🧿

The seventh photograph was older.

You were dressed for some Wayne Foundation charity event you’d attended with Jason nearly a year ago, long before you learned why he disappeared at strange hours and came home with bruises he never adequately explained. His hand rested against the small of your back, his head inclined toward yours while you laughed at something outside the frame.

Someone had drawn a red circle around you.

A folded piece of paper sat beneath the photographs.

BRUCE WAYNE CARES ABOUT HIS FAMILY. LET’S SEE HOW FAR THAT EXTENDS.

There was a number beneath it, followed by instructions to wait for a call.

You stood there in the hallway long enough that the automatic light above you shut off.

For several months after Jason disappeared, you’d imagined emergencies that might force you to call him. Your mind had manufactured increasingly ridiculous scenarios in the worst hours of the night, when exhaustion eroded your common sense and his absence became something physical pressing against your ribs. A break-in, a fire, some Gotham disaster that left half the city inaccessible. You’d imagined his name glowing on your screen and wondered whether anger or longing would win.

Eventually, you deleted his number.

You hadn’t forgotten it.

You gathered the envelope and photographs, went back inside, locked every bolt, and called Dick Grayson instead.

He answered before the second ring. “Hey.”

The easy warmth in his voice nearly undid you. You hadn’t spoken to Dick since before Jason disappeared. There hadn’t been a dramatic falling-out with the rest of the family because you’d never been close enough to them for one to happen, but after Jason stopped answering your messages, maintaining relationships with his brothers had felt too much like refusing to understand the message.

“Dick.”

A brief silence followed. Your voice must have given something away because when he spoke again, the warmth was gone.

“What happened?”

You looked through the peephole despite knowing there wouldn’t be anyone there. “Someone left something outside my apartment.”

“What kind of something?”

“Pictures.”

Another pause, shorter this time. “Of you?”

“Yes.”

“Recent?”

You looked toward the kitchen counter where you’d spread everything out.

“Yes.”

Dick’s voice became frighteningly calm. “Don’t touch anything else. Is your door locked?”

“All three locks.”

“Windows?”

“Locked.”

“Good. Stay inside. I’m coming to you.”

You swallowed. “Dick.”

“Yeah?”

Your gaze settled on the old photograph of you and Jason.

“Don’t call Jason.”

The silence on the other end lasted long enough to make your stomach tighten.

“I mean it.”

“I heard you.”

“I called you.”

“I know.”

There were too many things inside those two words for you to sort through.

You closed your eyes. “He doesn’t want to hear from me.”

Dick went very quiet.

When he spoke again, his voice had changed. “I’ll be there soon.”

The call ended before you could ask what that meant.

You spent the next twenty-three minutes pacing between your living room and kitchen. Work received a vaguely worded email about an emergency. Your friend received a cancellation without explanation. Every sound in the hallway stopped you in place, and by the time someone finally knocked, your heart was beating hard enough to make your fingers numb.

You looked through the peephole.

Dick stood directly outside.

Jason stood behind him.

For one disorienting second, the hallway seemed to narrow around the sight of him.

Seven months had changed almost nothing. His hair was slightly longer than you remembered, the white streak falling forward instead of being pushed back. A dark jacket stretched across shoulders you knew too well, and his hands were empty at his sides. There was no mask, hood, or armor, nothing that would identify him as anything other than the man who had once left a toothbrush beside yours and learned which takeout order to place when you’d had a terrible day.

He looked tired.

You hated yourself for noticing.

You opened the door just far enough for Dick to see your face.

“I told you not to call him.”

“I didn’t.”

Your eyes moved to Jason.

His jaw tightened.

Dick lifted one shoulder. “I went and got him.”

“You dragged me out of my apartment,” Jason said.

“You were being difficult.”

“You threatened to break my door.”

The familiar rhythm between them should have been comforting. Instead, it made you acutely aware of how much time had passed while Jason’s life continued somewhere you couldn’t see.

You opened the door wider.

Jason didn’t move.

Dick stepped inside, then looked back when he realized his brother remained in the hallway. Whatever passed silently between them ended with Jason’s mouth flattening before he crossed the threshold.

You closed the door behind him.

It was the first time Jason had been inside your apartment since the last night he slept beside you, and the changes registered immediately.

His attention moved over the room in quick, involuntary pieces: the different rug beneath your coffee table, the armchair where his battered leather chair used to sit, new artwork over the television, the bookshelf pushed against another wall. His eyes stopped briefly on the kitchen.

You’d rearranged that too.

Something flickered across his face and disappeared.

Dick pulled on a pair of gloves and moved to the kitchen table to examine the envelope and photographs while Jason remained several feet inside the apartment, holding himself with an unnatural stillness.

“You can sit down,” you said.

“I’m good.”

Of course he was.

You looked away first.

Dick spread the envelope and photographs across the kitchen table while Jason approached, and the moment he saw them, whatever awkwardness had held him rigid disappeared beneath something colder.

Red Hood wasn’t visible in his clothing, but you saw him anyway.

Jason pulled on a pair of gloves, then lifted the photograph taken outside your workplace by one corner. “When was this?”

“Last Thursday.”

He indicated another. “This one?”

“Tuesday.”

His eyes moved between the images. “Anything unusual lately? Same car on your block more than once, someone asking questions, deliveries you weren’t expecting?”

“I didn’t know I was being followed.”

“I didn’t ask if you knew.”

His tone was sharper than it needed to be.

You stared at him.

The sharpness left Jason’s face almost immediately. “Sorry.”

Dick glanced between you and wisely said nothing.

You looked at the photographs again. “A man asked whether I lived in the building about a week ago. I thought he was looking for someone.”

“What did he look like?”

You described what you remembered: ordinary clothes, baseball cap, maybe thirty-five, average height. You hadn’t paid enough attention because Gotham trained people to ignore strangers whenever possible.

Jason listened without interrupting. When you finished, he tapped the old photograph from the gala.

“They don’t know.”

You understood immediately. “About you.”

“They know Jason Todd.”

Dick nodded. “Looks like it’s about money.”

The sick pressure beneath your ribs loosened slightly, although the distinction didn’t make you feel particularly safe.

Jason studied the note. “They see somebody who dated Bruce Wayne’s son, isn’t living behind security, doesn’t have a driver, and doesn’t have private protection. They think you’re easy leverage.”

“They’re right about most of that.”

His eyes lifted sharply.

You regretted the words when you saw what they did to him.

Jason lowered the paper. “This is because of me.”

Dick exhaled. “Jay.”

“I’m the connection.”

“To Bruce,” you said. “Not Red Hood.”

Jason looked at you as though that were supposed to help.

You knew that look. You’d seen versions of it during the last weeks you were together, after the night he finally told you the truth.

Jason Todd had always been capable of turning guilt into mathematics. He collected every mistake, every failure, every person he’d hurt, then arranged them into an equation whose answer inevitably proved he was the problem.

Months of distance hadn’t changed that.

“This is exactly what I was trying to keep away from you.”

The anger arrived so quickly that fear barely had time to get out of its way.

“You cannot be serious.”

His brow furrowed.

“You disappear for seven months, someone decides to threaten me because I once dated Bruce Wayne’s son, and somehow this proves leaving me was the right decision?”

Jason’s shoulders tightened. “That’s not what I said.”

“It’s exactly what you said.”

“I said this is what I was trying to prevent.”

“And you did a fantastic job.”

Dick quietly gathered the photographs.

Jason flinched.

The satisfaction you might once have expected from hurting him never came. You were too angry to enjoy it and too familiar with Jason to miss how easily your words found somewhere he was already bleeding.

Dick straightened. “I’m going downstairs to call this in.”

Jason turned. “Dick.”

“I’m going downstairs.”

“Richard.”

His brother looked at him.

“You’re not leaving me here.”

Dick’s expression was almost serene. “Yes, I am.”

“You dragged me here.”

“And now you’re here.”

Jason stared at him.

Dick nodded between the two of you. “You clearly have some things to discuss.”

“Dick—” you started at the same time Jason said, “Absolutely not.”

Dick ignored both of you. He took the evidence, paused beside you long enough to squeeze your shoulder, and headed for the door.

“I’ll be right downstairs.”

Then he looked directly at Jason.

“Try not to disappear.”

The door shut behind him.

Jason stared at it.

You almost laughed, but the sound caught painfully somewhere beneath your sternum.

He turned back toward you. “I didn’t tell him.”

You frowned. “Tell him what?”

Jason’s gaze dropped. “That I just stopped speaking to you.”

Your throat tightened.

Apparently Dick hadn’t known.

You had spent seven months imagining Jason explaining the breakup to his family. You’d pictured yourself reduced to an uncomfortable subject at dinner, someone Jason had dated once and didn’t anymore. You’d wondered whether Dick knew why it ended, whether Alfred did, whether they’d quietly agreed Jason was better off.

“What did you tell them?”

“That it ended.”

A laugh escaped you then, brittle and humorless. “Did it? Because I don’t remember that conversation.”

“I know.”

“You never broke up with me. You stopped coming over, stopped answering, canceled dinner twice, and then ignored every message I sent you until I finally got embarrassed enough to stop sending them.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to keep saying that.”

His mouth closed.

You wrapped your arms more tightly around yourself. “When did you decide we were over?”

Something shifted in Jason’s face, slight enough that you might have missed it if you hadn’t known him so well.

You had known him.

Maybe that was the problem.

“I didn’t.”

Your anger stumbled. “What?”

“I didn’t decide that.”

“Then what exactly did you decide?”

“That I needed to stay away from you.”

The answer was so quietly delivered that for a moment you could only stare.

Jason looked exhausted beneath the weight of it. “I thought it would be easier if I stopped before—”

“Before what?”

His gaze moved toward the window.

“Before you figured it out.”

You waited, but he didn’t continue.

“Figured what out?”

His silence answered before he did.

“That you were better off.”

Something inside you went cold.

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Jason looked at you.

Seven months ago, you might have crossed the room at the sight of his expression. Your body still remembered the impulse. Your hands remembered how his face fit between them, how easily his forehead lowered toward yours when exhaustion finally overcame whatever stubbornness kept him upright.

You stayed where you were.

“I need you somewhere safer tonight,” he said.

The change of subject was so obvious you nearly snapped at him again, but Jason continued before you could.

“The manor’s secure. Alfred’s there, and Dick and I can work from the Cave. You’d have access to us the entire time.”

“You’re telling me to go to Wayne Manor.”

“I’m asking.”

The correction stopped you.

Jason glanced toward the door, then back at you. “I’d rather you were there. If you don’t want that, we’ll find somewhere else.”

There was strain in every word, as though asking instead of instructing required active effort.

You hated that you noticed that too. “What happens once I’m there?”

“We figure out who they are.”

“And I sit in a room while everyone refuses to tell me anything?”

“No.”

The answer came immediately.

Jason reached into his jacket and removed a small communications unit. “I’ll give you access to the main channel.”

You stared at it. “So I’ll know what’s happening?”

“Yeah. Bruce already knows, and the others are being looped in in case we need them. Dick and I will be active on the channel while we’re out, and Alfred will be monitoring from the Cave. If we have to split communications, he’ll keep you updated.”

“You’re okay with that?”

Jason’s thumb moved once across the edge of the device.

“You’re part of this.”

There were a hundred things you could have said.

You took the comm instead.

“All right.”

Jason nodded, and the relief on his face hurt more than it had any right to.

Wayne Manor looked exactly as intimidating as you remembered.

Jason drove because Dick had already left to follow up on whatever he’d gotten from the photographs. The ride passed mostly in silence, although this silence felt different from the ones that had ended your relationship. When his phone vibrated, he glanced at the screen and told you it was Dick before answering through the car. A few minutes later, he gave you the short version of what Dick had found, without you having to ask.

None of it should have felt significant, but it did.

Alfred opened the manor door before either of you reached it. You had met him four times while dating Jason and liked him immediately, which had made losing him alongside Jason an unexpectedly sharp part of the aftermath.

His composure slipped when he saw you. “My dear.”

“Hi, Alfred.”

He stepped forward and hugged you, and the warmth of it made your eyes sting.

Jason looked away.

Alfred released you after a moment and held your shoulders long enough to inspect you. “You are unharmed?”

“I’m fine.”

“Physically,” Jason said.

You turned.

He seemed to realize too late that he’d spoken.

Alfred’s gaze shifted between you, and his expression became unreadable. “I see.”

Jason grimaced. “Don’t.”

“I haven’t said anything, Master Jason.”

“You’re doing the face.”

“I have only one.”

You would have laughed months ago.

This time, your mouth merely twitched.

Jason noticed anyway, which somehow made it worse.

Alfred brought you into the kitchen while Jason went downstairs to change. Tea appeared in front of you, followed by food despite your insistence that you weren’t hungry. You ate because Alfred looked capable of making refusal more exhausting than compliance.

When Jason returned, he was dressed as Red Hood.

He carried the mask in one hand only long enough to check the fastening before securing it over his face and pulling the cloth hood over his head.

You had seen Red Hood countless times before learning who he was. Everyone in Gotham had.

You remembered the early stories, when he’d appeared as something closer to a crime lord than a vigilante, leaving bodies and broken men behind him while Batman chased him across the city. The stories changed over the years. Red Hood remained violent and still crossed lines Batman wouldn’t, but the fear surrounding his name shifted direction. People in Crime Alley talked about him differently now. Criminals feared him far more than the people they preyed upon did.

Jason had managed to make all of that sound incidental when he told you the truth.

The night of his confession came back in fractured pieces: Jason sitting across from you with blood drying beneath one fingernail, his hands locked together so tightly his knuckles blanched, the terrible flatness in his voice while he told you what he’d done after returning to Gotham.

He told you about the killing, the guns, the Joker, Bruce, the people he’d hurt and the rage he’d carried for so long that it had become easier to live inside than grief. He told you about waking in a coffin and clawing his way through the earth, about pieces of memory that returned wrong and anger that had once seemed capable of swallowing everything else.

You’d known Red Hood protected people by then.

When you said as much, Jason looked at you and said, “Sometimes,” as if everything good he’d done had been an incidental side effect of everything he considered unforgivable.

You’d asked for time, not because you intended to leave, but because you needed to process the fact that the man sleeping in your bed had died before you met him. You needed to understand that every scar you’d touched belonged to a history significantly larger and uglier than you’d known.

By the time you were ready to talk, Jason had already started retreating.

You hadn’t understood it then.

Standing in Wayne Manor while Red Hood checked his weapons beside the kitchen door, you understood far more than you wanted to.

Jason looked toward you. “The comm.”

You took it from your pocket.

He showed you how to secure it and adjusted the volume when you said it was too loud. His gloved fingers hovered near your ear for half a second longer than necessary before pulling away.

“You’re on the main channel. Alfred will be monitoring from here.”

You nodded. “Where’s Bruce?”

“Working the Wayne angle. If they make contact about money, he’ll handle it.”

“And you?”

“We found the vehicle that delivered the envelope.”

“You already found it?”

“Dick found traffic-camera footage.”

Of course he had.

Jason stepped back. “You’ll hear us.”

The words settled strangely between you.

He seemed to hear it too.

Then he left.

Alfred waited until the sound of the motorcycle disappeared before sitting across from you at the kitchen table.

“He told you we broke up,” you said.

Alfred went very still.

After a moment, he folded his hands in front of him. “He informed us that your relationship had ended.”

“He stopped answering me. We never actually broke up.”

A quiet hardness entered Alfred’s expression.

“He disappeared.”

Alfred closed his eyes briefly.

You stared down at your tea. “He thought he was protecting me.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“No.”

You looked up.

Alfred’s expression softened. “It does not.”

Something in your chest loosened. You hadn’t realized how badly you needed someone who loved Jason to say that.

Alfred didn’t explain him away or tell you his intentions mattered more than the consequences. He simply sat with the uncomfortable truth.

You traced one finger along the edge of your cup. “He thinks knowing about Red Hood changed how I saw him.”

“Did it?”

“Yes, but not the way he thinks. I knew what Red Hood was before I knew it was him. Everyone does. I knew what he used to do, and I knew what he does now, but when Jason told me…”

“You heard Master Jason’s account of himself.”

The precision of the sentence made you look at him.

Alfred sighed. “I love that boy dearly, but I would not recommend relying upon him for an objective assessment of Jason Todd.”

Despite everything, you laughed.

The sound surprised you both.

Alfred smiled faintly. “He has always been particularly skilled at discounting evidence that might contradict an unfavorable conclusion.”

“You make him sound like a badly researched paper.”

“I’m afraid the comparison is not entirely unfair.”

Your smile lingered for several seconds before fading. “He told me all the worst things.”

“I suspect he believed those were the most relevant.”

“That’s the problem.”

“Yes.”

Alfred was quiet for a while before beginning, almost casually, to tell you about Jason—not Red Hood as Jason understood him, but the boy Alfred had watched arrive at the manor suspicious of every kindness because he assumed generosity contained an expiration date.

Bruce had once told Jason that several books he’d become attached to in the library were his to keep. Alfred found them hidden beneath Jason’s mattress nearly a month later and eventually learned that Jason had convinced himself Bruce must have meant he could borrow them. Even after being explicitly told otherwise, he had apparently decided hiding them was safer than risking someone noticing he’d kept something that wasn’t truly his.

Another story followed about Jason returning from patrol with a sprained wrist and spending twenty minutes insisting Bruce shouldn’t have needed to help him because Dick wouldn’t have made the same mistake.

Your chest tightened.

“He still does that.”

“I know.”

The comm crackled before Alfred could continue.

Dick’s voice came through first. “Found the vehicle.”

Jason followed. “No driver.”

The shift in Alfred was immediate. He stood and gestured for you to follow.

The Cave was colder than you remembered. You’d only seen it once while dating Jason, and then only briefly. Tonight, the enormous bank of monitors glowed across the darkness while Alfred moved between screens with practiced ease.

A map of Gotham appeared, with two markers moving near the Bowery. Alfred also opened feeds from nearby traffic cameras and the cameras built into their masks.

You sat in the chair he indicated.

Jason’s voice filled your ear. “Building looks empty from street level.”

Dick responded. “Thermal says three upstairs.”

“Back exit?”

“Covered.”

“Civilians?”

“Apartment next door has two.”

Jason went quiet for a moment before saying, “We don’t breach through the shared wall.”

Jason had told you about the doors he’d kicked in. He hadn’t spent nearly as much time talking about all the quiet calculations that came first, the ways he changed plans when someone innocent might get caught in the middle.

Alfred switched between the exterior camera and Jason’s feed as Red Hood and Nightwing disappeared into an alley.

The next several minutes unfolded through sound and blurred video: footsteps, Dick counting under his breath, Jason warning him about a camera, a door opening and then the unmistakable violence of a fight.

You’d known what he did, but knowing was different from hearing it.

There was something intimate about the comm, about every clipped breath transmitted directly into your ear. Jason sounded nothing like the man who had sat across from you months ago and described himself as if brutality were the only language he spoke.

He was controlled.

One of the men bolted through a back exit, and Jason followed him into the alley. A woman stepped through a side door carrying a trash bag at exactly the wrong moment, freezing when she saw Red Hood running toward her.

Jason stopped. “Ma’am, back inside.”

“What the fuck—”

“Inside. Lock the door.”

His voice gentled without losing its authority.

The woman obeyed, disappearing through the doorway before Jason continued the pursuit.

You looked at Alfred. 

He was already watching you.

“He didn’t tell me about this.”

Alfred’s expression softened. “He rarely does.”

A gunshot cracked through the line.

Your heart lurched. “Jason?”

The name escaped before you remembered everyone could hear you.

The silence lasted just long enough to make your stomach turn.

Then Jason answered. “I’m good.”

Dick sounded winded when he added, “He’s not shot.”

Jason muttered something you couldn’t catch while Alfred’s fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard.

A new traffic feed appeared, and you recognized the street immediately.

“Wait.”

Alfred stopped.

You leaned closer. “There.”

The camera showed a man crossing behind the abandoned van.

Your skin prickled.

“That’s him.”

“The man who spoke to you?”

“I think so. Go back.”

Alfred rewound several seconds until the man’s face appeared in profile.

“That’s him.”

Alfred opened the channel. “Master Jason.”

“I heard her.”

The man climbed into another vehicle while Alfred began tracking its route.

You remembered something else. “He had something on his shirt.”

Jason’s voice came through your ear. “What?”

“A logo. I thought it was a delivery company.”

“Can you remember it?”

You closed your eyes. The conversation had lasted less than a minute. He’d been carrying a clipboard, wearing a blue cap and gray polo.

“Three letters. Maybe CMC? The first C was curved weirdly.”

Alfred began searching.

Jason didn’t interrupt or tell you to stop involving yourself.

“Anything else?” he asked.

You concentrated. “There was a green line underneath it.”

Alfred pulled several results onto the screen.

One made your stomach drop.

“That one.”

Crown Metropolitan Couriers.

The company had gone out of business eighteen months ago, but its former distribution warehouse was still standing twenty minutes from your apartment.

Jason exhaled. “Got it.”

You stared at the moving marker representing him. “Be careful.”

The silence afterward lasted only a second.

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t a promise.

You were glad.

Promises had never been the thing you needed from him.

The next hour was worse.

Jason and Dick reached the warehouse and found enough equipment inside to confirm the operation was larger than one threat. Jason’s feed swept across a wall covered in photographs. You weren’t the only target. Former employees, girlfriends, friends, assistants, and distant relatives of several wealthy Gotham families had been cataloged according to perceived vulnerability.

Then his camera stopped on your photograph.

EASY ACCESS had been written across it in red.

Jason went silent.

“Jason.”

“I’m here.”

His voice had gone flat.

You closed your eyes. “This isn’t because you’re Red Hood.”

“They picked you because of me.”

“Because I dated Jason Todd.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“It’s not supposed to.”

Another silence followed.

You could almost feel him preparing to fold the knowledge inward, another piece of evidence for the prosecution.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

Jason didn’t respond.

Dick’s voice cut through before either of you could continue. “Movement.”

The fight happened fast. Alfred switched between their feeds while Jason and Dick moved deeper into the warehouse, issuing directions whenever one of the building schematics revealed something they couldn’t see.

Then every feed vanished. The markers disappeared from the map. Static filled your ear.

Your hands tightened around the edge of the desk. “Jason?”

Nothing.

Alfred’s expression remained composed, but his hands moved faster.

“Signal jammer.”

“How long?”

“I am working on it.”

“Jason?”

Static.

Seven months collapsed into several seconds: your unanswered messages, your phone glowing beside you at two in the morning, every excuse you’d manufactured for him before you finally understood there wouldn’t be another response.

Maybe he lost his phone. Maybe patrol went badly. Maybe he needs time.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe tomorrow.

“Jason.”

The static broke.

A sharp breath came through first.

Then his voice. “Still here.”

Your eyes closed.

Relief made your entire body ache.

“Okay.”

Jason coughed. “Jammer’s down.”

Dick’s voice followed. “We’ve got them.”

Alfred’s shoulders relaxed by less than an inch.

You stayed seated until the markers reappeared on the map.

This time, you watched them all the way back to the Manor.

Jason entered the Cave forty-three minutes later, his hood down, already taking off his mask.

You were out of your chair before he finished pulling it off.

Blood covered one side of his face. The cut above his eyebrow wasn’t deep. You could see that immediately, but blood had spread along his temple and mixed with sweat, making the injury appear worse than it was.

Jason stopped when he saw you approaching.

For a second, neither of you seemed to remember what relationship you were supposed to have.

Your hand rose automatically.

His head tilted toward your touch just as automatically.

You stopped before your fingers reached him.

Jason’s eyes dropped to your hand.

Hurt flickered across his face.

“Alfred has a first-aid kit,” you said.

“Yeah.”

You lowered your arm.

Dick came up behind him and handed Alfred a drive recovered from the warehouse. Bruce’s voice sounded over the channel, already coordinating with the police and working out the public-facing explanation that would prevent anyone from questioning why vigilantes had been involved.

The threat was finished.

You had no reason to stay anymore.

You knew it before anyone said it.

Alfred cleaned the cut while Jason insisted he was fine. Dick left to finish the handoff, and eventually Alfred dismissed both of you with the unmistakable authority of someone who had already decided the conversation happening next was none of his business.

Jason drove you home.

The apartment looked exactly as you had left it that morning, which felt strange.

You set your keys down while Jason remained near the door, and you recognized the distance immediately. His weight had already shifted backward. His hand hovered close enough to the knob that you could almost watch his body arranging itself for departure.

Something in you snapped. “So that’s it?”

Jason looked at you. “They’re in custody.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He went still.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Leaving.”

His eyes flicked toward the door. “You’re safe.”

You laughed once. “Unbelievable.”

Jason rubbed one hand over his face. “I don’t want to make this worse.”

“Walking away is how you made it worse the first time.”

His hand dropped.

You hated the hurt in his expression.

You hated that he’d earned it.

“Tell me something,” you said. “When you told me about Red Hood, what did you think I was going to do?”

Jason looked away. “Leave.”

“Did I?”

“You asked for time.”

“I found out my boyfriend had died, come back to life, become a crime lord, tried to kill multiple people, fought Batman, and had been lying to me about all of it. I thought taking a few days was pretty reasonable.”

“I know.”

“No. You decided those few days meant I was already halfway out the door.”

Jason’s mouth tightened. “You didn’t know everything.”

“There it is. You always say that like there’s going to be one final terrible thing that makes everything else irrelevant.”

“There are things I’ve done—”

“I know.”

“You know what I told you.”

“Exactly.”

He stared at you.

“You only told me the parts you thought proved you were a bad person.”

Jason’s face hardened. “I told you the truth.”

“You told me your version of it.”

“It happened.”

“I never said it didn’t.” You stepped closer, anger sharpening every word. “I want you to stop acting like the worst thing you’ve ever done is the only honest thing about you. You told me about people you killed, but you didn’t tell me how quickly you’ll abandon a chase the second an innocent person might get hurt. You told me about every line you crossed, but not all the ones you draw to keep other people safe.”

“That’s basic fucking procedure.”

“To you.”

Jason shook his head. “Don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The words hit harder than you expected.

Your anger sharpened.

“No, Jason. You don’t get to do that either. You don’t get to make me see you the way you see yourself.”

Something in his expression collapsed.

You kept going because if you stopped now, you might never get another chance to say it.

“You hated yourself enough for both of us, and then you decided your opinion counted more than mine. When I asked for time, you thought I was going to leave. When I came back ready to talk, you were already halfway gone. Then you kept pulling away until there was nothing left for me to hold onto.”

“I thought it was better.”

“For who?”

His silence was answer enough.

“For me, or for you?”

His eyes lifted.

You saw it then: the fear he had turned into sacrifice because sacrifice sounded nobler.

“You didn’t leave because you knew I didn’t want you,” you said. “You left because you were terrified I’d eventually decide I didn’t.”

The color drained from Jason’s face. “You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

“You knew me.”

The correction hurt.

You took another step. “I knew enough.”

His voice dropped. “I couldn’t stay and wait for you to start looking at me differently.”

Your breath caught.

Jason’s eyes were red now, although you knew he would rather bite through his own tongue than acknowledge it. “I thought it was only a matter of time.”

“It wasn’t happening.”

“It would’ve.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.” Your voice cracked, and Jason flinched. “You decided what I was going to feel. You decided what I could handle. You decided I’d be safer without you, and then you decided I’d eventually be happier without you. You made every decision except the one where you actually asked me.”

“I was trying not to hurt you.”

“You disappeared.”

The words came out quieter than everything before them.

Jason stopped breathing.

“You disappeared from my life and made me figure out by myself that apparently my boyfriend wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. You made me wonder what I’d done, whether I was too angry when you told me, whether I should’ve forgiven you immediately, whether asking for a few days made you think I hated you.”

“I never thought you hated me.”

“Then what did you think?”

“That you should.”

Silence filled the apartment.

You stared at him.

Jason looked away first.

Everything inside you hurt.

“You really don’t see what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“No. You decide why someone should leave you before they’ve even had the chance to decide whether they want to.”

His throat moved.

You were close enough now to see the cut Alfred had cleaned above his eyebrow.

Without thinking, you reached up.

Jason froze.

Your thumb brushed carefully beneath the injury, and he leaned into your hand so faintly you might have imagined it if you hadn’t known him so well.

Your chest tightened.

“You should’ve called me,” you whispered.

Jason’s eyes closed. “If I’d called and you’d answered, I would’ve come back.”

Your hand stopped against his face.

The admission was so quiet you almost wished you hadn’t heard it.

Jason opened his eyes. “I knew I would.”

You stared at him. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t.”

He winced.

You started to lower your hand.

Jason caught your wrist, not tightly, just enough to stop you. The contact sent heat through you so abruptly that anger briefly lost its footing, his thumb resting against your pulse while months disappeared beneath the simple familiarity of his hand on you. He noticed. His gaze dropped to your mouth before he released you, and the loss of contact felt unbearable.

“I should go.”

You laughed softly in disbelief as his hand moved toward the door. “There you go again.”

Jason stopped. “What do you want me to do?”

The frustration in his voice was real, but you held his gaze. “Ask me.”

His brow furrowed. “Ask you what?”

“What I want.”

Jason’s mouth parted. For a long moment, he looked almost frightened before he finally asked, quieter this time, “What do you want?”

The answer should have been complicated.

Instead, your body supplied it before pride could interfere. “You.”

Jason stared at you, disbelief giving way to something painfully hopeful.

You stepped closer. “Right now.”

His breathing grew shallow.

“That doesn’t mean everything’s fixed,” you said. “It doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

“I know.”

“If you say that again, I might actually hit you.”

His mouth twitched, but the almost-smile disappeared immediately.

Jason looked at you for a long time. “You still want me?”

Your chest cracked open at the disbelief in his voice.

You hated him a little for making you answer.

You hated yourself more for how easy the answer remained.

“Yes.”

Jason didn’t move, so you closed the last inch yourself and kissed him.

His breath caught against your mouth. For a moment, his hands stayed at his sides as though touching you without being explicitly invited would be another decision he had no right to make.

You answered that hesitation by catching one of his hands and placing it against your hip. The invitation broke whatever restraint had kept him motionless.

Jason kissed you back with a sudden, aching intensity, his fingers tightening through the fabric of your shirt while your other hand slipped into his hair. The familiarity hit harder than you expected. He still tilted his head the same way when you caught his lower lip between yours, still made that low sound in his throat when your nails grazed his scalp, and your body responded before seven months of anger could remind it that this was supposed to feel unfamiliar.

His free hand came up to cup the back of your neck, holding you close without directing you anywhere. When you finally broke the kiss for air, neither of you moved far enough apart to pretend it had been a mistake.

His eyes opened. “Okay?”

The question nearly destroyed you.

“Yes.”

He kissed you again, harder this time.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, and Jason shuddered when your nails dragged lightly against his scalp. His mouth moved along your jaw and down your throat before stopping at the place he used to bite.

You felt his hesitation.

“Jason.”

He lifted his head, and you could see the question he still wasn’t willing to ask.

“Don’t start deciding for me now.”

Something in his expression shifted. His gaze dropped to your throat before he leaned in, giving you plenty of time to stop him, and pressed his mouth to the place he used to bite. The first kiss was careful, but when you tipped your head farther to give him room, his restraint loosened. His teeth grazed your skin, sending heat curling through your stomach as one hand slipped beneath your shirt and settled against your side, his touch growing surer when you leaned into him.

“You remember,” you whispered.

Pain crossed his face. “Everything.”

He kissed you before you could answer, and somewhere between the hallway and bedroom your shirt disappeared. Jason stopped when he reached the doorway, his hand still warm against your waist, and you knew what had caught him before you even followed his gaze.

The room had changed in all the ordinary ways a room changed when someone stopped belonging in it. New bedding covered the mattress. A different lamp sat on the nightstand. The photographs that had once included him were gone from the dresser, and the half of the closet where his clothes used to hang had long since filled with yours. His gaze flicked toward the bathroom, and you knew he was thinking about the toothbrush that hadn’t been beside yours for seven months.

You watched the realization settle across his face before he looked at you again.

“Still want me here?”

There was enough uncertainty in the question to hurt.

“Yes.”

You stepped into the bedroom, and Jason followed.

He had always touched you like he couldn’t decide whether to savor every inch or tear through whatever stood between him and your skin. Tonight, restraint lasted until your bra joined your shirt on the floor. After that, his hands moved over you with an aching familiarity, tracing your ribs and waist before settling heavily around your hips as if memory hadn’t been enough and he needed to prove to himself that you were still real beneath his palms.

Jason sank to his knees and drew your pants and underwear down together. The sight of him there after seven months of absence sent a sharp, vindictive thrill through you, immediately tangled with something much softer when he pressed his mouth to your stomach.

“You have any idea how many times I thought about this?” he murmured against your skin.

Your fingers tightened in his hair. “You could’ve reached out.”

His eyes closed for half a second. “I know.”

The answer should have cooled you.

Instead, his mouth moved lower.

Jason guided you onto the edge of the bed and spread your thighs, his hands firm enough to make your pulse jump. He looked at you once before lowering his mouth to your cunt, and whatever resentment you’d been preparing to hold onto fractured beneath the first slow drag of his tongue.

“Fuck.”

A low groan vibrated against you.

There was nothing hesitant about the way he ate you once he knew you wanted him there. He remembered exactly how you liked his tongue, how much pressure made your hips lift and which spot made your fingers twist helplessly in his hair. When he pushed two fingers inside you, he curled them with the same maddening precision you remembered, his mouth staying on your clit until your legs tightened around his shoulders.

Your body responded to him before your pride could interfere, and the ease of it hurt more than you wanted to admit. Seven months of anger, seven months of telling yourself you could forget the weight of his hands and the sound of his breathing beside you, and your cunt still knew him.

Jason looked up from between your thighs.

His hair was a mess beneath your fingers, his lips wet, his pupils blown wide enough that the green of his eyes had nearly disappeared. The hunger in his expression wasn’t new. The naked longing underneath it was.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

His fingers slowed without stopping. “Like what?”

“Like you missed me.”

Jason went still.

The anger came back hard enough to make your chest burn. “You don’t get to look at me like that when you’re the one who decided not to come back.”

The words landed exactly where you meant them to, and you regretted them almost immediately.

Jason’s gaze dropped. Instead of arguing, he turned his head and pressed a kiss high on the inside of your thigh.

“I missed you.”

Your throat tightened.

His eyes lifted to yours again. “I missed your voice. Your bed. You stealing the fucking blankets. Waking up with your knee shoved between mine because you somehow take up more room than I do.” His thumb moved slowly along your thigh. “I missed all of it.”

You couldn’t decide whether you wanted to kiss him or punch him.

Jason saved you the decision by lowering his mouth again.

This time, there was nothing careful about it.

His tongue flattened against your clit while his fingers fucked into you, and your breath broke around his name. Jason groaned as if hearing it from you again did something to him, his free hand tightening around your thigh hard enough that you knew there would be bruises tomorrow.

“Jason.”

He sucked your clit into his mouth.

Your hips jerked.

“Fuck, right there.”

He didn’t need the instruction, but something about hearing you give it seemed to unravel him further. His fingers drove into you in the rhythm he knew made your stomach tighten, and when you tried to shift away from the intensity, his arm hooked more securely around your thigh.

“Stay,” he murmured against you.

The word hit harder than it should have.

You stared down at him.

Jason seemed to realize what he’d said, but he didn’t take it back.

Then his tongue found your clit again, and you stopped being able to think.

Your orgasm built brutally fast. Jason knew it too. He always had. He kept the same pressure when your thighs began trembling instead of changing anything at the last second, his fingers curling inside you while his mouth worked your clit until pleasure snapped through you.

Your cry broke on his name.

Jason held you through it, tongue gentling without leaving you until overstimulation had you tightening your hand in his hair and pushing weakly at his shoulder.

Only then did he rise.

You caught the front of his shirt before he could straighten completely and dragged him toward you.

Jason came willingly.

You kissed him hard enough to taste yourself on his mouth, and the groan he gave you was filthy and helpless. His hands found your hips again as you pulled his shirt over his head, the fabric barely clearing his arms before your palms were moving over bare skin.

There were scars you remembered and others you didn’t.

Your fingers stopped over one along his ribs. “This is new.”

Jason glanced down. “Couple months ago.”

The words hit you strangely.

A couple months ago, he had been bleeding somewhere, and you hadn’t known. You hadn’t sat on the bathroom counter with gauze and antiseptic while he complained about your bedside manner. You hadn’t watched for signs that the wound was worse than he claimed or fallen asleep with one hand spread carefully across his stomach because you wanted proof he was still breathing.

You had been somewhere else.

His life had happened without you.

Jason looked at your face and understood immediately.

His hand covered yours over the scar. “I’m sorry.”

“For getting hurt?”

“For you not knowing.”

Your eyes burned.

You kissed him because answering would have required admitting how much that mattered.

His pants came off in the tangle that followed, and when Jason settled over you, skin finally pressed to skin, you had to close your eyes.

You remembered him too well.

The heavy warmth of his body between your thighs. The way his forearm braced beside your head so he never put all his weight on you. The scar near his collarbone that your mouth found almost without thought.

Jason buried his face against your neck and exhaled shakily.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

“So many fucking times,” he whispered.

You opened your eyes. “What?”

“I almost called you.”

Your hands tightened against his back.

“You should have.”

“I know.” His mouth brushed your throat. “Had the number pulled up. Wrote messages I didn’t send. Got halfway here once.”

That made you go still.

Jason lifted his head.

“You came here?”

“Made it three blocks away.”

“And then?”

“I turned around.”

A fresh ache opened inside your chest.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah.”

Your hand slid between your bodies and wrapped around his cock.

Jason sucked in a sharp breath. He was painfully hard, thick and hot in your palm, and his forehead dropped against yours when you stroked him from base to tip. His hips jerked forward before he could stop them.

You did it again.

“Fuck.”

There was something satisfying about watching him lose control under your hand after months of imagining him perfectly capable of living without you. You tightened your grip and watched his jaw clench.

“Thought you were doing so well without me.”

Jason’s eyes opened, and something raw moved through them.

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“You know that’s bullshit.”

You stroked him again, slower this time. “I didn’t know anything, Jason. That was kind of the problem.”

His face tightened.

You immediately wished the bitterness hadn’t followed you into bed, but Jason only caught your wrist gently and brought your hand to his mouth.

He kissed the inside of it.

“I know.”

The words sounded different this time.

Jason lowered your hand and glanced between your bodies before looking back at you.

“We should talk about this part.”

It took you a second to understand.

Then you did.

“I haven’t been with anyone since you.”

His eyes searched yours.

“Neither have I.”

“IUD is still good for another year.”

Jason’s thumb moved once over your wrist. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

The tension in his shoulders eased. He reached between your thighs, gathering the wetness there before circling your clit once, and your hips twitched beneath him.

“Still this wet for me.”

The filthy satisfaction in his voice made heat rush through you.

“Don’t get cocky.”

“Trying real hard not to.”

His fingers dipped lower, pushing briefly inside you again before he withdrew them.

“Jesus Christ.”

Your cheeks heated despite everything. “Jason.”

“I know.” His gaze dropped between you. “Just forgot how fucking good you feel on my fingers.”

“You said you remembered everything.”

“I do.” His eyes lifted to yours. “Doesn’t mean having you this wet around my fingers again won’t fuck me up.”

The words went through you like a current.

Jason lined himself up and rubbed the head of his cock through your wetness, catching against your clit once before settling at your entrance.

His expression sobered.

You reached up and touched his face.

“Jason.”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to fuck me.”

His eyes closed briefly.

When he pushed into you, he did it slowly. The stretch made your fingers dig into his shoulders. Seven months without him meant your body needed a moment despite everything it remembered, and Jason stopped halfway when your breath caught.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

He kissed your cheek.

“Keep going.”

Jason pushed deeper.

You felt every inch of him until his hips finally settled against yours, and then he went completely still.

His face twisted.

You touched his jaw.

“Jason.”

“Give me a second.”

Something in your chest tightened because you knew immediately that this had nothing to do with the physical sensation.

His eyes remained closed.

You stroked your thumb along his cheekbone.

“I’m here.”

Jason opened his eyes.

The grief in them almost undid you.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

He pressed a kiss to your palm before he finally moved.

Jason started slow, as if he were trying to relearn something his body had never actually forgotten. Each thrust dragged another sound out of you, and the tighter your legs drew around his hips, the harder it became for him to keep pretending he had any control left. The second you clenched around him, his composure cracked. His hips drove deeper, rougher, until every thrust was dragging against the places he still remembered well enough to make you shake. 

“Fuck,” he breathed against your mouth. “I missed feeling you like this.”

Your throat tightened. “So did I.”

Jason kissed you hard.

His rhythm built gradually, each thrust growing heavier until the bed shifted beneath you. He kept his body close, one hand hooking beneath your thigh to open you wider while he fucked into you with a familiarity that bordered on cruel.

Your body knew exactly what to do with him as your hips rose to meet his.

Jason groaned. “Yeah. Fuck, just like that.”

His forehead pressed against yours.

“Missed how you take me.”

The words sent heat crawling over your skin.

“Jason.”

“Missed watching you get all fucking needy when I get deep enough.”

He thrust harder to prove it, and the sound that left you wiped the last of the restraint from his face.

“Yeah, like that.”

You grabbed his shoulders.

“Don’t—”

“Don’t what?”

You glared at him through the haze building behind your eyes.

Jason’s mouth brushed yours. “Tell me.”

You hated that your cunt tightened around him when his voice dropped like that.

“Don’t stop.”

His eyes shut.

“Fuck.”

Jason drove into you harder. He kissed you constantly between rougher thrusts, mouth moving over yours, your jaw, your throat, as though he couldn’t bear to have you beneath him without touching every part he could reach. The combination was almost unbearable: his cock fucking you hard enough to make your thighs shake while his mouth treated you like something precious.

You dragged your nails down his back.

Jason groaned and snapped his hips into you. “Fuck, baby.”

He froze.

The word hung between you.

You felt the exact second he realized he’d said it. His body started to retreat almost automatically.

You locked your legs around his hips. “Don’t.”

His eyes searched yours. “You don’t have to let me—”

“Jason.”

Your fingers tightened at the back of his neck.

“Don’t take it back.”

Whatever hesitation remained finally gave way as he kissed you.

Jason’s next thrust was hard enough to push a gasp from your mouth, and his hand slid between your bodies to find your clit.

“Baby,” he whispered again, like he was testing whether he was really allowed to have the word. “Fuck, I missed you.”

Your throat tightened.

His thumb circled your clit.

“I missed this pussy. Missed you squeezing me like this.” His breath hitched when you clenched around him. “Yeah, fuck. That. You always do that when I talk to you like this.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Probably.”

“You disappeared for seven months.”

Pain briefly broke through the pleasure in his expression.

“I know.”

“And you still remember what makes me come.”

Jason’s eyes locked on yours.

“I told you. I remember everything.”

His thumb pressed harder.

“You get quieter when you’re close. Start holding your breath like you think I won’t notice.”

Your breath caught immediately.

Jason’s mouth curved. “Like that.”

“Shut up.”

“You gonna come for me?”

The question should have annoyed you.

Instead, your cunt clenched around him.

Jason swore. “Fuck, baby. Do that again.”

You couldn’t have stopped yourself if you tried.

His thrusts grew rougher, his hand never leaving your clit, and suddenly you were right at the edge with no room left to hide from it.

Jason felt it; of course he did.

“Come on,” he whispered against your mouth. “I’ve got you.”

Your eyes burned.

He kissed you.

“Let me have it.”

Your orgasm tore through you.

Jason’s name broke apart in your throat as your body tightened around him, your thighs clamping around his hips while he fucked you through it. His breath came apart against your mouth when your cunt kept pulsing around him.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

His rhythm faltered.

You caught his face between your hands.

“Jason.”

He looked at you, almost wrecked. “Where?”

“Inside.”

His eyes shut.

“Fuck.”

“Jason.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

He buried himself as deeply as he could and came with a harsh groan against your mouth, his cock pulsing inside you while his entire body went rigid over yours. You felt the warmth of him filling you, and Jason shook once before dropping his face against your shoulder.

His breathing was ragged.

Your fingers slid into his hair.

Neither of you spoke.

For several minutes there was only the cooling sweat between your bodies, the slowing beat of Jason’s heart against your chest, and the uncomfortable knowledge that sex had changed absolutely nothing about the seven months behind you.

It had only proved that wanting each other had never been the problem.

Eventually, Jason shifted his weight carefully away from you. The loss of him left you aching in more ways than one, but before you could say anything, he went into the bathroom and returned with a warm towel.

He cleaned you with a tenderness that felt almost out of place after the way he’d just fucked you, one hand resting against your knee while the other moved carefully between your thighs. Neither of you commented on the mess he’d made or the way your body still occasionally trembled beneath his touch.

When he finished, you reached toward the chair beside your dresser and pulled on an oversized sleep shirt.

Jason went still.

You looked down.

It was one of his.

You had stolen it years ago and somehow kept wearing it long after everything else belonging to him had been boxed up, moved, or shoved somewhere you didn’t have to look at it.

“I never gave this back.”

“I noticed.”

You almost apologized.

Then you remembered he had abandoned half his possessions by disappearing from your life without a conversation.

“You’re not getting it now.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

There was no teasing in his voice, which made it worse.

Jason remained beside the bed instead of automatically climbing in. Months ago, he would have known the answer without asking, but months ago he had still belonged here.

You lifted the blanket.

Jason joined you.

His arm settled around your waist only after you moved close enough to make it clear you wanted him there, and your body fit against his with the same terrible ease it always had. Seven months apart had changed almost everything except this. You could have closed your eyes and pretended the last seven months had been nothing more than a particularly bad dream.

Jason’s thumb moved slowly along your side beneath the hem of his old shirt, and your breathing gradually matched his.

For several minutes, neither of you spoke.

Then you asked, “What happens when you get scared again?”

Jason’s hand stopped.

You stared at the wall. “Because you will. Something else is going to happen eventually. Someone will get hurt, or you’ll think I’m in danger, or you’ll decide I deserve something better.”

Jason stayed quiet long enough for your chest to tighten.

“That’s what I don’t know,” you said.

He shifted behind you, and you turned until you could see his face.

“You can stay, Jason. You always could.” Your throat tightened. “I don’t know if you will.”

Jason looked down between you.

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

He was quiet for so long that you wondered whether he had an answer.

Finally, he said, “I’m probably going to want to run. I’m probably going to convince myself I’m right, because I’m really fucking good at doing that.”

“That’s comforting.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

His eyes lifted, and something almost like a smile touched your mouth at the reversal.

“But I can tell you.”

You waited.

“When I’m scared. When I think I’m going to fuck everything up, or I start thinking you should leave, or I convince myself I know what you need better than you do.” His fingers tightened slightly against your waist. “I can tell you instead of deciding for you.”

“And then?”

“Then you get to decide.”

The words lodged painfully beneath your ribs. That choice was what he had taken from you the first time.

You reached up and touched his face, and Jason leaned into your palm.

“I’m still angry with you.”

“I know.”

“You hurt me.”

His jaw tightened. “I know.”

“I don’t trust you not to do it again yet.”

Pain tightened his expression, but he didn’t look away. “Okay.”

You swallowed. “I still love you.”

Jason’s eyes closed.

His forehead lowered to yours, and the breath that left him shook.

“I love you too.”

“You don’t get to disappear because of that.”

“I—”

He stopped himself.

You raised an eyebrow.

Jason exhaled. “I heard you.”

“What do you want?” you asked.

Jason became very still.

For someone who had spent so much of his life deciding what everyone else deserved, you wondered how often anyone bothered asking what he wanted.

“I want to try again.”

Your heart tightened. “Actually try?”

“Yeah.”

“That means talking to me.”

“I can do that.”

“It means the next time you decide I’d be happier with someone safer, you tell me you’re thinking it instead of disappearing.”

Jason’s expression tightened.

“I can do that too.”

You traced the edge of his eyebrow, carefully avoiding the cut.

“I can’t do this twice.”

He sobered completely.

This time he didn’t tell you he knew.

His hand covered yours.

“I heard you.”

You took a breath.

“Then we try.”

Jason looked at you with such cautious hope that your chest tightened.

“We try?”

“We try.”

His eyes closed.

He kissed your palm and then your wrist before pulling you against him, holding you tightly enough that you could feel his heart pounding through both of you.

You let him.

Much later, when sleep had begun dragging at the edges of your awareness, Jason shifted carefully beneath the blankets.

Your body tensed before you could stop it.

His movement halted immediately.

“I’m getting water.”

You closed your eyes.

The reaction embarrassed you.

Jason’s hand settled against your hip. “You want anything?”

“Just water.”

“Okay.”

He climbed out of bed, leaving the bedroom door open behind him. You listened to his footsteps move through the apartment, followed by the kitchen cabinet opening and the sound of running water.

Then silence.

For one terrible second, the silence dragged you back to another absence.

Footsteps crossed the apartment again. Jason came back carrying two glasses and handed you one.

You pushed yourself up enough to take it. “Thanks.”

He placed his own glass beside the bed and climbed beneath the blankets again.

He told you where he was going, and then he came back. It was painfully small compared to everything that still needed fixing, but it mattered anyway.

You curled against him, and Jason’s arm wrapped around you.

Morning arrived slowly, gray light filtering through the curtains and settling across the room. You woke with your cheek against a warm chest and spent several disoriented seconds trying to remember why.

Jason was asleep beside you.

Still here.

His face looked younger without all the tension he carried while awake, one hand resting loosely against your back with his fingers curled into the fabric of the shirt you’d stolen from him years ago and never managed to throw away.

You studied him.

Seven months didn’t disappear because he spent one night in your bed, and neither did the damage. There would be conversations you needed to have, anger that returned at inconvenient moments, and nights when Jason’s instincts screamed at him to put distance between himself and everyone he loved. There would probably be moments when your own instincts told you not to believe him. Seven months had taught both of you habits that one night together couldn’t undo.

Jason stirred.

His eyes opened slowly, and for one brief second, panic flashed across his face before he saw you and relaxed.

“Morning.”

“Morning.”

His gaze moved toward the window before returning to you.

“I have patrol tonight. Probably around nine.”

You blinked.

Jason swallowed. “I’ll text you before I go.”

Your chest tightened. “All right.”

“And when I’m done.”

You stared at him long enough that he shifted slightly beneath the attention.

“You said talking.”

“I did.”

“I’m trying.”

You reached over and touched the white streak falling across his forehead.

“I know.”

Jason turned his face into your hand and pressed a kiss to your palm. He stayed there for another moment, eyes closed, before drawing you closer again.

That night, your phone buzzed a little before nine. Heading out.

You stared at the message longer than necessary before typing back. Be careful.

The reply came almost immediately. I will.

Hours later, another vibration woke you. Done for the night.

Then, before you could answer, another message: Can I come over?

Your throat tightened.

Seven months ago, Jason had decided what was best for you and disappeared before you could tell him otherwise.

This time, he asked what you wanted. He asked to stay, and then he waited for you to decide.

Yes.

credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider ❤️💛