dick is such a special and wonderful character to me. it’s not only the fact that he inspired a whole generation of superhero sidekicks, but just the person and character that he grew into.
he tries so hard to follow the right path, and to do good for the people that he’s protecting that often he forgets or just simply doesn’t care about the good of his own self. his care for self-preservation is very low. not that he necessarily wants to die because then people would be in danger and upset if that were to happen (and yes that’s like the only reason).
he masks, but not as well as people think he does. he’s very irritable when provoked, and violent too. people forget (despite his ‘cheerful’ exterior) that he was raised by batman. not only batman, but a young bruce wayne. he’s very very terrifying, but because you never really know what he’s feeling or thinking. he could genuinely snap at any instant.
i think the great thing about him is that he cares so much. if he didn’t, he’d have great reason and a great likelihood of becoming something less than good. but he chooses the good and to be good because he cares about people deeply. i also think that’s why him and damian are such a wonderful pairing and duo
girl with something to prove training for 10 hours, to show shes right for this team. god i love her
also, her drones are starlings.... gregarious birds best known for their mimicry of sounds, for the girl with people skills who takes on mantle after mantle...robin, batgirl, in other realities nightwing and batwoman, taking roles and making them her own but people just see her as a lesser copy of the originals.... shes a mimic, a starling
Dick Grayson is uninterested in the concept of personal space.
Let me make this clear. It's not that he's unaware of it, no, he just does not care for it. Why would he want to spend any moment NOT touching you???
When sitting at restaurants he wouldn't be the type to sit across from you. Hell no. He would plop down right next to you, making himself comfortable as he sits shoulder to shoulder with you. Ankles hooked together and hands intertwined.
When walking through the city of Gotham he would always have at least one hand touching you. Whether that be through holding hands, wrapping his arm around your waist, or throwing an arm over your shoulder. Not once would he separate himself from you unless absolutely necessary.
And in bed? Oh, he's practically fused to you, arms tightly wrapped around your waist and head buried in your neck. If at any point you need to get up for the bathroom or a drink of water he's trailing right behind you, clinging to your shirt as he trails behind you.
summary: new york summer nights are hot, but your bf johnny absolutely insists on cuddling
tags/warnings: one slightly suggestive comment, fluff, established relationship, short oneshot, VERY unserious johnny, overall a goofy fic
word count: 686
Before he met you, Johnny considered himself impartial to the seasons. Fall? He loves taking Franklin outdoors to see who can find the crunchiest leaf. Spring? Allergies suck, but the flowers always turn out beautiful. Makes for good golfing weather, too.
But now, as the weather shifts from the comfortable warmth of springtime to the unbearable heat of summer, he finds himself absolutely loathing the season.
Not that he minds the hot temperatures himself. He’s the Human Torch! He’s practically immune to drastic conditions.
No, it’s you that created his hatred for summer. Your unwillingness to be physically close to him at night, specifically.
“Johnny stop. I’m being so serious,” you say, shoving his face away, desperate to escape his stifling embrace and position yourself closer to the meager air blowing from the fan. The amount of relief the small thing provides is abysmal, but it’s better than nothing. You would think the tech savvy Baxter Building, with mega genius Reed Richards inside, would have working AC.
But no. It broke in the middle of the night, and it’s the one day Reed didn’t stay up late in his lab to work on his next invention. And to top it all off, The Human Torch Heater is your boyfriend.
And thus, you’re trapped by a tangled mess of limbs that remains stubbornly attached to your side, absolutely melting onto Johnny's expensive sheets.
“Nonono babe please I really need to cuddle with you,” he pouts. Johnny tightens his grip on you as if to reinforce his point, which only makes you wiggle in protest.
You almost crack a smile at his desperation, but the fact that you’re overheating to the point that you can’t fall asleep is currently outweighing your sympathy for your boyfriend.
“Johnny,” you sigh, “the room feels like a freaking furnace, and being stuck to you is only making it worse.”
“It’s not my fault I run hot.”
“I know it’s not, but I’m dying right now!! We’ve already opened windows and turned on this bummy fan. And I’m in shorts and a tank top. What more can I do?”
A playful smirk replaces his pitiful one. “Have I ever told you that you look good in everything? Including… nothing? Maybe that would solve your issue.”
You scoff and swat at him. “Unbelievable.”
He catches your wrist before it can land a blow. “The only unbelievable thing here is your lack of love for your own boyfriend.” He rolls over and crosses his arms, huffing with an excessive amount of drama.
You sit up in bed, simply watching his theatrical performance with an unamused expression.
He glances back at you out of the corner of his eye and immediately turns back around when he caught your unimpressed gaze.
You exhale, “you done?”
“It’s so lonely… and cold…”
“Right. Because summertime is just so cold.”
He clutches his heart dramatically and twists his expression into a pained one. “It’s cold right here..! My heart will cease to beat without your embrace.”
“I think my heart will cease to beat with your embrace,” you shot back.
Suddenly, he turns to you with a triumphant expression.
“Oh no,” you say, examining his face in the dark bedroom. “What’s that look for.”
“If we cuddle now, you get unlimited, exclusive, Johnny Storm cuddle time during the winter.”
You bite your cheek, thinking hard. Winters might be even worse than summers. You reminisce on just a couple years ago, when you prayed the tiny heater in your apartment would last you through the frigid night.
You lay down, dragging your hands down your face. “Fiiiine,” you groan. You open your arms to him, and Johnny practically teleports into your embrace. You’re immediately enveloped in warmth again, but thinking about the cold winter months makes you feel slightly better. Slightly.
Johnny slowly curls his fingers into your hair while the other runs down your back. He rubs his fingers in methodic circles, eliciting a soft hum from you.
“Not so bad, is it?” he whispers.
“I hate you.”
He just chuckles, pleased that he got his way. “Love you too.”
A/N: heyy! been a while! school genuinely killed me BUT it’s summer now, so i'm hoping i’ll write a lot more the next couple months! perhaps something for ryland grace?? project hail mary has consumed me… and i fear i've been infected with the ryan gosling is hot virus. so now i’m watching his whole discography (and maybe some writing for his other characters will soon follow?) ALSO x-men 97 season 2 and spiderman brand new day are coming!! summer boutta be so peak
constructive criticism and requests are always welcome!
Summary: On a random Tuesday, Johnny takes a compatibility test designed by Reed and his childhood best friend (who is also his longtime crush). He only did it to annoy Reed, but he wasn’t aware that he’d get a horrifying score of 98.9% on his compatibility with said childhood friend.
This makes Johnny determined to make a move on her once and for all, and nothing won’t stop him. Absolutely nothing. Except the fact that she’s currently dead set on being immune to his advances.
Oh well, guess he just has to try harder.
Word count: 10,7k
Tags: Childhood best friends to lovers, fluff, it's literally only fluff i don't know what to tell you, idiots in love, but mostly idiot!Johnny, desperate!Johnny, slight jealousy, no use of y/n
a/n: honestly i didn't end up liking this as much as i thought i would towards the end but i was in too deep to actually do anything about it. well, i hope anyone who's reading this enjoys it anyway!
It all started with a stupid machine that was never even supposed to tell Johnny Storm that he needed to date you. Before this, he was perfectly content with being your number one best friend since childhood, doing all sorts of things with you while admiring you in a different light from afar—okay, maybe he wasn’t really content with that, but at least he could pretend that he was!
You met Johnny Storm at the tender age of six, when he was just a tiny blond boy with a stupid-looking bowl cut on him that you never fail to make fun of till this day. He really did look ridiculous. It was a bright, sunny day when you first saw him in the local neighborhood park, and you approached him because you were jealous that he had a cool rocketship plushie held in his hands. Ever since then, you clicked instantly, becoming the bestest of friends. If you ask Sue, she would say that Johnny had always liked you since you were both kids. Maybe it was a puppy crush, maybe it was real love, but either way, she’d recognize the sparkle in her brother’s eyes whenever you were there with him. Something that never seemed to dim after all these years either.
Unfortunately, after their mother passed, they had to move away, and you never saw them ever since.
Almost twenty years later, here you are, an aspiring biologist, being personally called in to work in the Baxter Building by Reed Richards himself. It took a good year to readjust to your current work environment, but it has been worth it. Especially being able to reconnect with the Storm siblings once again.
“Your design model is still compensating too aggressively during high-stress simulations”, you mutter, scrolling through the latest batch of data projected across the holographic screen in front of you. “See? It spikes here.”
Reed adjusts his glasses, eyes narrowing thoughtfully at the graph. “Hm. you’re right. The emotional variance threshold is overcorrecting.”
“Which means the system’s still prioritizing instinct over learned behavioral patterns.” You sigh.
“It’s a prototype,” Reed says simply.
You let out a snort. “That’s basically saying ‘it barely works.’”
“It works enough.” You can see Reed’s lips quirk up a bit.
The machine sitting in the middle of the lab says otherwise. The Synchronization Index prototype, or as you call it, the compatibility testing machine, looked less like revolutionary technology and more like someone had combined an MRI scanner together with a gaming console. After close to four months of development (even with Reed’s brains), the project was still deeply unfinished.
The original purpose had been simple enough: improve the team’s coordination during missions by analyzing behavioral compatibility and predictive patterns under stress. The deal was also simple. Reed handles all the computational side of things while you focused on the neurological aspects of it.
Johnny, naturally, called it a soulmate machine.
“It’s not a soulmate machine,” you had told him at least four times this week alone.
The lab doors slid open before Reed could respond, followed immediately by the familiar sound of someone humming dramatically off-key. Johnny strolls into the lab.
“There you are, Stretch,” he says, pointing accusingly at Reed. “I’ve been looking for—”
He stops mid-sentence.
Slowly, his gaze drifts toward the machine in the center of the room. Then toward the holographic screens floating overhead. Then towards you.
“Oh my god,” Johnny breathes. “You finally built the soulmate machine.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose, but Reed answers before you can. “It measures adaptive synchronization and predictive behavioral compatibility.”
Johnny stares at him blankly.
“So,” he says carefully, “the soulmate machine.”
“It is not—”
“The soulmate machine,” Johnny repeats firmly.
You cross your arms. “Why are you even here?”
“Doesn’t matter now, it can wait. I’m more interested in this.” Johnny immediately drops into the chair connected to the machine. “Test me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s unfinished.”
“That’s never stopped any of you before.” He’s unfortunately correct.
Johnny leans back further into the chair with the confidence of a man who has never once feared consequences in his entire life. “C’mon. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Both you and Reed look at each other, then at him.
Johnny points between the two of you. “Wow. Okay. Little concerning that you both did that.”
Reed steps toward the console, thoughtful. “Actually, this could be useful.”
You blink. “Reed.”
“We need additional live-response data.”
“With Johnny?”
Johnny gasps dramatically. “I’m an excellent test subject.”
You sigh, then look at the clock. 3:52 PM. “Well, I have a meeting with the higher-ups from my department.” You look at Reed. “Do what you gotta do, the ball’s in your court now.”
You give a small wave goodbye to Johnny, taking off your lab coat and walking out of the lab.
The second the lab doors slide shut behind you, Johnny swivels lazily in the chair to look at Reed.
“So,” he says, stretching his arms behind his head, “how exactly does the soulmate machine work?”
“It is not a soulmate machine.”
Johnny points at him. “You saying that only makes it sound more like a soulmate machine.”
Reed sighs softly, then gestures toward the neural monitors attached to the chair. “The system analyzes how effectively two individuals function together under varying conditions.”
Johnny grins. “So basically, which of the team I’d survive a road trip with.”
Ignoring him, Reed scans through the available baseline profiles, though most of them are incomplete. Then he pauses. “Hm.”
Johnny immediately narrows his eyes. “That ‘hm’ never means anything good.”
Reed taps something on the console. “You require a baseline comparison subject.”
“Okay?”
Your name sits at the top of the compatibility database, and Johnny straightens in the chair almost immediately. “Oh.”
“The two of you possess nearly two decades worth of history,” Reed explains. “The system also has extensive conversational and behavioral references involving both of you.”
Johnny tries very hard to act normal about that information, but of course he fails immediately.
“Aww,” he says weakly. “We’re scientifically best friends.”
Reed continues typing. “Additionally, your stress-response stabilization patterns consistently improve in her proximity.”
“Reed.”
“And according to mission analysis, you subconsciously prioritize her positioning during emergency scenarios.”
“Reed.”
“In theory, she is the ideal baseline candidate.”
Johnny stares blankly at the screen for several long seconds.
Then, “…Huh.”
Reed looks at him. “Anything wrong?”
“Nope.” Johnny clears his throat. “No problem. Totally normal amount of information to learn about yourself on a random Tuesday. I’m down, let’s do this.”
Reed presses the final command anyway and the machine hums to life. Blue light flickers across the monitors as the sensors attached to Johnny’s temples begin scanning neural activity. A holographic screen expands overhead, rapidly cycling through data points.
Johnny watches the loading bar with mild suspicion.
“So what happens if the results suck?”
“They likely won’t.”
“Wow,” Johnny says dryly. “Your confidence in me is inspiring.”
“You misunderstand. The system favors familiarity.”
Johnny opens his mouth to respond, but the machine suddenly lets out a sharp chime.
Processing Complete. The holographic display shifts, then, a percentage flashes onto the center screen.
98.9%
The room goes completely silent.
“The previous highest recorded compatibility score,” Reed says slowly, “was ninety-one percent.”
Johnny tears his eyes away from the screen. “And mine is—”
“Ninety-eight point nine.”
“…That feels illegal somehow.”
Reed steps closer to the display, studying the rapidly expanding analysis graphs now populating the screen.
“Fascinating. This level of compatibility is statistically abnormal.”
Johnny’s eyes widened. Statistically abnormal. With you. His brain suddenly begins replaying every interaction he’s had with you over the past year at lightning speed.
The way you automatically know what he needs before he asks for them, the way you know exactly what his different silences mean, the way he always looks for you first whenever he walks into a room, the way being around you somehow makes everything feel—
Oh.
Oh, shit.
Johnny slowly sits upright in the chair.
Reed glances at him briefly. “Are you alright?”
“No,” Johnny says immediately.
Reed pauses, and Johnny points dramatically toward the glowing percentage still floating on the screen. “I need to date her.”
“…What?”
“I need to date her,” Johnny repeats, now sounding genuinely alarmed by the realization. “Like, immediately.”
Reed blinks once. “You arrived at that conclusion very quickly.”
“Reed, the science literally said we’re soulmates.”
“It did not say that.”
“It basically did.”
“The machine measures adaptive synchronization.”
Johnny lets out a short laugh. Not because anything’s funny, but mostly because he suddenly feels a little insane.
Of course it’s you.
Of course.
The girl he’s been stupidly in love with since he was young apparently turns out to be his cosmic statistical anomaly too. That honestly tracks. Johnny drags a hand down his face. “You have gotta be kidding me.”
Reed glances up briefly. “Is something wrong?”
“Reed,” Johnny says slowly, “this machine just told me I’ve been wasting my own time for years.”
“That is not what it—”
“Ninety-eight point nine percent,” Johnny repeats. “Do you understand how bad that is for me emotionally?”
Reed considers this. “I don’t think the results are inherently negative.”
“No, see, that’s because you’re happily married.”
Johnny stands abruptly from the chair and starts pacing. He looks at Reed with newfound determination. “I know what I have to do now!” And before Reed could respond, he rushed out of the lab, into the elevator.
The kitchen was quiet and peaceful before Johnny speed-walks inside, tripping over the stairs on his way in. “Ben,” he says urgently.
Ben is halfway through making dinner, and he doesn’t even look up from the stove when Johnny walks in. “You blow somethin’ up?”
“No.”
Ben looks up at Johnny, raising a rocky eyebrow in question. Johnny looks deeply distressed, and he notices this, so he turns the heat down slightly. “Alright. What happened?”
Johnny runs both hands through his hair before pointing accusingly into the air like the compatibility machine personally offended him. He then says your name.
“The stupid compatibility machine thing said me and her are ninety-eight point nine percent compatible.”
Ben blinks once then goes back to stirring the pasta sauce.
“…That all?”
Johnny stares at him. “What do you mean ‘that all’?”
“I mean,” Ben shrugs, “sounds about right.”
“What?”
Ben finally looks at him properly now, expression somewhere between amused and exhausted. “Dude, you’ve been in love with her since before your voice dropped.”
“I have not.” He’s not that obvious, is he? Ben gives him a look, and Johnny immediately folds.
“Okay, fine,” he mutters. “Maybe a little.”
“A little,” Ben repeats flatly.
For a moment, the kitchen falls quiet except for the sound of simmering sauce and Johnny aggressively rethinking the last ten years of his life. Then,
“What do I do?”
Ben blinks. “About what?”
Johnny gestures wildly. “About her!”
Ben stares at him. “…You ask her out.”
Johnny looks bored. “That’s your advice? I was expecting more.”
“That’s usually how datin’ works, yeah.”
“No, but what if she thinks I’m joking?”
Ben’s expression shifts slightly.
Ah, there it is.
Johnny slumps further against the counter now, suddenly looking far less dramatic and far more nervous than before. “I mean, c’mon, Ben,” he says quieter. “Look at me.”
Ben’s lips quirk up a bit. “Unfortunately, I am.”
Johnny lets out a frustrated breath, dragging both hands down his face. “I mean, seriously, Ben. Why would she take me seriously?” He gestures vaguely toward himself. “I’m me.”
Ben snorts. “Yeah. Tragic condition.”
“Hey, I’m serious.” Johnny can’t help it, his lips pull down to a frown.
“I know.”
Johnny leans back against the counter, arms crossed tightly now. “She’s smart. Like, terrifyingly smart. She overthinks everything.” A pause. “What if she thinks I’m just someone who dates for fun and I’m not… serious enough for her?”
Johnny stares down at the countertop as he keeps talking, words coming easier now that he’s started. “I mean, I’ve never exactly given off ‘stable long-term investment’ vibes.” He laughs weakly. “Half the city thinks I’m emotionally allergic to commitment.”
Ben pulls the garlic bread out of the oven before finally speaking.
“Johnny.”
Johnny looks up, seeing Ben setting the tray down carefully. “You know why this is different?”
Johnny shrugs helplessly.
“Because you’re scared.”
Johnny blinks, Ben points at him with the giant oven mitt. “You don’t get scared about girls.”
“That is wildly untrue.”
“No,” Ben says. “You get nervous sometimes. You get awkward sometimes. But scared?” He shakes his head. “Not like this.”
Johnny doesn’t answer because unfortunately, Ben’s right. He leans back against the counter across from Johnny. “You’ve liked her for so long you forgot there was ever a version of your life without her in it.”
“And if she matters that much to you,” Ben continues, “then act like it.”
Johnny lets out a slow breath. “…How?”
Ben gives him an incredulous look. “By bein’ honest.”
Johnny immediately grimaces. “Again with this terrible advice.”
Ben laughs. “I’m serious.”
“I know, that’s why it’s terrible.”
Ben shakes his head fondly before saying, more gently this time. “If she thinks this is just another thing for you, then you prove it ain’t.”
Johnny takes a few seconds to internalize everything that Ben has said, but then, they both hear the sound of someone clearing their throat. It was Sue, standing there with her cup of tea, giving them both an impressed smile.
“Aw, you’re finally growing up.” She nods to Johnny. Johnny gives her an unimpressed scowl.
That night, Johnny starts to conjure up every plan that would finally make you realize that he was in love with you.
Well, maybe “conjure up” was too elegant of a phrase. Obsess over was probably more accurate.
The plan was simple. He would tell you how he felt, eventually.
After some preparation.
Maybe a little preparation.
Okay, maybe a lot of preparation.
Because there was a difference between knowing what you wanted to do and actually doing it. Johnny knew he wanted to ask you out, but the problem was that every time he imagined himself saying the words out loud, his brain immediately supplied several horrifying possibilities.
You’re laughing—no, you’re staring. Hm… maybe you’ll just outright say no. Or maybe, just maybe, you saying yes and then asking why it took him almost two decades.
Which was how Johnny arrived at the conclusion that he should start small. You know, ease into it, test the waters and everything.
A concept he had never successfully practiced his entire life.
From the next day onwards, he was absolutely insufferable. He would be everywhere, and while he usually is everywhere you are, this was just on another level.
One day, Johnny appears in your lab sometime after lunch, leaning casually against the doorway. At least, he thinks he looks casual, but in reality, he's been standing there for nearly thirty seconds waiting for you to look up from your tablet.
You don't.
He shifts his weight, and still nothing.
A few more seconds pass before you finally glance up.
"Hey."
The smile you give him is immediate and familiar. Johnny has seen that smile thousands of times over the years, and somehow it still manages to hit him like a truck.
"Hey yourself."
You return your attention to whatever you're working on, but eventually, he clears his throat. "You know, I was just thinking."
"Dangerous."
The response comes so quickly that Johnny almost laughs. "See, normally that joke would hurt my feelings."
"Normally?"
"Normally."
You finally set your tablet down and look at him properly. "What do you want?"
"Wow."
"What?"
"Straight to business."
"Johnny."
"Fine, fine." He pushes himself away from the doorway and wanders further into the lab, pretending to inspect one of the monitors nearby. Really, he's just buying himself time, because suddenly the line he'd been planning feels incredibly stupid.
Not that it stopped him.
"I'm admiring the view."
The words leave his mouth before he can reconsider them.
You furrow your brows in confusion, then glance over your shoulder toward the large monitor behind you. "The graph?"
Johnny stares. "No."
Your eyes move toward the windows lining the far side of the lab. “Manhattan?"
"No."
You look back at him, and slowly, realization dawns on your face.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
For one glorious second, Johnny thinks he's finally done something right. Then you tilt your head. "That was terrible."
His confidence immediately evaporates. "What?"
"You've used that before."
The accusation is so immediate that Johnny almost chokes. "What? No."
"Johnny."
"Okay, maybe once."
Your eyes narrow.
"More than once."
"I knew it," you say.
"You knew what?"
"You have a system."
Johnny gasps, genuinely offended. "I do not have a system."
"You absolutely have a system."
"I'll have you know my flirting is entirely improvised."
That only makes you laugh harder, which unfortunately, is still the best reaction he's gotten all day. “I’ve known you since we were kids, fireboy. I know how you work.” You point at him with your pointer finger.
Johnny plops down a chair, leaning back and groaning. “Ugh, I was just trying to be… nice.” He finishes lamely with a smile.
“Or… you want something from me.” You approached him, ruffling his hair to annoy him. He doesn’t try to swat your hand away this time, which makes you raise an eyebrow as he tilts his head of messy hair when you pull away. “Mmm, no, not really.” He says with that lazy smirk of his.
You look at him for a few seconds, and scoff playfully, going back to your work.
A few moments later, he ponders again, trying to come up with another plan. He vaguely remembers Reed telling him that a way to Sue’s heart was with direct compliments. Maybe it’ll work on you too?
That evening, he finds you in one of the common lounges of the building, probably wanting to get out of the lab and work in a newer setting. You’re sitting on the couch reading through some notes handed by your team.
“Hey.”
You wave without looking up. Johnny tilts his head, curious as to what you were doing, and sits right beside you. Maybe a little too close, but you don’t notice, not really. Or maybe you do, he thinks. It’s impossible to tell. He observes you under the warm light of the room.
“I think you’re really pretty.” The words leave his mouth before he can overthink them. You finally look up.
“Aw, thanks.” Then, “Are you okay? Do you need anything?” You eye him suspiciously, as this behavior was a stark contrast to his usual teasing and provoking.
“What? No! I just wanted to say that.” Johnny grins like he’s proud of himself. He waits, and nothing. No realization, no blushing, no dramatic revelation, just… gratitude. Like he’d told you the weather was nice.
You return to your notes, and a beat passes. “I think you’re pretty too.” You don't even look up when you say it.
You just continue highlighting something in your document, and Johnny spends the next ten minutes trying to remember how breathing works.
Johnny recites all of his efforts to Sue, and she just laughs at him. Laughs! He gives her an offended, yet desperate look. “What?”
When Sue’s laughter dies down a bit, she begins to give him some advice: be more direct using actions. Actions, okay, he can do that. Absolutely no problem at all.
The first thing Johnny tries is flowers. You look up from your workstation when he walks into the wet lab carrying an enormous bouquet. Your eyes widen.
"Oh wow."
Johnny straightens. Here we go.
"You got flowers."
"Yeah."
"Who's the lucky girl?"
Johnny freezes. "...What?"
You point at the bouquet. "Are these for someone?"
For a brief, horrifying second, Johnny considers lying. But he internally sighs and sucks it up. "They're for you."
"Oh."
His heart immediately starts beating faster when you give him a smile, a genuine smile. The kind he usually loves seeing. Except,
“That’s so sweet.”
Not romantic. Sweet. Like he’s somebody’s grandmother.
You take the flowers. “Thank you.”
Johnny waits.
You place them in a vase, mentioning something about how this wet lab was actually the perfect place to deliver them because it was coincidentally a plant science lab! How nice!
Then you immediately return to your microscope, and the conversation is apparently over.
Johnny leaves the lab ten minutes later feeling like he somehow lost.
The second thing Johnny tries is lunch. Surely lunch is more date-adjacent, right? So when he remembers you mentioning a tiny sandwich shop three neighborhoods away, he immediately flies across Manhattan to get your favorite order.
You blink when he sets the bag on your desk.
"What's this?"
"Lunch."
You give him a grateful look, “Aw, is this you finally repaying me for all I’ve cooked for you?”
What?
Oh, that’s right. You cook for him—a lot. You mentioned that cooking was one of the ways you destress, and you keep making extra food for yourself, so you started cooking up two portions instead. One for you and one for him.
“Uh, yeah..” He chuckles awkwardly.
Then, you look at the logo stuck into the parchment paper. "Wait."
Johnny perks up.
"You remembered my order?"
"Of course I remembered your order."
You look genuinely surprised, and somehow that feels worse. "Johnny," you say carefully, "I told you that one time. Like eight months ago."
"Yeah."
A pause.
"...That's actually kind of impressive. Thanks."
Johnny immediately decides to survive on that compliment for the next week. Okay, so he’s getting it now! Cater to your wants and needs, not just give you things he thinks sound good.
Johnny starts making notes. Like, actual notes. Like he’s conducting a science experiment. In his chicken scratch writing, he writes down all the attempts he did, and what the outcome of it was.
ATTEMPT #5: Complimented hair, and she said thank you. Outcome: inconclusive.
ATTEMPT #7: Brought coffee, and she smiled, promising to grab coffee with me sometime. Outcome: promising.
ATTEMPT #10: Asked if she would ever date a superhero, and she said probably not. Too busy, too dangerous. But she still said it depends. Outcome: devastating.
The first person you mention it to is Sue, mostly because you’ve known her for two decades now, and also because she’s the safest option. Someone you’re able to trust.
Ben would immediately make it weird, Reed would probably start taking notes, and Johnny… well, Johnny is the problem. So Sue it is.
You, Reed, and Sue are scattered around Reed's lab on a surprisingly quiet afternoon. Reed is buried in whatever world-ending project currently occupies his attention, Sue is reviewing mission reports, and you're attempting to organize several weeks worth of research data.
Attempting being the operative word, because Johnny keeps interrupting your thoughts.
You finally let out a frustrated sigh. Across the room, Sue glances up.
"Everything okay?"
You hesitate, but decide to ask her anyway. "Has Johnny been acting strange lately?"
Sue immediately looks interested, which should have been your first warning.
"Strange how?"
You spin your chair around. "I don't know." A lie. You know exactly how, you just don’t know why. You tap your pen against the desk. “He’s been…”
Sue waits.
“Different…”
“Different.”
“Mm. Different.”
Sue's mouth twitches, and you narrow your eyes. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"The thing where you clearly know something."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Fortunately, Sue respects her brother enough not to air out his feelings about you.
"Liar."
Sue laughs, and you slump back into your chair.
"It's just weird."
"What's weird?"
You gesture vaguely. "He's been showing up everywhere."
Sue hums.
"He keeps bringing me things."
Another hum.
"He complimented me three times yesterday."
Sue raises an eyebrow.
"Only three?"
You throw a pen at her, but she catches it effortlessly with her powers. Of course she does.
"My point is," you continue, "Johnny's always been nice, but this feels… intentional. Like every interaction has an ulterior motive behind it.”
Sue studies you quietly. "What if he's just paying more attention?"
You snort. You seem to do that a lot these days. "Why?"
The question slips out before you can stop it. Why now? Why after all this time? Sue doesn't answer, or maybe she chooses not to. Instead, she returns her attention to the report in front of her. You make a mental note to dig into that later.
Then, you suddenly remembered something. “Hey, Reed. How did it go with the synchronization index results two days ago? You know, the one that Johnny took?”
Reed pauses, but you don’t really seem to notice it. You ask again, absentmindedly. “Who did you use as a baseline comparison? Was it Sue?”
“Uh, no. We used you, actually.”
“Oh, cool! What did Johnny and I get?” You ask with curiosity.
Reed runs a hand through his hair. "So, you know how the highest compatibility score previously recorded was ninety-one percent."
You stare.
"...Okay?"
"Your scores were ninety-eight point nine percent."
The room goes completely silent.
For a moment, you genuinely wonder if you heard him correctly. A strange warmth blooms in your chest. Ninety-eight point nine, you and Johnny. A ridiculous part of you immediately wants to smile, because of course it's Johnny.
Of course the person who knows you best would be Johnny.
But then another thought creeps in.
Slowly, unpleasantly. The timing.
The sudden attention, the compliments, the flowers, the lunches, the flirting, the everything.
Your stomach drops.
Oh.
Oh. That explains everything.
You look away before either Reed or Sue can notice the change in your expression, because suddenly it all makes sense. Johnny took the test, got the score, and he started… trying. Not before, but after. You hate how the realization quickly settles, and how neatly all the pieces fit together. Because for one stupid second, you'd let yourself wonder if maybe…
No. You shut that thought down immediately.
This wasn't romantic, this was Johnny.
Johnny, who turned everything into a competition. Johnny, who chased things because they were exciting. Johnny, who had never looked twice at a finish line he hadn't crossed yet.
Ninety-eight point nine percent. This was a challenge, a goal. You hate how much that possibility bothers you. Maybe because a small, selfish part of you wanted it to mean something else. Wanted all those lingering looks and stupid compliments to be real. Wanted him to choose you because he wanted you.
Not because some machine told him he should.
You force a smile onto your face. "So that's why." You mumble.
Sue's eyes flick toward you, observant and knowing. Unfortunately, you don't look at her long enough to notice. Because by then you've already made up your mind. Whatever this is, it needs to stop.
Before you start hoping for things Johnny Storm was never actually offering.
Johnny realizes there's a problem three days later. Not because you reject him, no, that would’ve been easier. No, the problem is that you're being nice. The kind of nice that creates approximately twelve feet of emotional distance.
"Thanks for the coffee, Johnny."
"Thanks for the meal, Johnny."
"Thanks for helping me carry those samples, Johnny."
By Thursday, Johnny is standing in the kitchen staring into the refrigerator like it personally betrayed him. "This is bad."
Sue barely glances up from her tea, like she already knows what he’s talking about. "How bad?"
"She thanked me."
Sue blinks, and Johnny points dramatically. "Exactly."
"Johnny, most people like being thanked."
"Not like this."
Sue studies him for a moment. "You think she's avoiding you."
"I know she's avoiding me."
"Did she say that?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
Johnny groans. "Because it's her." He throws himself into a chair. "I know her." That was the problem. Johnny knew exactly how you acted when you were annoyed, stressed, happy—everything! And lately? You were acting careful, like somebody trying not to touch a hot stove.
Sue watches him sulk for a moment before finally setting down her mug. "When was the last time you showed interest in something she likes?"
Johnny frowns. "I know things she likes."
"No. I mean actually interested."
"I am interested."
Sue gives him a look. "Johnny."
"Oh." The realization visibly hits him. “You mean… science? I like science, this should be easy.”
Sue stares at him. “No, like… biology. Things that are in her field. Let her know that you care about the things she’s doing, and the fact that you love listening to her. It’ll get her to open up to you more.”
“Sue, you’re a genius!”
Johnny becomes aggressively committed to the bit. He appears in your lab the following Monday wearing glasses.
You stare. "Why are you wearing glasses?"
Johnny immediately touches them. "Oh, these?" He adjusts them casually. Too casually. "Been reading a lot lately."
You narrow your eyes. "Reading."
"Yep."
"What kind of reading?"
Johnny shrugs. "Scientific reading." The answer is so vague that it somehow circles back around to being suspicious. You slowly set your tablet down.
"What scientific reading?"
Johnny freezes. Not because he doesn't know, but because he knows too much. The last three nights have been spent with his face buried in journals while Reed chuckled at him from across the lab. Now his brain is suddenly trying to sort through a ridiculous number of scientific terms at once.
"Cells."
You blink. "Cells."
"Yeah."
A beat.
"There are a lot of those."
Your stare intensifies, and Johnny immediately folds. "Okay, fine. Molecular biology." Now you look genuinely surprised. "Oh."
For the first time all week, Johnny feels like he's accomplished something.
"Why?"
There it is. the question he's been trying desperately to avoid. Why. Because saying because he’s hopelessly in love with you feels a little aggressive for a Monday morning. So instead he says, "I wanted to understand your work better."
The words come out before he can stop them. And for a second, neither of you say anything. Something shifts briefly in your expression, it softens. But at the same second, it disappears.
"Oh."
Johnny's stomach does a weird thing. Because that sounded way more sincere than he'd intended. Which is unfortunate because it was completely true.
You clear your throat. "Well."
You point toward the journal tucked under his arm. "If you're reading that one, chapter four is outdated."
Johnny looks down, then back up. "You've read it?"
You immediately look offended. "Johnny."
"Right. Stupid question."
"Very stupid question."
"You know, I walked directly into that one."
"Yes, you did."
You chuckle, and Johnny feels like his heart is about to burst. “Do you actually wanna learn these things?”
“I mean, yeah!” He nods enthusiastically. Seeing this, you walk over to one of the shelves in the corner of the room. It was quite high up, but you were pretty sure you were able to reach it last time. So you stood on your tip-toes, and tried grabbing the massive textbook sitting on top.
Johnny immediately comes over. “I can reach that—”
“No. I can do it.” You say as you hold the corner of the book.
“No, no, really, I can help you.” He says, and he reaches a hand to the same book, but it ends up falling onto the floor with a loud thud. You look at him with an unimpressed look. He purses his lips, hands behind his back now, looking guilty and looking everywhere but your eyes.
You inhale and exhale sharply, but you grabbed the book from the floor anyway, and placed it in front of him. It was a worn down copy of a ‘Campbell’s Biology’ textbook. “This was with me throughout my high school and university days.” You open up a specific chapter.
“If you really want to learn a few things, you’re welcome to come to me any time. I know you’re smart and capable, but if you have too many thoughts sitting in that brain of yours, I’d love to help you sort them out.” You looked back to the book. “I’d start with this part of the textbook.”
Johnny follows your gaze to the page you've opened. The margins are filled with tiny handwritten notes, some written in different colors, accumulated over what looked like years of use. Several sections had been highlighted, and a few pages were dog-eared.
The book practically screamed that it belonged to you. For some reason, that realization settles strangely in his chest.
He'd expected a polite dismissal. Maybe a sarcastic comment about how long this latest phase of his would last. Instead, you'd handed him one of the textbooks that had followed you through high school and university and were now offering to help him through it.
The fact that you seemed completely sincere about it only made the feeling worse.
Or better, he wasn’t entirely sure.
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he carefully turns a page. "You're really volunteering to tutor me?"
You glance up from the chapter. "I'm offering to answer questions."
"That sounds suspiciously like tutoring."
"Only because I know you'll have questions."
Johnny lets out a quiet laugh. "Wow. Good to know you have so much faith in me."
"If I get stuck," he continues, trying, and failing to sound casual, "you're not gonna make fun of me, right?"
You look genuinely puzzled. "Why would I do that?" The answer comes so quickly that he almost misses it. As if the idea had never even crossed your mind. Johnny feels something warm settle in his chest.
Because that's just it, isn't it? You never treated him like he was less intelligent than the people around him. You'd always looked at him like he was perfectly capable of keeping up if he wanted to.
"You'd be surprised," he says lightly.
"Johnny."
Your voice softens just enough to make him look up. "I know you're smart."
The statement is delivered so matter-of-factly that it catches him completely off guard. Johnny flashes a grin. "Careful. Keep saying stuff like that and I'm gonna start developing self-esteem."
You immediately roll your eyes.
"Tragic."
"Absolutely devastating."
Johnny shows up in your lab the next morning like he’s been doing it for years.
He doesn’t say anything at first. Just leans into the doorway for a moment, watching you work, then crosses the room and places a small stack of printed pages on the edge of your desk.
You glance at them, then up at him.
“What’s this?”
“Lab notes,” he says.
You blink once. “…From who?”
“Reed.” That at least makes sense.
You pick up the top sheet and scan it quickly. It’s formatted the way Reed likes everything formatted—dense, precise, slightly over-detailed in a way that assumes the reader is already three steps ahead. Still, it’s useful.
You look back up at Johnny. “Why are you delivering these?”
He shrugs, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I was already coming here.”
You study him for a second longer. He looks… normal. Casual, even. Like he’s just passing through. But he’s also watching you closely, like he’s waiting to see whether this counts as helpful or intrusive. “Put them there.”
Johnny does.
For a few minutes, the lab is quiet again except for the usual hum of equipment and the soft rhythm of your pen making contact with paper.
You assume he’ll leave. He doesn’t.
Instead, he drifts further into the room, stopping near one of your benches. He looks around like he’s trying to decide whether he’s allowed to exist in that space without an explicit task.
Then, carefully, he picks up a pair of gloves from your supply tray.
“You don’t need those,” you say without looking up.
“I know.”
Another pause, then he puts them back. After a moment, he starts to speak again. “Can I touch the cabinet?”
You don’t look up. “Yes.”
“Cool.”
You hear movement behind you after that. Cabinets opening. The faint clink of containers being shifted. At first, you ignore it. Johnny has always been… present. This is not new. What’s new is the silence. When you turn around again, he’s reorganizing one of your supply shelves. By size, at first glance. Then by category.
Then, after a moment of observation, you realize he’s also separating things by how often you reach for them. The most frequently used items are already drifting toward eye level.
You stop. “…What are you doing?”
“Helping,” he says, without looking at you.
“That’s not helping.”
“It is if I’m right.”
You step closer, arms folding. “You don’t know what I need where.”
Johnny finally looks at you then, one hand still holding a labeled vial. “I think I do.”
The confidence in it makes you pause, not because it’s arrogant, but it sounds… considered. Like he’s been paying attention in a way you didn’t realize required effort.
You glance at the shelf again. It is, inconveniently, better organized than it was before. “…Why?” you ask finally.
Johnny shrugs, setting the vial down carefully. “Because you shouldn’t have to look for things twice in the same day.”
That’s all he says, like it’s not something worth making a big deal out of.
You stare at him for a second longer than necessary, then look away first. “Fine,” you say. “But don’t reorganize anything else without asking.”
He smiles a little.
“Bossy.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Right. Sorry.”
A beat.
“…Boss.”
Your lips quirk up just a tiny bit.
A few days after that, you notice something different in your lab. Your bench is already set up when you walk inside. Not partially, but fully set up. The samples are arranged in labeled rows. The pipettes you prefer are already out. Even the centrifuge has been pre-adjusted to the settings you would have chosen yourself, down to the slight calibration you usually account for.
You stand there for a moment longer than necessary.
“…Reed,” you talk into your communication device, still looking at the bench. “Did you come into my lab this morning?”
A pause. “No,” Reed answers. “Why?”
You glance around, though you already know the answer isn’t going to change. “Someone set up my experiment.”
“That’s unusual,” Reed says, in the tone of someone who is already mentally moving on to five other problems.
Then, mildly, “Is anything missing?”
You look again. Nothing is missing, everything is exactly where it should be.
You turned off your communication device, and that’s when you heard him.
“Morning.”
Johnny is leaning against the doorway like he’s been there the whole time, like he didn’t just quietly rearrange your entire workflow before you arrived.
You stare at him. “…Did you do this?”
He looks vaguely pleased with himself. “Maybe.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s a pretty good one.”
You walk over to your bench, slow and deliberate.
“You prepared my experiment.”
“I set it up,” he corrects. Johnny pushes off the doorframe and walks closer, hands in his pockets like this is all completely normal.
“I remembered what you said last week about wasting time on setup when you could be running data sooner.”
You blink. That was something you said once, in passing, but you hadn’t even been talking to him. “…You remembered that?”
Johnny shrugs. “You were annoyed when you said it.”
You glance at him. “That’s not an explanation.”
“It’s a reason.”
You don’t respond immediately. You exhale through your nose and turn back to the bench. “Don’t make a habit of entering my lab before I do.”
Johnny’s expression shifts slightly, like he’s bracing for a stricter rejection than the one you actually give him.
“But since you’re here already… you mind helping me out?” You grabbed a spare lab coat and tossed it to him.
He beamed at you like you handed him the keys to the city.
It doesn’t make sense at first. That’s the part you keep coming back to. Johnny Storm doesn’t set up experiments. He doesn’t organize supply shelves. He doesn’t remember small things you said in passing weeks ago and act on them like they mattered.
You sit at your workstation, but your attention keeps drifting back to the bench he prepared.
Everything is already in place. Clean, ordered, functional. Not just “good enough,” but it’s efficient. Annoyingly efficient. You glance at it again. Then, you catch yourself doing it and look back at your screen.
At first, it had been easy to explain away. The compatibility score, the machine, the timing of it all. Ninety-eight point nine percent.
It gave you something neat to hold onto, a reason for sudden behavior that didn’t quite match the version of Johnny Storm you were used to. Because that version made sense. He overdid things and got excited. He moved fast and moved on faster. But somehow… this isn’t that. This has been consistent.
You had told yourself it was all tied to the test, a reaction to being told something about himself that he now wanted to prove or act on. And while that still could be true, it’s just getting harder to fully believe it, because none of this looks like showing off anymore.
You don’t change what you do at first. It’s not obvious, at least not immediately. You just… stand a little closer than usual when he’s talking. Close enough that he notices, but not close enough that it should matter.
Johnny notices anyway because of course, he always notices you.
He’s mid-explanation about something he probably understands better than he’s currently articulating when he pauses for half a second too long, eyes flicking down like he’s just become aware of where he’s standing in space. Then he clears his throat and continues talking.
A little faster this time. You don’t move away.
Later, when he brings you a set of revised lab notes, you take them from him and your fingers brush his hand for a second longer than necessary.
It’s nothing, barely even contact. But Johnny goes still in a way that is immediately noticeable if you’re looking for it.
Which, unfortunately, you are. “Everything okay?” you ask.
“Yeah,” he says too quickly. Then, after a beat, “Yeah. Totally fine.” He smiles like he means it, but… it doesn’t quite land.
You nod and go back to your screen.
The next day, you repeat it on purpose. Not dramatically, just enough to see if yesterday was coincidence.
You lean slightly closer when he’s showing you something on a monitor. Not touching him, just narrowing the space between you and him until he has to decide whether to acknowledge it or ignore it. He chooses neither.
He stops talking for half a second, then resumes with the wrong sentence and has to restart. You file that away quietly.
Interesting.
By the third day, you add something else. A little bit of… sauce, if you will. “You look tired,” you say when he walks in.
Johnny immediately straightens. “I’m not tired.”
“You’re slouching.”
“I’m standing.”
“You’re slouching standing.”
“That’s not a thing.”
You tilt your head slightly. “It is for you.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh if it weren’t so strained.
Then, you reach out and fix his collar without thinking about it too much. It’s a small adjustment. Barely a touch. Something you’ve done before in passing when he’s been too distracted to notice. Except this time, he does.
He goes completely still. Just… frozen in place like his brain has temporarily stopped accepting new input. Just as soon as you start, you finish adjusting it and step back.
“There,” you say. “Better.”
Johnny nods once. “Yeah. Great. Perfect. That’s—yeah.” He clears his throat. “You’re acting strange.”
“I’m not acting strange.”
A pause.
“You’re acting strange,” he repeats, like that fixes it.
The next scheduled debrief for the development of the Synchronization Index is today. You don’t think much of it when you hear about it.
It comes up in passing, the way most things in Reed’s lab do. Something about recalibration, about running comparative datasets again to stabilize the Synchronization Index after recent adjustments.
Your name is mentioned, briefly, almost absentmindedly.
You barely look up from what you’re doing. “High compatibility,” Reed says, like it’s nothing particularly remarkable.
And it isn’t, not really. The system has been producing results like that more often now, different pairings, different variables. You nod once, as if filing it away in a place that doesn’t require further attention.
“Ninety-four point six percent. Interesting,” you say, and move on. You don’t think about it again.
Not yet. But Johnny hears about it, and of course he makes a huge deal out of it. “Wait,” he says immediately, stopping so abruptly it almost looks like he’s bracing himself. “Back up a second.”
Reed pauses, patient in the way he always is when Johnny is involved.
“You ran her with who?”
“Dr. Scott,” Reed replies.
There’s a short silence.
Johnny’s expression doesn’t change right away, but something in him clearly does. “…Why?”
“Control comparison.” That seems to make things worse.
“No,” Johnny says, too quickly, like the word alone should be enough to undo the situation.
Reed blinks once. “No?”
“That’s not—” Johnny gestures vaguely, as if trying to physically rearrange the concept in the air. “That’s not how it works.”
“It is how it works.”
“No, because the machine doesn’t understand context,” Johnny says, already building momentum.
“It does,” Reed answers calmly.
Johnny ignores him completely. “It must’ve been off,” he decides.
Reed studies him now, more carefully.
“The system?”
“Yes.”
“It produced consistent results.”
Johnny immediately shakes his head. “That just means it was consistently wrong.”
From somewhere behind them, Sue makes a sound that might be a cough or might be laughter she is actively suppressing. Johnny continues pacing lightly now, more animated the longer he talks, as if movement will make the conclusion feel less real.
“It’s probably calibration drift,” he says. “Or environmental interference.”
“You are suggesting the machine is unreliable.”
“I am suggesting,” Johnny says, pointing vaguely as if the argument is already settled, “that the machine is not accounting for real-world variability.”
“That is the same thing.”
“It is not.”
Reed does not look convinced.
Johnny exhales, running a hand through his hair, trying again with more urgency. “I’m just saying, it doesn’t make sense.”
Sue finally looks up from her tablet. “What doesn’t make sense?”
Johnny answers immediately. “That.”
Sue tilts her head slightly. “That… what?”
He hesitates, then gestures vaguely again, like the answer is obvious and frustratingly invisible.
“That it would do that.”
Reed watches him carefully now.
“Do what?”
“Be inaccurate.”
Sue leans back slightly in her chair, watching him with an expression that is far too knowing for his comfort. “You don’t like the result,” she says gently.
“That’s not true.”
“It is a little true,” Reed adds.
Johnny turns toward him immediately. “It’s not.”
Reed raises a brow.
Johnny pauses for half a beat, then corrects himself. “It’s… not about liking it.”
Sue hums faintly. “Then what is it about?”
Johnny doesn’t answer right away. There isn’t a clean answer that doesn’t sound like something he is not ready to say out loud, he thinks. Instead, he defaults to what he knows:
“Repeat the test,” he says.
Reed studies him for a long moment.
“Why?”
“To verify consistency,” Johnny replies immediately.
Sue’s expression shifts slightly at that. Not amused anymore, just observant. “That’s not why,” she says again, quieter this time.
Johnny looks at her. For a second, something almost slips through his expression, something that’s… unguarded. Then he shakes it off like it never happened.
“It is why,” he insists, and huffs. He looks back while rolling his eyes, and spots you. He immediately calls out your name and beckons you over.
You smile once you see him, and you walk towards him casually with your hands inside your lab coat pocket. "What?"
Johnny points at you immediately. "Tell Reed the machine is wrong."
You exhale with a smile, looking at his determined face. Determined for what, you don’t know yet. "...Hello to you too."
"Hi. Tell Reed the machine is wrong."
You glance between him and Reed. “What happened to our machine?"
"You got ninety-four point six percent with Dr. Scott."
You wait. "Okay?"
Johnny stares. The fact that you're not immediately alarmed somehow makes him look even more alarmed. "No, not okay."
You laugh. "Why?"
"Because it doesn't make sense. I mean what does the machine think is happening?" Johnny asks, already spiraling. "You guys barely know each other."
You open your mouth, but Johnny keeps going. "You've worked together for, what, eight months?"
"A year and a half."
“That’s not helping,” he mutters immediately.
You study him for a moment. “Helping what?”
Johnny ignores that completely. “It’s not just about time anyway,” he continues. “It’s about context. Shared experience. Patterns. You don’t just build compatibility off proximity and shared work hours.”
“…And what counts as real compatibility?” you ask quietly.
Johnny opens his mouth, but nothing comes out right away. For the first time, the confidence slips just slightly at the edges, because the answer he almost gives is not scientific at all.
And he knows it.
Johnny is beginning to feel beyond frustrated. He’s done all this and all that, but he just… doesn’t have enough confidence yet. He doesn’t have that one final push to make him brave enough to actually tell you about his feelings. Tonight, he’s pacing in the common room like the floor has personally offended him. Then, he sees a rocky, orange build in front of him. “Ben!”
Ben stops, then sighs. “Whatever it is, you’re doing it wrong.”
Johnny blinks. “I haven’t told you what it is yet…”
Ben finally turns back to face him. He shrugs. “I’ve got an idea.”
Johnny huffs. “Nothing’s working. I don’t know what else to do to get her to come to me.” Johnny drags a hand down his face. “I tried the normal way, didn’t work. I tried the direct way, didn’t work. I tried… whatever I did, and it still didn’t work.”
Ben nods like this is normal information. “Then stop doin’ it.”
Johnny looks at him. “That’s your advice?”
Ben shrugs. “You ever try not runnin’ at a wall?”
Johnny blinks.
“…What does that mean?”
“It means,” Ben says, leaning back, “you keep actin’ like you gotta prove somethin’. Just stop chasin’ it.”
Johnny tilts his head, a bit confused, but somewhat getting it. Bless him. “So I… don’t initiate.”
Ben squints. “If that’s what you wanna call it, sure.”
Johnny nods, already locking in the interpretation. “I don’t initiate.” Johnny had stared at him for a long moment before asking, “And then what?”
Ben had shrugged. “Then she comes to you.”
Which, in hindsight, was not actually advice. It was just a sentence. But Johnny, unfortunately, hears it like a strategy.
The first time, you don’t think much of it.
Johnny not showing up to the lab at the usual time isn’t unheard of. He has missions. He has Reed. He has whatever chaotic schedule comes with being Johnny Storm. So you keep working. You assume he’ll appear later, sliding into the room mid-task like he always does, making some comment about how you look like you haven’t blinked in hours.
But he doesn’t.
Huh, must’ve been super busy today. You think.
The second time it happens, you catch it early enough that it feels worse. You run into him in the hallway outside the lab in the morning, and you see him before he sees you.
When he finally sees you, his expression changes the way it always does, like you’ve become the most natural point of focus in the room. The warmth is there, the familiarity is there, but something underneath it feels restrained, as though it doesn’t quite reach the surface the way it usually does.
“Hey,” he says when you approach.
“Hey,” you reply, automatically matching his tone, because that part hasn’t changed yet.
For a brief moment, it almost feels normal. You ask him if he’s still available later to go get some coffee you’d scheduled together, expecting the usual easy confirmation, maybe a joke about how you’re the only person who tries to make him sit still for breaks.
Instead, Johnny goes quiet for a fraction too long. It’s subtle, not enough to interrupt the rhythm of the conversation outright, but enough that you notice the shift in him as he searches for something to say.
“Yeah,” he starts, then hesitates, and when he continues, it comes out slightly less certain. “Actually, I might have to rain check that.”
“A rain check,” you repeat, because it sounds wrong coming from him.
He nods quickly, a little too quickly, like he’s trying to reinforce it before it can be questioned. “Yeah. Reed’s got me tied up with something. It came up at the last minute.”
There’s something about the way he says it that doesn’t sit right. Most importantly, he is not someone who usually steps away from time with you without making it sound like a loss he intends to fix.
You study him for a moment longer, and that’s when you start noticing the details you might have missed otherwise. The way his posture is slightly more controlled than usual, the way his gaze flickers away from yours a fraction too soon, like he is afraid that if he holds it too long, something will slip.
“Is everything okay?” you ask.
Johnny nods immediately, but there is a delay before the nod settles into something convincing. “Yeah,” he says. Then, after a beat that feels like an afterthought he didn’t mean to reveal, he adds, “I’m fine.”
He looks at you properly then, and for a second you see it more clearly. Not distance exactly, and not indifference, but effort. Like he is trying to maintain a version of himself that does not naturally fit the situation he is in.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he says. When you don’t respond right away, he continues, a little more quickly now, “We’ll reschedule. I’ll let you know.”
By the third, fourth, fifth time, you stop pretending you don’t notice. He still shows up (sometimes), still helps, and still answers when you ask him things. But everything has shifted half a step to the side, like he’s deliberately trying not to occupy the same space in the same way.
Even the jokes change.
They’re still there, just… less immediate. Like he’s letting silence happen before deciding whether to fill it. And worse than that, he starts leaving first. Not in a rude way, but in a careful way, like he’s trying not to overstay something you didn’t realize had a limit.
It takes you a while to bring it up, mostly because at first you keep convincing yourself there isn’t anything to bring up. People drift a little without it meaning anything deeper than that. Except Johnny doesn’t really “drift.” Not like this.
So when you finally catch him alone in the lab doorway one afternoon, you decide you’re just going to ask. He looks up when you call his name.
“Hey,” he says, like always.
“Hey,” you reply, but you don’t move back to your work this time.
Instead, you just look at him for a second longer than usual, trying to figure out where exactly the shift happened. Johnny notices that immediately. Of course he does.
“Everything okay?” he asks, a little too quickly.
You hesitate, then shake your head slightly. “I think something’s changed,” you bring it up.
That makes him pause. “What do you mean?”
You lean back slightly against the edge of the table, folding your arms without really thinking about it.
“I don’t know,” you admit. “You’ve just been different lately. You’re around less. You keep rescheduling things. Even when you’re here, it feels like you’re halfway somewhere else.”
You pause, then add, a little more quietly, like you’re afraid that this is the case, “Did I do something?”
That finally gets a reaction out of him. “What? No,” he says immediately, almost horrified by the idea.
But then it fades a little, like the certainty doesn’t hold. “No, it’s not that.”
You watch him carefully now. “Then what is it?”
Johnny opens his mouth, closes it again, and lets out a breath through his nose like he’s trying to decide whether he’s about to say something stupid or something irreversible.
“It’s… advice,” he says eventually.
That makes you blink, looking at him like you’re silently saying ‘are you kidding me?’
“Advice.”
“Yeah,” he says, nodding once, like that explains everything and also absolutely nothing. “From Ben.”
You stare at him for a second. “…Ben told you to start avoiding me?”
“No,” Johnny says quickly, then corrects himself just as fast. “Not like that. He said I was doing too much. Like I was…” He stops, clearly searching for the wording, then gives up a little. “He said I should stop chasing and just… let things happen.”
You narrow your eyes slightly.
“And your interpretation of that was to disappear?”
“I thought,” he says, slower, “if I stopped being in your face all the time, you’d have space. And then you’d… come to me.”
That lands in the air between you in a way that makes the room feel quieter than it was a second ago.
“…Come to you?”
He nods once, like he fully hears how bad that sounds now that it’s out loud. “Yeah,” he says, more uncertain now. “That was the idea.”
I shake my head in even more confusion. “What do I need to come to you for?”
“Just… uhhh…” Johnny stands there, confused on how to go on with this.
“Okay, don’t answer that, just… That is the worst plan I’ve ever heard you describe out loud,” you say.
Johnny gives you a look. “Yeah, I’m starting to realize that.” For a second, it almost resets into something lighter. But then he goes quiet again, and whatever humor was in his expression fades back into something more unsettled.
“I just didn’t know how else to do it,” he admits.
You take a step closer without really thinking about it. “Do what?” you ask, softer now.
Johnny looks at you, and this time he doesn’t try to joke his way around it. Instead, he just exhales, like he’s been holding something in for too long. “Tell you,” he says quietly. “That I like you. Without messing it up.”
For a second, you don’t say anything.
It isn’t that you don’t understand him. You do. It’s just that your brain takes a moment to process what exactly he just said, because it doesn’t fit neatly into any of the explanations you had been building over the past week.
Johnny watches you carefully while that happens, which only makes it harder to think, because he looks like he’s bracing for impact even though he’s standing completely still.
“I—” he starts, then stops himself almost immediately, shaking his head slightly. “Okay, no, I’m not doing the talking thing right. Just—ignore that. Forget I said it. That was—”
“Johnny,” you interrupt gently, not loud, just enough to pull him back.
He goes quiet again. You take a breath, slower than usual, trying to steady yourself in the way you normally do when something unexpected comes up in the lab.
“So,” you say after a moment, “your plan was to avoid me until I came to you.”
He hesitates. “…Yeah.”
“And that was supposed to help you tell me you like me.”
“Also yes,” he admits, a little miserably.
You nod slowly, like you’re processing experimental results that don’t behave the way they’re supposed to. “That’s not how people work,” you say.
“I know that now,” he says quickly. “I panicked.”
“You’ve been panicking?” you ask.
Johnny lets out a breath that sounds halfway like a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Kind of,” he says. “Yeah.”
You glance down briefly, then back at him. “I thought you were… I don’t know,” you admit, a little more honestly than you intended. “Trying to prove something. Or that it was just the test. Or that it was easier to turn it into a challenge than actually… yeah.”
Johnny shakes his head immediately. “No,” he says, firmer now. “No, it wasn’t that.”
He hesitates, then adds, more carefully, “I didn’t start doing any of this because of the test. I started because I was trying not to ruin it.” He looks at you like he needs you to understand that part specifically.
“I’ve known I like you,” he says, a little more quietly now. “For a long time. That’s not new. What’s new is that I actually said it out loud and then immediately realized I have no idea what I’m doing with it.”
Then, almost helplessly, “So I listened to Ben.”
You huff a small laugh at that before you can stop yourself. Johnny shifts slightly, like he’s preparing himself again, but this time it’s not for retreat.
“I don’t want to mess this up,” he says more simply. “But I think I already kind of did.”
You look at him for a second, then shake your head. “You did something very stupid,” you agree.
He nods immediately.
“Yeah.”
“But,” you add, after a pause, “you didn’t mess it up.”
That makes him look up properly. You exhale, a little softer now. “You just made it more complicated than it needed to be.”
Johnny stares at you for a moment like he’s not entirely sure whether that’s better or worse.
“…Is that fixable?” he asks.
“I mean, it’s not like you burned down my lab or something. Of course it’s fixable.” You say with a smile. That gets a real laugh out of him this time, and something tight inside him finally loosens.
Then, quieter again, “So… what now?”
You look at him for a second longer than necessary, and this time, instead of overthinking it, you just answer him plainly. “Now you stop avoiding me,” you say. “And we figure it out properly.”
Johnny nods once, absolutely no hesitation this time. “Okay,” he says.
In the warm afternoon light of the building hallway, he starts to lean in, almost instinctively. You do too, but then,
“Wait.”
Johnny pulls back slightly, confused, and a bit worried. “What is it?” He asks in a low voice, like he doesn’t want to ruin the moment.
“You did all of that because of the stupid soulmate machine?” You immediately regretted the words that came out of your mouth, because—
“You called it the soulmate machine!” Johnny exclaims, wide eyes and a smile that’s brighter than the sun.
“Oh my God, no, I—” You start, but he interrupts you.
“Nope! No take backs! You called it the soulmate machine, it is officially named the—”
You kiss him.
Honestly, it isn't even a conscious decision.
One second he's standing there preparing what is undoubtedly going to become the most obnoxious victory speech in recorded history, and the next you're grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him down.
The rest of the sentence disappears completely, and for perhaps the first time in his life, Johnny Storm shuts up.
The hallway goes very, very quiet. When you finally pull back, Johnny just stares at you. You stare back.
His brain is clearly attempting to reboot.
"...Did you just kiss me?" he asks.
You immediately roll your eyes.
"Oh my God. No, hold on." He points at you, looking genuinely overwhelmed now. "You kissed me."
"Yes."
"You kissed me."
"Johnny."
"You kissed—"
You place a hand over his mouth.
"You're ruining it."
He makes a deeply offended noise against your palm for approximately two seconds. You release your hand, then the biggest grin you've ever seen appears on his face.
"You like me."
You groan.
"I literally just kissed you."
"I know!" he says, sounding absurdly pleased with himself. "I'm just making sure we're both on the same page!"
additional notes: thanks for reading till the end!
the title idea was literally inspired by a statistics class that i'm doing in uni atm, the same class that i have finals for in a week...
also, as i've mentioned before i definitely felt disappointed with the end results of this fic but!!! it's my first one in a long time, and it's my first ever in this account. so please stay tuned for more works! i swear i'm planning to write something better for you guys :)
okay, one final thing, i have never posted in tumblr before so i am completely clueless as to how to navigate this app. please bear with me. if any of you want to help me out i would most definitely appreciate it. i don't know what the hell i'm doing with this app.
⇝ includes ; gambit, johnny storm, peter parker, wolverine
⇝ a/n ; more xmen stuff NOW !!
gambit ; strip poker ..
"you sure you're up for this one, chere? pretty intense game .." remy sorts a deck of cards in his hands, nimble fingers moving faster than your eyes can track. he doesn't watch the cards so much as he watches you. his eyes are doing that thing. the thing where he looks you up and down nice and slow. the thing that feels more than friendly.
but no, remy and you were just friends.
friends played strip poker together, right?
right?
"it's not my first time playing." you reply, the lie slipping past your lips easily.
"is that right? you some kind of daredevil, then?" he leans back to crank up the stereo before you can respond.
a slow, jazzy tune fills the room, honeyed saxophone floating gently through your ears. your foot taps idly to the beat as remy passes you a few cards and flips three face up onto the table.
you look at your hand. a two and three of hearts. on the table is a king of spades, eight of diamonds, and queen of clubs. you try not to wince.
you're pretty sure remy is cheating by the time you get to the third round. you've already kicked off your boots - he let you pick the first item, and you couldn't muster the courage to say anything more than shoes and socks - and your jacket. the top you're wearing feels too small and too thin. the room feels too hot.
remy has relaxed into his seat, having helped himself to a few shots of whiskey. he's leaning over the table, cards held idly in one hand and the other elbow propped onto the table so he can rest his head on his knuckles. you know he's cheating because he hasn't looked at his cards a single time. even in that half-there, drunken state, remy only has eyes for you.
"aw, too bad." he says, placing down another winning hand.
that jerk.
"you're cheating," you accuse, hitting your cards off the tabletop in an exasperated fit.
"mmhmmm.." remy hums, blinking slowly at you, "you can lose the shirt."
"seriously?"
"thought you played this game before."
"thought you had manners."
remy laughs, his voice easing into a sultry drawl, "take off your shirt, [name]."
you try not to shiver. you avoid his gaze, staring instead at a spot on the wall as you lift the hem of your shirt. you tug your top over your head, letting it fall to the floor beside your chair. even though you're not looking at him, you know remy is drinking you in.
"it's not fair that i have to sit here, half naked, while you're fully clothed!" you finally snap, daring to glance at him.
he has the audacity to smile at you, all innocent, "you're right. should i start with my pants, or would you rather -"
"okay, stop. i get it."
"you're beautiful."
the sincerity in which he says it gives you pause, and you finally meet his eyes, holding your breath. remy's sitting up now, not entirely sober but much more serious.
"i .. uh .. i don't go 'round playing this game with just anybody, you know?" he adds, swallowing thickly as he eyes you again. and again. and again.
you know what he's saying. you don't know if you believe it.
"that's why you're cheating? is this some kind of fantasy of yours?" you ask, trying for some bite.
he bites his bottom lip to hold back a grin, "hah." you watch, entranced, as he runs his tongue over his teeth, "sorta. but it ends a little different."
"what? i guess you want me to ask -"
"you see, chere, dis is the part where i kiss you, and you either punch me silly, or ..."
trailing off, remy is suddenly halfway across the table, a hand snaking around your neck to pull you in.
he tastes like whiskey. you think about punching him, pulling away and pretending this never happened. pretending he was still just a friend. but then he slides his tongue into your mouth and you can't think of anything other than him. his smell. his taste. his touch ..
it's safe to say you forgot about poker. and remy has never just been friendly.
johnny storm ; in the rain ..
"what? i don't understand why you're running away!" johnny scrambles after you, his shirt soaking through and sticking to him all over. he's uncomfortable. he hates being wet, but he doesn't slow down, staying right on your heels as you storm off.
"i'm not running!" you shout back.
it's true, you aren't running. but you are aggressively walking. and you're fast when you want to be.
you can't explain it. you don't want to explain it. seeing him kiss that other girl just irked you in all the wrong ways. you still have goosebumps, the bad kind, from just thinking about it. his hands on her waist, his lips on hers.. it made you want to scream. it makes you want to scream.
how do you explain that? how do you say 'oh yeah, johnny, i'm fine. i just want to rip out my hair when i see you with another girl, that's all' without sounding out of your damn mind?
"[name]! - [name] - stop! wait up, okay? let's talk about this!" he bolts out in front of you, sending you skidding to a stop.
your only inches away from him, having barely missed ramming straight into his chest. that same chest she was all over - ugh! what is wrong with you?
you stare furiously at the ground, and he ducks his head to meet your eyes. his blonde hair is sticking to his face and he's not wearing shoes, having run out after you on a whim, but his hands are still warm when they grasp your wrist.
his voice is gentle when he says, "[name]. what are you doing? don't run away from me.." he mumbles, eyebrows knitting together.
you can't bear to see him looking like a whimpering puppy, so you force your gaze onto a building over his shoulder, "is she your girlfriend?" you say the words through grit teeth, your hand flexing against his grip.
he lets you go, recoiling. for a second, johnny just looks at you, like all the cogs in his head have finally clicked into place, "that's what this is about? you're .. jealous?"
"no! yes! i don't know! is she your girlfriend?"
"no! i just kissed her to make you notice!"
".. what?!"
he winces, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. he has the decency to at least look chagrined as he takes in your newly irritated expression, "look .. i didn't mean to .. i just wanted to make you jealous, alright? i guess i got what i wanted, but -"
"i'm not jealous!''
"okay, you're not jealous," he holds his hands up, "but you did storm out. heh. storm. get it? okay - sorry - don't hit me -" he grabs your hands again, mostly to keep you from beating his sorry ass to a pulp, "so it did bother you, yeah? that i kissed her?"
"obviously, you dimwit!"
"yeah, dimwit. i know." he squeezes your hands, finally moving closer, and closer, until his chest brushes yours. he tilts his head at you, "i'm sorry. i didn't want to hurt you," he pauses, letting go of your hand to instead brush his knuckles over your cheek, "i like you. but you wouldn't look at me. so .."
"so you went off with a another girl?" you snap.
he grimaces, "it was one kiss. i can give you a lot more. i want to give you a lot more .." he trails off, eyes darkening for a moment as he bites his lip.
"you - hey, you can't just .. we're not done talking -"
he swallows your protests with a kiss, his hands sliding around your waist and tugging you closer. the rain soaks through you, and though it should have chilled you, you've never felt hotter.
peter parker and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad first date
he hadn't called it a date, when he first asked you out. he had meant to, but when he finally got the courage to talk to you, what came out was -
"let's go out! as friends, i mean! totally friendly, just friends. two friends, hanging out. alone. haha .."
and somehow, that wasn't enough to scare you off.
what should have scared you off, though, was the partially dead flowers and muddied outfit he showed up in. you considered yourself lucky no one else was home when peter knocked at your door, because they would have refused to let you out and probably called the police on the squatter trying to seduce their kid.
peter's hair had been soaked, he had a splotch of dirt on his cheek (which he wiped away furiously once you pointed it out), his pants were ripped at the knee, and his sneakers were tearing at the seams.
for some reason, you found it endearing.
"hey! hi! oh - um." he shoved the flowers toward you after you opened the door - a bouquet of partially crushed and dirtied lilies - "these are for you. in a friendly way - stop saying that, peter .." he trailed off, slowly glancing down at himself, "right! oh! so. i fell. right into a puddle, actually. a muddy puddle. mud puddle."
you gave him a pitying, if a little amused, smile, "do you want to come inside? i think i have something that'll fit you .."
peter lingered awkwardly in your doorway until you were able to put the dying flowers in a vase and wrangle up a clean pair of pants and a hoodie for him to wear. he blushed pink to the tips of his ears on the way to the bathroom.
the clothes were a little small on him, and he was more than a little bashful about it all, but you made it work.
you thought that was it. but then came the actual date (not date? friendly hang out? it was unclear).
peter insisted he make it a surprise. but the arcade was closed, the funfair rides made him sick, and the food truck made you sick. he apologized profusely through the whole thing, muttering to himself on occasion.
he was silent as he walked you home. silent and embarrassed and beating himself up.
"peter?" you asked, stopping in front of your door, "you okay?"
he scuffed the toe of his shoe against the concrete, running a hand through his brown hair, ".. i'm really sorry, [name], i -"
"come on, it's not your fault the arcade was under maintenance."
"but -"
"or that you get sick on rides."
"still -"
"or that i'm allergic to pineapple."
"yeah, i know. but, look, i had this whole thing planned, alright! i was going to win you a prize, and then we'd go on the ferris wheel, and i could finally confess how much i liked you -" he stops himself, clamping his mouth shut with owlish eyes.
"you .. like me?" you echo. you're more startled by the fact that he actually said it - peter had never been subtle, "i thought this was just a friendly hangout? for friends?"
he lets out a rueful chuckle, nodding his head like he's accepting defeat, "guess i made a pretty big fool out of myself, huh?"
you step closer to him, ignoring the way he stiffens, "i think it was really sweet. and, peter? i like you, too."
with that, you leaned up and kissed him. for a moment, he was frozen, and you thought you made a mistake. but then, his hands come up to frame your face gently, and his lips moved against yours. it felt like fireworks burst all around you two.
you felt peter's shoulders relax under your hands, and he pulled back just to pepper kisses all over your face, leaving you to duck and run for cover, laughter fading into your house as peter gives chase.
wolverine ; only one bed
"you have got to be shitting me," you hear logan's disappointment before you see it. he's already shouldered through the door and paused just past the threshold.
the motel is sketchy enough that you don't really want to linger in the halls, so you nudge him forward and shut the door behind you, before turning to see what has him stomping around like an angry bull.
oh.
one bed. one very small, very cramped bed for the two of you.
okay, you could handle this. not like he's your lifelong crush or anything. you're too old for crushes, anyway. just two adults and a twin bed.
"i'll sleep in the bathtub." logan says before you can get a word out.
you step past him to peek into the bathroom, "yeah, there's no bathtub, just the shower." you point out, eyeing a spider as it crawls into a crack in the wall.
"i'll sleep on the floor."
"it's hardwood." you protest, frowning.
"what d'ya want to do then, share?"
"yes."
he pauses from where he's rummaging through his bag and turns over his shoulder to give you a perplexed look, "really? i'm a big guy, sweetheart. might not be a lot of room left for you."
"i'm a kicker."
"swell."
with that settled, you place your bag on what you are claiming as your side of the bed, sifting through it to pull out a phone charger and a few other things you place on the nightstand. logan marches past you to the bathroom, and you hear the sound of water rushing as he turns the shower on.
you take a tentative glance over your shoulder to find the door had been left open a crack, probably to let the steam out. you can just barely see logan pull his shirt off, and, consequently, get an eyeful of his back. his muscles contract when he moves, and you stare, transfixed by his scars and finely textured skin. the way his bicep swells when he reaches up to comb a hand through his hair.
you look away before he takes his pants off.
you're curled up, half asleep on a small sliver of the bed when logan comes out. donning only a pair of sweatpants and no shirt, he casts you a lingering glance as he pads past you to slide under the covers. you force your eyes shut for a moment as you take in the warmth of his body next to yours.
you feel him shift a little, grunting as he settles onto his back, and you match his position. with the bed so small, you have no choice but to lay with your shoulders touching. it feels like his bare skin is burning you. you swallow.
"do you always sleep shirtless?" you ask, trying not to sound too discombobulated.
you catch him raises an eyebrow, "it's hot." he responds with an unbothered shrug.
you turn onto your side, facing him, and rest your head on your forearm. he does the same. if you moved just a little bit closer, you're pretty sure your noses would touch.
"i saw you." logan murmurs the words quietly, laced with a little bit of smugness.
your eyebrows shoot up - shit - "what? what do you mean?"
"you were watching me change." he lays the words out cleanly, all too aware of how it makes your face heat up.
"come on, no i wasn't," you try weakly.
"there's a mirror in the bathroom."
you wince, caught. "alright, sorry, i just .."
"'s alright," he gives you a grin, one of those feral, wolfish smiles he only gives every once in a while, "i liked it. didn't leave the door open for no reason, y'know?"
oh.
oh.
"so, you .." you pause. did you dare say it? yeah. with the way he's looking at you, you'd probably say anything to keep him talking, "you wanted me to .. watch you change?"
he smiles again, canines flashing, "sure. i got a better idea, though - why dont'cha come on over here and get a feel, instead?"
logan takes one of your hands, tugging it up to slide over his chest as he closes the distance. you don't protest when his lips meet yours, melting into it.
you run your hands up and down his chest and abs, falling back against the mattress as he rolls on top of you.
sleep is the last thing on your mind, especially with him touching you like that.
Pairing: firefighter!johnny storm x er nurse!reader
Summary: For nearly a year, you and Johnny Storm, a local firefighter, have shared nothing more than passing moments between emergencies. Enough to recognize each other, not enough to step closer. When a fire destroys your apartment building, you find yourself staying in his home, where distance is no longer something you both can rely on.
Word Count: 6,2k
Tags: modern au, firefighter au, no powers au, forced proximity, mutual pining, acquaintances to friends to lovers, domestic fluff, living together, no use of y/n
a/n: i went to the fire station a week ago and that was what inspired this. literally. i hope you all enjoy :) x
Johnny Storm’s days follow a relatively simple routine. He clocks in at 8:00 in the morning and starts a 48-hour shift, consecutively. After those 48 hours end, he goes home to his bachelor pad and rests for a good four days before he has to go back to his job. He might get a few interesting cases here and there, but it’s really nothing to write home about.
Except when he gets to see you, then it’s everything to write home about.
Which is unfortunately a rare occurrence. You’re busy with your work, firefighters don’t usually go to the ER anyway, he knows that—hell, you guys weren’t even that close. Even when he wants to spend time with you, he doesn’t think that he could just stroll into the emergency room one day and ask you out. Well, maybe he can, but he’s just a bit of a coward at that part.
You both met a little under a year ago.
The call itself wasn’t anything special. Small building fire, one victim suffering from smoke inhalation, stable vitals, conscious and talking.
Johnny had carried the woman down three flights of stairs and stayed with her all the way to the hospital, mostly because she refused to let go of his hand. "You're a nice young man," she'd wheezed through the oxygen mask.
"Why thank you, ma’am. Tell everyone for me, please." He gives her his signature grin.
The ambulance rolled into the emergency department's ambulance bay twenty minutes later.
The doors burst open, and there you were.
"Female, seventy-two," the paramedic began as the stretcher was unloaded. "Smoke inhalation. Alert and oriented. Initial oxygen levels were eighty-nine percent on the scene, now sitting at ninety-six on fifteen liters of non-rebreather."
Johnny barely listened. Because you were moving around the stretcher with the kind of confidence that made the chaos look choreographed.
"Any loss of consciousness?" you asked.
"Negative."
"Cardiac history?"
"Hypertension."
"Allergies?"
The questions came rapid-fire. You were efficient, focused, and…
Pretty.
Wait. Pretty?
Johnny blinked, but the older woman noticed immediately. Maybe she has a knack for these things. "Oh," she said, sounding delighted. "He's staring at the nurse."
“Ma'am," he said.
Your head snapped up. Okay, that’s a handsome man—no, you have a job to do.
"He's been carrying me around all afternoon," she informed you.
"Ma'am."
To his horror, you smiled. "Thank you for bringing her in," you said.
He gives you a crooked smile. “Yeah, yeah… you’re welcome. I mean, it’s my job… yeah.” He nods, like that makes his stumbling any better.
After that interaction, he’d be the first person to volunteer every time one of the firefighters had to go to the emergency room. Not that they go there a lot anyway, but hey, he’d take any chance to get a glimpse of you.
The first few times, he was convinced you wouldn't even remember him. You worked in an emergency department. Hundreds of patients passed through those doors every week, accompanied by paramedics, police officers, firefighters, and worried family members. There was no reason a nurse would remember one firefighter she'd met on a random Tuesday.
Then, the next time he walked a patient through the ambulance bay, you looked up from your charting and greeted him by name.
Just like that.
The conversation had lasted less than a minute.
A quick hello.
A question about the patient.
A joke about the soot smeared across his jaw.
But Johnny found himself thinking about it for the rest of his shift. After that, seeing you became something he quietly looked forward to.
Sometimes he would catch you during a particularly brutal shift, your hair hastily tied back and exhaustion written plainly across your face. Other times he'd arrive to find you laughing with one of your coworkers, the sound carrying across the department before you noticed him standing there.
You always seemed happy to see him, and over time, the conversations grew longer.
A minute became five.
Five became ten whenever neither of you was being pulled in opposite directions.
He learned that you survived almost entirely on caffeine during night shifts (much to your dismay). You learned that he couldn't cook anything more complicated than pasta without consulting the internet. He learned which vending machine snacks you always bought when you forgot your lunch. You learned that he hated paperwork more than actual fires.
None of it was important information, at least not on paper.
But somehow, every small detail felt significant when it came from you. The problem was that your relationship never seemed to move beyond the walls of the hospital.
You weren't strangers, yet you weren't friends, either.
Not really.
You and Johnny saw each other because your jobs happened to collide every now and then. And yet, every time he left the emergency department, he found himself wondering when he'd see you again.
The answer was always eventually.
A week, maybe two, or even a month. But sooner or later another call would end at the hospital, and he'd find you somewhere beyond those sliding doors.
That certainty made it easy to do nothing.
Today, Johnny strolled into the fire department in the morning and went straight to the kitchen, as usual. When he has to arrive at the station as early as eight, he doesn’t really have the luxury of a dedicated breakfast time in the mornings.
He grabbed some bread and ingredients from the pantry and made a simple sandwich. This one looks particularly good, he thinks. But before he could get a bite to his sandwich, the station tones screamed through the building.
Johnny closed his eyes. "You have got to be kidding me."
Around him, chairs scraped against the floor as everyone immediately sprang into motion.
So much for breakfast.
He wrapped the sandwich in a napkin, shoved it onto the counter, and followed the rest of the crew toward the apparatus bay while dispatch rattled off the address overhead.
To you, twelve hours in the emergency department rarely stayed twelve hours. Someone always needed help, always arrived five minutes before your shift ended, and always crashed at the worst possible moment.
You'd stopped fighting it months ago.
At least today was your day off.
Sunlight filtered through the curtains and painted soft streaks of gold across your bedroom walls, and for a few moments you simply lay there, enjoying the unfamiliar luxury of not having anywhere to be.
After waking up in the morning, you spent a few blissful minutes doing absolutely nothing. No monitors beeping, no doctors calling your name, just silence. Glorious silence. But eventually, you did have to drag yourself out of bed.
You wandered into the kitchen and started putting together breakfast. Nothing fancy, just enough food to keep you occupied while you figured out how you wanted to spend the rest of your day.
Laundry was probably necessary.
Grocery shopping too.
Also, there was a growing pile of unopened mail sitting on the counter that deserved your attention.
Realistically, you would accomplish none of those things.
Outside, the city was already awake. Cars moved steadily through the streets below, people hurried along the sidewalks, and somewhere in the distance a siren wailed before fading away. Exactly the kind of morning you had been looking forward to.
You had just taken another sip of coffee when a loud, piercing alarm cut through the apartment.
Your head snapped up immediately.
For a second, you stared at the ceiling, waiting for the sound to stop.
But of course, it didn't.
The alarm continued to blare through the building in steady intervals, loud enough that you could feel the vibration through the walls.
By the time the second alarm sounded, you were already on your feet.
The apartment door across the hall opened with a loud bang. A moment later, voices drifted in from the corridor. Someone asked if this was another maintenance test. Someone else sounded annoyed enough to ignore it entirely.
You set your coffee down and crossed the apartment toward the front door. The moment you opened it, the faint smell of smoke hit you.
Not strong, not overwhelming.
But unmistakable.
Your stomach tightened. Ah shit, it’s serious.
That was enough to make the decision for you.
You stepped back inside, immediately reaching for your phone, wallet, keys, and the backpack hanging near the entrance. The movements felt automatic, driven by the same instincts that had carried you through countless emergencies at work.
Within two minutes, you were locking your apartment door behind you and making your way toward the stairwell with dozens of other residents.
The atmosphere remained surprisingly calm, and most people looked irritated more than concerned. And yet, the smell of smoke grew stronger with each floor you descended.
By the time you reached the ground floor and stepped outside, several residents had already gathered in the parking lot.
You turned back toward the building, and only then did you notice the thin stream of dark smoke escaping from one of the upper-floor windows.
“Oh dear, that looks bad.” Your neighbour, Martha, says. She had managed to find you in the sea of people.
You look to your side, to her. “Yeah. I’m hoping everyone’s alright.” You respond.
By the time the fire department arrived on scene, a crowd had already formed outside the apartment complex.
Johnny barely spared them a glance as the truck rolled to a stop, though. His attention was fixed on the building. From a distance, the smoke had looked relatively contained. Up close, it was a different story.
Dark smoke pushed from multiple windows near the center of the structure, thick enough to obscure portions of the upper floors. Every few seconds, fresh plumes poured from the building as if something inside was feeding the fire faster than it could burn through.
"Shit," someone muttered beside him.
Johnny silently agreed.
The moment the emergency vehicle stopped moving, the crew sprang into action. Orders were exchanged, equipment was unloaded, and hose lines were stretched across the pavement. Within moments, the organized chaos that accompanied every structure fire had settled over the scene.
A battalion chief was already speaking with building management.
Police officers worked to keep residents away from the entrance.
Paramedics established a treatment area for anyone suffering from smoke exposure.
Okay, here we go, he thinks. Johnny grabbed his gear and headed toward the command post to receive his assignment.
As he approached, fragments of conversation reached him. Apparently, the fire had originated in one of the lower-floor units, but it had spread beyond the apartment itself. There was concern that flames had extended into wall voids and utility spaces, and that immediately complicated everything.
Apartment fires were difficult enough when the fire remained confined to a single unit. Once flames found their way into the spaces between walls, they could travel through a building without anyone realizing how far they'd gone.
Which meant what looked manageable from the outside often wasn't.
The next hour passed in a blur of heat, smoke, and shouted communication.
Johnny's crew was assigned to assist with interior operations. The work was exhausting even by firefighter standards. Every movement felt heavier beneath layers of protective gear, and the air inside the building remained thick despite the ventilation efforts underway.
At one point, they helped escort an elderly resident down several flights of stairs after she refused to leave without her cat. Later, they were redirected to assist another crew investigating smoke that had begun seeping into apartments far from the original unit.
None of it was unusual.
By the time Johnny emerged from the building again, sweat clung uncomfortably to the back of his neck and his shoulders ached from carrying equipment up and down stairwells.
He pulled off one glove and accepted a bottle of water from another firefighter before making his way toward the command area for an update.
That was when his attention drifted toward the evacuation zone.
At first, he didn't think anything of it, just another resident standing among the crowd. Then the woman turned slightly, and his brain took a second to catch up.
A second after that, his stomach nearly dropped into his boots.
There was absolutely no way.
For a moment, he simply stared. Out of all the apartment buildings in the city, all the fires he could have responded to. The sight of you sent a jolt of alarm through him before he could think twice about it.
Were you hurt?
Had you been inside when the fire started?
Had you inhaled smoke?
You looked upright, alert, and uninjured, at least from where he was standing. But that did little to settle the sudden knot of concern tightening in his chest.
Your attention remained fixed on the building, completely unaware that he had spotted you.
Before he could stop himself, his feet were already moving.
He wove through the crowd gathered near the edge of the parking lot, barely registering the conversations around him. Your expression was focused in the way he had seen dozens of times inside the emergency department, as if you were mentally assessing the situation rather than simply witnessing it.
Then you turned your head. The second your eyes landed on him, surprise flickered across your face.
"Johnny?"
He called out your name and stopped in front of you, gaze moving quickly over your face and shoulders as though searching for injuries. "Are you alright?"
You blinked. The question came so quickly that it seemed to catch you off guard. "Yeah," you said. "I'm fine."
Johnny frowned. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Only then did he seem to realize he was still staring. A faint flush crept up the back of his neck. He cleared his throat and took a small step back, trying to recover whatever professionalism he'd abandoned during his walk across the parking lot.
"I just..." He glanced toward the building. "I saw you standing out here and figured you lived in one of the units."
"I do."
The answer was simple enough, but something about hearing it made his stomach sink.
"You got out okay?"
You nodded.
"Good." The response came immediately.
Too immediately, as though he'd been holding his breath waiting to hear it.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The sounds of the scene filled the silence instead. The hiss of water lines being charged, shouted instructions from firefighters, the distant wail of another arriving vehicle. Johnny looked over his shoulder toward the building.
His expression changed slightly, and you noticed it right away. "How bad is it?"
His gaze returned to yours. For a second, he seemed to debate whether he should answer honestly.
That was an answer enough.
Your stomach tightened, and he exhaled slowly.
"It's not great."
You followed his line of sight toward the smoke pouring from the upper floors. The longer the operation continued, the more chaotic the evacuation area became. Suddenly, raised voices cut through the crowd, and several people turned at once.
Near the curb, a man in his sixties slumped heavily against a parked vehicle. At first, it looked as though he had simply sat down.
Then his knees buckled.
Your body reacted before your brain did, and you were already moving by the time someone shouted for a medic. Before you could reach him, the man hit the pavement hard. A small crowd immediately began forming around him.
"Give him space," you called as you pushed forward.
The smell of smoke still clung to his clothing, and his breathing… it sounded wrong. Shallow.
A firefighter dropped to one knee beside him. Johnny.
His eyes widened briefly when he recognized you, but you barely noticed, your attention remained fixed on the patient.
"Sir? Can you hear me?"
The man's eyelids fluttered. Okay, so not fully unconscious. Good.
A paramedic arrived moments later, carrying equipment. "We've got two ambulances already transporting," she said quickly as she knelt beside you. "Can you help me out?"
You nodded immediately, and the paramedic began attaching monitoring equipment while you performed a rapid assessment. The patient's skin looked pale beneath the soot staining his face. His pulse was fast, and his breathing remained concerning.
"Smoke inhalation?" you asked.
"Most likely."
The man suddenly started coughing. A harsh, painful sound.
Johnny shifted closer, looking between the both of you. "What do you need?"
"High-flow oxygen." You both answered. Without hesitation, Johnny reached for the equipment beside him.
Within minutes, the patient was receiving oxygen, but his condition still wasn't improving as quickly as you would've liked. The paramedic looked toward the ambulance staging area and swore quietly. Every available transport unit was occupied, and one of the ambulances hadn't even returned from its previous trip yet.
"We need him evaluated at the hospital."
"He needs a blood gas and respiratory assessment," you agreed.
The paramedic looked between you and Johnny, then an idea seemed to occur to her. "You work at Manhattan General, right?"
You nodded.
She turned to Johnny. "Can you drive?"
Johnny stared at her. "That's your question?"
"Can you drive without hitting anybody?"
"Much better."
The paramedic pointed toward the patient. "Good. Because I need this man in an emergency department now, and you're currently the fastest option I've got."
Johnny looked at you, and you looked back at him. For a second, neither of you spoke.
Then he shrugged. “Well. This is certainly a first."
The drive to Manhattan General Hospital was surprisingly uneventful. Fortunately, the patient remained conscious for most of the trip. You stayed beside him in the back seat, monitoring his breathing and doing your best to keep him talking while Johnny navigated traffic.
The arrangement felt absurd. A firefighter driving, an emergency room nurse riding in the back, and a smoke inhalation patient occupying the rear seat of what was very obviously not an ambulance.
If anyone asked, you were never admitting this had happened.
By the time the hospital came into view, you were already mentally preparing the report you would give upon arrival. The familiar sight of the emergency department entrance stirred something automatic in your brain.
Johnny pulled to a stop near the ambulance entrance. Before the vehicle had fully settled, you were reaching for the door handle.
"Easy there," Johnny said.
You shot him a look. "Unlike you, some of us spend enough time here to navigate it with our eyes closed."
Johnny scoffed. "I've been here hundreds of times."
"Yeah, but you still have to ask for directions every now and then."
"Only occasionally."
"Sure."
He shook his head. "Alright, that's fair."
The two of you helped the patient inside, and the moment the automatic doors slid open, the controlled chaos of the emergency department washed over you. A nurse glanced up from the triage desk.
Then did a double take. "...Why are you here?"
You didn't slow down. “Long story."
"You're not scheduled."
"Still a long story."
A few heads turned as you passed. Apparently showing up unexpectedly with soot on your clothes was enough to attract attention.
The patient was quickly transferred onto a hospital stretcher, and you immediately slipped back into work mode.
"Male, I would say in his sixties? Smoke exposure from a residential structure fire. Progressive respiratory distress on scene, and oxygen administered prior to transport, but his condition deteriorated during observation."
The receiving physician nodded.
Questions followed, but as always, you answered them automatically.
By the time the report was finished, several members of the emergency department were staring at you with varying levels of concern.
One of your coworkers finally crossed her arms.
"Why are you covered in ash?"
You blinked. Right, the fire. "Apartment building fire," you admitted.
The room fell silent. "Excuse me?" someone asked. "You live there?" another asked.
"Unfortunately."
Several people immediately started talking at once.
Were you okay?
Did you get hurt?
Had you lost anything?
You suddenly regretted saying anything.
One of the nurses pointed toward a chair. "Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"Sit."
"I'm literally helping."
"You are literally homeless."
Johnny snorts at that, and you give him a glare. He looks away right after, lips still quirking up.
Eventually, the nurses on the clock dispersed, having to do their jobs anyway. You look up at Johnny. “Hey, you.”
He smiled. “Hello to you too.”
“Thanks for driving us here. You should probably go back now, they need you.” You stand up, crossing your arms.
He hums. “Yeah. Good work with the patient. That was some quick action.” He says, his voice soft. “Does he need anything else?”
You shake your head. “Nope, he’s in good hands. I’ll probably stay here, watch over him for a bit. Nothing much I can do anyway.”
Johnny nods. Then, “Do you need anything?”
“Nah, not for now, no. But I appreciate the offer. I’ll see you around then?” You ask, hopeful.
“Of course.” He nods, and starts to leave. He gives you a tiny wave, and you give him one back. You watch as he drives off, and you let out a deep sigh.
“Who was that?” Someone suddenly says beside you—Kathy, another doctor who you were particularly close to.
You startle at the sudden voice. “Christ, Kathy! Stop doing that. He’s no one.”
She wiggles her eyebrows. “Well, this no one is particularly handsome.”
She waits for your reaction. Then, not being able to hold it, your lips quirk up.
“Ha! I knew it! What’s his name?” She holds you by your shoulders.
“Don’t you have work to do?” You scold, but still smiling.
“Ugh! You’re no fun!”
It wasn’t until nearly two hours into the operation that things began to shift from urgent to uncertain.
The fire itself was still active, but contained enough that the chief was finally able to start thinking beyond suppression and toward damage assessment. That was usually the point where the scene stopped feeling like controlled chaos and started feeling like a long, exhausting problem.
Johnny had just finished rotating out a hose line when one of the lieutenants approached him near the apparatus. “Hey,” the man said, lowering his voice slightly. “You’re the one who brought that patient in earlier, right?”
Johnny frowned, wiping soot from his forearm with the back of his glove. “Yeah.”
“There’s been an update on the residents from the fourth floor. Building management just confirmed structural compromise in the eastern units. Water damage, electrical failure—whole section’s going to be offline for a while.”
Johnny’s attention sharpened immediately, though he didn’t fully know why at first.
The lieutenant continued.
“They’re not clearing the building for re-entry. Not today, and probably not for the next week or two. The Red Cross is getting involved for temporary housing.”
That landed differently. “A week or two,” he repeated quietly.
“Best case,” the lieutenant said. “Worst case, longer.”
Johnny nodded once, though his mind had already drifted. Because in his head, that wasn’t a building update anymore.
It was you.
“Hey, uh, mind if I drive back to the hospital for a bit? Just ten, fifteen minutes? I think I forgot something.” Johnny asks.
The lieutenant looked confused at that, but he looked around, then back at Johnny. “Yeah, we’re alright here for now. Just make sure you come back as soon as possible.”
Johnny nods, and he rushes to drive to Manhattan General Hospital.
By the time he reached you, you were speaking with a patient, your backpack now sitting on the ground beside your feet. You looked tired in a way you hadn’t earlier. Less sharp, more human around the edges, but still very much upright.
When you noticed him approaching, your expression shifted slightly. You frowned. “What are you doing back here? Does anyone else need help?” you said.
“No, no, everyone’s okay for now.” He reassures you. “I just… um…”
There was a pause, brief but loaded with everything neither of you had said since the fire started.
Johnny glanced toward the patient, then back at you. “Mind if I talk to you in private for a second?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” You respond, giving the patient a brief goodbye before walking to a more secluded area of the room.
“They’re saying you might not be able to go back in for a while,” he starts.
You exhaled slowly, like you already knew where this was going. “Yeah, I figured.”
“And you’ve got somewhere to stay?” It came out more direct than he intended.
You blinked at him, then gave a small, humorless laugh. “Not really. I’ve got… a backpack and a very strong desire for this to be temporary.”
That should have made it lighter.
It didn’t.
Johnny looked away for a second, jaw tightening as he considered the situation in a way that had nothing to do with firefighting. “You can stay at mine,” he said.
The words came out clean. Immediate, and absolutely no hesitation. Like he’d already decided without telling himself.
You stared at him. “…What?”
“My place,” he repeated, more carefully this time, as if that would make it less insane. “It’s close to the hospital. You’ve got work, and I’ve got a couch. Spare room, technically, but I’ve never used it for anything other than storage.”
That last part sounded like an attempt at credibility. It didn’t help much.
“You don’t have to do that,” you said slowly.
“I know.”
Another pause. Around you, the scene kept moving, but between the two of you, everything had narrowed.
Johnny shifted his weight slightly, suddenly aware of how this sounded and unable to find a version of it that didn’t sound like too much.
“It’s not… I’m not—” he started, then stopped, clearly frustrated with his own sentence. “You don’t have anywhere else right now. And I’m not letting you sleep in a hotel alone for two weeks after your building burned down.”
You studied him for a moment, weighing your options. There was no teasing grin. No easy confidence. No hint that he was offering because he felt obligated or because he thought it was the right thing to do.
He looked genuinely concerned for you. And somehow, that made this infinitely more dangerous.
Your chest tightened unexpectedly. You'd spent months convincing yourself that whatever existed between the two of you was harmless. Nothing either of you would ever act on.
Then your expression softened just slightly.
“You realize this is a terrible idea. We might not be compatible living with each other and you might hate me forever,” you said, with a smile threatening to form on your face.
Johnny gave a short exhale that might have been a laugh. “Yeah.”
“And you’re still offering.”
“Yeah.” His gaze held yours for a second longer than necessary.
Then, almost reluctantly, you nodded. “Okay,” you said softly. “Just for a little while.”
For the briefest moment, something flickered across Johnny's face. Relief.
Maybe even happiness.
It disappeared almost immediately, replaced by an expression that was far more casual than you suspected he actually felt. Inside, he was far from casual. Neither of you could quite ignore the way your pulse had suddenly become much harder to explain.
Okay, holy shit, this is real. She’s moving into my place—we don’t even know each other that well yet. Maybe this was a bad idea? No, no, it’s not. I get to spend time with her! This is amazing. We’ll get to know each other, and—
“Johnny?” You ask, confused by his sudden blank stare.
“Huh?” He snapped out of his trance. “Yes?”
“You okay?” You furrow your brows in concern.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.” Johnny nods reassuringly, and he holds a hand out to you. “Do you have your phone? Mine’s somewhere in the car. I can text you details, and we’ll talk about it.” He shrugs, offering.
You reach into your bag and hand it over to him. He types his number in your phone, and texts himself something silly. He gives it back to you, smiling.
“I, uh… I look forward to it.” You say, and you internally cringe. Look forward to it? What is this, a date?
He smiles sheepishly, exhaling. “Yeah, yeah, me too. I’ll see you later then.”
You nod. “Mhm. Get back safely.”
You both pretty much worked it out seamlessly. There was a list of instructions, a rough time estimate, and a shared understanding that neither of you needed to overcomplicate what was already complicated enough. Johnny told you his address. You told him how long it would take you to get what you needed. Neither of you questioned the arrangement again.
It should have felt strange. But it didn’t, not in the way either of you expected.
When you finally left the apartment building, it was with a small list of essentials and a tired sense of detachment that came from functioning too long on instinct alone. You moved quickly through the familiar process of retrieving what you could, like medications and toiletries, half of your wardrobe, your laptop, and your work bag that you had apparently left half-open on your counter in your rush to leave that morning.
The apartment itself looked almost unchanged at first glance.
But the smell had already begun to creep in through the hallway, faint but unmistakable, and the sound of distant movement from below reminded you that whatever normal had existed here earlier in the day was no longer available to you.
When you came back down, Johnny was already there.
He had changed out of some of his gear, and he looks… different, this way. You can’t really pin point on what, but one thing’s for sure, he looks equally as handsome as when you saw him for the first time. Or maybe even more handsome, you dare to think.
“You got everything you needed?” he asked.
“Yeah,” you said. “Enough.”
That seemed to be sufficient.
He held out his hand, and you looked at him confused.
“Your bag.” He says. Ever the gentleman.
“Oh. You sure?” You ask.
He rolls his eyes, smiling, hand still out. “Yes, I’m sure. Just give it to me.”
You eventually hand it over to him, and he carries it like nothing. Damn firefighters.
The drive to his place was quieter than the earlier trip to the hospital, but not uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that came from two people who were both still mentally catching up to what had already happened.
Occasionally, Johnny would glance at you, as if checking something he could not quite articulate. Each time, you caught it once or twice before he looked away again.
Neither of you commented on it.
By the time he parked, the sun had shifted lower in the sky, and the events of the day felt both recent and strangely distant.
Johnny got out first, walked around the car, and opened your door before you could reach for it yourself.
You looked up at it, then back at him. The building definitely had some questionable design choices.
“Wow.”
Johnny immediately narrowed his eyes. “That sounded sarcastic.”
“It wasn't.”
“It absolutely was.”
“I said one word.”
Johnny pointed toward the building. “For the record, it's a perfectly respectable apartment.”
“Mhm.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“That tone.”
“I don't have a tone.”
“You do.”
“I just got displaced by a fire, Johnny. Maybe I'm emotionally fragile.”
“Convenient excuse.”
You laughed despite yourself, shaking your head. “Okay, fine. It's nice.”
His expression brightened immediately. Then, he added, “You can crash here as long as you need.”
As long as you need.
Not forever, not anything bigger than it had to be.
Just enough room for what this was.
The first hour in Johnny’s apartment passed in a blur of half-unpacking and quiet reassessment.
The building itself was nicer than you had expected.
Not extravagant, but comfortable. The lobby had actual plants that somehow looked alive, and the elevator didn't make any concerning noises on the way up, which already put it ahead of several apartment buildings you'd lived in.
When Johnny unlocked the door and stepped aside to let you in first, you hesitated for a moment before crossing the threshold. You weren't entirely sure what you had expected.
It was cleaner than you had expected.
Not spotless, exactly, but lived-in in a way that suggested someone who functioned on practicality more than decoration. A couch that had clearly been used for naps rather than guests, then to your right, a stack of mail that had been pushed into a corner rather than ignored completely. And when you walked further inside, there was a kitchen that looked like it had been designed for survival rather than enjoyment.
Your eyes drifted around the room.
There were framed photos on a shelf, a few trophies tucked away near a bookcase. Then, a blanket thrown haphazardly over one arm of the couch that looked suspiciously well-loved. You smiled at the sight.
It felt like him.
Comfortable, slightly disorganized, and somehow welcoming despite making absolutely no effort to be.
Johnny hovered awkwardly near the doorway while you looked around.
"So?" he asked.
You glanced back at him.
"So what?"
"So, is it terrible?"
You stared. "Johnny."
"What?"
"You live in a building with functioning elevators."
"That's not an answer."
“It's already nicer than my apartment."
His expression brightened immediately. "Really?"
"No."
The smile vanished.
You laughed.
The offended look he gave you was immediate. "Wow."
"I'm kidding."
"You sounded sincere." He scoffs. “Maybe I should take a look at your apartment and judge for myself.”
You smile at that. “Hmm, maybe. Once all this blows over. I’ll give you a tour.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You shrugged and continued your inspection.
The living room flowed into the kitchen, which contained exactly what you expected from a man who worked long shifts and survived primarily on convenience.
You opened one cabinet.
Instant noodles.
Another.
Protein bars.
A third.
Oh. More protein bars! And protein… powder?
You slowly turned toward him.
Johnny immediately pointed a finger. "Don't judge me."
"I opened three cabinets."
"Yes."
"And two of them are protein bars."
"They were on sale."
"Johnny."
"They were really on sale."
You shook your head, laughing. “If I get scurvy while living here, I'm suing you."
"That's not how scurvy works."
"You don't know that."
"I absolutely know that."
The conversation dissolved into quiet laughter, and some of the tension you'd both been carrying since the fire eased just slightly.
Johnny gave you space without making a point of it. He showed you where things were, like the bathroom, the spare room, the thermostat that he clearly had opinions about, and then drifted back toward the kitchen as if trying not to hover.
“You can take the room,” he said at one point, nodding toward a door down the hallway. “It’s not much, but the bed’s clean. I changed the sheets last month.”
“Last month,” you repeated.
He shrugged. “It’s usually just storage.”
That explained the slightly chaotic pile of boxes in the corner of the room when you stepped inside. Nothing urgent. Just things that didn’t belong anywhere else yet.
You set your bag down carefully, suddenly aware of how little of your life you had managed to carry with you. Clothes, a few essentials. A version of yourself reduced to what could fit in an emergency evacuation.
You were halfway through walking out of the room when your body betrayed you slightly.
It wasn’t dramatic, just a subtle shift in balance, a delayed reaction catching up with everything you had been running on since the alarm went off that morning. The exhaustion hit you all at once, like your system had finally decided it was done compensating.
Your hand reached for the doorframe without you fully registering it.
Johnny noticed immediately.
He moved before you could properly correct yourself, one hand coming up instinctively to steady your arm.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
You blinked, briefly disoriented. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
The contact should have been nothing. Brief, practical. Something that happened between people all the time without meaning anything beyond balance and physics.
But he didn’t let go right away.
Not immediately.
His grip was careful, steady in a way that felt more intentional than necessary, like he was making sure you were actually grounded before he trusted you to stand on your own again.
You became very aware of the fact that he was close. Close enough that the heat from him cut through the tired chill that had settled into your bones.
“I’ve got you,” he said after a beat, like it had come out automatically.
You looked up at him then.
His expression had shifted. Less distracted now, less caught between places. Focused in a way that wasn’t about the fire anymore.
Just you.
“I’m okay,” you said again, softer this time.
He nodded once, but didn’t immediately move away. For a second, neither of you did. Holding you felt… natural, like there was no question behind it.
Then, as if realizing it at the same time you did, Johnny slowly released your arm.
“Right,” he said, clearing his throat slightly. “Sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I know,” he replied, giving you a small smile.
You hesitated, then glanced toward the room again. “I think I’m just going to—”
“Yeah,” he said immediately. Then, after a pause, softer: “Go rest.”
You nodded. This time when you stepped away, nothing stopped you.
But as you closed the door behind you, you could still feel the place where his hand had been on your arm, like your body had bothered to remember it longer than your mind had intended to.
additional notes: anddd that's it for chapter one folks! i had a fun time writing this au. chapter two definitely has more romantic/domestic moments, so stay tuned for it! it might be released sometime this week? i'm a bit busy at the moment, but i do enjoy writing these to kind of wind down in between.
also, please comment if you'd like to be tagged in the next one!
the three times johnny storm got rejected and the one time he didn't
The first time Johnny Storm asked you out, you had been working at the Baxter Building for exactly twenty-three days.
Not that Johnny knew that.
Or cared.
The exact number only mattered because Ben had started counting.
Apparently there was a betting pool now.
You discovered this later.
Much later.
After Johnny had already become the single greatest inconvenience in your professional life.
The afternoon itself had started normally enough.
The main laboratory was alive with its usual rhythm — the low hum of machinery, holographic displays casting blue light across the walls, Reed muttering equations under his breath while completely ignoring the sandwich sitting untouched beside him.
You occupied one of the workstations near the center of the room, reviewing data collected from a recent space survey. Several holograms floated above the desk in front of you, columns of numbers shifting as you reorganized them.
The work was tedious.
Which was exactly why you liked it.
Nobody bothered you when you were working.
Well...
Almost nobody.
You had become so focused that you failed to notice Johnny enter the lab.
A mistake.
A terrible mistake.
Because Johnny Storm had the uncanny ability to detect when he was being ignored.
You became aware of him only when a shadow fell across your desk.
Then came the smell of smoke.
Not actual smoke.
Just warmth.
Like standing too close to a fireplace.
You didn't bother looking up.
"Hello, Johnny."
There was a pause.
A surprised one.
"You knew it was me?"
You continued typing.
"Nobody else announces their arrival like a burnt marshmallow."
From somewhere across the room, Ben barked out a laugh.
Johnny ignored him.
You could practically hear the grin stretching across his face.
"That was funny."
"It wasn't a joke."
"It was a little funny."
"No."
"See, that's your problem."
"My problem?"
"You're denying yourself joy."
Finally, you looked up.
Johnny was leaning against the edge of your workstation, arms crossed over his chest.
And unfortunately—
Very unfortunately—
He looked good.
Everybody knew Johnny looked good.
It wasn't exactly breaking news.
The problem was that he knew it too.
The confidence practically radiated off him.
The easy smile.
The bright eyes.
The infuriating certainty that the world belonged to him.
You had met men like him before.
Men who thought charm could unlock any door.
Men who believed persistence was romantic.
Men who expected eventual success.
Johnny Storm simply happened to be the most attractive version of that problem.
You looked back down at your screen.
The conversation was over as far as you were concerned.
Unfortunately, Johnny disagreed.
"So."
You sighed.
"So?"
"So."
His grin widened.
"Wanna get dinner with me?"
The laboratory fell silent.
Not immediately.
Not dramatically.
But one by one, the conversations died.
You noticed Sue stop walking.
Ben stopped pretending to work altogether.
Even Reed glanced away from the monitor in front of him.
Waiting.
For what?
You had no idea.
The answer was obvious.
You looked up at Johnny.
At the confidence in his expression.
At the certainty.
The expectation.
Then you smiled politely.
"No."
Silence.
Johnny blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Like his brain needed an extra moment to process the information.
"...No?"
"No."
"Just no?"
You nodded.
"That's usually how no works."
Ben immediately doubled over laughing.
The sound echoed through the entire laboratory.
Johnny pointed at him without taking his eyes off you.
"Stay out of this."
"I literally can't," Ben wheezed. "This is the funniest thing I've seen all week."
Johnny looked genuinely offended.
Which somehow made the situation even funnier.
You gathered a few files from your desk and stood.
The conversation had reached its natural conclusion.
At least for you.
Johnny, however, looked like a man experiencing a minor existential crisis.
"You didn't even think about it."
"I did."
"For how long?"
You considered it.
"A second."
"A second?"
"A generous estimate."
This time Sue laughed.
Actually laughed.
Johnny turned toward her.
"Sue."
She raised both hands immediately.
"I'm not helping you."
"You could've helped me."
"You asked her out before learning her middle name."
"I know her middle name."
"No, you don't."
Johnny opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
You smiled.
Sweetly.
Professionally.
The exact smile that had terrified investors, government officials, and one NASA director.
Then you walked away.
Leaving Johnny standing in the middle of the laboratory.
Staring after you.
For the first time in a very long time—
Completely speechless.
The second time Johnny Storm asked you out, he had a plan.
Now, in Johnny's defense, this was already more effort than he usually put into anything.
Johnny Storm was many things.
Confident.
Impulsive.
Charming.
Occasionally heroic.
Frequently annoying.
Planning ahead, however, was not one of his stronger qualities.
Which was precisely why Sue became suspicious the moment she saw him ironing a shirt.
Not wearing one.
Ironing one.
Actually ironing one.
With concentration.
Like a man preparing for war.
"Johnny."
He looked up.
"What?"
Sue stared.
Then pointed at the iron.
"What is that?"
Johnny frowned.
"...An iron?"
"No. I know what it is."
"Then why'd you ask?"
Sue narrowed her eyes.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it.
"Why are you using it?"
The answer came immediately.
Too immediately.
"No reason."
"Oh, God."
Johnny groaned.
"Can you stop acting like I'm planning a crime?"
"You only iron shirts when you're planning a crime."
"I do not."
"Johnny."
"I don't."
"Last time you ironed a shirt you tried to race a fighter jet."
"That was one time."
"Johnny."
"Two times."
Sue sighed.
Deeply.
The kind of sigh that only came from being related to Johnny Storm.
Then she noticed the shirt.
Black.
The nice black one.
The one he only wore when he was trying to impress somebody.
And suddenly everything made sense.
"Oh."
Johnny immediately knew.
"Don't."
"Oh, my God."
"Don't."
"You're asking her out again."
"I wasn't hiding it."
"You ironed a shirt."
"That's not hiding it."
"That's announcing it."
Johnny pointed accusingly.
"You're supposed to support me."
Sue laughed so hard she had to sit down.
The annual Future Foundation charity gala occupied three entire floors of a Manhattan hotel.
Scientists.
Investors.
Politicians.
Reporters.
The usual crowd.
The sort of event Reed attended because he had to.
The sort of event Sue attended because she was good at it.
The sort of event Ben attended because there was free food.
And the sort of event Johnny attended because cameras existed.
By the time the evening officially began, the ballroom glittered with crystal chandeliers and designer gowns.
Music drifted through the room.
Champagne flowed freely.
People laughed.
Networked.
Discussed science and funding and the future of humanity.
Johnny spent exactly thirty-seven minutes pretending to listen before his attention wandered.
Not intentionally.
It just happened.
Because then he saw you.
And every coherent thought immediately left his body.
Across the room, you stood beside a group of researchers from MIT.
One hand wrapped around a champagne glass.
The other gesturing as you spoke.
The soft gold lighting caught the side of your face.
Your dress wasn't even particularly flashy.
It wasn't the most expensive gown in the room.
Or the most dramatic.
Or the most attention-grabbing.
Yet somehow—
Johnny couldn't look away.
It annoyed him.
Deeply.
Because this kept happening.
Every time.
He'd see you.
And suddenly nothing else felt nearly as interesting.
"Uh oh."
Johnny didn't even have to turn around.
Ben.
Obviously.
"What?"
"The look."
Johnny frowned.
"What look?"
"The one where you forget how blinking works."
Johnny finally turned.
Ben was eating shrimp.
A concerning amount of shrimp.
"You sound obsessed."
Ben nearly choked.
"ME?"
"You."
"Brother."
Ben pointed his shrimp at him.
"You've been staring at that poor girl for five straight minutes."
Johnny rolled his eyes.
Then looked back across the room.
You were laughing now.
Something one of the researchers had said.
The sound didn't reach him through the crowd.
But he could see it.
The smile.
The way your shoulders relaxed.
The way your head tilted back slightly.
And suddenly—
The ballroom seemed a little brighter.
A little warmer.
A little easier to breathe in.
Johnny froze.
"...oh."
Ben saw the realization happen in real time.
"Oh, no."
"What?"
"You got it bad."
Johnny immediately scoffed.
"I do not."
"Johnny."
"I don't."
"You ironed a shirt."
"STOP BRINGING UP THE SHIRT."
The problem with you was that you never made anything easy.
If you had disliked him, this would've been simple.
If you'd been rude, dismissive, cruel—
Simple.
Easy.
Understandable.
Instead, you were always nice.
Warm.
Funny.
Patient.
You smiled when he talked.
You laughed at some of his jokes.
You remembered things he told you.
You cared when he got hurt on missions.
You checked in after long nights.
You brought him coffee when he forgot to sleep.
And somehow—
Somehow—
You still wouldn't go out with him.
It was maddening.
Completely maddening.
Because Johnny knew when someone disliked him.
You didn't.
Which meant the issue wasn't him.
At least...
Probably not.
Hopefully not.
Maybe.
Actually he wasn't sure anymore.
Which was somehow worse.
He found you nearly an hour later standing near one of the balconies overlooking Manhattan.
The city stretched endlessly beyond the glass.
Thousands of lights scattered across the darkness.
The skyline glowing against the night.
For a moment he just watched you.
Not in a creepy way.
Probably.
Okay.
Maybe slightly.
But in his defense, you looked beautiful.
The kind of beautiful that made people stop mid-sentence.
The kind of beautiful that made entire rooms feel quieter.
The kind of beautiful Johnny was rapidly discovering could be extremely dangerous to his health.
You sensed him before he spoke.
Without turning around, you lifted your champagne glass.
"Hello, Storm."
Johnny grinned.
There it was.
Storm.
Always Storm.
Never Johnny.
Never anything softer.
Just Storm.
Like he was some persistent weather condition.
"You knew it'd be me."
"I heard the ego approaching."
Johnny pressed a hand over his heart.
"Wounded."
"You'll survive."
"I might not."
You finally looked at him.
Amusement flickering behind your eyes.
And there it was again.
That feeling.
That awful, wonderful feeling.
The one that had become increasingly difficult to ignore.
Johnny leaned against the railing.
Trying very hard to appear casual.
Trying very hard to ignore the fact that his pulse had suddenly sped up.
"Dinner."
Your eyes narrowed immediately.
"No."
"I haven't even finished the sentence."
"You don't need to."
"Come on."
"No."
"One date."
"No."
"One drink."
"No."
"Coffee."
"No."
Johnny stared.
The smile on your face grew.
Tiny.
Barely visible.
But definitely there.
And suddenly he realized something.
You were enjoying this.
Not the asking.
The teasing.
The back and forth.
The challenge.
The fact that Johnny Storm kept trying.
The realization made him grin.
"You think this is funny."
"A little."
"A little?"
"A moderate amount."
Johnny laughed.
Actually laughed.
Because somehow that answer felt exactly like you.
Then he looked at you.
Really looked.
The city lights reflecting in your eyes.
The breeze catching your hair.
The amused expression you'd never show reporters.
And before he could stop himself—
Before his brain could catch up—
He asked quietly,
"Why not?"
For the first time that evening, you paused.
Not because you were considering it.
He could tell you weren't.
But because the question surprised you.
Johnny wasn't usually serious.
Not with this.
Not with you.
For a second, neither of you spoke.
Then your smile softened.
Just slightly.
Enough that he almost missed it.
"Because you're asking."
Johnny groaned immediately.
"Oh, that's evil."
A laugh escaped you.
Warm.
Genuine.
The kind he rarely got to hear.
And somehow—
Somehow—
It felt worth the rejection.
Which was probably the most concerning part of all.
Because as you turned and started walking back toward the ballroom, Johnny found himself watching you leave.
Again.
Not upset.
Not discouraged.
Not frustrated.
Just...
Wanting to follow.
And that realization hit him like a freight train.
Because somewhere between the first rejection and the second—
This had stopped being a game.
And Johnny Storm, much to his horror, was starting to think he might actually like you. REALLY like you. Which was a disaster.
An absolute, five-alarm, Baxter-Building-level disaster.
The third time Johnny Storm asked you out, he made the mistake of believing he was making progress.
In his defense, there was evidence.
Actual evidence.
Not much.
But enough.
You laughed at his jokes more often now.
Not all of them.
That would have been ridiculous.
But enough that Johnny started keeping track.
You no longer immediately walked away whenever he approached.
You voluntarily sat next to him during meetings.
Once, you had even fallen asleep in the common room with your head resting against his shoulder after a thirty-hour work session.
Granted, you'd been unconscious.
And yes, Ben still brought it up every chance he got.
But still.
The point stood.
Progress.
Tiny.
Microscopic.
Embarrassingly insignificant progress.
But progress nonetheless.
Which was how Johnny found himself wandering into the lab at two in the morning feeling oddly optimistic.
The Baxter Building was quiet.
For once.
Most of Manhattan slept beyond the massive windows.
The city lights glittered against the darkness while the lab itself remained illuminated by computer screens and floating holograms.
Reed had finally been forced to go home by Sue.
Ben had disappeared hours ago.
Even H.E.R.B.I.E. seemed quieter than usual.
The only person still awake besides Johnny was you.
Of course.
Because apparently sleep was optional for scientists.
You sat alone at one of the workstations, knees tucked beneath you in your chair while several files floated across a holographic display.
A half-finished cup of coffee sat forgotten beside your laptop.
You looked exhausted.
Your hair wasn't done.
Your glasses had slipped down your nose.
One sleeve of your sweater covered most of your hand.
And somehow—
Somehow—
Johnny thought you looked prettier than every supermodel he'd ever met.
It was honestly becoming a problem.
A serious one.
A medical condition, probably.
"You know."
Your voice broke through the silence before he'd even spoken.
Johnny smiled immediately.
"You know what?"
Without looking up from your screen, you replied,
"If you're standing there staring at me, you could at least say hello."
Busted.
Johnny walked further into the room.
"I wasn't staring."
You finally glanced up.
The look on your face said liar.
"No?"
"No."
"You've been standing there for at least thirty seconds."
Johnny dropped into the chair across from you.
"Okay, maybe a little."
"A little."
"A moderate amount."
That earned him a laugh.
A real one.
Not polite.
Not professional.
A genuine laugh.
And suddenly Johnny felt absurdly pleased with himself.
Which was dangerous.
Because whenever Johnny Storm felt confident, terrible things usually happened.
Like now.
You returned your attention to the files in front of you.
The room settled into comfortable silence.
Comfortable.
The word itself surprised Johnny.
A year ago, silence would've driven him insane.
Now?
Now he didn't mind it.
Not with you.
He watched the glow of holograms reflect against your face.
The way you absentmindedly tapped your fingers against the desk while reading.
The little crease between your eyebrows whenever something annoyed you.
The tiny details he'd somehow memorized without realizing.
The realization should have terrified him.
Instead—
"Hey."
You didn't look up.
"Mhm?"
Johnny grinned.
"Wanna go out with me?"
The answer came instantly.
"No."
Johnny groaned.
"You didn't even think about it."
"I did."
"For how long?"
"Long enough."
"You're impossible."
This time you looked up.
The corners of your mouth twitching.
Amusement dancing in your eyes.
And suddenly Johnny had a horrible feeling.
The kind that only appeared right before disaster.
You were planning something.
He could tell.
You leaned back slightly in your chair.
Studying him.
Far too innocent.
Far too calm.
Dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
Johnny narrowed his eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
You smiled.
Slowly.
"Oh, nothing."
That smile.
That smile had never meant anything good.
Johnny pointed at you.
"See? That's exactly the smile."
"What smile?"
"The one that means you're about to emotionally damage me."
Your laugh echoed through the quiet laboratory.
And for one brief, beautiful moment, Johnny forgot he was supposed to be suspicious.
A fatal mistake.
Because then you spoke.
Casually.
Like you weren't about to commit a crime.
"I don't date blondes."
The silence that followed was immediate.
Complete.
Johnny blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
"...what?"
You looked completely serious.
Terrifyingly serious.
"I don't date blondes."
Johnny stared.
Then stared harder.
Then looked around the room as if waiting for somebody to jump out and explain the joke.
Nobody appeared.
Because there was nobody else there.
Just you.
Trying very hard not to laugh.
And him.
Experiencing psychological warfare.
"I'm sorry."
Johnny held up a hand.
"No."
He pointed at his hair.
"My hair?"
You nodded.
"Your hair."
"My hair is the problem."
"Unfortunately."
Johnny sat there.
Speechless.
Actually speechless.
Which almost never happened.
Then he leaned forward.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like he was handling unstable explosives.
"Your reason."
"Mhm."
"For rejecting me."
"Mhm."
"Is because I'm blond."
"Correct."
Johnny stared.
You stared back.
Neither of you moving.
Neither of you blinking.
And then—
The tiniest smile appeared.
Right at the corner of your mouth.
Johnny immediately pointed.
"THERE."
You burst out laughing.
Immediately.
Completely.
The sound filled the laboratory.
And suddenly Johnny understood.
"Oh, you're evil."
Your shoulders shook.
"You should hear yourself."
"You rejected me because of my hair."
"It was funny."
"It wasn't funny."
"It was a little funny."
"It was deeply hurtful."
That only made you laugh harder.
Johnny slumped back in his chair.
Hand over his heart.
Absolutely devastated.
Or pretending to be.
Mostly pretending.
Maybe.
The problem was—
The problem was that he couldn't even be upset.
Because you were laughing.
Really laughing.
The kind that made your eyes crinkle.
The kind that made your entire face light up.
And God help him—
Johnny would probably let you reject him a hundred more times if it meant seeing that look again.
The realization hit hard.
Hard enough that for a moment he forgot to joke.
Forgot to flirt.
Forgot to play the part everyone expected from Johnny Storm.
Instead, he just watched you.
Quietly.
And something shifted.
Small.
Almost imperceptible.
But real.
Because suddenly it wasn't about winning anymore.
It wasn't about proving he could get a date.
It wasn't about the challenge.
The chase.
The game.
It was you.
Just you.
Sitting across from him at two in the morning.
Laughing at your own terrible joke.
Looking happier than you'd looked all week.
And for the first time, Johnny realized he would be perfectly happy sitting here forever.
Not because he thought you'd eventually say yes.
Not because he expected anything in return.
But because he liked being around you.
Way more than he probably should.
Way more than was safe.
Way more than a man was supposed to like someone who had just rejected him because he was blond.
A beat passed.
Then another.
Eventually, your laughter faded.
The room settling once more.
And before either of you could say anything—
The lab doors slid open.
Ben walked in carrying three sandwiches.
Took one look at Johnny.
One look at you.
And immediately knew.
"Oh, she rejected you again."
Johnny sighed.
Deeply.
Painfully.
"Because I'm blond."
Ben stopped walking.
"...what?"
"Because I'm blond."
The silence lasted exactly two seconds.
Then Ben doubled over.
The sandwiches hit the floor.
And his laughter echoed through the entire Baxter Building.
Johnny seriously considered setting something on fire. Probably Ben.
You rolled your eyes, still smiling as you reached for your laptop.
"You're both ridiculous."
"She says after rejecting me because of my hair."
"Which was funny."
"It wasn't."
"It absolutely was."
Ben nearly dropped another sandwich laughing.
You ignored both of them.
With the ease of someone who had spent far too much time around the Fantastic Four, you began shutting down the holograms floating above your workstation. One by one, the glowing screens disappeared until the laboratory finally returned to its usual dim lighting.
The clock in the corner of the room read 3:07 a.m.
A fact that suddenly made your entire body feel exhausted.
You closed your laptop.
Gathered your notes.
Finished the last sip of your coffee.
Then stood.
Johnny immediately frowned.
"Where are you going?"
You blinked.
"...Home?"
"It's three in the morning."
"Exactly."
"You can't just leave at three in the morning."
You stared at him.
Johnny stared right back.
As if this was a completely reasonable concern.
As if he hadn't personally watched you leave the building at worse hours.
"Johnny."
"What?"
"I have to be back here at nine."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
Johnny stood up.
Looking genuinely offended.
Like the answer should've been obvious.
"I can't let a lady go outside by herself at three in the morning."
The silence that followed lasted exactly two seconds.
Then your expression changed.
Not amused.
Not teasing.
Just...
Confused.
"Outside?"
"Yeah."
"Johnny."
"What?"
You adjusted the strap of your bag.
Still staring at him.
"I'm not leaving the building."
He blinked.
"What?"
"Sue gave me one of the guest rooms."
Another blink.
"...What?"
You pointed vaguely toward the elevators.
"Two floors down."
The realization hit him all at once.
The room.
The guest room.
The one Sue had offered months ago after one too many late nights.
The one literally inside the Baxter Building.
The one Johnny somehow forgot existed.
"Oh."
You smiled.
Sweetly.
Far too sweetly.
"Goodnight, Storm."
Then you turned.
Walked toward the door.
And left.
Just like that.
The laboratory doors slid shut behind you.
Silence.
Johnny stood there.
Motionless.
Staring at the empty doorway.
Ben watched him for a moment.
Then another.
Then—
"...You forgot she lives here."
Johnny pointed aggressively toward the elevator.
"She doesn't live here."
"Close enough."
"Not helping."
Ben snorted.
Johnny dragged a hand down his face.
Then sighed.
Long.
Deep.
Dramatic.
The sigh of a man experiencing true suffering.
Finally, he muttered,
"I'll dye it."
Ben frowned.
"What?"
Johnny looked completely serious.
"If that's the problem, I'll dye it."
For a second, Ben simply stared at him.
Trying to determine whether this was a joke.
Unfortunately—
It wasn't.
Johnny was genuinely considering it.
"You cannot be serious."
"I am."
"Johnny."
"I am."
"Johnny."
"I'll go brunette."
Ben folded in half.
Actually folded.
The laughter that erupted from him was so violent he had to grab the nearest desk for support.
Tears immediately sprang to his eyes.
"Oh my God."
Johnny looked offended.
"What?"
"You've got it BAD."
"I do not."
"YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT CHANGING YOUR HAIR."
"It's called commitment."
"It's called being down catastrophic."
Johnny opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
And unfortunately for him, he couldn't come up with a single argument.
Because somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice was already wondering whether he'd look good as a brunette.
By the time Johnny Storm asked you out for what would eventually be the successful attempt, he had completely given up on succeeding.
Not in a depressing way.
Not in a woe is me, nobody loves me way.
Just...
Realistically.
The same way a man stops expecting to win the lottery.
Or stops expecting Reed to remember where he left his keys.
Or stops expecting Ben to stop bringing up the blonde incident.
Some things simply weren't going to happen.
And apparently one of those things was you agreeing to go on a date with him.
So Johnny adjusted.
Mostly.
Kind of.
Not really.
The flirting never stopped.
That was impossible.
Breathing was less natural to Johnny Storm than flirting with you.
But somewhere along the way, the asking had changed.
It wasn't a challenge anymore.
Wasn't a game.
Wasn't even hope, really.
It had become routine.
Comfortable.
A running joke that belonged solely to the two of you.
A question.
A rejection.
A laugh.
Then life continued.
Simple.
Predictable.
Safe.
Which was exactly why it hit him like a truck.
The afternoon itself had been unremarkable.
The Baxter Building buzzed with its usual energy.
Researchers moving through the halls.
H.E.R.B.I.E. rolling around somewhere in the distance.
Reed locked inside a laboratory with three whiteboards and no awareness of time.
Normal.
Completely normal.
Johnny found you exactly where he expected.
At your desk.
Surrounded by files.
Halfway through organizing an absurd amount of research data because apparently nobody else in the building knew how to label things correctly.
Sunlight poured through the enormous windows.
Golden and warm.
Painting the laboratory in shades of amber.
You sat with your sleeves pushed up and your hair pulled back, entirely focused on your work.
Johnny smiled before he even realized he was doing it.
The sight had become familiar.
Comforting.
Like coming home.
Which was—
Nope.
Not thinking about that.
Absolutely not.
He dropped into the chair beside your desk.
You didn't look up immediately.
Just hummed in acknowledgment.
The sound alone somehow made him grin wider.
"Hey."
"Mhm."
"Wanna go out with me Friday?"
There it was.
The usual question.
The routine.
The joke.
Johnny reached for a pen on your desk while waiting for the inevitable rejection.
Maybe you'd say no because he was blonde again.
Maybe you'd tell him he talked too much.
Maybe you'd invent another ridiculous excuse.
Honestly, he was looking forward to hearing it.
Then—
"Okay."
Johnny grabbed the pen.
Then froze.
The room suddenly felt very quiet.
Very.
Very quiet.
Slowly, he blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Surely he had imagined that.
Because there was no way—
No possible way—
He looked up.
You were still sorting files.
Calm.
Composed.
Entirely unbothered.
Like you hadn't just detonated a bomb inside his ribcage.
"...What?"
You slid another folder into place.
"Friday works."
Johnny stared.
The pen slipped from his fingers.
Hit the floor.
Neither of you moved.
For one horrifying second, Johnny became convinced he was hallucinating.
Maybe Reed had accidentally released toxic fumes.
Maybe he'd finally lost his mind.
Maybe Ben had hit him with a truck.
Any explanation seemed more likely than what had just happened.
"You..."
His voice cracked.
Actually cracked.
Mortifying.
"You said yes."
You finally looked up.
And there it was.
A smile.
Not the polite one.
Not the professional one.
Not the one you gave reporters or investors or strangers.
summary: as the world approaches its end, so do your well-kept secret feelings for johnny storm
warnings: none.
word count: 3.0k
now listening... jonny by faye webster
Planet Earth just as we knew it was about to be eaten.
The end of the world, that little unfortunate event fiction had fantasized about millions of times was now a reality, or at least, part of it. It was a possibility. Something bound to happen. According to the Fantastic Four’s testimony, the most objectively accurate way to relate the end of the world was a godlike cosmic being making its way through stars, planets, galaxies, nebulas and clusters with the sole purpose of sinking its jaws on the third sphere of the solar system, mixing all known surface into his organism. And then… well, everyone was going to be dead, so it was useless to try to understand what would become of humanity afterwards.
That is, of course, as long as Reed Richard’s plan didn’t work.
As his assistant, you knew his strategy like the back of your hand. Over the past few months, Reed (along with you) had been working on developing a safe and functional way of moving matter across space in nanoseconds, without malformations, without collateral effects. Teleportation, to put it simply. The egg test situation still made you laugh. Six meters between point A and point B had managed to cause a power outage in the entire Baxter Building. So, pouring enough of this energy all around the globe and encasing it within, it could theoretically convey the entire Earth whatever was wished to. It was a good plan. An abnormally clever one, sure. And it was all thanks to Reed.
But if moving an egg six meters had managed to pop a whole building’s breaker open, there was no way to calculate how much energy would require to teleport the planet to some other viable solar system in another viable galaxy. (There was, actually, but it was a number big enough to overwhelm anyone). So, trusting the willingness of the entire population, and through the Future Foundation, the Fantastic Four had agreed on an electrical energy curfew. Everyday, at a certain hour, the undivided humanity resigned their sources and enveloped the world within the darkness of the night. Every power plant was shut off, sending humanity back in time to the old medieval age, when the only light source at night was a good and reliable fire lit candle.
So that was why you were by Johnny’s bedroom door right now.
It was past curfew, lights out, and you had barely managed to rescue a candle from the lab, where you had been working with Reed for the past ten hours nonstop before sneaking away. You swallowed before knocking softly.
No response.
You sighed, and as loudly as you could, you enveloped the knob with your free hand, twisted it and pushed the door open.
For obvious reasons, Johnny Storm had no troubles keeping his surroundings lit up. An absurd amount of candles were scattered all over the room, casting the warm glow onto another absurd amount of paper sheets, scribbled with symbols you couldn’t recognize. He was laying on his sofa, headphones on, facing the window panel that gave him the most perfect view of New York City. Only when you stepped closer was when you noticed his closed eyes and furrowed brow. Deep in thought, Johnny laid there, listening to some tape, and blissfully unaware of the world beyond his body.
Though your motives couldn’t wait.
Over the past weeks of electric energy curfew, Reed had been slicing his brains along with you studying Galactus. In case —just in case— his plan didn’t work, they had to have a plan B (although you were currently developing a plan Y at this point). Reed Richards was methodical like that. Even when a scheme was as solid as a concrete building, he imagined trillions of absurd ways it could go wrong. Over-analyzed every variable. You admired that. That was a part of what made him single-handedly the best scientist in the world. However, his little quirk was also a major cause of his worst panic attacks. You didn’t know how. Maybe it was some kind of marriage induced telepathy, but every time his heart started beating too fast, or his breath quickened too rapidly, Sue chimed into the lab to calm him down. And asked you to leave. Always as politely as only she knew how to be. You didn’t like leaving Reed alone. At this point, he was like a father to you. However, you knew seeing you meant for him nothing but the incessant thought of work.
So tonight, when you saw Sue’s flash of ash-blonde hair by the threshold of the lab, right after Reed had leaned against one of the work stations in plain, deadly silence, you decided to sneak away. Not before grabbing a candle in the way to have some source of light before stopping by Johnny’s room.
He flinched when you swiftly pulled his headphones off. For a second, he thought it was Reed, so his expression mimicked an annoyed scowl. However, when he saw it was you, his face quickly regained softer factions.
“Jesus, you scared me…” he exhaled, sitting up on the couch so as not to seem rude. He looked down at the new, freshly taken out of its package candle in your right hand and a tiny steel tray on your left.
“Sorry.” you scoffed, smiling shyly. “I was wondering if you could…”
Johnny nodded when you brought the candle near him. As if he was snapping his fingers, a single flame rose from the tip of his pointer. He held it close to the wick. It was a matter of a second to light it up. And when it did, you slowly dipped it down to the tray. The candle dripped hot wax, and you pressed the candlestick’s base down to glue it all together.
“Thanks.”
“That all?” he asked, still looking at you.
Your eyes met. For a second, you thought you’d caught a glimpse of disappointment, as if he didn’t want you to leave, until he caught himself and smiled. There it was, his stupid trademark smirk that made everything feel lighter in you.
“Yeah, that’s… that’s all.” you mumbled, trying to return the gesture.
It was when you spun around that you remembered what you were going back to. The lab, a usual safe space to ramble, to study and to experiment next to Reed Richards himself, had become a restricted area. Not only was his panic attack over your studies squeezing down on his chest like a hydraulic press, but now the Silver Woman’s admonitions had started drilling into your brains. The pendular threat of the end of times. Her words.
Hold your loved ones close.
Speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.
So how could you forget your favourite flamehead, who was always there for you? Whom you had managed to establish a well formed friendship over the past three years you had been working at the Baxter Building? He was your loved one. He was the cause of your irrational fear to speak the truthful words you’d been holding back.
“Actually…” you turned around, Johnny was already looking at you from behind the couch’s arm. “... can I… stay here for a while? With you?”
Johnny blinked. You had to resist the urge to bite your lower lip out of nerves. Even after three years of seeing him every day, this was pretty much the first time you were doing something about how you felt. You couldn’t deny the relief you felt when he nodded.
“Sure.” he rolled around his couch to give you some space. His eyes followed you as you sat down next to him. He even took his headphones off completely, and knowing Johnny, you were sure that that was dangerously close to a declaration of love. You turned around to place the tray with the candle on the table next to the couch.
You let your eyes travel shamelessly down his figure. Normally, when you did something along those lines, he would cockily remark something about it. Call you out and try to fluster you. You never folded. You knew of his reputation. You had known about it for ages, even before taking on the job. You had never wanted to be another gal in love with Johnny Storm. Yet here you were. Looking at him in the uncertainty of your lives. And the best part was that he didn’t look in the mood for any of his playful remarks. He looked exhausted, actually. Too tired to keep up with his media persona. The hothead cocky superhero.
Right now, Johnny was only a guy. Looking at you from across the sofa.
“... what’s with Reed anyway?” he asked, trying to kill the silence that was slowly letting his thoughts wander to places he wouldn’t go with a gun. “That’s why you’re here, right? ‘Cause something’s the matter with him.”
“Yeah, something’s the matter with him. He’s going nuts,” you told him, looking down at your hands as if admitting that was shameful. “He’s been over-analyzing the plan. He’s not sure we’ll be able to convey the Earth over a hundred lightyears away.”
“How so?”
“He thinks we’ll need a receptor of the particles at our new settlement,” you explained the particular issue that had been pecking at your heads for the past week. “That means we should travel all the way there, and somehow place the other half of the teleportation device in order to get the Earth safely across space.”
“... and can you do that?”
You blinked. The answer was not fully developed yet. The knot in your throat tightened as you nodded yes hesitantly.
“I think so,” you shrugged. “No, I know so. It’s just… at some point, Reed starts overthinking too many things and he just… loses it. There really is no motive for us to be slicing our brains on that particular variable.”
Johnny exhales a long sigh, not looking away from you. For a second you wonder if he’s pitying you. You didn’t need pity or compassion. The only thing you’re in need of right now is for Reed to get his shit together. The future of the planet is in your hands. Yours and his. Yours and the Fantastic Four’s.
“Sounds like him,” he mutters. His tone is bitter, clearly frustrated with the whole situation. “He can’t ever just… calm down.”
You two were enveloped in silence. The weight of your final destination impending over the both of you. If you listened carefully, you could practically hear Johnny’s brain working inside his skull. And again, the words of the Silver Surfer resonated in your head. You were tired of it. You felt like you were going crazy, just like Reed, just like everyone else. This time, though, it didn’t feel like the usual villain you could beat with a few good striked punches or a clever device.
No, this was much more. This was something else entirely. This time, you felt like dying was in the universe’s plans for you.
The way your expression darkened the longer the quiet stretched out didn’t go unnoticed to him.
“Hey…” Johnny’s voice dragged you out of your thoughts. “... you okay?”
You paused, freezing in your position. You wanted to lie, tell him that you were peachy by yourself. You wanted to tell him not to worry because the fate of the planet was safely tucked and cared for in your hands. You wanted to just say “I can handle it”. But you just couldn’t. Not only because any of those things would have been a complete and absolute lie, but partly because you didn’t think you had the stomach to lie to him. Not on that matter, at least.
You hadn’t noticed you had beckoned closer, or that his hand, as warm as expected, was laying on your knee.
“... I’m just…” you hesitated, looking at your lap. “... I’m scared. Is all.”
Those were the only words that could perfectly describe what you were feeling. You could’ve gone all poetic and describe the suffocating feeling of the chokehold you felt was restricting your ability to breathe. You could’ve said something about the press of your chest. You could’ve explained the weight of the unspoken words the silver woman had called you out on. But you didn’t. You settled on fear. It wasn’t a lie. You were scared like you’d never been before.
“Seeing Reed just… losing it like that. If he’s not confident on what we’re going to do, then… what else is there, Johnny?” you asked, barely getting your words out of your squeezed throat. “It got me thinking, what if we don’t make it? What if… what if we die?”
Saying it gave it importance, it made it real, and it made you feel even worse. You didn’t want to start crying, but you’d be lying if you said the ruminant thoughts about the future weren’t threatening to open the faucets of your eyes.
You felt like your body was moving on its own as you let Johnny’s hands pull back from your knees and cradle your cheeks. So gently, so softly and so warmly. The way you closed your eyes and let yourself feel the tender brush of his thumbs on your skin was involuntary. You shouldn’t be complaining about it, you thought. You were a supporting actor here. They were the heroes. They had all the right to be terrified, not you. You weren’t in any condition to doubt them.
“We’re not gonna die.” Johnny stated, searching for your shining irises, hoping you’d open your eyes and find him longingly looking at your beautiful face. “Hey… look at me. We’re gonna be okay.”
A wave of gratefulness washed over you. He wasn’t dismissing it. You were relieved, but you also knew that beforehand. It was a special kind of relief to confirm it like that. Your face caged between those kind-hearted hands of his. You sighed, forming a sad smile on your face, and opening your eyes back again. The sight of his reassuring expression did nothing more than ease further the press on your chest.
You didn’t hesitate to tilt your head slightly to a side, leaning into his touch.
Hold your loved ones close.
Speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.
“I won’t let you die,” he whispered.
Your heart stubbornly kept beating, even though those words would’ve made anyone fold in their axis. You scoffed. But it was a I’ll-laugh-not-to-cry situation. Either way, listening to that got you chokeholded for a second.
God, how could he be so sure? How could he just ignore everything that was going on? You couldn’t leave an unanswered question lingering in the air like that. You were a scientist for crying out loud. Answering questions was your vocation. It was what you were the best at. Almost.
You reach out and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him into your personal space to hug him. Once you’re safely tucked into the crook of his neck is when you allow yourself to breathe out the burden of your tacit feelings. Then, he imitated you, locking your waist with his toned bronze arms, tugging you even closer. He buried his face into your hair, and you felt the way he nuzzled into it. You could smell the trace of ashes, warm summer afternoons and something undeniably him submerged into his tender skin. Your arms tightened around his neck.
Your lips involuntarily pressed against the thin skin. It was only after you did so that you realized what had just happened. You didn’t know if the shiver you felt was yours or his. You begged for the latter. It was almost an act of reflex when you pulled back from his hold, though you didn’t count for him to do so as well. The sides of your noses brushed against each other's. A particularly steady warmth radiated from Johnny’s copper skin, mixing with the density of his breath. You exhaled quietly.
You started to lean in. Too tense to close your eyes.
And then the door busted open.
“Oh. I’m…”
You let go of each other as if you were burning. Although in some sense, you kinda were. You could distinguish Reed’s tall figure at the threshold beyond Johnny’s sitting body, one foot outside the room and one foot in it. His hand motionless around the doorknob.
“Jesus, don’t you knock?”
“Reed… I was waiting…” you tried saying something.
“No, no. It’s… I was looking for you to tell you that you were free to go home… that… you know, additional variations could wait…”
You nodded, not moving from the sofa you were sitting on.
“... but I assume now that you’re… staying in for dinner?”
“Uh… sure…” You couldn’t bring yourself to care about the answer.
“Great. I… I’ll leave you two, uh… alone.”
And with that, Reed was gone. Leaving the trail of shame and embarrassment behind him. Not only him, but you were praying that the Earth swallowed you too. Johnny turned around, though it wasn’t the same now. The spell was broken. He whined, free-falling into you and resting his forehead on your shoulder. You giggled. Your hand filled with his blonde strokes of hair. The calm beat of your heart of the reincorporated tranquility mingled with his.
“I was so going to kiss you,” he complained.
“I know…” you mumbled, and took your hand out of his hair, silently asking him to back off. “... I should help with dinner.”
“Yeah, okay…” he sighed. “Go save the day.”
You chuckled, rising from the sofa, and just now realising, as you looked down at him, how actually close you were. You felt blood concentrating in your cheeks with the image popping in your mind. But then you turned around, a silly grin in your face, a quick pace in your heartbeat. You even forgot for a second that the world was going to end. The thought was replaced with Johnny’s warm aura encapsulating his hands, his laugh, his beautiful, immersive eyes.
Planet Earth just as we knew it was about to be eaten, but at least, you weren’t facing it alone.
Dick Grayson was a productive man. He was so productive that he only slept for four hours when he came home from patrol at two in the morning and woke up at six. He was also a very cheerful person so he was never grumpy due to the lack of sleep.
It’s like his body had made peace with the fact that it only got four hours of sleep a day, five if he’s had a particularly hard patrol, so it barely ever gives out.
Either that or the copious amounts of coffee he drinks.
So when he started feeling light headed and like his body was being pulled down by an anchor by noon, he ignored it. He didn’t even sit down to catch his breath or check his vitals, he just got another cup of coffee and went back to work without a complaint leaving his mouth.
He stared at the computer screen for another two hours before his eyes started to get droopy as his vision darkened. He simply got up and washed his face which resulted in a string of sneezes. He let out a curse as he felt his head starting to feel like it was being pelted with rocks.
He had realised that he was officially sick.
He didn’t let that stop him though, it was only two in the afternoon and he had work to do. Crime to solve. Lives to save. He only washed his face again and went back to his desk, setting down and grabbing a pen to make notes.
An hour or so later, the door to his apartment opened up and his girlfriend strolled in with a bashful smile on her face. But when she took in the sight in front of her, her smile disappeared and got replaced with confusion.
“Dick?” You called out softly, walking over to his desk where his head was resting and his eyes were closed.
He never took a nap. He was fine with his four hours, he literally aways refused a nap so when you found him in this state, you were not only confused but also worried.
You touched the back of your hand to his forehead, pushing the sweaty hair back to feel his temperature and sure enough he was burning up.
“Hey baby?” You cooed, gently brushing your fingers over his face in an attempt to wake him up.
“Huh,” Dick shot up, knocking your hand over and frantically looked around. “Oh, hi,” he greeted you with a sweet yet painful smile that had your heart softening and tugged you closer so you could stand between his legs.
“Hi,” you smiled back. “You’re burning up love,” you informed him, raking your fingers through his hair.
“M’fine,” he mumbled with a sleepy smile and pressed a kiss to your tummy.
“No you’re not, please get in bed I’ll make you some soup.”
“I’m really okay sweetheart I promise,” he reassured you but the string of sneezes that followed betrayed him. “I’ve had worse, way worse, a cold won’t kill me.”
“Dick,” you scolded lightly. “Please at least take a nap.”
“I don’t take naps,” he scoffed like the mere idea of letting his body rest for a bit offended him.
“That’s why I found you passed out on your desk,” you chided.
“I’m okay. I have to crack this case I’ve been racking my brain for hours,” he said, grabbing his pen again to go back to his notes.
“You’re no good if your brain gets foggy and your body gives out,” you sighed and grabbed the pen out of his hand. “Come on just get into bed.”
“Mhmmm,” he mumbled something unintelligible and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples.
“Dick,” you coaxed, pulling him out of the desk chair and into the bedroom. “Just lie down okay?”
“Okay that doesn’t sound so bad,” he breathed out and let you drag him to bed.
That’s how you knew he was really sick because Dick Grayson refused to rest even when he had a day off. Even on weekends when you took your occasional naps, he pressed a kiss to your forehead and sat down next to you in bed reading case files while giving your sleepy state occasional glances.
You sat him down on the edge of the bed and opened the bedside table drawer to grab the thermometer.
“Open up,” you said to Dick whose eyes were getting droopier by the second.
He opened his mouth and let you put the thermometer in before letting his head rest on your tummy as he let out quick short breaths and let his arms grasp your thighs with whatever energy he had left.
“You need to listen to your body boy wonder, this isn’t healthy,” you murmured with a frown and began running your fingers through his hair, making him let out little hums of comfort.
The thermometer beeped a couple seconds later and he took it out of his mouth before handing it to you. The little screen read ‘102’ which made you sigh.
“You’ve got a 102 fever and you were gonna fight it with coffee, hm?” You asked, looking down at his shiny eyes.
“I still insist I’m fine,” he murmured and let a sleepy and tired smile take over his face.
“I’ll get you some soup okay?” You checked before untangling yourself from him but he only tightened his grip and whined, gluing you in place.
“Stay,” Dick whispered.
“I’ll be back baby, let me take care of you,” you smiled and gently pushed him back on the bed, covering his body with a comforter.
“Don’t take too long,” he said with a pout, earning a chuckle and a kiss on the forehead from you.
Within twenty minutes, you were returning to the bedroom with a bowl of chicken noodle soup that you helped Dick eat before he laid back down. You took the empty dishes back to the kitchen despite his protests and grabbed a paracetamol and a cough syrup from the bathroom.
You handed him the pill and a glass of water and he quickly obliged, downing it without a peep. Maybe he wanted to heal as quickly as possible so he could go back to neglecting his body again or maybe the look in your eyes told him you were not about to take his shit. Either way, you were glad he had taken the medicine.
But when his eyes landed on the cough syrup in a little measuring cup on the side table, his eyes widened.
Because Dick Grayson, Nightwing, an adult man and a vigilante who had gotten drugged by poison ivy multiple times, who got shot at every night, who had broken every bone in his body, who had almost died on multiple occasions, who you had seen down neat tequila shots, hated taking cough syrups.
“Dick,” you warned.
“I don’t even have a cough,” he defended.
“It’s for precautionary reasons,” you insisted and brought the cup to his lips but he turned his face to the side and folded his arms over his chest.
“Don’t be a baby,” you groaned and tried making him take the medicine again.
“No!” He exclaimed.
“You’re a grown man!” You yelled back and got on top of him, straddling his torso over the blanket, making his eyes widen and his lips part.
You grabbed his face but he brought his arms up and held both of your hands in a tight grip, keeping them away from his face. You rolled your eyes and gave him a tickle on the side of his stomach where you could reach and the second his grip loosened on your forearms, you pinned his hands under your knees.
“You’re drugging me! It will make me loopy and I’ll be asleep for hours I have to go on patrol tonight,” he protested.
Little did he know that’s exactly why you wanted him to take the syrup so he could sleep for an hour or two.
“Too fucking bad,” you said and grabbed his chin between your fingers and thumb, puckering his lips so you could pour the syrup in his mouth.
Which resulted in Dick letting out a coughing fit after he swallowed the cherry flavoured syrup and glared at you with betrayal in his eyes.
“You’re cruel,” he huffed.
“Whatever,” you said with a victorious smile. “Go to sleep.”
“Come lie with me,” he murmured in a voice so soft you couldn’t help the smile that broke out on your face.
You obliged –flu germs be damned– and the second you laid down next to him, he clung to your body, resting his drowsy and sweaty head in your chest while his arms gripped your waist. You brought your hands in his hair, gently scratching and massaging to help him relax under your soft touch.
A few moments later, you felt his breathing get softer and slower and his arms loosening their death grip around you. You kissed the top of his head and brushed his hair back that was stuck to his forehead and gazed at his resting face.
He looked so childlike and small like this that you wondered when was the last time he had someone take care of him when he got sick. When was the last time someone he had someone take care of him period. He was feeling clingier than usual –which was not something you were complaining about, despite the risk of you getting sick.
His nose was a deep red colour, the same blush dusted his cheeks while the rest of his body looked pale. His eyes were half open and not in the way he deliberately made them look when he wanted to be in between your thighs and was trying to seduce you, but with the weight of his body finally giving out and begging to rest. They drooped so low and shone bright with heat his body was radiating, you could only see little slits of his blue irises.
“Good night boy wonder,” you murmured and planted another kiss to his head before closing your eyes and letting sleep take you.
men will walk into ongoing traffic and still be fine but a fever kills them.
likes reblogs and comments are appreciated! hope you enjoy <3
Warnings: grief, death, angst, hurt/comfort, blood/injury, best friends to roommates to lovers, jealousy, reader and Dick are professional yearners, mutual pining, explicit sexual content, oral sex, fingering, unprotected sex (but reader has an IUD)
Summary: Dick Grayson has been your best friend since before Robin, before Nightwing, before either of you understood how much a person could lose. You followed him from the circus to Wayne Manor to a cramped apartment in Blüdhaven, and somewhere between stitches, takeout, and late-night window entries, the boy who refused to leave you behind becomes the man you are terrified to want.
Author’s Note: reader is the same age as Dick, just a few months younger. lowkey accidentally made Jason a co-star in this fic #sorrynotsorry. i’m a Jason girlie what can i say
The night Bruce Wayne came for Dick Grayson, Dick had blood under his fingernails and your hand in his.
He was twelve years old, too small for the grief that had dropped out of the sky and crushed the shape of his life beneath it. His face had gone still in a way you recognized too well, all the noise of the circus blurring around him while adults knelt, murmured, reached, and retreated when they realized they did not know what to do with a boy whose parents were dead on the ground.
You knew.
Not because you remembered losing your own parents. There had never been anyone for you to remember. No faces blurred soft by time, no voices you could almost hear in dreams, no treasured story about where you came from that anyone had been able to give back to you. Your life began, as far as anyone at Haly’s could tell, in a basket left near the performers’ entrance before dawn, wrapped in a blanket too thin for the weather and tucked beneath the faded canvas awning like whoever had left you there hoped the circus might know what to do with unwanted things.
The circus had.
Haly’s had taken you in the way a traveling circus took in anything strange, broken, useful, or lost. Not neatly. Not legally at first. Not with the clean lines adults liked to draw around family. You were passed between trailers and arms, fed from chipped bowls, tucked into spare bunks, watched by whoever was not performing, repairing, rehearsing, or sleeping. The roustabouts taught you knots. The clowns taught you how to make people look where you wanted them to look. The animal handlers taught you patience. Mary Grayson taught you how to braid your hair so it stayed out of your face. John Grayson taught you how to fall without breaking your wrists.
Dick taught you how to be a child.
He had been born into the circus, bright and laughing and fearless, with a last name that meant applause and parents who caught him whenever he leaped. For a while, you thought that made him different from you in some permanent, untouchable way. He belonged to people. He belonged to the air. He belonged to the story everyone told when the lights went up, and the Flying Graysons climbed toward the rigging.
Then he caught you stealing sugared almonds from a vendor’s crate when you were six years old and immediately asked why you had not taken more.
“You’re supposed to tell,” you said, clutching the paper bag to your chest.
Dick looked offended by the idea. “I’m supposed to get half.”
That was the beginning of everything.
By the time you were old enough to understand that the Graysons were not yours in any official way, it no longer mattered. Mary still checked whether you had eaten before shows. John still lifted you onto his shoulders when the crowds got too thick. Dick still came looking for you first whenever he had something funny, stupid, or dangerous to do. You were not a Grayson on paper, but you knew the rhythm of their trailer at night. You knew the smell of Mary’s perfume and rosin. You knew John’s laugh from across the lot. You knew Dick’s hand in the dark without needing to look.
They were still the first people who made you understand what parents were supposed to feel like.
The night they died, the air smelled like sawdust and rain.
You remembered that more clearly than you wanted to. The damp edge of the tent canvas. The crowd murmuring with that restless, eager hunger that came before the big act. The yellow-white glare of the lights. Dick’s shoulder pressed against yours backstage as he bounced on his toes, pretending not to be nervous. He was wearing red, green, and gold, the colors bright enough that he looked almost impossible to hurt.
Mary kissed his forehead before she climbed.
John winked at you.
“Watch closely, little sparrow,” he said. “You’ll miss the best part.”
You did watch.
For years afterward, you wished you had looked away.
There was a particular kind of silence that came after the ropes snapped, a silence too large for the tent, too large for the crowd, too large for your body. It opened like a wound. For one suspended moment, everyone seemed to believe that gravity could still change its mind.
Then Mary and John Grayson hit the ground.
Dick screamed.
You did not remember moving, but you remembered reaching him. He was fighting every adult hand that tried to hold him back, his small body twisting with a violence that made men twice his size flinch. You wrapped both arms around him from behind and held on because you knew he would try to run to them if you let go, and some desperate, practical part of you understood that if he got close enough to see everything, something inside him would never come back.
He elbowed you hard in the ribs. You did not let go.
“Let me go,” he choked.
You pressed your face into his shoulder and held tighter. “I can’t.”
“They’re my parents.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
The words tore out of him before he could think better of them, and the second they were in the air, you felt him go still. Even in the middle of the worst moment of his life, Dick Grayson knew when he had cut too deep.
You closed your eyes. Your chest hurt where he had hit you. It hurt worse where he had not meant to.
“They were mine too,” you whispered.
Dick broke then. Not neatly. Not quietly. His knees buckled, and you went down with him in the sawdust, your arms still locked around his shaking body while the circus collapsed into shouts and footsteps and sobs around you.
You sat beside him on the narrow cot in the back of the medical tent and held his hand while the circus packed itself into whispers around you. Someone had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. It kept sliding down one side because he would not release you long enough to fix it.
Bruce Wayne arrived in an expensive coat with a face like carved stone and eyes that looked too familiar for a stranger’s. He spoke to the police first, then to Mr. Haly, then to a woman from social services who kept glancing at Dick as if he might shatter if she looked directly at him for too long.
Finally, Bruce came to the cot.
He crouched instead of standing over Dick. That was the first thing you noticed about him. He was rich enough to own the ground beneath his feet, probably, but he crouched in the dirt and mud of the circus lot so Dick would not have to look up.
“Dick,” he said gently. “My name is Bruce Wayne.”
Dick stared at him.
“I knew your parents,” Bruce continued. “Not well, but enough to know they loved you.”
Dick’s fingers tightened around yours until your knuckles ached. You did not pull away.
Bruce’s gaze flicked briefly to your joined hands. “I want to help.”
It was the sort of thing adults said when they had already decided what help meant. You knew that too, though not because you remembered being left. You knew because you had grown up with the knowledge of it sitting under your skin like an old splinter. Adults said help and meant papers. They said help and meant moving. They said “help” and meant a bed in a room that smelled wrong, and a life chosen by strangers who got to go home afterward.
Dick knew it from you.
He had watched you grow up with the vocabulary of being left behind. He had seen the way you went quiet whenever inspectors came too close, whenever someone asked who was responsible for you, whenever an adult with a clipboard looked at you like a problem that had learned to walk and speak. He had followed you around until you either had to talk to him or throw something at him, and when you had chosen to throw something, he had only ducked, grinned, and declared that your aim needed work.
He knew what happened to children who belonged nowhere.
So when Bruce Wayne said, “You can come with me,” Dick did not ask where.
He looked at you.
The woman from social services shifted. “Mr. Grayson—”
“No,” Dick said.
It was the first word he had spoken in hours. His voice was raw and small and still somehow absolute.
Bruce did not move. “No?”
Dick lifted his chin. His eyes were red, but dry. “I’m not going without her.”
The woman started to say your name, then stopped because she had only read it off a file and did not know how to make it sound like it belonged to you.
Bruce looked at you again. Not with pity, exactly. With calculation, maybe, but not the cold kind. His face changed by degrees as he understood that this was not a child asking to bring along a favorite toy or a familiar blanket.
This was Dick Grayson drawing a line around the last piece of home he had left.
“I see,” Bruce said.
“You don’t,” Dick snapped.
You flinched at the sharpness of it, but Bruce did not.
“No,” Bruce agreed quietly. “Probably not.”
Dick looked ready to hate him for that too. He looked ready to hate anything that required less effort than falling apart. Then his hand trembled in yours, just once, and his face twisted before he managed to force it still again.
You leaned closer until your shoulder touched his.
Bruce saw that too.
The argument lasted longer than it should have, though most of it happened above your heads and around corners. There were phone calls. There were questions about guardianship, placement, emergency petitions, and temporary arrangements. You heard the phrase “not related” at least four times, always in the tones adults used when they thought blood was the only thing that made a family hard to separate.
In the end, Bruce Wayne did what rich men in Gotham did best.
He made the impossible bureaucratically inconvenient enough that people stopped telling him no.
You left the circus in the back seat of his car with Dick pressed against your side and both of your lives packed into two bags in the trunk. Wayne Manor rose out of the dark like something from a ghost story, too large to be real and too silent to be kind.
Alfred Pennyworth met you at the door.
He took one look at Dick, then at you, then at the way neither of you had released the other’s hand.
“Master Dick,” he said, as if Dick had always been expected. Then, turning to you, he added your name with the same grave courtesy. “Welcome home.”
You did not believe him.
But Dick breathed for the first time since the circus lot, and because Dick breathed, you tried.
Wayne Manor did not become home quickly.
The manor was too large. That was your first thought, and it remained your strongest impression for weeks. Too many rooms. Too many staircases. Too many windows looking out over grounds that did not pack up and leave at sunrise. The quiet was not peaceful. It pressed against your ears until you missed the generators, the animals, the distant laughter, the familiar arguments over equipment and laundry and pay.
Dick hated it more openly than you did.
He ran through the halls like speed could make the walls less solid. He climbed banisters, chandeliers, bookshelves, anything that allowed him to get his feet off the ground. He argued with Bruce, with Alfred, with tutors, with anyone who tried to tell him what he was allowed to feel. At night, when he thought you were asleep, he left his room and sat on the floor outside yours.
You started leaving the door open.
Neither of you talked about why.
Bruce tried. You would give him that later, when you were old enough to understand the shape of his failure. He cared clumsily, intensely, with the panic of a man who had never learned how to help a grieving child except by giving him a mission. Dick was angry. Bruce had a place to put his anger. That was how Robin was born.
Dick told you the first night. Of course he did. He came to your room before patrol, still pulling at the gloves, trying to look brave and failing because he kept checking your face.
“Bruce says it’s training,” he said.
“Is it?”
Dick looked down at the bright colors beneath his jacket. “It’s something.”
Three weeks later, he came through your window at two in the morning with a split lip, bruised knuckles, and no chance of pretending it was only training anymore.
You stared at him from your bed.
He stared back.
Then you threw a pillow at his head.
“Ow.”
“You’re wearing traffic-light colors.”
Dick, who had clearly expected fear, anger, or betrayal, looked down at himself. “They’re not that bad.”
“You look like Christmas got into a fight.”
He pressed a hand to his mouth, trying not to smile because his lip was bleeding. “Don’t tell Bruce how bad it looks.”
“Bruce was there.”
“Then don’t tell Alfred.”
“Alfred definitely knows.”
Dick sighed and leaned back against the wall beneath your window. His face changed when the joke faded. In the moonlight, he looked younger than he had all day.
“I can do something now,” he said.
You sat up slowly. “Does it help?”
He looked at his hands. “Sometimes.”
That was the first night you cleaned blood from his face.
You did not know what you were doing then. You used too much antiseptic and made him hiss. Your hands shook. Dick sat on the edge of your bed and let you work, his knee bouncing until you slapped it still. He watched you with those huge blue eyes that had once reflected spotlights and now carried rooftops.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
Because Mary was not there to check him. Because John was not there to teach him how to fall. Because Bruce was turning him into something sharp, and Alfred could not be everywhere, and you had already lost too much to sit still while Dick came apart in pieces.
Because he had said she’s with me, and you had never stopped being grateful.
You dabbed at his lip more gently. “Because you’d do it wrong.”
Dick smiled, small and real. “Probably.”
So it began.
Robin came home bleeding, and you learned. Alfred taught you first aid with the weary resignation of a man who knew forbidding you would only make you sneakier. You learned how to clean cuts, how to wrap ribs, how to spot a concussion, how to tell when Dick was joking to hide pain and when he was joking because he was genuinely pleased with himself. You learned that Bruce went quiet when he was worried, that Alfred used sarcasm as a pressure valve, that the Cave was colder than any place under a home should be.
You did not become a vigilante.
Dick asked once, carefully, after you had thrown a practice knife so hard it stuck in the training mat beside his head.
“You could,” he said.
You looked at him. He was fourteen then, all elbows and restless guilt, still growing into his grief. “Could what?”
“Train. Come out with me.”
“No.”
“You didn’t even think about it.”
“I did. No.”
His shoulders dropped, though he tried to hide it. “Why?”
“Because someone has to be here when you come back.”
That shut him up.
You were proud of that for almost two whole days.
Years passed the way they did in Gotham, measured less by birthdays and more by scars. Dick grew taller. His voice changed. His smile became something people followed without knowing why. Robin became a name whispered by criminals and children alike, bright enough to make Batman’s shadow seem survivable.
People started noticing him before either of you knew what to do with it. Girls at school first, then women at galas, then everyone. It was impossible not to.
Dick Grayson had a way of making attention feel accidental, as if he had only smiled because he could not help it, as if the warmth in his voice belonged entirely to whoever stood in front of him. He could lean against a doorway, flash that grin, and make strangers feel as if they had been chosen. He flirted the same way he fought, quick and graceful and half a step ahead, leaving people blinking after him as if he had taken the light with him when he moved on.
You learned to look away.
Not all the time. Not enough for anyone to notice. Just when someone laughed too brightly at something he said, or when his hand lingered at a waist during a gala dance, or when he came back from patrol with lipstick on his cheek and blood on his knuckles, grinning like both had been equally harmless.
You told yourself it did not matter.
You had known him before the charm fit right. Before the smile became practiced. Before Robin turned him into Gotham’s golden boy. You had known the child outside your bedroom door, knees drawn to his chest, too proud to cry where anyone could see.
Somehow, that made it worse.
You watched from the Cave, from the Manor, from the edge of his life where you had always stood, with bandages in one hand and your heart in the other.
Then Dick began to outgrow Robin.
Or Bruce began to outgrow the idea that Robin could belong to anyone who questioned him. Or Gotham asked too much of a name that had been built for a grieving boy in bright colors. Maybe all of it happened at once.
At first, it happened quietly. A costume worn with impatience. A name that no longer fit cleanly in his mouth. Arguments with Bruce that ended with doors closing too carefully, because slamming them would have admitted too much. Dick had spent years turning Robin into something bright enough to survive Batman’s shadow, only to realize brightness could become its own kind of cage.
And you, selfishly, missed the cage.
Not because you wanted him trapped. Never that. But Robin had been the part of him that still came home to the Cave, still climbed through your window, still bled where you could reach him. Whatever came next would belong to the world even more than he already did.
You hated yourself a little for knowing that before he said it aloud.
Their fights got worse before they got quieter. That was how you knew it was serious. Dick and Bruce shouting was unpleasant, but familiar. Silence between them felt like a door closing.
By the time Dick chose Nightwing, it no longer felt like a costume change. It felt like an escape route.
He came home in black and blue for the first time with blood on his jaw and something fragile beneath his smile, as if he had expected the new colors to make him feel free all at once and had been disappointed to discover that becoming yourself still hurt. You stood in the Cave with gauze in one hand and antiseptic in the other, looking at the winged symbol across his chest.
He looked older. Not because of the suit, though the suit helped. Not because of the blood, either; you had seen too much of that for it to mean what it should have. He looked older because, for the first time, he seemed to be standing outside the life Bruce had built for him and deciding whether to come back in.
“Nightwing,” he said, like he was testing whether the name would hold.
You looked up at him. “That’s what you’re calling yourself now?”
His smile flickered. “You hate it?”
You hated that you didn’t.
You hated that it suited him. The dark, the blue, the clean break of it. You hated that Robin had looked like a boy trying to survive grief, and Nightwing looked like someone who might actually outrun it.
“No,” you said, softer than you meant to. “I don’t hate it.”
Something in his shoulders loosened. Not much. Just enough to hurt.
He stepped closer, holding still while you pressed gauze to the cut along his jaw. “Bruce does.”
“Bruce hates anything he didn’t build himself.”
Dick laughed under his breath, but it did not last. His eyes dropped to your hands. “Do you?”
You knew what he was really asking. Not whether you hated the name. Not whether you hated the suit. Whether you hated that he had chosen a door and walked through it without you.
“No,” you said again.
This time, it cost more.
He sat on the edge of the med table and let you clean the cut along his jaw. For once, he did not fill the silence with jokes. He watched your hands instead, his eyes following the familiar motions like they were the only part of the night he trusted.
“Does it look stupid?” he asked eventually.
You glanced up.
There were a dozen easy answers. You could have teased him about the collar, the symbol, the dramatic little wings. You could have told him the suit was impractical in at least three places and that he still needed better armor around his ribs because, apparently, every criminal in Gotham had decided his torso was a community punching bag.
Instead, you looked at him properly.
He was older than Robin had ever been allowed to become. Not fully grown, not fully free, but closer to himself than he had looked in months.
“No,” you said. “It looks like you.”
Dick went very still.
Then he looked away, blinking too quickly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He breathed out, and for a moment the Cave did not feel quite so cold.
Then Jason came.
He arrived all elbows and suspicion, a street kid with quick hands, quicker teeth, and the wary look of someone who expected every kindness to come with a bill. Bruce brought him into the manor with that familiar grim certainty he wore whenever he had already decided a child needed saving and had not yet considered whether the child wanted to be saved by him.
Dick did not take it well.
He was older by then, old enough to know that a lonely child deserved food, shelter, training, and someone willing to stand between him and the city. He was also young enough for it to hurt when Bruce looked at another dark-haired boy with bruised knuckles and saw a mission. The manor shifted around Jason the way it had once shifted around Dick, and Dick smiled too brightly through it, which meant he was angry enough to be careful.
Jason noticed, of course. Jason noticed everything. He noticed the Cave, the rules, the silences, the way Bruce gave orders instead of comfort, the way Dick’s name still lived in the walls even after he had started spending more nights away than home. He noticed you too, hovering near the med bay with gauze in your hands and an expression that probably looked too much like pity for his taste.
“I don’t need a nurse,” he snapped the first time Bruce brought him back bleeding.
“Good,” you said, snapping on gloves. “I’m not one.”
Jason eyed you. “Then what are you?”
“Tired.”
Dick laughed from the other side of the Cave, sharp and surprised, and Jason looked deeply offended that anyone had found the exchange funny.
You liked him immediately.
Not because he was easy. Jason was not easy. He bit at every soft thing offered to him and then looked startled when people did not take it back. He argued with Alfred, hoarded food as if he would not be fed again, read books as if he expected someone to confiscate them, and pretended not to lean into the warmth of the manor, even as it slowly sank into his skin.
He was not Dick.
That should have made things simpler. It did not.
Because Jason eventually put on the Robin colors, and the first time you saw him in them, your stomach twisted before you could stop it. The suit had been altered, fitted to a different body, a different stance, a different kind of anger, but the colors were the same. Red, green, yellow. Bright enough to dare the dark to look away.
Dick went very quiet that night.
Jason noticed that too.
“You got a problem?” he demanded, chin lifted like he was ready to swing first and find out why later.
Dick’s smile was pleasant in the way storms looked peaceful from far away. “No.”
“Liar.”
“Jason,” Bruce warned.
“No, he’s been looking at me like I stole something.”
Dick’s face changed.
You saw it happen and stepped forward before Bruce could make it worse. “Jason.”
“What?”
“You’re bleeding on the floor.”
That distracted him for exactly half a second. “So?”
“So Alfred just mopped.”
Jason looked down at the small red drops near his boot, then back at you. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Yes.”
“You people are weird.”
“Deeply. Sit down.”
He sat, muttering, and you cleaned the cut across his forearm while Dick stood a little too far away and watched a boy who was not him wear the name he had not realized he still thought of as his.
After that, something in the manor changed again.
Jason became Robin loudly, defiantly, with less grace than Dick and more force. He argued with Batman in the field, swore when he thought Alfred could not hear him, and came to you with injuries he pretended were not bad until you raised an eyebrow and he folded under the weight of being known. Sometimes, when Dick came home, he found Jason in the med bay eating your snacks and insulting your bandaging technique. Sometimes he looked amused. Sometimes he looked like he had walked into his own past and found someone else living there.
You never asked if that hurt.
You knew it did.
Dick was not cruel to Jason. That almost made it worse. Cruelty would have been simple, and Dick had never been simple where lonely children were concerned. He taught Jason holds that Bruce had never bothered to explain gently. He showed him how to land on bad rooftops, how to listen for the difference between a scared witness and a lying one, how to talk Batman down when his silence started turning into something sharper. He complained afterward, of course. He told you Jason was reckless, stubborn, mouthy, impossible.
You always waited him out.
Eventually, Dick would sigh and add, “He’s good, though.”
And you would say, “I know.”
And Dick would look toward the Cave, where Jason’s laughter sometimes echoed too loudly because he had not yet learned that the manor punished joy by making it sound lonely.
“Bruce doesn’t know what to do with him,” Dick said once.
You pressed fresh gauze to the cut above his eyebrow. “Bruce doesn’t know what to do with anyone.”
Dick smiled faintly. “You do.”
“No. I just know where the bandages are.”
“That’s more than most people.”
The problem was not that Jason had taken Robin. Not exactly. Dick had already chosen Nightwing by then, had already stepped into black and blue and tried to tell himself that leaving the old colors behind meant they no longer had the power to hurt him. The problem was that Bruce had let the name move on more easily than he had let Dick move on. Robin could become someone else. Dick was still expected to remain within reach, still expected to answer when Bruce called, still expected to translate silence into need and orders into love.
It wore at him.
Their fights changed shape. They were no longer only about patrol routes, curfews, training, or whether Dick had disobeyed an order in the field. They became fights about who Dick was allowed to be when he was not standing beside Batman. They became fights about distance, independence, loyalty, and the ugly little question Bruce never asked plainly: if Dick was not Robin, if he was not a boy in need of saving, if he was not Batman’s partner first, then what was he to him?
The shouting was unpleasant, but familiar.
The silence after was worse.
When Dick told you he was leaving, he did it on the roof of the manor.
He had always liked heights when he had something difficult to say. You found him sitting near the edge, knees drawn up, the city spread below him in glittering black and gold. He was older than his parents had ever gotten to see him become. That thought hit you sometimes without warning and made you want to sit down.
“Blüdhaven,” he said.
You lowered yourself beside him. “That’s a city, not an explanation.”
“It needs help.”
“So does Gotham.”
“Gotham has Batman.”
“Gotham has you.”
He looked at you then, and there was something tired beneath the familiar warmth. “That’s the problem.”
You did not answer right away. The wind pulled at your hair. Far below, the grounds of Wayne Manor stretched dark and endless, a place that had sheltered you without ever fully becoming yours.
“When?” you asked.
“Soon.”
“Apartment?”
“Crappy.”
“Dangerous neighborhood?”
“Probably.”
“Elevator?”
He winced. “Sometimes.”
You nodded. “I’ll pack light.”
Dick’s head snapped toward you. “No.”
You raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“I’m not asking you to come with me.”
“Good thing I didn’t wait for you to ask.”
“I’m serious.” He turned fully now, one knee tucked beneath him, hands moving the way they always did when he wanted to reach for you and thought better of it. “This isn’t like before. I’m not a kid telling Bruce I won’t go without you.”
“No,” you said. “You’re an adult trying to make my decisions for me. Very different.”
His mouth tightened. “Blüdhaven is dangerous.”
“So is Gotham.”
“I’ll be doing this alone.”
“No, you won’t.”
He stared at you, and for a second, he was twelve again, sitting on the steps of a trailer with your sleeve twisted in his fist.
“You have a life here,” he said.
You softened despite yourself. “Dick.”
“You do.”
“I have a room here. I have work here. I have Alfred threatening me with tea every time I skip breakfast. I have Bruce pretending not to care whether I’m home before midnight. I have all of that because you brought me here.”
His face shifted.
You reached over and took his hand. His fingers closed around yours automatically. They always had.
“You didn’t leave me behind,” you said. “Don’t insult me by thinking I’d do it to you.”
For once, Dick Grayson had nothing clever to say.
The apartment in Blüdhaven was, as promised, crappy.
The heat worked when it felt appreciated. The shower made a sound like a dying animal. The kitchen cabinets had been painted an optimistic yellow by someone who had clearly given up halfway through. The bedroom situation was awkward for exactly fourteen seconds, because there was one actual bedroom and one narrow living room with a couch that looked personally offended by the idea of sleep.
“You take the room,” Dick said.
You dropped a box of medical supplies on the counter. “We’ll switch.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll take the couch.”
“No.”
“Then we’ll both sleep standing up in the hallway.”
He dragged a hand down his face. “Why are you like this?”
You took the bedroom. Dick took the couch. Two weeks later, after you found him asleep half on the floor with one leg bent at an angle that made your spine ache in sympathy, you bought a secondhand bed frame and shoved it into the bedroom while he was out. He came home through the window at three in the morning, bleeding from the shoulder and halfway through a complaint about someone named Torque, only to stop dead in the doorway.
“Why are there two beds in here?”
“Because your spine is going to turn into modern art.”
He looked from the beds to you.
You pointed at the bathroom. “Shower. Then stitches.”
“You moved furniture by yourself?”
“I had help.”
“From who?”
“The terrifying woman downstairs who smokes on the fire escape and calls you Pretty Boy.”
Dick blinked. “Mrs. Alvarez?”
“She likes me.”
“Everyone likes you.”
“That is demonstrably untrue. Shower.”
Domesticity arrived without either of you inviting it.
It came in the form of grocery lists stuck to the fridge beneath a pineapple-shaped magnet. It came in arguments over whether cereal counted as dinner. It came in Dick leaving escrima sticks on the coffee table and you threatening to hide them in the freezer. It came in your scrubs in the laundry with his compression shirts, your medical textbooks stacked beside his case files, your shampoo in the shower next to the cheap body wash he bought because it had been on sale.
It came in windows left unlocked.
Nightwing was different from Robin. You saw it before anyone else did, maybe because you had known Dick before the masks. Robin had been defiance in bright colors, a child refusing to let grief be the last thing his parents gave him. Nightwing was something else. A choice. A declaration. A man stepping out of Batman’s shadow and building his own silhouette against the skyline.
Blüdhaven did not teach you that Dick was beautiful. You had learned that lesson years ago and suffered through the review often enough. Blüdhaven only removed the distance.
In Gotham, wanting Dick had been something you could fold away between patrols, galas, and all the other people drawn into his orbit. There had always been space if you needed it: the Cave, the Manor, the long hallways, the easy excuse of being busy. Blüdhaven took all of that away.
It put him across from you at breakfast, sleep-warm and shirtless, reaching around you for coffee with his chin nearly brushing your shoulder. It put his laundry with yours, his bruises under your hands, his laughter in the next room, his body in your peripheral vision until looking away became less of a choice and more of a survival skill.
Survival, unfortunately, required practice.
He came out of the shower with towels low on his hips and water running down the lines of his back. He cooked shirtless when the apartment got too hot, which was both often and completely unnecessary. He stretched in the living room after patrol, all long limbs and controlled strength, while you stared aggressively at insurance paperwork and pretended not to notice the way his muscles moved beneath bruised skin.
Worse, he was affectionate.
Dick had always touched easily, but Blüdhaven sharpened it into a habit. A hand on your lower back when he passed behind you in the kitchen. His chin hooked over your shoulder while you stirred pasta. Fingers tugging gently at the end of your braid when he wanted your attention. His body collapsing beside yours on the couch after patrol, head landing in your lap like he had never once considered the possibility that it might be dangerous for your sanity.
“You smell like smoke,” you told him one night.
“Warehouse fire.”
“You were at the docks.”
“And there was a warehouse fire.”
“Convenient.”
“Not for the warehouse.”
You flicked his forehead. He smiled up at you, eyes half-lidded, hair mussed, one cheekbone blooming purple. Your hand was still in his hair because he had put it there ten minutes earlier and then made a pleased sound when you scratched lightly at his scalp.
Your heart did something foolish.
Dick noticed because he always noticed you, even when he missed the obvious thing sitting between you with a neon sign.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You did the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The quiet thing.”
“I’m quiet all the time.”
“No,” he said, and his voice gentled. “You get quiet when something hurts.”
That was the problem with being loved by someone who knew you before language had finished forming around your wounds. Dick had too much access. He knew how to read you by the breath, by the pause, by the angle of your hand on his shoulder. You could lie to anyone else. With him, the lie had to be built around the truth or he would see through it immediately.
“I’m tired,” you said.
That was true enough.
His hand found yours where it rested against the couch. “Go to bed. I’ll clean up.”
“You say that like your version of cleaning up doesn’t involve putting dishes in the sink and hoping they emotionally mature into being washed.”
“I’m giving them room to grow.”
“You’re a menace.”
“Your menace.”
He said it easily. Carelessly.
Your chest ached for the rest of the night.
The years did not stay kind enough to let Jason remain only a complication.
Jason died.
After that, the Manor became a mausoleum of everything no one had said in time. Bruce got quieter. Dick got worse at coming home. Alfred polished silver no one used and set places at tables no one could sit at without feeling the empty chair.
Then Tim came, clever and too young and carrying a camera, a theory, and the terrible conviction that Batman needed Robin to keep from becoming something worse. Bruce let the colors back into the Cave because grief had never stopped him from repeating himself.
By the time Jason came back, he was older than he should have been and crueler than death had any right to make him.
You and Dick had been in Blüdhaven long enough by then for the apartment to smell like his shampoo, your coffee, and rain off the harbor, long enough for the city to become familiar enough to complain about, long enough for everyone except the two of you to notice what had been sitting in the room for years.
Barbara noticed first, because Barbara Gordon noticed everything and had the decency to pretend she did not until pretending became insulting.
“He’s in love with you,” she said one afternoon, not looking up from the tablet balanced on her knees.
You nearly dropped the mug you were washing. “Who?”
Barbara looked at you over her glasses.
You turned back to the sink. “No, he isn’t.”
“I didn’t say a name.”
“There are a limited number of people you could mean.”
“Mhm.”
“He’s Dick.”
“Yes. Tragically, I’ve met him.”
“He’s like that with everyone.”
Barbara’s expression softened, which was worse than teasing. “No, he performs with everyone.” A pause, brief enough to be mercy. “Some of us learn that the hard way. He rests with you.”
You hated that enough to remember it.
Jason noticed with less grace.
He was in Blüdhaven for reasons he refused to explain, which meant they were either criminal, personal, or both. You found out only because he came through the apartment window just after midnight, bleeding from the eyebrow and carrying a red helmet under one arm, as if proximity had made your kitchen an acceptable substitute for a med bay.
“No,” you said from the kitchen table.
Jason paused with one leg inside. “Wow. Rude.”
“The Cave has med kits.”
“The Cave has Bruce.”
“You have safehouses.”
“Safehouses don’t have you.”
You blinked.
Jason looked annoyed that he had said it. “And the Cave has Alfred.”
“Alfred knows where the bandages are.”
“Alfred asks questions.”
“And I don’t?”
Jason swung the rest of the way inside and dropped into the chair across from you. “You ask meaner questions, but you don’t make me answer them.”
You stood slowly, already reaching for the kit under the sink. “That better not be arterial.”
“Do I look like I’d climb six floors with arterial bleeding?”
“You look like you’d do it out of spite.”
“Fair.”
You pulled the kit onto the table and looked at him properly. “Why me, Jason?”
His grin thinned into something almost honest. “Because you knew me before the helmet.”
You went still.
Jason looked away first, his jaw working once, as if he regretted saying even that much. “Before I died too,” he added, like he could make the words casual by saying them badly. “And you don’t do the thing.”
“What thing?”
Jason’s mouth tightened. “Look at me like you’re trying to figure out which parts came back wrong.”
For a moment, the kitchen went quiet.
Then he ruined it on purpose. “Also,” he added, “you have the good tape.”
You let him have the deflection because he had already given you more than he meant to. “It’s normal medical tape.”
“Yeah, but you don’t make it feel like a leash.”
That one landed closer to the bone than you expected.
“Jason.”
“What? I said you had good tape.”
You let the lie stand. “You came here because you’re bleeding on my floor.”
“It can be two things.”
You snapped on gloves and stepped between his knees, tilting his chin toward the light.
Dick was still on patrol, and Jason had clearly counted on that too. Every masked man in your life had the self-preservation instincts of a moth near a porch light, but Jason was the only one petty enough to schedule his bleeding around Dick’s absence.
Jason watched you clean the cut for about thirty seconds before saying, “So, are you and Boy Wonder still doing the world’s saddest foreplay routine?”
You pressed gauze harder than necessary against his eyebrow.
“Ow.”
“Hold still.”
“Hit a nerve?”
“I’m holding antiseptic and you’re bleeding above the eye. Choose your next words carefully.”
Jason grinned. “That a yes?”
“It’s a no.”
“Sure. That’s why he calls you when he’s bleeding, smiles like an idiot when you yell at him, and keeps your favorite cereal on the top shelf where he thinks I won’t find it.”
“You went through my cabinets?”
“It was reconnaissance.”
“It was creepy.”
“It was educational.” His eyes flicked toward the window, then back to you. “He know?”
You did not pretend not to understand. Jason would only get more annoying. “There’s nothing to know.”
“Oh, this is worse than I thought.”
You taped gauze over the cut. “There. Try not to get punched in the same place for at least six hours.”
Jason stood, still grinning, and picked up his helmet. “You know, when he figures it out, he’s gonna be unbearable.”
“He’s already unbearable.”
“Yeah, but he’ll be happy unbearable. That’s worse.”
Tim noticed within three minutes of his first visit and said nothing, which was how you knew he was Bruce’s son in all the most unsettling ways.
Alfred noticed before anyone, probably before there was anything to notice, and handled it by sending care packages addressed to both of you with enough tea, suture thread, homemade biscuits, and pointed silence to qualify as emotional warfare.
Dick noticed nothing.
Or he noticed and chose not to name it.
There were women. Of course there were women. Dick Grayson did not set out to collect devotion, but he drew it the way bright things drew hands. You watched him date because you had watched him do everything. You gave opinions on shirts, traded shifts at the clinic when his dinner plans ran late, listened when things ended, and pretended not to feel relieved when they did.
It was not fair to resent people for wanting him.
You wanted him too.
That was the thing you folded carefully and hid beneath the guise of being useful. You were good at being useful. Useful had kept you fed as a child. Useful had earned you a place in spaces where no paperwork proved you belonged. Useful gave your hands something to do when Dick came home bleeding and your heart tried to climb out of your throat.
Then he came home one night with lipstick still smudged at the corner of his mouth.
It was a stupid thing to break you.
Not the bruises, not the danger, not the years of him smiling at other people. A faint red stain near his lower lip, half-wiped and still unmistakable, where someone else’s mouth had been. He was talking while he climbed through the window, breathless from patrol or maybe from whatever had happened after patrol, and you stood by the counter with a roll of bandages in your hand, staring like the world had narrowed to the shape of his mouth.
“Hey,” he said, slowing. “You okay?”
You looked up. “Fine.”
His brow furrowed. “You’re doing the thing again.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Dick.”
“What happened?”
You laughed once, softly, and hated the sound. “Nothing happened.”
He stepped closer. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
That stopped him more effectively than shouting would have. You rarely refused him directly. Not because you could not, but because the two of you had built your lives on being reachable to each other. Even when you fought, even when you were angry, there was always a door left open somewhere.
Dick looked at you as if he had just heard one close.
“Okay,” he said carefully. “That’s okay.”
It was not okay. You could see him trying to make it okay because he loved you as a friend, because he was kind, because he had no idea that his kindness was another hand around your throat.
You set the bandages down. “I think I should move out.”
The apartment went quiet.
Dick stared at you.
For a long second, he did not seem to understand the words. Then his face changed so quickly it hurt to watch.
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“No, you haven’t.”
Your temper sparked because he was right. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t get to decide what I’ve been thinking.”
“I know when you’re lying to me.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
It was cruel. You knew it as soon as you said it, but you were tired and jealous and ashamed, and the lipstick on his face was still there, small and red and damning.
Dick flinched.
You wanted to take it back. You wanted to walk into his arms. You wanted to be ten years old again, small enough to crawl into Mary Grayson’s lap and let someone else decide what happened next.
Instead, you folded your arms over your chest.
Dick’s voice dropped. “Do you want to leave?”
No.
The answer filled your mouth so completely you had to swallow around it.
“I think it would be better,” you said.
“For who?”
“For both of us.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Dick.”
“No.” His own anger showed then, not loud but bright enough to light his eyes. “Don’t do that. Don’t use the voice you use when you’re trying to get me to hold still for stitches.”
“I am trying to have a conversation.”
“You’re trying to leave without telling me why.”
“Because you don’t need me here forever.”
His mouth parted slightly.
The words kept coming because once you started bleeding, you had never known how to stop neatly.
“You don’t. You needed me when we were kids, and maybe you needed me when you left Bruce, but you have a life here now. You’re Nightwing. You have friends, and teams, and women who don’t spend their nights cataloging your injuries like that counts as intimacy.”
His expression shifted. Something in it sharpened with painful understanding.
You looked away too late.
“Oh,” he said.
You closed your eyes. “Don’t.”
He took one step closer. “Is that what this is?”
“No.”
“You’re upset because I kissed someone?”
“No.”
“No?”
You laughed once, softly and miserably. “I’m upset because you came home with her still on your mouth and asked me what was wrong.”
“Look at me.”
“No.”
“Please.”
That was worse. Dick rarely said “please” like that, careful and quiet, as if he knew he was asking for something you might not be ready to give.
You looked at him.
The red smear on his face was still there. His hair was windblown. There was a bruise forming beneath his jaw and a scratch near his temple. He was too familiar. Too beautiful. Too much the center of the life you had built around him without meaning to.
His voice softened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
You laughed again, and this time it nearly broke. “Tell you what, Dick? That I get jealous when you date? That I can’t sleep until you come home? That sometimes you touch my back in the kitchen and I think about it for the rest of the day like I’m sixteen and pathetic? What exactly was I supposed to say?”
He stared at you as if you had put your hand through his chest and closed your fingers around his heart.
You wiped at your face angrily, even though you had not realized you were crying. “You’re my best friend.”
“I know.”
“You’re my family.”
“I know.”
“You’re the only permanent thing I’ve ever had.”
His face crumpled for half a second before he caught it. “I know.”
“So no, I didn’t tell you. Because wanting you like this feels selfish and dangerous, and I don’t know what happens to me if I ruin us.”
Dick moved then.
Not fast, not like Nightwing, not with the clean precision of a body trained for impact. He crossed the space between you carefully, as if approaching something wounded, and stopped close enough that you could see the unsteady rise of his chest.
“You think you could ruin us by loving me?”
The words hit so directly that you almost stepped back.
“You don’t have to say it like that.”
“How else am I supposed to say it?”
“Like it isn’t easy.”
“It’s not easy,” he said. “It’s just true.”
You went still.
Dick lifted his hand, then hesitated. That hesitation undid you more than the touch would have. He was asking. After years of casual closeness, after a lifetime of knowing your body in safe, familiar ways, he was asking permission to cross a line neither of you could uncross.
You nodded once.
His fingers touched your cheek.
“I didn’t know how to tell you either,” he said.
Your breath caught. “What?”
He smiled then, but it was a wrecked thing. “Yeah.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“Dick.”
“I know.” His thumb brushed beneath your eye. “I know, okay? I know I should’ve said something. I know I’m an idiot.”
“You dated other people.”
“I tried dating other people.”
“That is not better.”
“No,” he admitted. “It’s not. But every time I thought about telling you, I kept seeing you looking at me like I’d taken the only safe thing we had and made it complicated.”
“It is complicated.”
“Everything about us has always been complicated.”
You wanted to argue. You wanted to make him work for it. You wanted to hold on to the thin, miserable shield you had built out of practicality and fear.
Instead, you leaned into his hand.
Dick inhaled like it hurt.
“I don’t know when it changed,” he said quietly. “Maybe it didn’t. Maybe loving you was always there, and I just kept giving it different names because I was scared of wanting the one thing I couldn’t bear to lose.”
Your throat tightened.
“That’s not fair,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“You don’t get to say things like that with another woman’s lipstick on your lips.”
His eyes widened. For one absurd second, he looked almost panicked. Then he dragged the back of his hand over his lips and saw the red smear there.
“It was a goodbye kiss,” he said quickly. “After patrol. I ended it.”
“That is not better.”
“No,” he admitted. “It’s not. But she asked if there was someone else, and I said your name before I could think.”
Oh.
Your heart stumbled so hard it felt like falling.
“I ended it before I knew you felt this way,” he said. “I came home because I couldn’t keep pretending.”
Dick stepped closer, his hand sliding from your cheek to the side of your neck. “I came home to tell you.”
“You came home through the window.”
“I was nervous.”
“You’re Nightwing.”
“I’m still nervous.”
“You flirt with everyone.”
“Not like this.”
The room seemed smaller than it had been a few minutes ago. Warmer. The yellow cabinets, the stacked dishes, the half-open med kit on the counter, the city noise beyond the window. All the ordinary pieces of the life you had built together held their breath.
Dick’s eyes dropped to your mouth.
Your pulse jumped.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
You had imagined it before. Of course you had. Quietly, guiltily, in the dark, where wanting him could not hurt anyone but you. You had imagined smooth confidence, cinematic timing, some perfect version of yourself who knew exactly where to put her hands.
In reality, your voice shook.
“If you don’t, I’m going to be really embarrassed.”
Dick laughed, soft and breathless, and kissed you.
It was gentle for about two seconds.
Then your hand fisted in the front of his suit, and his restraint broke with a sound that went straight through you. He kissed like he had been starving for years. Like every almost had been stored somewhere under his skin and was now burning its way out. His mouth opened against yours, warm and desperate, and you made a helpless sound when his hand slid to your lower back and pulled you flush against him.
He froze instantly.
You almost cursed.
“Is this okay?” he asked, voice rough.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Dick, I swear to God—”
He kissed you again before you could finish, smiling into it, and you hated how much you loved that you could feel the smile. Your hands slid over the armored lines of his suit, the same ones you had repaired so many times from the outside, and he shivered as if this were the first time you had ever touched him at all.
When your fingers slid beneath the collar, his eyes went half-lidded, all that careful restraint thinning under your hands.
“You touch me all the time,” he murmured against your mouth. “Why does it feel different?”
“Because this time we’re allowed to want more.”
His eyes went dark.
The next kiss was deeper, slower, less frantic, and somehow more devastating. Dick backed you toward the counter until your hips hit the edge, then lifted you onto it with an ease that made heat pool low in your stomach. He stepped between your knees, and the shape of him there, broad and warm and familiar in an entirely unfamiliar way, nearly stole your breath.
You touched his face.
He turned his head and kissed your palm.
It was so tender that it hurt.
“Don’t be sweet right now,” you whispered.
His mouth curved. “Bossy.”
“I mean it. I’ll cry.”
“Okay.” He kissed the inside of your wrist. “I won’t be sweet.”
“You’re being sweet.”
“I’m trying to stop.”
“You’re bad at it.”
“I’ve had complaints.”
You pulled him back by the collar and kissed him until the teasing dissolved. His hands gripped your thighs, thumbs pressing slow circles through the fabric of your sleep shorts. You had worn them without thinking, one of his T-shirts and shorts, nothing meant to seduce anyone, but Dick looked at you like he was watching a miracle unfold in bad apartment lighting.
His gaze dragged down your body and returned to your face with visible effort.
“You’re killing me,” he said.
You laughed unsteadily. “I’m wearing old pajamas.”
“I know.”
“You’ve seen me in these a hundred times.”
“I know.”
“Dick.”
He leaned in, mouth brushing your jaw. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve come home and seen you half-asleep in my shirts, or yelling at me with medical tape stuck to your hand, and had to remind myself not to do exactly this?”
His lips touched the side of your neck.
Your fingers tightened in his hair.
“Exactly what?”
He kissed beneath your ear. “Put my hands on you.”
Another kiss, lower.
“Take you apart.”
Your breath left you.
“Make you say my name like you’re not trying to hide it.”
“Dick.”
His grip flexed on your thighs. “Yeah. Like that.”
The room tilted. You had patched bullet grazes with steadier hands than you had now. Dick kissed down your throat with unbearable patience, and every place his mouth touched seemed to wake years of wanting beneath your skin. When his fingers slipped under the hem of your shirt, he paused again.
You pulled back enough to look at him. “I’ll tell you if I want to stop.”
His eyes searched yours. Whatever he saw there made his shoulders loosen.
“Okay.”
“And you’ll tell me.”
He nodded. “I’ll tell you.”
“Good.”
Then you lifted your arms.
Dick took your shirt off like he was trying to memorize the act. His eyes dropped, and for one vulnerable second, you almost crossed your arms over your chest. He caught the motion before you completed it, not by grabbing you, but by leaning down and pressing his mouth to the spot just above your heart.
Your hand settled in his hair.
“Beautiful,” he said against your skin.
You closed your eyes. “That sounds sweet.”
“Then I’m bad at following instructions.”
His mouth moved lower, and your laugh turned into a gasp.
Dick Grayson, as it turned out, applied the same focus to taking you apart that he applied to everything else he truly cared about. He learned quickly. Too quickly. His mouth found your breast, tongue circling your nipple before he sucked gently, and pleasure sparked so sharply through you that your knees tightened around his hips.
He groaned.
That sound changed something in you.
You reached for the closures of his suit with hands that only shook a little, and he helped you because he knew the damn thing better than you did, peeling it down from his shoulders and letting it gather at his waist. You had seen him shirtless more times than you could count. Injured. Tired. Fresh from the shower. Half-asleep at the stove. This was different because you were allowed to look, and because he was looking back.
There were bruises on him. There were always bruises.
You touched one near his ribs, and the old instinct rose immediately. “This is new.”
Dick looked down. “Pipe.”
“Pipe?”
“Bad guy had a pipe.”
“Descriptive.”
“I was distracted.”
“By the pipe?”
“By wanting to come home to you.”
Your fingers stilled.
He covered your hand with his. “Too sweet?”
“Dangerously.”
His smile softened, then faded when you leaned forward and kissed the bruise with featherlight care. His breathing changed. You kissed another mark, then another, mapping the evidence of violence with your mouth until his hand slid into your hair and held there without pushing.
“You’ve been doing this for years,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“Putting me back together.”
You looked up at him. “You always came back in pieces.”
“I always come back to you.”
The words settled between you, heavy and certain.
Then you kissed him again because there were some truths too large to answer any other way.
He carried you to the bedroom.
You were grateful for that, because your legs had become theoretical somewhere between the counter and his mouth on your neck. He lay you down on the bed you had forced him to share the room with, one knee sinking into the mattress beside your hip. For a second, you both looked at the other bed across the narrow space and laughed.
“This room is ridiculous,” you said.
“Our whole life is ridiculous.”
“You’re still half in the suit.”
“That seems fixable.”
It was. Barely. There was a deeply ungraceful moment involving one boot, a curse, and you nearly getting hit in the shin by a knee pad, but then Dick was in his briefs above you, laughing into your shoulder, and the last of your fear loosened its grip.
This was still Dick.
The man you wanted, yes, but also the boy who had stolen sugared almonds with you. The teenager who had bled on your bedspread. The man who forgot to buy dish soap and remembered the anniversary of every terrible thing without you having to say it aloud.
He kissed your shoulder. “Hi.”
You turned your face toward him. “Hi.”
“You still with me?”
“Unfortunately.”
He grinned. “There she is.”
You pushed at his chest, and he caught your hand, kissing your knuckles before pinning it gently beside your head. The shift was subtle, but your body noticed. Heat curled through you as he lowered himself over you, not resting his full weight, just enough to make you feel surrounded.
“You like that?” he asked.
Your face warmed.
His expression changed, not smug exactly, but attentive. Interested. “Oh.”
“Don’t sound so pleased.”
“I’m learning.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“I’ve also had complaints about that.”
You rolled your hips up, just slightly, and his words cut off.
That was satisfying.
Dick looked down at you, eyes dark and mouth parted, and then his hand slid down your body with purpose. Over your ribs, your waist, the soft give of your stomach, stopping at the waistband of your shorts.
He waited.
Your voice came out quieter than you intended. “Yes.”
He kissed you as he pulled them down, and you were glad for it because it gave you something to do with the sudden rush of vulnerability. His hand smoothed over your thigh. He murmured something against your mouth, not quite words, maybe your name, maybe a prayer, and then his fingers slipped between your legs.
You both went still.
You, because the first careful stroke through your wetness made your whole body tighten.
Dick because he felt it.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
You tried to laugh. It came out ruined. “Observant.”
“You’re wet.”
“Again. Observant.”
“For me?”
You opened your eyes. “Who else is in the room, Grayson?”
The look he gave you then was not sweet at all.
He lowered himself down your body, kissing a path over your stomach, your hip, the inside of your thigh. Your breath caught when he settled between your legs, broad shoulders spreading them wider. He looked up at you from there, hair falling over his forehead, mouth kiss-swollen, eyes so blue and intent that you nearly lost your nerve.
“We don’t have to,” he said.
“I know.”
“I want to.”
“I know.”
His hands held your thighs, thumbs stroking once. “Tell me I can.”
The words landed low and hot.
“You can.”
Dick kissed the inside of your thigh.
Then his mouth was on you.
Your head fell back against the pillow. It had been years of yearning, years of telling yourself that the ache was survivable because it had to be, and none of it prepared you for the reality of Dick between your legs, licking into you with a soft groan like he was the one being undone. His tongue moved slowly at first, exploratory, learning what made your breath hitch and your fingers twist in the sheets. Then he found your clit, and your hips jerked.
He made a pleased sound that vibrated through you.
“Dick.”
He looked up without stopping.
The sight of his blue eyes so dilated you could barely see the pretty color nearly finished you on its own.
One of your hands flew to his hair, and he leaned into the grip, eyes fluttering for half a second before his focus sharpened again. He slipped one hand from your thigh and pressed a finger inside you, careful and slow, watching your face as your mouth fell open.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He added his mouth again, and language became difficult.
Dick had always been a performer, but this was not performance. This was attention. This was devotion turned physical. He listened to every breath, every movement, every broken sound you tried to swallow. When he curled his finger and found the place that made your back arch, he did it again, then again, mouth working over your clit until pleasure gathered fast and bright beneath your skin.
You tugged his hair. “I’m close.”
His eyes lifted to yours.
He did not stop.
The orgasm broke over you hard enough to shock you, your body tightening around his finger as you gasped his name. He held you through it, mouth gentling but not leaving, drawing out the aftershocks until you had to push weakly at his shoulder.
He climbed back up your body with a look on his face that could have ruined your life in any context.
“You look proud of yourself,” you managed.
“I’m trying to be humble.”
“You’re failing.”
“I know.”
You kissed him and tasted yourself on his mouth, which should have embarrassed you more than it did. Instead, it made you want him with a sudden, aching intensity that left no room for fear.
Your hand slid down his stomach.
Dick’s breath caught when you palmed him through his briefs. He was hard, hot and heavy against your hand, and his hips pressed forward before he caught himself.
“Sorry,” he said roughly.
You kissed his jaw. “Don’t be.”
His forehead dropped to your shoulder. “I’m trying very hard to be good.”
Something tender and wicked moved through you.
“You are good.”
He shuddered.
“Oh,” you whispered. “You like that.”
He laughed into your skin, embarrassed and turned on and so painfully Dick that your heart squeezed. “Shut up.”
“You do.”
“I’m not above begging.”
Heat flooded you. “That was not the deterrent you thought it was.”
He lifted his head, and the humor between you stretched thin under the wanting. You pushed his briefs down as far as you could reach, and he finished the job with shaking hands. When he settled between your thighs again, bare this time, the feel of him against you stole the teasing from both of your mouths.
Dick kissed you once. Then again.
“We should use a condom,” he said, sounding like the words had physically pained him.
“I have an IUD.”
His eyes closed. “That information is going to kill me.”
“We can still use one.”
“No, I mean yes, if you want, obviously, but if you’re saying—”
“I’m saying I want to feel you.”
He made a sound you had never heard from him before.
Your hands slid up his back. “Is that okay?”
He looked at you, and all the humor, all the heat, all the years of almost seemed to settle into something frighteningly honest.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s okay.”
He reached between you, guiding himself against you, and paused with the head of his cock just barely pressing inside. Your fingers dug into his shoulders. He watched your face, jaw tight, holding himself back so carefully that you could feel the tremor in his arms.
“Breathe,” he whispered.
You laughed unsteadily. “That’s usually my line.”
“I learned from the best.”
Then he pushed in.
Slowly. Carefully. Inch by inch until the stretch of him filled every thought you had. Your eyes burned, not from pain exactly, though there was an edge of that, but from the sheer intimacy of it. Dick above you, inside you, his forehead pressed to yours, his breath shaking as badly as yours.
He stopped when his hips met yours.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
The city sounded distant beyond the window. A siren somewhere. A car passing below. The old pipes complaining in the walls. Ordinary things continuing while your whole life rearranged itself around the feeling of him buried inside you.
Dick’s voice was rough. “Tell me you’re okay.”
You turned your head and kissed his wrist where his hand braced beside you. “I’m okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He moved then, a slow drag out and back in that made your nails scrape down his back. His control faltered. You felt it in the way his hips stuttered, in the low sound he pressed into your neck.
“Sorry,” he gasped.
“If you apologize one more time, I’m kicking you out of bed.”
He laughed breathlessly. “That would be awkward.”
“You’re inside me. Everything is awkward.”
“Not everything.”
Then he moved again, and you had to concede the point.
It did not stay slow for long. Maybe it could not have, not with years behind it, not with both of you already stripped raw by confession before anyone took off their clothes. Dick found a rhythm that made your body arch into his, each thrust deep and deliberate, his mouth moving over every part of you he could reach. Your shoulder. Your throat. Your jaw. The corner of your mouth when you turned your face away because the pleasure was too much.
“No,” he murmured. “Don’t hide.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He kissed you, hips rolling into yours until your breath broke. “I want to hear you.”
You moaned before you could stop yourself.
Dick’s composure cracked.
“God,” he said, and then he was fucking you harder, one hand sliding beneath your thigh to hitch it higher against his hip. The new angle made you cry out, and he cursed, pressing his forehead into the pillow beside your head.
“Again,” he said.
You were not sure whether he meant the sound or the movement. It did not matter. You gave him both.
The second orgasm built slower than the first, deeper, tied to the drag of him inside you and the weight of his body over yours. You could feel him losing control by degrees, his breathing rough, his praise turning fragmented against your skin.
“Good,” he murmured. “You feel so good. You’re so good for me. Wanted this so long, you have no idea.”
Your body clenched around him.
His hips stuttered. “Fuck. Do that again.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I don’t care. Do it again. Please.”
You laughed, and the laugh became a moan when he slipped a hand between you and found your clit. The pleasure sharpened instantly, almost too much, and you grabbed his wrist.
“Dick.”
“I’ve got you.”
“You always say that.”
“I always mean it.”
That was what undid you.
You came with his name in your mouth, your body tightening around him as he thrust through it, face buried in your neck. He lasted another few seconds, and then he groaned, deep and helpless, and came inside you, his whole body shuddering with the force of it.
Afterward, he did not move for a long time.
You did not ask him to.
His weight was warm and grounding, his heartbeat racing against yours. Your fingers drifted up and down his spine, feeling the old scars, the new bruises, the sweat cooling on his skin. Eventually, he lifted his head enough to look at you.
His hair was a disaster. His eyes were soft.
Your heart hurt.
“Hi,” he said again, softer this time.
You smiled. “You keep saying that.”
“I keep finding you here.”
The words were quiet enough to pass for teasing if you let them.
You did not.
“I’m here,” you said.
His expression shifted. He kissed you once, gentle and lingering, then carefully eased out of you. You hissed softly, and he immediately looked alarmed.
“I’m okay,” you said.
“I’ll get a washcloth.”
“Dick.”
“And water.”
“Dick.”
“And maybe—”
You caught his hand before he could launch himself into post-sex triage like a man possessed. “In a minute.”
He looked down at you, then at your joined hands.
Some of the panic faded.
He lay beside you instead, gathering you in carefully, as if tenderness could bruise if handled incorrectly. You tucked your face against his chest. His hand moved over your hair, slow and reverent.
The other bed sat across the room, empty and ridiculous.
You laughed softly.
“What?” he asked.
“We should just get a bigger bed.”
His chest shook beneath your cheek. “Mrs. Alvarez will be thrilled.”
“She’ll say she knew this would happen.”
“She did know this would happen.”
“Everyone knew this would happen.”
Dick kissed the top of your head, still laughing. “Everyone, apparently, except us.”
You pinched his side. He yelped, then caught your hand and held it against his heart.
Quiet settled again.
Not the manor’s quiet. Not the stunned silence of a circus tent after tragedy. This quiet was smaller. Warmer. Chosen.
Dick’s fingers traced idle shapes over your wrist. “Were you really going to leave?”
You closed your eyes.
“No.”
His breath left him slowly.
“I thought about it,” you admitted. “For maybe five horrible minutes. I thought if I left first, then at least I’d be choosing it.”
His arm tightened around you.
“I don’t want to be another thing you feel responsible for,” you said.
“You’re not.”
“I know you say that.”
“No.” He shifted, making you look at him. “Listen to me. You are not here because I can’t survive without you.”
Your throat tightened despite yourself.
Dick brushed his thumb over your cheek. “I probably could. I’d be worse at it. Miserable. Badly fed. Much more concussed.”
“Obviously.”
“But I don’t love you because I need a medic. I don’t love you because you came with me from the circus, or because you know what it was like before, or because you stayed.”
You swallowed. “Then why?”
He smiled, small and certain.
“Because it’s you.”
The answer was too simple for how much it hurt.
You pressed your face into his chest before he could see everything it did to you. He held you through it anyway, because of course he did.
Dick had always caught you, even when neither of you knew who was falling.
Much later, after he had finally gotten the washcloth and water and fussed enough to satisfy whatever part of him needed to be useful, you ended up tangled together beneath the sheets. Your leg was hooked over his. His hand rested on your hip. The apartment was cooling around you, the city beyond the window still restless, still dangerous, still waiting.
Nothing was fixed.
Bruce would be insufferable in his silence. Alfred would know before anyone told him. Barbara would say something devastatingly mild. Jason would never let either of you live it down. Blüdhaven would still bruise Dick and send him home bleeding. You would still worry. He would still leap before looking. The past would still be there, stitched into both of you, old grief under new skin.
When you opened your eyes, Dick was looking at you like he had, after everything, still ended up exactly where he was supposed to be.
“You know,” he said, voice rough with exhaustion and mischief, “technically, I refused to leave you behind first.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Are you trying to claim credit for our entire relationship?”
“I’m just saying, I had good instincts when I refused to leave without you.”
“You were grieving and concussed.”
“Emotionally concussed, maybe.”
“You also thought your Robin costume was subtle.”
“It was iconic.”
“It was traffic-light cosplay.”
He gasped. “Take that back.”
“No.”
“You wound me.”
“I know how to patch you up.”
His smile softened until the joke became something else. He leaned in and kissed you, slow and sleepy and certain.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.
“You’re my home,” he whispered.
You had been a child left at the edge of a circus with no name anyone could give you. You had been a girl in the sawdust, holding on to a boy whose grief matched yours closely enough to cut. You had been a shadow in Wayne Manor, a pair of hands in the Cave, a woman in a cramped Blüdhaven apartment pretending that waiting was not another word for love.
You had followed Dick Grayson through every version of himself.
Robin. Nightwing. Best friend. Roommate. The boy who refused to leave you. The man who came back to you.
You kissed him once, softly, and felt him breathe you in.
“Then stop leaving your suit on the bathroom floor,” you said.
Dick laughed, bright and helpless, and pulled you closer.
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