hello hello!! I hope you're doing great! Could you write something about Umemiya x reader x Tsubakino? Like them in a poly relationship? Just if you feel comfortable of course
ᯓ★ BETTER TOGETHER | wbk
synopsis. maybe love doesn’t have to mean choosing one person when your heart has room for both. ft. hajime umemiya & tasuku tsubakino x reader
tw. poly relationship, gn! reader, use of y/n & pet names
soft sunlight spilled gold across the very planter boxes umemiya spent the whole week fussing over, who’s currently misting a row of seedlings.
you sat beside your boyfriend, tsubakino, the two of you watching from the old bench as painted nails gently card through your hair.
“you’re spoiling them again,” he sighed toward the white haired male fondly. “i swear those tomatoes get more attention than half the first-years.”
umemiya only laughed, the sound rumbling through his chest as he glanced back at the two of you. “they’re part of the family. just like you two.” his eyes crinkled at the corners when they landed on you. “and you, [y/n], c’mere. you’ve been running around all day helping with patrols.”
he didn’t wait for an answer to reach out and hook an arm around your waist, pulling you properly into his side. you went willingly, melting against the solid warmth of him while tsubaki immediately shifted to keep contact, draping himself along your back like a very stylish, very affectionate blanket.
“see?” tasuku murmured near your ear, pressing a quick kiss to your temple. “this is the best seat in the whole school. right between the two of us.” soft fingers found yours and laced them together, thumb stroking over your knuckles. “isn’t that right, sweetheart?” he glanced toward the other with an expectant look.
hajime hummed in agreement with a grin. “of course it is!” his own free hand came up to cover both of yours, big and gentle. “you two make coming home after a long day feel easy.”
“haji, you say that like almost everyday.” a laugh left your lips as you teased him.
“listen to him, darling. our big strong leader getting all soft.”
tasuku tilted your chin up with a finger so he could look at you properly, eyes sparkling. “but he’s right. you’re the center of this little circle, you know that? ume and me, we get to orbit around you.”
you felt your face heat, but neither of them let you hide. umemiya pressed a kiss to your hair. tsubakino followed it with one to your cheek, then the corner of your mouth.
for a long moment the three of you just stayed like that; tangled together on the rooftop bench, surrounded by the faint rustle of leaves and the distant sounds of people below. just hajime’s steady heartbeat under your ear, and tasuku’s soft humming carried by the breeze.
as you watched the sun slowly set, you realized it was probably time to head back home, but before you could say anything, umemiya’s voice was barely above a whisper when he spoke again.
“stay a little longer?”
tsubakino answered for all three of you, squeezing your hand.
“as if we’d ever let you go.”
and when you were enveloped between both of them all warm, who were you to refuse?
It was late, the clock had struck past midnight thrice, but Damian paid the soft ring accompanying each hour that passed no mind.
The studio was in a state of chaos, a stark contrast to the discipline and control he practiced in every other aspect of his life.
Uncapped tubes of oil paints rolling on the floor, rags stained with colorful spots of paint, and crumpled up sketches deemed not ‘good enough’ to stay housed in his sketchbook.
In the middle of it all was Damian, engrossed in his latest piece.
Leaning over the canvas, his brush—a small, precise bundle of hairs—traced an intricate line, depicting the light getting caught in your hair.
Damian—unsatisfied with the current state of the painting—stood up. Guided by the faint glow of the moonbeams, he avoided the many art supplies lining the studio’s floor.
To Damian, art was both the most calming and most frustrating thing he could do—depending on the day.
Today it was the latter.
He stared at the messy graphite thumbnail he had drafted before laying eyes on his painting once more. Your clothes were meant to be far richer than what he had painted, the flowers on the side were meant to be a rare blue—not white!
What in the name of Ra was he doing?
“Tt.”
Already over his amateur mistake, Damian took a seat on the floor searching for the correct hues to use in fixing his coloring mishaps. It didn’t help that the studio was pitch black save for the moonbeams seeping through the open windows and a singular desk lamp that he had to move quite often.
However, he just couldn’t bring himself to turn on the lights; it would risk waking you up.
In the very corner of the room, the only place untouched by the scattered art supplies and splatters of paint, was you— his slumbering girlfriend.
Looking at you now, he wondered how you could sleep through his silent frustration that seemed to suffocate the room, yet there you were; completely undisturbed.
Suddenly, the search for the perfect blue felt entirely trivial.
Snatching a stray pencil, he headed to sit by the mattress you lay on.
Damian had insisted on buying this mattress—an absurdly expensive high end one— for the sole purpose of letting you—his beloved—rest whenever you were keeping him company in the studio.
You had the habit of being uneasy if he was not in your line of sight, to the point where you would stay up waiting for him to return from patrol, college, or a long mission.
You could get behind Damian not being beside you in bed, as long as you could look over and see him.
He simply could not bear the thought of you resting on the floor, or a random uncomfortable plastic chair.
As he quietly sunk onto the floor, he flipped the book onto a blank page and started sketching. Capturing his sleeping muse in quick strokes of his pencil.
Titus shifted in his place by your feet. The big dog had developed the habit of guarding you, even more so than Damian himself. He was proud, and slightly taken aback at the same time.
He adjusted the lamp, stopping the graphite on the page from reflecting a harsh glare.
With the drawing now finished, Damian wished to return to his half done painting resting in the middle of the studio.
However, he made no move to actually do so.
His eyes didn’t stray far from your back, rising and falling with soft breaths.
Perhaps, this could wait till my return from college tomorrow. He thought, already climbing onto the makeshift bed.
Sliding between the blankets, he was so careful not to jostle the warm weight of you, or Titus. The Great Dane merely let out a sleepy puff of air, acknowledging Damian’s presence before going back to sleep.
“Hayati…?” Came your soft, heavy with sleep voice. You turned slightly to look up at him.
Damian pulled your form closer, using a hand to guide your head to rest against his chest, right over his heart.
“Shhh, go back to sleep, Habibti.”
It didn’t take much convincing to have you close your eyes, already surrendering to the feeling of his fingers running through your hair, lulling you to sleep.
“You should really sleep more, Damian.” You scolded, referring to his habit of staying up late even on days with no patrol.
“Yes beloved, I should.” He agreed, feeling your body go slack on top of his.
Minutes later, after being reassured that you were completely out, Damian lowered his head, brushing his lips against your forehead in a soft barely there kiss.
“Good night, Titus.” He whispers to his beloved dog, before closing his own eyes.
“Good night, Habibti.”
That painting of you could definitely wait, especially since he had the real you in his arms.
a/n: hi moonbeams, first thank you for reading this one shot. I decided to practice writing something shorter, after all not everything can be a 20 something chapter story. Second, thank all of you who read and showed love to the first chapter of Ancient spells and fallen birds, chapter 2 is in its final phase and should be posted soon. If you wish to be tagged pls tell me in the comments. Once again thank you<3
after a long day, it’s no surprise that you’re left with no energy to take care of yourself, let alone clean up and drag yourself off to bed. luckily for you, your two boyfriends— satoru and suguru, the infamous strongest duo who are as weak as kittens for you— take it upon themselves to bathe you and wash your hair. princess treatment has never felt this good.
⋆.˚ content: SFW but MDNI 18+, fem!reader, canon jujutsu universe (alt au where geto doesn’t defect), fluff fluff fluff, humor, established polyamorous satosugu x reader, gojo and geto are WHIPPED for you and for each other, domestic intimacy, a fair amount of suggestive jokes (but the entire fic stays non-sexual), mentions of battle wounds & scars
a/n: this is a requested drabble for the non-sexual acts of intimacy prompts “taking a bath together” and “having their hair washed by the other” for a fewww different anons 🙂↕️🫶🏽 hope you all enjoy cos this was sm fun to write 💓 masterlist.
Bathwater laps softly at the porcelain edges of the tub, warm enough to turn your skin dewy beneath the draping of steam that hangs hazily over the air like a wedding veil. The bathroom's steeped in the mellow glow of an amber and blossom-pink sunset filtering through the windows that overlook Tokyo. More jasmine-sweetened steam drifts in languid, translucent ribbons from the oversized tub fashioned to fit three (thanks, Gojo clan money).
Lounging with your lovers, everything is pleasantly heavy— your limbs, your eyelids which have long fallen together, your subdued thoughts— and softened by the calming ease of being in Suguru's and Satoru's presence.
You sit between them, back resting against Satoru's steadily beating chest, his ridiculously long legs fallen open for you to sit between them with all the careless assurance of a man who has never once worried about taking up space. Suguru rests against the opposite edge of the tub with one arm curled along the rim and his legs similarly extended. Satoru's and Suguru's calves and thighs skim against each other where they border yours beneath the water, neither inclined to break the comfort of simple touch.
"You've gone quiet." Suguru's observation echoes off the tile.
"Mhm." Your answer is only half there.
"You awake?"
"Ehhh… Kinda sorta, sorta kinda," you mumble, seesawing a hand.
Satoru leans forward until his forehead lightly bumps your nape. "No sleeping yet, pretty girl. Ragdolling while we try to get you clean is a surefire way to go down Ben Drowned-style,” he teases.
You whine a little in protest even though the reference makes your lips tick. "But you guys made me so comfortable already..."
And they truly have.
The bath had been waiting for you before you'd even thought to ask for one. Actually, the idea was planted in Satoru and Suguru's heads the moment you texted that you were dead-tired and grimy to the group chat from the back of Ijichi's car. You had been the only one to head out on a mission today, Satoru spending the day teaching and training the first years and Suguru mirroring him with the third years— Satoru had weaseled his way into a full hands-on day with his students, claiming he needed somewhat of a break, and Suguru spent most of his time teaching rather than hunting curses anymore, anyways.
(You and Satoru have been on the offensive with the higher-ups for years to nail down this arrangement for Suguru. Sure, Suguru still took on the occasional mission when everyone else was stretched thin by their own duties, but for his mental health’s sake, it was best that he stuck to guiding and nurturing the current generation.
You never want to see him as hollowly depressed as he was after everything that went down when he was a student.)
When you'd finally wandered into your shared house with knotted shoulders and your thumbs aggravatedly digging out the soreness from your temples, both your boyfriends snatched you up at the genkan and herded you like wildly insistent border collies to the master bedroom's ensuite, which had been transformed into a luxury spa during your twenty minute commute.
Towels were folded up in their warmer, candles swaying happily, the massive tub brimming with fragrant bathing oils and mineral salts— literally the whole nines. All the tiny things you'd long forgotten mentioning you preferred for a long soak were present, that information lovingly archived inside two impossibly attentive minds.
Before you could burst into happy tears at the lengths they went to for you, Suguru helped peel away your clothes before passing you off to Satoru, who offered both hands the moment you stepped toward the siren call of the water on sore legs, smoothly bowing as though escorting you into a ballroom instead of a bathtub.
Between them, lowering yourself into the steaming water (which was the fucking perfect temperature, holy hell) was less like climbing into a bath— another chore to hustle through before bed when you were already so worn-thin— and more like mindlessly handing yourself over for what they both dubbed your 'princess treatment.'
Suguru's smile is a ray of gentle light coloring his words, "Are we supposed to apologize for being good boyfriends?"
"Yeah. And you have to live with the consequences," you sigh, slumping further back into Satoru. The water rocks with you.
"You hear that?" Satoru says to Suguru over your head. You feel his chin nestle into your crown, arms loosely coiling at your waist. "She's blaming and threatening us."
"This is what happens when we go out of our way and draw us all a nice bath, huh," Suguru kisses his teeth, theatrically disappointed in you and what his and Satoru's efforts have come to. "Shame. I guess we won't be doing this ever again."
That finally gets your eyes to crack, blinking past the steam shrouding your slivered vision. Suguru watches the both of you with a sleepy beam curling the corners of his mouth, midnight lashes dampened and beading at their tips from the humidity. In spite of his long hair being wound up in a picture-perfect bun straight from Pinterest— his thorough wash-day took place yesterday and he's in no hurry to rewash his hair all over again— the baby hairs coiling at his nape and hairline are helplessly frizzy, fallen victim to the moisture in the air.
Suguru's gorgeous, a fallen angel meant to tempt you into the salacious temptations of the forbidden— much like the equally stunning blue-eyed beauty cuddled up to your behind, fluffed up white hair as refreshing as winter's first snowfall and his innate charming smile ten times more devastating than the cursed techniques sown into his very DNA.
"Hey," you protest, somewhat impressed by how he's twisted this situation to his benefit. "I didn't say all of that…"
A big warm palm finds a home on your shoulder, the callouses at the base of Satoru's fingers dragging a satisfyingly scratchy path over your skin. "I didn't agree to that either. Who's gonna appreciate all our hard work and dedication to pampering her if not, well, our princess?" Satoru wonders aloud, each richly pronounced syllable traveling in a velvety rolling rumble through his chest to your back.
Suguru cocks a brow, though he soaks up the reminder with a smoothly executed drag of the wooden bath tray closer to the corner of the tub's edge. Fancy crystalized bottles rattle, winking rainbow prisms across the walls; the oceanic waves of Satoru's irises, the deep earthiness of Suguru's.
You see them in everything, the two men coloring the world you traverse in a gallery forever curated in their likeness, to the point that you couldn't name a single thing on this planet without your lovers tinting your glasses.
Sometimes, you wonder whether the sky was always that boundless, cotton-candy blue, whether the nature crawling dense coils up Tokyo Jujutsu High's mountain campus had always carried such comforting shades of chocolate-brown, or if loving them has simply trained your eyes to always pay homage to Satoru and Suguru. Whatever the case, you're ridiculously smitten.
"Appreciation isn't the point, Satoru," lightly sniffs Suguru.
You wish you could see the stupid grin smeared across Satoru's countenance as he counters, jokingly, "It absolutely is."
"It really isn't," Suguru deadpans, looking to you as if to say get a load of this guy. You giggle.
"I don't know about you, babe, but I wanna be praised for my generous deeds," Satoru announces. "It hits like a line of coke after a long day."
Suguru slowly nods his assent. "That is true… though in your case, I'd say that cake is more your style than coke of all things."
"Snoooore," you loudly mime, deadpanning.
Satoru's laughter sears through your skin, beating a hearty rhythm between your shoulder blades. Suguru fans his fingers over his mouth as he joins in on Satoru's chuckling, amusement blossoming in the air. "Alright, alright. The deluxe princess treatment package is on its way now, promise," Suguru sing-songs with a little flap of his hand, finally easing up now that he's found a way back on track. "Satoru, you'll wash her hair and I'll do her body?"
"For sure," he chirps.
Ah, how nice it feels to lounge around like prized, celebrated royalty without a care in the world while your boys work a plan to pamper you.
All it takes is a simple curl of Suguru's black-painted finger for Satoru to obediently thrust his hand past your head, palm paralleling the ceiling as Suguru pops the glass stopper of a bottle and drizzles a generous heaping of shampoo into his hand's cup.
Satoru loops his arms around your front and works the shampoo between deft palms before your eyes, vanilla and camellia blossoms wafting up to your face, which you dip towards the comforting smell with a hum. It's Suguru's favorite shampoo— you're always surprised when he shares some of it and his conditioner with you, given how he treats it like the holy grail that he alone was blessed and entrusted with.
(Even funnier how he flat out refuses to let Satoru get his hands on it. Not that the white-haired sorcerer cares all that much anyhow; he uses a 3-in-1 shampoo and calls splashing tap water on his face a 'proper face wash.' You'd think a man so prideful about his vanity would splurge on products to properly care for himself and his Adonis body— the same way he buys from luxury clothing brands on the daily— instead of winging it like a head-in-the-clouds college fratboy, but alas…
You've gotta give it to him though: his genetics are killer. Curse Satoru and the goddamned perfectly pretty Gojo bloodline. It's not fair for the rest of you 'simpletons' who actually have to put in the work to groom and maintain yourself in order to look even half as unfairly attractive as he does on a random Thursday morning. The universe shamelessly plays favorites, and Satoru is its dazzling golden child.)
"Tilt your head back for me," he murmurs, long fingers immediately finding your hair— already sufficiently wet— the second you obey.
Humming an absent tune that lulls you into closing your eyes once more, Satoru gathers up all your hair, his usual boundless energy replaced by surprising patience. You can envision the way he's likely got his tongue peeking slightly between his teeth as he smooths the shampoo down your head, working up a rich, pearly lather from your crown to your ends with painstaking care exactly as Suguru once taught him.
Nobody from Jujutsu Tech— not Shoko, not Ijichi, not even any of the students— would expect such gentleness from the strongest sorcerer alive. The same man that tears into curses with calculated, almost joyous violence and blows them apart with a well-placed Red and a dry “oopsies,” is unbelievably tender in his task of shampooing the outer layer of your hair before diving to your roots, firm yet gentle. Reverent, really.
His nails glide along your scalp in purposefully light scrapes that send shivers down your spine. A contented sigh escapes you before you can stop it. "Satoruuuu…" You subconsciously roll the r in the same purring cadence that Suguru speaks his name in.
"Yooo, chill," Satoru splutters behind you, sounding alarmed by who knows what.
Suguru fills in the blank with a suggestive smile and thinning of his eyes: "Moan my name next, baby. I'm feeling left out."
Ah. Curious, you shuffle your hips back further into the cradle of Satoru's pelvis, glad to feel a distinct lack of engorged arousal insistently pestering your back; he's as flaccid as the day he was born. Your foot goes splashing water Suguru's way next. He catches your ankle beneath the surface and chuckles sunnily beneath the playful heat of your half-hearted glare.
"You're such a hater," he chastises.
"Excuse me for trying to enjoy my bath and the princess treatment you both promised me while you two horndogs try to make something out of nothing," you say dryly, though the pretense of sarcasm is rendered null by the next (accidentally) suggestive noise that floats its way past your lips when Satoru tugs a strand of shampooed hair just shy of too roughly.
"I didn't mean to do that, sorry!" Satoru jumps to apologize, presuming you'll give him shit for it and kick him out. But the joint snickers that both men promptly share over your head informs you that they're not exactly remorseful; and they're not even trying to play it sly.
"There's gonna be floggers and pillories in my online shopping cart by the end of the night if you two keep it up," you warn even though you're chuckling yourself. "That, or a sounding rod for you to share."
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am," Satoru and Suguru innocently chorus.
Devils, the two of them.
But you're not any better, for you praise them in the sweetest purr possible, "Thank you. Good boys," and you all too joyfully reap the color budding across their already bath-flushed cheeks, tipping your head back against Satoru's shoulder to see his properly.
Suguru and Satoru: 1.
You: also 1.
You'll break that tie soon.
Fingers still wrapped in a delicate snag around your ankle, thumb sweeping over the protruding bone, Suguru one-handedly pumps a decent dollop of body wash into his palm, making a fist and dragging his fingers through it to warm it up a tad. "Lift your leg a little higher for me, sweetheart," he instructs, voice no louder than twinkling rain shimmering in silvery ribbons from the sky.
Conscious yet uncaring of the fact that you're already flashing him your most private parts (both your boyfriends have literally seen it all in every sexual and non-sexual scenario possible), you do just that, trusting that Satoru's solidity will keep you from sliding forward on your ass and submerging your face. Your hip flexor and quadricep tighten in a show of undemandingly easy dexterity— the movement of the latter has Suguru's eyes flicking down to watch as though you're his favorite film made human.
He scrunches his legs up in order to fit into the 'v' your own make. Shifting his grip to the back of your calf, he paints your skin in fragrant body wash from your foot, kneecap, to the crease connecting hip to thigh, coating you thoroughly and treating you to an impromptu massage along the way, thumbs kneading tenderly into muscle.
You're practically purring once he's done with your left leg. Suguru eases it back into the steaming bathwater and rinses you off with sweeping strokes of his broad hand until the jasmine-scented suds melt into the surface. Then, without breaking the tranquil rhythm you'd both settled into, he gathers your right leg in his grasp and starts anew from your foot upward, every motion as meticulous as the last.
You don't startle an inch when Satoru picks his task up again whilst Suguru works his soothing magic up your shin. Circles that bloom sweetness through your body are drawn into your scalp with the pads of Satoru's fingertips, thumbs gliding behind your ears before sweeping upward along your crown, coaxing the rich lather deeper through your roots.
His fingertips dance across your hair in broad, enthusiastic circles, working the shampoo in with enough vigor to make your head tip slightly. It's embarrassingly effective in making you lose track of where one minute ends and another begins. The little remaining tension loosens from your body like water through a sieve.
"Oh my godddd," you moan, blissful, completely swept up in their pampering that comes without a price. You melt between Satoru and Suguru without thinking, trusting the secure cradle of their bodies as completely as breathing itself. "This is exactly what I needed. This is heaven."
"You deserve only good things, especially tonight," Suguru murmurs affectionately, gently dunking your right leg and rinsing that one off, too.
"All the time, really," Satoru agrees. He leaves your hair once he's sure each strand is thoroughly lathered up. "Seeing you turn into a cute little puddle is the best bonus I could ask for. Just let us take care of you, yeah?"
He returns to you with a wooden rinse pitcher that Suguru hands to him. He cups warm bathwater into it, stray droplets sprinkling across the bath's surface when he pulls the pitcher free with an audible gulp of water. Anticipating what follows, you tip your head back and stay still as Satoru pours the first cascade of water over your head to cleanse you of the fragrant foam, his free hand shielding your forehead to keep it from spilling over your face.
"You wanna know a neat trick I thought of?" Satoru asks, voice overflowing with prideful excitement. You and Suguru rumble low noises from your throats at the same time, encouraging. "If Blue allows me to pull buildings apart at minimum output by drawing everything towards the impossibility, then it makes sense that if I put the tiiiiniest possible output into Blue—" you feel a tempered spike of cursed energy that makes the dampened hair at your nape prick to attention, "—the field of attraction is weak enough that I can siphon water from hair."
Before the dirtied water can rejoin the pooling bathwater lapping over you all, it peels from your hair like a clean, satisfying strip of tape as though the laws of nature, too, submit to the wonder that is Gojo Satoru.
You feel each saturated lock of hair lighten by degrees more than you see it. Suspended at your sides where you can spy it from the corner of yout eye, the extracted water gathers into a lazily revolving sphere no larger than a melon, pale with diluted shampoo that swirls in pearlescent ribbons beneath the bathroom's amber light. You can tell that Satoru's flicked his fingers behind you when it all goes gliding into a bucket by the tub— he probably thought to put it there in advance, you realize— with a muffled sploosh. Suguru whistles, impressed.
"There!" Satoru chirps, grin crystal-clear in his voice as though he'd unveiled the world's greatest scientific breakthrough instead of an absurdly overengineered bath hack using one of the greatest cursed techniques in history. "No gross rinse water in the tub."
"That was cool, Toru," you gush.
Suguru's laugh slips free in a quiet puff. "Good idea, baby."
The dual praise has Satoru radiating like an overjoyed sun behind you. "Right? Right?" He boasts with no modesty whatsover, chest jutting proudly against your back.
"You'll have to do that for my hair sometime, too," Suguru sighs longingly, tilting his head with a charmed look on his face. He's so cute. "I could use one of my curses, but Blue'll save me so much time. My hair's getting even longer than it already is, if you can imagine."
"Please never cut it," you and Satoru pipe up in genuine agony.
Suguru titters, enchanting brown eyes creasing in a blinding smile, brighter somehow for it. "Relax, you two. I won't. Aside from trimming split ends— knock on wood." He raps the wooden bath tray with his knuckles.
The exchange coaxes an involuntary smile of your own, the stretch of your lips so overly fond that your cheeks ache. It is so wonderfully, unmistakably the three of you— Suguru's easy indulgement forever balanced alongside Satoru's irrepressible enthusiasm and your habit of matching them both exactly where they stand.
Suguru re-lathers his hands to work on your abdomen, muscles fluttering in delicate butterly wings behind the bountiful garden of your skin at the ticklish feeling of his slickened touch; Satoru ladles another pitcherful over your head and repeats the process of gathering and discarding every soapy drop with Blue. Suguru glides soap up the valley between your perked breasts and beneath them as well, even massaging your tits without a lick of sexual intent; Satoru gives you one last rinse before passing curious fingers through your hair until the strands slide cleanly through his hands, gently teasing apart the few stubborn knots left over. The bathwater gently rocks against your ribs whenever they both shift, focused on their individual tasks but nonetheless in tune with one another.
By the time Suguru finishes off your front by washing your collarbones and shoulders and Satoru's just teased apart the few stubborn knots left over in your hair, your hair hangs sleek and impossibly clean, you're feeling squeaky clean from head to toe, and the bathwater around your bodies remains as clear as when you'd first slipped into it, aside from the body wash that's sluiced off of you.
You feel as though they’d somehow washed away not only the day's sweat and oils, but every bothersome thought that had settled there alongside them. You could seriously fall asleep any second without realizing you'd slipped into unconsciousness.
"Look at us working together in sync," Satoru lilts, signaling for the conditioner over your shoulder. Suguru hands it off from the bath tray without missing a beat. "The G.G. Salon is taking off."
"G.G.?" You ask, faint laughter already bubbling through your nose before he even elaborates. You're anticipating something so stupid that it's somehow funny.
"Get gucked," Satoru supplies, only to shriek a soprano's pitch and jackknife his leg through the water when Suguru aggressively pinches Satoru's big toe. "Yeesh, can't a guy joke around here? I meant the Gojo-Geto salon."
Suguru smiles serenely.
They make quick— but not rushed— work of the rest of your treatment. Suguru reaches between yours and Satoru's bodies to bathe your back while Satoru conditions the ends of your hair with the creamy fixture.
Clearing your hair of conditioner after it soaks in is easy as it was for Satoru with the shampoo. He splashes water along your back to finish off Suguru's work, and Suguru leans in to nuzzle a brief kiss against your forehead, lips lingering for only a second before he settles back against the tub's rim again, the picture of handsome relaxation. A moment later, Satoru cranes his head to smooch the side of your neck as if unwilling to be left out, then ducks past you to peck Suguru's mouth.
No words are needed in the wakeful peace that draws a curtain over you; you, Satoru, and Suguru seemingly come to a silent agreement to soak in the jasmine-fermented bath a while longer, all of yours eyes closed in bone-deep gratification. Heat loosens muscles and peels the firm grip of old aches and pains stemming from battles old and new, determined to ease your bodies that've been carved out from years and years of sorcerery. You only clamber out when the bathwater is cool enough to be drained, yours and Satoru's and Suguru's fingers and toes pruny from the extended soak.
The tired little shiver that quakes you when the air hits your damp skin is noticed immediately by Suguru, who quietly directs Satoru to empty the bucket of dirtied water down the tub before turning to you with towels straight from the tower warmer. He wraps one loosely around your hair and gently squeezes away the excess water.
His sweetened cooing of how cute you are when you're all sleepy and doted-on makes you duck your head into his touch if only to hide your face from the loving searchlights of his eyes. You allow Suguru to similarly wrap your body up in a second towel and you gleefully burrow into the fluffy comfort of it.
Satoru zips to your side in literal seconds with two more towels bunched under his arm, blue eyes alight and completely comfortable in his nudity. "My turn," he announces.
"Didn't you have plenty of turns in the bath?" Suguru amusedly points out in a lowered tone. "She's already dried off, anyways."
Satoru pokes his pretty pink lips out in a pout, sulky as a cat denied its dinner. "I want another."
"You always want another," you hum, eyes half-closed and about ready to conk out on the tile of all places. A plane could crash outside and you wouldn't even be fazed, your mind too up in the clouds and doped up on the princess treatment your boyfriends gave you to care.
“Well, I like taking care of you both,” Satoru admits with some sheepishness, scratching his shorn-short nape that you're sure is soon to be warmed pink as you and Suguru look at him with hearts for eyes. "Can't blame a guy for being in love, yeah?"
You really can't; not when you're just as stupidly infatuated with them both. Especially when, adorably, he surprises you both by turning to Suguru and toweling him off with great attention, making your dark-haired partner flush an even ruddier red than the hot water gave his body. For all of Satoru's impossible strength and impossible speed, his hands fuss with deliberate care as they work the plush fabric around Suguru's waist, folding one edge neatly over the other before tucking it securely against his hip. Then Satoru guides a stray bang that fell loose from his bun behind his ear, fingers lingering sweetly.
Suguru blinks once, twice, as though momentarily caught off guard by the simple gesture. "... Thank you, Satoruuu,” he purrs warmly.
The words are accompanied by a smile so soft it melts years off of Suguru's face, leaving behind only the boy who'd once looked at you and Satoru with that same impossible tenderness after late-night konbini store runs and shared umbrellas beneath summer rain as you all ran back to campus after shared misions— long, long before that accursed village sent him into a year-long spiral. Affection settles visibly into every elegant line of him, warming his browned eyes until they resemble polished amber.
Color rushes into Satoru's ears as he's blasted with the full superlunary rays of Suguru's love, almost shying away from his exuberant beam. "Don't mention it," he mutters, already smiling despite himself as he finally slings his own towel around his hips.
A laugh escapes you before you can stop it, sleepy and airy, and both pairs of eyes snap toward you with such immediate fondness. Your heart gives such a smitten start that it damn near ping-pongs off your ribs.
And then you open your unfiltered mouth, "You're both so cute. You two act like you guys haven't explored each other's holes for literal years."
Their expressions slacken into ones of pained amusement immediately. "Sweets, I love you so so sooo bad, but do you ever think before you reduce years of heartfelt intimacy to digging out each other's asses?" Satoru snorts.
"Please don't say it like that," Suguru bemoans, propping one hand on his towel-wrapped hip while the other drives a thumb into his creased forehead. Even so, he's openly snickering, even moreso when he slaps Satoru's chest. "Are you under the impression that you're any better?"
Satoru touches his heart with theatrical offense. "I've never said anything outrageous as her."
"You literally just did?" Suguru points out, exasperatedly tickled.
You attempt to muster a joke to chip in with, but a yawn stretches your jaw instead, eyes watering as exhaustion overtakes any dignity you might have had left.
"Awww," Satoru breathes out an impossibly stricken coo. "She's gonna fall asleep standing up like a horse."
"I was thinking the same thing," Suguru murmurs, tilting his head at you.
"I am awake and alert and alive," you mumble automatically.
Clearly, neither of them believes you for even half a second. Suguru chuckles beneath his breath before stepping forward, large hand finding the small of your back through the towel. "Looks like the delirium's getting to you, huh, angel? You've had a long day."
Satoru immediately appears at your other side. "For sure. Let's go get dressed and go to bed." Without ceremony, he bends his knees and scoops you into his arms bridal-style as though you weigh nothing at all. You let out the weakest little noise of surprise imaginable before instinctively curling against his warm chest, your cheek finding the familiar place beneath his collarbone.
"I c-can…" Your own yawn slashes the sentence in half, making Satoru throw his head back laughing as he turns towards the bathroom's entrance, "… walk."
"Oh, sweetheart," Suguru rumbles out a laugh.
"I can,” you grumble.
"You just lost consciousness mid-sentence."
"Mmmf," you say intelligently.
Suguru reaches over to straighten the towel atop your head one final time, brushing his knuckles fondly across your temple. "So spoiled," he whispers.
You hum contentedly, already halfway to sleep. "Your fault."
"Our fault," Satoru corrects, carrying you toward the door with Suguru walking beside him, shoulder brushing his every few steps. Then, as an aside to Suguru, "To be fair, we kinda made her expect this."
"I think I deserve princess treatment everyday," you exhaustedly pipe up, words dragging as you gradually drift off.
Satoru and Suguru exchange looks over your lolling head. So cute.
Something about childhood friends with the last name Xia, who grew up with the MC, who are sunshine/puppy-coded, who end up being experimented on and nearly die and are also in the military. Huh. Maybe I have a type
Bonus:
they both are nerds who like tinkering (caleb with his model planes and luke with his antiques)
they both have a necklace associated with their gfs
Hii!! Can you do a drabble With Damian with reader doing that "climbing on my boyfriend" trend?? Thank you so muchhh 💌
climbing your boyfriend
IN WHICH... ...you climb your boyfriend? pretty self-explanatory
warnings: fluff, crack, gn!reader, established relationship
wc: 578
The moment you saw a video titled "climbing my boyfriend to see if he says anything" on your For You Page, you knew you had to test it out.
So, you've propped your phone up on the water bottle on Damian's desk. He glances at it, flashing you an odd look but not acknowledging it further.
He's got his headset on, eyes glued to his monitor as he clicks away on his controller. He mutters something under his breath, barking orders at Dick and Tim as they play some game together.
"You absolute imbecile!" Damian exclaims. "We're going to lose, thanks to you. Get it together, Grayson."
You giggle, the deep scowl on Damian's face so adorable and sweet—all you want to do is kiss it away. But you're on a mission.
You start standing behind his gaming chair. He smiles, thinking you're there to give him a massage or something. "Hi, beloved," he murmurs softly. You can hear Tim laugh through Damian's headphones, causing the scowl to return. "Shut it, Timothy."
You brace your hands on the top of his chair, hooking one leg over Damian's shoulder, giggling. "My love? What're you doing, hm?" he spares a glance at you, chuckling at your awkward position.
You shrug innocently. "Nothing, keep playing your game, Dami...whatever it is."
He scoffs as if you've personally offended him. "It's FC26, hayati. Soccer simulation, essentially. I get to pretend I'm on the best world teams."
You smile. "Wow, Dames." You keep your voice casual, smirking deviantly at the camera, still recording. "That's fascinating."
"Isn't it?"
You only hum, using his sudden shouting at Dick to hook your other leg over his other shoulder. You grip his hair tight to get your balance, nearly taking you both down.
He winces. "Beloved, the hair!" he squeaks, face scrunched in pain, knuckles white on the controller.
You laugh, releasing him. "Sorry! Sorry! I was gonna fall!"
"What're you even doing up there, hon?" he asks, looking up at you through his lashes.
You stare back, grinning as if all of this is normal and totally common. You cup his cheeks softly, giving them little squeezes. "Oh, nothing. Don't worry about me, Dami-Dames. Wanna get ice cream after this?"
He arches a brow. You realize suddenly that his controller is sitting long forgotten in his lap—now it's Dick and Tim's turn to yell at him.
"Dami-Dames, huh?" he repeats, hands gripping your thighs to keep you stable. His thumbs brush gentle, loving circles on the flesh. "That's a new one."
"Yeah, it's a combo of your two nicknames. Dami and Dames. Dami-Dames."
"Okay, hayati."
You nod. "So...ice cream?"
He laughs, tugging his headset off his head, ignoring the now-muffled shouts and annoyed groans of his brothers. "Of course, my darling. We can get ice cream. But only if you promise we can bring home Titus a...what's it called?"
You tilt your head in confusion, fingers still brushing soft on his cheeks. "A what, baby?"
"A pup...cup? Is that what it is called?"
A bright grin overtakes your face. He's so precious, you want to kiss him all over, just to hear his shy little giggles. "Yes, Dami. A pup cup. We can get Titus a pup cup."
He nods in satisfaction, resting his head against one of your legs. He kisses your thigh gently before nuzzling into it. "Ice cream and a pup cup, I can do that. And beloved?"
request reader who acts as a healer for the team, and their ability on paper [and seemingly in practice] is just that they can heal anybody, no matter the damage or cause, except their power actually works by stealing the wound and inflicting it upon themselves. they can take any pain, mental, chronic, sometimes even emotional depending on circumstances and the degree of it. no one knows until they take on something far too bad: losing a limb, breaking their spine, guts spilling out, etc.
content gn! reader x damian wayne, healer! reader, reader gets hurt, aged-up adult damian wayne, severe injury, traumatic limb injury/near-amputation, blood, pain transfer, self-sacrificial healing, medical trauma, guilt, panic, league of assassins trauma references, emotional distress, anger after consent violation, angst with hurt/comfort
masterlist | word count 8.4k
Damian Wayne had been taught that a body was a weapon before he had ever been allowed to think of it as his own.
Hands were for blades. Feet were for balance. Bones were structure. Blood was consequence. Pain was instruction. A body was sharpened, trained, corrected, punished, and improved. A body was not precious. A body was not sacred. A body was not something one wept over unless its failure cost the mission.
Then he came to Gotham.
Gotham taught him many things. It taught him that rain could feel like grief made weather. It taught him that family was a battlefield where no one drew a blade and everyone still left wounded. It taught him that his father could love him deeply and still fail to say it in any language Damian understood. It taught him that Grayson’s hugs were inescapable, Todd’s anger was often fear wearing steel-toed boots, Drake’s silence was rarely empty, and Pennyworth could end a war with one raised eyebrow.
It taught him that bodies could be held. Bandaged. Fed. Carried to bed when sleep finally won.
It taught him that pain was not always a lesson. Sometimes it was only pain.
Then there was you.
You were not Gotham’s lesson. You were its contradiction.
You walked into the lives of heroes with no cape, no crest, no ancestral oath or alien sun burning beneath your skin. You arrived with steady hands, tired eyes, and a reputation that made even gods go quiet.
You could heal anything. That was what everyone said.
The Justice League said it with reverence. The Titans said it with relief. The Outlaws said it with reckless gratitude. Young Justice said it like they had discovered a cheat code and decided not to read the terms of service.
Jon said you were “basically a miracle.”
Damian said miracles were unreliable.
You had smiled at him when he said it. Amused.
“Good thing I’m not a miracle, then,” you had replied.
He had disliked you immediately.
Not because you were wrong.
Because he wanted you to be.
The first time Damian let you heal him, he was twenty-one and old enough to know better.
It was not a serious injury. That was what he told himself. A fractured wrist after a fight with a metahuman trafficking cell near the docks. He had taken the hit redirecting a collapsing beam away from a child. The child survived. His wrist did not.
A favourable exchange.
You found him on a rooftop afterwards, attempting to secure a splint one-handed with the grim concentration of a man personally offended by gauze. You stood in front of him for five seconds before saying, “That wrap is a hate crime.”
Damian did not look up. “It is functional.”
“It is shaped like unresolved childhood trauma.”
His eyes lifted. You smiled mildly.
He stared. “You are bold for someone within throwing distance.”
“You’re injured.”
“You believe that protects you?”
“No. I believe your wrist is broken and your left-handed aim with medical tape is probably worse than you think.”
Damian’s jaw tightened. The worst part was that you were correct.
You stepped closer but did not reach for him.
That was unusual. Most people reached. Medics, especially. Even kind ones often forgot that kindness could still become an invasion if delivered without permission.
You held your hands at your sides.
“I can heal it,” you said.
“No.”
“Okay.”
He paused.
You did not argue. No persuasive speech. No moral lecture. No “you don’t have to be tough with me,” which was a phrase Damian loathed almost as much as “calm down.”
You simply accepted his answer and leaned against the roof access door.
Damian narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“To make sure you don’t pass out from pain while continuing your one-man war against compression bandages.”
“I will not pass out.”
“Great. Then this will be boring.”
The silence that followed should have annoyed him.
It did. But not only.
You watched the skyline instead of watching him. You gave him privacy without leaving him alone. It was a surprisingly difficult balance, and Damian hated that you managed it.
Eventually, his splint slipped. You did not comment.
His wrist throbbed hard enough that his vision flashed white at the edges. You still did not comment.
He exhaled sharply through his nose.
“Fine,” he said. You looked over. “I will permit your assistance.”
“Assistance with the splint or healing?”
He paused. You waited.
Damian looked at your hands. They were steady. Scarred in small places, though no injuries lingered long on you. He knew that much. Everyone knew that. You healed quickly. You healed others faster.
A miracle, Jon had called you. A risk, Damian thought.
“To heal,” he said finally.
You stepped toward him. Slowly. “May I touch your wrist?”
“Yes.”
Your fingers settled around the fracture. Warmth bloomed beneath your palm.
Damian prepared for pain. There was none.
The ache vanished. The bone slid back into place with a painless shift that should have been impossible. Swelling disappeared. Torn tissue knitted itself whole. His fingers, stiff seconds before, flexed freely.
He stared at his hand. There should have been consequences. There were always consequences.
You released him and took half a step back. Your own fingers curled briefly against your palm.
A twitch. Almost nothing.
Damian saw it. “What was that?”
You blinked. “What was what?”
“Your hand.”
“My hand exists. Very observant.”
He frowned.
You smiled. It was a practised smile.
He would understand that later.
At the time, he only knew that he disliked it.
Trust came slowly.
Damian preferred it that way. Trust that arrived too quickly was either foolishness or manipulation. Real trust was built like a fortress: stone by stone, inspected from every angle, reinforced after every storm.
You never rushed him. That was the first stone.
You respected every no. That was the second.
You remembered details he did not expect anyone to notice: that he preferred tea without sugar, that he hated being touched from behind, that Titus became restless during thunderstorms, that Damian’s right shoulder tightened before he admitted exhaustion.
You learned the names of his animals before you learned the gossip about his family. That was several stones at once.
“You brought treats,” Damian said the first time you visited the Manor, and Titus abandoned dignity to shove his massive head into your hands.
“For Titus.”
“I can see that.”
“You sound offended.”
“You have bribed my dog.”
“I have respected his interests.”
Titus wagged his tail with shameless enthusiasm.
Damian crossed his arms. “He has betrayed me.”
“You love him anyway.”
“Unfortunately.”
You smiled down at Titus. “Good boy.”
Damian watched the way your hands scratched behind the dog’s ears. Gentle, sure, absent of fear. Titus leaned against you like a creature who knew exactly where kindness lived.
Damian did not realise he was staring until you glanced up.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Your smile became suspicious. “Was that almost fondness?”
“No.”
“It looked like almost fondness.”
“You are mistaken.”
“I’m choosing to believe otherwise.”
“Your delusions are your own burden.”
You laughed. Damian looked away too late.
After that, you became a regular presence.
Not constant. Damian would not have tolerated constant.
Familiar.
You appeared in the Cave after League missions, carrying medical supplies and the quiet authority of someone who had seen heroes at their worst and remained unimpressed by theatrics. You patched Grayson while he told a story with too many hand gestures and not enough respect for his own cracked ribs. You argued with Todd about antibiotics until he took them out of spite. You confiscated Drake’s coffee once and survived.
Damian had been impressed. Not that he said so.
Jon noticed, because Jon noticed everything Damian wished he would not.
“You like them,” Jon said one evening on a rooftop patrol.
Damian did not stumble. Barely.
“I tolerate them.”
Jon floated beside him, cape moving in the wind. “You gave them one of your sketches.”
“It was a medical diagram.”
“It was a drawing of their hands.”
“Hands are medically relevant.”
“You wrote ‘rest’ under it.”
“They do not rest.”
Jon’s grin widened. “You are so down bad.” Damian turned slowly. Jon backed up in the air. “I say that with love.”
“I will remove you from the sky.”
“You can’t fly.”
“I will improvise.”
Jon laughed.
Damian resumed walking. His ears were warm.
Jon landed beside him, quieter now. “They look at you differently, too.”
Damian’s step faltered. “They do not.”
“They do.”
“Kryptonian hearing does not make you an expert on human emotion.”
“No, but hearing their heartbeat change when you walk in is pretty compelling evidence.” Damian stopped. Jon also stopped, expression immediately apologetic. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You listen to their heart?”
“Not intentionally! It’s just loud when they see you.”
Damian’s own heart became deeply undisciplined.
Jon smiled softly. “You should tell them.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Damian glanced at him, suspicious. “You concede too easily.”
“No, I just know you’ll do it eventually and pretend it was your idea.”
Damian glared. Jon grinned.
Two nights later, you found another drawing tucked into your medical bag. This one was of Titus asleep with his head on your knee. Beneath it, in Damian’s precise handwriting, was one sentence: He trusts you. This reflects well on your character.
You found Damian in the garden.
It was raining, because Gotham apparently believed subtlety was for lesser cities. He stood beneath a stone archway, pretending not to wait.
You approached with the sketch held carefully against your chest.
“This is beautiful,” you said.
“It is accurate.”
“It’s kind.”
“That is debatable.”
“No.” You smiled. “It isn’t.”
Damian looked away.
You stepped under the arch beside him. Rain whispered over ivy. The Manor glowed behind you both, all old stone and golden windows.
“Thank you,” you said.
He nodded stiffly.
There was a silence.
Not uncomfortable. That had become dangerous.
You looked at him, and Damian could feel the moment opening like a door.
“You’re allowed to want things,” you said quietly.
His jaw tightened. It was not fair, how gently you said it. As if the words were not a blade sliding between armour plates. “I am aware.”
“You know it intellectually.”
He looked at you sharply. Your smile was sad.
“What do you want, Damian?”
Many answers came to him.
Peace. Purpose. His father’s approval, though he had outgrown needing it and somehow not outgrown wanting it. A world where children were not trained into weapons. A self that did not sometimes still hear his grandfather’s voice and mistake it for his own.
But those truths were too large for the rain. So he chose the smaller one. The braver one.
“You,” he said.
Your breath caught.
Damian did not look away. Your face changed in a way he did not have language for. Softened, yes, but not with pity. With wonder. With wanting so open, it made his chest hurt.
“You have me,” you whispered.
He should have asked if you were certain. He should have warned you that he did not love gently by instinct, that his devotion had teeth, that he was still learning how to hold without gripping too tightly.
Instead, he leaned in.
You met him halfway.
The first kiss was rain-cold and mouth-warm, hesitant for only the first breath. Then your hand rose to his cheek, and Damian let himself lean into it.
Let himself want. Let himself be wanted.
Later, Jon would claim he heard Damian’s heartbeat “attempt to achieve escape velocity.”
Damian would threaten him. Several times.
But in the rain, beneath ivy, you kissed him like there was nothing in him that needed to be earned back from violence.
And Damian, foolishly perhaps, believed you.
He should have known the past would come for him with a blade.
The League of Assassins rarely wasted poetry.
When the case began, it looked like a string of metahuman disappearances. Three teenagers taken from Metropolis. Two from Gotham. One from Blüdhaven. All newly powered. All young enough to be frightened by what their bodies had become and old enough for someone cruel to turn that fear into compliance.
Oracle connected the disappearances to an abandoned hospital outside Gotham registered under six false companies, two shell organisations, and one name Damian had not heard spoken aloud in years.
A minor League sect. Old blood. New methods.
His father stood at the Cave computer, grim and silent. Grayson’s usual warmth had sharpened into focus. Drake’s fingers flew across keys. Todd checked and rechecked his weapons with quiet, murderous care. Jon stood beside Damian, tension radiating off him like sunlight behind storm clouds.
You stood near the medbay entrance. Damian saw you before anyone spoke.
“No,” he said.
Your eyes moved to him. “Excuse me?”
“You are not coming.”
Todd muttered, “Smooth, brat.”
Damian ignored him.
You stepped closer. “They’ll have injured kids inside.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t want a healer there?”
“I do not want you there.”
The room went still.
Your face did not change, but Damian saw the hurt land. He regretted the phrasing instantly.
Not the meaning. The wound.
You folded your arms. “Because it’s dangerous?”
“Because it is League.”
Your expression softened, which was worse than anger. “Dami.”
“No.”
“You can’t keep me away from every shadow in your past.”
“I can keep you away from this one.”
“That isn’t your choice.”
“It is if I refuse to allow you through the Zeta-tube.”
Drake winced.
Grayson said, “Dami.”
You stared at him.
For a moment, he thought you would argue. Part of him wanted you to. Part of him wanted you angry enough that the fear in his chest had somewhere to go.
Instead, you nodded once. “Fine.”
Damian hated the word.
You looked at Bruce. “I’ll coordinate med support from here.”
Bruce’s gaze shifted between you and Damian.
Then he nodded. “Accepted.”
You did not look at Damian again.
Good, he told himself. He had protected you.
It felt like losing.
The facility beneath the hospital was exactly what Damian expected. That made it worse.
Stone corridors beneath sterile tile. Modern restraints bolted into old walls. Hidden sigils carved under steel plates. The League had always understood the value of layering cruelty beneath cleanliness.
The team split. Batman and Nightwing cleared the upper labs. Red Hood secured the escape route with a level of aggression that suggested several assassins would later require reconstructive dentistry. Red Robin disabled surveillance from the Cave with you beside him on medical coordination. Damian and Jon moved through the lower chambers.
They found the first two teenagers in a containment room.
Bruised. Dehydrated. Alive. One had burns from power-dampening cuffs. The other had a dislocated shoulder and a split lip. Damian’s jaw tightened as Jon broke the cuffs with careful rage.
You wanted to be there. You wanted to put your hands over the burns and make them vanish.
Instead, you gave orders.
He was proud. He was afraid. Both feelings sat together in him like badly behaved animals.
They moved deeper.
The final chamber was beneath the old surgical wing. It had once been an operating theatre. The League had turned it into something worse. Six teenagers were strapped to tilted metal tables arranged in a circle around a machine pulsing with stolen metahuman energy. Their powers fed into the device through cables bright with unstable light.
In the centre stood a man in black armour with a white sash marked in old League script.
Damian knew the title.
Not the man. That hardly mattered. The League was full of replaceable monsters wearing inherited arrogance.
“Blood heir,” the man said.
Jon’s eyes burned red. “I hate when they call you that.”
“As do I,” Damian said.
Then the fight began. Assassins dropped from the rafters. Red solar emitters ignited in the walls, flooding the room in pulses designed to weaken Jon without fully stripping him. Power-dampening fields snapped on around the captives. Blades flashed.
Damian moved.
He had been raised in rooms like this. He knew their rhythm. Strike before the second attacker lands. Never follow the obvious opening. The left wall hides a second blade. The floor sigil is not decorative. The man with the shorter sword is the true threat.
He fought like memory given teeth. Jon fought beside him, weakened but furious, each hit controlled enough to avoid collapsing the chamber on the children.
“Red Robin,” Damian snapped over comms. “Disable the solar emitters.”
“Working,” Tim replied. “They’re layered into the medical grid.”
Todd’s voice cut in, breathless and violent. “I can blow the grid.”
“Do not blow the grid,” Tim and Bruce said at once.
Todd scoffed. “No one appreciates vision.”
Your voice came through, tight. “Damian, behind you.”
He turned before the blade reached his spine.
An assassin fell.
Damian’s pulse sharpened. You were watching through hacked security feeds.
Good. Bad. You were seeing too much.
The lead assassin smiled.
“Still guided by softer hands,” he said.
Damian lunged.
Mistake.
Not fatal. Almost.
The floor beneath him flared with old script. Chains of black light erupted around his right arm and shoulder, locking him mid-strike. Jon shouted and tried to reach him, but two assassins drove him back beneath red solar pulses.
Damian twisted. The chains tightened.
The lead assassin drew a curved blade.
Not toward Damian’s heart. Toward his arm.
Damian understood at once. Maiming, not killing. A message. A punishment. A ritual humiliation. The blood heir made less whole.
He fought the chains with everything he had.
Not enough.
The blade came down. Pain went white.
For one suspended heartbeat, there was nothing.
Then sound returned.
Jon screaming his name. The teenagers crying out. The wet sound of blood hitting tile.
Damian looked down. His right arm was nearly severed below the elbow. Attached by ruined flesh, fractured bone, and a stubbornness his body had apparently inherited from him.
The sight was clinical in its horror.
He knew what losing the arm would mean.
Not death. Worse, in some ways.
Relearning everything. Sword forms. Drawing. Writing. Touch. Balance. The language of his body rewritten by another person’s blade.
Pain struck next, vast and blinding.
Damian dropped to his knees. His left hand clamped above the wound. Blood surged between his fingers.
“Robin!” Bruce’s voice cracked over comms.
That, more than the injury, frightened him. His father sounded afraid.
Jon hit the lead assassin so hard that the man flew into the far wall.
The solar emitters died.
Tim’s voice, “Grid down.”
Todd, “I still think explosions would’ve been faster.”
Your voice came next. Not steady. Not anymore.
“Damian?”
He clenched his teeth. Could not answer.
Jon dropped beside him, face white. He pressed both hands over Damian’s arm, trying to stem the bleeding without making it worse.
“Oh God,” Jon breathed. “Dami, stay with me.”
“I am… here,” Damian forced out.
“You’re losing too much blood.”
“I noticed.”
“Stop being sarcastic while actively bleeding out!”
Your voice came again. “Jon. Status.”
Jon looked at the comm on Damian’s collar, horrified.
“It’s his arm,” Jon said. “It’s—it’s almost gone.”
Silence. The kind that took all air with it.
Then the sound Damian dreaded most. The Zeta-tube activating in the chamber beyond.
“No,” Damian rasped.
Jon looked at him. “Damian—”
“No.”
He tried to push himself upright. Failed.
The chamber doors opened. Batman entered first, cape like a storm, medkit in hand.
You came behind him.
Your eyes found Damian. Everything in your face stopped.
No. That was his first thought.
Not relief. Not love.
No.
Because he knew you. He knew what you were seeing. Not only the blood. Not only the limb hanging by torn flesh. Not only the future unravelling in one brutal line.
You were seeing something you could fix.
“Do not,” he said.
Your face crumpled. You crossed the room anyway.
Bruce knelt at Damian’s other side, taking over pressure from Jon with controlled, terrible efficiency.
“Tourniquet,” Bruce said.
Jon was already moving.
You knelt in front of Damian.
“Hi,” you whispered.
Absurd. He loved you so fiercely in that moment that it frightened him more than the blood loss.
“No,” he said again.
Your hands hovered over his arm. Shaking now. The tremor was visible. He hated that.
“I can save it,” you said.
His vision blurred. “No.”
“You could lose your hand.”
“I know.”
“Your arm.”
“I know.”
“Damian.”
He looked at you. Your eyes were full of tears, but beneath the fear was something harder.
Resolve. The same resolve he had seen in you a hundred times when someone was hurt. When pain became a problem and your body became the answer.
“No,” he whispered.
You touched his face with one blood-slick hand.
He should have turned away. He did not.
“I’m sorry,” you said.
His heart stopped. “No.”
“I can’t let them take this from you.”
“No.”
“You draw with this hand.” His throat closed. “You hold your sword with it,” you continued, voice breaking. “You hold Titus. You hold me.”
“Beloved—”
“I can help.”
“You will take the wound.”
“Not all of it.”
“You do not know that.”
“I know my body.” A desperate, broken smile flickered across your mouth. “It changes things. It softens the transfer sometimes. I probably won’t get it as bad.”
“Probably,” Damian spat.
You flinched. Good.
No. Not good. Nothing was good.
Bruce’s gaze snapped to you. “What does that mean?”
No one answered him. The entire chamber seemed to narrow around you and Damian.
Your hand was still on his face. His blood streaked your fingers.
“I can’t watch you lose part of yourself,” you whispered.
Rage and terror rose together in Damian’s chest. “You think my hand is myself?”
“No,” you said immediately. “No. That’s not what I mean.”
“That is what you said.”
“I mean they took enough from you. The League took enough. Your childhood, your choices, your body, your pain, your name before you even knew what names meant.” Your voice cracked. “I cannot sit here with the power to stop them from taking one more thing and choose not to.”
His breath hitched.
There it was. The blade under the kindness.
Not pity. Fury. You were angry for him. You were choosing him. You were choosing him over yourself.
He wanted to weep. He wanted to shout. He wanted to beg.
“Ask me,” he said.
Your face broke. “Damian—”
“Ask me.”
The words cost him more than blood.
You stared at him. “I can’t.”
Pain lanced through him.
Not from the arm. From you.
“You can,” he said. “You must.”
“If I ask, you’ll say no.”
“Yes.”
“And then I’ll have to let it happen.”
“You will have to honour my choice.”
Your tears spilled over. “I’m not strong enough for that.”
Damian’s heart shattered.
Bruce went very still beside him. Jon made a small, broken sound.
You leaned closer.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered again.
And then your hands closed around Damian’s ruined arm.
The transfer hit like lightning.
Damian screamed. So did you. For one second, pain filled everything. Not leaving him gently, not fading like mercy. It ripped out of him, dragging fire and nerve and blood with it.
Then his arm healed. Bone snapped into alignment. Flesh knitted. Tendons reconnected. Skin sealed beneath your palms. Feeling surged down to his fingertips in a brutal rush.
His hand flexed. Whole. His.
Then you collapsed.
Your right arm buckled beneath you.
Not severed. Not as bad. You had been right. Somehow, impossibly, terribly right.
But the damage still tore through you. A jagged wound split from your forearm toward your wrist, deep enough to expose blood and white flashes of bone beneath muscle. Your fingers curled uselessly. Blood poured down your hand, splattering onto the tile. Your shoulder hit the floor, and your breath broke on a sound Damian would hear forever.
For half a second, he stared at his healed hand. Then at yours.
No.
No.
No.
He lunged toward you. His body, newly healed but blood-weakened, nearly failed him. Jon caught his shoulder. Damian shoved him away and dragged himself to you with both hands, both whole hands, which made it worse.
“Beloved,” he choked.
You were curled around your injured arm, face white with agony.
Bruce moved quickly, already applying pressure to your wound. You cried out. Damian flinched as if the sound had opened him.
“Do not touch them,” he snapped at Bruce.
Bruce’s eyes flashed. “They’re bleeding.”
Damian knew he was being irrational. He did not care.
“Damian,” you gasped.
His attention snapped to you.
You were looking at him. Not your arm.
Him.
Relief trembled through your expression.
Relief.
Because his arm was whole. Because you had succeeded.
Damian felt something inside him go cold and wild.
“How dare you,” he whispered.
Your eyes filled. “I’m sorry.”
“How dare you.”
“I couldn’t—”
“You could,” he said, voice shaking. “You chose not to.”
Your face crumpled.
He wanted to take the words back. He wanted to sharpen them. He wanted to kiss you until your pain disappeared. He wanted your blood off the floor. He wanted his wound back.
“You chose me,” he said.
Your lips trembled. “Yes.”
“Over yourself.”
“Yes.”
The honesty was a killing blow.
Damian’s breath left him.
Bruce tightened the pressure bandage around your arm. You whimpered, trying to stay still. Jon knelt nearby, crying openly now. Damian barely saw him.
“You were right,” you whispered. His heart stopped. “It’s not as bad.”
Damian stared at you.
Then laughed once. A terrible sound.
“You think that matters?” Your eyes searched his, confused through pain and shock. “You think because the wound is smaller, the violation is smaller?”
You flinched.
Bruce’s expression tightened.
Jon whispered, “Dami…”
“No,” Damian snapped. “Do not.”
Your breathing hitched.
Damian’s hands shook. His right hand, whole and healed, shook.
That made him angrier. That made him love you more. That made him hate everything.
“You did not save my arm,” he said, voice breaking. “You made it yours.”
Your face went slack.
There. Good.
No. Not good.
Truth. Necessary and brutal.
You looked at your wounded arm as if seeing it for the first time. Blood soaked the bandage beneath Bruce’s hands.
Your mouth opened. No sound came out.
Then the pain took you. Your eyes rolled back.
Damian caught you before your head hit the floor. “Beloved?”
No response.
“Beloved.”
Bruce pressed two fingers to your throat. “Pulse is weak. We need extraction now.”
Damian held you against him, his healed hand cradling your head.
His arm worked perfectly. He had never hated his own body more.
The Watchtower medbay smelled like antiseptic and fear. Damian sat outside the surgical suite with blood on his clothes.
Yours. His. Both.
He had refused to change.
Todd had said nothing, which was how Damian knew the situation had reached an unnatural level of horror. Jon sat on the floor across from him, knees drawn up, cape wrapped around his shoulders. He had cried himself quiet twenty minutes earlier. Bruce stood near the observation window like a statue carved by grief. Grayson paced. Drake typed furiously on one tablet, then another, then stopped as if realising no amount of data would make time move faster.
Todd leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, helmet off, face pale and furious.
“This is bullshit,” Jason said finally. No one answered. “This whole damn thing is bullshit.”
“Jason,” Dick said softly.
“No. They should’ve told us.”
Damian’s eyes lifted.
Todd looked at him.
Not accusing. Not pitying.
Understanding.
It was unbearable.
“They should’ve told us what healing cost,” Jason said. “Before any of us let them touch us.”
Damian looked down at his right hand.
He flexed his fingers. Whole. Obedient. Yours now, some treacherous part of him thought.
No.
No.
He dug his nails into his palm. Pain answered.
His pain. At least that remained.
“They knew I would refuse,” Damian said.
His voice was calm. Too calm.
Everyone looked at him.
“They knew,” he repeated. “So they did not ask.”
Jon’s face crumpled again.
Bruce said, quietly, “They thought they were saving you.”
Damian’s gaze snapped to his father. “They were.”
Silence.
Damian stood. His body swayed.
Jon scrambled up, but Damian lifted a hand. Jon stopped.
Damian looked at Bruce. “That is the problem.”
Bruce’s face tightened.
“I know,” he said.
Of course he did. Bruce Wayne understood being saved against his will. Understood surviving at a cost someone else paid. Understood the rage that followed gratitude so closely they became nearly impossible to separate.
Damian hated that he understood.
The surgical doors opened. Dr Mid-Nite emerged, expression grave but not hopeless. Damian was in front of him immediately.
“They’re alive,” the doctor said.
Damian nearly collapsed.
He did not. But Jon did, a little, against the wall.
“The transferred injury was severe,” Dr Mid-Nite continued. “Less catastrophic than yours would have been, but still serious. The arm is salvageable. There’s nerve trauma, tendon damage, blood loss. Their accelerated healing is responding, but slowly.”
“Will they regain function?” Damian asked.
“Likely, with treatment and time.”
Likely. Damian hated likely. Likely was probably wearing a white coat.
He wanted certainty. He got none.
“Can I see them?”
The doctor hesitated. Damian’s eyes narrowed.
Bruce stepped closer. “He won’t interfere.”
Dr Mid-Nite looked at Damian. Damian lifted his chin.
“I will not interfere,” he said.
He did not know if it was true. But he meant to make it so.
The doctor nodded.
You looked too small in the bed. Damian hated that thought. You were not small. You were not fragile. You were not a wounded bird cupped in his hands.
You were the person who had looked at the League’s attempt to maim him and said, No more. You were the person who had made yourself the answer.
You were terrible. You were brave. You were unconscious beneath white sheets, right arm wrapped from shoulder to wrist and elevated in a brace.
Damian approached slowly. Machines hummed. Your face was pale with pain even in sleep.
He stopped beside the bed. For a long time, he did nothing.
Then he reached out with his right hand. The healed one.
His fingers hovered over your bandaged arm.
He did not touch. He could not.
It felt obscene.
“Why?” he whispered.
You did not answer. The monitors did.
Steady beep. Alive.
Damian sat. He folded his hands in his lap. His right hand looked unchanged. Same calluses. Same scars. Same fine ink stain near his thumb from sketching two days earlier. Same knuckles bruised from training. Same fingers that had held yours in the garden.
It should have been a relief.
It was. That was the cruelty.
He was relieved.
He loved his hand. He loved what it allowed him to do. Draw. Fight. touch. Feed Titus scraps when Alfred was not looking. Hold his sword. Hold you.
He had not wanted to lose it. He had been prepared to.
You had seen the part of him that feared the loss, the part he would have hidden beneath pride, and you had chosen that frightened part over your own safety.
Damian hated you for it. Damian loved you for it. Both truths wrapped around his throat until breathing became difficult.
“You should have asked,” he said. His voice shook. “You should have asked me and allowed me to refuse. You should have trusted me to survive less than wholeness.” His eyes burned. “You should not have loved me like the League.”
The words entered the room and stayed. He regretted them immediately.
No. He did not.
Yes. Both. Always both with you now.
You stirred. Damian sat forward sharply. Your eyelids fluttered.
“Beloved?”
Your eyes opened slowly. Unfocused.
Then they found him.
Relief. Again.
Damian closed his eyes. When he opened them, you were trying to smile.
“Arm?” you rasped.
His jaw tightened. “Yours or mine?”
Your smile vanished.
Good. No. He was tired of good. Tired of bad. Tired of feeling everything.
“Damian,” you whispered.
He took the cup from beside the bed and held the straw to your lips. His right hand did not tremble this time.
You drank. Only a little. He set the cup down.
“My arm is whole,” he said.
Your eyes closed. “Good.”
The word struck him like a slap. He stood so quickly the chair scraped back.
Your eyes opened, startled.
“No,” he said.
Your face twisted with pain and confusion. “No?”
“No. You do not get to say good.”
Your throat bobbed. “I saved it.”
“You took it.”
“I saved it.”
“At the cost of your own.”
“It isn’t as bad.”
He stared at you. You seemed to hear yourself then. Your face faltered.
“It isn’t,” you said, quieter. “I knew it wouldn’t be as bad.”
“You did not know.”
“I was pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure,” he repeated.
Your eyes filled.
His hands curled into fists. Both hands. “You gambled with your body.”
“I gambled to keep yours.”
“I did not ask you to.”
“I know.”
“You did not let me refuse.”
“I know.”
“You did not trust me.”
That hurt you. Your mouth trembled. “I did trust you.”
“No.” Damian shook his head once. “You trusted that I would survive. You did not trust that I had the right to choose what survival looked like.”
Tears slipped down your temples.
“I couldn’t bear it,” you whispered.
“What?”
“The thought of you losing it.” Your gaze flicked to his right hand. “Your hand. Your arm. Your art. Your sword. The way you touch everything like you’re still learning you’re allowed to be gentle.”
Damian went still.
Your voice broke. “I couldn’t bear knowing I could help and choosing not to. I couldn’t bear seeing another piece of you taken by them.”
He looked away. The room blurred.
Damn you. Damn you for knowing that. Damn you for seeing the child beneath the blade, the boy raised by people who called ownership love, the man still trying to make his body his own. Damn you for choosing him. Damn you for being right that part of him was glad.
“I would have learned,” he said. You sobbed once. “I would have adapted.”
“I know.”
“I am more than my sword hand.”
“I know,” you said, crying harder now. “I know, Damian. I swear I know. I didn’t do it because I thought you’d be less. I did it because I love all of you, and I couldn’t watch you be forced to lose something when I had a chance to stop it.”
His anger fractured. Love rushed in through the crack.
Unwelcome. Unstoppable.
He sat down again, slower this time. “You chose me over yourself.”
Your eyes held his. “Yes.”
The honesty hurt worse than any lie could have.
Damian lowered his head. For a moment, he was back in the chamber. Your hand on his face. Your eyes full of tears. Your voice saying sorry because you already knew you were about to betray him for love.
He hated that he understood. He hated that if it had been you on the floor with your arm nearly severed, he did not know if he would have done better.
That thought humbled him. Humiliation would have been easier. This was grief.
“I love you,” he said.
Your breath caught. He looked at you.
“I love you for choosing me,” he continued, voice rough. “For looking at the worst thing the League tried to make me and refusing to let them take more. I love you for your fury. For your tenderness. For wanting me whole even when I was prepared not to be.”
Your face crumpled.
“And I hate you for choosing me over yourself.”
You closed your eyes. “I know.”
“No,” he said. “Listen.”
Your eyes opened again.
“I hate that you decided my wholeness was worth your damage. I hate that I am relieved. I hate that part of me wants to thank you while another part wants to never let you touch me again.”
A tear slid down your cheek. Damian reached for it.
Stopped.
“May I?” he asked.
Your face broke all over again. “Yes.”
He wiped the tear away with his right thumb. His healed thumb.
You leaned into the touch. He nearly broke.
“I am angry,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“I will be angry for some time.”
“I know.”
“I may not forgive you quickly.”
Your lips trembled. “Okay.”
“But I am staying.”
A sob caught in your throat. Damian leaned closer.
“I am staying,” he repeated. “Because love is not leaving when one has been wounded. Even by the beloved.”
You cried then.
Not quietly. Not beautifully. You cried like something in you had finally stopped bracing for abandonment.
Damian rested his forehead against yours, careful of the tubes, the bandages, the injured arm held between you like a third presence.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
His eyes closed. “I know.”
A faint, watery laugh escaped you. “Arrogant.”
“Yes.”
“Say it back anyway?”
His mouth softened. “I love you.”
Your breath shuddered.
“I love you,” he said again, because the words seemed to hurt you in a healing way, and Damian was beginning to understand that not all pain was harm. “I love you, and you were wrong.”
You laughed and sobbed at the same time. “That is very you.”
“I am consistent.”
“You are.”
His hand remained on your face. Your uninjured hand lifted slowly and covered his.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The monitor kept counting proof of your survival. Damian listened like it was scripture.
Recovery was not gentle. Yours rarely was.
The wound had not taken your arm, but it had changed it. Nerves misfired beneath the skin. Your fingers trembled. Grip strength came and went like a moody ghost. Some days, your hand curled stiffly and refused to open without coaxing. Some nights, the pain climbed from wrist to shoulder and left you pale, sweating, biting back sounds Damian wished he could tear from the world.
He did not offer to have you heal yourself. He had learned enough by then. You could accelerate your recovery only in fragments, carefully, at the cost of exhaustion that frightened everyone.
So you healed slowly. Humanly.
Damian stayed. Angrily. Devotedly.
He brought tea and corrected your posture with surgical precision. He read aloud when the pain made focusing difficult. He chose poetry at first because he thought it might soothe you. Then he chose murder mysteries because you criticised everyone’s investigative technique so fiercely that even Drake listened from the doorway with reluctant approval.
He brushed your hair when your arm hurt too much.
The first time, you cried. He pretended not to notice until you said, “You can notice.”
So he did.
“You are crying,” Damian said.
You laughed wetly. “Thanks.”
“I am uncertain what response is appropriate.”
“Just keep going.”
He did. His fingers moved through your hair with grave concentration.
Todd walked in, saw the scene, and immediately walked back out muttering, “Nope, too intimate, I’m emotionally allergic.”
You laughed so hard that Damian threatened him through the door.
Some days, Damian’s anger sharpened unexpectedly.
A dropped cup. Your wince while trying to flex your fingers. The sight of you struggling to button a shirt. Each small reminder of what you had taken from him and made yours.
One afternoon, you caught him staring at your hand as you failed to hold a pen.
“Say it,” you said.
Damian looked up. “What?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“I am thinking many things.”
“The angry one.”
His jaw tightened.
You waited. Always waiting, even now.
He exhaled. “I am thinking that I should be the one unable to hold a pen.”
Your face softened with pain.
“I am thinking that you stole a consequence from me.”
“Yes.”
“I am thinking that I am grateful.”
Your eyes filled.
His voice hardened. “And that gratitude disgusts me.”
You set the pen down. “Damian.”
“No. You asked.”
“I did.”
He stood, restless, anger moving through him like a blade seeking a target. “I look at my hand and I am relieved. I draw and I am relieved. I hold my sword and I am relieved. I touch you and I am relieved.”
Your mouth trembled.
He looked at you, furious and wrecked. “Then I look at your hand.”
You said nothing.
“I do not know where to put the relief,” he confessed.
Your expression crumpled.
Oh. There it was. The truth under the anger.
He did not know how to be grateful for something that had hurt you. He did not know how to love the saved part of himself without feeling like he was betraying the wounded part of you.
You rose carefully from the chair. He stiffened. You came close but did not touch.
“I don’t need you to be only grateful,” you said softly. His throat tightened. “I don’t even need you to be grateful at all.”
“I am.”
“I know.”
“I despise it.”
“I know.”
Your injured hand hung between you, bandaged, trembling slightly.
Damian looked at it. Then, slowly, he held out his right hand. His healed hand.
You stared.
“May I?” he asked.
Your eyes filled. “Yes.”
He took your injured hand with unbearable care. The bandages were soft beneath his fingers.
Your hand trembled in his. He lifted it and pressed his mouth to your knuckles. You inhaled sharply.
“I am angry,” he said against your skin. “I am grateful.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
Your eyes closed. “I know,” you whispered.
He looked up.
“And I hate,” he said, voice rough, “that those truths do not cancel each other out.”
You opened your eyes. “They don’t have to.”
“No.” He held your hand between both of his. “No,” he repeated. “They do not.”
It was not forgiveness. Not yet.
But it was contact. It was honest. It was enough for that moment.
Jon came often. He was terrible at pretending he was not checking on both of you. He brought snacks, flowers, terrible jokes, and one stuffed cow wearing a tiny Robin cape.
Damian stared at it. You stared at it.
Jon held it out with both hands. “For emotional support.”
Damian said, “Leave.”
You laughed immediately.
Jon brightened. “See? It helped.”
“It offended me.”
“That’s your love language.”
“I will make you eat the cow.”
“It has a name.”
“No.”
“Moo-bin.”
Damian closed his eyes. You laughed so hard you had to clutch your injured arm, which made Damian glare at Jon with genuine threat.
Jon winced. “Sorry. Sorry. Medium laughter only.”
You wheezed, “Moo-bin.”
Damian looked at you.
Betrayal. Absolute betrayal.
Jon smiled, then sobered. “Can I talk to Damian for a sec?”
You looked between them.
Damian stiffened. “If this is another emotional intervention—”
“It is.”
“No.”
“Dami.”
You touched Damian’s wrist gently. “Go,” you said.
He frowned. “I’m fine.”
“That word is banned.”
“I am stable, medicated, and entertained by Moo-bin.”
Jon looked delighted. Damian looked betrayed again. Still, he followed Jon into the hallway.
For several seconds, Jon said nothing.
Damian crossed his arms. “Speak.”
Jon looked toward the medbay door. Then back at Damian. “You’re allowed to be glad.”
Damian went still.
Jon’s face was open and earnest and far too difficult to dismiss.
“That your arm is okay,” Jon said. “You’re allowed to be glad.”
Damian looked away.
“They would want you to be.”
“That is part of the problem.”
“I know.”
“You do not.”
Jon’s jaw tightened.
“I watched them do it,” he said.
Damian looked back.
Jon’s eyes shone. “I watched you say no. I watched them do it anyway. I watched you heal and them drop. I’m angry too.”
Damian’s throat closed.
Jon stepped closer. “But I also heard your heartbeat when you saw your hand move again.”
Damian flinched.
“Sorry,” Jon said quickly. “I know. Accidental perceiving. Bad habit.”
Damian did not respond.
Jon continued anyway. “It sounded like hope.”
The words struck too deep. Damian turned away.
Jon’s voice softened. “I don’t think that makes you bad.”
Damian’s jaw clenched.
“The League made you think every gift is a debt,” Jon said. “But this isn’t that.”
“It feels like that.”
“I know.”
“They paid in blood.”
“Yeah.”
“For me.”
“Yes.”
“How is that not debt?”
Jon was quiet. Then he said, “Because they’re not asking you to repay it.” Damian shut his eyes. “They’re asking you to stay.”
Damian hated how simple Jon made things. How gentle. How impossible to refute.
“I do not know if staying is enough,” Damian said.
Jon stepped beside him. “Maybe not every day. But it’s a start.”
The hallway remained silent.
Then Damian said, “Moo-bin is a terrible name.”
Jon laughed, startled. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“You keeping him?”
Damian looked toward the medbay door.
Through the small window, he could see you holding the cow in your lap, smiling faintly at its ridiculous cape.
“Yes,” Damian said.
Jon wisely did not comment.
The first time you returned to the garden, your hand was still bandaged. The rain had stopped earlier, leaving the paths dark and shining beneath the evening lights. Titus wandered ahead, sniffing at wet leaves. The Manor windows glowed gold behind you.
Damian walked beside you. Close enough that your sleeves brushed.
You stopped beneath the same ivy arch where he had first told you he wanted you. The memory sat between you.
Soft. Cruel. Yours.
You looked at him. “I’m scared you’ll never look at me the same.”
Damian’s chest tightened.
He considered lying.
No. No more soft lies.
“I do not look at you the same.”
Your face fell.
He turned toward you fully. “I know more now.”
You swallowed. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is honest.”
Your mouth trembled.
He reached for your injured hand. Paused. You nodded.
He took it carefully. “I know you are capable of betraying my choice to preserve my body.”
You closed your eyes.
“I know you are reckless when afraid.”
A tear slipped down your cheek.
“I know you love me with a ferocity that does not always ask permission.”
“I’m sorry,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“I’ll keep saying it.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know how to make it right.”
Damian looked down at your joined hands.
His whole one. Your wounded one.
“There is no undoing it.”
Your breath caught.
He looked back at you.
“There is only what comes next.”
You opened your eyes. “What comes next?”
He brushed his thumb lightly over the edge of your bandage. “You tell me when you are in pain.” You nodded. “You do not minimise it because it is less than what I would have suffered.” Another tear fell. “You let me be angry without deciding I no longer love you.” Your face crumpled. “And I,” he continued, voice roughening, “will learn to feel relief without turning it into shame.”
You stared at him.
The rain began again, soft at first. Gotham had timing. Terrible, dramatic timing.
You laughed through tears.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re negotiating emotional terms in the rain.”
“It is a serious matter.”
“It’s very romantic.”
“It is practical.”
“It can be both.”
He considered this. Then nodded once. “Fine.”
Your smile was small. “Fine?”
“It can be both.”
You stepped closer. “Can I kiss you?”
Damian’s heart moved painfully.
Even after everything. Especially after everything. You asked.
“Yes,” he said.
You kissed him gently. Too gently. As if afraid he would break beneath the weight of what you had done.
Damian’s left hand rose to your face. His right rested against your waist, whole and steady and unbearable.
He deepened the kiss. You made a soft sound against his mouth. He held you there beneath the ivy while rain gathered in your hair.
When he pulled back, your eyes were closed.
“You are not forgiven yet,” he whispered.
Your eyes opened. “I know.”
“But you are loved.”
Your face broke open with relief so bright it nearly hurt to see.
He continued before the words could fail him. “You are loved while I am angry. You are loved while I am grateful. You are loved while I do not understand how to carry either.”
Your injured hand rose slowly and touched his chest. Over his heart.
“I can live with that,” you whispered.
“You must.”
A faint smile. “Bossy.”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
His throat tightened. “I know.”
You gave him a look.
He let the smallest smile touch his mouth. “I love you too.”
Titus barked from somewhere near the fountain, apparently offended that no one was paying attention to him.
You laughed.
Damian’s right hand flexed at your waist. He felt the motion. Felt every tendon obey. Felt relief. Felt guilt. Felt your warmth beneath his palm.
This time, he did not push any of it away. He held it. All of it. The anger. The gratitude. The love. The wound. The choice stolen and the life preserved. The hand he kept and the hand you injured to keep it for him.
Pain had gone somewhere. So had love.
Not cleanly. Not without consequence. But here, in the rain, with your hand over his heart and his over your bandages, Damian understood something he had never been taught in the League.
A gift paid in blood could still be wrong. A wrong thing could still come from love. Love could wound and remain love. And healing, real healing, was not the absence of scars. It was the choice to stay and learn the shape of them.
Damian pressed his forehead to yours.
“I will draw again,” he said quietly. Your breath caught. “And when I do, you will sit for me.”
You smiled through fresh tears. “What will you draw?”
He looked at your face. Your wet hair. Your tired eyes. Your stubborn, devastating tenderness. Then your bandaged hand. Then his own.
“Hands,” he said.
You laughed softly. “Again?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Damian lifted your injured hand and kissed the bandages. “Because they tell the truth.”
You looked at him like he had given you something fragile.
Maybe he had. Maybe he was learning. Maybe both of you were.
The rain fell harder, silvering the garden.
Inside the Manor, his family waited with tea, lectures, jokes, and the unbearable relief of people who had almost lost too much and were now determined to hover about it.
Out here, there was only you. Only him. Only the wound between you, no longer hidden.
Damian held your hand. You held his. Neither of you were whole in the way you had been before.
could you do a yuji x reader where yuji is a third year at jujutsu tech (the shibuya incident never happened) and gojo introduces a new 1st grade sorcerer student and turns out it is yujis girlfriend of 5 years and the other students never knew yuji had a girlfriend and they are constantly seeing the reader in yujis bed
thank you for listening to my idea!❤️
omg love this YES THANK YOU
misunderstood king
itadori yuji x 1st grade fem!reader. crack, fluff (the other students are dumb but their hearts are in the right place!!)
the first day gojo introduced you as the newest sorcerer was like any other. he walked you around, introduced you to your new classmates, skillfully snuck away after forcing nobura to give you a tour, etc. etc.
you and yuji were the only ones knew what was up.
you hadn’t told him about your offer until after accepting, so while he knew you were joining him at jujutsu tech, he kept his lips sealed about your… relationship.
no one knew. not megumi, not nobara, not even gojo (well, he probably knew and chose not to say anything out of pure entertainment of watching you pretend not to know each other, but that’s a story for another time).
so when the two other third years were asked one morning to drag their third, yuji, out of bed, they had no reason to decline.
until they creaked the door open and saw you lying there, tangled up in his arms, face smushed against his chest as his fingers sat loosely in your hair.
and, as any respectful, well-mannered human being would, they used their powers to suck you out of yuji’s grasp and shoot him in the face.
yuji startled awake, but the shadows had formed a comfortable cocoon around you, maintaining your peaceful sleep.
“what the f—“
“you!” nobara shouted, cheeks red with rage as she shoved a finger into his lightly scorched chest. “you dirty, disgusting little boy!”
yuji blinked. “whaaa—“
“how could you take advantage of our precious new 1st grade! she’s been here less than a week!”
it took a moment for the accusation to click in yuji’s sweet little mind, but once it did, his face flushed and jaw hit the floor to release a startled and, frankly, hurt, “huh?!”
in the shadow bubble, you buried your face in one of the divine dog’s fur (because at some point, it found itself trapped and smiling in your warm embrace), dead to the world.
“i would never!” yuji cried, tossing a hand to his pained chest at the accusation.
nobara shoved her fists against her hips. “there’s no one that girl naturally developed feelings for you in, what, the four days she’s been here?!”
yuji rubbed his face. on one hand, he promised you he wouldn’t tell anyone about your relationship until after you proved yourself to the other students. on the other hand, this was about as bad as it could get.
slowly, yuji dropped his arms and said, defeatedly, “we’ve been dating for five years…”
immediately, the color drained from both nobara and megumi’s faces.
“it’s…”
“you…”
“it’s like that?!”
“impossible… these must be lies…”
he tuned out their baseless rambles in favor of reaching into the shadow bubble and collecting your sleeping form in his arms. even in your sleep, you reached out for him, nuzzling your cheek into his chest.
yuji smiled at you, though his words were directed toward his friends. “sorry to burst your bubble—“
“never speak again.”
“—but she’s the one for me! i’d appreciate it if we kept this a secret, for now. she likes sneaking around. says it makes her feel like kim possible.”
it was nobara’s turn to sigh. she thumped a fist against megumi’s shoulder, signaling their exit. “i’m still not convinced someone like you found a girlfriend before i did, so if i find out your lying…”
yuji frowned. “someone like me..?”
“goodbye.”
megumi caught the door nobara shoved to prevent it from slamming and waking you up. he shot a quick, apathetic thumbs up to yuji before shaking his head as if to ask “what the hell was that?” and carefully pulled the door shut.
yuji tucked you back into bed, where you woke not long after giggling about how mysterious you both were for not getting caught.
he simply smiled into the kiss he placed atop your head.
MDNI in today's broadcast: hajime umemiya simply can't help himself when it comes to his cutie of a girlfriend! "cuteness aggression is simply unavoidable when faced with my lady." he states in an interview.
CW: suggestive, fem!reader, aged up!ume
"oh, schnookums!" umemiya's wide grin could blind people a mile away as he calls out to you, his girlfriend who's approaching furin's gates to pick him up.
the sun is hitting him just right, making him look absolutely divine. your boyfriend has always been capable of taking your breath away with just a single good angle, so it's good his goofy personality grounds you every now and again. otherwise, you'd never let him out of your bed.
his hair is gelled in its usual pushed-back style, furin jacket shed due to the increasing temperatures. even without knowing his routines, you'd be able to guess he was just hard at work on the roof, the veins in his arms bulging from the exertion.
a collective set of groans is heard behind him, and yet it does nothing to dampen his mood. instead, he takes it upon himself to run to you, finding your pace too slow for his liking.
"ah, you look so gorgeous!" he gushes, squeezing your cheeks together to pout your lips before he engulfs you in a bone-crushing hug.
you feel yourself burning up, and not just from the weather, "haji-" his grip tightens, "uh, sorry. baby, i missed you," you muster up through the lack of air.
"so did i!" he finally lets go, giggling to himself as you try to catch your breath, holding onto his arm. he waves to the others, bidding them goodbye. in spite of the first years being slightly disgusted by his lovesickness, they laugh.
suo nudges the distressed sakura, "how sweet, wouldn't you say?"
"yeah, w-whatever!" sakura turns the opposite way, storming off with nirei, tsugeura and kiryu trailing closely behind.
hajime crouches down in front of you, patting his shoulders, "get on, sweet cheeks! can't have ya over-exerting yourself in these conditions. oh! have you drank enough water?"
bewildered, and wholly embarrassed, your voice lowers, "i'm wearing a skirt! i'll flash everyone around!" the last thing you needed was people being able to see up your skirt.
"how silly of me to forget~" he grins, eyebrows wiggling as he eyes your clothes. he hands you his furin jacket, "tie it around your waist, i can't have people seeing what's meant for my eyes only."
you do as you're told, no less flustered. you finally climb onto his back, arms wrapped around his shoulders, legs held up by his hands on the back of your thighs. his fingers dig into your plush flesh gently as he massages you idly, "am i not too-"
he jostles you up, snickering as he adjusts his grip, "don't insult me like that. i should be able to carry you no matter what."
your hold on him tightens, "meanie," you huff, "thought you were gonna drop me."
"never," he puffs out his chest, "beat me up if i do."
"i'll hold you to that," you smush your face into his back. you feel the muscles straining under his shirt, your belly doing a few flips. how you scored someone like umemiya will never fail to baffle you.
the heat from his body combined with the glaring sun incites a long yawn, nuzzling into his back more. you don't know where he's taking you, but it doesn't matter either, as long as he's with you you'll be safe anywhere.
you nearly doze off, eyes closed and a trickle of drool slipping down your chin from the corner of your mouth until you hear a door lock turning. lifting your head, you see the entrance of your home.
he walks in, taking off his and your shoes before he sits you down on the couch. walking into the kitchen to grab you two some water, he makes the mistake of looking back at you right as you stretch, face contorted into another yawn.
"eeek!" he squeals happily, running back over and tackling you onto your back, aggressively nuzzling his face into your neck. "you're such a cutie!"
"my- kiss super- kiss duper- kiss adorable- kiss sweetheart!" you giggle away as he tickles your sides too, pressing kisses all over your face and neck.
his hands travel beneath your shirt, continuing his tickling attack. but as his hands make contact with your bare skin, combined with a well-timed kiss on that specific spot on your neck, a moan worms its way though the laughter.
he stills briefly, eyes darting up to your flushed face. he notes your eyes shifting everywhere but to him. you bite your lip, somehow managing to look cute and hot at the same time. heat pools in his gut as he feels a stir in his pants.
crawling further over you, he cages you in, arms on both sides of your head. he nuzzles his nose against yours, your breath hitching, "don't tell me my baby got all hot and bothered from just that."
you shrink into yourself slightly, "and what if i did?"
his smile is soft as he cups your face, "then that means i've got to take care of it for you, if you'll let me."
he chuckles at your small nod, leaning down to press a myriad of kisses onto your face again. your heart is so full. not only does your boyfriend provide a type of physical safety, but also an emotional one. he can set aside his own excitement in favor of keeping your comfort. all it does is add to your arousal, his quick switch-up from goofy and loving to gentle and still loving warms your entire body, butterflies swarming your gut.
he leans back slightly, hands traveling down your body and under your skirt, flipping it up. his smile widens upon seeing you've leaked through your panties already, "you're so incredibly adorable, schnookums."
you groan, hiding your face in your hands, "you ruined it!"
said noise quickly transforms into a moan as he presses his thumb to your covered slit, rubbing over your nub through the soaked fabric, "doesn't look like it to me."
req: hajime umemiya x reader where the reader gets into a fight and hajime is not happy someone attacked his lovely girlfriend
so i definitely somehow read iwaizumi instead of umemiya on that original request.. here’s ume!!
baby blues
hajime umemiya x fem!reader. fluff + hurt comfort
“ow, ow, ow,” you complained through a wince as ume dabbed at the broken skin covering your knuckles. “it stings.”
he hummed and lightened up on his touch. it wasn’t him that was hurting you, but the alcohol and antiseptic. still, his efforts to make this as comfortable as possible brought a tight smile to your lips.
“my poor girl,” he mused as he worked, his lips set in a pout. “i’m sorry i wasn’t there.”
“it’s not your fault,” you replied immediately. it really wasn’t. umemiya had been busy elsewhere and urged you not to venture around an unfamiliar part of town on your own, but you’d seen a white cat with eyes the same shade of blue as his and couldn’t resist.
you bit your cheek to stop yourself from smiling too hard and ruining his progress. “i could resist those sweet baby blues. i’m telling you, they were identical!”
hajime giggled for you, and your heart tripped at the sound. “you know, you’re the only one in bofurin who can get away with that.”
you reached forward to pinch his nose gently between your bandaged fingers. “that’s a lie, and we both know it.”
“fine. but you’re the only one who points out the little things like that. i’m not sure who else would follow a cat into enemy territory over my sweet baby blues.”
you couldn’t help but grin as you said, “sugishita.”
“… fair.”
it got quiet as he finished bandaging your hands. then, umemiya twisted his wrists so that he could intertwine your fingers. “but seriously. i hate seeing you bleed, period, you could have been hurt a lot worse than this.”
his tone brought a comfortable warmth to your cheeks. you leaned forward and kissed him once on the lips. “i’m sorry. i’ll make sure to bring you with me the next time i see a cat.”
Can you do a continuous of Fiancé?! Pregnant?! Maybe with the league finding out and how Talia would react.
thank you :)
fiancé? pregnant?! - 2
a/n: thanks so much for the request darling! I did it more as a one on one with Damian and Talia because it felt more intimate. And yes I wrote her as a good mother because that’s what she is! Other writers just changed canon for some reason but I’m sticking to the first one.
Anyways, it’s fluffy and soft. I don’t think I’ll make another part to this series either but that’s TBD.
part one
———————————————————————
Damian knew she was there without her having to say anything.
"Mother pkease. Father does enough brooding in the shadows, I'd rather you didn't pick up the habit as well."
Her soft chuckle was one he remembered well. She didn't have the chance to visit all that much but when she did, Damian knew to treasure it.
They'd spend meaningful time over books and tea, silently reminiscing in the old life they lived together.
Damian hadn't yet told his mother about you or your soon to be child. His family here had just found out about those both only a mere month ago.
But he had a good feeling his mother wasn't here for no reason.
Talia had stepped closer to where Damian was standing on the rooftop. Of course she'd pick now, during his patrol, to do this.
"Are we going to beat around the bush or are you going to tell me why you're here?"
"So hostile Damian. I believe we both know why I'm here. How far along are they?"
Damian looked at his mother. Her face wasn't shocked or filled with concern like his father's had been.
It was…soft.
Like the idea of her son opening up and having someone he can trust and love fills her own heart with love.
"Six months now. We've been together for two years and they're my fiancé."
Damian would never admit it but the weird heavy feeling he's had since this conversation started vanished completely when he saw her smile. Staying completely still as she rested her hands on his shoulders.
"You love them?"
"More than anything."
"Do you know the gender of the baby?"
Her son nodded.
"It will be a girl."
Talia could help when her smile grew wider. He knew she was excited. Excited to me her granddaughter and her in-law that seemed to take over Damian's heart.
"I would love to meet your fiancé."
Damian nodded again. He had expected that, though he still wasn't sure how to go about it just yet.
"You will. How long are you staying?"
"I'll be here for three days."
He wished it was more. Despite his ability to think fast in life or death situations, he wanted things to go perfectly.
Much different from the disaster with Bruce and his siblings.
Maybe they'd all sit together and have tea. Just like he did every time his mother came. And just like when you and he had time to rest with one another.
Damian came back home at his usual time. Silently making his way around the bedroom, changing into comfortable clothes before he heard the en suite bathroom open.
His eyes softened when he saw you rubbing your eyes as you came out. One of his larger shirts draped over your growing belly.
"Beloved."
Your eyes flicked open right away, not even noticing he was there until then.
"Oh you're home, how did it go?"
Your soft arms enveloped him with ease. Like he was just another part of a puzzle that you knew connected to yourself.
"Quite normally. My mother made an appearance. She'd like to meet you and the baby once she comes of course."
He brushed back the hair from your face as you looked up in curiousity.
"I didn't know she was here. For how long?"
"Three days." He kissed your forehead gently. "I am unsure of when I'll have you meet her. I'd like things to go smoothly, though I don't doubt that they will. I'd like to plan a little first."
You nodded gently against him. He could already see that your body was feeling to heavy to hold and your were most likely exhausted.
With gentle domesticity hanging in the air, your lovely fiancé brought you to the shared bed. Laying you as gently as possible whilst making sure to prop up your extra pillows so you could sleep comfortably with the baby.
"Goodnight beloved." He kissed your forehead once more, making your eyes flutter and close, breath already evening out.
"Goodnight precious." He whispered this time as he kissed your stomach this time.
For as long as Damian is able, he will protect his beloveds no matter the cost.
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