NETFLIX DAREDEVIL: Shirtless scenes almost every episode, cinematic and dramatic pans, well-lit, lingering, full-body shots lasting more than a minute, scars clear and visible
DISNEY+ DAREDEVIL: One shirtless scene per season with zero whump and lasts for a few seconds at most đ
(He looked mega hot in this scene but once in a full season is not enough...BRING BACK SHIRTLESS WHUMPY MATT EVERY EPISODE!)
And that's the part that's making me lose my fucking mind.
We lost an entire section of the MAIN STORY.
The livestream literally told us Valko's release was going to reveal more about the Aethercoreâone of the biggest mysteries in Love and Deepspace and something that's been central to the plot from the very beginning.
So now what?
You think they can just delete him and nothing changes?
Do people genuinely think you can rip out an entire story arc without consequences?
Everything that was supposed to be revealed through Valko now has to be rewritten, redistributed, or outright cut. The main story is going to have to be retconned. Future updates are going to have to be reworked. Characters may have to be rewritten just to fill the gap he leaves.
If you're celebrating this because you "won," I sincerely hope you understand what you've actually cheered for.
I think one of the things that gets me down about not speaking English is not knowing or being able to tell whether a story was written by AI or not, since the page translation makes it hard to tell the difference.
â SYNOPSIS: Every other brother. You look at every other brother but him. Is he just not good enough for you? Not pretty enough? Do you just not like him like that? Tell him, what will it take for you to shine your smile his way for once? For you to look at him with just an ounce of the attention you give them? What will it take?
Tell him.
Please...
â TAGS: older!damian wayne, older!duke thomas, everyone is 18+, slightly suggestive themes, jealousy, possessive behaviour, yearning, so much yearning, did i mention there's jealousy?, like crazy amounts of jealousy, angst, he pins you to a counter, and begs for you to just look at him once, background!batboys x reader, oblivious!reader, pathetic!tim, reader is not a batsib
â A/N: tim's been craving your attention for a while nowâhow come you read oneshots on every other brother but him..?
line divider: @cafekitsune, left art: @/_athenoot (instagram), middle art: @/_NIGHTFAR_ (twitter)
Tim's seen the way you look at the others.
The way you shrink into yourself, all bashful and shy, when Damian brushes close, leaning in to whisper a soft 'Habibti' into your ear.
The way your smile grows just a little too wide when Dick winks your way, saying something or the other with lidded eyes and a coy smile.
The way your gaze lingers on Jason's muscles when he fixes his bike, so obvious that he himself sees, smirks, and flexes until veins pop out and your pupils blow wide.
The way your laughter echoes just a little longer than usual when Duke cracks a quick joke, grinning and leaning ever so slightly closer to you with a soft, small glow emitting from him.
Tim's seen it all.
And he. fucking. hates it.
It makes his stomach churn. Douses his insides with gasoline and strikes a match nearby.
It makes everything around him shrink, focus, tunnel in until all he can see is you and whatever brother it is that has your attention right at that moment.
It makes his fists clench; makes it so that he nearly draws blood and locks his jaw in place with how set it is.
An awful feeling, sickly and green and leaving him all but wondering: why? Why don't you ever look at him that way?
That light that dances in your eyes; the way your smile turns to mush and your shoulders sink like you're slowly melting into a puddleâwhy is it never because of him?
Is there something his brothers have that he doesn't? Something that makes you notice them more than him?
He can't stand it. Can't stand not being the one circulating in your mind, when all you ever do is cloud his.
Day after day, night after night, your voice echoes in his head; sweet and shy; sarcastic and funnyâa mix of the two, more than both, so much personality wrapped in such a lovely package.
But none of it ever for him.
Even now, as he sits on the edge of his couch, gaze dead and set square on you and the demon head chatting away in the corner, he can't help but feel that ugly churn in his stomach, only amplified tenfold by the previous events of the nightâall interactions, all with his brothers, none with him.
Tim watches as you excuse yourself with a smile and a brush of your fingers against his brother's arm, heading straight for the kitchen with a pep in your step.
He waits for a beat, blinks to break free of his own stare, then gets up and follows right after.
You bite down on your lip, trying and failing to find a glass you can use to quench your thirst in this giant, godforsaken maze of a kitchen.
Okay, maybe it's not a maze, but it is a hell of a complicated storage system.
"Where the hell does Alfred put all the glasses?"
A clink answers your muttered question, and your eyes flick up, a cup ready and waiting on the kitchen counter.
"Oh, thanksâ"
Using the counter as leverage, you pull yourself back up before whirling around and being met with a wall of heat pressed almost right up against you.
"âTim?"
You blink, but he just stares back, gaze lidded and heavy, not saying a word.
"Uh, you good?"
Still, nothing.
You try shifting in place, the air a little too hot, a little too damp, but he halts you, placing one hand on the counter to your left, and one hand on the counter to your right.
Your breath hitches.
Then he speaks.
"What do they have?" he asks, almost desperately.
"Huh?"
He repeats, "What do they have..." before adding in a near whisper, "that I don't?"
He leans close, breath heavy and warm, damp and weighted, like he's shouldering the world and letting just an ocean slip out.
"That makes you look at them that way and not me?"
His voice shakes when he speaks, as though desperate for an answer, for a look, for anything, and with each word, his arms seem to flex more, veins protruding from the corner of your eye like cracks in a dam.
"Why don't you give me the same look you give all of them..?" he breathes out, expression scrunched up, pained, like you've plunged a knife through his heart instead of just standing there, leaned against the counter with wide, bewildered eyes.
"Whatâ? Tim, what are youâ?"
He cuts you off, or maybe he doesn't hear you speak in the first place, too wound up in that farâaway, yet still somehow intense gaze he's trained onto you.
"Why don't you love me..?"
It's then when his hands slip to your sides; then when your eyes go wide and his fingers curl up, scrunching the fabric of your shirt until it's all bunched up in his grip and crinkling under his knuckles.
"Why won't you look at me..?"
"Tim, what are you on about?"
He shakes, trembles, and his curled up grip slowly inches behind you, clenching and unclenching in little crawls around your waist like he's afraid to let go, like you'll disappear if he does.
"Please," he whispersâagain, too far gone to respond to you, "tell me..."
You blink as he draws you closer, arms fully curled around your waist now, hips fully flushed against yours.
"What will it take..?"
So close, you're forced to look into his all-black eyes, and find your reflection staring straight back at you.
"Just one look..."
You almost jump when you feel something against your bare waist, glancing down to see the sliver of skin under your shirt being caressed by his fingers, grazed in circles that send heat down and spread around between your thighs.
"That's all I want..."
He draws your gaze back up with a shaky breath.
"That's all I ask..."
You blink, and he somehow pulls you even closer, back forced into a curve to avoid knocking into his nose.
"Just one look."
Then he finally buries his head into your neck, and whimpers one final, breathless time:
content damian wayne x gn! reader, vigilante! reader, aged up damian, metahuman! reader, angst, slow burn, lonely morally grey reader, memory/identity curse, first kiss, emotional hurt/comfort, identity erasure, loneliness/isolation, abandonment trauma, childhood neglect, violence, murder/lethal vigilantism, blood/injury, emotional distress, fear of being forgotten, emotional vulnerability, abandonment trauma, trauma responses, violence/injury, blood, canon-typical gotham violence, angst with comfort, identity insecurity, fear of being loved then forgotten.
masterlist
wordcount 11.1k
you have lived your whole life being forgotten the second people look away. when you save damian wayne and vanish from his memory, he does the impossible: he starts looking for you anyway. he cannot remember you, but every version of him keeps choosing to find you again.
The first time Damian Wayne met you, you killed three men in front of him.
To be fair, they had been trying to kill him first.
The warehouse was already burning by then, heat crawling up the rusted walls in orange veins, smoke thick enough to make even his lenses stutter. Damian had lost comms seven minutes ago. His left shoulder had been dislocated four minutes ago. His sword had been knocked from his hand ninety seconds ago. And the man in front of him had a gun pressed beneath his jaw.
âAny last words, little bird?â
Damian hated being called little. He hated guns more. He was considering three options, all with a poor probability of success and an irritatingly high probability of dying, when the man holding the gun suddenly stopped smiling.
His eyes went wide.
A blade punched cleanly through his throat.
Damian did not flinch. He did, however, blink.
The body dropped. Behind it stood you.
You were not dressed like one of them. That was the first thing he noticed. No tactical insignia, no gang colours, no theatrics. Just dark clothes, a hood pulled low, a half-mask covering the lower part of your face, and a long knife held loosely in one hand as if violence bored you.
The second thing Damian noticed was that you were looking directly at him. Not at the gunman. Not at the fire.
At him.
âRobin,â you said, dry as dust. âYou look terrible.â
Damianâs eyes narrowed behind his domino. âWho are you?â
You tilted your head. âReally? Thatâs what youâre going with?â
Two more men rushed from behind a stack of crates. You moved before Damian could.
You moved like someone who had stopped caring whether the world saw them coming.
The first man lost his gun hand. The second lost his breath when your knee cracked into his sternum. Damian lunged for his fallen sword, pain detonating white-hot through his shoulder, but by the time his fingers closed around the hilt, both attackers were on the ground.
One dead. One bleeding out.
Damian stared.
You wiped your blade against the dead manâs coat with an expression that suggested the fabric had personally offended you.
âYou kill,â Damian said.
âSo do they.â You glanced at him. âIâm just better at it.â
âYou are not sanctioned.â
A laugh slipped from you, low and sharp. âBy who? Your father? Cute.â
Damian stepped toward you. His vision blurred. The smoke, he realised too late. Too much of it. His lungs seized. His injured shoulder throbbed. His balance faltered.
You were in front of him in an instant.
âDonât be dramatic,â you muttered, catching him before he could hit the concrete.
âI am notââ
âCurrently collapsing in a burning warehouse? Yeah. Very dignified.â
Damian tried to shove you away. His arm refused to obey. You looked down at him, and for one impossible second, your sarcasm cracked.
Something ancient and tired moved behind your eyes. âStay awake, Robin.â
âWho,â Damian forced out, âare you?â
Your grip tightened. âNobody.â
Then you dragged him out of the fire.
By the time Batman arrived, Damian was alone. Three bodies were inside the warehouse. His sword was at his side. His shoulder had been reset.
And Damian Wayne had absolutely no memory of how he had escaped.
The report was unacceptable. Damian knew it before Bruce said anything.
He stood in the cave with one arm strapped across his chest, jaw clenched, while his father reviewed the footage on the main computer. Or, more accurately, the lack of footage.
âYour body camera cut out at 23:41,â Bruce said.
âThe smoke disrupted the lens.â
âThe audio went out three seconds later.â
âInterference.â
âAnd then?â
Damianâs mouth tightened.
And then nothing. He remembered the gun. The heat. The pressure beneath his jaw. The moment he had calculated his odds and found them unpleasant. Then he remembered waking outside beneath the rain, coughing ash onto the pavement while Batmanâs cape blocked the streetlights overhead.
Between those moments lay a void.
Damian hated voids.
âI escaped,â he said.
Bruce looked at him. Damian hated that look, too. âYour shoulder had been reset.â
âI am aware.â
âDid you do that yourself?â
âNo.â
âWho did?â
Damianâs fingers curled. âI do not know.â
Silence stretched, broken only by the low hum of the cave systems and the faint chittering of bats overhead.
Bruce replayed the broken footage again. Gun beneath Damianâs chin. Smoke. Static. Black.
Damian watched the blank screen with a fury that felt embarrassingly close to fear.
Someone had been there. Someone had touched him. Moved him. Saved him.
And he could not remember.
That was unacceptable.
You watched him from the roof across the street.
He returned to the warehouse the next night. You should have known he would. Robins were like mould: persistent, invasive, and very hard to kill.
This one was different, though. Older than the rumours still liked to call him. Not a boy anymore, though Gotham had a bad habit of keeping its children trapped in headlines. Nineteen, maybe twenty. Tall enough now that the cape sat differently on his shoulders. Sharper through the jaw. Still too proud for his own good.
Still alive because of you.
You hated that part. Saving people was always the beginning of trouble.
He moved through the remains of the warehouse like a ghost with a grudge, scanning scorch marks, blood patterns, boot prints. He crouched near the place where the gunman had died and touched two fingers to the concrete.
You had cleaned your blade before leaving. Burned the fibres. Taken the shell casings. Broken every camera in a four-block radius.
Still, Damian found something. A thread, maybe. A scratch. A breath you had left behind.
His head lifted. You went still.
There it was. That flicker. Not recognition. No one recognised you. Recognition required memory, and memory slipped off you like rain from glass the moment eyes turned away.
But Damianâs gaze sharpened toward your rooftop.
Instinct. Annoying. Impressive.
Loneliness, treacherous little beast that it was, stirred inside your ribs.
âNo,â you whispered to yourself.
Below, Damian stood. His hand drifted toward his sword.
You stepped back from the roofâs edge.
For one heartbeat, the moon touched your face.
Damian looked directly at you.
Your stomach dropped. You should have run. Instead, you froze like an idiot.
He fired a grappling line.
âSeriously?â you muttered.
Then you ran.
You were good at vanishing. You had to be. When you were eight years old, your teacher looked away from you during roll call and forgot you were in the classroom. At nine, your neighbour saw you fall from your bike, turned to call for help, and came back wondering why there was blood on the sidewalk.
At eleven, your parents started leaving notes on the fridge. Child. Name unknown. Lives here? And by thirteen, there were no notes. By fourteen, you stopped waiting at dinner tables. By fifteen, you learned that criminals were easier to live around than civilians. Criminals did not ask why you slept in abandoned buildings. They did not remember your face long enough to betray you. And when they hurt people, no one grieved if they disappeared.
By seventeen, you had a knife. By eighteen, you knew how to use it.
Now, you moved through Gotham like a rumour with teeth.
Someone would see you in an alley. Look away. Forget. Someone would hear your voice. Turn their head. Gone. Someone would bleed beneath your blade and die terrified, not because of death, but because in the last second of life, they understood they were being killed by someone the world itself refused to hold.
You had spent years pretending that it did not hurt.
Pretending worked, mostly. Right up until Robin started chasing you. He chased you across three rooftops, over a skybridge, down a fire escape, and through the top floor of an unfinished apartment complex.
He was fast. You were faster. He was trained. You were desperate.
âStop,â Damian ordered.
You laughed, breathless. âWow. Has that ever worked for you?â
He threw a birdarang. You ducked. It sliced through your hood, pinning fabric to a wooden beam behind you. You slipped out of it and kept moving.
Damian landed hard in front of you, sword drawn. âEnough.â
You stopped because the blade was pointed at your throat. Also, because, for the first time in years, someone had chased you long enough to get tired. It made something in your chest ache.
Damianâs eyes narrowed. âYou were at the warehouse.â
âNo, I wasnât.â
His grip tightened. âDo not lie to me.â
âFine. I was near the warehouse.â
âYou saved me.â
âTechnically, gravity did most of the work.â
âYou reset my shoulder.â
âYouâre welcome.â
âYou killed those men.â
âThey were going to kill you.â
âThat was not your decision to make.â
Your expression flattened. âI forgot. Bats love moral lectures. Very on-brand. Do you practice in mirrors, or does brooding just come naturally?â
His blade did not move. âWho are you?â
You smiled behind your mask. There it was. The question everyone asked once.
Only once.
âLook away,â you said.
Damian did not. âAnswer me.â
âLook away.â
âNo.â
Your laugh came out softer than you intended. âSmart.â
His eyes flicked, just once, to the shadow behind you. A tactical glance. Less than a second.
It was enough.
His face changed. Not dramatically. Damian Wayne had too much discipline for that. But his brow furrowed. His mouth tightened. The sword at your throat shifted as confusion passed through him. He blinked. Then focused on you again as if seeing you for the first time.
âWho are you?â he demanded.
There it was. The old familiar knife. You should have been used to it. You were used to it.
He looked away again, scanning the room for traps. When his eyes returned to you, the confusion reset.
His sword lifted. âIdentify yourself.â
Something inside you curled up small and cold.
You stepped closer to the blade until the edge kissed the fabric over your throat. âMy power,â you said, voice suddenly flat, âis that nobody remembers me.â
Damian stared. âYou are a metahuman.â
âSure.â
âWhat is the mechanism?â
âDo I look like a scientist?â
âYou appear insufferable.â
âAw. You remembered an opinion for three seconds. Progress.â
His eyes narrowed. You waited.
His gaze flicked down to your hands. Gone. Again. When he looked back up, his expression sharpened with renewed alarm.
You laughed before he could speak. It sounded ugly.
âDonât worry,â you said. âThis is the part where you threaten me, interrogate me, look away, forget what you were asking, and then I leave. Classic. Very popular sequence.â
Damian did not answer. Instead, without looking away from your face, he slowly reached into his utility belt.
You tensed.
He pulled out a marker. Then, with his gaze still locked on yours, he uncapped it with his teeth and wrote on the inside of his left wrist.
You watched despite yourself.
DO NOT LOOK AWAY. PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.
Your mouth went dry.
Damian finished writing. Then, deliberately, he looked at his wrist.
You vanished from his mind. You saw it happen. You always saw it happen. His pupils shifted. His body went rigid. His eyes scanned the words.
DO NOT LOOK AWAY. PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.
Slowly, slowly, he looked up.
He saw you. He did not remember you. But he believed himself.
That was new.
âExplain,â he said.
Your heart, stupid and starved, gave one fragile little kick. You crushed it immediately. âNo.â
Damianâs jaw set.
You stepped backwards into shadow. âDonât follow me.â
âI will.â
âI know.â You sighed. âThat was more of a polite suggestion.â
Then you dropped through the unfinished floor before he could stop you.
By the time he reached the lower level, you were gone. But on his wrist, in his own handwriting, proof remained.
PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.
Damian did not sleep. This was not unusual. What was unusual was the wall.
Three nights after the warehouse, Damianâs room contained forty-seven handwritten notes, twelve printed maps, six blood-spatter diagrams, and one sketch of a figure he could not remember drawing. The figure wore a half-mask. The lines were precise, though incomplete around the face. Every time he tried to sketch the eyes from memory, the image dissolved. Not physically. The paper remained.
His mind simply refused to hold the connection. It enraged him.
So he adapted.
At the top of the wall, he wrote: SUBJECT: FORGET-ME-NOT Then, beneath it: Known effects: Memory loss triggered when direct attention breaks. Written records persist. Video uncertain, beed test. Physical evidence persists. Emotional response may persist after memory loss. Subject saves civilians but uses lethal force. Subject saved me. Subject is alone.
Damian stared at the last line for a long time. He did not remember writing it. That bothered him more than the rest.
There were other notes too.
Do not trust first instinct upon seeing Subject. You have met before. Subject uses sarcasm defensively. Irritating. Possibly deliberate. Subject appears resigned when forgotten. Do not forget: forgetting harms them.
The final note was carved harder into the paper than the others. Damian ran a thumb over the indentation. He had no memory of the conversation that caused it.
Still, anger rose in him. Not at you.
At the fact that the world could look at a person and let them disappear.
You should have left Gotham. You knew that. You had left cities for less.
A cop in BlĂŒdhaven once remembered the shape of your hand for nearly four seconds after looking away. You were on a train by morning. A telepath in Metropolis once frowned at you and said, âThatâs strange.â You were out of the state within the hour.
Survival was simple: never wait to be wanted. Wanting was a trap.
So, naturally, you stayed.
Because Damian Wayne kept leaving evidence that he was looking for you. A chalk mark on a rooftop you used often. A camera angled toward an alley with a handwritten sign taped above it IF YOU SEE THIS, I AM TRYING TO SPEAK WITH YOU. A packet tucked beneath a gargoyle containing protein bars, medical supplies, burner comms, and a note. I do not know whether you need these. Take them anyway.
You threw the protein bars away. Then retrieved them ten minutes later. You were lonely, not stupid.
The burner comm you kept for three days before turning it on.
Immediately, a message appeared. This is Robin.
You stared at it.
Another message followed. If this device is active, I assume you have it.
Another. I will not ask you to meet in person unless you agree.
Another. I do not remember you. That does not mean you are not real.
Your throat tightened.
You hated him a little for that one.
So you typed, This is extremely dramatic.
The reply came thirty seconds later. You have met my father. I assure you this is restrained.
A laugh escaped before you could stop it. It startled you. The sound felt foreign. Like opening a door in a house you thought had burned down.
You typed, Your handwriting is terrible btw.
My handwriting is exceptional.
Your R looks like a stabbed insect.
A pause. Then, Noted.
The next chalk message you found two nights later had perfect block letters.
Smug little freak.
Damian learned around the shape of you. That was the only way to describe it. He could not remember you directly, but he built scaffolding around the absence.
Notes on his gloves. Voice memos recorded while staring at you, played back after he forgot. Sketches done in real time, each labelled with date, location, and emotional impression.
Subject looked tired tonight. Subject pretended not to care about antiseptic. Lied poorly. Subject dislikes being thanked. Continue thanking them. Subject laughed at 02:13. Remember that this matters.
You found that one in his notebook when you absolutely were not snooping.
âYou are snooping,â Damian said.
You snapped the notebook shut. âI am investigating.â
âYou are holding my private notes.â
âYou left them where anyone could read them.â
âThey were in my hand.â
âSkill issue.â
Damian looked unimpressed.
You were perched on the edge of a rooftop HVAC unit, swinging one leg like you had not just been caught reading the closest thing anyone had ever made to a record of you. He stood three feet away, refusing to break eye contact.
He had learned that trick too. It made conversations tense. Intimate. Weird.
âYou should not kill,â he said.
You groaned. âWe were having such a nice moment.â
âWe were not.â
âYou were writing about my laugh.â
His ears went faintly pink. Fascinating. âI record relevant behavioural data.â
âMy laugh is relevant?â
âIt is an indicator of trust.â
âWow.â You placed a hand over your heart. âTalk dirty to me, Robin.â
His blush deepened. Your smile faded before he could see how much you liked it.
Dangerous. Hope was dangerous.
Damian stepped closer. âYou use humour to redirect.â
âYou use analysis to avoid feelings.â
âI do not avoid feelings.â
âYou dress like a bat-themed traffic warning and punch people at night.â
He opened his mouth. Closed it. âThat is irrelevant.â
âThat is what people say when things are relevant.â
He glared. You smiled. Then his gaze flicked, involuntarily, to the notebook in your hands.
And it happened. His expression emptied of you. Just slightly. Just enough.
He looked back up. His hand went to his sword. âWho areââ
You tossed the notebook at his chest. He caught it.
âRead page twelve,â you said.
Damian looked down.
You watched him reconstruct you from ink. Watched his own words pull him back to the edge of belief. Watched him breathe in slowly.
His eyes returned to yours. Not remembering. Choosing anyway.
âI apologise,â he said.
You flinched. It was small. He noticed.
âDonât,â you said.
âI forgot.â
âEveryone does.â
âThat does not make it acceptable.â
You laughed once, but there was no humour in it. âCareful, Wayne. You keep saying things like that, and Iâll start thinking you mean them.â
âI do.â
That was the problem.
You looked away first. The second you did, you knew he would forget the exact softness that had passed between you.
But you remembered. You always remembered.
Lucky you.
Damianâs family noticed eventually. Of course they did. A Bat could hide a stab wound for six hours, but not a new obsession. The dramatic irony was almost cute.
Tim found the wall first. He stared at the notes. Then at Damian. Then back at the notes.
âOkay,â Tim said. âNot to be rude, but this is either a case board or the beginning of a gothic romance.â
Damian snatched a sketch off the wall. âLeave.â
âGothic romance. Got it.â
âDrake.â
âDoes your mysterious murder cryptid have a name?â
Damian went still. âNo.â
Timâs expression shifted. Gentler. More dangerous. âYou donât know?â
âNo one does.â
That shut him up. For almost three seconds, which for Tim Drake was basically a vow of silence. Then Tim stepped closer to the board. âYou think thereâs a cognitive effect?â
âI know there is.â
âOn everyone?â
âYes.â
âEven you?â
Damianâs jaw tightened. âEspecially me.â
Tim read the notes in silence. Then said, âThatâs horrifying.â
âYes.â
âAnd lonely.â
Damian looked at the sketch in his hand. The eyes were incomplete again. âYes,â he said.
Later, after Tim left, Damian added another note. Ask Subject what they want. Do not assume rescue equals cure.
He underlined it twice.
âWhat do you want?â Damian asked.
You stopped sharpening your knife. That question was worse than who are you. At least who are you had an easy answer. Nobody. Nothing. Gone already.
âWhat?â you said.
Damian sat across from you on the rooftop, knees bent, forearms resting loosely against them. He had taken off the domino. You hated when he did that. It made him look too human. Too young. Too beautiful in a way that was absolutely none of your business.
âWhat do you want?â he repeated.
âA vacation. Better coffee. The Joker dead. A nap long enough to be classified as a coma.â
âI am serious.â
âThatâs tragic.â
âForget-Me-Not.â
You froze.
He had never called you that out loud before. The name should have sounded clinical. It should have sounded like one more label pinned to the body-shaped hole you left in the world.
But Damian said it like a promise. Quiet. Careful. Yours, almost.
You looked away. The city blurred beneath you. âDonât call me that.â
âWhat should I call you?â
You laughed under your breath. âDoesnât matter. You wonât remember.â
âI will write it down.â
âThat isnât the same.â
âNo,â Damian said. âIt is not.â
The honesty almost hurt worse than comfort would have. You swallowed.
âMy parents had a name for me,â you said. Damian went very still. âI donât use it anymore.â
âWhy?â
âBecause they stopped.â You hated the silence that followed. You hated that he did not rush to fill it. You hated that some part of you wanted him to. âI was little,â you continued, because apparently your mouth had decided to betray the whole fortress. âWhen it started. At first, people just⊠misplaced me. Teachers skipped over me. Kids forgot games halfway through playing them. My parents thought it was stress. Then a phase. Then a curse. ThenâŠâ You smiled thinly. âThen I became a note on the fridge.â
Damian said nothing.
You picked at a loose thread on your sleeve. âOne day, I came home and there were no notes. No dinner plate. No bed made up. My room was storage. My mother looked right at me, turned to call my father, and when she turned back, she screamed because there was a stranger in her house.â Your voice did not break. You were proud of that. âShe forgot me faster than she could love me.â
Damianâs hands curled.
You looked at him then. Big mistake. His face held rage, but not the kind people usually aimed at you. This was not fear. Not suspicion.
This was fury on your behalf.
Hope sparked again. Tiny. Stupid. Cruel.
You crushed it badly this time. Not enough.
âThatâs why you kill,â he said.
You snorted. âNo. I kill because some people deserve to stop breathing.â
âYour loneliness informs your methods.â
âCareful. That almost sounded like empathy.â
âIt was.â
âGross.â
Damianâs mouth twitched. There. A near-smile. The kind of thing a person could get addicted to if they were very dumb and had no self-preservation.
You stood too quickly. âI should go.â
Damian stood too. âStay.â
The word struck between you like a thrown blade.
You stared at him. He looked startled by himself. Then determined, because of course he did. Damian Wayne would fight God before admitting a feeling caught him off guard.
âStay,â he repeated. âFor ten minutes.â
âWhy?â
âSo I can remember you for ten minutes.â
Your chest hurt. âDamian.â
His name came out before you could stop it.
He inhaled sharply. You had never said it before.
Not Robin. Not Wayne.
Damian. Like he was a person. Like you were a person.
His voice softened. âPlease.â
You hated hope. You hated it. You hated how it bloomed anyway.
So you sat back down. For ten minutes, Damian Wayne looked at you and did not forget. For ten minutes, you existed in someone elseâs mind.
It was not enough.
It was everything.
The breakthrough came from a mistake. Damian was injured. Not badly, he insisted, which meant badly enough that anyone sane would seek medical attention. You found him in an alley behind the Iceberg Lounge, bleeding from a cut across his ribs and trying to staple himself shut with one hand.
âYou look terrible,â you said.
He looked up sharply. For half a second, his face relaxed.
Not recognition. Never recognition. But something close.
âForget-Me-Not.â
âYou remembered?â
âNo.â He glanced at the writing on his wrist. âI prepared.â
Of course he did.
You crouched beside him and slapped his hand away. âI can do it.â
âIâve seen you try to stitch with your off-hand. It was like watching a raccoon defuse a bomb.â
âYour concern is touching.â
âMy concern is impatient.â
You cleaned the wound while he stared at you. The eye contact had become easier.
No. That was a lie. It had become more unbearable.
Because Damian watched like attention was devotion. Like looking could be a form of shelter. Like if he just tried hard enough, the universe would be forced to admit you were there.
âYouâre going to need stitches,â you said.
âI know.â
âThis will hurt.â
âI know.â
âDonât do that macho thing.â
âI do not do a macho thing.â
âYou were raised by Batman and assassins. You absolutely do a macho thing.â
His lips twitched.
You started stitching. His breath hitched once, controlled and sharp.
Without thinking, you placed your free hand over his.
A stupid comfort. A forgettable comfort.
Damian looked down at your joined hands. You felt the moment his memory dropped.
His fingers tensed. You tried to pull away.
He caught your hand.
Not hard. Just enough.
His eyes were still on your hands. He should have forgotten you. He had forgotten you.
But he did not let go.
Slowly, he looked back up. His expression was confused. Then he saw your face. Then the note on his wrist. Then your hand in his. His thumb moved once against your knuckles.
âI forgot,â he said.
âYeah.â
âBut I did not release you.â
You stared at him.
He looked down again, testing. Memory vanished from his face. His hand remained around yours. Up again.
Reconstruction. Understanding.
âPhysical contact,â he said.
Your pulse stumbled. âWhat?â
âPhysical contact may preserve some continuity. Not memory, but intent. Somatic anchoring.â
âYou are such a nerd.â
âYes,â Damian said, eyes bright now in a way that made him look younger. âAnd you are holding my hand.â
You dropped it immediately. He looked smug for exactly one second before wincing because smugness apparently pulled stitches.
âDonât get excited,â you said. âIt was medical.â
âOf course.â
âI would hold anyoneâs hand while sewing their ribs shut.â
âYour bedside manner is abysmal.â
âYouâre welcome.â
That night, Damian wrote seventeen pages about somatic anchoring. You pretended not to read them.
You read them three times.
After that, things changed. Not fixed. Never fixed. This was not a fairy tale. Gotham ate fairy tales, picked the bones clean, and sold them back as cautionary graffiti.
Damian still forgot you. Every night. Every conversation. Every time his gaze broke, even for a breath too long.
But now he built ways back. A touch to his wrist. A note in his palm. A recording in his own voice, You trust them. Do not reach for your sword. Ask whether they have eaten.
The first time that recording played, you nearly threw his comm off a roof.
âAsk whether Iâve eaten?â you demanded. âWhat am I, a stray cat?â
Damian looked you up and down.
You hissed, âDonât.â
âYou do frequent rooftops.â
âI will stab you.â
âYou also resist care despite needing it.â
âDamian.â
âAnd you accepted tuna from Brown last week.â
âThat was sushi, you rich gremlin.â
He looked pleased. It was awful.
You started staying longer. That was the dangerous part. Five minutes became ten. Ten became an hour. An hour became patrol routes where Damian would glance at you every few seconds, stubborn as sunrise, refusing to let you vanish if he could help it.
Sometimes he failed. A lot of times, he failed. You learned the shape of his forgetting. The slight tightening of his stance. The way his eyes flicked cold before his notes thawed him. The apology he gave every time, even when you told him to stop.
Especially then.
âI apologise.â
âDonât.â
âI hurt you.â
âYou forgot me. Thatâs different.â
âNo,â Damian said once, quiet beneath the rain. âIt is not.â
You had no joke for that. So you stood beside him in silence while Gotham glittered wet and cruel below.
Your shoulder brushed his. He did not move away.
Neither did you.
The first time he kissed you, he forgot you halfway through. It was, objectively, a disaster.
You were laughing when it happened, which made it worse.
Damian had been trying to explain a new theory involving tactile recall, mnemonic loops, and Zatanna, because apparently the Batsâ solution to metaphysical trauma was âcall a magician and make three spreadsheets.â
âYou made a spreadsheet about me?â
âSeveral.â
âThat is either romantic or a federal concern.â
âYou are deflecting.â
âYou are flirting with data.â
âI am flirting with you.â
You stopped breathing. Damian stopped too. The city wind moved between you.
âDonât say things you wonât remember,â you whispered.
His expression changed. Softened. âI may not remember saying them,â he said, âbut I have written them in twenty-three places. I have recorded them in my own voice. I have told Drake, Cain, and Pennyworth. I have carved reminders into my routines until my life bends around the fact of you.â
Your eyes burned. âDamian.â
âI do not remember you the way I should,â he said. âBut I know this: every version of myself that finds the evidence chooses you again.â
Oh. That was unfair.
That was so unfair.
You stepped back, but he caught your hand.
âDo not run.â
âIâm very good at running.â
âI know.â
âYou donât know anything.â
His thumb pressed against your pulse. âI know enough.â
You laughed once, broken and small. âYouâre going to look away one day and not look back.â
âNo.â
âYou donât know that.â
âNo,â he agreed. âI do not. But I know I have looked back every time so far.â
There was no defence against that. None.
You kissed him first. Because you were tired of being a ghost. Because you wanted one thing before the world took it. Because hope was a cruel little weed growing through concrete, and maybe you were tired of ripping it out.
Damian made a soft sound against your mouth, startled, then certain. His hand rose to your jaw. His other hand stayed locked around yours. For one blazing second, you were held in memory and body both.
Then a siren wailed below. His eyes flicked toward the street.
You felt him forget. His mouth stilled. His hand tensed.
You pulled back before his confusion could finish forming.
Damian blinked at you, alarmed. Then looked at your joined hands. At the note written across his glove. You love them. Breathe. His face went scarlet.
You stared. He stared.
âOh my god,â you said hoarsely. âYou wrote that on your glove?â
Damian cleared his throat. âIt seemed practical.â
âYou are insane.â
âLikely.â
âYou forgot me during our first kiss.â
His eyes widened. Then narrowed at himself, offended. âUnacceptable.â
You laughed. You laughed so hard your eyes spilled over.
Damian looked stricken.
âNo,â you said quickly, wiping your face. âNo, Iâm notâ Iâm not laughing because it hurt.â
Though it did. Of course it did. Everything did. But not only. Not anymore.
âIâm laughing because you look personally betrayed by your own brain.â
âI am.â
âYouâre ridiculous.â
âI will do better next time.â Next time. The words landed softly. Carefully. Like a coat around cold shoulders.
âYou want a next time?â you asked.
Damian looked at the glove again. Then at you. He did not remember the kiss. But his mouth curved faintly. âI apparently insisted upon it in writing.â
You smiled despite yourself. âOkay, Wayne.â
His hand tightened around yours. âOkay?â
You leaned in until your forehead touched his. âNext time.â
He closed his eyes.
Panic shot through you. But his hand stayed in yours. His forehead stayed against yours. And when he opened his eyes again, the confusion came. Then the note. Then the choice.
Always the choice.
âThere you are,â he said softly.
Your breath caught.
He did not remember saying it before. Maybe he never had. Maybe he would say it again.
Maybe that was enough to survive on. For now.
Zatanna could not cure you. Not fully.
You expected that. You told yourself you expected that. Still, when she stood in the cave beneath the cold blue light and said, âIâm sorry,â something in you folded inward.
Damianâs hand found yours immediately. Anchoring. Always anchoring.
Zatannaâs expression was gentle in a way you did not know what to do with. âIt isnât just magic,â she said. âThereâs magic in it, yes, but also metahuman biology, trauma response, maybe even a curse that attached itself to your ability when you were young. Itâs tangled.â
âGreat,â you said. âLove being a group project.â
Tim, from behind three laptops, whispered, âHonestly, same.â
Damian glared at him.
Zatanna continued, âI may be able to help reduce the effect. Create anchors. People who consent to remembering you may be able to retain emotional continuity longer. Names may hold power. Touch helps. Written records help. Repetition helps.â
You swallowed. âBut no cure.â
âNot today.â
Not today. It was not a yes. It was not a no.
Hope, again. That annoying little weed.
Damian looked at you. You knew he was waiting for you to break first. To scoff. To run. To turn cold before disappointment could touch you.
Instead, you looked at your hand in his. At the ink on his wrist. At the wall of notes behind him. At the sketch he had redrawn so many times the eyes were finally starting to look like yours.
âI donât know how to do this,â you admitted. Your voice sounded too small in the cave.
Damianâs thumb moved over your knuckles. âNeither do I.â
âYou hate not knowing things.â
âI do.â
âThis could take years.â
âThen we will require more notebooks.â
You laughed wetly. He looked proud of himself.
Little menace.
âYouâll forget me,â you said.
His expression sobered. âYes.â
No pretty lie. No softening the blade. Just truth.
Then he lifted your joined hands. âAnd I will find you again.â
You closed your eyes. For once, when someone looked away, you did not disappear completely.
Damian forgot. Then read the note. Then remembered enough. His hand stayed around yours.
When you opened your eyes, he was watching you with that familiar, stubborn, impossible focus. Like the universe had made a rule, and Damian Wayne had taken it personally.
âHello,â he said carefully. Your heart broke. Your heart healed. Both, maybe.
âHi,â you whispered.
His gaze dropped to the note on his wrist. Then back to you.
A small smile touched his mouth. âThere you are.â
And for the first time in a very long time, you believed him.
The first thing Damian remembered was your laugh. Not your face. Not your voice. Not the exact shape of your hand in his.
Just the laugh.
It came to him three days after Zatannaâs visit, in the middle of sparring with Cass. He was blocking a strike to his ribs when the sound flickered through his mindâquiet, sharp, unwilling, like joy had snuck into your chest and gotten caught trying to escape.
Damian froze. Cassâ foot stopped half an inch from his knee. She tilted her head. Damian lowered his sword.
âI remember something,â he said.
Cass blinked once. Then smiled. Small. Knowing.
Damian hated being known by people who could read body language like scripture.
âWhat?â she asked.
His mouth opened. For one terrifying second, the memory slipped. Not gone. Slipping.
Damianâs hand snapped to his wrist, where his notes were written in dark ink. FORGET-ME-NOT EXISTS. DO NOT TRUST ABSENCE. THEY ARE REAL.
But he did not need them. The sound returned. A laugh on a rooftop. Rain on metal. Your voice saying, You are flirting with data.
His heart struck hard against his ribs.
âTheir laugh,â he said, stunned.
Cass lowered her foot fully. Damian stared at nothing.
He remembered. Not because of a note. Not because of a recording. Not because his past self had left breadcrumbs like a man wandering through a cursed forest.
He remembered something of you.
On his own.
You did not believe him. Naturally.
âThatâs adorable,â you said flatly. âHave you considered brain damage?â
Damian stood across from you on the roof of Gotham Central Library, arms crossed, jaw set in the particular way that meant he was either offended or about to confess something emotionally devastating with the energy of a murder accusation. Sometimes both.
âI am not concussed.â
âYou say that a lot for someone who gets hit in the head professionally.â
âI remember your laugh.â
You looked away. It was instinct by now. A survival reflex. If someone said something kind, you made sure they forgot it before it became real.
Damianâs breath caught. You heard it. That tiny shift.
You closed your eyes. There it was. The moment. The curse. The worldâs old cruel joke, winding itself up again.
When you opened your eyes, Damian was staring at you. Still. Focused. Shaken.
âI remember,â he said.
Your chest tightened. âNo, you donât.â
âI do.â
âYou read a note.â
âI did not.â
âYou listened to a recording.â
âNo.â
âYouâre guessing.â
âYour laugh is quiet at first,â Damian said, voice low, âas if you resent it for existing. Then it catches. Barely. You look away when it happens, because you do not like being seen wanting to stay.â
The city went silent. Or maybe you did. Your whole body locked around the words.
Damian took one step closer. âYou called me a rich gremlin.â Your mouth parted. âAnd a bat-themed traffic warning.â
âThat one was objectively true,â you whispered.
His mouth twitched. âAnd you told me my handwriting looked like a stabbed insect.â
You stared at him. The wind moved between you, cold and sharp, tugging at his cape and your sleeves. Far below, sirens wailed. Gotham kept being Gotham, rude as ever. But above it, the impossible sat between you like a candle in a ruined church.
âYou remember that?â you asked.
âYes.â
You searched his face for the lie. There wasnât one. That was the problem with Damian. He could be arrogant, difficult, blunt, dramatic in a way he would deny until the sun died, but he did not give you comfort he could not defend.
Hope stirred. You hated it. You hated how quickly it had learned his name.
âMaybe itâs temporary,â you said.
âIt may be.â
âMaybe it wonât last.â
âIt may not.â
âMaybe youâll wake up tomorrow, and itâll be gone.â
His expression softened. âThen I will begin again tomorrow.â
Your throat burned. âYou donât get tired of that?â
âYes.â
The honesty hit harder than a pretty answer would have.
Damian stepped closer. âI get furious,â he said. âI get impatient. I getâŠâ His jaw tightened. âAfraid.â You stared. Damian Wayne said the word like it had been dragged out of him by the throat. âBut I do not get tired of you.â
Your breath caught. He looked startled by his own words, but he did not take them back. You laughed once, brittle and small. âThatâs a terrible line.â
âI was not aware we were exchanging lines.â
âYouâre doing a tragic rooftop romance. You should at least be good at it.â
âI will improve.â
âDonât make that sound like a threat.â
âI make no promises.â
There it was again. The almost-smile. You wanted to touch it. You wanted to run from it. Both urges lived in you at once, twin animals baring teeth.
Instead, you pulled your knees to your chest and sat on the edge of the roof. After a moment, Damian sat beside you.
Not too close. Close enough.
You glanced at him. âDo you remember my face?â
His silence answered before he did. âNo,â he said. You nodded like that didnât hurt. âI remember impressions,â he continued. âYour eyes when you are annoyed. The angle of your head when you are about to insult me. The way your shoulders rise when someone says something kind and you do not know where to put it.â
âWow. Drag me, why donât you.â
âI remember the scar on your left thumb.â
Your hand curled instinctively. Damian noticed.
âYou told me it was from a knife fight,â he said.
âI lied.â
âI know.â You looked at him sharply. He glanced at your hand, then quickly back to your face, as if afraid to lose you. âYou cut yourself opening a can of peaches when you were twelve.â
The world fell out from under you. You had told him that on a bad night. A stupid night. A night where you had been tired and bleeding and too lonely to keep every door locked. You had told him about the abandoned apartment you stayed in that winter, about eating canned fruit with a stolen pocketknife, about slicing your thumb open and crying more because there was no one to hear you than because it hurt.
You had told him. Then he had looked away. And forgotten. You had regretted saying it for weeks.
Damian remembered.
Your hand trembled before you could stop it. He saw. Carefully, slowly, he offered his hand palm-up between you.
Not taking. Asking.
Damn him. Damn him for learning you this gently.
You stared at his hand like it was a trap. Then you placed yours in it.
His fingers closed around yours. The contact steadied something in the air. Or maybe in you.
âI remember that,â Damian said.
You swallowed hard. âHow?â
âI do not know yet.â
âOf course you added âyet.ââ
âI am consistent.â
âYouâre impossible.â
âI have been called worse.â
âBy me.â
âMostly, yes.â
A laugh escaped you. Soft. Unwilling.
Damianâs eyes sharpened, not like a hunter this time, but like a boy watching the first star appear in a dark sky.
âThere,â he whispered. You went still. âI will remember that one too.â
Your heart hurt so badly you almost hated him for it.
Almost.
The second thing Damian remembered was your voice.
It happened badly. The Narrows were soaked in rain, neon bleeding down dirty windows and alley walls. You had been tracking a weapons shipment tied to Black Maskâs old network. Damian had tracked it too, which meant the two of you ended up on opposite sides of the same warehouse skylight, glaring at each other through wet glass like the worldâs least normal meet-cute.
âYou followed me,â you said through the comm he had given you.
âI was here first.â
âI was here silently.â
âI was here competently.â
âThatâs debatable.â
âYou set off the pressure sensor on the south entrance.â
âThat sensor was ugly and deserved it.â
Damian sighed. You grinned despite yourself. Then the floor beneath him exploded. The comm cut out. Your body moved before your fear could name itself.
You dropped through the skylight into smoke and gunfire, landing hard on a steel beam. Below, men shouted. Red emergency lights flashed. Damian was on one knee near the centre of the room, one hand braced against the concrete, blood bright against his temple.
For one horrible second, he looked younger. Not Robin. Not Batmanâs heir.
Just Damian. Your Damian.
No. Not yours.
You threw three blades in quick succession. Three men dropped.
Damian looked up. His eyes found you.
Relief flickered across his face. Then a flashbang detonated. White swallowed everything. When your vision returned, Damian was standing with his sword drawn and no recognition in his eyes.
Of course. You knew this part. You could survive this part.
Then he pointed the blade at you. âIdentify yourself.â
Something inside you snapped.
âAre you kidding me?â you shouted.
He froze. Not because he remembered.
Because your voice did something to him.
You saw it happen. His shoulders shifted. His grip faltered. His eyes widened, not with knowledge, but with impact. Your voice had gotten through before his mind could slam the door.
âRobin!â one of the smugglers barked from behind him.
Damian did not turn. Good. Learning.
The man raised a gun. You shot him in the shoulder.
Damianâs gaze flicked instinctively toward the sound. Lost.
His face emptied. Then his jaw clenched. He looked back at you.
âI know your voice,â he said.
You almost missed your next throw. âWhat?â
âI know your voice.â
âYou donât know me.â
His eyes narrowed, frustrated. âI know your voice.â
The fight surged around you. This was a terrible place for a revelation.
âGreat,â you snapped. âUse that knowledge to duck.â
He ducked. A crowbar swung through the space where his skull had been. Damian moved like water after that, violent and precise. You covered his blind spots. He covered yours. Every time he looked away, his body resetâbut not completely. Your voice pulled him back faster each time.
âLeft.â He moved left. âBehind you.â He spun. âDuck, pretty bird.â
He ducked, then glared at you mid-fight. âYou did not just call meââ He knocked a man unconscious with the hilt of his sword. âYou did,â he said.
You shrugged while kicking someone in the knee. âAdrenaline. Donât read into it.â
âI will read into it extensively.â
âFocus.â
âI am focused.â
âYou are flirting while concussed.â
âI am multitasking.â
You laughed. He heard it. And this time, when he looked away, he still smiled.
Only for half a second. Only barely. But you saw it.
And after the last man dropped, Damian stood in the wreckage, rain pouring through the broken skylight, blood sliding down his jaw, and said your name. Not your real name, but the one he had given you.
âForget-Me-Not.â You froze. His eyes widened. âI remembered.â
You stared at him. âNo notes?â
âNo notes.â
âNo recording?â
âNo.â
âNo contact?â
âNo.â
Your pulse roared in your ears.
Damian lifted a hand to his own mouth, stunned by himself. âI remembered the name.â
You should have made a joke. You always made a joke. Instead you crossed the space between you and grabbed him by the front of his suit. His eyes dropped to your hands.
You knew the risk. His memory flickered. You felt him begin to lose you.
âDamian,â you said.
His gaze snapped back to your face. There. He stayed.
You kissed him. It was not graceful. It was wet from rain and sharp with fear, his mouth startled beneath yours for one breath before he kissed you back with a kind of fierce, trembling focus that made your knees weak. His hands hovered for half a second, like he was afraid touching you wrong would make you vanish. Then one settled at your waist. The other came up to your jaw.
You felt him try not to look away. Felt the concentration in every line of him.
It should have been funny. It was devastating.
You pulled back just enough to breathe. His eyes were still open. Still on you.
âDid you forget?â you whispered.
His fingers tightened. âNo.â Your world cracked open. Damianâs voice dropped. âI remember kissing you before.â
You stopped breathing.
His brow furrowed, like the memory was fighting him, like he was dragging it up with both hands from deep water. âRooftop,â he said. âSiren. I looked away. You laughed at my glove.â
A sound left you. Half laugh. Half sob. âYou wrote âyou love themâ on your glove.â
His face flushed. Even now. Bleeding, soaked, standing over seven unconscious criminals and three dead ones, Damian Wayne blushed because you remembered his dramatic little love note to himself.
âI was being thorough,â he muttered.
âYou were being insane.â
âI was being correct.â
You looked at him. He looked back. The rain softened the edges of him. Made him less blade, more boy. Fewer weapons, more want. Your hands were still fisted in his suit.
âYou love me?â you asked. The question came out smaller than you meant it to.
Damianâs expression changed. He looked briefly, openly terrified. Then certain. âYes,â he said.
No hesitation. No escape route. Just yes.
Your eyes stung. âYou barely remember me.â
âI remember enough to know what the rest of me keeps choosing.â
âThat is the most Damian Wayne answer imaginable.â
âI assume that is favourable.â
âItâs obnoxious.â
âYouâre crying.â
âIâm rain-adjacent.â
âIt is indoors.â
âThereâs a hole in the roof.â
âBecause you crashed through it.â
âRomantically.â
His mouth twitched. Then softened. âBeloved,â he said quietly.
You forgot how to be clever. Damian noticed. A dangerous amount of satisfaction entered his face.
âOh, shut up,â you whispered.
âI said nothing.â
âYou looked smug.â
âI am allowed to be pleased when I render you speechless.â
âIâm going to stab you emotionally.â
âYou already have.â
And there it was. The ache beneath the banter. The years of loneliness. The curse. The forgetting. The way every soft thing between you had teeth marks in it from trying not to die.
You touched his cheek. His eyes closed for one second. Just one.
When he opened them, panic flashed. Then recognition followed. Slowly. Painfully. But there.
âI remember,â he said, wonder breaking through his voice.
Your thumb brushed his cheekbone. âDamian?â
âI remember.â
His hand covered yours. âI closed my eyes,â he said. âAnd I remembered.â
You stared at him.
The silence after that was not empty. It was full of every impossible thing neither of you dared to name.
Then Damian leaned forward and kissed you again. This time, he closed his eyes. This time, when he opened them, you were still there.
He became unbearable after that. Scientifically unbearable. You had never seen a man so smug about emotional progress. Damian walked around the Batcave like he had personally defeated the laws of metaphysics through discipline and cheekbones.
âI remembered their voice for fourteen minutes without visual confirmation,â he told Tim.
Tim stared at him over his coffee. âGood morning to you, too.â
âThis suggests the effect is weakening.â
âIt suggests youâre in love and making it everyoneâs problem.â
Damian sniffed. âI am conducting research.â
âYou wrote their name in the margin of a case file.â
âThat was accidental.â
âYou surrounded it with little flowers.â
Damianâs face went blank. Timâs grin widened. âThey were tactical flowers,â Damian said.
You, hidden in the rafters above them, nearly choked trying not to laugh.
Damianâs head snapped up.
He could not see you. Still, he smiled. Tiny. Private. Like his body knew where you were before his eyes did.
Tim followed his gaze and sighed. âYou two are going to be disgusting, arenât you?â
âI do not know what you mean,â Damian said.
âYouâre already doing the secret rooftop eye-contact thing.â
âYour jealousy is unbecoming.â
âIâm not jealous. Iâm sleep-deprived and surrounded by emotionally constipated vigilantes discovering romance like itâs a new martial art.â
From the rafters, you whispered, âHeâs not wrong.â
Damian looked directly at your hiding place. âI heard that.â
Tim startled. âYou heard them?â
Damian paused.
His expression changed. Not confusion. Astonishment. He had heard you without seeing you. And remembered who the voice belonged to.
You dropped lightly from the rafters, landing beside the computer platform.
Tim looked at you. Then away by accident. When his gaze returned, he frowned at the empty space his mind insisted on making.
âRight,â Tim muttered, immediately looking at his tablet. âWow. That is annoying.â
âWelcome to my whole life,â you said.
Tim winced. âSorry.â
âDonât be. You wrote a twelve-page theory about me involving quantum attention decay. That was worse.â
Tim brightened. âYou read that?â
âNo.â
âYou did.â
âUnfortunately.â
Damian stepped closer to you. His hand brushed yours. Not because he needed to anchor himself.
Because he wanted to. That difference nearly ruined you.
Tim looked between you and Damian. Or tried to. Mostly, his eyes kept snagging on Damianâs hand and then sliding away from the rest of you.
âSo,â Tim said slowly, âheâs remembering more?â
âYes,â Damian said.
You looked at him. âSometimes.â
âMore than sometimes.â
âDonât get cocky.â
âI am accurately confident.â
âYou remembered I hate lilies and decided that made you a wizard.â
âYou said lilies smell like funeral homes and rich guilt.â
Tim pointed at you with his coffee. âThat is incredibly specific.â
Damianâs eyes stayed on you. âI remembered because it mattered to them.â
The cave went quiet. Even Tim had the decency not to ruin it.
You swallowed. âStop being sincere in public.â
âThis is my home.â
âThere are bats in it.â
âThey are family.â
Tim whispered, âSee? Disgusting.â
Damian ignored him. You tried to, but your mouth twitched. And Damian remembered that too.
Your real name came on a night without costumes. That was not planned. Most important things with Damian were either meticulously planned or happened with the emotional timing of a car crash. This was the second kind.
You were at Wayne Manor because Alfred had decided you were underfed. Alfred Pennyworth, you quickly discovered, was immune to approximately sixty per cent of your nonsense through sheer British stubbornness. He forgot you, yes. But he did not forget the place setting he had arranged. He did not forget the extra cup of tea. He did not forget the note he had written in elegant script beside the tray, Our guest takes honey, not sugar. Do not allow Master Damian to brood overmuch.
You read it three times. Then blamed allergies.
There were no allergies.
Damian found you in the library after dinner, standing near the window with a cup of tea cooling in your hands.
âYou fled,â he said.
âI relocated.â
âYou were overwhelmed.â
âI was avoiding your brother asking whether Iâm your partner.â
Damian went still. âHe asked that?â
âHe tried to. He forgot halfway through and asked why you were smiling at a chair.â
Damian grimaced. You turned from the window.
The library was warm, gold-lit, lined with books that looked older than several Gotham neighborhoods. Rain tapped against the glass. Somewhere far down the hall, Dick laughed at something Jason said. It sounded painfully normal. Too normal for you. Too much like a life.
Damian approached carefully. âYou may leave whenever you wish.â
âI know.â
âNo one will keep you here.â
âI know.â
âYou are not a prisoner of being wanted.â
You looked down at your tea. âYou canât just say things like that.â
âI can.â
âYou shouldnât.â
âWhy?â
âBecause I might believe you.â
Damian was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, âGood.â
Your grip tightened around the cup. The ceramic warmed your palms. You hated how badly you wanted to stay. You hated how much of your life had been built around leaving before anyone could prove you were impossible to keep.
âDamian,â you said.
He stepped closer. âYes?â
You looked at him then. No mask. No hood. No blood. No rooftop distance. Just Damian in a dark sweater, hair still damp from the rain, eyes fixed on you like attention was the first language he had ever learned.
âI want to tell you my name,â you said.
His face changed. Softened. Sharpened. Almost reverent. âYou do not have to.â
âI know.â
âIf you tell me, I may forget it.â
âI know.â
âI will write it down.â
âI know.â
âIt still may hurt.â
You laughed under your breath. âIt already hurts.â
Damian looked pained. You set the tea aside. Then you stepped close enough that your shoes nearly touched his.
You told him. Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just a name. A small sound. A human thing. The first thing ever taken from you.
Damian closed his eyes like receiving it hurt.
Then he opened them. Said it back. Perfectly.
Your breath shook. âNo one has said that to me in years,â you whispered.
Damianâs hand rose, then stopped. âMay I?â
You nodded.
He touched your cheek. Your eyes closed on instinct. His thumb moved softly against your skin.
Then he turned his head. Just slightly. A glance toward the door at a distant sound.
Your stomach dropped.
There. The curse took its bite.
Damian went still. His hand remained on your face. His eyes returned to you. For one second, there was no recognition. Then something fought through.
Not notes. Not touch alone. Something deeper.
His brow furrowed. His lips parted. Then he said your name.
Your whole body went cold. Then hot. Then weightless.
âYou remember,â you breathed.
Damian stared at you as if he were afraid moving would break the world. âYes.â
âSay it again.â
He did.
You covered your mouth. He said it again, softer. Like a vow. Like a prayer. Like he was teaching the universe how to behave.
You made a sound you could not swallow.
Damian pulled you into his arms. Not too tight. Never trapping. Just holding.
You buried your face against his shoulder and shook. He pressed his mouth to your hair.
âI remember,â he whispered.
You clutched the back of his sweater. âYou remember me.â
âYes.â
âDonât stop.â
âI will not.â
âYou donât know that.â
âNo,â he said, voice rough. âBut I know your name.â
You broke then. Not prettily. Not quietly. Years of vanishing tore out of you all at once. You cried like a child. Like the child who had waited at a dinner table no one set. Like the teenager who had learned knives because hands were never offered. Like the ghost who had survived being forgotten by pretending they did not want to be known.
Damian held you through all of it. And when he looked away once, twice, three timesâ
He still knew who you were when he looked back.
He asked you properly two weeks later. Because apparently, Damian Wayne could confess love in a burning warehouse but needed a formal strategy for dating.
You found the list by accident. Mostly accident. Fine. Thirty percent accident.
It was in his notebook, beneath a heading written in his sharp, perfect block letters, COURTSHIP PARAMETERS You stared. Then slowly turned the page.
Ask directly. Do not assume existing emotional intimacy equals consent to romantic partnership. Avoid phrasing as a tactical alliance. Drake says this is âweird.â Flowers? Not lilies. Possible alternatives: forget-me-nots, though they may be too obvious. Consider irony? No. Too painful? Ask. Dinner? Public spaces may increase discomfort due to memory effect. Rooftop picnic? Too much like patrol? Do not say âI have selected you.â Brown laughed for four minutes.
You had to sit down. By the time Damian entered the room, you were on his bed, laughing silently into his pillow.
He stopped in the doorway. âYou are invading my privacy.â
âYou wrote âdo not say I have selected you.ââ His entire face went red. You clutched the notebook to your chest. âDamian.â
âGive that back.â
âYou asked Steph for dating advice?â
âI consulted multiple sources.â
âDid you ask Jason?â
His expression darkened. âTodd suggested kidnapping you from yourself.â
âThatâs almost poetic.â
âHe also suggested leather.â
You wheezed.
Damian lunged for the notebook.
You rolled away, laughing harder. He caught your ankle. You shrieked, half-laughing, and kicked at him without real force. He climbed onto the bed with the terrifying determination of a man fighting for his dignity and losing badly.
âReturn it,â he demanded.
âYou made a courtship battle plan.â
âIt is not a battle plan.â
âIt has numbered objectives.â
âIt is a list.â
âYou were going to ask me out with logistics.â
âI was going to ask you with respect.â
That stopped you. Damian froze too, one hand braced beside your shoulder, the two of you suddenly close enough that laughter became breath. His blush lingered high on his cheeks.
Your smile softened despite yourself. âYou were?â
âYes.â
You looked down at the notebook. Then back at him. âOkay. Ask me.â
âNow?â
âNo, Damian. Next fiscal quarter.â
His eyes narrowed. âYour sarcasm is a defence mechanism.â
âYour face is a defence mechanism. Ask.â
He took the notebook from your loosened hand and set it aside. Then, because he was Damian, he straightened even while kneeling on his bed like this was a boardroom and not the most ridiculous romantic moment in recorded history. He looked directly at you. Softer this time.
âI love you,â he said. Your heart tripped. Still. Every time. âI remember you now more often than I forget,â he continued. âBut even before that, I knew you. I knew you from the evidence you left behind. I knew you in what my hands refused to release. I knew you in the anger I felt when the world failed to keep you.â You swallowed. âI do not want you as a mission,â he said. âOr a mystery. Or a wound I am arrogant enough to believe I can close. I want you as you are. Difficult. Violent. Irritatingly funny.â
âCareful. Iâm swooning.â
âYou interrupt when uncomfortable.â
âIâm on brand.â
His mouth curved. âI want to be with you,â he said. âIf you will have me.â
For a moment, you could not answer. Your chest felt too full. Too bright. Like hope had stopped being a weed and become a garden overnight, and you had no idea how to tend it.
âYouâre sure?â you whispered.
âYes.â
âWhat if it gets worse again?â
âThen we adapt.â
âWhat if you forget for a whole day?â
âI will come back.â
âWhat if you donât?â
Pain crossed his face. No offence. Understanding. âThen you are allowed to be angry with me.â
âThatâs not an answer.â
âIt is the only honest one.â He touched your hand. âI cannot promise perfection. I can promise effort. I can promise records, anchors, magic, research, and my own unbearable persistence.â
âYou are unbearable.â
âI know.â
âYouâre smug.â
âFrequently.â
âYou brood.â
âProductively.â
âYouâre bad at casual affection.â
âI am improving.â
âYou tried to label kissing as positive tactile reinforcement.â
He closed his eyes. âI apologised for that.â
âYou did.â
âI will never say it again.â
âYou better not.â
His eyes opened. Your hand turned beneath his, fingers sliding between his.
âBut yeah,â you whispered. âIâll have you.â
Damian went very still. Then, quietly, âYes?â
âYes.â
His face changed. You had seen Damian angry. Injured. Focused. Afraid. Tender in flashes he tried to hide.
You had never seen him happy like this. It was not loud. It did not transform him into someone else. It simply loosened something around his eyes, lit something beneath his skin. A sunrise with discipline. A miracle standing at attention.
Then he leaned down and kissed you. Slowly. Carefully. Like he had all the time in the world and planned to use it well.
You smiled against his mouth.
He pulled back just enough to frown. âYou are laughing.â
âIâm dating a man with courtship parameters.â
âI rescind my vulnerability.â
âNo take-backs.â
He kissed you again, firmer this time. Your hand rose to the back of his neck, fingers slipping into his hair. He made a quiet sound that you immediately filed away for future bullying.
Then his eyes closed. Your body tensed automatically. He felt it.
His forehead rested against yours. Eyes still closed, he said your name. Perfectly.
You shuddered.
Again, he said it.
Then opened his eyes.
âThere you are,â Damian whispered.
And this time, he remembered saying it.
The curse did not vanish. Life was not that kind. Strangers still forgot you. Cameras still blurred if no one watched the footage with intention. Tim still had to write your name on his coffee cup when you visited the cave, and Jason still got annoyed every time he forgot who had stolen his ammo.
âYou,â Jason snapped once, pointing at empty air beside you, âbetter be the reason my smoke bombs are missing.â
You held one up.
Jason looked away. Looked back. Forgot. Then saw the smoke bomb floating in your hand.
âOh, come on.â
You laughed for ten minutes.
Damian remembered the sound all day.
That was the difference now.
Not a cure.
A beginning.
Some days were worse. Some days, Damian forgot your face after blinking too long. Some days, your name dissolved on his tongue and came back only after he touched the bracelet Zatanna had spelt for him.
Some days you spiralled. Some days he did.
But more often, he remembered.
Your voice from another room. Your hand without looking. Your name in the morning, sleep-rough and certain. Your laugh. Your scars. Your tea. Your hatred of lilies. Your habit of sharpening knives when anxious.
The way you still stood near exits. The way you looked stunned every time he reached for you simply because he wanted to.
And every time he remembered, some old frozen piece of you thawed.
Not all at once. Not cleanly.
Healing was ugly sometimes. It limped. It snapped. It forgot the way home and had to be led back by hand.
But Damian was good at difficult paths.
And you, despite everything, were still here.
One evening, months after the warehouse, you found him on the same rooftop where he had first remembered your laugh. He was waiting with a thermos of tea, two paper containers of takeout, and a small pot of blue flowers.
You stared at it. âAre those forget-me-nots?â
Damian looked almost defensive. âToo obvious?â
âHorribly.â
âI suspected.â
âVery dramatic.â
âI was informed romance requires some drama.â
âBy who?â
âGrayson.â
âThat explains everything.â
Damian held out the flowers. You took them carefully.
âTheyâre pretty,â you admitted.
âI know.â
âSmug.â
âAccurately confident.â
You sat beside him, shoulder pressed to his.
Below, Gotham glowed like a bruise full of stars.
For a while, neither of you spoke.
Then Damian said your name.
Softly.
No prompt. No note. No spell.
You looked at him.
He was watching the skyline, not you.
He had said it while looking away.
Your breath vanished.
Damian turned his head. Saw your face.
Remembered why you looked like that.
His expression softened.
âI know,â he said.
Your eyes burned. âYou looked away.â
âYes.â
âAnd you remembered.â
âYes.â
You laughed once, wet and disbelieving. âShow-off.â
He smiled.
Actually smiled. Small but real, and yours to remember even if the world forgot.
You leaned into him. His arm came around you.
This time, neither of you called it anchoring.
This time, it was just holding.
âI love you,â you whispered.
Damian went very still.
You felt the breath leave him.
Then his hand tightened around yours.
He said your name again. Then, âI love you.â
No curse took it. No silence swallowed it. No forgetting followed.
The words stayed. You stayed.
And when Damian looked away toward the city, then back at you, his smile returned like dawn breaking over a place that had only ever known night.
There are no words or language in the world that can describe such a masterpiece. I cried from beginning to end, and every time I think of this story, Iâll probably cry all over again. Thank you so much for creating this masterpiece and for your amazing work. Now I have to face the world and try not to cry every time I remember it.
summary: landing in an alternate dimensionâyou're certain this version of damian who finds you should hate you as much as your damian does. but when he pulls you in so tight as if he's experienced losing you before.. you realise he isn't so willing on letting you go.
pairing: damian wayne x fem! reader
content: alternate dimension damian who finds you which makes the yearning 1000x worse, 'ill choose you in every lifetime' trope, angst-comfort
It's been twenty minutes since you ended up in another dimension. A stupid argument. An accidental trigger. Of course, none of that comes close in comparison to the complete shock of Damian Wayne crushing you with his embrace.
No. Embrace is too soft a term for how tightly squeezed you areâthe lack of space making it easy for you to detect how his body is physically shaking.
You're covered in soot, dust particles still emanating from where your form had materialisedâfrom where your first instinct had been to press the emergency contact on your comms. Damian had found you not long after. You still remember how quickly your fury had been extinguished the moment you caught sight of his pale expression, the sheer disbelief in the open gape of his lips.
Damian hates you. That fact is precisely the reason you ended up here, in a whole other dimension. That instinctive reminder is what forces you to push yourself out of his embrace, and his own hands go slack as he stares at you wordlessly.
"Why'd you follow me inâyou idiot!" You snap, trying to brush off how taken off-guard you are. "I can't believe we're both stuck here."
He blinks once. "Stuck?"
"You should've pieced this together faster than I did." Gesturing to your surroundings, your arms still ache from having crashed through a construction site. "We're stuck in another dimension all thanks to you."
He blinks again, slower this time. Processing. "Where exactly did you come from?"
"Did the fall injure your head?" Your impatience brims over your exhausted features. "Isn't it enough that you had to start something in the lab? We wouldn't have ended up here if you hadn't been so insistent on triggering the portal."
His features remain stoic, but there's a familiar calculation in his gaze. His lips part after a moment. "Portal."
It's infuriating how long he's taking to catch onto the reality of what's just happened. You give a short nod, your growing panic stuck between your teeth. If Damian's here with you, there's no telling if you'll be able to make a connection back to your dimension.
"I suppose you are right." His brows remain furrowed in consideration. "But there is one thing you're missing."
Leave it to him to counter every point of yours, needing to be right as always. A heavy sigh leaves your lips. "And what is that?"
"I'm not your Damian."
Those words still ring hollow, a repeating drone of his voice as you watch the familiar city pass by the windowpane. It is Gotham, but not. Unfamiliar stores fill the streets, similar roads but not quite, small inconsistencies that are enough to remind you that this isn't your home.
That the person in the driver's seat beside you is a complete stranger.
"Who am I to you?" You question, casting your glance back to that stiff, perfect posture of his as he makes a turn towards his apartment.
That hug from earlier, if you could even call it that, still lingers like a shadow, casting goosebumps over your skin whenever the memory overstayed its welcome.
You spot the whitening of his knuckles, the pads of his fingers squeezing into the steering wheel before the colour returns, as if his composure never faltered.
"You were my assigned partner." He answers briskly.
Were. There's finally one consistency, at the very least. To your relief, the version of you here didn't seem to get along with him either.
Your small amusement is quickly diminished at the rise of another concern of yours. If there was another version of you running around this city, you can't even begin to fathom the potential fractures of reality if an encounter truly happened.
You're already playing a huge risk in letting this Damian assist you. Still, you had no one else.
Your comms had contacted him, not that it was to any surprise of your own once the initial panic died down. It wasn't likely that you still had a connection to your own world, much less an existing channel with your Damian. It was pure luck that you still had use for the device at all. Or at least, you hoped you could consider it luck.
Your gaze lingers over his features. The likeness between him and your Damian was uncanny. The same nose bridge, freckles, and even that faint scar running down his jawline. It was all so familiar that you had to snap yourself out of it when you found your body conditioning itself into safety, as if forgetting he's a stranger.
"Well, I hope you'll let bygones be bygones." You answer wryly. "There wasn't anyone else I could contact. If you can help me find a way back home, I'll be out of your dimension in no time."
The silence grows terse. A shift has occurred, even if you're unsure on the why. You had only stated the obvious. Perhaps his moods were in line with what you were familiar with after all, and that is no soothing relief if it meant having to face that same temperament that landed you here.
"I'm already offering my help." Damian answers after a moment, as if he's finally settled for a response he was satisfied with.
"I hope so." You mutter, eyelids falling shut in your exhaustion. The sight of the city was making you nauseous. "It's kind of your fault I ended up here. The other you, anyways."
He hums, finger tapping once against the steering wheel. "Typical."
This Damian has an apartment akin to a serial killer's. The barest necessities, minimal decorationsâit's as if every surface has gone untouched. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes when he unlocked the door with his thumbprint, you would've assumed no one had ever stepped foot within these walls.
"Ever heard of decoration?" It lands wrong, and you internally wince. It's difficult, to not fall back into that same push-and-pull when you see Damian's figure in your peripheral vision. To not be mistaken with familiar company.
He watches you for longer than he should. He keeps doing that, the staring. "There's no reason for me to do so." He answers eventually.
Your brows furrow. Something about his responses from the moment you met him unnerved you, as if he's leaving his words purposely vague. Clues buried within that mask of his, where an unanswered story that didn't belong to your reality lingers in his.
"Where am I currently in your dimension?" You decide to settle at the sofa, stretching out your limbs. "If she's still in Gotham, I need to be careful not to be seen."
Ever since you arrived, your body has been aching horribly. It hadn't been this obvious when you had arrived, but now, it's stinging down to your nerves. Maybe the adrenaline had finally worn off, and you're left to deal with a body unequipped to the frantic mess your mind is trying to sort out.
"It won't be a problem." He answers, lips pursing into a thin line. "She's gone."
Your head tilts questioningly to meet his gaze, but he avoids yours. Pulling open his kitchen drawer, there's a taut tension in his body as if he's been expecting your question and dreading it all the same.
Gone could mean anything. Out of the city borders orâ
Your eyes flicker down to his disappearing hand, and find his reappearing fingers gripped around pain ointment. Your stretch pauses halfway, the strange alertness of being noticed without your permission sending a chill down your spine.
Forcing your hands down back to your sides, you eye him warily as he makes his way round the couch, stopping before you. His hand extends, lifting his offering silently.
It's unfamiliar, and even if you try your hardest to reason to yourself, that this isn't the Damian you know, it doesn't make it any easier to allow him to assist you. You half expect mocking, a glimpse of his smirk when your gaze flickers to the ointment held out in front of you.
A low breath escapes his lips, and you expect him to give in. To understand that you don't require more of him other than his specific assistance to send you homeâonly for him to lower himself.
Damian Wayneâeven if he isn't the one you're used toâis kneeling down to meet your gaze. Your breath stops, your chest seized tight as you stare at him, unable to hide your surprise.
He doesn't falter, his fingers mindlessly dipping into the ointment before placing the jar by your side. His free hand goes to grip your wrist, tugging gently to expose the bruises trailing along your arm from your fall.
"If it is me you have come to for assistance." He mutters with a click of his tongue. "Then, I expect you not to be stubborn."
You swallow, your jaw ticking as you find your tongue heavy with a lack of an adequate response. His unwavering concern, this intensity can't be tied solely to you. There has to be a reason for why he is looking at you this way.
"What did you mean?" You ask quietly. "By gone?"
His fingers, still coated with the ointment, brush gently over your thudding pulse. His gaze finally lifts, but you can't read him. There's a pull to his gaze, and the answer reveals itself by the time you recognise what is held within his eyes isn't irritation or indifference. It was grief.
"She's dead."
It's a strange feeling to know you're stepping into a world where a version of you used to exist. A sick form of good luck, a technical elimination of complications.
Except that it's only made everything more complicated. You had no idea on how to deal with the Damian in front of you now that the truth's been revealed.
When he first admitted that he wasn't the Damian you knew, you had quickly assumed that whatever dynamic he shared with you from this dimension was a parallel to the one you shared with your Damian. Forced tolerance, a begrudging partnership. No, you had needed to assume it so. Anything different would have shattered this fragile alliance you had with the stranger sitting across you, because despite everything you felt about your Damianâyou relied on him as a partner.
Now, you weren't sure if you could trust the Damian in front of you. You had assumed that if he answered your questions, you would have cleared the airâbut it has only raised more.
You can feel his attention while you're thinking. You swear with the intensity of his gaze casted onto you which you pretend not to notice, it's as if your existence only materialised when his eyes are on you. There's a strange urgency in his unblinking stare, as if to remind himself that you're still in front of him.
It's too much. It was the same back when he first saw you as well. Damian hasn't mentioned his strange reaction since, and his lack of an explanation for why he had embraced you clues you on nothing still, on what you meant to him.
"I'm not her." You mutter after a moment. You don't know why, but you feel you have to say it.
There's some form of attachment he must've had with you, and you couldn't let yourself be tangled into the mess of what's been left behind. This isn't your world, and the last thing you needed was a blur of that line.
"I know." He answers quickly. Without pause, as if he's been repeating it to himself before you had even verbalised it.
Your hesitance must be palpable because he lets out a sigh not long after, heavy from his chest.
"I didn't offer you my help because I think you'reâ" He swallows, pain etched into the lines of his grimace. "I understand that you are alone in this world. That some mistake of mine from your end caused this. I am taking responsibility for itâto bring you back. There is nothing more to it."
You watch him as he did to you, noting a delicate fragility to him you've never seen before. You had been so wrapped up in your situation, that you failed to notice the frantic quality of his gaze or the exhaustion plaguing his features. As if being around youâdrained him from the impossibility of seeing you alive and breathing.
"Okay." You answer eventually. "I believe you."
His shoulders, tense and taut, finally loosen slightly at your response.
"Do youâ" Your voice is plagued with exhaustion, and you struggle to find the words, the composure to hide your desperation. "âhave any idea on how I'll be able to get back?"
Relief flickers briefly in his gaze, replaced with a familiar efficiency that slots over the dark pool his eyes held mere seconds ago. This, you were used to. Whenever he was asked to perform a duty, that was when you both cooperated the easiest.
"If it were me, I'd predict that there will be a two-way mechanism." He suggests automatically. So, he had been considering his own theories this entire time.
Leaning in, his elbows pressing against his thighs, he continues. "An entry will not be possible without a tunnel. To find the connection and restart it as you had before in your dimension, it should trigger an opening."
"I also considered the possibility of a tunnel." You frown, your fingers drawing a thin, edged line across the sofa's fabric. "The only problem is that when I arrived, before contacting youâI looked around the premise. I really tried."
"There was no opening." You admit, dread digging slowly into your bones.
"Perhaps it will only be activated if it was triggered in the same process as before." He suggests.
"...Doesn't that rely on Damianâ" You falter, meeting his gaze. "âmy Damian restarting the trigger on his side?"
He nods, even as his lips purse slightly at the mention of the other him. "Your only chance depends on him coming to the same realisation we have."
You draw a short breath. "Shit."
Damian doesn't hesitate when you ask by the third hour of silenceâto accompany you back to the construction site when the passing hours has done enough in driving you insane.
You hate waiting. Your Damian knows that. This Damian seems to know too.
He follows you like a silent shadow, tracing your steps and overlooking the same rubble caused by your fall as you try to find an anomaly. Anything that proves to your stubborn anxietyâthat you are actually doing something to feel less trapped.
"There is nothing here." He states.
"You don't know that." You wish your voice sounded stronger. "I wasn't in my right mind when I landed. I might identify something I missed."
His jaw ticks once, but he doesn't stop you. He doesn't argueâand that unnerves you. The Damian you know doesn't hesitate when picking a fight, and franklyâyou miss that. You needed something to distract youâand he was merely standing there like he was watching a phantom.
"I thought you said you would help." Your voice breaks.
Fuck. Swallowing back your revealed fright, you finally slump down onto the dust-covered concrete, pressing your palm against your eyes.
You hear a shuffle, the fabric of his coat landing heavy next to you. You uncover your eyes, catching him as he crouches beside you. His gaze meets yours head-onâand you nearly drown in the weight of it.
"There's no relief in digging through a dead-end." He mutters, peering over your features. "It'll only worsen the thoughts."
You grow quiet. You didn't need a verbal confirmation, not when just his gaze alone tells, that he wasn't only talking about your situation. Your chest heaves, the scent of concrete filling your nostrils.
The silence stretches, an uncomfortable sensation of helplessness filling the air.
"...Do you like pizza?" He asks after a moment.
Blinking once, you must've misheard it. You can't help the snort that escapes you, the sound broken and unsteady. "What?"
"I dislike it." He mutters. "The ones in Gotham. It's too much grease, and lacking of any true nutrients."
That... sounds very Damian of him.
You raise a brow, and his lips purse together. Letting out a regretful sigh, he gestures with a tilt of his head. "There's an adequate franchise down the street."
Lifting himself off the ground, he holds out his hand towards you. "Since this dreadful day has been awfully unproductive, I suppose a meal like that is befitting."
Your gaze flickers between his hand and that unfamiliar, warmth in his eyes. Of how you had been in a similar position mere hours ago when he had offered you pain ointment. Of how he has been consistently extending his hand towards you, accompanying your sideâever since you entered this dimension.
This time, you take his hand.
Strangely enough, the fluorescent lights of 'Gotham City Pizzeria' and the smell of floor disinfectantâcombined with the peculiar sight of Damian lifting a soggy pizza slice with a grimace did lift your spirits. If this was your dimension, you would have bothered with taking a picture to capture the sight of him clashing with an environment so strongly, but you couldn't afford to let this rare moment of normalcy be dimmed by that reminder.
"Should I be concerned that the Damian Wayne in this dimension consumes Gotham pizzas?" You murmur, wiping a streak of tomato at the corner of your mouth.
His lips quirk up slightly. "Even I have my faults."
Clearing his throat, he murmurs. "Your turn."
You raise a brow, confused.
He leans back, dusting his hands against the napkin. "I haven't learned anything about you since you arrived."
Oh. You had assumed that he didn't want to. Outside of the boundaries of your circumstance, he hasn't really pushed much further other than details he needed to have, to piece a solution together.
"What do you want to know?" You shrug.
His lips tilt upwards again, more intently this time. "Do you like pizza?"
Your smile lifts instinctively. "I do, detective. How'd you guess?"
His smile strains a little, and you realise why.
"Ah." You murmur.
"No." He stops you before you can retreat. "Don't stop on my account. I want to know what you like."
You swallow, fingers running over the crust flakes coating your thumb. You suppose you could answer, there wasn't any harm done. "I do like pizza. It's the only thing that's comforting enough after a long night of patrol. I think when I enter a familiar place at an hour like this, when there's no one else around, it's like the world closes in to exist in just this spot, y'know? I get to forget about my worries for a little while."
He nods, listening to you speak as if he intended on memorising every word. Like he may miss the chance to do so ever again.
"So, why'd you pick this place?" You return the question.
"...As I told you before, I'm not fond of it."
"So, why are you here?" You push.
A slow exhale escapes his mouth. "I suppose, it was like you said. Comfortingâin a sense, to be surrounded by something familiar."
You can see him struggling, on what to say and what to keep buried. This provided company of hisâit's like you're digging into a wound he's openly showing you.
"What else do you like?" He reiterates.
Your smile reappears, almost easing. "Need a full catalogue?"
"Yes." He answers almost immediately. It takes the breath out of you, the humour still stuck on your tongue with the way he looks at you, all-consuming. "I would."
"I suppose... I could tell you things I never told anyone." You whisper almost conspiratorially. "Something tells me you'll keep quite a good secret."
His lips lift, curving a small dimple by his cheek. "I swear."
"I guess..." Leaning your cheek against your palm, you take your time in truly looking at him. "I always did like your eyes."
He blinks, not expecting your answer. "My eyes?"
"Yeah." Your grin comes easier to you now, seeing him uncharacteristically flustered. "Made me unreasonably jealous at times. Green eyes like that, and you spend half the time glowering."
He scoffs lowly, but it holds no bite. "I wasn't aware there was a way to utilise them."
"No, you do it right when you're not thinking too hard." You murmur, lost in thought. "When you don't pretend to be strong, your eyes go soft. Just around the edges."
The moment those words leave you, you realise you're pushing too far, saying something so intimate, it should have never been verbalised.
He watches you, and to your dismay, he does it right then and there. The sharpened edges around his gaze softens, and so does Damian.
"You're direct." He mutters, almost fondly.
You swallow, averting your gaze. "So I've been told."
"I like that."
You shift your focus back to him immediately, a soft thudding in your chest. He has never averted his gaze. Rarely, you realise, does he pull his attention away from you. It's like he's treasuring it, the small impossibility of this conversation, of your presence in this pizzeria illuminated by the neon lights.
"Do you feel like you're dreaming?" You ask. "It feels like I know you even though I shouldn't."
His lips quirk. "It is a fair exchange for reality, if I get to meet you."
Your heart is thudding louder now, and you don't find it instinctive anymore to avert his gaze, no matter how much the depth feels like drowning.
"A once in a lifetime phenomenon." You declare. "Let's not waste it."
Gotham's cityscape takes a less intimidating turn in the weeks following your exploration with Damian, as the hidden beauty within begins to reveal itself. The confusing streets become interesting puzzles, a guessing game on what road could be an alternative to the ones you frequent in your dimension. When night falls? That's when this Gotham truly sings, coming alive.
Without the late nights being reserved for the sole purpose of patrol, Damian guides you within the ins-and-outs of alleyways, leading you through slot machines, bars that still had the hum of human company despite the late hour. Eventually, you both land on a rooftop that lets you oversee the entire city.
It's terrifyingly easy to enjoy his company when you're not busy pretending otherwise. There's a symphony to your shared steps, the trailing of his shadow that plays out like a familiar, comforting rhythm.
"It's different." You mutter almost excitedly. The faint buzz of exhaustion from the late hour leaves you increasingly lax, your hand tugging at his sleeve towards the Wayne Tower in the distance. "Ours is all red hues and sharp angles. I like yours more."
He hums, sounding amused. His gaze is still trained on you, not focused on your pointed finger towards the building at all. Letting out a huff, your hand, numbed by the freezing wind, lifts to cup his cheek.
He blinks, a rare vulnerable expression crossing his features at your touch.
"Stop looking at me." You gesture, trying to tune his head towards the cityscape. "You're missing out."
"No, I'm not." He answers honestly.
You blink, hand faltering over his cheek, but he raises his own to cover yours.
"Sorry." He murmurs, lashes lowering with his gaze as he closes his eyes momentarily. "Allow me to be a little selfish, just this once."
Your fingers shake in response, but you don't remove your hand.
"That's not very fair of you." You mutter.
"I suppose I have never practiced that trait well." Opening his eyes, you're faced with that tenderness, the one that leaves you breathless. "Does it make me hateful?"
"No." You answer honestly. "You've always been bad at that."
"At being fair?" He asks.
"Making me hate you." You admit quietly.
His gaze softens imperceptibly. "I suppose we're both not very good liars."
The touch of his cheek burns your skin. This is dangerous, your mind faintly warns you. You promised yourself to never hesitate in your decision, not even after meeting him. You were always meant to go home.
He spots your hesitance, and his warmth falters. His lips set back into that familiar, distant line as he lets your hand go.
"I apologise if I over-stepped." He says before you even have time to clear the air.
"No, that isn't it." You wince, drawing your hand back to scratch at your cheek. "I was just thinking. Maybeâit isn't so bad if I could stay a little longer. There's no guarantee on when the portal will open again, so it's not a ruled out possibility."
Your suggestion is a toss into the wind. A complete silent, interpretation that maybe that's what he'd like as well.
You don't even have time to process the slight hope in his gaze, the consideration of your words before somethingâno everything seizes. Your body collapses to the ground, the pain of your atoms glitching, seizing to exist, and reforming again, is nearly indescribable.
A near howl escapes your bitten lips as you crumple towards the floor, only for Damian to catch you in his arms, down on his knees in front of you. Your fingers grip tight around his wrists, steading yourself as your vision blurs in and out. By the time you've strained your neck to look back up at him, you see the pain contorting his expression, wiping it loose of all composure.
"IâI'm okay." You breathe out, even as you can feel how cold and clammy your skin has become.
He doesn't answer. He merely stares, a rush of emotions flooding too fast through his mind for you to read, before it falters. His grip is your only anchor, but he's trembling too.
"This isn't a good sign." He states, dread falling over his features. "You must return, soon."
"So, you're sayingâ" You recall his words faintly. "The longer I stay in this dimension, my body will begin to disintegrate?"
Those technical words, theories that sound ridiculous on paper, thread thinly in a reality where your body was now a self-destructive timer. He gives you a short nod, his dark circles illuminated by the hologram of his research. Despite it being your life on the line, he looks wrecked.
What had started out as a happy night, ended with the reminder that you're not only endangering yourself but him. He's faced losing you once, and your existence in this dimension that should have never happenedâhe might go through it all over again if you don't find the portal in time.
"Damian." You call out, spotting the weak composure he's trying to display. "Look at me."
He refuses to listen, or maybe, he's completely blocked everything out with his gaze trained on the coordinates and running calculations. Standing up from the couch, you move slowly towards him to not startle him. Your hand briefly touches his arm, and he flinches.
"Damian, we've been over this." You speak as calmly as you can. "There's no opening unless it's opened from my side."
"Then, why hasn't he done it?" He snaps.
You blink, taken aback by his reaction.
"I can'tâ" He swallows, jaw clenched as he stares at you with a raw agony. One he's been hiding from you since you arrived, that you had caught a brief glimpse of when he first embraced you in his panic. "I won't fail you again. I refuse to."
"Damian." Your brows furrow, hands intertwining with his to force him to feel your touch. "I need you to breathe."
His chest heaves, and you recognise a panic attack before he's even verbalised it. Pulling him towards the sofa, you force him to sit, hands still connected with his.
"It isn't fair." Damian shakes his head. "Nothing ever is. Either way, it feels as if I'm losing you all over again."
Your breath trembles in his admission, and you can do nothing but sit here and listen.
"It was my fault." He confesses, grief-stricken. "A mission gone wrongâand my arrogance. I had overestimated the ambush, and we were cornered."
His body goes still as he drowns in his memory. "You hadn't hesitated stepping in the way. I could do nothing but watch."
"I am unworthy for many things." His voice lowers, with such an encompassing belief in his words. "But not being able to save you? That is a punishment I will never recover from."
"To lose you again." He mutters, broken. "I won't know what to do."
"Damian." You whisper. "I'm scared too."
He looks up at you then, and tears are welled in the corners of his lashes.
"But I'm glad." You emphasise, squeezing his hand. "That it's you, that you're the one here with me."
He blinks, barely able to process your words. "Why?"
"Because you have been by my side, from the moment I arrived." You answer genuinely. "Even if it hurts you, and I know it does. You stuck around, and you got to know me. You didn't have to do that, not when it costs you everything to do so."
He swallows, his expression shattered as he listens.
"I would have never known this side of you, if you hadn't found me." You push forward. "And no matter how terrifying it is to be in a whole other dimension without knowing if I'll make it home, it doesn't change that I'm glad I met you."
He breathes out, as if your words were a sucker-punch to his gut. His eyes trace over your features, a hidden longing unravelling the longer he carried out his intent focus, wanting to capture everything.
"Can I be selfish one more time?" His voice is a quiet plea, and you don't resist to how weak it renders you.
You nod gently.
Leaning in, his fingers tremble as he reaches up to brush away a stray strand from your cheek. His warmth lingers over your skin, eventually brushing over your cheekbone as his gaze pours into you. He looks at you the same way he had countless times before, and you had never been able to put it to words. Till now.
When his lips touch yours, it feels like a goodbye. A wish made impossible, fulfilled for only a mere moment. It's softer than you ever expected, gentle in a way you had never been treated from anyone else before.
When you open your eyes, you watch his expression carefully draw back into his composure. He's doing it for you, picking up the pieces that's broken so you won't have to face it.
"Let's get you home." He promises, and you believe it.
As the days pass by, with your body experiencing more frequent glitches, Damian's kindness runs a deeper wound above your heart. Whenever you insist that you're fine so he can focus on his workâhe merely accompanies you by your side like some personal torture he inflicts on himself. Whenever your body seizes into another episode, split between the fractures of realityâhe's there, waiting for you to reach for him so you can feel real again.
He listens with a seared focus now whenever you tell him stories, of yourselfâof your world, like he's running out of time. You both are.
It's the seventh day, when the daily scans of the construction site run by Damian finally begin to detect increasing abnormal activity from where you landed.
"The debris movement seems to reverse every time I run the scan." He mutters. "As if there's a disruption in the space."
You swallow dryly, eyeing the replay he's showing you. "Do you think it could mean.."
"Yes, I'm certain." Damian nods firmly. "The portal is being triggered on the other side. The only concern now is when we should be at the site."
This... is it. Despite everything you've prepared and anticipated for, the obvious fact that you should be relieved you have a chance of making it homeâthe realisation comes with a bitter-sweet note.
Damian doesn't comment further past the facts. He merely focuses on the hologram screen, inputting commands to verify an estimate window to make rounds at the construction site. Despite calling himself selfish, you had never seen him so composed, silent on his true thoughts of this discovery.
"In two days." He answers, staring unblinkingly at the figure. "We won't miss it."
That settles it. In two days... you're going home.
"I hate waiting."
"I am aware." Damian murmurs.
"Stop agreeing with me." You sigh.
"Alright."
Your head snaps, an unamused expression taking over your features.
His gaze flickers from his device to meet yours briefly, and his lips quirk up slightly. "Sorry." His voice doesn't sound apologetic at all. "You've made it too easy."
You can't help but scoff, chin leaning against his shoulder. "This is worse than the glitches."
"Have I mentioned that you're a horrible liar?" He mocks.
"Numerous times." You hum, eyeing the scan with a narrowed glance. "What if your calculations are wrong?"
"I ran over them one thousand and fifty-three times." He frowns. "The chance for error are near zero."
"Wow, from the looks of itâyou seem rather eager to get rid of me." You tease.
"Was I that obvious?" He shrugs.
"Who's the bad liar now?" You tease.
He opens his mouth, ready to produce some quick retortâbut something catches his eye.
Shifting your gaze to follow his, you catch movement from where the ground had been stagnant. The rubbleâis beginning to move in an anti-clockwise direction.
"Now." Damian stands abruptly, a hand wrapping around your waist to lift you to your feet.
The shift in the atmosphere as a distant rumbling occurrs beneath your feet, it's much more aggressive than you expected. Damian tugs you back, just in time before a fracture cracks in the ground.
"The portal." You recognise, eyeing the glow beneath the fissure, something dreadfully familiar.
Your breath is almost winded, coming up short as you stare at the formation in trembling anticipation. Your gaze whips to Damian, your heart slamming against your ribcageâonly for your words to fail you when you meet his expression.
Broken, that's all you saw. The same way he had seemed when you first met him.
"Damian." You call out, hesitant, but he shakes his head.
"I never got to tell you." He starts.
Your brows furrow. He had been nothing but honest since you got here. There isnât a wound that he hasnât uncovered in front of you, no vulnerability he hasnât revealed. You know him, because he had let you.
"I want you to know that I am glad." He confesses, his voice picking up in pace. He sounds terrified that he won't be able to finish what he's started. "That I got to know you. There wasn't a moment where I regretted it, not even for a second."
"I must tell you." His voice cracks. "That I'd choose you, in a hundred lifetimes, no matter what reality, I'd always choose you."
The words are lost on your tongue. I'd choose you too. He has to know, even when the tears well up in your eyes.
He holds you tight, as if he's trying to sear this very embrace into his memory. "At least, I'll know now that somewhere out there, the person I am in your world was able to bring you back. That a version of me didn't lose you."
"I know it's selfish." He whispers. "But I wish I could keep you."
Contrary to his words, he lets go of you the moment he says it, his arms parting from your frame to remain firmly at his side. He's restraining himself, you realise. Damian, the very image of self-control, is barely keeping himself together. Heâs letting you go, and in doing so, heâs saving you.
"Thank you." He murmurs in goodbye, casting you a solemn smile. "For sparing me the mercy of meeting you again."
"I hope he understands just how fortunate he is." A bittersweet smile graces his lips. "That he'll cherish you, and protect you always."
You think you ask him to wait. For more time. You remember briefly on how your hand extended towards him, before the portal had pulled you in. It was silent after that, and the loss of something indescribable hits you by the time the world comes backâroaring to life.
Tumbling onto the ground, you choke out a breath, saliva coating your lips as your fingers press numbly into the ground.
You're home. A quick glimpse of your surroundings is enough to confirm the familiar machinery, the abandoned lab. Yet, flashes of Damian's unmoving gaze before his frame completely disappeared, staring at you like he wanted to commit you to memory.
How could he have called it mercy, when he was so shattered?
Your tears slipped, and you feel a strange gap in your chest.
A rushed call of your name echoes before you can even name the emotion that consumes you. The syllables barely forms in your mind, as your head whips up in a daze. Your tear-stained expression is broken, completely unhiddenâwhen you see Damian. Your Damian.
"Damian." Your voice croaks out. The name sounds strange on your tongue.
He freezes, unsure on how to process this version of you. Whatever he expected when he got you back, he must've never anticipated this. The version that has just lost him, and a part of you always will.
Pushing yourself to your feet, you stumble in your steps before collapsing into him. You're convinced he'll push you away, as he always does.
What you didn't expect was the steady warmth of his arms wrapping around you. Tense, but protectiveâas if he were trying to fend off the inner turmoil that's consuming you.
"It's alright." He mutters, voice stiff but his grip doesn't falter. "You're safe. I am here."
That breaks a silent sob out of you, and you bury your face into his chest. He doesn't push you for answers, nor does he distance himself. He remains planted exactly where he is, grounding you with his presence while you mourned for something that should have never been yours, and what you should have never lost.
"I am sorry." He mutters, voice breaking in composure. "I did thisâI am sorry. I failed you."
"No, you didn't." You answer, your voice hoarse. "You brought me back."
It was the truth, broken into a hundred pieces.
In time, you will tell him. Of how he protected you even in another dimension. Of how that version of him will forever know that in another reality, he had saved you. That there was a Damian who didn't experience losing you.
Of how you'll never forget him. Even when he's out of bounds, but forever engraved into your existence, a memory that should have never existed.
But for now, you'll let yourself rest, knowing that you're home.
likes, reblogs, and comments are highly appreciated! <333
pervert roommie!choso who waits until your shower steam is thick enough to hide the sound of his palm slapping against his cock. door cracked just enough. heâs got your worn sleep shirt balled up over his nose, inhaling the spot right under your armpit where your scent clings strongest, groaning low when the cotton drags over his leaking tip
pervert roommie!choso who âaccidentallyâ forgets to lock the bathroom after he jerks off so you walk in on the mess he left. pearlescent ropes still dripping down the shower tile, his boxers kicked into the corner like evidence. he stands there towel low on his hips, pretending to be surprised, voice cracking when he mumbles âshit⊠didnât hear you come inâ
pervert roommie!choso who steals your dirty panties from the hamper and stuffs them in his pocket before you do laundry. later that night heâs thrusting into his fist with the lace crushed against his tongue, tasting the damp cotton where you were wet earlier that day. he cums so hard his thighs shake and he has to bite his own arm to keep quiet
pervert roommie!choso who starts leaving the living room tv on porn channels at 3 a.m. knowing youâll stumble out sleepy and confused in nothing but that tiny tank top. heâs sprawled on the couch, sweats tented obscenely, eyes half-lidded when you freeze in the doorway. âcouldnât sleep,â he rasps, hand already palming himself through the fabric, âwanna watch with me?â
pervert roommie!choso who corners you in the kitchen at midnight while youâre reaching for a glass. presses his whole front to your back, fat cock already rock-hard against your ass. he doesnât even pretend itâs an accident anymore. instead just grinds slow and heavy while his mouth finds your ear. âbeen smellinâ you all day⊠fuck, youâre soaked through these shorts, arenât ya?â
pervert roommie!choso who finally snaps after weeks of teasing. pins both your wrists above your head with one massive hand, other yanking your panties to the side. heâs shaking, pupils blown, throat dry. âmâ sorryâ mâ so fucking sorry b-but i canâtâ need insideâ been dreaming a-about this pussy every nightââ then heâs bullying his way in with one desperate thrust, choking on a sob the second your walls flutter around him.
pervert roommie!choso who turns into a babbling mess the moment he bottoms out. hips stuttering, forehead pressed to your shoulder, whimpering against your neck. âsâ too tightâ fuckâ gonna cum alreadyâ d-donât moveâ please donât move or mâ gonna lose itââ but heâs already fucking you stupid, sloppy and frantic, drooling down your collarbone while he chants your name like a prayer.
pervert roommie!choso who keeps going even after he fills you up once. pulls out just to watch his cum leak out, then pushes back in with a broken moan. âlookâ look how much i gave you⊠still not enoughâ need to breed it deeperâ fuckâ mâ gonna keep going til youâre dripping for daysâ
| home | index | a/n: i know its shorttt js got over being sick but i hope u like our lil perv choso
being in love with a fictional character is wild like what do you MEAN iâll never feel their hands on my waist?? what do you MEAN theyâll never lean in real slow and say my name like it means something?? and what do you MEAN theyâre not real??
btw i want to say that the entire tumblr community banding together is what got these changes reversed so i hope u all realise the power of a reblog and start reblogging posts instead of just liking them this is the reblog website so hit that button right now
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