#gn reader

"Maybe they were climbing a mountain."

His mother's lips twitched. "A mountain?"

"Or a castle."

"A castle is much more likely."

"I think so too." Dick nodded solemnly. A castle explained the scrape much better than simply falling over.

Castles had stone staircases and secret passageways. Castles had dragons and villains and daring escapes.

His soulmate was probably off on an adventure.

His mother finished securing the bandage before pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

"Your soulmate must be having quite the day."

The thought filled him with excitement.

For the rest of the afternoon, Dick imagined another child racing through hidden corridors, ducking beneath traps and escaping dragons by the skin of their teeth.

The possibility that they had simply tripped over their own feet never even crossed his mind.

←↓→↑

When he was seven, he spent two days complaining about a toothache.

The pain settled deep in his jaw, throbbing every time he tried to smile.

By the third day, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived.

His father explained that soulmate resonance sometimes worked that way.

That his soulmate had probably gone to the dentist.

Dick immediately sat upright. "What if they were scared?"

"I'm sure they were brave."

"What if nobody held their hand?"

John looked up from the costume he was repairing. "Dick."

"What?"

"They're not stranded on a deserted island."

"You don't know that."

His mother laughed so hard from the other side of the trailer that she nearly dropped her equipment.

Dick didn't see what was so funny.

His soulmate was out there somewhere.

They might be scared of dentists. Or hated needles.

The thoughts lingered with him long after the conversation ended.

Sometimes, late at night, Dick would stare at the ceiling and wonder if they ever thought about him too.

Whether they looked at the strange injuries that appeared on their skin and imagined a boy they'd never met.

He didn't know it then, but that question would follow him for years.

↑→↓←

Dick had developed a habit of asking questions nobody could answer.

What was their favourite colour?

Did they like animals?

Could they do cartwheels?

Did they live nearby?

Did they know about him?

Did they ever wonder the same things?

His parents always answered as though the questions mattered. With interest. As though his curiosity wasn't silly.

As though wondering about the person connected to him was the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe that was where it started.

Not the soulmate bond itself, the encouragement. The way nobody ever told him to stop asking. The quiet certainty with which his parents treated his soulmate's existence.

They never spoke about them as a possibility. They spoke about them as a certainty.

That somewhere in the world, there was a person who was completely his.

→←↓↑

At night, after the performances ended and the circus grounds settled into a comfortable hush, Mary often read to him before bed.

Dick's favourite stories weren't fairy tales.

They were stories about connected souls.

The old book lived beside the couch in their trailer, its spine cracked and softened with age. The pages had been turned so many times that the corners curled.

Inside were dosens of accounts collected from all over the world.

Stories about soulmates separated by oceans, soulmates born years apart, soulmates who searched for decades, or who stumbled into one another entirely by accident.

Dick never grew tired of hearing them.

He already knew most of the endings by heart. But that wasn't the point. The point was that every story promised the same thing.

No matter how long it took, how far apart they started, or how impossible it seemed, the soulmates always found each other.

Every single time.

The certainty of it settled somewhere deep inside him. A truth as unquestionable as gravity. As natural as the rising sun.

His soulmate was out there. And one day, they would be his.

By the time Mary finished reading, Dick would already be staring out the trailer window.

Wondering how they would meet. What they looked like. If they laughed loudly or quietly.

If they liked the circus.

Wondering if they were looking at the same stars scattered across the night sky. If they ever touched the marks that appeared on their skin and thought about him.

The thoughts comforted him.

No matter how large the world felt, where he went or how many cities the circus travelled through, there was always someone in it who belonged to him.

Someone he hadn't met yet.

A person he was already learning how to love.

↑→↓←

When he was eight, before the fall, he started keeping things.

Not intentionally at first.

A postcard from a city the circus had passed through. A photograph he liked. A joke that made him laugh. A story he thought someone else would enjoy.

Small things.

The kind of things most children forgot about by the following week.

Dick didn't.

Because whenever he found something special, he caught himself thinking the same thing.

I should tell my soulmate about this someday.

The thought came so naturally he never stopped to question it.

Why would he?

His soulmate was part of his future. Everyone said so.

Some days, he imagined finally meeting them and emptying years of collected memories into their hands.

Showing them every postcard.

Telling them every story.

Introducing them to every place he'd loved.

As though all the little pieces of his life were simply waiting for the right person to share them with.

As though he'd been saving a seat beside him all along.

Years later, after Gotham, after Robin, after everything that came afterward, Dick would still remember those moments.

The scrape on his knee.

The toothache.

The bedtime stories.

His parent's laughter.

The quiet certainty in their voices whenever they spoke about soulmates.

People often assumed his faith in destiny came from the bond itself.

They were wrong.

The bond only connected him to another person.

His parents were the ones who taught him to care. To wonder and to wait.

They were the ones who taught him that somewhere in the world there was a person meant for him.

Someone important who was worth searching for. Someone worth believing in.

Long before he knew anything about them at all.

He loved the idea of them first. Everything else came later.

Before he ever even had a reason to.

Most people loved talking about destiny.

Adults spoke about soulmates with the same certainty they reserved for death and taxes. Teachers smiled when the topic came up in class. Grandparents reminisced over holiday dinners. Entire television networks built reality shows around reunions.

It was impossible to escape.

Not that anyone seemed interested in trying.

Soulmates were proof that the universe cared. Proof that nobody was truly alone. That somewhere out there existed a person created specifically for you.

People loved that idea.

You hated it. Not the concept itself, just yours.

When you were younger, you'd thought soulmate injuries sounded romantic.

A sore wrist because they spent too long writing or a tiny burn from touching a hot pan.

The sort of stories people laughed about.

"My soulmate tripped over again."

"Mine wears his rings on too tight."

"I love when she bites her lip when she’s nervous."

Everyone always sounded so fond when they talked about it. As though every ache was a love letter. Like pain somehow became sweeter when it belonged to someone else.

Bonds manifested differently depending on the pair.

Some people shared emotions, some met each other in dreams. A small percentage could hear each other's thoughts during moments of intense stress. The most common bond, however, was physical resonance.

If your soulmate got hurt, so did you.

Not the injury itself, the consequences. A broken bone wouldn't suddenly appear in your arm, but the pain would. The ache, tenderness, and limitations.

If they twisted an ankle, you'd spend the next few weeks limping around on a perfectly healthy leg.

If they got a migraine, you got one too.

Most people only experienced minor inconveniences.

Nothing life-altering. Nothing that interfered with daily life. At least, not often.

You were not most people.

You stopped finding it romantic at twelve.

Because scraped knees and accidental burns were one thing. Waking up unable to feel your left arm was another.

The pain hit without warning. One second you were asleep, the next you were on your bedroom floor screaming.

Your parents rushed you to the hospital.

The doctors found nothing wrong.

No fracture. No dislocation. No nerve damage. Physically, your arm was perfectly healthy.

Unfortunately, your soulmate's wasn't. Apparently they'd shattered theirs.

Badly.

The pain lingered for nearly two months.

Everyone acted excited.

Your soulmate survived.

Isn't that wonderful?

You received congratulations.

Congratulations.

As though being unable to lift a backpack was somehow a milestone worth celebrating.

The years that followed only got worse.

Your soulmate got shot.

They got stabbed.

Sometimes they manage both within the same week.

You developed a concerning familiarity with painkillers. The nurses at your local urgent care knew you by name. One doctor suggested keeping a journal to track symptoms.

You filled three notebooks.

Looking back through them felt less like medical records and more like a crime scene timeline.

Gunshot wounds. Broken knuckles. Dislocated shoulder. Concussion. Concussion. Another concussion.

You had spent years trying to imagine what kind of person accumulated this many injuries.

At first you'd pictured an athlete.

Then a firefighter.

Maybe a soldier.

Eventually, you'd settled on a simpler explanation.

Your soulmate was an idiot.

At the time, it felt like the only reasonable explanation.

Years later, you would discover that the truth was significantly worse.

But for now, all you knew was that somewhere out there existed a complete stranger whose self-preservation instincts had apparently been beaten to death in an alley.

And for reasons you would never understand, the universe had decided that person belonged to you.

←↓→↑

The first time you missed a school excursion because your soulmate had managed to break something important, everyone treated it like an unfortunate coincidence.

The second time, they called it bad luck.

By the third, people had started joking that your soulmate had a personal grudge against your social life.

You laughed along because it was easier than admitting how much it bothered you.

Most people, hell, everyone romanticised soulmates.

Talked about fate and destiny and finding the missing piece of yourself.

Most soul pairs experienced a handful of major injuries throughout their lives.

Yours seemed determined to collect them.

You remembered when your soulmate somehow got stabbed before your final exams. The pain had hit so suddenly you nearly collapsed in the middle of class.

Your friends had thought you were having some kind of medical emergency.

In hindsight, they weren't entirely wrong.

You sat the exam anyway.

You failed it.

The examiner wasn't interested in hearing that somebody else's knife wound had ruined your concentration.

Life kept moving regardless.

Teachers didn't extend deadlines because your soulmate had been hospitalised.

Employers didn't care that you were limping because someone you'd never met had twisted their ankle chasing God-knows-what.

The world expected you to adapt,

So you did.

You learned how to function through headaches. How to smile through pain. How to swallow frustration before it became bitterness.

You learned exactly how many over-the-counter painkillers you could safely take.

You learned how to fake being fine.

But most importantly, you learned how to stop hoping.

Because every time you wondered if maybe things would get easier, your soulmate proved you wrong.

At first you'd worried about them.

What kind of life were they living? Were they sick? Were they trapped in dangerous circumstances? Did they need help?

That concern lasted until the fourth broken bone.

Then the sixth.

Then the first gunshot wound.

The shot had been a turning point. Because normal people did not get shot. Normal people definitely didn't get shot more than once.

You remembered lying awake in bed afterward, staring at the ceiling while pain radiated through your shoulder.

What the hell is wrong with this person?

The question never really went away.

As the years passed the injuries kept coming. Sometimes there would be weeks of peace.

Then suddenly your soulmate would decide to throw themselves off a building.

Or through a window.

Or into traffic.

At least that's what it felt like.

You didn't know who they were. Didn't know their name. Didn't know where they lived. But you knew they had absolutely no regard for their own safety. No fucking regard for your safety either.

And eventually, concern became irritation. Irritation became anger. Anger became resentment.

Not because of the pain. Not even because of the injuries. Because of what they stole from you.

Your freedom. Choices. The ability to plan a normal life. Every decision came with a silent question.

What if my soulmate gets hurt that day?

You missed birthdays. Missed opportunities. Cancelled plans. Skipped events.

Not because you wanted to.

Because experience had taught you that sooner or later another injury would arrive.

Meanwhile your soulmate remained a stranger. A ghost. A burden you carried without ever being asked if you wanted to.

It always did.

It made you angry.

Not the broken bones. Not the scars. Not even the countless nights spent curled around pain that didn't belong to you.

The fact that someone you'd never met had become one of the most important influences on your life.

Without your permission, your consent, and without ever even saying sorry.

Somewhere out there, your soulmate was choosing to live their life this way.

And every time they did, you paid the price.

You wondered if they ever thought about you. If they ever felt guilty.

If they even cared.

Or if, wherever they were, they simply got back up after every injury and ran headfirst into the next disaster.

Unaware that somewhere across the country, someone was beginning to hate them.

Dick found the post three weeks later.

If anyone asked, it had been an accident. A coincidence.

The sort of thing that happened when someone spent too much time scrolling through soulmate forums at two in the morning.

Nobody asked. That was probably for the best. Dick knew himself well enough to recognise a lie when he told one.

There had never been anything accidental about the way he searched for traces of his soulmate.

The post appeared halfway down a discussion thread titled:

What's the worst injury you've ever shared with your soulmate?

Most of the replies were harmless.

Broken wrists.

Appendectomies.

A woman whose soulmate had somehow fractured their nose trying to impress someone with a skateboard.

Dick smiled despite himself.

Then he kept scrolling.

The smile disappeared.

←↑→↓

I've had more concussions than some professional athletes.

At this point, I'm convinced my soulmate has a death wish.

If I ever meet them, my first question is going to be what the hell is wrong with them.

The post went into concerning details about their injuries dating from over ten years.

Dick stared at the screen.

Read the post again.

Then a third time.

The amusement slowly drained from his face.

Because the timeline matched. Not approximately. Not close enough to be concerning. Exactly.

The gun wounds, the stabbings, concussions, fractures. The endless collection of injuries that had become so commonplace to him he rarely thought about them anymore.

His stomach twisted.

For a long moment, he simply sat there. Laptop balanced on his knees. Apartment fading into the background.

The words blurred.

Not because he couldn't read them. Because he couldn't stop.

Every sentence felt heavier than the last. Not the complaints.

Those made sense.

God, they made sense.

What hurt was everything beneath them.

The frustration. The years of accumulated resentment packed into a handful of sentences.

Not anger born from a single bad day. The kind that settled in after years of disappointment.

His chest tightened.

He scrolled further.

The account wasn't anonymous. There was a username. Years of history.

Dick clicked on it before he could talk himself out of it.

The oldest post was five years old.

The next mentioned another concussion.

A missed birthday.

A cancelled trip.

A broken rib.

An emergency room visit.

Each entry felt like another weight settling onto his shoulders.

Dick had spent years accepting pain as part of his life.

Bruises, bones and cuts all healed.

It had never occurred to him that somebody else had been dragged through it alongside him.

A stranger.

Someone who had never agreed to any of it.

Someone who had spent years waking up with injuries they couldn't explain.

Dick closed the laptop.

Immediately opened it again.

His jaw tightened. He rubbed a hand over his face.

For twenty years, he'd wondered about his soulmate. Wondered who they were. What they were like. Whether they ever thought about him the way he’d always thought about them.

A quiet curiosity that surfaced in the spaces between missions and late-night patrols.

He'd imagined meeting them someday.

Not because soulmates guaranteed a happy ending. Life had taught him better than that.

But because they'd always been there.

Every broken bone. Every near miss. Every moment he'd walked away from something that should have killed him.

They'd felt it too.

Somewhere.

Somehow.

The idea of them had become a constant. A second shadow stretching alongside his own.

And now, for the first time, he was seeing things from the other side.

The reality of it. The cost.

His throat felt tight.

tBecausehey weren't waiting for him.

They weren't searching.

If anything, they sounded exhausted by the idea of him.

And for the first time, Dick found himself wondering whether meeting him would be the last thing they wanted.

The thought hurt far more than it should have.

Dick had managed to stay away from the profile for three days.

He told himself it was respect.

Privacy.

Common decency.

They had spent years dealing with consequences they never asked for, the least he could do was leave them alone.

Three days lasted longer than he expected.

Not nearly as long as he'd hoped.

On the fourth night, he opened the page again.

Just for a minute.

Just to look.

That was the excuse, anyway.

One minute became an hour. Then two. Then the rest of the night.

He read everything.

Posts. Comments. Replies buried in forgotten threads.

Tiny fragments of a life scattered across years of internet history.

Favorite movies, music recommendations, complaints about work.

A rant about a terrible landlord. An argument over whether pineapple belonged on pizza.

Meaningless details.

Except they weren't meaningless. Not to him.

Every new discovery felt strangely precious. Like hearing a voice through a wall after years of silence.

For the first time, his soulmate wasn't an abstract possibility.

They were becoming real.

And Dick found himself wanting more.

What did their laugh sound like? What expression did they make when they were annoyed? Did they drink coffee in the morning? Did they still sleep curled up on the same side of the bed they'd mentioned three years ago?

The questions multiplied faster than he could answer them.

By sunrise, he knew more about them than he'd ever thought possible.

By sunrise, he also knew that it wasn't enough.

↑→↓←

The more Dick learned, the more impossible it became to ignore the distance between you.

You were real.

A real person living somewhere beyond his reach.

A real person carrying scars that belonged to both of them.

And once he knew that, how was he supposed to walk away? How was he supposed to forget? Keep waiting?

Dick spent years helping strangers.

Pulling people out of collapsing buildings. Talking frightened kids off ledges. Running toward people who needed help. Doing nothing had never been one of his strengths.

The realisation should have worried him.

Instead, it felt reasonable. Natural.

Almost inevitable.

By the end of the week, he found himself revisiting old comments. Looking closer.

A mention of weather. A complaint about public transit. A local restaurant.

Tiny details.

Nothing significant on their own, but what became patterns when placed together.

The detective in him noticed before the rest of him did.

A city narrowed to a suburb. A suburb narrowed to three possibilities. Three possibilities narrowed to one.

Dick stared at the screen. His pulse quickened.

A line had been crossed somewhere.

He wasn't entirely sure when.

Only that he should probably stop.

Instead, he opened another tab. Then another.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Long enough for hesitation to appear. Not long enough for it to matter.

Because you were out there, and you were hurting.

The first search took less than ten seconds.

The second took even less.

And when the first genuine piece of information appeared on his screen, Dick felt his heartbeat stumble.

For the first time in twenty years, his soulmate wasn't a dream.

You were becoming a person.

And Dick Grayson had never been very good at letting go of the people he loved.

The next morning began the same way most mornings did.

Pain.

You woke before your alarm, blinking groggily at the ceiling while a dull ache settled somewhere between your shoulder blades. Not terrible. Not even particularly surprising. Just another reminder that your soulmate was still out there making questionable decisions.

At least nothing felt broken.

That was practically a victory.

You lay there for another minute before forcing yourself upright. The soreness protested immediately, but years of experience had taught you how to judge the difference between annoying and hospital-worthy.

This fell firmly into the first category. Which meant work.

Lucky you.

By the time you arrived at the coffee shop, Gotham was already awake.

Rush hour traffic crawled through the streets outside. The sidewalks overflowed with exhausted office workers, students, tourists and people who looked like they hadn’t slept in three days.

Which, in this city, narrowed nothing down.

The familiar smell of coffee beans wrapped around you the moment you stepped behind the counter.

Honestly, it was one of the few things you genuinely liked about your job.

The customers were a different story.

By eleven o’clock, you’d already been yelled at twice.

Once because a man believed waiting three minutes for coffee constituted a personal attack.

The second because somebody thought you controlled the weather.

“Rough morning?”

You glanced up, the question knocking you out of your haze.

Your coworker was already grinning.

You sighed. “When isn’t it?”

“Fair.”

The lunch rush arrived shortly after.

Orders piled up. Names blurred together. Your feet hurt. Someone dropped their drink. Another person complained because their coffee was too hot.

You resisted the urge to suggest that coffee was generally known for that.

Then the bell above the door chimed.

Normally, you wouldn't have looked up.

Lunch was a bloody nightmare. There were six drinks waiting to be made, three customers already staring holes into the back of your head, and somebody was arguing over oat milk. You had better things to do.

Yet somehow your eyes lifted anyway.

The man who stepped through the door looked like trouble. Not due to anything he was doing, but because nobody should have looked like that.

For a second, your brain simply failed to process him properly.

Dark hair. Blue eyes. Tall enough to stand out without seeming imposing. Broad shoulders hidden beneath an ordinary jacket that somehow wasn't ordinary anymore because he was wearing it.

The details registered one at a time.

Like your mind was struggling to decide where to look first.

It wasn't just that he was handsome. Handsome was too simple a word. Too ordinary.

Handsome was the guy on a billboard, the actor in a movie, the model in a magazine. This felt different. More annoying.

Like somebody had reached into your head, extracted every preference you'd ever had, and assembled a person around them.

You immediately disliked him for it.

Unfortunately, that didn't make him any less attractive.

His smile appeared as he spoke to the customer in front of him. It transformed his entire face. Softened it.

Made him look approachable in a way beautiful people rarely managed.

The kind of smile that made strangers smile back. The kind that suggested he remembered names. Held doors open. Helped old ladies carry groceries.

He looked like someone that got people into trouble because they assumed nobody that nice-looking could possibly be dangerous.

You tore your eyes away.

Absolutely not.

You were not doing this today.

He was just a customer. A stupidly attractive customer. Nothing more.

Several minutes later, he stepped up to the register.

Up close was a mistake. You realised that immediately.

Most attractive people benefited from distance.

A few feet between you and them gave reality time to point out imperfections.

The lighting changed. The angles shifted. Something human emerged.

Not him.

If anything, proximity made things worse.

His eyes were brighter than you'd thought. Not just blue, more like a deep ocean colour that caught light. The kind that made direct eye contact feel strangely unfair.

There was a faint scar near his eyebrow. Another disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.

Tiny imperfections that should have made him look less attractive.

Instead they only made him look real.

"Hi." His voice wrapped around the single syllable with effortless warmth.

He sounded so fucking pleased to be talking to you.

"What can I get for you?"

For a moment, he simply looked at you. Like he'd forgotten whatever he'd originally intended to say.

Then he smiled.

And suddenly it felt difficult to remember how to breathe.

"I'll take a large flat white."

Of course.

Of course the voice matched the face.

Why wouldn't it?

You entered the order before your brain could embarrass you.

The register beeped.

He handed over his card.

His fingers brushed yours for half a second.

It was nothing, really. Barely contact at all. Yet something strange tightened beneath your ribs.

Gone before you could identify it.

You frowned. Weird.

"Name?"

"Dick."

You blinked.

He looked entirely too pleased by your reaction.

"You serious?"

His eyes crinkled at the corners as his grin widened. The bastard somehow became even prettier. "I get that a lot."

A laugh escaped before you could stop it.

Hd let out a deep shaky breath, like he'd been hoping for it. Waiting for it.

As though making you laugh had accomplished something important. Like a strangers happiness mattered.

The look vanished so quickly you almost missed it.

For a brief, inexplicable moment, it felt less like meeting a stranger.

And more like being recognised.

The city belonged to him at night.

Not officially. Gotham belonged to no one. It clawed at anyone foolish enough to try and claim it.

But Dick knew its rhythms better than most.

He knew which rooftops held the best sightlines. Which alleyways concealed drug deals. Which fire escapes groaned beneath a person's weight. Which apartment windows stayed lit long after midnight because the people inside couldn't slep.

And he knew yours.

Perched on a neighboring rooftop, Dick lowered his binoculars slightly.

Your bedroom light had turned on twenty-three minutes before your alarm.

Again.

His jaw tightened.

The bond was never subtle.

He rubbed the back of his neck, the strain from yesterday's patrol still lingered. A bruised shoulder. A pulled muscle. Nothing serious.

Yet the thought of you waking up sore because of him left an uncomfortable weight in his chest.

You sat on the edge of your bed for several moments before standing. Slow and careful. Judging whether the pain was worth worrying about.

Dick recognised the routine.

You'd done it countless times.

The first time he'd seen it, he'd nearly broken a criminal's jaw.

It was then that he'd truly realised what years of sharing injuries with a vigilante must have been like.

You'd learned to evaluate pain before breakfast.

His fingers tightened around the binoculars.

You deserved answers.

You deserved him.

The thought arrived as naturally as breathing.

Dangerous. Wrong. Impossible to stop.

Dick watched you leave for work.

Then he followed.

He knew how surveillance worked. Knew exactly how easy it was to make someone feel watched.

So he stayed distant. A block behind, sometimes two.

Just another face in Gotham's endless crowd.

The irony wasn't lost on him.

Nightwing could disappear from sight whenever he wanted. Dick Grayson found excuses to linger near coffee shops.

By eleven, he was seated across the street with a newspaper he hadn't read once.

His attention remained fixed elsewhere.

On the way you tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear when concentrating. On the tiny crease that appeared between your eyebrows whenever customers irritated you. On the exhausted smile you gave coworkers despite clearly wanting to go home.

His chest ached.

He hated seeing you tired.

Hated seeing people take advantage of your kindness.

Hated that he couldn't simply walk inside and tell everyone to be careful with you.

Because you were important.

Because you mattered.

Because.. No.

Dick shut the thought down before it could finish.

This wasn't about ownership.

It couldn't be.

The soulmate bond wasn't ownership. It was connection.

Destiny.

A promise written into both of them before either had been born.

At least that was what he told himself whenever the possessive thoughts became harder to ignore.

By lunchtime, the crowd had thickened.

Good.

That made entering easier. Less noticeable.

The bell above the café door chimed as he stepped inside.

Immediately, he saw you.

The sight struck him with embarrassing force.

Every single time.

He'd spent months watching.

Months learning your routines.

Listening to your laugh from across rooms.

And somehow the impact never lessened.

You stood behind the register looking exhausted. A little annoyed. Ethereal.

Dick looked away before anyone could notice he'd been staring.

The line moved forward.

One customer. Two. Three. His pulse accelerated.

Ridiculous.

He'd fought assassins without flinching. Faced alien invasions. Stood against enemies capable of leveling cities. Yet somehow speaking to you felt more intimidating than any of them.

Because this mattered. Because you mattered.

The customer ahead of him finally left. And then it was his turn.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Your eyes lifted to meet his. Everything else disappeared. The noise. The conversations. The espresso machines. All of the buzzing was gone, just for a second.

Just long enough for Dick to feel the strange, impossible certainty he'd been carrying since the first moment he'd seen you.

There you are.

His soulmate.

His.

"Hi." The word came out softer than intended.

Your gaze remained fixed on him. Trying very hard not to stare.

Dick nearly smiled.

You had no idea.

No idea how many nights he'd spent imagining this conversation.

How many times he'd rehearsed introducing himself.

How often he'd wondered whether the bond would feel different when you finally met.

Instead, you asked professionally, "What can I get for you?"

For one disastrous second, Dick forgot the answer. Forgot he'd ordered the same thing repeatedly for weeks specifically because it was easy to remember. How human conversation worked.

You looked even better up close.

God, your eyes. Your voice. The tiny signs of exhaustion. The familiar shape of someone he'd spent months studying from a distance. Real.

You were finally real.

"I'll take a large flat white."

Smooth.

Very smooth.

Dick internally cringed.

You entered the order.

The register beeped.

He handed over his card.

Your fingers brushed his. The contact lasted less than a heartbeat. Lightning shot through him anyway.

The first touch.

The first real touch.

Dick forced himself not to react. Years of training saved him. Barely.

Then you asked the question he'd secretly been waiting for.

"Name?"

His mouth twitched. "Dick."

The blink you gave him was immediate.

Perfect.

Dick couldn't help smiling.

For the first time all day, genuine amusement broke through the tension knotting his chest.

"You serious?"

A laugh threatened to escape him.

God, he loved your voice already. Far too much.

"I get that a lot."

Then you laughed.

His breath caught.

Don't.

Don't do this.

Don't build a future out of a single laugh.

Yet he couldn't stop.

For a brief moment, your eyes met his again. Confusion flickered there. Recognition without understanding. A pull neither of you could explain.

And for the first time since entering the café, Dick wondered if you felt it too.

If you could physically feel that he was someone who looked at you and saw the center of his world.

You frowned slightly.

Dick’s smile was warm. Harmless.

The same smile that convinced criminals he was merciful and civilians he was safe.

"Thanks," he said.

Then he stepped aside to wait for his coffee.

And for the first time in months, waiting didn't feel difficult. Because now you knew he existed.

Dick returned three days later.

Then again the day after that.

Soon, the visits became a part of his routine so deeply ingrained that he no longer questioned it.

Patrol.

Sleep.

Reports.

Coffee.

You.

The order never changed.

He learned your schedule without meaning to. Or maybe he had meant to. Dick wasn't entirely sure where the line had disappeared.

At some point, knowing things about you had stopped feeling like gathering information and started feeling lke breathing.

He knew which coworker made you laugh.

Which customer always left you irritated.

Which days exhaustion sat heavier on your shoulders.

He knew the difference between your real smiles and the fake ones. The difference between a smile that reached your eyes and one offered out of politeness. The difference mattered.

Everything about you mattered.

Sometimes guilt still surfaced. Usually late at night. During the quiet moments after patrol, when Gotham finally stopped screaming for a few hours and left him alone with his thoughts.

That was when he remembered the forum posts.

The complaints.

The frustration.

The resentment.

Years of it.

You didn't want a soulmate. Not one who left you waking up sore after fights. Or one whose life seemed determined to get itself stabbed, shot, electrocuted, and thrown off rooftops.

The thought should have hurt.

Instead, Dick found himself staring at the ceiling and feeling strangely calm.

Because you didn't hate him.

You hated the idea of him.

The unknown. The stranger connected to your life.

You hated the inconvenience.

The pain. Uncertainty.

But him?

You didn't know him yet.

How could you hate someone you didn't know?

You didn't know about the nights he spent bleeding through cracked armor because civilians needed help. About the disasters he'd prevented. The people he'd saved. The promises he'd kept.

You didn't know how many times he'd nearly told you the truth.

How many times he'd stood outside your apartment building and wondered if tonight should be the night. How often he thought about you. How he worried.

You didn't know.

But you would.

Eventually.

Dick believed that with absolute certainty.

Because every day gave him something. A conversation. A smile. A joke.

Tiny, worthless things.

Things nobody else would notice.

By the second week, you knew his order.

By the third, you smiled when he walked through the door.

The first time it happened, the entire day felt brighter.

Ridiculously embarrassing of him, he knew that.

Yet the memory replayed in his head for hours.

The way your face lit up with recognition. How you'd greeted him before he even reached the counter.

Like you were happy to see him.

Like he'd become part of your day too.

A crack in the wall.

A tiny one. But cracks spread. Eventually walls collapse.

Dick was patient enough to wait. To let things unfold naturally.

Most of the time.

You still didn't know the truth.

Didn't know that he could identify your footsteps.

Could find your apartment window from almost anywhere in the neighborhood.

Didn't know he'd memorised the route you walked home.

The backup routes too.

The places where the streetlights didn't work. The alleys he disliked.

The intersections with the highest crime rates.

Important information. Necessary information.

Someone had to know those things. Someone had to keep you safe.

The city certainly wasn't going to.

Dick smiled to himself as he watched you lock the café doors one evening.

The sun had already disappeared. Streetlights painted gold across the pavement.

You looked tired. A little cold.

Still breathtaking.

Always so fucking ethereal.

His chest tightened with pure unfiltered need.

The overwhelming, consuming need to make sure nothing bad ever touched you again. To stand between you and every ugly thing Gotham could throw your way. To erase every danger before it reached you. To make the world safe enough that you'd never have to worry.

Hell, even the need to just push you down and capture your mouth in a kiss so intimate that you’d never want to let go.

The feeling had become stronger lately. Harder to ignore.

Before, you had been a concept. A hopeful possibility.

Now you were you.

You had a face. A laugh. A favorite drink. A life.

And every day made the thought of losing you more unbearable.

You disappeared around the corner.

Dick waited.

Five seconds. Ten. Then he rose from his seat. Following. Never too close. Never enough to be noticed. Just enough.

To intervene if something happened.

Making sure you got home safely.

Just enough to reassure the restless part of himself that always seemed to whisper what if?

What if someone followed you first?

What if someone hurt you?

What if someone took you away?

The thoughts were irrational. Dick knew they were.

Most people walked home every day without incident. But most people weren't you.

His jaw tightened.

That was the difference.

People talked about soulmates as though finding them was the end of the story. Like destiny did all the work.

As if fate guaranteed a happy ending.

Dick knew better.

Finding you wasn't the difficult part. Keeping you safe was. Protecting you was. Making sure the universe didn't decide to take back the greatest thing it had ever given him was.

His gaze remained fixed on your retreating figure. Unwavering.

The possessiveness no longer startled him.

That battle had ended weeks ago.

Every justification had been exhausted. Every argument dismantled.

The truth remained.

You were woven through his life. Through his thoughts. Through every future he could imagine.

His soulmate.

His person.

The one thing in this city he couldn't lose.

And somewhere along the way, the distinction between wanting you and needing you had quietly disappeared.

Dick watched you disappear into your apartment building. Only then did the tension leave his shoulders.

Safe.

The word settled warmly inside his chest.

Safe for another night.

His eyes lingered on the illuminated window that he knew belonged to you.

Terrifyingly devoted.

The universe had tied your lives together years ago.

And Dick had no plans on fighting fate.

And if the day ever came when something, or someone, tried to take you away from him, Gotham would learn exactly how dangerous Nightwing could be when the only thing he loved was threatened.

The first time you noticed something was wrong, it didn't feel important. Just strange.

"Wait."

Your friend blinked across the table. "What?"

"You got offered a job in Blüdhaven?"

"Yeah?"

You frowned. "When?"

"A few months ago."

A few months ago.

That couldn't be right.

You'd applied for that same position. Gone through three interviews. Spent weeks waiting for a response.

And then nothing.

No rejection.

No acceptance.

Nothing.

"I never heard back."

"Really?" they said. "That's weird."

It was weird. You'd checked your emails obsessively at the time.

Nothing.

Not even spam.

Eventually you'd assumed they'd gone with another candidate.

The conversation moved on.

You didn't.

↓→←↑

Then another thing happened. And another.

"..You never told me your landlord sold the building."

Dick looked up from where he was cooking. "What?"

"The building."

You leaned against the counter. "The landlord was apparently trying to sell it last year."

Something flashed across his face.

"Huh."

"He said he couldn't find a buyer."

Dick hummed. "Guess it wasn't the right time."

You frowned.

That wasn't what the landlord had said. The exact words had been: "Every buyer that showed interest pulled out at the last minute."

←→↓↑

Then there was your ex.

Not an ex, technically. Just someone you'd gone on a few dates with before Dick.

Someone who suddenly moved overseas without warning.

You only found out because you bumped into one of their friends.

"Yeah, he was furious."

"What?"

"They withdrew the visa investigation thing eventually, but by then he'd already accepted another position."

You blinked. "The what?"

The friend frowned. "You didn't know?"

No.

No, you definitely hadn't known.

↓←→↑

The pieces don't fit together immediately.

Not until one late night, sitting on Dick's couch.

When his phone lit up.

You hadn’t even meant to look, the flash just caught your attention. The “image of the day” was a photograph.

Your photograph.

Not a recent one. Not one you’d sent him.

A candid picture.

Taken months before you met.

You were standing outside of your apartment.

"..Dick."

His entire body goes still at your tone.

Like prey hearing a gun click.

Slowly, he looks up.

You hold out the phone.

The photograph staring back at both of you.

Your pulse begins to hammer. "When did you take this?"

Nothing.

For a second, Dick just looks at you.

Then at the photo.

Then back.

“…Before we met."

Your stomach drops. "What?"

"I took it before we met." His voice is calm. Too gentle. The same voice he uses when you're upset.

Like he was expecting to tell you that everything was okay.

"I found you before the café."

The room suddenly feels too small. "How long?"

"A while."

"Dick."

"A few months."

The answer hits like a truck.

Months.

Your laugh comes out strained. Unsteady. "You're joking."

"No." He doesn't look ashamed.

If he looked guilty, maybe this would make sense. Instead, he looks concerned.

Concerned about you.

Like you're the one having a difficult time.

"Dick, that's stalking."

His jaw tightens immediately. Hurt.

Like you've accused him of something unfair.

"I was making sure you were safe."

"No." You stand. "Dick-"

Your heart is racing now. Too fast. "What the fuck do you mean you were watching me?"

And for the first time since you've known him, Dick looks frustrated.

Not because he got caught. Because you're not understanding.

"You lived alone."

"Dick-"

"You walked home after dark."

"Listen to me!"

"There were three muggings within four blocks of your apartment." His voice rises. Emotion breaking through.

"And I knew what Gotham was like."

You freeze. He sounds desperate. Terrified.

"I couldn't just leave you there." His eyes are shining now. Raw.

Honest.

The truth finally spilling out.

"You think I wanted to scare you?" His voice cracks.

"I spent twenty years looking for you."

You take a step backward.

Dick notices immediately. The devastation that crosses his face is instantaneous.

He actually believes that he's innocent. That every line he crossed was reasonable.

Because every choice was made for the same reason.

Love.

And suddenly all those little coincidences don't feel like coincidences anymore.

The failed job.

The vanished opportunities.

The relationships that somehow never worked out.

The people who drifted away.

The life that kept shrinking until Dick occupied most of it.

The door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame. For a second, neither of uni moved.

You stood frozen in the hallway outside Dick's apartment, one hand still wrapped around the doorknob, your pulse pounding so hard it made your ears ring. The argument replayed itself in fragments. Accusations, denials, half-finished explanations. None of it felt real.

Behind the door, you heard Dick's footsteps. Part of you expected the handle to turn. Expected him to come after you. To stop you before you left. To grab your wrist, block the doorway, force the conversation to continue.

Instead, the footsteps stopped. You could picture him standing there on the other side of the door. Not chasing you. Not arguing. Just... standing there. Devastated.

If he'd gotten angry, maybe this would have been easier. If he'd yelled, if he'd lied, if he'd given you a reason to hate him, maybe the hollow ache opening inside your chest wouldn't have felt so unbearable.

Instead, he'd looked heartbroken. Like he was the victim. Like you were the one tearing something precious apart.

The walk home passed in a blur. You barely remembered unlocking your apartment. The second the door shut behind you, instinct took over. Deadbolt. Chain. The secondary lock.

You checked the windows twice. Then a third time.

Only when every entrance was secured did you allow yourself to breathe.

Your phone vibrated. The screen lit up. Dick.

You stared at the name. The call rang until it stopped. A second call appeared almost immediately. Then a third. The messages started after that.

Can we talk? Please answer. I just want to know you're okay.

For a dangerous second, your thumb hovered over the screen. Then you blocked him.

The number disappeared. You blocked his social media. His email. His Spotify. Every account you could think of. Anything connected to him. Anything that could give him a way back in.

When you finally finished, the apartment felt unnaturally quiet. You'd wanted silence.

Hadn't you?

So why did it feel like something was missing? Why did the absence feel so loud? Sleep never came. Every time you closed your eyes, another memory surfaced.

The internship opportunity that had vanished after months of promising interviews. The friendship that had somehow dissolved without explanation. The coworkers who'd grown distant. The photograph.

At four in the morning, you found yourself sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, staring into the darkness. The city lights beyond your apartment window painted faint reflections across the floor.

You couldn't stop thinking. Every memory felt poisoned now. Every coincidence felt deliberate. How much of your life had actually been yours?

How many choices had been choices at all?

You didn't notice yourself drifting into a shallow sleep until your alarm exploded beside your head. You jolted awake.

Immediately regretted it. Pain tore through your leg so violently that for a split second you genuinely thought something had exploded. A scream ripped from your throat. White-hot agony shot from your shin to your hip.

The room tilted. Your knee gave out. You hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs. The impact barely registered. All you could feel was the pain. It burned. Throbbed. Pulsed with every heartbeat.

You curled instinctively around your leg, gasping for air through clenched teeth. "What the fuck!" The words dissolved into another strangled cry.

Minutes passed. Or maybe longer.

Time became difficult to measure when every movement felt like driving a knife through bone.

Eventually you managed to drag yourself onto the couch. Sweat clung to your skin. Your stomach churned. The pain wasn't normal. It wasn't a cramp. Wasn't a pulled muscle. It felt broken. A fresh fracture.

Then a bitter laugh escaped your throat. Of fucking course.

You’d barely survived the worst night of your life and apparently your soulmate had decided now was the perfect time to break something. Again.

The bitter laugh that escaped you sounded almost hysterical. The empty apartment offered no response. Not that you expected one.

Your soulmate had never apologised before.

Several hours later, three sharp knocks echoed through the apartment. You froze.

The sound cut through the silence like a gunshot.

Another knock followed.

Then a familiar voice. Every muscle in your body locked. You remained motionless.

Maybe he'd leave.

Another knock sounded, softer this time. Almost hesitant. "…Please open the door." The concern in his voice made your stomach twist.

You hated that it still affected you. Hated that some part of you still wanted to believe him.

Then came the sentence that made your blood turn to ice. "You shouldn't be standing."

Everything stopped. Your breathing. Your thoughts. Your heartbeat. Slowly, very slowly, you turned toward the door. The apartment suddenly felt too small. Too quiet.

"Dick?" A pause.

Then: "I brought groceries." His voice sounded tired. Careful. Like he was approaching a wounded animal. "I also got pain medication."

You stared at the door. A sick feeling began unfurling in your stomach.

"Can you let me in?" No. No, no, no. Maybe coincidence. Maybe a lucky guess. Maybe-

"You need to stay off that leg." The world seemed to tilt. Your pulse thundered.

How? You hadn't told anyone. You hadn't gone to the hospital. You hadn't even texted anyone. There was no way he could know. Unless-

The thought hit so hard it felt physical. You forced yourself upright and limped toward the door. Each step sent another wave of pain through your leg.

By the time you reached it, your hands were shaking. You opened the door only a few inches.

Dick stood on the other side. One arm loaded with grocery bags. Takeout containers balanced in the other hand. A bottle of painkillers tucked beneath his elbow.

The second the door opened, his gaze dropped.Straight to your injured leg.

"There it is." The words slipped out before he could stop them. His expression tightened immediately. "You really shouldn't be putting weight on-"

"How do you know?"

Silence.The question landed between them like a blade. Dick froze.

You felt your heartbeat climbing higher and higher. "How do you know my leg is injured?"

For the first time since you'd met him, Dick looked caught off guard. Not angry. Not defensive. Caught.

Something that looked dangerously close to guilt crossed his face. And suddenly you understood enough to make your blood run cold.

The fracture hadn't happened to your soulmate. It had happened because of them.

Dick's expression changed immediately. Not much, most people probably wouldn't have noticed, but you'd spent months learning the subtle shifts in his face. The slight tightening around his eyes. The way his shoulders stiffened.

"Angel-"

You took another step backward on instinct. Pain shot through your injured leg. A sharp hiss escaped you before you could swallow it.

Dick flinched. The reaction was instantaneous. His hand jerked forward as though he meant to catch you before he stopped himself. The concern that flashed across his face was so immediate, so visceral, that it made your stomach turn.

For a horrible second, you couldn't stop thinking about it. The way he'd known. The way he'd looked directly at your leg. The medication tucked under his arm. The certainty in his voice when he'd told you not to stand.

Maybe he really had felt it. Maybe every pulse of pain that had left you curled up on the floor this morning had reached him too.

"You knew." The accusation hung between you.

Dick's jaw tightened. You stared at him. Stared at the man standing in your doorway carrying groceries and painkillers like some devoted boyfriend stopping by to take care of you after a bad day.

"You knew you were my soulmate." For a second, one stupid, desperate second, you hoped he'd deny it.

Maybe there was another explanation. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe this entire nightmare had gotten out of control.

Dick looked down. "...Yeah."

Every injury. Every unexplained ache. Every ruined plan because somebody you had never met couldn't stop getting themselves hurt.

You remembered sitting in emergency rooms as a teenager, trying to explain symptoms doctors couldn't understand. Missing school because you'd woken up unable to walk on an ankle you'd never injured. The migraines. The broken fingers. The bruises.

The soulmate bond had shaped your life whether you'd wanted it to or not. And all this time, it had been him.

Not a stranger. Not some faceless person halfway across the world. Dick. Your Dick.

The man who knew how you took your coffee. The man who remembered insignificant details about conversations you'd forgotten having.

The man you'd trusted enough to love.

Your hand found the wall beside you before you even realised you were reaching for support.

Dick took a step forward automatically.

You recoiled.

The look that crossed his face was immediate and devastating.

He stopped moving at once. "Angel..."

"How long?" Your voice sounded strange. Thin. Distant. "How long have you known?"

For the first time since arriving, Dick looked genuinely uncomfortable. Ashamed.

His gaze dropped briefly to the floor. "Eight months."

"Eight months?"

"Angel, I know how bad that sounds-"

"You knew for eight months." Every word came out sharper than the last. "You knew and you didn't tell me."

"I wanted to." The answer came immediately. Too quickly. Like he'd rehearsed this argument a hundred times. "I did. God, I wanted to tell you from the beginning."

"Then why didn't you?"

Dick looked away. That was answer enough.

Because he'd been watching. Learning. Getting closer. Fitting himself into your life before you knew what he was.

"You let me hate them."

Something flickered across his face. A strange sadness. Not guilt exactly. Something closer to regret. "I never wanted that."

"You let me spend years hating my soulmate." His expression tightened. "I know."

"You let me blame them for everything."

"I know." The quiet sincerity of the response only made you angrier. He wasn't denying it. Wasn't making excuses. He understood exactly what he'd done. And somehow, he still thought he'd been right.

The apartment fell silent.

Dick stood near the door surrounded by grocery bags and takeout containers. The sight would have been almost domestic under different circumstances. Ordinary.

Something in his expression softened. "You don't have to do this anymore."

You frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Dick hesitated. For the first time since arriving, he seemed unsure of how to explain himself. "..You've spent your entire life paying for things that weren't your fault."

The words were quiet. Measured. His gaze dropped briefly to your injured leg before returning to your face. "I know every hospital visit."

A chill crawled down your spine.

His voice grew softer. "I know every surgery. Every cast. Every time you had to cancel plans because I did something reckless." The guilt in his expression looked genuine. "I know what it cost you."

"Dick."

"I do." His voice cracked slightly. The sound startled you.

"I know exactly what I've put you through."

For a moment neither of you spoke. Then Dick slowly set the groceries on the floor. "You shouldn't have had to deal with any of it alone."

Something about the direction of the conversation suddenly felt wrong. Dangerous. "Dick..." "I mean it." His eyes never left yours.

"You shouldn't have had to worry about medical bills because I got shot. You shouldn't have had to miss work because I decided jumping off rooftops sounded like a good idea. You shouldn't have had to build your life around my mistakes."

A humorless laugh escaped him. "You definitely shouldn't have had to spend years wondering who was responsible." The guilt in his voice was so real it almost hurt to listen to.

And somehow that made what came next even worse. "But you don't have to do that anymore."

The knot in your stomach tightened. "What does that mean?"

Dick looked genuinely confused by the question. As though the answer was obvious. "As long as I'm here, you're not dealing with any of it alone."

"You don't need to worry about rent." The words landed heavily.

You stared at him, dumbfounded. "What?"

"I'll take care of it." "No."

"You don't have to keep working two jobs." "No."

"You don't have to stress about groceries or bills or whether you can afford physical therapy."

"Dick!"

His voice remained calm. Patient. Like he was trying to explain something simple. Something reasonable. "I can handle all of that."

"You can't just decide that." "Why not?" The question came out so naturally that it stopped you cold.

Dick frowned slightly, confused. "As far as I'm concerned, taking care of you is my responsibility."

Your heart dropped. The conviction in his voice was absolute. Not possessive in the way you'd expected. Like he wasn't describing what he wanted. He was describing reality.

"You don't owe me anything," he continued quietly. "You don't have to love me back. You don't even have to forgive me. But I'm not going to stand there and keep watching you suffer because of things I've done."

His gaze held yours. Steady. Intense. Terrifyingly sincere. "You've carried this alone for long enough."

The apartment suddenly felt too small. Too warm. Too difficult to breathe in. Because you finally understood. Dick wasn't asking for a relationship. He wasn't asking for forgiveness. He wasn't even asking for another chance.

He was asking you to hand him control.

The first escape attempt had been almost gentle. A mistake, in hindsight. You’d underestimated him. Underestimated his understanding of you.

By the time you reached the outer perimeter, your leg had already started to fail in ways that didn’t make sense at first. Pain bloomed without warning, sharp, targeted, precise, as if your body had been waiting for permission to collapse.

It was him. Dick Grayson had already noticed you leaving. Already made his choice.

He carried you back without comment when he found you kneeling in the rain like you’d simply run out of endurance. Like your body had just… stopped cooperating. Like he couldn’t even feel his own pain shooting through him.

For three days after that, he barely spoke. Not anger. Not even punishment. Adjustment. Because he was learning how far he could push the bond, and how far he could push himself.

The second attempt cost you more. Not because he was harsher, because he was faster. You barely remember leaving the room. You remember waking up in a different one. Reinforced, seamless, wrong in ways your instincts couldn’t map.

Dick sat beside the bed like he’d never moved. Like time had folded around him. “You dislocated your shoulder,” he said calmly, as though that explained everything.

You tried to sit up. Your body refused. His hand rested on your wrist before you could test it further. “You pushed too hard,” he added. “I had to stabilise it.” “I didn’t-”

“Yes,” he interrupted, still calm. “You did.” But what he didn’t say, what you only began to understand later, was that he had done the same thing to himself at the exact moment you tried to leave.

The third time you tried, there was no hallway. Just motion that died halfway through becoming action. Your body locking down in controlled, precise waves of agony. Like a switch had been thrown. And somewhere behind you, his voice. “I told you not to do that again.”

When you woke, your ankle was wrapped. Your phone was gone. The doors had changed again.

That was when you understood the rule. You could try. He would let you try. Not because he expected you to succeed, but because every attempt gave him data. Every spike of your pain told him what the bond could tolerate. And every time you pushed too far, he matched you. By breaking himself just enough that the connection snapped you both back into place.

Now, in what he liked to call the living room, too controlled to feel like a home, you listened to him in the kitchen. Normal sounds. Water running. A cup set down carefully. Like nothing was wrong.

You swallowed. Your voice weak from disuse. “..I want to leave.”

“You don’t want that,” he mumbled, not looking up from the pan.

“I do.”

“No,” he said gently. “You want the version of it that doesn’t hurt.” He walked patiently over to you. His hand lifted, hovered near your shoulder, then settled. Warm. Certain.

“.. I won’t let it get that far.”

Your throat tightened. “You’re hurting me.”

This time, he didn’t deny it immediately.

He just looked at you for a long moment. Then, “No,” he said quietly. “I’m stopping you from breaking past the point where there’s no coming back.”

“You don’t get to leave anymore,” he said at last. “Not like that.” Not a threat. A conclusion.

“And you won’t try again,” he added, softer.

“Because I won’t let either of us survive what happens when you do.”

Then he turned back toward the kitchen. As if the decision had already been made. As if your life together had always been structured this way.

And in a sense, it had.

10K+ Words, 61K+ Characters, 1K+ sentences, 36 min average reading time, 58 min average speaking time.

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Read Jason’s part here.

Read Bruce’s part here.

Read Tim’s part here.