featuring . the easy moments of love, when done correctly . (inspired by you are in love, by taylor swift .) 1.2k words
my masterlist ·✶·
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Loving Max Verstappen has always come easy for you.
First as a friend, platonically, from a distance.
Now, as more.
You think back to the time in Cannes, were you weren’t officially anything just yet, but friends felt too dismissive of a title to keep. In fleeting touches, midnight drives, small talk meant just for you, brushed off eye contact that neither of you were strong enough to break; you knew there was something more.
At the time, your hands were full of bags and food and things that were irrelevant. You remember fussing over your jacket, and how no matter how hard you tried, the buttons would never stay put.
Before you could complain again, Max steps close, like the proximity was mere muscle memory for him. You aren’t proud of the flurry of butterflies that erupt in your chest, heart in your throat as his hands brush against your coat. He sticks his tongue between his teeth, deep in concentration, and you have to stop yourself from doing something that you know you’d regret.
Max fixes the last button, hands dropping to his side as he realises just how close he is to you. How, if he had the guts, he could just lean in and kiss you and get everything he’s ever wanted.
“Thanks,” you say, breathier than you are prepared to admit.
“Yeah,” he says, looking as disheveled as you feel. “Any time.”
You don’t want to step back. To move away and break the moment, shattering whatever is so blaringly obvious between you. His eyes flick down to your lips, holding for just a fraction longer than a friend would. You hold your breath, praying for this to finally be it.
It wasn’t.
The real first kiss came on a Sunday, a few weeks later. Post race, which he had convinced you to attend. A stellar win, so far clear of second place that Max felt like he was in his own category. He claims that it was the adrenaline that dragged you into the first private spot he could find, kissing you so truly and deeply as if he would break into pieces if he waited any longer.
You returned the kiss with so much gusto it surprised him. Your arms wrapped around his neck, his around your waist, moving impossibly closer. You clung to each other, pulling apart and desperate for air you were sure only the other could supply.
You laughed then, so full of affection and passion and something else you couldn’t quite name. He laughed too, burying his head in the crevice of your neck like you were his lifeline. You were.
Max was never one for talking much. It wasn’t his love language, words of affirmation. But you could hear it in his silence.
How he would be mid-sentence, before pausing momentarily, and when you would look up, he would be watching you, at a complete loss for words. When he would have to leave for a race, opting for a quiet goodbye with so much left unsaid, understanding becoming a second language you had learned to interpret. How he would always search for you in a crowded room; on the podium, at a gala, across the paddock – you didn’t have to hear him say to know just how much he loved you.
The room was dark, the mild evening retiring into a clear night outside your window. But that didn’t matter now. Not when Max was on the other side of the phone, bone-tired from a race that didn’t quite go his way.
“M’sorry I couldn’t be there, Max,” you mumble, curling up under your shared bedsheets. They never felt colder than they did when he was away.
He sighs, though you know it’s not out of anger, or annoyance at you. Just a general, I've had a shit weekend and just want to be held sigh. “Don’t apologise, sweetheart. You can only control what you can control.”
You hum, and the call falls quiet. Not in awkward silence that you feel obligated to fill, but the comfortable kind that relaxes the tension in your shoulders. Max swears that just existing with you is enough to lower his stress levels. Not that they are very high in the first place.
His breathing is short and shallow on the other side. You want to ask, but you know he doesn’t want to talk about it. Why would he waste precious time with you on ranting about poor tire strategies and missed pit opportunities?
He says your name, soft in his mouth, like it's a delicate subject he never wants to break. His expression is strange, like he is so deep in thought and committed to the bit that he can’t back out now. “You’re my best friend, you know?”
You smile, unconsciously reaching to fiddle with your necklace. The one he got you in Portugal, right before he asked you if he could officially be yours.
“The feeling is mutual, Max,” you grin, cheeks pink with warmth and love.
He cracks a smile, too. Even on the other side of the world, you find a way to make him giddy. He would never admit it, but seeing your smile is like seeing the sun rise over a new day – it manages to crack his chest open every time.
Just breathing with you was enough to distract him from the horrific set of events he had experienced 48 hours prior. God, he missed you. And he knew you missed him.
On his birthday, he woke up to an empty bed. Still slightly warm, but vacated long enough that the frost of the morning had started to creep in on the sheets.
He could hear you humming along to whatever song you’d had on repeat for the last few days, cooking away like you had no worries in the world. Like all you wanted to do was spoil Max, make him feel even a fraction of how loved and adored you felt on a daily basis.
His knees cracked as he got out of bed, his smile as soft as the morning sun. The smell of burnt toast wafted in lazily as he stretched out a kink in his back, and he knew we was in for a rollercoaster.
Coated in careful sunlight, you stood with your back turned to him, a shirt of his you had stolen weeks ago landing mid-thigh, socks light against the wooden floors. The sight was so domestic it almost sent Max into cardiac arrest.
“What could you possibly be doing at this hour?” He asks, sneaking up behind you before wrapping around you completely. As he breathes you in, you laugh, and he swears it's the best thing he’s ever heard.
You turn in his hold, grinning like a fool in love.
“Happy birthday!” you giggle, peppering his face with kisses, before pressing the softest, most tender to his lips, melting into his hold. The pan begins to smoke behind you, but Max can’t bring himself to care.
For once, he lets go of everything. He forgets the stress of contracts, the media breathing down his neck, the millions of obligations he has to attend to.
For now, it's just the two of you, bathed in a golden glow, dancing around the kitchen like it's the easiest thing on Earth.
And maybe, he figures, that’s how love is supposed to be.
what a fucking way to win your first race as a world champion. at hungary where the team fuckery history has screwed him before. first, get pole with an unreal lap. then when he was stuck behind, stay close behind and manage. the team didn't let him pit, but lando said he had pace, he said he would pull a gap, and boy did he deliver. then to extend that lead and to win. what a driver, what a race, what a win!!!
i’m actually so proud of oscar for standing up for himself today. last year he would’ve just accepted this massive fuck up by the team and never expressed his anger publicly. i’m so fucking glad he stood his ground today and answered back.
landed right on your lap
physical touch headcanons
including | dick grayson, jason todd, tim drake, damian wayne & roy harper
playing | crushed- the neighbourhood
dick grayson
Unbearably touchy. Like, if he’s near you, he HAS to have a hand on your body, mostly for personal comfort and grounding. His go to spot is the small of your back, using it to guide you through places softly and when he wants to show your relationship to others when he gets a tinge of jealousy.
PDA fein. Doesn’t know how to keep it cool and nonchalant, but he made sure it wasn’t something that made you uncomfortable too. This lead to having a golden retriever wrapped around your shoulders in public 75% of the time.
Do not let his charm and confidence fool you, he isn’t above pleading to cuddle with you even if its 37 ºC outside and the AC is broken.
Dick’s willing to do anything to feel your hands glide across his body, doesn’t matter the circumstances (he’s a man in love, hat can he say)
jason todd
Used to love hugs as a kid and would giggle with the BIGGEST smile when grandmas pulled at his cheeks or people petted his head when he did a great job as robin. When he got resurrected all of that changed completely and got actually repulsed and disgusted with the idea of feeling other’s hands or presence near his. Took a lot of therapy to regain the feeling of tolerating a person’s body near his.
He’s now tolerably clingy. He’s not likely to initiate a full-blown cuddle session but he also will never in his life back away when you spread your hands across his shoulders to greet him with a gentle caress.
Nevertheless, when you arrive home after a long day, he is the first one to pull you into his body to completely shield you from the world, tangling his fingers in your hair to bring you some sort of comfort.
Absolutely adores nonsexual intimacy as a whole. Being right beside one another just touching each other without a hint of lust is pretty much his dream. LOVES feeling your weight on top of him, one of the most comfortable things ever.
He’s also quite shy with his scars, so when you trail your hands across the ridge of one, he has the involuntary tendency to back away for a bit, habit that changed after years together and lots of reassurance.
tim drake
Cheek kisser. In his mind, the cheek is where he can kiss you anywhere without it being considered very public or outward. It’s very personal for him, okay? Just let him kiss your cheek and kiss his in return.
Loves having your legs placed on his lap while he’s working away at whatever. His hands will absentmindedly start drawing circles on your muscles, bringing comfort for the both of you in an easy, calming way.
His dream date with you is just hanging out with the other, sharing soft touches and having private conversations about everything and nothing at all. He likes feeling your body near his, warm limbs stretching over his body.
His all-time favourite cuddling position is having your head on top of his chest, either laying there and tracing patterns on his body or you looking up at him, just staring in each other eyes fondly (he still believes the eyes are the entrance to the soul).
He’s pretty open to PDA, really, really chill with it. Hand on your waist, clasping your hands together, he likes both being touchy-feely and not being touched at all. He goes with the flow.
damian wayne
Will absolutely refuse to touch you except the occasional graze until the two of you are dating and have had a long conversation about boundaries and how you feel about certain things. After he gets the green lights, he’ll be like a stray kitten, slowly but surely experimenting with what the both of you enjoy and find relaxing and reassuring.
FOREHEAD KISSES. Whenever you two see each other, automatically you tilt your head in a way that he has learnt that is an indicator for him to press his lips to the top of your head. Will also be content with a kiss to the back of your hand, but he reserves that for more intimate moments for the two of you.
Nuzzling his head in the crook of your neck is his love language at this point. The second you step inside the safety of your home, he steps away from what he’s doing to greet you properly and exhale deeply into your neck, using the opportunity to press a kiss there too.
Loves cuddling while each one is doing their own thing; is definitely more of a quality time guy but gets clingy regularly (refuses to admit it).
roy harper
He’s a MAN: if you are in the vicinities, you WILL have his hand splayed either on your thighs or your waist, depending on how it’s more comfortable to you.
Roy’s more subtle with his clinginess, so cuddle sessions are a bit rarer but very welcome either way.
Doesn’t shy away from PDA. If you two are dating, everybody knows it not because of how you two are always together on some random side quest, but rather by the knowing smile on his face and a firmer hold on you.
Likes to carry you around, doesn’t matter if the activity is a one-person task, you are either in his back, his shoulders or his arms. Also uses the opportunity to make a subtle display of his strength, but don’t tell him you are very much aware of that.
Damian Wayne is the clingiest sleepy boyfriend imaginable. though, he'd never admit that. every night he is practically your body guard.
The manor was quiet in the way only deep nights could be — the kind of silence that made every creak of the old floorboards feel louder than it should. You woke up slowly, blinking against the darkness, your throat dry and your mind fuzzy from a half-remembered dream. The clock on the nightstand read 3:42am. You’d only been asleep for a few hours, but your body was already demanding water.
You tried to slip out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Damian. He was curled up beside you, one arm draped possessively over your waist even in sleep, his breathing deep and even. His dark hair was messy against the pillow, his face relaxed in a way it rarely was during the day. You smiled softly, brushing a stray strand from his forehead before easing out from under his arm.
The second your feet touched the floor, he stirred.
“Mm… where are you going?” His voice was thick with sleep, rough and low, but his hand reached out immediately, fingers brushing your wrist.
“Just getting water,” you whispered, squeezing his hand. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be right back.”
He made a small, discontented sound, but his eyes stayed closed. You padded to the bathroom, the cool tile under your feet a relief. You filled a glass from the sink, sipping slowly, listening to the quiet drip of the faucet. When you turned to leave, Damian was standing in the doorway, hair even messier, eyes half-open, wearing his sleeping shorts and an old t-shirt.
You nearly jumped. “Damian? What are you doing up?”
He shrugged, stepping closer. “Making sure you don’t hurt yourself." fall in the toilet.”
You stared at him, trying not to laugh. “I’m not going to hurt myself getting water. I’m a grown woman.”
He crossed his arms, looking adorably stubborn even half-asleep. “The floor is slippery at night. And you’re tired. I’m just… being cautious.”
You smiled, setting the glass down and stepping into his space. He immediately wrapped his arms around you, pulling you against his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world. His chin rested on your head, warm and solid.
“You’re clingy when you’re sleepy,” you teased softly, fingers tracing patterns on his back.
“I am not clingy,” he muttered, but his arms tightened around you. “I’m… protective. There’s a difference.”
You laughed quietly, nuzzling into his neck. “Sure. Protective of me falling into the toilet or something at 3am.”
He huffed, but didn’t let go. Instead, he walked you back to the bed, still holding you close, and pulled you down with him. You ended up curled against his chest, his arm draped over your waist, leg tangled with yours. He pressed a soft kiss to your hair, already drifting back to sleep.
“Stay,” he mumbled. “Please.”
You smiled against his skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He made a small, contented sound and held you tighter.
The next night, it happened again.
You woke up around 2am, needing the bathroom. The second your feet hit the floor, once again; Damian stirred beside you. This time he didn’t even pretend to be asleep. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, hair sticking up in every direction.
“I’ll come with you,” he said, voice gravelly.
You turned, smiling in the dark. “Damian, I can go to the bathroom by myself. I’ve been doing it for years.”
He frowned, already swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “The hallway is dark. And cold. You might trip.”
You laughed softly, but let him follow you anyway. He walked beside you the whole way, one hand on your lower back like he was ready to catch you if you stumbled. When you reached the bathroom door, he waited outside, leaning against the wall until you came out. Then he took your hand, leading you back to bed without a word.
Once you were both under the covers, he pulled you against his chest again, arms wrapping around you like a shield. His chin rested on your head, breath warm against your hair.
“I'll say it again. you're clingy,” you whispered, smiling.
“I am not,” he muttered, but his hold tightened. “I’m… ensuring your safety. That’s all.”
You kissed his collarbone. “Well I love your version of safety.”
He made a small, pleased sound and fell back asleep almost immediately, holding you like you might vanish if he let go.
It became a pattern.
Every night, no matter how deeply he slept, the second you moved, Damian was awake. If you got up for water, he followed, standing in the doorway like a silent guardian. If you had a nightmare and sat up gasping, he was there instantly, pulling you into his arms, murmuring soft reassurances in Arabic until you calmed down. If you simply rolled over, he’d reach out, hand finding yours under the covers, lacing your fingers together like he needed the connection to stay asleep.
During the day, he was the same reserved, slightly arrogant Damian Wayne the world knew — blunt, focused, keeping everyone at arm’s length. But at night, in the quiet dark of your shared room, he was soft. Clingy. Needy in a way he’d never admit.
One particularly cold night, you woke up shivering. Before you could even reach for the extra blanket, Damian was already moving. He pulled you closer, wrapping his arms and legs around you like a human blanket, his body heat seeping into yours. His face pressed against your neck, breath warm and steady.
“Cold?” he mumbled, half-asleep.
“A little,” you whispered, smiling as you snuggled into him. “You’re warm though.”
He made a small, contented sound, nuzzling closer. “Stay close then. I’ve got you.”
You fell back asleep like that — wrapped up in Damian Wayne, his arms around you, his leg thrown over yours, like he couldn’t bear even an inch of space between you.
In the morning, he’d wake up first, as always. He’d slip out of bed quietly, pretending the clingy boy from the night before had never existed. He’d make coffee, set out your favourite mug, and act like nothing had changed. But you’d catch him watching you with that soft look when he thought you weren’t looking. And when you’d smile at him across the table, he’d blush faintly and look away, ears pink.
But at night, he’d reach for you again. Every single time.
Because no matter how much he denied it during the day, Damian Wayne was the clingiest sleepy boyfriend in the world. And you wouldn’t have him any other way.
A/N: lil guy so cute I love him sm. sorry for constantly disappearing im lowkey setting up a queue rn
damian wayne who always finds a reason to touch you.
damian despises pda. he’s too proud and too disciplined to let anyone but you witness him being even slightly soft. however, when the two of you are alone and in the comfort of each other’s presence, every rule he has about showcasing affection fades away.
if he’s handing you something, even a mere water bottle, he’ll extend his arm a fraction more than necessary just to ensure that your fingers brush his during the exchange. the touch is featherlight—so light that it could be excused as a simple accident, but you both know the truth.
in the same way, you could trip over a cable or a loose rug and he’ll place a hand on your waist to steady you, muttering a low, “watch your step, habibti.” even though you don’t need it, his hand will stay for a beat longer, as if reassuring himself that you’re still there and still safe.
if you were to point it out?
“there was simply an eyelash on your face,” after he cradles your cheek with his hand, lightly brushing your skin with his thumb like you’re something that belongs in a highly guarded museum.
“it was blocking your eyesight. it’s a hazard,” when he ever so softly tucks the thinnest, least hazardous strand of hair behind your ear.
of course, he’ll never admit it. whenever you try to tease him about it, he’ll tell you that you’re reading too much into it, but the tips of his ears always tint the faintest red.
it’s not in an obsessive way, like he just has to touch you to show control or stake a claim. instead, it’s as though you have some sort of magnetic pull on him, one he could never resist if he wanted to. a pull that makes him long for the warmth of you, and he can only fulfill that longing with light brushes of skin in private.
yet, somehow, the subtle touches and quick grazes mean more to both of you than any public gesture ever could.
summary : when you're taken by an unsub who holds a peculiar grudge against your father, seven minutes make a hell of a difference between life and death.
warnings : angst with maybe -45% comfort ( THIS MEANS NEGATIVE 45 NOT AROUND 45 PLS USE UR BRAINS I CANNOT KEEP EXPLAINING IT) kidnapping, torture, mentions of harm being done to other people, completely made up plot btw so no spoilers for the actual show, spencer losing his shit, established relationship
word count : 9.5 k
a/n : as usual, not proofread ! probably about season 10-11!reid as in looks reference but the plotline is all over the place so uhm sorry abt that i was legit js pulling shit from my criminal minds memory bank and shoved them all together... so yeah defo not season-wise accuracy. (the crash is based on s13 so lil spoilers on that... and i also looked up every technical term i could think of to make spencer sound accurate so uh) enjoy !
Spencer's hands are careful as he fastens your bulletproof vest over your chest, his brows furrowed. The fluorescent lights of the bullpen wash him pale, catching the faint shadows under his eyes from too many nights spent buried in files.
“You tightened it too much,” you mumble, wincing as he tugs the straps.
“It’s supposed to be tight,” he says automatically, not looking up.
“Pretty sure breathing is also supposed to happen.” That finally earns you a glance. Not amused. Just worried.
“You joke when you’re nervous.”
“And you lecture when you are.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. My lungs would like to file a formal complaint.” His mouth twitches despite himself, but it disappears almost immediately. Spencer smooths his hand over the front of the vest one last time, checking for gaps like he doesn’t trust the fabric to do its job properly. You study him for a second.
“You know,” you say quietly, “most people just say ‘be careful.’”
“I did say that.”
“Three times.”
“Because you ignored me the first two.” A snort escapes you, but it fades when you notice the way his fingers linger near your ribs. Restless. Anxious.The case had gotten ugly fast.Three victims in four days. All connected to the Bureau in some way. Retired agents. Informants. One federal prosecutor. And now the unsub had escalated from taunting the BAU to targeting your father directly. Aaron Hotchner had made enemies before. Plenty of them. But this one felt different.
Personal.
The unsub had been sending photographs for weeks now. Grainy shots of Hotch entering Quantico. Jack at soccer practice. You grabbing coffee outside the bullpen with Spencer. Watching. Waiting. The latest message had arrived that morning.
Tick tock, Hotchner.
And underneath it:
What hurts worse? Losing your team… or your daughter?
Hotch had gone frighteningly still when Garcia read it aloud. You’d watched the muscle in his jaw tick once before he started assigning teams like the world wasn’t tilting beneath his feet. Now the bullpen buzzes around you—agents moving quickly, radios crackling, Emily and JJ arguing quietly over routes—but Spencer still hasn’t stepped back.
“Spence,” you say softly. His eyes flick to yours immediately. “I’ll be okay.” The problem is he doesn’t answer. Because Spencer Reid has seen too many people promise that before bleeding out anyway. Behind you, your father emerges from his office already shrugging into his jacket.
“We hit the road in two,” Hotch says. The entire room shifts instantly into motion. Spencer finally lets go of your vest, though reluctantly, like peeling his hands away from something important.
“You stay with Luke,” he says firmly. “Don’t split up. Don’t go anywhere alone." You blink at him.
“Wow. You and my dad should start a podcast.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re always serious.”
“That’s statistically inaccurate.” That almost gets a real smile out of you.Almost. Then Hotch’s voice cuts through the bullpen again.
“Let’s move.” You reach up and pull Spencer down towards you, catching his lips in a quick kiss as your dad, Luke, Walker and Emily all walk towards the black SUV's waiting for you downstairs.
The kiss barely lasts two seconds.
Still, Spencer chases it for half a heartbeat when you pull away, his hand catching briefly at your wrist like he’s fighting the urge to keep you there.
“Be careful,” he says quietly. You soften a little at the look on his face.
“Spence, we’re literally just surveilling a warehouse.”
“That statement significantly increases the statistical likelihood something catastrophic is about to happen.” Luke snorts from beside the elevators.
“He’s got a point.” You roll your eyes, backing toward the bullpen doors.
“You’re all dramatic.” Hotch appears behind you, expression unreadable but tired in the way only your father can manage.
“Move.”And just like that, the moment’s over. Everyone scatters into motion.
The unsub’s name is Daniel Kessler.
Former paramedic. Former military. Smart enough to stay ahead of the BAU for six weeks and angry enough to make mistakes.
More specifically: angry at Aaron Hotchner.
Three years ago, Hotch testified in a corruption case involving Kessler’s brother. The brother went to prison. Died there eleven months later.
Kessler blamed Hotch.
And now bodies were piling up across Virginia with surgical precision and handwritten messages left behind at each scene.
The latest lead had come fast—a possible location tied to one of Kessler’s shell companies just outside Quantico. Which was why the team was mobilizing so quickly. Three SUVs. Hotch and Rossi in the first. JJ and Tara in the second. You, Luke, Emily, and Walker in the third. Spencer stayed behind with Garcia to monitor incoming intel. He looked miserable about it.
At first, the drive is almost painfully normal. Walker’s driving. Emily sits shotgun flipping through case notes while Luke scrolls through updates on his phone beside you in the backseat. Rain taps softly against the windows. The highway stretches dark and endless ahead of you. Your phone buzzes.
SPENCE
You forgot your scarf.
You smile despite yourself.
YOU
Tragic. I’ll hold a funeral later.
Three dots appear immediately.
Then:
SPENCE
Funny people are statistically more likely to survive traumatic situations.
You bark out a laugh. Luke glances over.
“Pretty Boy?”
“Unfortunately.” Emily sighs dramatically from the front seat.
“You two are disgusting.”
“You say that like you haven’t watched them stare at each other for ten straight minutes in briefing rooms,” Walker says.
“I have,” Emily replies. “That’s why I said it. I've also watched them pine for each other for years. This sudden shift in dynamics is weird. I honestly liked it better when Reid was all stuttery and shy around her."
"We didn't pine." You grumble, shifting in your seat. Four separate looks immediately get directed at you. Luke actually lowers his phone.
“Be serious.”
“He wrote you a six-page apology because he accidentally snapped at you once,” Emily says to absolutely no one’s surprise.
Walker snorts from the driver’s seat.
“Reid used to look like he was being held hostage every time she touched him.”
“He still does sometimes,” Luke says.
“Okay, wow,” you mutter. Emily twists slightly in her seat to look back at you.
“Sweetheart, he once walked into the glass conference room wall because you smiled at him.”
“That happened one time.”
“Twice,” Luke corrects. Walker laughs.
“Nah, my favorite was the coffee thing.” You narrow your eyes.
“What coffee thing?”
“You brought him coffee every morning for like eight months,” Walker says.
“Because he forgets to eat when he’s working.”
“And Reid started memorizing your coffee order after day two,” Emily adds smugly. Luke points between all of you.
“See, this is why none of us were shocked when they finally got together.”
“You were all shocked,” you argue.
“We were shocked it took this long,” Emily corrects. Emily cackles. “You're dating a textbook.”
“A very pretty textbook,” you mumble before thinking better of it. Unfortunately the entire car hears you. Walker makes a wounded sound.
“Oh, that’s disgusting.” Emily clutches her chest dramatically.
“No, let her continue. This is healing me.” You flip her off from the backseat. Rain continues tapping softly against the windshield as the SUV speeds down the dark stretch of highway. The radio crackles quietly every few seconds with updates from the other cars. Somewhere ahead, Hotch and Rossi are already discussing entry routes. JJ’s voice cuts in briefly over comms before fading back out. For a moment, everything feels strangely normal.
Easy.
Luke elbows you lightly.
“You know Reid almost called Hotch Sr when he asked permission to ask you out.” Your head whips toward him.
“What?” Emily bursts into delighted laughter.
“He did.” Walker nearly misses the curve in the road because he’s laughing too hard now.
“No he did not.”
“Oh, he absolutely did,” Emily says. “Hotch just stared at him for like ten full seconds while Reid visibly aged.” Luke deepens his voice badly in imitation. “‘Agent Hotchner, respectfully, I was wondering if—’”
“Stop talking,” you groan.
“—if your daughter would potentially—’”
“You’re all dead to me.” Emily wipes tears from under her eyes.
“Your father looked so uncomfortable.” Walker grins into the rearview mirror.
“Honestly brave of Reid. I’d rather fistfight a bear than ask Hotch for dating permission.”
“He didn’t ask permission,” you defend automatically. Luke raises an eyebrow.
“He absolutely did.” Luke laughs. And for one perfect, stupid second, everything feels fine.
Then you see it. Up ahead. Small. Sharp. Metal glinting beneath the headlights. Your stomach drops instantly.
“Walker—” Too late. The SUV hits the spike strips hard. The sound is explosive. All four tires blow at once.
"Shit !" Walker jerks the wheel violently as the vehicle fishtails across the slick highway. Emily shouts something.
"Everybody hold on !" Luke grabs for the handle above the door. Your seatbelt locks brutally across your chest as the world spins sideways.
Then— Headlights. Blinding. A truck horn screaming— And impact. Metal shrieks. Glass detonates. Your body whips sideways so hard your vision whites out completely. Something slams into your ribs.
When you wake up, you can’t breathe. Pain hits first. Not sharp. Everywhere. Burning agony flooding through every inch of your body like someone poured gasoline into your veins. A broken sound leaves your throat. Smoke curls through the crushed SUV. Your head lolls sideways. Everything looks wrong. The windshield is gone. The dashboard is crumpled inward. Blood streaks the windows. Your seatbelt digs painfully into your chest. For a second you can’t understand why your left arm won’t move properly. Then feeling rushes back all at once and you nearly black out again.
“Fuck—” Your voice comes out shredded. You force your head up. Emily’s slumped against the passenger door, unmoving, blood running down the side of her face. Luke’s crumpled awkwardly beside you.
Walker— Walker’s head hangs at an angle that makes your stomach twist violently. Too still. Far too still.
“Walker,” you croak. No response. You try again, panic climbing your throat. You reach forward, wincing at the pull of your seat belt, shaking him. “Walker!” His entire body slumps forward, head landing on the steering wheel with a deafening thud. You bite back the bile threatening to spew out of you, your vision tunneling as you jerk back. Your chest caves inward.
Oh God. Smoke thickens around you. The car groans. Somewhere outside, people are shouting. You fumble clumsily for the seatbelt release with trembling fingers. It finally clicks. The second it unlatches, your body pitches forward violently and agony tears through your side hard enough to make you scream. Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong. You look down. Blood. So much blood. A jagged piece of metal protrudes from beneath your ribs. Your vision flickers.
“No no no—” The driver-side door suddenly jerks open. Cold rain floods in. A man appears beside the wreckage wearing EMT gear. Reflective jacket. Medical gloves. Calm eyes. Relief crashes through you so hard you almost cry.
“Ma'am,” he says firmly. “Stay still.” You nod weakly.
“My-My friends - Please you have to-” Your eyes dart around, trying to catch a glimpse of the other cars. You can see smoke and fire from somewhere behind you, and panic claws up your throat. "Oh, god- my-my dad is in- please, you have to-"
“We’ll get them,” he says quickly. “I need to move you first.” Your brain feels slow. Foggy. He cuts through your vest with terrifying efficiency. Strong hands slide beneath your arms. Pain explodes through your abdomen as he pulls you free from the wreckage. You scream.
“I know,” he says soothingly. “I know. I got you.” Rain pours down around you. Lights flash red and blue across the highway. Your head lolls weakly against his shoulder as he carries you toward the ambulance. You can barely keep your eyes open. Your body feels heavy.
Wrong.
“Dad,” you mumble. “Need my dad—”
“We already got the two other cars evacuated. We have extra RA's en route to escort your friends to the hospital. Your father is waiting for you there.” the EMT says. You nod, rain soaking your clothes. He loads you onto the stretcher. The ambulance doors stand open behind you.
Then— Movement. Across the wreckage. Another SUV. Crushed against the guardrail. And stumbling out of it— Hotch.
Your father can barely stand. Blood runs down the side of his face. One arm hangs limp. But the second his eyes land on you— Pure horror floods his expression.
“Sweetheart !” Your breath catches.
What ?
Your breath catches. The EMT had said Hotch was already at the hospital. Your stomach drops so violently it almost makes you vomit.
No.
No, no—
Hotch stumbles forward through the rain, slipping against the soaked pavement as he tries to run toward the ambulance. Rossi is behind him shouting for medics, for backup, for somebody to stop the vehicle, but your father’s eyes are locked entirely on you. On the man beside you. And suddenly you understand. The EMT’s hand tightens on the stretcher rail.
“Wait,” you whisper. Hotch sees your expression change.
“No!” he roars. The ambulance doors slam shut. The sound nearly knocks the air out of your lungs. Panic detonates through your body. You jerk upright instantly despite the agony ripping through your abdomen.
“Stop the fucking ambulance!” you scream, scrambling backward across the stretcher. Pain tears through your ribs so hard your vision whites out, but adrenaline keeps you moving. “Stop—” The EMT grabs for you. You swing first. Your fist cracks against his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. For one glorious second, he actually looks surprised.
“Bitch,” he mutters. You lunge for the door handles. Your blood-slick fingers almost catch them before he hauls you backward violently. Agony explodes through your side and a scream rips out of your throat. Outside the tiny rear windows, you can still see your father. Hotch is running after the ambulance. Actually running. Broken. Bleeding. Desperate.
“Dad!” you sob, slamming your palm against the doors. “Dad!” The ambulance swerves sharply.
The EMT hooks an arm around your waist and drags you back against him with brutal force. You fight instantly, elbows flying despite the pain.
“Get the fuck off me!” you choke out.
“Jesus Christ,” the man snarls, struggling to keep hold of you. “You really are his kid.” Something cold presses suddenly against your neck. A syringe. Your blood runs cold.
“No—” The needle plunges into your skin. You gasp sharply and shove at him harder, but your limbs already feel wrong. Heavy. Slow. “No no no—” The man restrains you easily now, forcing you back onto the stretcher as the sedative floods your bloodstream. Your vision starts swimming almost immediately. Outside, through the blurred back windows, you see Hotch reach the ambulance for half a second— His hand slams against the rear doors as he screams your name.
“No !” The sound breaks something inside you. Then the ambulance surges forward. And your father disappears into rain and flashing lights. Your body stops cooperating.
Your arms feel numb.
Your heartbeat echoes strangely in your ears.
The EMT pulls off his mask calmly while you struggle weakly beneath him.
Not an EMT.
Kessler.
You recognize him now. The eyes. Cold. Empty. Patient.
“You should’ve stayed still,” he says, almost disappointed. Your mouth won’t work properly anymore.
“You…” you slur weakly. Kessler sighs, pushing you flat against the stretcher as your body goes limp beneath his hands.
“Relax,” he murmurs. “You’re bleeding internally. This is keeping you alive.” You try to fight him again anyway. Your hand barely lifts. Kessler watches you with detached fascination.
"Let's see if Aaron Hotchner's precious daughter is more important than putting me behind bars." He grabs another needle and grabs you arm.
You try to fight back- God, you try.
But your body feels like it's been filled with concrete, like your veins are hardening with every passing second, weighing you down.
Kessler grins.
"Sweet dreams."
-----------------
"Aaron- Aaron, listen to me-" Rossi is waving his arms in front of Hotch as real sirens flood the space. Emily crawls out of the car, coughing and bleeding from her temple, her hand pressed to her side as she limps her way over to Luke's side of the car and tugs him out. JJ stumbles from another wreckage, waving her hand in front of her face as she coughs, a large gash running down the side of her arm. Tara doesn't look badly hurt, just concussed as she stumbles down the stretch of highway, her hand pressed to her head in confusion as Derek helps her forward.
And Aaron Hotchner can't fucking breathe.
"N-No, we- we have to go after her." He rasps, shaking his head. "The ambulance didn't have a license plate but-but it was him. It was him, Dave." Rossi grabs Hotch hard by the shoulders.
“Aaron!” Hotch’s chest heaves violently. Rain pours down his face, mixing with blood from the cut at his hairline. His eyes are locked on the empty stretch of highway where the ambulance disappeared into the storm.
“The ambulance didn’t have plates,” he says again, voice shredded raw. “It was him. Dave, it was fucking him.” Behind them, chaos erupts across the crash site. Actual EMTs flood the highway now, shouting over each other as they move between the wrecked SUVs. Red and blue lights flash violently across twisted metal and shattered glass. Somebody yells for extraction tools. Another medic shouts about fuel leakage. Walker’s body is finally pulled from the front seat. Emily sees the tarp being unfolded and stops dead.
“No,” she whispers. Luke catches her arm before she can stumble forward. JJ presses a trembling hand over her mouth, blood still running down her forearm. Tara stands dazed beside Derek, one hand against her temple as she tries to process the devastation around her. For one horrible moment, nobody speaks. Then the highway explodes back into noise.
“Aaron,” Rossi says again, more firmly this time. “Talk to me.” Hotch looks like he can barely breathe.
“She saw me,” he rasps. “She looked right at me.” His voice breaks on the last word. Dave’s stomach twists. Because Aaron Hotchner does not break. Not like this. “She realized it wasn’t real,” Hotch says, staring blankly down the road. “She started fighting him.” Emily looks up sharply.
“What?” Hotch drags a hand over his bloodied face.
“He was dressed like an EMT.” His breathing turns uneven. “I thought she was being transported until I saw—” He cuts himself off hard. Too late. Rossi catches it immediately.
“What did you see?” Aaron closes his eyes for one second too long. When he opens them again, there’s something almost haunted sitting behind them.
“She was hurt.” The team goes still.
“How bad?” JJ asks quietly. Hotch swallows.
“I don’t know.” Lie. Everybody hears it. Aaron’s jaw tightens violently. “There was blood,” he says carefully, like each word physically hurts. “A lot of blood.” Emily’s face drains of color. Luke curses under his breath.
“She couldn’t move properly,” Hotch continues hollowly. “He had to carry her." Nobody says anything after that. Because they all know what that means. Then headlights tear onto the highway. A black SUV brakes hard across the shoulder. Spencer is out of the vehicle before it fully stops moving. Garcia barely gets the car in park before he’s sprinting after him.
“Hotch!” Spencer shouts, panic already threading through his voice as he takes in the wreckage. “What happened?” Garcia steps out behind him—and freezes completely.
“Oh my God.” The highway looks apocalyptic. Smoke. Rain. Crushed SUVs. Flashing lights reflecting off blood-slick pavement. Spencer eyes scan frantically across the scene.
JJ.
Emily.
Luke.
Tara.
Derek.
Rossi.
Hotch.
His stomach drops. Because you’re not there. Spencer’s breathing changes instantly.
“Where is she?” Nobody answers quickly enough. And terror detonates behind his ribs. “Where is she?” Emily looks away. Garcia starts crying immediately. Spencer stares at them.
“No.” Luke steps forward carefully.
“Reid—”
“No.” The word cracks out of him violently. “What happened?” Hotch finally steps toward him, rain dripping from his ruined suit.
“Kessler staged the crash,” he says hoarsely. “He took her.” Spencer just stares at him. Like the sentence physically does not make sense.
“Took her?” he repeats faintly.
“The ambulance was fake,” Rossi says grimly. “He disguised himself as an EMT.” Garcia lets out a broken sob behind them. Spencer’s face goes completely white.
“When?” he asks.
“Less than four minutes ago,” Luke says. “Local units are already searching—” Spencer looks immediately at Hotch. Not Rossi. Not Emily. Hotch. Because Hotch saw her last. And Aaron realizes Spencer already knows that too. Their eye contact lasts half a second. It’s enough. Spencer’s expression changes instantly.
“How bad was she hurt?” Hotch doesn’t answer quickly enough. Spencer takes a step forward. “How bad?” Aaron looks wrecked. Actually wrecked.
“She was conscious,” he says carefully.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Aaron,” Rossi warns quietly. But Spencer doesn’t look away from Hotch. Hotch exhales shakily through his nose.
“There was blood.” Spencer’s breathing stutters.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.” Another lie. Spencer hears that one too. And suddenly he looks furious. Terrified, grieving, furious. “She couldn’t move on her own,” Hotch admits quietly. “He carried her into the ambulance.” Garcia breaks down harder behind them and Derek crosses the space immediately to grab onto her. Spencer physically sways where he stands. For a second it looks like he might actually collapse. Then his face hardens into something sharp enough to cut glass.
“What direction?” Hotch blinks.
“Reid—”
“What direction did he go?”
“Eastbound,” Hotch answers carefully. Spencer immediately turns toward Garcia’s SUV. Hotch grabs his arm before he gets two steps. “You are not going alone.” Spencer jerks free instantly. His eyes are glassy with panic now.
“You let her get in that ambulance.” The words hit like a gunshot. Silence crashes down around the wreckage. Spencer looks horrified the second he says it. Because he knows exactly who he just said it to. A father who watched his daughter get kidnapped while injured and bleeding. Hotch recoils anyway. Not angry. Just devastated.
“I know,” he says quietly. That destroys Spencer more effectively than shouting ever could. His face crumples. Rain pours around all of you in endless sheets as sirens scream across the highway.
And somewhere out there— You’re alone with Kessler.
--------
When you come to, the first thing you feel is that the pain at your abdomen has lessened.
It’s still there.
Deep. Burning. Wrong.
But dulled somehow, like your body’s been wrapped in cotton. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy as you force them open. Darkness swims above you for a second before dim industrial lights sharpen into focus overhead. Concrete ceiling. Rusted pipes. Water dripping somewhere nearby in slow, echoing intervals. Your wrists jerk instinctively.
Metal rattles. Cold panic slams into you. You're strapped upright to some kind of steel chair bolted into the floor. Thick restraints pin your wrists and chest in place. Your injured side throbs violently when you struggle, making black spots burst across your vision.
“Easy. I bandaged you up but you're still actively bleeding out.” The voice comes from somewhere ahead of you. Kessler steps into view calmly, sleeves rolled to his elbows like he’s in the middle of an ordinary workday instead of holding an FBI agent hostage. Your breathing quickens immediately.
“Fuck you,” you rasp. He actually smiles faintly.
“That’s usually the morphine talking." Morphine. That explains the floating feeling in your limbs. You look down quickly. Your vest is gone. Soaked bandages are wrapped tightly around your abdomen beneath a gray thermal shirt that definitely isn’t yours. There’s dried blood everywhere. Along your arms. Beneath your fingernails. Across the floor near the chair. Your stomach twists hard.
“How long—”
“Thirty-six minutes since the crash,” Kessler answers smoothly. Ice floods your bloodstream. The team. Your dad.
“Where are they?” you demand. Kessler ignores the question entirely. Instead, he walks toward a camera mounted on a tripod across the room. And your blood runs cold all over again. “No.” Kessler adjusts the lens casually. “No no no—”
“You know,” he says conversationally, “your father’s reputation in the Bureau is fascinating. Aaron Hotchner. Untouchable. Unshakeable. Men like him always think they understand sacrifice until it becomes personal.” Your restraints clatter violently as you fight them.
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.” He doesn’t even blink. Then he reaches beside the camera and wheels something large into frame. A timer. Digital.
Bright red numbers glaring through the darkness.
00:59:48
Your stomach drops.
“What is that?” Your voice cracks. Kessler finally looks at you directly.
“The amount of time your team has left.” He grabs your arm, sighing as he squeezes and IV bag and mounts it onto the stand beside you.
“Kessler—”
The dosage is regulated electronically.” He taps the pump beside the bag. “Small increments over time. Once the drip reaches completion…” He shrugs lightly. “Multi-organ failure. Cardiac arrest shortly after.”
Your mouth goes dry instantly.
“No.”
“The fascinating thing about poison,” he continues conversationally, “is how personal it feels. Bullets are loud. Explosions are chaotic. But poison?” He tilts his head. “Poison makes people wait.”
Your stomach twists hard enough to make you gag. You stare at him in horror. Then fury detonates through you.
“You’re a fucking coward.” Kessler hums softly.
“And yet your father still can’t catch me.” He presses a button. The camera light turns red.
LIVE.
—————————
The BAU bullpen is chaos. Medics move between injured agents while tech analysts flood every available screen searching traffic cams, road footage, satellite hits—anything. Nobody’s winning. Hotch stands in the center of it all like a ghost. Still covered in blood. Still soaking wet from the rain. Spencer sits at Garcia’s station beside her, fingers flying across the keyboard so fast they blur. His hands are shaking violently.
“Nothing,” Garcia whispers tearfully. “No ambulance hits, no hospital pings, no traffic cams—he scrubbed everything.” Emily presses gauze harder against the cut on her temple.
“He planned this for months.”
“No,” Spencer says instantly. Everyone looks at him. Spencer’s eyes stay locked on the screen. “Longer.” Before anyone can respond— Every monitor in the bullpen flickers. Static crackles. Garcia startles violently., fingers flying over her keyboard, trying to figure out how this is happening. Then your face appears onscreen.
Bruised. Bloodied. Restrained.
The room stops breathing.
“No,” Hotch says faintly. Your head lifts weakly toward the camera, disoriented and terrified and alive. Spencer goes white beside Garcia.
“No…” The digital timer flashes beside you.
00:58:03
“What the hell is that?” Luke breathes. Then Kessler steps into frame. And the entire room explodes into motion.
“Trace it now!” Emily shouts. Garcia is already typing frantically.
“I’m trying!” Kessler looks directly into the camera.
“Good evening, Behavioral Analysis Unit.” Kessler smiles like he’s hosting a lecture instead of a hostage broadcast. Garcia’s hands fly across the keyboard.
“I can’t get a lock—he’s bouncing the signal through multiple servers—oh my God, oh my God—”
“Penelope,” Emily snaps, though her own voice shakes. “Focus.”
“I am focused!” Onscreen, Kessler slowly circles your chair. The camera quality is grainy but clear enough to show the blood staining the bandages around your abdomen. Clear enough to show the IV line running into your arm. And the transparent liquid steadily dripping through the tube. Spencer goes completely still beside Garcia.
Not calm.
Worse.
The kind of stillness that means he’s trying very hard not to completely lose his mind. Your head hangs weakly forward before lifting slightly at the sound of Kessler speaking. Your eyes look unfocused. Drugged. Terrified. The bullpen falls silent. Even the analysts nearby stop moving. Because this isn’t just being streamed to the BAU.
This is public.
News stations are already picking it up. Social media feeds explode in real time across nearby monitors. Millions of people watching an FBI agent tied to a chair with a countdown beside her.
“Aaron Hotchner,” Kessler says smoothly, looking directly into the camera. “You know, I expected someone taller.” Hotch doesn’t react outwardly. But Rossi sees his fist tighten. Sees the blood dripping from where Aaron’s fingernails cut into his own palm.
“You built your career profiling monsters,” Kessler continues. “You taught agents how to think like predators. How to anticipate violence.” He tilts his head slightly toward you. “But you never considered what happens when someone decides to study you instead.” Your breathing trembles onscreen.
“Kessler—” you rasp weakly.
“Shh.” He adjusts the IV line almost tenderly. “You don’t need to talk right now.” Spencer physically flinches. Luke swears violently under his breath.
“The poison entering Agent Hotchner’s daughter’s bloodstream,” Kessler says calmly, “is administered incrementally through an automated pump system. By the time the timer reaches zero…” He smiles faintly. “Well. I imagine your Dr. Reid can explain organ failure better than I can.” All eyes snap toward Spencer automatically. Spencer’s face has gone corpse pale. But his voice still works. Barely.
“It depends on the toxin,” he says mechanically, eyes glued to the screen. “If it’s ricin-based or synthetic colchicine compounds, systemic collapse would begin gradually. Respiratory distress first. Then cardiovascular instability. Seizures. Multi-organ failure—”
“Spencer,” JJ says softly. He cuts himself off instantly. Onscreen, your eyes flutter shut for a second too long.
“Hey,” Kessler says sharply, gripping your jaw hard enough to force your head back up. “Stay awake. It's not fun for our viewers if you die right now." You whimper, trying to inch away from him. He chuckles, low and mean. A broken sound leaves your throat as your body jerks weakly against the restraints. Spencer’s breathing changes instantly.
“What just happened?” Emily demands. Spencer stares at the screen.
“The poison’s already active,” he says quietly. Garcia looks horrified.
“But there’s still fifty-seven minutes left—”
“The timer isn’t for symptom onset.” Spencer swallows hard. “It’s for fatal dosage completion.” Nobody speaks. Onscreen, Kessler steps back toward the camera.
“You have one hour,” he says conversationally. “Find me before the drip finishes…” He shrugs. “And maybe she lives. But I should warn you,” he continues. “Removing the IV incorrectly triggers the failsafe.” He taps the side of the electronic pump. “And if the line stops prematurely…” Another small shrug. “The dosage accelerates.” Garcia lets out a strangled noise.
“That’s impossible,” Luke snaps.
“No,” Spencer says faintly. Everyone looks at him again. Spencer’s eyes stay locked on the screen. “It’s not.” Hotch spins around, his chest heaving.
"Garcia, get me a list of Kessler's known adressesses, a list of his spending info- maybe he rented out a place- i want everything you have on him, now !"
Garcia is already moving before Hotch finishes the sentence.
“I’m on it, I’m on it - okay- okay - ” Her voice is high and strained, fingers slamming across the keyboard like she’s trying to outrun panic itself. Multiple windows open and collapse across her monitors. “Known addresses are mostly burned, he went dark after his brother's death but - there’s financial ghosting here, offshore shells, prepaid infrastructure - he’s not staying anywhere with a paper trail -he’s not staying anywhere period -”
“Focus,” Rossi says sharply, but even he sounds strained now. Emily is already leaning over her shoulder.
“What about municipal access points? Abandoned government facilities?” Luke shakes his head.
“We’re checking transit grids already. He’s not static - he’s moving through infrastructure, not occupying it.” Spencer doesn’t blink.
His eyes are locked on the screen. On you.
00:53:18.
Your head droops again, just slightly, and Spencer’s breath catches so hard it sounds like it hurts.
“Hey,” JJ says quietly, noticing him. “Reid, stay with us.” But he doesn’t answer. Because his brain is already somewhere else. Already rebuilding everything Kessler just showed them.
The IV pump. The feed latency. The lack of metadata. The stabilization pattern. Spencer swallows hard.
“He’s not in a building,” he says suddenly. Garcia looks up.
“What?” Spencer’s voice tightens.
“The signal stability - there’s too little fluctuation for a fixed structure. No HVAC interference, no power grid variance, no reflective bounce patterns consistent with concrete reinforcement -” Emily frowns.
“Then where is he?” Spencer doesn’t look away from the screen.
“Mobile containment unit,” he says. “Or a retrofitted transport shell. Something insulated enough to mask environmental noise.” Luke curses under his breath.
“Like a van.” Spencer shakes his head once.
“Bigger.” Silence. Hotch turns slowly.
“Bus?” Rossi suggests grimly. Spencer finally looks at them.
“No,” he says. “Something that can support medical-grade equipment, power draw for a stabilized livestream, and internal temperature control without drawing attention.” Garcia’s hands freeze mid-type.
“Ambulance.” Spencer nods once. But it doesn’t feel like relief. It feels worse. Because that still leaves too many possibilities. Too many jurisdictions. Too many vehicles. Too much ground to cover while the clock keeps bleeding out.
00:53:04.
Onscreen, Kessler steps back into frame briefly—just enough to adjust something near the IV stand. You flinch sharply. Harder this time. Hotch makes a sound low in his throat—barely audible, but it cuts through the room anyway. Spencer’s hands curl into fists at Garcia’s station.
“Garcia,” he says quickly, voice suddenly urgent. “Cross-reference registered medical transport units within a fifty-mile radius of the crash corridor. Anything that went off-route in the last hour.”
“I’m already - ” Her screen updates rapidly. “Got it, got it - Okay, there’s twelve possible matches - ”
“Twelve,” Luke repeats sharply.
“We don’t have time for twelve,” Emily snaps. Hotch steps forward again.
“Cut it to three,” he orders. “Now.” Garcia swallows hard.
“I can filter by signal - give me thirty seconds - ”
“Twenty,” Hotch says. Nobody argues. Because on the screen— You shift again. Barely conscious. Barely holding on. And Spencer Reid, who has spent his entire life turning chaos into patterns, suddenly looks like he’s staring directly into something he cannot solve fast enough.
Garcia’s screen updates again. Once. Twice. Then locks. Her breath catches so hard it hurts.
“I’ve got him,” she says. Nobody speaks. Hotch turns instantly.
“Where.” Garcia swallows.
“Abandoned agricultural zone outside Leesburg—old county service land. There’s a decommissioned livestock processing facility on the property. Signal’s cleanest there—he’s stationary.” Spencer is already there before she finishes the sentence.
“How far?” he asks immediately. Garcia glances at the route mapping.
“Forty-six minutes,” she says quietly. The number lands like a gunshot. Silence. Emily shakes her head once.
“We don’t have forty-six minutes.” Rossi is already moving toward the SUV.
“Then we don’t waste a second.” Hotch stares at the map like he can force the distance to shrink through sheer will. Spencer’s voice breaks through again, sharper now.
“How long—how long until completion?” Garcia’s fingers tremble over the timer feed.
“Fifty-three minutes,” she whispers.That finally shifts the math in the room. Because everyone understands it at the same time. Forty-six minutes to reach you.Fifty-three minutes until the drip completes.
Seven minutes.
That’s all they’ll have once they get there. Seven minutes to find you. Seven minutes to neutralize Kessler. Seven minutes to keep you alive. Hotch exhales once, slow and controlled—but his eyes are shattered.
“Let's move,” he says. The SUVs tear down the highway in formation, sirens splitting the night open. Inside Hotch’s vehicle, no one speaks anymore unless they have to. The countdown is on every screen.
Every phone. Every live feed Garcia refuses to close.
00:52:41.
Spencer stares at the map overlay like he can bend it into something faster. Luke grips the seat hard enough to go white-knuckled. Emily keeps her eyes forward, jaw tight, blood still drying at her temple. Rossi drives like a man refusing to accept physics as final. Hotch doesn’t move.
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away from the road even once.
“Forty-six minutes,” Luke says quietly, almost to himself. Spencer’s voice is barely audible.
“That’s if nothing goes wrong.” Nobody responds to that. Because they all know what it means.
------------------
00:07:00.
Your body feels like lead.
Your veins are on fire.
Your mouth has gone dry, and you can barely breathe- every breath sounds like a rusty rattle of child's mobile. Your vision flickers in and out like a broken signal. Your body isn’t yours anymore. It’s heavy in the wrong places, light in others. Your fingers twitch weakly against the restraints, but there’s no strength left behind it.
The IV pump beeps steadily beside you. Too steady. Too calm. Like it doesn’t care that you’re dying.
You groan, trying hard to stay awake, to stay concsious.
They're coming for you. They have to be.
The room hums with fluorescent light and something worse underneath it—your heartbeat, irregular now, stumbling against the poison like it’s losing the argument. Kessler circles you slowly, hands behind his back like he’s inspecting something he built.
“Do you know what your father hates most?” he asks lightly. Your head lolls a fraction toward him. It takes effort just to keep your eyes open.
“People like you,” he continues. “Not weak. Not careless. Just… loved.” Your throat tightens. Spencer’s name tries to form in your mind and doesn’t quite make it. Kessler steps closer, studying your face like he’s waiting for something interesting to happen.
“You’re very difficult to break,” he says thoughtfully. “That’s what makes this worth watching.” The IV pump beeps again. Too steady. Too final.
Your fingers twitch weakly against the restraints. Kessler leans in just slightly.
“I wonder how long it takes,” he murmurs, almost curious. “For Aaron Hotchner to choose between duty and family.” Your stomach drops hard.
“Don’t,” you rasp, but it’s barely sound. He smiles faintly.
“Oh, he already has.” And then— The doors behind him explode inward. Not an opening. An impact.
Wood and metal snap as tactical force hits the room like a wave.
“FBI! DOWN!” The shout is immediate chaos. Hotch is first through, weapon up, eyes scanning—locking instantly on you like everything else in the room ceases to exist.
“Aaron!” Rossi calls, sweeping left. Emily and Luke split right. Derek comes in hard behind them, already moving. Kessler barely has time to turn before Hotch has him pinned against the nearest surface, gun pressed high, voice ice-cold.
“Don’t move.” Kessler actually laughs once. Spencer doesn’t even look at him. He’s already across the room. Everything else collapses into noise and motion behind him—Hotch securing Kessler, Rossi shouting commands, Emily cuffing him down—but Spencer doesn’t register any of it. He reaches you like gravity finally remembered him.
“Hey—hey, hey,” he breathes, hands shaking as they go to your face immediately. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Your eyelids flutter.
"Spence ?" He nods, hands working at your restraints atfer he softly tears the IV out of your arm.
"Yeah, yeah, it's me. I'm here, alright, i'm here." Your body falls forward, exhausted, the second those restraints stop holding you up, your body folding like it’s been waiting for permission to collapse. Spencer catches you before you hit the ground. Immediately. Completely.
“No - no, no, no - hey, hey, hey - stay with me,” he says, voice cracking violently as he pulls you into him. “Stay with me, okay? Stay with me-look at me.” Your head lolls against his chest. He’s on the floor now without even realizing it. One arm under your shoulders. One hand pressed hard against the bandages on your abdomen like he can physically stop what’s happening inside you. He looks up, his eyes frantic.
"Derek ! Derek !" He calls as Hotch and the others disappear outside, pushing a cuffed Kessler with them. Derek's head snaps over and his face drains of color.
"Holy shit." He gasps, his chest heaving. Spencer chokes on a sob, pushing your hair away from your face.
"We-We need an ambulance. She-She's losing blood, she-" He gasps in a breath, shaking his head. "He’s got to have—he’s not carrying something like this without a reversal agent.” Spencer doesn’t look away from you. “Shelves,” he says instantly, voice raw but focused only on survival. “Look—look everywhere. Cabinets. Lockboxes. He wouldn’t leave it unbalanced.” Derek moves immediately. The timer ticks down like a taunt.
00:04:53.
Derek rummages through shelves, cabinets, drawers, cursing under his breath as he throws things on the ground. You clutch weakly at Spencer's vest, your hands shaking.
"Spence.." He shushes you, pressing his lips to your forehead.
"Hey, hey, don't talk, okay ? You're going to be fine. Just fine, okay ?"
"I-I'm so cold." You manage, shivers coursing through your body. Spencer grimaces.
"I know, baby, i know." He looks up. "Derek, where the fuck is that antidote !" Derek rips open another metal cabinet so hard the hinge screams in protest.
“I’m looking, I’m looking!” he snaps back, breathless, scanning shelves packed with medical bags, vials, and sealed containers that absolutely should not be here. “This guy is insane—”
Spencer hears none of it anymore. All of it narrows down to you. To the way your fingers are trembling against his vest. To the shallow, uneven rise of your chest. To the way your skin feels wrong beneath his hands—too cold, too fast to lose heat.
“I’ve got you,” he repeats again, but it’s not steady anymore. It’s breaking apart at the edges. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you—just stay with me, okay? Just—just stay with me.” Your head tips slightly against him. And for a second, his entire body goes rigid.
“No,” he whispers immediately, like he can undo it with the word alone. “No, no—hey—look at me. Look at me.”
Your eyes barely open. Barely there. But they do. And it ruins him.
“Got something!” Derek suddenly shouts from the far side of the room. Spencer’s head snaps up so fast it hurts. Derek holds up a small locked case - medical-grade, reinforced, labeled in a way that makes Spencer’s stomach drop immediately. “Is this it?” Derek demands. Spencer doesn’t even hesitate.
“Yes. Yes, that’s it - bring it here, now!” Derek slams it down beside them and Spencer’s hands are shaking so badly he almost fumbles the latch. The lock clicks open.
Inside: syringes. A sealed ampoule. A vial clearly marked in clinical print- ANTIDOTE.
He’s already drawing it up.
“Where do I—”
“Her arm,” Spencer says instantly, tearing his own focus into something sharp and functional because if he doesn’t, he’s going to fall apart completely. “Right arm - no, no - left - there, there - ” Derek moves in, steady hands taking over what Spencer can’t control anymore.
“I’ve got it,” Derek says low. Spencer nods too quickly, not letting go of you for even a second. His other hand stays pressed to your shoulder like an anchor. “Okay,” Derek says. “Injecting now.” The syringe depresses. For half a second, nothing happens. Then your body jerks—just slightly. Spencer makes a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and a sob.
“Hey - hey, hey,” he says immediately, hand cupping your cheek. "You're gonna be okay." But you're still slipping somewhere he can’t follow fast enough. “I’ve got you,” he repeats again, but now it’s desperate. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you - please - please don’t do this - ” Derek looks up sharply at the doorway, where JJ stands frozen.
"We need medical backup now!” JJ nods, rushing away.
Spencer sobs, then immediately chokes on it, pressing your hand tighter against his chest like he can force you to stay by sheer will alone. Footsteps thunder back in—Hotch, Rossi, Emily. Hotch sees you on the floor. And something in his face breaks cleanly. But Spencer can’t look at him. Can’t look at anyone. Because you’re right there in his arms and still not safe.
“Hey,” he whispers, voice collapsing completely now, tears spilling down without permission as he holds you closer. “Hey, hey- don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, okay? Please - please don’t leave me.” Your fingers twitch once.
Weak. Barely there. But it’s enough. Spencer grabs your hand immediately like it’s a lifeline.
“Yeah,” he chokes out, crying openly now, forehead pressing to yours. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. Come back to me. Come back—please, just come back to me.” Your shiver, a soft whimper drawing from your lips.
"I-I'm tired." You manage, shaking your head. Blood from your abdomen is still soaking your shirt, your pants, and Spencer is shaking.
"You-You can't sleep, baby. You have to- You have to stay awake. Keep your eyes open." The antidote has taken effect. The colour that had drained from your skin over the hour is coming back, and your breathing has returned to a normal pace. And the pain flooding back into your body is unbearable. You can feel the blood pumping out of you from your abdomen, and you groan weakly as you try to press your hand over the wound, only to find Spencer's hand already lodged there. You gulp, bringing your hand up to softly touch Spencer's cheek.
"Yo-You came for me." You rasp. Spencer chokes on a laugh, a desperate, wet thing.
"Of course I did." He mumbles. "How could I not ? God.." He gulps, shaking his head. "I love you." You smile, holding back tears as you cough. Your body trembles with shivers, and you groan.
"I-I'm sorry." You rasp, shaking your head. Spencer's heart drops. He shakes his head.
"Hey, hey- no. Don't apologise, you're going to be just fine, okay ? Y-You're going to be fine." You nod, smiling through the pain. You want to believe him.
You really do.
The antidote is working.
Derek said it is. Spencer knows it is. But you’re still so cold. Still shaking in his arms like your body can’t decide whether to stay or let go.
Spencer sniffles, brushing your hair away from your face.
"The ambulance is gonna be here any minute. They're going to make you all better. Okay ?" You nod.
"Okay." You say, forcing a smile, choking on the blood that creeps its way up your throat. "I love you, Spence." You rasp, shaking your head. Spencer’s heart hammers against his ribs, a frantic, desperate drumbeat of denial. He tightens his grip on your hand, bringing it to his lips, pressing a kiss to your cold knuckles.
“Don’t you dare say that like it’s a goodbye,” he orders, his voice a raw, broken thing. “It’s not a goodbye. You hear me? It’s an ‘I’ll see you in a minute.’ We’re going to have so much to talk about. Y-You're gonna rub this in my face, yeah ? Brag about how you-you survived this and i panicked for nothing.” He’s rambling, his brilliant mind reduced to a single, primal function: keep you here. Keep you with him. Your eyes are still on him, but they’re starting to lose focus, the light in them dimming like a candle in a draft. The smile on your lips is a ghost, beautiful and terrifying.
“Spence…” you whisper, and it’s the worst sound he’s ever heard, thin and reedy, threaded with the liquid rattle of fluid in your lungs. “It’s… so quiet.” He doesn’t understand what you mean. The room is chaos-Hotch’s clipped commands, Derek’s frantic pacing, the sound of JJ’s voice on the phone with dispatch. But then he realizes. For you, the world is collapsing. The sounds are fading, the pain is receding, and all that’s left is this.
Him.
“No, no, it’s not quiet,” he argues, his voice rising in panic. “It’s not. Just listen. Listen to me. I’m right here. I’m so loud, remember? You say I never shut up. So just… listen to me. Stay with me.” He’s pressing harder against the wound in your abdomen, a futile, desperate attempt to physically hold your life inside you. His hand is slick, warm, and the smell of copper fills the air, thick and suffocating. It’s the smell of his failure. Your breath hitches, a shallow, wet gasp.
"Tell… tell my dad… I’m sorry.” The words hit Spencer like a physical blow. Dad. Hotch, who is standing just feet away, right behind that door, pacing and shouting orders. Spencer can’t call for him. He can’t give him that. He can’t acknowledge the world beyond the circle of his arms.
“You’ll tell him yourself,” Spencer chokes out, tears streaming down his face, dripping onto your cheeks. “You’ll tell him tonight. When we get home. We’ll order Chinese food and you’ll tell him you’re sorry for worrying him, and he’ll pretend to be mad but he won’t be, and we’ll all be fine. We’ll be fine.” Your fingers, the ones he’s holding, twitch weakly. Your grip loosens. The pressure is gone. “No,” he whimpers, a sound so pathetic and full of pain it doesn’t even sound like him. “No, hold on. Hold my hand. Don’t let go. Don’t you let go of me.” Your eyes open again and you nod. He smiles, kissing your forehead. And then, through the cacophony of his own despair, he hears it. Faint at first, then growing stronger, clearer. A high, insistent wail that cuts through everything else.
Sirens.
Relief so profound it’s dizzying crashes over him. It’s the cavalry. It’s the answer. It’s another chance.
His head snaps up, his tear-blurred vision finding the window ahead.
“Did you hear that? They’re here. They’re almost here.” He looks back down at you, his face breaking into a wild, desperate grin. “You hear that, baby? You hear that? The ambulance is here. They’re here. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” He’s laughing now, a wet, hysterical sound of pure relief, staring at the window as the red and blue lights start to show.
“We did it. We made it. Just hold on. Just a few more seconds. Please, just a few more seconds for me.” He looks back at the doorway, expecting to see the paramedics burst through with their bags and their machines and their magic. But the sirens are still distant, screaming down a street that’s too far away.
He looks back down at you. And the world stops. Your eyes are still open, but they’re not seeing him anymore. They’re fixed on a point just beyond his shoulder, glassy and vacant. The shallow rise and fall of your chest has stilled. The hand he’s clutching is limp and cool in his.
The silence in the room is absolute.
“No,” he whispers. The smile is gone from his face, wiped clean away. “No… no, no, no, no, no.” He shakes his head, a sharp, jerky motion of denial. “Hey… hey, look at me. Look at me. They’re here. The ambulance is here.” He shakes you gently, then a little harder. “Hey.. hey, look at me. You’re not allowed to do this. You’re not allowed to leave me. You hear me? C'mon, this isn't funny." He shakes you."Come on! Look at me.” But you don’t. You can’t. The sirens are closer now, screaming, a piercing, torturous sound. They’re the sound of hope arriving seven minutes too late. The door bursts open. Emily is the first one in, her face flushed and triumphant.
“Spencer! The ambulance is here, they’re coming, they’re—” She stops. Her eyes find Spencer, cradling your still body on the floor, and she sees everything. The blood. The stillness. The absolute, soul-crushing devastation on his face. Her triumphant shout dies in her throat, replaced by a small, choked gasp. Hotch is right behind her. He takes in the scene with one sweeping, all-seeing glance. He sees Kessler’s handiwork, he sees the discarded antidote, he sees Spencer on the floor. And then he sees you. He doesn’t make a sound. The unit chief, the man who faces monsters for a living, simply breaks. His shoulders slump, his face goes slack, and all the color drains from his skin. He stumbles forward a half-step, his hand reaching out, then falling back to his side. He knows. Emily rushes to Spencer’s side, her hand hovering over his shoulder, afraid to touch.
“Spencer…?” He doesn’t answer. He’s lowered his head, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his body wracked with huge, silent, violent sobs that shake him to his core. He holds you tighter, rocking you back and forth, a desperate, rhythmic motion.
And Spencer Reid - who has spent his entire life understanding loss in theory before he ever had to survive it in practice - lets out a sound that is not human.
It rips out of him.
Raw.
Shattered.
“No - no, no, no, please - please, please - ” He pulls you closer instantly, like he can reverse it if he just holds you tighter.
"Reid." Derek's voice echoes around the small space. Spencer shakes his head. Spencer doesn’t hear him anymore.
Doesn’t hear Emily crying.
Doesn’t hear the radio chatter suddenly erupting outside as the medics arrive too late.
He just holds you. Like if he stops, even for a second, the truth will finish settling. Sirens flood the building outside. Red and blue light strobing through the broken doorway.
And still -Spencer is whispering your name into your hair like it’s a spell.
Like it’s the only thing left that still makes sense.
The paramedics finally burst through the doorway, their practiced efficiency grinding to a halt as they take in the scene. No one moves. No one breathes. The paramedics slowly back out of the room, hushed whispers echoing in the small space.
Spencer looks up, devastated.
"No.. No, where are they going ? They-They have to save her, they-"
"Reid." Derek rasps again, wiping at the tears falling down his face. He looks back down at you like it’s instinct, like he can anchor himself in you. But you don’t move. Not even a tremor. Not even the smallest betrayal of life returning. Just stillness. Heavy and final.
Spencer’s breath stutters.
Once. Twice.
Then completely stops behaving like it belongs to him.
His hand shakes as it smooths over your hair. So careful. So tender. Like you’re made of glass and he’s terrified of what happens if he presses too hard.
Emily makes a sound behind him—small, broken, human.
“Spencer…” she tries again, stepping closer like she might physically pull him out of it. But he flinches at her voice like it burns.
“No,” he snaps instantly, sharper than he means it. Then it collapses immediately into desperation. “No, no—don’t—” Hotch is still at the doorway. Still completely still. Like something inside him shut off in self-defense the second he understood. But his eyes don’t leave you. Not once. Not even when Rossi puts a hand on his arm and squeezes like he’s trying to hold him together by force. Spencer presses his forehead to yours again.
Harder this time. Like proximity alone can reverse biology.
“I got you,” he whispers, voice breaking into pieces now. “I got you, I got you, I got you—” His sentences stop making sense. They turn into fragments. Into breath. Into something raw and animal and terrified. “I didn’t—” he chokes, pulling you closer like he can physically shield you from the truth, “I didn’t get here fast enough. I didn’t—I didn’t—”
Derek steps forward again, slower this time. Careful. Like approaching something sacred and shattered.
“Reid,” he says quietly. “Kid…” Spencer shakes his head violently again.
“No,” he says again, but weaker now. So much weaker. “No, no, no- Just - just help her. Just - just fix it. Fix it - please - ” His voice breaks completely on the last word. And then he tries again, because Spencer Reid has always believed that understanding something well enough means you can change it. “If I - if I give her CPR - if I - if we - ” His hands move like they don’t belong to him anymore as they lay you down on the ground, flat on your back.
One presses to your chest. Wrong. Desperate. Begging.
“No!” he shouts suddenly, panicked, frantic. “No, no, I can— I can do it. I can fix it. I can- I can-” His voice disintegrates mid-sentence. Because your body doesn’t respond. Because nothing changes. Because time doesn’t care how hard he tries. And that’s when it hits him all at once.
Not gradually. Not gently. All at once. Spencer goes completely still.
His hands freeze where they are on you. His breath catches like it’s been hooked on something sharp. He falls backwards, his hands coated in blood coming up to press against his eyes as he sobs. Emily is by his side in an instant, pulling him into her, rocking him as Derek sniffles and gets to his feet, walking over to your and softly guiding your eyes shut. Hotch swears under his breath, wrecked sobs escaping him, and he turns away from you, gasping for air as he rushes out into the night. Luke, Tara, JJ and Rossi have gathered in the doorway, watching as Derek grabs a folded sheet from one of the drawers and lays it down over you, clearing his throat.
"The- uh, the EMT's should come back in here. Take-" He clears his throat, "Take her to the morgue."
The timer beeps behind them like some sick alarm clock. They all look back and the flashing numbers.
ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ Jason starts growing facial hair again and he doubts he's young enough to go through a teenage phase. Good thing you know how to shave.
pls read a/n at the end before replying !!
aka ›››› “Look at that,” you murmur. “Sexy jawline coming back.” “Never left,” Jason says automatically with a shit eating grin.
Jason has started growing facial hair again.
It’s such a stupid, ordinary sentence that it almost feels like it belongs to someone else’s life. Some other twenty-two-year-old who wakes up in a cramped apartment with morning light slipping through crooked blinds and worries about things like razors and bad lighting and whether stubble makes him look older than he is.
Not him.
His face is a map of healed disasters—thin white lines cutting through his brows, the faint pucker near his jaw, the uneven texture along his cheekbone where skin never quite settled back into what it was meant to be. There was a time when even the thought of hair growing there felt impossible. He remembers the chemical sting, remembers laughter echoing too loud in a warehouse that smelled like rust and rot and something sweetly corrosive.
The Joker had called it “light acid.”
As if acid could ever be light.
As if anything about it had been.
After that, hair just… didn’t grow. Not where it should have. Not where other boys his age complained about patchy beards and uneven sideburns and the awkward in-between stage of becoming something older.
Jason never got that stage.
He went from boy to broken and skipped the mundane humiliations in between.
Until now.
At twenty-two, standing barefoot in front of the narrow bathroom mirror in his apartment in Gotham City, Jason Todd squints at his reflection and feels something dangerously close to disbelief.
There is hair there.
Not much. Not thick. But there. Real.
Dark stubble shadows his jaw, uneven and stubborn, catching the early gray light filtering in through the frosted window. He drags his thumb over it once, slow, like he expects it to come away empty.
It doesn’t.
The memory surfaces uninvited—your voice last night, half-breathless and laughing when you pulled him back just enough to complain that it was itchy, that it scratched when he was feasting on you like he hadn’t eaten in days. You’d swatted at his shoulder and told him to shave.
It hadn’t been an attempt to redirect your mouth onto him for once like he thought.
Not that time.
“Oh, god,” he mutters now, staring harder at the mirror.
He looks dreadful.
That’s the numb, dawning realization settling into him as he takes in the rest. The hollows beneath his eyes are darker than usual, bruised crescents that no amount of sleep seems to erase. His nose looks a little more crooked than he swears it did yesterday. His hair—thick, black, unruly—is sticking up at impossible angles like he lost a fight with his pillow and didn’t bother winning.
He leans closer.
At least his skin looks better.
That part softens something in him.
You had noticed it two nights ago when he complained, voice rough and embarrassed, about it feeling irritated again—too tight, too sensitive along the old scar tissue. You hadn’t teased him. You just disappeared into the bathroom and came back with that stupidly expensive face cream you insist on buying, the one that smells faintly of lavender and something warm.
He grumbled the whole time.
You ignored him the whole time.
In the dark, your fingers had worked carefully over his face—gentle where the scars pull, slower along the places that still ache when the weather shifts. You’d murmured nonsense into the quiet, soft praise and softer affection, lips brushing his temple between instructions to stop fidgeting. He remembers the weight of you leaning over him, the warmth of your thighs against his hips, the way your thumbs smoothed over his brow like you were trying to iron out something deeper than irritated skin.
Jason had fallen asleep like that.
Just like that.
He doesn’t remember the moment it happened. Just remembers waking up tangled in you and the faint trace of lavender still clinging to him.
“I knew it was hair!”
Your voice slices cleanly through his thoughts.
He flinches slightly before catching himself, then groans under his breath as you pad into the bathroom behind him, bare feet silent against the hardwood.
You look like you crawled straight out of a dream.
Your hair is down and messy, falling around your shoulders in soft disarray, catching the light in uneven strands. You’re wearing one of his old shirts—swallowed by it—and a pair of his pajama pants that you bought him, the drawstring pulled tight and the hems cuffed four times so they don’t drag. The fabric hangs off you like you belong in it.
Like you belong here.
You slide your arms around his waist from behind without hesitation, pressing your front to his back, warmth seeping into him instantly. You get on your tip toes as your chin settles on his shoulder, cheek brushing the rough edge of his newly grown stubble as you peer at his reflection with open curiosity.
“Jason, baby…” you murmur, studying him in the mirror like he’s something precious and slightly ridiculous.
He snorts softly, but his hands come up automatically to rest over yours where they’re clasped against his stomach. His thumbs trace absent circles over your knuckles.
“You loooove it,” he says, stretching the word with heavy sarcasm, though there’s something almost hopeful beneath it.
You hum, pretending to consider it.
One of your hands slips free and moves up to his face, fingers squishing his cheek gently, testing the scratch of the stubble. Your nose wrinkles.
“Hmm,” you decide, lips twitching. “It's itchy. And the last thing I need is irritation down there.”
Jason exhales through his nose, long and slow, the sound vibrating faintly in his chest before it escapes him.
Mock-offended. Almost dignified about it.
“I don’t have a razor,” he says after another indulgent second of you squishing his cheeks like he’s something soft and manageable instead of what he usually is. His words come out slightly warped beneath your fingers. “And it’s a holiday… stores won’t be open.”
The apartment is quiet in that sacred, late-morning way—sunlight slipping through the blinds in thin golden blades that cut across tile and skin alike, dust motes suspended lazily in their glow as if even they have decided to rest.
Somewhere outside, a car door slams. Distant chatter echoes up from the street. Gotham City hums in the background like a beast half-asleep, never fully docile, but quieter than usual.
“I use a men’s razor,” you mumble thoughtfully, as if you’re offering him a piece of gum instead of a shared blade. “Wanna use that? I can disinfect it.”
He stills.
It’s subtle—the way his shoulders lift and hold, the way his fingers pause against your wrist—but you feel it. You always feel it. There are certain silences in him that aren’t empty; they’re crowded. This is one of them.
“I…” he starts, and the word drags.
Jason Todd does not drag words. He fires them. He sharpens them. He uses them like tools or weapons, depending on the need. But now it comes out slower, almost shy, like something young and unsure has briefly surfaced beneath the hardened edges.
“I don’t know how to shave,” he admits finally, gaze dropping to the sink like it’s suddenly fascinating. “Even… before… uh. It didn’t really grow.”
He doesn’t elaborate.
He doesn’t have to.
The space after before is heavy, but you don’t reach for it. You don’t pry it open with sympathy or soften it with apology. You simply hum, soft and thoughtful, and unwind your arms from around him to open the mirror cabinet above the sink.
“Why now?” you murmur, mostly to yourself.
The hinge creaks faintly as it swings open, bottles clinking together like small glass wind chimes. You reach for the razor with easy certainty, as if you’ve already decided the answer to that question doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you’re going to do next.
Jason watches you through the mirror.
Why now?
It’s the same reason he’s gained weight—real weight, not the kind born of muscle and vigilance, but something warmer, something earned in kitchens and late-night takeout and meals he didn’t force himself to finish out of obligation. There’s a softness now at his lower belly, subtle but undeniable, a gentle curve where there used to be only rigid lines and constant tension. His shoulders still carry power, his arms still know violence, but his body no longer looks like it’s bracing for impact every second.
He thinks his body is learning how to be happy again.
Like an animal stepping cautiously out of a trap long after the jaws have opened.
Like soil finally allowed to grow something instead of just endure.
He doesn’t say that.
“Maybe it’s because you’re always slathering me in your fancy stuff,” he deflects instead, a quiet chuckle warming the edges of his voice as he flicks the toilet seat closed with his foot and lowers himself onto it. “It probably shocked my face back to life.”
You glance at him over your shoulder, amused, sunlight catching in the loose fall of your hair.
Jason sits there completely naked, utterly unguarded in a way that still feels new enough to be fragile.
The light doesn’t hide anything. It travels openly across him—over the scars that ladder his torso, the uneven patches of skin that never healed quite right, the pale lines and darker ones, the geography of damage that used to make him want to flinch away from mirrors entirely. There was a time he would have layered himself in clothing even alone, as if fabric could soften history.
But you didn’t run.
The first time you saw him like this, you hadn’t looked horrified or pitying. You’d looked curious. Careful. Your fingers had traced each scar like you were reading braille, mapping him not as something broken, but as something survived. You kissed him afterward the same way you always did—no hesitation, no recalibration.
If you didn’t run from that, he doubts you’ll run from stubble.
You step back toward him now, razor in hand, a small towel draped over your arm like you’re about to perform something sacred and slightly ridiculous. The scent of your soap lingers faintly, mixed with steam from the sink you’ve just run warm water into.
“C’mere,” you murmur.
You nudge his knees apart gently and step between them, the casual intimacy of it making something low in his stomach tighten. Your warmth bleeds into him. He instinctively rests his hands at your hips, thumbs pressing lightly into the soft fabric pooled there.
“This feels like a trap,” Jason mutters, but his voice lacks conviction.
You smile down at him—slow, fond, almost reverent—and press your thumb to his jaw, tilting his face slightly so the light catches the uneven stubble.
“Relax,” you say softly. “I’ll take care of you.”
The words aren’t dramatic, and aren't grand. But they land in him like something holy.
He tilts his chin up, obedient in a way he never is with anyone else, trusting you with the vulnerable line of his throat. Your touch is deliberate but tender, as if you’re handling something both fragile and fierce.
You rinse the razor under warm water first, testing the temperature against your wrist the way you always do with anything that’s going to touch him. Steam curls faintly into the air, softening the sharp morning light and turning the bathroom into something gentler, almost hazy. When you open the shaving cream, the scent—clean, subtle, faintly medicinal—mixes with the lavender still clinging to his skin from the night before and fills his senses.
Jason smells like you. He thinks numbly.
“Hold still,” you murmur.
He huffs softly. “I am holding still.”
“You’re flexing.”
“I am not—”
“You are,” you insist, smiling a little as your fingers press into his jaw, encouraging him to unclench.
He forces his shoulders to drop.
Jason isn’t used to being handled like this. In training, contact is correction—forceful, precise, meant to overpower. In fights, it’s impact—bruising, brutal, survival measured in split seconds. Even affection, in most corners of his life, is clapped onto backs or ruffled through hair, rough-edged and fleeting.
But this?
This is his hot girlfriend taking care of him.
You spread the shaving cream slowly, fingertips gliding over his jaw, working it into the uneven terrain of scar tissue and smoother skin alike. You’re meticulous about it, smoothing the foam into the curve beneath his cheekbone, along the sharp line of his jaw, over the stubborn patch just beneath his lower lip.
Your touch changes when you reach the scars.
Not hesitant. Not afraid.
Just attentive.
You adjust the pressure instinctively, tracing the raised line near his chin with your thumb before coating it gently. Jason watches your face instead of the mirror now. The focus there. The way your brows knit in concentration. The small crease that forms between them when you’re trying to get something exactly right.
“You don’t have to look at me like I’m hurt and you need to patch me up,” he mutters.
You glance up at him through your lashes. "I'm not. I'd prefer that right now. At least you sit still when I patch you up.”
He snorts quietly despite himself.
The razor touches his skin for the first time.
It’s a soft, almost inaudible scrape. A delicate drag that removes the shadow in a clean stripe, revealing pale skin beneath. You move slowly, rinsing the blade after each careful stroke, watching for any sign of discomfort.
Jason feels it more than he expected to.
Not pain—just awareness. The sensation of something being removed. Of change happening in real time.
That sounds dramatic. He scolds himself in his own head. It's just hair. Hair he would have died to grow when he was seven and desperate to be tall enough to steal from the top shelf.
The warm water trickles down his neck in thin lines when you wipe away excess foam, your fingers following to catch it before it drips too far.
He swallows once when you tilt his head slightly to the side, exposing more of his throat.
“You trust me?” you ask lightly, but there’s something real beneath it.
He doesn’t hesitate this time.
“Yeah.”
The answer is simple. Immediate.
Your thumb rests just below his ear as you guide the razor along the sensitive stretch of skin near his jawline. The intimacy of it hums between you, quiet but undeniable. He can feel your breath ghosting across his cheek.
His hands, which had been resting loosely at your waist, slide upward without thinking. One settles at your lower back, palm spreading there. The other drifts higher, fingers grazing the fabric at your ribs, tracing the outline of you through cotton.
You pause when you reach the faintly discolored patch near the corner of his jaw—the place where the skin never quite grew back the same.
“Does this one still feel tight?” you ask softly.
“Sometimes,” he admits.
You don’t comment on it. You just adjust the angle of the razor and move even slower, barely any pressure at all, your other hand steadying his face with gentle firmness.
Jason’s eyes close for a second.
He lets them.
There’s something almost reverent about the way you do this. Like you’re not just shaving him, but tending to him. Like this small, ordinary act is a way of saying: I see all of it. I’m not afraid of any of it.
When you finally finish one side, you lean back slightly to inspect your work, head tilting.
“Look at that,” you murmur. “Sexy jawline coming back.”
“Never left,” Jason says automatically with a shit eating grin.
You grin. “Sure, baby.”
You rinse the razor again, then shift to the other side, fingers brushing through the faint shadow still there. The bathroom is quiet except for the sound of running water and the soft rhythm of your breathing mingling with his.
He watches you again.
The way your hair falls forward over your shoulder and nearly brushes his chest before you tuck it back absentmindedly. The way you don’t seem to notice how intimate this is—how your hands cradle his face like something precious.
When you’re done, you wipe the last traces of foam away with the warm towel, pressing it gently along his jaw, then down his throat.
“There,” you whisper.
You smooth your palm over his cheek, testing it. Your thumb lingers at the corner of his mouth.
“Much better.”
Jason turns his face slightly into your hand.
The movement is instinctive. Almost feline.
He looks at himself in the mirror again.
The stubble is gone. The scars remain. The crooked nose. The tired eyes.
But there’s something different in the way he’s sitting. Less guarded. Less braced. Like he isn’t waiting for the mirror to betray him.
He slides both arms fully around your waist now and pulls you closer until your hips press flush against his chest. He rests his forehead against your sternum, exhaling slowly, breathing you in.
“You’re gonna make me soft,” he mutters against your skin.
Your fingers comb gently through his messy hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp.
“Thats the goal,” you say.
And for once, the idea doesn’t sound like a threat.
Im gonna be honest I had a shit day and this felt like the only was I could talk to someone lmao don't got any other method, don't take this as me coming back frfr cus people are mean here too
jason todd never indulged in gossip
“you’re fucking with me”
“honest to god”
why would he? it was immature and ill-mannered to talk about someone’s life! their decisions are their decisions
“she slept with him. in his office”
“yup”
... at least that's what he liked to believe in
jason gave you the most baffled look you’ve ever seen on his face. it made you snort and wave a hand at his face. “hello? earth to jason”
immediately, jason blinked and snapped out of it. both of you were sitting on the couch, your legs sprawled on his lap and his hands idly tracing your knee.
“wait wait wait—" he slightly shifted his body to face you, the traces on your knee stopping as his large, warm hand just rested flat on it. “let me get this straight. you’re telling me that nancy—"
“uh huh”
“the same one who tried to get your promotion months ago--"
“that’s her”
“was caught sleeping with your boss at his office—"
“not caught, per se.”
“whatever” jason waved it off and continued. “and to top it off, she’s married to drew for— how long?”
“8 years” you hummed, scooting closer to him and biting your bottom lip to hold back a laugh from the look on his face as he was processing this new information you gave him. and when it did, he just sighed and shook his head, his fingers now resuming the slow and lazy circles he traced on your knee.
“sweetheart, your office environment is crazy” you could still hear how he was still slightly bewildered from the bombshell you just dropped on him. he was also confused as to why HR wasn't involved already
“hey, it pays the bills” you joked, lifting a hand to run through jason’s soft hair in that slow and gentle manner that always had him melt into your touch. “plus, at least there’s something to keep me entertained while i work in boredom”
“you know you can leave your job and i can take care of everything, right?” jason reminded you— for what felt like the millionth time—but you just smiled softly and nodded. “yeah i know, but how else am i gonna come bearing news to you?”
“…touché. i still need to know why carol and jesse aren’t talking to each other”
now that you couldn’t hold your laugh for. the wide smile on your face and your laugh softened jason’s eyes, a smile of his own appearing. his hand slipped beneath your knee to pull you close, the other hand cupping your face as he pulled you into a kiss
you could practically feel the smile on his face turn into a grin, and it made your smile grow as you kissed him back. it was a kiss of quiet contentment— slow, familiar and overflowing with the kind of affection that only came from loving someone for a long time
his hand remained cradling your cheek, his thumb lazily brushing across your skin with a small hum slipping out from your fingers combing through his hair
slowly, both of you broke the kiss, foreheads leaning on one another with nothing but pure love and adoration for one another
“so how was your night?” you asked, now laying your head on his chest. he just hummed, shifting his arm to drape over your shoulders and keep you close. “it was fine”
a beat
“…so bruce was basically being annoying like always and—"
okay maybe jason indulged in some gossip. keyword—some
summary: jason has no weaknesses. especially not that one bookstore keeper he visits every week. he merely needs new book recommendations, and you're the only person he's willing to trust. about the books, obviously. or jason todd falls miserably, pathetically in love with a bookstore keeper who insults him on first recommendation.
pairing: jason todd x fem! reader
You don't expect any customers tonight, not when Friday's are usually associated with activities more enthralling than a shabby bookstore that smells faintly of over-stewed tea. Your fingers itch to flip the signboard around to 'Closed', but they squeeze habitually around your mug instead. A brown rim has formed around the interior from the untouched tea left hours ago when sunlight still graced the shelves near the window seat.
Three minutes to closing, you decide to give the store the respectful grace of being a decent employee and waiting for the clock to strike eleven. At least, that's the excuse you give yourself. Your fingers tap lightly against the solid wood of the make-shift counter, a haphazardly placed desk shoved between shelves and boxes that are to be sent to the recycling center tomorrow. Your life is almost perfectly mundane.
The bell rings.
Almost, except for one sole factor. Your gaze shifts, your neck craning towards the door. Here, you thought your last visitor would finally break the pattern. It's certainly not Margery, a lady who thinks herself the most important customer to this small establishment, always inventing new cons in a skewed attempt to bargain for more free books as gifts for her many nieces and nephews.
This visitor carries a scent of smoke, broad shoulders stretching out a worn, leather jacket. Even from your skewed view, half his back turned towards you, he's gorgeous as he always is. Almost out of place, body stiff as his gaze glances past the stained glass stickers pasted onto the windows, shading the jagged line over his cheek in reds and blues. A familiar, brute tension stuffed into his posture, shadows striking his skin. Smaller, faint scars litter his jawline, and one prominent jagged line is carved into his cheek.
Your secret visitor, who brings in the scent of iron, faint bruises across his cheek on some nights, that goes by the name, Jason.
"Here I was thinking your terrorising finally came to an end." Your voice echoes, a teasing tilt laced in its croak from hours of going unused. "It's nearly closing hour, Jay."
Despite the limp that accompanies his gait, clearly wounded somewhere beneath his large frame and thick layers of clothing, his own smirk greets your gleam of teeth. "Couldn't end a shit week without a recommendation."
Your heart skips, like the quick traitor it is. You feign a casual expression, as if you didn't have his next read hidden under your stack of orders you've yet to shelf.
"Bringing in blood to the floorboards again?" You raise a brow, gaze flickering to where his boots left imprints on the scratched-up wood.
"Nah." His smirk widens, stopping before you. "Wouldn't want you making use of free labour again to mop the dust off this place."
"Wouldn't be too difficult if we didn't have to use bleach, genius."
He shrugs, looking down at you with a pleased expression. "Useful skills I teach you, all without a price, sweetheart." His voice rolls over you like thunder, a low gravel for that mocking nickname he picked out for you like you're the only person he's ever given it to.
Your neck cranes to meet his gaze. "Right, next time I need help cleaning blood trails, I'll call my favourite potential vigilante."
"Oh, so I'm a favourite now?" His brow raises.
"You're so full of yourself." Your bite holds no mark, softening in its edge when your fingers trace over his next recommendation stuffed between the stack of new donations. Dragging it out, you hold it out with held breath.
It never gets easier, the silent exchange. The anticipation, the brief few seconds of waiting as his gaze assesses your pick. It had started out exactly like this, and like some idiotic, preening teenager—you had hoped with every right choice you made, it might heighten the chances of him coming back.
This isn't a library, an establishment where he had to return to at some point. No, he could very likely purchase your selection today, decide it was absolute shit, and never return. Yet, he always came back, and you began to lean on the crutch of a belief that he would continue to.
"Call it a profitable relationship." You joke, even as your heartbeat faintly thuds in the pads of your fingertips, digging into the spine of the copy you reserved for him.
He takes it, fingers brushing over yours. That lingering second of contact feels intentional, but the ghost of his touch disappears before you even have the chance to register its searing warmth.
His smirk dials down into something softer, more genuine. This is the part you love most, and secretly dread that you might not receive. That rare spark in his gaze, to receive something so personal based on the assumption of what he might like. All narrowed down from a history of ten minute exchanges every week in the dead of night, shared between an academic victim who likes spending too much of her time waiting for a suspicious individual to sneak into a local bookstore, and said suspicious individual.
"It's a local author." It spills out of you before you can stop it. "I know you've read most of the classics, but you haven't really delved into ones that relate more to home."
His lip curls, a hum stuck in the back of his throat, and you recognise its one of approval. It shouldn't affect you as much as it did.
"Literature that dives into the horrors of Gotham, should I expect an existential crisis tonight?"
"I'll leave the surprise to do its job.” Leaning in over the counter, your gaze drops to his cargo pants. “Any reason for the limp?"
“Jumped down from the fourth floor.” He shrugs. “Wasn’t sure you’d wait up on me.”
You stare at him wide-eyed, waiting for him to call upon a joke—and he merely returns your stare, amused.
“Jason, you’re joking.”
“I never joke about closing hours.” He muses.
You're ready to start, because his frequent disregard for closing hours is a whole other thing—but his gaze shifts instinctively to the clock hanging lop-sided by the ladder, before landing on you again. The crinkles of his gaze deepens, softening the shadows. "You better catch the train. Do me a favour and remember to lock your windows when you get back?”
"Yeah, so long as you come in uninjured next time."
"Worried about me? As long as you keep yours, I’ll keep mine." The point in his grin sharpens, fingers giving a lazy wave as his shoulder digs into the door. The bell rings once more, as if to signify the gravity of his departure. "More illegal activities to run. See you next week, sweetheart.”
His shadow disappears past the flickering street lamp outside the store, as if he never existed. Your heart does that little, traitorous sigh—and that’s all the physical evidence you have past the lump in your throat that the exchange even happened at all.
Your first encounter with Jason was less familiarity-conduced endorphins and more of customer service's worst nightmare.
"Sir, I'm afraid we're closed."
You don't know why you bothered with the 'we', when you're clearly the only staff here. Or why you bothered speaking at all. This man who's barged in through the door, despite the 'Closed' sign, is obviously on edge and possibly on the run? Gotham's unspoken law is to never stick your nose into other people's business, especially if the stranger radiates danger right down to his bruised knuckles. All you should be concerned about is the ten minute walk you have to embark on and how all trains in this district stops at thirty minutes past eleven.
His gaze shifts at the sound of your voice, distracted and hyper-focused all at once. You're struck by the illuminating green that disperses into pale blue, when he finally notices that he isn't alone. Intense, and otherworldly—a gorgeous lunatic who looks like he materialised out of the shadows, stepping into the night and ending up on the wrong side of Gotham.
His gaze doesn't linger for long before it maneuvers around, scoping his environment as his lips press together, some sealed sigh laced within the charged tension between you two. Eventually, a low rasp leaves his lips. "I'll buy somethin'."
Your brows furrow. "Excuse me?"
His hand shifts, waving you off impatiently. "Hand me a book, or two—whatever. I need more time."
The crease between your brows deepen, that soft irritation earlier rising again. Not only has he come in during closing hours, which is the worst of all experiences in customer service, but he had the audacity to be rude and dismissive about it.
"Sir, I'm afraid you'll have to come back another time—"
"Lady." He cuts you off, gaze shifting back towards the streets before looking back to you in warning. "It's not a request. You can charge me however much you want, but I can't leave this store till the coast is clear... and neither can you."
Great, now he's holding you hostage too.
"Are you being chased?" You question impulsively. You have a bugging suspicion that he's prone to lying to you anyways, but his cutting tone makes you unfamiliarly bold. "You're a criminal?"
He snorts, finding something amusing. "In Gotham, some would say it's an honourable profession. There's worse bad guys out there, sweetheart. You're lucky it was me that came in here."
"I wouldn't call it luck." You frown. He doesn't bother with a response, clearly tuning you out, and your growing dislike finds something new to feast on. If you're going to waste a Friday night with some asshole, you may as well squeeze some money out of his pockets. Your gaze flickers over him, scrutinising.
"What are you looking at?" He murmurs, sensing your gaze even when his own is trained on the window, hand tucked under his jacket on what you hope isn't a weapon.
"Just wondering what kind of reader you are."
That finally gets his attention. He looks back at you, surprise evident in his gaze. Without that permanent furrow between his brows, he looks almost younger, erased temporarily of the self-righteousness buried in his bones and the weight of something deadly clutched in his hands.
A moment passes, his tight expression slowly unwinding into genuine amusement. "That's kind of you but you don't have to dial up your customer service. I'm not the kind of guy who leaves reviews."
Your brow twitches, frustration slipping past the cracks of your demeanour. "It's principle. I don't recommend books half-heartedly."
His smirk twitches higher, but you make the wiser choice of storming off, deeper into the shelves before he deigns you with another unfavourable response. Your mind is already slipping into its unfolding map of genres, of the books that encompass your pathway with what you think suits a jerk like him.
"Jackass." You mutter to yourself, opting between a self-help book or a literature pick for the jerk who acts so highly of himself. You decide on the latter, doubting the hunk would even understand the reference.
"Dorian Gray?"
"Yeah, heard of it?" You respond, unamused as you glare down at him.
He's made himself real comfortable, large thighs swallowing up your seat, swirling around on the creaky wheels as he eyes the store with that same assessing look he did when he first entered, as if he was used to mapping out any place he stepped into.
“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.” He mutters lowly, blue eyes landing back on you.
You blink once, then twice, wondering if you'd misheard him. "You're a reader?"
"Enough to know what you're suggesting, sweetheart." He mocks. "I know a thing or two about mistakes of men, so if you want to cause some real harm, you'll have to hit harder."
"I wasn't—" You falter, because that was exactly what you were intending on. "Fine. You forcefully extended a long, underpaid night shift, and I indirectly called you a jackass. Let's call it even."
His lip twitches involuntarily, not expecting your honesty. "Y'know being direct is what gets you places in Gotham."
"Yeah, gets you running into bookstores and terrorising their staff, you mean?"
"Well, I haven't been insulted through a book before." He shrugs half-heartedly. "I suppose you experience something new everyday."
"Anyone ever told you that you're infuriating?"
"Pretty too." He grins then, something striking and downright filthy. His hand taps on a copy of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. "That's what you seem to be suggesting, since you're clearly intent on being honest through your recommendations."
Your scoff escapes you, less annoyed than it should be. "I think my recommendation fits you just fine if that's the only thing you're willing to take from it."
"Oh, I'm more than willing." His grin sharpens. "That's sweet of you, but I'm afraid it's a little compromising, hitting on a customer this soon? You do this with all late night visitors?"
You're tempted to drop one of your heaviest dictionaries right on his skull to sort out the serious issues going on in that head of his. "Customer?" You raise a brow mockingly. "All I see is a stranger wasting my time after closing hours, raising this month's electricity bills, refusing to pay a single cent for his book, and getting out of here as promised."
"We still have—" His gaze glimpses to the clock. "—five minutes if you want to play it safe. You're doing a horrendous job at customer service by the way. Calling me a jackass, trying to kick me out. No wonder this place is—"
Your jaw drops. "You are not insulting the very place you're hiding in like a coward right now."
He raises both hands in surrender. "So charming. Was just going to mention how charming this place is."
Your lips quiver into an almost smile and you shut it down immediately, along with the quick decision that he is dangerous. Disarming with the quickness of his tongue, and unnerving in how he handles conversation like a chess board.
"This entire situation needs more tea." You grumble to yourself, turning your back on him.
There's nothing worth stealing on that counter of yours, unless he's crude enough to steal second-hand books worth cents if he even attempted to resell them in a city like Gotham. At most, he'd take the chipped mug rimmed with your tea. Oh, stupid you forgot your mug.
Your steps retract, a groan caught in the between your lips as you turn around with the anticipation to be hit with his mocking—only to find an empty seat in your view. Your head whips around past the shelves, but there was no sight of a worn leather jacket. Of course, he didn't even bother to announce his departure.
Coming back to the counter, you check for any missing items only to spot a bookmark poking out of one of your books, left in an ajar placement on the counter. On top of it, sat a pile of cash that was worth more than any copy in this entire store.
“Hey—”
He was already gone, you forget. You flip open the book, only to find there’s handwriting on your bookmark. Scratched in impulsively, like a lingering thought he had to put down.
“Jackass left you a tip for the trouble—and the rec. - Jason.”
His condescending tone somehow translates into pen on paper. It should irritate you. Yet, when your fingers lift to trace over the drying ink, you find yourself smiling involuntarily again. Jason. What kind of a man was he? It's a useless question, as you doubt you'll ever see him again.
A likely criminal, a guaranteed jerk—and probably the most exciting visitor of your entire summer.
Jason comes back not a week after. Covered in blood, which after your initial fright, is believed to belong mostly to the other guy. That particular fact he thought to include does little to soothe your nerves.
“You should’ve seen him.” He rambles, in what you could only hope wasn't his disgruntled attempt at impressing you, whilst laying flat on the desk. “Makes mine look like child's play."
The first-aid kit, hidden somewhere in the store cabinet, is squeezed haphazardly onto your office chair. There’s nothing more nerve-wracking than your first attempt at stitching a cut, not anything close to your caliber. If his arms weren't wrecked, you suspect he wouldn't have come all the way to you, an actual stranger. His voice distracts you, and you miss your aim.
Jason hisses, half-shirtless with his black tee tucked between his canines. "No, I said you have to turn it as soon as the point disappears."
Your hand is splayed over his stomach, fingers shaking slightly as you try to focus. "Stop shifting, and just keep quiet for a second. I can't focus with you nagging me."
"Forgive me for being concerned about my wound—"
Your hand comes up to shove the t-shirt further into his mouth, muffling his words. He raises a brow, almost amused, and a trickle of sweat brushes past.
"I'm trying my best to help, when this is clearly something hospitals exist for." You huff, focusing back on the stitch. "Give me some grace, and shut up."
His muscles flex and contract, but eventually, he listens. Your work becomes easier after that, despite it being the worst position you've ever been put in, neck cramping to avoid blocking your only source of light, the flickering lamp above the surface he's laid on, his blood dripping onto the wood.
"You owe me at least five purchases to make up for the blood stains." You grumble. "That requires you to stay alive."
He grunts through the fabric, and you take it as agreement.
“Why’re you back here anyway?” You question, trying to distract yourself. “Of all the places you could’ve gone, you thought that a bookstore keeper would have medical expertise?”
“Not medical expertise.” He mutters, voice too raw to not be honest. “I wanted..”
Your hand places a cloth over his wound, soaking the fabric red. “Wanted what?”
His gaze lingers over you, somehow more haunting with how the blue shade's grown darker, pupils expanded. He winces when you accidentally put too much pressure on the stitch, but that doesn't seem to be all to his sudden stillness. “A recommendation.” He answers eventually.
You stare at him, tempted to laugh. “You came all this way bleeding out, barging in through the door, past closing hours again—for a recommendation?”
He stares at you, and your laugh slips through when you realise that he’s at least half-serious. “I knew you'd be infuriating, but I didn't expect insanity.”
He ends up buying eight later just to prove his point and to make up for the blood stains, only after you promised that they'd all be your recommendations.
The hour's long past operating train schedules, and with the quiet acknowledgement of traumatising your uneventful Friday night, the second time he's reinvented what a normal shift should have been—he offers to walk you back once warmth seeps back into his skin.
Somewhere between sitting cramped behind the shelves as you pick out his recommendations and his tracking gaze over your frame as you rant on about how he desperately needed a self-help book or two, the unspoken tension gradually fades. Eventually, your frustrations die down too—and you realise his company, minus the blood and sharpness of tongue, wasn't the worst thing in the world.
You come to expect Jason’s presence, late in the night although he does begin to respect the concept of a ‘closing hour’. He's usually your last visitor regardless—leaving the two of you alone to... continue on your charade of recommendations. Even when he begins to linger longer than any customer should, offering to walk you back, or make you tea when you're too busy shelfing to bother with a new mug to replace your over-steeped one from the afternoon. Except for today, because Margery, your least favourite customer in the whole of Gotham, decides to pick the one night Jason's visiting to start her practiced act.
Clearly intending on slithering her way into getting something for free, Margery drones on about how important her niece's education is to her, and how anything contributing to children's education should be free of charge. All over a book set costing a measly seven bucks, but you suppose to dear Margery, supporting small businesses in Gotham isn't in her check-list.
“I’m sorry, Margery.” Your voice remains perfectly levelled. “I can't hand the set to you for free, because it's against our policy."
“Can’t you understand my situation?” She huffs, annoyance flared in the fine lines of her cheeks. “No one's even interested in that set, I've surveyed it for days.”
“Which by all existing policies, still requires a purchase, ma’am.”
She scoffs, nails drumming impatiently against the counter. “I want to speak to your manager.”
Your lips quirk up. “Jason.”
Jason shifts then, his gaze lifting from the book in his hand, one which he hasn’t turned the page since he conveniently perched himself right next to your counter ten minutes ago. He places the book down gently onto the wood, bookmark slipping into place, though the slight sneer of his lips conveys none of that delicate care as he slumps against the counter, shoulder brushing against yours.
“There a problem?”
Margery blinks, affronted by his attitude. Or his sheer size towering over her. "You're the manager?"
“Policy’s law.” Jason shrugs. “If you’d like to take this further, to save yourself—“ His gaze flickers to the book set, and his smirk quirks up higher—the perfect composition of a jerk. “Seven bucks, we'll be more than happy to call the authorities.”
“I have never experienced such horrible service!” Her cheeks grow warm, sloshed with embarrassment. “Acting as if I'm in the wrong—you’ll be receiving the worst review!”
"All’s fair in Gotham, ma’am.” He calls out with a grin as he watches her turquoise skirt catch onto the end of the door hinge, releasing another shriek from her lips.
The door slams shut, bell ringing dramatically with the impact, and Jason turns back to you, smile slipping into something familiar and reserved for you. “The review will be wiped the moment she hits post.”
You snort, leaning back against the shelves. “Should I be concerned about your illegal activities invading its way into my work?”
“Nah.” He shrugs. “Last place the GCPD will look into is some shabby bookstore.”
“Shabby.” You feign offense. "Our most repeating customer doesn't even hold a shred of respect for this place."
“Oh-no, I’m beginning to like the sound of being manager of this fine establishment.” He humours, glancing around as if he hasn't already memorised the interior.
You frown, suspicious of his change in tune. “Why, cause you’ll be the boss of me?”
His smirk deepens. “One of its many perks, I imagine.”
“Oh, get over yourself, Todd.” You glance back towards the door, still unable to rid yourself of the satisfaction of watching that entire fiasco go down. "Though I suppose a thank you is in order."
"Couldn't get her out of her fast enough." He shrugs. "She was taking up our time."
"Our?" You raise a brow, almost teasing as you look back at him. "Didn't realise this was our thing now."
His gaze lingers on you, as if he knew his response would be the deciding factor of acknowledging the thinly veiled string that's begun to loop itself around the both of you. Something about your dark circles, the oil on your nose bridge, or the mess of your knotted hair—whatever he saw in you, seals his decision.
"Yeah." His voice rasps, the most unguarded you've ever heard him. "It is."
It's an instantaneous kick, one that nearly leaves you breathless as you try to regain your composure. He could’ve said nothing. He could have thrown this to the side and said that his weekly visits for recommendations during your shifts, no matter if he was bleeding or bruised at the knuckles coming from a life clearly separate from yours—meant nothing.
Yet, it does mean something. Not just to you, but to him as well.
"Oh." You mutter, because you can't think of anything appropriate to say to that.
"Oh." He echoes, a genuine smile lingering at the edge of his lips. "Haven't received my recommendation of the day, sweetheart."
You blink, feeling strangely light, as if your body has regained all the energy zapped out from long hours of rearranging shelves and stacking boxes. It doesn't help that he's looking at you like that, soft and disarmed in a way you've begun to realise he's let himself be, only around you.
You should've trusted your gut that he was dangerous, but never in the way you expected. Your heart skips traitorously, the little thing already knowing something that you refuse to admit aloud. So, you do what you always do and dig out your recommendation, waiting for that spark to light in his gaze and pretend there's nothing more to why you love it so much.
Weeks turn into months, and Jason becomes your one constant even as your shifts lessen in hours to accommodate your academics. If anything, there's something comforting now about leather jackets, the faint scent of pain ointment, the certain knowledge that Jason is most probably a vigilante, after you noticed his constant vigilance over the district you work in has significantly lessened crime rates.
His shelf at home has built its steady collection, every book representing a particular week, an ever-increasing memoir of the thing shared between the two of you, from the first time he stumbled into the store. You don't know what to call it, only that you wish for it to never stop.
He knows the store like the back of his palm, including the exact hour in which you would get up for a tea refill, or when you need a steady hand on the ladder to reach the highest shelves. It's strangely intimate, the way he slots himself into the quiet mundane of your shifts, but he never complains of boredom or having something better to do with his time. If anything, the slower the day, the more he seems to uncurl like a satisfied feline—accompanying you by your side when there's nothing more to do, catching up on his reads while you have a read of your own.
"I have a recommendation for you." Jason mutters offhandedly, legs resting on the desk, as much as home as you are now, seemingly unbothered that he's randomly switched up the unspoken rules of the thing that's shared between the two of you.
You raise a brow, gaze peering over your current read. "You—Mr. I Can't Read Without Your Recommendations, has one for me?"
He shrugs, taking something out from the inner pocket of his jacket. You never understand just how much he's able—and willing to fit inside the leather confinements, and you swear half of it belongs to his side of the world you're privy to only in the latest of nights, when his hand is gripping yours knuckle-white, and he lets you stay by his side before muttering his review for his latest read.
In his hand, is a book, one in which you recognise immediately.
"Dorian Gray." You muse. "Is it your turn to call me self-conceited?"
His lip twitches into a half-smirk, but it buries itself under what you only recognise now to be nerves.
"Jason?" You murmur, slightly startled as you place down your book.
His own hand, scarred over the knuckles and engulfing the book, places its weight gently in your hands, as if offering something sacred.
"I wrote something inside." He mutters, voice softened.
Your brows furrow, but you oblige—flipping open the very first copy you've ever recommended to him, and find a handwritten note on the first page. It's unmistakably his, and there's a few scratched out lines that you can't make out, clearly something he pondered over for a while.
"I think you've probably figured it out by now, that I am not good with my words, no matter how many books I've read with greater speeches or declarations. Still, you deserve to hear something honest, and I've always conveyed myself better through my actions than I do with my mouth.
When I first entered this store, I never expected to run into you. Fate or whatever people call it, has never been considerate of my path, or who I encounter along it. Yet, you stood right there, clearly out of place with the world I know, and I don't think I'll ever truly comprehend how our paths aligned. I told myself to forget you, but you had given me a piece of you in the book you placed in my hands, and I couldn't stop thinking of that, of you. I tried convincing myself, after considering it for seven days, that seeking you out would make the curiousity dissipate, and not because I wanted to hear your voice again.
Bleeding out over your counter, I knew that I was done for when I realised I was willing to buy the entire store if it meant getting to spend a few more minutes by your side. Every book I carried home, was me getting to keep pieces of evidence, of this thing we share that feels like it's completely ours. Proof that a person who thought about what kind of reader I'd be despite every reason not to care—actually existed.
I'll probably regret this, I do have a talent of screwing up with people, but keeping silent has never been my forte, and I would regret not telling you what I've known since the first, which is that there hasn't been a single book where a line has crossed my mind without thinking of you. That there hasn't been a day, where I don't hold myself back from wanting to see you again. I'm offering you my honesty because I do believe that's the only decency available in Gotham, and I'd like to offer you at least that."
Speechless was an understatement for the shaking in your fingers, the weight of the page in your hand when you finally look up and meet his gaze.
He's nervous, pupils dilated—body locked with tension. He's just poured his heart out to you through the page of the very first book you've given him, and he's staring at you like you’ve changed the entire trajectory of his life, and not the other way around.
“Jason.”
“I’ve never done anything like this.” It spills out of him, as if he can’t contain himself. “Our thing, falling for someone. So, before you say anything—I just want to state that I'm not expecting anything. That's the one of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn a long time ago, so don't feel you have to say something you don't mean. I just can't go on pretending that meeting you didn't change something in me—that it hasn't rewired what genuine happiness feels like. I began to read again, after all these years, because books which I once found comfort in now reminds me of you. That in every line I read, I searched for something to bring back to you."
"It scared me." He admits, and even the act seems to cost him. "To care that much. To have this lack of control over how I operate, how I should feel. You disarmed me in a way no one else ever had, and I didn't think I even had that in me anymore. To feel this terrified and to still want someone this much."
His hand lowers to the note-filled page, the book still gripped between your hands and his expression steadies. "I considered it countless times. To stop this, before I start something I'll never be able to take back. Then I looked at you, and I realised I can never go back to my life 'before' you. That I was already in this, and I'd be willing to do anything if you are too."
"Jason." You call out, and he stops with a trained halt, as if he expected the worst. That was your last straw.
"I didn't even need the note." You burst. "If you had simply told me you wanted me, I would've already said yes. Our thing, I've always wanted to be a part of it."
Before, he was tense—but now, your words seemed to have hit him like a truck. You continue, not wanting him to doubt something you realised should've been obvious from the moment you kept that very first note he left you in your wallet.
"I want to be in this with you, Jason." You confess. "You're the one person I wanted to see every night. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a mess but—every book in this store, I constantly look for something that screams you and I wait in the hopes that you'll like it, and that was the most scariest, intimate thing I've ever done for someone. So—you're an idiot if you think I don't want this as much as you do."
"...You mean I didn't have to feel physically ill to write that note out, and you would've said yes?" He mutters after a moment, a low huff of amusement leaving his lips.
“I thought you said being direct is what gets you places in Gotham.” You quote.
His smile gradually reappears. “Yeah, I suppose it got me places. Running into a shabby bookstore, getting hit on the first night.”
You raise a brow. “You and I remember that encounter very differently."
"Yeah?" He murmurs. "That'll be a problem if we aren't on the same page. Just to give it a test, what if I said I wanted to kiss you right now?"
Shock registers faintly to you, even if that thought's been circling your mind for months. A little smile pulls at your mouth. "Yeah, I think we might be on the same page there."
When he leans in, you smell faintly of gunpowder, something warm and smoky—so distinctly Jason. You don't think you'll ever tire of it, and you love it more when his fingers tangled itself into your hair, brushing against the nape of your neck. When he finally kisses you, a low rumble in the back of his throat in content, you find he was half-right that night you both met. Maybe there was luck involved after all.
"I am keeping that note." You murmur after he pulls away to press something softer against your temple.
His lips curl into a smile, and you feel it against your skin. "'Course you are."
likes, reblogs, and comments are highly appreciated! <333
When you woke up this morning, your body had been sore. Like you had been through the meat grinder kind of sore but in a good way.
You had looked over at Dick sleeping soundlessly. Half his body on top of you and half on the bed with his messy raven hair falling over his eyes, his long lashes almost brushing his sharp cheekbones.
Yeah, a very good way.
But when you got out of bed and basically limped around the apartment, he gave you the smuggest look ever. Seriously no one had ever looked as proud of themselves as he had.
You wanted to slap him. Or kiss him. You were still deciding.
That didn’t stop you for asking him for help though, since he had been the one to carry you around the apartment and draw you a warm bath. The shoulder massage he gave you in the bathtub wasn’t too bad either. Plus the pancakes he had prepared with a little smiley face on top with chocolate syrup.
But that didn’t take away from the fact that he was an unserious man.
He had known you were supposed to have lunch with your friends today so he had been an exceptional tease last night in bed. Not just a tease, he was also apparently under the impression that you were made of rubber and could bend you however he pleased.
Just because he worked out eight hours a day didn’t mean you did too. You’d be lucky to even squeeze in a workout once a week and he knew that and yet he chose to manhandle you.
Not that you were against it. He was very skilled in the bedroom and the nights where you had to just lay there for him to do all the work were your favourites.
But damn now you were limping on your way to meet your friends. You and Dick walked out of the car, hand in hand towards where your friends were sitting outside the cafe.
And he had the audacity to snicker.
“It isn’t funny!” You huffed out, hands clutching his arm to hold for balance since your legs were way too sore to even walk.
“You weren’t complaining last night,” he replied and pushed his sunglasses up on his nose, looking way too amused.
“Shut up,” you scoffed instead of replying since thats all you could do. He wasn’t wrong.
Once you reached the table, Donna, Wally and Roy immediately greeted you with hugs.
“You okay?” Donna was the first one to speak, noticing your limp.
“Yeah,” you swallowed and sat down on the chair next to Dick’s, shifting a little. “Just walked into a chair.”
“Uh huh,” Roy narrowed his eyes at Dick’s smug face.
“And was the chair named Dick Grayson?” Wally added.
“Wally!” You gasped and looked at Dick for help but he just laughed and draped his arm over the back of your chair.
The rest of the lunch went by with way too many jokes about Dick’s dick and you’d think he’d be offended by it but he was the one initiating most of them.
Like you said, unserious.
✶ JASON TODD
Jason was out running when you woke up. It was your usual morning routine –he woke up before you, gave you a small kiss on your forehead and left for a run then returned an hour later with coffee and sometimes pastries.
This time however, you had told him you were making pancakes so he wasn’t surprised to find you standing in the kitchen wearing his shirt that he discarded last night.
He walked over to you, black tank top clinging to his body due to the sweat like a second skin and if you weren’t sore from last night you would have done something about it.
The minimal clothing you were wearing –Jason’s t-shirt and panties– didn’t do a lot to hide the marks he had left on you last night. Your thighs looked like a crime scene with how many hickeys he had left there.
You waddled over to the fridge to grab the eggs when Jason noticed you.
“What’s up?” He frowned and came up behind you.
“Hmm?” You asked and cracked an egg in the bowl.
“You’re waddling like a penguin,” he pointed out.
“Oh,” you blushed and immediately looked away from him. “You know,” you shrugged.
“Babe what?” He asked and turned you around to steal all your attention.
“Last night,” you said. “You’re not exactly small.”
“Well thanks,” he gave you a confused smile. “Is that why you’re limping?”
“That and my legs being folded like a lawn chair over your shoulders for over an hour yes,” you quipped.
Jason in response let out a cackle.
“Great, hope you’re proud of yourself,” you scrunched your nose and turned back to prepare the pancake batter.
“I mean it does wonders to a guy’s ego,” Jason let out a dramatic breath. “Seven orgasms in one night is my new record.”
“Jason!” You huffed and pushed him away. “You cannot count my orgasms you freak.”
He laughed again and came up behind you, wrapping his arms around your middle before nuzzling his head in the crook of your neck.
“Seriously though, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He asked, pressing fluttering kisses to the hickeys he had left on your neck.
“No,” you hummed and craned your head back.
“You liked it?”
“Yes,” you breathed as his kisses made their way down to your shoulders.
His fingers busied themselves with massaging your hips, causing you to close your eyes in relief and rest your head back on his shoulders. Which gave him even more room to kiss on your neck.
“Let me make you feel better,” he murmured and turned you around before getting down on his knees.
“Jason,” you said through a shaky breath.
“Yeah?” He looked up at you through dark eyelashes and hooked your thigh over his shoulder. “Is this okay?”
You nodded your head which was all the permission he needed.
It was going to be a long morning.
✶ TIM DRAKE
In hindsight, waiting for your boyfriend to return from his week long mission at the manor probably wasn’t your brightest idea.
He had texted you that he would be back today and would just crash at the manor instead of coming back to your shared penthouse.
But you hadn’t seen him in a week! So it was only fair you drove to the manor and let yourself into the batcave to wait for him.
It had almost been an hour since you made yourself at home on the little beanbag chair with a book in your hands in the Batcave along with Barbara who was perched at the Batcomputer, doing whatever it is that Oracle did.
Tim returned soon along with the rest of the Bats on his Batcycle (Batman wasn’t a very creative person you were beginning to realise).
Damian made a ‘TT’ sound at you before making his way towards the shower area.
Tim on the other hand broke out in a grin the second he looked at you. He didn’t even bother taking off his mask or the suit before he was launching himself at you on the beanbag.
“Tim!” You grunted when his armoured chest collided with yours. “You’re crushing me.”
“Don’t care,” he muttered and pushed his head in the crook of your neck.
“Take a shower you stink!” You said and pushed him off.
“I see how it is,” he raised his head to look at you and if you could see his eyes behind his domino mask, you knew he would be narrowing his eyes at you. “I come back a week later after saving the world and my girlfriend says I stink.”
“You do,” Jason mumbled somewhere behind him.
“Ignore him he’s jealous,” Tim said to you before leaning down to give you a fleeting kiss. “I’ll be back,” he murmured and finally got off the beanbag to go take a shower.
That had been enough of your loving and sweet boyfriend for the night.
Because he was soon coming out of the shower without a shirt and in only a pair of sweatpants. He didn’t even bothering talking to anyone or even debriefing the case like he usually did, he just made his way towards you and picked you up and threw you over his shoulder.
Thankfully everyone else was busy cleaning themselves and only Barbara was present in the Batcave. She shook her head at you like she knew exactly what was happening but didn’t want to be a part of it.
It had been a very long night.
The night for which you were paying now.
Tim’s heavy arm was thrown over your stomach in a tight grip like he never wanted to let you go.
Squinting open an eye, you flicked the bedside lamp on –having no clue what time it was outside due to the blackout curtains being drawn.
You turned over in Tim’s iron grip and looked around the room which looked like it had gotten robbed last night.
Your shirt was thrown on the floor along with your shorts, your bra dangling down the knob of the door –no clue how it got there. And your panties were probably torn in half somewhere. Even the pillows were thrown haphazardly, the covers weren’t even covering you.
Half the reason you woke up was the chill in the room causing goosebumps to rise on your naked body. The only source of heat you had was Tim’s equally as naked body wrapped around you like a koala.
You rubbed your eyes and tried to look at him. The first thing you saw were the red scratches on his chest, glowing against his pale skin and you were sure if he turned around his back would look the same.
“Tim?” You whispered and brushed his hair away from his face.
He only groaned in response and tugged you closer but his grip on your back was beginning to hurt.
“Hey,” you tried again and pushed at his shoulder –which you now saw had a bite mark on it.
Images of Tim’s bicep wrapped around your neck came to your mind but you quickly shook them off. Not the time.
“Tim come on, you’re hurting me,” you winced, which finally caught his attention.
“What?” He asked, voice laced with sleep and somehow deeper like you’ve never heard before. “Where are you hurt?”
“It just feels sore.”
“Fuck I’m so sorry,” he sat up straight in bed and leaned down to pull the covers up.
“It’s okay, you didn’t do anything I didn’t like,” you giggled when he turned around and yep his back looked every bit like his chest. Red scratches all over.
“Your back,” you whispered and reached out to lightly brush your hand over the marks. “What the fuck did we do last night?”
“I think I just missed you too much,” he chuckled. “Turn around let me give you a massage.”
“Yes please,” you moaned and turned around on your stomach to let Tim rub the soreness out of your muscles with his nimble fingers.
The knots in your muscles immediately came loose with each movement of his warm hands on your much colder body. Maybe they taught massaging the pain away at vigilante school or wherever Bruce took all the kids of his he seems to adopt.
His hands went lower to gently rest your calf over his shoulder –much gentler than last night. He pressed soft kisses to your leg as his fingers rubbed all the way to your ankles.
Later when you two went down for breakfast (it was around lunchtime), Cass and Damian gave you a disgusted look. Jason raised an eyebrow at the bite marks on Tim’s forearm while Dick only laughed in amusement. Even Barbara was staring at the hickey on your jaw since apparently Tim had forgotten he was human.
✶ BRUCE WAYNE
You were sitting on the chair in the little breakfast nook when Bruce entered the kitchen. A crossword puzzle was sat on the table next to a plate of toast and orange juice in front of you as you mindlessly scribbled on the puzzle.
Bruce came up behind you and gave you a little kiss on the back of your head before walking over to the cabinets to pull out a mug.
“Oh wait! I made you a yogurt bowl,” you said and hopped off the chair.
Bruce raised an eyebrow and watched you limping towards the fridge in nothing but his old uni sweatshirt. Your hair was falling over your shoulders, messy from a good night’s sleep. And other activities.
His eyes wandered lower to the backs of your knees where he was gripping your legs last night and sure enough there were marks to show it. For a second he was worried but when you turned around and gave him your million dollar smile, he forgot what he was thinking about.
“It has raspberries, nuts, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds. It’s good for your health,” you beamed and set it down in front of your own breakfast on the table.
Bruce joined you in a beat and eyed you as you grimaced a little while sitting down.
“Everything okay?” He asked.
“Yeah,” you said, voice a bit sarcastic which he didn’t miss.
“That’s not convincing,” he frowned.
“You rearranged my guts last night. I think that has something to do with me having trouble sitting down,” you smirked and he immediately blushed.
You heard a sudden noise from behind you and when you turned around to look, Tim was standing there, looking nauseated. “I’ll uh… have breakfast in my room…” he said.
“I didn’t know you stayed here last night,” you said to him.
“I wish I hadn’t,” he gagged and grabbed a cup of coffee before leaving the two of you alone.
Bruce scrunched his nose and turned his face towards his breakfast.
“Oh don’t go all shy now! You were very vocal last night,” you teased and nudged his foot with yours just to watch his ears turn even redder.
“I think we should take a warm bath together to you know, let our bodies heal,” he suggested.
“Uh huh,” you narrowed your eyes. “And no other reason at all.”
“Of course my darling,” Bruce smiled and tugged you out of your chair before picking you up in his arms.
“No other reason at all.”
my first multi part fic ever feeling nervous
didn’t know which photos to use so…
if you couldn’t tell i’ve been extremely tim drake pilled lately thanks to all the requests ive received for him 😭
likes comments and reblogs appreciated, hope you guys enjoy <3
tim drake x reader angst, hurt/comfort, based on this req by my beloved ana, loosely inspired by bad omens by 5sos
fanart by hazzy may
“It doesn’t matter,” Tim sighed impatiently, running his fingers through his hair.
“It matters to me!” You cried and balled your fists at your sides to stop yourself from shaking your boyfriend who had been a complete ghost this past month.
It was beginning to feel like all you two did was fight and when you weren’t fighting, you were fucking. It was an endless and tiring cycle that had reached to a point where you didn’t know how to break it.
Tim had been stressed. He had barely even been there not just for you, for himself too. He was sleeping less which for him was two hours a day.
Your days together consisted of you lashing out and him storming out in frustration. He would always come back though, after patrol in the middle of the night.
He would always come back and sneak into the bed next to you. His calloused hands always found your waist and his lips found the crook of your neck, giving you fluttering kisses until you woke up and let him have you.
That was the only time he apologised. When he was rocking into you deep into the night, kissing your wet cheeks and making empty promises to be better. And when you woke up the next morning to an empty bed, you felt shitty all over again.
That’s why he had invited you to his penthouse to stay over for a few days so you guys could spend time together. Do anything other than argue and have sex.
It had now been day three of your stay and nothing had changed.
In fact it got worse. He stayed buried in files on his desk while you worked on your assignments or watched tv downstairs. And when he wasn’t on his desk he was at Wayne Enterprises and when he wasn’t there he was at the Batcave. You felt like he was a ghost in his own home and you didn’t know how to deal with it.
You fell asleep before he got home and woke up long after he left. Even the breakfast you made every morning was only for yourself. Sometimes he joined you for lunch that he spent glued to his phone.
“You know you’re supposed to be my girlfriend. You’re supposed to be there for me when things get tough. It’s not easy being the CEO and also a fucking Vigilante, I’m wearing myself thin and then I have to come home to your nagging,” he said through clenched teeth.
“That’s literally what I’m saying. You forget I exist until you’re too frustrated with work and want to let it out. I’m not your fuck buddy. You made a commitment–”
Commitment. That word again.
There’s nothing Tim hated more than being reminded of how he was failing at his commitments. At his work. At being a vigilante.
He put a hand to his forehead and sat down at the edge of the bed. “Can you stop fucking talking? I can’t take it!”
“I can’t take it either!” You snapped. “I’m dating a ghost! You have time for everything but me. I’m not even asking for much but I’ve been here for three days now and you’ve been home for none of those.”
“I have things to do okay? I wake up when you’re still in bed and I have to go to work. I come back at fucking 10 PM and I leave for patrol. What do you want from me damn it!”
“I want you to take care of yourself and I want you let me help,” you said, voice turning softer as you stepped closer to him.
You put your palm over his shoulder to make him look up at you but he shook his head and shrugged your hand away.
“I can’t deal with this right now. I have to go on patrol,” he muttered and stormed out of the bedroom, leaving you all alone again.
A feeling of defeat overtook your body. For not just yourself but your relationship but you weren’t going to cry over it in his damn house.
Instead, you pulled out your bag from his closet and stuffed your clothes and things inside as well as you could before storming out like he had done multiple times.
-
Tim got home at around three in the morning, close to four even.
He knew he was in the wrong. He had known it for a while now and honestly he was surprised that you even put up with it for this long.
He knew no one could ever accept a relationship like this and he also knew you deserved better, way way better.
You were the only person he knew who grounded him. He had to be Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne every day and Red Robin every night and he was tired of it.
He had been tired of it for some time now. Ever since Babs went to Blüdhaven to help Dick, he’s been working extra and wearing himself thin.
Even after Bruce told him to take a day off and take care of himself since he’d started looking like death. Eyebags more hollow and bigger each day, the circles around his eyes getting darker with every night he stayed awake.
He only felt a semblance of reality when he was touching you and he hated himself for it but he also didn’t know how else to be with you. He had forgotten it along the way.
With a sigh, he twisted the key to his penthouse, hoping to see you in bed already or on the couch in case you wanted your space. He practiced what he would say to you from the moment he left the Batcave.
This fight wouldn’t end in you two falling back into bed again. No, he would apologise and talk to you about what’s been frustrating him and then he will take you out on a date tomorrow and be a present boyfriend. The one you deserve.
Except when he got to the fridge to grab a bottle of water, he found a note stuck on the door right below a polaroid of you and him at his office at Wayne Enterprises.
His gaze lingered on the photo and let a small smile appear on his face at the memory. You were sitting on his lap behind his desk with your arms looped around his neck and his wrapped around your waist. The expression on your face was so beautiful, your nose scrunched in mock disgust at Tim kissing your cheek. He could almost feel you now if he closed his eyes.
He remembered Dick taking that photo and he silently thanked him for it.
He finally looked at the note below it and felt his heart sink.
“Gone home. Don’t call.”
He pulled the note off to see if you wrote anything on the back but it was empty. Not even an ‘I love you.’
Leaning back on the counter, he downed the whole bottle of water to wake himself up in case he was somehow dreaming. He let out a long defeated sigh and walked upstairs to his bedroom with heavy footsteps.
He knew you would be mad if he called, even more mad if he had showed up at your apartment at three in the morning.
He also knew that he truly and utterly fucked up.
-
You woke up to the pounding on your door. It took you a minute to realise you were back home in your own bed and not in the thousand dollar cloud your millionaire boyfriend slept on.
The pounding came again and you checked the time. 6 am, he had lasted longer than you expected.
You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes and padded over to the front door, squinting at the morning light filtering in your living room.
Tim had a key to your apartment and he was still pounding like a mad man at six in the morning. If you weren’t angry at him before, you surely were now.
You pulled the door open with a huff and the sight in front of you almost made you melt.
Tim was standing at your front door with a bouquet in his hands. His eyes red and puffy like he had missed yet another night of sleep. His lips were curved downwards in a pout he wasn’t aware of. The hood of his maroon hoodie drawn up to hide his long hair but the strands that always fell over his eye were there, looking pretty as always. Making him look exactly like the pretty boy you called him.
“You’re not wearing my shirt,” was the first thing he said. “You always wear my shirts to bed.”
You looked down at yourself, momentarily forgetting exactly what you were wearing when you went to bed. The thin tank top and shorts you wore were not made for the morning chill in the living room.
“What do you want?” You said instead and rubbed your eyes.
“Sweetheart-” He began but you shook your head. “Can I come in please?”
“Go home Tim,” you sighed and made to close the door but he put his foot forward to stop you. “You’re so ughh!” You groaned and let him come inside.
He shut the door behind him and for a second, just stood there. A few steps away from you in your living room, just watching you look at him through squinted and sleep filled eyes.
And he swore it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
“I’m sorry,” he finally spoke and handed you the bouquet.
“It’s not going to work,” you sighed but took the flowers from him and set them aside on the kitchen island.
“Yes it will!” Tim protested. “I’ll make it work, I’ll be better,” he went on and stepped forward to put his hands on your waist but you backed away from him.
“This is exactly what we do. I get it okay? You have things to do and I’m not blaming you for them. I just need something different and I think I should be with someone who wants the same things as me.”
“Don’t say that,” Tim said in a shaky voice. “Baby I promise I just need another chance I know I’ve been the worst boyfriend ever but I swear I’ll change–”
“I don’t want you to change who you are Tim. Not for me. You also need someone who’s more fit for your lifestyle, someone who fits in your world with you because I don’t,” you replied.
“But you do!” He reasoned, voice getting higher. “You do angel, you fit everywhere. You have no idea how I felt last night when I got home and you were gone. I don’t know where I fit if it’s not with you,” he went on and you finally let the tears you’d been holding back slip.
“I don’t know if I believe you,” you whispered and crossed your arms over your chest. “You’ve been saying the same things for weeks now. I don’t like arguing with you every single time we’re together.”
“I get it okay? I do. I understand why you wouldn’t believe me, hell if I were you I’d have kicked myself to the curb a long ago but I’m selfishly asking you for one last chance,” he pleaded. “You make me feel like myself. Like I don’t have to put on a show for anyone, like I don’t have to be on. I can just rest and you’ll let me. I realise that now I’ve been taking that for granted and you have expectations too.”
“You hurt me,” you managed to speak. “You’ve been hurting me.”
“I know sweetheart I’m an asshole,” he swallowed and stepped forward again to put his arms around you and this time, you let him.
You let yourself sink into his chest as he held you, letting the tears from last night finally spill. He rubbed his hand up and down your back and planted little kisses to your hair as if to say the things he couldn’t, like was reassuring you that he was there.
“Just one last chance I promise if I fuck up again, you have every right to beat me up.”
“I’m not going to beat you Tim,” you chuckled through tears and looked up in his tired half lidded eyes. His gorgeous blue eyes. “You have to promise to take breaks too. Let me take care of you.”
“I promise,” he nodded too quickly. “What else?”
“You’ll sleep and tell Batman to fuck off. He can find someone else to help I need you alive and well,” you said in a shaky but firm voice. “Or else he will have me to deal with.”
Tim chuckled and leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead. “I’ll let him know,” he murmured and rested his head against yours. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” you replied, barely above a whisper.
“Please don’t ever leave like that especially in the middle of the night.”
“I won’t,” you promised.
“In fact, what do you think about moving in together?” He asked with so much expectation in his eyes you couldn’t turn him down even if you wanted to.
“We’ll talk about that later. For now can you please get into bed with me I’m tired and cold and I want cuddles,” you complained.
Tim chuckled again and gave you a brief kiss on the lips before nodding. He led you to the bedroom with a gentle grip on your wrist like he was afraid of letting you go even for a second.
Once inside, you quickly jumped in bed while Tim took off his hoodie. He put it aside on your desk chair and came to stand in front of you. His hands immediately went to your flimsy tank top and pulled it over your head.
“Wha-” You began but he quickly took off his own shirt and pulled it down your body.
He cupped your cheeks next and gave you a long and searing kiss. “Better,” he smiled against your lips and got into bed next to you, wasting no time in pulling you into his chest and tangling your legs.
“Good night,” he murmured and pressed a kiss to your nose.
“It’s morning,” you giggled and pinched his bare chest.
“It’s good night for us. Happy Sunday,” he added and tightened his arms around you.
“Good night baby,” you smiled against his collarbone and pressed a quick kiss there.
sorry if the ending is a bit rushed
send more requests for tim please!!! he has no fanfics and i miss him…
likes comments and reblogs are appreciated, hope you guys enjoy! <3
