🌊🌙✨Titans (2018) x Night/Water Nymph!Reader Poly Fic✨🌙🌊
❖ About the Story
This is a slow-burn, polyamorous x reader story set in the world and timeline of DC's (2018) season 1.
You the reader play as a Nigh/Water Nymph!Reader, woven into the cannon timeline of the TV show. While you are "Reader," certain detail will be set in place of the sake of the story consistency and mythic authenticity. 🌑💧
⚠️ ❖ Tags & Warnings
❥ Polyamorous Relationship (Reader x Titans)
❥ Slow Burn (very slow burn, friends → lovers)
❥ Emotional Hurt/Comfort
❥ Depression / Trauma Themes
❥ Violence & Blood (Titans canon level)
❥ Dead Dove Elements (read at your own risk)
❥ Heavy Angst → Healing → Comfort
❥ Reader-insert but with set traits (nymph body type, eye-color changes, water/night powers)
❥ Swearing, Dark Humor, and Titans’ gritty tone
✧ Pairings
🌑 Dick Grayson (Robin/Nightwing)
🔥 Kory Anders (Starfire)
🕸 Rachel Roth (Raven)
🐾 Gar Logan (Beast Boy)
🃏 Jason Todd (Robin)
⚔ Donna Troy (Wonder Girl)
Poly dynamic (all x Reader)
✧ Format
✦ I plan on writing 12 Chapters (2k–2.1k words each)
✦ Style: 2nd person (you), close POV with set traits
✦ Timeline: Stays close to Titans (2018) canon events (Trigon, Deathstroke, Jason’s arc, Donna’s return, etc.)
✧ Disclaimers
❖ All rights for DC Titans (2018) belong to their creators, producers, and rightful owners.
❖ This work is a fanfiction: characters, canon events, and references are not mine.
❖ The concept of the Night/Water Nymph Reader is original integration into the DC universe for creative and entertainment purposes only.
❖ This story is purely fictional and intended for entertainment.
❖ Navigation & Chapters ❖
(Chapters will be updated as posted)
✧ Symbols Legend ✧
🌑 → Darkness / Depression Arc
🌊 → Water / Reader’s powers in focus
🌙 → Romance / Poly bond moments
🔥 → Intense Conflict / Major Fight
💔 → Hurt / Emotional Collapse
🤍 → Comfort / Healing
💀 → Mentions of Assault / Rape /
🕊 → Dead Doves Do Not Eat
🫦 → Sexual Themes / Sex
🩸 → Violence
✦ Plot - [link]
✦ Chapter 1: The Drowned Girl – [link]🌑🩸💔
✦ Chapter 2: Ripples in the Dark – [link]🌑💀💔
✦ Chapter 3: Moonlit Stranger – [link]🤍🌙(low warning)
✦ Chapter 4: Training Currents – [link]🌑
✦ Chapter 5: Storms and Shadows – [link]🌊
✦ Chapter 6: Suffocating Tide – [link]🌊
✦ Chapter 7: Cracks and Currents – [link]🌊
✦ Chapter 8: Shattered Glass – [link]🌊
✦ Chapter 9: Found Family, Found Love – [link]🌙
✦ Chapter 10: Breaking Point – [link]🌙
✦ Chapter 11: Shared Tides – [link]🌙
✦ Chapter 12: Moonlit Home – [link]🌙
Men moaning, men whimpering, men crying, men growling, men groaning, men begging, men yearning, men pleading, men who are desperate, men who are givers, men who are touchy, men who are switchy…the list goes on
non-writers will never understand the mental illness of writing an entire conversation in your head while doing dishes and then forgetting every word the second you open a blank doc
🌙 → Romance (if you like squint? most of it is more fluffy comfort?)
🤍 → Comfort
(Not a lot of warning on this chapter)
Morning quickly weakens the blind as shine boarder the shades. The air carried the scent of burnt coffee as Donna rested against the counter with her body against the counter and her dark liquid cup in her hand.
Dick sat on the same place he was last night this time with his laptop open once again, page of scribbled note scattered around. His expression focuses on the screen razor sharp. Kory moved between them, restless energy in the room.
Donna's gaze fixed on Dick taking a sip of her coffee "So…Let's hear it," she said in a flat tone " You look loke you spent the entire night searching and reading folklore and possible conspiracy sites. What the verdict?"
Dick clicked off something before looking up, his hand rubbing his jaw before speaking " Nymphs - river spirits, tied to natural water source. I am guessing like running water or 'Alive water.' They start fading after they been cut off from it could be that the water dried up or it was destroyed. However, according to some accounts … they can get dangerous. Unstable. Especially if they're desperate.”
Donna frown " That's myth. You don't even know if any of that is real if it's a conspiracy. "
"And you saw her, Donna," Dick snapped at her sharper than he was meant to. His eyes flicked on and off her " She didn't just appear out of nowhere. She's tied to this and somehow. Until we know for sure I am not risking any of my or our chances."
Kory's arm crossed her brows furrowing at the information.
” So, what's the plan then? Contain her like a criminal? Put her in a cell? Accuse her of something we know nothing about? "Her tone interlaced with sarcasm with a under layer of real concern. "She didn't hurt Rachel. She Saved her. And you're already talking about locking her up?"
"She attacked those men," Dick shot back.
"MEN that were taking Rachel and were going to HARM her. She defended herself and Rachel.” Donna corrected his facts with a firm but calm tone of voice.
"She drew Blood."
"And didn't kill him when she could have easily done it. "Donna's eyes narrowed.
The silence stretched, suffocating.
Kory sighed breaking it, her voice on edged but quieter "We don't know enough about her to treat her like a number one criminal. "The person in front of me was not an enemy to me, he was someone who was exhausted. Somone who has given up and is trying not to fight.”
Dick's jaw worked, he didn't answer the question thrown at him. His eyes focused on his notes as he gripped the table with his knuckles.
Donna let her holding breath out through her nose, tilting her head slightly " We need to asl questions before we build prisons."
"That is assuming she'll even come back. "Kory muttered.
"She will" Dick closed his laptop with a snap, eyes landing on his notes again and back at Kory. "They always do.”
The room went silent again.
In the hallway just out of sight Rachel lingered. She pushed her body against the cold wall as her heart pounded with every word that sliced through her entire chest. A cage. Containment. They would never understand Dick would never understand.
Her hand curled into a fist. She knew what she had to do.
Rachel stayed still until the house became completely silent. She moved quietly through the hallway with racing heart before she knocked once before entering Gar's room.
She locked the door behind her pressing her forehead on the cold door. Turing around she saw Gar sat crossed-legged on his bed, comic book open but forgotten in his lap. He looked at through confused blinks. "Uh…hi? you look like your about to confess to a murder or something."
Rachel shot him a look, pressing her lip tight before answering " I heard them. Donna, Kory, Dick… all of them."
"They want to lock her up." Her voice was low, sharp with disbelief. " Dick is the main one. He thinks she's dangerous. Like she's…some kind of creature that exist out of threats."
Gar frowned, comic sliding from his hand., his eyes with even more confusion. "Wait but…What? she didn't hurt you…We both saw it…We all saw it. She could've let those creep drag you off, but she didn't."
"That's what I'm saying!" Rachel hissed, pacing now her hand curling into a fist. "Donna doesn't trust her, but at least she not trying to capture her like an animal… I don't know, she isn't obsessed. Kory too - she even said maybe she's just lost. But DICK- " She stopped, turning on him. "Dick's already planning against her like she is some sort of criminal that batman fights."
Gar sat back, brows knit, running through his hair sighing. He didn't like that. He didn't like that Dick is slowly turning this into a mission when it didn't feel like one. "That just doesn't make sense. why waste time hunting someone or something that isn't causing harm or trouble?"
"Because Dick doesn't see her. He only sees risk.” Rachel voice cracked. She swallowed the lump on her throat. Eye flickering with something desperate. "I saw her. she was protecting me with scared and tired almost like vanishing.
Gar pressed his finger against his knee while feeling restless as his thoughts kept returning to the water glow surrounding you and your protective position and your flickering appearance that suggested you didn't belong to this world.
"So…" he started " What do we do?"
Reachel leaned in, whisper "We find her. Tonight.”
Gar blinked. "Do you mean - sneak out?"
"Yes. Before Dick decides to put her in a cage. Before it's too late.”
Gar mouth twisted they rush of nervousness and infringement ran through his veins "You realize Dick's goanna murder us once he finds out."
Rachel's eyes soften almost pleading. "I don't care. She needs help. We can't just ignore that she is out here, Gar."
Something about the way her voice shook mad his chest tighten. He let out a small breath, rubbing the back of his neck "Alright. Fine. I'll help but if Dick kills us. I'm blaming you."
Rachel showed a short real smile. She sat down beside him, her knees meeting her chest as she wraps her arms around her legs " Deal."
A silent moment fell upon both. neither spoke. Rachel leans ever so slight toward Gar before planting a kiss on his cheek. Whispering a small 'Thank you.'
Kory had found her way over to Dick who was standing near the window watching the outside. "She spoke softly when she said "You're wound tight."
Dick didn't answer. His shoulder squared, jaw tensed his hand twitched slightly ready to reach for a weapon that wasn't even there.
Kory glance over his shoulder her gaze softer now. "She saved her. You cannot ignore that.”
"She also hurt." he muttered. His voice flat and low
"She was attacked."
"The situation remains the same regardless of what she is."
Kory rested her frame near the window where Dick was standing. "What is she, exactly? An enemy? Or just a lonely soul caught in a wrong place at a wrong time.” He voices gentled, she smooths the edge that Dick was on. "What if she's scared? Just like Rachel is. Just like Gar was. Just like… I was.”
Dick turned his frame to face Kory he didn't meet her eyes.
Kory moved nearer to him while her presence brought warmth and stability to the situation " Every battle you have ever fought exists inside you like an active war zone. But not everyone or everything is an enemy, Dick. Sometimes" she passed her hand slipped on Dicks chest. "…sometimes people are lost.”
His breath hitched - barely audible, but she caught it. His mask cracked for a flash second weariness of doubts. His eye found her warms ones at the moment all of his armor fell.
Kory brushed his hand on his neck then down to his edge of his arm. The small gesture extends itself with caution while avoiding any form of insistence because it exists solely as an anchor.
Dick released his breath slowly while his shoulder relaxed. The expression on his face became gentle as his mental struggle against his emotions found temporary peace.
"Kory…" he started, in his true raw voice rarely letting anyone hear it.it was sincere it was venerable.
She smiled slightly to herself because she believed she could penetrate his defensive barriers. " We'll figure it out. Your fear of losing control should not cause you to forget that a monster differs from someone who is suffering from a wounded soul.
Their eyes held, an intimacy that lingers between them, Fragile but undeniable.
Dick straightened up, wall slamming back into reality, but the faintest trace of softness remains in his gaze when he looked back a Kory.
Kory turned around leaving dick with his own though.
Rachel and Gar moved like shadows; they slipped quietly down the hall and out of the back door. Their breath was shallow, their hearts racing each creak of the floor, each groan of the hinges.
The city was quieter at night. The air was hushed ad they moved quickly toward the same place as last night. straight toward the Riverbank.
The tree seems to open up to get some clearing, the faint rush of the river carrying the night. The moonlight painted the scene in a silver palette.
You sat alone, blank in emotions.
The water around you rippled unnaturally forming small circles and shape that collapsed when before one could hold them. It was trying to entertain you in a comforting way. Your eyes Flickered in a light glow - shifting, restless, betraying your turmoil. They were mostly pale a reflection what was going on.
Your body moved slightly under the weighted blanket that the river had placed on you which was not heavy or hard to pull but enough to make you feel alive enough.
You sat on a fallen log that was soften by the growing moss and plants spreading. While nature was cradling you still looked empty.
You tilted you head back watching the moon, drinking it light like it was the last time you'd see it shine as bright as this. You didn't know when you were going to feel this way. How many moons before the brightest pour it lights over you.
Your thoughts wander back to last night. To the girl, the young beautiful girl with wide eyes. She held him with all her strength in every part of her body. the way that she looked fragile. the way she looked lost and sacred in this world. You'd save her. Why? you had broken your rule, the rule of nature to save her.
Maybe you shouldn't have. Maybe this could lead to your possible demise.
You didn't want to be hunted, or to be seen, you didn't want to be feared.
Your chest rose with a shaken breath.
And then-
"I found you."
The whisper was soft with a hint of relief.
You head turned. Rachel stood at the clearing border with her dark eye shining like Christmas lights. She had been holding her breath this entire time. The boy who was a tiger watched you with both amazement and wariness as he stood beside her.
Something in you twitched. You weren't sure if you should feel scared? safe?
From across the log Rachel observed you with the same intensity as if you were a fictional character from a story she had seen you that night but never expected to meet in person.
"You are real," she murmured. " You're really here.”
Her voice trembled, but it was of fear gosh no.it was of hope.
Gar paused for a brief instant to observe you completely from your hair down to your feet. His chest tightened at the sight at your sight. Your hair moved like a black shroud that stuck to your body while you moved through the ocean waves. The way your dress seems like it made out of water, clinging and flowing all at once. The length of your legs peeked out of your dress, the pale under the moonlight. The soft curves of your body, not delicate, but she into something intentional something meant to be art.
Gar experienced his heart rate accelerate as it thudded through his hearing. The most important aspect was the fact that he was there. The strange addicting contradiction your cold skin radiated. Your skin shimmered damp, yet everything felt warm, safer than he had ever felt in month.
He stepped closer, slowly, almost reverently. His voice cracked with a nervous laugh. " Rachel… you weren't lying. Y-you're wow."
Rachel shot him down look, with a warning amusement, before turning toward you. "We wanted to see you. I want to help you. We want to help you. The other doesn't understand… but I think I do…"
Her hand inched toward you face cupping your cheek, hesitantly, shay but brave. "You are not dangerous. You are just…alone.”
The words cut deep, no because they were wrong - but because they were nothing but the truth.
You were alone.
I think this might be a bit longer than the last two chapters.
🌑 → Darkness / Depression Arc
💔 → Hurt / Emotional Collapse (Slightly)
💀 → Mentions of Assault / Rape (not detailed)
(Do not read if not comfortable)
The safehouse walls were rather thin, but the silence inside it was heavy.
They have all fought cultist before.They have seen power, horrors, even thing that you couldn't even begin to explain.But tonight was different. They witnessed an event which left them speechless.
Rachel sat in the corner of the couch with her knees pulled into her chest as tears streamed down her face from all the crying she had done. Gar stayed close, half- perched on the armrest like he would be just in case she slipped.Neither spoke. The room has a humming quiet tension.
Donna pace back and forward. The sound of her boots hit the floor in steady, deliberate thuds…thuds, her arms crossed. "I've read about them," she said again. She repeated her herself like the first time trying to make sense of the situation " Nymphs. The spirits that inhabit rivers and lakes and forests are the kind of myths that people dismiss as mere campfire stories. But that-"She stopped, turning sharply to the others. "That was…She is real."
"Or a trick," Dick countered.His voice was firm, not loud.He occupied the chair beside the small table while keeping his shoulders bent and tapping his fingers against the wooden surface. His eyes flicked to Rachel for half a second, then down to the polish floor. "Cultists want Rache.They'll use anything they can. Doesn't mean we have to invite them…"
Rachel's head snapped up, his voice breaking " She saved me!"
Kory moved before anyone could start any confrontation, crouching Infront of Rachel. Her hand brushed lightly across Rachel's arm " No one's saying that she didn't," she said gently, her tone softer than her usual fiery one. "But Dick's right. We don't know what she is or what she wants"
"What she wants?"Donna scoffed, pinching her nose bridge " You saw her.She didn't' want anything except to disappear.We all saw it."
"That isn't the point."Dick shot back at them, leaning forward.His body held a rigid tension as he spoke with words that cut through the air like a dangerous firearm. " The point is, Rachel was vulnerable. And someone we don't have any clue about or understand showed up out of thin air, wrapped in some kind of myth, and just walked right into the middle of it.THAT does not happen by accident."
"She wasn't - she wasn't bad," Rachel's voice cracked, she scrubbed her face with her sleeve, eyes glistening with emotions " Didn't you see her eyes?She was sacred!just… just like me."
The words hung in the thick air.
Gar finally broke the silence, his voice low, careful. "She… she felt different" His gaze flicked toward Rachel, then the others. " Not like the cultist. Not like a bad kind of different. When I saw her, she felt safe.”
Dick's jaw clenched, He did not look convinced in the slightest. "Safe doesn't mean trustworthy.”
"Safe means she did not kill Rachel when she had the chance." Donna snapped back, her patience fraying " And unless my eyes were lying to me, she could've cute that whole clearing in half if she wanted to.”
The room simmered.Kory breathed in and straightened, exhaling through her nose. "The fact remains that Rachel's is attached to her no matter what. which means we'll have to deal with this nymph, sooner or later."
Rachel buried her forehead into her knees while her voice remained hidden behind her hands. " She needs help. I have seen it."
No one answered.
Kory finally broke the tension, You could her the edged and exhaustion in her voice,
She stood up from her crouch beside Rachel and said, "Maybe this is all just a dream." Her eyes moved across him with a firm yet exhausted expression that signaled him to halt. " It been a long day. We should rest. Whatever we saw or whoever she is - we'll deal with it tomorrow."
Donna did not argue she only nodded once and stalked off toward the room she was staying at. Gar hesitated, glancing between Racheal and Dick before walking toward the hallway mumbling about something like checking for blankets and more pillows.
A short time passed before Kory's strong grip on her shoulder made Rachel rise to her feet.
Kory whispered to the bird "Come on little bird." " It's time to rest.”
Hours passed
Rachel lay awake with burning eyes as she stared at the ceiling. Sleep wasn't in her mind every time she blinked images would flicker behind her eyelids flashes of different scene happening to you.
Flash
Your face, pale and fading as the dirty river pulled you under with a scream.Your eyes dimming.
Flash
"Please." Your voice breaking. You laid there on the muddy ground weakened eyes pale.
Flash
Your body moving at the rhythm of assault. "You fucking slut yeah you like that."A male voice hissed. "I'm tired."
Flash
You are screaming. Being held down. Hurt. Use The shadows of dreams or truths faceless cruel.
Rachel sat upright, her chest tight bile stinging the back of her throat.
"Hey - hey, Rach."
Gar's whisper broke through Panic.He was crouching by her mattress, wide - eyed, his hand brushing her shoulder in worried "You, ok?"
She shook her head, clutching her blanket to her chest. Her voice cracked in tears. "W-we need to get her. Gar, I know she isn't a dream. I saw her."
Gar bit his lip, looking nervously at the hallway where Dick's door was shut. " If Dick finds out we're even talking abou-"
"I don't care." Rachel's voice cracked again, raw with something deeper than just stubbornness. She looked worried desperate. " She's in pain. I-I can feel it. It's not fair to leave her there. Not when she saved me."
Gar was hesitant, His finger curled on the edge of the mattress. He wanted to believe. And he believed that he probably did. But the weight of Dick's warning pressed heavy in his chest.
"Please, Gar. I know you felt it too, she wasn't evil.She was… she was protecting me."
The boy didn't say anything for a while before nodding his head, " Yeah .I felt it.” he said quietly.
Relief washed over Rachel's face when she heard his words. She grabbed his hand and held it tight looking at his eyes. "Then we have to find her. before it's too late.”
Gar nodded slightly while his voice dropped to a whisper " Okay. Tomorrow night. We'll go find her."
Rachel exhaled shakily, her head finally lowering her head back to the pillow. Gar sat on the floor his head on the mattress holding Rachel's hand in comfort.
But sleep didn't come easy.
Meanwhile, in the other room a glowing screen painted Dick's face in the cold light.
Hi finger tapping across the keyboard, one-tab after the other filling the screen. Scans of ancient texts, archived folklore and obscure mythological blog buried in corner of the internet.
He muttered under his breath while reading the faded script line of "River Nymphs". Spirits bound to the water sources, Ethereal guardians. Benevolent in lore… but destructive when threatened.”
He clicked his way through the text until his eyes focused on a specific section while his gaze became more intense.
When a nymph has been cut off from pure water, living water, like their groves, her strength wanes, The longer she is severed, the closer she drifts to death. Some people believe she turned violent and corrupted when she became desperate.
Dick's hand curled into a fist on the table.
Dangerous or not, you weren't going to stay a mystery for long.
The woods were too dark for comfort. The forest and river heard Rachel's piercing screams which sounded like a defenseless child being treated as a helpless animal.
The cultists didn't care.They had a death grip on her arms, her shoulders, dragging her through the mud toward the clearing by the eerie riverbank.Their whispers were low, fevered. You could smell it they wanted blood.They wanted her.
Form the water, you could hear it.
The sound cut through you like a blade the plea of a girl whose hadn't yet figured out who she was, crying into the night.
You should've stayed hidden.That was the rule. Your world had vanished while your grove lay lifeless and your power dwindled. Still, you couldn't let this happen.Not here.Not to her.
The moonlight caught you as you rose from the river.Your smooth skin reflected silver light which revealed your entire body shape like you were a marble sculpture that had gained life. Your hair clung in wet waves down your back, your eyes glowing a fain blue against the shadows.for a brief moment, you looked less like a woman and more like a myth stepped out of the old stories.
The cultist froze.Their grip on Rachel faltered.
She turned, wide-eyed, breath hitching as she saw you. The moonlight illuminated your face while your appearance remained stark but she lacked the time to notice your beauty. What really struck her instead was the way you looked at her with protective, fierce, like a shield made fleshed.
you stepped forward, water rising with you like a cloak.it curled around your ankles then lifted higher, ribbons of liquid coiling in the air, they shimmered in the moonlight, a barrier that pulsed faintly with your heartbeat.
"Let her go.” Your voice was low, quiet, but carried like a command.
The cultist let out a snarl as their fever transformed into unadulterated fury. One lunged at you.
The water moved first. A sharp lash of it cracked against his chest.throwing him back into the mud.Another charged: you spun, and the river spun with you, with a sweeping arc knocking him flat.
The shield of water curled closer around Rachel, droplets dancing like fragments of glass between you and her.She was mesmerized in tears that were cutting clean line down her dirty streaked face.
But then - rough hands seized you.One of them had broken through, grabbing your arm yanking hard enough to drag you off balance.
Panic and pain jolted through your body like lighting.
No, no you didn't want this.You didn't want to harm anyone.but your body reacted before your heart could stop it.
The water started to hardened hearing it crystalize into know sharpen fragments.A jagged spike formed, and with a desperate thrust, it drove into the man's side.
He cried out, stumbling back.The wound wasn't deep enough to kill him, but the blood stained his hand as he clutched himself.
You froze.Trembling.Your face contorted with terror as your breathing accelerated.
You hurt.
Rachel's voice, small but raw pulls you back from your spiral:"Don't stop.Please."
The cultist began to circle again, snarling, ready to overwhelm you both.You drew yourself taller, standing between Rachel and them, water rising higher, swirling in jagged ribbons.
And that's when the trees broke open with light and motion.
The first strike came from Dick who used his baton to flash before it cracked the cultist's skull. Kory's Starfire blazed, throwing another into the dirt with a scream.Donna used her lasso to capture the man before he could reach the ground. Gar roared as a tiger, leaping into the fray with his teeth bared.
In seconds, the cultist were scattered broken or fleeing.
Tall.sculpted.otherworldly.A goddess formed from river water protected a girl whom they had vowed to safeguard.
You faced their gazes while your breathing grew labored and you positioned your shoulder against their chest. For a moment everything was silent.The river produced the only noise which sounded like a continuous heartbeat.
You did not want to reveal yourself. Now there is no going back now.
The clearing fell silent.
The cultist groaned in the dirt, scattered like broken toys some flee but none of them dared to rise again. The titans stood in their place, shadow cutting against the glow of Kory's fading Starfire, their breathing heavy from the fight.
And then there was you.
The moon poured it light and strength across your form, drenching your skin in silver, while your soaked hair fell like a dark veil down you back. Water clung to you, not dripping but moving - curling, shifting, it was alive. Every curve of your body seemed sculpted, ethereal, too perfect to belong in this ruined world.
Rachel clung to you with trembling arms, her face buried in your side, tears streaking down as she sobbed silently into you. You lowered a hand to steady her. Your fingers brushing lightly across her hair. your tall frame standing solid between her and the rest of the world.
The titans stared. None spoke.
Kory's eyes burned faintly with curiosity and recognition flickering behind her guarded expression. Donna's jaw was set clenched; lasso still coiled in her hand but her eyes gaze sharper than any bladed. Gar had shifted back, crouched low, his eyes wide bouncing from you to Rachel, uncertain whether to be afraid or awed.
And Dick- Dick stared the longest. His expression was unreadable, all sharp edges and cold calculation, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of something else. shock? possibly unease? The beginnings of a question he didn't want the answer to.
Finally, he broke the silence. His voice was firm and rather demanding.
"Who are you?"
The words cut through the night. Rachel shifted even closer to you stiffened, clutching tighter against your body, as if the sound of his tone meant he'd try to take you away.
Your head turned slowly, eyes meeting his. The blue glow in them flickered, dimmed then burned again - but softer, more fragile.
It wasn't defiance, not even rage.
Pain.
It was blossoming pain.
You didn't answer, you just held his gaze, every ounce of exhaustion and ache in your body pooling behind your stare. The look wasn't threatening. it wasn't even defensive.
The look was of that of loss, like of somebody who got broken and lost. Somebody who's only fought to exist in silence and now is dragged out into the open.
Dick's jaw tightened, baton still clenched at his side ready to use.
The air between the two parties hung heavy, the weight of unspoken truth pressing down on all of them.
Rachel shifted then, voice trembling but defiant, muffled against your body.
"She saved me."
Silence again. The Titans watched. You held your ground, towering, soaked in river light, Rachel clinging to you like the only thing keeping her safe.
And the river behind you lapped against the bank, patiently waiting.
Donn'as took in a sharp inhale and broke said silence.
Her eyes widened as she stepped forward, voice low and almost in reverent. "Gods..." Her eyes linger on your form - your height, the way the moonlight poured over you, the living water curling around your frame.
"You're a nymph. A river nymph."
The word hung in the air like a spark about to set the forest on fire.
Rachel's grip on you tightened. Gar's brow furrowed, confusion attached across his face. Kory tilted her head, studying you with renewed interest as if Donna's words hand confirmed something she half-suspected from the start.
"You expect me to believe that?" Dick harsh word, cutting the air. He didn't move. His stance remained rigid. The revelation didn't relax him in fact it only sharpened his edge.
"That you just showed up her like some kind of fairy tale. That you aren't just another trick?"
The words fell on you like stones. yet you didn't flinch, you didn't rise to deafen yourself, you only watched him in his relentless distressful suspicions beating down harder than the weight of the cultists' hand.
You parted your plum lips with the faintest whisper escaping, your voice brittle and cracking.
"...I'm tired."
The water around you rippled at the words. The glow in your eyes dimmed, flickering pale as the ribbon of liquid began to slip away, dissolving back into the riverbank, Slowly, gently it wraps itself around you taking you in. Your tall frame sank backward, the water pulling you into it embrace like a mother cradling her baby.
For a good second, your silhouette was visible beneath the surface - a goddess dissolving into the earth, too exhausted to stand.
In a blink you were gone.
The water churned dark around you. You could taste it the unpleasant tang of rust, the sting of chemicals the suffocating filth of human waste choking the purity you once belong to. It filled your mouth, your lungs, your veins. No matter how deep you sank, it wasn't enough. This river, this water wasn't home it was poison.
Above the surface, Rachel screamed.
"Wait! No! Please!"
She lunged toward the riverbank, but Kory's arm caught her, holding her tight even when the girl kicked and thrashed, clawing at the air desperate.
"She's gone Rachel!" Kory's voice cut through her thrashing, firm but heavy with something like regret. "Rachel, STOP!"
Rachel's cries echoed in the night, muffled against Kory's chest as the older woman crouched, pinning her gently but firmly in place. Gar hovered at her side placing his hand on her shoulder, his face pale.
Donna stood frozen, eyes fixed on the water where the last ripples finally smoothed into stillness, "I've read about them," she whispered to herself. " But I've never... never seen one in my life."
Dick was still on edge, scanning the water, jaw clenched, eyes darting to every shadow. His question came in like bullet.
"What was she doing here? Why now? And why Rachel? like we don't have already so many things to worry about and this shows up."
But of course, those question where not answered. Only the sound of Rache's muffled sobs and restless lap of the poisoned river.
The Titans stood there, Caught between disbelief, fear, and the faint burn of wonder. The girl they'd found wasn't a girl at all - she was something way older than it was supposed to exist.
And somewhere beneath the filth poisonous river, you drifted, closing your eyes wishing for the pure waters to come back.
They say that nymphs are not meant to be seen by the human eye.It is simple YOU were never supposed to be found.For years, you lived in the shadows of Detroit's reivers, you have become the last of your kind: a night-born water nymph, cut off from the very grove that gave your life.Your body grows heavier with each passing day as your strength dwindles like a dying candle flame. You were slowly running out of time.Your powers - controlling water, healing with it, soothing emotion under moonlight - comes with a price.Every time you use them, a little more of you fades.
Rachel Roth experiences your presence in her visions when her nightmare begins because she sees eyes that change like the ocean tides between silver during calmness and storm-dark during anger and pale when near exhaustion. The titans, were searching for answers, follow the pull of her dreams and find you near the river, what should have been a possible alliance begins as a confrontation: you power lash out defensively, and the team mistakes your fir another enemy.
Dick Grayson doesn't trust you. He's seen to many unstable people in his life with dangerous gifts. and to him, you were a big liability. Kory Anders observes a different reality than others do because he sees a soul that has been suffocating under the weight of silence. The moment you appear Rachel feels an instant connection because she sees the same emotional burden that she has been carrying within herself. Gar Logan tries to make you laugh, teasing you with nickname to soften the weight burden to carry. Later on, when Jason Todd appears, he is simple he mocks you calling you "Siren," through there's something almost protective in the way he does it. Donna Troy keeps a watchful eye on you while keeping her doubts until she sees evidence to decide if you are trustworthy.
The more time you spend with the, the harder it becomes ton stay concealed. You're pulled into their battles: against cultists, mercenaries, and the looming shadow of Trigon. Your fighting style is completely unlike theirs - fluid, evasive, dangerous. You strike with water whips, shields, and pressure waves, but even move like such leave you weakened. Healing wounds drains your life out. And when fear overwhelms you, you unleash an ability you hate and fear the most: drowning enemies from the inside out. It terrifies the team, and it terrifies you even more.
You consider leaving and you did. You don't believe you belong with them, near them, not when your sole existence feels like a slow collapse. When the titans found you, they could only seek of you not to leave not to vanish back into the river. The group members offer comfort through various methods: Rachel provides quiet support while Gar uses humor, and Kory gives loving encouragement, and Dick shows reluctant protection, and Jason shares reckless honesty and Donna demonstrates strength. What was once as broken scare fragment of affection grow into something undeniable - and no not rivalry, not jealousy, but something shared.
Trigon's return approaches while you continue to fall repeatedly because of exhaustion and physical strain which causes your body to fade away like melting water. They appear every time to support you while asking you to stay and reveal through their actions that your value exceeds what you have ever understood. The last battle forces you to face death while understanding the deep connection that exists between you.
You will no longer be a stranger in this world by the end. you are no longer a Stanger to them. You are part of them. You are not drowning anymore - not with the titans at your side, not when their arms around you, not when they share a love for you.
After having an argument with Gar that nearly ends your friendship, you decide to finally get over your fear of using your own powers and finally embrace them. If you do things just right, you could finally get everything that you (and Gar) have ever wanted.
Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut, (Slight) Angst and Fluff. Set during Season 2.
Word Count: 18,000
Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist
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List of detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.
Warnings: general emotional angst (due to the reader and Gar having emotional distance from having an argument at the end of the other chapter), (very light) canon level violence, mentions of medical experimentation/medical torture, the reader character has medical trauma from years of illness, mentions of medical debt, manipulation and emotional abuse (from Doctor Caulder toward Gar and the reader), mentions of burns/burn scarring, mention of the reader being abandoned by her parents, mentions of vomit (no graphic descriptions), the reader character has a seizure, (likely) improper first aid performed for a seizure, the reader has chronic illness/chronic pain, use of prescription medication, the reader is more feminine (wears lacy underwear), the reader has a vagina and uses she/her pronouns.
This chapter contains smut - both dream fantasies and played out sexual acts. The reader character is mute but all consent is enthusiastic and clear, biting/marking kink, some dirty talk, semi-public sex (having sex in the communal area of a house - also, coincidentally, the sex fic I have read where characters have sex in a space that just happens to have a camera in it), scent kink, oral - reader receiving, multiple orgasms (reader receiving), (slight) overstimulation (reader receiving), hair pulling kink (Gar receiving), it’s implied that the reader and Gar are virgins but it’s not lingered on and it’s not a plot point of the fic, unprotected sex, creampie, penis in vagina sex, rough sex, (idk how to phrase it?) marriage kink/commitment kink, passionate sex/love making, Gar calls the reader ‘wife’ (in a fantasy sequence), some mentions of blood (the reader scratches Gar’s back and draws blood by accident), I believe that’s it.
A/N: This turned out way longer than I intended. But I love it and I really hope that you guys do too!!
...
After the argument, you didn’t see Gar for the rest of the day.
When Dick came in to check on your progress with training, he immediately questioned why Gar was missing. You made up a lame excuse about how he had been feeling sick (which had to be translated to Dick by Jason) and Dick complained that all of you had to learn to ‘work through’ things like illness, but at least he didn’t question why Gar had locked himself in his room for the rest of the night and didn’t come to dinner.
After you had washed the dishes and sulked through the rest of your nightly routine, you considered knocking on Gar’s bedroom door before finally going to bed yourself - but you just couldn’t bring yourself to face him.
You had truly hurt him, and you weren’t sure how you were going to recover from it.
As you laid in bed that night, so strung up with guilt that you couldn’t sleep, you stared at the ceiling. Of course, all you could think about was Gar.
You thought back to when you had first met him - going over those first days of your friendship in your mind. The undeniable way that the two of you were drawn so close together. In friendship or in that unutterable, constantly denied romance - the two of you were soulmates.
And you had fucked it all up.
You missed your best friend so badly. You wondered where it had all gone so wrong.
…
You felt lucky that Doctor Caulder had taken you in.
Before him, before the serum, your last chance at moving out of the palliative care ward would have been offering your body as a live cadaver up for experiential treatment. It was something that might have put a dent in your medical debts, but it also would have meant a lot of pain and torture as your body was used as a trial for vastly experimental medicine and treatments - none of which were guaranteed to prolong your life as the deadly brain tumors grew to consume your brain, seemingly trapping you in a loop of pain and torture for those last few years that you had.
At the time, Doctor Caulder was a savior to you.
He used the money he had from his dense inherited wealth to pay off all of the medical debt you had acquired from your lifetime of illness, giving you only one very small catch in the face of this intense generosity. He wanted your consent to try out his serum on you, claiming that it would either do nothing to change your condition, or it would be the magical cure-all that you had been looking for.
(He conveniently let out the fact that in your state of unwellness, with your weakened body, there was a large possibility that the serum could overwhelm your senses, stopping your heart - but that was a risk he was more than willing to take.)
Honestly - while you didn’t believe him - you couldn’t bring yourself to turn him down.
You had no other options, after all.
After he injected you with the serum and you woke up with your sight fully restored, you were shocked. It had somehow shrunk down the tumor in your brain enough that it was no longer pressing on your optic nerve, and you could once again experience the world in full, glorious vision.
It was something you were entirely excited by as you arrived at what would be your new home. Doctor Caulder had described it as a ‘vacuum of scientific advancement against the bureaucracy of the world’. Naturally, you had expected some kind of cold looking industrial building, another medical center that you would be trapped inside for years to come.
You certainly hadn’t thought that it would be a sprawling, gorgeous Victorian mansion in the secluded, peaceful countryside.
He brought you inside and set down your bag. You were too busy marveling at the details of the architecture, the stunning antique decorations, taking it all in after years of being deprived of sight to truly notice anyone else in the building at first.
You didn’t notice anyone else there until Doctor Caulder spoke to him.
“Ah, Garfield, I’m glad I caught you.”
You turned at the sound of someone’s name being called. Caulder had warned you that you would be living with several other people - people who he had helped and was continuing to help with their ‘unique conditions’.
When you looked over at him, the person that Doctor Caulder had called Garfield, the only truly unique thing you spotted about him was his bright green hair. That, and the fact that he was startlingly attractive.
Garfield paused his footing halfway down the hallway as Doctor Caulder spoke to him. When he turned back around to give the man his attention, you noticed that he had a candy bar poking out of his mouth as he held it there between his teeth, and a pair of large headphones over his ears with some kind of handheld gaming system in his hands. He reached up and moved one half of the headphones off to the side when he realized his full attention was needed. Then he bit off the candy bar, moving to shove the rest of it, mostly still wrapped, into the pocket of his large green hoodie.
“What’s up, Chief?” He asked, his mouth obviously stuck together by the candy and some chocolate slightly smeared on the side of his mouth.
“Garfield, please don’t talk with your mouth full.” Caulder - apparently the Chief, quickly scolded him.
You guessed that he found it rude because he was more uptight and proper, more old fashioned. But it was something that you easily found adorable and charming.
Garfield hung his head in shame and made a clear effort to swallow, running his tongue over his teeth to somewhat clean his mouth before he spoke again.
“Sorry.” He mumbled quietly. “Did you need something?”
It was then that he really eyed you up and down, as though he had just noticed you standing there.
You felt entirely out of place, but tried your best not to look nervous, and simply smiled as his eyes landed on your face. You noticed a small tinge of pink come over his cheeks when he finally made eye contact with you. His eyes made a quick jolt back to the carpet, obviously nervous and not wanting to linger on you.
“I’m sure you’ve heard Cliff mention my newest patient.” Doctor Caulder told him, gently motioning toward you. “Y/N will be staying with us for the foreseeable future while I explore her condition and any affects the serum has had on her.”
Garfield nodded at this. The wild tendrils of his green hair bobbed in a very adorable way with the motion, and you suppressed a giggle because of it.
“I’ll need you to show her around and help her get settled in for now, because I need to go up to my office and work on some notes while everything is still fresh in my mind. I’d like not to be disturbed for the next few hours, is that clear?” Doctor Caulder ordered, his voice calm, but oddly stern.
Garfield’s face twisted slightly into a frown, as though he was afraid of the possible consequences if he did disturb the man. But nonetheless, he nodded once again.
“Understood.” He said simply.
Doctor Caulder gave him a curt nod and then walked up the stairs, leaving you in the hands of your seemingly meek, very handsome tour guide.
He stepped toward you, and then realized the game console was still beeping in his hands. So he pushed a few buttons, shutting it off, and then he shoved it into his pocket as well before he slid his large headphones to sit around his neck.
“Hi, I’m Garfield. You probably heard that. But you can just call me Gar. I prefer it.” He rushed these words out in a puff of air, seemingly still very nervous to be in your presence.
You nodded at this. Before you could communicate in any way that you wouldn’t really be ‘calling’ him anything because of your mutism, he let out a huff - something akin to a nervous laugh and steamed rolled right into more conversation. He didn’t really seem to mind your silence.
“Y/N, right?” He posed, easily remembering your name from when Doctor Caulder had introduced you.
You nodded once again, giving him a small smile.
“That’s a really pretty name. It matches you. I mean- I-” He stumbled over his words, clearly nervous that he had unintentionally said something flirtatious. “I’m supposed to introduce you to everyone, right? Come on.”
He then took you on a tour of the sprawling house, his chatter filling the air in a most perfect way. The more he talked, the more he seemed to gain confidence around you. He became filled with energy, fueled by the things he was saying. Especially when he spoke about the house and the daily life that he lived there, pointing out the different rooms and where you could make yourself comfortable. His words filled the space so well that he didn’t seem to notice the fact that you couldn’t talk.
As he took you on the tour, you came across the different eclectic members of the household and Gar introduced you to them. And you very quickly came to realize what Doctor Caulder had meant by ‘unique conditions’.
If you didn’t have your vision freshly restored in order to see it, you likely wouldn’t have believed it. But they were very real.
Gar introduced you to Cliff - someone who looked more like a machine than a man, squeaky joints and all. But it quickly became apparent to you that he had a shining personality underneath all that metal, and his humanity wasn’t easily defined by something like rust and bolts. He was working on a half-disassembled car in the large garage, and Gar explained to you how the mostly mechanical man was an ex-racer who had gotten into a bad accident and been put back together by The Chief.
He then introduced you to Larry - who was in the kitchen, baking some kind of very tall, very impressive multi-layered cake (apparently in celebration of your arrival). He made a comment about you ‘being rather quiet’ and you just shrugged. They would probably be amused later when they found out why.
Larry didn’t want to comment much or explain the reason that his entire body was covered in bandages, and you understood why. In your mind, you assumed that he had been badly burned and the bandages covered some kind of scarring. The visual reminded you of people who had passed through the palliative care ward with severe burns over their bodies and didn’t survive long because of it. But he seemed to move without pain and he was obviously thriving, so whatever Doctor Caulder had done for him - it had worked.
Gar tried to introduce you to the last member of the household - Rita - but when he knocked on her bedroom door, he was met with silence. He simply told you that she likely wasn’t feeling well. And that you understood deeply as well.
The house tour extended down into the basement, because Gar was very excited to show you his room. You couldn’t bring yourself to disrupt his rolling speech or dampen down his swell of excitable energy.
He was showing you some of his movie posters - something for a movie called Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It was a movie you had never heard of before, and you only found yourself truly paying attention in order to learn about it now because Gar spoke about it with so much enthusiasm.
“-it’s considered one of the first examples of parody ever in cinema, an effort to take horror, something that truly terrified audiences at the time, and turn it comedic. Like shining a light on that monster under the bed so he’s no longer scary. It’s brilliant.”
Gar rambled on, his breath almost entirely escaping him as his enthusiasm overpowered his lungs.
You couldn’t help but to feel a swell of fondness as you looked at him.
His passion was so intensely palpable, it gave you goosebumps. It was a very old film that you likely wouldn’t have taken an interest in. But the way he talked about it - like it was revolutionary, like it was the most interesting thing in the world. It made you want to watch it ten times just to get to know him better, just to have a small taste of the passion that he felt so epically for it.
You didn’t know it then, but feeling his overwhelming enthusiasm spreading in the air was the beginnings of your very intense crush on him. It was the moment that you started falling for him.
“You know originally, Lou Costello scoffed at the idea of even making-” Gar suddenly cut himself off, a look of dawning crossing his features. “Woah, I’ve been talking for such a long time, haven’t I?”
Technically, yes.
But you would have been perfectly content to stand there and listen to him talk for hours more about this film or any of the others related to posters that he had on the wall. His enthusiasm and the way it was backed up by factual knowledge made him endlessly interesting to listen to.
In response, you simply shrugged.
Yes, he had been talking for a long time. But - you enjoyed listening. His tone and the abrupt way he had cut himself off made it sound like he had burdened you with his ramblings, and you weren’t sure why.
“Sorry.” He giggled, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “I’m probably being so annoying. I haven’t even let you talk about yourself at all. What - what kind of movies do you like?”
He seemed nervous suddenly, as though he had become self conscious in the conversation.
You filled with nerves as well, coming to the realization that you would now have to communicate to him that you couldn’t talk.
You motioned toward your throat, hoping he would be able to see the scar from the surgery that had stolen your ability to speak so long ago. Rather than understanding, Gar’s face knit with confusion.
“What, did the sea witch steal your voice?” He asked. The action reminded him a lot of that cartoon mermaid, desperately tapping on her throat, trying to explain to others why she couldn’t speak. “Do you need a kiss from a handsome prince to get it back?”
The words escaped him before he could stop it - and then he realized that it sounded entirely more flirtatious than he intended.
He bit his lip nervously and you let out a giggle. You became entirely overwhelmed by your own nerves, and your undeniable attraction toward him. If you were feeling at all bold, you might have leaned over and kissed him in that moment. But something in the back of your mind told you that it was rude - that he hadn’t truly meant it, that it was strange to come onto him so soon after meeting him.
When the awkwardness swelled inside of him, he rushed to speak again.
“Sorry,” He blurted out. “That was probably insensitive. If you’re really mute, that’s like a disability, and you shouldn’t make jokes about people’s disabilities-”
You vigorously shook your head, meaning to tell him that ‘no, I liked the joke’.
But his eyes instantly grew wide, believing that you were shaking your head negatively, believing that he was truly being insensitive and rude.
You raised your hands and began explaining it in sign language, and he sighed in defeat.
“I’m sorry.” He said. “I don’t - I don’t understand.”
Then, a look of dawning came over his face so strong it was almost as if a cartoon lightbulb appeared over his head. He then rushed into the other room - there was some ripping of paper (what you didn’t know was him ripping pages he had used out of a notebook so that you wouldn’t see them). After a moment, he rushed back toward you, thrusting a notebook and a pen in your direction.
You took it happily, and began writing.
‘Yes, I am completely mute. Yes, it is technically a disability. And yes, I did think your joke about the sea witch was funny. But… I don’t think a kiss from a prince will fix me.’
You passed it to him and after he read it, he gave a small chuckle.
“Yeah, that wasn’t so smooth on my part.” He said. “What happened? To your voice?”
You explained it to him. You spent a long time passing the notebook back and forth, explaining things to him about yourself and your life.
You told him how you had been ill for as long as you could remember, and it had only gotten worse as you progressed into your teen years. And eventually, the mounting medical debt became too stressful for your parents so they abandoned you and disappeared with no way for creditors to track them down. They had left you orphaned in the most cruel way.
Gar’s eyes danced with tears when he read this. You didn’t know it then, but he vowed to himself that he would always be by your side. He would be the one person who never left you, no matter what happened in life that might try to draw the two of you apart.
‘Can I ask you something?’ You scrawled out, passing the notebook to Gar with careful curiosity on your mind.
“Yeah, anything.” He replied.
‘Why are you here? What is Doctor Caulder helping you with?’
You were tempted to add on something about how he ‘looked normal’ - but you didn’t want to accidentally insult him.
“My condition… it’s uh…” Gar stuttered through his attempt at an explanation, and confusion flooded your features. “It’s probably just easier if I show you?”
You nodded in acknowledgement that you understood, and Gar put the notebook aside and stood from the couch where the two of you had been seated, talking for hours.
“Would you - uh - would you mind closing your eyes for a second?” He asked, once again draped in that nervous energy.
You hesitated for a second, but then complied. You weren’t sure how him ‘showing’ you would go if you had your eyes closed. But you trusted him to harness in that condition - whatever strange ability the serum had given and not let it hurt you. You felt safe around him even though you had only known him for a short time. And you wanted to make him comfortable rather than arguing about it.
You were curious when you heard some gentle rustling, and you cringed slightly when you heard what sounded like the cracking of bones. You hoped that whatever he was doing, it didn’t cause him any pain.
Your curiosity became too great and you opened your eyes when you heard a low rumbling. If you weren’t mistaken, it sounded like the purring of a very large cat.
Shock instantly overtook you when you opened your eyes to see that standing in front of you in the middle of the carpet - rather than Gar - there was a very large tiger with bright green fur. When your sight had been restored, you never, ever thought that this would be one of the first things you would get to see.
Your first instinct was to pull your feet up onto the couch, and the tiger - which you quickly had to reason was Gar, who had somehow shifted his body into a different form - hung his head in shame when he saw the fear overtake your body. You didn’t want to be afraid of him. You shouldn’t be, right? He had been nothing but kind to you since the two of you had met. He wouldn’t use this odd power to endanger you.
When you looked into those large animal eyes, you saw nothing but kindness. And you couldn’t resist the urge to step off the couch and lean out, petting a hand gently under his furry chin.
It was then that you were struck with the realization. The dream you had of being married to a large green tiger - it had likely meant something.
But you couldn’t bring yourself to linger on it.
Instead, you scratched under his chin and he purred, and you giggled at the fact that such a large, possibly terrifying animal was so docile under your touch.
(When Gar transformed back, you would deny that you snuck a glance at him changing back into his clothes. And you would definitely deny that you became obsessed with what you saw.)
…
Later that night, you met Rita when she came down to join everyone for dinner. She was a lovely, sweet woman. She was actually the only person (aside from Doctor Caulder) at the table who understood your ASL, though she didn’t seem eager to explain where she had learned it. You knew that everyone in the house had somewhat of a painful past, so you didn’t bother to ask.
The cake Larry had made turned out beautiful. A towering masterpiece that everyone had to purposefully crane their necks around as they spoke to each other. You couldn’t help but marvel in wonder at it and the rest of the amazing spread he had made. Gar told you that it really wasn’t that out of the ordinary, seeing as cooking was Larry’s favorite hobby.
You felt slightly bad for Cliff - seeing as he sat with an empty plate in front of him. But he seemed to show up to the meal mostly out of habit, family obligation, and a slight curiosity to get to know you. So you tried your best to answer everyone’s questions and be welcoming to the new friendships.
You enjoyed the meal well. Everything was delicious, and compared to the food you once ate on the ward - it was heaven. Everything seemed to be going perfectly.
Larry cut the cake and made sure that you got the first slice - which you selected from the towering variety of many different flavors. He cited that he didn’t know what your favorite flavor was, so he made a good variety as insurance. The taste of lemon was sweet on your tongue and you were enjoying yourself - when one of the lights began flickering.
It was just a few flashes above your head, just for a few moments, but it was enough to send a sharp pain shooting through the middle of your forehead and instantaneously cause a wave of nausea through your stomach. You dropped your fork onto your plate with a clatter, and everyone craned their necks around the towering cake to look at you. Gar immediately got up from his chair to rush to your side, wondering what was wrong.
“Are you okay?” He asked quietly.
Your senses were overwhelmed by dizziness, a horrid feeling that your eyes were churning inside of your skull. Sharp waves of pain radiated out from the middle of your forehead and seemingly caused the world to turn wildly underneath your feet.
You didn’t know that the harsh unwellness was visible all over your face - from your unpleasant expression to the light layer of sweat that had so quickly formed over your skin.
You shook your head, attempting to confirm to him that you were not okay. But this only caused the pain to worsen, and you held back a harsh gag, trying your hardest to keep the amazing dinner inside.
“You need to lay down.” Gar said quietly.
You felt safe under his touch and you let him guide you as he pulled out your chair. He put one hand around your back and used the other to take your hand as he helped you up and guided you away. You let your eyes fall closed against the harsh light as his hand came to rest on your waist, a calming comfort against the harsh pain throbbing through you. You let yourself lean on him for support as he did as promised - took you to lay down.
You were partway up the stairs when a voice disrupted you.
“Garfield.”
Doctor Caulder called after him harshly, causing Gar to pause his movements. You leaned on the bannister and kept your eyes closed. You had to concentrate hard on willing yourself not to vomit while Gar was distracted with the conversation.
“This is an important opportunity to study her condition, you should be taking her to-” Caulder began to argue against Gar’s actions, but he was cut off.
“She needs to lay down.” Gar argued quietly. “She’s had a long day. She needs rest. You can do your studies tomorrow.”
You didn’t know it, but this was the first time that Gar had ever gone against the man on anything. Doctor Caulder stood there in shock at Gar’s sudden shift in attitude while Gar put a hand on your lower back once again and helped you the rest of the way up the stairs.
He helped you into bed and pulled the covers over you. And then he got a hot cloth to put on your forehead, and got a bucket to put beside the bed in case you did throw up. It was then that you knew you would never feel properly cared for again unless it came from him.
When he thought that you weren’t paying attention, half sleepy and half drowned in the pain, he leaned down and laid a gentle, timid kiss on your forehead, right above the cloth.
…
Later that night, after everyone had fallen asleep, Gar snuck out to town and picked up a book on ASL. He was especially careful that his teeth didn’t pierce any of the pages.
He used the rest of the night to study, and he greeted you the next morning with a tray of gentle breakfast food (porridge, hopefully something that wouldn’t aggravate your upset stomach) and Advil. Despite the pain throbbing through your head, you broke into a beaming smile when he signed the words ‘good morning’ to you.
It was then that you realized just how much you were going to have to suppress your feelings for him.
…
Later in the day, Doctor Caulder was carrying out his tests as promised.
He had you in a different part of the basement - in an area that essentially looked like an operating room. Just seeing the tables and all the cold medical equipment triggered a lot of your fight or flight instincts, but you tried your hardest to remain calm. Especially because Gar was by your side, even though he likely could have been playing video games or doing something else a lot more fun. He told you that he would stay by you the entire time to make sure that you were comfortable.
You tried to relax and trust the process.
Doctor Caulder had adjusted the table, propping up the top of it so that it was much more like a chair. And he had wheeled in a large machine that consisted of a series of lightbulbs - something that turned out to be a strobe light, set to make specific patterns. He had taped several electrical probes to your head, ones connected to an EEG machine. Although he knew that this procedure was likely to trigger a seizure, he said that it was important for it to occur because your neurological problems were closely tied to your powers, and the areas of the brain that the serum had affected. He said that it was something important to measure - even if a seizure happened.
“Just face forward, and keep looking into the light.” Doctor Caulder explained. “It will go through a series of flashing patterns. I need you to try your hardest to keep your eyes open, and stay focused. It’s important that we record your brain activity while this is happening without disruption.”
You nodded in affirmation. You weren’t looking forward to the pain that it would cause considering that your head was still thumping with a migraine from the night before, but if he considered it necessary, you would do it.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gar asked. “How do you know this isn’t just gonna cause more harm?”
He was standing beside the table, holding your hand, and you were entirely grateful for his presence there.
He had seen the way you had reacted to a relatively dim chandelier bulb flickering at dinner the night before. He thought that this would be disastrous.
“Garfield, if you continue to question me, then I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Doctor Caulder told him curtly. “You can’t keep disrupting the process like this. We need to move forward.”
Doctor Caulder glared at Gar, giving him a moment to make his choice. To see if he was going to speak up and argue or remain quiet. Gar looked to you, wanting to see if you were truly okay with all of this. Nerves boiled in your stomach, but you feigned a smile, and squeezed his hand tighter, assuring him that you needed him there - right by your side.
Gar then nodded at Doctor Caulder, who stood behind the machine with the lights and turned it on. Gar flinched hard against the lights as they began to flicker. He turned his head away and closed his eyes, but he kept a tight hold on your hand.
Though it went against every screaming, pained nerve in your body, especially the ones pulsing through your head - you fought to keep your eyes open. Your carefully tuned hearing picked up on the scribbling needles of the EEG machine, Gar’s breathing. You could even hear the electricity sizzling in the bulbs as they went through three long flashes and then turned off. Three long flashes, and then off.
You survived the first pattern well before it switched to two quick flashes and then a period of seemingly prolonged darkness - something that wasn’t any more than three whole seconds in reality.
The moment that it switched to the intense, rapid strobing - you felt it. The tingling in your hands, the dizzying haze that said you were only moments away from having a seizure.
You had no time to warn either of them, especially considering that this was the first seizure you had post-serum, and it had unexpected size effects.
As your muscles became tight and your body began to violently seize, the house itself began to quake around you. It was as though the building were at the epicenter of a violent earthquake. Later, Doctor Caulder would come to the conclusion that your seizures now caused ‘rapid bursts of psychic energy’ to be released from you, completely uncontrolled by you. He realized that you would be needed to put on a high dose seizure medication to prevent any further incidents.
In those moments, though, it was chaos.
Between the shaking of the house underneath you and the unpredictable seizing of your muscles, you quickly rolled off the table. Gar easily caught you in a moment’s notice. Across the room, Doctor Caulder made a similar movement - reaching urgently to catch the EEG machine before it fell off of its own table.
When the quaking stopped, and you were left quivering in Gar’s arms, he couldn’t help but to feel a rush of disappointment as he saw the obvious play out before his eyes - Doctor Caulder was far more eager to save his data, to preserve the research that you had given him than to actually take care of you - his patient who was clearly in need.
“What was that?” Gar breathed out, looking from your unconscious face to the surrounding room. He didn’t think that it was a large coincidence that an earthquake had struck at the exact same time as your seizure and had lasted exactly as long.
“I believe that her powers were responsible for that.” Doctor Caulder theorized. “We’ll likely have to do more research to fully comprehend it-”
He abruptly cut off his own words when the scribbling needles of the EEG machine stopped.
Gar began peeling the probes off your forehead and Doctor Caulder only looked up toward you when the EEG flatlined as it was disconnected.
“Garfield, what do you think you’re doing?” Caulder barked at him.
“We’re done right now.” Gar said, his voice choked off by his anger. “Clearly, this isn’t helping. She needs rest.”
Gar resisted the urge to say more. He resisted the urge to berate Doctor Caulder for harming you. He resisted the urge to swear. He resisted the urge to threaten to run away with you - taking away Doctor Caulder’s precious source of research so that the two of you would never be seen again.
He had no clue that his anger was so intense that it flared up in his eyes, threatened to invoke his transformation against his will.
He felt calmer when he looked down at you, and petted a hand across your forehead. Although you were forced into unconsciousness because of the seizure, you looked peaceful and calm with your face so still, your eyes closed and your muscles finally relaxed. He hoped that you would feel better soon.
That was the day Doctor Caulder decided to start keeping a tranq gun near the operating table.
…
Things were quiet for a few days after that.
Doctor Caulder said that he needed time to go over the results of the EEG, and he didn’t want to induce anymore seizures in you for fear that it might bring down the house. So he did let you rest.
But in the interim, he didn’t check up on you or attend to any of your medical needs. He locked himself in his office to contemplate the science of it all while Gar stuck by your side. He held the bucket and rubbed your back while you puked, he held a hot cloth to your forehead when you needed it. He held a spoon up to your lips to feed you because your hands were too weak after being rocked by such a harsh seizure.
After a few days, you were almost thankful to Doctor Caulder for it. You and Gar were growing incredibly close so quickly because he refused to leave your side, and you had never felt so lucky to have someone like him in your life.
You hesitated when Doctor Caulder called you into his office upstairs.
He made a poor apology for the incident with the lights. He said that he was sorry for causing you pain, but it was ‘necessary’ to explore your condition, to map your brain and find out how the serum had affected you.
He said that the next step would be further exploring your strange powers. The powers you had accidentally discovered while transitioning out of the hospital. When one of the nurses had been attending to you, you had looked into her eyes, and you couldn’t even fully identify the feeling at the time. But suddenly, you knew this shocking, painful information. One of the other patients on the ward who you had come to know as a friend wasn’t going to live much longer. And when you had asked the nurse about it, she had accused you of snooping, reading through files - because the information was supposed to be confidential.
But Doctor Caulder - who had witnessed the conversation - easily saw it for what it truly was. An unnatural power given to you by his serum.
He then called Gar into his office as well - someone you obviously trusted and could work well with.
He set it up as a game.
He had written down several things on flashcards. You and Gar would sit across from each other, and Gar would read one of the flashcards, fully capturing the idea in his mind. And then you would use your powers to try and push into his mind - figuring out what was on the card without him ever speaking a single word or giving any hints.
As you sat across from him, preparing to begin, you were incredibly hesitant.
‘Are you sure about this?’
You wrote this as a message to Gar on one of the blank index cards. They were intended for you to write the answers that you retrieved from his mind during the ‘game’. You intentionally held back with the message, not fully describing your worries. You wanted to ask if he was okay with you breaching the privacy of his mind, but you were worried about Doctor Caulder seeing it, because you knew the man didn’t like to be questioned.
You flipped it around to show Gar, and he simply nodded after he read it.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Gar assured you with a smile. “It’s just a game, right?” He grinned. “It’ll be fun.”
You didn’t quite think so. But you tried to take on his positive attitude.
“Let’s begin.” Caulder said. He was standing behind Gar in a very imposing manner, reading the cards as well to ensure that he didn’t flub the answers just to please the Doctor.
Gar picked up the first card and read it, and he concentrated on it for a moment, making sure that the idea was focused in his mind. He gave a small nod, and then looked up toward you, knowing that he had to make steady eye contact with you in order for you to use your powers.
Pushing past your discomfort, you did as you had been instructed. You stared deep into those big beautiful brown eyes, and you purposefully breached the surface into his mind. The first thing you were met with was a rich visual of several golden retriever puppies frolicking in a field of grass, happily yipping and prancing around, almost tripping over their clumsy new feet.
You soon withdrew - even though it was a happy scene that gave you joy, you knew that you had the answer. You had an unconscious grin on your face, and that easily made Gar giggle as you flipped over the message you had made to him and wrote down your answer on the other side.
‘Puppies’
You lifted up the card and showed it to Doctor Caulder, who took a glance down at the card in Gar’s hand (which said ‘DOG’). He nodded at you, his stern face not flexing for a moment to show any sign of positivity. He picked up a clipboard from a small table on the chair beside Gar and began furiously scribbling.
“Continue.” He said, not looking up from his fast paced notes.
Gar looked down at the next card, took the same moment of concentration, and then looked back at you with a small grin on his face.
This time, rather than feeling like you were committing some kind of crime or doing him a grand disservice, you looked into his eyes and pushed into his mind with a gleeful joy - as though the two of you were sharing a delightful secret.
The next rich visual you saw featured Gar himself. He wore a pair of tight jeans and a leather jacket with some red tee shirt underneath, and he walked up to a red car - a very fancy, vintage looking car. He opened the door, got inside, and adjusted the mirror to look at himself before he stomped on the gas pedal and the car sped away with a screech. It was a very ‘cool guy’ moment, something that made you giggle because of the stereotypical absurdity of it.
When you drifted back into the real world, you went to the next index card, and had more of a difficult time figuring out how to phrase your answer.
You went with:
‘Driving a car?’
When you held it up to show Doctor Caulder, he checked Gar’s card, which simply said ‘CAR’. He frowned, and you thought that you had gotten the answer wrong.
“You have to concentrate more, Garfield.” Caulder scolded him.
Gar’s face dropped into a frown, and it made your chest twinge with sourness. You thought that a face as sweet as his should never have to frown.
“You got it right.” He told you quietly, before flipping to the next one.
You nodded. You hated the way that Caulder treated him. If you could scream at the man, you would.
Gar waffled for a few moments, looking at the card with blank eyes before he then looked up at you. There was a slight glassiness swimming there that told you he was ready to cry, along with the hesitation of a quivering lip. You wanted to end the entire exercise and simply retreat to the basement to play video games with him, but you knew that Caulder likely wouldn’t let you get away with that.
So you continued.
You used your powers once again, purposefully entering Gar’s mind.
You were surprised by the scene you were met with.
It was a vision of you and Gar - it was almost like a beautiful painting, like a fantastic daydream.
You were off in some grassy field, seemingly the same place the puppies had been. Lush greenery, boundless blue skies, warm sunshine that you could almost feel tingling against your skin. The two of you were holding hands - and the most peculiar thing that stuck out to you?
Your attire.
Gar was wearing a formal black suit with a green tie and a green vest to match his naturally wild green hair. You were wearing a long, lacy white dress that you couldn’t mistake for anything other than a wedding dress. There was a bundle of flowers looped around your head in a large crown, with a long, flowy lace veil going down your back, and a bundle of flowers in your free hand that wasn’t holding his.
It was a wedding, a marriage.
At the time, however foolish it was, you didn’t consider the scene to be any specific desire on Gar’s part. You simply thought that he was trying to communicate the idea - the concept to you. You thought that it was just part of the game.
When you pulled yourself back to reality, you felt entirely confident in your answer as you wrote it down.
‘A wedding’
When you flipped it over to show them, you were grinning proudly.
Gar’s face immediately dropped - embarrassment clutched at his stomach and panic overtook him. Caulder sighed with annoyance as he looked at Gar’s card, which said ‘WATER’.
Before any further discussion of it could be had, Gar dropped the cards and they scattered over the floor. He rushed out of the room, moving so swiftly that he was practically a blur. Doctor Caulder called after him, complaints wafting through the air.
You didn’t care to listen to the man. You got up and chased him, almost tripping over your own feet to get to him.
You caught him as he zipped up his jacket, clearly ready to escape out the basement door and go into town (something he told you he was not permitted to do, but often did anyway). You stepped right in front of his path. He sighed hard through his nose and tried to dodge you, and you stepped in front of him and kept blocking him. Eventually, he was forced to look up at you.
It was then - when you saw the look of a truly kicked puppy spread across his features, naked embarrassment lingering in his eyes - that the truth clutched at your stomach. You got the sense that what you had seen was truly private.
Part of you wanted to prod at him about his desires and ask why he had been thinking about that. But a larger part of you worried far more about the fact that you had upset him with the freakish invasion by your powers, and you wanted to remedy it. You wanted to save this amazing new friendship.
With the index cards and pen still in your hand, you quickly wrote a message to him.
‘I’m sorry.’
You wrote down, and then quickly flipped it to show him.
“It’s fine.” He huffed, clearly eager to escape the conversation.
Once again, he tried to dodge around you.
Once again, you blocked his path.
And then, you wrote down something else to show him.
‘It’s not fine. I shouldn’t use my powers on you like it’s a game.’
“The Chief needs to explore your abilities, right?” Gar sighed quietly.
‘Not at your expense.’ You reasoned.
Gar was silent when he came into this information - like this was the first time he had ever truly considered that the Chief’s methods were unethical.
‘We should make a deal. I shouldn’t use my powers on you unless it’s an emergency. Your mind should be your private space. I don’t get to go poking around in there for fun.’
You scribbled this down with haste, feeling very emotional about it. Then you handed it to Gar.
He gave a small smile and nodded after he read it.
“That - uh - that sounds fair.” He said, chuckling nervously. “And we… we don’t have to talk about what you saw.”
You both nodded and dissolved into giggles at this. And then, he took off his jacket, and fired up his X-Box so he could teach you how to play Cuphead to help the two of you forget about the whole thing.
…
Back in your room at Titans Tower, so long after those first amazing days of your friendship with Gar - you fell asleep deep in thought about him. You couldn’t stop going over those early days in your mind. Thinking about all the intense kindness he had given you when the two of you had first met.
Thinking about all of it truly made you realize how badly you had fucked up. You genuinely wondered if your friendship with him would ever have any chance at recovering from the cruelty you had shown him.
You were genuinely stuck between a rock and a hard place. You thought that if you told him about the things that had happened - about the visions you had seen - even if you stressed to him that it had been by accident, then he would feel that you had violated his privacy. He would be wounded by you seeing into his mind and not reporting it to him right away. He would be upset that your powers had put a wedge between the two of you. And now, he was upset because you had stolen his secrets and you weren’t confiding any of yours in him.
You were a bad friend. And you didn’t know how to make it up to him.
You woke up the next day feeling like crap.
You quickly realized that Gar was avoiding you. He did finally come out of his room because Dick banged on his bedroom door, demanding in a harsh voice that if his illness was really that serious, he needed to get it checked out. And Gar came out shoving a hoodie over his head saying that he was fine - while wearing the saddest expression you had seen over his face in a long time.
When you placed a coffee cup down in front of him as a peace offering - dark roast filled one third with vegan marshmallow flavored creamer, just how he liked it - he distinctly ignored it. He didn’t even look at you as he got up from the breakfast bar stool, taking nothing more than a dry piece of toast for breakfast before he stormed off toward the training room.
He placed himself in a secluded corner of the gym with his headphones blasting music, doing harsh pushups and pummeling the punching bag. He was making it very clear that he wanted to be left alone. And even when Dick called all four of you into another room for a verbal quiz on The Art of War (where you wrote down your answers on a white board) - Gar refused to make eye contact with you.
Even when you drew a satirical comic of Dick’s Robin cape being propelled by a fart (that you labeled ‘pent up aggression’) - Gar’s face didn’t flinch from the hard stone it had been set into. It made Jason snort water out of his nose and caused Rachel to call you both ‘immature’. And it got you a verbal lashing from Dick and three weeks of washing the dishes - by hand. So not worth it considering that Gar hadn’t even cracked a smile.
Gar’s cold indifference toward you rolled right into dinner. Gar didn’t flinch or try to take sides when Jason and Rachel broke into an argument about what had happened during game night. Jason brought up how stupid the concept of the game had been and he and Rachel began arguing about the rules.
(“If I’ve never seen the movie before, I should get a new question!”
“That’s not how it works, dickweed! Trivia is supposed to be difficult because you don’t know the answers!”
“So not true. Trivia is a test of memory. How am I even supposed to remember the answer if I don’t know the damn source material?!”)
The argument lasted long enough for you to finish your meal.
When Dick realized they were debating who was the true loser of the bet you had made, he pointed out that regardless of any bets, you had to do the dishes as punishment for the dumb little drawing you had made. You didn’t care all that much as long as it got Jason and Rachel to shut up - but Jason was all too smug about it as he handed you his plate. Once you had finished cleaning up, something you found oddly calming, a nice distraction from the chaos of the last few days - you found yourself wandering to Rachel’s door.
Much like you, she didn’t talk about her powers often.
Especially not since she had been tricked into summoning her demon father to earth and then she had been forced to kill him because of what he did to all her friends - the people she considered family. But you knew that like you, she had some kind of capability to see into other people’s minds - to delve into their memories or walk the long, winding halls of their thoughts. You knew she might be the only other person on earth who might be able to understand what you were going through. Someone who could give you some kind of solid advice about it.
After steeling yourself with a sharp breath, you raised your hand and knocked, waiting to see if she would even answer. The music that she was playing stopped, and after a moment, she opened the door, a look of surprise knitting over her features when her eyes fell upon you.
“Y/N.” She greeted you in a quiet voice. “What is it?”
‘I need to talk to you.’ You signed to her. You had some hope that she would understand what you meant, but her face was immediately overtaken with confusion.
“I’m sorry - I.” She sighed, quickly cutting herself off, looking for the right words to explain it. “Between Dick’s whole list of mandatory reading stuff, and the sparring practice… I’ve been meaning to, but I haven’t had any time to study sign language,”
She had genuine regret in her voice, which you could appreciate.
You exhaled through your nose, a deep sigh.
You gently pushed past her, inviting yourself into her room to settle in for the conversation. It did frustrate you that ASL wasn’t just a common language that was taught in schools, especially because it was psychologically proven that it was easy for toddlers to pick up on it with their brains being at a developmental age for it. It frustrated you that sometimes it was difficult for you to communicate with the people around you. But you tried not to let it get to you often.
You got your cell phone out of your pocket, gesturing with it to let her know you would be texting her the things you needed to say. It was a simple, easy system. You invited yourself to sit on her bed, flopping back among the messy, unmade dark sheets as you carefully chose and typed out the words you needed to say. Rachel settled back into her desk chair, turning on her music once more, adjusting the volume to a low hum that settled into the background. You recognized it as the Arctic Monkeys and silently admired her taste in music.
‘Have you ever accidentally seen something you regret?’
You sent the message. It took only a moment to race through cyberspace and you heard Rachel’s phone ping where it sat on the desk beside her.
She picked up the phone and looked at your message. She then looked back at you with her eyebrows knitted tightly, a mixture of confusion and deep thought pulling them tight together.
“Well there was that one time I accidentally walked into the bathroom when Jason forgot to lock the door-” She began.
You cut her off with a raised hand and a pair of wide eyes glaring her down.
You looked back to your phone and began typing another message, wanting to clarify what you meant.
‘With your powers. Have you ever seen something with your powers that you didn’t want to see?’ You typed it out quickly, hitting send.
Rachel read it over, placing her phone against her chin pensively as she contemplated the answer.
“I… I don’t know.” Her voice was thick with thought. “I used to have these horrible nightmares. Almost every single night. And now I realize that those nightmares are what led me here. And I wouldn’t have been able to stop Trigon if I hadn’t seen those things.”
Your throat tightened up.
You and Rachel had never really talked like this before. You almost felt bad asking her for advice, knowing your problems were very different from hers. Quite pedestrian compared to the woes of somebody who had literally stopped the apocalypse and saved your life, and everyone else’s. You were worried about a school girl crush and she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Why, what did you see?” Her curiosity leaked through her lips. She had quickly connected the dots to realize that you wouldn’t be asking questions like this if you hadn’t seen something of significance.
Naturally, you weren’t going to tell her the details. Not only because the things you had seen were incredibly graphic, revealing, and private, but because you did suspect that she had some kind of small crush on Gar. And you didn’t want to crush her small hope of being with him and make her upset. Especially considering you had seen what she could do when she was upset.
You opened the one-way text conversation and thought for a moment, carefully contemplating what you would tell her.
‘I saw something private. Something I probably wasn’t supposed to see.’ You sent the vague words, and she read them over quickly.
“What, like a sex dream?” She posed.
There was a laugh on the edge of her voice, as though she was only joking. But the accuracy of the comedic prod scared you. You wanted to change the topic quickly - before she truly sniffed out the truth.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ You sent quickly. When she saw the three small bubbles pop up, indicating that you were typing more, she simply waited. ‘Have you ever felt weird acting on information you’ve gotten from your dreams? Doesn’t it feel like cheating the system? Like you should just shut up and pretend to be normal?’
Rachel sighed, a sharp breath that clung to the insides of her throat. She placed her phone down in her lap and leaned back in her desk chair, swaying slightly with the swivel of the rolling chair’s base.
“I don’t think any of us can just pretend to be normal.” She noted quietly.
Rachel’s words were calm and wise. It was something she had probably realized about herself a long time ago. It was a truth you had yet to fall to. You caught glimpses of the future in your dreams, you could see things about people they never dared to admit to themselves. You were in love with a man who could turn himself into a tiger at will, and yet, your heart still cried for something that resembled ‘normal’.
Rachel saw it written all over your face - that warring. And more of that oddly aged wisdom came pouring from her lips before she could stop it.
“What’s that saying?” She pondered aloud. “‘What’s normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.’”
It was a saying you had never heard of before, but it was oddly comforting in those moments. The idea that ‘normal’ means something drastically different for everyone.
When you didn’t say anything, didn’t pick up your phone to start typing, Rachel continued.
“I mean, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be the spider, or the fly, but…”
She trailed off for a moment, getting lost in thought. She looked up at you when she had found the proper words, her eyes filled with a steely determination.
“Look, somehow, I saved Dawn from a coma.” She firmly reminded you. “She didn’t give me an open invitation to go poking around inside her brain, but she needed me. And I needed her. I know having the ability to see inside people’s minds can be weird. But you shouldn’t just go around pretending you can’t do it because you’re afraid you’ll hurt people’s feelings, or whatever. You could save their lives.”
You knew the information you had obtained wasn’t exactly life saving, but she had a point. An excellent one. Maybe the reason your powers were acting up like this was because Gar was reaching out to you. Maybe it was because he had felt the same way about you for a long time now and he didn’t have the guts to tell you either. So unconsciously, he was reaching out, trying to show you his feelings so he wouldn’t have to risk getting hurt.
‘Thank you. That actually really helps.’ You sent the message and gave her a smile, hopping off the bed and leaving the room once again.
…
You had some time to kill before going to talk to Gar.
You really wanted to talk to him this time - truly wanted to conquer everything you had been holding back over these past few days. So you were hoping that everyone else would be in bed asleep so they couldn’t interrupt the two of you.
You took up some of the time with a nice, long shower. Which was partially interrupted by Jason banging on the bathroom door, complaining about how long you were taking - once again. And you took your time getting ready afterwards.
You did your hair neatly and smoothed nice smelling lotion all over your skin. Of course, the thought did occur to you that the ‘conversation’ could lead to you and Gar having sex. That’s what had been so prominently on his mind for the past few weeks. That thought likely did influence your decision to put on a pair of skimpy, cute lace underwear and forego wearing a bra underneath your pajamas. A thin matchy cotton tank top and shorts set.
Your stomach was ripe with bubbles, absolutely full of air and anxiety as you sat on your bed, waiting for more time to pass. There was a book in your hand that you barely knew the name or contents of as you tried to kill more time. Your eyes flicked over to the clock. It was almost one in the morning. Surely you had waited long enough.
You didn’t bother with socks or slippers, your cold feet eager and quiet on the floor as you sneaked your way to Gar’s room. You were surprised to find empty, his wide open door revealing a messy, unmade bed without him in it. You hovered in the doorway for a moment, almost losing your courage and going back to bed.
But then your eyes landed on his nightstand.
There was a wide picture frame holding the picture of him and his parents. And tucked into one of the outer creases of the frame’s wood was something else - two photobooth pictures of the two of you. The pictures were from the first time he had snuck you out of the house to take you to the arcade at the roller rink. You had taken the other two pictures off the set of four, and always kept them in whatever journal you were currently working on.
Seeing the memento kept so close to him, so dear - it filled you with a fresh wave of confidence and desire. You turned around, determined to find him. Luckily, there weren’t that many places to check.
The kitchen and living space were empty. The bathroom was empty and the doors to the security room were shut - meaning Dick was likely in there, researching something, occupied. The only other place to check was the training room.
Gar was in there, putting himself through another rigorous training routine. Clearly he couldn’t sleep with the fight the two of you had still weighing on his mind. And he was quite a sight to behold.
He was shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxing gloves and black sweatpants that hung dangerously low on his hips. He was pounding away at the heavy punching bag, clearly trying to take out some of the frustrations that you had caused to run ramped inside of him. He was aglow with sweat, the tips of his green hair hanging down in his eyes, sticking to his forehead. His tight abs were slick and shiny in the light in a way that made you want to lick your lips.
His attire easily revealed the delicious cut V of his hips and even a slight bit of pubic hair where he hadn’t properly tied up his sweatpants, and they were beginning to slip slightly due to his activity. You could see a rather impressive bulge, signifying that he was definitely not wearing any underwear. It swung around freely as he worked, punching hard at the weight bag. You had to force yourself not to become distracted by the movement of that mighty snake inside his pants - especially now that you knew what it felt like against you when it was throbbing and hard.
He either hadn’t noticed your presence yet or didn’t care to interrupt his workout to acknowledge you.
“If you came to train, don’t let me bother you.”
Gar huffed quietly when he finally paused his movements for a moment. He sounded so entirely wounded, and the words caused pain to radiate through your chest. He leaned down to pick up his water bottle between the two clunky foam gloves without taking them off. He took a large gulp from it while he not-so-subtly eyed you through his peripheral vision, clearly waiting for your reaction.
“Apparently that’s all I am to you lately.”
He added on after he swallowed the water, deadly quiet. His words were barely louder than the metal creaking as the punching bag continued to swing from the residual momentum. But you heard him absolutely clear.
The sentiment weighed on your heart like a pound of bricks.
You knew there were no words to explain it to him. You knew he would still be angered at you for using your powers on him without permission, even if it was by mistake. You couldn’t explain how it had been a mistake, how it had only been with him. You still didn’t know exactly why or how it had happened.
After he gulped down a healthy dose of water, he tossed the bottle aside and rose to his full height. For the first time all day, he finally cast his attention over toward you. His face was set with one of the most sullen expressions you had ever seen. You hadn’t seen him this upset since he had attacked that man back at the asylum. Every bit a kicked puppy, as you looked at him, you tried to find the right words, but came up empty. You almost turned to walk away, almost burned dry of the courage you needed to face this.
But with Rachel’s words still ringing in your ears, you looked into his glassy eyes, and for the first time in a long time - you pushed into the quiet realm of his mind purposefully. You needed to dig to find something that would help you. Something that could remind you of how perfect you were with Gar.
You were surrounded once again by the thick, plush world of his own imagination.
Even if it wasn’t that different from the world you lived in.
The two of you were in the training room, with him wearing a blindfold as you practiced the unorthodox drill that was assigned to you. You got in a few good hits with the practice sword in your hands, and ultimately tackled him to the ground.
The two of you ended up in a position that wasn’t too different from the reality of the day before. Though it was playful and light, rather than hypersexual and startled.
You pinned him down with your thighs on either side of his waist, your hips sitting dangerously above his. Your body weight was balanced partially on your knees and partially on him. You held your wooden sword to his throat, poised in a threat you would never carry out against him.
He swallowed hard, his throat muscles jerking underneath the wood. You knew it was more because of the rising heat your compromising position was causing him and not because he was actually afraid of you. Or perhaps him being just a tiny bit afraid of you turned him on that little bit more.
You let out a laugh as you tossed the sword away, leaning in to take off his blindfold and give him a kiss on the cheek.
“What was that for?” He asked, regarding the unique new affection you had never really shown him before.
‘Kiss it better.’ You signed, before leaving in and leaving a deeper, more heated kiss fully on his mouth.
You forced yourself out of the thick, hazy daydream then.
This was the answer. No words would be able to fix this - you needed to kiss it better.
‘Kiss it better.’
You repeated this to yourself in the real world, confirming it as the truth.
Gar read the signs you performed and - out of context - it draped him in hopeful confusion.
He continued to stare you down with that delicately confused look enveloping his features as you marched across the room toward him, your steps over the cushioned mats of the floor filled with pure determination.
He wondered if he had read your signing wrong, or if you were really planning to kiss him. Part of him thought you were going to hit him, or finally flip out on him for whatever perceived crime he had committed. And when you did it - he could hardly believe that it was truly, finally happening. That it wasn’t some dream.
You reached up and grabbed him by both sides of his sweat damped head. And after years of waiting - you pulled him into your lips.
Without hesitation, going on the pure fire in your belly, you kissed him.
You channeled every ounce of raw need that had built up since the first time he had sucked you into a daydream where he so ferociously kissed you. His shock was evident at first. His whole body went stiff under your touch, which almost caused you to pull away. But a small moan rang out from the back of his throat - something that made you instantly dizzy with need. It made your lips seek out his with even more force, making your grip on his head clamp down as if to not let him escape.
He began to kiss you back with just as much ferocity as he had in his dreams - echoing out another moan as he truly appreciated the taste of your lips.
You felt him move but you didn’t open your eyes to look. You heard the tearing of velcro as you gnashed your teeth across his top lip and then latched onto the bottom one. Behind your back, he was taking off the boxing gloves, throwing them somewhere on the floor with a careless, quiet thump. Then his arms were around you, snaking around your waist. His flat palms went up the back of your shirt like impossibly hot magnets and pulled your body to his. He closed the small gap you had left for fear of being rejected - he welcomed you into his world with the utmost sincerity.
Your shirt stuck to him because of the sweat he had worked up, and you wanted it off immediately. You wanted all your clothes off. You wanted to feel the naked rawness of the bulge you could feel swelling against your hip. But for now, you were too distracted by the other sensations he drowned you in to even consider pulling away to strip down.
You were too caught up in the wicked work his tongue was doing as it snaked past your lips. You were obsessed with the loving way his hands held you. You lavished in the heat of his body as it radiated out against you like a wildfire. One of his hands was sprawled out in the middle of your back underneath your shirt. The other cupping the back of your head like you were the most beautiful, delicate doll he had ever had the pleasure of holding in his life.
Eventually, both of you were forced to pull away from the kiss - succumbing to that formidable human breath.
“Is this real?”
Gar said quietly, seemingly almost more to himself as he pulled away from your lips.
You opened your eyes, running a hand down to gently cup his cheek. He felt your gaze on him and opened his eyes. For the first time in days, he stared into your eyes so intimately and the dream became real.
“Are you forreal right now?”
These words were a bit louder.
Not loud enough to break the sacred bubble of hot mingled breaths, spit, and sweat you had created. He wouldn’t dare do anything to shatter this if it was just another sleepy fantasy. But even if it was a fantasy, he still wanted to ask for your consent. That much you realized.
Hesitantly, you tore your hands away from his glistening, flushed skin to formulate your reply.
‘I want you.’ You told him simply.
Without another moment of hesitance, he used the strong hold of his arms around your torso to take you to the ground.
You wrapped your legs around him upon instinct. Your arms came up to clasp around the back of his neck as your ankles fumbled somewhere on his back. The action unintentionally drew your hot centers closer together.
Gar bringing you down elicited a surprised squeak from you, which staved off into light laughter as your back met the mats. The laughter was easily echoed by him, deep and hardy. The sound turned into a playful, pleasurable growl into your neck as he ran his teeth along the skin there, nipping, marking his territory. You didn’t think his growling would ever be so sexy to you - but fuck, the noise ran a shock up your spine. It made your pussy clench around nothing and sent a wave of wetness into your underwear.
This was going to be fun.
“You have no fucking idea how long I’ve wanted this.”
Gar grunted into your neck, his voice already deepened by the cloud of his lust. His tongue licked a hot path down your skin into your cleavage. His hands ran down your sides to grip your hips through your shorts, his touch feeling blazen through the material.
“Wanted you.” He groaned, sounding so lust-drunk already. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
You had some idea.
But just hearing him say it, feeling the words vibrate against your skin made you moan for him. It made your fingers dig into the flesh of his shoulder blades. You were desperate for some kind of anchor on the plane of reality to assure yourself that you weren’t lost in the depth of another beautiful dream.
You were vaguely aware of the fact that there was probably a camera somewhere in the room. Maybe multiple cameras seeing what Dick’s personality was like. Hell, Batman was the one who had designed and built the place and Dick was only teaching you guys what he had been taught. He probably used the footage of you guys training to review your weaknesses so he could make you better - build better soldiers.
But all those thoughts melted out of your mind the moment that Gar lifted up your shirt. He continued the wet trail with his tongue down the middle of your stomach, stopping once and a while to make sloppy kisses against your skin. You knew exactly what his intentions were when his hands curled into the waistband of your shorts and underwear all at once.
Your legs fell limp as he started to pull them off.
A fresh wave of heat surged through you, making you absolutely drunk as he tossed your clothes behind him. He poised himself between your bent knees, kissing up your thigh with a tight hold on it, holding himself up with the other hand.
“You smell so fucking good.” He growled out, low, heavy under his breath. You moaned out, only getting drunker with his words. “Fuck, I can’t wait to taste you.”
You didn’t have a moment to sign to him, to give him some kind of encouragement or permission before he was diving in. He got low on his knees, wrapping both his hands possessively around your thighs. He leaned some of his weight on his elbows and from what you could see - canted his hips toward the mats, fruitlessly humping against the softness, seeking some kind of relief.
He used his hands to spread your legs - not that it was much of an effort. Your legs practically fell open at his touch. You whimpered hard in the back of your throat as you felt his breath fanning out over your wet pussy. A heavy moan swelled on your tongue when he licked a broad stripe across you from your hole to your throbbing clit.
“Shit, you taste so fucking good.”
He hoisted your legs over his shoulders so your feet rested comfortably on his back, laying so he was more flat on his stomach, clearly getting comfortable. He laid a few tender kisses on the inside of your thigh. Then he looked up at you with dark, ferocious eyes.
“Just, ah… smack me on the head if you want me to stop, okay?” Gar told you.
Clearly, he was saying this for your safety - putting in a failsafe in case you changed your mind or became overwhelmed. But it came off as a sharp, pleasant warning of what was to come.
Your pussy throbbed and you only ached for him to hurry up, biting your lip as you looked down at him. You nodded briskly, communicating that you understood his words. You had a feeling you most certainly wouldn’t want him to stop.
Gar’s fingers dug into the tenderness of your thighs as he ducked his head down, latching onto your swollen, needy flesh. He soon brought a whole new definition to the words ‘eating pussy’. Like with everything he did in life, he did with the utmost enthusiasm and passion. He lapped at you, put his beautiful pink lips around you and sucked. He kissed your pussy just as passionately and wholly as he had your mouth.
He shoved his tongue between your folds and dragged it in long, languid strokes. Clearly he was eager to lap up every last bit of your essence that he could - eager to devour you. He moaned into your pussy, moaned just as loudly as if he were the one being pleasured. It made the vibrations of his tongue on your clit even more deadly. Your hands were on his hair in a minute, both of them grabbing up as much of the gorgeous green as you could and holding tight. The action pulled a rumble from deep in his chest as he was satisfied by the pleasant pain of you tugging at his roots.
“You’re so fucking good.”
He moaned into you, and you echoed back a high pitched noise that you hardly recognized as your own.
“Everything about you is perfect. Every inch of you is perfect.”
His grip around your thighs became even more possessive, his fingers digging into you hard enough to leave marks. Your lust clouded brain couldn’t clock the pain. You could only enjoy the view of his gorgeous hands gripping your skin. He labored over your clit, determined to make you cum. He flicked his tongue hard and fast over your clit as his hot breath fanned over you in quick, lustful pants. The orgasm washed over you so suddenly, a rubber band snapped from his actions. The tension had been built up over weeks of him living inside your mind, torturing you through lustful dreams.
Your back arched, every muscle in your body pulled tight. Your thighs quivered and spasmed around his head as he continued to grip them hard. Your mouth became a mess of foreign noises that sounded daft and dumb to you but were absolute music to Gar’s ears.
He chased you hard the whole way through it, shoving his tongue deep inside your throbbing cunt so he wouldn’t miss a single drop of your juices as they flowed out of you. You thought perhaps he might come up for air when your orgasm subsided. The aftershocks were still shaking your thighs, one of your hands falling to lull by your side, the other petting fondly through Gar’s now even messier hair. But it seemed you were wrong. He was just getting started.
He growled with a feral hunger, the noise making your hips jolt, unintentionally canting toward his face as a whimper fluttered from your lips. He lapped at you in a drunken, lazy way for a few moments before he went back to eating your pussy with a renewed kind of starvation.
Nipping at your swollen pussy lips in a way that made your entire body jolt, forcing his tongue inside you and fucking you with it while his nose bumped at your thrumming clit. Your second orgasm built up so quickly on top of the first. Your fingers curled in his hair as an unspoken signal to it. The feeling of your nails digging into his scalp only driving him to makeout with your cunt with an even deeper desire.
He soaked up your practically pornographic moans with reverence. The wear and tear on your extremely damaged vocal cords began to hurt your throat, but the noises were absolutely unstoppable as they poured from your lips. His talented tongue was forcefully driving the moans and whimpers from you. He loved the feeling of your fingers ripping at his hair, leaving a pleasant sting across his scalp. He didn’t let up at all as your second orgasm plowed through you.
He wasn’t satisfied even as your voice was echoing the wrecked, harsh moans of a third.
He had you panting, your lungs struggling for air. Your muscles twitching with the excess of adrenaline and electricity. You whimpered pathetically as he tongued over your intensely sensitive clit again. Deciding it was time to give in, you reached over and tapped him gently on the top of the head.
He looked up at you with those beautiful, wide brown eyes. This time not a lick of innocence or confusion anywhere to be seen - his irises completely overtaken with a deep, primal lust.
You crooked your finger at him, motioning for him to come back towards your face. He kissed the inside of your thigh a few more times. He unintentionally smeared your sticky wetness, which had gathered on his lips in a heady, thick coating, across your skin.
“I love your pussy so fucking much.” He murmured into your skin.
Hearing him spout such filthy words without shame sent another wave of heat rolling through your belly. You had no idea how you were still so needy after cumming so many times, but Gar had easily done that to you.
You reached over and gently tugged on his hair again, bringing his attention back to you. You suddenly became very aware of the fact that you knew exactly what you wanted, but you didn’t know how to ask for it. Surely, there had to be a sign in ASL for intercourse - but you just didn’t know what it was. You had never felt the need to look it up before now. You decided to improv, knowing that Gar would get the meaning either way. He always understood when it came to you.
You raised your hands, making a partially closed fist with one hand and sticking your finger into it. You knew that it was probably a rather juvenile motion. To make your point perfectly clear, you mouthed the words ‘fuck me’ in an exaggerated way, hoping it would be easy enough for him to pick up on.
“You want me to fuck you?”
He gently shucked your legs off his shoulders, sitting up on his knees. He wiped your essence off his mouth with the palm of his hand, a delighted, surprised expression falling over his features.
You nodded swiftly, enthusiasm spreading across your face, biting your lip as you could barely contain a giddy smile.
“I mean, I don’t have a condom or anything… should I go find one?”
He moved slightly as if to get up and leave you, but you were quick to trap him, hooking your knees around his thighs and squeezing tight. This touch was a good enough signal to bring his attention back to you.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ You signed to him, firm and final.
He clearly wanted to question you, but there was something heavy dancing in your eyes, and he didn’t want to ruin the moment by pushing it.
(You were infertile. Just another thing your illness had taken from you. If it meant this moment with Gar would be a bit more worry-free, then you’d take it. If it meant he would break up with you down the road because he wanted kids that you couldn’t have… then you’d just enjoy the time with him that you were given.)
“Okay.” He breathed quietly.
Your attention shifted dramatically when his hand moved to adjust his cock in his pants, which was straining harshly through the fabric. It was a long, thick outline like a shadow beaming out from the black fabric, with a damp spot at the tip. Fuck.
Eating you out had turned him on so much that he was leaking precum into his pants, quite a lot of it. You latched onto your bottom lip at the sight of it. You couldn’t help but to outright stare now that you were allowed to look - lavishing your eyes over the thick, magnetic outline of his beautiful cock. His hand gripped it once more, adjusting himself, trying to make his throbbing cock more comfortable where it strained against the fabric. It made the sight even hotter somehow, and your eyes jumped up to his to see the almost shy look on his face. Even after what he’d done, he was shy about you staring at his bulge.
‘Show me.’
You egged him on, trying to be encouraging. You wanted to play up the obvious desire that you knew was prominent on your face by pouting your lips and batting your eyelashes for him. He raised his hand to the edge of his pants, but his muscles strained, hesitant still.
As a show of good faith, you sat up slightly, peeling off your tank top, which was now stuck to you with sweat. Your skin appreciated the cool air of the room, and your ego preened at the way Gar’s eyes devoured the newly revealed skin.
He let out a harsh breath before he stood up on the spot and took his pants down, letting them fall to his ankles and kicking them away.
“I thought you might laugh at me.” He said quietly, insecurity racking his voice. “Because… ya know… the carpet matches the drapes.”
Laughing was the last thing you were thinking about doing.
As you laid there, propped up by your elbows, staring at him, your mind could only focus on how entirely fantastic he looked. His body was so perfect, his muscles built, building up more each day with the training. His whole body covered in perfect, smooth skin, surrounding a gorgeous, filthy prize that you had only dreamed about being this amazing in real life.
His cock sprang out from a nest of green pubic hair - which yes, ‘the carpet does match the drapes’. But you found that to be nothing to laugh at. There was absolutely nothing laughable about the gorgeous, nine inch monster that stood proudly in front of you - smooth skin covering hardened, gorgeous flesh just like the rest of him. With a drooling, bright pink tip just ready for your lips to be wrapped around it.
‘Why would I ever laugh at such a beautiful prize?’ You told him, assuring him that you held nothing but admiration and lust for his body.
A light dusting of pink came over his cheeks, absolute flattery from your words. He dropped down to his knees once again. His cock bobbed so deliciously as he moved, and you knew that would be so whipped by the ability to have it. When Gar realized the power he could hold over you with sex - you would be done for.
“Jason thought it was pretty funny.” He shrugged, his voice gruff with the memory of it.
‘Jason is a clown.’ You assured him.
The conversation was cast aside when he gripped your ankles, playfully tugging you across the mats toward him - something that caused more giggles to erupt from your throat.
Then, he was hovering over you on his hands and knees once again. With one hand beside your head, the other came over to grasp your chin with two fingers. It was so light and careful compared to his previous touches. He peered down into your eyes, making your stomach seize up with the sheer amount of love and affection he stared you down with.
If you didn’t feel the same way for him, you might have backed down from the towering might of his feelings. You might have been tempted to run from something so divinely grand and beautiful. But no - you wanted to be his. You wanted to make him yours.
‘Take me.’ You mouthed.
Your hands were numb and useless at your sides. Your body was stilled by the cosmic depths of his affection, hoping your silent lips alone would be enough.
Gar leaned down and swept your mouth into a kiss. His thumb on your chin rubbed sweet circles on your skin as his lips smoothed into yours. Your tongue reached out to eagerly dive into the cavern of his mouth. Soon his touch was gone from your face as your hands woke up to find him, to reach out for the perfection of his body.
You eagerly sought out to touch his arms, his back, his ass, anything you could reach. He used his hand to hoist your knee gently over his thigh, opening you up to him. Then he poised his cock perfectly at your hot, leaking entrance.
“You sure about this?” He breathed across your cheek, pulling away from the kiss to ensure your consent one last time.
You nodded with the most frantic posture you could muster, impatient breaths spilling from your nostrils and pouring across his clammy skin.
Satisfied with this, he rolled his hips forward. Finally, after weeks - no, years - of waiting in quiet agitation for him, you became complete.
Even with his massive size, his cock slid easily inside you.
Your pussy was readied by the many orgasms he gave you, your muscles relaxed and naturally slicked up for him. He fit perfectly like he belonged there, your hot inner walls pulling him in. Your hot cunt clung to his cock in a way that made him groan deeply into your neck. The feeling made his buttocks tense as he pulled together his last ounces of self control to not lose it - to not pound into you like a careless sex doll. You were perfect, and you deserved to be treated perfectly.
“Fuck, you feel so good around my cock.”
He groaned, leaning down on his elbows. He trapped you completely in his warmth, pressing his body firmly into yours from chest to chest to where he was smothered deep inside you.
“You’re so fucking perfect. Fuck, Y/N.”
You dug your nails into the muscles of his back - hearing your name on his lips with such a gravelly desire making your pussy squeeze around him. After a few restrained moments, he finally pulled his hips back and began to move. It started off as a slow, deliberate grind, a slow drag of his hips into yours, but it quickly became unhinged. Not that you minded one bit. You wanted to tempt that animal inside him - you wanted to see his rougher side.
The sloppy sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the room as he hammered his hips into yours. The sounds almost completely drowning out the quiet wave of your pathetic whimpers and his possessive growls. He tried to trap the sounds in the skin of your neck, while gnawing mindlessly at your skin, sure to leave some kind of mark on you.
He was impossibly heavy and hot inside you, hitting all the best spots. His cock drove more electricity into your nerve endings and absolutely milked you for everything you could give. His knees pinned open your thighs where they jolted and jumped, your body so overstimulated from your previous orgasms that they wanted to clamp shut on his hips to keep him from moving. Your unconscious wanted to pin him down and hold him there - wanted to hold him inside you so that you could feel so impossibly full forever.
And then, just as you felt another orgasm coming to form like a screeching fire in your belly, he dared to raise his head from your neck, dared to look into your eyes.
Before you knew it, you were tumbling once again through the thick curtain of reality and into his mind. You were pulled against your will into another one of his fantasies.
In the fantasy, you were on your back, still, completely naked. You were slicked with a sheen of sweat with his thick, pulsing cock deep inside you. But this was slightly different. The material under your back was most certainly a mattress - plush, more giving than the stiffness of the padded floor of the training room. It had an almost too soft layer of silk sheets covering it that your skin stuck to unpleasantly with the sweat.
Your hands were poised on Gar’s chest, your nails digging into the skin there, leaving light marks. One of the things that stood out most to you about this picture was not the fact that Gar was having a fantasy about fucking you, but the ring on your finger. Seeing as this was his mind, he was the one who had put it there. Quite clearly a wedding ring or an engagement ring. It was beautifully ornate, poised on the correct finger for marriage. It held a bright green stone in the middle - green like a certain someone special to you.
“Fuck, I love you so much.”
Dream Gar moaned as he pounded into you, his hips taking on a sloppy rhythm as his orgasm drew near.
You found yourself mouthing the words without even realizing it, whipped out of the fantasy world so harshly once again. A very small part of your mind wondered if it had been a small slice of the future that you had seen or if it was simply a conjuring from Gar’s imagination.
You didn’t have the time to think or care, because your body went into overdrive. The Real Gar’s forehead was now resting on your tits. His hands created a tight grip on your hips as he pounded into you harder, harsher, deep grunts spewing from his lips each time his cock settled back inside you.
“Please cum for me, Y/N.” His words came out as a whining beg, something so wonderfully small from the man splitting you open on his cock.
He kissed between your breasts, his thumb coming to rub harsh circles on your clit, sending jolts right through you.
“Cum on my cock. Please.”
With the vision still hot on your mind and his words searing through you, the orgasm tore you up like a rabid animal. It was like nothing else you had ever felt in your life - like your entire body was on fire, being entirely consumed by Gar, by his touch, by his love for you. Finally being owned by him, finally having the one thing you wanted, needed most. Finally having him, full and whole.
You screamed so loudly it hurt your throat, something you knew you’d be feeling for days afterward. Your whole body shook around him while your eyes screwed shut, your head tilting backwards as the pleasure was exorcized from you.
You felt a hot dampness under your fingertips that you recognized as blood. In the back of your mind, you realized that you had gripped him hard enough for your nails to cut him - but he didn’t seem to care. In fact, it only spurred him on more, if the deep, ferocious grunts pouring from his lips were any indication. He was absolutely wild as he chased his own orgasm, breath fanning out in hot grunts against your breasts as he bucked wildly into your spent, tired hips, making your muscles twitch with bitter overstimulation.
“Fuck! Y/N!” He cried out as he came, finally spilling his thick, hot cum inside you.
You let out a small moan at the feeling. It became even hotter when you felt his cum pooling around the base of his cock, where you were connected, and leaking down between your cheeks. He lingered inside you for a few moments, petting his hands up and down your sides while your hands laid numbly on his back. He pecked small, delicate kisses across your clavicle that were almost an irony to the whole interaction. It made you smile.
You were quickly falling tired from the massive aerobic exercise and post-orgasm haze, disappointed by the fact that you had to get up and make your way back to bed. You hoped Gar would let you sleep in his. It came as a bitter shock when he pulled out of you, leaving you empty and cold as he moved away from you so suddenly. When you blinked, he was standing, bending over with his back to you as he picked up his pants and righted the legs so he could put them back on.
What he did next came as even worse of a shock to you.
“I - uh… I understand if you don’t want this to affect our friendship.” He said, just loud enough for you to hear him. His tone was flat, completely void of emotion.
“I totally get being horny and just… needing someone. We’ve been locked up here for weeks, and like. Like you said, Jason’s a clown.” He let out a laugh, but it was hollow and tired. He clearly didn’t even think his own words were funny.
The words were so strange in those moments they took far too long to process through your sex-hazy brain.
Was he really insinuating that you might go to Jason for sex? Was he trying to… let you down easy? Was he saying that he only wanted to be friends? Friends with benefits?
Was he seriously saying that he didn’t love you?
Your head was spinning with questions as you propped yourself up on your elbows, your whole body stiff as those beautiful, orgasmic chemicals faded away. It left you tired, shocked, and… feeling used. Your eyes scanned over Gar’s back as he tied up the drawstring of his pants. You focused on the dark red, deep, partially bleeding marks you had left. You had marked him, whether he liked it or not. You had some claim to him. You should.
“I’m gonna stay for a while and finish my workout.” He told you quietly. “Do you need help getting back to bed?”
When he came over and offered you a hand, you brushed it away. For the first time ever, you felt cold and unaccepting of his touch. You felt angry with him. How dare he invite you into his mind, show you how much he cared about you - how dare he fuck you with so much love and passion and then try to brush it all off as if it were nothing?
‘I’m fine.’ You told him, hoping your coldness could come across in tired, limp handed signing.
You forced yourself up on quivering knees and then onto your feet. You gathered your clothes where they had been carelessly tossed and shoved them back onto your used, dirty body. You would have preferred a shower first, but you preferred the precaution of drapery in case you did run into anyone on your way to the bathroom.
“Oh. Okay. Cool.”
These were Gar’s last words to you before you stormed out of the training room, going to the bathroom to ruminate on the whole experience by boiling yourself in hot, steaming water.
…
You thought about it for a long time while you were in the shower.
Just stood there, under the hot spray and let your mind concentrate on the things Gar had said. He had fucked the living daylights out of you, ate your pussy like it was his fucking job. He was apparently having daydreams about doing so while calling you his fucking wife, and then once it was all said and done - he backed down from it. He told you that he ‘understood’ if you only wanted to be friends.
He was afraid.
It was like everything else in his life. He could transform into a fucking tiger, but he was afraid to bite people. He didn’t want to use the fantastic power that had been given to him. For years, he hid away with Doctor Caulder, a man who emotionally abused him and manipulated him. He had been too afraid to stand up for himself, too afraid to leave the house and chase the things he really wanted.
And with you. He was clearly terrified you were going to reject him. He wanted a life with you, he wanted to worship you. He wanted you and your heart, he wanted your everything. But he was too afraid to voice it. He was too afraid he’d look like an idiot if you didn’t feel the same way.
That’s probably why he had unconsciously reached out to you, unconsciously broadcasted his fantasies to you whenever you were near. And you’d thought it was your stupid powers acting up.
Just like with kissing him to initiate that amazing sex - you were going to have to shake off your fear of rejection so that the two of you could be together already.
…
You woke up the next morning with a pounding migraine.
Even with the preventative medications Doctor Caulder had prescribed to you to help with your seizures and migraines, the tumor that still lived inside your brain did get to torture you occasionally. When you lifted your head from your pillow and saw the gray, gloomy sky looming over San Francisco, the raindrops racing down your window, it didn’t take you long to figure out the cause of your pain. You groaned, falling face first back into your pillow, not wanting to get up.
The ever present pain from coming from your head was topped off by soreness that had spread through your whole body - undeniable evidence that what happened between you and Gar last night wasn’t just another dream. Dreams don’t have consequences. Especially considering that your pussy was aching hard, still sore from having his impressive length splitting you open. On top of it all, your throat was stinging with an almost flu-like ache from having screamed so much through your surgery damaged vocal chords.
You really hoped Dick would let you have one day off from training. You probably could have gotten through it with just your body being sore. But the migraine was already ravaging you, already turning your stomach sour with systematic nausea.
You heard a knock on your door and sighed quietly.
You had just barely hoisted yourself into a sitting position by the time the person entered. Squinting through your tired eyes, you were able to makeout a flash of green and immediately knew that it was Gar.
“Hey, you don’t look so good. You feelin’ alright?” He knew the look that always settled upon your face when you were overtaken with such intense pain. He hardly needed to ask. “Where’s the bottle?”
You motioned toward the drawer that held the item he spoke of - your hot water bottle, which you used to help ease the bitter pain of a migraine. He opened and closed a few drawers before he found it. Your eyes gently closed against the harsh light pouring in from the hallway, too sensitive to the light to actually look at him.
“It’s okay, lay down.” He told you, his voice a comforting lull past the aching thrum in your forehead. He patted your thigh gently through your blanket, and you eased back onto the bed, throwing a forearm over your eyes to block the light. “I got it.”
He went to the kitchen and filled the rubber bladder with boiling water, returning quickly with it and a glass of water. You took the now very hot water bottle. You gave him a small moan of gratitude as you placed it down on your pillow and pressed your forehead into it.
In a practiced routine that only spoke to how much he loved you, he closed the bedroom door, blocking out the harsh light of the hallway. And then he walked around the bed to close the curtains, blocking out any potential light from the outside. He placed the glass of water down on your nightstand with a harsh clink that only radiated through your skull so painfully because of the migraine. Then you heard him open the nightstand drawer, digging around for your medication.
You trusted that he knew which ones you needed right now. You trusted that he didn’t need your advice on how to take care of you. It was something he knew well after so long.
You felt his fingers brushing your open palm, then felt the round tablets of your medication left there as he pulled away.
“Sit up and take these.” He said quietly, voice barely above a whisper, as if he was afraid to hurt you with a single decibel.
He used a gentle grip on your forearm to hoist you into a sitting position, and you swallowed the medication dutifully with the water he’d brought.
“I’ll tell Dick you need to sit out of training today.” He explained quietly. “You need anything else?”
‘One thing.’ You signed to him, your hands weak and tired.
Though your pain was disruptive, and you were glad Gar was not acting any different after what had happened last night, you couldn’t wait any longer before doing this.
Before he could question what that thing was, you leaned in. Your lips easily found his in the darkness and you planted a smooth, gentle kiss on his mouth.
‘Don’t wanna just be friends.’ You signed, opening your tired, painful eyes to see his reaction to your words. ‘I love you. I have loved you for a long time now.’
A broad smile came across his face, his expression of pure joy practically glowing in the darkness.
“Yeah. Awesome. That sounds amazing. I love you too.” His voice was slightly louder now, his joy overriding his caution for your hypersensitive, pained ears.
He felt absolutely giddy - this was what he had been waiting for, dreaming of for so long. He wanted to climb in bed with you and lay by your side for the rest of the day. But he knew that he needed to attend to other things, and more importantly - you needed your rest.
“Get some rest now, okay?”
He tucked you into bed, made sure the covers were up over your body, full and warm with the hot water bottle under your head before he left the room once again.
It wasn’t long before you heard voices coming from down the hall.
“Where’s Y/N? We’re doing balance drills in ten minutes.” Dick’s gruff voice echoed down the hall, very obviously directed at Gar, who he’d sent to wake you up.
“She needs the day off. She’s got a wicked migraine and she needs rest when it gets like this,” Gar told him simply, hoping Dick would respect him at his word.
“We don’t get days off, Gar.” Dick pressed. “All of us have to train through pain, or injury. Do you really think some psychotic asshole is gonna care if you have a little headache while they’re trying to kill you? Do you think they’re just gonna come back another day? Do you think they’re gonna stop shooting at you if you have to stop and bandage your boo boo?”
His words cut through you, causing a sallow pain to rise up in your chest. It was something you’d been hearing since your childhood - since your treatments and hospital stays had caused you to miss too many days off and your teachers quickly stopped taking pity on you. You had always been told to just work through your pain, that the world won’t stop for you. You considered getting up and just going to training. You wanted to tough it out just to show Dick that you could, that you could puke into a garbage can and keep going, that you could boot and rally.
You heard footsteps coming down the hall, and in your pain heightened sensitivity, you heard the metal of the doorknob shift as someone put their hand around it. The sound of Dick coming to get you out of bed anyway.
He didn’t get the chance, though.
“Leave it, Grayson.” Gar’s voice growled - a harsh, sharp sound that you had rarely ever heard from him before. “You don’t understand what she’s going through, and I won’t have you pushing her until she pukes on the floor just to satisfy your ego. She already trains harder than you ask and you know she could probably kick your ass,”
You heard a harsh sigh, a deep breath through nostrils - Dick’s surrender. His footsteps disappeared down the hall, and Gar’s followed shortly after.
Your heart bloomed with affection, awed by the blanket of protection he had put around you.
You really were his. You always have been.
...
When Gar was getting dressed after his shower later that day - he came across a small box in his underwear drawer. It was the ring that Rita had given him before he left Caulder House, a very expensive looking vintage piece from her days on set. Gar tried to insist that he couldn’t take something so nice, so sentimental from her. But she had closed it tight into his palm with the promise that it would be yours someday - that he would use the polished emerald ring to propose to you.
Of course, she saw that big, beautiful, dangerous thing brewing between the two of you from a mile away. Gar considered marching down the hall and giving it to you right then there. But he tucked the box back into his drawer. In honor of Rita’s vision - he would make it old Hollywood, romantic.
He had plenty of time.
THE END.
...
Final note: yes, I used to be @/pinkchubbiebunnie.That is still my username on AO3, and this is my new blog. This is one of my old fics, so please don’t accuse me of stealing it if you see this. I have added some new scenes and elements to it (hence, why I have split it up into two parts) so if you recognize me by this fic and if you’ve read it before, I hope you enjoy re-reading it in its newly improved form. Feel free to follow me if you’re interested in my fanfiction and thoughtful discussions of the media that I enjoy.
Summary: When Talia al Ghul discovers that her son has a partner, she does what any loving, overbearing assassin mother would do—she kidnaps you.
You knew dating Damian Wayne would come with a few… complications. The Batfamily. The League of Assassins. The fact that he carried more knives than is physically possible for one person.
You wake up with cold stone under your cheek and an unmistakable headache pounding behind your eyes.
Which is… concerning.
Mostly because you went to bed in Gotham. In your own bed. In Damian’s hoodie. And this?
This isn’t your bed.
This is a marble floor.
You sit up too fast and instantly regret it. But even through the nausea, you take in your surroundings: ornate, ancient walls, tapestries older than most cities, a faint whiff of incense and iron.
This is some kind of League of Assassins stronghold. And if that wasn’t enough of a tip-off—
“She wakes,” comes a voice, cool and sharp as a blade.
Your stomach drops.
The shadows moved, and then she stepped into the glow. Elegant, poised, terrifying.
Talia al Ghul. Immaculate. Deadly. Green eyes like twin laser sights boring into your soul.
Damian’s mother, the resemblance was clear.
“You’ve been dating my son.”
Right. Straight to business.
You blink. “This seems like an extreme way to ask for my intentions.”
Talia raises a brow. “And yet you’re not crying.”
“Not yet, I still have time to pencil that in though, if you’d like.”
“Hm.” She circles you like a panther, examining you like a potential weapon or a bug under a microscope. “He didn’t mention you were brave.”
You stand up slowly, brushing off the dust. “Did he mention I don’t like being drugged and dragged halfway across the world?”
“No.” A thin smile, then a sadder one. “We don’t talk often.”
“…Cool. Cool cool cool. So this just another Tuesday for you?” You say, rather calmly.
She watched you with the faintest hint of amusement. “You’re not panicking.”
“I mean. I feel like panicking gives you the upper hand.” You shrugged, “Plus, totally not my first kidnapping.”
“You’re smart,” she said, leaning back. “Mouthy.”
You raised a brow. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t.” But the corners of her mouth twitched. “Let’s begin.”
“Begin what?”
She tilted her head. “The evaluation.”
“…Sorry?”
“The assessment,” she clarified, looking at you like you were slow.
“You’re evaluating me?”
Talia nodded once. “That is what I said.”
You gaped at her.
“I will not tolerate mediocrity.”
“Lady, I survived Thanksgiving with the Waynes. I’m already battle-hardened.”
“…You might actually be interesting,” she murmured.
You gave her a bland smile. “So glad I’m exceeding expectations.”
Damian Wayne is having the worst morning of his life.
You’re not answering your phone. Your location tracker is offline. Your building’s security footage shows a figure in black entering your apartment and disabling every camera in seconds.
“Where is she?!” Damian’s voice cracked like a whip across the Batcave, sharp with panic.
“Relax,” said Dick, holding up his hands. “She’s probably just—”
Damian pulls the last seconds of footage he has again.
Jason straightened. “Okay. Not great.”
“Who’d be stupid enough to kidnap your girlfriend?” Tim muttered. “Seriously. You’d think people would learn.”
Damian’s lips curled into a snarls he reviews the footage again.
He recognizes the silhouette.
Of course he does.
“Mother,” he growls under his breath, slamming his fist into the desk.
“You have guts,” Talia said, circling you like a lioness. “Most people don’t look me in the eye.”
You gave her a tight smile. “Most people haven’t dated your son.”
Talia paused. “And yet you still do.”
“Yeah. Crazy, right?”
“You know what he is,” she said quietly. “What he was trained to be. What he will become if he’s not careful.”
You nodded. “I do.”
“And still?”
“And still.”
She nods once, impressed. “I thought my spy was joking when he said you weren’t entirely useless.”
You raise a brow. “High praise.”
“Damian’s always been too sentimental. His heart is a weakness. He cannot afford attachments.”
You fold your arms. “And yet here we are.”
She watches you in silence for a long time. Then she stops in front of you, arms folded.
“What do you see in him?”
You blinked.
“What do I—what?”
“What. Do. You. See. In. Him.”
“…That’s your question?”
She arched a brow. “Answer it.”
You shrug. “He’s a lot. Arrogant, stubborn, overprotective.” You smile faintly. “And he’s loyal. Honest in a way no one expects. He tries so hard to be good, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
You took a breath. “I see someone who’s trying harder than anyone I’ve ever met. Who’s furious at the world but still gets up every day to protect it. Someone who’s never been shown how to love, but does it anyway—awkwardly, stubbornly, and fiercely.”
Talia stared.
“And he’s funny.” You smile, you could talk about him for hours. “When he wants to be. He pretends not to be, but he makes me laugh. And he listens. And I trust him. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”
You met her gaze. Didn’t flinch. “He’s still figuring things out. But he wants to do good, be good.”
“And you love him.”
“Yeah. I do.”
Silence. Long. Measured.
She studies you for a moment longer, then stands. “Walk with me.”
You follow her through the fortress. You expect dungeons. Traps. Hidden daggers.
You get all of that, but also… a garden.
It’s quiet, fragrant with night-blooming flowers. There’s a koi pond. It’s beautiful.
You sit on the edge of the stone bench. Talia watches you from the corner of her eye.
“Most people are terrified of me.”
“I am. Just not enough to let you see it. And for entirely different reasons then everyone else.”
That makes her laugh—an actual laugh, sharp and surprised.
“I see why he likes you.”
“You don’t hate me?”
That makes her laugh—an actual laugh, sharp and surprised.
“I see why he likes you.”
“You don’t hate me?” you ask again, not quite joking.
Talia tilts her head, eyes narrowing in thought. “I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”
“That’s… comforting.”
“But I don’t not like you.” She pauses. “Which, for me, is practically affection.”
You relax slightly. “Well. Thanks for that.”
“I doubted you,” she admits, brushing an invisible thread from her sleeve. “Still do, a little. But that’s habit, not certainty.”
You meet her gaze, steady. “I’d be more worried if you trusted me right away.”
She turns to you.
“If you ever hurt him—”
“I won’t.”
“—I will burn your city to the ground.”
“That seems fair.”
Talia tilts her head, considering you like you’re a rare artifact she’s not sure belongs in her collection.
After a long time of staring, she turns back to the pond and stares some more. Finally she speaks. “I trained him to be invincible,” she says, almost to herself. “He chose to be human.”
You glance at her. “You sound proud.”
She doesn’t respond for a moment.
“I am.”
Damian runs through the halls of the LOA’s homebase, fear in his veins. The League doesn’t take prisoners unless they’re valuable. And to Damian, you are irreplaceable.
By the time Damian found you — thirty-six hours since you’ve been taken, hair askew, cape torn, blood on his sleeve and hell in his eyes — you were sitting on a velvet couch, sipping tea and laughing at something Talia said about Ra’s al Ghul’s disastrous attempt at karaoke in 1987.
Damian froze in the doorway.
“You’re alive,” he said flatly.
You waved. “Hey, babe. I made a friend.”
He crossed the room in quick strides and cups your face, looking you over for anything even as small as a scrape.
“Beloved,” Damian breathes, face etched in panic.
“I’m fine!” you laugh. “Tea was nice.”
He ignores the comment. You barely have time to move before his arms are around you, pulling you in tight. Too tight. You feel his breath shudder.
“I thought—” he starts, then bites it back. “Did she hurt you?”
You shake your head. “Surprisingly? No. Just intense staring and very pointed questions.”
Damian takes a breath and stares at you a moment before he whirls to face his mother. “How dare you—”
“Relax,” Talia says mildly. “She passed.”
“She’s not a test—”
“She’s yours,” Talia interrupts. “Which means she matters to me.”
He falters. You touch his shoulder gently.
“I like her,” Talia says, and Damian freezes like someone hit pause on his brain.
“…You what.”
“Damian,” you cut in, watching him go through the five stages of grief. Skipping Acceptance and going straight to contemplating mind control. “it’s fine. Really. We bonded.”
“…You…bonded.”
“She’s funny when she’s not threatening.”
“She has spine. Wit. Taste.” Talia’s smile is a slow curve. “She reminds me of myself.”
Damian blinked like someone had replaced his entire universe with a sitcom.
“I am… leaving,” he announced.
Talia watches as your pulled away by your boyfriend. “I’ll see you Tuesday.”
——-
And that’s how your Tuesdays started changing.
Every other week, you meet Talia for lunch. Sometimes sushi. Sometimes rooftop garden tea. Once, she took you hawking in the mountains.
She teaches you knife techniques. You teach her how to use emojis properly.
She taught you pressure points. You taught her how to use TikTok.
She critiques your posture. You critique her people skills.
She’d ask about Damian. You’d tell her how he once got stuck in a vending machine trying to retrieve a rogue Batarang.
She laughed. Real laughter. The kind that made waiters pause.
It was nice. Weird. But nice.
You’ve found a rhythm. It’s strange. It’s unexpected.
But every other Tuesday, you and your boyfriend’s assassin mother get lunch.
And somehow, that’s not even the weirdest part of your life.
I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING SO FUCKING SAD 😭😭 OKAY OKAY SO IF YOU KNOW THE "go little rockstar..." THAT SO WHAT IF LIKE THE READER IS A ROCKSTAR AND AFTER THE ENDGAME THE READER VISITS THEIR GRAVES AND LIKE WHAT IF READER IS DOING A CONCERT AND FROM ABOVE EVERYONE THAT DIED IS HOLDING A BIG SIGN WITH "GO LITTLE ROCKSTAR! >:]" HELP THAT'S SO CUTE AAAA I'M CRYING
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