Just the Three of Us: You, Me, and the Giant Man-Eating Deer - Kwei (Predator: Badlands) x GN!Reader
Bold Text is Yautja.
In which you go on a hunt with Kwei.
Read on Ao3
Just the Three of Us:
Part 1
Part 2
The door of Kwei’s ship lowered with a creak that quite nearly deafened you. The resulting wave of wet heat from the planet’s atmosphere quite nearly choked you. Not a great start to the hunt, but, well, what can you do.
“Kestron,” Kwei rumbled, gesturing at the jungle horizon before you. “We shall hunt here, ooman. It is a dangerous world. I will protect you.”
“Is it as dangerous as Genna?” You asked. You’d never been there yourself–thankfully– but you’d heard Dek and Thia both talk about it. Apparently, even Kwei and Dek’s shitty dad was scared of it.
Kwei made a low noise that sounded a little like an “um.” “No. It is not. But still dangerous!” He puffed up after that, mandibles clicking a few times.
“So, how’s this gonna work? Like, do I just follow you? Do I help?”
Kwei turned back into the ship then thrust something into your hands. Huge yet thin, metal glistening in the sun: a combi stick. It was smaller than his, though– perhaps made for pups to train with, or made specially for Dek? You made a mental note to ask him later. You fumbled around with the combi stick before shoving it haphazardly into your belt. It would be fine.
“You will hunt with me.”
“Oh. Uh– okay.” That probably meant a lot in Yautja culture,
“Now, come.” He started down the ramp and made a big show of leaping off it onto a rock, then held out one huge, clawed hand for you, like a chivalrous prince.
You did not blush as you took his hand– big, warm, strong– and joined him on the rock, which turned out to be a big cliff overlooking the jungle. You inched towards the edge, trying to see the ground. You did not see it. Ah, shit…
Before you could inform Kwei of this he jumped into the canopy.
“Kwei??” You shouted after him. “What the hell?”
His handsome face appeared between branches. “We will travel through the trees. Faster than climbing down.”
“I can’t possibly make that jump, Kwei.”
He blinked, as if remembering that you were somehow even more inadept at hunting than Dek when he was a pup. “I will catch you.”
You stepped forward again, to the very edge of the cliff, until the toes of your boots were no longer on solid ground. Jump. Jump. He’ll catch you. You trust him.
“Yeah. Absolutely not.”
You heard a deep, purring sigh from the leaves.
A few moments later, you were clinging to Kwei’s back, arms around his neck and ankles locked around his belly. You couldn’t even scream in terror as Kwei swung through branches and clambered up tree trunks. He’d told you very firmly not to because it would scare away prey. Luckily for him, you were too busy reminding yourself to breathe.
You definitely did not focus on how nice and cozy warm he smelled, like a cat laying in the sun, and how nice he felt between your legs.
Hmm. That didn’t come out right.
He came to an abrupt stop and your forehead smacked into his shoulder blade– then, the two of you dropped, sliding down a vine. Do NOT scream, do NOT scream, you chanted in your head.
Finally, finally, Kwei’s paws hit the ground.
“Ooman. Next to me,” he said, but his voice was hushed, barely a hum, his mandibles remaining mostly closed.
You unwound your limbs from around him, flopped onto the mossy ground, and scrambled into a crouch beside him.
“Look.” He pointed one long claw through the bushes ahead. “A Has-os.”
Your breath caught again, but this time, it was not out of terror.
The most beautiful, gigantic deer you’d ever seen was sleeping in the clearing before you. It seemed to have leaves growing from its antlers and down its back– or perhaps they were plates like a Stegosaurus?-- and its dark green coat was dotted with white like a fawn, despite its obvious maturity. It was surely taller at the shoulders than one-and-a-half Kweis.
“Are we hunting this?” You asked when you finally remembered how to talk.
“Yes. It will be an honorable kill.”
“But I thought Yautjas were killers of killers,” you said. “It looks so peaceful and pretty.”
Kwei made a tiny noise that sounded awfully like an amused snort. “Watch.”
“Watch wh–” There was a crackle from the other side of the clearing and a little creature skittered out of the bushes, sniffing around. It looked kind of like an anteater but really tiny.
The alien deer’s eyes slid open and it raised its head– before it lunged forward. Its mouth opened and kept opening until its whole neck was a mouth full of drool and giant teeth and the tiny anteater just disappeared inside.
You fell back with yelp, completely stunned. Kwei’s eyes widened. “Ooman, no, quiet–”
He was cut off by an ominous shadow falling over the both of you. The Has-os, still slavering, eyes wide.
You both swore in your respective languages.
Kwei grabbed you around the waist, tucking you under his flesh arm, and started to sprint. You didn’t know he would run so fast. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he muttered under his breath. Guilt ran through you before he clarified, “Stupid Kwei. Should have warned the ooman. They are jumpy and do not hunt.”
“You’re not stupiAAAAAAAAAAA!” Kwei stopped halfway through your sentence and flung up his prosthetic arm. There was a bang and you saw the hand shoot up, connected to the rest of Kwei by a cable, and suddenly you were sailing up and into the canopy again. “HOLY–”
You’d forgotten about the grappling-hook hand Thia had installed into his arm to better traverse the trees. Apparently he didn’t like to use it except in case of emergency.
He plopped you on a tree branch and crouched beside you. Below you, the Has-os let out a loud huffing noise and slammed its antlers into the tree trunk. The whole plant swayed and you clutched Kwei’s arm.
“I’m sorry. I messed up,” you said, looking down at the giant man-eating deer.
He shook his head and leaned closer to you. “No. It is not your fault. Like you said the other night: it is fine. Do not worry about it. And the hunt is not ruined.”
“It’s not? What are we gonna do?”
Kwei scanned the surroundings for a minute. “We must distract it. Otherwise we cannot get down. You cannot, though. You will be eaten immediately.” You winced. “So, I will do that. I will distract it. Make it leave the tree. When it charges I shall grab ahold of its antlers. Then you shall be like… what is his name? Tarzan. You shall be like Tarzan and swing down with this vine and stab its neck.”
“You want me to stab it?” You hissed. “Stab that thing? And kill it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding. There’s no way.”
“Would you prefer to be the bait?” His voice turned wry and you shook your head at the thought. “I thought so.” He paused, before leaning forward and resting his chin atop your head and purring. The vibrations of his throat vibrated your whole body. “I trust you can do this. You were known among oomans for your strength of mind but that does not mean you do not have strength of body, too.”
You leaned against his huge, scaly chest. “Thanks, Kwei.”
The heat of him suddenly disappeared. You thought at first that he’d just pulled away, but no– he was already falling towards the Has-os, mandibles spread wide in a roar. “This guy is insane,” you mumbled, not voicing the rest of your thoughts: and it’s HOT.
Kwei landed before the carnivorous deer and snarled loudly. It turned, snorting, and lunged for him. You watched with wide eyes and warm cheeks as he quite literally grabbed its antlers and forced its head down so it couldn’t swallow him. It snapped its teeth at him and tried to rear up but Kwei stayed firmly planted on the ground.
You realized that it was probably your time to step in, as hot as it was to watch. You grabbed the vine with one hand, extended the combi stick with the other, and took a leap of faith.
You screamed the whole way down.
“Yes, ooman!” Kwei cheered when you smacked the Has-os’s back. “Brave ooman!”
“Shit, shit, shit,” you muttered as the Has-os reared. You clawed at its wiry fur, trying to find purchase, but felt yourself slipping. You needed to stab this thing, now.
You gripped the combi stick tighter before thrusting it between the shoulder blades of the Has-os. The sensation was very odd. It wasn’t like in movies when the knife slid into the person’s body like scissors through paper and was followed by the sound effect of blood spattering. There was resistance. It was difficult. You felt things scrape and squelch as the Has-os started to screech and convulse, and finally, a rhythmic vibration ran through the combi stick before it started to slow and finally stopped when the body collapsed.
You panted, still clutching the weapon, as Kwei finally released the Has-os’s antlers. He crawled up its ribcage to your side.
“I told you,” he crowed, chest puffed all the way up. “I told you! I trusted you could hunt!”
“You did most of the grunt work, though.”
His mandibles lowered in a frown. “We both did grunt work. I heard you making such noises, too.”
“It’s a saying. Like being cooked.”
“The Has-os will be cooked.” You weren’t entirely sure if he was making a joke or not.
“That’s right. It sure will be. But… you were right. I guess I’m stronger than I realize,” you replied, glancing down at the dead Has-os. You felt guilty for ending a life, but nothing like the guilt you’d felt working for Weyland-Yutani. This was… an honorable guilt, if that made sense. You’d killed something, yes, but it had been in a fair fight between hunters. Nothing low and backhanded. “Ew. I’m covered in blood.” You sat back, away from the gaping red hole in the Has-os’s body, and flapped your hand, trying to flick blood off your fingers.
Kwei looked you up and down as if to confirm… then up and down again. And again. The pink skin inside his mandibles turned green. “I think you look perfectly fine.” Then he loudly cleared his throat and hopped off the Has-os, pacing around it.
You dismissed this as him trying to stop being flustered. However, when you heard a loud liquid-y noise, you realized this wasn’t the case. No, he’d already started to gut it. You fought a gag as its innards spilled onto the ground accompanied by a nasty smell.
Kwei caught your eye. “Killing is hard. But so is tending to the carcass. I would appreciate your help.”
He was right. It was hard. First, you cleaned out organs and hung the giant deer ass-up to empty it of blood, leaving all that for scavengers to eat. That made it easier to drag back to the ship, where you skinned it and butchered it, putting the meat in the gigantic freezer in the ship’s belly–all Yautja ships had built-in meat freezers– before you and Kwei cleaned the bones and tendons and pelt so they could be properly dried back with the rest of the Clan.
The skull was the only exception. You and Kwei worked extra hard to clean it with a special chemical that would dissolve it of any flesh left over. It was used especially for trophies so they could be put on display as soon as possible. You helped Kwei put it up on his trophy wall that very evening. Most of the trophies in the room had his name etched on their plaque beneath the species and planet name. The Has-os’s handsomely antlered skull, however, had two names beneath it: Kwei’s and yours.
You thought Kwei should get some rest after literally wrestling a giant man-eating deer but he insisted that the “Victorious Hunter” get some rest instead as his ship made its journey back to the world the clan was staying on during the upcoming Yautja holiday.
That night-cycle, though, you awoke to the sound of someone leaving your room at perhaps 3 A.M.
Apparently the skull was not the only exception to bones being cleaned later, you realized, as you saw a large white shape on your bed. It was a singular vertebrae from the Has-os’s neck. A shard was missing from the side of it, perfectly shaped like the tip of a combi stick, and the smooth bone around it had been painstakingly carved with beautiful shapes.
Another gift.
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
“You took my combi stick!” Dek was absolutely fuming. “Why did you take it?”
“For the ooman,” Kwei tried. “So they could hunt.”
“But it’s mine!”
“It’s the only weapon they could properly use!”
“Don’t touch my stuff, Kwei!”
“I made it!”
“For me! So it’s mine! Don’t touch my stuff!”
“So, siblings don’t change between species?” You asked Thia. The pair of you were watching the Yautja argue from the roof of one of the clan’s ships.
Just the Three of Us: You, Me, and The Feelings We Finally Admit - Kwei (Predator: Badlands) x GN Reader
Bold Text is Yautja. Apparently this is going to be a series now???
You seek out Kwei after receiving that handmade journal. He is uncharacteristically nervous. Luckily he's cute about it.
Read on Ao3
Just the Three of Us Part 1
You turned the journal over in your hands, running your fingers over the leather cover. You wondered what creature’s skin it was– perhaps a Mevral, like the pelts Kwei had used to keep you warm on the ice planet— and how long it had taken him to prepare it, to scrape off the hair and fat and flesh and stretch it tight on a rack to tan it.
It was hard work, you knew that much, you’d seen it done before online.
You wondered if he looked good doing it.
Probably.
I should take him up on that offer.
Tonight the ship on which Dek’s little clan of outcasts lived was traveling between planets and most of the outcasts in question had bedded down for the night cycle. You knew one remained awake, though: Kwei. He would be in the cockpit, watching the route to make sure that the ship stayed on course. It was a perfect time to chat.
You pulled on some comfy PJ’s and your bathrobe on top– the ship always got colder during night cycle as it went into power-conservation mode– and exited your cabin. The ship’s insides twisted, holding many halls and rooms for weapons, for storage, for relaxation, for trophy storage. Despite only having two Yautja on board there were plenty of trophies to display. Even you and Thia had started to collect sorts of “trophies.” They were not bones but rather funny little oddities. Gemstones, interesting insects, antler sheds from alien deer, preserved plants, abandoned technology, you name it.
You passed the main trophy room where the greatest trophies were displayed, including a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull hunted by Kwei a while ago. You made a mental note to ask him to tell you the story. Bud, whose giant body was sprawled on the pelt rug of the trophy room, stood and followed you with curiosity.
The cockpit blast doors yawned ahead of you, down the hall, and you started to get a little nervous. What if the ice-planet cuddling was solely for survival?
…But what about the note saying I’m a nice human and he wants to hunt with me?
It was probably a prank.
Prank from who, you dolt?
WHATEVER he probably doesn’t like me!!!
You’re being silly. Just go!
But– you stopped yourself there and approached the cockpit. You peeked in and saw the inky black expanse of space through the windshield and Kwei lounging in the pilot’s chair, his… paws? Propped up on the dashboard.
You wondered if you should announce yourself, but he probably already knew you were there. So you entered and awkwardly, shyly, sat down in the passenger’s seat.
Kwei jumped upon noticing you, yanking his paws off the dashboard. “Ooman!” Oh, so he hadn’t been aware of your presence.
Bud laid at your feet (although it was hard, what with her size) and started snoring instantly.
“Hi, Kwei.”
“Hello, ooman. Why do you come to the cockpit? Can you not sleep?”
“I… found this.” You held up the handmade journal.
“Ah,” he said, glancing down at his hands, one flesh, the other metal. “Yes. I made you a journal to replace the other one. Because it is my fault you had to burn it.”
“Your fault?” You echoed. “I’m the one who volunteered it as fuel for the fire.”
“But… it is my fault that we had to start a fire in the first place. It is my fault that we were on that planet. I am… sorry.” His voice was slow, tight, as if he wasn’t used to apologizing or admitting fault. To be fair, “I’m sorry” wasn’t a common phrase in Yautja.
“You input one digit wrong. It could happen to anyone.”
“It shouldn’t have happened to me. I am a hunter. I am Blooded. A warrior. I do not make mistakes.” His prosthetic hand curled tight into a fist. “I do not fail. I do not put my clan in danger.”
“Kwei.” You place the journal on the dashboard then reached out, one hand on his shoulder. It was just as warm as your remembered from that night on the ice planet, his scaly skin rough but comforting. He turned to you, yellow eyes widening a bit. You thought you saw a hint of green in the pink skin inside his mandibles, which you knew signified increased blood flow. “We’re okay. We got off that planet alive and unfrozen. We’re alright now. We’re fine. Please, don’t worry about it. You made a mistake, and every single living creature makes mistakes. And you certainly didn’t fail to protect your clan– that much is clear when you look at Dek. You did that, Kwei. You protected him and taught him and trained him. You’re an amazing big brother and an amazing clanmate.”
The green inside Kwei’s mandibles became a little more visible before he looked away quickly. You’d never seen a Yautja flustered like this.
“I’m not honorable,” he mumbled. “I’m a coward.”
You paused. Kwei? A coward? Those were two words you’d never associate, not once in a blue monn. “What do you mean?”
His mandibles closed, tightening in a gesture of discomfort. “I ran away. A long time ago, before I was Blooded. I was sick of Father and taking care of Dek and the clan and– everything. I packed a bag and ran away in the middle of the night. I just wanted to hunt and have my own life and do what I wanted.”
“But you came back?”
“Yes.” His eyes slid closed. “I came to my senses. Realized that if I was gone, Father would kill Dek. So I went back. But I still ran away. I was a coward. Not honorable.”
“You were a kid, Kwei. A kid with a ton of weight on your shoulders. You’re not a coward for that.”
“Yautja pups are not like ooman children.” Despite his words, he sounded unconvinced.
“Yautja pups are still pups. Little. Of course you were scared and tired of Njohrr. But he’s gone now; he’s dead, and you and Dek never have to fear him ever again.”
He nodded, mandibles finally relaxing a little, and ran his hand down one of his predlocs, something he did when worried– something that rarely happened. “Thank you, ooman. You are a good clanmate.” His eyes opened and glanced to the journal, then to your face.
“You want an answer to your question.”
“Yes.”
You opened the journal and reread the last line, just to make sure you hadn’t hallucinated it and weren’t going to make a fool of yourself. Sure enough, it still read: Join me on my next hunt?
“I’d love to hunt with you.”
You’d never seen such unrestrained excitement on a Yautja’s face before. His eyes brightened, his mandibles twisted into a Yautja smile, green flooded into his crest and the inner skin of his mandibles and he puffed up his chest like a proud bird and flexed his arms, clicking all the while. You were stunned that Bud could remain asleep.
“Yes! We shall go on a great hunt. I will teach you to hunt like Yautja do and you will be the first to see the trophy.”
You couldn’t help but smile too, amused and endeared by his excitement. “And– just to be clear, to avoid any cultural misunderstandings, what exactly does hunting together and being the first to see the trophy… mean?”
He froze immediately before he started to run his hand down a predloc again. This was a wild night. Seeing the stoic, protective, brave Kwei so vulnerable and so excited and so nervous all in less than an hour was strange.
That isn’t a weird question to ask, right? That’s normal, right? To ask someone what they want with you? Unless it’s weird to Yautja and I’m just supposed to know?
“It… is an invitation to watch me hunt and hunt with me. It… means… I would like to show you my skill.”
Like how male birds show off their feathers to prospective mates. Or how bucks will spar with each other to show off during breeding season.
“So it’s like… you want to impress me. To make me like you.”
“Yes. You get it. I do not know how oomans do it. I do not want to get it wrong.” Oh. Of course he was nervous. He was trying to woo someone from another species and had no idea how their mating rituals worked. “How do oomans do it?”
“Well, we typically ask each other out on ‘dates.’ Basically we just… hang out together for a bit and get to know each other. But, I mean, hunting together could be a date. It works.”
“So I am doing it right.”
“Absoutely.” You tried to hide a stupid, airheaded, giddy grin. Kwei basically just asked you out on a date. He wanted to go on a date. With you.
“Have you been on many dates, ooman?”
You cringed. He’d unknowingly unearthed an insecurity of yours: the fact that never once in your life had you ever been out on a date. You were an accomplished scientist traveling the universe but still couldn’t get a single date. “...No.”
“How many dates, ooman? Do I have competition?”
You swallowed hard. “No one’s ever asked me out on a date.”
Kwei frowned. “Not once?”
“Never.”
“No one wanted you as a mate? Not a single other ooman?”
“Nope.”
He let out a loud noise that was halfway between a growl and a scoff. “Other oomans clearly do not know strength and honor when they see it. Useless, tarei’hasan pyode-amedha!” Then, he turned to you, yellow eyes sharp. “Hunt with me, ooman. I will show you how and you will have a strong, honorable mate that is a true Blooded warrior.”
You sank back in the passenger seat, cheeks darkening. This was not happening. No way. Not only were you getting asked out on your first date, but it was a date with big, strong, brave Kwei.
“Ooman. You are shrinking. Have I said something wrong?”
“Nope,” you squeaked, hiding your face. “Just… feeling very wooed.”
“Good,” Kwei said proudly, puffing up again. He was so cute when he did that. “That means I am successfully wooing you. When we land at our destination tomorrow, we shall leave the others and we shall go on a glorious hunt. And then, I hope, you will…” he paused, green blood rushing to his face again. “Accept me as a prospective mate.”
“Sounds like a plan,” you replied without thinking, barely able to comprehend what was happening.
The two of you sat in an awkward silence for a bit, disturbed only by Bud’s snoring. Then, Kwei spoke up again: “this ship gets cold at night.”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m in pajamas and a bathrobe. No wonder you’d be cold, too, Yautja Prime is always hot. You’re not used to this, are you?”
“No. I am not.” You looked at him and saw that he was staring at you with an expectant, hopeful expression.
Oh. “You want me to… keep you warm?”
He gave a single brisk nod.
You removed your toes from beneath Bud’s bulk to move freely and approached Kwei’s seat. His mandibles twisted again in an even wider smile and he pulled you into a lap, a movement very similar to your night on the ice planet. He started purring instantly, tucking his face into your neck and squeezing his arms around your belly.
“I was right,” he rumbled. “You are nice to hold.”
“You’re nice to be be held by,” you replied, reaching up and patting his cheek. He nuzzled into it like a cat. “Don’t fall asleep, though. You’re supposed to be watching our route.”
“I will not.”
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
“Bud! Breakfast time!” Dek wandered through the halls, looking for the Kalisk. She always got grumpy when hungry, so it was always best to feed her first thing.
She wasn’t in any of her normal spots. Not the trophy room, now on anyone’s bed. It was getting worrying.
At last, he peeked into the cockpit and spotted her. Her giant head was draped on the ooman’s lap, who was sitting on the lap of Kwei. He expected his big brother to be asleep, but he was not. He was holding the ooman tight, keeping his eyes on the starmap while his mandibles gentle scraped their scalp in a massaging motion.
Dek back up, then turned and left. He decided to not disturb them. He didn’t want to be a victim of the wrath of a male Yautja holding his mate this early in the morning.
Title: Hey Lover
Rating: Explicit
Fandom: Predator Badlands
Ship: Kwei (Male Yautja) x AFAB!Reader
Warnings: Canon typical violence, blood & injury, angst, explicit content
Author Note: Chapter five of my multichapter fic for Kwei! And as always, the full work can be found on AO3! Thanks for reading!
Summary:
You're the sole survivor of an alien attack on a research station on a nearly dead planet. After a bloodbath and the inevitable fight for survival, you've definitely been through hell and back.
Injured and desperate to call for help, you barricade yourself in the habitat - until another survivor seeking refuge arrives, just as a storm is about to hit. Now, you're trapped with a young Yautja warrior whose first hunt didn't go as planned.
It feels like suffocation.
Your room in the habitat, which was a safe haven until now, is little more than a cell. The bare walls seem to be closing in, shrinking the space until there is hardly any air left. The more you huddle up and pull your knees to your chest, trying to breathe deeply, the worse it gets.
All you wanted to do was get your spare boots out of the closet. It's time to search the habitat to make sure there aren't any Facehuggers lurking around, waiting for a moment of weakness to catch you or Kwei. It's questionable whether the Yautja has moments of weakness, though.
Unlike you.
The day was so packed with adrenaline and stress that it took your body hours to come down from that high - but it eventually did.And now that the initial shock of the Xenomorph bloodbath and the subsequent shock of negotiating a truce with an alien warrior are slowly fading, your strength is dissipating. Muscles tremble and refuse to obey, the legs are as wobbly as rubber and your arms won't move either.
Your entire body has instinctively curled up into a ball against the wall next to the closet. Just breathing is hard work, as is keeping the eyes open. Your gaze stares aimlessly into nothingness, a silent remnant of something that was once human.
Are you still human? It's really hard to tell.
In any case, you are less than you were yesterday. Smaller. There is less space in the world for you than before.
The small radio is still in the chest pocket of your overalls, but it's now turned off and silent. The annoying song used to be like sandpaper in your ears, but it dispelled the silence that enveloped everything. Now that it's quiet, you hear the distant echoes of death cries, ribs breaking, and gurgling as dying bodies take their last bloody breaths. These sounds crawl out of the shadowy corners of your room like vermin and lodge in your brain where they scratch and bite; death death death.
Moving seems impossible. This body feels foreign; it's merely a vessel from which you've been ejected. You're far removed from any reality, floating in what could be the deadly, infinite vastness of space. You're weightless, with no way to find your way back. An astronaut without a safety line, drifting away from his ship with no chance of rescue.
A pair of black boots stand in front of you while your bare feet are cold. The floor is hard and freezing. You really want to put on the shoes to protect your feet from the cold that's eating into your bones, but you can't. You just... can't.
And then - you cry.
You cry for your deceased crew and friends who are gone forever. You cry for what was lost today: this part of a human soul that has been shattered forever. But most of all, you cry because you can't even put on your own damn shoes.
Tears of exhaustion and loss blend together until something clear emerges from this dark mixture. One deep, urgent desire blends everything into one: I want to go home.
Go home. Go somewhere safe. With no space monsters out to lay eggs in you or bash your head in with their creepy tiny mouth that's inside a mouth.
With the back of your hand you wipe the tears from your face, which is now red and slightly swollen from crying. Slowly, your body begins to move, driven by the strong desire to go home. Back to Earth. To feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your skin. To look up at the night sky and wink at the moon, who stands guard over all humans. Fuck. You should never have left this paradise.
With slow, laborious movements, you reach for the first boot and put your foot in it. After one, two, three attempts, you finally manage to pull the boot over your heel; but then, with too much force, your foot slips into the tight boot, causing your fingers to loose their grip and lose the boot with a painful sting. You feel the fabric rubbing hotly against your skin as it slips from your hands.
The pain is there, but it feels strangely... distant. Normal you would have hissed a loud 'Ouch!', but current you can only stare.
After the second boot, you need a break.
Breathing and staring into nothingness requires your full attention, so a few seconds pass. Seconds turn into a minute. Two minutes. You continue stare, shoelaces in hand, unable to tie even the slightest knot. Reality floats by, as do the stars.
The realization that you’ve been avoiding him because of something he did leaves Damian frozen in the doorway.
The first coherent thought he makes is that he needs to sit down. There's an alarming amount of blood rushing through his ears, and it’s bringing a familiar sense of unease that he’d only get before he faints.
Damian leans – falls – into the doorway as a way to stabilize himself as he’s figuring out how to approach you. He hoped that he had been soft enough to not attract your attention, or at the very least whatever commentary your friend was providing would be enough to distract you from any noise he could have made.
Fate wasn’t on his side though.
You whipped around, eyes wide at the fact that someone would be blatantly eavesdropping in the middle of the library. When your eyes land on Damian they close into an icy glare.
“What the hell, Damian?”
“Listen – It’s not what it looks like.” His arms raise instinctually to show that he meant no harm.
“That’s the most basic thing you could have said.” You’ve started to pack your backpack, deciding that the best way to handle this situation is the same way that you have been for the past few days.
If you remove yourself Damian can’t bother you. He can’t lead you on. Can’t make you think that he really cared for you. Maybe it’d be better to say that he can’t make you believe you’re the only one he cares for.
“No it really wasn’t.” Damian starts to make his way into the room, moving to stand at the other edge of the table you’re set up at, “I was looking for you to.. talk, yeah to talk. And then it looked like you were busy so I didn’t want to interrupt, but it's impor – what are you doing?”
Clearly his eyes weren’t computing to his brain properly, or he’s just been refusing to accept the fact that you are not interested in conversing with him; even less interested since he was just eavesdropping on a very personal conversation regardless of the fact that he was the main topic in said conversation.
You huff, eyes rolling instinctually, "I'm packing my shit since you clearly want to use this room.”
“I don’t want to use the room? I just said I wanted to talk to you.” There’s a crease between his eyebrows as Damian finally starts to understand that you weren’t going to hang around while he tried to plead his case on why eavesdropping was okay.
He moves as you do; making his way to block the door so that you couldn’t run away as you had been for the past few days. However your resolve is stronger than his and you shoulder past him before he can fully fit his broad frame into the doorway.
Damian calls out your name, scrambling to keep up as you make your way out of the library. He starts spouting anything that comes to mind, anything that he can to try and make you stay.
“I get it now! I did something – how I don’t know, considering that I most definitely do not have a girlfriend.” He reaches out to grab your forearm, just to make you turn around and meet his eyes.
You pull your arm from his grasp with a strength Damian didn’t know you had. Your pace quicked too, urgent to get back to your car and escape the unwanted situation.
He calls out your name again, “This isn’t fair, you know that I have a difficult time expressing my emotions.”
Damian can see your hand raise in disbelief before you grace him with a response, “Who cares? It’s not my problem that you can’t be honest like a normal person.” It’s mumbled and low, Damian almost missed it from how the wind is blowing around the two of you.
“What? I’ve never been anything but honest with you.” Your car is coming into sight now, and Damian knows that his time is running out, “Even if you don’t believe me, I implore you to stop for a second and listen to me.”
You don’t stop however. Don’t slow down to give him the courage to continue to beg. Don’t falter for even one step. Your feet just keep on stomping at their borderline jogging pace, throw your bag off your shoulder haphazardly into the passenger seat, and slam your car door shut before slamming on the ‘lock’ button so hard it makes Damian flinch.
He opens his mouth to speak again, beginning to beg you to get out of the car and let him clarify.
To ask you just talk to him about what you saw so he can explain himself.
To beseech you to at least scream at him, to let all your anger out so he could just hear you speak more than 15 words to his face.
But your car pulls out of its spot before he could even form a syllable and let it pass through his lips.
Now he’s left with the realization that you’re avoiding him from something he did; that it’s entirely possible that you hate him, all over a misunderstanding.
His chest aches, and he can feel the tears starting to form in his eyes over the likelihood of you speaking to him. He’d thought that something, anything, he said just now might have gotten you to at least falter in your resolve. It didn’t work at the moment, but Damian’s holding out hope that it will sit with you over the weekend and by class on Monday you’ll be ready to talk.
Hell, you don’t even have to talk. He’s just hoping you’d be ready to listen. You could write out all your questions and concerns to him and he’d be more than happy to explain without you having to say a word.
He just wants an opportunity; a chance. Something you’ve always said everyone deserves at least two of.
When Monday finally rolls around Damian’s lost some hope. If he was being fully transparent, he had hoped you’d reach out sometime during the weekend. That you’d want to meet up at a nice little cafe for lunch and talk everything out; that you wouldn’t want to squash whatever problem you have in such a public area.
Nevertheless he still held onto the last threads of hope. You’d show up, sit wherever you’d been hiding the past few days, he’d follow you there and ask to talk.
Creepy? Sure, but he had to do what he had to do.
The class filters in at a steady pace, most of them faceless as Damian only has one person in mind; one thing that he’s allowing himself to focus on. The time passes slowly as he awaits your arrival, so slow that he barely registers the professor starting the lecture.
It’d have been impossible for you to slip by him. He showed up as soon as they opened the doors to the building, leaving absolutely no time for you to sneak in before him and hide in one of the dark corners of the room.
So you just.. didn’t show up?
Damian starts to get deja vu. This is exactly like last week; but last week you had been here. This week he made sure he’d see you; made it impossible for you to steer clear of him.
It’s fine.
It’s okay.‘
He can be the man. Take the initiative. That’s something girls liked, or at least that’s what Dick had told him.,
He pulls out his phone and types you a message.
‘Hey, where are you?’
Before Damian can shut his phone off he receives a response, his heart skipping a beat from the anxiety of what you could say. From the idea that you were thinking about him at the same time.
‘Unable to receive message – Message Blocking is active.’
That doesn’t make any sense.
It’s probably just his cell service. He’ll try again.
‘Do you have any availability to talk? I’d like to clear some things up between us.’
His phone buzzes instantly again.
‘Unable to receive message – Message Blocking is active.’
Damian sighs, the sound coming from deep within his chest. He’ll try again when he leaves the classroom. But while he waits for that he takes to Google, even if his rationale is telling him that what’s happened is obvious.
He copies the message and pastes it into his search bar adding meaning to the end before pressing enter on his keyboard. Damian’s eyes fly across the screen as soon as it’s done processing his question.
‘your text message can't be sent because something is actively preventing it, such as your own device's block list, the recipient's device block list, or your cellular carrier's network restrictions’
Well Damian knows for a fact that he hasn’t blocked you and that he never would block you. And he knows that no one has had access to his cellphone. But to assure himself that he wasn’t crazy, he double checks his block list anyways and see’s for certain that you are not on it.
The other option of you blocking him was also impossible. You were too kind to block him. It wasn’t in your nature; you’d said plenty of times before that even the people you disliked weren’t blocked in case they were ever in dire need and accidentally pressed on your contact instead of someone who actually cared about them.
Therefore he’s left with the only logical explanation that it's his cellular carrier. He’d just give them a call once class lets out. That’d solve the issue and he could resend the messages. From there it’d be smooth sailing – you’d respond, he’d give you an explanation to everything that he believes you misunderstood, and you’d finally go out on a date, maybe even ending the night as his official girlfriend.
But then he calls his cellular carrier, and they tell him that there's a cell tower less than a half mile from the school so there’s no way he doesn’t have good reception at that location. And when he questions them on a possible outage that left his message undelivered they inform him that they haven’t had any outages in Gotham in the past few months.
Strange.
The disbelief forces Damian into a corner that he hates to be in. He has to ask Tim for help. It’d be a shame to not use his computer skills in a situation that calls perfectly for it.
So instead of working for the last few hours of his day, Tim Drake spends his time in his posh office at Wayne Enterprises hacking into your phone. He works his way through your records sifting through the countless data files until he can pinpoint the exact moment you blocked Damian.
“Sorry D. Hate to be the bearer of bad news but it says it right here,” Tim turns the laptop he’s been typing away on towards Damian and points at one of the various lines of green text, “Thursday night at 2308 your number was blocked, then at 2313 your Instagram was blocked too.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would she possibly think that is the solution to this problem?”
It doesn’t add up in Damian’s brain. You always complained about how people never wanted to communicate, and now that he does want to communicate you choose to block him? Now he’s frustrated; with you and the situation.
“You said that she said you had a girlfriend right?” Damian nods in response, spurring Tim to continue, “She probably doesn’t want to be involved in any way if you’re in a relationship.”
“I am not in a relationship!”
“She doesn’t know that. All she knows is that she saw you chatting up a girl she's never seen before, while also doing extremely boyfriend-like things with her.”
“Fine, if you want to act like this is a normal reaction then tell me why she wouldn’t discuss it with me before making these decisions.”
Tim huffs before responding, astounded by how Damian’s come so far and yet still can’t understand certain simple concepts of emotions, “She probably doesn’t want to seem like she knew. And now that she does know – yes I know you aren’t in a relationship you don’t have to remind me – she doesn’t want to seem like she’s still trying to pursue you with that knowledge. Girl code and all that jazz.”
“Let’s use the Batcomputer to locate her then; so I can explain how much I am not in a relationship and clear everything up.”
“Yeah, no. Your privileges are revoked, the last thing you need is a harassment charge on file. Do you know how hard that would be to get erased?”
Before Tim could even finish rubbing his eyes in exhaustion Damian was out of his office, storming his way back to the manor.
How is he supposed to correct things like this?
Why couldn’t you give him the time of day so he could straighten everything out?
Damian hasn’t seen you all week. Every class you’ve been absent. You haven’t been at the library at all, not participating in any of your usual study groups. None of the coffee shops or cafes you’d pick to get a change of scenery have seen you in the past two weeks.
He’s honestly getting a little concerned that you’ve transferred schools at this point. But that would be dramatic.
You’d need a new apartment, a new job, and transferring colleges mid-semester is nearly impossible. Even so, Damian nags Tim once more, demanding that he check the schools registry to make sure you’re still enrolled. A physical weight seems to be removed from his chest upon seeing that you are indeed still enrolled.
Even though he feels lighter knowing you’re still in Gotham, the sorrow still covers him like a second skin. It’s settled heavy under his Robin suit, making the whole patrol suffocating.
Damian tries to get rid of the feeling, first taking it out on the scum of the city. When that doesn’t work and his fellow vigilantes seemingly start to side eye his aggression he switches to trying to tire himself out by constantly moving from rooftop to rooftop – hoping to possibly see some of the sky through the Gotham smog if he’s lucky.
He thinks he hears your familiar voice as he’s making his way through the closest thing Gotham has for a downtown. Even if it isn’t you, Damian wouldn’t be a good hero if he didn’t check up on a civilian possibly in need so he decides to move to a better vantage point to ensure a good view of whoever is causing the ruckus.
Peering over the edge of one of the nearby buildings, Damian finally lays eyes on you for the first time in days. You’re barely outside of a club, stumbling your way down the street while waving your friends away. He can hear you telling them to ‘leave you be,’ and that you can ‘make it home perfectly fine’.
Disappointingly, your friends let you go. Now Damian has to follow you. There’s no other option considering how intense Gotham can be, and you’re a college aged girl. He couldn’t chance something happening to you knowing that he could help.
The first few blocks he follows from a safe distance. Crossing the roofs parallel to where you’re walking, keeping a close eye on everyone in your vicinity. You make it just short of halfway to your apartment before Damian sees you stop in your tracks.
You disappear from his view, ducking into an alley and there’s suddenly a sense of dread settling in his bones. Had there been someone talking to you? Had they lured you into the alley? It didn’t matter, he is Robin; and Robin didn’t need to wait around for something bad to happen, he’d just go in after you and prevent anything before it could happen.
Damian drops into the alley, scanning for your figure that he saw wander in just a mere two minutes before. Yet despite his years of training and the aid of technology in his domino mask, he can’t seem to find you. He hadn’t heard a struggle, hadn’t heard any verbal signs of distress, hadn’t seen any movement as he was making his way to the alley; so where had you gone?
There was no way that you had known he was following you. Even if you did, Robin looking out for the city wasn’t that odd so it wouldn’t make sense for you to run away from him. So where did you disappear to? Was there a new villain running around that had some sort of teleportation powers?
He’d have to report back to the cave, try and get some more information so he could rescue you. Damian reaches his hand up towards his ear, preparing to call Barbara hoping she’d search CCTV for him without much fuss – but then there's a sniffle.
He moves towards the sound. Adding some weight to his footsteps; so that he doesn’t startle whoever he stumbles upon.
Nestled between a dumpster and a fire escape sits you; knees to your chest, your face smooshed into them, and a slight shudder in your shoulders with each breath.
Damian clears his throat before speaking, “Are you alright?”
You tense, whole body going rigid as you look up. Familiar colors of gray, black and red come into focus, leading to a quick realization that you’re not in danger but instead you’re in the company of one of the city's masked saviors.
“Just.. boy problems,” Robin wouldn’t need to know details, but you suppose it’s nice of him to have stopped to ask, “Thanks for asking.”
“Of course, it’s part of my responsibilities to ensure civilian safety.”
You assume Robin would leave as soon as he came. He checked in, saw you weren’t in any immediate danger, and probably had some drug ring to bust or something. You’d get up in a few but you wanted to finish your wallowing before you continued on your way home.
Just before you can properly get back into your head about the whole situation concerning Damian, his mystery girl, and the fact that he was spying on you, Robin speaks up again.
“It’s not safe to walk home at this hour.”
You lift your head just enough to eye him warily, “So..?”
“I’ll accompany you the rest of the way to your place of residence.”
If you didn’t know any better you’d assume that Robin was nervous of you saying no. He’s shifting his weight from leg to leg, subtly but you can still tell that he’s doing it.
You not responding urges him to keep going, “Ensuring civilian safety and all.”
It’s ridiculous, you could go out and nine out of ten times and never run into a member of the bats, and now at the worst possible time one of them wants to show up and not leave you alone. Knowing how stubborn they are from how people on the internet speak about them you decide to oblige. After standing and wiping the back of your legs off, you start on your way back home. You don’t waste time looking back to see if Robin is following you, assuming that he would be since he’s the one who borderline insisted on going with you.
Shortly he falls into step with you. It brings unwanted attention from passerbys, drunkards, even people in restaurant windows. Hopefully it will instill a rule to not bother you instead of painting a target on you.
A few minutes into the walk Robin is restless. At first you think it's because he’s keeping your pace; it must be difficult for him to purposefully slow his stride to match your slower gait. But then out of the corner of your eye you can see his mouth start to quirk. It opens and closes, lips turn downwards and they purse. Who’d think Robin would be afraid to speak his mind?
You decide to take him out of his misery, “Just say whatever it is.”
“I wanted to inquire about your boy trouble.” He huffs it out, you can’t be certain because of the lighting but you believe you can see a faint tinge of pink to his cheeks, “It seemed to be bothering you a great deal back in the alley, and it’s not like you’ll ever see me again so it seems like a good idea to get it off your chest to me.”
“So you’re leaving Gotham?”
Robin’s head snaps towards you so fast you’re afraid you heard something snap in it, “What?”
“You said I’d never see you again. If I got into trouble with the Joker or something I’d think you’d show up; I wouldn’t see you in that situation if you left Gotham though.”
“I meant it with the idea you would never be in a troubling situation again. I see I should have worded it differently however. My mistake.”
A laugh leaves your lips. You’re not sure if it’s because of how socially inept Robin seems to be, or because you’re really about to open up about your boy problems to him.
You can feel Robin staring at your side profile as you begin to let him into your life, “There’s this guy that I like – liked? – I’m not sure on that part yet, but the important thing is that I thought he liked me back.”
Side eying the man on your left you can see him nodding along, intently listening as he surveys your surroundings before putting his eyes back on you, “But then I see him with this girl I’ve never seen before at this cute little cafe – that I totally would have went to if he asked by the way – and it’s fine, totally fine that he has a girlfriend or whatever they are. I don’t want to be involved though.”
Robin chimes in, “Involved in what?”
“Any of it! If they’re together that means that all the things he’s been doing for me, was him cheating on his girlfriend! If they’re not together, it means he’s either pursuing us both or he wants multiple girls on call or something which is just gross and lame to be honest.”
“What makes you think that they’re together and not just good friends?”
Your eyes squint as you turn to look at him, why is he asking supplemental questions like he really cares?
“He was talking to her so enthusiastically. And he’s never enthusiastic. Plus his facial expressions were just different, it seemed like he was willingly opening himself up to be read and I’ve never gotten that from him.”
The two of you walk in silence for a few moments as Robin lets what you said sink in, and you try and figure out how to elaborate and really get everything off your chest.
“It’s not even that he doesn’t seem to care for me y’know? It just seems like I have to pull any emotion other than disdain or ennui from him but she just had to be in the vicinity for him to open up.”
As you turn onto your street, you feel a bit lighter. Robin was correct in saying getting it off your chest to a stranger would be nice. Before you make it to your apartment Robin speaks up again, “So you would feel more content if he were to express more feelings around you?”
“Id be more content if he just told me how it is. I don’t mind if he doesn’t like me – I can handle that – I don’t like people who dance around touchy subjects.”
You unlock the door into your apartment lobby, ready to tuck yourself in for the night, “Thank you for walking me home Robin.”
Instead of a real response, you receive a nod before he’s grappling up onto the rooftops to resume his patrol. At least that’s what you assume he’s doing; you’ve never been one to keep up with the vigilanties of the city.
Sundays were a universal reset day.
You used them as extra study time; listening to lectures as you cleaned the quieter rooms like your bedroom and living room. Then for a break you listen to music as you clean the bathroom and kitchen.
You’re putting books into their respective places on shelves when there's a knock on your door. At first you ignore it, knowing that you didn’t order any takeout or anything that would require you to answer the door. But instead of the individual taking the hint and leaving, they get more insistent.
Against your better judgement – and your smarter brain cells – you open the door without looking through the peephole. Before you stands Damian Wayne; he’s less prim and proper than usual, holding a bouquet of lilies and a bag of pastries.
Before you can yell at him and demand that he leaves you alone Damian rushes his words so fast that you can barely make them out, “Canwetalk, please?”
Once again, despite your better judgement you move slightly out of the doorway to grant him access. Damian shuffles past you and into your kitchen where he places the pastries on the counter.
As you cross the threshold into the kitchen the lilies at thrusted at you rather harshly. The kraft paper that they were wrapped in crinkled loudly as they were passed from Damian's hands to yours. They’re placed on the counter as you search for a suitable vase, happy to have something else to focus on instead of the man you’ve been avoiding for almost 2 weeks at this point.
The vase nearly slips from your grasp as Damian's deep baritone breaks the silence, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I was listening to your conversation you said that it seemed like the girl I was with at the cafe was my girlfriend, and she is definitely not my girlfriend.”
“That’s great Damian, you don’t need to explain yourself to me thoug–”
“I don’t need to but I want to. It’s important for me that you know how important you are to me.”
Blinking at him, you continue to prepare a livable environment for the flowers, nodding as a signal for him to continue.
“We grew up together, and she’s one of my oldest friends but she doesn’t live nearby so I hadn’t had the time to introduce you.” Damian lifts himself up to sit on your countertop, making himself comfortable as he prepares to go into as much detail as it takes to convince you. “I was only talking to her so animatedly because I was speaking about you.”
You know Damian can see your body tense as he finishes his sentence. He can hear the water start to overfill and spill out of the rim of the vase but you’re thankful that he takes enough pity on you to continue speaking instead of pointing it out.
“She came to check on me because I essentially cut everyone else out of my schedule in favor of spending time with you. I believe the point of the conversation that you saw was me going into detail about you; I was trying to ask a female's perspective on our interactions to see if you felt the same way about me.”
“And you didn’t think to ask your sisters?”
“My sisters baby me. They would not tell me the truth even if I bribed them.” You can hear a smile in Damian's voice as he continues, “And for your information, I did ask them. I’ve asked everyone – Grayson, Todd, Pennyworth, Father, even Drake. However I wasn’t satisfied with their responses, so when Raven had come I figured it would be a good opportunity to get an outside opinion so I could ask you out with little to no concern for rejection.”
You’re still faced away from him. Not wanting him to see the tears welling up in your eyes from the disbelief. Maybe you had overreacted, but a part of you believes that this is also his fault for not listening to every other source that he had.
“I’d like to take you out, romantically, if you’d still have me.”
“You can’t be serious. We don’t talk for two weeks and the first conversation we have you say you wanna take me out?”
“I was trying to give you space. I spent the first week going clinically insane trying to figure out what I had done to receive such cold treatment from you,” Damian hops off the counter to turn you around, desperate to look into your eyes and drive his point home, “The second week I had come to terms with the fact that you must not have cared for me anymore, but then I couldn’t stand the thought and that’s when you had ‘caught’ me eavesdropping.”
You glance at his hand still resting on your shoulder before responding, “And even after how I reacted, you still want to take me out?”
“Of course. If anything made me more attracted to you knowing that you cared so much about fidelity.” Damian's other hand comes to cup your face, thumb stroking delicately over your cheekbone before he calls your name,“Will you still have me?”
Instead of a verbal response, you press your lips to his. It’s not one that you’d see in a romantic movie, or one you’d read about in a romance novel. Your teeth crash into his a little with your fervor and you pull back before you or Damian could correct the form of the kiss.
“You don’t hate tutoring me right?”
Damian’s eyebrows crease, “Of course not. I’d be devastated if you needed help and did not ask me.”
Then he’s back on you, inching you backwards towards the counter. His lips are taking the lead this time, gently coercing your mouth open for him to slide his tongue in. The small of your back hits the counter and you realize that there’s nowhere left to go.
Placing your hands on his chest you force him back once more, “And during exams you aren’t gonna piss me off right?”
“Helwa, why would you ask that?” He tries to go in for another kiss, not wanting to be apart from you any longer. You dodge however, remembering the importance of your question.
“It’s sooooo typical of relationships in stressful majors. Whenever exam week rolls around a fight happens and it makes the exam ten times worse.”
Damian pulls back from where he’s taken to mouthing at your neck, “The first class that I did not have you sitting next to me was like my own personal hell. I could not focus; every noise was too loud, anytime someone got up I assumed it was going to be you, the professor seemed more incompetent than usual.”
A kiss is planted on your forehead, “I promise,” then one at the tip of your nose, “As long as we live,” another on the corner of your lip, “I will never get into a disagreement with you,” finally one on your lips. It lingers, Damian trying to convey how serious he is in his promise before he pulls back, “Unless it is about your safety. That is something I cannot jeopardize."
His eye contact is unwavering, trying to make sure you understand how serious he is. Even if you don’t know that he’s Robin right now, he needs you to be sure that he wouldn’t let any harm come to you. But not everything is serious, and he desperately wants to bask in your presence.
“Can we please go watch your ridiculous show, I haven’t been keeping up since you were avoiding me.”
You nod instinctually, but when Damian picks you up finding purchase on the backs of your thighs, what he sinks in. “I was not avoiding you! Just.. staying out of your way.”
“Sure, helwa, whatever makes you feel better about it.” You’re thumped onto the couch before Damian falls onto you himself.
He settles comfortably on your chest, ready to judge people that he’s never met on their life choices and finally get to spend some quality time with you. Damian couldn’t be more thankful that you had listened to him; that you hadn’t shoved him right back out of your apartment. He’d take you out for real sometime next week, but lying here knowing that you agreed to go out with him is enough for him right now.
And for the first time in two weeks his chest fills with warmth. It’s full with contentment and peace, knowing that you’ve finally heard him out and that you’re finally his.
a/n: sorry this took so long - i was fantasizing ab my coworker bc i think (KNOW) he wants me bad, and i want HIM bad so i was too lost in that sauce to focus enough on this angst, hopefully you guys still enjoy it though!!
The next day you make sure to hurry to class early.
You take a seat all the way at the back corner of the class, hoping that the dim lighting keeps you hidden from Damian's perceptive gaze.
It’s normal to want a change of scenery. Something you can easily brush off if he decides to bring it up. Or maybe you could say that you had a headache, and the lighting is just too bright where Damian usually sits.
He probably won’t mention it, so no need to stress yourself over it.
The class slowly fills – the slackers filling in around you, hoping that being at the back will avoid them getting called on to answer a tricky question, the ones who hate the class but know they paid too much to waste the class time filling the middle of the room, and then the ‘overachievers’ sitting as close as possible to hone in their focus and make sure they retain their spots at the top of the class.
Damian unhurriedly stalks to his seat. He slings his bag down on the chair next to him, saving your seat, and begins unpacking his class essentials.
A pencase and a notebook. Not a laptop or textbook Damian claimed he didn’t need those because he’s ‘been trained to take in information at a faster than natural rate’, whatever that means, and he refused to use pencils because pencils allow for mistakes, and he’d never allow something so foolish.
You’re not staring. Just being observant. A bit of a bandage to your heart when you see Damian start to look around.
It’s a subtle turn of his head, but you know him well enough to know he’s surveying the room. Even if that didn’t set you off, the text you receive mere seconds after he’s finished definitely would have.
The faint buzz of your phone alerts you to his message.
‘Where are you?’
Not an ‘are you okay?’. Not even a ‘running a bit late?’. Just a blunt, bland, direct question. You can feel the bandage from earlier rip straight off your heart, blood oozing from the wound and pooling in the cavity of your chest, leaving it heavy.
Damian doesn’t need a response. Responding is the proper thing to do, and it wouldn’t particularly hurt. But yesterday’s discovery makes you feel like you need to have some self respect, why go running back if he has someone else waiting for him anyways.
A few minutes pass before your phone buzzes again.
‘I’ve heard what we’re discussing is a challenging topic.’
In the past you would have thought he was being sweet. Trying to emphasize that being in class would reinforce the readings you do before and after class, that it’ll make the information stick better. Now it just seems condescending, like you need to be in class because you don’t understand the material even if you’re in class and he doesn’t want to deal with how little you don’t know if you skip a class.
No. You’re definitely thinking too much into it. Even if you feel Damian led you on, he’s still never been an ass. Never made you feel less than for not fully understanding something. Never the one to tell you that you need to ‘find a different learning style’, because he knows all you do is study.
Then there's yet another buzz.
‘Even if the Professor doesn’t mind absences, it’s still not wise to skip class.’
Or maybe you really didn’t know him as well as you thought you did. It must have really bothered him to have to stay up and tutor someone for free. To have to break down complexities so that you could understand it. Or to make strange new mnemonics for remembering treatment methods, or specific symptoms for a disease process.
Either way, you need to focus. Putting your phone on silent, Do Not Disturb and just for good measure flipping it face down.
If you need to take a break from class you can just use your laptop anyway.
For three days you’re able to successfully avoid Damian. It’s driving him insane. It’s as if you’re a phantom – a figment of his imagination. There one second but disappearing when a swarm of students appear.
To be honest, he can’t even fully say you’re avoiding him. You’re responding to his texts, maybe not in a timely manner, or with any enthusiasm or emojis, but you’re responding.
You even still wave at him when you see him across campus. He’s choosing to ignore how it seems like you speed up your steps when he starts towards you instead of the class he was heading to.
Damian’s not sure where he went wrong. He thought he was doing everything right.
He listened – making sure he got your coffee orders right at any and every location you could possibly pick from.
He was interested in the things you were interested in – watching those stupid reality TV shows so that he could discuss them with you, and keeping up with the youtubers you watch.
He opened up to you as much as you did to him – telling you about his mother and grandfather, his brothers and sisters. Sure, he left out the part where he was a crime fighting superhero and the palace he grew up in had assassins filling its many rooms. But he still opened up to you, so that has to count for something.
He’s good at communicating – always finding out ways to change up the course material for you to be able to understand it better, making sure to text you if he was running late to a study session, telling you when he wants to see you instead of just saying it’d be nice to be in your presence.
For Christ’s sake he’s even learning how to be nurturing! Watching hours upon hours of videos on how to braid hair, asking Stephanie and Cassandra to practice on them, taking into consideration the texture and thickness of your hair so that the braid didn’t weigh down your head or have any wonky bumps in it.
Damian’s done everything his brothers told him to. Everything his sisters told him to. Everything his father and Pennyworth’s told him to.
And yet you're still abandoning him. Without reason at that.
It’s not like you fought, as if he’d ever disagree with something you’d say.
Did he misread the lingering glances you’d throw his way when he was writing down notes on the whiteboard during study sessions? Misread the way you’d try to subtly tuck your nose into the sweaters he lends you? Misread how you’d light up when he bought you something that you randomly mentioned wanting?
Was there someone else? A person who you’d deemed more important just as Damian was telling his friends about you.
The Titans had been getting on his ass recently. Sure he’s in Pre-Med school, but it’s nothing too heavy and he had been able to keep up his hero work. Until he met you.
He started complaining about patrols, saying they made it too difficult to get up for class the next morning and actually retain information.
Bullshit.
Everyone knew it, but Batman let it slide so everyone else did too.
Then Damian started to miss team bonding. He might have acted like he didn’t want to be there, but he loved his friends even if he didn’t say it. He’s also mentioned offhanded to Dick that it was nice to have people who could really relate to him. Dick may or may not have shared it to the rest of the Titans with the promise they’d never tell him they knew.
Raven took the initiative to take a trip to Gotham to check up on him. It seemed like she would have the best chances out of everyone at learning what was going on with him. They may have broken up, but their relationship was still strong. Plus he had been vulnerable with her before, who’s to say he wouldn’t be again?
It took a while of warming up, but Damian did eventually start to talk. Talk would be an understatement, it’d be better described as spilling his guts.
He mentioned every detail about you. The color of your hair – the way it looks in sunlight, versus the way it looks in lecture room lights, versus the way it looks in the library lights –, the color of your eyes, the way you seemingly can’t walk straight and always lean slightly toward the right, how you somehow always manage to binge a whole show on exam week amidst all your cramming, how you always start dissociating during the last hour of class. Hell he even got deep enough to start talking about the type of shampoo you use and how you started using a new one last week, because this one smells faintly of mint and there was most certainly no mint in the old one.
Raven leaves him with the advice to make a move, but a real move. Not everyone would be like her and make the first move, especially with how brooding and blunt his personality is. Reminding him to actually just say that he likes you, romantically, probably bring you some flowers, or chocolates, hell even a coffee since he knows you’re into that for sure.
Damian chooses to ignore how he’s actively brooding remembering his conversation with Raven. He chooses to ignore how he’s taking two, sometimes three, steps at a time up the library stairs. He’d overheard that you’d be here tonight, trying to finish all your work before the weekend and he is sick and tired of you avoiding him. Why not take the initiative and politely ask you to explain?
He can see you through the glass walls, phone clutched between your ear and your shoulder as you scribble nearly intelligible notes onto a whiteboard. The door to your study room is cracked and he if he didn’t have years upon years under his belt spying as Robin, he’d miss everything you were saying.
“No, like, I’m telling you he one hundred percent doesn’t like me.”
So there was someone else. Why hadn’t you mentioned them before?
“Well, I don’t know Laila, if you were sitting out at some cafe with some dude talking about God knows what – but talking about it like it was the time you won the fricken lottery – I’d assume you were dating him too.”
Damian could see why you’d be avoiding him. Being stabbed in the back like that by someone you cared about would be hard. Maybe he could weasel his way into your heart now by being extra kind and nurturing.
No. He shouldn’t think that way. He wanted to earn your love honestly, based on a good foundation.
“And it’s whatever. Like really whatever. I don’t even care. They look good together, like really good. It’s just like.. I don’t know, maybe don’t make me feel like I'm so important while you actively have someone to go home to.”
Damn this guy really was a piece of shit. Damian’s piecing together the pieces, the puzzles starting to look like this was cheating on his girlfriend with you. He raises his hand to knock and not seem like he was listening in. He’d just come in and ask you what's been up recently, in the most non-confrontational way possible.
“I mean you’re freaking Damian Wayne, wouldn’t your father have told you to not do shit like this specifically so no one would have anything to blackmail you with?”
Wait.
You were talking about him?
a/n: yoooo this was way longer than i expected it to be but i actually like writing angst so i guess it just flowed
This scene marks the end of Act One and the beginning of Act Two—a quiet, painful transition. It’s a short piece centered on Verso and the reader, who was once his past lover. She had known Alicia in another life, and now finds herself standing beside Maelle—a version of Alicia shaped by fate or design.
The reader’s body was repainted by the Paintress, shaped by Verso’s unspoken wish to bring her back. And now, seeing her alive again—standing with Maelle—feels like watching ghosts walk in place of what once was. A sort of purgatory for her.
To Verso, it’s both a miracle and a torment. The resemblance between Maelle and Alicia, the presence of the reader in this new form… it fractures something inside him. Because he realizes this isn’t resurrection—it’s memory made flesh. And no matter how many times he reaches back, he cannot reclaim what was lost.
He cannot revive a love already mourned. He can only protect what remains.
“For those who come after.”
Gustave’s voice echoed in your mind as you made your way toward the promised destination. Sciel stayed close to Maelle, ensuring she was alright, while you and Lune focused on anything but grief. Still, it was impossible to ignore the mounds of corpses that lined your path—no matter where Verso led you, death met you at every turn.
Verso kept a careful distance, his watchful gaze flicking between Maelle and you. You noticed it more and more after he officially joined the Expedition. Seeing Gustave’s wristband now wrapped around his arm only deepened the ache in your chest. Not only had he been accepted into the group—he had taken up the role of someone irreplaceable to you. To all of you. And somehow, Maelle, of all people, had accepted it first.
That acceptance felt… unsettling. So, out of self-preservation, you kept your distance. It was the only way you knew how to protect yourself. Yet his presence lingered—especially after battle, when he'd silently offer his arm and ask, “Are you alright?” The simplicity of it struck deeper than you expected. Maybe… maybe this was what Gustave wanted: for you to be safe, to be cared for—not to be consumed by anger.
It took time before you could even begin to let Verso in. And you had every right to hesitate—Gustave had meant everything to you. Verso only learned the depth of that bond when he opened the expedition journal and found your name etched into the pages. Every one of Verso’s wishes had come true—the Paintress had brought you back, just as his father had longed for.
Your death had left a wound in them all—Renoir included. But to Verso, your existence had once been nothing more than a dream. Never had he believed it would come true.
It took him time to even process it—the resemblance of Maelle in Alicia, and now… in you. He watched as you threw your arms around Maelle, moments after Renoir’s cane had pierced through Gustave’s belly. His blood soaked into both of you, but your mind couldn’t register it. You were running on instinct, grief, and sheer disbelief. Out of reflex, your gaze snapped upward and landed on the stranger standing over you.
And you glared at him.
"Don’t you dare—" you had spat, voice laced with venom and raw hatred. You didn’t even know who he was. You didn’t need to. In that moment, your pain needed a target. And even if he hadn’t understood the how or why of your presence there, he understood enough.
He didn’t speak. Barely even nodded, if you remember correctly.
He just… stared.
As if he’d seen a ghost.
That same evening, Maelle rested quietly on Esquie’s lap, while Sciel and Lune sat nearby, their eyes fixed on the sky—where the faint silhouette of the Paintress loomed overhead. You remained by the campfire, alone in thought. Verso’s visit hadn’t been expected, yet you found comfort in his presence. In truth, you had hoped he would come back. Even after keeping your distance since that first encounter, you couldn’t shake the feeling that his face was strangely familiar—like something half-remembered from a dream.
Tonight, he offered only a quiet nod in your direction, barely speaking a word. And somehow, that silence was exactly what you needed—tranquility in the midst of chaos. He seemed to understand that, to respect your need for stillness. It made you wonder... had you known him before? How could a stranger carry such weight in your heart?
Before you could find the answer, exhaustion crept in. Grief dulled your senses, your thoughts grew hazy, and your body finally gave in to sleep. You didn’t feel him kneel beside you, nor the gentle touch of his fingers brushing a strand of hair from your face.
"Sleep well, Y/N," he whispered.
The next morning, Maelle—looking a little more rested—joined you in preparing breakfast. Neither of you spoke; the silence between you felt natural, almost necessary. Nearby, Sciel, Lune, and Verso discussed the next destination: Monoco. You barely registered their words, your focus lost in the rhythm of peeling and slicing—until you felt it.
Verso’s gaze.
It lingered first on Maelle, then shifted to you—and stayed there just a moment longer.
Maelle noticed, of course. She leaned in and whispered, “Do you know him?” Her voice was soft, eyes lowered to the small pile of potatoes you were peeling.
You shook your head at first, then glanced up—just to check. He was still watching.
You offered a faint smile, and surprisingly, he returned it.
“No… but his face,” you murmured, your voice trailing off. “It feels so familiar.”
Your gaze lingered on him a little too long, and in that distracted moment, the blade slipped. “Shit,” you hissed, staring at the sudden red bloom on your finger.
Before Maelle could even react, Verso was already moving. He crossed the space quickly, knelt beside you, and pulled a piece of cloth from his coat. Without a word, he wrapped it gently around your wound, hands steady despite the tension that suddenly thickened the air. Maelle hovered nearby, unsure whether to help or step back.
His reaction startled you. His brows furrowed, eyes narrowing as he focused on your hand. “You should be more careful, L–”
He stopped himself mid-word. The shift in his tone was subtle, but unmistakable—suddenly formal, hesitant. As if he’d slipped. As if he knew.
“Sorry, I—” he murmured, finishing the bandage without meeting your eyes. Then, without another word, he stood and walked away.
Sciel and Lune approached almost immediately. “Are you alright?” both asked, concern etched into their features. You nodded, but your attention had already drifted to Maelle. She wore the same stunned expression you felt on your own face.
“What the hell was that?” Sciel asked, glancing between you and Verso’s retreating figure.
You didn’t have an answer. When your gaze met Verso’s one last time, all you could do was stare—wordless, breath caught in your throat—haunted by the feeling that this wasn’t the first time he had looked at you like that.
Perhaps, ending the Paintress will uncover some truth…
I've recently been trying to learn how to draw in the DC comics style, so here's a drawing I haven't finished yet inspired by the 80's Raven, with this reference of the new generation Raven.
with no background because I'm too lazy to draw one😭
I've recently been trying to learn how to draw in the DC comics style, so here's a drawing I haven't finished yet inspired by the 80's Raven, with this reference of the new generation Raven.
with no background because I'm too lazy to draw one😭
LEON KENNEDY IS NOT AN INCESTUOUS R4PIST CHILD LOVER OR ANY OF THOSE AWFUL THINGS YOU POST WITH HIM!!! HE LIKES APPLE PIE, BAKING COOKIES, AND FIGHTING BIO-TERRORISM!!!
