#vianawrites

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“It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my to-”

The shake of your doorknob sobers you completely. No longer immersed in the book, but staring doom in the face. You weren’t expecting anyone. No one was supposed to be here, not at this time anyway. It was a little after one in the morning, which only meant one thing in Gotham.

Trouble.

The handle on your front door kept jangling, and you could hear the lot of them outside messing with the lock. Practically shooting off the sage couch, you dart toward your bedroom. The door shuts behind you as quickly and quietly as possible. Flipping the silver notch to lock you inside, adrenaline starts pumping through your veins. Your eyes are frantically examining all your furniture to fins the most feasible piece to block the door. In a desperate attempt at survival, you muster all the strength you can manage at 1 a.m. to push your dresser.

The dresser was ancient and colored with a faded spruce stain. Your brother had gifted it to you as one of his legendary Facebook marketplace finds.

He loved to play this game to see how much he could lowball the sellers and get away with it. After each buy, he would call you to tell you how much he managed to get discounted off. You could always hear the smirk in his voice, proud of himself and his bargaining skills. As you reminisce on the memory while pathetically shoving the dresser, you think of him.

This is exactly why he didn’t want you to get your masters at GothamU.

There was a whispering voice in your head that wanted to put off telling him about this as long as you could. You knew exactly what the phone call would sound like. The first thing he would do would be to tell you “I told you so” and the next would be him packing your bags to move you back to Central City.

The ricochet of your front door off the wall halts you in your tracks. The vibrations of the insane  force are felt through the foundations of your shitty apartment. You say a silent prayer to any deity listening when you finally manage to get your dresser to block some of the door. Your lamp next to the couch was still on and you hope their stupid enough to think that you didn’t really acre about your electric bill.

It’s only a matter of time until they realize that someone was in fact home.

Your phone lights up from your nightstand with a notification from your brother highlighting the lockscreen. That development springs you into action, finally making an attempt to ask for help. From what you could hear, there were about three of them out there. The drawers in your kitchen were being pulled off the rails, cabinets were being thrown open, books were being fanned out for extra cash.

It was a lost cause really, you were a broke master’s student who worked at the campus bookstore. They weren’t going to find much except frozen meals and too many annotations in between pages.

Tip-toeing to your phone, you hear them outside talking to themselves. What saves you is that you have a million little containers and trinkets that they’ll busy themselves with. It’ll take them at least ten minutes to rifle through and guess how valuable each of them are.

“Of course” you can’t help but mumble with shaking hands when you see the notification from him. Only Wally West would be up at 12:14 a.m. (Central City time) sending you an Instagram reel of Zuko in the leaked Avatar movie with a message that says “I can take him.”

I’ll take him in between the legs, you think to yourself as the edit plays.

Your guardian angel must have been tired of working overtime because something shatters in your kitchen, which catalyzes your self-preservation to kick in again. In spite of the fact you’re about to drop the phone with how much you’re shaking, your fingers manage to type out a message.

As much as I’d love to discuss how you cannot in fact “take him” I need your help

I totally can thank you very much But what’s up?

Someone broke into my apartment and I’m hiding out in my room

WHAT!?!?!?!

He instantly starts calling you. In any other circumstance an Instagram call would make you laugh, but right now you hit the decline button as fast as you can. The second it ends, another call comes through and you decline that one too.

Pick up the phone right now.

I can’t They’ll hear me talking Can you call 911 for me?

I mean I would love too but they’re not going to do anything You’re in GOTHAM. They’re probably dealing with a psychotic lion or something.

Your head falls back after reading the text. He’s not exactly wrong, but a very small part of you is trying to overpower the stressed one and stay calm. Tears are threatening your water line from terror, you’re positive that your heart is about to beat out of your chest. One of them keeps walking past the door as they tear apart your bookshelf and entertainment center, each footstep feels like a countdown.

You stare at your door with your heart in your throat when another text form Wally comes through.

I just texted Dick, someone’s going to be there soon For now go to your bathroom and barricade yourself inside This time when I call, you ARE going to PICK UP and sit with me in silence until someone gets there okay?

You barely finish reading the text when the green and red buttons appear on the screen again.

Instantly, your fingers go to the side of the phone to lower the volume. The only sound coming from either of you are heavy anxious breaths.

If it wasn’t for the no meta rule, you know he would already be halfway here. He’d threatened to break it multiple times on the grounds of you just having a bad day. You knew him not being here right now with this absolute disaster happening was killing him.

The quiet padding of your feet on the way to your bathroom sounded like bombs dropping to your ears.

Realistically, you knew they couldn’t hear it, but all your senses were at 110%. Every noise that came from outside of your bedroom felt like a crescendo to the climax of your worst nightmare. In a really strange and fucked up way, you were lucky. You’d been living in Gotham for a year and a half without having any real problems. It was about time to pay the piper.

Entering the bathroom, you delicately place your phone on the counter and shut the door behind you. The lights remain off while you slide down the wall. The timer of your call with Wally was the only source of light in the claustrophobic wash room. When it hits 2:07, they start trying your bedroom door. Wally hears it, the hitch in his breath obvious even on the lowest volume setting.

It’s going to be okay, I promise. They’ll be there soon.

His text only causes the tears to fall faster on your face. You just wanted tonight to be over.

Then you hear it.

The shatter of your living room window. It’s followed by a heavy set of footsteps that land on the floor. A few punches are thrown, some gunshots, and then you count three bodies falling to the floor.

The ringing in your ear is louder than you’re comfortable with and Wally speaks for the first time.

“Are you okay?”

It’s a miracle that you heard or even understood him. The broken speaker of your phone paired with his small whisper was almost impossible to make out.

“I think.” Is all you can say back.

Then there are three knock on your bedroom door that sends you flying to your feet. Phone in one hand and white-knuckling the counter with the other, every limb is shaking and your breathing hadn’t been coming out evenly for minutes. The room is spinning, and the aftershock is starting to sink in.

“Hey it’s me,” the voice comes out slightly awkward and you freeze. Recognition travels with a chill down your spine. “I took care of the them, you uh- you can come out now.”

There was like a million of the bats and bat-adjacent vigilantes in Gotham, and they sent him. Deep down when you heard the gunshots, you knew who it was. There was only one vigilante in that family that dared to go against the Batman’s gun ban. You were hoping that fate was going to give you a break, but that didn’t seem like it was in the cards tonight.

Once upon a time, this would’ve had relief washing over your body.

Wally used to bring you to some of the get togethers that the Titans held when you were younger. Then, thinking like a true older brother, Dick used to drag Jason along with him.

Safe to say, you both became fast friends.

You would talk about everything that came to your mind. Books, games, shoes, stuff going on in your lives, anything you could think of. Sometimes when you both got bored, you would sneak away to play video games in Wally’s room at the tower. Jason would always help you beat the levels you were stuck on in your latest save.

But, nothing perfect lasts forever.

Everything dampened when he died. It was awful to put it plainly. When he came back, it was almost worse. He changed so drastically, you almost didn’t believe that this was the same boy who gave you a forty five minute rant on why Jo was never meant for Laurie.

You couldn’t blame him for what he became, the experience was horrifyingly unique. Yet, you don’t think you’ll ever forget the last time you spoke.

It was a stupid argument in hindsight.

Dick had come to you one night, begging for you to try to get through to him. Apparently they all had given their best efforts into attempting to talk to him, and you were the last line of offense.

That was a year and a half ago.

A hesitant call of your name through the door takes you out of the memory flashing behind your eyes.

“Yeah,” your voice squeaks out with a cringe following. You didn’t realize how small it was going to sound. “I-I’ll be out, just give me a sec.”

Turning back to your phone, your throat bobs with a heavy swallow. “I’m all good Wall,” there’s a sound of relief coming through the speakers. It was almost as if he had been holding his breath for the entire three minutes of the phone call.

“Who’s with you?” The question was immediate. He heard the gunshots, he knew as well as you did who was here.

“Um,” your eyes dart up from his horrific contact photo to the door and then back down to the picture again, “Jason’s here.”

The silence from the other end of the phone was palpable. Wally knew how bad the last argument you and Jason had stung. He was the one who sat on the phone with you after. Blinking back the emotions, you steel yourself for what’s awaiting in your apartment.

You’re a big girl, you can handle this. You’ve handled worse than a shitty ex-best friend.

“I’m going to hang up now, okay?” Your hands are starting to shake again. “I gotta figure out how bad the damage is, I’ll text you with the updates.”

He could hear the words rushing to leave your mouth, a pathetic attempt at convincing yourself this was fine.

“Do you want me to come? I will, give me like ten minutes- fifteen tops, and I’ll be there. All you have to do is ask.”

You knew he would do it too, the reassurance was unnecessary. The gravity in his tone almost made you fall into the temptation. There was nothing you wanted more right now than for your brother to be here. He would know how to handle this. He would know how to wrangle Gotham vigilante’s and tell them to go to Hell.

Your strive for independence was going to be the death of you one day.

“I think I’m okay for now, but I’ll call if I need backup.”

“Okay,” a hint of defeat is mixed in with the sigh. “Well I doubt I’ll be sleeping much after this, so please just text me with what ends up happening.”

“I promise,” and because you know he’ll lose his mind all night you ask him for a different type of help. “If you want to make yourself useful, go back to scrolling on reels and send me some that I can watch later.”

“Aye Aye boss,” You can almost hear his smug grin when he gets a snort out of you. “I love you, I’ll talk to you later.”

“I love you too Wally.” When the line goes dead you hold the phone to your chest for a moment. Even with the levels of annoying you’re sure only Wally could reach, you truly could not have asked for a better brother. He always dropped whatever he was doing if you needed him.

Savoring the last moment of peace you had from the rest of the world, you lean against the counter and try to catch your breath. You were going to have to confront the disaster that was your apartment. The devil on your shoulder was contemplating to just leave it for tomorrow, but the angel reminded you that your book was out there.

Mustering up the final ounces of courage left in your stomach, you unlock the door to the bathroom. Thankfully the sanctuary that was your bedroom remained untouched, except for the dresser propped against your door.

The dresser was heavier than you remember it being a few minutes ago. Adrenaline strength truly unlocks a version of potential you didn’t know you had. The effort it takes to give you a clearing, leaves red imprints of the design on your palms. Your hand hovers over the doorknob, hesitation plain on your fingers. You were going to have to see him, you were going to have to confront him after seventeen months of no contact.

Left hand at your side, you crack each knuckle with your thumb before opening the door. Not letting yourself think too hard, it swings wide open. And there he is.

He was on one knee flipping the coffee table back over. His hands were filled with a bunch of the trinkets that made their home on it. When he hears the door open, his head whips in your direction. The air in the room depletes when the white slits of the mask meet your eyes. Both of you frozen, staring at each other with a decade of history lingering in a glance.

Uncomfortable with the silence, you start cracking the knuckles of your right hand.

You might as well have activated a sleeper agent with the movement. He suddenly remembers where he is, and shoots to his feet. Carefully cupping his hands, he moves to drop your belongings back on the table.

Peeling your eyes off his devastatingly gorgeous frame, you find the three robbers tied together hanging off your fire escape.

“I’m waiting on Dick.” His voice is gravelly and a bit panicked. In the back of your mind, you note that he turned off the modulator. “He’s on his way to pick them up and take them to the station.”

You don’t trust yourself to speak, so you hum in reply.

Examining your apartment, it wasn’t as bad as you expected. Despite the few broken pieces of decor, the glass littered all over your living room from where Jason made his dramatically grand entrance, and your stuff being thrown everywhere, you were pretty lucky.

Noticing the way your eyes caught on the glimmering pieces of glass off the floor, he starts anxiously adjusting the cuffs of his jacket.

“I’m sorry about the window.” He’s rolled and unrolled the cuff of his left sleeve three times by the time he manages to speal. “I was in a rush and it seemed the fastest way in, I’ll pay for someone to fix it tomorrow.”

“I would hope so.” The answer came out like a reflex. You bite back the grimace fighting your features. You hadn’t even thanked him for the help before pouring gasoline on the fire.

He doesn’t say anything, yet his shoulders tense. Somewhere deep in places his pride won’t let him admit, he knew he deserved it, and that was enough of a punishment for you. He had to live with himself at the end of the day, what more could you ask for?

A clang on your fire escape steals your attention. Next thing you know, you’re being tackled in a bone crushing hug. If the blur of blue and black spandex didn’t’ give it away, the hints of Tom Ford cologne certainly did.

The hug is merely a second long before he pulls back and holds you at your shoulders.

“Good to see that you’re doing alright kid.” A grin is pulling at his face, but you can see the tension in his build. Wally had trusted Dick with this- with his family. That wasn’t an easy thing for anyone to do. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself if something happened.

“Yeah I’m fine,” You try to laugh but it comes out weak. “I was overdue on my Gotham initiation anyway.”

 The dominos mask hides it, but by the subtle shake of his head you can tell there was an eyeroll that went along with it.

He lets go of your shoulders and you look back at the dump that was now your apartment. Jason and Dick hold each other’s gazes silently. They were speaking in the silence with movements you pretended to ignore.

You’re scratching your eyebrow when Dick starts, “Hey um, where are you staying tonight?”

Hand falling from your face, you turn to him. “What do you mean?”

Confused, he looks from you to Jason, then back to you.

“You know you can’t stay here for a few days right?” His head cocks to the side. “The cops have to come, investigate, tape it off, and we need to get someone to fix your window.”

Your eyelids blink slowly. You weren’t tired by any means, but tonight just got a hell of a lot longer. None of your friends were going to be awake and you would rather sleep under the bridge than try a hotel in Gotham you could afford.

“Fuck.” The curse barely audible when it leaves falls off your tongue.

“I mean,” Dick starts with a shrug of the shoulders. “You’re more than welcome to stay at the manor. Bruce won’t mind”

Jason’s neck snaps to Dick, the white slits of the hood widen a bit before narrowing again.

“I mean this with the upmost respect.” Your hand lays flat against your heart. “I would rather chew rocks.”

You weren’t sure how long you would need to try and find somewhere to stay, but you wanted to avoid the manor at all costs. You’d had the luxury of visiting a few times, but it always felt awkward. It was too big for you, and you really didn’t want to feel like an imposition.

Dick and Jason both snort at your reply. Both of them knew how you felt about the manor. It was breath taking, but it wasn’t somewhere you wanted to sleep in, especially for multiple nights.

“I’ll figure something out,” you sound unsure even to yourself. “I’ll just find some couches to surf for a while.”

“Yeah no, try again West.” Jason finally decides to speak for the first time since his brother’s arrival.

Your neck snaps in his direction and a fire lights behind your eyes, daring him to repeat himself. He had no right to tell you what you could, and couldn’t do. His opinions meant jack shit to you.

“Sorry kiddo,” Dick’s domino mask expands a miniscule amount, but still enough to notice. He looks like he’s been tasked to negotiate the terms of a peace treaty before World War 3 breaks out. “Wally entrusted us with your safety, which means we have to know that where you’re staying is at least somewhat protected.”

Understanding dawns on you in a cruel shiver up your spine. The second option about to be presented to you was dangling like a rotten carrot on a stick.

“It’s the manor or Jason’s place.”

Your jaw drops and you meet the latter’s gaze. The damn mask betraying no emotion, you however, don’t miss the little fidget of his foot. Your eyes narrow in between the boys.

“So what? My choices are the fourth or fifth circle of Hell?”

“C’mon the manor’s not that bad.” Dick tries to reason with you.

“Jason’s place is.”

He doesn’t deny it. No one does.

You should’ve chosen the manor, every nerve in your body was telling you that was the reasonable choice. Dick would be there for a few days, there was other life there. Yet, It was just too much and it was too far. Your commute to class would double and you liked your alone time too much to give it up.

Swallowing your pride, you turn to the boy you longer knew with a deadpan. “When do we leave?”

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

Jason’s apartment was surprisingly clean.

His apartment was embracing the minimalist aesthetic. He had never been one for many material goods because of how he was raised. That never changed, even after all the years he lived with Bruce.

The living room, where you were currently sitting, had barely anything inhabiting the space. The couch was dark and worn with some cracks in the leather, the entertainment center was a simple stand made of oak with a glass cabinet on the bottom, the TV was rested on top of it, a floor lamp next to the couch, and the last piece was by far the liveliest- his bookshelf.

It took up about half the wall. Every shelf littered with different genres. It was almost too personal to examine. Some books you recognized and some you didn’t. An odd wave of sadness washes over you when you see some books you’d never heard him talk about. It was still strange to you on some days that you were no longer in each other’s lives.

You knew he was out and about in Gotham, but your paths never crossed. Whether that was by design or some level of mercy, you never knew.

He was on the news at least once a week. It felt like cheating no contact, but you couldn’t help yourself. It was the one indulgence you allowed yourself, to know that he was still alive and working with the bats. This way you didn’t feel guilty about holding the grudge for as long as you did.

You’d been staring at the same page for fifteen minutes. The first line of the chapter was permanently engraved in your mind because of how many times you’d read it.

“Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?”

For your Women in Literature class, you chose Frankenstein as the novel you were going to be analyzing in your paper. The assignment was to find a topic from a book and write fifteen pages about it in MLA format. It was an interesting class, but fifteen pages felt like overkill, it was double-spaced at the very least.

This was your third reread of the book this semester.

The first read was to familiarize yourself with the novel, the second was to piece together the paper, and this one was to find the evidence after you’d started the rough draft. It felt fitting that you were using a green highlighter for the evidence.

Sleep never came easy to you, and you had tried essentially everything. All the medicines, the teas, a warm glass of milk, counting sheep, all of it. At one point your doctors and family members suggested reading, which was probably the worst thing they could’ve said.

The last suggestion ended up with you staying awake all night with a book in hand.

Which is exactly what you were doing now. It was around four in the morning, Jason had brought you back to his apartment and then went back on patrol. He still hadn’t returned, but you weren’t complaining.

The less you had to interact with him the better.

In a pathetic attempt to finally turn the page, you start to read again. Making it to the third sentence on the page, you start to finally get immersed in the story again when-

The window slides open.

Your hands drop the book in shock and it clatters on the floor. Alarmed, Jason turns to you already prepared for a fight, forgetting that you were staying with him.

“What’re you doing awake?” He sounds truly baffled that you hadn’t managed to fall asleep. His hands move to the back of his mask and there’s a quiet hissing sound before it unlatches. He examines it for a second, checking for damage. Then his fingers slowly uncurl from the edge and it falls to the floor.

“I couldn’t sleep.” You answer with a bite that didn’t fit your current state. You had stolen one of his mugs and warmed up some milk, bundled in a blanket on the couch, and had been reading under the lamp. “What the hell is it with you and the damn window?”

“It’s my place, I can use whatever entrance I want.” He turns to you with an annoyed look now. Your attitude seemed to finally start pricking at him. “I also didn’t think you’d be waiting up on me.”

“I wasn’t waiting up on you.” The answer comes out way too defensive for your liking.

“Whatever you wanna tell yourself sweetheart,” he mumbles and you scoff at him. You were starting to miss the quiet Jason that found you in your apartment.

He bends down to pick up your copy of Frankenstein and flips it around in his hands a few times. Looking back up at you, he raises a brow and you cross your arms.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs and tosses the book back in your lap.

“You obviously got something you wanna say Todd.” Rolling your eyes, you flick your left hand at him. “Go on, spit it out.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes at you and you want to pluck them out of their eye sockets. “It’s nothing, I’m just surprised you’re reading Frankenstein.”

“Why? Because I’m ordinary, because I’m not one of you?”

The words land right where you wanted them too, right in the center of his chest. His lips thin and you can see the flex of his jaw as it tightens. It was a terrible echo of the fight you’d had all those months ago. It was petty, but you’d been waiting to throw it back in his face one day.

“No,” his voice comes out softer than you were expecting, and his throat bobs while he tries to swallow his guilt. “I was just surprised because you didn’t read classics before. You used to ask me about them because you didn’t like the writing style.”

“Yeah, well things change Jason.” Your gaze doesn’t waver from his, even when he momentarily breaks away to look at his boots in shame. “People change.”

He knew that better than anyone.

With that, he glances back up to you. All the tension, all the anger, it was bleeding into the few feet between you.

“I’m going to go shower.” The sentence sounds distant from his body, as if he was just speaking into a void instead of ending the conversation.

You nod and purse your lips before picking up your phone. He stays there for a moment watching you as you attempt to look busy with swiping through the weather and notes app.

When he finally steps away into his room to head to the bathroom, you throw your head back on the armrest of the couch.

This was going to be a long week.

Dread takes over you, when the shower shuts off. You’d been trying to watch the five million Instagram reels that Wally sent you, but there was no hope in being able to focus enough to really watch them. Your brain was hyper focused on where Jason was in the apartment. He left the door to his bedroom open, so you see him pass from the bathroom to his dresser in nothing but a towel.

Your eyes may have been on your phone, but your concentration was on him.

There’s some shuffling in his room, movement of blankets you think, before he appears in the doorframe. You refused to look up until he cleared his throat awkwardly.

By some miracle you were able to hide the way your breath caught in your throat. It was unfair how he could be such an asshole and still look like that. His hair was damp, curling at the ends in a beautiful frame of his face. He had thin rimmed glasses that hung on the bridge of his nose, highlighting the piercing green of his eyes. He was in plaid pajama pants that were a smidge too tight around his thighs and ass. There was a cotton white t-shirt on that left little room for imagination as it clung to his arms and torso from where he hadn’t dried himself off completely.

The crush you had on him at fourteen was slowly becoming more valid in this light, but you would rather die than admit that out loud.

The most damning part about the whole scene was what he was holding. Tucked under his left arm was a pillow and a blanket under the right one.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other before finally admitting. “The bed’s been made.”

Your eyebrows furrow together. What the hell was he on about? Did he think you were going to sleep in the bed with him.

“Um- okay? Do you want me to congratulate you for making your bed at the ripe age of- what 22? 23?” Your phone drops face down onto the blanket you were covering yourself with. “I mean I know Alfred used to make it for you. I’m not sure how big of a feat this is.”

“I’m 23.” His expression falls to an unimpressed expression. He licks his lips slowly for a moment as if he’s using it to ground himself, and you hate that you catch it. You were learning things you didn’t want to know about yourself tonight. When his eyes shut in that annoyed manner and his tongue swept across his lower lip, the way your stomach coiled terrified you.

“I’ve made my bed before West,” The heat in your stomach only intensified at him calling you by your last name, leading your heart to sink a second later. “I was telling you, so you could get in it.”

“And why would I do that?”

His eyebrow is mirroring yours now, raised with confusion at a lack of communication. “Because I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Why are you sleeping on the couch?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

You blink once, twice, then, “this is your place, you remember that right?”

Frustrated with the fact you would do anything just to fight him, he tosses the blanket and pillow to the unoccupied side of the couch.

“Oh my god-” He runs a hand through his hair and your eyes linger on every line of every muscle in his bicep. Thankfully, you manage to break away from the distraction before he realizes. “I’m trying to be nice and give you the bed. Did you think I was going to offer you a place to stay and make you sleep on this shitty couch?”

“The couch isn’t shitty.”

His hand drops from his hair, and while he doesn’t say it, you can hear the deadpanned “really?” that he was defiantly thinking.

The couch was old and thoroughly used. You could feel every spring in it on the bone of your ass, the cushion was flat, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the type of sofa that would be at your grandparent house because they refused to throw it out. You’d been subjected to worse sleeping arrangements than Jason’s thrift find.

“It’s not that bad Jason.”

“I wouldn’t even subject Tim to sleeping on this couch.”

That earns him a snort. He seems to celebrate the small win as something like a bridge between you two. Noticing the crease disappearing in his eyebrows and his shoulder relaxing, you catch yourself. It was always too easy for Jason to undo you, he knew the exact weak points to hit in order to break down your walls.

It flipped a switch in you, immediately tensing up again, and he noticed. He always did. He gives up trying to fight you on getting to the bed and takes his place on the other end of the couch.

“What’re you doing…?” The sentence is dragged out of you, exhaustion from the day slowly overtaking the anxiety that was keeping you up.

“Putting on the TV.” He said it so simply while picking up the remote from the coffee table, it was as if this was normal for the both of you.

“Why?” The question escapes you before you can swallow it. A flush creeps over your face, suddenly self-aware of all the questions you’d been asking.

He doesn’t seem to notice the pink now dusting the tips of your ears- well, if he does he doesn’t comment on it. He only shrugs and logs into Dick’s streaming services that he has a profile on. “It helps me unwind after the night. Having something on in the background distracts me enough that it makes it easier to fall asleep.”

He starts scrolling through his account while you nod at his response.

“Jason?”

“Mhm.”

“Why is Sex and the City in your recently watched?”

His cheeks deepen to a color dangerously similar to the hood he dons every night, his freckles disappearing under the blush. He coughs to hide the fluster and pushes his glasses back up his nose.

“It was part of a deal I made with Steph,” he mumbles, skipping right over it. “When I started talking to them all again, she made me start watching it with her. Every Friday night I would come over after patrol and watch two episodes together. It was nicknamed as my “anger management” work for me to try and survive two episodes without getting frustrated with one of them.”

“Uh huh,” every thing you learned about his new life was more shocking than the last. “And how’d that go?”

“About as well as you’d expect.”

Who was this and what did they do with Jason Todd.

“That doesn’t explain why it’s still in your recently watched, though. You said you watched this with Steph, why are you on season three on your profile?”

He grumbles something unintelligible while looking through the other show options he has.

“Objectively… it’s an okay show.”

It takes all your strength not to break out in a laugh. “Just okay?”

He hears you smothering the giggle and meets your gaze. Despite his face drowning in pink, he still puts on a brave face. “I put it on after patrol sometimes. Is that what you wanted to hear? It doesn’t matter what fucked shit is happening to me, Carrie somehow always manages to take the cake in the shit show competition.”

“Well then, don’t let me stop you from your routine.”

His lips press together when the words leave your mouth. “I’ll pass thanks.”

“Why?” Your response came out more lighthearted than you’d planned on. This situation felt like an old normal you were no longer familiar with.

“You’re laughing at me that’s why.”

“I’m going to laugh either way.” You tease. “Might as well commit to the bit now.”

He stares at you for a few seconds. You don’t think anything of it, but he’s drinking in this version of you. A version that he thought no longer existed anymore. The version of you that trusted him.

He knows it’s not completely there, but this brought him hope. He didn’t think you were going to be doing much speaking through the week. Just this interaction was more than he could’ve dreamed for. He knew now that there was something he could work toward, that maybe there could be a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the sun would shine on you both again.

So, not taking advantage of the smile pulling at your lips, he turns on the show. He’d turn himself into the biggest idiot if it meant you would look at him like that again. He would embarrass himself in every lifetime, every universe, every dimension if it meant he got to witness your smile one more time.

And with Carrie talking about how Big is leaving his wife, your eye lids begin to flutter. Jason, acting as a protective presence opposite of you, allows you the comfort you’d been looking for. Finally, you’re able to drift into a world that wasn’t so haunted.

Once your breathing evened out, Jason acted quickly. He picked you up bridal style and carried you to the bed you seemed determined to not sleep in. He tucks you in with the blankets cascading around you. Standing up to his full height, he takes one last look at you and makes a promise.

A promise that he’ll work every day to become someone worth trusting again.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

Most nights were like the first one.

You would come home from class or work and then make a home on the squeaky couch. Jason would be out and about running on errands or at the auto shop he picked shifts up at. Neither of you spoke much through the day, he left you to have your much needed alone time.

Then at night, after patrol he’d crawl in through the window and you would sit on the couch together. Some nights it was awkward with not much talking, other nights it was a weird in-between of what normal used to mean for you two.

You hadn’t forgotten the fight, it still stung most days.

You knew it wasn’t easy for him to come back. You weren’t so naïve. He had crawled out of his grave, was dunked in the Lazarus pit, fought in the league of assassins, and was still trying to find a place in the world.

It didn’t erase all the hurt however.

On the fourth night he looked at you over the rim of his glasses.

“How’d you like it?”

Glancing up from your laptop, your eyebrows threaded together.

“How’d I like what?”

“Frankenstein,” he closes the book he was reading, Six of Crows- a recommendation from you. “You finished it the other day right?”

“Oh,” It sounded dumb but you hadn’t realized he was paying that much attention. “Yeah, I did. That’s not the first time I’ve read it though.”

“Oh,” he repeats. The vowel comes out in a breath from his mouth. “What’d ya think of it?”

“I liked it, I always liked the story. I’m reading it for a paper I’m writing for my Women in Literature class.”

He nods, accepting the answer. Still wanting specifics on your opinion, he continues to press. “What’s the paper on?”

“Basically,” you start out ready to summarize the topic in the same way you did for everyone. “It’s about how Frankenstein can be interpreted as autobiographical for Mary Shelley, and an expression of her experience as a child bleeding into the challenges she faced with motherhood.”

Your voice was robotic as you explained it to him. Countless of your classmates had asked you about your paper trying to get an idea for their own, and they all dismissed it. Despite it being a Women in Literature’s class it was a required elective, and unfortunately, you got stuck with one too many men who pitied the unreliable narrator.

Jason, however, surprised you.

He cocked his head to the side, barely shifting it to a thirty degree angle. “I… I hadn’t thought about it that way.” His face contorted together, the small dimple on his chin making an appearance as he actually thought about your analysis. “I’ll admit I don’t know much about Mary Shelley, despite that her husband seemed to be somewhat decent since he let her publish the novel, which is more than you can say for most men those days.”

“Somewhat decent is pushing it,” your tone was laced with disgust. “He was a cheater. He cheated on his first wife with Mary, and then cheated on her with her cousin.”

Jason’s eyes were wide and he shut his mouth as fast as he could. Biting his cheeks, he’s making his best effort to avoid saying something that would inadvertently piss you off. he had just managed to get civil with you and he didn’t want to waste it.

“What parts of the book are you using for the paper?” He was giving it his best effort to redirect the conversation so you would be in a good mood again.

“It’s a lot of the inner monologue for both the Creature and Victor.” You shrugged, going back to typing the outline. “In spite of there not being a lot of notable female characters, with the exception of Elizabeth, it had a lot of underlying feminine issues. Victor essentially goes through postpartum depression and rejects the creature. A lot of people also believe that the Creature remains nameless because she had a miscarriage at the time and didn’t name the baby. So the creature can be seen kind of like the child she lost, but also as herself. Since Victor went through life with a rejected creator, essentially on his own, it can be loosely interpreted as a mirror of her childhood. Her mother died when she was young and she was generally depressed like the Creature.”  

You hadn’t realized how long you had been rambling for until you finished. Your lips pressed together, almost biting them in the wake of your words running from you. Jason’s face remained a carefully crafted neutral expression, but he wasn’t as successful as he wanted to be. You didn’t miss the subtle twitches in his jaw, the way the last part cut deeper into him than anyone you knew.

Jason Todd who had an addict as a mother.

Jason Todd who gave his everything into being Robin.

Jason Todd who was failed by the world.

And in spite of it all, came back.

He could relate to this monster of a being more than anyone knew. So, when he listens to you talk about it as an innocent thing, as something who was a victim of the world that created him, something broke in him. Because now, there was hope you would look past all his wrongs, to see him as a man trying his best, instead of the monster fate was determined to make him to be.

He nods and by some miracle, makes more conversation with you about the paper and then you shift into a comfortable silence. A couple hours later when he’s transitioning to the nighttime routine, he takes you in.

He knew the week would be over soon. You would go back to your apartment and probably never look in his direction again. He wouldn’t take advantage of this- of you looking at him like the past few years hadn’t happened. That he hadn’t destroyed the only good thing in his life.

Eventually, Sex and the City comes on. It’s as if the universe finally took pity on him and gave him another miracle, letting you got comfortable in his presence. You started talking through the show, shitting on something- he wasn’t sure what.

His heart stopped when he heard the same scoff you used to do when you both watched Mission Impossible. He could practically hear the mumble, ingrained in his memory.

“There’s no way they would get away with this in real life.”

He didn’t move a muscle as you spoke, save for the few encouraging grunts or hums of agreement.

Jason Todd hated when people spoke through movies. He liked to sit, digest it, then talk about after, but he never minded it when it was you.

That’s actually how Dick discovered his crush on you when you were teenagers. He walked by his room and peaked in through the door frame. You were watching some romcom and you had spoken more dialogue through the scene then the film had in general. He was expecting Jason to blow a fuse, but it never came.

Dick teased him relentlessly for days.

He couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed, or care though. He would listen to you talk about anything and everything. Jason Todd would spend every night bleeding dry on the Gotham streets if it meant he got to come home and listen to the harmony of your voice. In those dying seconds he had left in that warehouse, his last thought was of every voicemail he’d never receive.

So now, here on this couch, he absorbs every word, carving it into stone. Every syllable from your mouth was like a recitation of the Bible to him, you were holy.

He didn’t think he’d ever be granted this luxury again. For now, he’ll take what he can get and maybe one day this could be his normal again.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

As if the past three nights were on replay, you fell asleep before him. He sighs in relief when he notices your eyes close and breath even out. Like every other night, he takes you back to the bed even if you’re determined to take the couch.

The next few nights are also the same. Small domestic moments highlighted by his flickering light bulb and uncharacteristic pleasure of 90s chick flicks.

It had become habit to wait for him to come through the window. You usually were up until this time anyway. Whether it was nightmares, small anxieties that kept you up, or just your general inability to fall asleep, you were up at all hours of the night.

It was weird. You weren’t expecting to feel any comfort in this apartment, you were prepared for the exact opposite actually. Yet, in his stupidly charming Jason way, he managed to make you smile. He got you to laugh. He cooked enough for two even when you said you weren’t hungry.

It was surprisingly peaceful.

Until the last night.

All the butterflies dropped to the pit of your stomach in seconds when he barreled in through the window.

Covered in blood.

His breath was coming out heavy and jagged. He was flat on his ass, arms and legs spread out as if he was cosplaying a starfish who had just gone to war.

“Jason-”

You’re not exactly sure how the words leave your mouth. Laptop forgotten, shoved off your lap onto the couch. Your legs carry you just far enough until you can drop to your knees next to him.

“I-” he coughs. “I’m alright.” His arm wraps around his midsection trying to press on the giant wound that went straight down from his left pectoral to waistline.

“Alright?” He winces at your incredulous tone. “Jason please, you can barely hold your head up.”

The clock had barely struck two, which was never a good sign. If he ever came home early, it was due to some catastrophic injury.

“You shouldn’t be up at this time anyway.” He somehow manages to get out in one breath, wincing again when his hand presses on his torso.

Pointedly ignoring the comment, you help him to his feet. Silence overtakes you two when you help him to the bathroom. He sits on the lid of the toilet. His head leaning against the wall behind it.

Deep, slow breaths are coming from his nose and mouth. A part of you hopes that it’s to calm himself and that he’s not fighting for his consciousness.

That is not a phone call you want to be making tonight.

He sheds the jacket, then the shirt. You’re left with a bloody bruised Jason whose red in the face. He’s staring at you with no hope, ready for you to walk away, to decide that it’s too much.

It’s quiet when you step out the bathroom to the little half closet. It’s quiet when you grab a hand towel and walk back in. The only sound now echoing through the apartment being the water pouring from the faucet onto the grey towel when you wet it.

You finally break the silence, when you sit on the edge of the bathtub. The wound getting uglier by the second, your hand hovers it, right before contact.

“This is going to hurt.” It’s barely a whisper, yet in this room, it could’ve been a scream.

He chuckles and it’s half concerning, half reassuring. “Do your worst darlin’”

The nickname does something to you, and your face flushes.

The towel makes contact with his skin and he hisses. Your hand doesn’t move, letting him adjust to the sting. Then with a small nod, you continue the first cleaning. Once all the grime is scrubbed away, you find the first aid kit in the cabinet under the sink. The antiseptic is next, then the gauze, then the tape.

It took a little longer than thirty minutes to get him patched up. He’d have to see someone to get it properly looked at tomorrow, but this would be okay for now.

You couldn’t ignore the way he was looking at you the whole time. His eyes were swimming with guilt, pain, and something else you weren’t sure you wanted to name.

When you’re finally done, you stand to your full height. He’s looking up at you now from where he’s sitting. Both of you don’t pay mind to the biohazard on the floor next to you, just simply getting lost in each other again.

So much more was said in the quiet of the bathroom than in the past week you’ve been here. It feels like you’re seeing each other again for the first time in the fluorescent bathroom light. It was as if something clicked for you two.

“You’re not fourteen anymore you know that right?” You’re still looking in between his emerald green irises when you start to mumble. “You can’t jump straight into a fight and crash through my window expecting me to patch you up.”

His eyes are half lidded, squinting in disbelief, like he isn’t sure if this is real. That you’re here and teasing him.

“But you patch me up so well.” His voice is a low rumble, words meshing together out of delirium and exhaustion. “It’s also technically my window.”

A snort comes out of your nose along with a roll of your eyes.

“Let’s get you to bed big guy.” You start to hook his arm over your shoulder and he breaks into a sly smile.

“You think I’m big?”

“Yes.”

A small pout appears on his face when you won’t play this game with him. As much as you loved a good round of teasing, you were far too stressed to try and keep up with it right now. Your goal for the evening was to get him to the bed alive and make sure he doesn’t die.

Again.

After he lies down, you sit next to him on the bed with your legs crossed. He’s bound to fall asleep any moment now, but you want to keep his eyes open a little longer. It was part in worry and part selfishness. This way you could make sure he was actually okay by the time he drifted off while also getting to stare into the eyes that you used to feel like home.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology snaps you out of your daze. It’s the first coherent sentence he’s managed since busting through the window.

“It’s alright.” Your hands shake while you try to wave it off. “This is hardly the first time you’ve shown up beaten and bruised needing a cleanup.”

He came to you as much as he could to patch him up when you were younger. You’d had enough practice patching Wally up that he trusted you.

“No, I’m sorry about what I said to you that night.” Your veins turn to ice. “I was an asshole. You were trying to be nice and I pushed you away. That wasn’t fair to you.”

He takes a deep breath.

“I was a mess when I crawled out of my grave, the pit wasn’t a big help either. I was so angry with the world, upset that it brought me back.” His eyes lay on the popcorned roof now. “I was even more pissed that the world hadn’t changed while I was gone, it was still the same shit. I was horrible to everything and everyone. I… I lost my way.”

“You were the only good thing left here.” His eyes are back on you now. “When you came to see me, it scared me. It was like you saw right through me and everything I didn’t want to deal with was rising in my chest. I couldn’t handle it. So, I said some nasty shit to get you to go away. It was disgusting of me and it’s my biggest regret in this and every life I’ll ever live. I’ll never forgive myself for it. In a way, it felt easier to stay in that angry hole than to grow.”

You weren’t sure how you kept your breath even, it was like every time you managed some oxygen, it was robbed from you.

“Eventually though, I finally started getting help and wanted to get better. I’ve been trying every day to be better than who I was. To be someone who could be something. I don’t want you to think that these are excuses, they’re not.” His eyes are so conflicted, he can’t read your reaction and it’s terrifying him. “I just wanted you to know, I guess. If you never want to talk to me again, I completely understand. I’ll never bother you and I’ll leave you to your life.”

There’s a pause and your heart sinks.

“But if there’s a chance you’d be willing to try again, I had to give it a shot. I’ll spend every day making sure you know I’m serious about this. I’ll do it all this time. I’ll take you to dinner, I’ll give you your space, I’ll bake you cookies every Sunday night just like you always wanted.” His breathing pattern is broken and it shudders when he tries to breathe in.

You couldn’t bring yourself to speak. Your hands begun tracing the web of scars on his chest. A fingernail along the constellation he had over his heart. He shuddered, the intimacy of seeing him like this was almost as difficult as the vulnerability in the apology.

Eventually your hand lays flat on his chest, feeling the warmth. Your palm was right over his heart, it was beating a little quicker than normal but it was your favorite rhythm. His thumb and pointer finger wrap around your wrist. It was a loose grip, you could break out whenever and he kept it that way, but it was still strong enough that you could feel the hope behind it when he says,

“Stay.”

Your head whips back to him and desperation is written across his forehead.

There was still so much you had to talk about, so much you needed to get through. But right now, when he’s looking at you like you’re the most important person on the planet, you can’t stop yourself from indulging.

He watches you walk to the other side of the bed. His breath catches in his throat when you pull back the covers. He starts to believe in love again when you scoot closer to him.  

His eyes are on yours when you make eye contact again, mere centimeters apart.

“I’m sorry.” He repeats again. And this time, you know it.

You know he’ll spend the rest of his life making up for seventeen months.

Your hand rests on his cheek and he leans into it. His eyes close and he breathes in the feeling. You’re not entirely shocked when his arms are pulling you into him. The rest of the night passes with him whispering sweet nothings into your ear.

And for the first time all week, you both fall asleep together.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

Bonus:

Once he’s finished his own patrol, Dick Grayson appears at his little brother’s window.

Jason had disappeared after the fight in the middle of patrol. They knew he had gotten hurt but he said he would patch himself up at home. Bruce was fighting an aneurysm, trying to keep him safe but not push him out of his comfort zone. When Jason cut his comms, Bruce almost tore the apartment door from its hinges, but Dick convinced him that he would drop by and check on him.

What he finds however, renders him speechless.

Jason was in bed with the one person he thought was going to buy him a one way ticket to his grave again. His arm was wrapped protectively around your waist, almost in fear of letting you go. Even in a state of crippling pain, you were always his priority.

At the heartwarming scene, Dick has one thought that turns his body to ice.

Wally is going to kill him.

•───────•°•𓄧•°•───────•

A/N: Sorry guys I got kind of lazy with the ending but I hope you like it anyway! I’m really tired and wanted to finally get this out lol

•───────•°•𝓙•°•───────•

Jason swore that he would never let himself be indebted to a favor from Bruce ever again.

Three months ago, he told him off handedly that he “owed him one” for something so small, he couldn’t even remember what it was for, he didn’t even remember those words leaving his mouth.

Unfortunately, Bruce did.

Being Batman often meant that he got called away last minute on some League business, and yesterday morning he did. They needed him for some disaster happening in Coastal City. Ine the rush of heading over, he called Jason lacking his usual stoicism to cash in said favor. Jason, being the only one of his sons that was available and in Gotham as of now, meant he’d have to save the day.

And what did that entail exactly?

Jason being signed up as a chaperone on Damian’s school field trip to the zoo.

There was nothing that sounded worse to the twenty-three-year-old. He would take another night in that fuckass warehouse if it meant that he wasn’t in charge of seven middle schoolers. One of the few luxuries he’d been granted since… well everything, was that he didn’t have to go back to Gotham Academy.

He hated it, like actually hated it. Jason, who came from nothing, a boy who was essentially on his own, jacking tires to try and get by, dumpster diving for small broken pieces of decor he could use for his room, nicking small candy bars at the corner store to try and find some joy in his little life, was put in a school with boys who had everything. They were all stuck up, entitled, and acted like they knew everything there was to know about the world.

The only reason he never got in a fight- or for lack of better words- caught winning fights, was because he wanted to prove to Bruce that he wasn’t violent. That he wasn’t as dangerous as the world believed him to be, that he wasn’t this rabid dog who bites all the time.

He’d taken the small win of not returning to the haunted school save for the few art shows and orchestra performances Damian was apart of.

His luck, however, ran short; because now he’s standing in the middle of the gymnasium in a matching glacier blue shirt that all the other chaperones were instructed to wear. His arms are crossed over his chest and the only reason he agreed to these ridiculous shirts was because he was allowed to layer his leather jacket over it. It didn’t matter that it was March and the sun would be beaming down to make him regret his choice, Jason would not be caught dead in matching shirts.

And right now, he was currently in an intense staring contest with his youngest brother from across the gymnasium where he waited for the group assignments.

The little bird was in a position that almost mirrored his own. Arms crossed, scowl painting various feelings of disapproval across his features, perfect posture, and the same shirt he had to be wrestled into this morning.

Most people didn’t believe it when they found out that Jason and Damian were adopted brothers. When he was younger, Damian was a mirror image of Bruce with the exception of his green eyes and olive complexion. Jason, though not related by blood, could have been shat out by Bruce and everyone would have believed it. The press certainly speculated it when he was first taken in that he was biologically Bruce’s. They’d even gone as far to make headlines that maybe Bruce had gotten a surrogate and a donated egg. No one could deny that it was a tad suspicious how similar in appearance he was to Bruce sometimes with the same sickly pale skin, similar builds, the dark hair that curled when exposed to the wrenching Gotham humidity for too long, even down to the shade of their eyes. Well, at least they used to share the same eye color, before the Lazarus pit. After Ra’s had given him what he would call a generous dip in the pit. He’d emerged with deep emerald, green eyes. His new eye color and the jagged J carved into his cheek were a constant reminder of the life that had been taken from him, a life he was trying to reclaim.

He supposes that’s one of the reasons he agreed to this God-awful field trip. He didn’t do it because Bruce asked, or because he owed him a favor. He did it because after years of drowning in his anger, he owed himself a chance at life. A chance at being a part of a family. And well, there was also you.

He’s taken out of his thoughts when he hears a hesitant call of his name. Resigning to lose the starring contest he was having with Damian he turns his head and sees you. And like the biggest idiot in the world, his brain decides it’s a good time to short circuit. There was once a time when Damian had the gall to click his tongue and tell him that he’d seen Clark hold himself together better with kryptonite strapped to his chest than Jason could manage when he was in front of you.

You’d been seeing each other for about a month or two. Neither of you had said anything to anyone, it was still new after all, but you had known each other for quite a while. Jason had seen you hosting the art shows for the kids and helping out at the concerts he’d gone too. It was actually at the most recent Spring Orchestra concert that Jason had finally stomped on his nerves and asked for your number.

Damian had claimed you as his favorite teacher. One day he’d been talking to Jason and explained that it was because you didn’t bother with frivolous compliments and offered substantial feedback. And though he’d never admit it to anyone, it was the kindness you showed him that meant more than anything. When you allowed him to sit in the art room during lunch or when he got to school too early, to paint or just escape from the world for a bit, were the moments that slowly began healing the young Wayne. He respected you, and that was further than most people got with him.

Jason wasn’t exactly sure how to break the news to Damian that he was going out with you. He was… territorial to say the least. Jason was sure that the preteen had suspected something was going on, he was Robin after all, but he didn’t know how far the suspicion went. The most that Damian knew was that there was attraction. He’d seen Jason stumble over himself enough times at school functions to know that there was some form of tension between you both.

“Hey beautiful” Jason’s brain finally catching up to him.

The blush on your face was enough of a reward that made whatever nightmare today was going to be, completely worth it.

After hanging up with Bruce and agreeing to go on the field trip, he’d sent you a quick text asking if you were also going to be one of the chaperones. And for once in his life, the universe took mercy on him when you answered with a yes and a few too many exclamation points.

“Hey handsome,” you greet him back, failing miserably to hide your smile. “Looks like it’s your lucky day.”

Jason doesn’t stop himself from glancing around the bustling gymnasium full of teachers and parents running around trying to get the last groups organized before leaving, and a bunch of hormonal preteens excited to leave school for the day, trying to decipher how this was lucky.

“Oh? And why’s that?” He raises an eyebrow with the question and while his face softens looking down at you, his glasses begin to slide down his nose.

“Well,” you start, before one of your arms mindlessly leaves the clipboard you were hugging to your chest and push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Jason’s face darkens to a deep red at the small action and at the stark change in shade of his face, you catch yourself. Your blush from earlier deepening enough to match his when you remember where you are, after briefly forgetting.

Flusteredly clearing your throat before continuing, “You’ll be chaperoning with me.”

He’s about to open his mouth to answer when the intercom goes off overhead and asks all chaperones to meet with their groups. Both of you awkwardly turn away at each other with faces blazing to meet the group.

Before he even got the chance to read the names of any of the kids, Damian’s eyes meet his across the gymnasium while he marches over. Considering the look of unabashed disgust telling a thousand stories on his face, he can already tell it’s going to be a long day.

•───────•°•𝓙•°•───────•

“Your name is Jason?”

They’d made it to the zoo a little under an hour ago. You and Jason were given a group of seven middle school boys to wrangle through the zoo. Damian was one of them. He had been quiet most of the day after seeing both of you this morning, which did unsettle Jason a little bit, although he’d never admit that the youngest bat’s silence unnerves him.

Right now, the boys were trying to decide where to go next, and this one- Mark he thinks his name was, wasn’t too interested in the decision. He seemed just excited to be here and didn’t really care what they were doing as long as it wasn’t school.

Jason had to take multiple deep breaths before answering. Sarcasm and quick wit were threatening to spill off his tongue at the obvious question. It was almost as if there wasn’t a chaperone sticker printed with his face and name on it stuck right onto his jacket.  

“Um, yeah” he answers and because he can’t help himself, he points his index finger to the sticker.

“Is that why you have a J on your cheek?”

Jason’s eyebrows shoot over the rims of his glasses at the kid’s question. He often forgot that kids don’t have filters and will just say the first thing that comes to their mind. His mouth dropped slightly while trying to formulate an answer. It wasn’t often someone asked about his scars so openly, and without any warning.

“Um-” Jason starts to try and think of a way to answer this without traumatizing the poor middle schooler. He didn’t miss the way your head snapped over at the question.

“Mack” eh close enough, Jason thinks to himself when you start scolding him. “What have we talked about?” Jason tries his best to muffle the snort, in thinking over the fact that Mack blurting out semi-insensitive questions is a common occurrence to the point that you’ve had to talk to him about it- and taking in your exasperation- multiple times.

“Oh sorry.” He rushes out, as he just now realizes it might have been offensive to ask. “Um- you don’t have to answer that, you can if you want, butyoudonthaveto” The last couple of words were rushed out in one breath, that he almost didn’t understand it.

Jason huffs out a small laugh while you pinch the bridge of your nose, and Mack tries to take his foot out of his mouth.

“It’s okay, kid.” Jason puts his hand up knowing he was just curious and had the Richard Grayson Syndrome: not thinking before you speak. He clears his throat and decides to just lie to him, there’s really no need to traumatize him. “But yeah, it’s ‘cause my name’s Jason.”

“Cool.” Mack says with a wicked smile and nodding his head. He looks like he was about to ask something else before one of the kids calls him over so they can begin their vote on which animals they want to see next.

When the boys begin conducting their poll and raise their hands to vote for the next exhibit, you shuffle over to Jason’s side. He side eyes you with a sprinkle of amusement before you start sighing and turning to him.

“I’m sorry about Mack, he’s a good kid I swear. He’s just… not good at wording his curiosity sometimes.”

“It’s fine, I promise.” Jason’s face softens before turning to meet your eyes, and he’s almost blown away. It was disgustingly humid out, he’d sweat gallons in the hour that he’d been here, yet here you were, beautiful as ever. “It just took me off guard, I know he didn’t mean any harm by asking.”

“I know, I just didn’t want it to upset you.” The sudden frown and distant look in your eyes betrays you. In that moment, he notices that you’re hiding something by the lack of color on your fingers while gripping onto the clipboard like it’s life or death.

“What aren’t you telling me?” his voice is low when he asked, but it doesn’t matter. The kids were screaming over themselves as Damian was supposed to be the tie breaker between the lion and tiger, but he chose the Giraffes. They were trying to sway him to one side, and the innocence of the situation almost makes him smile. To see Damian trying to decide which animal to see instead of which person to save was something Jason had begged for once upon a time.

“I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it.” You answered with a shrug and poorly hidden tension. Maybe it wasn’t poorly hidden to the average person, but Jason was anything but that, he was trained for this.

“I mean I don’t usually want to talk about it, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. That’s the first time I’ve seen you close to snapping about something, and I’m just wondering why that’s what upset you.” He’s looking right through you, and you can’t hide the shiver that runs down your spine with the intensity of his gaze.

You move your eyes back to the kids for a moment. Making sure there they were still trying to convince Damian to choose their side and satisfied that they were absorbed in their moment with Luke begging on his knees, you turn back to Jason.

He’s confused at the sudden apprehension in your frame, and his lips press into a thin line with something similar to concern. Then one of your hands lets go of the clipboard before you can snap it in half and grabs the neckline of the matching blue shirts. Pulling it to the back of your left shoulder, Jason’s breath catches in his throat when he sees the top of the familiar jagged letter carved into your shoulder blade.

The solemn accepting smile on your face breaks something in him, and after a second or two, you drop your hand fixing the neckline of your shirt. He loved your dimples, but it felt wrong to see them right now.

“I was seventeen and thought I was invincible, decided to go against every warning I’d ever heard about not going out alone at night. You never think it’s going to happen to you, and well, didn’t that come back to bite me in the ass.” You huff out with hindsight you’d wished you had back then.

He watches you swallow the lump in your throat. “I’m luckier than most, I can hide my scar, they wouldn’t suspect anything. But you… can’t hide yours, and I get it. I know what it’s like to be stuck in some warehouse for his enjoyment.” You take a deep breath, not wanting the emotions to bubble over the surface on what is supposed to be a fun day. “That’s why I kinda freaked when Mack asked. The few times people have seen the scar and asked about it, it took me right back to reliving that night. I didn’t want that for you, and I know with it being on your face, people probably ask you about it a lot. I can’t imagine how many times you’ve had to answer the question or come up with something.” You were so earnest when talking to him that it makes him freeze in place. He wasn’t used to someone caring about him to this extent, and so openly too. “Well, that and not wanting to risk traumatizing Mack, I’d rather not have to explain to his mom why he’ll be having nightmares for the next three months”

Jason lets out a snort, then just looks at you, like really looks at you. He couldn’t have guessed that you would have gone through something so brutal. You were practically an angel on Earth. Yet even with the horrors you’d seen, you still got up in the morning. You still tried to make it a safe place for other people. Despite all the wrong, you still tried to make it right, and Jason doesn’t think he’d ever seen someone so beautiful.

“I was fourteen.” Jason begins, “I have kind of a similar story.” He tries his best to laugh in an attempt to lighten the mood, it comes out a bit strained. “Bruce, told me not to go somewhere by myself, and despite his warnings, I went. And well, I’m sure you know what happened next.”

He didn’t want to get into the whole dying thing. This was not the appropriate place to be having that conversation, but right now he decided that he was going to tell you. In the vulnerability of the moment, Jason Todd had finally found someone who might understand him. Someone who saw past his scars, someone who saw them and knew what it meant yet, still showed him kindness. Still showed him that someone could care for him regardless of how broken he might be.

The understanding settles between both of you, and just for a moment you see the rawest forms of each other. A boy and a girl who had their innocence stolen from them too young and were forced to live with the reminders of their mistakes. But in spite of it all, they found each other, and maybe, just maybe, that would be enough.

“YESSSSSSSS” The sudden scream rips both of you from your heartfelt moment.

Both you and Jason jolted, prepared to handle whatever was happening with the boys, only to see a celebration. Turning back to the monsters, Luke is still on the floor, but his hands are clasped together, raised toward the sky.

Your hand flies to your heart calming your heartbeat, which has sky-rocketed into orbit.

“So, I guess we’re going to go see the Tiger’s first then?” Jason asks the boys, amusement slipping into his tone. “Yes, brother.” Damian responds with his familiar formality. “Then, we will go see the Giraffe’s and feed them, then ultimately, we will pay a visit to the lions.”

“Alright then,” Jason shrugs extending his arms out. “Lead the way.”

When the nine of you begin to make your way to the exhibit, you don’t miss the way Jason trails back with you. You also don’t miss the anxiety reeking off his frame when he tries to inconspicuously throw his arm around your shoulders. However, for his sake, you pretend that you don’t realize that his fingers are cradling the top of the scar you both share with a gentle fragility that almost makes you cry.

•───────•°•𝓙•°•───────•

After the boys lost their mind at the tiger exhibit, you end up feeding the giraffes. Damian is trying to school his features but fails spectacularly. Anyone can see that he’s excited. This is the part he’d been telling you that he’d been looking forward to all week. He doesn’t necessarily love the idea of a zoo, considers them inhumane. Which they are in a sense, you never loved that they rip these animals from their natural habitat. However, when he found out he could feed some of the animals, there was a sudden interest in the field trip that found him. It’s one thing to ogle at them in their enclosure but actually being able to speak to them and feed them, was something else entirely. It was something he could treasure, some gesture he could do for them.

Now here you all are, with the heat that noon brings to a sunny Gotham day, you’ve decided to be in the shade. Some of the boys are trying to play with the lettuce, the little game they created for themselves to see how close they could hold the lettuce to Gerald the giraffe’s mouth when feeding it without getting licked. You weren’t sure what the punishment for the loser was, and there was a part of you that didn’t want to know.

Jason lets out a small snort at the scene in front of him. “Boys will be boys” he muttered quiet enough just for your ears. You giggled with a nod at the only acceptable use of that phrase. Moving slightly to be stood in front of him, you rest your head against his chest. He then shifts slightly allowing his right cheek to lay on your hair, the domesticity of the moment makes your heart flutter.

Then your gaze shifts to Damian. He’s carefully feeding his giraffe, Gina, while petting her muzzle. Her baby, Ronnie, is hidden behind his mother with the innocence of an anxious child seeing strange faces and species. Damian isn’t deterred by this in the slightest, he simply returns the care and attention a mother should receive. He feeds and pets her reassuringly, while whispering that she deserved better than this, that he will make sure she is taken care of. You imagine he’ll report back to his father and ask him to invest in her habitat.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done something like this.

Last year when you went to one of the art museums in Gotham, he had noticed they were severely lacking in baroque art. You had spent the past four weeks studying it in your classes, and he knew how passionate you were about it. When the class went to the museum and he noticed the art, or lack thereof better said, he instantly went home and asked his father to make a few donations.

“He’s a good kid.” You mention off handedly to Jason. He hums in response and moves his head so that his chin is now rested on the crown of your head and follows your eyeline.

His eyes land on Damian, and a sudden surge of protectiveness blooms in his chest.

In these rare moments where he can see the waning amounts of innocence Damian has left, he’s reminded of when they first met. Not when they met in the cave, but in the League. The runt has no recollection of it, and Jason’s memories are hazy, but there was once a time when he was his caretaker. After the events in Ethiopia, Ra’s took him into the League of Assassins and somewhat nursed him back to health. Talia had just had Damian not long before, and while she cared for him in every way that she could, she still had duties she needed to attend to. In those times where she could not be with her son, they allowed Jason breaks in his training to care for him.

He would play with him with the few toys they’d allow the one-year-old, babbling with him in a way that doesn’t fit his current persona. Jason had learned how to change his diaper when there was no one around, failing horrifically the first few tries. He was even there for his first steps, it was a quiet night during some meeting that Ra’s was having to execute some plan in Santa Prisca. Jason was sitting in the nursery and Damian had pulled himself up on his crib and held his hands out, taking two stumbling steps toward him. They were brothers before they knew it and wasn’t that something?

There are few pictures of that time, and he’d never cared for them before. He was too upset with the world and everything it had taken from him. But in light of recent events, in trying to turn the page and start a new chapter, he decided that the next time he sees Talia he’d have to ask her for one of the pictures. It wasn’t a home per se, but there was something almost familial in his time in the League. He got a little brother from it after all.

“Yeah, he is.” He whispers to you.

It’s almost as if he was listening to you two talk about him, because he whips his head around to both of you. Eyes narrowed, scrutinizing him for the position you’re both in currently. He drops the lettuce back in to the bucket that the zoo attendant had handed to him before briefly abandoning his post for a moment, assuring Gina he will be back.

He walks- no charges over to you. Jason’s eyebrows rise in a quiet warning, communicating that he better watch whatever he’s about to say. He pointedly ignores him and looks at you with something like worry creasing between his eyebrows.

“Is he bothering you?” he asks you with no ounce of humor in his voice. You were tempted to snort but had to swallow it as fast as the urge came, not wanting to discourage the twelve-year-old. Jason’s not much of a help, as he scoffs at his little brother.  

“No Damian, Jason is not bothering me.” You assure him and shrug off Jason from your body so, you can place a hand on his shoulder.

His eyes narrow further in suspicion, and then move over your shoulder to his brother, then back to you. “Are you sure?”

Jason sputters something in disbelief, your brain’s working overtime blocking him out because you cannot laugh right now.

“Yes, I’m sure.” You offer him with a genuine smile. The same one you use when he asks if he can have lunch in your room on the days he doesn’t want to go to the cafeteria.

There must have been some micro expression on your face, or possibly Jason’s that betrayed you. You watch it click in his head; you were half convinced you could hear the cogs clinking into place.

His face shifts from suspicion to a comically disgusted disbelief, all his features contorting on his face when his eyes land back on Jason.

“Are you dating my teacher?”

The question hung in the air for a second too long. The joy from the situation suddenly evaporating into an uncomfortable awkwardness, you and Jason hadn’t exactly put a label on it. You two were just seeing each other hoping it would go somewhere. The silence allows doubt to creep in, because you didn’t know how to answer that question, even if it wasn’t directed to you. You couldn’t exactly explain the unspoken rules of adult dating to your student, and you also didn’t want to.

“Yeah, and?” Jason answers unabashedly, and even though you’re looking straight ahead, you can picture the shrug he gave when he put the label on it for both of you.

Now it’s your turn to make a sad attempt at schooling your expression. You’d hoped, like anyone would, that he would want to be something with you. You were having fun, and he seemed genuine in a way you hadn’t experienced with guys before. There was a muscle that relaxed in your chest when he was near. You didn’t have to be on edge all the time, you didn’t have to be anyone but yourself when you were with him, you never felt the pressure of society when it was just the two of you laughing on the couch. For the first time in your life, when you were with Jason Todd, it all fit.

Damian doesn’t have an answer, not right away at least. He just looks between you and Jason a couple of more times in shock. Then he mutters under his breath and turns around to try and cope with the news while feeding Gina.

“That went… better than expected.” The shock in Jason’s voice mirrors exactly what you’re feeling inside.

“Yeah, I guess it did.” You turn to him with a teasing smile. “So, dating huh?”

If he wasn’t already flushed with the sunburnt, you’re sure that he would have had the same pink complexion. “Well um- I, didn’t want to assu-”

“Relax.” You laugh openly, eyes shutting from how wide your smile got. “I’m just teasing. I want to be that with you too.”

“You’re so mean.” He grumbles while throwing his arm around you, pulling you into his chest.

“Only for you.”

Jason hopes you can’t feel the way his heart speeds up at your words.

Damian turns around, hearing the laughing fit you were both sharing, and he’s portraying a look of pure horror at the two of you. Jason sticks his tongue out at him, and he turns back around shaking his head. He would take this act to the grave, because he would never admit how secretly happy he was at the fact that you both had found each other.

•───────•°•𝓙•°•───────•

On the bus back to the academy, Jason was able to sit next to you this time. Instead of next to Damian, who seemed to have finally gotten closer with some of the boys in his group from today.

Most of the kids that were sat near the front of the bus with the chaperones were taking a quick power nap after a long day in the Gotham sun. The others in the back were absorbed with their friends talking about everything they saw today, trading funny moments and embarrassing stories with each other.

Jason was slumped quietly next to you with his neck and head making an almost comical ninety-degree angle to rest on your shoulder. You can tell he’s still awake by the way his breathing hasn’t evened out yet. So, you shift in your seat a bit moving forward to press a gentle kiss on his scar, and his eyes flutter open.

Even in his daze, he can see the indecipherable expression you have on your face sometimes when you’re looking at him.

“What was that for” He mumbles.

“No reason,” he thinks your voice is too gentle to be talking to him, but selfishly, he doesn’t want you to stop. “Just think you’re cute”

And with that, he sits back up in the seat. After taking a quick glance around to make sure no one was paying attention, he drops a kiss on your lips savoring the taste of your strawberry lip balm, before parting and dropping another kiss to your cheek, tainting it with a baby pink tattoo of his lips. And lastly- but most importantly- he moves the neckline of your shirt and drops one on your shoulder blade where you share the same letter that he’ll rebrand for you.  

“Well,” the sheepish blush drowning you from your forehead to your neck fuels his wicked grin. “I think you’re perfect.

Your blush deepens and you look around triple-checking that no one saw before grumbling embarrassed under your breath, causing Jason to chuckle quietly.

When he rests back against the seat, and the familiar weight of your head is on his shoulders, he didn’t think he’d ever been this happy. The smell of your eucalyptus shampoo somehow manages to calm him, even with all the craziness exploding in the back of the bus.

Maybe he should owe Bruce favors more often.

•───────•°•𝓙•°•───────•

•───────•°•✶•°•───────•

“Dick, cut it out. I already told you no.”

“C’mon, just one date- that’s all I’m asking.” He carelessly throws his hands in the air. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Jason swore that if the former circus act opened his mouth one more time that he was going to make him wish that he fell off that trapeze with his parents.

Dick had spent the past two weeks trying to set him up on a date with you. Every single time he saw Jason on patrol, he’d harass him about it. The gymnast had taken you to the charity gala Bruce held a little under a month ago, as friends.

You caught his eye the moment you walked in, you were impossible to ignore. There was radiance in your figure that rivaled the sun’s. The way your eyes lit up the whole room lit a match in Jason that had been extinguished years ago. Your laugh was a melody that Jason would spend years learning the notes to, in a pitiful attempt to replicate. Anytime you were dragged from one conversation to another with a Gotham Elite, the room parted for you like a sea that Jason would drown in if he was given the chance.

Jason has been taken by you from the moment your heels clicked on the pale marble floor. Being the pathetic loser he is, he steered clear of you the whole night. Dick had introduced you to the whole family, except him. He got too worked up in his mind, fearing he’d stumble over his words or worse,

You’d see him.

He didn’t think he’d be able to handle the expression of horror that would inevitably cross your face when you saw the scars painting a history on his face he’d be cursed to remember.

The looks always came, there were days he felt like he was a walking car crash. The wandering eyes always roamed his face, his body, at the question where the pain came from. Some asked about it, and some tried to hide the concern behind empty small talk and glances when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. It stopped bothering him years ago, those people never mattered to him. So, he wasn’t sure why he was so anxious now. Why all of a sudden, all the old feelings he’d buried under packs of cigarettes came up at the sight of a girl at a gala.

He thought he had disguised the way his heart fluttered every time you looked in his direction better than he actually did. He hadn’t noticed the youngest bat in the corner of the ballroom observing the way his shoulders tensed when your eyes floated over the sea of guests. The way the pink flush drowned Jason’s face when your eyes met with a small smile. The way his grip tightened around the stem of the crystal champagne glass.

Damian saw all of it.

He approached Jason and ridiculed him for not being able to approach you. He tried to push his stubborn older brother in your direction. Told him to get over himself and just introduce himself. When Jason planted himself on the floor of the ballroom like a tree, he told him he was pathetic. He brushed him off, but Damian didn’t stop there. Being the annoying eleven-year-old that he was, he went and told Dick all about his minor attraction to you.

That’s how he finds himself in the cave at one in the morning after a particularly long patrol, fending off another attack. Dick’s voice echoed off the stone walls of the cave with a slight tease, solidifying Jason’s fate to be forever doomed as a little brother.

“I just don’t want to.”

His explanations were short and simple every time, never revealing more than was necessary.

Unfortunately for everyone, Bruce had managed to pass down his infuriating behavior of bottling emotions to his second son. While Bruce hid his emotions behind a carefully guarded mask and uneasy looks, Jason hid his behind a pack of cigarettes and a poorly executed bad boy persona.

He too lived by the mantra that it was easier to push people away, easier to be alone.  

He couldn’t explain to him how the idea of going on a date for the first time since… everything, made him want to throw up. He couldn’t explain how the idea of letting someone in again made him want to pack his bags and go to one of the safe houses he kept from Bruce. How the idea of a dinner with a girl who was everything good in the world threatened him with hope.

Hope he couldn’t afford.

Jason had heard about you over the years, existing in the same circle. Dancing around each other but never together. It was the only good thing that came from Dick’s incapability of shutting up. Jason was half convinced that Dick just enjoyed the sound of his own voice. He heard stories about you, seen pictures that Dick had posted on his social media. You were mutuals, but that was as far as he had let himself go.

He could handle decapitating someone, he could wash the blood of his hands and eat dinner afterward. He could invoke a fear that lingered in the nightmares of the worst bastards in the city he was raised in. But going out with a girl who brought out the sun on the cloudiest days, was what petrified the Red Hood.

“Jason come on,” Dick was practically whining now. “Just give me one reason why you don’t want to.” 

He wasn’t going to let this go, was he?

Dick was, tragically, the pushiest motherfucker on the planet. He knew what he wanted and very rarely failed at getting it.

“Dick for the last time, I just don’t want to.” Jason leveled his brother a look that was as deadly as he had once been, silently begging him to drop it.

But Dick, not being able to take any of his little brothers seriously, just smiled at him. It didn’t matter how grown each of them were, it didn’t matter that Jason was now taller than him. Every time Dick looked at him, he only ever saw the freckled face and the smile with missing teeth of the little boy Jason had once been. The little brother who used to have faith in the world. The little brother he would go to hell and back for. The little brother he would do anything to see one more time.

Dick opened his mouth probably to annoy Jason for the millionth time, when a voice cuts in from across the cave.

“Don’t want to what?”

Tim emerged from the shadows behind the batcomputer. He was in a pair of grey sweatpants and a black long-sleeved shirt that was too big for him. The shirt hung off his frame in a way that made him look sickly, his hair damp and plastered on his forehead. There was a redbull in his hand that he took a sip from, with a raised eyebrow while walking toward the pair.  

“Todd is refusing Grayson’s pathetic attempt at finding him a partner.” Damian announced from where he was training with Bruce in the middle of the cave.

Jason hadn’t realized that the whole family had been eavesdropping on Dick playing cupid. He shouldn’t have been surprised really, Dick announced everything he said with a level of importance that his words usually lacked. He couldn’t handle not being the center of attention, Jason supposed he had the circus to thank for that.

“Ohhhh” Tim drew out the vowel with a level of understanding. “This is about the girl Dick brought to the gala right?”

Jason scoffed and crossed his arm, a small reflex he had developed as protection. The arms pressing against his chest creating another layer against the world. He was building a cage for the fragile heart that was beating too quickly. The extra blood his body was pumping right now migrated to his face, tinting it to a color eerily similar to the hood he branded himself with.

He turned his gaze to his youngest brother with an irritation so biblical, it was one only brothers could bring it out.

“Son of a Bitch,” Jason grumbled under his breath closing his eyes for a moment before accusing him. “Did you tell everyone about this?”

“Your affections were obvious. I merely confirmed what everyone knew.” Damian stuck his nose in the air, refusing to admit he did anything wrong.

“Jason,” Bruce started out carefully. “There’s no shame in liking someone. I’ve spoken with her a few times. This could be a good place to start-”

“Bruce oh my God, stop.” Jason shook his head, frazzled. “The last thing I want is relationship advice from you.”

Bruce’s previously softened gaze disappeared. His lips pressed into each other forming a thin line. There was a guilt suddenly weighing on his shoulders from producing a son as emotionally constipated as him.

Dick, sensing the tension creeping in through the cracks of the stone floor, opened his mouth again.

“Jason, really. What’s the worst that could happen? It doesn’t go well and you never see her again?”

Jason just stared at him. He didn’t know if he could admit the source of all his fears. He didn’t want to name it, didn’t want to make it real. If he kept it in his head and heart, he could ignore it. It’d be something that he deals with sometimes and buries with the mountains of bodies he has in his closet.

“I-”

“And don’t say you don’t want to again.” Dick puts a finger up, pointing at him. “Give me an actual reason.”

Jason closed his mouth and saw the eyes of the rest of the family on him. Even Alfred, who had been lingering in the back with a tray of finger food for everyone, had found his gaze on the former boy wonder. He ran a hand through the white tuft on his hair, pulling it slightly to try and find the words he couldn’t form.

“She could see me.” Jason finally said. The words came out awkward and quiet. There was a weird pause in between each of the words, like they didn’t fit in his mouth.

“Dude, I hate to be the one to break this to you. But if that’s what you’re scared of, then you’re kind of fucked.” Tim looked at him barely hiding his expression of disbelief. “She’s already seen you, she knows what you look like.”

“Barbara told me that she told her that she thinks you’re hot.” Dick rushed out in a genuine attempt to comfort him, trying to drown out Tim’s unhelpful words. “So, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Dick knew that wasn’t what he actually meant, but he was going to play dumb. He wasn’t going to give Jason the easy way out of this one. He was going to make him do the unthinkable, he was going to make Jason Todd talk about his feelings.

Jason gave him an exasperated look with sweat spilling from his forehead. He knew Dick knew what he meant, but he sat there with an open expression and a guiding smile. He was trying to coax the words out of him, giving him a safe space with the prying eyes of his family.

“You know that’s not what I meant” Jason’s eyes narrow.

“Then explain it to me, I’m not a mind reader ya know.”

Jason threw his head back and his eyes fell upon the roof. All the bats that the cave was home to were asleep. They were gone to a more peaceful world that couldn’t even begin to comprehend the horrors Jason had seen and experienced in this one. He envied them sometimes, wishing he could live isolated by himself with no one to bother him.

“Dick, I- just look at me.” He finally tears his eyes from the roof, and his eyes meet his older brother’s again. His arms outstretch in front of him as if he was putting himself on display at an auction that no one would bid on. “I-, I’m,” He was stuttering, he couldn’t figure out how to word it.

How did he explain that he was a monster. He had killed. He had been killed. Who was going to want to get entangled with that mess? Who would want to put up with this level of disaster? He couldn’t impose this life on anyone else. He couldn’t drag anyone else down this hole, especially not you.

“I’m not exactly a star candidate.” Jason avoided everyone’s eyes and his fell upon the old Robin suit across the cave. The reminder of who he used to be bleeding into the failure he became. “She’s only going to be disappointed.”

“You don’t know that, Jason.” Dick’s expression softened.

Jason hated when he did that, when he shifted from annoying older brother to someone he could trust. Someone he could love. He couldn’t explain what it was exactly that shifted in his demeanor that opened the flood gates. He didn’t know if it was the way his eyebrows creased with a level of sympathy he didn’t deserve, or the way his shoulders slumped dropping the playful act, or the way he had a small trusting smile making him feel safer than any safe house he could run to. It was infuriating how easily Dick could lower anyone’s walls.

“If you really don’t want to, I’ll let it go. I’ll tell her you’re not looking right now. But I think there’s a small part of you that wants this.” Every word he was saying slowly peeled back the layers of protection Jason had been guarding as if they were life or death. He had never felt so disarmed, so naked. “And it’s okay to want this, Jason.”

“Is it?” He couldn’t help but ask, looking around at the faces of the rest of his family. Vulnerable in a way he had never allowed himself to be in front of them. Exposed in a way he had never dreamed of letting them see. “When she finds out about everything, when she finds out what I am, she’s going to run. She’s going to turn around and leave me with the fact that I’ve given myself away to get it given back.” He huffs almost cynically while passing his fingers through his hair for the millionth time. “And the worst part is, I won’t even be able to blame her for it.”

Jason wasn’t looking at anyone but Dick while talking. He can imagine that most of their faces fell along with his.

Dick who regretted everything that happened with Jason when they were younger. Dick who wasn’t the best brother to him. Dick who wasn’t there for him, like he was for the others. He never paid that much attention to him. He had been so tied up in his own emotions, his own feelings toward Bruce, that he abandoned Jason. He left him alone in this house, and it killed him. He never forgave himself for that, so he vowed to himself to never abandon another Robin. Trying to do for them what he couldn’t do for Jason: showing them the ropes, giving them tips and tricks he never had. Now, watching the self-deprecation clawing at his little brother’s throat made him want to call Wally and force him to take Dick and travel back in time. He wanted to rewrite the story and rescue him. To hug the version of Jason that would let himself be hugged. He wanted so desperately to save him from himself, to save him from the nightmare he called home.

He never intended to dig up old trauma by bothering Jason about the date. He wanted him to be happy. He had lived so much of his life as a shell of who he once was after the resurrection. No one blamed him for it, no one could even begin to imagine what it must be like to go through that. To watch the countdown to your death, to die scared and alone.

Dick only ever wanted him to be happy.

So, when Damian came up to him after the Gala saying that he had a crush on you, he was ecstatic. Jason hadn’t had a crush since high school. Dick was also privy to some information that you were down bad for his brother. He had to do something for Jason, and he thought this was the best opportunity. He had to start somewhere after all; there were years of being a horrible brother to make up for.

“She could also stay, Jason.” Dick offered him, the rest of the cave silent as he threw him a bone. “She could like who you are, help you come out of hiding.” He paused holding the fragile eye contact, scared that if it broke all the progress he made would dissipate. “I’m not going to force you to go on the date, but I want you to think about it. A date doesn’t have to mean marriage. It can just mean trying again, and you owe it to yourself to try”

Jason sighed to himself. He was the one who finally broke eye contact with his older brother. He dragged his calloused hand down the length of his face. Tonight had been tiring enough as it was after patrols, adding all the emotions he allowed himself to confront and talk about only added to the exhaustion. He wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion or the small hope that bloomed in his chest that made him agree, but he looked back at Dick and nodded.

“Alright, I’ll think about it.”

•───────•°•✶•°•───────•

It had been three days since that conversation when you got a call from Dick. It was a quarter past noon, and you were on your lunch break. You had chosen to walk the two blocks to the small pizza shop near your office when you feel the familiar buzz in your pant pocket.

Pulling out the phone, you see the name of your best friend light up the screen and your eyes narrow slightly at it. You love Dick with your whole heart, but a call from him was nothing short of rare. Hearing from Dick before one or two in the afternoon was even rarer. His sleep schedule was so messed up you were half convinced he was nocturnal.

The call and time of day was concerning for you, if Dick Grayson was calling you that meant the world was ending tomorrow. If Dick was calling you before one, the world was ending now. Your thumb hesitates slightly before sliding the green call button across the bottom of your screen and bringing the phone to your ear.

“Hello?”

“Hello, my beautiful best friend!” Immediately, you’re put off. He’s way too enthusiastic for it to be a Wednesday afternoon. “What are you doing Friday night?”

“Nothing… Why?” There’s a questioning edge in your tone as you side eye the phone.

“I have the most spectacular news!”

“What did you do?” The question is immediate with suspicion prominent in your tone. He was up to something, and when Dick Grayson was up to something, it was rarely good.

“Have you so little faith in me?” He was always one with a flair for dramatics. There’s a small sigh he adds to the act, and you can’t help the eye roll. “You’re going to owe me big time after this.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve made your biggest dream come true.” He says so sure of himself that you scoff.

“I didn’t know you convinced Harry Styles to finally release Medicine. How’d you do it?”

He groans your name as if you’re personally responsible for the pain in his side.

“No, but seriously what did you do?” There’s a slight hesitation in the small laugh you give him as an opening.

“I have scored you a date with the one and only Jason Todd.”

You misstep on the sidewalk hearing the name. A quick stumble before recovering and freezing on the cement.

There was no way.

There was actually no way that Dick had got you a date with the guy you’d been crushing on for the past two years.

“What?” He hears the disbelief in your tone and laughs, like he’d been expecting this reaction.

“Yes ma’am. I have gotten you a date with my brother.”

“Wait-” You’re still standing still on the sidewalk and even though he can’t see you, your free hand flies up motioning for him to stop. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you like him….” He phrases it like a question, similar to when a child sounds overly confident with their take on a situation and then realizes they may be misinformed.

Your face turns bright red and are suddenly eternally grateful that you weren’t having this conversation in person.

“H-How do you know that?” Alarm bells start ringing between your ears. You hadn’t been that obvious had you? There was only a handful of people who know about your quiet crush on Jason.

“Well I called Barbara the other night-” You groan and hit your palm on your forehead. You knew telling her would be risky, they’d all known each other since they were kids, but she promised she wouldn’t say anything.You knew exactly who you were calling after you hung up with Dick “… when I told her that Jason thought you were pretty she got sup-”

“Jason thinks I’m pretty?” You cut him off not caring for the rest of the sentence.

“Well duh,” he responds as if the answer was painfully obvious, as if you’d asked him if the sky was blue. “What kind of question is that? You are pretty.” There’s a sincerity in his voice that sounds so innocent it leads to a genuine smile creeping onto your face.

“But anyway,” he goes to rerail the conversation back on to his initial mission. “I’ve got it all planned out for you. Friday at 8:30, I’ll send you the address. Don’t be late!”

“I-” You didn’t get the chance to say anything before he hung up on you.

You hold your phone to your ear for another second, then bring it to your chest. It was cringy and possibly a little cliché, but you cradle the phone against your heart. Nothing could bring you down from this high.

No annoying boss. No incompetent coworkers. No pestering call from your mother.

Because you lived in a world where you had a date with Jason Todd.

A world where Jason Todd thinks you’re pretty.

•───────•°•✶•°•───────•

08:28 p.m.

The time on your phone screen mocks you while you wait outside the bowling alley.

Of-fucking-course that would be the type of date Dick Grayson planned. You should’ve seen this coming from a mile away. The moment Dick told you that he would send you and Jason a time and place to meet you should’ve prepared for the worst.

You’re standing at the neon lit entrance shuffling your weight from foot to foot, when you start fiddling with the charm on your necklace. Glancing at the families and groups passing by you suddenly hear steps that echo heavier than the normal persons. Recognizing the steps you’d learn to anticipate at Dick’s family reunions, you turn your head to see your date walking toward you.

It was frustrating how good he looked. He was lit up by the flickering streetlights that lined the streets of downtown. He was dressed in a pair of jeans that might have existed since the dawn of time and a plain red hoodie with a giant leather jacket layered over it. His broad shoulders were slouched almost as if he was trying to shrink into himself and become as small as possible. The hands you’d caught yourself staring at too often are shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket. The cool breeze that lingered in Gotham’s darkest nights is blowing through his hair, as if nature itself came to witness the unbelievable story of Red Hood on a date.

He was an anxious bundle of nerves for the past two days. After agreeing to this, he almost instantly regretted it. Jason hadn’t let himself want anything like this since the resurrection; he was too broken, too haunted, too cursed. Yet somehow, Dick had managed to get through to him, managed to break down the labyrinth of walls he’d built to protect himself.

It’s just a date; he kept repeating to himself. It was just one date. He can survive this.

He thought once he saw you that all the anxiety from the past week was going to bubble over and make him explode, but it was actually the opposite. When his eyes met yours and you had that warm smile you were never seen without, the anxiety fizzled out. There was a warmth that blossomed in his chest melting away all his fears.

He watched you raise your hand and shyly wave at him. Taking in your body language, he could sense that you were nervous too. Your uneasiness comforted him a little, the anxiety stringing you both together made this almost normal. Like he wasn’t just some pathetic mess of a man trying to go on a date with a girl who was way out of his league.

“Hey!” The simple word paired with your honeyed voice evaporated all his concern.

Offering his best attempt at a smile, he realized it came out awkward at best. He raised his hand to mirror the shy wave and gave out a small “Hi.”

“You’re early” You mentally face palm. Why was that the first thing you said? God, why were you so awkward?

“So are you.” He sounds relaxed but his motions betray him. His right-hand flies out from his pocket to the back of his neck to scratch it absentmindedly and pull at the hair on the nape of his neck.

“Yeah, well Dick had this whole thing of not being late because of the time slot I guess.” If you laughed awkwardly one more time, you swore you were going to sew your lips shut in the bathroom.

“Yeah…” Jason sighed looked at the dimly lit bowling alley with dread. “I can’t believe I let him talk me into letting him plan this.”

“Why?” A teasing smile finds its way onto your face as you try to relax or be semi-normal about this. “Is someone bad at bowling?”

“Bad is…” he pauses for a moment pondering his word choice. “…generous”

“Well, you know what they say about bad bowlers” You attempt the sly joke to revive his confidence.

“What do they say?”

A snort escapes you while walking past him to go inside. When you realize he isn’t following, you turn your head to look at him over your shoulder. The creases on his forehead caused by a single eyebrow raise expressed his genuine confusion at the joke. His mouth was parted slightly while trying to piece together the universally acknowledged truth about bad bowlers, a truth he seemed to be left out of.

“You really don’t know?” Heat begins to rise to your face, realizing you were going to have to explain this to him.

“Should I?” There’s a playful hint in his voice that’s trying to hide the embarrassment of confusion.

“Um, Well-” you laugh and swallow nervously. Your eyes start darting around to see if any other lingering soul would want to intervene and explain this to him. “It’s just a joke that guys who are bad at bowling are um-” you huff out some air and shake your hands to see if he’d get the hint. He doesn’t.

“Good in bed.” You finish the explanation for him.

Now it was your turn to scratch the back of your neck and pull your hair. Fingers twirling around the hair at the nape of your neck, hoping he wouldn’t think you were too crude to joke about this straight off the bat.

“Oh-” his face had turned beet red, and his mouth had made the shape of the vowel he’d just repeated.

The expression on his face made all your flustered feelings disappear. You started laughing so hard your hand flew to your mouth to try and hide it so he wouldn’t feel too embarrassed.

And in that moment for the first time in years, while Jason stood in front of this horrifically lit bowing alley listening to you laugh so openly; the clouds parted and the sun shone on him in the form of a girl he’d spend the rest of his life trying to deserve.

•───────•°•✶•°•───────•

A/N: I had a 3 hour drive last week and “when he sees me” from waitress came on and inspiration struck lol

“Can anyone tell me the significance of the crew changing how they refer to Charlotte from her name to Ms. Doy-”

Some chalk had dusted over your hand where you had been writing the question on the board when you hear someone landing a punch behind you. Whipping your head around you see quite the scene laid out in your classroom.

Damian Wayne is standing over Jordan Hawthorne.

The classroom had gone silent collectively holding their breath at the sight. Jordan Hawthorne was, from your understanding, the grade bully. You had called home weekly, practically being on a first name basis with his mother. The school never did anything about him, frustrating you to your wits end. His parents were huge donors for the school, essentially allowing him to do whatever he pleased. He was bigger than most of his classmates along with an insufferably large attitude, and Damian was… small. He was probably the smallest boy in your class and Jordan loved that. He had a knack of picking on the kids who wouldn’t stand up for themselves, the quiet ones. You watched him like a hawk in your classroom when you noticed how he chose his prey. You didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable in your classroom, this was school not a war zone. No one should feel unsafe here.

While Damian didn’t get along with most of the kids in his grade he had never outright acted on that dislike. He would sit quietly in his chair, raising his hand when he knew the answer or had a question. On all of his assignments there were impressive sketches of different animals in the margins, you would always write an “amazing” or “beautiful” next to the drawings while grading. Despite his eloquent perspective of life, he was still a little boy who wanted some praise for his skill. It was your job as his teacher to harbor and stimulate creativity. A quick glance at him after handing back assignments confirmed your suspicion, there was a rare genuine smile at the fact that someone had noticed him. While being relatively quiet and unassuming, everything he said and did was done with purpose. Which meant something had happened here. Damian never acted without a cause.

You still had the chalk in hand when you recovered from the shock, and Jordan Hawthorne was glaring at Damian from where he had landed on the floor.

“You’re dead meat kid.” He growled and Damian only put his fists up.

When he props himself up with his hand, you finally snap back into reality and rush to where they are in the center of the classroom. The class has circled around them, and some pulled out their phones to record as though this is primetime TV.  

You push past the congregation of children and unfortunately, neither of the boys saw you coming. They were in their own little world of battle and just as you stepped in between them, Jordan had swung as hard as he could. Punching you right in the stomach.

You were not getting paid enough for this.

It hurt more than you let on. All the wind had been knocked out of you, but you were able to disguise the impact from pain to exasperation. You took a deep breath and see the wide eyes of all your students and order the boys,

“Hallway, both of you. Now.” You lift your gaze around the classroom at the stunned expressions of your remaining students, “The rest of you, sit down and start on the homework.”

And for the first time in your three years of teaching, there was no pushback. No complaints or groaning from students. There was just the quick shuffle of footsteps and chairs squeaking from being dragged across the floor then, silence. Peace and Quiet.

The boys follow out of the classroom, flanking you from each side. You walk to the social studies classroom across the hallway, where there’s a teacher’s aid. She’s an undergrad student trying to get some teaching hours with Mr. Horn, but she helps out around the school too. You open the door and pop your head in with a cautious smile.

Mr. Horn wasn’t particularly kind when his lessons were interrupted. He was super old and believed you should only speak when spoken to, so you wait until he finishes his question to the class and turns to look at you. He has an eyebrow raised prompting you to talk.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt.” The apology was useless, but he still appreciates the sentiment. “Could I borrow Sophie for a moment? I have to walk two students down to the office and need someone to watch my class while I step away.”

“Ah yes, of course.” He doesn’t seem too upset about the interruption, realizing that it was something that couldn’t wait. He looks at Sophie from her spot at the back of the classroom and cocks his head in your direction. She nods with a gentle smile on her face and makes her way out the door.

A bashful smile is on your face while thanking her for the help. She laughs it off with an “Of course!” then walks into your classroom. Sighing you look back at the perpetrators of your quickly bruising stomach.

“Come on you two.” Is all you offer them before you turn around and start the trek to the front office. There’s an echo of two sets of steps following your path and you finally drop the mask. Noticing that there are no eyes that can see your face, it contorts in pain. And as tempted as you are, you don’t bring your hand to your stomach, not wanting to give away how much it actually hurt. The bruise is already forming under the white button down you wore today. You just continue taking deep breaths until you make it to the office.

It takes about five minutes to make it all the way across the Academy. Within the first couple of days here, you learned that it’s not difficult to get lost here. It’s all the same gothic architecture that they refuse to put signs on. The only exceptions to that were the classroom numbers on the doors, which makes it too easy to miss the office in your opinion. It took you about three weeks of working here to finally learn your way around.

You pull open the door of the office, and the boys walk in single file. The secretary greets you with a smile, about to ask why you’re in the office and then sees the boys in front of you. Jordan was a regular here, so she picked up on the unsaid by his presence alone.

“Dawn’s not in a meeting right now so you can walk ‘em right in.” She informs you.

“Thank you, Nancy.” You say with a smile.

On your first day, Horn told you to make sure to get on Nancy’s good side. She knew everything about everyone at this school. Having her on your good side meant protection from the Dean, Dawn. Since everyone knew that Nancy knows everything, Dawn would trust her on her opinions on faculty. Which meant you always smiled a little wider and sometimes would get an extra pastry from your favorite cafe, when you knew you would run into Nancy that day.

You walk to the end of the skinny hallway to where the door to Dawn’s office is cracked open. You stand at the entrance and knock on the wooden door frame, and she looks up from her desktop with a calculated smile. She had long red hair and was in her mid-40s. She always wore pantsuits, she had the same one in four different colors and would rotate them. You avoided interacting with her as much as possible because she had a weird vibe to her, she always looks at you like you were a puzzle she hadn’t figured out yet.

“Good morning, Miss,” She addresses you. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this lovely visit!”

“Good morning, to you too! Unfortunately, I don’t come bearing the best news.” You tell her with an embarrassed half-smile. “I have a Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. Wayne out here with me, they um… got in a fight in my classroom.”

She closes her eyes and throws her head back in the same breath. This was the worst part of the job, and you don’t envy her for having to sit through it. “Yes, of course, send Mr. Hawthorne in first. Just make sure to pick up the witness report from Nancy on the way back.”

You nod and step out of the office. Hearing what the Dean said, Jordan walks into the classroom with a smug look on his face. The face of a kid who knows mommy and daddy will get him out of trouble. The door shuts behind him, and you look down at an anxious Damian Wayne sitting in the hallway. His feet don’t quite reach the floor from the chair, and his legs are swinging back and forth, betraying his carefully neutral exterior. You stand next to him in silence just looking at him while he has a staring contest with the patterned office carpet.

“It was unnecessary for you to take the punch for me. I could handle the brunt of it.” He says without looking at you.

“I know,” You try to think of how to word this to him, not wanting to damage the fragile ego he claims is indestructible. “But I don’t like fighting in my classroom.” You place a hand on his shoulder, and he finally tears his eyes from the floor and looks up at you.

“What happened?” You ask him with a gentleness you usually reserved for the children at the orphanage you volunteered at on Sundays.

“Hawthorne said some inappropriate words to Sarah, and you know how she is.” He gestures with his hands, motioning that her personality should be obvious. “She lacks the ability to stand up for herself. What he said was vile and she was uncomfortable. She asked him to stop and he continued. He kept taunting her and she looked on the verge of tears. So, I…”

“Hit him.” You finish the story for him.

“Yes.” He confirms unapologetically.

You exhale while processing the story. You’re trying to figure out your next words to him. In all honesty, you are secretly proud of him. You hated when boys get nasty in your class. It happened more often than you’d like and you tried your best to catch it and put a stop to it, but you couldn’t catch them every single time.

However, you can’t tell your student that you’re proud of him for laying out another one of your students without risking a write-up from your supervisor, despite how much he deserved it. Your only concern now was that you would have to drag poor Sarah into this. She was very shy and would rather swallow a knife than open up. You would have to approach her carefully.

“I’m not sorry.” He cuts into your thought process.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be.” You hold his gaze. He doesn’t look apologetic at the fact that he hit the Hawthorne boy, but there’s a glimpse of worry lingering in his eyes. You’re not entirely sure where it’s from and you don’t get the chance to find out when Dawn opens the door and motions for Damien to join them inside.

“Go on.” You tell him lifting your hand from his shoulder. He nods and gets up, walking around you to go inside. He sits down and right before Dawn closes the door, he looks at you once more with that same flicker of anxiety and then the door closes.

Walking back to Nancy’s desk to pick up the report and regret not calling out sick this morning. This was only the beginning to a very long day. 

° ❀ ⋆ .  ೃ࿔ * : ･ ° ❀ ⋆ . ೃ࿔ * : ･

Sighing to yourself during your free period you start to fill out the witness report. You’ll have to submit it to the headmaster and call a parent or guardian to set up some form of a parent-teacher conference. Along with your stomach, your head’s been aching all day. For some odd reason, the divorced couple that lived next to you seemed to think that a Sunday night was the perfect time to have reconciliation sex. Safe to say that the headboard slamming into your shared wall at three in the morning was not the alarm you were expecting to wake up to.

Your eyes keep coming in and out of focus and you decide after filling out the date and time of the report, to place the pen back in the cup at the top of your desk. There was no point in filling out the form if you could barely concentrate. Elbows propped on the desk you drop your head in your hands and feel your fingers drag along your face. Peeking through your hand to check the time on the desktop, you bite back a groan seeing that it’s not even noon. It’s been the longest day of the year so far and it’s only 11:52.

You move to pull open the bottom filling cabinet. You might as well try to get in contact with the parents to set up the conference. Looking through the letter dividers, you find Damian’s first and flip it open. You read through some pages before finding the contacts. Scanning through them you notice there’s a father, a legal guardian, some brothers, but no mother. Damian had told you some stories of his mom, and you assumed she was still present in his life, but that didn’t seem to be the case anymore. You had never read through the school ordered file before, you usually never did. There was more to a student than what Gotham Academy records had to say, but this did help piece a fraction of the Damian Wayne puzzle together. You start going down the line of contacts for Damian, to make the first call.

You pull the office phone that lies on your desk closer to you and dial nine to get an outside line. The first number you dial is the phone number that belongs to his father, Bruce Wayne. You’re hunched over your desk on the phone praying he doesn’t pick up. You’ve had the luxury of speaking to him once before when Damian won an award for his essay on animal rights and it was nothing short of awkward. Whether they realize it or not, Bruce and Damian are very similar. The press liked to paint Bruce Wayne as a reckless, playboy, billionaire, and maybe it was because you are his son’s teacher, but he was nothing like that.

Speaking to him felt like pulling teeth, it was so uncomfortable. He stood tall and remained quiet the whole night. Barely saying more than three-word sentences. You’re sure that once you can have a good conversation with him that he’s good company, but this wasn’t going to be the type of conversation you were hoping for.

By some miracle, it seems that someone was listening to your prayers today and Mr. Wayne did not pick up the phone, you let out a breath of relief when the voicemail recording begun playing in your ear. So, you moved to the next contact, Alfred Pennyworth.

He was one of Damian’s other legal guardians, but you’d never met him or heard of him. And apparently, the universe wanted to keep it that way because Mr. Pennyworth doesn’t pick up his phone either.

Does anyone in this family answer the phone?

You try to call the third contact listed on Damian’s information sheet and freeze, staring at the name of his eldest brother. 

There’s no way.

It couldn’t be.

Richard’s a pretty common name, right? And so is Grayson.

Because there’s no fucking way that your Richard Grayson is Damian’s older brother.

He can’t be.

You immediately regret cashing in your prayer for the day, you would have a million conversations with Bruce Wayne if it meant you didn’t have to make this phone call. You weren’t sure how many Richard Graysons there were in the tristate area, but you knew one, and with your luck he would be the one on the other end of the line. You avoided thinking about the way your brain was engraving the phone number to memory; while your fingers cautiously pressed the numbers that created a portal into the years of your life you tried to scrub away in the shower.

Please Don’t Pick up. Please Don’t Pick up. Please Don’t Pick-

“Hey, this is Dick”

Fuck.

Of course, he had to be the person in the family to pick up the phone. Tears well up in your eyes instantly recognizing his voice. How could you not? You used to drift off into sleep while it whispered sweet nothings in your ear every night.

“Hello, this is Richard Grayson correct?” You slap your forehead, fuming that fate has decided to drag this man back into your life after it cost you everything to remove him.

“Yes,” He confirms and you fight every urge in your body to hang up on him. “And who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

“Hi, I’m Damian’s English Literature teacher at Gotham Academy.” You do everything to avoid saying your name. “I am trying to contact one of his guardians and neither of the others listed have answered. Do you have a moment?”

He pauses for a brief moment, and you wish the ground would swallow you whole at your desk. Holding the office phone against your ear, you drop your forehead to the cold surface of the worn desk and close your eyes. During the short silence you begin to contemplate what you’re doing with your life.

“Yeah, I do, just give me a second.” There’s muffled speaking while he excuses himself from a conversation. “Um- out of curiosity.” The color drains from your face at those words, begging to any god or star in the sky listening that he doesn’t recognize you. “Who are the other contacts listed?”

“Oh yes-” You sit up catching your breath, this was a question you would answer gladly. Looking back at the paper to list off, “I have a Bruce Wayne and an Alfred Pennyworth as his father and legal guardian.”

“Ahhh, yeah. That checks out. They’re… away at the moment. I’ve been taking care of the rascal by myself.” He sighs in a way that indicates taking care of Damian Wayne was a full-time job. “Anyway, what did the little monster do now?” He sounds so casual almost as if he’s kicked back on a desk chair pushed back to the point it’s about to tip over.

You squeeze your eyes shut as tight as they physically can, grateful no one else is in the room. This conversation, his voice, him- it’s bringing too many memories back. Flashbacks of a life you tried to forget. Flashbacks of a life you buried when you left Blüdhaven.

“Damian got into a physical altercation with another student today in my class” there’s a slight pause in between each word while you choose your words carefully, since it technically wasn’t a fight. “It’s Academy policy that I have to meet with the student responsible for beginning the physical altercation’s guardian to discuss his behavior. Since Mr. Wayne and Mr. Pennyworth were not available at the moment, I would have to set up a time to meet with you.” The speech comes out robotic, making this call more than enough times in your career here to last you a lifetime. “Unless you can get in touch with Mr. Wayne or Mr. Pennyworth, we can set up a time with them instead?”

You bite your fist struggling to not sound too hopeful with your pathetic attempt of finding an out. This would be a really big fat “fuck you” from the universe, having to hold this meeting with him. You could have been struck with any other typical Gotham luck: you could’ve gotten robbed, kidnapped by Poison Ivy, held at gun point, but no. You had to have a conversation with the man you moved cities to get away from.

“No, I can come to the meeting!” He sounds way too enthusiastic about this, especially considering you just told him that his little brother decked someone. “I can be there around three-thirty today if that works? That’s when school usually gets out right?”

“Yup!” You sounded too perky for your liking. “That works for me, I’ll jot it down in my calendar.”

“Perfect see you then!”

“See you then Mr. Grayson.”

You hang up the phone rougher than the headmaster would probably like, but screw that. It’s his policy that’s making you meet with the man who taught you that heartbreak could make you physically ill.

You spend the rest of your free period dreading this meeting that you forget to fill out the witness report and talk to Sarah. You usually left Jordan’s parents to the Dean or Headmaster because they were such important donors. It was also his fifth strike in the month which meant they would have to deal with it anyway. You end up handling everything during your lunch, one of the firsts you’ve spent alone. The boys were both in lunch detention which meant the little Wayne would not be joining you today.

Damian usually spent his lunches with you because he didn’t like any of the kids in his classes. He was reserved, never spoke much with anyone. Over the course of the year, he slowly started speaking to you more, opening up. You let him tell you what he was comfortable sharing, making sure to not pry with him. On days he didn’t feel like speaking during lunch, you would pull the screen down and put on a nature documentary that you knew he would enjoy. It was a little thing you would do to let him relax, and he’d never tell you how that made your classroom feel more like home than the manor did some days.

After deciding you would talk to Sarah tomorrow to ask her about what happened, and walking to the office to submit the witness report to Nancy, you make it back to the quiet corner of school where your classroom lies. When the door shuts behind you, you slide down to the cold floor and stare at the tile lined ceiling.

You’re sure that somewhere the hands of fate are laughing at you, puppeteering this cruel plot. That just when you had barred Richard Grayson from your mind, he had to make an infamous comeback.

The bell rings which brings the lunch period to a close, along with your pity party. You stand and brush off your clothes with a deep breath and plaster the wide teacher smile you mastered in all those volunteer hours during undergrad.

When the students start filing into your classroom, you throw yourself into your lesson about the girl who left everyone she loved and knew behind to start the life she wanted for herself. Your students would never know that you chose this book every year because you saw more of yourself in her than you cared to admit.

° ❀ ⋆ .  ೃ࿔ * : ･ ° ❀ ⋆ . ೃ࿔ * : ･

03:27 p.m.

This is the only time it would’ve been convenient for you to have a villain roaming around destroying Gotham, and of course it doesn’t happen. The Joker must have some sick sense of humor, because not even the devil could construct this type of Hell you found yourself in.

Damian is sitting at desk in front of you, in the scary statue-like way he does when you know he’s had a bad day. You keep bouncing your foot and your heels are clinking on the floor while staring out the window.

Why did it have to be Dick?

“I’m sorry that you had to stay after hours for me.” Damian whispers into the void of the classroom.

“What?” You turn to look at the boy genuinely confused. He’s looking at the desk purposefully avoiding your gaze.

“I told you earlier that I wasn’t sorry for hitting Jordan and I’m not. But you are tapping your leg impatiently on the floor, indicating that you want this to be over, and that is my fault. It is my fault that you are here this late.” He pauses and looks up to meet your eyes, and you see a slight crease in between his brows, and it hits you.

He thinks you’re upset with him.

“For that, I am sorry.” He confirms.

“Oh Damian,” You stand from your desk and make your way to crouch in front of his. “I’m not upset with you.”

“You’re not?” He looks cautious, as if he’s being lured into a trap. The doubtful look on his face pulls at your heartstrings.

“No, what Jordan said and did was wrong and while I can’t condone physical violence as your teacher,” you pause with a wicked glint in your eye. “I can tell you that he had it coming.”

When he internalizes your words and the hidden message in it, he smirks. This poor boy had spent all day thinking you were upset with him, that’s why he looked nervous in the office. Behind that mature attitude he had, he was still just a ten-year-old boy at the end of the day. So, when he smirks at you, you made sure to smile back. You smile back letting him know your room would always be open for lunch.

You stand back up letting the unsaid hang in the air and turn to walk back to your desk and before you can sit down, the door to your classroom swings wide open and there he is.

Your ex-boyfriend.

With a bouquet of flowers in hand.

The same bouquet he bought you the first time he took you to dinner.

The breath traveling out of your nose gets caught in your nostrils when your eyes land on him. He’s as devastatingly handsome as the day you left him. You tried to tell yourself his beauty would fade with time, the way every guy does when you break up with them. But no, like some cruel twist of luck, he was beautiful. The unkept raven black hair with the lightening blue eyes you spent hours staring into, took you right back to all the nights you tried to forget from college.

“Why did you bring flowers Grayson?” The catalyst for this meeting asks disgusted from his spot at the desk.

“I always bring flowers on a first date!” He responds with the boyish charm that made you fall in love with him at nineteen.

“This isn’t our first date.” You look at him through the narrow slits of your eyes.

You were going to have to start giving yourself more credit. On the inside you were nothing but an anxious bundle of nerves, but you were doing pretty good at not revealing it. You had his attitude to thank for that. Being annoyed at Dick was easy, almost as easy as loving him.

“Well, I know that sweetheart,” You flinch at the old pet name. “But it’s our first date in a while.”

“Dick, this isn’t a date.” You snap at him.

He doesn’t get to do that. Not now. Not after everything.

“Whatever you say Teach.” He gives you a playful look that almost undoes you on the spot. Trying to keep your cool, you glance down at the shell-shocked little boy that followed both of you with the same intensity that some would watch a Wimbledon match. Hie eyebrows looked just about ready to fly off his face while his left nostril was scrunched up, connecting the dots that there may be some history here.

“Damian sweetie,” you try to regain control of the situation. “Can you wait outside while I talk to your brother for moment? I’ll call you back inside in a couple minutes.”

“Only a couple?” He asks with only one eyebrow raised now.

“Yes, only a couple.” You confirm.

“Okay.” He nods and walks slowly, still glancing suspiciously between you and Dick while stepping out.

When the door shuts behind him you let out a breath and shift your eyes to Dick. Looking at him was almost the same as looking at the sun, it was a sweet temptation that once satisfied, burned within seconds. You move your gaze to the flowers shifting your position to lean against your desk. It felt safer than looking right at him.

“When did you realize it was me?” You ask him, addressing the elephant in the room. The faster you got this over with, the faster you could continue with the conference and go home.

“Come on,” He scoffs, “You can’t really think I didn’t recognize your voice from the second you said my name.”

You meet his eyes abashed, ignoring the thunderous ache in your chest that his striking blue irises brought upon you. “Dick that was like the first thing I said!”

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugs his shoulders in a way that expresses it should’ve been obvious he knew it was you. That it would be crazy if he didn’t recognize you from a phone call where you didn’t even say your name.

You pinch the bridge of your nose trying to ground yourself with the quick burst of pain, coming to the conclusion that Dick Grayson was going to haunt you for the rest of your life.

“So, when did you get this gig?” He looks around waving the flowers. “I thought you were still in Blüdhaven-”

“No.” You cut him off so simply that he stops dead in his tracks. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to ask me about my life. You don’t get to know anything anymore. Not after everything.”

He looks taken aback and a sprinkle of defensiveness pools in his posture when he straightens, “Do I need to remind you that you were the one that ended it?”

You square your shoulders pushing off the desk and narrow your eyes again, “Do I need to remind you why?”

He sighs your name in a broken plea. And just like that, you’re taken back to the run-down college apartment all those years ago where your heart shattered into a million pieces.

° ❀ ⋆ .  ೃ࿔ * : ･ ° ❀ ⋆ . ೃ࿔ * : ･

It was your two-year anniversary with Dick. Money was a little tight, so you agreed to have a small dinner at his place. You usually hung out at your apartment and preferred to cook there, but he had just fostered Haley. He hadn’t spent a night away from her yet and was nervous about leaving her alone for too long.

The little diva was making figure eights between your legs while you cooked dinner and prepped the key lime pie you were going to make for desert. She had almost tripped you three times already, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to scold her when she looked at you. She had mastered those puppy eyes that turned you into mush. She looked so happy when you shifted your attention to her, that you forgot to reprimand her and tossed some food into her mouth instead.

Turning back to the electric stove you turn the knob of the back left burner to high. There’s a rustling of keys and a smile creeps on your face that he’s finally home. Haley stops pacing in between your legs and dashes toward the door clawing at his door frame. Since moving in, Haley seemed to be on a personal mission in securing that your boyfriend does not get his security deposit back. You’d warned him about getting a dog in the apartment, but he brushed it off.

Dick finally manages to open the front door and Haley leaps at him, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He squats down to her level while she barks and licks his face. In the breaks of his laugh, he manages to get out an “I missed you too” and “easy girl” in an attempt to calm down the energetic puppy. After a minute of him petting her fur, she seems to be more relaxed while rolling over on the floor and he finally shifts his gaze to look up at you. He swears he fell in love all over again.

Your hair was pulled back into a bun that was falling apart around the hair tie, there were patches of flour on your cheek and forehead, you had an apron that he bought you for Christmas last year that had stains everywhere, and he doesn’t think he had ever seen a more gorgeous sight. There was something so magical in the domesticity of coming home to you and Haley. It was a type of love he never thought he’d get to experience again after his parents passed. A type of love he’d never had living with Bruce and Alfred.

He never considered himself a selfish person, until he met you. You were his full moon on a dark night. The elixir that brought him back to life every night when he lost his will on the streets. The princess he thought only existed in fairytales. He never wanted to share with anyone.

He had a habit of staring at you drinking in all your beauty at once, like it would be the last time he’d be lucky enough to lay his eyes on you. He soaked up everything you said, everything you did, every part of you, and he stored it deep in his heart. He worshipped you like you were the only god that mattered in this universe.

Dick truly believed the warmth in your eyes could melt all of the snow January brought to Blüdhaven. Stood in his kitchen with your arms crossed leaning against the counter, you had a smile he was convinced could bring world peace. He was a goner before you’d even said hi.

If you weren’t in college and he wasn’t lying to you about being a vigilante, he would’ve gotten down on one knee that night. He would’ve asked you to marry him. He would’ve made a fool of himself by writing you a sonnet declaring his love. He’d tell you how you restored his faith in the world, how you gave him something to fight for in the nights he put his life on the line, how you gave him something worth living for. He was so drunk in love he’d considered yelling how much he loved you form every rooftop in Blüdhaven.

He hadn’t told you about the double life he hid in the shadows. It ate at him every time you looked at him with narrowed eyes, knowing he was leaving something out of the stories he’d rehearsed. He never wanted to bring you into it. If you found out about him, you would never be safe again. He couldn’t do that to someone he loved, not after Jason. He prayed that you would give him more time, so he could figure out how to explain it all to you without outing Bruce. When you asked about the bruises and cuts, he’d brush it off and say he was clumsy or he pushed himself to hard at the gym. You weren’t convinced but you let it go, and he’d thank the stars for giving him an ounce of mercy.  

“Hello, my love” his eyes were sparkling. “Dinner smells amazing.” He stood to his full length and walked over to you, while Haley was jumping and clawing at his jeans.

“Only the best for you.” It came out more sultry than you planned, but Dick seemed into it. He crossed the short space from the door to the kitchen and made his way toward you. He trapped you against the counter with his arms encaging you. Haley was still barking at both of your legs, but you tuned her out getting lost in each other’s presence. Dick always looked at you like it was the first time he had seen you. There was so much adoration in his eyes that you weren’t convinced you deserved.

A flush creeps onto your cheeks when he leans into you and stops a hair from your lips. You feel his breath on your face, and you can smell the cinnamon gum he had definitely been chewing on the drive over. The spark in the air is electric as the favorite part of your day approached. It was the same routine every night Dick came home, you had gotten used to it, but he had an addicting air to him you could never quit. There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes, and you know it’s because he’s testing you. To see if you’ll break first and lean in, you always do.

After counting to fifteen you scoff and push off the counter into him. When your lips meet, you get your first breath of fresh air all day. Blüdhaven’s pollution evaporated when you shared a breath with Dick Grayson. The world melted away and you would die happy if the world came crashing down then. You’d never been kissed the way he had. He was soft and gentle, but desperate. He kissed you in a way that made you feel loved not lusted after. The spark lit on fire every time he touched you, the world had drenched you in gasoline and Dick was the match.

He pulls away too soon for your liking and his breath comes out heavy. He’s giving you that Dick Grayson grin that lights up the sky, and you notice his pupils are blown.

“I missed you today.” He tells you in a low voice that sends a shiver up your spine.

“I missed you too, Grayson.” His arms wrap around you and every threat the world had was nonexistent in his arms. He made you feel safe, at home, at peace with life. Nothing would hurt you in his arms.

He opens his mouth to say something, but you hear the water bubbling from the pot on the stove. You turn your head to see the water boiling and wordlessly break free from your favorite place on Earth. You grab the pasta you’d made from scratch on the counter and slowly drop it into the pot. You’re about halfway done with placing the pasta in the pot when you feel strong arms around your waist.

Apparently, Dick wasn’t satisfied with the kiss and was greedy for more. He hummed quietly in your ear when you told him you’d made crab ravioli for your anniversary. He littered kisses on your neck and shoulders. He held his lips against your skin for a second too long while taking you in. Your favorite place in the world was in his arms, and his was in the crook of your neck. His chin fits perfectly on your shoulder almost as if it was made for him. You felt the smile on your neck when you realized he finally felt like he belonged somewhere.

There had to be a god somewhere that knew the world was going to rip the carpet from your feet and gifted you this last bit of peace. When you finish with the pasta you wipe your hands on your apron and lean against him, your head falling on his chest. He flinches when your head falls back and lets go of you, sucking in a painful breath through his teeth.

Whipping your head around your eyes swim in worry. “What happened? Are you okay? Did I do something?”

He starts shaking his head trying to mask the pain with a smile while dropping his hand that clenched his shirt. “No, no, I’m fine. Sorry” He extended his arms out to you so he could hold you again.

You swat them away and your fingers hover over the wrinkles on his shirt where his hand previously was. “Take it off.”

“Jeez, take me to dinner first.” He tries to lighten the mood with a joke.

Your eyes were as hard as a diamond, and your jaw clenched. “Dick, I’m not playing. Take off the shirt.”

His hands hesitate at the hem of it. A flicker of anxiety he tries to hide behind another smile, but you know him too well for that to work.

“Darling, really. I’m oka-”

“Do I have to take it off for you?” He hears the seriousness when you cut him off and freezes. “Dick, you have all of three seconds to take the damn shirt off.”

Your eyes meet his and it couldn’t be more obvious how much he really doesn’t want to do this, but you’re tired. He comes back multiple times a week with bruises that are black and blue. He’s so sore that he can barely move. You tried asking questions, but he would always brush it off and say he got hurt at practice. He was a P.E. teacher at the high school nearby and the gymnastics coach. You knew there was more to the story, but you let it go, trusting that he’d tell you someday. But you couldn’t wait anymore, if he wasn’t ready after two years he’d never be. Your patience was stretched thin and your worry clouded your judgement.

He sees the relentlessness in your body language and sighs in defeat. His arms cross at the bottom of his shirt and pulls it off in one fluid motion. You could tell by the slight crease in his eyebrows; it was harder for him than he let off.

Your hand flies to your mouth in horror at the sight in front of you. There was a huge gash lining his chest from his left shoulder to the bottom of his right ribcage. He’s already gotten it checked out because it’s been cleaned out and there’s butterfly stitches all around it. You knew this was recent because he didn’t have this last night in bed and the bruises were still pink, not having enough time to fade to the inevitable purple.

“Dick…”

“It looks worse than it is, baby. I promise.”

“Worse than it is?!” He winces at the sudden raise of your voice. “Richard Grayson, you look like someone tried slicing you in half.”

His mouth is opening to make some pathetic excuse when you beat him to it.

“When- How did this happen?”

Behind his eyes you can see he’s fighting a battle with himself, debating what he should tell you. You stare at him, eyes wide waiting for an explanation on why he has gash the size of your arm across his chest.

“Sweetheart I-” he cuts himself short, just looking at you, helpless.

“Dick, tell me the truth.” Your voice is deadly. “All of it: the scars, the bruises, the pain, this- Where do they come from?”

He swallows a lump in his throat and looks around the empty apartment in hopes of a ghost coming to save him. The defeated expression you know too well from your previous fights is etched on his face when he meets your eyes.

“I- I can’t”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Your response is instant.

“I can’t tell you where I got them.”

“Why?” Betrayal flashes across your features and your shoulder square, defensive. “I’m your girlfriend, I’m not going to judge you. I’m here for you. I’ve always been. But I can’t be here for you if you don’t let me.”

He looks so distraught and for the first time in your life, you see tears lining Dick Grayson’s eyelids in frustration. Frustration you don’t know the source of. His mouth parts and shuts multiple times in the same minute, not being able to find an explanation that is both believable and will keep you safe.

“Dick, I need the truth.” There’s a finality in your voice that you hope doesn’t have to come into fruition. “You have to be honest with me, or-” you take a deep breath steadying yourself for what you hope is an empty threat. “Or I leave.”

“No- Please no. Don’t do this.” He crosses over to you in one step and grabs your biceps looking at you with nothing but pain reeking off his figure.

“Then don’t make me make that choice. I don’t want to, but I will.” You’re both crying now, a river of tears pooling at the floor beneath you that you would rather drown in than leave. You couldn’t imagine living a life without Dick Grayson, but you wouldn’t settle for less than the truth. You wouldn’t stay with half of a man.

“I can’t tell you.” It comes out in a whisper. He rests his forehead against yours, as if it’ll transfer the information he can’t spill from his lips. His eyes are shut, not being able to meet the inevitably of yours.

“Then, I can’t stay.” You close your eyes for one last moment against his forehead. Absorbing every last piece of the man you thought you’d marry.

It took everything in you to break free from him. You didn’t look at him when you turned back to the stove and turned it off. You didn’t turn to him when you took your apron off and hung it over the barstool under the counter. You didn’t turn to him when you grabbed your purse from the coffee table.

You pet Haley one last time with tears flowing freely form your eyes and kissed between her eyes. She licked your chin, happy that you had turned back to her, not knowing you weren’t coming back.

You stand back up and look at him one last time. Your heart crumbles when you meet his eyes and he makes one last pathetic attempt with an “I love you” from across the room.

“I love you too,” it comes out more pained than endearing. “But I love me more.”

And you opened the door to a life you’d never wanted to believe could exist. A life without Dick Grayson. You sobbed the whole way home, hating yourself for your standards.

° ❀ ⋆ .  ೃ࿔ * : ･ ° ❀ ⋆ . ೃ࿔ * : ･

You shake your head at the memory and look back at him with eyes blazing. “No Dick. You lied to me. You lied to me for years.” The sentence comes out heavy, all those years of weekly therapy went to shit the moment he walked into this classroom, and you hate him for it. You hate that he still has this level of control over you. “I didn’t even know you had a brother, or that you were related to Bruce Wayne of all people?!” You throw your hands up in the air laughing to yourself. “You told me you were an orphan.”

“Well, if we are getting into the nitty gritty, I am technically still an orphan. I was never adopted. I’m still just Bruce’s ward.”

It takes all the self-restraint you have to not rip those flowers out of his hand and beat him over the head with them. You just stare at him, no words, no expression, just an empty stare. For the years you spent together it was one of the few things you’d learn that would unsettle him. Dick Grayson could not sit in silence.

Leaning into it, you begin to drown in each other’s existence. Everything you never said, everything he kept from you. Coming to the surface about to break free when he sighs and looks beyond you at your desk. He sees the book that you’re reading with the class and there’s a cautious smile on his face.

“The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle? Again?”

“Yeah, it’s a good book for the kids. I read it with all my classes.” There’s a twinge of insecurity in your tone. You sometimes forgot that he also kept those memories from your relationship, that you weren’t the only one burdened with reminders.

When you and Dick dated you read this book at least twice a year. It was your favorite book when you were younger. Your mom used to read a chapter every night before tucking you into bed. He had read it with you a couple of times when he realized how important this book was to you. And deep in your closet buried with your skeletons, there’s a shoe box full of memories that kept the annotated copy he wrote for you. It was the best present you had ever gotten and when you started throwing everything out, you couldn’t bring yourself to toss it.

“I guess some things never change.” He looks at you with the smile still painted on his face and no judgement in his tone.

He was dressed completely normal, but there were still remnants of your relationship in his clothing. He was wearing relaxed fit jeans which he only started buying when you two were dating because you told him you liked how they fit his ass. He wore a grey T-shirt that clung to his biceps a little tighter than you knew he considered comfortable because you told him once as a joke, you liked having his arm on display. And lastly, there was a silver chain that hung from his neck. He had both gold and silver, and preferred gold, but you told him one day that you thought the silver brought out the blue in his eyes and he never went back.

There was a lump in your throat you couldn’t swallow no matter how hard you tried. He looks frozen in a time where you truly believed that Dick Grayson would have done anything for you. Anything but tell you the truth.

I guess he was right, some things never change.

“Mhm.” Was the only sound you could manage when you look back at him.

“Listen, about everything that happe-” His eyes soften.

“Dick not right now. We’re at a parent-teacher conference and if I keep your brother outside any longer, he’s going to break down my door.” You see Damian’s eyes peeking through the skinny window of your classroom door and attempt to get this conversation back on track.

“Then when?” His eyes have a deep desire in them that roots you to the stone floor. You didn’t realize it but over the course of the conversation he had gotten closer to you, his fingers had made their way to your wrist. He wasn’t holding on tight, but you found yourself incapable of breaking free from his grasp. Your skin was ablaze at the light touch near your hand and you leaned into it, into him.  

“I’m busy tonight but-” You faltered. You were not busy tonight. You had no plans, but this was too much for you today. This was as much of Richard Grayson you were willing to put yourself through at the moment.

“Tomorrow then?” He was on the verge of begging, you’re sure if you told him to get on his knees and ask, he would. “We can meet at the park. Around five?”

“Dick,” you sigh, “I’m not sure abo-”

“I’ll tell you everything- I’ll bring Haley.” He stumbles on his words that you almost didn’t understand him. It took you a second to remember that Haley is his pitbull and not some random girl he brought up for no reason.

Unfortunately, just like you knew everything that would undo Dick Grayson, he knew everything that undid you.

“Okay,” You resign “five it is.” You lie to yourself by claiming the only reason you agreed to this was for Haley, you missed going on walks with her and playing with her.

And Dick, for the first time in a couple of minutes let himself breathe. He was breathing as if his head had broken the surface after jumping face first into the deep end. His hand falls away to his side, hope radiating off his body.

Glancing back at the door you see a tuft of black hair that’s beginning to get restless. You move past your ex-boyfriend toward the door without another word of your plans, ignoring the way your wrist goes cold at the absence of his fingers. Your hand hesitates over the doorknob before letting Damian back inside.

What the hell did you just agree to?

° ❀ ⋆ .  ೃ࿔ * : ･ ° ❀ ⋆ . ೃ࿔ * : ･

You glance down at your wrist while sitting on the bench.

04:58 p.m.

You got to the park ten minutes ago after sitting restlessly on your couch for an hour. You’d been anxious the whole day while at school and in your apartment. You couldn’t think of anything else. You couldn’t even get through the lesson today and just gave the kids a free day to work on anything they’d like. Your best friend had called you yesterday after work for a “catch up” call and you conveniently left out that you were meeting up with your ex-boyfriend.

After the breakup, his name was forbidden to speak around your friends and family. They hated him. Your mom flew up from where she retired in Florida to Blüdhaven the first weekend after the breakup, since you hadn’t left your bed in three days. Your best friend did the road trip from where she went to university in Central City the weekend after that.

If they found out that you had agreed to meet with the man who destroyed your whole outlook on life, they’d slap you into another dimension.

You stand up moving your purse to your shoulder getting ready to leave after concluding that this is an awful idea and you shouldn’t have agreed to this, when a familiar grey pitbull jumps at your hip with more force than you anticipated. She knocks you onto the dirt path of the park. You land in a side plank on your left forearm, so you can avoid hitting your head.

“Haley No-” The familiar voice comes a little too late.

You sit on the floor while she laps at your face and barks so loud you think you’re going to suffer from temporary hearing loss. She’s running circles around you and jumping over you in such a happy way that the innocence of the scene brings a smile to your face. She’d doubled in size since you last saw her as a baby. Your heart strings are being plucked like a guitar while she catches her breath, looking at you with those big blue eyes you’d missed.

You finally pull your eyes away from her and see… Nightwing?

You shake your head and stand up so fast you get a head rush. You stumble while balancing yourself, and the vigilante reaches out to help you stabilize.

“Hi, um, I’m sorry- I’m waiting for someone.” You rush out. You don’t know what you’re apologizing for, but you want him gone. If he was near, trouble was bound to find his way to him. You were already going to have to deal with Dick, you didn’t want to handle this too.

After living in Blüdhaven, you had become quite familiar with the vigilante. He had saved you a couple times on your late night walks back from the library. You’d almost gotten mugged like seven times in the years you lived there and he had shown up every time. He never stayed long but made sure you were safe before sending you on your way. You weren’t sure what he was doing in Gotham, but you didn’t really care.

“Darling,” he says quietly and your body freezes in recognition. “it’s me.”

Your jaw drops to hell.

You were going to kill him.

Dick Grayson was Nightwing.

You’re not sure how long you were standing there just staring at him when he laughs nervously.

“Please say something, I’m starting to freak out.” He scratches the back of neck, a nervous tick he hadn’t managed to outgrow, even after all the years you were separated.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. In through your nose and out through your mouth, just like your mom taught you. Then you did the only thing that made sense to you.

You back handed him as hard as you could.

“Okay” he groans rubbing his cheek. “I deserved that.”

“Oh, you most certainly did Richard. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Um-” Through the domino mask you can see his eyebrows rising to his hairline. His hand still cradling his cheek from the slight sting.

“What was so difficult of telling me about this all those years ago? Hm?” You feel the rage about bubbling over the cauldron you’d been stirring all day. You had tried to keep your emotions in check, taking deep breaths when they anxiety threatened to take over.

This being his big secret pissed you all the way off.

He slowly reaches for your arms after they started flailing while yelling at him. He holds them so gently, it doesn’t seem to fit the crime fighting persona in front of you. He looks scared that you’re going to strike him again, and you want to, but don’t. He guides you to the bench you were just on and takes a seat next to you. Haley jumps on your lap and you take the distraction for your hands, petting her back.

“Let me explain.” He says softly.

“Oh, I will, don’t worry. And this better be all off it, Grayson. The whole truth.”

He seems to find your exasperation at him funny, and he lets out a laugh. For a second, you think he’s genuinely laughing at this, at the pain that fucking suit caused you for years and then you see it in the way he cracks his knuckles.

He’s nervous. A nervous Dick was not a common sight, and you take another deep breath trying to calm down. Not only for your sake, but for his.

You look around and see that the park is deserted, and you realize you should probably stop referring to him by his full name. You had just revealed his secret identity multiple times in the past minute. Thankfully for both of you, you were positive the trees and flowers would keep his secret if you asked nicely.

You take yet another deep breath while it was his turn to look around at the park making sure no one else was listening in. And against your better judgement, you grab his hand. He stops looking around and turns to you. You keep your gaze on Haley petting her softly.

It was a small attempt at grounding him, a small comfort you would allow yourself. From the corner of your eye, you see him sit up little straighter, bracing himself. Then he starts talking.

Once he had started, he couldn’t stop. It all came pouring out. Some of it you knew, The circus, his family, the Flying Graysons. Then he got into how Bruce Wayne took him under his wing, literally, when his parents were killed. How he grew up as Robin, how Bruce was Batman. Spending his whole life hiding his secret identity. When he finally broke free from Bruce’s shadow, wanting to make a name for himself with the Titans and then in Blüdhaven. How he fought with Bruce over the years and was replaced as Robin by his adoptive brother, Jason Todd. How Jason died and why they never forgave themselves. How it scared him from ever potentially putting someone in that kind of danger.

“When you and I were together, I wasn’t talking to Bruce.” The earnest look in his eyes is almost too heavy for you to hold. “I didn’t know how to tell you without throwing him under the bus too. I couldn’t do that to him, no matter how upset I was with him. I also didn’t want to do that to you.”

He pauses and takes a couple of breaths. You hadn’t said anything to him while he laid himself bare for you. Just nodding and the occasional squeeze of his hand.

“I didn’t want to put you in a position of constant danger. You would be leveraged against me if any of my or Bruce’s enemies found out about you. I wanted to keep you a secret, to keep you safe. I know that’s not my choice to make for you, but I was scared, scared you’d get hurt, scared you’d leave me once you found out and-”

“Dick honey. You’re rambling.” You cut him off.

He sighs and drops his head to your shoulder. The smell of his shampoo almost suffocates you and your eyes well up. You had been biting back tears through the whole tragedy of his childhood, but the shampoo you used to wash your hair with on nights you ran out of yours is what pushed you to tears.

He feels the shake of your shoulder from crying and lifts his head and wipes the tears instantly. Haley had long fallen asleep on your lap, so you two hadn’t been interrupted by her barking for attention.

“Don’t cry, please. I promise I’m okay.” He tells you while his gloved fingers swipe tears from your cheeks.

You give him an incredulous look, “Dick you are many things, but okay is not one of them.”

He laughs, actually laughs. “I know, but I just don’t know what else to say.”

“You could apologize?” You suggest with a slight humor and slight truth in your tone.

He sighs and drops to the floor in front of you. He props himself up in between your legs, on his knees. The sun has long been set, and you’re thankful for it. If someone walked by and saw Nightwing kneeling in front of you at a park, you weren’t sure you could explain it. He takes both of your hands in his and holds them against his chest.

“I am sorry for lying to you. I am sorry for not telling you sooner. I am sorry for causing you all this heart ache. I don’t want you to think that my suffering takes away from yours. I have spent every moment in the wake of this relationship mourning you. I will always love you and that will never change. I thought about you every day and every night. If you’d give me the chance to prove myself, I’d like to try again.”

Your brain shuts down. You try to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. Dick doesn’t let you get a word in regardless of what you wanted to say.

“I’ll be honest, I’ll go to therapy, I’ll introduce you to my family, I’ll take you on first dates. We can take it slow, start over, do it from scratch. I’ll do it all again, better this time. I’d do it all in every lifetime if it meant I got to spend this one with you.”

You’re still speechless but you try to focus on his words, repeating them felt easier than making up your own sentence.

“We can take it slow? Start over?” You ask hesitantly.

“Yes, whatever you want, however you want.” He nods his head, confirming he’d do anything for you.

You sit on the bench and contemplate what this will do. What it would mean to get tangled up with Richard Grayson again. Your therapist would kill you for one, but it might be worth it. A part of you hated how weak you were against him, how he could turn up and you’d give everything up for him. Even when he broke your heart, he still managed to be the reason it was still beating. After years being tortured with the ghost of him, this was a very bad idea. But sometimes, all a girl needed was a really bad idea.

 “Okay.” You exhale. “We can try again,” His eyes widen under the mask. “But you get one chance. That’s it. If you screw this one up, there’s not another one.”

Dick starts crying and drops his head onto Haley’s back in relief. He couldn’t believe his efforts weren’t in vain. That you would be willing to try again with him. He knew you weren’t lying, that this was his last chance to get it right. He wouldn’t mess it up this time, he wouldn’t let himself even entertain the idea of fucking up. He knew life with you and without you and he would do everything in his power not to relive those pain ridden years again.

So, when he looks up at you, he sees the girl he fell in love with all those years ago for the first time. Her guard was still up, and her eyes weren’t trusting yet, but it was something along the lines of it. Hope that they could eventually make it work. Hope that their paths crossed for the final time and they’d walk the rest of this life together.  

You brought your forehead against his and his hands found their place in your hair. He steals the breath straight from your lungs and you wouldn’t admit it, but you’d suffocate on the spot if it meant your dying moments were with Dick. You sit in that position leaning against him for a couple minutes with tears flowing, repeating sweet nothings to each other.

•───────•°•♡•°•───────•

“You know I’m right.”

You hum quietly while he sighs, not quite indicating an agreement, but that you heard him.

Jason was currently leaning against the door frame at the entrance of the kitchen. His arms crossed showing off the biceps that almost made you fold. Practically feeling his famous unimpressed look your sure was plastered across his face, yours remained ahead, unwaveringly steady in a way that would make him sweat. The floral pink gloves he bought you were angrily scrubbing at a dish that had long been cleaned, another unfortunate victim of your rath.

Your fiancée- the light of your life, however, paid no mind to the way you were seething at the sink. He was no virgin to your silent treatment, or in this case, passive aggressive humming. Last night when he returned from his patrols, he freaked out because the window next to your couch was left unlocked. A habit you only developed after he deemed it an acceptable entrance. There were nights where it was easier to leave it unlocked because you wouldn’t wake up to him tapping the glass at three in the morning, or the inevitable slam of the door when he decided to use a proper entrance; and last night was one of them.

And in that moment, at 02:27 in the morning, Jason had the brilliant idea of giving you a safety lesson. There were times when he acted like he was the only Gothamite in the world, the only person unlucky enough to grow up in this crime-ridden city.

Now, you weren’t naïve enough to believe that he was in the wrong, he wasn’t, but you would never admit that. A shot of bleach was more appealing than admitting that you were wrong- or worse,

That Jason Todd was right.

“You need to start locking the window-” Jason began his pestering again, but was quickly cut off by the porcelain dish clattering in the sink.

The ringing of the china echoed off the walls in your shared apartment. A place previously holding domestic moments and love that didn’t fit in confinement of these four walls, was seemingly on the verge of becoming a war zone.

There weren’t many things that frightened the Red Hood, but watching the pink latex gloves that were currently layered over the ring he proposed with curl into a fist, forced him to stop dead in his tracks.

He watched your shoulders rise and fall taking a deep breath. His shoulders squared, defensive, preparing for a fight, but only for a moment before they slumped back down. He started to remind himself that this wasn’t a bad guy, this wasn’t a villain, this wasn’t a fight he needed to win no matter the cost.

This wasn’t both of you against each other, this was you and him against the problem.

In that brief second where he tensed and calmed himself down- like you taught him- your head whipped around. Hair falling in front of your eyes, framing the face he painted to memory every morning when he woke up and kissed every night before bed. Your body was still turned toward the dishes you cleaned thoroughly but remained scrubbing at with indignation. He swallowed heavily when he saw the look in your eye, there was a stubborn frustration he was expecting, but it was clouded over by something he couldn’t place.

It was unnerving. He didn’t recognize it, not when your body slowly turned to in his direction, not when you slowly peeled off the gloves revealing the ruby on your ring finger, not when your fingers teased the hem of the shirt you were wearing.

He only recognized it when his gaze rose from your delicate hands to meet your fiery eyes, and he saw the test he was about to be handed.

Your hands went from resting at your hip fingering the hem of your shirt to a loose grip that flew to your shoulders, raising your shirt with it.

His lips parted and he choked on his breath. Eyes widening before darkening with a lust when they fell upon the swell of your breasts. It was then that he noticed that you weren’t wearing a bra. His eyes were roaming the valley he knew like the back of his hand and his fingers itched to reach forward. This was his ultimate weakness.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He was still frozen like a deer in headlights when your voice snapped him out of his daze.

“Is there anything else you want to say, Mr. Todd?”

The response was instant. “No ma’am.”

“That’s what I thought.” You murmured to yourself with a humble pride before silently dropping your hands and shielding your breasts again. Quietly, you began slipping the gloves back on and began scrubbing mindless circles on the dishes again.

Jason’s feet were still rooted to the floor when he decided to let it go for the night. This was a fight that could be handled later. After all, there were more pressing matters he wanted to have in his hands tonight.

Fueled by the pop quiz he thinks he might have passed, he approaches you apprehensively. His arms sneak around your waist pulling you flush against him. When you relax in his arms, he realized he not only passed, he aced it.

Kisses are being littered on the path of your shoulder, in the crook of your neck, and apple of your cheek. Each kiss had an apology laced into them that he hoped you would accept. And despite your greatest efforts, he notices the smile you were fighting and decides to test his luck.

“I’m still right though, Mrs. Todd”

Had it not been for the way he addressed you at the end of the sentence, you might’ve actually hit him over the head with the plate you were washing.

You’re still considering it when he gives you that playful grin he wears like second skin, but his distraction works while you think to yourself,

‘Mrs. Todd’ has a nice ring to it.

•───────•°•♡•°•───────•