sven

⋆˙⟡ —

Damian didn’t get flustered by a broken arm or a dislocated neck, much less did his hands tremble when suturing wounds larger than his forearm. He’d seen it all—and nothing at all—ever since he could remember; the League of Assassins had taught him how to treat a serious wound before he’d even taken his first math class, so yes, it made sense that nothing in the college study hall was intense enough to turn his stomach.

Even when he began his residency as a surgeon, nothing seemed to faze him much; he could calmly eat gummy bears in the back of the room while watching a cardiovascular surgery take place right before his eyes.

His colleagues didn’t seem very happy with him either; the guy was way too smart and nothing came too hard for him, and he made it painfully obvious—with the nerve to say, “You shouldn’t have eaten a heavy meal if you knew seeing blood would make you sick,” like a know-it-all, after watching his colleague’s blood pressure drop in front of half the residency program while observing surgery on an entire leg.

When he entered Gotham City Hospital, he already had a stellar reputation: perfect grades, flawless clinical work—and, to top it off, he’d already volunteered there a few years earlier. He was practically perfect at navigating any medical field,

except for one thing: he didn’t know how the hospital operated.

Patients were a piece of cake; diagnoses were already memorized; surgeries? He could do them with his eyes closed.

Even so, he didn’t even know where he stood. Ever.

It wasn’t the theory—because Damian Wayne could probably recite three entire surgical anatomy textbooks from memory without making a single mistake. Nor was it the procedures, or the pharmacology, or the possible intraoperative complications of a six-hour cardiovascular surgery.

It was the damn building.

Too many hallways. Too many elevators. Too many wings with absurdly similar names.

Wing C. Sector C2. Critical Care Unit C.

Who the hell had designed such nonsense?

Damian held a tablet against his chest as he looked at the sign in front of him for the third time, his jaw clenched, his expression permanently irritated.

He was supposed to have arrived at the general surgery area seven minutes ago.

Instead, he was standing in front of pediatrics. Again.

He thought he had an exceptional sense of direction—nothing ever escaped his notice—but it seemed he’d been going in circles, passing through doors he no longer even knew what they were for.

It wasn’t like him to be so disoriented, but he attributed it to the hospital being poorly managed and fatigue playing tricks on him.

Fresh out of medical school with honors, he was starting his surgical residency at a massive hospital in Gotham City. He had a reputation even before he arrived: son of Bruce Wayne, prodigy, absurdly high IQ, perfect academic record. He knew anatomy, pharmacology, procedures, protocols. He could recite every artery in the human body from memory.

But he doesn’t know how to ask for a damn map to find out which wing is the surgery department.

He ran his hand over his face, not wanting to be grumpy but already angry at life. He didn’t even know where to go—there were hallways on both sides, behind him, and on the other side of the pediatrics door, he could see more and more meters stretching ahead.

“Pediatrics is closed at this hour.” Suddenly, a voice snapped him out of his cloud of frustration, and even though the voice wasn’t that loud, the silence in the empty hallways made everything seem too close.

He turned his gaze toward you, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m not looking for pediatrics,” he snapped, almost offended.

“You’ve been standing right in front of it for ten minutes,” you murmured as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

Damian chose to ignore that completely, taking a second to look at you. You were wearing a blue scrub over a white shirt, Crocs, and small clips holding your hair out of your face; you looked as if you’d just come off an exceptionally long shift, given your tousled hair and tired expression. You were a nurse, he assumed.

“I’m looking for surgery” he hesitated before saying, because mentioning it was more embarrassing than it was supposed to be.

You looked at him for several seconds, trying to figure out if it was a joke, smiling crookedly out of sheer disbelief. “For surgery?”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“Are you new?”

“Does it matter?”

“Then you’re new.”

“I repeat,” he said in his most serious, measured voice. “Does it matter?”

You thought for a second, looking at him more closely this time… his neat appearance, his intense gaze that didn't really give anything away. It was the “Wayne” on his badge that finally made a light bulb go off in your head after it had been fried for the entire shift.

“Wayne?”

“…Yeah.”

“You’re one of the new hires,” you pointed out casually, surprised.

“Could you focus?”

“Oh, right, sorry—surgery room!”

“Mhm.”

You seemed to take a breath before blurting out, “It’s upstairs, Ward H, main hallway, black door. Which room are you looking for? There’s A, B, C, preoperative prep, post-op recovery—” Damian just blinked silently.

“Okay, I get it.” Damian barely nodded, ready to turn and leave immediately because that interaction had already been humiliating enough for a single early morning. But before he could take even two steps, your voice caught up with him again.

“wait!” You raised a hand, stopping him. “You shouldn’t go up that staircase.”

Damian turned his face slightly. “And why’s that?”

“Because the main elevator’s been broken since yesterday, the secondary one gets stuck on the fourth floor, and the west staircase leads straight to the ICU, not the surgery.” You watched him for a few seconds, amused to see how his irritation seemed to grow in real time.

“…This hospital has terrible architecture.”

“You’re not the first to say so.”

“It’s inefficient.”

“That too.”

Damian exhaled slowly through his nose, clearly holding himself back. “Then I’ll assume there’s a less absurd route.”

You smiled slightly. “Yep.”

He waited. You didn’t say anything. You just kept looking at him. Damian’s expression hardened a little more.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“The route.”

“Ah.” You put both hands in the pockets of your coat, leaning slightly to one side. “I’ll walk with you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It is.”

Silence.

“…

“You don’t know how to get there.”

“I know exactly how to get there.”

“You’ve been staring at the pediatric ward for ten minutes.”

“I was analyzing the building’s layout.”

"Mhm."

The reply slipped from your lips with an almost offensive calm. There was no explicit mockery in your tone, nor any exaggerated gesture that betrayed amusement, but there was something about the way you accepted his obvious lie—as if it weren’t worth arguing about—that irritated him more than if you’d simply laughed in his face.

Without saying another word, you simply turned on your heel and began walking down the hallway. Your steps were slow, weighed down by the exhaustion of an overly long shift, your crocs barely scraping against the polished floor as you moved forward as if you knew every centimeter of that building even with your eyes closed.

Damian didn’t move.

He stood motionless in the middle of the hallway, watching you gradually walk away under the white, artificial light that flooded every corner of the hospital. He immediately felt the tension settle in his jaw again, stiffening every muscle in his face, while a deeply rooted part of his pride began to churn uneasily inside his chest.

He didn’t have to follow you.

He could have simply turned around, found another route, looked for a map, or asked at the front desk. It wasn’t that complicated. It was a hospital. A building. Nothing more than a physical structure with a logical layout. Eventually, he would have found the right wing.

Or so he wanted to believe.

Because when he looked up once more and was confronted again by that endless line of identical hallways stretching off in different directions, Damian felt his conviction begin to waver at an alarming rate.

Unfortunately for him, his feet found themselves walking behind you without even having a choice.

⋆˙⟡ —

The silence in the hallway was broken only by the rhythmic echo of your weary footsteps and Damian’s strangely silent and precise footsteps behind you. He kept a safe distance, as if the physical space between them were the only guarantee that he wouldn’t completely lose his temper.

“This wing is one of the older parts of the hospital,” you remarked without looking back, gesturing vaguely toward a section of walls with slightly yellowed tiles. “The layout makes no sense. If you take a wrong turn in Block B, you end up in the maintenance basement.”

Damian let out a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a genuine complaint.

“And hasn’t anyone thought of tearing it down or, at least, putting up some decent signage? It’s administrative negligence.”

You stopped in front of a reinforced glass door leading to a small inner courtyard, an oasis of silence amid the chaos of the hospital. You watched Damian’s reflection in the glass; he was walking with his shoulders so stiff that it looked as if he were about to engage in hand-to-hand combat rather than head to his new post.

“Welcome to public health, Wayne,” you said, finally turning to face him. Your exhaustion was obvious, but your eyes sparkled with a mischief he found both curious and irritating. “We don’t have smart floor plans or digital maps here. You’ll learn in time.”

Damian raised an eyebrow, stopping less than a meter away from you. His gaze swept the room with disdain before locking onto yours again.

“And you’re one of those people who ‘knows’? Is that your main job? To be the human GPS for lost residents?”

“Only for those who seem arrogant enough not to ask how to get to the surgery room,” you replied, shrugging with a wry smile, “and I’m a nurse—I have my degree just like you,” you exclaimed, trying not to let him belittle you.

Damian blinked, processing the information with an almost comical seriousness.

“If I were in charge of this department, the first thing I’d do would be a total purge of these structural flaws. Efficiency is the foundation of survival, especially in surgery.”

“Well,” you muttered, reaching the freight elevator—the only one that usually worked at that hour—“when you become the medical director, let me know. In the meantime, try not to complain too much in front of the nurses on duty. They’re the ones who decide whether you’ll have hot coffee or dirty water in your cup.”

Damian fell silent, processing the implicit threat with an expression that shifted between indignation and a budding sense of respect for a field he was beginning to realize he did not, in fact, master.

The elevator was somewhat cramped and looked more rickety than those in the Tower of the Titans, or at Wayne Enterprises, or Bruce’s mansion, or…

The doors closed with a metallic clang, and all that remained was silence—the beep from the small screen indicating the floor change—and the two men standing awkwardly in front of four narrow mirrored walls; as if it weren’t annoying enough to see your back, now he could see your face.

Once the elevator doors opened again, you didn’t say a word and simply stepped out, now walking hurriedly toward the nearest hallway on the left. Damian would have complained that you were suddenly walking so fast, but of course, your shift probably wasn’t over yet, and you weren’t at your workstation.

You were wasting your time guiding a big guy whose pride was bigger than he was—all because he was lost.

Damian walked behind you, pulling his jacket collar tight with a sharp movement, still feeling the strange magnetism of that metal cubicle that had forced him to keep you in his line of sight.

But suddenly you spun around on your heels and looked at him as if he’d dragged you there himself; you walked even faster than before, but in the direction you’d just come from.

“Actually, I don’t think you need to follow me all the way to the door,” you said without looking back, your voice a little more tense and hurried as you hurried past him. “If you turn right at the end of this hallway, you’ll see the gold ‘Operations’ sign. You can’t miss it!”

“Do you have any other urgent business?” he asked, his tone trying to regain that icy authority that used to characterize him, though it sounded slightly out of place in that run-down hospital.

You turned around, and this time, the exhaustion that had built up over the past twenty-four hours seeped into your gaze, softening the defensive posture you’d been maintaining just a little.

“Actually, yes,” you replied, with cutting honesty. “I forgot to sign off on the patients’ discharge from Room 402. And if the shift supervisor catches me giving you a guided tour instead of doing my job, he’s going to take away what little coffee I have left for the day.”

Damian stopped in front of you, and for a microsecond, his expression softened, shifting from utter irritation to genuine curiosity. He noticed your dark circles under your eyes, the way you were leaning slightly against the counter to support your own weight.

“You’re late,” you declared, pointing down the hallway leading to the surgical wing. “There it is. Floor H. Black door. You can’t miss it.”

Without waiting for a reply, you spun on your heel and strode purposefully toward the elevator, leaving Damian standing in the middle of the hallway, his gaze fixed on your back. For the first time all night, he didn’t have a retort ready. He stood there, watching your figure recede and disappear as the elevator doors closed, feeling a mixture of annoyance at your audacity and a strange sense of unease at having been, for the first time in his life, someone who was following another instead of leading the way.

He quickly snapped out of it, frowning again as he refocused. “All right, black door,” he nodded to himself, taking the path you’d indicated.

⋆˙⟡ —

The subsequent meetings had become routine. Damian, with his chronic inability to accept that anyone else might know the layout better than he did, began seeking you out under the pretext of “workflow consultations.”

At first, that was all it was. He’d show up at the nurses’ station with that stiff posture that screamed superiority, waiting for you to tell him where the lab, the supply room, or the radiology wing was—which, for some reason, always seemed to be on the other side of the hospital.

“If you get lost again, I’m going to put a sign on your back that says ‘gets lost easily,’” you told him one afternoon while reviewing a medical record, without even looking up.

In any other situation, that simple joke would have made him snap back, but for some reason, when you said it… it didn’t bother him as much.

“This building is a maze designed by incompetents; it’s not my lack of a sense of direction,” he replied, though his tone had lost that icy edge and taken on a much softer, almost confidential one. “And if I’d rather ask you than read the updated floor plans, it’s because your information is, unfortunately, more reliable than the signage in this place.”

That need for a tour became the perfect excuse to walk alongside you through the hallways. It was no longer just a tour; you began talking between shifts. He learned that you preferred strong coffee because you hated mornings, and you discovered that when Damian fell silent after surgery, it wasn’t out of arrogance, but because he genuinely hoped the patients would pull through—and although he trusted his own hands, he knew the world was sometimes unfair.

It was always you who showed up when he was waiting in the chairs in the hallways, lost in his thoughts and worries, and you’d hand him a cereal bar to boost his blood sugar. Once you gave him a yogurt bar—the kind he later found out you saved exclusively for yourself because they were the most delicious. He didn’t say anything, but he appreciated the gesture more than many other things there.

He wasn’t openly sweet to… well, basically anyone, but sometimes he’d treat himself to a visit to your medical wing when he had free time, stepping in to cover a patient or two so you could have a hot cup of coffee instead of a cold one from running around here and there.

⋆˙⟡ —

Several months had passed, and the hospital had fallen into a stifling and equally boring routine.

The night shift in the surgical wing was never quiet, but that early morning the atmosphere felt particularly tense. The cause was, inevitably, the presence of Damian Wayne. He was no longer lost; he had become a surgeon as brilliant as he was relentless, whose mere entrance into a room seemed to displace the oxygen.

You were in the break room, trying to let the caffeine kick in, when the door slid open with a metallic clang. Damian walked in, removing his latex gloves with precise, almost methodical movements. He paused when he saw you, his gaze scanning your face with an intensity that, far from being clinical, felt inquisitive.

“The patient in Room 230,” he said, his voice retaining that cold cadence, though lacking the hostility of the first day. “The postoperative recovery is taking longer than expected. Your report was… accurate, but too brief.”

You set the cup down on the table, feeling his gaze fixed on you. He didn’t come too close; he remained in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, occupying the space with a confidence that forced you to be conscious of your every move.

You set down the cup, feeling your personal space shrink dramatically as he stood beside you. The scent of antiseptic and his cologne—something woody, expensive, and distinctive—enveloped you.

“My report was fine, Wayne,” you replied, tilting your head to look at him.

Damian took a step further into the room but stopped next to the small central table, without invading your personal space. Yet his presence was so magnetic that you could feel his warmth as if he were right beside you.

“I expected more,” he replied, turning his head slightly to meet your gaze. His dark, piercing eyes lingered on you a second longer than necessary. "Your note suggested a more… instinctive observation. Almost as if you’d anticipated a reaction before it happened."

You shrugged, keeping your posture relaxed even though your pulse was racing.

“I’ve been working here for a long time, Damian. Often, these are recurring patterns—you just know how the body will react.”

He fell silent, watching you. It was a long silence—the kind that would feel awkward with anyone else, but with him it was different. You could see him processing your answer, his fingers drumming rhythmically against his own arm, a gesture that revealed he was thinking about something much deeper than the post-op in Room 230.

“I see,” he murmured finally. There was no mockery in his tone, but rather a note of acknowledgment that made your skin crawl. “I suppose that, in this hospital, intuition is an underrated asset. Although, in your case, it seems to be your primary tool.” You almost rolled your eyes.

He turned around to pour himself a cup of coffee, with his back to you for a moment. That brief moment of vulnerability allowed you to observe him: the line of his shoulders beneath his white coat, the way his posture always betrayed a latent tension, like a spring about to snap.

“Anything else, Doctor?” you asked, noticing that your own voice sounded softer than you intended.

Damian paused with the cup in his hand, not turning around yet. In the reflection on the door’s window, you could see his eyes drifting toward you.

“No,” he replied, his voice dropping a couple of notches, becoming more… natural. “I just wanted to make sure you were aware of what you wrote.”

He turned then, and for a few seconds, the only sound in the room was the distant beeping of the monitors in the hallway. There was no physical closeness, no double entendres; they simply stood there, looking at each other across the room, with an electric tension so thick that any movement felt like an electric shock.

“What were you doing?” he asked suddenly. And you looked at him with utter disbelief etched on your face, lowering your gaze to your cup before casting another incredulous glance at the other man.

“…Drinking coffee?”

“No, before the break. I didn’t see you in the hallways,” he said in a suspiciously calm tone. He was also looking at his cup, but you didn’t know if it was because it was really that interesting or if he was just avoiding your gaze in the face of his own trivial question. “You’re usually always running around.”

In any case, you didn’t react much—or at least you tried not to. “I was monitoring a pregnancy. The woman’s water hadn’t broken yet, and she was having a lot of contractions,” you murmured in a low voice, suddenly feeling exhaustion wash over you.

“I notified obstetrics because her blood pressure was sky-high,” you added almost regretfully, taking another sip of cold coffee before lowering your gaze, a nearly audible sigh escaping your lips.

Damian didn’t respond right away. He stood there, cup in his hands, steam rising and dissipating into the stale air of the room. His jaw, usually tense, relaxed by barely a millimeter. He wasn’t the best at dealing with emotions—neither his own nor those of others—but he knew and understood that healthcare work was exhausting, both physically and mentally, and right now, you seemed to be both.

“Gestational hypertension needs to be monitored,” he said finally, looking up. “Your decision was the right one.”

You looked at him over the rim of your cup. His voice had a firmness so characteristic that, coming from anyone else, it would have sounded cold. But coming from him, in the dim light of that room at three in the morning, it felt almost like an anchor—frustratingly real.

“I know,” you replied, setting the cup down on the table with a sharp thud, exhaustion gaining ground over your composure. “But the hospital is overwhelmed, Damian. The patient was young and a first-time mother; she was scared, and the on-call obstetrician took forty minutes to come down because he was dealing with an emergency delivery. I was there, holding her hand, trying to keep her from panicking while her blood pressure wouldn’t go down.”

You let out a long sigh, your shoulders slumping. The vulnerability you’d been hiding beneath your name tag and navy-blue uniform seeped through your voice, and out of sheer stress, you simply ran your hands over your face. They were warm from holding a cup of (ironically cold) coffee, and the heat from your already tired face seemed to do nothing but make you feel even hotter.

Damian also set his cup aside—a rare, unconscious gesture his body made after seeing you do the same, completely forgetting about the coffee. He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the table. The distance between them finally felt like a bridge rather than a barrier.

“The system is flawed,” he said, his voice dropping a notch, becoming unusually low and intimate. “We’ve already established that. But you can’t carry the incompetence of the rest of the building on your shoulders.”

He fell silent for a moment, looking at you with an intensity that forced you to hold his gaze, even though fatigue was weighing down your eyelids.

“If you fall apart,” he continued, and there was a flash in his eyes—something that looked like a spark of genuine concern buried beneath layers of control—“you, who see a hundred patients an hour, who never stand still, and whom I always see running through the hallways—believe me, none of your little friends will know what to do.”

He paused, as if he’d realized he’d said too much. He cleared his throat, looking away toward the room’s door, his sharp profile silhouetted against the light from the room.

“You’re exhausted,” he concluded, returning to his clinical tone, though he couldn’t quite hide a hint of.. something. “You should try to get some sleep, even if it’s just twenty minutes. Hand your ward over to one of your colleagues for today—you’re too shaken up.”

“I’m not shaken up—I’ve worked worse shifts,” you insisted stubbornly, looking at him as if even suggesting a break were a complete lack of respect.

“You’re shaking. You can’t even calibrate a needle in that state,” he said, his voice completely serious.

“Johnson can give the injections; I still have other patients.”

“All the patients in your ward are stable.”

“What about the new admissions?”

“The emergency room is empty today; there’s enough staff to cover the shift.”

“And the girl—”

“I’ll monitor her if that’s what worries you.”

“Alvarez has her file.”

“Then I’ll send Alvarez a request to forward the file to me. Done.”

It was an almost desperate attempt to get you to stop arguing with him, because if you kept pushing back, he was very tempted to tear his hair out, walk away, and leave you to yourself.

But for some reason, he couldn’t. He was a doctor, and if you kept getting this worked up, you’d soon be his patient.

“Why are you insisting so much? I’ve been here longer than you.”

There you went with your stubbornness again.

“Are you going to keep arguing?” He raised an eyebrow, undeniably starting to get irritated.

“Are you going to keep insisting that I give up my post?” you retorted in the same tone, mimicking his expression. “It’s illegal for you to incite me to be negligent, and I could tell the inspector to give you a warning and—”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh, I definitely would.”

“Doesn’t your head hurt from being so stubborn?”

“Doesn’t your head hurt from acting so superior?”

“You’re stressful.”

“So are you.”

The vein in his forehead throbbed, and he found himself squinting in sheer annoyance; and if the door to the break room hadn’t suddenly swung open, he would have lashed out in a way that might have made you jump up on the table in anger at him.

The door swung open with a metallic screech, and a nurse was about to enter. More astute than intelligent, she sensed the tension in the room like a dense cloud, seeing them both leaning over the table in deep conversation. “sorry” she murmured, slightly uncomfortable. Damian quickly slumped back in his chair with a feigned and practiced indifference, looking at the new visitor with an expression that gave nothing away.

“The patient in 305 is asking for more medication; he says the pain is unbearable,” she announced, casting a quick glance your way before offering a polite smile and hurrying out of the room as quickly as she’d arrived.

The spell of the argument was broken, but not the tension. You stood up so abruptly that the chair screeched against the floor. Your head was pounding, a rhythmic throb just behind your temples that confirmed, much to your chagrin, that Damian was right: you were exhausted.

Damian didn’t move from his seat. He stayed there, his arms crossed over his chest, watching you with that impatient look. When you walked past him to get your stethoscope, the air between you seemed to vibrate. He turned his head just enough to follow your movement with his eyes—a gesture that made you feel that, even if you left, he hadn’t taken his attention off you.

“That patient doesn’t need any more medication,” Damian said, his voice low, almost a murmur that only you could hear. “He’s looking for attention.”

You paused for a second, your hand on the doorknob, feeling his gaze fixed on the back of your neck. You turned around, meeting him with that look of superiority that irritated you so much, but now, stripped of the urgency of the previous moment, there was something else.

“So now you’re my department head, Wayne?” you asked, your voice a thread that tried to sound biting but came out more weary than you would have liked.

Damian let out a snort, a brief sound that fell short of a laugh. He finally stood up, his height casting a shadow over the small space of the cafeteria. He took a step toward you, closing the distance until his presence was almost overwhelming. He stopped just inches away—close enough for you to notice the clean scent of operating-room disinfectants and that woody note in his cologne.

“What time do you get off?” he asked suddenly, and the… incompleteness of the question in relation to the previous discussion left you disoriented, confused.

You blinked for another two seconds, your mouth opening as if to say something, but for a moment you only managed a silly stammer before gathering your thoughts.

“I don’t know… five a.m.?” You looked at him doubtfully, not quite sure what might be on his mind.

“You have an hour and a half left on your shift,” he pointed out casually.

“When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like much time.”

“Technically, it isn’t. Go on, I’ll wait for you to clock out.”

You froze, your hand still gripping the metal doorknob, processing the order—because, coming from him, it was an order, but tinged with such an unusual nuance that it left you defenseless.

“You’ll wait for me?” you repeated, your voice barely above a whisper, unable to hide your surprise that, after all the friction and stubbornness of the last few minutes, he had simply decided the matter wasn’t settled.

Damian didn’t flinch. His posture remained rigid, almost academic, but his dark eyes never left you, observing every micro-reaction on your face. He didn’t flinch. He maintained that impassive posture, his hands hidden in the pockets of his lab coat, watching you with a calm that was beginning to seem far more dangerous than his initial irritation.

“That’s what I said,” he repeated, lowering his voice, which made his words sound much more intimate in the silence of the room. “Should I schedule an appointment for you with the ENT as well?”

That sarcastic, mocking remark—or perhaps that strangely intimate tone—made a flush rise up your neck, whether from embarrassment or emotions that would be pointless to name right now, so you remained silent.

You noticed how his gaze—once so sharp and judgmental—now seemed to be searching for something on your face. His dark emerald-green eyes had subtly drifted down to your lips, then to your eyes, scanning you as if trying to memorize every trace of your weariness.

“An hour and a half,” he said, ignoring your reply. “Not a minute more, not a minute less. Don’t keep me waiting, or I’ll have to come find you in the ward.”

You forced yourself to let go of the doorknob, feeling your palm—sweaty from stress—leave a mark on the metal. The embarrassment of having fallen silent, processing his closeness, was beginning to be replaced by a kind of electricity that made your skin crawl.

“You’re…” you began, trying to regain some of your usual sharpness, but your voice cracked slightly. “You’re incredibly bossy.”

“And you’re incredibly stubborn,” he replied, without taking his gaze off your eyes even for a millimeter. “Given that, our dynamic is, to say the least, logical.”

A heavy silence fell. He didn’t move, giving you just enough space to step back if you wanted to. His gaze dropped back to your face, lingering for a moment on the way your fingers were still trembling slightly from exhaustion, before returning to your eyes with an intensity that made you feel, for the first time in the entire shift, that it wasn’t fatigue that was taking your breath away.

“An hour and a half,” he repeated, lowering his voice even further, turning it into almost a whisper. “Don’t forget.”

You turned away, passing by him so quickly that the accidental brush of your shoulders was almost inevitable. It was a brief contact, a friction of fabric against fabric that felt like an electric shock, running down your entire spine. You didn’t turn to see his reaction, but you could feel his presence there, standing in the middle of the room, watching your every step as you walked away toward the bustle of the hospital.

The rest of the shift turned into a countdown. The fatigue was still there, clinging to your bones, but the exhaustion no longer weighed on you the same way. Every time you passed a nursing station or completed a task, the thought of Damian waiting outside crept into your mind, becoming the only anchor in your chaos.

And you found yourself realizing, for the first time, that the anxiety of finishing your shift wasn’t just a desire to go home and sleep—it was anticipation.

When the hallway lights finally dimmed and the clock struck five, you walked toward the clock-out area with your heart pounding against your ribs.

You felt a little ridiculous; you were nervous about… what? You didn’t even know. You wiped your hands on your blue scrubs, a feeble attempt to wipe away the sweat and smooth out the wrinkles in your uniform before facing that insufferable man.

You frowned as you remembered that you couldn’t even leave the hospital without taking off your uniform; you let out a snort to yourself and began stumbling as you pulled the scrubs over your head in frustration, because you’d tried to make it look good and you weren’t even supposed to be wearing it when you left.

You didn’t even care if anyone saw you; after working more than 10 hours straight, you’d lost all sense of needing to look presentable—those 10 hours already weighed as heavily as an outfit in and of themselves.

You were engrossed in a struggle with the unruly sleeve of your uniform—your hair probably a mess and your shirt collar wrinkled—when a presence stopped right beside you.

You didn’t need to look up. The woody cologne and that strong presence told you that Damian was there, watching you.

“It’s a sight—unpleasant, to say the least,” he remarked, in a voice that, far from being mocking, carried a note of restrained amusement. “And, frankly, unnecessary.”

You paused, with half the suit still tangled around one arm, panting slightly from the frustration of the task. When you looked up, you saw him there: impeccable, already out of his own coat, wearing a gray wool sweater that looked too expensive to be so simple. He was standing with his hands in the front pockets of his pants, observing your mess with a look that was a mixture of bewilderment and a fascination he didn’t bother to hide.

“You…” you managed to say, with the uniform crumpled into a ball in your hands and your pride wounded by the fact that he was seeing you in your most chaotic state—“What are you looking at?”

“Your mess.”

“You said you’d be waiting.”

“I was. Did you also want me to wait with my eyes closed?”

“Shut up.”

Damian let out a snort—that short, sharp sound that served as his equivalent of a laugh, you thought—while the faintest hint of a smile—truly tiny, almost imperceptible—appeared at the corner of his lips.

“If the order was for me to shut up every time you’re inefficient, I’d have to spend my whole life in silence,” he retorted, taking a step forward to close the distance between them.

“That would be a miracle,” you muttered to yourself.

Despite his words, his attitude changed. He was no longer looking at you with that clinically superior gaze; now, his attention was focused on the way your shoulders slumped under the weight of fatigue, on how, even though it was all tangled, your hair shone under the cold lights of the lobby.

“then,” he said, his voice dropping a couple of notches, becoming unusually intimate, “the coffee at the shop across the street is terrible. I know a place that’s a little nicer a couple of blocks from—”

You froze. “Are you asking me out for coffee?” you asked, trying to make your voice sound steady, even though the tremor in your hands gave you away—and then came the mocking laugh.

Damian stared at you blankly for several seconds, as if, for the first time, several details had slipped his mind. “I told you we’d clock out together,” he replied, masterfully ignoring your question.

But your face had already lit up again, and a smile was beginning to spread dangerously across your face, making him hesitate as they left the hospital entrance

“It was an excuse!”

“An excuse for what?”

“To ask me out.”

“As friends.”

“Then why were you being so secretive about it?”

“I wasn’t being secretive.”

“Let’s clock out together, oh, let’s clock out together,” you exclaimed dramatically, imitating him with an incredulous giggle.

Because you couldn’t believe it—you’d been, perhaps, a bit clueless before. But little by little, the pieces began to fall into place, and with your mind slightly clearer, you started to realize that this whole charade of Damian’s—to get you to clock out together so you could finish your shift—was just his anxiety speaking for itself because he wanted to spend time with you after work. It was… ridiculously adorable. And terrifying.

Damian stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the sidewalk, and for a moment, the icy confidence that usually surrounded him seemed to crack. He looked at you with a mixture of genuine indignation and something much deeper—a dark glint in his eyes that made you feel, for an instant, that you’d crossed a line.

“Don’t use that tone with me,” he said, though his voice lacked its usual edge; it sounded, strangely, like someone who’d been caught in a truth they’d been trying to keep under lock and key. “My reasoning for wanting to share a cup of coffee outside the hospital grounds is flawless. You haven’t eaten properly in hours, and I’m in the mood for something hot.”

You crossed your arms, thoroughly enjoying the fact that, for the first time, the great Damian Wayne seemed to be losing control of the narrative.

“Johnson hasn’t eaten properly in hours either,” you repeated, stifling a laugh as you looked at him defiantly. “And you’re not inviting him for coffee.”

His eyes narrowed into a straight line of annoyance, but he didn’t look away. Instead of trying to correct you or hide behind a wall of technicalities again, he took a step toward you, invading your personal space with a determination that took your breath away. The light from a nearby streetlamp bathed his face, highlighting the firmness of his jawline and that slight upward tilt of his eyebrows—a small detail that, to your eyes, was a beauty mark.

“I’m tired,” he blurted out, his tone becoming surprisingly honest, almost a private whisper that felt like a confession. “Don’t make this any harder.”

He stopped just inches away from you, lowering his head to meet your gaze, leaving you no room to back away. His scent—a mix of wool, the morning chill, and something uniquely his—enveloped you completely. And for the first time, you could see what looked like a blush on his cheeks.

“And don’t compare yourself to Johnson,” he added, this time sounding suddenly offended. Because Johnson wasn’t half as decisive as you, nor half as friendly; he didn’t have your smile in moments of pressure or your exceptional poise, much less that funny habit of glancing at him out of the corner of his eye when a patient said something funny—as if hoping he’d caught the joke too—nor your way of dealing with especially vulnerable patients.

And above all, he didn’t have your eyes. Those eyes that, despite being tired and droopy after hours of work, still managed to look at him like a fool spouting nonsense (as you called him) and not like Damian Wayne.

But of course, he’d never say that.

You sighed, releasing all the tension that had built up in your chest, and let your arms drop, abandoning any defensive posture.

“All right,” you said, your voice sounding soft this time, with no trace of mockery. “You’re right anyway—I look better than him anyways.”

Damian blinked, surprised by your sudden concession. His hands, which until then had been tense at his sides, relaxed just a little, though he didn’t move a centimeter away. His gaze swept over your face once more, searching for any sign that you were laughing at him, but he found something else.

“That’s subjective.”

“Don’t ruin the romantic moment.”

“There never was a moment.”

“Ouch,” you blurted out.

He let out a long sigh, heavy with frustration that was no longer directed at you, but at the impossibility of maintaining his perfect facade.

“You’re exasperating,” he murmured, and this time his tone wasn’t one of reproach, but of absolute resignation.

But then he moved closer to you, closing the distance until the warmth radiating from his fleece sweater enveloped you. Without asking permission, he raised a hand and, with a gentleness you wouldn’t have expected from someone as rough as him, brushed a strand of hair from your forehead—one of those strands you’d tried to pin back with clips but that had gotten tousled after struggling with your clothes. His fingers lingered there for a second, brushing against your skin, tracing the line of your temple with a slowness that screamed everything he refused to say out loud. But then he pulled his hand away as soon as he realized what he was doing, cursing himself and his body for reacting before his brain could assess what was really the right thing to do.

“This isn’t a moment,” you whispered, feeling your pulse quicken. “But here we are. Five in the morning. Outside the hospital. You invited me for coffee, and then you touched my hair, and on top of that—”

Damian let out a brief laugh, this time devoid of any cynicism. He lowered his hand, but didn’t pull away. On the contrary, he stayed there, looking at you with such raw intensity that it made you feel, for the first time, that the man standing before you was just as vulnerable as you were.

“It is a moment,” you continued, a hint of frustration slipping into your words. “Don’t you think so?”

He stared at you defiantly, and as you looked at him beneath the dim light of the flickering streetlamp on the hospital sidewalk (provided by the city), you weren’t sure if you’d said too much, if exhaustion was making you act foolishly, or if you were simply imagining things that weren’t there.

“Objectively speaking, it is,” he said, as if you were still having a conversation about doctors and nurses.

You let out a snort that was half laughter, half a sigh of sheer disbelief. Damian Wayne had just used the adjective “objectively” to validate what you both knew was a disaster.

“Objectively?” you repeated, taking another step toward him, challenging that last line of technical defense he insisted on putting up. “So is it a date or not?”

“No.”

“And if you bring me flowers, is it?”

“Maybe,” he replied, shrugging slightly, looking at you with a twinkle in his eyes and a very faint smile that only betrayed just how much he was hoping you’d say something stupid.

“So when?” you asked with sudden anticipation.

“When what?”

“When you ask me out on a date.”

“with flowers?”

“Mhm.”

You blurted it out so naturally, as if it were nothing, without a hint of cheekiness in front of him, with that self-assured smile and a twinkle in your eyes, that he couldn’t help but simply scoff, turning away, breaking the small space of intimacy the two of you had created, and starting to walk toward where you’d agreed to meet.

“Just walk, okay?” he said, pretending not to dwell on the matter. But in his head, he was wondering which flowers would be your favorites.

⋆˙⟡ — I'm really afraid of getting caught up in canon blindness and being consumed by fanon, and accidentally writing OOC—lol. I welcome constructive criticism, and comments would make me happy!

⋆˙⟡ — I'm still not convinced by the translation; I feel like it takes some of the spark out of my writing every time I switch from Spanish to English, And I don't even know if this is translated correctly bc idk informal English.

The normal human body shouldn't be able to withstand flying at the speed of sound, especially if the human is a reporter with motion sickness and no prior experience being a pilot. The T-Craft skidded through the ice enveloping the canopy with snow. 

It was your first time coming to Clark’s secret hideout, and your first time in the Arctic. The ice beneath your feet rumbled and cracked as the doors of the massive fortress opened. The robots welcomed you in, their rambles were lost in your thoughts, the only thing you could think of was Clark.

“Is he okay?” you said, rushing inside. 

“Mr.Terrific has stated that only you could help him,” the robot with a four in his chest said. 

“Me?” you said. “I’m a reporter, not a doctor.” 

In the middle of the main lobby of the fortress sat Clark, bruised and whimpering using his cape as a makeshift blanket. You rushed to him, his skin painfully hot. His face was blushed pink with his dark curls sticking to his skin. Your touch seemed to ease the pain, his arms were wrapped around his abdomen, his back arched. 

“Are you okay?” you said. “What the hell am I saying of course you’re not.”

“Luther…he used a synthetic form of Kryptonite,” he said, his voice hoarse and dry. “I feel so hot.”

“Maybe you should get your suit off then,” you touched his nape where the latches were but he quickly took your hand, his grip strong. 

“No–” he said, he would occasionally shut his eyes from the pain, the whites around his eyes burned red. 

“What do you mean no. You’re burning up Clark,” you said. He shuffled on the chair, his cape falling off of his thighs. What surprised you was the hardness underneath his red trunks. The kryptonian fabric almost tore at the seams, his large cock bulging through the garment. 

“Shit,” it was the first time you’ve heard Clark swear. “Superman robots shut down!” 

In unison the robots shut down, the lights on their eyes dimming to black. Clark started to unbuckle his belt falling down the hard floor with a loud bang. “It hurts,” he whimpered. 

“Mr. Terrific knows?” he nodded. 

Who saves Superman when there’s no one to save him? 

You help him off his suit. Every time your hands would graze his bare skin he would shudder. His wet pale skin glistened against the bright lights, accentuating each hard muscle in his body. When there was nothing left to undress he just sat there, heaving yet aching for your touch. 

“Are you sure about this?” you asked. He nodded. You were awestruck with his beauty. His brows furrowed, pleading to you with his blue eyes and plump lips. His body was a large expanse of muscle, veins tracing the lines of his limbs. For the past few months you were dating Clark, today was the first time you could actually see each detail of his body. 

You smoothed your hands across his thick thighs, the faintest pricks of hair tickled the pads of your fingers. In between his thighs lie his big dick, fairly trimmed hair, a long and thick shaft where a vein bulged, and the pink tip that was already glistening with his arousal. 

Clark shuddered from each touch, your fingers were awfully cold. He watched as you kissed his tip, licking the bead of precome. His whole body tensed, he felt like his soul was sucked inside your breath, and when you finally bottomed out and sucked him whole, he knew he was done for. 

“Ah, honey,” he gasped. His finger dug into the sides of the chair, the metal bending under his grip. 

“Did I hurt you?” you said, jaw hurting from the girth. 

Clark melted under your graze, batting your lashes at him with a string of saliva linking your swollen lips to the tip of his cock. Using your spit as lube, you started stroking the rest of his shaft with both of your hands, simultaneously flicking your wrists with a rhythm that made Clark arch his back in pleasure. 

“Honey, I’m so close,” he cried out. His body was writhing while his chest heaved rapidly. You continued to lick and suck around the sensitive head, you could taste the saltiness from his pleasure. The sensation that was being drawn out of Clark’s sex made him feel weak, he thought that if anyone could finally break the man of steel it would be now. 

You looked up at him again while you pulled out, letting his cock pop against your cheeks. He flexed his biceps behind his head, gripping the headrest. Clark shook in his head in disbelief, his curls were messy all over his forehead. “Stop,” he shouted, his voice cracking. “I need to feel you.” 

He pulled you in for a needy kiss. The chair went flying across the room with the flick of his hand, breaking into a million pieces. He took you to a different room in the fortress, a kingsized bed covered in pristine white sheets. 

“You couldn't have made me do you here? My knees and my neck hurt,” you teased. 

“Couldn’t think straight,” he scratched the back of his neck. He looked so adorable, this giant of a man was so needy for you. “Can we continue now? It still hurts, you know.” 

You undressed for him, throwing your clothes to god-knows-where. He eclipse the lights above you, all you could feel was his heft all over your body, and the hard cock teasing your entrance. 

“Gosh you’re so tight,” he moaned, gently pushing every inch. His hands snaked under your knees, pulling them up as he fully sheathed in. You let out a loud cry, he stretched you out beating any guy or toy before him. You tried to stifle your noises on the corner of his neck. “No need to be quiet, sweetie. No one can hear us.” 

The slick of your hole made Clark weaker and weaker. His body radiated more heat from the sun, his flesh filled with more blood making his grip on you tight and his thrusts strong. On the slight chance you opened your eyes, you could see the red glow in the center of his blue eyes. Clark felt his humanity wane, his clasp on his own mundane strength could falter,  he could hurt you. 

He pulled away, touching his bridge near his tear ducts. 

“Clark, what’s wrong?”  He faced away from you. 

“I almost lost control,” Clark sobbed. “This is what Luthor wanted, he wanted me to hurt you.” 

“Clark—” you touched his face and made him face you. “I know you. You could never hurt me.” 

You pulled him in for a kiss, gently guiding him on his back. Clark let out a small whine when you let his lips go. You traced kisses all over his neck down to his chest while taking your place on his lap. Clark let out a breathy moan when you descended onto his cock. 

“I love you, Clark,”  you whispered, slowly rocking on his hardness. He held your hips for support, thrusting into you at the same pace. Your hands found his chest, smoothing over them, grazing his nipples. 

“I love you too,” he said, voice deep and husky. You both were at the edge of your climaxes, rising above shooting pleasure all over yourselves. His come flooded inside with so much warmth. Your own arousal drenching your thighs and the base of his cock. 

You fell back onto his lips, exchanging air while catching your breaths. 

The sounds of clanking metal woke you. You were dressed with a clean set of boxers and a shirt that was way too big for you. The Superman robots walked around the rooms cleaning up debris and metal. Clark came into the room wearing a white shirt and some grey sweatpants, in his hands were two paper bags with the bottoms covered in grease. 

“Thought you would've wanted some Big Belly Burger after what we did,” he said, putting them down on the nightstand and pulling a handful of french fries. 

“You flew back to Metropolis to get burgers?” you said, rummaging the contents of the paper bag. 

“Yeah,” he said playfully. “Gosh, I’m so hungry,” speaking while filling his mouth. 

end.

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