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An Apology

Jason Todd x GN!Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: I couldn't stop thinking about this and wrote it in the past three days.

The apartment was quiet in that ugly, airless way it always was after a fight.

It felt like the walls had heard too much and were holding their breath, waiting for the next thing to break. Outside, the city kept moving, with ribbons of light and traffic dragging red and white across the dark. Inside, only the lamp on the side table, the hiss of the radiator, and the silence Jason wore like a punishment he thought he deserved remained.

You sat on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, angled away from him just enough to make the distance obvious. The book was open in your lap. You hadn’t turned a page in ages. You didn’t look at him. That, more than the argument, was starting to get to Jason. You could see it.

He was still in the clothes he’d come back in. Black shirt stretched across his shoulders, sleeves shoved up his forearms, collar pulled out of shape from where he’d dragged a hand through it. Scarred knuckles. Shadowed jaw. The white streak at his temple catching the lamp light every time he moved. Usually, he wore his size like armor. Like a threat. Like something you couldn’t move if you tried.

Tonight, he looked restless.

He’d already tried twice.

The first time was a rough, muttered, "look, I know I was a dick." Tossed into the room like he hoped you’d catch it and save him from having to say more. You didn’t answer. The second try was quieter, lower, a real attempt hiding under irritation. "You gonna keep ignoring me all night?"

Still nothing.

You heard the breath leave him then. Jason recalculating. Jason, who could bulldoze through anything when he was angry, who knew how to fight, threaten, deflect, and charm, was now forced into the humiliating shape of patience. He had been wrong, and you both knew it.

The fight still hung between you in pieces. Sharp pieces. Him saying something cruel because he was angry, because he wanted the last word, because sometimes Jason’s temper arrived before his better instincts and scorched everything softer on its way through. You telling him to get out of your face. Jason not listening quickly enough. The slam of a cabinet. The scrape in his voice when he realized too late that he’d gone too far.

Now the apartment wore the aftermath like smoke in the air.

You finally turned a page.

It was a small movement, but Jason’s eyes snapped to your hands like he was starving for any sign you were still there. He hovered near the kitchen for another beat, shoulders tight, then dragged a hand down his mouth and did something that made a hot, incredulous pulse of amusement flicker under your anger.

He crossed the room and lowered himself to the floor.

At first, it wasn't in front of you. He settled beside the couch, close enough that his knee brushed the rug near your foot. Then he shifted, one big hand braced on the cushion, and leaned in until his chin rested on your knee.

The contact was warm through your pants. Heavy. Intentional.

You looked down at him at last.

Jason looked up under dark lashes, blue-green eyes sharp in the low light. Watchful. Careful. Like he was stepping barefoot over broken glass and trying not to bleed. His mouth was set in that stubborn line he wore when he was forcing himself not to get defensive.

For a second, neither of you said anything.

Then you closed the book over one finger to mark the page and asked, very flatly, “Are you a dog now?”

Something in his face changed.

The tension in his mouth bent around the edge of something dangerous and entertained. His eyes flicked over yours, reading, measuring.

Then Jason made a low sound in his throat and barked once.

It wasn’t even close to a real bark, which somehow made it worse. Or better. It came out rough with amusement, low from his chest, making the room feel smaller. After, he raised one eyebrow at you like he was offering politeness as a performance, like he knew exactly how ridiculous he looked on the floor at your knee and was choosing to use it anyway.

Look? See? I can behave.

I’m yours. Notice me.

The laugh that almost rose in you burned off before it could reach your mouth. You were still angry. That mattered. Him trying didn’t erase the way he’d spoken to you. Didn’t erase the silence you’d wrapped around yourself to keep from saying something just as sharp back.

Still, your fingers twitched on the spine of the book.

Jason noticed. Of course he did. His pupils were already a little blown in the dim room, but they widened at that tiny movement, a dark bloom eating into the color of his eyes. You saw the moment hope touched him, ugly, eager, and badly hidden. He didn’t move away from your knee. If anything, he let more of his weight settle there, as if he wanted you to feel the apology in the shape of him.

“C’mon,” he said quietly. “You gonna make me grovel forever?”

You held his gaze for another second, then set the book aside on the arm of the couch with deliberate care.

Jason’s eyes dropped to your hand as if it were a weapon.

You just sighed in return.

His breath changed.

It was subtle at first. A deeper pull through his nose, a pause after. You saw the muscles shift in his throat when he swallowed. Jason liked control, even when he pretended not to. Maybe especially then. He liked knowing where the ground was. What you were doing now, giving him just enough to keep him kneeling there and nothing more, was getting under his skin in a way shouting never could.

Good.

He deserved to squirm.

You uncrossed your legs slowly. Jason’s chin slid with the movement, his mouth parting for half a second before he caught himself. Up close, you could see the tension collecting in him in small, precise places: the flex in his jaw, the pulse in his neck, the way his fingers curled once against the cushion and then flattened. A man built for impact, for speed, for force. All of it going taut under stillness.

When you leaned toward him, he went very quiet.

One of your hands came up first, hovering near his face just long enough to make him track it. Then your fingers slid into his hair.

Jason shut his eyes for the briefest instant.

His hair was thick, softer than his reputation had any right to be. Still a little messy from the fight and from the hands he kept shoving through it when he was frustrated. It curled faintly at the crown when it got too long. Your fingers threaded through the white highlights first, then settled into the darker strands towards the crown of his head, sinking into his scalp, and Jason exhaled.

There.

That reaction.

You felt it move through him all at once. The drag of his inhale, suddenly unsteady. His shoulders dropped and tightened at the same time. The smallest press of his chin into your knee, unable not to lean into the touch that had finally come after all that silence.

His eyes opened again, slower this time, and they were darker than before.

You tightened your hand in his hair and yanked.

Jason’s head snapped back.

Not violently. Maybe closer to a sting. At least enough to make his face tilt up to you, to strip away the angle he’d been hiding behind and make him look. His breath caught. His pupils blew wide, swallowing almost all the color from his eyes. For one sharp second, every line in his body went still with shock.

Then heat rolled through his expression so fast it was almost brutal.

His lips parted. The tendons in his neck stood out under the skin. One hand came off the cushion and landed against your calf, big and warm and instinctive, but he didn’t grip. He just held there, like he knew one wrong move would break whatever wire had just gone live between you.

Your anger hadn’t left. It sat under your ribs, heavy and smoldering, feeding the pulse in your throat. But now it had changed temperature. Now it had teeth.

Jason stared up at you like he couldn’t decide whether he’d been punished or rewarded.

You could feel the shape of his breathing through your hand, tangled in his hair. Every inhale scraped him on the way in. His lashes flickered once. There was something almost wrecked in the look he gave you, not because he was sorry, though he was, but because he knew exactly what you were doing with the apology he’d brought you, and he was letting you do it anyway.

You want forgiveness, you thought, watching his throat work again. Look at you.

The room pulled tighter around you. The lamp hummed. Somewhere outside, a siren passed and faded. Jason’s thumb shifted once against your leg, a tiny involuntary drag that said more than any argument. His body knew before his pride did. Maybe that was always the problem. Jason felt everything with his whole body. Anger. Loyalty. Want. Regret. He carried all of it like it had mass.

You leaned closer.

His gaze dropped to your mouth, then jerked back to your eyes. That quick flicker of attention made something sharp and mean curl in your stomach. You kept your hand tight in his hair, holding his head tipped back, and saw another shiver move through him when your knees nearly brushed his chest.

He did not speak.

Smart.

Your other hand came down to the back of the couch for balance as you bent toward him, slow enough to make him live inside every inch of it. Jason’s breathing was audible now. Quiet, but there. You felt the warmth of it against your wrist. Saw the way his chest expanded under the black fabric, too fast, too deep. The scar near his throat moved when he swallowed.

When your mouth reached his ear, his eyes shut.

Not all the way. Just enough to betray him.

Your lips barely brushed the shell of his ear as you whispered, “You’re so fucking pathetic.”

The effect was immediate.

Jason inhaled like the words had gone straight into his bloodstream. His fingers flexed against your calf, not enough to hold, just enough to confess. The hand in his hair went tighter by accident, and you felt the tremor that ran through him, small but unmistakable. Want, humiliation, apology, frustration, all of it colliding behind the hard plane of his face until he looked almost feral with the effort of staying still.

His eyes opened again after a second, and there was nothing careful left in them.

No, that wasn’t true. There was still care. He was still watching you for the line, for the point where this stopped being punishment and became something else. But it had gone molten now, threaded through with a hunger he wasn’t even trying to hide. His pupils were huge. His mouth slightly open. You could feel the heat coming off him in waves.

It would have been easy, right then, to kiss him.

Maybe that was what he thought you were going to do, because his head tilted by a fraction against your hand, not pushing, just offering. A question he didn’t dare ask aloud. The old instinct to meet force with force, heat with heat, to let the fight burn into something else entirely.

Instead, you let go of his hair.

Jason’s breath hitched at the loss.

You stood.

He stayed where he was for one stunned heartbeat, staring up at you from the floor. Hair mussed from your fingers. Face sharpened by the amber light and the flush just starting to rise under his skin. You could see his mind catching up, trying to decide if you were dismissing him or leading him somewhere worse.

Better.

You stepped around him and moved toward the bedroom.

The apartment felt different at your back now. Charged. Close. You heard Jason turn before you looked. You heard the quiet sound of his hand bracing against the floor as he shifted to follow you with his eyes. There was weight in every step you took, not because you hurried, but because you didn’t. You knew he was watching the line of your shoulders, the tilt of your head, and the cruelty of walking away after leaving him kneeling there, lit up with nowhere to put it.

Halfway down the short hall, you glanced back.

Jason was still on the floor, but barely. One knee up under him, his body already coiling to rise. His expression had gone intent, almost dangerous. Like a dog hearing the click before the command, every nerve turned toward you. The lamp light caught in his eyes and turned them wild. He looked bigger suddenly, all that force gathering itself.

You leaned one shoulder against the bedroom doorway.

For a moment, you just looked at him. Let the silence stretch. Let him feel it.

Then, with a faint tilt of your head, you said, “Come, boy.”

Jason moved immediately.

The speed of it made your pulse jump.

One second, he was on the floor, the next, he was up, crossing the space between the living room and the hall with that stripped-down purpose he only showed when he stopped pretending to be civilized. His breath was rough now. Shoulders tight. Eyes fixed on you like there was nothing else in the apartment, nothing else in the city, maybe nothing else in the world. The old anger hadn’t vanished. It had been taken apart and remade into something hotter, heavier, and meaner at the edges. It made the hair at the back of your neck stand on end.

He reached the doorway just as you stepped back into the bedroom.

For one second, framed in the doorway, Jason looked at you with wrecked disbelief. Like he couldn’t quite believe you’d done this to him; taken his apology, put your hand in his hair, called him pathetic, and then beckoned him after you anyway. His chest rose hard beneath his shirt. His hands flexed at his sides. The air between you felt close enough to bite.

Then Jason came in after you and slammed the door.

Took everything in me not to scream at this fic. I have indents from where I bit my left hand to hold a squeal in lmao.