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Something Borrowed, Something Bruised

Pairing: Jason Todd/F!Reader

Word Count: 11k

Rating: Explicit

CW: fake marriage, undercover as a couple, masquerade ball, mutual pining, sexual tension, secret identities, violence, blood/injury, guns, knives, suggestive banter, explicit sexual content, semi-public kissing/touching

Summary: Red Hood and Moxie know each other well enough to fight back-to-back, but not well enough to know each other’s real names. When a criminal masquerade admits only married pairs, Jason asks her to play his wife for the night, and the line between cover and confession gets dangerously thin.

Author’s Note: this is my first reader-insert fic!! i know it's not really full on smut but i did my best...

Red Hood called you at 2:17 in the morning and opened with, “I need you to marry me.”

You stared at the comm where it sat on the edge of your bathroom sink, its tiny red light blinking up at you with the smug patience of a device that knew it had just ruined your night.

There was blood on your knuckles, rainwater dripping from the ends of your hair, and half a strip of medical tape stuck to your wrist because you had been in the middle of wrapping a split across your ribs when his voice came through. Gotham was still rattling against your window in a hard gray sheet. Somewhere below, a siren cut through the Narrows and vanished toward the river.

You picked up the comm carefully. “Say that again, but slower and less like a hostage negotiation.”

A pause. Then Hood, sounding annoyed in a way that meant he had probably practiced the line and hated that you had ruined it. “I have an infiltration job.”

“You need me to marry you for an infiltration job.”

“Fake marry me.”

“Oh, good. For a second there, I thought you were being impulsive.”

“Can you be serious for ten seconds?”

“I can. I just usually charge extra.”

A low sound came through the comm, almost a laugh, before he caught it and killed it. Red Hood had a habit of doing that, letting amusement slip halfway into his voice before remembering he was supposed to be terrifying. The criminals of Gotham still believed in the terrifying part. You believed in it too, mostly. You had seen him put a man’s head through drywall for threatening a kid. You had seen him walk through gunfire like pain was an inconvenience rather than a warning. Red Hood was not soft.

But he was funny when he forgot not to be.

That had been one of your first problems with him.

The second had been the way he trusted you at his back.

You leaned against the sink and pressed a clean cloth to your ribs. “What’s the job?”

“Masquerade tomorrow night. Private estate outside Bristol. Guest list is a who’s who of Gotham’s worst-dressed with too much money. Arms brokers, corrupt judges, traffickers, one Intergang accountant who’s either brave or stupid, and a host who calls himself Mr. Argent because apparently Gotham finally ran out of normal criminal names.”

“Argent,” you repeated. “Subtle.”

“He’s auctioning off a ledger.”

“You called me at two in the morning because of bookkeeping?”

“It’s a buyer list. Names, routes, shell companies, offshore accounts. Enough to gut a weapons pipeline running through the East End, the Narrows, and half of Blüdhaven.” Hood’s voice changed there, the humor thinning out into something harder. “Kids have been turning up with military-grade rifles in their backpacks because these assholes are selling like they’re moving party favors. I want the ledger.”

That sobered you fast.

You pulled the cloth away from your side and looked down. The bleeding had slowed. Good enough.

“What’s the catch?” you asked.

“No solo guests.”

You blinked. “Sorry?”

“The invitation admits married pairs only. Spouses. No exceptions. They verify rings at the door, cross-check the aliases, then keep paired guests together for most of the night. Argent’s paranoid about undercover cops and lone operatives. Thinks people are less likely to make a move if their partner can be used against them.”

“That is either deeply stupid or unfortunately insightful.”

“Both.”

“And you thought of me.”

The pause on the other end went a fraction too long.

You knew Red Hood in pieces, because that was how everyone knew each other in Gotham. You knew the red helmet, the leather jacket, the guns he carried like extensions of his hands. You knew the brutal efficiency of him in a fight, the dry commentary over comms, the way he always put himself between civilians and bullets before anyone could accuse him of caring. You knew Arsenal liked him enough to insult him creatively, Nightwing worried about him with the exhausted fondness of an older brother, and Oracle treated him like a migraine she would still guide home through a burning building.

You did not know his name.

He did not know yours.

That had always been safer.

“Yeah,” Hood said finally. “I thought of you.”

Your fingers tightened around the comm.

Outside the bathroom, your apartment was dark except for the neon wash bleeding through the blinds. Moxie had been a joke once. A stupid little word spat by men who thought it made you sound small, cute, harmless. You had been new to Gotham then, fresh from Star City with one duffel bag, two batons, seven knives, and Roy Harper’s warning that Gotham had teeth. You had kept the name because it annoyed people. Then, you had made it expensive to laugh at.

Red Hood had never laughed.

The first time you worked together, he had found you pinned behind a half-toppled bar with four rounds left, a dislocated shoulder, and a mouth still running badly enough to make three smugglers hesitate before rushing you. He had dropped through the skylight like divine punishment with a gun in each hand and said, “You always this chatty when you’re bleeding?”

You had said, “Only when I’m bored.”

He had trusted you after that. Slowly. In the grudging, suspicious way Gotham vigilantes trusted anyone, but it had counted. You had traded intel, patched wounds, covered escapes, and spent too many dawns sitting on rooftops while the city turned bruised and gold beneath you. Friendship had crept in under the armor. Attraction had followed like a bad idea wearing boots.

Neither of you had said anything.

“So,” you said, because your silence had begun to feel too revealing, “you need a wife.”

“I need a partner.”

“But the invitation says married pairs.”

“Yes.”

“Which makes me your wife.”

“Fake wife.”

“Still hearing wife.”

“Moxie.”

You smiled despite yourself. He only used that tone when he was trying not to react, which made it one of your favorites. “What, no other options? Arsenal busy?”

“He offered.”

“He offered to be your wife?”

“He offered to wear white and make it everyone’s problem.”

You laughed, and this time Hood did not quite hide the answering warmth in his voice.

“Nightwing?” you asked.

“Would spend the whole night making heart eyes at the security cameras so Oracle could laugh at me.”

“She’ll laugh at you anyway.”

“Probably.”

“You could ask one of the Bats.”

“I’m asking you.”

The room seemed to quiet around that.

You looked at yourself in the mirror. The mask was off, leaving only the tired face beneath it. A fading bruise shadowed your jaw. Rain had flattened your hair against your cheek. You did not look like anyone’s wife. You looked like someone who had kicked a gunman down a stairwell forty minutes earlier and still had glass dust in one sleeve.

“You trust me that much?” you asked, softer than you meant to.

Hood did not answer immediately. When he did, the modulator could not quite strip the honesty out of his voice.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

The stupid thing was, you trusted him too.

“All right,” you said. “Send me the details.”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine.”

You straightened. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s a married couple event. We have to arrive together.”

“You can meet me two blocks out like a normal person.”

“A normal fake husband.”

“You’re enjoying this too much already.”

“You’re the one who keeps saying husband.”

“You started this call with a proposal.”

“It was a mission brief.”

“It was a cry for help.”

This time, he did laugh, low and brief and rough around the edges. It slipped under your skin before you could stop it.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Nine. Formal. Mask. Minimal weapons.”

“Define minimal.”

“Enough to keep you alive. Not enough to start a war before dessert.”

“You take all the romance out of organized crime.”

“Wear something you can run in.”

“Wear something you can bleed on.”

“Always do.”

The line clicked off.

You stood there for a moment with the comm in your palm and rain tapping against the glass. Then you looked down at your half-bandaged ribs and sighed.

“Fake married,” you told your reflection.

By the next night, you had decided that if Gotham criminals insisted on being dramatic, you were at least going to make them regret inviting you to be attractive.

The dress was black because subtlety had its limits. It skimmed close where it needed to, moved where it had to, and hid more than one blade in the places people politely pretended not to look. The slit up one side gave your thigh holster room. The structured bodice concealed flexible armor. Your shoes had been modified by a woman in Blüdhaven who believed all formalwear should survive a rooftop chase and at least one attempted kidnapping.

Your mask was matte black, simple and sharp, covering enough of your face to preserve the fiction without interfering with your sightlines. It lacked the tactical comfort of your usual mask. It also made you feel less like Moxie and more like someone who had been invited into a room specifically designed to test whether she could lie prettily while armed.

You arrived two blocks from the estate at 8:56.

Red Hood was already there. He stood beside a sleek black car under the cover of an old stone archway, rain misting silver around him. He was not wearing the helmet. That was the first problem. The second was the suit.

You had seen Red Hood in body armor, leather, Kevlar, blood, soot, and once an ugly green hoodie he had stolen from a safehouse after taking a knife to the shoulder. You had never seen him in a black suit tailored so cleanly that it looked as if it had been built around the breadth of him. His shirt was dark red, open at the throat instead of strangled by a tie, and his masquerade mask covered the upper half of his face in black and oxblood leather. A white streak cut through his dark hair, which had been pushed back like he had fought it into submission and lost only once.

His mouth was visible.

That was unfair.

You stopped under the archway.

He looked up from adjusting his cuff and went still.

The rain filled the silence between you.

You lifted a brow behind your mask. “Problem?”

“No,” he said.

His voice was not modulated tonight. It was lower than you expected, rougher, human in a way that made something in your stomach tighten. You knew Red Hood’s voice through static and armor. You knew the shape of his threats, the cadence of his sarcasm, the way he said your name when he was warning you not to do something dangerous you were absolutely about to do.

This was different.

This was close enough to touch.

“You look…” He stopped, jaw working once. “You clean up nice, Mox.”

The nickname landed differently without the helmet.

You gave him a slow look from shoes to shoulders to mouth, because if he was going to make you feel off-balance, he could suffer too.

“You look expensive,” you said.

“Emergency tailoring.”

“Obviously.”

His mouth twitched. “That obvious?”

“You’re wearing a suit that actually fits, Hood. Either someone threatened you, or you threatened them first.”

“Little of both.”

“That sounds more believable than it should.”

His mouth curved. “You ready?”

“For the crime gala or the fake marriage?”

“Yes.”

You stepped closer, close enough to smell rain, leather, and something faintly smoky beneath his cologne. “Rules?”

He opened the car door but did not move out of your way. “We stay together. We get in, find the ledger, copy it if we can, and steal it if we have to. Argent’s people are running heat sensors at the door and wand checks inside, so anything metal better be hidden well.”

“It is.”

His eyes flicked down for half a second before he caught himself.

You smiled. “Professional, Hood.”

“You brought it up.”

“Are you going to be weird all night?”

“Probably.”

“At least you’re honest.”

Something shifted in his expression. The teasing stayed, but a different tension moved beneath it.

“Speaking of.” He reached into his jacket.

You tensed on instinct before you saw the small velvet box in his hand.

He noticed. Of course he noticed. Red Hood noticed everything, which was one of the most annoying things about having a crush on him.

“Relax,” he said. “If I were going to shoot you, I wouldn’t be standing out in the open like this.”

“You got a velvet ring box.”

“It’s part of the cover kit, Mox.”

“You have a cover kit with rings?”

“I have a lot of things.”

“That answer raises more questions than it resolves.”

He opened the box.

Inside were two rings. His was plain and dark, brushed black metal with a thin line of red through the center. Yours was simpler than you expected, a narrow gold band set with a small dark stone that caught the low light like it had a secret. It was not flashy enough to be ridiculous. It was not cheap enough to be meaningless.

For a mission prop, it looked dangerously thoughtful.

Your mouth went dry.

“Hood,” you said slowly.

“They verify at the door,” he said. “Needed to look real.”

“You bought rings.”

“I bought a cover.”

“You bought rings, Hood.”

His jaw shifted. “They verify at the door.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

He took the smaller ring from the box. His hand was bare, no gloves, and the sight of it did something stupid to your pulse. Broad fingers, scarred knuckles, a pale line across the back of one hand that disappeared under his cuff. You had seen those hands reload guns, set bones, pull you out of an exploding warehouse by the back of your armor. You had not imagined one holding a wedding ring.

That was a lie.

You would never admit to imagining it.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

You should have made a joke. You usually had one ready, sharp and easy and useful for putting distance between yourself and anything that looked too much like vulnerability. But his voice had gone quiet, and the rain had softened the edges of the city, and there was no helmet between you tonight.

You gave him your hand.

He slid the ring onto your finger.

It fit.

You looked down at it.

Hood held your hand a second longer than necessary. His thumb brushed the base of your finger, barely there, and the carefulness of it landed worse than any joke he could have made.

“How’d you know my size?” you asked.

“I’m observant.”

“That’s a creepy answer.”

“In Gotham, paying attention is the difference between getting home and getting buried.”

The joke caught in your throat before it could fully form, because there was nothing theatrical in his voice when he said it.

“Fair enough.”

You took his ring from the box before he could close it, because letting him have the upper hand for too long was bad for your health. His eyes narrowed slightly, but he gave you his hand.

His ring slid over his knuckle with a little resistance. You felt the scars there. You felt him watching you.

“There,” you said, because your voice needed somewhere to go. “Tragically wed.”

He flexed his hand once, looking at the ring as if it had personally betrayed him. “For the mission.”

“Obviously.”

“Nothing else.”

“Never even crossed my mind.”

The lie sat between you, wearing formalwear.

“Names?” you asked.

“Anders,” he said. “Daniel and Elise.”

“Elise?”

“You hate it?”

“I sound like I own silk robes and poison my husbands.”

“Useful energy for tonight.”

“How long have we been married?”

“Three years.”

“Too long. I would’ve killed you by then.”

“Two years.”

“Better.”

“We met in Star City. You hated me.”

“That part’s true enough.”

“Got married in Atlantic City after a job went sideways.”

You stared at him. “That is the least believable thing you’ve said tonight.”

“It’s memorable.”

“It’s tacky.”

“It’s criminal.”

“It’s grounds for divorce.”

His mouth curved. “Then sell it, Mrs. Anders.”

He opened the car door wider. “After you, darling.”

You almost tripped on your own dress.

He caught your elbow immediately, steadying you with infuriating ease.

You looked up at him. “Don’t call me that.”

His thumb rested against the inside of your arm. “Noted.”

“You’re going to call me that again, aren’t you?”

Every guest wore a mask.

It made the whole thing feel less like a party and more like a confession waiting to happen.

Hood stepped out first and came around to your side before the valet could reach you. He offered his hand with the smoothness of a man who had absolutely been taught manners at some point and had chosen violence anyway.

You took it.

His ring flashed dark against his hand.

“Smile,” he murmured.

“I am smiling.”

“That’s your I’m-going-to-bite-someone smile.”

“It’s versatile.”

His hand settled at the small of your back.

The contact was light. Polite, even. It still burned through the dress like he had pressed his palm to bare skin. You hated him a little for being able to do that. You hated yourself more for leaning into it just enough that his fingers flexed.

At the door, a woman in silver looked over your invitation with the blank expression of someone paid well enough not to blink at murderers.

“Mr. and Mrs. Anders,” she said.

Hood smiled. It was small, controlled, and completely fraudulent. “That’s us.”

Mrs. Anders. You were going to murder him before midnight.

The woman glanced at your rings. Then at your faces. Then at the security guard beside her, who lifted a scanner.

“Hands,” he said.

Hood went first. Calm. Unbothered. The scanner passed over his sleeves, chest, waist, and legs. It did not beep, which meant either he had actually obeyed the minimal-weapons rule or he had spent the afternoon sourcing enough ceramic, polymer, and carbon-fiber problems to make the scanner irrelevant.

When it was your turn, Hood’s hand shifted against your back.

A warning.

You relaxed your shoulders, lifted your arms, and let the guard scan you. He found nothing. He did not know about the ceramic blade along your thigh, the garrote sewn into your hem, the lockpicks disguised as hairpins, or the tiny flash drive tucked beneath the dark stone of your ring.

Oracle would have been proud.

The woman in silver gave you both a final look. “Enjoy the evening.”

“We intend to,” Hood said.

You waited until you were inside, past the first curtain of security and beneath a ceiling painted with golden saints, before you muttered, “Mr. and Mrs. Anders?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I sound like I run a suspiciously profitable antique store.”

“You do have the vibe.”

“I’m divorcing you.”

“We’ve been married for fifteen minutes.”

“Annulment, then.”

His hand moved slightly at your back, fingers pressing once as a masked couple passed too close on your left. You caught the movement of the man’s hand toward his jacket and shifted before Hood had to pull you, putting yourself just out of reach while looking like you had only turned to admire a vase.

Hood’s mouth twitched.

“Nice,” he murmured.

“I know.”

The ballroom was a glittering fever dream.

Chandeliers spilled gold across polished floors. A string quartet played something elegant and mournful in the corner. The guests drifted in pairs, all silk, velvet, diamonds, and concealed cruelty. Masks transformed familiar monsters into myth. You recognized a judge who had buried evidence in three trafficking cases, a shipping magnate whose warehouses had burned twice under suspicious circumstances, one of Penguin’s accountants, and a woman from Blüdhaven who had once tried to stab Roy Harper with an oyster knife.

Above it all, on a balcony overlooking the room, stood Mr. Argent.

He wore white. Of course he did. His mask was silver, shaped like a fox’s face, and his hair was slicked back so severely it looked lacquered. Two guards flanked him. He lifted a champagne flute as the room applauded, and you felt Hood go still beside you.

“That him?” you murmured.

“Yeah.”

“Punchable.”

“Very.”

“Later?”

“If you behave.”

“I never promised that.”

“No,” Hood said, looking down at you with an expression you did not know how to read. “You didn’t.”

For the next hour, you were married.

It was alarming how well you both lied.

Hood kept you close, his hand at your waist or your back or curled around your fingers whenever someone looked too long. You let yourself be guided without seeming guided, answered questions with a smile, and invented a marriage with him in pieces. You had met in Star City, according to him. Blüdhaven, according to you. You handled private acquisitions. He handled security consulting. You had been married for two years, unless someone asked Hood, in which case it became three because apparently your fake husband believed in committing to details without warning you first. You disliked his driving. He admired your temper. You preferred clean exits, and he preferred making sure no one followed. Somehow, that was the most believable part.

Every time he called you his wife, your body reacted before your brain could remind it to be professional.

“My wife has better instincts than I do,” he told a broker with a scar cutting through one eyebrow.

“That must be difficult for you,” the broker said.

“You have no idea,” you replied.

Hood’s fingers tightened on your hip.

The broker laughed like he thought you were charming.

Hood leaned close to your ear as the man turned away. “Careful.”

“You brought me because I’m charming.”

“I brought you because you’re dangerous.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“I could say sweeter.”

Your breath caught.

He did not move away.

The room kept spinning around you, music rising and falling, glass chiming against glass. Hood’s mouth hovered close enough to your ear that you felt each word more than you heard it.

“For the cover,” he added.

You turned your face slightly toward his. “Coward.”

His gaze dropped to your mouth.

The moment stretched thin.

Then a bell chimed from the center of the room, and Mr. Argent descended the stairs with his hands spread as if he were welcoming guests to a wedding rather than a criminal auction.

“Friends,” he said, voice carrying. “Partners. Devoted halves of dangerous wholes. Welcome.”

You felt Hood’s irritation through the line of his body.

Argent spoke for several minutes, all polished charm and predator’s teeth. He praised loyalty. He praised discretion. He praised the beauty of masks, of chosen names, of the sacred privacy between spouses. It was all ridiculous and unpleasantly effective. This crowd liked being told their secrets were elegant rather than filthy.

The auction would begin at midnight.

Until then, there would be dancing.

“Of course there will,” you said under your breath.

Hood looked down at you. “You dance?”

“I fight people on rooftops in steel-toed boots. What do you think?”

“I think that wasn’t a no.”

“It should have been.”

The quartet shifted into a waltz.

Couples moved toward the center of the floor.

Argent watched from the stairs.

Hood held out his hand.

You stared at it. “You’re kidding.”

“He’s watching.”

“Let him.”

“Sweetheart.”

There was the mission voice again. The one that made you want to argue and obey at the same time, which was probably why you usually chose to argue.

You placed your hand in his. “If you step on my dress, I’m leaving you for Nightwing.”

“Like hell you are.”

“He has better posture.”

“He has worse taste.”

“He still claims you, so clearly.”

Hood pulled you into the dance before you could look too pleased with yourself.

You had expected competence. Red Hood was good at nearly everything physical, which was obnoxious but useful. You had not expected grace. He moved like he fought, controlled and deliberate, except here the violence had been translated into something almost beautiful. His hand settled at your waist, the other holding yours. He led without forcing, gave you space when you needed it, adjusted to your rhythm so quickly you almost forgot to be surprised.

Almost.

“Where the hell did you learn to dance?” you asked.

“Crime Alley community center.”

You looked up sharply.

His mouth curved. “You should see your face.”

“I am going to widow myself.”

“You ask a lot of questions for a woman with at least six hidden weapons at a no-weapons gala.”

“Seven.”

“Anklet?”

“Hair.”

“Nice.”

“You missed it.”

“Did I?”

His hand shifted at your waist, just enough for his thumb to skim the reinforced seam where one of your hairpins had been before you tucked it into place. Heat shot down your spine.

You narrowed your eyes. “Show-off.”

“Observant,” he corrected.

The dance turned you beneath one chandelier, light sliding across his mask. For a moment, with his face half-hidden and his mouth bare, you felt the strangeness of knowing him and not knowing him. Red Hood had carried you once when smoke inhalation made your knees buckle after a warehouse fire. He had sat beside you on a roof while you stitched his arm and complained about his inability to hold still. He had told you which safehouses had clean water and which clinics would not ask questions. He had never told you his name.

You had never told him yours.

Yet his hand fit at your waist like it had always been meant to find you.

“Why me?” you asked.

His steps did not falter, but his expression changed.

“I told you.”

“You said you trusted me.”

“I do.”

“That’s not all.”

Around you, masked couples turned and glittered. Argent’s people watched from the edges. There were cameras in the chandeliers, guards at each door, predators in every corner, and still the most dangerous thing in the room felt like the pause before Hood answered.

“You don’t flinch,” he said.

You could have made that a joke. You should have.

“I do,” you said. “Just not where people can see.”

His eyes stayed on yours.

You hated the mask for hiding their color from you. You hated it more for making you want to know.

“I know,” he said.

The words were quiet enough that no one else could have heard them. They landed with brutal precision anyway.

The dance ended. Applause rose politely around you.

Hood did not let go.

You did not pull away.

Then Oracle’s voice crackled faintly through the tiny comm hidden in your earring. “Argent’s private office just went active. East wing, second floor. You have maybe ten minutes before the auction staff transfers the ledger downstairs.”

You stepped back first, mostly because someone had to.

Hood’s jaw tightened like he had been pulled out of a thought he did not appreciate. “Copy.”

“And try not to make the cameras work harder than they already are,” Oracle added.

“I make no promises,” you said.

Hood shot you a look.

He joined you inside thirty seconds later.

“Cheekbones?” you whispered as the door clicked shut behind him.

“They were very proud of them.”

“You’re mean when you’re jealous.”

“I wasn’t jealous.”

“They were looking at me.”

“I noticed.”

“That’s jealousy.”

“That’s situational awareness.”

“You’re very committed to being wrong.”

“Part of my charm.”

You grinned and headed for the stairs.

The office was exactly where Oracle said it would be, behind another locked door at the end of a corridor lined with bad portraits of dead men who had probably also committed tax fraud. Hood stood watch while you worked the lock. It took eighteen seconds, which was twelve seconds longer than it should have taken because he stood too close behind you and smelled too good.

“You’re hovering,” you whispered.

“I’m guarding.”

“You’re breathing on my neck.”

“Want me to stop?”

Your pick slipped.

Hood noticed.

You got the door open and shouldered your way inside before he could say anything smug enough to justify stabbing him.

Argent’s office was dark-paneled, overdecorated, and cold. A fire burned low in the hearth, more decorative than useful. The desk was massive. The safe behind the portrait was predictable. The pressure sensor beneath the rug was less predictable, but only because Argent had otherwise shown no taste.

“Left,” Hood said.

“I see it.”

“Camera above the bookcase.”

“I see that too.”

“Drawer’s wired.”

“You know,” you said, crouching beside the safe, “some husbands support their wives in silence.”

“You’d hate that.”

“You’re right. Keep talking.”

The safe took longer. Argent had invested money there, at least. You worked by feel while Hood disabled the camera feed through a device Oracle had given him with a warning not to break it. The room smelled like smoke and old paper. Music drifted faintly from the ballroom below.

When the safe opened, you found the ledger in a black case beside stacks of cash, passports, and a velvet pouch filled with diamonds.

“Bingo,” you said.

Hood came closer. “Can you copy it?”

You opened the case.

Inside was a slim encrypted drive and a paper ledger. Dramatic and paranoid. Gotham criminals really were exhausting.

“Copy the drive, photograph the paper,” you said. “Three minutes.”

“You have two.”

“You always say that.”

“You always take three.”

“And yet you keep asking me places.”

He stood beside you while you worked, close enough that his suit brushed your bare shoulder when he reached past you to shift the desk lamp. The contact made your skin prickle. You ignored it. Then his hand settled briefly over yours to steady the ledger page before it curled.

You stopped.

He stopped too.

For one suspended second, both of you looked at your hands. His ring. Your ring. Inked names of criminals between you.

Then footsteps sounded in the hall.

Hood moved first, crossing to the door with silent speed. He listened, shoulders going tense.

“Two guards,” he mouthed.

You closed the ledger, pocketed the drive, and grabbed the paper book because copying was suddenly less important than leaving.

The office door opened before you reached the safe.

Hood caught the first guard by the wrist and slammed him face-first into the doorframe. You threw the ledger case at the second guard’s throat, followed it with your elbow, and swept his legs when he choked. The fight was fast, ugly, and mostly quiet until the first guard got a hand on the panic button at his belt.

Red light flashed in the corridor.

“Well,” you said, breathing hard. “That’s unfortunate.”

Hood looked at the unconscious guard, then at you. “You said three minutes.”

“You said two. This marriage has communication issues.”

Shouting rose from downstairs.

Oracle’s voice cut in. “Alarm triggered. Multiple hostiles converging on the east wing. Also, Argent just noticed his ledger room is having a moment.”

Hood grabbed your hand. “Not the window.”

You glanced toward the glass. “I wasn’t going to suggest the window.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was considering all exits.”

“You were thinking the window.”

“Fine. I was thinking the window.”

“Too exposed. Service corridor.”

He pulled the office door open just enough to check the hall, then drew you out after him. The alarm had not yet become a full lockdown, but the estate had shifted around you. Music still drifted from the ballroom, strained and elegant beneath the first signs of panic. Somewhere below, a guard barked orders into a radio. Somewhere closer, expensive shoes moved quickly over the polished floor.

You made it down one hall, then another, before voices rose ahead of you.

Hood stopped so abruptly you nearly collided with his back.

“Storage room?” you whispered.

“Locked.”

“Can you open it?”

“Not before they turn the corner.”

“Then what?”

He looked at you.

You had just enough time to understand before his hand slid to your waist and he walked you backward into the shadowed alcove beside a half-open terrace door. Rain breathed cold against your bare shoulders. His body covered yours, broad enough to block you from the hall, close enough to steal your balance. The ledger pressed between you.

The sensible thing would have been to wait until the footsteps faded completely, then slip away.

The less sensible thing was Hood looking down at your mouth.

“Careful,” you whispered.

His eyes lifted to yours. “With what?”

“You know what.”

“We’re still undercover,” he said.

“You say that like it explains why your hand is on my ass.”

He had the decency to look caught for half a second before the corner of his mouth tilted. “It’s a convincing cover.”

“We’re in the middle of an active alarm.”

“Gotham criminals love drama.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“Yeah,” he said, quieter. “Maybe.”

Then his mouth was on yours.

It was supposed to be a cover. You understood that. You understood it with the part of your brain still tracking footsteps, sightlines, cameras, and the weight of the stolen drive hidden beneath your ring. The guards were coming. You needed a reason to be tucked into a dark corner with his hands on you, and Gotham criminals were much more willing to believe in lust than competence.

Knowing that did nothing to save you.

Hood kissed like he had been waiting for permission and hated himself for needing it. His hand tightened at your waist, the other braced near your head, and when the first guard rounded the corner, you let yourself make a soft, irritated sound against his mouth as if being interrupted were the only crime happening.

“Hey,” the guard snapped.

Hood lifted his head slowly.

You had to give him credit. He looked exactly like a rich, dangerous husband being inconvenienced in the middle of something private.

His mouth was damp. His mask was slightly crooked. His hand tightened at your waist before the guard could decide whether to look embarrassed or afraid, and when his voice came, it was low enough to make the man rethink his life.

“You lost?”

The guard looked like he was seriously considering saying yes. His gaze flicked from Hood’s face to your hand fisted in his lapel, then to the ring on your finger.

“Restricted wing,” he said, but the authority had already leaked out of him.

You smiled from beneath Hood’s shoulder, breathless enough that it was not entirely acting. “We were looking for somewhere quiet.”

“This isn’t—”

“My wife gets bored at parties,” Hood said.

Your nails dug warningly into his jacket.

He did not even flinch.

The second guard muttered something into his radio. The first looked between you again, then made the obvious and incorrect calculation that two half-dressed socialites sneaking away from a masquerade were less urgent than the alarm coming from Argent’s office.

“Return to the ballroom,” he said.

“Eventually,” Hood said.

The guard looked like he wanted to argue. Then Hood smiled.

The guard chose life.

When they disappeared around the corner, neither of you moved.

The sensible thing would have been to break apart immediately and run.

Instead, Hood’s eyes dropped to your mouth.

“Convincing,” you said, but your voice had gone thin.

His thumb moved once against your waist. “Yeah.”

“For the cover?”

“That was the idea.”

“And now?”

His gaze lifted to yours.

The alarm wailed louder somewhere behind you. Your heart was worse.

“Now I’m waiting for you to tell me to back up,” he said.

You should have. The mission was still burning around you. Argent’s men were searching the estate, Oracle was probably developing a stress migraine, and you had a stolen ledger digging into your stomach.

Instead, you caught his lapel and pulled him down again.

The second kiss had no excuse at all.

Hood made a low sound against your mouth and crowded closer, one hand sliding from your waist to your back, the other cupping your jaw with surprising care. He kissed like he did everything else, with focus, hunger, and a barely leashed intensity that made your knees threaten to forget their job. You kissed him back just as hard, biting at his lower lip because you had wanted to know what he would do.

He groaned.

That sound nearly undid you.

“Fuck,” he muttered against your mouth. “You have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

Your laugh came out uneven. “I was hoping it wasn’t just tonight.”

His forehead touched yours. Rain slid down between you. “Not just tonight.”

The admission settled under your ribs, warm and terrifying.

Then Oracle said, with the precise exhaustion of a woman who regretted every friendship in her life, “I know this is a very meaningful moment for whatever emotionally constipated thing you two have going on, but the armed men are still armed.”

You closed your eyes. “Oracle.”

“East stairwell is blocked. West service corridor is clear for maybe ninety seconds. Also, Hood, if you get lipstick on that suit, Roy is going to know the emergency tailor trip was for a date, and I refuse to moderate that conversation.”

Hood froze.

You pulled back just enough to stare at him.

Roy.

The suit.

Hood’s mouth tightened.

Your brain, traitorous and quick, began putting pieces together. Arsenal’s teasing. Nightwing’s fondness. The way Hood moved through certain rooftops like he knew the Bat-routes and hated that he knew them. The way Roy had texted you earlier that week, complaining that getting his friend Jason into a tailor’s shop had required bribery, threats, and the promise of post-mission chili dogs.

Jason Todd, scowling in Roy’s kitchen three months ago with a beer he barely drank and a book tucked under one arm like a threat. Jason Todd at a crowded charity event Roy had dragged you to, wearing a suit with the stiff irritation of a man who understood formalwear but resented having to surrender to it. Jason Todd, who had once apparently threatened a tailor over sleeve mobility.

Oh.

Oh, no.

“You’re Jason,” you said.

Hood’s eyes narrowed. “We are being hunted.”

“You’re Jason Todd.”

“Moxie.”

“I made fun of your tie at Roy’s birthday.”

“It was an ugly tie.”

“You said you liked my boots.”

“They had knives in them.”

“You noticed?”

“I notice a lot of things.”

You stared at him, outrage and desire tangling so tightly you could barely separate them. “Did you know?”

His expression shifted, something almost helpless moving through it. “Not until tonight.”

“Tonight when?”

“At the door,” he said. “You smiled like you were about to rob the place and insult me for helping.”

“That is not specific. I smile like that often.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice dropping. “That was part of the problem.”

The shouting grew louder.

Oracle cleared her throat over the comm. “The identity crisis is very compelling, but your ninety seconds is down to thirty.”

Jason—because it was Jason, because of course it was Jason—looked down at you, rain bright on his mask and your lipstick smudged at the corner of his mouth.

“We’re finishing this conversation later,” he said.

“You showed up in a custom suit, called me your wife, and let me figure out you were Jason Todd during an active alarm. We’re finishing several conversations later.”

His mouth curved. “Looking forward to it.”

“Thirty seconds,” Oracle warned.

You tightened your grip on his lapel, outrage and desire still tangled somewhere behind your ribs. “Run, husband.”

His grin flashed, sharp and delighted.

You ran.

The next twenty minutes were chaos in formalwear.

You and Jason moved through the service corridors like you’d done it a hundred times before. He covered your left without needing to be asked. You ducked under his arm when he fired over your shoulder. You broke a man’s wrist with one hand and held the ledger against your chest with the other. Jason used a serving tray to knock a guard unconscious, which you appreciated as both violence and commentary.

At one point, you vaulted over a dessert cart, and he caught you by the waist on the other side because the floor was slick with spilled champagne.

“Careful, honey,” he said.

You elbowed him in the ribs.

He laughed as he shot out the lock on a service door behind you. The door swung hard enough to clip one of Argent’s men in the face, which was probably not intentional but still felt like a gift from the universe.

Argent made it as far as the conservatory before his sense of self-preservation failed him. He had two guards, a silver briefcase, and the deeply unfortunate confidence of a man who had never been tackled by Red Hood while wearing formal shoes.

Jason hit him beside the orchid display.

The fountain took both of them.

Water surged over the marble lip. Argent shouted. Jason came up soaked to the chest, one hand locked in the back of Argent’s expensive white jacket and the other already reaching for a zip tie.

You handled the guards.

By the time Nightwing arrived through the shattered glass roof with far too much acrobatic flair, Argent was bound to a marble cherub, Jason was dripping wet in a custom suit, and you were holding the ledger in one hand and one of your broken heels in the other.

Nightwing landed lightly beside you and took in the scene.

Then he looked at Jason.

Then at you.

Then at the rings.

“Oh,” he said, with terrible delight. “This explains so much.”

Jason pointed at him. “Say one word.”

Nightwing’s grin widened. “Mazel tov?”

You covered your mouth with your hand but couldn’t hide your laugh.

Jason looked betrayed. “You too?”

“You’re soaked in fountain water and wearing a wedding ring,” you said. “I’m only human.”

Nightwing pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m honored to have been here for the reception.”

Jason started toward him.

Nightwing wisely flipped backward onto the fountain edge, still grinning. “Oracle says police are six minutes out. Arsenal also says, and I quote, ‘Tell the happy couple I’m claiming visitation rights.’”

“I hate all of you,” Jason said.

“No, you don’t,” you said.

He looked at you.

For a second, the wreckage of the night narrowed to the space between you. Broken glass glittered on the conservatory floor. Rain poured through the ruined ceiling. Your mask was still in place, and so was his, but the fiction was gone. He knew you. You knew him. Not completely, not all at once, but enough to make the wanting feel less like a dangerous mistake and more like a door neither of you had realized was unlocked.

Nightwing’s expression softened, which made you want to throw the broken heel at him.

“I’ll take Argent,” he said. “You two should go before the cops arrive and ask why she has seven knives and a ledger full of people who are going to want her dead by morning.”

“Six knives,” Jason said automatically.

Nightwing stared at him.

You stared at him too.

Jason glanced at you. “You lost one in the east wing.”

“You counted?”

“I’m observant.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Yeah,” he said, and there was something warm under it. “You noticed.”

Nightwing made a sound that was suspiciously close to a laugh. “Go. Both of you. Before I start making a speech.”

“Don’t,” Jason said.

“Oh, I have several prepared.”

Not awkward, exactly. You and Jason had survived too many injuries together for silence to become fragile that easily. But this was different from your usual post-mission quiet. There was no helmet between his voice and your ears. No modulator to make his breathing sound distant. No way to pretend you had not kissed him in a dark alcove, learned his name while being hunted, and liked both too much.

The rings were still on.

You noticed every time his hand moved on the steering wheel.

He noticed you noticing, because of course he did.

“Say it,” he said eventually.

You looked out the rain-streaked window. “I’m deciding which thing.”

“That bad?”

“Oh, there are categories.”

His mouth twitched. The bruise along his jaw had darkened. There was still a faint smear of lipstick near the corner of his mouth, half washed away by rain and fountain water.

You reached over without thinking and rubbed at the mark with your thumb.

Jason went very still.

The car slowed at a red light on an empty street.

Your hand remained against his jaw. The stubble there rasped lightly beneath your thumb. His eyes flicked to yours behind the mask, and the air in the car changed so quickly it felt like a drop.

You withdrew your hand. “Lipstick.”

“Right.”

“Couldn’t let Roy win.”

Jason huffed a laugh, but his fingers tightened on the wheel.

Neither of you said anything for the rest of the block.

When he pulled into the alley two streets from your apartment, the rain had softened to a mist. He parked beneath a fire escape and cut the engine. The sudden quiet felt deliberate. You could hear the ticking of the car cooling, the distant hum of traffic, your own pulse refusing to calm down.

Jason removed his mask first.

You had seen his face before. That was the worst part. You had seen him across Roy’s kitchen, half-lit by the open fridge while he argued about takeout like it was a tactical decision. You had seen him at that charity event, bored and handsome and restless, as if all that polished wealth irritated his skin. You had not known then that he was the man who called you Mox over comms when he was worried. You had not known he was Red Hood.

Now the two versions slid together and made something sharper.

You took off your mask.

Jason stared.

Not like he was surprised, not exactly. More like the last remaining doubt had just been removed, and he had no armor ready for what came after.

“Hi,” you said, because apparently you had lost access to every clever line you had ever had.

His laugh was soft and almost disbelieving. “Hi.”

“That’s it? No dramatic comment?”

“I’m having a moment.”

“Should I wait?”

“Probably.”

You smiled, and his gaze dropped to your mouth again.

The car felt much smaller than it had a minute ago.

“We should talk,” you said.

“Yeah.”

“About identities.”

“Yeah.”

“And boundaries.”

“Definitely.”

“And the fact that you apparently knew my ring size.”

“I guessed.”

“You did not guess.”

“I made an informed estimate.”

“That’s worse.”

He dragged a hand through his damp hair. The ring flashed again, dark metal and red line catching briefly in the low light.

Your smile faded around the edges.

Slowly, you twisted your own ring. It slid halfway up your finger before Jason’s hand closed over yours.

“Don’t,” he said.

The word came out too raw for the joke he clearly meant to attach to it.

You looked down at his hand over yours. “Jason.”

His name felt new in your mouth. His fingers tightened.

“I know it was supposed to be a cover,” he said. “I know. But don’t take it off like it meant nothing.”

Your throat went tight.

There he was. The man beneath the helmet, beneath the suit, beneath all that practiced brutality. Not soft, exactly. Jason Todd would probably never be soft in any simple way. But honest, when cornered. Brave enough to bleed where you could see it, if not quite brave enough to ask.

You turned your hand beneath his, palm to palm.

“It didn’t mean nothing,” you said.

He exhaled as if something in him had braced for impact.

“But,” you continued, “you don’t get to fake marry me, kiss me in a hallway, let me find out you’re Jason Todd, and then look wounded when I try to return the prop.”

“I didn’t look wounded.”

“You looked extremely wounded.”

“I have a bruise.”

“Emotionally.”

He made a face. “That sounds like something Nightwing would say.”

“Nightwing is emotionally literate.”

“Don’t compliment him right now.”

“There’s the jealousy again.”

“Threat assessment.”

“Jason.”

He looked at you then, really looked, and all the banter thinned into something warmer and far more dangerous.

“I wanted it to be you,” he said. “Before I knew. The job, the partner, the whole stupid fake-married thing. I wanted you there. Then you showed up in that dress, and you were you, and I kept thinking…” He stopped, jaw working. “I kept thinking I was screwed either way.”

Your chest ached.

You had imagined, once or twice, what Red Hood might sound like if he ever admitted wanting something. You had imagined arrogance, maybe. A filthy grin. A hand around your wrist in an alley. You had not imagined this careful, frustrated honesty, as if desire were easier for him than hope.

“You could’ve said something,” you said.

“So could you.”

“I was being professional.”

He gave you a look.

“I was being emotionally avoidant,” you corrected.

“Yeah. Same.”

You laughed, quiet and helpless.

Jason’s thumb brushed your ring again. “You can take it off if you want.”

There was the out. Offered plainly, because whatever else he was, Jason had never once tried to trap you. He had asked you to trust him and then given you room to choose.

You looked at the ring. Something bought for cover. Something worn through gunfire. Something neither of you had meant to make real, except maybe that was not true. Maybe the wanting had been real for months, and the ring had only given it a shape.

You slid it off.

Jason’s expression closed before he could stop it.

Then you placed the ring in his palm and folded his fingers around it.

“Next time you want a date, ask me properly.”

He stared at you.

The silence lasted one breath. Two.

Then his mouth curved, slow and stunned and devastating.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make me regret being romantic.”

“You’re calling that romantic?”

“I’m new at it.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You rolled your eyes, but your face had gone warm. “You owe me explanations.”

“I know.”

“Real ones.”

“I know.”

“And dinner.”

His smile deepened. “Explanations, then dinner?”

“That order, yes.”

He leaned closer. “What about kissing?”

You pretended to consider it. “Depends.”

“On?”

“How convincing you are.”

Jason reached out and touched your cheek, giving you plenty of time to move away.

You did not.

The second kiss was nothing like the first. There was no alarm, no audience, no cover to excuse it. It was slower, deeper, and somehow more dangerous for being honest. His hand slid into your hair carefully, avoiding the pins he knew were weapons. Your hands found the front of his shirt, still damp from rain and fountain water, and pulled him closer until the console dug into your hip and neither of you cared.

He kissed you until your breath broke.

Then he murmured against your mouth, “Tell me to go, and I will.”

Your fingers tightened in his shirt.

The heat between you flared so fast it almost startled you. It was not as if you had not wanted him all night. You had wanted him at the door, in the ballroom, in the dark alcove, in every narrow space where his hand found your back and his voice dropped low near your ear. But here, with your mask off and his name still warm in your mouth, the wanting became something else.

Still, you pulled back enough to meet his eyes.

“Not because of the mission,” you said.

“No.”

“Not because of the cover.”

“No.”

“Not because we almost died and adrenaline makes people stupid.”

Jason’s thumb swept along your jaw. “I’m always stupid about you.”

That should not have worked on you.

It worked on you.

You kissed him again, harder this time, and felt him smile against your mouth for half a second before hunger took over.

By the time you reached your apartment, you had both forgotten at least three reasonable boundaries about elevators, hands, and the general decency owed to security cameras. Jason kept one hand at your waist, his body angled between you and the hallway, even now, even here, and something in your chest went painfully soft at the thought.

Inside, the door barely closed before he had you against it.

He stopped before pinning you there fully, breath rough, eyes searching your face. “Still good?”

You hooked two fingers into the open collar of his red shirt and pulled him down. “Jason.”

His name was answer enough.

He kissed you as if the sound had snapped the last of his restraint.

The dress that had survived knives, guards, and a criminal masquerade nearly lost its battle against Jason Todd’s patience. He found the hidden zipper with insulting speed, paused only long enough for your nod, and drew it down slowly while his mouth moved along your throat. You shivered when the cool air touched your back. He noticed that too, pressing a kiss beneath your jaw as if the reaction pleased him more than he wanted to admit.

“Still six knives?” he murmured.

“Five,” you said, breath catching when his teeth grazed your skin. “Lost another on the way out.”

“Careless.”

“I was distracted by my husband tackling a man into a fountain.”

His hands stilled at your waist.

You smiled against his cheek. “Too much?”

He lifted his head. His eyes were dark, intent, and stripped of every joke. “Say it again.”

Your pulse jumped.

“My husband,” you said softly.

Jason made a sound that was almost a groan and kissed you hard enough to make your spine arch against the door.

After that, things blurred into touch and heat and the shedding of every last defense. His jacket hit the floor. Your heels followed. The dress slipped down, and Jason followed it with his mouth, kissing each place the night had left a mark as if he could argue with every bruise. You pushed his shirt from his shoulders and found scars beneath, old and new, a map of violence written into him. He went still when your fingers traced one across his chest.

You kissed it.

The breath left him all at once.

“Baby,” he said, rough and warning and wrecked.

The endearment settled low in your stomach.

You looked up at him. “That one for the cover too?”

“No.” His hands tightened at your hips. “That one’s mine.”

You should have had a clever answer.

You had survived worse nights than this. You had talked your way out of locked rooms, gun barrels, bad dates, worse missions, and once, memorably, a hostage situation involving a chandelier and three men who had severely underestimated your patience. You should have had something sharp ready for him.

Instead, you caught Jason by the front of his shirt and pulled him with you toward the bedroom.

His laugh followed you, low and breathless, half disbelief and half surrender. It lasted until you stumbled backward through the doorway, and then he was on you again, one hand braced against the frame, the other sliding firm and careful around your waist.

“Impatient,” he murmured.

“You’re still talking.”

That did it.

Jason kissed you like the words had snapped the last thread of his restraint. He crowded you back with the heat of him, with the rain still clinging to his hair and the city still written in bruises across both of you. His mouth found yours hard enough to steal the next thing you meant to say, and you let him have it. Let him have the sound you made when his hand settled at the small of your back. Let him have the way your fingers dug into his shoulders. Let him have the moment your knees hit the edge of the bed and you pulled him down with you because distance suddenly felt offensive.

He caught himself before his full weight landed on you.

Of course he did.

Jason Todd, who had thrown men through glass tonight, who had tackled Argent into a fountain like subtlety was a language he had never bothered to learn, stopped himself with one hand planted beside your head and the other cupping your hip like you were something breakable.

The tenderness almost annoyed you.

Almost.

“You can touch me,” you said.

His eyes searched yours, dark and intent. “I am touching you.”

“You’re treating me like evidence.”

That surprised a laugh out of him, rough and quiet. “You are evidence.”

“Of what?”

“That I’ve lost my mind.”

You smiled despite yourself, and his gaze dropped to your mouth like the expression had done him personal harm.

Then he lowered himself over you.

The weight of him settled slowly, carefully, and your breath caught before you could stop it. He noticed. Of course he noticed. His attention sharpened immediately, that same devastating focus he brought to fights and locks and exits turning entirely on you. On the way your fingers tightened in his shirt. On the places you tried not to flinch. On the places you leaned closer.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

“Words.”

The command should have irritated you. Instead, it went through you like heat.

“Yes,” you said. “I’m okay.”

Only then did he kiss you again.

This kiss was different. Slower. Deeper. Less like a collision and more like a decision. His mouth moved over yours with the kind of patience that made your pulse kick in frustration, like he had all night, like there were no sirens waiting in the distance, no bruises blooming beneath your skin, no ledger full of enemies, no blood drying at the edge of his collar.

Just Jason, above you.

Jason, kissing you until your cleverness dissolved completely.

His jacket hit the floor first. You pushed it off his shoulders with more force than grace, and he let you, smiling against your mouth when it caught at one wrist.

“Bossy,” he murmured.

“You like it.”

His smile flashed against your skin. “Yeah.”

The honesty in it landed harder than the teasing had.

You pulled at his shirt next, impatient with buttons, fabric, anything that kept him from you. Jason helped only when your frustration became obvious, sitting back just long enough to drag it over his head. The movement bared him to you by degrees: the broad line of his shoulders, the hard planes of his chest, the scars.

Old ones. New ones. Some pale, some angry, some so familiar-looking in their violence that your throat tightened.

You reached before you thought better of it.

Your fingers traced a line across his chest, not the worst of them, not the newest, just the one closest to your hand. Jason went still.

Immediately, you stopped. “Sorry.”

He looked down at you, and something in his face shifted. Not away from you. Not quite toward you either. Inward, maybe. Somewhere you could not follow unless he let you.

Then his hand covered yours.

“Don’t be.”

His palm was warm over your knuckles. His heartbeat moved beneath your fingertips, steady and alive and too close to miraculous for either of you to joke about.

So you didn’t.

You lifted your head and kissed the scar instead.

Jason’s breath left him all at once.

For a second, he did not move. Then his hand slid into your hair, not pulling, just holding, like he needed somewhere to put the feeling before it broke loose. When you kissed another mark, lower this time, his fingers tightened.

“Careful,” he said, voice uneven.

You looked up at him. “You first.”

Something in his expression cracked open.

Then he was kissing you again, and this time, there was nothing careful about his mouth.

He was careful with the bruises. Less careful with your lips. You liked both. You liked the contradiction of him, the control and the hunger, the way his hands could disarm a man in three seconds but trembled once at the zipper of your dress. You liked the way he paused there, waiting, until you nodded. You liked that he needed the nod. You liked that he looked wrecked by it.

The dress slipped down by inches.

Jason followed it with his mouth.

He kissed your shoulder first, right where the strap had been, then lower, where the night had left a shadow on your skin. Each bruise earned a touch so gentle it made your chest ache. Each scrape got the brush of his lips, the warmth of his breath, the silent fury of a man trying to argue with every mark violence had put on you.

“Jason,” you whispered.

His name changed something.

You felt it in the way he paused against your skin, in the way his hand flexed at your waist, in the half-second when his control faltered before he gathered it again.

“Say that again,” he said.

You should have teased him.

You really should have.

Instead, you said his name again, softer this time, and felt him shudder.

His mouth found your collarbone. Your throat. The place beneath your ear that made your entire body go tense and then loose beneath him. Your hands slid into his hair, and he made a sound against your skin that you felt more than heard.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

Not smoothly. Not like a line. Like the words had been dragged out of him against his will.

It hurt more than it should have.

You pulled him down until his weight settled over you. “You’re overdressed.”

His smile returned, brief and dangerous. “Still bossy.”

“And yet you obey.”

That got you his laugh again, but it broke when your hands moved over him, learning him in return. The strength of him. The scars. The heat. The places where his breath caught. The places where he tried, unsuccessfully, to pretend it had not.

Outside, thunder rolled over the city.

Inside, Jason bent his head and said your name.

Not Moxie.

Your real name.

You barely remembered when he had started saying it like that. Somewhere between the hallway and the bedroom, maybe. It mattered anyway. It mattered when he said it against your mouth. It mattered when he pressed it into your shoulder. It mattered when he used it like a promise, like a confession, like something he had no right to keep and wanted anyway.

Everything after that softened and sharpened at once.

The night had been all alarms and violence, all running feet and broken glass and blood under your nails. This was slower. Hotter. More dangerous in a way you had not prepared for, because Jason did not just want you. He paid attention to you. He watched your face, listened to your breath, checked in with quiet words and searching hands until you were almost angry with how much it undid you.

“You still with me?” he asked.

You touched his jaw. “Yes.”

His eyes closed briefly, like that single word had gone straight through him.

Then he kissed you through the next breath, and the next, and the next, until the storm outside felt distant compared to the one he built under your skin. You answered with your hands, your mouth, the tilt of your hips, the helpless little sounds you would deny later if anyone had the nerve to ask. Jason learned each one with ruthless attention. Worse, he remembered. He returned to every place that made you gasp, every touch that made your fingers twist in the sheets, every kiss that turned his name into something unsteady on your tongue.

By the time he moved over you again, bare skin warm against bare skin, the teasing had burned down to something quieter.

He paused.

Of course he did.

His forearm braced beside your head. His hair fell forward, damp and dark, and his eyes moved over your face as if he were trying to memorize you before the world remembered it had claims on either of you.

You touched his cheek. “Jason.”

“I know,” he said.

But his voice shook slightly.

Your heart turned over.

“Just looking,” he admitted.

The tenderness of it nearly undid you more than the hunger had.

For once, you had no armor left. No mask. No joke sharp enough to save you. There was only the warmth of him, the weight of him, the impossible gentleness in his hands after a night that had given neither of you any reason to be gentle.

You wrapped your legs around his waist and pulled him closer.

“Look later.”

Jason lay beside you with one arm under your head and the other across your waist, holding you like he was trying to pretend he was not holding on. His hair was a mess. There was a scratch near his shoulder that you were fairly certain you had left there. The bruise at his jaw had darkened, and your lipstick was long gone.

Your ring sat on the nightstand beside his.

Two mission props in a pool of warm lamplight.

You reached for his hand beneath the sheets. His fingers laced through yours immediately.

“Still awake?” you asked.

“Yeah.”

“Thinking?”

“Dangerous habit.”

“About?”

He turned his head on the pillow to look at you. Without the mask, without the suit, without the red helmet or the ballroom or the gunfire, Jason looked younger and more tired and more beautiful than was fair.

“You,” he said.

Your chest warmed. “That’s vague.”

“I’m working up to poetic.”

“Take your time.”

His thumb moved over your knuckles. “I’m thinking I should’ve asked sooner.”

You looked at him for a long moment, then shifted closer until your forehead touched his shoulder.

“You did ask me to marry you.”

He huffed. “Fake marry me.”

“You should be more specific next time.”

“Next time?”

You smiled against his skin.

Jason went quiet.

Then he reached past you toward the nightstand. You watched as he picked up your ring, turning it between his fingers. It looked smaller in his hand than it had any right to, dark stone catching the lamp light.

He did not try to put it on you.

Instead, he held it out.

“Dinner,” he said. “Tomorrow night. No masks. No aliases. Explanations first, because I heard you the first three times. Then dinner.”

You took the ring from him.

Your fingers closed around it. “That sounds dangerously like a date.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. His voice was rougher than it needed to be. “That’s the idea.”

“And if you completely screw it up?”

“I’ll ask for another one.”

“That confident?”

“No,” he said. “That stubborn.”

You laughed softly.

He smiled at you like he had won something he did not know how to hold.

You looked down at the ring in your palm, then slid it back onto your finger yourself.

His breath caught.

“For safekeeping,” you said.

“Right.”

“And because it’s pretty.”

“Obviously.”

“And because you look like you might pass out if I don’t.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do.”

Jason rolled toward you, pinning you gently beneath him with a look that promised retaliation and probably more bruises you would enjoy explaining to no one.

“Keep talking, wife.”

The word should have felt like a joke.

It did not.

You reached up, touched the bruise on his jaw, and smiled.

“Make me, husband.”

Jason kissed you again as Gotham rumbled beyond the windows, all rain and sirens and secrets.

On the nightstand, his ring waited beside your mask. In the morning, there would be explanations, consequences, teasing from every mutual friend with a pulse, and probably at least one lecture about professionalism.

For now, there was Jason’s mouth on yours, his hand over the bought-for-cover ring, and the dangerous, wonderful realization that some covers were only lies until someone chose to keep them.

credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider 🩵

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