#complicated relationship

You’re one of the few people who can actually match or even overpower Chrollo in a straight fight. Whether it’s elite military special forces training or high-ranking police tactical expertise, your skills, instincts, and combat ability keep him genuinely intrigued. He respects strength, and yours is the kind that makes him watch you with calculated fascination.

You’re not part of the Phantom Troupe. You have your own duty, your own chain of command, and your own moral code. That divide is constant tension you know he’s dangerous and morally evil, but you can’t bring yourself to turn him in. Not yet....

Chrollo has never underestimated you. He treats you as an equal (or a superior threat) from day one, which is rare for him. There’s a quiet thrill in knowing you could actually take him down if you ever fully committed to it.

He subtly uses you for information. Small questions about upcoming operations, security protocols, or movement of high-value targets slip into late-night conversations. He’s never obvious about it — just a soft “Tell me more about your day” while his fingers trace your shoulder.

You’re scared of him. You’ve seen glimpses of what he’s truly capable of, and it kind of terrifies you. There are nights you lie awake wondering if today is the day he decides you’re a liability. Chrollo notices this fear of course and if it ever starts to outweigh your love, he would likely disappear from your life without warning because a fearful asset is useless to him. After all, he knows that there is a huge possibility that you can overpower him in a fight.

Despite everything, your love for him is fierce and stubborn. It’s the main reason the relationship still stands. As long as you keep loving him, he keeps you close. Your feelings are his most effective leash.

He’s almost gentle with you in private. Soft touches, quiet book readings, and that velvet voice that makes you forget who he really is. But you both know it’s partially calculated keeping you emotionally attached serves his purposes.

Power dynamics are complicated. You can overpower him physically if you push hard enough, but he dominates the relationship in every other way. He’s always three steps ahead, reading you like one of his precious books.

There are moments you try to confront him about the things he’s done. He never raises his voice. He simply listens, then calmly reminds you how deep you’re already in and how much it would hurt you to lose him now.

He has contingencies if you ever decide to act against him. You’ve caught hints of it files on your unit, backup plans, escape routes... He doesn’t hide that he’s prepared. It’s his way of saying “You can be replaced, if your usefulness declines.”

The relationship is strong only because of how much you love him. He knows this. He exploits it. And you let him because the alternative is living without the man who makes your heart race even while he terrifies you.

In the end, Chrollo sees you as the perfect balance: a powerful woman who could destroy him, but chooses to love him instead. He’ll keep you for as long as that love benefits him… and perhaps, in his own cold way, because he’s grown attached too.

Bucky and Sam are more than a little surprised when Steve is the one who calls and asks them to meet him for drinks.

They have a local dive bar they always end up at eventually, the kind of place with worn booths, cheap beer, and enough history between the three of them that they can sit for hours doing nothing but talking. Usually Sam or Bucky is the one dragging Steve out. This time, though, the invitation comes from him.

Neither of them misses the difference.

Sam and Bucky arrive first and settle into their usual booth, talking easily while the noise of the bar hums around them. Sam is the first to notice Steve walking through the door and nudges Bucky lightly with his elbow.

Bucky turns—and immediately understands why Steve had sounded different on the phone.

There is tension lingering in Steve’s shoulders as he walks in, but that is not what catches either of their attention.

It is you.

Steve’s hand rests at the small of your back as he guides you into the bar beside him, casual and protective all at once. Sam’s face breaks instantly into a smug, deeply satisfied grin while Bucky stays quieter, watching the way you tilt your head up toward Steve, smiling softly as your hand brushes against his chest.

“Relax,” you murmur, just loud enough for Steve to hear.

Even from across the room, Bucky catches the way Steve’s expression eases at the word.

When the two of you reach the table, Steve introduces you, and it only takes hearing the way he says your name for both Sam and Bucky to understand everything they need to.

Bucky smiles first. “You stopped running.”

Steve lets out a quiet breath through his nose, something halfway between a laugh and resignation, while beside him you smile brightly at both of them.

Sam, still grinning like he has been waiting for this moment for weeks, leans back in his seat. “So this is why you were acting like a complete disaster.”

Your laugh rings out warm and easy at that, and Steve ducks his head with a sheepish smile, dragging a hand through his hair. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Am I wrong?”

Steve does not answer that.

Instead, he pulls out a chair for you, waiting until you sit before taking the seat beside you. Almost immediately his arm settles across the back of your chair, his fingers brushing lightly against your shoulder now and then like keeping contact with you has already become instinct.

You glance between the two men before nodding toward Sam. “From that line, I’m guessing you’re Sam.”

Sam points at you immediately. “See? I like her already.”

You laugh before turning toward Bucky. “Which makes you Bucky.”

“Got it in one,” Bucky replies easily.

Sam, incapable of leaving anything alone, looks back at Steve with another grin. “Glad you finally dug yourself out of that hole of denial.”

Bucky chuckles into his drink before adding, “He’s kind of hopeless sometimes.”

You lean your head against Steve’s shoulder, smiling as you look up at him. “I wouldn’t have him any other way.”

For a moment, Steve just looks at you.

Then his arm slips more firmly around the back of your chair, his mouth curving into a quiet smile that, for once, looks completely unguarded.

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A buzzing noise sounded from above him. It sounded like machinery. And the weight of the ceiling tripled. Whatever it was burrowed down, vibrating loud and causing Jason’s arm to shake with the pressure. 

He couldn’t drop it. He had to fight it. The fire in his veins. The acid in his lungs. He couldn’t let go. If he did, he’d be gone…again.

Jason swung upward, hands clapping over his mouth before the scream would wake his neighbors. Luckily, that scream never made it out, only stinging in the back of his sand-paper throat. 

Then the rest of his achy body reminded him why sudden moves were such a horrible decision. Vertigo and nausea spun together in a hellish combo. Jason’s head dropped and he raised his knees to make himself into a ball. It took ages, but the white spots of pain subsided enough for him to take a few wheezy breaths. 

Yet his heart hammered through it all. Get a damn grip. His teeth ground together. This is why it was always a bad idea to sleep on his back. He almost always ended up back there.

Slowly, Jason turned toward his nightstand to see a cup of water. It had been refilled from before. His eyes went up to the figure in the chair, folded in it like the acrobat freak he was. His head had fallen to the side in what couldn’t be a comfortable way. He was going to feel that when he woke up.

A small whistle came whenever Dick breathed in, and his long black hair swayed when he breathed out. Jason listened to the soft noise and watched the movement of the hair for several rounds. The redness around Dick’s eyes had faded somewhat, and most of the lines, from when he’d talked about forgetting part of his mom’s lullaby, had smoothed away. Best of all, each one of those breaths left that awfully detached tone he’d used further and further behind. That thought, that ridiculous whistle coming out of his nose, that stupid floppy hair—they quieted the screams of Jason’s pounding heart.

Then the buzz from his dream nearly had it shooting back to where it had been. He rolled off the bed, somehow landing lightly on the floor, and found the offending object.  

Dickhead’s phone.

Jason almost shoved over Dick’s chair for the damn thing entering his nightmare, but he snatched up the device and froze at the name on the caller ID. 

Dad

Jason blinked at the word. There was no way. No way in hell Dick had labeled him that. 

It buzzed in his palm and spurred Jason up and moving like he’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. He tripped out of the bedroom and into the hall, clasping the phone to his chest. It kept on buzzing over and over with the flutter behind his ribs until he reached the bathroom where he shut and locked the door.

That’s when it stopped, going unbearably silent and wretchedly still. Jason stared at it and waited. He waited until his trembling knees buckled and he sank to the icy tile. He waited until a new bout of shivering wracked through him. He waited until the sound of the dripping shower faucet formed a steady beat in his head to match his sped-up pulse. He waited until—

It vibrated to life again. An obnoxiously loud hum that made Jason wonder why in all that was holy Dick had the thing turned up to the highest setting. But that wasn’t really what had Jason’s attention.

His eyes locked onto the name. The name Dick had to have put as Bruce Wayne’s damn contact. 

Did Bruce know that Dick had done that? For some reason, Jason had a feeling that he didn’t.

His thumb hovered over the name, and then down to the two options— red or green. To his absolute disgust his fingers fumbled over the two icons before he inanely chose the green.

“Can’t give me a lick of peace can you, old man?” He growled out before Bruce could get a word in.

Silence.

Jason’s ragged, strained breathing echoed in his ears and through the small bathroom. It took him forever to realize it was also going straight through the speaker. He swore, also aloud, and covered said speaker with his hand. He tucked his head between his knees and fought to even his breathing before speaking again. 

“I hope you’re happy, Bruce,” he said with a bit more control. “You’ve got your eyes on the inside now. Just checking to see if I’ve screwed the pooch, dropped the ball, failed the all powerful self-righteous Batman.”

Still nothing.

Jason tore the phone back to check and see if the line was connected. “You there, asshole? Or have you gone deaf in your old age?” His teeth clacked together as they started to chatter. The tremor in his voice became harder to hold back. “Dammit, you piece of shit. Speak! Say something you lousy, son of a—”

“Jason.”

Jason’s voice juddered to an abrupt halt. It really was Bruce on the line, and not one Dick’s gazillion friends that he’d put in his phone with that name as a joke or for any other stupidass reason. It was his voice. His low rumble. His gentle tone that he didn’t just give out so freely.

Jason’s grip on the phone tightened and he curled even more into himself.

Dad.

“What?” Jason’s voice came out curt, but that might have been because again he felt strapped for air.

But that’s when Bruce gave him some. An audible breath sounded on the other end of the phone, as if the man had been holding it captive.

“From what I can tell, things have been going well over there,” Bruce said a bit slower than usual, testing the waters. “Crime has dropped incredibly low these past few weeks. You’ve done well.”

Jason cursed the warmth that flickered through his chest at those last words. They should have pissed him off worse. Maybe they still did a little. “If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have sent your precious little lapdog on me.”

“I didn’t send Dick.”

Jason’s head pounded. He rubbed at it. “Then why’d he show up at all?”

There was another silence, but at least an answer came after a few moments.

“He…” Bruce grunted his annoyed grunt. His annoyed grunt because he didn’t know how to say what he wanted to. “He partially did it for me.”

Jason’s nails bit into his palm. “So, it was because you don’t tru—”

“I didn’t know if everything was...” Bruce cut in swiftly only to trail off. “I didn’t know if everything was…if you were…”

I’m not. Jason closed his eyes. I’m not okay.

The back of his head banged against the bathroom door behind him. A part of him wanted to really lay into Bruce, scream at him, break the cords binding his chest. A piece of it might have slipped past the confines, but he snatched it back. It would be a flood if he were to let it all free. An overwhelming flood that he’d end up drowning in before he’d ever make his point. 

For some reason it felt like he’d already poured himself out on Bruce, like he’d already let him have it, considering how drained out Jason was.

“Jayl—” Bruce stopped himself, and Jason was grateful. If his body shook any more than it already was, it might just shatter into teeny-tiny bits and Dick would have to clean up after him— again.

“Are you sure everything is okay?”

A scoff, a tight pained one that didn’t sound right to Jason’s ears came out. His eyes prickled. Don’t toy with me. Don’t do this, Bruce. “I thought you said I’d done well over here.”

“It’s not about that.”

Jason knew that, but hearing him say it cut too deep. It crossed the lines he’d carved between them. It dug up things he could still feel from another life. A life where he came home after saving people that had been like him—alone on the streets—to give them better lives, side by side with a mountain of a man. That mountain of a man who smiled so soft and so warm, Jason couldn’t help but bask in it as he jabbered away about how the film they were watching to unwind didn’t do it like it was done in the book. 

Not everything was clear from back then. But there were fragments that stood out like a lighthouse on the dark, foggy sea. Jason remembered how as the film drew on and his words faded off with the sleepiness tugging on his body, Bruce would start to get antsy on the couch beside him.

The old man always had to be moving forward on the next case. He wanted to go back down to the Cave. Jason knew Bruce was just waiting for him to fall asleep on the throw pillows beside him, so he could scoop him up and carry him to bed. It made Jason fight the sleep for as long as he could until he remembered a tip Dick had slipped him for when he didn’t want moments like those ones with B to end.

So Jason would slump onto Bruce’s shoulder and sappily snuggle in. It worked. Bruce wouldn’t want to disturb him or whatever, and eventually the old man would actually drift off too.

Jason sat on the cold bathroom floor, and the lack of the heat from the man on the other end of the phone almost brought the scream back out. “What was the other part?” He asked, scrabbling for anything else within reach.

“What?” 

“What was the other part Dick decided to show his dumb face. You said part of it was for you, but what was the other part?”

Bruce went quiet again before he replied.

“He wanted to see you.”

Jason snorted. “Sure, he did.” 

The ghosts of a strained, worried voice trying to soothe him and a too-familiar sunlight smile floated hazily through his mind. With them, came the far-away feeling of a cool cloth wiping softly at his face. 

“Sure, the larger-than-life hero of Bludhaven, Gotham, Jump City, New York, Chicago—hell, everywhere else he and his Titans have put their pinky toe in—wanted to drop by this cesspit.” 

The phantom sensation of gentle hands running over his scalp in a way he’d always wished his mother had… No. That wasn’t real. That was just another nightmare. 

“Sure, the busy-as-hell cop—because being a vigilante wasn’t enough—who doesn’t know what the word ‘vacation’ means, decided to take the time for a casual stop.” 

Then, clear as day, he saw Dick: blue eyes bright and red-rimmed, looking at Jason like the world had finally been lifted from shoulders that hadn’t known what it was like to be free of the weight. 

Jason swallowed hard. “Sure, your star child who’d hang the moon if you asked him, yet does it anyway, decided to ruin his day by swinging over here because he missed the sorry excuse of a—” 

“Jason,” Bruce’s stern tone made all the shivers still as Jason’s whole frame went stiff. “No.”

Jason’s jaw locked with how hard he clenched his teeth. It took him a moment to pry it back open. “Okay, fine, whatever you say, Da—”

Jason’s eyes went wide as the cold returned to his somehow warmed body. “—Dick is here because he’s got a bleeding heart, got it.” His words almost tangled together with how fast he shoved them out. “Well, gotta' get back to the idiot.” Then he hung up before any other cursed titles decided to come out of his mouth. 

Damn you, Dick. Damn you and your stupid contact name for B. That moron just had to get in his head, even when he wasn’t speaking. He just had to…

There was a text conversation open on Dick’s phone. It was one to the aforementioned “Dad”. An unsent message sat at the bottom of the screen. Three words.

he misses you

Jason let the phone drop, not caring if the screen cracked, to dig the heels of his hands into his eyes. He ignored the dampness accumulating there. 

Damn you.

Damn you both.

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-Jay has no idea how to deal with those that love him 🥺

Thanks for reading if you got this far! Hopefully, you've already read the actual fic it goes with before this. If not, PLEASE go check it out! Things will make a whole lot more sense with the context 😁