summary; jason comes home at from saturday night patrol to find you asleep. when you wake up and find him bleeding yet again, you patch him up with gentle hands because loving him is what you do best. words; 1.2k. warning; none (made me feel more single tho) masterlist; n/a
the clock on your nightstand reads 3:47 am when the window lock clicks open.
you don’t stir anymore.
you stopped being a light sleeper months ago, your body having learned the rhythm of his nights. the pattern of his return: the careful slide of glass, the soft thud of boots on hardwood, the rustle of tactical gear being stripped away piece by piece.
jason pauses at the window, one leg still on the fire escape, the other planted firmly in your shared bedroom.
the gotham smog has left a fine layer of grit on his jacket, and there’s a new tear in his sleeve that wasn’t there when he left. he doesn’t notice it yet.
he’s too busy looking at you.
you’re curled on your side, his pillow clutched against your chest the way you always hold it when he’s gone. the streetlight from below casts amber shadows across your face, and your breathing is deep and even. peaceful.
the word feels foreign in his mouth, even unspoken. peaceful isn’t something gotham does, isn’t something jason todd does, but somehow you’ve managed it anyway. here, in the middle of crime alley’s worst neighborhood, you’ve created something soft. a safe haven where only you and him exist.
his shoulders drop from where they’d been tensed up near his ears. the adrenaline that’s been keeping him sharp for the last six hours starts to ease away, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
he’s pretty sure he cracked a rib during that fight near docks, and his knuckles are split open beneath his gloves, but none of that matters right now.
you’re here. you’re safe. you’re his.
jason finally pulls himself fully through the window, closing it with the practiced silence of someone who’s been doing this too long. the lock slides home with barely a whisper.
he strips off his gloves first, then the shoulder holsters, then the jacket. each piece of red hood gets carefully set aside, folded and placed on the chair you keep by the window specifically for this purpose.
“because i’m not doing laundry at four in the morning when you drop blood-soaked kevlar on my clean floor,” you’d told him once, all mock severity and fond exasperation.
he’d kissed you instead of arguing
now, down to his undershirt and cargo pants, jason allows himself to cross the room. his boots are still on. he knows better than to track gotham’s streets across your carpet, but he can’t help himself. he needs to be closer.
you shift slightly in your sleep, your hand reaching across the mattress to where he should be. your fingers brush empty sheets, and your brow furrows just slightly. even unconscious, you’re looking for him.
something in his chest cracks open.
“i’m here,” he murmurs, knowing you can’t hear him, needing to say it anyway. “i’m right here, sweetheart.”
jason crouches beside the bed, bringing himself eye-level with you. this close, he can see the faint crease between your eyebrows starting to smooth out, like somehow you sense his presence. your hand stills its searching, resting palm-up on his side of the bed. an invitation. an anchor.
he’s not a good man. he knows that. has known it since he clawed his way out of his own grave, since he put on the red helmet and decided that gotham’s justice needed to be written in blood. bruce can have his moral high ground. dick can have his optimism. tim can have his detective work and damian can have his legacy.
jason has this. has you. has saturday nights that bleed into sunday mornings, has the way you mumble his name in your sleep, has the knowledge that someone in this godforsaken city is waiting for him to come home.
not red hood. not a robin-that-was. just jason. just him.
“you should be asleep,” you mumble suddenly, and jason nearly falls backward in surprise.
your eyes are still closed, but there’s a small smile playing at your lips. caught.
“i am asleep,” he tries, and you crack one eye open to give him a look that’s entirely unimpressed despite the hour.
“you’re hovering.”
“i’m admiring.”
“you’re bleeding on my carpet.”
jason glances down and, damn it, you’re right. there’s a slow drip coming from somewhere under his sleeve, leaving dark spots on the pale rug. “that’s probably fine.”
“jason.” the way you say his name is fond and exasperated in equal measure. you push yourself up on one elbow, reaching out to cup his face with your free hand. your thumb traces the edge of a bruise he didn’t know he had. “bathroom. now. i’ll get the first aid kit.”
“you should sleep—”
“and you should stop getting stabbed, but here we are.” you’re already swinging your legs out of bed, reaching for the hoodie, his hoodie, that you’d draped over the footboard. “come on, tough guy. let’s get you patched up.”
jason catches your wrist gently as you pass, tugging you back for just a moment. you go easily, letting him pull you close enough that he can press his forehead against your stomach, your fingers automatically threading through his hair.
“hey,” you say softly, all the teasing gone from your voice. “bad night?”
“no.” he closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of your laundry detergent and the vanilla candle you’re always burning. “good night. better now.”
you hum, unconvinced but willing to let it slide. your fingers card through his hair once more before you pull back. “bathroom. five minutes. if you’re not there, i’m coming back with the antiseptic spray, and i won’t be gentle about it.”
“you’re always gentle with me,” jason says, and he doesn’t mean to sound quite so raw, quite so honest.
your expression softens impossibly further. you lean down and press a kiss to his forehead, right at his hairline where the white streak begins. “yeah,” you whisper against his skin. “i am.”
then you’re gone, padding quietly toward the bathroom, and jason is left kneeling beside your bed in the dark. through the window, gotham continues its endless cycle of violence and decay. sirens wail in the distance. someone’s car alarm is going off three blocks over. the night is far from over for most of the city.
but here, in this apartment, there’s warmth. there’s you, calling his name from the bathroom, telling him to hurry up before you fall asleep standing. there’s the promise of gentle hands cleaning his wounds and softer words telling him about your day. there’s a bed that smells like home and arms that hold him like he’s something worth keeping.
jason pulls off his boots and follows you into the light.
every scar, every bruise, every bone-deep ache, it’s all worth it for this. for you. for saturday nights that become sunday mornings, and the knowledge that no matter how dark it gets out there, he has something bright to come back to.
he has you.
and that’s worth everything.
@ scarsoncherryglass . reposts, likes, and comments are very appreciated!
summary | it takes you losing an eye for your family to realize that they don't want to lose you, to make them realize how much they actually love you, and how much you actually despise them
pairing | platonic yandere batfam x batsis!reader.
warnings / tags | angst, literal mutilation, y/n is mentioned as a female, trauma, reader hates her family so family issues as well. it gets worse and worse actually no better. this is a bit more darker than usual, as reader is not the nicest and the batfamily turns a bit dark for her. NO INCEST because we don't mess with that here 🚫🚫 but future PLATONIC yanderes!
word count | 5k
authors note | hi there!! english is not my first language so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :) please vote <3
bruce is 44-45. barbara is 28. dick is 27. cass is 23. jason is 22. steph is 19. tim is 18. duke is 17. damian and y/n are twins and are 15.
next.
YOU WOULD NEVER FORGET IT.
You could forget a lot of things —or not, actually: your Mother hated it when you forgot about stuff, often reminding you that as a princess and heir, you couldn't allow yourself that—, like one of the many rules your Father had, or that you now lived at the Manor, or how annoying teenagers can be.
But not that day.
Never.
Years ago, when your brother Damian and you arrived at the Manor alongside your Father, you didn't have much hope. Despite growing up without him, you never wished to know him. You were more than satisfied at your Mother's side, pampered and trained and still so loved.
There were no differences there. No one treated you as less than what you were: the future of the League. Raised to be a killer, made to be a future wife and a warrior, a protector of your brother. And you were okay with that. Perhaps a bit less with the 'wife' part, but that could be arranged as well.
You grew up with gold, fine silk and swords in your hands. And you were more than okay with that too.
Which is why you hated the Manor so much.
Everything was different there. Everything you knew, every part of your life already planned, crumbled down. Your Father was nothing like your Mother. Nothing of what she had told you as well. He was nothing like your brother and you.
He didn't believe in killing, despised it, and punished the both of you every single time the word was mentioned. He also didn't like the extensive training you had since you were merely an infant. And you would think he also didn't like you a lot.
But it was okay —it wasn't—. You didn't like him much either. It was only fair.
The only good thing you would put on your Father's favor was that he let you be 'Batgirl', a sidekick that started with Barbara Gordon when she was younger. Likewise, he let your brother be 'Robin', as the adopted companions had once been as well.
You loved being Batgirl. You took the greatest of proudness on it. Despite not enjoying your Father's presence, you never wished to disappoint him either, and it seemed he preferred you more as a sidekick than a daughter, as you proved yourself to be helpful and extremely efficient.
Of course. You would very much prefer working alone, or only with Damian, but the old Batman didn't even allow the thought of it. If it was not him who stood by your sides, it was Grayson as Nightwing, or Drake, in the lowest of cases.
So you still don't know how Damian and you got there alone. How is it that you ended up in that stupid warehouse on your own. You just knew that you couldn't bear you see those men grab your brother, especially when he snarled and tried to kick away.
He couldn't escape.
And you couldn't let them hurt him.
You and your brother had always been far too close. Raised with no social instincts, with poor physical affection from your maternal family, no limits on what was right and what was wrong. You slept on the same bed from time to time still, and when you first arrived at the Manor, barely ten, you couldn't even enter your own room without feeling alone. You missed him even if he was just a room apart.
In school, you joined the art class just for him, and he waited very patiently while you were at your swimming club. You shared the same classes, the same schedules, you both trained with each other, and patrolled together.
So you did what you had to do. You mocked them. You made them so angry they forgot about him, tied him up and left him on the side. But you continued, and continued, and continued. All to make time, to not let them get close to Damian again. You were sure that by any moment your Father would arrive.
You just didn't know when to stop.
One of them, eyes red with rage and exclusively drug-lived, ripped your mask apart after a particular mocking got to him. Didn't even bother to actually see your face —if he had, perhaps, he wouldn't have done what he done: he would have taken another choice of torture.
He took his pocket knife, rusty and dull, and smashed down on your face. He didn't even taunt you, he just did it. You turned your face around, as to not let the metal enter your forehead.
Instead, it pushed right into your eye.
Once, twice, thrice.
You lost the number after that.
It slashed your face, destroyed your whole eyeball. You had never suffered such pain before, nothing of what you had experienced before could compare to having that ordinary knife shoved almost to your brain.
The pain was not sharp. It was molten. Blistering. A heat that radiated from the core of your skull and exploded outward in pulses. You screamed. You didn’t even realize you were screaming until you choked on your own breath, your voice reduced to something hoarse and primal.
There was no clarity — only flashes. Red, black, white. The world shook under the weight of it. You clawed at your restraints, wrists tearing against the rough rope, skin breaking. Damian was shouting — his voice was raw and feral, but muffled, as though you were underwater.
Your legs kicked involuntarily, muscles twitching as every nerve in your body revolted. It wasn’t just the eye. The trauma sank into your jaw, your temple, your throat. It felt like he was cutting through not just your eye, but your entire sense of self.
You felt it rupture. Felt it pop.
The pressure released — a grotesque, wet sensation. It was warm. It rolled down your cheek in thick pulses, staining your lips copper. Blood. Fluid. You couldn’t cry — your tear duct had been left intact, but there was nothing for it to cradle anymore.
He kept going.
“Still got that damn mouth on you?” the man barked, voice scratchy with a smoker’s growl and something much worse — glee.
You didn't answer. You couldn’t. Your body was seized in shock, muscles locked. The agony was consuming everything — your thoughts, your memories, your pride. There was no Batgirl here. No League prodigy. Just a child strapped to a chair, skull fracturing under a lunatic’s blade.
“YOU BASTARD!” Damian was screaming. Over and over, his voice echoing, cracking. “I’LL KILL YOU — I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU—”
“Shut him up,” another voice said. Older. Colder. You heard the wet impact of a hit and the thud of your brother’s body against the wall. He grunted, but he didn’t stop snarling.
They left you slumped, barely upright, head hung low, eye a ruined socket. You could hear your own heartbeat in your ears, louder than the voices. Louder than Damian’s desperate shouts. Louder than the world.
You were fading.
Not passing out, not yet — that would have been a mercy. But fading, like a flickering signal on a broken radio. Everything became distant. Your fingers stopped moving. Your lips trembled.
But you didn’t cry.
Your mouth opened in a cry, but it was broken. Shattered by the pain. You choked on it. Swallowed it. Your body arched against the chair, against the ropes biting into your arms, and you wished for a moment you could just black out. Just a second. But you stayed awake.
Then came the second stab. There was no grace to it. Just brute force. The blade twisted, angled wrong, and you felt the serration drag. Something tore again, and it burned. Not like fire, not anymore. It was acid. Acid in your skull. Acid down your jaw. It rippled all the way down to your spine and back up through the top of your scalp. You felt your fingers curl and your wrists strain and the ropes snap skin. You thought you’d vomit — and you did, just a little — down your chin and onto your suit.
You tried to breathe, but it came in hiccupping gasps. You tried to think, but your thoughts were consumed by the horror — not of death, no — but of mutilation. Of being broken.
And then he laughed.
The man laughed like he was carving a pumpkin, like it was a game. He turned your head to the side, gripping your jaw with greasy fingers. He was breathing heavy, sweat slicking his forehead. And he said — so easily, so plainly — “What’s the matter, girl? Thought you were tough.”
You spat at him. Or tried. It didn’t reach.
He hit you. Just once. Across the cheek, opposite your ruined eye. Your head cracked back and hit metal. You think you saw stars. Or maybe it was just the other eye struggling to stay open.
Damian was thrashing, gagged but shrieking behind it. Desperate. You turned your good eye toward him, tried to give him… something. Reassurance. Love. A silent goodbye?
Another hand grabbed your chin again. The knife hovered now, inches from your face. The man wasn’t finished. He wanted more.
You whispered, because it was all you could do, “Go ahead. I’ll still kill you after.”
He laughed again. This time more viciously. “You’re done, sweetheart. You ain’t killin’ anyone. Not like that.”
But he didn’t strike again.
Not because he decided to stop. But because of the noise — a crash — and then another. The door exploded inward. Gunfire, screaming, the unmistakable screech of metal and cape and fury.
You barely saw it. You were already fading.
You heard Damian gag and sob and yell “Father!” before the gag was ripped away. And someone was screaming louder than you now — the man, probably, being slammed into the wall. A sick crunch followed.
Then hands. So many hands.
Hands on your shoulders, your wrists, your jaw. But these were warm. These were careful. These weren’t enemies.
One of them was soft — softer than all the others — fingers brushing your face and muttering something under their breath.
“Y/N, can you hear me? Oh my God—Y/N—can you hear me?”
Grayson. You knew his voice even as the darkness clung to your ears like wax.
You whimpered. It was all you could do.
Your throat burned. “He… he took it.”
“We know,” he said. “We know, sweetie. You’re okay now. You’re gonna be okay.”
He was lying.
Because nothing was okay.
You felt someone lift you. The cape, the smell of it, the warm inside lining — it was your father. You knew by the way he moved. Silent but precise. Every breath he took was rage restrained.
“I’ve got her,” he said. Quietly. Too quietly.
You wanted to say something to him. Something mean. Something sour. You didn’t know. The pain was overtaking you again.
“It hurts,” you whispered.
“I know,” Bruce said. And that was all.
You passed out somewhere between the warehouse and the sky.
And when you woke again, it was like drowning.
The first thing you noticed was the smell — disinfectant and something older, like dust and citrus cleaner and the faint hint of metal. Then the lights, too bright and clinical, burning the inside of your one good eye. Your entire skull throbbed, throbbed so hard you were sure it had cracked from the inside.
There was pressure, a dull pulse that rhythmically pounded against your left browbone, and heat — a sort of sticky, horrible heat like your skin had been wrapped in cotton soaked in your own blood and left to fester.
Your mouth was dry. Your lips stuck to each other. Your tongue felt like sandpaper pressed into raw meat. And yet, none of that compared to the sensation clawing inside your chest.
You were aware.
Of what was gone.
Of what was missing.
Of what you could no longer feel behind the bandage that wrapped half your head like a grotesque imitation of a helmet.
“No—” you rasped. “No, no—”
The left side of your face is numb and too hot at once. Something is wrapped tight around your head, dragging over your scalp, cheek, temple. It itches. It stings. It suffocates. And the longer you lie there, blinking through the blur of the right side, the more you feel the rising panic clawing up your throat.
“Hey—hey, you’re awake.”
It’s Jason.
“Back with us, little bat.”
His voice tries to sound calm, but there’s a tension to it. A sharpness behind the trembling grin you can’t see.
You try to sit up and the pain hits you all at once. Your skull pounds. Your stomach flips. You collapse back onto the bed with a sharp gasp, and the machines spike briefly.
“Easy, Y/N. Don’t rush it.”
You don’t care. You lift your hand, touch the gauze. It’s thick, layered, taped down hard. Your heart pounds.
“What did they do to me?”
“Y/N,” he said, softer this time. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re in Leslie’s clinic. You made it out. You’re—”
But the words twisted in your ears. Made you sick. You weren’t okay. You weren’t safe. You weren’t whole. You weren’t.
You jerked away from his hand like it burned you. Your body betrayed you, shaking too hard to sit up fully, but you tried anyway.
“No,” you whisper, fingers trembling as they hover at the edge of the bandage. “No, I’m not.”
And then another voice — clearer, gentler — “Hey. Hey, it’s me.”
Dick.
Your mind reached toward the sound like a rope in a storm.
“You’re okay,” he said, kneeling by your bedside. “You’re gonna be okay, I promise—”
“No!” Your scream cracked your throat open. You shoved at the blanket, at the sheets, at the wires in your arms. “No, I’m not! I’m not—!”
You clawed at the bandages before they could stop you. You didn’t even know what your fingers were doing — they were frantic, desperate — but you felt the gauze tear. The tape pop. Someone grabbed your wrist.
“Stop—!”
“Let me go—!”
“Y/N—!”
But it was too late.
The bandage dropped to the side of your face like wet tissue.
And you saw yourself.
It wasn’t a proper mirror. Just the reflective metal of a tray table across the room, but it was enough. The lighting caught it just right. And in it — half your face, bright under the fluorescents, pale and wounded and horrifically wrong.
Where your left eye once was, now sat a gaping wound stitched in a rough crescent. The lid was still there, partly, as was the bruising and raw lines where Leslie had sealed what she could. But it was concave, empty, the orbit sunken deep. A pit. A hollow.
You saw it.
And you screamed.
“NO! NO—NO—PUT IT BACK—”
You screamed so loudly the sound tore through your ribs and chest and made your throat bleed. You twisted and flailed and grabbed at the edge of the bed, trying to stand, to do something — but your legs gave out. Dick caught you before your knees slammed the tile.
Jason was behind you now, arms wrapping fully around your back and middle, holding you still. Your body trembled violently, like it wanted to rip itself apart. You couldn’t even breathe. You were choking on nothing, gasping like a fish pulled out of water.
“Let me go—please, let me go—”
“Y/N, you have to calm down,” Jason said into your ear, his voice straining. “You’re gonna hurt yourself worse—”
“I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—”
And then Leslie was there. She didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask permission. You didn’t even feel the needle until it was in your arm. A sting, a push of warmth, and then—
You sagged. Not instantly. Not completely. But your limbs slowed. Your heart — hammering against your ribcage like it wanted to escape — finally began to soften its rhythm. Your voice broke into hiccuped sobs, then whispers, then nothing but silence.
Jason still held you.
Dick still crouched in front of you, his arms around your shoulders.
Your head drooped against one of them. You didn’t know who. You didn’t care. All you knew was the absence of your eye. The echo of what used to be there. And the horrific realization that this was permanent.
You would never get it back.
Never.
Leslie sat on the edge of the bed beside you. You could feel her eyes on your face — not judgmental, not clinical. Just sad. Just impossibly, unbearably sad.
“It's gone,” you whispered. “It’s really gone.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes.”
You blinked. Your right eye burned with tears that never came. The left — the one that wasn’t there — still ached. Still itched. You wanted to claw at it, to scrape out the pain. But you couldn’t lift your hand anymore.
“Why does it still hurt?” you asked. “Why can I still feel it?”
“Because the nerves don’t understand yet,” Leslie said. “Your body still thinks it’s there. It’s called phantom pain. It happens to amputees. Eyes too. I’m sorry.”
You didn’t answer. You just laid there.
“Just sleep,” Leslie says, her hand brushing your hair. “Just let go.”
Since there, nothing had been the same. You spent weeks at Leslie's clinic. Weeks isolated from reality, surrounded by the white walls of the clinic, the clink of surgical trays, and the quiet rustle of Leslie Thompkins’s slippers as she moved like a ghost between your room and the halls. The only company you had was your own nausea, your dreams—which bled into nightmares—and the unbearable nothingness inside your eye socket.
No one was allowed in.
Not even Damian.
Not Dick. Not Jason. Not Cass, though she’d tried more than once to slip in silently through the ventilation. (You heard her once. You didn’t say anything. You wanted to, but the words died in your throat.)
The only one Leslie let through the door was your Father.
And even then, only because you didn’t get a say.
Leslie followed his orders when it came to you. She always had. The same way Alfred used to defer to him. The same way Dick never raised his voice when Bruce lowered his. The same way the whole damn city of Gotham bent to Batman’s unrelenting shadow.
And you were no different.
He came in quietly every night—always after dark, always after patrol—and sat in the single chair near your bed. Sometimes he would bring you books. Or your favorite herbal tea, the one Damian swore you loved as a child. Sometimes he would just sit there, silently reading reports or rechecking your medical chart even though he already had it memorized. A few times he tried talking.
But you never responded.
Not once. Losing an eye wouldn't change your distaste of your Father.
It wouldn’t unwrite the years without him. It wouldn’t erase your Mother’s warmth, her fierce pride when you beat your tutors with a blade, the soft silk of your robes as you sparred in the gardens under moonlight. It wouldn’t change the way he treated your training like abuse — it was. How he recoiled from the version of you that wasn’t his.
But the loss changed everything else.
Especially in your heart.
While you had never been extroverted enough to be called anything close to warm, you had still once possessed a fire inside of you. A flame. The heat of your mother’s blood and the League’s training and your own sharpened pride—your defiance, your discipline, your hunger to be great.
Your identity had been built on precision. You were Talia al Ghul’s daughter, the League’s prodigy. You moved like smoke through shadows, struck faster than most men could blink. You trained beside Damian — and often above him — with pride, discipline, and the terrifying assurance of a child that knew what she’d been built for.
But now?
Now, even reaching for a glass of water made your hands tremble.
You’d gone from warrior to weakling. From fire to ash.
One eye gone, and so was your depth perception. Your balance. Your peripheral vision. Tasks you’d never had to think about now tripped you up at every corner. You couldn’t pour a drink without missing the cup. You couldn’t catch a thrown object — not without tilting your head and praying you judged it right. You’d reach out for a vase on your bedside table and knock it over instead, sending it crashing to the floor, ceramic in pieces.
You’d shove everything off the table. Off the bed. You didn’t even know what you were breaking anymore. You just needed the noise. Needed something to match the chaos inside your chest. Because you couldn’t take it — the constant, aching absence in your skull. The way the gauze would get damp from your tear duct.
It mocked you. Your own body mocked you.
At night, you'd feel the phantom of it — the memory of having two eyes. The illusion that if you just blinked hard enough, the world would go back to full. But it never did. There was always the dark spot. The void.
Even walking became different. Subtle, strange — like your body forgot how much space it occupied. Corners caught your shoulders. Doorways felt too tight. You’d turn your head too fast and flinch, not because you were in pain, but because your brain was still learning how to be broken.
And the migraines. God, the migraines.
Leslie explained them calmly. “Your brain is adjusting to monocular vision. That left orbit was traumatized, and even though the nerves are dead, the tissue’s still healing. It’ll take time.”
But nothing helped.
Light became an enemy. Flashbangs in the dark. Shadows where there should be none. You stopped trusting your sight entirely. Your right eye twitched sometimes, under the pressure of carrying everything alone. You couldn’t bear the feeling of someone coming up on your blind side — it made you flinch and snarl and lash out.
No one told you that losing one eye meant you'd feel like less than one person.
Once Bruce decided it was “time,” you were taken back to the Manor.
You didn’t say goodbye to Leslie. She didn’t expect you to.
The car ride was silent. Damian sat beside you, his arms folded, his jaw locked in that tight, uncomfortable way that meant he was trying not to speak. Bruce was driving. You didn’t know why he didn’t just send Alfred or Dick, but maybe he thought he was doing something by showing up. Maybe he wanted to be the one to bring you home.
Home.
What a joke.
You didn’t say a word the whole way there.
The Manor looked the same when you arrived. Of course it did.
Gothic arches, heavy stone, windows like darkened eyes. Alfred opened the door before the car had even come to a full stop, as if he’d sensed your arrival from a mile away. His expression softened the second he saw you. His age showed more lately — his hair was whiter than you remembered, and his eyes crinkled more with sorrow than sternness.
“Miss Y/N,” he said gently. “Welcome home.”
You didn’t reply.
You walked past him. Your boots were too loud in the entry hall.
You were fifteen. You’d been raised by assassins. You were trained to kill before you were trained to write. And now you couldn’t even grab a damn vase without guessing where it actually was. You couldn’t train. You couldn’t patrol. You were off the roster.
You weren’t Batgirl.
You weren’t anyone.
You weren’t sure when exactly Damian started sleeping in your bed again. One night blurred into another, your dreams stitched together by broken lights and phantom pain. You woke up from one of them, gasping into your pillow, only to find the weight of something curled against your side. Small. Familiar.
Damian.
He was facing you, eyes shut but his brow furrowed, his fingers twisted into the hem of your sleeve like a lifeline. His breath was slow but shallow, like he was fighting off some nightmare of his own and refusing to let it show. He hadn’t cried, not once, not since the night in the warehouse. But he’d been quieter. Rougher around the edges. Quicker to snap at the others and always within arm’s reach of you. You weren’t sure if he was guarding you, or himself.
You didn’t say anything. Just stared at him for a long moment, your one eye adjusting to the dark, your vision split permanently in two.
And then you let him stay.
Because he was still half of you, and probably the only part left that still made sense. You didn’t know what kind of person you were anymore. Not Batgirl. Not a warrior. Not anything that felt familiar. But you were still a twin. Still his sister. Still his.
Damian was still there. Still yours. Still half of you. And maybe, if you closed your good eye and lay there long enough, the rest of the world would fade. Maybe, for just a while, you wouldn’t feel so unbalanced. So ruined.
You moved just enough to rest your hand on his hair, fingers slipping into the familiar black strands. He didn’t stir.
He started showing up every night after that.
Sometimes early, sometimes after patrol. You’d hear his soft footsteps before the door opened. Always without a word. He’d slide under the blankets, press close to your side, and fall asleep with one hand curled near yours.
You never stopped him.
You never would.
You shared too many things with him — your first steps, your first blades, your first blood. You were born together, trained together, made together. And now you were broken together, too. Even if only one of you bled for it.
He never mentioned your eye.
Not once.
But when you got frustrated and knocked something over again, or walked into a wall, or missed your footing — he was there. Steady. Silent. Sometimes he picked things up for you. Sometimes he just placed a hand on your wrist until your breathing steadied.
And when the nightmares got bad — yours or his — you curled together like you had when you were small, nothing but soft breath and bruised ribs and shared, smothered pain between you.
Damian always curled inward when he slept. Like he didn’t trust the air around him. Fists tucked under his chin, knees close, spine slightly bent even when the mattress gave him space. But since the warehouse, since the night you lost your eye — your eye, God, that phrase still made you sick — he had stopped pretending to sleep alone.
Once, he whispered: “It should’ve been me.”
And you whispered back, “It wasn’t.”
You didn’t talk about it after that.
Eventually, Leslie said it was time.
Your orbit had healed. The worst of the inflammation was over. There were still sutures inside your skin, layers of muscle and bone trying to knit back together. You’d need follow-ups. Long-term scans. Some of it might never fully recover. But the gauze? The gauze could finally come off.
You should’ve felt relieved.
You didn’t.
You felt exposed.
You felt seen.
They didn’t let you do it alone.
You tried to protest, of course. Tried to tell them it was your face, your choice, your eye — or what was left of it. But the moment Alfred stepped into your room with the medical tray, Bruce behind him, Damian already sitting near the headboard like a statue, you understood that it wasn’t up for debate.
Alfred approached like he was performing a ritual. Not a task. Not a job. Something sacred.
The tray was placed beside your bed, a clean cloth folded at the corner, sterile scissors gleaming under the light. You sat propped up with pillows, hands balled into the sheets, your chest tight enough to crack.
Bruce sat in the chair across from you. No cape. No armor. Just him. Plain clothes, face unreadable, eyes locked on yours.
No one spoke. Not until Alfred dipped the scissors into disinfectant and murmured, “Miss Y/N… May I?”
You wanted to say no. You wanted to scream and hide and throw the blankets over your face. But you swallowed hard and nodded.
He worked slowly, gently. The scissors snipped through gauze like whispering paper. The first layer peeled back, and cold air hit your cheek, your brow, your eyelid. The texture of exposed, healing skin made your stomach twist. Alfred’s hands didn’t tremble once.
Another layer. And another. And then the last. The gauze fell into the tray like old linen, stained with hours of dampness and sterile creams. Your face was bare.
You didn’t move. You didn’t breathe.
You just stared straight ahead at your Father’s face, searching it for something — disgust, sorrow, judgment — but it wasn’t there.
There was only quiet.
You kept your good eye trained on Alfred’s collar, on the soft silver of his tie pin. He didn’t comment on the tears spilling from your left tear duct — steady, unearned, grotesque in their asymmetry.
Alfred gently packed the bandages away and said, “The patches arrived this morning.”
You nodded without speaking.
The black one fit best.
Leslie had sent a few to the Manor, no doubt working through one of her reliable medical suppliers. The white patch — classic, clinical — looked absurd. It got dirty too fast. You tried it once and ripped it off within the hour. The beige one disappeared into your skin but made the hollow too obvious, drawing more attention than it hid. The soft cloth one looked like something out of a pirate film.
The black patch was clean. Sharp. Neutral. It didn’t ask for pity. You could pretend it was tactical, even stylish. Something deliberate. Something chosen.
But every time you put it on, you felt the echo of what it was hiding. A whole part of you. Gone.
The world saw it differently, of course.
Wayne’s daughter, injured in a freak accident. The media latched onto the story like it was fiction, spinning it into a tale of bravery and trauma and noble recovery. “A tragic incident,” the headlines read. “Still under investigation.” The official press release said it happened during an off-duty car crash. Gotham clutched its pearls and murmured in sympathy, turning your pain into cocktail party gossip.
But only you — and the family — knew the truth.
Only you remembered the warehouse. The rusted knife. The sound of Damian’s voice breaking as he screamed for someone to help you. Only you could still feel it — that moment the blade went in, that sickening pop, the burn of your own body eating itself alive.
Every look you received now — on the street, in the Cave, in the damn mirror — was a reminder.
They didn’t see Batgirl.
They saw the girl with one eye.
But once, just once, you woke to find Damian already awake beside you, eyes open, fixed on the ceiling.
“Would you want it back?” he asked.
Your voice was barely a whisper. “What?”
“Your eye. If you could. Would you want it back?”
You didn’t answer right away.
You thought about what it had cost you — the balance, the vision, the grace.
“There's a debt to be paid,” you whispered. “With his eye.”
He didn’t say anything after that, but his fingers pressed into yours, hard, and pressed again, a promise that, one day, he'd give it to you.
synopsis: he’s transfixed on your beauty, the strength you embody, the pure laughter that echoes in his dreams that provides comfort, and when you gaze into his eyes— it’s like he’s the only one in the world, like he isn’t Nightwing.
You only see Dick Grayson, but you are his dear brother’s friend.
In which, Dick Grayson is utterly in love with Jay’s friend, who’s off limits.
tw: trafficking mentioned. violence. no smut yall.
wc: 10k
The Wayne Manor ballroom shimmered beneath the chandeliers, their crystal prisms scattering their light across the marble floors polished to a mirror’s sheen as Bruce's invitees trickled in, Gotham’s elites.
Once again, Bruce Wayne hosts one of Gotham’s illustrious charity galas, its vast expanse alive with the murmur of wealth and whispered ambition in the air. The champagne flutes clinked against one another in delicate celebration, echoing the crystalline chime of their smooth, practiced, touched with their indulgence laughter (a rich man’s laugh for short). The notes of the jazz brought a crowd into their ensemble tucked neatly into the corner, strumming lightly against their instruments. The air was lively, it's one of the biggest charity events to happen this year, watching couples make due of graceful waltzes to usually show off their companionship, or to simply have fun in their silken gowns rippling against the gleam of the black-tie formality of a man.
Dick Grayson drinks in the sight, even if he has attended Bruce’s charity events previously for more than a decade he has known him— he could never get tired of the gorgeous sight of the Wayne’s ballroom.
Like how he could vividly recall how he first met you, immersing in your beauty.
Dick Grayson tugs his cufflinks, the silver catching a brief spark as he adjusted them and his tuxedo fitting perfectly from the measurements Alfred had taken. Dick straightens his blue tie, glancing down to his polished shoes that catches the light under the chandeliers, every specific detail reminding Grayson’s connection to Bruce Wayne.
“Are you done fixing yourself, Dick?” Barbara teased, her tone light as she watched him fuss with the line of his tie, searching for imperfections that weren’t really there.
He shot her a crooked grin, his hand running through his soft hair, making sure nothing was out of place. “What can I say? I can’t rush perfection.”
The joke slipped easily off his tongue, playful in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. He glances around him, relaxing with the people surrounding Dick. It was a rare occasion, for the first time in what seemed like forever, the entirety of the Wayne family was here.
Except Jason.
“Father will ask where he is. What shall I say? That Todd presumes tuxedos are an instrument of torture?” Damian Wayne snarky replied, his eyes swept across the ballroom with hidden suspicion, tugging his collar slightly to lose the tightness.
“Jason knows better not to skip out, B’ hosting events like these tends to attract quite some trouble he tunes in for.” Duke mutters off-handingly, glimpsing at Tim who stands off to the side, but close enough to hear and talk to them. “That's only if he shows up at all, I’ll be damn impressed. A gala isn’t exactly his natural habitat.” The group chuckles, chattering amongst each other and making bets, it wasn’t until half an hour later, Barbara winning the bet— does the chattering of the ballroom dims slightly when the door slowly opens.
Dick slightly turns to the noise, already expecting what’s going to happen from the last arrival of the invitees.
Except, he swore everything stopped moving.
Jason Todd strolled through the double-doors with a slight mischievous smirk onto his face, acting as if he wasn’t late to the event, broad-shouldered in a tuxedo tailored to him with a crimson-red tie, a careless confidence he carried that was impossible to ignore. Though, that’s not what attracted everyone’s attention.
It was the presence next to him in a riveting red dress that matched Jay’s tie.
You.
Jason’s hand rested slightly onto your back, lightly guiding you through the crowd to their direction, it was protective. A gesture loud enough to rip through the crowd into whispers. Bruce’s expression sparked slight curiosity, Damian glared with a hint of suspicion, Barbara’s expression perked in amusement, Tim’s mouth jaw-dropped, and everyone else held their breathless compliments under their breaths; it was a sight that no one could have foreseen.
“Not alone this time.” Cass comments, sipping on her drink.
And Dick—
Dick Grayson lacked for a better word—was captivated, you weren’t the kind of beauty you notice when passing, but the kind that he knew would become a constant reminder, one that clearly spoke ‘you’re going to start seeing often’, chest tightening, and his brain stalling with words fumbling.
It was the kind that made him almost miss Jason’s whole introduction if it wasn’t for Tim nudging him slightly.
Jason presents you to the cluster of Waynes’, “she’s my partner-in-crime,” Bruce knits his brows together, sharp eyes already stitching the pieces together from the mere sentence. The rest seems to puzzle the pieces together as well: coming to the conclusion that you weren’t a guest.
You were a vigilante.
“She’s a close friend.” Jason adds with volume, voice echoing loudly into his ear from that last part of the information. Close friend. Partner-in-crime. Jay’s close friend.
They felt like deliberate markers to Dick, a warning that spoke too loud: off limits.
“Ah, I see. It’s nice to meet you.” Barbara’s tone was measured but kind, holding her hand out.
You shook it, flickering an effortless smile, the kind that belongs with the crowd of Gotham’s elites.
“It’s nice to finally meet you all. I’ve been close friends with Jason for… what, two years now?” Your brows drew together as you tilted your head slightly, expression thoughtful, as though you were sifting through memories to pin the timeline down.
Jason huffed out a quiet laugh beside you, the corner of his mouth quirks up. “Feels longer,” he muttered, amusement flickering in his eyes.
“Wow, keeping your friend away from us?” Stephanie grins, chuckling to herself. “What did you do to end up here?” There’s a sparkle of mischievous detected behind her eyes.
Jason shot her a dry look, “she came willingly.” You could only nod in confirmation. “Yeah, I came willingly.”
“Willingly?” Tim echoed, raising a brow.
Damian folded his arms, unimpressed. “Or she lost a bet.” That earned a sharp nudge to his shoulders from Cass and Duke. He hisses, shooting glares between them.
You shook your head from the entertaining young Wayne, “I came here on my own, I’ve recently gotten back from Star City after working on a long case, but I’m back.” You grinned, your eyes creased along with it. “The first thing that Jason did was ask if I wanted to be his plus-one to meet his family and join the event, so I didn’t mind.” You shrugged, unbothered by the information you’re spilling out.
The questions the group had wanted to ask of your time, concerning the case, halts when Bruce finally speaks.
“Star City.” His tone wasn’t sharp, but it carried the kind of gravity that made people straighten without realizing it. His eyes fixed on you, unwavering. “What kind of case kept you there for so long?”
Jason shifted, ready to intervene, but you didn’t flinch under the weight of Bruce’s stare.
“Arms trafficking,” you said plainly, as if it was the simplest thing you’ve ever done. “There was a network funneling weapons through the Glades. It took longer than I wanted to cut off the suppliers with Roy Harper on the case, but the streets are cleaner from it.” You smiled.
There was no hesitation in your voice, no theatrics. Just fact based off of your tone and behavior.
Tim’s brows rose slightly, impressed by your actions to gut out the entire network. Damian’s eyes narrowed, reassessing your strength. Cass gave the faintest nod, listening carefully to your expertise on the field. It seems you’ve been a vigilante for quite some time.
Bruce held your gaze, inclining his head barely, it was the closest thing to approval anyone got from the first meeting of B’.
“That’s… impressive.”
The words slipped out before Dick could stop them, low enough that for a moment, it felt like they were meant only for you. The tone of his voice carried a warmth he hadn’t intended, one that betrayed more than polite acknowledgment.
Dick was interested.
Your eyes met his briefly, catching the sincerity behind the slip. There was no bravado, no empty flattery, it was just genuine respect shining through, edged with something softer he hadn’t meant to show.
“Thank you.” Your voice light, threaded with a warmth that matched his own voice. A soft laugh escaping from your lungs. It wasn’t mocking him, but it was the kind of shy laughter that didn’t know how to take a compliment.
Caught off-guard as if you’ve never been told how simply ‘amazing’ your actions were.
Jason exclaimed something to the group that drew the others’ attention, their laughter filling the space as the family started dispersing to converse to their sponsors, or making new connections after the brief introduction of themselves, but Dick’s gaze lingered a beat too long. It wasn’t until you looked away, smiling faintly to yourself, that he realized he’d been holding his breath.
Jason walked off with a brief wink thrown your way, indulging himself in the buffet where Damian was already eyeing the plates with disdain. “Figures,” you murmured with a shake of your head, a smile tugging at your lips. “Leave it to Jason to treat a gala like it’s an all-you-can-eat fast food joint.” Your quiet laugh lingered in the air, softening the edges of the room, sweeping your eyes to find a way to connect with the Gotham Elites.
He caught your attention before you could slip away, his voice cutting through the hum of the ballroom. “Hey— wait.”
You paused, turning back toward him. His hand hadn’t moved, but there was something in the way his eyes lingered on you as if he was grasping onto straws to find a way to make conversation, his gaze holding onto you as if he was afraid to let the moment pass.
Dick held his hand out, palm open, a polite but unmistakable invitation. The expression on his face carried that easy charm he was known for, but his eyes betrayed something deeper: a hunger of curiosity.
“Care to dance?” His voice was smooth, almost casual, though there was a quiet weight behind it—as though this wasn’t just about the waltz playing in the background.
For a heartbeat, you hesitated, glancing toward where Jason had disappeared into the buffet line, watching him casually talk to the youngest Wayne. Then, your shoulders ease with no worries, placing your hand in his.
His fingers curled around yours, warm and sure, guiding you toward the ballroom floor. The music swelled, wrapping around the two of you as the world seemed to shrink to just that space, only the focus of his hand at your waist, and his steady blue gaze meeting yours with awe.
The waltz carried you both easily across the polishing floor, his hand steady on your waist while one in the palm of your hands, directing you with ease while your other hand held onto his shoulder to balance.
“So,” you began, staring at him. “are you always this charming at galas, or did I catch you on a good night?”
Dick’s smile curved, boyish but sly. “Depends. Are you always this quick with comebacks, or is Jason rubbing off on you?”
You laughed, the sound drawing a flicker of something in his eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was,” he admitted with no hesitation. Then, after a beat, “Jason said you’ve been friends for two years? Guess I should be embarrassed it took me this long to meet you.”
He tried to keep it light, but the thought lingered heavier in his chest. Jason had always been reluctant to bridge the cracks in their family, always holding everyone at arm’s length. Even if they were willing to push it, begging for him to let them through the walls. To not be afraid to reach out for them.
Dick knew better than to push.
He knew those wounds were still raw, especially between Jason and Bruce.
His relationship with Jason was straining, yet he knew Jason was making the effort to send a small reassuring text to Dick about his well-being.
It was difficult to stomach the thought of… he internally shook his head.
Scars didn’t heal with time; it could be hardened into walls.
Jason was the example of it.
But this was different. Jason showing up tonight with you, letting you into their orbit—it meant something.
Jason was making progress. Slow, halting progress, but progress all the same.
And you…
Dick could tell you were at the center of it. The way Jason trusted you, the ease you carried around him, the fact that you were here at all surprised all of them. You weren’t just a friend. You were proof. Proof that Jason was still trying, still choosing connection, even if he’d never admit it out loud.
You faintly quirk a smile at Dick’s question, your steps in rhythm with his as the music changed its rhythm.
“Star City wasn’t the first time I met Jason. It was Gotham. Crime Alley.” That made him look at you, brows rising ever so slightly of the new information. Still, he didn’t miss a beat in the dance. “Crime Alley? That’s not exactly the best place for introductions.”
You huffed out a laugh, feeling Dick twirl you around with ease. “Tell me about it. I thought I was clever about it, we were unknowingly working on the same case of a trafficking ring. I tried to bust it solo. Only, I wasn’t as clever as I thought. I got snuck on with a gun aimed at my chest before I could blink.” The memory flashed behind your eyes, sharp as a broken glass, the stench of damp asphalt, the hum of cheap neon buzzing overhead, the way your lungs had frozen.
“Jason was the one holding the gun at me.”
Dick blinked.
“Excuse me?”
You laughed loudly from his reaction, shaking your head at Dick’s flabbergasted expression, processing your words slowly. “Yeah. I didn’t know who he was back then. Helmet, guns, his persona. Jason thought I was working with the trafficking ring at first, and figured I was another piece in their scheming operation.”
Dick didn’t know how to respond, finding it hard to believe that your first meeting nearly ended your life.
“His first impression of you was as an enemy?”
“Pretty much.” You grinned, a spark of levity in your eyes. “He had me pinned against a wall, his gun under my chin, demanding to know who I was working for. I was trying not to pass out from adrenaline while explaining I was there for the same reason he was.” You sighed dreamingly, fond of the first-time you’ve met each other.
Dick let out a low whistle, half in disbelief, half in reluctant glee. “And that worked?”
“Not exactly.” You tilted your head, pursing your lips. “He didn’t believe me until I grabbed onto one of his guns and shot a stray’s shoulder aiming for his head. I was immediately promoted from ‘enemy’ to ‘annoying ally.’” You grumbled, rolling your eyes from the memory.
Dick couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up, surprised. “Annoying ally. Yeah, that sounds like Jason’s brand of friendship.”
Your shoulders shook with the uncontrollable laughter, light and unguarded, drawing a few curious glances from the nearby guests. “And somehow, we’re here,” you glance towards Jason, voice tinged with both mirth and disbelief. “After that night, we decided to work together. One job turned into another, and then it became a habit, like we were orbiting the same fights, the same causes. Somewhere along the way, we became friends.”
You exhaled softly, the laughter fading into something gentler, your expression catching between fondness and reflection. “I didn’t even know who Jason really was until a few months ago in Star City. I only knew his other counterpart. Then suddenly, Jason Todd.”
The music heightens around you, but for Dick, it felt like the rest of the ballroom faded into blur. The way you spoke of his brother’s name, the warmth and fondness in your tone. There was no judgment in it. No fear. Just the quiet acknowledgment of someone who’d seen him at his worst and stayed for every single thing, no matter how small the situation was.
Before Dick could ask another question to satisfy the curiosity, a voice broke in—smooth, amused, and unmistakably Jason’s.
“Mind if I steal my plus-one back?”
Jason appeared at your side with a lopsided grin, a champagne flute already in hand. He didn’t wait for permission; his arm brushed against yours as he slid naturally into the space between you and Dick, claiming it like it was the most casual thing in the world.
“Careful, Grayson,” he added, eyes flicking to his older brother with a smirk that carried the faintest edge. “She’s got better things to do than hear about your glory days.”
You groaned, though a smile tugged at your lips. “Jason…”
“What?” He feigned innocence, though the way his hand settled lightly at your back said otherwise. Protective. Anchoring. “I’m just making sure he doesn’t hog all your time. You, prancing around the floor becomes tiring. Unless you’re ready to switch partners?” He quirked a brow.
“He was only asking questions about me.” You nudge against his side of his audacity, “I think I’ll grab something to drink before you take my hand to the floor.”
Dick only smiled faintly from the interaction, raising his brows in silent merriment, but his jaw tightened just enough for Jason to notice. The glimpse of the man with a hint of white in his hair grins widely, satisfied from the reaction.
“Littlebird’s right, I’ve taken up most of your time. I’d rather not risk him claiming I stole his plus-one,” Dick nervously chuckles. “It’d make for a terrible headline.”
You gratefully nodded, the corners of your mouth tugging upward despite Jason’s small tug at your waist. “Guess I’ll have to thank you for the dance, then.”
Your tone carried a teasing lilt, but your eyes lingered on his just a moment longer than necessary. A quiet acknowledgement.
Dick could’ve rolled his eyes, made some quip to cut the tension between himself and Jason. Instead, he let his hand fall back to his side, relaxing his stance. He wouldn’t give Jason the satisfaction of seeing him rattled.
Dick briefly winks, warmer than his words let on. “Don’t thank me yet. I fully intend to have another dance in the future.” You waved at him with a kind smile, not knowing when you’ll run into him again besides family functions. Jason gave a brief nod before tugging you away from the oldest Wayne.
Still, as Jason leaned in close, his hand settling protectively on your back, Dick felt something sharp twist in his chest. It wasn’t jealousy. Though, yes, there was that too…It was the realization of what it meant.
Jason trusted you. Enough to bring you here. Enough to guard you, even from family.
Dick’s gaze lingered a moment longer, catching the way you threw your head back with glee at something Jason muttered, your shoulders brushing his with easy familiarity. It stung more than he expected.
But when Jason glanced back at him, smug satisfaction glinting in his eyes, Dick only gave a measured, easy smile in return—the kind that said, I’m happy for you. The kind that masked the fact that, for the first time in a long time, he wished he were the one holding your attention. Even if it was unfair for him to do so.
In his head, he couldn’t help but be bothered if you were both really just friends.
—
For a while after the gala, you lingered in the back of his mind like a song he couldn’t shake. Not constant, not consuming. You would just be there in all your glory, the beautiful red dress, the defining contrast of his blue tie, and the conversation he had in the waltz you’ve accepted with his extended hand. A flash of your smile when the night grew still. The echo of your laughter tugging something loose in his chest. Fleeting, yet sharp.
Dick told himself it was nothing. Jason’s friend. A passing moment at a glittering gala (it didn’t feel like a passing moment). Just another face in Gotham’s masquerade (it wasn’t another face). Dick already carried too many ghosts through the city’s shadows—he didn’t need another one, especially not one tied to his brother.
(If you weren’t Jason’s friend, he would’ve chased after you.)
He knew you were off-limits.
But fate had other plans.
Dick never expected or imagined this circumstance to happen.
He encounters you beneath the mask, under Gotham’s bruised skies. The Crime Alley was quiet that night, almost too quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed on his ears and told him something was about to break. It was a gut-feeling that Dick couldn’t ignore, landing lightly on another roof top he had leaped from as the city’s shadows folded around Gotham. Dick wondered if he could visit Jason, finding it hard to ignore his intuition that claws him.
And then he saw a familiar figure.
Black-clad, sharp-eyed, and deliberate— it was a switch. The girl he had been introduced to in the ballroom didn’t belong to the waltzing memory under the glimmering chandeliers of a gala anymore.
You belonged here, in the grit and blood of Gotham’s worst street. The recognition hit him hard, sharper than a blade.
You told yourself you were just passing through, another night, another patrol, and beating violence. But your hand rests on the gun on the side of your hip, hearing the footsteps on the rooftops while you were on ground-level. You withdrew your gun, pointing at the unknown individual with a glare behind the mask.
He dropped from a fire escape with the kind of controlled grace that made the world pause. Black and blue, all coiled precision, escrima sticks resting easily in his hands as if it belongs there. He was built of shadows and steel, but the emblem across his chest caught the streetlight, branding him in color against the dark.
Nightwing.
His head tilted slightly as he studied you, eyes hidden with the domino mask but intent clear. A smirk tugged at his lips, quiet and intentional.
“Funny,” he humors, voice low and smooth. “I was just thinking this alley had too much crime for one vigilante to handle. Guess I was wrong.”
The memory of another night two years ago.
It awfully pricked at you of the parallel you’ve once had experienced. Only this time, it wasn’t a gun pointed at your chest. It was a smile that felt like trouble of a different kind.
You slowly dropped your gun down, knowing Nightwing isn’t one to kill.
And you knew who he was beneath the mask— courtesy of Jason.
“Guess you were wrong,” you echoed his words back, voice steady, though a ghost of a smile tugged at your lips. “But don’t mistake me for a partner. I prefer solo.”
Nightwing tilted his head, the smirk tugging at his mouth making it impossible to tell if he was mocking you or admiring you.
“Lucky for me, I don’t give up that easily. Something tells me you’ll want a duo.”
Your brows lifted, caught between challenge and amusement.
“Confident, aren’t you?”
“Occupational hazard,” he replied lightly, though his gaze stayed fixed on you, sharp and unflinching. “Are you split with Red Hood right now?” You shook your head, keeping your stride steady as you continued along your patrol route, Nightwing falling beside you as if he owned the night.
You weren’t bothered by his presence. If anything, it was easier to have another pair of eyes on the streets.
And company.
You ignore your comment being solo.
“No,” you mumbled. “Red Hood’s holding down the Bowery tonight. I’m on my own for this stretch.” Nightwing raises a questionable brow.
“Hm, here I thought I would run into him.” Nightwing whispers under his breath, dragging a hand to scratch on his neck with his head tilted, portraying a man lost in his thoughts.
“Do you want me to pass along a message for him?” you asked, watching Nightwing carefully.
He gave a slight shake of his head, the motion subtle, his gloved hand lifting in a small wave to brush the offer aside. “Nah. Don’t worry about it.” His voice was steady, but not dismissive, as though he’d already weighed the thought and decided against it.
You caught the faintest pause before he added, “I just had a gut feeling about something.” Nightwing’s gaze drifted down the length of the alley, scanning shadows as though they might answer him. Then, softer, almost like he was convincing himself, “It can wait.”
The words hung there, heavy despite how lightly he tried to frame them. You weren’t sure if he was downplaying instinct or hiding something he wasn’t ready to share. Either way, the unease lingered, trailing behind you like the echo of your footsteps on the wet pavement.
You shook it off, if he wasn’t going to tell you, so be it. Though, curiosity got the better of you when you thought of his usual territory. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Bludhaven? Thought that was your usual turf.” You mentioned, keeping your focus to find anything suspicious.
He paused mid-step, considering the question for a beat. Then the smirk returned, just faint enough to hide the truth beneath.
“Let’s just say Gotham needed me more tonight. Bludhaven will survive without me for a while, I think.”
You rolled your eyes at his vagueness, wondering exactly what he’s doing here. Yet, you didn’t push, continuously doing your rounds while actively looking for skeptical individuals.
“Does he usually leave ya’ on your own?”
You glanced at him briefly, making him feel self-conscious if he thought you were incapable of doing things yourself.
Nightwing backtracked his words, raising both of his hands that fumbled around in emphasis.
“Oh no, I meant—“ you cut him off with a small chuckle, shaking your head to not worry about it.
Nightwing exhales in relief, happy to know that you understood.
“Sometimes, it’s just one of those rare moments that gets brought to his attention that he has to deal with.” You shrugged effortlessly, knowing he wasn’t intentionally probing your ability as a vigilante on your own.
“Ah, I see.” Nightwing’s reply was quiet, almost blank, though the weight in his voice carried something measured, analyzing. His eyes narrowed slightly, his expression unreadable behind the mask. “Then, what are you working on besides patrolling?”
You let the silence stretch before answering, your gaze flicking to the slick pavement ahead, where broken glass shimmered faintly under the alley’s dim light. Despite Nightwing’s secrecy, you had no problem sharing information.
“There’s a trafficking case.” You bluntly blurted out, seizing his immediate attention.
Nightwing’s head tilted, just slightly, as though adjusting his focus. The blank expression with the shift of a light-hearted mood switches into something more deliberate, an edge of a needle about to pop a bursting balloon. “Trafficking.” He repeated the term settling into his mind, releasing it once more into the heavy air between you.
“You don’t take on something that big without a reason.”
Your shoulders tensed as your gaze wandered over the graffiti-smeared walls of the dingy alley, sensing a bad vibe. “That’s one of the reasons Red Hood’s at the Bowery. There were a few spots he wanted to cover while I traced a few leads here in Crime Alley.” The words slipped out smoothly, dressed up like small talk, even if the weight beneath them was anything but casual.
You continued to fill in the silence with the information you’ve collected.
“It’s enough to know it’s not small-time,” you muttered, eyes scanning every corner that seems to claw your vision. “They’re moving mostly people and a few goods. In fact, they’re kids. All of them I’ve seen are young, scared, and innocent falling into the wrong hands.” Your voice shook with a hint of anger. “I’ve been following these reports for weeks, and tonight… I thought I’d finally catch the trail and end it.” You vocalized, feeling the frustration of the circumstances whenever kids were involved.
The faintest flicker of approval passed over his features before it vanished behind the mask of professionalism. He breathed out a relieving exhale. “Then, we’re on the same page. I’ve been following the same rumors in Bludhaven and Gotham City of the same group: Reapers.” His tone dipped, steel wrapped in calm. “Which means they’re clever enough to stay off Batman’s and my territory.”
Nightwing sneered from the thought, the expression sharp beneath the mask. Anyone foolish enough to make trouble in Crime Alley had to know what they were stepping into. This was Red Hood’s territory, and crossing that line was as close to a death wish as Gotham offered. Even if he wanted to, Dick couldn’t pull Jason back once he had set his sights on something.
He still didn’t approve of Jason’s methods, not completely, but he couldn’t deny Jason’s territory had grown quieter under Red Hood’s watch. Crime shifted when Red Hood staked his claim; the chaos dulled, the constant churn of blood and violence settling into something harsher but controlled.
Jason had listened to his advice, if only a little. The worst of it had faded, though the edge was always there, simmering, reminding Dick that Jason’s order came at a price.
It left him torn.
A part of him unwilling to accept that fear and brutality had become the foundation of Jason’s rule, part of him begrudgingly aware that it worked. (And maybe that was the most frustrating thing of all.) Yet, Nightwing had to remind himself that his methods weren't a permanent fix, his methods continued the cycle of violence, a wedge in the family of his moral compass, and the fact it doesn’t bring peace in this city.
Nightwing frustratingly grumbles, internally.
“So we’re chasing the same thing.”
He stepped closer, close enough that you caught the faint scent of rain and a hint of metallic clinging to him, perhaps from running into criminals within Gotham. “Looks like it,” he confirms, voice even but threaded with challenge. “Two is better than one, don'tcha think? Unless, you wanna run this solo?” You groaned, “you’re here already, we might as well stick with each other.”
Nightwing smirked at the unspoken partnership that had formed between you. “I guess we can see who’s the fastest to take down criminals.” The words carried a spark of competition, daring you to bite.
You couldn’t help the grin tugging at your mouth, biting the competition. Easily entertained, you let the thought run through your head. Truly, who was faster? Was it you, experienced in Muay Thai and taekwondo, or Nightwing, Bludhaven’s vigilante?
The two of you moved through the dripping streets to the destination of the trafficking, footsteps muffled by the rain-slick pavement. Crime Alley stretched ahead like a scar, its silence never empty, there was always something lurking in the shadows.
“You know,” Nightwing drags, edged with humor, “if we’re keeping score, I’m already three steps ahead.”
You shot him a sideways glance, frown tugging at your lips. “Three steps, huh? Don’t trip over your ego when we get there.”
Before he could fire back, a sharp clatter echoed from a side street. You both stood on alert with narrowed eyes, focusing immediately on the noise of metal against stone, quick and deliberate. Nightwing tilted his head, thinning his lips before whispering lowly. “That wasn’t random.”
You caught it too. A shadow had shifted where there shouldn’t have been one, retreating deeper into the alley’s throat. The kind of movement that screamed either a lookout or bait.
“Looks like Gotham wants to settle our little competition,” you murmured, already adjusting your stance.
The clatter echoed again, sharper this time, like a crate being dragged across concrete. You and Nightwing exchanged a glance, a wordless agreement passing between you before either moved.
He gestured for you to take the left side while he circled wide, finding himself on a rooftop with ease. His movements were fluid, silent, the practiced steps of someone who had lived too long in Gotham’s shadows. You mirrored him, except you kept yourself to the brick wall, letting your eyes adjust to the darkness ahead.
The alley opened into a small loading dock, half-lit by a flickering bulb. You’ve found a black van sat backed up against the bay, its rear doors cracked open. You caught the faint outline of crates inside, and even from this distance you could make out the stenciled markings, there were codes that you’ve recognized from your intel. Trafficking. Except it wasn’t children, it was weapons.
You frowned, noting down another drop-off location for weapons.
As if on cue, multiple figures stepped out from the shadows near the van. One scanned the alley, hand resting on the grip of his pistol, while the other checked a list on a crumpled clipboard. The rest stood guarded, their movements were quick as though they knew they had little time, anxiously writing every detail down.
You’ve glance up towards the rooftop, glimpsing the blue symbol on his chest. Nightwing’s silhouette shifted high above, perched on the ledge like a predator ready to strike. His voice echoes in your head of the challenge from earlier, threaded with focus. The choice didn’t take long whether to take action. Only a subtle nod from you, and the two of you moved as one. Nightwing dropped from the ledge with the precision of a blade cutting through air, while you slipped from the shadows on the opposite side.
The first man never saw you coming. A twist of his wrist and the pistol clattered against the pavement; one sharp kick had him stumbling into the wall before you finished him with a strike to the jaw. Across the dock, Nightwing flowed through the second, disarming him mid-swing and pinning him flat with a clean, practiced sweep.
Gunshots split the night, echoing hard off the alley walls, but neither of you faltered. The docks came alive with chaos as more figures rushed from behind crates and stacked cargo, weapons drawn, shouting orders that were swallowed by the storm-charged air.
You moved fast, slipping between shadows, disarming one man before driving him into the side of the van with a clean knock-out. Nightwing was a blur of blue and black on the other end, his escrima sticks cracking sharp through the fray. Every time you struck down an opponent with no-mercy, you caught the glimpse of Nightwing doing the same, you pouted.
Your count stood neck and neck without meaning to.
By the time the last man hit the ground, coughing through the sting of smoke pellets, the dock had fallen into silence again. The van doors hung open, crates half-split, their contents a stark reminder of the work still ahead.
You straightened quickly, breath sharp in your lungs, and met Nightwing’s eyes through the dim light. He proudly smirks under the dim street lamps, sweat glinting on his brow. “Even score,” he declared, his tone caught between approval and amusement.
You groaned, disappointment leaking through your body of an unsatisfied score.
“For tonight.”
Unknowingly, it became the start of something. Nightwing walked you to your house after wrapping up two trafficking locations, writing down the route within his head as you exchange contact information, it was almost casual, the kind of practical step that came with chasing the same case. Neither of you lingered on it out loud, but the weight of it settled in silently, carried into the night.
Later, on opposite ends of Gotham, you both found yourselves doing the same thing.
Dick sat high above the streets, thumb brushing over his phone each time it buzzed, a flicker of hope tugging before disappointment settled when it was only one of the Bats checking in, letting him know the trafficking case had been dealt with. It was wonderful news. Yet, he was hoping you were the one to send a message.
Dick groaned in the palm of his hands.
You were Jason’s close friend. That alone should have made the thought untouchable, forbidden to have any sort of attraction towards you. But the longer Dick let himself envision the beauty you held, the harder it was to pretend he didn’t want anything more.
Off-limits or not, the pull toward you was undeniable, threading through him with a quiet persistence he couldn’t ignore.
Meanwhile, walking back through the damp quiet of the streets of your usual patrol without the man with the blue symbol on his chest, feeling rather lonely without the company of his. You glanced at your screen more often than you’d admit, the number you had saved pulling at the edge of your thoughts. You told yourself it was routine, nothing more. But the image of his smirk, the sound of his voice, and his jokes refused to fade.
You thought of Jason that night.
—
The night after shutting down the trafficking ring of weapons (you haven’t found the children), you returned to your apartment expecting silence, maybe to confine yourself into the comfort of solitude. Instead, you found Jason already inside, sitting on your table with his jacket tossed aside, wrapping fresh bandages around his torso. The sharp scent of antiseptic lingered in the air, mingling with the faint trace of gunpowder that always seemed to follow him.
“I heard a bit of your conversation outside,” Jason voices, his tone edged as he tugged a shirt over freshly wrapped bandages. His brows furrowed, eyes narrowing with wariness. “What’s Dick doing here?”
You blinked at the sight of him in your apartment, the question landing heavier than you expected. Sliding your mask off, you set it aside before crossing the room. “He came to drop me off,” you explained, sliding into a seat as you raised your gaze to Jason, sitting on the wooden table you’ve found at a yard sale. Though, Jason pierces his gaze through you, knowing there’s more than dropping you off. “He was actually looking for you about the trafficking case.”
Jason clicked his tongue, irritation flashing across his face. “How does he know about that?” he exclaims, running a gloved hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled as his frown deepened.
His gaze went distant, sifting through scraps of memory, hunting for the slip-up he might have made. The crease between his brows only sharpened as silence stretched, the weight of his thoughts heavy in the small room.
“He’s been hearing about it in Blüdhaven and Gotham,” you explained, keeping your tone steady. “So Dick decided to make a visit to see if they’d pushed into your territory, but he found me since you were in the Bowery, clearing out the area.” Jason’s posture relaxed.
“How did that go by the way?” You asked, glancing at the injury he had wrapped, hidden under his shirt.
“I found them,” he grumbled, shifting as the movement pulled at the wound. “Took care of the rest of their dealings and immediately had a detective ping Batman to deal with the kids, seeing if they could find a better solution than sticking them into foster-care.” His voice was flat, but the wince that cut across his face betrayed the shot he’d taken in the process.
Your tense shoulders relaxed slightly as you spoke. “I’m glad you found them, but that was risky of you,” you glared, folding your arms together. “Handling it on your own is crazy. You should’ve let me tag along to help you as back-up.” You lectured him, watching his jaw tightened.
Jason lets out a sharp breath, tugging at the edge of his shirt. “I didn’t need backup,” he muttered, though the edge in his voice softened slightly. His eyes flicked to you for a fraction of a second, a hint of acknowledgment there. “I get it, I do. But you’d probably be in the way.”
You raised an eyebrow, his words not offending you the slightest bit. You understood what he meant, yet you were unimpressed to let him off that easily. “In the way? Please. I would’ve made sure you didn’t end up with a bullet, bleeding in my apartment, taking my medicine stash.”
A small smirk tugged at his lips, shaking his head. “You should get used to it, I know how to take care of myself. Plus, your apartment is closer to the Bowery than mine.” You only shook your head in disapproval, “I also know how to take care of myself as well.” you nudge at the center of his chest. “Guess, I should let Dick know that you’ve found the kids.”
Jason’s smirk faded into a faint frown, and he twirls around the strands of his white tufts of hair. “Dick, huh?” His voice was low, a mix of curiosity and something harder to place. “Figures he’d want to know. Can’t let him be in the dark, I guess.” Jason mumbles before looking at you with a questionable look.
“Hm. Did he just stick by you for patrol?” Jason asked, his tone low but a hint of tension.
You slowly nodded, picking up his tone. “Yeah, it was nice to have another set of eyes. It was an actual surprise when we worked together. Even more, when we were practically in sync fighting the traffickers.” Pushing back from your seat, you moved into the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards for something quick to eat.
“I see,” he muttered after a beat, watching you from where Jason’s leaning on the table now. His voice carried the weight of something unsaid. “And he just dropped you off?”
“Mhm, we exchanged phone numbers if the case gets brought up, but I guess you already took care of it.” You turn to Jason, waving around some buns. “Are you hungry for burgers, I have the ingredients for it.” Jason quirked a smile, watching your facial expression light up.
“Yeah, that’ll be great.”
—
It had only been a few days since that late night conversation with Jason, the same night Nightwing had escorted you home and since you’ve last heard from him. You were exhausted, it was nearly noon when a knock sounded at your door, you were brushing your teeth, assuming it was the kind mailman dropping off the package you had been waiting for.
Except, the sight waiting for you was not what you were expecting. Standing there, framed in the doorway with an easy composure, was none other than Dick Grayson.
Dick. Grayson.
Q froze in place, unable to process what you were seeing. Your toothbrush hung still in your hand, a bit of foam clinging to the corner of your mouth. Dick was dressed in casual-wear. Even then, he carried himself with the ease of someone who could have stepped straight out of a magazine spread.
Meanwhile, you were dressed in nothing more than a loose T-shirt and sleep shorts.
Oh, what the hell.
You internally cried.
He stood in your doorway with a bouquet of gorgeous flowers, shifting his weight as if debating whether to hand them over or turn around. His eyes flicked over your outfit, then quickly back to your face.
“Um, is this an inconvenient time?” he asked, running a hand through his hair before letting it settle at the back of his neck. His blue hues darted everywhere but your own eyes, like the peeling paint on your doorframe or the floor by his boots were suddenly fascinating.
You had to be dreaming.
You blinked at him, still brushing your toothbrush like in disbelief. “Well, considerin’ I’m stfaning her’, you cauf meh at my absolu’ glamoris’.” You decided to leave him at the open door, inviting him in as you went to the bathroom to clean yourself up.
Dick slowly took a step forward to your door, closing it behind him. Though, he only stood there awkwardly, his gaze wandering around your apartment. He was unsure what to do besides shifting his weight with the bouquet of flowers in his hands, soaking in the glow of the sun peeking through the blinds of your small living room.
“If you had texted that you were on your way, I could’ve been at least prepared.” You sighed, coming out of the bathroom with a flustered expression. “You can take your shoes off and explore around my living room.” You point towards the shoe rack. “I’ll take the flowers from you and put them in a vase.” You awkwardly smiled, taking the flowers out of his hand before he could answer.
Dick didn’t know what else to do, so he followed your advice and stepped into the living room (after taking his shoes off). His eyes swept over the space. There were paintings scattered across the walls, small trinkets carefully placed on shelves, greenery tucked in corners that softened the edges of the room.
The place felt lived in, grounded, and quietly yours.
What drew him in most, though, were the photographs. Polaroids pinned in frames, candid moments frozen in time. There was you with a few of your friends, partying or simply hanging out at a cafe. There were some he recognized such as Roy Harper and Artemis with her hair down in casual clothing at a bar, smiling towards the camera with a raised glass. (that was rare to see, did you join with Outlaws?)
What caught his attention was Jason’s appearance in several of them. Dick’s gaze softened at one where Jason was slouched comfortably on your couch, a book in his hand that he seemed engrossed in. One in the kitchen, cooking something with a serious expression. Another showed him holding a tiny kitten awkwardly, eyes softened in a way Dick hadn’t seen in years.
There was one of you both in the corner of a booth, laughing at something Jason had said, his half-smile caught in the same frame. Dick wondered who had taken the picture, it awfully made his chest tightened unexpectedly.
Dick kind of wished there was one with Jason and him.
“You’re really making yourself at home,” your tone had a slither of a teasing smile, setting the vase down on the coffee table.
Dick didn’t look away from the photos right away, moving his gaze onto the Polaroid of Jason with the kitten before he finally spoke. “I didn’t know he liked cats, he always preferred dogs.”
Your lips quirked, not missing the edge in his voice. “He doesn’t. That one just refused to leave him alone.” Dick gave a small hum of approval, smiling at the thought of a small thing bothering him.
It was comical with the thought of Jason swatting away the kitten, telling it to ‘go away’ yet continued to follow behind him with an annoyed sigh of acceptance.
“Besides looking at the Polaroid pictures and my living room, do you wanna tell me why you came here?” You leaned against your table, folding your arms together against your loose T-shirt and skimpy sleep shorts with a tilt of your head, staring at him to find an answer.
His mouth dries up.
The morning sun's golden rays pours through the window blinds, emphasizing the effortless glow on your disheveled figure. To him, it was cinematic to watch your eyes flutter (waiting on an answer); it was a scene straight out of a rom-com movie.
Wow.
Wow.
Dick short-circuited.
He wishes he held a Polaroid camera.
A picture he could put in his wallet.
Someone to look forward to.
You were really pretty.
“I wanted to check if you were…okay?”
He winced from the deafening silence.
It sounded more like an unsure question than a statement.
His response was slow, observing a single raised brow from the unsatisfied response he had given. “Really?” You dragged the ‘y’, “you’re checking up on me with a bouquet of flowers at 11:30 am on a Saturday, dressed like that?” You shook your head in disbelief, beaming at his ridiculous response with a twinkle in your eyes.
“I’ll give you another chance to explain, Grayson.” A spark of interest, using his last name to gain his attention. “Don’t lie to me.” You laughed, the corner of your eyes creasing with a wide grin plastered ear-to-ear.
Oh god, he couldn’t believe he’s doing this.
He’s going completely against Jason.
Off-limits.
Dick’s hand unintentionally went to the back of his neck, a familiar nervous habit betraying him. “I wasn’t lying about checking up on you,” he mumbles, clearing his throat. “I actually wanted an excuse to see you, to talk to you and… maybe ask you out…on a date?”
His eyes flicked to yours, searching for any sign of how you would take the words while his posture remained slightly awkward, as if he was not sure he deserved an answer yet.
You blinked at him, caught somewhere between disbelief and amusement. “Wait, what?” you asked, pointing at him with your free hand, toothbrush momentarily forgotten.
Dick’s cheeks colored slightly, and he ran a hand through his hair again. “I said… maybe go on a date,” he repeated, voice quieter this time.
You bit the inside of your cheek at his shy demeanor, shaking your head and covering your mouth with your other hand. “You are unbelievable,” you felt the heat in your cheeks rise, trying to keep the grin from spreading too wide. “In the outfit I’m wearing right now? I need to get ready for this date then.” You began to rush towards your room, answering his offer immediately without any words of confirmation.
Dick couldn’t help but cheer for himself wordlessly. “To be fair, I think you really pull off the whole T-shirt and toothpaste thing pretty well!” He joked, hearing a yell of protest to his comment, hearing drawers being open in your room. The awkwardness leaving his body once he received your answer to his date.
Dick apologizes to Jason internally, knowing he would strangle him.
You were off-limits.
He’ll make it up to Jason.
If he doesn’t put a bullet in him.
—
Surprisingly, time slipped away faster than either of you expected. Jason remained blissfully unaware that his close friend was practically dating his oldest brother, while one date quietly folded into two, then three, four, five, and soon enough a full month had passed. The rhythm of it all felt easy, natural, almost too smooth for Gotham.
You’ve both shared kisses, brief and lingering, stolen in quiet corners or under the soft glow of streetlights. Laughs came easily, and the teasing felt like its own language, a secret only the two of you understood.
The first time he kissed you, standing outside your apartment after having dinner at a nice restaurant. He cradled your face perfectly in his hand with half-lidded eyes, holding you gently with thoughts of the future. You were tempting him with your glossy lips before staring into your eyes, overwhelming him with anticipation.
Could you tell what’s in his eyes as well?
He wanted to kiss you so badly, so when his gaze drops to your lips. Everything took over as his eyes fluttered shut as he placed his lips to your own, fitting it like a puzzle-piece. Dick deepens the kiss.
He couldn’t help but think to himself that his lips fitted so perfectly between your own— regretting that he should’ve kissed you sooner, wishing that he met you sooner to have a taste.
You were truly addicting to have, tugging him away from your mouth with his name escaping your lips so you could breathe for a few seconds before he dives once more to steal your breath.
The way you had to stop him from stealing your breath with his name leaving your lips should be illegal. Every kiss with you felt like his taste enhanced, the texture enhanced, the color around him enhanced, he could taste the residue of the melted cookie dough ice cream on your lips. It was sweet, sugary, and cold, like it was winter, but the kiss between you two felt like the scorching summer heat.
God, he wants to kiss you right now.
Somewhere along the way, Dick had picked up a Polaroid camera, claiming it was for fun, a novelty. Yet tucked in his wallet, behind his ID, sat a single photo—his favorite. The light had captured you just right in his bed, laying on his chest as you slept, making you look more ethereal than real. He pretended it was no big deal, just another snapshot, but his thumb brushed over the edge of the film more often than he cared to admit, staring at the picture in awe of how effortlessly photogenic you were in every picture Dick has taken, tucked in a small photo album in his bed-side drawer.
It had become something steady, something fragile but undeniable. And even though you were off-limits in some ways, bound by friendship with his brother, by loyalty to Red Hood, by his own sense of what was right— Dick couldn’t deny the pull, the careful orbit that had formed around the two of you.
Every touch, every glance, every word carried weight, and with each passing day, the connection grew, silent but unbroken, weaving a thread that neither Gotham nor its dangers could easily sever.
Dick sighed dreamily as he stepped into the kitchen, ready to start his morning with breakfast. It was a rare, peaceful moment before he would head over to your apartment, just to be near you and enjoy your company. He should ask if you wanted to move in, or is that too soon?
He already misses you.
(He saw you yesterday.)
“What are you making?”
“I think I’m gonna make an omelette for myself, do you want—” Dick catches himself, whipping quickly to the presence of the familiar tufts of white hair swept to the side, folding his arms in a relaxed demeanor, yawning in his casual clothes.
Jason. In. His. Bludhaven. Apartment.
Dick knew that this wasn’t going to end well.
(He wasn’t going to end well.)
Dick froze mid-step, the spatula hovering over the skillet. He swallowed, trying to muster casual, though his chest tightened with a tad-bit fear. “Uh… sure. Omelette. Coming right up,” he nervously chuckles, forcing a tone that was far too chipper for the situation.
Jason leaned against the counter, arms folded, one brow cocked, watching Dick like a predator enjoying his prey. “You look tense. What’s wrong, Grayson? Scared of me?”
“I’m not tense,” Dick exclaimed, heat rising to his cheeks. “I’m… focused on the omelette, I want it to be perfect.”
Jason mischievously chuckled, that familiar teasing glint in his eye. “Focused, huh? Feels more like panicking. Relax, Grayson. I’m not here to bite—well, not yet.”
Dick muttered under his breath, glancing at the clock, at the skillet, at the very room that now somehow felt like a trap. You were off-limits. You were supposed to be off-limits. Yet all he could think about was how unfair it was that Jason. His brother, Jason.
He was here. Casual. Calm. And completely unaware that he had no idea the full story about you and Dick.
“When the hell were you going to tell me that you’re dating my best friend, Grayson.”
Nevermind.
He turns off the stove, facing Jason.
He’s leaning against the counter, arms crossed with one another, staring straight at Grayson with a tensed jaw. “You’ve got some secrets that you’ve been hiding, Richard. And I deserve to know.” Oh yeah. He’s pissed is an understatement. Dick would rather be shot by his own brother than to hear his first name out of Jason’s mouth.
He exhaled slowly, he didn’t want Jason to find out this way. In fact, he didn’t want Jason to feel like he was stealing someone from his life.
Dick could only swallow, his throat tight, words caught somewhere between truth and caution. He ran a hand over the back of his neck, a nervous gesture that did nothing to hide the weight of the secret. “You’re right, you deserve to know and I’m sorry for keeping it away from you.” Jason’s eyes were sharp, burning into him.
“You’re dating her,” Jason revealed slowly, voice low but edged with hurt and disbelief. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”
Dick ran a hand over his face, exhaling slowly. “Jason, I truly didn’t mean for you to find out like this. I didn’t want to hurt you or make it seem like I was taking her away from you. I care about her, and I care about you too. I just… I didn’t know how to tell you without making it messy.” Dick winces, running his hand through his hair.
“I’m truly sorry.” Dick apologized profusely, “I know she’s off-limits, your best friend and all. I didn’t want to cross your boundaries—” Jason’s face twisted in confusion, holding a hand up.
“Wait.”
“I know I fucked up—”
“Dick.”
“I should’ve told you sooner, ya know?”
“Dick.”
“I didn’t want you to feel betrayed by—”
“Oh my fucking god, Richard.”
Dick froze mid-word, Jason’s serious expression softens slightly, understanding the situation at a different light now. A little amused from the predicament.
“I didn’t say she was off-limits, where the hell did you get that idea from?”
Dick slowly blinked, scavenging his memories to find the moment before a flash of disbelief appeared on his face.
“You… you didn’t?”
Jason slowly shook his head.
“No, I didn’t say anything about off-limits.”
“What about the gala? Was that not you practically saying that she’s off-limits?!” Dick emphasized, observing the wide confusion Jason had on his face.
“Dick, what are you talking about? I just said that she’s my literal partner-in-crime, my close friend. I was implying that she’s capable of kicking any one of the Bats’ and Robins’ if she needed to.” Jason explained, pinching the bridge of nose with an exasperated look.
“Then, what was that about when you split our dance apart?”
Jason groans.
“Unbelievable,” Jason shook his head, clarifying the situation. “I thought you were bothering her with your dumb stories, telling her all this stuff about the family. So I came to grab her from you.” He closed his eyes and let out a long exhale. “I didn’t want her stuck around you weirdos any longer than necessary.”
Dick blinked, jaw-slack.
Did Jason not utter the words of: off-limits?
Jason nonchalantly cracked his neck side-to-side, lips twitching into a small frown, disappointment leaking through his demeanor. “I didn’t come here to grill you because she’s off-limits, she’s not, you think I want to control her life? We’re grown adults, fighting Gotham as vigilantes. I came here because you didn’t tell me you were dating her.” He clicks his tongue. “You need to stop assuming the worst about me, Grayson. I’m not mad about her. I just didn’t expect you to hide it like some big secret mission.”
Dick decidedly turned on the stove, continuing his breakfast with a saddened expression. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to tell you without making it weird or upsetting you.”
Jason continuously leans on the counter. “Weird? Upsetting me? Dick, I’m not going to freak out. I just… I wanted to hear it from you, not figure it out like some damn puzzle.”
Dick let out a shaky laugh, exhaling slowly. “Yeah, I understand. I just panicked at the thought of you, thinking I was doing the right thing. Obviously not, since you’re here.” He shrugged, “you’re okay, right? With us?” The thought of you came into mind, wondering if you told Jason or if he figured it out.
“Dumbass, of course I’m okay with it. I trust the fact that you can take care of her more than her past exes.” Jason raises his gaze at his older brother, “i know you care for her deeply as well, but don’t fuck it up.” Jason softly requested, to him— he doesn’t want to find out what would happen if you both end up in a fight.
(Most likely Dick going to the dog’s house to sleep.)
After having breakfast with Jason, catching up among things and letting Jason know that Dick was here whenever he needed him. Dick spent the rest of the entire day at your apartment, laying on your stomach as you ran your hands through his hair, massaging it as he used his time to rest. It was domestic, glimpsing at you from above with adoration in his eyes.
He's transfixed on your beauty, the strength you embody, the pure laughter that echoes in his dreams that provides comfort, and when you gaze into his eyes— it’s like he’s the only one in the world Dick Grayson. Not Nightwing.
“I love you.”
God, he’s so utterly in love with you, the way you simply smile at him brought him to his knees.
“I love you too.”
a/n: wow. this was by far the longest one-shot I’ve ever done, I’m genuinely so drained it’s not even funny but I am happy with my work. I would’ve made it longer but I lwk got tired 💔 and I didn’t want to extend this into part 2. I also have to write chapter 2 of my JT fanfic. anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this one! don’t be a stranger xx
Not in the creepy way, but in the way someone does when they’ve already leaned all about you and still want to keep learning.
He noticed things.
He noticed everything.
He knew you put jelly on your pancakes instead of syrup, and he even started keeping a jar of your favorite kind in his cabinet just in case you'll need it when you're over... even though he cant remember the last time he had eaten pancakes.
He’d shrug it off if you asked about it, saying something like, “Picked it up on sale,” even though he went to like three different stores that morning just to find the right brand.
He knew you wanted to like tea, it was basically a dream of yours to be one of those people who could enjoy the leaf water, but every time you bought a box, it ended up shoved in the back of your cupboard after one disappointing cup and stayed there for months until he just took it to Alfred.
So sometimes, when you came over at his place, he’d hand you a new mug with a steaming drink in it. “Try this,” he’d say, eyes watching yours as you took a sip, cataloging the slight purse of your lips, the way you tilted your head in thought, the way your nose would either scrunch up subconsciously or your eyes would light up. He’d keep hunting for the one that made you light up.
And then there were the mugs. God, the fuckin' mugs.
Your entire kitchen was practically decorated with them. Different shapes, different colors, some with characters you loved, some from places you’d never even been to. You told him once, voice soft with something almost guilty, that you felt bad when you saw one at the store and didn’t buy it.
“What if no one buys it?” you’d said with the most pathetic (adorable) pout, like the ceramic thing might actually feel abandoned.
Jason hadn’t laughed. He’d just looked at you for a long, quiet moment, as he started to feel that same pull in his chest like he did when he found a stray kitten in the rain.
So he started buying you mugs after that; never all at once, never enough for you to get suspicious, just… enough. Enough that, someday, you’d realize half your collection had come from him.
Jason Todd was in love, and his love showed in the little details. The ones you thought no one saw. The ones he’d guard like secrets.
Because, truth be told, he wasn’t just noticing you.
He was keeping you.
-little detailed scene--
It started with the tea. You were sitting on Jason’s couch, legs tucked under you, scrolling on your phone when he came back from the kitchen. Without a word, he set a mug down in front of you; cream-colored with tiny blue flowers painted around the rim. You squinted at the mug as you tried to remember buying that one.
“Try this,” he said, like it was nothing. You blinked at the cup. “You got me another mug?” He gave a lazy shrug, settling into the seat beside you. “Saw it. Thought you’d like it.”
You wrapped your hands around the warm ceramic, inhaling the faint scent of honey and strawberries. One sip later, you made a small, surprised sound. “Okay… this one’s actually good.”
Jason smirked at the corner of his mouth but didn’t say anything. And that’s when it hit you...this wasn’t the first time.
You set the mug down slowly, your gaze sliding toward him. “Wait.” He looked over at you, all innocence. “What?”
“You-” you gestured vaguely at the tea “you’ve been… doing this. Like all of this. ”
Jason arched a brow. “Doing what?”
“Knowing stuff about me. Weirdly specific stuff. Like how I like jelly on my pancakes, and how I feel bad about not buying things when we go out, and-” your eyes narrowed as realization clicked into place “half my mug collection is from you now, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer right away. His jaw shifted like he was chewing over his words. Finally, he smirked slowly, dangerously. “Maybe.”
You leaned back, crossing your arms. “Jason. That’s… a lot.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning in, voice low and steady. “I’m a lot.”
The air between you tightened, not quite tense, but charged in that way that made your heartbeat pick up. You swallowed.
“So you’ve just been… watching me? Memorizing me?”
Jason didn’t flinch. “I’m in love with you. What did you expect me to do--not pay attention?”
Your breath caught. You hadn’t been expecting that.
His gaze softened, and for a second, the teasing edge in his voice slipped away. “You’re the most important thing in my life. I notice everything, sweetheart. Always will.”
And you didn’t say anything, because there wasn’t really anything to saynot with your cheeks hot and your stomach fluttering like you’d just stepped off a high ledge.
You just picked the mug back up and took another sip, hiding the smile you couldn’t quite bite back.
Tagging:
@ladyperceval
If you'd like to be tagged ill try my best to add you! I hope you like my work
Too loud, too fast, too stubborn. He could never just be in the way that people seemed to want him to. Even now, years after resurrection, after countless fights and the League’s brutal remaking of his body, after the Pit had burned away all softness, he still caught himself moving like that scrawny, half-starved kid from Crime Alley — slipping between shadows, ducking his head to avoid attention, bracing for the next blow.
But he wasn’t small anymore.
He could see it in the way people looked at him — sidelong glances, half-hidden wariness. He towered now, broad-shouldered and heavy with muscle. A wall of a man. Built like a weapon.
And sometimes he hated it.
There were nights when his body felt like a costume he couldn't take off — too large, too loud even in stillness. He’d lie awake with his hand curled against his ribs, willing his heart to slow, not even sure why he felt so wrong in his own skin.
But not with you.
You didn’t flinch when he brushed past you in tight hallways. You didn’t shrink from his size, or his moods, or his silences. You had a way of just… existing beside him, calm and steady, like the eye of a hurricane.
It was late when it happened. A long patrol, a bruised shoulder, dirt still under his fingernails. He didn’t say much when he walked in, just stripped off the Red Hood armor piece by piece, until he was bare and quiet and aching.
You were already in bed, curled in loose sheets, and when he sank into the mattress beside you, something in him gave out. All that strength, all that careful control — gone in an instant. He reached for you instinctively, spooning behind you like muscle memory, tucking his face against your neck.
But then you turned in his arms.
“No,” you whispered gently, not unkind. Your hands were warm against his chest, guiding him, shifting him — and before he could ask what you were doing, he was the one being cradled.
You pulled him in, let him rest his head on your chest, your arm curling over his wide back like you could hold all of him — and the strangest thing was, you did.
No one had ever held him like that.
Not Bruce. Not Alfred. Not anyone.
He wasn’t a weapon here. Not a soldier, not a ghost, not a lost Robin who had clawed his way back from death. He was just Jason. He was your Jason.
You carded your fingers through his hair, slow and unhurried, and asked softly, “Wanna take a bath with me in the morning?”
He nodded against your collarbone, eyes closed. His breath evened out.
It was the best night of sleep he’d had in months.
He didn’t say it out loud — not yet — but he was possessive. Fiercely, utterly yours. But not in the way people might assume.
He didn’t need to own you.
He needed to belong to you.
Every night he came home and saw the light still on, your smile still waiting, he felt the weight in his chest ease just a little more. He could live with the monster in his mirror, the blood on his gloves, the ache in his bones — if it meant this. If it meant you.
He didn’t care if he was your first. Didn’t care about perfect love stories.
Jason’s sprawled across the bed, all six-foot-something of muscle and attitude dead weight draped over you. He hasn’t let go since he carried you from the couch, like his arms are glued around your waist. His head’s on your chest, ear pressed to your heartbeat, damp hair tickling your collarbone.
“You still mad at me?” His voice is a low rumble, Jersey drawl softened, almost sheepish. He doesn’t lift his head, doesn’t even try to meet your eyes.
“No, Jay.” Your fingers rake slowly through his hair, scratching just the way you know melts him. “Not mad. Just tired.”
He lets out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “Tired ‘cause of me.” His hand tightens on your hip, like he’s reminding himself you’re real. “Shoulda slowed down. Shoulda made you feel good first instead of—”
“Jason.” You cut him off gently, tugging at his hair until he tips his face up to you. He looks so wrecked—red eyes, guilty pout. You cradle his cheek in your palm. “You did make me feel good. Really good. You’re just being dramatic.”
He huffs, but his lips twitch like he’s fighting a smile. “…Maybe I like it when you baby me after.”
“There it is,” you tease, brushing a kiss over his forehead.
He groans, rolling half onto you so his weight presses you into the mattress. “Don’t tell anyone. Red Hood loses all his street cred if word gets out he’s a fuckin’ mama’s boy for his girl.”
You laugh, rubbing his back in slow circles. “Your secret’s safe with me, baby.”
Jason hums, content, before his voice drops into a whisper against your chest: “Say it again.”
“What?”
“‘Baby.’” He sounds embarrassed, like he’s asking for something filthy instead of sweet.
You stroke your fingers through his hair again, soft and deliberate. “My baby.”
He shivers. Literally shivers. Then he hides his face back against your chest like he can’t handle it, arms tightening until you squeak.
“Jason,” you laugh, kissing the crown of his head. “You’re crushing me.”
“Good,” he mutters, muffled. “You’re stuck with me. Mine.”
By the time sleep takes him, he’s drooling into your shirt, legs tangled with yours, still clinging like you’ll vanish if he loosens his grip.
Don't get it wrong, he's a complete amateur when it comes to sex. The first time you two fucked, he cried. So this little discovery, it was an accident, truly. He didn't mean to get carried away but you were squeezing him so good, and the pretty sounds you were making had his knees giving out.
At first, he had you face down, feeding you those deep strokes, the kind that leaves you breathless. But then he began to move, pushing at the curves of your hips, then your spine, forcing you down until your tummy presses against the soft sheets. And he can't help it, naturally wherever you go, he follows. So he lays himself right on top of you, he's so big too. Big thighs cage around your ass, grinding real deep and slow. It’s downright sinful. Jason Peter Todd in all his 6'1 glory, smothering you against the mattress and it's like something inside him clicks. His mind won’t shut the hell up because suddenly, you’ve gone all soft and pliant, and he’s whispering real filthy, “just needed some good dick, huh?”
His mind is so fucked out, he hasn’t realized how good he’s been fucking you until he registers your squirming and soft whining beneath him. Sometimes he forgets how big he is, all of him. Because in this position, he basically kisses your cervix. He’s taking his time, it’s torturous, the slow drag of his hips, and the way he bullies his way back in- pushing up against that sweet spot that makes you cream.
He’s got his lips pressed against your ear, cooing and shushing you so sweetly when you say you can’t take anymore. One hand pushing past your hips to pet at your sensitive clit, and you paw at his wrist- a weak attempt at pushing him away. It’s too much, he’s too big and he’s talking so fucking nasty in your ear you just can’t take it.
But every time you try to shut your legs in protest, his thighs flex and his ankles lock around yours, easily pushing them back open. Wordlessly saying, “take it, take it, take it”.
And after fucking you through your third orgasm, this man has the audacity to blush. Shoving his face into your neck but at some point, his mind gets all hazy. He latches his canines onto your throat and you cum. Still fucking you through the mattress, he works you up to your fourth. And when you finally come down, you sob out a half-hearted “mean”, but he doesn’t budge- just hushes you with a sickly sweet “did so good, baby”.
summary | a night spent together in silence changes everything between bruce and you; from then on, there's no turning back.
pairing | bruce wayne x kent!reader
warnings / tags | fluffy, bruce being a sugar daddy ? not actually but he's totally the type to try to win you with gifts. there's a bit of sadness around because bruce is depressed inside. THEY KISS
word count | 6.2k
authors note | hi there!! english is not my first languaje so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :)
this is part of the kent!batmom!reader series. you don't need to read the other parts to understand this since this is about bruce and batmom's past. this can be read as part 3.
It wasn’t loud or wild. But there were fireworks. No grand countdown parties. Just a quiet, perfect evening.
Clark cooked dinner, insisting he had perfected the recipe for pot roast (he hadn’t), and Ma made her famous four-cheese cornbread. Pa sat by the fire, poking the logs and drinking cider, humming a Johnny Cash song under his breath. The snow outside muffled everything else. No wind. No trains. Just the slow creak of the old house settling under another year.
At eleven-fifty-five, Clark pulled out a small radio, fiddling with the dials until he caught the New York countdown broadcast. You spent most of the night in thick wool socks and a sweater that Clark had outgrown and then handed down to you ten years ago. The sleeves still covered your hands, your back pressed against the couch, the blanket Ma made you wrapped around your shoulders. You and Clark counted together—off by a second or two, laughing when you realized.
Then came the clink of cider glasses. A kiss to your forehead from Ma. A bear hug from Pa.
Clark swept you up into a spin that had your socks sliding on the wood floor.
“Happy New Year, little sis,” he whispered against your hair.
“Happy New Year, Clark,” you said, laughing.
The old farmhouse clock chimed twelve. The stars glittered above the snowy sky. Kara joined the family a bit after, hugging you just as strong as your brother had. While you and her had no actual family link, you still considered her a cousin, and you knew she did as well.
So, no, you couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Except you did, when the phone rang.
It was late. Clark and Kara had gone out for a flight, Ma and Pa were already tucked in. You sat on the front porch in a coat, your breath visible in the cold, your phone warm in your hand.
When the screen lit up again—Mr. Wayne—your heart squeezed.
You answered immediately.
“Hi,” you whispered.
He didn’t speak at first.
But when he did, his voice was quieter than ever.
“Happy New Year.”
You smiled so softly it felt like your face might melt with the warmth of it.
“Happy New Year, Bruce.”
A pause.
“I wasn’t going to call,” he admitted.
You looked up at the stars. “I’m glad you did.”
Your smile twisted, fond.
“You drunk again?”
“Mm,” he murmured. “Probably.”
“What did you drink this time?”
“Something expensive,” he said. “Didn’t check the label.”
You laughed softly. “That sounds like you.”
He didn’t argue.
Another long silence. You could almost hear the ice clink in his glass. The way his voice dragged low and slow, a little too heavy, just like before.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Porch swing,” you said. “Back at the farm.”
“Cold?”
“A little.”
“You don't have a blanket?”
“Yeah, Ma’s. It’s blue. Well, is not actually hers. She made it for me.”
Another pause. You let your voice fill the silence, telling him about the pot roast, the way Pa fell asleep halfway through the countdown, the way Clark had gotten cider in his sock, how much pie had Kara ate. You told him about how the snow had glittered that morning, how you’d stayed in your pajamas all day.
You talked about your hopes. About turning twenty-two. About how you wanted to try painting again. About how you might look into night classes, maybe something with writing.
“I think,” you said, playing with a loose thread, “I want to do more things that make me feel like myself.”
You didn’t hear him speak again. But you heard him breathe.
And then you knew.
He’d fallen asleep with the phone still in his hand. Your voice still in his ear.
You stayed on the phone anyway. It was easier now, somehow. Letting him rest while you carried the quiet.
You only hung up once his breathing slowed and steadied again, the sound of it like a heartbeat through your phone.
You whispered, “Goodnight,” to a man who wouldn’t hear it.
And then let yourself fall asleep.
January moved like a quiet fog.
You came back to Gotham the second week of the month, your cheeks still pink from the Kansas wind. Your apartment was exactly as you left it—neat, small, slightly cold—and everything in the city had a thin coat of gray slush. Life fell back into rhythm: you unpacked, did laundry, bought groceries, dusted your bookshelves, and fell asleep early.
Bruce didn’t call right away. But on Thursday, your phone buzzed just after 2 a.m.
You didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t say much. You knew the rhythm now. These calls weren’t for long talks—they were for breathing. For silence. For your voice.
You told him about a short story you’d started writing. About how you missed the stars in Gotham. About how your upstairs neighbor seemed to be bowling at 1 a.m. every night.
He didn’t say more than six words. But he listened.
On Saturday, he called again. Same time. Same quiet. Same half-drunk hush in his voice.
You were curled up on the couch, blanket around your knees, and this time, you read to him. A chapter from the book Ma had given you for Christmas. You didn’t know if he liked it, but he didn’t hang up, so you kept talking.
You knew he’d only call after being out there. After being Batman.
Like his mask didn’t quite hold when your voice was there. Like something softened. Like he could come down from the rooftop and be something else. Something human again.
The third Monday of January, your alarm went off at 6:15 sharp.
It was your first official day back at the office.
You dressed in one of your favorite work outfits—something soft and practical, flattering but warm. You pinned your badge to your coat, grabbed your scarf, and made your way down the apartment stairs with a reusable coffee cup in one hand and your purse in the other.
You paused in the foyer.
Blinking.
There was a cab outside.
No—a car. Sleek, black, not a limo. Something newer, smaller, louder. Not a model you recognized—but definitely the kind of car that only a billionaire would think of as “just a ride.”. The kind you only saw in glossy magazines and early 2000s science fiction movies.
Your brow furrowed.
Before you could step outside, the door opened—and a woman beamed at you from the driver’s side.
“Miss Kent?”
You blinked. “Yes?”
She clapped her gloved hands together. “Ah, lovely! I was worried I might’ve gotten the wrong building. This is for you!”
You blinked again.
“I—what is this?”
She moved around and opened the passenger-side door for you with a proud little flourish.
“I’m Rita! Your driver.”
“My—what?”
“Mr. Wayne sent me.”
Your mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again.
“He what?”
“He didn’t tell you?” she asked, blinking with absolute innocence. Her accent was soft and lilting, Portuguese with a lilt of Lisbon pride. “He said it was all arranged. I’m to take you wherever you need. Day or night. Office, home, grocery if you like. Rain, snow, sunshine.”
You gawked.
She smiled wider, eyes crinkling.
“I used to drive for Mr. Fox,” she said with a warm, confident shrug. “But there has been a . . . change, and Mr. Wayne said he had someone special who needed my help now.”
You blinked. “Special?”
She leaned in conspiratorially. “That’s not what he said exactly, but I can read between the lines.”
You flushed immediately.
She laughed. “Climb in, querida. It’s cold.”
You obeyed mostly because your hands were too numb to argue and you had no better options. She shut the door behind you gently and got into the driver’s seat with the elegance of someone who knew the car better than she knew her own apartment.
Inside, the seats were warm. The cup holders glowed faintly. Everything smelled faintly of cedarwood and leather.
“So,” she said, steering smoothly into traffic, “are you ready for your day?”
“I guess I am,” you replied, still half-stunned.
She gave you a look in the mirror. “You work directly for Mr. Wayne, yes?”
“Yes,” you said. “His executive assistant.”
“Then you must be very good at your job.”
“I try,” you murmured, feeling warmth rise to your cheeks again.
“Well,” she said, nodding sagely, “I will tell you what I told Mr. Fox: when you ride with me, you are safe. I will not let traffic touch you.”
You smiled despite yourself. “That’s very kind.”
“It is professional,” she said with mock offense. “And also kind, yes. And I like you already.”
“You’ve known me five minutes.”
“Five minutes is all I need. I am excellent at character reading.”
You laughed.
By the time you reached the Wayne Enterprises building, your cheeks hurt from smiling. Rita pulled to the side entrance like a queen delivering royalty, opened the door with a bow, and handed you your coffee cup like it was made of gold.
“You have a good first day back, Miss Kent.”
You stared at the building’s towering windows for a beat longer than necessary. Then, you took a breath and you stepped inside.
The doors to Wayne Enterprises hissed open like always—smooth, polished, air-conditioned—and for a moment, the world inside seemed to blink at you like a sleepy beast waking from hibernation.
The lobby was warm, gleaming in morning light, polished marble floors humming under the heels of countless Gotham elite. There was a quiet thrum of familiarity in the air—of keyboard clacks, hushed conversations, the soft trill of phones and printers and the occasional bark of urgency through a walkie-talkie.
You smiled at Eloise first.
She waved from her post at the main desk, where she was already fielding two calls and typing with nails the color of candy canes. “You’re back! Happy New Year, sweetheart. You look fresh out of a Hallmark postcard.”
You laughed. “Don’t let Clark hear you say that.”
She beamed. “He came by some weeks ago, didn’t he? That tall boy could light up the building with that smile.”
You grinned, eyes fond. “That’s him. My brother.”
Eloise smiled sweetly. “Let me know if you want any coffee later—I found a new creamer that tastes like heaven.”
You nodded your thanks and kept walking.
You passed Luis, the janitor, humming along to some Sinatra classic while buffing the floors. You waved, and he waved back, giving you the same crooked grin he always had since your second week on the job. Then a passing intern who gave you a shy smile.
Everything was the same.
Until it wasn’t.
You turned the final hallway leading toward Bruce’s office—familiar steps, muscle memory—and stopped in your tracks.
Your desk was gone.
The space directly outside his office door—your usual spot, nestled beside the potted plant that only half-thrived under the industrial lighting—was empty. Not messy. Not moved aside for cleaning. Simply… gone. Vanished. The carpet beneath was perfectly untouched, like you’d never been there at all.
You blinked, heart fluttering in your chest.
“…Huh.”
Before you could even make a decision—turn around, find someone, maybe crawl under a decorative table—his office door opened.
Bruce stood in the threshold, jacket off, shirt crisp, sleeves rolled, eyes cutting toward the glass hallway wall. He looked up once, probably out of reflex.
Then he saw you. And saw you again.
He didn’t smile. Not really. But something in his expression softened.
He tilted his head toward his office. “Miss Kent,” he said, quiet and even. “Come in.”
You stepped forward, caught off guard by the gentle lilt in your name, the way it didn’t sound like a command—more like an invitation.
You entered slowly, heart still kicking unevenly behind your ribs. The door clicked softly behind you. He didn’t seem surprised to see you, just observant. He leaned one hip against his desk, arms crossed.
“I thought I’d be more nervous,” you blurted. “About seeing you face-to-face again.”
His brows lifted, curious. “And are you?”
You considered it. “Not… exactly. I think I’m just—processing. A lot.”
He didn’t push. He didn’t ask what “a lot” meant. Just let it float there, between you.
And then that ache curled up your spine again, like an old memory pressing in. You looked at him—really looked at him—and he wasn’t cold today. Not distant. Not closed off. Just quiet. Calm. Softer than Gotham ever allowed him to be.
Your voice returned, smaller now. “Um. I couldn’t help but notice… my desk.”
He nodded once. “I moved it.”
“I noticed that.”
“You couldn’t find it?”
“No,” you said, trying not to sound sheepish. “I… sort of thought maybe you replaced me for a second.”
He looked at you, deadpan. “And then what? I let the replacement waltz back in?”
You laughed nervously, brushing your knuckles down your coat sleeve.
He stood straighter then, stepping around the desk until he was at your side—not too close, but close enough for you to smell faint cologne and something else you couldn’t name. Metal, maybe. Cold air. Him.
“I thought,” he said, voice measured, “that I can’t very well keep my own secretary in the hallway. Especially not when the receptionist has more privacy.”
You blinked. “Sir—”
“I wanted you to have your own space,” he added. “Somewhere you can work. Breathe. Not get bothered every time someone walks through the floor.”
Your throat bobbed.
“…That’s… kind. I… didn’t mind,” you replied carefully.
“I did,” he said without pause, meeting your gaze for a long moment, something unreadable in his face.
Then he gestured with his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
You followed without another word, the two of you walking silently down the hallway, his steps a slow guide in front of yours. He opened a door diagonally across from his—discreet, tucked away beside the corner conference room. It had always been locked. Always closed. Always marked Reserved.
But now—
Now, when he opened it, light spilled across the most stunning office space you’d ever seen.
It wasn’t just an office. It was yours.
You froze in the doorway.
It wasn’t massive—not the corner penthouse with windows to heaven—but it was yours. Completely, irrevocably yours.
The cherry wood desk glowed warmly beneath soft overhead lights. L-shaped, clean, elegant. The two monitors were huge—far bigger than your laptop, already synced to your usual workspace judging by the light hum of the desktop wallpaper. A thick black leather chair sat behind it, sleek and soft-looking, already reclined just slightly like it had been waiting for you.
The floor was layered with a thick, dove-colored rug that curled neatly under your desk and swirled into the sitting corner with two soft chairs. The bookshelf along the wall was already stocked with some familiar binders, a few volumes you recognized from home—someone must have carried them from your last space.
There were plants. Real ones.
A tiny pothos in a hanging pot, a fern nestled by the window. A pale gold lamp with a dimmer sat in the corner of the desk, beside a crystal paperweight you’d mentioned liking once during a department tour months ago.
And beside the desk, under the screen, sat your favorite mug, filled with pens.
You didn’t say anything. You just… stood and blinked. Once. Twice. Then again. Your breath caught in your throat.
He was watching you. Quietly. Like he couldn’t quite tell if he’d miscalculated.
“I wasn’t sure about the rug,” he said, low. “But they told me it matched the walls.”
You turned to him slowly. Your voice came out too high, and you cringed inside. “You did this?”
“Someone had to approve the requisition forms,” he said dryly.
You blinked again.
He looked toward the corner of the office. “The light’s adjustable. You can change the temperature if it gets too cold. I’ve already rerouted your calls to the phone system here. And I had IT install the dual screens yesterday.”
You opened your mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
“…Why?” you finally breathed, barely above a whisper.
He looked at you. And for once—once—he let it show. Not much. Not everything. But enough. Enough for you to see something warm, something regretful, flicker behind his eyes.
“Because you deserve a place here,” he said quietly. “Not a chair in the hall.”
You stared at him.
And then—
You laughed. Half gasp, half laugh, half breathless kind of noise that bubbled up before you could stop it. Your smile broke through like sunlight, wide and open and real.
“Oh my god, Bruce,” you said, laughing again, almost bouncing where you stood. “I thought I lost my desk, not that I—oh my god.”
You turned in a small circle, eyes wide, hugging your coffee to your chest.
“Are you serious right now? This is mine?”
He nodded, one hand in his pocket now, brow lifted like he wasn’t sure why you were so surprised.
“Thank you,” you said, blinking fast. “Thank you. Thank you—this is—this is so nice, I don’t even have words.”
“You’re welcome.”
You took two steps forward, half-tempted to hug him, then stopped yourself, fidgeting instead with your sleeves.
“I mean it. This is—this is my first office. Like… ever. Properly. And you—it’s so nice, and the—” You touched the chair. “This is a recliner. You bought me a reclining desk chair. Who does that?”
He said nothing.
Your eyes shone. “You do, apparently.”
“I wanted you to be comfortable,” he said softly. “You deserve a space. Not a hallway.”
You shook your head, lips wobbling with a smile.
“This is more than a space, Bruce.”
He didn’t answer, at least not out loud. Just looked at you like maybe he understood. Like maybe this, too, was a kind of apology. A gesture for everything he couldn’t say.
You beamed at him suddenly, walking around the desk to sit in the chair, spinning once.
“I don’t know what kind of spell you’re under,” you said lightly, “but please don’t snap out of it.”
His mouth lifted just slightly. “Noted.”
“And this is my printer now?”
“Yes.”
“And this isn’t one of those things where you’re going to fire me next week because I sat in the expensive chair too long?”
“No.”
“Okay, but like—hypothetically—if I fall asleep here one night, are you going to call security or…?”
“I’ll leave a blanket.”
You stared.
He didn’t smile, but you saw it in his eyes.
You laughed, and something burst open in your chest.
Because in this moment, you didn’t feel like a girl from Smallville playing secretary to a billionaire with a secret.
You felt seen.
And somehow, that mattered more than anything
Rita greeted you every morning like the sunrise.
Bright smile. Coffee in hand. Her curls pulled back beneath a neat scarf that changed colors every few days—today it was plum. Tomorrow, who knew. You’d grown used to the sound of her humming from the driver’s seat as she opened the car door for you, always five minutes early, always excited to hear about your evening like you’d been apart for years.
“Did the cat come back?”
“She did.”
“Did she steal your tuna again?”
“She did.”
“Villainous.”
The drive always passed quickly, filled with conversation about whatever book she was reading, whichever telenovela her sister was addicted to, or the old record player she was trying to fix. Sometimes, you brought her coffee too. Sometimes, you just watched the city flicker by, warm and safe in the leather seat with a paper cup in your hands, cheeks pressed to the cool window.
And then there was the building. Your office.
Your name—engraved on the door in polished gold letters: Y/N Kent. Executive Assistant. Right beneath the Wayne Enterprises crest.
Every time you saw it, your heart squeezed a little.
The office itself had become a soft haven, filled slowly with your own touches—a small crocheted blanket over the back of your chair, a framed photo of Ma and Pa by the bookshelves, a little ceramic pig you kept tucked behind the phone. The two monitors you used were brilliant and fast; the light in the room was warm; the seat adjusted perfectly to your back.
Bruce’s office was right across the hall.
And sometimes, you could feel his eyes drift toward your door. Just a second or two. A glance through the glass. You never mentioned it.
You didn’t need to.
The phone calls didn’t stop when you returned to Gotham. If anything, they deepened.
Sometimes they came just after 10 p.m., when your skin was still warm from a shower and your tea was still steeping. Other times, they came at 2 or 3 in the morning—soft vibrations against your pillow that didn’t startle you anymore. You didn’t even say hello most nights.
You just answered.
You talked. He listened.
You spoke about Clark and Smallville and your mother’s new obsession with lavender candles. About a dream you had where the moon fell into the barn. About books you wanted to read, places you wanted to see. Your voice was quieter at night. Softer. More intimate.
Sometimes, Bruce would say a word or two. A hum. A gentle “Mm.” Sometimes, he just breathed.
Sometimes, you swore you heard his breath steadying because of yours.
You’d wake up in the morning to a call that had ended sometime while you were asleep—your phone still warm under your hand.
You never questioned why he called, and he never explained.
But each time your name came out of his mouth, low and soft and a little too slow, it felt like something real. Something only yours.
There was something comforting about it—how routine it became. How safe.
You’d been working late—later than usual. The building was dimmer than it should’ve been, quiet in that oddly still way that Gotham got after dark. You’d just returned from the break room with a second cup of tea when you noticed the box resting on your desk.
Not just any box—a branded one. Thick cardboard, the kind that came from upscale boutiques you only knew by reputation. The name embossed in silver. A thick satin bow stretched across it.
You paused at the door, balancing your coffee and files, staring at the package like it might grow teeth.
You didn’t open it right away.
Your office was silent except for the low hum of your desktop computer and the faint ticking of your vintage desk clock. The late afternoon light was muted and gold, slipping through the tinted windows in warm waves.
You set your cup down. Your fingers brushed the edge of the lid.
Inside—carefully folded, almost reverently arranged—was a dress.
Not just any dress.
This was silk, champagne-colored with a whisper of shimmer, delicate cap sleeves and a soft neckline. It looked like something you’d seen in old movies, the kind that made your throat close when the heroine entered the ballroom and the orchestra swelled. The kind of dress you didn’t just wear—you became something else in.
Your breath hitched.
You lifted it carefully, cradling it like it might disintegrate. The fabric was cool against your hands, light as air.
It was beautiful. Too beautiful.
You blinked hard and whispered, mostly to yourself, “What the hell is this doing here?”
“You like it?”
You jumped, your heart lurching.
You spun around, clutching the fabric, only to find Bruce leaning against the doorframe, hands in his trouser pockets, watching you with unreadable eyes.
“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound like it. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
You stared at him. “What is this?”
“The dress.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Do you like it?”
“I—” You hesitated. “Yes. I mean—it’s stunning. It’s… I didn’t know they made clothes like this outside of Vogue covers.”
He nodded once. “Good. I asked them to send over a few options. That one seemed right.”
You held it against you, blinking. “Right for what?”
“For you.”
You stared.
“If it doesn’t fit,” he added, “or if the color isn’t to your liking, they’ll send another.”
You opened your mouth. “You bought this?”
“I did.”
“…For me?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Just looked at you.
Then finally—his voice even, as if it was the simplest thing in the world—he said, “Yes, for you. For the gala.”
Your stomach flipped.
You blinked again. “The… gala?”
He nodded. “Next Friday.”
“I know. I mean, I helped organize it, yes, but—I wasn’t planning on going.” You looked away. “I figured I’d just coordinate things from here.”
“Y/N,” he said.
You hesitated. When you looked back, he had stepped into the room. Not close. Not intimidating. Just… there.
He glanced down at the dress still in your arms, then back at you. And then he said, “I want you to go.”
You stopped breathing for a second. The room felt too quiet. Your heart too loud.
“You… want me to go.”
“With me,” he clarified.
Your lips parted.
He stepped to your side, slow, deliberate, until his arm brushed yours. He didn’t touch you beyond that. Didn’t crowd. Just stood close enough that you felt the warmth of him, the quiet tension under his tailored sleeves.
You looked up at him.
“I—Bruce,” you started. “You don’t have to—”
“I know,” he interrupted.
You closed your mouth. He kept his eyes on yours.
“I know I don’t have to,” he said softly. “I want to.”
You didn’t know what to say to that. He leaned forward a little, just enough that his voice dropped, quieter than before.
“You looked beautiful the last time.”
Your cheeks flushed.
“You were the best-dressed person in the room,” he added, “and you didn’t even stay.”
You blinked at him, your throat tightening.
“I want you there,” he said again. “This time… with me.”
You searched his face, tried to look past the polish, past the restraint, but found only honesty there. A touch of something tentative. Like maybe this was the bravest thing he’d said in days.
You looked back at the dress. Your voice was soft. “You think this will fit?”
He smiled faintly. “If it doesn’t, we’ll find another. You deserve something that does.”
You turned toward him again.
“Bruce…”
His gaze dropped to your mouth, then back to your eyes. But he didn’t move. He didn’t need to. Because in that moment—in the quiet glow of your office, surrounded by screens and spreadsheets and three years of not being seen—you felt like he was trying.
In his way.
You clutched the dress tighter, your voice trembling a little.
“I guess I’ll need shoes, too.”
“I’ll have a few pairs sent up tomorrow.”
“Bruce.”
“I mean it,” he said. “You’re going with me. Not as staff. Not as an assistant.”
Your breath caught.
“But as…?” you prompted.
His eyes held yours.
“As you.”
Your apartment smelled faintly of perfume and warmed curling iron, the radio playing something festive and jazzy in the background while you stood in front of the mirror, smoothing your hands down the front of the dress.
Silk. Champagne-colored. It shimmered even in the dim bedroom light, clinging in all the right places and floating like a second skin in all the rest. The delicate cap sleeves framed your shoulders; the neckline, smooth, barely skimmed the tops of your collarbones. There was a whisper of shimmer when you moved—just enough to feel like stardust.
You look… ethereal.
You also feel like you’re about to faint.
Rita was already downstairs in the car.
You’d expected to walk down the steps and see her grinning at you through the rearview mirror, maybe give a cheer when you stepped outside all dolled up.
You hadn’t expected him.
Bruce Wayne, in the flesh, waiting on the sidewalk.
Not just waiting, either.
He was standing near the rear of the car, half in shadow, his posture long and elegant, one hand in his coat pocket and the other straightening the cuff of his suit.
And what a suit it was.
Tailored black with a subtle sheen under the streetlamps, cut perfectly to his frame, the fabric smooth and crisp. A simple black tie. Clean lines. Understated power.
You froze halfway down the steps. You weren’t sure if it was the cold air or the way your heart gave a traitorous thud, but you stood there for a second, breath misting in the air, your fingers twitching against the silk at your waist.
Bruce turned at the sound of your heels. And his eyes—those sharp, unreadable, endlessly quiet eyes—met yours and didn’t move.
You stood up a little straighter. Tugged the skirt gently to settle it, and descended the last few steps like it was a scene from a movie.
His gaze didn’t drift once. He stepped closer just as you reached the last stair. “You look…”
He trailed off.
You tilted your head. “I look…?”
He gave the smallest breath of a smile. “Worthy of making people forget what they came for.”
You flushed from the collar down.
Rita grinned from the front seat, watching discreetly in the mirror.
Bruce opened the door for you himself. The way he helps you into the car, the way he closes the door after you, the way he settles in beside you and breathes in like he’s grounding himself — all of it makes your heart flutter somewhere behind your ribs.
You don’t speak for the first few minutes. Then you glance at him. He’s already looking at you.
You smile. “Nervous?”
He tilts his head. “I thought I was supposed to be asking you that.”
“I organized most of it,” you say lightly. “I know what to expect.”
“Do you?”
You shrug. “Overdressed socialites, bored billionaires, empty praise, passive-aggressive conversations, a charity auction no one actually cares about, and enough champagne to drown a horse.”
He chuckles. It’s low. Warm. Real.
And your heart stumbles.
The gala was held at the Gotham Grand Conservatory—glass ceilings, marble floors, the kind of floral arrangements that looked like they'd cost a year’s rent. You know the wallpaper, the guest list, the table designs.
The whole city’s elite was there. Quite the few photographers as well, and their flashes eat you alive.
Bruce had kept a hand on the small of your back as you entered, steady and grounding. His fingers never gripped too tightly, but the warmth of him lingered long after they dropped away.
People stared. They always stared at Bruce. That was nothing new. But tonight, their gazes followed you too. And when they realized you weren’t just staff… that Bruce Wayne had entered with you on his arm…
The whispers started.
You did your best to focus on your breathing. On the strings playing in the background. On not tripping over the heels.
“Stay with me,” Bruce murmured as you paused beside a decorative fountain, feigning interest in the sculptures.
You looked up. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I mean it,” he said, a bit lower. “You don’t have to deal with them alone.”
You blinked at him, heart squeezing in that quiet, aching way again.
The room sparkled with chandeliers, dresses, and diamond-cut masks of thin politeness. And you were right in the center of it. Beside him.
For the first hour, it felt manageable. A glass of champagne helped. A few polite greetings came your way. Some people even smiled warmly. You talked logistics with someone from public relations and made a joke about charity tables with one of the Wayne Foundation board members.
And then—it happened.
You turned a corner in the lounge and met a trio of women dressed in varying shades of couture and condescension.
“Oh,” one of them said, eyes flicking from your shoes to your earrings. “You’re the assistant.”
The tone made the word secretary sound like a slur.
You straightened. “Executive assistant.”
“Of course,” another murmured, swirling her drink. “And now the executive escort, it seems.”
Your chest tightened.
“I mean, really,” the third added, lips barely curved, “I suppose Bruce always had a taste for… the provincial. The occasional poor girl with alluring eyes.”
Your jaw twitched. “Excuse me?”
The first one smiled, teeth sharp. “It’s just—how quaint. A girl from Smallville, was it?”
You were halfway through gathering a response when you felt him behind you. Not touching—but close enough that his shadow swallowed the smugness off their faces.
Bruce’s voice was low, slow, and deathly polite. “Do you speak to all women this way, or just the ones who intimidate you?”
They froze.
He took one small step forward.
“I’ve heard better manners from men begging for mercy.”
Silence.
“Miss Kent,” he said, looking at you gently, “would you like to walk with me?”
You nodded, throat tight. He offered his arm, and you took it.
And the way he looked back at the women as you walked away? It was the closest thing Gotham’s elite had ever seen to a warning.
You exhale, still frozen. Bruce doesn’t move.
Then, quietly, you murmur, “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.”
You glance up at him. “You know how they are.”
He shrugs. “They know how I am.”
You let out a small laugh. “That might’ve been the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me in this dress. Or ever, actually.”
His gaze slides down to you again.
“I was right,” he says softly. “It fits you perfectly.”
You go quiet, but your chest burns, your cheeks grow flushed. Then, because the moment is growing too hot, too big, you say, “Do you want to step out for some air?”
You found a balcony tucked away behind a side hallway, past ivy-wrapped columns and the hum of the ballroom. The city spills out in front of you in gold and slate and whispers. The moon is tucked behind clouds. The lights below look like a galaxy trapped in glass.
You lean your palms on the carved stone railing, letting the chill wake up your skin, your thoughts. The silence is pleasant. Comfortable. The party inside buzzes with laughter and clinking glasses, but out here, it's just the two of you and the way your heartbeat won't settle.
Bruce stands beside you, a tall shadow, broad-shouldered in his tailored black suit, the cut sharp, the lines soft in the moonlight. His tie is a little loose now. His collar slightly undone. But his posture remains precise, shoulders pulled back like he was carved from tension.
You glance over at him. His profile is striking in the dim light—classic, solemn, but there’s a gentleness in his expression, a softness that doesn’t match the reputation the tabloids gave him.
He’s watching the skyline. You’re watching him.
You speak first. “Are you always this good at rescuing damsels from elitist wolves in designer gowns?”
His mouth lifts into a subtle smirk. “Only when they’re wearing champagne silk and stealing the room.”
You huff a laugh and glance down, smoothing your hand across your skirt. “That woman’s going to wake up bitter for the rest of the month.”
“She already was,” he says dryly. “You just gave her something new to be bitter about.”
You lift your eyebrows. “And what’s that?”
He turns his head toward you, slow, deliberate.
“That I’m here with you.”
Your breath catches. You look at him. Really look.
There’s no teasing in his voice. No public mask. He’s not Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s golden boy billionaire. He’s not Batman, either.
He’s just Bruce. Quiet. Clear-eyed. Looking at you like you’re the first moment of peace he’s had in a long, long time.
You swallow softly. “You didn’t have to say anything. Back there, I mean.”
“I did.”
You glance away. “I’m used to people making assumptions. Talking. It’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
You go quiet.
His voice drops a little. “You shouldn’t have to feel small just because they don’t know how to handle someone who shines.”
You laugh, but it’s breathy, nervous. “You’ve been practicing these lines?”
“No.”
You turn your face toward him again, cheeks warming in the cold. “Then where are they coming from?”
His jaw shifts. His eyes are darker now. Intent.
“They’ve been sitting in my throat,” he says. “For a while.”
You blink. “Oh.”
“I didn’t know how to say them before. Or if I should.”
You whisper, “Why now?”
He doesn’t look away. “Because you deserve to know.”
Your heart drums against your ribs like a bird trying to break out of a cage.
Your voice wobbles a little. “Know what?”
“That I see you,” he says. His voice is low. “That I’ve been seeing you.”
You search his face for something you can hold onto—doubt, confusion, uncertainty—but there’s nothing. Only sincerity. Only the quiet ache of a man who doesn’t know how to wear his heart out loud but is doing it anyway.
You look down, lips parting. “Bruce…”
“I asked you to come tonight because I couldn’t stand the idea of looking around that room and not seeing you.”
Your breath leaves you.
You open your mouth, but he keeps going, his gaze pinned to yours like it’s the only thing keeping him from vanishing.
“You’re the only person in that building who doesn’t treat me like a shadow or a myth,” he says. “You talk to me like I’m a person. You make me laugh when I forget how. You…” His voice catches. “You see me.”
He exhales, almost like he regrets speaking—but he doesn’t look away.
“You’ve been with me through every impossible hour. Every late night. Every moment where I didn’t even know how to ask for help, and there you were. With coffee. With your kindness. With your voice.”
His voice falters, but he steps closer. Just enough for the distance between you to feel like it’s melting.
“And when I was bleeding on your couch, when I was barely upright, you didn’t ask questions. You didn’t scream or run or freeze. You took care of me.”
Your eyes meet his. And the world tilts.
You feel his hand brush your arm, then lower, steady and warm as it curls around your waist. Gentle. Questioning. Not demanding anything.
You don’t pull away.
Your hands come to rest lightly on the lapels of his coat, heart in your throat, body humming with anticipation.
“Is this okay?” he murmurs.
You nod. “More than okay.”
He hesitates for only a second longer, eyes flicking between yours, and then he leans in.
The kiss is nothing like what you imagined.
It’s better.
It’s not fast, not urgent. It’s soft. Patient. Reverent. Like he’s been waiting a long time to learn the shape of your mouth. Like he’s afraid of breaking the moment if he breathes too hard.
His lips brush against yours with quiet certainty, and everything inside you tilts forward—your hands tightening in his jacket, your body leaning into his like it’s instinct, like you’ve always belonged there.
When he pulls back, barely an inch, your noses touch. His breath fans your cheek.
Neither of you speaks.
Then—
“I’ve wanted to do that for a few months,” he confesses, voice barely a rasp.
Your eyes flutter open, lashes brushing your cheeks. “You could’ve.”
“I didn’t think I deserved to.”
You blink. “But you still tried.”
He smiles. The smallest thing. But real.
“I’ll keep trying,” he says. “If you’ll let me.”
You lean your forehead against his, eyes closing. “I’d like that.”
And for the first time in months, maybe years, Bruce Wayne breathes like a man who doesn’t have to pretend.
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