

You glance over. “What does that mean?”

“It means Gotham’s got a habit of making children pay rent in nightmares.”

You go quiet.

John regrets the poetry of it immediately because now you’re looking at him like he found something you buried.

So he reaches for the kettle and says, gruffly, “Tea?”

You almost smile. “You’re changing the subject.”

“I’m British. Tea is the subject.”

But his hands are tense.

You notice. John hates that you notice.

The thing is, John has always considered Gotham dangerous in an almost professional way. A cursed city. A magical pressure cooker. A place where evil wears masks because the architecture demands drama.