𝓼ina. english nerd. istp. reader. the smiths. little women. 𝓇ock music enthusiast. coffee addict. poc. virgo. certified horror movie watcher. future csi. hufflepuff. 𝓵esbian.
jock! jason todd, who’s notorious across every team in the district for playing dirty—even the refs are informed of his “playing style” beforehand.
jock! jason todd, who loves seeing you in his football jacket ‘cause it lets everyone know that you’re off limits, also because he thinks you look ridiculously hot in it. he’ll always play 10x harder whenever you show up to a game with his jersey number on your back.
jock! jason todd, who acts like he doesn’t care about all the attention he gets, yet his ego is literally bigger than the sun and earth combined.
jock! jason todd, who’s always on the verge of getting kicked off the team because of his behavior during classes, but coach never goes through with it since he knows jason’s their best player. because of that, some of the guys on both varsity and jv resent jason for how easily he gets away with shit.
jock! jason todd, who everyone assumes is all brawn, but is surprisingly smart for a guy as good looking and athletic as he is.
jock! jason todd, who everybody wants, but only a few people really know.
synopsis: you and michael are literally just some badass little kids
briggs is yelling at you. well, not just you—all of the naturals. you, michael, lia, cassie, dean, and sloane are all sitting on the living room couch while he stands with his arms folded. he’s been lecturing you guys for what’s felt like hours.
a few days ago, you all got a little too trigger-happy with the case you’ve been working on, and decided that you’d reach out to one of the women involved. only, it wasn’t through an interrogation nor did you have briggs’ approval. you guys took it upon yourselves to talk to her via instagram. the only reason briggs found out is because he saw the notification of the woman’s response appear on sloane’s phone.
now, briggs is scolding you all about how you should never make contact without his or sterling’s approval. however, it’s been ten minutes since you sat down and you’re getting bored, so you lazily let your eyes wander the room. almost instinctively, your gaze immediately locks with michael’s, who’s on the other side of the couch. instantly, you give each other a knowing smile and look away. you bow your head, hoping briggs doesn’t see you practically laughing at him. michael on the other hand, does nothing to hide his amusement.
noticing the shift, briggs cuts himself off and looks between the both of you. “go upstairs,” he orders, his tone leaving no room for argument.
still, you try. you furrow your brows in feigned confusion despite knowing exactly what you did. “we didn’t even—”
“up. stairs. i’ll have a separate talk with the two of you later about your behavior recently.”
michael chimes in, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “why do you hate seeing joyous teenagers?” his head tilts as if he’s asking a genuine question.
briggs’ eyes snap to michael and narrow in the way that says their conversation is over. not feeling like pushing him any further, michael puts his hands up in surrender and stands to make his way to the stairs. you stand as well, poorly suppressing a giggle. you and michael fall into step on your way to the staircase while you quietly laugh.
“that was unacceptable,” michael mocks briggs’ earlier words in a voice that’s way too deep to even resemble him.
briggs’ head whips towards the staircase. “i heard that, michael.”
your laughter grows louder as you two now run up the stairs like briggs is chasing you.
downstairs, he pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales deeply, already preparing his second speech of the day. he doesn’t even know what he’s gonna do with you two, and honestly probably never will.
damian wayne who always finds a reason to touch you.
damian despises pda. he’s too proud and too disciplined to let anyone but you witness him being even slightly soft. however, when the two of you are alone and in the comfort of each other’s presence, every rule he has about showcasing affection fades away.
if he’s handing you something, even a mere water bottle, he’ll extend his arm a fraction more than necessary just to ensure that your fingers brush his during the exchange. the touch is featherlight—so light that it could be excused as a simple accident, but you both know the truth.
in the same way, you could trip over a cable or a loose rug and he’ll place a hand on your waist to steady you, muttering a low, “watch your step, habibti.” even though you don’t need it, his hand will stay for a beat longer, as if reassuring himself that you’re still there and still safe.
if you were to point it out?
“there was simply an eyelash on your face,” after he cradles your cheek with his hand, lightly brushing your skin with his thumb like you’re something that belongs in a highly guarded museum.
“it was blocking your eyesight. it’s a hazard,” when he ever so softly tucks the thinnest, least hazardous strand of hair behind your ear.
of course, he’ll never admit it. whenever you try to tease him about it, he’ll tell you that you’re reading too much into it, but the tips of his ears always tint the faintest red.
it’s not in an obsessive way, like he just has to touch you to show control or stake a claim. instead, it’s as though you have some sort of magnetic pull on him, one he could never resist if he wanted to. a pull that makes him long for the warmth of you, and he can only fulfill that longing with light brushes of skin in private.
yet, somehow, the subtle touches and quick grazes mean more to both of you than any public gesture ever could.
⤷ summary ⋮ You don’t know your boyfriend—beloved as he likes to call himself—is Robin. Then, one night you think you hear a stray cat behind a dumpster.
Turns out it’s the vigilante Robin who collapses into you since he’s so beat up and—wait, why does Robin smell like Damian .ᐣ word cnt. 10.2k
There’s a persistent misconception about Damian—that he refuses to admit when he’s hurt because it would bruise his ego. Maybe that was true once. Maybe when he was small, when he was ten and still soft in places the League tried to carve out of him, when the only time he cried into someone’s shoulder was in dreams he woke from with shame burning his throat. Back then, admitting pain meant inviting more of it. Back then, vulnerability was another word for weakness, and weakness was something punished, not soothed.
But that’s not the boy he is now. Now, admitting hurt feels less like pride and more like treason—like every flinch, every moment of doubt is an insult hurled at his mother, at his grandfather, at every merciless lesson etched into his bones. To even confess inwardly, I’m hurting, feels like reaching into his own chest and dismantling the armor they forced him to wear.
So he doesn’t. Even now, coughing in the cold shadows of Crime Alley, ribs screaming, blood painting the inside of his mouth metallic and warm, he won’t say it. Not to himself. Not even here.
Domain keeps repeating the same line in his head, steady and practiced: I will not blame myself for this.
Damian says it again and again, as if repetition could make it true.
The truth lies beside him in the dust.
She couldn’t have been more than ten. A child.
A child swallowed by Scarecrow’s toxin so completely that terror seemed to pour from her skin. Her eyes were blown wide, glassy, unfocused—staring not at him but through him, as if she were trapped in a nightmare with no way out. Every breath she took came out as a sob, sharp and shallow, like her lungs were too small to carry the fear inside her.
The knife in her hand trembled violently, its metal catching the dim emergency lights in jittery flashes. She swung at him in clumsy, frantic arcs—nothing calculated, nothing trained—just primal, poisoned terror. The air around them was thick with dust, with heat, with the stench of the toxin leaking from the vents. It felt like breathing through wet cloth.
Damian kept his palms open as he approached, voice low, feet steady even as the floor groaned beneath them. The building was dying around them—walls cracking, ceiling shedding plaster in soft, deadly drifts—and every sound felt too loud, too sharp, swallowed too quickly by the narrow hallway.
Damian disarmed her. Of course he did.
Even shaking, even barely able to see through the haze, muscle memory guided him. He caught her wrist, twisted gently, felt the blade slip from her fingers.
But she didn’t stop screaming.
Her hands clawed at him, tiny nails scraping at his suit, her body thrashing with the strength that only terror gives. And her voice—God, her voice—wasn’t a child’s voice anymore. It was raw, hoarse, pleading in a way that hollowed him out from the inside.
She screamed that she didn’t want to be here.
She screamed that she didn’t want to die.
She screamed like he had screamed in the few seconds before the Lazarus Pit swallowed him whole.
He didn’t decide to let her go.
Damian’s fingers simply opened, an old instinct rising through him like cold water.
It took less than seven seconds.
He counted them later, each one a knife to the ribs.
A groan rippled through the ceiling—deep, metallic, sickening—and then the world tore open. A huge industrial fan, rusted through and hanging on by its last bolts, snapped free with a shriek that split the air. Damian saw it fall in slow motion, though he knew it was fast, too fast, impossibly fast.
The impact hit like the building itself exhaled.
Dust exploded outward in a suffocating cloud, swallowing the girl instantly. The shockwave rattled his bones. Debris peppered his boots. The air turned thick, gritty, nearly unbreathable.
And then—silence.
Not real silence, but that awful hollow space where sound should be. Where a child should be crying. Where something living should still be moving.
Damian didn’t scream. His throat locked, muscles tightening until it felt like he was being strangled. His body refused to move, refused to look away, refused to accept the outline half-visible through the settling dust. Something small. Something still.
His heartbeat pounded in his ears so loudly it drowned out the continuing collapse around him.
For a moment, he couldn’t tell if he was breathing at all.
He stayed frozen like that—knees bent, muscles trembling, pupils blown—until hands grabbed him from behind. Strong hands. Familiar hands.
Dick’s voice was somewhere above him, muffled, frantic, breaking.
But Damian didn’t hear the words.
Only the ringing silence.
Only the ghost of her scream.
Only the sound of metal tearing itself loose replaying over and over inside his skull.
Dick dragged him backward, boots scraping through rubble, air thick with dust so dense it felt like drowning upright. The collapsing hallway dimmed behind them, swallowed by smoke and shadows, and Damian still couldn’t breathe. It was like his breathing was admitting she could no longer.
Dick was shouting his name, voice thick with fear, but all Damian heard was the echo of the girl’s last terrified cry—
And the quiet, echoing lie in his own head.
I will not blame myself for this.
He tried to believe it.
Tried.
But the weight in his chest said otherwise, heavy and collapsing inward just like the ceiling above them.
Damian spits into the gritty Gotham dirt, the metallic tang of blood stubborn on his tongue. It clings to the back of his throat like rust, refuses to leave no matter how violently he tries to purge it. The only part of his suit still intact is his mask—everything else is shredded, scorched, torn open by brick, metal, and failure.
Shockingly, his bones are mostly where they should be.
Shockingly, he’s still walking.
Shockingly, he’s alive.
He ran the second he saw his father’s silhouette appear behind Jason—didn’t hesitate, didn’t wait to hear a single word. Instinct. Shame. Horror. Something primal and ugly in his chest pushing him forward until he vaulted through smoke and sirens and kept going.
He’d ripped out every tracker, smashed every comm against rusted metal, even crushed his phone under his heel until it snapped like a bone. Oracle is unmatched—but if Damian Wayne doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.
And Bruce… Bruce wouldn’t blame him.
That makes it worse.
Because for the first time in a long time, Damian doesn’t know if he deserves that mercy.
Pain crawls up his ribs, sharp and electric. At least four are broken, maybe five. His hands are bleeding—raw, split open, scraped down to something tender beneath the skin. He can’t tell which fingers are sprained or simply refusing to bend after clawing uselessly at the collapsed ceiling fan, trying to lift it, trying to reach her.
His knee throbs with every uneven step; there’s a gash along his temple where dried blood mats his hair to his face. He smells of mud and dust and the stagnant water that poured from burst pipes. He looks like a ghost someone dragged through a warzone.
With what strength remains, Damian drags himself behind a row of dumpsters. The alley swallows him whole—dark, damp, reeking of rot. He folds in on himself, knees pressed tight to his chest, forehead pressed to the space between them. His arms lock around his legs, holding himself small, silent, contained.
His breath shakes.
He bites down on his lower lip hard, so hard, desperate to smother any sound before it escapes.
He feels ridiculous. Weak. Behaving like the kind of frightened child he would have sneered at years ago. A version of himself he vowed he’d killed long before Gotham ever got the chance.
“Hey, baby…”
Your voice floats through his head—soft, sweet, familiar.
Damian freezes.
Oh god.
He’s hallucinating you.
Your voice is so clear he almost looks up, almost answers, almost reaches out for hands that aren’t here. His breath stutters as he presses his face harder into his knees, burying himself deeper into the mud and trash below. Anything to ground himself.
“Hey, it’s okay…”
Your voice again—gentle, coaxing, the same tone you use when you cradle a stray cat to your chest.
His lip splits under his teeth from how hard he’s biting down. The fresh sting distracts him for half a second—and then he tastes new blood. Not from his gums. Not from a cut inside his cheek.
From the force of trying not to cry.
“Baby, look, I got food—hm? Don’t you want some?”
Yes.
Yes, he wants your butter cookies, the chai you brew just for him, the blueberry cupcakes he pretends he doesn’t crave but always eats first. He wants the warmth of your kitchen, the way you hum under your breath, the stupid heart-shaped plate you refuse to throw away.
He wants all of it.
A sound escapes him—small, broken, humiliating. A whimper so soft it shouldn’t have made it past his teeth.
He stiffens immediately, shoulders snapping rigid, breath catching sharply in his throat as if he can choke the sound back in.
He gasps around nothing, around air too cold and too thin, trying desperately—pathetically—to claw his way back to control.
Trying to silence the part of himself that’s still ten years old, terrified, alone in a world that never cared if he lived or died.
Trying to silence the echo of a child’s scream still ringing in his skull.
Then—
It isn’t silent.
Your voice cuts through the alley like a flare in smoke, sharp with shock and disbelief.
“…Robin?”
Damian’s head snaps up so fast his vision blurs. His breath hitches. Your outline wavers at the edge of the dumpster’s shadow—the warm glow of a streetlamp catching your hair, your face, your startled expression.
You’re holding an opened packet of cat food in one hand, clearly mid–stray-feeding session, frozen now as you stare at the wrecked boy crouched in the dirt.
“Hey—are you cosplaying,” you ask, voice tripping over itself, “or are you actually Robin? Wait—never mind—you’re hurt, I should—”
You don’t finish the sentence.
Because Damian’s body moves before thought can catch up, driven by instinct, by exhaustion, by the brutal longing of a boy pushed far past his limits. His knees give out, his ribs seize, his vision flashes white—
—and he collapses into you.
Just folds.
Just falls.
Like a dying star dropping into orbit with the only gravity it trusts.
Your arms are around him before you can think, reflexive, frantic, steady. His mask presses into your shoulder, and his whole frame shakes as he clings to you—really clings, fingers digging into your jacket like he’s terrified you’ll dissolve if he doesn’t hold tight enough.
He smells like mud. Like smoke. Like blood.
But beneath it all—
He smells like your Damian.
“Hey—hey, hey, hey,” you whisper, your mouth close to his ear, your breath brushing his skin in a way that makes his whole body shudder. Your voice is so soft it almost hurts him—soft in that way you only ever use for Damian, the tone you slip into when he’s had a nightmare or when he gets overwhelmed and tries to pretend he isn’t.
You don’t know why you’re using it now.
Your mind doesn’t know.
But your body does.
Some instinct older than logic recognizes him—recognizes the trembling, the shape of him, the warmth, the way his weight fits against you like it belongs there.
“You’re gonna be okay, yeah?” you murmur, supporting his head, brushing mud and blood away from his cheek with your thumb. “You’re not beat up—well, not that badly—ah, fuck, should I call a hospital—?”
“No.”
The word cracks out of him like a snapped bone.
Robin’s voice—strained, hoarse, but absolute.
“No—no hospital.”
He can already feel it: the way his father would then find out right away. He imagines Bruce’s voice, low and sad, telling him that its going to be okay—
He can’t.
He can’t let himself be found yet.
“Okay,” you breathe, adjusting your grip so his head doesn’t loll. “Okay—alright—then not a hospital. I’m a med student but I could try—if you just let me see—”
You don’t finish.
Because Damian’s weight suddenly shifts—his body folding, sagging against you as if his bones just… give up. Not unconscious, not fully, but close enough that panic hits your chest like a hammer.
His breath is still there—ragged, shallow—but there.
“Hey—hey, no, stay with me,” you say quickly, feeling his mask press into the crook of your neck, the heat of his breath dampening your collar. “Don’t do that, don’t—you can’t just—Robin—look at me, come on—”
But he slumps further, his forehead sliding down to your shoulder, fingers twitching weakly at the fabric of your jacket—not gripping anymore, just… searching.
Still conscious, yes.
Still breathing, yes.
But his body is past its limit.
You tighten your arms around him, your chest pressed to his, holding him upright with more strength than you thought you had. His weight is staggering, but you refuse to let him fall.
You maneuver Robin the best you can—one of your arms braced tight around his waist, the other hauling his limp, deadweight arm over your shoulders. He’s heavier than he looks, all coiled muscle and soaked Kevlar, and every time you shift, something inside him makes a sickening crack that turns your stomach.
You don’t ask what part of him that was.
You don’t want to know.
He breathes through his teeth—sharp, controlled, like every inhale is a blade he won’t let touch you.
It hits you then, too vividly: Damian doing the exact same thing when you’d accidentally splashed acid onto the exposed skin of his wrist in chemistry. He’d had gloves on, but a sliver of skin blistered instantly, and he had grit his teeth like this, refusing to let you see the pain.
Maybe that’s why you’re brave enough—stupid enough—to tighten your grip on this boy dressed like Robin and start walking toward your dorm.
You barely get half a block.
“Fuck—” Robin rasps as you turn the corner. His body jerks in your arms. “No—no dorm—”
You freeze, letting him brace himself against the cold brick wall. His mask tips forward, his breath fogging the air between you.
“How—how did you know I was—?”
“You said medical student,” he snaps back through clenched teeth, like the words themselves hurt. “Does that matter—fuck—ah—”
He crumples a little, one bloodied hand flying to his knee as if he’s trying to hold the joint in place. The other hand trembles as he points to the back pocket of his suit pants.
“My wallet—ah—grab my wallet—there’s a motel near here—next to a convenience store—”
You blink at him.
Then your hand slides down his side, firm on his hip, and moves lower.
Damian would have blushed at any other moment. Hell, even half-conscious and drowning in pain, he manages a strangled noise—somewhere between indignation and disbelief—as your palm pats your way across his ass in search of the wallet.
Damian’s not going to say anything to you now.
But God, when he’s out of costume?
He’s going to have a conversation with you about boundaries with strangers.
A very serious one.
Preferably one that doesn't encourage you patting down vigilantes in alleys while they’re bleeding out.
Your fingers brush leather.
“Got it,” you mutter, tugging the wallet free and slipping an arm under his again. “Okay, c’mon, I’ve got you.”
His weight folds into you again, heavier this time, his forehead dropping to your shoulder for a second too long before he forces himself upright with a shaky grunt.
You don’t see his eyes under the mask.
Not really.
But you feel them on you—like he’s memorizing each second you’re holding him up, like something in him recognizes you long before he’ll let himself admit it.
“Let’s go,” you whisper.
And he does.
Because he doesn’t have a choice, you’re the only thing keeping him standing.
Because your voice—your hands around him—have become the only stable thing left in the world that’s collapsing around him twice in one night.
You make it to the motel with Robin huffing out directions in broken fragments, each one puffed through clenched teeth:
“Left.”
“Two blocks straight.”
“Right.”
“…the other right!”
By the time you reach the place, your shoulder is numb from supporting his weight, and your arm around his waist is shaking. You don’t know what you expected—a flickering neon sign, the smell of mold, carpets older than Gotham itself—but the motel is… surprisingly warm. Soft lighting, muted gold against burgundy walls. A little worn, maybe, but clean.
Cozy. Safe, even.
You pause on the threshold, staring at the front desk like it’s an obstacle you never trained for.
“How am I supposed to get us in without someone pointing out a vigilante in a stupid costume—”
“Just go.” Robin’s voice scrapes out of him, roughened by injury and exhaustion. “He’s fourteen. Doesn’t look up from his phone. Kid’ll hand you the key card, and if he doesn’t—” he breaks off in a jagged cough that shakes his whole frame, “we can just—ah—use what you said earlier. Cosplaying. Yeah?”
You stare at him.
Robin sounds like he’s making it up as he goes, but something in his tone—some weary certainty, like he’s done this dance in worse shape—tells you he’s not wrong.
So you tighten your arm around his waist, feeling the heat radiating through his suit, the tremor in his muscles as he tries to stand straighter for your sake. His breath stutters against your neck. He’s so close it’s impossible not to feel every ragged exhale.
And you step inside.
The lobby is quiet, humming faintly with the low buzz of an old heater. A cheap and outdated Christmas garland droops along the front desk, its tinsel reflecting warm yellow light. The receptionist—a teenager with curly hair, hoodie pulled over his head—does not, in fact, look up from his phone.
Robin sags into you a little more, like the warmth is melting whatever fight he had left.
You approach the desk.
“Um—hi. Can I—”
“Keys are on the counter,” the kid mutters without looking up, thumb tapping across the screen. “Cash or card?”
Robin wheezes something at your expression that might be a laugh, or a dying breath. Hard to tell.
You grab the wallet from earlier, sliding a wad of cash forward with your free hand. Your other hand stays locked around Robin’s waist, like you’re afraid he’ll slide to the floor if you loosen your grip even a fraction.
The teen finally glances up.
Sees Robin half-collapsed on you.
Sees the blood on his gloves.
Sees the cracked, battered armor.
Sees you trying to hold up someone clearly too heavy and too hurt.
“Huh. We don’t get a lot of cosplayers—they usually go to the one closer to the convention center” the kid says flatly.
“Yeah,” you answer instantly, praying your voice doesn’t shake. “We—uh—we got a little lost and this was closer.”
The kid blinks once.
Then shrugs. “That’s cool. Dope costume. Nice commit to the bit.”
He hands you the key card and goes right back to his phone.
You’re not sure if relief or disbelief hits you harder.
You adjust him against your side, guiding him toward the hallway. His steps are uneven, heavy, every movement radiating pain he refuses to voice.
The moment the lobby door swings shut behind you, the motel’s warmth settles over you both—thick, quiet, almost grounding.
“See?” he murmurs, voice slurred at the edges. “Told you—my costume is cool.”
His head tilts toward you, just slightly, like the warmth and exhaustion are pulling him in your direction.
And you try not to think about how he smells like smoke and cold rain.
How he feels like someone familiar when he leans into you like that.
How your heart stutters, traitorously, as you whisper—
“Let’s get you somewhere you can lie down.”
Robin nods weakly.
And lets you lead him deeper into the motel’s soft, golden safety—completely trusting you to keep him upright, keep him hidden, keep him alive.
Just like someone else you know would.
You swipe the key card, hear the soft click of the lock, and shoulder the door open. The room is small—queen bed, tiny table, muted brown carpet—but the lights are gentle, not the harsh fluorescent kind, and the air smells faintly of old lavender cleaner. Safe enough. Warm enough.
You drop your bag and guide him inside, your arm still locked firmly around his waist. His steps are clumsy, uneven, and his breath shivers against your shoulder every time he shifts his weight. You get him to the bed and try to ease him down onto the edge—
But he just falls from your grip like he thinks your work here is done.
The mattress dips violently as he flops onto it with all the grace of a sack of bricks. For a single second he tries to force himself upright again—stubborn, one that could rival Damians you think—muscles trembling with the effort.
“No—wait—wait—just—” You place both hands on his shoulders and press gently.
Robin collapses backward instantly, like the moment someone told him he didn’t have to fight gravity, he let go of the idea entirely. His body sinks into the thin motel comforter, armor scraping faintly against the sheets.
He goes very still.
Too still.
His chest rises, falls—shallow, controlled. And he stares straight up, not dazed, not disoriented, not spaced-out.
But fixed.
Eyes locked on the ceiling.
On the ceiling fan.
The cheap metal blades rotate slowly above him, humming with a soft mechanical wobble. A perfectly harmless fan.
But Robin’s gaze is razor-sharp, unblinking, pupils blown wide with something that isn’t shock but something deeper, colder. His breath stutters in a way you don’t like. His fingers clamp just slightly at his sides, the motion so tiny most people wouldn’t have seen it.
You do.
And it hits you—the expression on his face is not blank.
It’s haunted.
You follow his line of sight up to the fan.
“Off?” you ask quietly–moving near the nightstand, thumb hovering near the fan switch–as if even offering the choice might jolt him.
“…doesn’t matter,” he mutters, eyes flicking away from the fan and then back to you, like he’s forcing himself to anchor on anything else. Something kinder.
Silence settles between you for a beat—thick, strained, fragile in a way that makes you feel like moving too suddenly might crack him straight open.
“Is…” you begin, swallowing, “Is there anyone you want to call? I should’ve asked sooner—”
“No—” His voice slices through yours, too sharp for how wrecked it sounds. The word is followed by a jagged cough that forces him to scrunch one eye shut. When he looks back up at you, the edges of his mask tilt with the furrow of his brows. “I’m not going to ask you to patch me up. It’s late. Go home. Thank you for bringing me here—”
He stops suddenly.
Like he stepped off a ledge he didn’t mean to.
There’s something tight in the silence that follows—like he’s biting back a word, choking on it.
Beloved, Damian wants to say. ‘Thank you for bringing me here beloved.’
And even through the mask, you can feel the weight of the stare he pins you with. Like he’s trying to memorize your silhouette in this crappy motel room, the curve of your shoulders in the lamplight, the steadiness you haven’t once offered to anyone but him.
“…You will be rewarded,” he says finally, voice softening in this strange way. His chin tilts toward the nightstand where his wallet sits. “I’ll send some money to your—”
“Can I use your wallet to buy some gauze and disinfectant from the convenience store?” you cut in, tone annoyed and completely ignoring everything he just said.
For a moment he just…stares. Then he lets out a breath that sounds like a sigh of annoyance or might be relief, letting his head fall back against the pillow. The white sheets are already blotched with dull streaks of dried blood and new ones blooming beneath him. He must feel it soaking uncomfortably into the fabric, but he doesn’t flinch.
Mentally, however, your boyfriend behind the mask is smiling. You’re not stubborn, he always insists. You’re adamant. The only force he’s never once been able—or wanted—to fight.
It’s about twenty minutes later when you step back into the room, pushing the door shut with your heel as you kick off your shoes. The motel’s dim yellow light hits you first, then the sight of Robin—still lying exactly where you left him, stiff and watchful in that strange, exhausted way.
“I bought myself hot chocolate with your card,” you announce, voice low but steady, setting the cup on the nightstand. The steam curls upward, sweet and warm, completely out of place beside the blood drying on the gauntlets he seems to have thrown off. You ease onto the corner of the bed near the nightstand, the plastic bag rustling as you place it on the pillow beside you.
Robin huffs—just barely—but it’s enough to sound like him.
“Give me a sip later.”
“No.” You don’t even look at him. “I’m not getting blood on it.”
If Damian were capable of smiling without everything hurting, he would’ve.
Because you always share your drinks with him.
Even when he bites his lip thinking too hard, even when there’s a smear of red on the rim— you never care. No matter how disgusting he jokes that it is, you never care.Not with him.
The warmth in his chest flares sharp and fast, pressing painfully against his bruised ribs. A traitorous little flutter he can’t stop.
You slide closer and slip your arms beneath his armpits, bracing your body as you drag him up the bed so his legs aren’t hanging uselessly off the edge.
“God, what do you eat?” you grunt, struggling under his weight.
“Justice,” Robin mutters, and you’re pretty sure it was meant to be a joke.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re not funny?” you ask, already reaching for a pillow.
He feels your hand slide behind his neck—gentle, so gently—as you lift his head and place it down on the pillow like he’s breakable porcelain. Your touch sends a sting of heat through his skull, unbearable only because he wants more of it.
“My girlfriend,” Damian hears himself say, the words slipping out before he can lock his jaw around them, “She thinks I’m funny.”
You pause, blink, then mumble under your breath, “…some women are just being nice.”
“Speaking from experience?” he shoots back, the corner of his mouth twitching like he might grin if he weren’t bleeding internally.
“Hell no.” You say it with this stupid, proud lilt that makes his ribs ache in a new way. You rummage through the plastic bag, pulling out gauze and alcohol wipes. “My boyfriend is hilarious. Very funny.”
“Yeah?” Robin mutters, his voice thick around pain and exhaustion as he watches you tear open a packet of disinfectant wipes. “Name a joke then. I could use a laugh.”
“Something tells me your ribs couldn’t,” you shoot back, focused on the supplies, fingers steady in a way your pulse isn’t. You're giving him a look now, one that he's only seen you direct at the men who hit on you when the two of you go out together. “Go ask your girlfriend.”
He goes still. Not the physical kind—he’s already barely moving—but the kind that feels like a nerve being struck. A soft, invisible jolt running through him.
Robin shifts, the faintest tensing under your hands.
“Look—” he says, a little too fast, a little too defensive, “I am not hitting on you.”
You don’t look up.
You don’t have to.
You can feel the way the words hit him, like he’s been caught doing something wrong.
You just sigh, not unkindly, not even annoyed—just tired. Focused. Like you always are with everyone you patch up in the hospital you both volunteer in. Even if the only patients you both receive are little kids who get bruises from running around in the halls. He admires it about you, how you focus on them like they are going through heart surgery.
“You’re half-dead on a motel bed,” you say, brushing debris off what’s left of his tunic. “You couldn’t hit on me if you tried.”
He exhales sharply—half an offended huff, half a sound of pain mixed with laughter—because that’s not the point.
Because you don’t know that he’s yours.
Damian doesn’t know what to say now—not when you’re this close, not when your hands are already on him, not when every shallow breath sends a tremor through his fractured ribs. His body keeps betraying him—loosening, sinking into the mattress, warming under your touch as if you’d flipped some instinct older than language.
It’s humiliating.
It’s grounding.
It’s a suffocating comfort.
You pull the small scissors from the first-aid kit and murmur, “Don’t move,” as you cut away the torn, mud-streaked Kevlar shirt. You work carefully with a bit of struggle, sliding the blade under each stubborn seam. Each snip sounds loud in the quiet room, mixing with the rhythmic whir of the ceiling fan he still refuses to look at.
His shoulder pulls tight when you peel back the fabric—his dislocated left side stiffens, trembling slightly. He hates it. Hates needing help. Hates how your fingers graze his skin and his whole body shivers like he’s been rewired.
“Why are you helping me?” Robin asks, voice raw. Damian already knows the answer but part of him needs to hear it anyway—needs the reassurance like a coward.
“…Let’s just say I like Batman,” you mumble, focused, trying to free a stubborn strip of fabric stuck to dried blood at his temple.
Robin’s mouth twitches into the faintest grin he can muster. “More than me?”
You hum as you finally remove the last piece of his top, exposing mottled bruises blooming across his ribs. “Unfortunately his costume is cooler.”
He rolls his eyes even though the motion makes pain crack through his skull. In his head, Damian mirrors it—of course you’d say that. You already told him once that Batman’s silhouette was “peak aesthetic.”
“You like the trunks? My costume is way cooler.”
“I like the cape.” You say it while reaching for the wipes, already cleaning the blood from along his jaw. “It was easy to find a black blanket as a kid and run around pretending I was him.”
Damian has heard that story so many times—your shy laugh, the way you mimed swooping down hallways. Hearing you tell it to Robin—even though it is him—burns in a new way.
“He’d like to hear that,” Robin says, voice softer than he intends.
You’re already sliding your hand behind his shoulder blades, guiding him up the pillow just enough so you can work. His breath stutters at the movement; he clenches his teeth as agony arcs down his side. You catch it—of course you do—and murmur: “Sorry. I’ve got you.”
And he hates how much those words undo him.
“I wanted to dress up as him for Halloween this year too,” you continue, talking more to distract him than anything else. You set an ice pack against his ribs with careful pressure. “But then I can’t force my boyfriend to do a couples costume.”
That’s new. His pulse jumps. Why didn’t you tell him?
Robin starts slowly, “…Couples costume?”
“Mhm…” You pull off one of his gloves—gently, so gently—and begin disinfecting his knuckles one by one. His fingers twitch involuntarily as the antiseptic stings. “I just need an excuse to play dress up with him.”
Damian’s heart drops, catches, and tries to restart all at once.
“What is he, a doll?” Robin asks—not teasing. Real worry threads through his voice, betraying him. God your going to either make the costume practically two threads of fabric or dress him up in the most ridiculous thing possible.
“Might as well be.” You laugh quietly as you check for fractures along his hand. “My Damian is so handsome.”
The room tilts.
His ribs don’t ache for a moment.
It feels dangerously good.
“Bet I’m hotter,” Robin huffs, letting Dick’s bravado slip out because it’s safer than sounding like himself—safer than letting the truth spill and ruin everything.
“Hm… yeah bruised and bloody, just how I like my men.” You roll your eyes and reach for his other glove.
He winces when you lift his left arm to remove it, the dislocated shoulder grinding sharply. You catch the breath he sucks in and immediately soften your touch, guiding his arm down again, supporting the joint with your palm.
“Oh?” Robin asks, staring at the ceiling because looking at you feels impossible and too much. “Sadist?”
“For everyone except him? Yeah.”
And you say it like it’s nothing.
But Damian feels the words slide under his ribs, settle into something tender and too fragile to name.
You brace a hand at the small of his back.
“You need to sit up again.”
He grits his teeth. You help him slowly, carefully, letting him lean against you while you wrap bandages around his ribs—your arms circling him, your breath warm near his ear, your pulse steady against his shoulder.
Too much.
Not enough.
Too much.
Your fingertips brush the edge of the bruise blooming across his sternum. He swallows a sound he refuses to make.
You let him rest against the headboard once he’s secured, then move to his knee—examining the swollen joint, pressing lightly to check if he reacts. He does. You soften again.
Hand on his shin.
Hand at the back of his neck.
Hand steadying his jaw while you clean the last cut.
Your touch is everywhere.
And Damian—Robin—whoever he is right now—cannot breathe around the question pounding in his skull:
How can you care this gently for a stranger when you love him so fiercely?
But when you whisper, “Tilt your head a little more—yeah, just like that,”
he obeys instantly.
Because it’s you.
And because his body has always, always known how to answer to your voice…long before his heart admitted it.
You shift your weight on the mattress, bunchingthe motel’s thin blanket under his ruined knee for a little cushioning before you touch anything. Robin keeps his eyes on the ceiling fan—like he’s daring it to fall—while you cut around the torn fabric of his pants. The knee is already swelling, skin angry and hot beneath your fingers.
“Okay,” you whisper like you’re soothing a spooked animal, “this is gonna hurt. Just—breathe. In and out.”
Damian isn’t breathing at all.
His throat feels clamped shut, like each inhale might betray the way your hands unravel every tight coil inside him.
You press your thumbs lightly around the joint, mapping out what’s broken, what’s salvageable.
Robin’s jaw tightens. A sharp hiss slips out of him—humiliating, involuntary, and it makes him then let out a small curse.
“Damian did the same thing,” you murmur, almost without thinking, focusing on the rhythm of working rather than the vigilante in your hands. “When he sprained his knee last winter. Pretended it didn’t hurt but started swearing in Arabic under his breath.”
His stomach twists.
He remembers.
You carried him to the couch and iced it yourself. He pretended to fall asleep so you wouldn’t see him melt.
“That must be annoying” Robin croaks—because when it comes to him there’s not many other words he can think to use at this moment.
You give a soft laugh at the question, one he didn’t expect you to answer so easily.
“He’s… stubborn. Smart. More dramatic than he thinks he is. You should see the pout he does when I don’t kiss him goodnight.”
Damian wants the ceiling fan to fall on him.
“And he’s soft,” you add, quieter. “Not in the way he thinks weak. Just—soft where it matters.”
His chest aches. Not from broken ribs. Something else, something worse.
You place both your hands gently around his kneecap. “Okay, three, two—”
You don’t even reach one.
You shift it back into place with a clean, practiced motion. Robin chokes on a grunt, fists clenching in the sheets until his knuckles bloom fresh red.
“Good,” you whisper, brushing his shin soothingly. “Good job. That was the worst of it.”
He doesn’t deserve your praise.
But he swallows it down anyway like starving.
You move next to his hands.
There’s dried blood in the lines of his palms, mud caked into the nail beds. His fingers are torn from clawing concrete, little slices across the knuckles where skin split from force.
“Give me your hand,” you say gently.
He hesitates—not for pain, but because letting you touch him feels like sacrilege, like he’s breaking some unspoken rule of who Robin is allowed to be with you.
But he gives it.
You hold his hand like it’s not stained with a child’s blood and a collapsing ceiling.
You clean each finger carefully, wiping dark streaks from the creases, murmuring tiny apologies every time he winces. You wrap the deeper cuts with practiced precision, one slow deliberate motion at a time.
Robin watches you—really watches you—for the first time since the alley.
“You know…” he starts, voice rough, “my girlfriend is probably going to kill me.”
Your hands still just for a second.
“…Oh?”
“She worries too much,” Robin continues, forcing a half-grin he doesn’t feel.
You huff softly, “If Damian came to me like this I’d kill him before I can even think about how to help him.”
“She’s kind,” he says quieter now. “Too kind for me. She pretends she’s annoyed, but she’s… she’s gentle. And loyal. And smarter than I am.”
You laugh at that, still cleaning his fingers, probably thinking he’s hallucinating. “Well—at least you realize it.”
“She tells me I’m handsome sometimes,” he adds faintly, like testing water he already knows the depth of.
Your groan. “God she must be blind.”
Damian stares at you like you’ve stabbed him, his fingers twitch weakly in your hold, like a cat bristling with its last bit of pride.
“She’s not blind,” Robin rasps before he can stop himself.
Your brows lift, just slightly, but you keep cleaning the smear of blood along his ring finger.
“Oh?” you murmur, tone soft but teasing. “She has bad taste then?”
Damian almost chokes.
Robin swallows, tries to keep his voice level. “She says I look… dignified.”
You blink. That is absolutely not the word you expected to describe the mess of the boy in front of you.
“…Dignified?”
“She says I have nice eyes,” he forces out, because if he doesn’t keep talking, he might confess everything—rip the mask off and tell you he needs you more than air. “That they… settle her.”
Your hands pause again.
Not frozen. Not startled.
Just… warm.
The way they always get when someone says something earnest. You stare at his face like you're trying to see his eyes through his mask.
“That’s sweet,” you whisper.
No.
Damian thinks viciously.
It is not sweet. It is humiliating. He sounds like an idiot. A weak, beaten-up idiot bleeding like an idiot.
But your face—God, your face is soft and bright and fond. And it hurts him more than the broken ribs.
You stroke another wipe carefully over the cut on his thumb.
“I tell Damian that,” you mumble, half-distracted by focusing on not hurting him. “About his eyes. Dunno if he believes me, though.”
Robin’s breath stutters.
You continue, unaware of the way he’s gripping the sheets, knuckles trembling.
“He has… pretty eyes,” you admit quietly, because you also have the full capability of screaming this fact from a rooftop. “When he lets me see them.”
Damian feels something in him collapse worse than any ceiling.
“And he gets all shy,” you add, smiling at the bandage you’re smoothing down. “Pretends he isn’t but he does this little inhale—barely there—like he’s holding his breath.”
Robin’s lungs seize because he knows exactly the inhale you mean. The one he's now is trying to bite back.
You move to the next finger.
The room smells like antiseptic and motel detergent and him—blood, sweat, concrete dust. Everything about him is ruined and raw, except the way you touch him, like he’s still something human.
“She tells me I make her feel safe,” Robin says suddenly, voice so low it almost cracks. “Even when I’m a mess.”
Your eyes flick up, meeting the edge of the mask, like you’re searching for something in the shadows behind it.
You want to tell him ‘no shit your Robin–I’d hope she'd feel safe with you’ but…decide against it.
“That’s important,” you whisper. “Someone who makes you feel safe is… everything.”
Robin closes his eyes, because he can’t bear the expression on your face when you say that.
Because he wants to give you safety.
Because he wants to give you everything.
You shift closer—slowly, carefully—bracing one knee on the mattress. The bed dips under your weight, and Robin’s breath stutters like even that tiny movement unsettles him.
Your hand hovers over his collarbone before you touch him, as if giving him a silent warning, as if asking permission even though he already gave it.
“Okay,” you murmur—your voice quieter than the lamp buzz filling the room—“this is going to sting. I’m sorry.”
Robin tenses.
Not at the warning—not at the pain he knows is coming—but at the softness. At the way your voice dips into that low, careful register you only use on Damian when he’s pretending bruises aren’t bruises and fractures aren’t fractures.
Your fingers slip beneath the edge of his torn tunic.
The fabric cracks away from dried blood as you lift it, sticking to him with a wet, sickening tear. Beneath it, his skin is fever-hot. Sweaty. The copper-and-iron smell of blood rises in a thick, metallic wave.
He tries not to hiss.
He fails.
More of his shoulder comes into view—ugly shades of purple and sick yellow blooming across bone and tendon. Scrapes. Punctures. Swollen skin stretched too tight over muscle. He looks… hollowed out. Starved in a way that says he’s been pushing too hard for too long.
You suck in a breath.
“Oh… gods.”
The sound is tiny, strangled, horrified.
Robin’s jaw clenches.
Damian feels something in his chest rupture that has nothing to do with broken ribs.
You tug the tunic lower and reveal the wound.
A diagonal slash, deep and ragged, carved with intention. The edges are swollen, angry, still weeping slow, diluted blood. Dried flakes cling to his skin like rust. A constellation of bruises spread out around it from the impact that caused it.
You freeze for only half a second.
Then your expression steels over.
You grab a disinfectant pad, fingers steady in a way your breathing isn’t.
“Gods…” you mutter, voice tight with emotion and frustration and something painfully close to affection, “…She really is going to kill you. I don't know what I'd do if I found Damian like this.”
Robin bites the inside of his cheek hard—hard enough to taste iron.
Because he knows exactly what you’d do.
How you’d cradle Damian’s face in your hands.
How your voice would crack.
How your eyes would soften.
How your warmth would spread across his skin like a balm.
The antiseptic hits the wound.
It sizzles faintly.
Blood thins under the liquid.
His flesh twitches.
Robin jerks, gasping through clenched teeth, the sound raw and involuntary. His fingers dig into the bedsheets hard enough to leave bloody crescents even through the freshly bandaged fingers.
“Oh—shit, sorry—”
Your apology spills out instantly, warm and breathy.
Your thumb skims the intact edge of his skin, an instinctive, soothing gesture.
“You’re doing so well. Just… breathe. Please? I’m right here.”
He hates the way that unravels him.
Hates how badly he wants to lean into your touch.
You work slowly, delicately, swiping away blood the color of wine left out too long. Each stroke of the pad uncovers more skin, more damage. More truth.
You shift the tunic again, lifting it higher to get a better angle—
And then you go still.
The pad slips a fraction between your fingers.
Your breath stumbles.
Your eyes are locked on something just below the wound.
A tiny beauty mark.
Half-hidden under smeared blood.
A dark little star on the upper swell of his chest.
Robin’s heart convulses against his ribs, too focused on how close you are.
“Oh,” you breathe—barely, barely audible.
A sound more like a gasp than a word.
It’s the beauty mark you’ve kissed a hundred times.
The one your lips find without looking when you curl against Damian’s chest.
The one you once joked was your “navigation point.”
The color drains from your face, then flushes back too fast.
You inhale sharply through your nose, then again, then again—like your body can’t decide if it’s freezing or boiling.
Robin goes rigid beneath you—
not out of fear,
not out of panic,
but because you’re staring at him like he’s naked in a way far deeper than skin.
Your gaze shifts to his shoulder.
Compact muscle, cut too clean for it to be any other boy you've seen.
The exact silhouette you see when Damian stretches and his shirt rides up.
Your eyes flick to his hand.
Split knuckles.
A thin scar along the base of his thumb.
The one you saw on Damian when he handed you a desert a few days ago–your favorite meringue from a local bakery.
Your chest rises with a sharp, trembling inhale.
He breathes again—too shallow on the left, each inhale a contained wince.
Damian breathes like that when he’s sore.
When he’s lying.
When he’s hiding something.
Your pulse hammers so hard the room blurs at the corners.
He shifts—trying to tug his torn tunic back over his chest, as if hiding skin could hide identity. His cheeks blaze under the dark mask, his breaths short and frustrated.
“Tt,” he mutters, voice tight, humiliated, flustered out of his mind. “Stop staring.”
Your blood goes cold.
The sound—
that sharp irritated Tt—
is Damian.
It’s him.
It’s him, it’s him, it’s—
Your hand is still hovering above his chest, suspended like you touched a live wire.
The room feels suffocating now—humid with blood, thick with truth, the small space closing around you like a fist. You can hear your own heartbeat in your ears. You feel dizzy.
He wouldn’t lie like this.
He couldn’t.
He—
Except he could.
He has.
He would.
He did.
And god—now that you’re seeing him—
really seeing him—
you recognize every inch.
Your fingers shake.
He misreads the tremor immediately.
Of course he does.
His jaw clenches hard.
Shoulders curl in.
He twists his face away like he can’t stand the look in your eyes.
“Could you quit staring?” he snaps, voice cracking at the edges. “I get it—I’m bruised to hell and back. Stop looking at me like—”
“God, Damian, you’re beautiful—just shut up.”
Oh.
Fuck.
Damian tries to pull himself together, though every attempt at composure slips through his fingers the way blood keeps slipping down the slope of his ribs. He looks everywhere except at you — at the cracked ceiling tile above him, at the frayed hem of his glove, at the discarded disinfectant pads turning pink on the sheets. Anywhere his eyes can land that isn’t your face.
Because your face, right now, is too much.
“I should have—” he begins, stopping immediately when the words snag on something sharp in his throat. He swallows, tries again, falters again. “I intended, eventually, to… tell you. Properly. Under different circumstances. Not like this.”
His voice comes uneven, like he’s reciting from a script that dissolved the moment your fingers brushed his chest.
You don’t respond. You don’t even move. You sit there between his knees on the bed, your hands still hovering over the wound, your breath warm on his skin, your eyes fixed on him with a focus that borders on reverence.
And you think — God, you think so much all at once it nearly knocks the air out of you.
You think about how much pain he’s in and how little Damian lets it show, how the tremor in his exhale betrays what his stoic expression refuses to.
You think about the sheer brutality carved across his body—the gash at his collarbone, the bruising blooming like ink over his ribs, the sharp outlines of muscle beneath skin that’s been pushed far past exhaustion—and yet the only thing you feel when you look at him is awe.
He is injured, bloodied, trembling, and somehow still fighting for dignity like it’s a weapon he refuses to set down.
You admire the stubborn courage in that.
You admire the discipline, the resilience, the reckless loyalty that got him into this state in the first place.
Damian is extraordinary in ways no one should be asked to be, and it hits you with a strange, painful clarity: you’ve been falling in love with a boy who carries the world like a shield strapped too tightly to his chest.
And now you’re staring at the chest in question — the familiar shape of it, the beauty mark you’ve seen a hundred times, the rise and fall of a breath you’ve fallen asleep to — and you realize how blind you were not to see him before.
His voice cracks, barely audible. “It was not because I doubted you. You must understand that beloved. The secret is not mine alone. My family—”
He stops, jaw tight, brows screwed together in frustration, as if the explanation refuses to take shape no matter how he tries to force it into one.
And while he flounders for words he has always been terrible at choosing, you can’t look away from him.
Not from the way his mask is smudged with dust and blood.
Not from the split on his lower lip, still slightly purpling, marked by violence he accepted without hesitation because someone needed saving.
Not from the way he trembles when your knee accidentally brushes his thigh, because for all his training, he is still a person who has never learned what to do when someone touches him gently.
You watch him, and your thoughts turn over and over, slow and stunned:
He is so strong.
He is so brilliant.
He is so painfully, catastrophically brave.
And you’re not sure how you ever thought you loved him enough.
He keeps talking, though his voice gets softer, like each sentence tires him more than the last.
“It was never deceit for the sake of deception. I was trying to protect them. Protect you. If anyone learned who I was, who you were connected to—”
His breath hitches. He shakes his head, frustrated, angry with himself. “This is coming out poorly. I never wanted you to feel—”
You don’t let him finish.
Not because you’re angry.
Not because you need more explanation.
But because every word he says is straining him, draining him, unraveling him at the seams, and you can see in the tension of his jaw how badly he’s bracing for your rejection.
And you can’t let him brace for something that isn’t coming.
So you lean down, slow and deliberate, one hand rising to cradle his cheek, the other resting feather-light against his sternum, careful not to jostle the wound.
His eyes widen beneath the mask — a flash of shock, panic, longing, all tangled together so tightly you can’t tell them apart.
You press your mouth to his split lip, soft enough not to hurt him, sure enough that he feels every ounce of what you can’t yet say aloud.
It’s not a hungry kiss or a desperate one.
It’s a promise. A recognition. A quiet, steady I know you and I’m not leaving.
Damian’s breath breaks against your mouth.
Your thumb sweeps the edge of his jaw. His fingers curl weakly into the sheets. His entire body, rigid with dread moments before, sinks under your touch like the truth was a weight he finally no longer has to carry alone.
And when you pull back, just far enough to see him, he looks at you like you’ve undone something inside him he didn’t realize was bound so tightly.
He tries to speak. Fails. Tries again.
Your hands rise slowly, almost reverently, thumbs brushing along the lower edge of his mask as though you’re touching something sacred rather than something made of Kevlar and secrets. You try to be graceful, but the damn thing almost refuses to cooperate; you end up fumbling with it longer than any romantic reveal should allow.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s also exactly enough time for Damian to process the fact that you’re the one taking it off–not his father, not Alfred, not even himself–you, kneeling over him in a cheap motel room with your hands trembling on his skin.
When the mask finally comes free, you hold it between two fingers for a moment before lowering it to the mattress, your eyes lifting to meet him without anything between you for the first time tonight.
Those green eyes–the ones you could never quite put a shade to, the ones that never seemed to exist in any color wheel you checked because of course he's one of a kind–widen just slightly, the pupils blown from exhaustion and adrenaline and something softer he never lets anyone else see.
He looks at you like he’s memorizing the moment one breath at a time.
“…You got my blood on your lip,” he says quietly, voice cracked at the edges. It isn’t judgment or disgust he shows when you calmly drink a shared drink that still had the reminisce of blood from a bitten lip; it’s something closer to awe, as though he finally believes you will never flinch from his blood. From him.
“Yeah,” you murmur, brushing your thumb across the corner of your mouth as if confirming the obvious. “Comes with having a superhero boyfriend.”
His mouth parts, not in arrogance or smugness or that sharp little smirk he pretends is confidence, but in a stunned, reverent wonder that makes his breath hitch. Damian’s brows draw together in a way that looks almost painful — like someone seeing a holy thing up close and being overwhelmed by the fact they’re allowed to touch it.
And then Damian is kissing you.
Not with the careful restraint he usually hides behind, not with the skittish hesitation of earlier, but with a deep, unguarded certainty that pulls you down against the bruised plane of his chest.
Damian’s arms wrap around you with a fierceness that startles you, not because it’s rough, but because it’s desperate — as though he’s afraid you might disappear the moment he loosens his grip.
The kiss isn’t starving, but it isn’t gentle either; it’s the compressed weight of every moment he’s lied to you, every time he’s wanted to tell you the truth, every time he’s held back because he knew he was protecting you. Your lips move against his with a kind of instinctive urgency, your breath mingling with the copper taste of his blood, your bodies pressed so close there’s no room for anything except the fact that he is here, that he is yours, that he is alive.
When Damian finally pulls back, it’s only far enough that the air you get is the air from his mouth, the breath he exhales into yours. His forehead rests against yours, warm and damp, and his hands linger at your waist like he’s not convinced the world won’t tilt without his hold.
“Beloved,” you whisper, the word slipping out of you like a thought made sound, tentative and soft and full of too many questions.
Damian’s eyes drift from your gaze to your lips and back again, as though he can’t decide which one feels safer to look at. “Mhm?” he hums, voice so quiet it trembles.
“…does this mean my future father-in-law is Batman?” you ask, the question falling into the small space between you like a pebble into still water.
Damian releases an exhale that sounds like a soul leaving a body.
Then, without warning, he presses a hand against your sternum — not harsh, just firm — and pushes you gently back until your shoulders meet the headboard. He flops onto his side beside you with all the resignation of a dying Victorian heroine, one arm draped across his eyes as if shielding himself from the absolute catastrophe you’ve just unleashed.
You swear the ceiling fan above the two of you groans in sympathy.
“…am I…allowed to ask you something?” Your voice breaks the quiet, soft enough that Damian almost forgets how tense his muscles still are, your fingers curling around his now-bandaged hand and lifting it to rest against the curve of your chest. The warmth of your skin seeps through the gauze and his gloves, a quiet tether that somehow anchors him to a world that’s been spinning too fast and too violently.
“…I owe you that much.” His voice is low, rough with fatigue and residue of pain, eyes fixed on the fan above like he’s calculating its every movement while ignoring the heat of you against his hand.
“I…don’t want you to answer because you owe me,” you murmur, voice faltering slightly, “I want you to answer because—”
“I want to.” His words are barely above a whisper, but there’s no hesitation, no deflection, no walls. He turns his head, letting the tiniest flicker of vulnerability show, though every fiber of his body screams that he shouldn’t. “I want to tell you everything.”
“…what happened?” You ask softly, tilting your face toward him, letting concern and the ghost of fear you felt when you first found him color every line of your features. The gentleness in your voice is almost a physical presence, something tangible Damian can lean into as he exhales slowly through his teeth.
He starts telling you, carefully choosing each word so that the horror doesn’t spill over into your world. Not the gory details of what he held, not the fragmented cries of someone too young to survive the fear toxin’s grasp, not the irrevocable weight of destruction that still clings to him like smoke. Instead, he tells the story in measured breaths, the pain and the failure coiling tightly beneath the surface, all of it framed in the cold logic of necessity, the mental calculus that saved him from breaking completely.
Through it all, he watches your face. He watches how your brows knit just slightly, how your lips press together to keep the words you don’t speak from slipping out, and how the concern in your eyes softens into something gentler, almost tender, almost mournful. You lean in just a fraction, as if proximity alone could absorb the worst of it.
Every emotion Damian has ever bottled, every fragment of fear, guilt, and self-loathing he thought only existed in the shadows of his own chest, seems to unravel quietly in your presence, like alcohol soaking into dry wood. He can feel it being drunk up by the way your eyes soften, by the subtle tilt of your head, by the way your body radiates safety even in this cramped, fluorescent-lit motel room.
When he finishes, he doesn’t say anything. He just watches as you shift in the sheets, a deliberate, gentle movement that carries no weight but still bridges the distance between you. Your head settles on his good shoulder, the faintest pressure, not leaning into him, just letting him know you’re there. He feels it like a promise.
“Don’t blame yourself for this,” you whisper against his skin, your lips brushing over the slope of his collarbone, warm and soft and steady. The words float there like a shield.
Damian glances down, noticing how a smear of his own blood still clings to your lips, pressing faintly against his chest, a surreal tether to his body and to you at once. “Not my fault,” he says, voice barely audible but firm.
“It never is.” you respond softly.
He closes his eyes, letting the tension in his shoulders and hips dissolve, letting his bloodied fingers curl against the sheets without thought, letting his toes relax.
The taut, defensive lines of his body soften, not because the pain has gone, but because he believes you, because your presence allows him to let go in a way no one else ever could.
Damian feels the steadiness of your heartbeat that he was searching for in that little girl, and everything feels like its going to be okay.
⤷ series masterlist
authors note ᝰ.ᐟ this will most likely be the final addition of this series if you can even call it that. It's just one shots with references to each-other and you can probably tell it was poorly planned so I just want to get it out of the way. Please forgive the plot holes because of the fact and I hope you guys might enjoy other things I write in the future more.
taglist (wont be used after this post): @the-earth-wonders, @neera500, @itzmeme, @brianna-merlim, @gothamshunter, @smiithys, @fanficboysarebae, @thetruecardinalsinner,@shifttoksucks, @sourstrawburry, @erika-simps, @soshirohoshinalover, @augurythirteen, @pantone-12-1310, @jaydennicole, @lucycarlisleswife, @dyanasaur, @fayewebluv, @champagnelovers101, @shun-nie
being a slytherin who’s a part of draco and pansy’s friend group came with restrictions.
one of said restrictions was to avoid dating people from other houses, especially hufflepuff.
cedric knew that. you told him that your friends would never approve. sure, they’d still hang out with you, but you knew that they’d talk shit about you and “pretty boy diggory” the second you were gone.
ever the loverboy, he didn’t care. he’d send anonymous flowers to your dorm, pass notes in class, and constantly hold eye contact with you across the great hall.
and when he scored for hufflepuff during the quidditch game against slytherin, he instantly found you in the deafening crowd of cheers and gave you a ridiculously charming wink.
despite the fear of the rest of the slytherins finding out, you couldn’t deny the thrill that sneaking around with cedric gave you. a small part of you liked having the golden boy as your dirty little secret.
you ask the question offhandedly while scrolling on your phone, as if it’s an everyday question. you brought it up because you came across a post discussing the same topic, and it piqued your curiosity for damian’s answer.
he just looks at you then furrows his brows slightly, like he’s surprised you’d even utter those words to him. you keep staring at your phone, but you can feel his gaze burning into the side of your head, which gets a smirk out of you.
“i don’t partake in such… meaningless debates.”
you roll your eyes. you’d expected that answer. “yeah, but if you had to choose.”
“must i?”
“gun to my head.”
he exhales through his nose, then goes silent. you begin to think he just ignored the question altogether and chose not to answer. you wouldn’t be surprised—you ask him stupid questions countless times a day. suddenly, you hear him inhale.
lia’s not a fan of the time you and cassie have been spending together
ᨒ .ﾟ — lia zhang x reader, makeout, slight nsfw, no use of y/n
you and cassie have been hanging out together more than usual lately, as you’ve been assigned a new case that requires you two more than the others.
you really don’t think much of it. cassie’s simply a good friend and a fun person to be around. nothing more.
lia, on the other hand, thinks everything of it. she’s been watching you guys talk for the past few days, and she honestly doesn’t think she can take another.
yet, you and lia aren’t dating—you’re hardly even friends. you two just never clicked when you first joined the naturals. lia always thought you were plain annoying, while you’ve always thought of her as rude and obnoxious. whenever you guys speak, it’s more of a competition to see who can get the last word. the other naturals would be lying if they said it didn’t exhaust them at least a little.
now, it’s one in the afternoon and you’re talking to cassie next to the kitchen counter, when lia shamelessly steps between you both and reaches for a coffee cup.
your eyes follow her, narrowing at her with suspicion that always shows up wherever she’s around. that’s something you’ve been doing a lot lately, tracking her movements. you ignore it for the most part, tell yourself that you’re just being observant, but you know that’s not the full truth.
“what do you want, lia?”
lia scoffs. “god forbid i walk around the house i live in.”
yeah, this is why you don’t like lia. she has to realize she’s being unreasonable, otherwise she’s just acting like this to mess with you. “you could’ve said excuse me.”
“mm. you and cassie seemed too busy giggling.”
before you can retort, she flashes you what has to be the fakest, sharpest smile on earth and walks away.
it’s almost midnight and you’re walking downstairs, planning to grab a bottle of water and head back to your room. the rest of the naturals are in bed, or so you thought, because on your way down the stairs, you notice lia coming the opposite way.
however, instead of throwing a quick jab at you like normal, she just keeps walking as if you’re mere furniture. that’s when you know something’s up.
in a moment of bravery, you stop in your tracks and turn around, leaving lia two steps higher than you. “what’s your problem?”
lia sighs and turns slowly, like even just the sound of your voice pisses her off. she shrugs a shoulder as she looks down at you. “you, usually.”
“funny,” you deadpan. “no, today. what’s your problem today? actually—scratch that. not even just today, you’ve been acting weird lately.”
she scoffs. “you’re overanalyzing shit again. do you ever turn it off?”
lia likes to pretend that she doesn’t give a single fuck about you, but the way she notices everything you do proves her wrong. she’s seen you overanalyze previous cases, get too lost in them. while she was never the one to help you out, she was the first to notice every time.
“i’m a natural, you know i can’t.”
“touché.”
“seriously, lia. what is it?” your voice grows more urgent.
instead of answering your question, lia brings up something else. “cassie’s probably waiting on you right now.” her voice is sickly sweet, and you realize that she actually didn’t change the subject. cassie’s the problem.
“is… that what it is?” you stare at lia as you wait for a response, but none ever comes. an incredulous smirk spreads across your face, surprised at the direction this conversation has gone. “holy shit, you’re jealous.”
“cute. i’m not jealous,” lia insists, and even though she literally specializes in lying perfectly, something tells you that you’re not far off.
so, you completely disregard her statement and keep talking. “that’s why you’ve been so weird. it started when we got assigned the case.”
“oh my god, i just told you—”
“admit it.”
she doesn’t respond, and honestly you think she never will. you two stare at each other for what feels like forever, but it’s probably only five seconds. lia’s eyes drop to your lips, and you know she catches it too because she instantly starts talking, her eyes snapping back to yours.
“i just feel like you could waste your time on shit that actually matters.”
you hum as if you’re thinking about it. “like you?”
she shrugs. “your words, not mine.”
once again, you guys fall into silence, this one even more charged than the last. instead of letting it drag out, lia walks down until she’s on the same step you’re on. instinctively, you move backwards, causing your back to hit the wall.
“you know i don’t like cassie like that.”
“sure seems like you do,” she counters.
despite how confidently she states her words, you hear a twinge of insecurity laced underneath—insecurity that was displayed when cassie arrived and dean took a liking to her. that same insecurity is here now. still cassie, but a different person. a person who, like dean, she thinks of as hers. even though you two have gotten into countless petty arguments, you’ve always been hers in her mind. lia knows it’s selfish, but she can’t bring herself to care.
“did i lie?”
she smirks knowingly. “no. you didn’t.”
“exactly.” your eyes flick between lia’s before they drop to her lips. “i think you should stop worrying about her.”
she gives a humorless chuckle and whispers, “i’m not worried.”
“possessive?” you offer, your voice turning breathy from the anticipation.
“something like that.”
lia closes the distance between you two, deliberately slow in a way that’s definitely meant to tease you. she rests one of her hands on your cheek, thumb brushing your lower lip. the other lands on your waist, her fingers gripping hard enough to make your breath hitch.
her eyes stay locked on your mouth, gaze heavy with desire. once they finally flick up to meet yours, you see the silent question for consent. already feeling dazed and breathless, you nod before you can even think twice about it.
lia smiles dangerously and leans in, claiming your lips like she’s been starved of it for years. the kiss is deep and hungry, filled with all the words left unsaid. the earlier frustration pours out in the way she slides her tongue into your mouth, your bodies pressed together. you melt into the kiss, a needy sound escaping you as your hands fist in her shirt, pulling her impossibly closer.
you pull back just enough to whisper. “lia, we’re still on the stairs.”
“are you complaining?” her soft lips brush yours as she speaks every word, voice full of amusement and challenge. her knee comes up to slot right between your legs, making you exhale shakily.
completely entranced by her, you shake your head.
“didn’t think so,” she murmurs, pulling you back in.
