SUMMARY: Your boyfriend is acting suspicious and won't take off his helmet. AKA! Jason gets a bad haircut and tries to hide it from you.
WARNINGS: established relationship, domestic fluff, silliness, banter, insecure/awkward jason, suggestive sexual content, mentions of sexual acts, slight references to a size & mask kink, voice modulator
WORD COUNT: 3.5k
READ ON AO3
A sound at your front door pulls you from the blue-lit trance of doomscrolling. Over an hour's worth of content consumed, dissolving from your memory the moment you look away. Unimportant things, really. Digital junk food for a brain that's really just hungry for Jason.
And if your instincts are right—if those particular sounds mean what you think they mean—you're about to get exactly what you're craving.
"Jay?" you call out, abandoning your phone on the bed.
"It's me," he calls back, voice muffled and distant.
You're already moving, practically bounding down the hallway. Momentum and want in equal measure.
You find him in the living room, broad shoulders already shrugging off his jacket. He places it carefully on the couch's arm, and his gloves come off next. He turns at the sound of your footsteps drawing closer.
Butterflies. Every single time. You'd think by now you'd have built up an immunity, developed some kind of tolerance to the way Jason Todd makes your stomach flip just by existing in your sight. But no. Your body remains stubbornly, hopelessly reactive to him.
"Hey," you say, grin beaming brighter as you close the distance. Your eyes track over him, cataloguing, and linger on the familiar red helmet covering his face. "I thought you were taking it easy today?"
He shrugs, casual. "Unfortunate change of plans."
You hum in understanding, and then your body is moving—drawn into his orbit. Your arms wind around his torso and you press your face into the broad expanse of his chest, greedy for it. For the warmth of him. For the sound of his heart performing its acrobatic routine beneath your ear—one that would make even Dick proud.
It's a pattern you've memorized: the way it always spikes first, rabbiting against his ribs the moment you touch him. Doesn't matter if it's been ten minutes or ten hours. There's always that moment of recognition. Of want. And then it settles, slowing into something steady and sure.
A wild thing gentled. Coming in from the cold.
It always makes you feel better. Whether you've had a shitty day that needed a turnaround or a great day you wanted to stretch into forever. There's no greater comfort than being in Jason's arms, feeling the evidence of his love in the involuntary language of his pulse.
You pull back slightly, arms still locked around his waist, and look up at him. His arms loosen from around your shoulders, hands sliding down the length of your arms until they settle near your biceps.
You wait, patient, for your routine to unfold: Jason removing his hands to reach for his helmet, fingers working the mechanisms at the base, eagerly freeing his face so he can kiss you properly.
But it doesn't come.
You frown, narrowing your eyes at the blank expression of his mask. "What's going on?"
"What?" The helmet makes his voice flat, but you can still hear the studied innocence underneath. "Nothing. Why do you ask?"
Your eyes narrow further. "Why won't you take your helmet off?"
Jason stiffens—imperceptibly, but you've memorized the topography of his body, learned to read the tiny faults and fissures. A brief moment of silence passes before he offers a small, unconvincing, "No reason."
The words pull your frown even deeper.
"What's wrong with you?" Your tone is judge and jury. "You're acting weird."
This time, Jason doesn't respond. Only begins rubbing gentle circles on your biceps, thumbs moving in hypnotic patterns. You blink at him, and discomfort curls in your stomach—a cold drip of worry sliding down your spine.
"Are you okay?" You pull back to fully look at him, searching the whites of his mask for something, anything. "Did something happen?"
He catches your hands before they slip from his torso entirely, fingers wrapping gently around your wrists. If you weren't starting to spiral, you'd take a moment to appreciate how his hands practically swallow yours whole. How good it looks. How much your size kink is currently preening like a well-fed cat.
But you are spiraling, and he still hasn't answered you.
Jason's gotten exponentially better at communication since the start of your relationship. The fact that he's deflecting now—that there's a chance he might be reverting to old habits—makes irritation build at the edges of your worry.
"No," he says, and his voice is softer now. A tone you know is reserved only for you. "Nothing happened, I promise."
"Oh thank god." Relief floods through you, chest collapsing with the exhale. The corners of your lips twitch upward in gratitude.
Your day is still perfectly, beautifully mundane. No vigilante concerns or life-or-death situations.
The euphoria fades quickly, though, as the vibrant red of his mask continues to taunt you. You're growing tired of not being able to see his face. You want to see his eyes and watch his pupils dilate when you step closer. Want to catch the tiny smile that always starts at the corner of his mouth before spreading. You want access.
"Okay, Jay, seriously—why the hell won't you take that thing off?"
"Maybe I'm feeling shy."
You roll your eyes, the gesture affectionate and annoyed in equal measure. "Too bad. I want to see your face. And as my extremely loving, devoted, doting boyfriend, you're contractually obligated to give me what I want—"
You reach upward, hands grabbing at the sides of the helmet, but Jason dodges your grasp and redirects them to rest on his chest. You scowl.
"Jason," you say, exasperation bleeding into your voice. You try to pull your hands back, pry them from his grasp, but he doesn't budge. His head tilts downward, and you know—beneath the whites of his mask—his eyes are darting across your face. Gauging how much time he has left. How thin your patience is wearing.
The answers are: not much, and very thin. The use of his full name, delivered in a tone usually reserved for scolding particularly unruly children, should be indicator enough.
"I want to keep it on," he murmurs, thumbs sweeping back and forth across your knuckles in soothing arcs.
"Why?" you probe, eyes returning to their suspicious narrow. But his touch is already working on you, the soothing motion of his fingers softening your edges, and the murmur of his voice has loosened the tightened muscles in your body.
Your boyfriend knows exactly how to work you. Being loved so thoroughly has never felt so damn inconvenient.
He tilts his head at you. One hand trails down the expanse of your arm in a slow, deliberate drag before lifting to cradle your face. His palm is warm against your cheek, thumb brushing your cheekbone with a tenderness that makes your breath catch.
"Because," he says, voice dropping an octave into something rougher, darker, "I'm thinking about what I could do to you while wearing it." His thumb traces the curve of your jaw. "The way you looked the last time. How you sounded when you begged me to—"
You draw a sharp inhale, cutting him off before he can finish that particular thought.
You won't lie and say the words don't have their intended effect. They absolutely do. Your stomach flutters, core clenching in immediate response. The image your mind begins to paint is sinfully divine, dredging up memories of each time Jason has been more than eager to fulfill your bedroom requests.
Most recently: the other night when he'd come back from patrol and caught the appreciative look in your eyes as you took in his suit. How he'd pushed you down onto the couch, still wearing his helmet, telling you how good you felt, how perfect you were for him, his voice raspy and made devastatingly deeper by the modulator.
His other hand moves to your waist now, fingers spanning your ribcage possessively. His thumb brushes the underside of your breast through your shirt—a touch just shy of indecent—and you're half certain your knees might give out with the way his voice is pooling liquid heat low in your belly.
He hums, low and pleased, the sound vibrating through the small space between your bodies.
"What do you say?" His head tilts toward the couch in suggestion, and his thumb moves up to tug gently at your bottom lip, pulling it down and watching it spring back. "Want to revisit some recent memories?"
Your breath is coming faster now, body practically vibrating with want, every nerve ending awake and paying attention.
But.
As tempting as it sounds to give in—and god, is it tempting—his words have something else attached to them. A slight edge of desperation. A tone you know too well, one you've worn smooth with familiarity.
He's desperate and deflecting. Whatever he's hiding, he's doing his absolute best to keep it concealed.
"Jason Peter Todd," you say slowly, gently removing yourself from his hold. Your body mourns the loss immediately—already missing his warmth, his touch—and Jason makes a wounded sound of protest as you step back and cross your arms. "Are you trying to distract me with the promise of great sex?"
A beat of silence. "Great, huh?"
Smug satisfaction bleeds through his words, and you bite back a smile at his playfulness. But you refuse to give in. "Answer the question."
"Depends." You can hear the shrug in his voice. "Is it working?"
You let your gaze travel over him, reassessing the situation with fresh eyes. Nothing seems wrong. Not seriously, at least. He's not tense in that specific way that means danger. His posture isn't defensive. He's just... hiding something. Something he thinks you'll react to.
"Jay," you say finally. "Tell me what you're hiding."
He shifts his weight from foot to foot. "You're going to laugh."
You let out a small scoff. "I'm not going to—"
"You're absolutely going to laugh."
You pause. Consider. "Okay, yeah. If you say so, then I'm probably going to laugh."
He makes a sound that's half-groan, half-sigh, and his shoulders slump in a way that's almost comically dejected. "Well now I definitely don't want to tell you."
You give him your best are-you-serious face, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open in disbelief. "So what? You're just gonna wear that helmet forever?"
"If I have to." His voice is flat. "Sure."
You sigh, dramatic and fond in equal measure. This is so very Jason—turning something small into something comedic, making a production out of vulnerability because it's easier than just being honest. It's infuriating and endearing and entirely him.
Your mind begins running through possibilities, each path taking you down a different conclusion.
"Is your helmet stuck and you're too prideful to admit it?"
He shakes his head.
"Did someone beat the shit out of you and now you're too embarrassed to show me the bruises?"
He recoils slightly, and you can practically hear the offense radiating through his posture. "What? No. Jesus."
"Oh, I know!" You grin, suddenly delighted by your own joke. "You've decided you hate me and you're hiding your face so I can't see the disgust in your eyes."
His shoulders deflate completely, and you bite back the urge to laugh at the successful result of your mockery. Jason looks around your apartment like he's searching for an escape route, and you take advantage of his distraction to run through more options in your mind, pieces rearranging themselves into new patterns.
Another idea dawns on you, bright and sudden. "Did you do something to yourself?"
His head snaps toward you. Progress.
"Did you get an earring?"
He shakes his head. "No."
"A nose stud? Ring?"
"No, and no."
"A tongue piercing?"
"Nope."
"Damn." Your shoulders drop in genuine disappointment. "That would've been so hot."
Jason chuckles—a low, rough sound that makes your toes curl. You file that idea away for later, for a time when you can properly make your case. Convince him of all the beautiful, creative opportunities a tongue ring might present. The things he could do with that mouth, augmented with surgical steel. The texture. The pressure. The—
He sighs, a sound of resignation that pulls you from your spiraling thoughts. His hands reach up to the back of his helmet, fingers finding the familiar mechanisms.
"I got a haircut," he finally reveals.
You blink at him, processing. "That's what all this fuss is about? A haircut?"
"It's not great."
You let out a breathy, fond laugh, already feeling relief wash over you. "Oh c'mon. I'm sure you're being dramatic."
In truth, you're excited now. A haircut. That's it. That's the big secret he's been guarding like classified information. Jason is probably just overthinking it—caught in that familiar spiral of post-haircut anxiety, hyper-aware of every different angle and changed line.
It'll probably make him look even more delicious than usual, and you're already prepared to show him exactly how little you care about whatever minor change he's worried about. You're ready to drag him to the bedroom and prove, thoroughly and enthusiastically, that he could shave his entire head and you'd still want to climb him like a tree.
"You're going to break up with me."
"I'm not going to break up with you over a haircut."
"You say that now."
"Jason Todd, if you don't take that helmet off in the next five seconds, I'm going to—"
The helmet comes free with a hiss of released pressure.
Your eyes widen at the sight before you.
Oh.
Oh no.
Jason ducks his head immediately, gaze sliding to the floor. His eyes flick toward you—awkward, sheepish, showing whites like a nervous dog. He sets his helmet carefully on top of his jacket, movements slow.
The haircut is... it's a disaster.
An absolute catastrophe.
Buzzed at the sides, that beautiful white streak hacked into something short and jagged and utterly mangled.
They've massacred your boy. Genuinely, truly massacred him.
Your mouth parts as you take him in, cycling through every stage of grief in rapid succession. A contemplative breath leaves your lips, and Jason's shoulders deflate further, caving in on themselves.
"It's really bad, isn't it?"
It's more than really bad. But you can't quite laugh in his face yet because he looks utterly, genuinely defeated. The idea of mocking him right now feels almost morally reprehensible. Like pantsing a kid on the monkey bars.
"No, no. Not at all." You're shaking your head, hands gesturing emphatically. "It's just different, that's all."
"Different." He repeats the word. "Is different good?"
"Different can be good. Sure. Absolutely."
"Okay, that clearly means I look awful."
"I didn't say that!"
But the longer you look at it, the worse it seems to get. An optical illusion working in reverse. You're trying so hard not to smile right now, cheek muscles straining against the inevitable. You know once that grin escapes—once you lose control of your face—the laughs will immediately follow, and you're trying, really trying, to be supportive right now.
Jason's brows furrow. "So you think I should get it cut like this again?"
"NO." You let out a slightly unhinged laugh before slapping a hand over your mouth. You clear your throat, trying to regain some composure. "I mean, no. Absolutely not. Don't do that. Never do that."
"Aha. It didn't turn out well. I knew it." Jason points an accusatory finger at you. "You liar."
You swat his hand down, but you're losing the battle with your smile now. It's escaping, breaking free despite your best efforts. "Okay, fine. Yes. It's awful. You look like someone I'd avoid making eye contact with at a gas station. Happy?"
"Oh come on." He recoils slightly, frowning, but there's mirth gleaming in those pretty eyes. "It can't be that bad."
At your silence, Jason deflates even further.
"Fuck. Is it really that bad?"
You grimace. Nod slowly. Apologetically.
Jason brings a hand to his head carefully, like his hair— or what's left of it— might turn sentient and bite him. He touches it with the solemnity of someone mourning at a funeral.
Which, to be fair, you're not entirely sure he isn't.
You certainly are. You're mourning those beautiful dark locks you could run your hands through, grab at when he's laying in your lap falling asleep while insisting he's wide awake. The hair you could grip between your fingers when he's settled between your thighs, head buried and working you over with that talented mouth—
"I just—" He stops. Takes a breath. Starts again. "I wanted to look nice. For you."
The words hit you square in the chest. Sweet and earnest and so utterly caring that you feel something crack open inside you.
You smile and reach up to hold his face in your hands. His eyes are uncertain as they meet yours.
You move his head gently, cataloguing the different angles of his new haircut. He falls pliant in your grasp immediately, hands finding their way to your waist, holding you, pulling you incrementally closer.
After careful consideration from every possible angle—and they're all bad, truly, there's not a single good angle to be found—you meet his gaze.
"What is it?" he asks quietly.
You hum, thoughtful. "I'm just thinking about the upside to this situation."
His brow furrows. "There's an upside to this?"
You let out an amused breath through your nose, and your smile grows wider as you take him in—this massive, dangerous man who's currently looking at you like a kicked puppy over a bad haircut. Your heart does something complicated in your chest. Something that feels too big for your ribcage.
"You know I really, truly love you," you say, thumbs brushing his cheekbones, "because even this atrocious, unattractive, utterly catastrophic monstrosity—"
"So many adjectives."
"—doesn't change a single thing about how I feel when I look at you."
His expression shifts, softens. Goes tender at the edges in a way that makes your chest ache. "Yeah?"
You nod, cheeks already hurting from the size of your smile. "Yeah."
He pulls you in and kisses you—tender at first, sweet.
Your hand slides into his hair on pure instinct, and you make a small, involuntary sound of dismay when you encounter the short, butchered strands where there used to be length. But then he deepens the kiss and coherent thought scatters like leaves in wind.
His tongue slides against yours and his hands tighten on your waist, pulling you closer, closer, trying to eliminate whatever microscopic space still exists between your bodies.
When you pull back slightly—lips still brushing, breathing each other's air in that intimate way that never fails to make you dizzy—you murmur, "Never leave me out of a haircut consultation again. Ever."
"Okay. Promise." He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest and into yours where you're pressed together. "I'm sorry."
"You should be."
You lean in for another kiss, already losing yourself in the familiar taste of him, when an idea strikes you. Bright, sudden, and absolutely perfect. "You can make it up to me, though."
"Oh yeah?" Jason's voice drops, goes rough and interested. One hand starts to travel, skating up your ribcage with clear intent. "How?"
"I have a few ideas."
His other hand finds your ass—squeezing, kneading. Heat sparks through your system like a lit fuse, and suddenly you're keyed up, wound tight, practically trembling with anticipation.
"I'm listening," he murmurs against your mouth.
You pull back to turn and grab his discarded helmet from the couch. When you face him again, you're running your fingers along the smooth red surface with obvious intent, and his gaze tracks the movement like a predator watching prey.
Understanding dawns in his eyes—pupils dilating, swallowing the color until only thin rings remain. The tug of his smirk is borderline sinful, and it makes your stomach flip in the best possible way.
"Really?" He raises an eyebrow. "Am I going to have to wear that every time we have sex until it grows out?"
You frown slightly, pulling him closer with your free hand hooked in his belt loop. "Oh don't be silly. I don't care about the haircut." You look up at him through your lashes, let your smile turn coy and promising. "I just really loved your distracting idea from earlier."
Jason takes the helmet from your hands slowly, turning it over once, considering. When he looks back at you, that sinful smirk has grown into something that sends a thrill through your bones.
"Then I guess we shouldn't let a good idea go to waste."
AUTHORS NOTE: gotham knights jason...im looking at you...but also i lowkey fuck with it ☝🏻 cutie patootie ill defend u forever
EDIT 2: K.O. red hood vs joker....im also looking at you now....
soft spoken with a broken jaw
fan of their vigilante persona pre-reveal (request)
including | dick grayson, jason todd, tim drake, damian wayne & roy harper
playing | scar tissue- red hot chili peppers
dick grayson- nightwing lego keychain
The clinking of your bag charms broke the silence of the apartment as you made your way through the rooms. Dick gave you the key some months ago, so visiting was nothing out of the ordinary, hence the normalcy of it all.
He stuck his head out of the kitchen, calling out for you as he kept cooking dinner, humming an old song along the way. You finally reached where he stood, apron and everything on as he seemed quite committed to the bit, and leaned over to press a quick kiss to his cheek. Content with it, he closed his eyes to relish the feeling and went to grab your bag to set it down for you and greet you properly.
Now imagine the reaction poor Dick had when he saw hanging from the side of your bag a small Nightwing lego keychain. Barely anything can leave this man without a quick reply of his, but any and all thoughts left his mind as you went to hug him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.
He stood there very dumbfounded but he reciprocated your affection as he began to feel a bit flustered. “Hi babe. So… I see you have a new keychain? How come you’ve never told me you were into vigilantes?” he questioned with a teasing glint in his eye, trying to subtly cover how over the moon he felt.
You turned as you realised what he meant “Oh! I just bought it on the way home, do you like it! I just recently started doomscrolling though some of his appearances and I can say that I feel very safe with him protecting the city”. Starting a small rant while you left to get unready for the day, he replied with hums and ohs while he kept taking care of the dinner, begging that his flush and excitement could be somehow covered up.
Dick Grayson had now a new job to do: figure out how to break it to you that he was said vigilante you carried all around.
jason todd- fat hood plushie
As Jason juggled the pizza boxes in his hand, you opened with a bit of force the door to your apartment, making sure to lock it down vigorously before settling down. The plan was a simple homebody date night, pizza and movies, cuddling AND reading together before winding down, aka, both of your dreams.
Placing down the pizzas, he stretched his back a bit before turning to stare at you already sat in the couch, scrolling through the options while you asked for his opinion on your choices. He found the situation endearing as he looked at you, completely engulfed by his leather jacket while picking at the snacks laid out on the table from before.
His heart-eyed stare suddenly stopped mid-way through as he saw a new décor item beside you: was that thing a suspiciously shaped round red hood plushie? He started squinting at it, as if the cotton filled sphere was going to a) replace his cherished spot on the couch (he loves his spot on the couch okay? He’s territorial over it) or b) be a way to let him know that you had figured out his secret identity.
Side eyeing the whole situation, he spoke out loud “Hey, so what the actual fuck is that thing in my spot? Move it out of the way, please, or I swear I’m throwing it out through the window”. Coming out of your thoughts about the ideal movie (“No, Jay, baby, there are other movies we can talk shit about that aren’t classic adaptations”), you stared at him with a confused expression on your face until he pointed towards your new plushie.
“He’s fat hood. There’s no other explanation. He stays, he keeps watch over the door” you briefly explained. His lack of response was substituted by rapid blinking in confusion like a cartoon character as he wordless urged for more information about the whole ordeal. Understanding him, you continued “Some red hood fans handmade this little guy here as an imitation to another character from I don’t know where and now he’s fat hood. He’s fat hood, he stays” you finished with a serious joking expression on your face.
Jason was feeling both offended at the very round plushie still beside you and deeply enamoured at you even more than he already was. “You a fan of him?” he tried asking nonchalantly as he turned his back to you to hide the sheepish smile on his face. “I mean, kinda, way before we started dating and you could’ve helped me, he stopped some guys from mugging me and bought me a muffin for the trauma. He’s a chill guy, I totally feel safe knowing he’s wandering somewhere” you concluded as you went back to the still un-chosen movie.
Keeping his relief and pure unadulterated joy to himself, he took a few silent breaths to regain his composure and finally go back to you, placing fat hood somewhere safe as he wrapped his arm around your body to pull you closer to him, hiding his grin on your hair.
tim drake- red robin fan account
“This song is absolute trash, do you mind changing it for me, please babe?” you asked Tim who was laying on your bed with his laptop on his lap, finishing up the last report he had to complete. Meanwhile, you had music playing on your laptop right beside his, and you were getting unready for the night.
Humming softly as your request, he changed devices and went onto your spotify to play another one you enjoyed, and after deciding on one and getting your approval, he laid back down, still with your laptop in his hands, Suddenly, a notification pinged somewhere in the room, and after checking his gadgets, he let you know that it was from one of yours.
“Would you mind reading it to me when you’re done with your work? I just removed my contacts and I can’t be bothered to put my glasses back on”. Agreeing with a smile on his face, he quickly finished up his doings and settled down in bed while he took your laptop once again to do as you asked of him.
The notification was a milestone from a tumblr blog he was unaware of existing, and he quickly opened it up to look at what you had posted, because it did feel a bit weird that you never mentioned it. “You have a fan account about Red Robin on tumblr” he declared as he tried really really hard to sink down into the cushions behind him.
“Yeah? I thought you knew? I genuinely have a folder in my screen with a Red Robin?” “I thought it was an inside joke with someone?!”. Poor Tim was now more confused and flustered than anything as he scrambled to look more into the blog.
As you began to explain your hiperfixation with the vigilante, he blushed more and more, replying with shorter sentences as the rant kept going. Even if it was completely out of the blue, he couldn’t say that his ego was inflated to a hundred, as he learnt how much you admired the vigilante while you laid your head on his bicep, pressing kisses intermittently to his reddened face.
damian wayne- robin ita bag
“On a scale from 1 to 10 how likely are you to help me make an ita bag of Robin?” were the first words that left your mouth when you entered through the safety of Damian’s apartment. All university classes done for the day, it wasn’t uncommon to stay with the other for a while after they finished, but the request was indeed a new thing for the startled man sitting in front of you.
He seemed almost frozen in place, hands stuck inside his bag as he was taking out his laptop to charge. The question lingered in his mind as he finished his doings before turning to look at you looking for more information, trying to cover up his very loud heartbeat that would give away his real feelings. “A what? I’m not familiar with what that it, but I can help you with anything you need, you already know it” he replied cooly, trying really, really hard to make it look like he was all cool and collected.
Explaining your idea as you came closer, you began “It’s this type of bag where on one side you can place like, pins, badges or really anything, usually related to a character. I went on a rabbit scroll last night because when I was coming back home, Robin passed right over me and it seemed so cool, so I’m doing my research now. Did you know rogues are scared shitless of him?”. The rant continued softly as you explained your hiperfixation to you boyfriend, who was looking at you like he had a heart attack and you were the only one that could save him.
While you kept on talking, he was trying every method of calming down he’s ever known, because you definitely shouldn’t see Damian, who to you was only your boyfriend and a med school student, blushing horribly as you talked about a vigilante. You were incredibly intelligent, and he was well aware that you could join all the dots very quickly if you saw him, so for now, he could only huff and puff as you kept mentioning ideas for the bag, praying it covered up his adoring expression.
roy harper- arsenal diy t-shirt
The incessant pounding on your door woke you up abruptly, removing you from a sweet dream replaced by an angry knocking pattern you were well accustomed to. Grumbling all the way to the door, you began speaking from inside to Roy, because he had definitely forgotten his keys god knows where and was now freezing outside as he waited for you to come up.
Mumbling and slightly pissed for being woken up, you opened the door with an eye half open and the other one completely closed, covering the light that was burning your vision through the windows. There, indeed, stood the red-headed man, looking sorry for waking you up but freezing as you predicted, because he forgot (once again) his jacket inside his car.
All sign of annoyance in his face disappeared the second he saw what you were wearing, becoming instantly his second favourite sight after you in his average t-shirts: an older top that was definitely stretched but still wearable was on your body. The cherry on top, it had an arsenal fanart from a few years back that got really popular because of how incredible he looked.
Whistling as he entered inside, quickly shutting the door after him, he said “Damn babe, I knew you had a thing for redheads, but really? Him? Come on, look at me, I’m way cooler than that guy” he teased for the sake of it, being very well aware that he was winning the competition against himself.
Still half asleep, you mumbled something to shut him up about how the vigilante had helped a kid a long time ago in front of you and you became a fan. “Just made the t-shirt for funsies, I mean, I’m sure you saw the fanart too from years ago” you finished as you grabbed him and dragged him all the way back to your room.
A very very smug Roy was grinning in the darkness, placing you on his chest as he kissed the top of your head, completely delighted in the feeling that you already liked his other persona.
summary: post-mission, you land yourself in the hospital with a concussion. in your daze, you plead for someone to tell damian so he won't tear the hospital down to find you, for him not to worry. only problem? you and damian are supposed to hate each other.
pairing: damian wayne x fem! reader
The faint beeping, the low hushed voices—it's an annoying, distant commotion disrupting your sleep, enough to rouse you from the heavy, dark haze enveloping your senses. Your heavy lids peel open, blinking slowly as your vision adjusts to the sight of the hospital ceiling.
The striking scent of disinfectant hits you, and your nose instinctively wrinkles. A low rasp escapes your throat, just enough to stop the whispers.
"—She's awake!"
It’s a familiar voice, you think. Dick. It wasn’t the voice you wanted to hear, no matter how reassuring—not when the one you're familiar with holds a much more begrudging tone.
"I need..." Who? There's an urgent pressure building up in the back of your mind, an important request hanging right off your tongue. "To tell him."
"Hey-hey, you're okay. Just a little disoriented." Dick’s face comes into view, his messy locks covering the fuzzy halo of light above you. “You have a minor concussion, but no fatal injuries.”
"No. You need to tell him." Your face contorts, straining with visible effort to rack your brain for a name, trying to fight past the thick fog. "I am okay. It's him you have to worry about."
The corner of Dick's mouth tugs down briefly, confusion lighting his features. "Who?"
There's that damn question you're trying to answer. The fluorescent lights are much too oppressive—overly bright and sharp. You needed a shadow, someone who would know what to do when your teeth grinds together in discomfort.
"...Damian." You mutter. Ah, there it is. You don't notice the abrupt confused glances exchanged around the room, of how Damian's name was the last thing they expected to hear.
Your lids fall shut not a second after your job was done, body screaming to rest. At least you won't have to deal with Damian tearing down the hospital to find you.
"They despise each other." Tim reminds for the fifth time.
"I am aware.” Dick mutters, thumb scrolling through his contacts list. "What did I say about hacking my contacts list, Best Robin?"
"You didn't say anything about that specifically." Tim's foot taps impatiently against the tiles. “And why'd you think that contact name was meant for the demon spawn—never mind, that's besides the point right now. She's clearly disoriented.”
“I just have a gut feeling.” Pressing the phone against his ear, Dick runs a habitual tug over his locks whenever another situation pops up that he has to solve. Being in this line of work is bound to give him early greys.
"A gut feeling." Tim huffs, shaking his head in disagreement. “We better hope this doesn’t start another scuffle. Wouldn't want to toss another bone to the press. 'Blood son of Bruce Wayne attacks hospital patient'. I can already smell the print.”
Dick's frown sticks as he eyes you through the open door frame, laying in a hospital bed—unconscious ever since your first waking. The dots aren't connecting, not when the soot from the explosion still singes the edges of his jacket and his mind is all fuzzed up from a lack of sleep and endless documents. Still, the world had a knack for surprising him whenever he least expects it.
The ringing on the other side stops after two seconds.
"Damian." Dick addresses, re-running his fingers habitually through his hair. "There's been a situation at the hospital..."
Here's the thing, Dick knows Damian. He understands the trait of impatience passed along their family, which is why he's already summarised the facts down to twenty seconds. The call abruptly ends at ten.
"Huh." Dick mutters, brows pressed together as he looks back to Tim. "He hung up."
Dick had barely made it beyond the mention of your name and their current location. Your voice echoes in reminder as he stares at his screen, the duration of the call staring back at him. It's him you have to worry about.
Damian's anything but subtle. Of his frigid attitude—his blatant dislike towards you. Putting the two of you in the same room, it was guaranteed disaster. Yet, Damian was the first name out of your mouth.
"Told you it doesn't make sense." Tim shrugs. "Logically, he's the last person we should've called."
"We'll see." Dick answers, head leaning back to rest against the wall. "He's surprised us both plenty of times."
"Yeah, by attempting murder on us both. Your point being?"
Dick restrains a much-needed sigh.
Barely fifteen minutes later, Dick stirs at a loud commotion beyond the walls of the waiting room. His neck is cramping from this unergonomic chair, and his feet are nerved with pins-and-needles. Tim's ears are plugged in with wired earphones, jammed high with Green Day as he concentrates on his tablet, opting to work through his insomnia instead.
There’s a slamming of doors, rapid footsteps thundering against the tiles, coming closer and closer. Dick barely has time to nudge Tim’s shoulder before the hallway door slams open.
Damian comes through like a storm, movements overly controlled in the way a person would seize up before a fight. As if he's expected the worst, and is prepared to battle whatever he might encounter—in a hospital.
“Where is she?” Damian commands, voice echoing off the tiles.
Staring back at Dick are frantic, darkened eyes pinpointed on locked targets—searching for his answer. It's so abruptly intense, almost inhuman, that his mind stutters in regaining its grasp on reality. He hasn't seen that look in a long time, not since their first meeting where one wrong answer would make Damian your enemy.
“She’s asleep.” Tim answers for him, one side of his earphones still plugged in throughout this entire mess. “She needs the rest.”
Damian disregards his words, brushing past him. “I have to see her.”
Dick must’ve subconsciously shifted his glance to your room, towards the shine of the metal carvings of 78 placed in the centre. Damian's gaze follows, and he doesn’t spare a second of hesitation in heading towards the door.
Dick catches Damian's forearm right before he enters, and the glare he receives? Murderous. As if everything in his way of getting to you has become mere obstacles he has to overcome.
"Grayson." Damian's voice is all wrong, shortened and taut, syllables used to convey only what was needed. "Unhand. Me."
"Dames." Dick tries to make sense of this adverse reaction, but nothing from that brief phone call provided him any clues. "She's still unconscious, and I don't think it's a good idea for you to be in there—in this state."
Damian's chest heaves once, but the storm in his gaze has only darkened. "She called for me, didn't she?"
Dick blinks once. "Well, yes but—"
“Then you’re in my way.”
Damian disarms his grip with an alarming quickness, and Dick doesn't even have time to recalibrate his mistake before he's slipped through.
Dick's palm splays onto the door right before it closes, pushing it fully open with a warning ready on his lips to not disturb your recovery, only to find that—Damian hadn’t moved from his spot since he entered. Dick feels Tim pressing into his side, curious eyes flickering at the situation, but Dick is too busy watching to care about how they're practically hanging onto the doorframe.
When Damian catches sight of you, his entire frame freezes into place. He's watching you, and Dick's watching him—and he sees it then, and realises what an idiot he's been.
Damian's entire expression immediately shifts. Loosening in relief at the sight of you mostly unharmed, at the sound of a calm beeping from the heart monitor. It's frighteningly out of place, the tenderness softening his wrath-like panic mere seconds ago. He moves almost mindlessly towards your side, forgetting the presence of his two brothers gawking at him from outside the doorframe, peering into what must be a fever dream.
"Idiot." Damian mutters, but it sounds more like a prayer answered.
"We've got it all wrong, didn't we?" Tim mutters, staring at the sight in awe.
"Told you." Dick whispers, his lips tilting upwards into a smile. "Gut feeling."
You stir not long after Damian’s arrival, as if your body is already attuned to his presence. Lids peering half-open, you squint at the shadow towering over you. For a moment, there was nothing but held breaths and a long pause as you familiarise yourself with forest green.
Then, the most miraculous thing happens. You smile, completely unaware of the turmoil and confusion you've caused.
“Dami.”
Dick decides today is an absolute possibility for the world to end.
“You're an idiot.” Damian hurls the practiced insult out like he’s been running it off in his mind for the past couple of minutes, but his weakened voice holds no bite in comparison to his overwhelming relief.
Under the sheets, Dick swears he sees his brother’s fingers intertwining with yours.
“I told them to tell you not to rush.” You mutter hazily, still readjusting to reality. “At least—I think I did.”
Damian sucks in a breath, low, undistinguishable mutters whispered. Your lip twitches up slightly, which could only mean another insult you're brushing off.
“Yet, you’re still here.” You tease. “Fretting.”
The thin line of his lips creases deeper. “I do not fret.”
“Arguing with the patient?” Your body shifts, tilting closer to Damian.
“I prefer arguing with you unharmed.” Damian mocks lowly. Dick sees the stiffness bleed out of Damian’s expression the longer his gaze is locked onto you, as if materialising your talkative state in his mind.
"I am unharmed."
"A mild concussion, a hospital bed." Damian's frown deepens. "At least attempt at a reasonable lie."
Damian’s body tilts just slightly, lowering to match yours, and the light catches your features once more. Your lips tilt downward for a single second, the sting of the fluorescent lights irritating your vision.
In a sudden movement without words exchanged, Damian adjusts. His shoulders block the light over your face once more, covering you with his shadow.
You can't help the grin that escapes. "That is what I was thinking about, before I passed out again."
Damian's expression contorts, as if his mind can't decide on hyper-focusing on the details of you falling unconscious again or on what you were imagining about him. You decide for him.
"The lights were all in my face and—" You suck in a breath. "I kept trying to remember your name. I tried so hard to find it, this person who knows that I hate hospital lights without me needing to say it. Then, your name just slipped out."
“Oh.” Tim murmurs from afar.
“Oh.” Dick agrees.
“Don’t do that again.” Damian mutters in the quiet buzzing of the machines.
“Save people?” You tease.
“Put yourself in harm’s way.” Damian pushes back.
"Hey, what about the two of us?" Tim calls out, and Dick's quick to shove his elbow into the idiot's stomach. "Ow—what? We never got this treatment and all the fretting."
Damian's gaze shifts at the disruption, the softness creased into the corners of his eyes fading into annoyance. "Leave us."
"Woah." Tim holds a hand to his abdomen, still feigning hurt. "That's just cold."
Damian's eyes narrow further, and Dick's reminded instantly of how the press is probably waiting outside the hospital for any hints of a scuffle. It's already news enough for not two, but three members now of the Wayne family rushing to the emergency ward. Grabbing Tim by his hoodie, Dick tugs roughly. "We'll leave you two be to—catch up. No attempted murders, if the reminder's still needed."
It had slipped out so easily, the old warning, but it feels strangely out of place with this tender atmosphere. Dick's most definitely intruding on something he's not meant to see, but questions can be reserved for later.
Eyeing Damian one last time, he sees the way his brother's vision is trained on you—and he knows his job is done here.
You snort, a sheepish expression caught between your teeth, watching for confirmation as the door shuts with a click. When you have a shred of confidence that they're at least out of hearing range, you turn your attention back to Damian, unable to hide your grin.
“You know they’re probably freaking out right now?” You mutter conspiratorially. "They'll never buy into us hating each other anymore."
“That is not my concern.” Damian frowns. “You are.”
“That might be the sweetest thing you've ever told me.” You coo. "I matter enough for you to deal with family dinner interrogations now."
Damian's stare remains unimpressed. “I will smother you with pillows.”
“That’s unhygienic—and cruel.”
His tongue clicks softly as his hand comes up behind the pillow, instinctively propping them up higher as you adjust your neck, an action completely unrelated to his threat. “Only you would be concerned of bacteria before attempted murder.”
“Yeah, I’m a piece of work." You murmur distractedly, choosing to gaze intently at him instead. His hair's fallen into different directions, all un-Damian-like. "That’s why you rushed all the way here, didn’t you?”
He stiffens, hand shifting away from the pillow, but still hovering near you. He's been holding back from the moment he's entered this damned institution, and his mind is ticking, battling between his habit to be the steady one, and the crushing need to hold you.
“Dami..” It’s a delicate art, softening your tone just enough to reach him—one you’ve learnt in secret. “Come here.”
Your voice slips past his defences, and it hits. The inner workings of his mind switching between his logic and his emotions finally falter, and his fingers move on command, a delicate twist to cup the back of your head. He doesn't move you towards him, choosing to come over to you instead, his body hovering halfway over yours before finally letting his weight topple gently over you.
His arms wrap around you gently as his comforting weight falls over you, and the first thing you feel is how quickly his heart is racing. He needs this, you realise, as he settles with his arms wrapped protectively around you. To be physically present as your shield, even when there is no danger present.
Damian is affected. More than he seems from his tightly concealed expressions, obvious now that you can physically feel the effects on his body. Slight twitches of his fingers that appear when he's still afraid, waiting for the noise in his head to calm down.
“I didn't want you to worry.” You mumble into his embrace.
“Impossible.” Damian huffs softly, tracing his other hand over your wrist, feeling the soft thudding of your pulse. “You're my problem to handle."
You feel a soft, imperceptible kiss pressed onto your temple, and your eyes flutter shut. This is the side of Damian only you get to have, the proof of its existence ghosting your skin. You have to force your eyes open, the lure of sleep already trying to dig its claws into you—and that's something you absolutely refuse. You don't want to miss this rare side to Damian, all soft and disarmed.
"You scared me." Damian admits after a long pause, barely audible.
You blink, surprised. "You're never scared."
"For you, I am." Damian confesses, his grip tightening slightly. "You tend to render me painfully exposed to weakness."
"Weakness, huh? Still haven't got rid of me though." You hum lightly.
"No." His tone is decisive, stern. "If I haven't decided that I've had enough of you, the world doesn't get to."
"I'm starting to think threats are your love language, Dami." Your hand lifts, struggling twice before you manage to run your fingers through his hair, resting its weight over the nape of his neck.
His body shudders slightly, and his nose buries itself deeper into the crook of your neck. If anyone were to look into hospital room 78, they'll encounter the strange sight of Damian Wayne embracing you as if you were his lifeline. No one would believe them, but the truth remains.
He was yours. Completely yours.
He was also definitely sentenced to a long interrogation the moment he steps out of this room.
"Who was the perpetrator?" He mutters after a moment.
"Damian." You're stuck deciding between a snort and a sigh. "It was an accident."
"You don't know that." He huffs. "I sincerely doubt in your ability to detect an attempted murder while you're unconscious."
Your grip tugs at his hair playfully, a pretty effective way of shutting him up. "Argue with me later."
You feel his lashes flutter against your skin, processing. "...Fine."
He breathes you in, his heart rate finally starting to calm the longer he hears your voice so close to his eardrums, your touch grounding his senses.
"It was torture." His voice is too still, stating the facts without the emotion that's driven behind them. "The drive here. I kept envisioning the worst, that you had called out for me—and if I didn't make it in time—"
His grip tightens with his words, and you're pressed into his chest, feeling what his words refuse to convey, starting to thud again below his ribcage.
"Damian." Your hand traces reassuringly over his neck. "I'm right here."
He listens, his rampant thoughts slowing in pace at the reminder. "I had never been so terrified." His voice remains level, his attempt at reinforcing his reality over his fears. "To receive a call from Grayson, hearing your name—I couldn't let myself think of anything else other than finding you."
"You did." You mutter reassuringly. "You found me. I'm safe."
He lets out a low breath, a slow exhale at the sound of those two words he'd been needing to hear. "Sometimes, I think you've ruined me." He murmurs in truth.
You think he's unused to this. Letting down his walls, experiencing the blatant terror for another person's life that is completely out of his control—that he's left with nothing but pieces to readjust, to compromise. By letting you into his life and allowing you to be his person, he has abandoned his need to preserve himself, to be above fear.
"You're not escaping the argument." He notes down distractedly, trying to regain his ground despite being wrapped into you. "I still have my reservations."
"Anything you need, Dami." You reassure softly.
"Anything?" He murmurs, head shifting out of the crook of your neck to face you fully.
His green eyes are narrowed with intent now, gazing at you with unhidden intensity.
You swallow, nodding slightly.
When he leans in, the palm of his hand slips from the back of your head to over your jaw. His thumb traces over your lips softly as he leans in, replacing the ghost of his touch with his own mouth. It's tender, a separate language to convey the emotions he hasn't learnt to spell out, on what you do to him. Yet, with the way he's handling you, nose brushing against yours, in a way so precious it makes your heart ache—you think that impending argument's worth it.
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summary: when midnight marks the second year anniversary since damian's death, you make one desperate wish in the midst of your grief before falling asleep. when you wake, you find damian waiting in the apartment—as if he never left.
pairing: damian wayne x reader
content/warnings: angst, hurt-comfort, grief and loss, mentions of previous death, emotional reunion, yearning
Grief is a companion fond of making you dream.
"Beloved."
Damian stands before you in the kitchen, in his most-worn sweater, the one you swore you stuffed in the back of your shared closet when it had lost his scent.
The scent of toast, your favourite kind slathered with jam, lingers in the air and the familiarity of this sight—of him awake at an earlier hour to prepare you a simple breakfast, feels like a faraway dream.
You're struck by his voice, the tone and cadence your memory never managed to capture. You had to be dreaming still. Even when the edges of him are so life-like, not fuzzy like you're used to when you reach for the figment of him in your sleep.
He can't be standing in your kitchen, the one you used to share with him two years ago, because he is dead. Your Damian is dead.
You don't move, not immediately. You watch life breathe in and out of his chest, and feel the long, dragged seconds stretch between the distance, the pads of your fingers pressing into the cold slab of the counter, frozen in place.
He doesn’t push. Doesn’t corner you, or raise some pointed remark on your distance. He only waits, as if that’s everything he’s willing to do. Damian has never been good at being patient, but in the wake of his appearance, it’s all he seems to be doing.
You're afraid. To speak, make a sound or move that could shatter the perfect image. You expect to turn your head just slightly off-angle, and find yourself in your sheets once more, and the life-like version of him will be gone. The ache of his absence still clung to you, even more so at the sight of him, like a sore wound you can't resist running over.
Your stomach grumbles lowly at the scent of breakfast, empty from a near sleepless night and a skipped dinner. At that, he finally shifts his gaze, and you find your breath stolen from the way that striking, unwavering green pierces through you.
“You’re starving.”
The prospect of a dream falls away, and reality strikes you hard when the stature of him remains, words falling out his mouth—something your dreams have never achieved. You don’t listen, coming up to him like a storm—hands trembling as you raise them to slowly, tenderly cup his face.
He lets you, unmoving as his gaze sinks deep into yours. Your fingers trace over his cheekbones, where that scar should be. The last you had saw of him, unmoving in the hospital—when the mere sight had rendered you immobile, shaking uncontrollably till someone had to drag you out the room. Your hands trail down his jawline, over his neck—your touch trembling over his unharmed skin. When your hand dips to where his heart should be, he captures your hand and guides it back to his face, fingers laying over yours as he presses it against his cheek, soaking in your warmth.
His own skin is barren of its expected, scorching warmth—and his lashes flutter once before his eyes fall shut, mesmerised.
"Damian." You gasp softly.
He shakes his head faintly, almost in warning not to question further. His gaze opens, and it pours over you openly, hungrily.
"Are you real?" Your whisper comes out as a broken plea, head tilting as you look at him. There are no inconsistencies, even the faint scar where a blade had passed through his palm when he was but a boy, the same raised skin you used to press your lips over in the solemnity of the night, wishing he never experienced a pain like that again.
An undercurrent ripples below his steady gaze, conveying an answer you can't uncover. "I am here, beloved."
"How?" Your voice tremors, teetering madness.
“You called.”
Your brows furrow together, the vagueness of his statement twisting your thoughts into a whirlwind. “No.. I called for you every single day. Since you've been gone.”
His expression fractures in your admission, that undercurrent in the dark green, sweeping you with its darkened shadows. You can’t read it. Not fully, failing to truly understand the depth of his gaze that reminds you that this isn’t a dream or a recreation of any normal morning from before. Damian has always looked at you with want and devotion, yes, but it has never seemed almost inhumane.
Your burning questions still linger on the precipice, torn between relief and despair, when Damian closes in. His lips capture yours almost desperately, and you realise instantly in your grief that you had forgotten this side to him. Rare, and smothered by self-control—but existing regardless, is his intensity.
The sound of his name between your lips is lost, muffled by the way his free hand manoeuvres the back of your head to bring you impossibly closer to him. It’s real, it has to be, this push-and-pull as if he can’t decide whether he could ever get enough of the taste of you.
You have held yourself together for two years—but you’re close to falling apart in the scent of him, so overwhelmingly home, something you’ve been trying to capture through his cologne bottles, his shirts—but nothing compares to the real thing.
He doesn’t fare much better, lost of all his composure as he consumes you. It’s devotion, the way he holds you like you’re the only anchor keeping him tethered to reality. “I am here.” His lips brush over the corner of your mouth, tremoring. “I’m home.”
"We need to tell your family." It's the first logical thought that's formed since you lost strength in your legs, landing on the tiles with your hand still grasped in his, knees pressing against one another. "I should be calling Dick."
His lips press together, something manic crossing his gaze but you don’t see it—too wrapped up in the novelty of a miracle that shouldn't exist. You needed to hear it, have it confirmed for you to your own face— that you weren’t the only one who sees Damian. Your steps quicken towards the entrance, hands reaching for your coat that has your phone right by the front door—tossed on the ground after stumbling home the night before.
Damian grabs you by the wrist right as your fingers brushed the fabric, tugging you back. Your widened gaze meets his own fervent expression. "Damian?"
"I can’t predict—” His hold falters, softening in its clutch. “—what happens when you walk through that door."
Your brows furrow, letting him pull you gently back towards him. Your free hand comes up to press gently against his cheek, caressing once. "What do you mean?"
His jaw clenches, a rare tension seizing his features. Or rather, one you didn't recognise on him at all. Fear.
"Earlier, I had tried the door." He explains slowly, as if the words pained him. "I had reached for the lock—and something changed. I wasn't here, or anywhere. It was silent and I didn't truly exist, not till I found myself back in the kitchen."
Your mouth dries at his words, lips parting with the low thud of anxious dread gnawing away at your gut. You had been so relieved, you hadn't even begun to name all the possibilities of this miracle having a short-end you haven't seen coming.
"Oh." You mutter, fingers fumbling loosely in the air as your hand drops to your side. "Okay. That's—"
Scary. So fucking terrifying that you can't even voice it out, the thought that he could just disappear as quickly as he reappeared back into your life.
"Maybe we can try?" Your voice lacks the confidence of someone who's willing to put the possibility of never seeing the only person she's ever loved again on the line. "If I go with you this time, it might—"
Might work. There is nothing you detest more than the what-ifs that overpower the old, a bitter habit that's sprung to life now that it has new fears to feed on.
He nods briskly at the suggestion, but the tension in his jaw doesn't fade. "Listen to me. If—"
"Damian, if what you're about to say is anything to do with disappearing or leaving—you're not allowed to say it." You cut him off.
His lips clamp together, gaze averting to the door. "I only aim for us both to be prepared."
Unlike last time. The insinuation lands coldly against your exposed skin, and you immediately move to tug the coat on to rid yourself of the forming goosebumps. You didn't want to be reminded of that first lonely night in the apartment, when the news hadn't yet settled in—and you were surrounded by bedsheets that were filled with his scent.
Call it human desperation, needing to believe in only the good outcomes—but you refuse to think further than the events that have occurred in the past twenty minutes. Damian is back, that is all that matters. The rest, you'll both figure it out together.
His hands immediately come up to the sleeves, helping you to put the coat on. The simple action renders you breathless, the way he was equipped to you like a shadow, tuning himself back into step with your own movements. You had forgotten that feeling, of puzzles pieces fitting perfectly together that it made life easy.
"I'm more than prepared." Your reassurance for him, or yourself—you’re not sure which bears more comfort. "Come on, Dami." The nickname rolls off like a soothing mantra, one normalcy laced within all the abnormality of the situation, of his presence lingering near your side like a shadow. "You better prepare yourself. You're about to experience intense familial affection."
It's easier to pretend, that anything other than a happy family reunion was bound to happen, to seal in the fact that he's really here. That's all your mind is leading towards, this impossibility existing on the morning of what should've been your second year anniversary.
His lips finally twitch, a soft smile gracing his lips as he takes your hand. It's warmer now, as if life was slowly bleeding back into him. It reassures you immensely, and your fingers tighten into a reassuring squeeze around his.
"How have—" He falters, grip tightening unintentionally over your fingers. "—they been?"
"It’s not been easy." You answer truthfully. "Bruce is taking it the hardest, his habit of burying himself in work has worsened. He needs you to snap him out of it the most, I think. Dick—he's trying to keep everyone together, but I worry for him even if he keeps pretending he's fine."
Your fingers twist the lock, opening the door. His hand still remains firmly in your grasp, and your eyes widen, gaze twisting to him in hope. "Still here." You murmur, waving your interlocked fingers with yours in his gaze.
You see it too, the faint relief that flickers in his expression. That's the very last thing you see.
The moment you take one step out the door into the threshold of the hallway, your raised hand comes up bare. The space where Damian used to occupy—is now empty.
"I swear he was here." You plead, watching as Dick paces around the apartment. "Damian was right here, and he was talking to me—and we were coming to see you."
He runs a hand over his locks, and you can tell he doesn't believe you, as much as he is trying to genuinely listen. You know it sounds cruel, going on about how his deceased baby brother is alive and well. That it makes you sound insane, overcome with grief enough to hallucinate Damian's existence—but you know that he was really here.
You aren't hallucinating, even if you had to push down any arising doubt as Dick finally stops in his tracks, turning to face you.
He looks exhausted. Packed with cases, wrinkled shirt haphazardly put on, bags under his eyes. Still charmingly Dick, but drained of the spark that used to brighten his gaze.
He calls out your name, and you hear it immediately. His deflection, his concern. You shake your head, but he raises a hand.
"You—" He swallows, and you see him assessing the right way to deliver his words. "—have been through a lot. I understand, I really do."
"Dick." Your voice comes out as a plea.
"But if you've been seeing Damian." He goes on. "I think it's time we find someone. For you to talk to."
He thinks you've gone crazy.
"Dick, I'm not crazy." You plead. "Or grieving. Damian was right here, I was telling him about you and Bruce. He made me toast."
His gaze switches to the uneaten plate, and softens into what could only be pity. You have to swallow back the bitter taste at the sight of it.
"It's your anniversary, right?" He asks.
You stiffen, before giving him a bare nod.
"I should've called." He sighs, placing the blame on himself. "I had remembered it being around this week, but work's just been so busy and—I'm sorry. I know it must've been difficult to go through this day alone."
"Please, Dick." You stand up from the couch, walking over to where he stood. "You have to believe me."
His expression tightens, a sigh leaving his lips. "I can't."
"Why?" You plead.
"Because if I do, I would've lost him twice." He admits honestly, a rare fracture of truth beneath his usual composure. "I can't let myself think that, because I have people who need me to be here, to be grounded."
You flinch, as if he struck you. His expression immediately crumbles in regret, but he doesn't take back his words. His lips part in an effort to try and smooth out the mess laid out in front of him, when his phone rings.
He curses inaudibly, tugging at his pockets to take out his phone. His gaze falls to the contact name, and his lashes narrow. He looks to you, an apology already splurging out of his lips. "I'm sorry, I really have to go. It's an emergency—but I will come visit right after."
You shake your head. There isn't a point if you didn’t have proof, and if he wasn't going to believe you, it'd do you both better if you didn’t dig into the wound so carelessly. "It's fine." Your throat squeezes tight on itself, making it hard to form your words coherently. "I'm sorry I called you all the way here, I know you've been busy."
"Hey." He calls out to you reassuringly, even as his ringtone vibrates lowly between the two of you. "I'm always here if you need me, you got that? Being busy doesn't mean I can't make time for you if you need a listening ear."
You nod stiffly, as convincingly as you could. "You should go, Dick. City needs you."
He stares at you, concern flooding his gaze once more. You smile weakly at him, pushing at his shoulder towards the door. "Go." You reassure him. "I'll text you if I need anything, okay?"
He nods once, lips pulling downward in consideration before his phone starts ringing again at a louder volume. He lets out a low sigh, hand coming up to squeeze yours over his shoulder in a comforting manner. "Anything, alright?" He murmurs.
You give him the barest nod, watching as he walked out the door, closing it behind him. The moment the door clicks shut, you find yourself on the kitchen floor.
Your sobs rack your body violently, your palms covering your mouth as you let it out. You don't know how long you spend, keeling over yourself as you rock back and forth, tears streaming down your cheeks before you eventually found yourself laying on the cool tiles, the only sensation that registers to your body.
You don't know how many minutes you spent going over the words shared between you and the Damian you swore was right in front of you, the scent of toast still lingering in the air before your eyes finally fall shut, body shutting down from exhaustion.
When you wake, you find yourself tucked in your sheets. You vaguely remember laying on the kitchen floor, not even having the energy required to drag yourself to your bedroom. The room is dark, which means the entire day has passed. Did Dick—or someone else come in through the door and carry you onto the bed?
You don't think you locked the door, but you don't trust in your memory to recall any recurring events in a faithful manner. Your gaze shifts from the window where the glow of the street lamp illuminates a warm tint over the streets, before your neck cranes to your right.
A shadow sits at the corner of the bed, back facing you.
Your heart nearly drops to your feet. Your call doesn't dare sound hopeful, almost frightened. "Damian?"
His head shifts, and green eyes, haunted by shadows—meet yours.
"Are you my imagination?" You whisper. "Am I dreaming again because if I am, this is just—” Cruel.
He doesn't answer, lifting himself off the corner to sit beside you instead. Slowly, his hand takes yours—and there it is again, that fading ebb-and-flow of warmth between his fingers.
"Talk to me." You say numbly. "Or I'll really think I'm going insane."
"I don't know—" His voice fills your ears, and the relief is almost sickening. "—how to fix this. Or make it easier to bear. I am only worsening your pain."
Your lip trembles, and you bite at it to keep something, anything from flooding out. "Do you know what day it is today?" You murmur, exhaustion plaguing your voice.
Damian doesn't even pause to think. "Our anniversary."
"Yeah." You smile wryly. "You missed it for the second time this year."
His fingers running over the beat of your pulse, freeze. The faintest whisper leaves his lips, and it is nothing short of broken. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. You’ll make it up to me, won’t you?" You swallow thickly, trying your best to keep it together. "I was going to take you to that Thai place we love down the street, after meeting your family. Thought it'd be a good welcome-back present of some sorts, y'know?"
He stays silent, but you spot the clench of his jaw, the thick lump forming at his throat.
"This is so sick." You laugh weakly, tears pooling at the corner of your eyes. "What kind of reality is this?"
You hear the faint whisper of your name. His hand traces over your temple, brushing back the loosened strands. "I'm sorry." It comes out stronger this time, as if the vowels have finally found suit a place in his vocabulary.
"Stop apologising." You scold softly. "I want you here."
He understands your request immediately, scooting closer and falling into the sheets as his arms wrap around you. In the weight of his embrace, you finally let yourself fall apart a little, face buried into his chest and inhaling his comforting scent.
"Your heart.” You whisper, unable to sense the rhythmic beating you’re used to finding. “Where is it, Dami?”
“Where it’s always been.” He murmurs, arms pulling you impossibly closer.
There is a missing link, something you’re terrified of missing. He is real, as even your mind can’t conjure something as complex as the halftime beat of his thumb brushing against your lower back, or the way his fingers brush through the nape of your neck, finding your temple and resting over it with a soothing amount of pressure.
“You—” Your voice trembles, afraid to ask. “How is any of this possible?”
“I don’t know.” He answers honestly. “I only know that you called. I was finally able to answer.”
The rules settle quickly, the do’s and don’t’s of his existence. When you walk out the front door, he disappears, but not entirely. He merely reappears in the kitchen as he did the morning you found him, time operating as a frozen capsule within the walls of your apartment, with your current present tuned down to a low, buzzing hum—enough for his presence to stay. When you exit the apartment, it’s as if life comes flooding back in motion—roaring in its intensity that Damian simply vanishes. Not home, or anywhere. As reality intended.
You can’t have people enter the threshold of the apartment either, not without Damian completely disappearing from the rooms. Your only attempt had ended with Dick pleading with you to see a professional.
The conversation still lingers like a bitter aftertaste of stale coffee, when you let yourself imagine his exhausted, frantic expression when you searched the apartment upside-down in the hopes of letting him see his baby brother again.
You don’t call Dick over much after that, only the here-and-there messages that you've recovered and that you're doing better. You don’t mention Damian, and the texts tentatively recover into a semblance of the norm, his usual check-ups and quips before he disappears into his long list of responsibilities.
You adjust, creating something sacred out of the cruelty, and you make things work, to reduce the risks of his disappearance to only what was needed—for work, or quick supply runs that are now meant for two. You have to, because you’d rather have Damian with the shattered edges of reality falling in on you, than lose him forever.
Your head rests on his chest late in the night, updating him on the past twenty-four months of your life through your photo album while he watches you, trying to bring some of the outside world in for him. That’s one strange loophole, that so long as it’s only you who witnesses it, he doesn’t fade from existence. You had tried face-timing Tim once, and felt the sudden emptiness of Damian’s weight beside you. The tears were difficult to explain, as was the way you frantically ended the call after, refusing to show how shattered you felt.
Loopholes were small miracles, ones you were trying to exploit in the hopes the world would carry on without punishing either of you for testing the waters. That eventually, you’d find a way to right the mess.
But you know it’s not enough. How could it be? When paranoia runs so rampant, or the quiet lingers too long when you’re in a different room, and you can’t stop yourself from checking—from slamming yourself into the door to catch him staring at you, as if he expected your anxious movement minutes before.
Damian is nothing but a master at concealing his own doubts, from letting his frustrations plague your own wearing strength. It does not change the fact that he is still human. You find him mostly at your desk when he assumes you've finally fallen asleep, pen in hand with his hand running through his thick locks, growing out at the edges from not having been cut for weeks. You never see what he’s writing—not before he hears your quiet footsteps and gently folds the paper away.
He would reassure you silently, a warm, gentle touch over your face, cupping them in his hands and pressing soft kisses over your skin to replace your worries. He’d whisper ‘I’m real’ over and over again till you’re sure even your imagination couldn’t conjure the trace of his fingers down your lower back, the way his gaze softens when you finally let yourself fall into his embrace.
You don’t ask unless he’s willing to speak of it, because Damian in his own way is coping with this fractured reality, where you are only able to have each other in the confined walls of your home, without him being able to truly live in this world. You know it takes a toll on him, you’re just waiting for him to realise he doesn’t have to remain strong for the both of you.
You let him have the peace of doing what he feels he must, scribbling away in urgency into the paper, because for as much as Damian has lost normalcy in his life, you could only give him whatever he was able to still grasp.
“Hey, you! It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other!” Steph exclaims, pulling you into a hug.
“Missed you too, Steph.” You huff at the impact, a warm smile spreading across your lips.
“Where have you been?” She continues, pulling back to analyse your face with a scrutinising expression. “Woah—actually, you look great. Have you been skipping less dinners?”
Your lips part automatically, almost wanting to say Damian’s taken up the cooking. It falls shut immediately, along with your expression. Your voice is tender, testing your words carefully. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Good. I’m obliged as the wiser one to have nagging privileges since Dick isn’t here—no matter how busy life gets, you can’t skip what makes life worth living.”
“Chocolate chip pancakes?” You raise a brow.
“That too.” She grins. “But I’m really glad to see you. It’s been ages.”
Your heart tremors with guilt. Ever since Damian reappeared back in your life, you’ve been putting off so much. Life outside had begun to feel like an intrusion, a compulsory step before you made it home to where the miracle sparked, suspended in time. Even now, you’re terrified the one night you let your guard down, you might come back to an empty apartment. Where you’ll fall asleep and he won’t be there at the corner of the bed, waiting for you to bid him closer and being dragged into his embrace.
“It’s really good to see you.” Your voice softens, taking in the sight of her blond locks, her purple sweater, and the underlying relief in her expression.
Her smile brightens and her arm wraps around your shoulder, dragging you along. “Come on, I’ve got this new place I want to check out. Heard the owner’s a huge fan of Spoiler.”
“You’re not going to bargain deals with your merchandise, are you?”
She hums a sweet tune, head facing forward.
“Steph.” You snort.
“What—it’s a good strategy.” She shrugs. “Tell me it’s not genius.”
“It’s definitely classic you.”
“Yeah, classic me is a genius, same diff.” She grins, steps rushing slightly whenever she gets excited, particularly when it comes to food. The door bell jingles when you both step into the small bistro, the scent of honey and sugared powder filling your nose.
You can imagine Damian’s nose wrinkling at the overly sweet scent, but the thought doesn’t have time to stick before Steph’s already pulling you over to the corner seating, with a perfect view of Wayne Tower in the distance. Your gaze flickers to the tower, before drawing it back to Steph who’s looking over the menu.
“Damian would hate this place.” She says suddenly.
The tilt of your lip freezes, and she casts you a knowing look. “You thought it.” Steph murmurs, placing the menu down. “I know that look.”
Your lips part, mouth dry. “We don’t have to, Steph.”
“No, it’s okay. I don't want you feeling like it's a no-go zone with me.” She smiles gently. There’s that part of her you never stopped admiring, her bravery to speak for what others never dared to see. “I do actually miss making fun of him.”
He misses you too, you want to say. He misses you all.
“Sometimes, I wish he left something for us.” Steph murmurs, her smile lessening into something honest. “He was loud with his actions, and he could never resist an insult but—it just feels like I have nothing much to remind myself of him.”
You pause, her suggestion seeping into your bones. Your gaze widens imperceptibly, but she doesn’t notice.
“There’s Titus, of course.” She jokes wryly. “That beast always tackles me whenever I visit the manor. Guess I know where he got his manners from.”
You’re half-tuning out, because that could be it. Damian could write something so personal to each of them—so they’d at least he know he exists somehow. In this world.
“You’re right, Steph.” You mutter, lost in thought.
“Of course I am. Have you seen Titus recently?” She snorts. “Weighs a truck if he jumps you from the back.”
You shake your head, a fond smile tilting your lips upward. Maybe finally, you have a chance through this loophole, a way to bridge the unseen and the present. You may have a way to bring him back—past the walls of your home.
The nature of Damian is beginning to reform under his bones. The burn of his questions, how he goes silent when he formulates a plan, only without the hesitation he once held in the first few weeks on the prospect of breathing life into the abnormality of his existence.
“What was your wish?” Damian murmurs, gaze peering over you as you tumble into the sheets, feeling his arms slowly wrap around you, pulling you closer to his side of the bed. “I heard you call my name, but nothing of your request.”
“It was the same thing, always.” You recall faintly. “That I didn’t want to ever get used to coming home to our apartment alone. That I could see you again, and remember what life used to feel like with you.”
The specific details of your wish echo in your thoughts, your mind capturing onto the specificity of your words. You feel his mind register it faster than yours, but he doesn't form any accusations, not the way your own brain immediately pinpoints to.
“Is that why you can’t step a foot out of our home?” You realise, dread thumping patiently as it inches closer to guilt. “Why no one can see you except for me?”
He calls out your name, stopping you in your tracks. “It is not your fault.” He says before you’ve even voiced it out. “Do not carry on a burden that isn’t yours to bear.”
“What if—if that's the reason, would you stay?” You ask in the dark. “This doesn’t feel—”
Sustainable or fair or—horrible words pile on top of the other, right at the tip of your tongue. You feel the paranoia that traces along the edge of every conversation you have with him—like the waiting still hasn’t ended. That the world hasn’t quite let loose of its claws on either of you.
“For as long you want me, I’ll always be here.” Damian reassures you, hand lifting to press against your cheek, grounding you.
That’s impossible, you almost want to say. You’ll always want him.
“What about you?” You ask quietly. “You look tired, Dami.”
He stares at you for a beat, and you feel the gears in his mind turning. His under-eyes are clear of dark circles, his body shows no signs of exhaustion, although you know he hasn’t truly slept since his return. You feel it sometimes in your half-awake state, when he lets his guard down—and the trace of his fingers over your pulse.
“It is difficult to rest.” He answers honestly, a dry swallow in his throat. “It does not feel like living. There is no calling for survival, not when I am trapped in place. I am not whole—but the feeling fades when you are here.”
“I want to make things better for you.” You wish desperately.
His gaze softens at the edges. “You are.”
“I want to actually try something. I have an idea, I’m not sure if it’ll work or change anything.” You admit. “I know you’ve been writing every night. I was thinking—would you write letters? To your family? Steph mentioned that she’d like to have something to remember you by.”
His hold tightens over your shoulders, before forcing himself to relax.
“I just think—it might work.” You go on, fingers pressed softly against the expanse of his chest, right where the fabric bunches over your grip—where his heartbeat should be. “If they believe it too, I don’t know—it sounds silly.”
"Beloved.” He calls, his expression twisting in consideration. “I’ve… already written letters.”
Your lips part in astonishment. Has that been what he’s been doing this entire time? “Leave it to you to already have a plan.” You tease softly.
His lips quirk slightly, but there’s still that lingering solemnity in his gaze that’s never fully lifted. “I’ve written letters for you too.”
Your brows furrow. “Why—”
Looking into his eyes, you spot the knowing—the underlying preparation of a man not truly believing the cards are in his favour.
“No.” Pushing yourself away from the sheets, out of his embrace—you stare at him wordlessly, that familiar pounding beginning in your chest.
“Tell me you haven’t been writing goodbye letters, Damian.” You plead.
He only watches you, choosing to remain silent because—he could never lie to you. Not without you catching it in the twinge of his expression, the purse of his lips.
“No, I don’t want to think that—not when the impossible has already happened.” You shake your head. “I can’t handle a goodbye.”
“It is not a certainty.” He reminds you.
“I know but I have to believe.” Your voice breaks. “I believed every night, that somehow, you’d come back to me—and you did. So, I don’t want a goodbye, Damian.”
”I want you to live your life.” You admit in earnest. “Not to be sealed in here, waiting only for me. You are so great—you deserve the chance to be so much more. If there is even a possibility, I want you to fight—to get your life back.”
You are asking a difficult task, for Damian who doesn't put faith in what he can't predict without data or evidence. You see the argument, the calculation weighing in his mind but then he looks at you and—something in him gives. For all that he’s fought for, defying even the rules of the dead, half-whole in a world that once belonged to him as much as it does to you, he has never found the strength to say no to you.
“Alright.” He answers softly. “I will try.”
He has broken his promise only once in your entire lifetime of knowing each other, but tonight, you place your trust in him—that he’d keep this one.
The letters are a brilliant plan. It’s the most hopeful you’ve felt in weeks. Damian waits by the door, a safe two feet away from the threshold where he had last vanished through the hold of your fingers when you both attempted to cross.
“This will work.” You mutter, strapping on your boots.
Looking back to him, Damian’s already watching you, your favourite coat already over his forearm. He doesn’t make a comment, but when you lift your arms for him to put on the coat, as the sleeves loop through—he leans in and closes the distance.
He doesn’t loosen his hold, tugging you closer till you’re wrapped in his scent—and his lips crash into yours. It’s anything but soft, nothing withheld. It’s a promise—unspoken, and a Damian unraveled. Your free hand wraps instinctively around the nape of his neck, tugging softly at the dark waves that have grown past his usual desired length.
A low sound vibrates against his throat, the intensity of him burning through his skin. It is not a goodbye, you remind yourself, refusing to let anything wet prick at your eyes. You are going to fix this—and he was going to come home.
”I love you.” You gasp against his lips, mere seconds after he finally parts to let you have air.
His hand rises to cup your cheek, gaze focused over your features—before finally looking you straight in the eyes. “I am yours. Every part of me always.”
You swallow thickly. “Always.”
You want Damian. You want him in all the worst parts of him—the part of him that left and never came back, the part of him that immediately thought to make your favourite breakfast in the first instance of his return, the only person who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.
“I’ll be right back.” You promise, grip tightening over the letters.
His gaze flickers with want, unease—a multitude of emotions so vulnerably human, and you understand. You’re the only who will. He lets you take a step back, and you can feel it even when you turn—that he never takes his eyes off of you.
It’s a reassuring weight—of course, till the letters disappear from the grip of your fingers the moment you step out the door. Time splits on itself when your heart drops—gaze snapping to your empty hand, proof of his existence written tirelessly in the thick stack of letters gone without a trace. When you spin back around to your apartment, the sight of Damian behind you disappears with it.
He's gone.
You don't move. Not for a few minutes, staring into the empty space where he once occupied. The door remains open, the buzzing roar of life beyond the threshold numbed to your senses. Eventually, when reality hits you right below your ribs, you do what was only inevitable. You break.
Damian reappears an hour past midnight, one of the longest instances he’s ever gone missing from the apartment. One of the days you truly needed him, you spent alone waiting. He finds you crumpled on the kitchen floor, hands empty—gaze staring blankly into the wall. The wall that holds memories, picture frames of your life with him—and your eyes peer soullessly into the distance.
You faintly register the stir of tension in the air, but you’re tired. Itching faintly for something to happen, the clock ticking down in your mind rendered useless. Your last solution has failed.
Damian stands in your kitchen as he did the first time, when it had all seemed like a dream, and you have nothing to say.
Damian eventually speaks, and it is nothing you want to hear. “We must cease this.”
Your head cranes, looking at him with defeat. Still, you shake your head weakly. You spot that familiar fire, lit in his gaze when his jaw clenches at your stubbornness.
Of course you recognise it. That fire you faced before he had gone out that door two years ago. Your biggest regret had been letting him go, not fighting harder. It’s just that—you’re so exhausted. You need time to think, to replan, to not feel like you’re on the verge of puking because you’re so afraid and you can’t do anything about it.
“There is no denying this. Every instance I reappear, I see your grief—and I am reminded that I am the cause of your suffering.” He says, low and pained. “That I have failed you, and even now, I chain you.”
“Damian, stop.” You plead, trying to shut it out.
“It is the truth.” He states numbly. “You are not living. For as long as I remain, you’ll be chained to the memory, and I have to watch you lose yourself because I am not able to let you go.”
“I have failed you.” He repeats. “But I will not be the reason that you do not live. For as long as I remain here, never truly whole, neither will you.”
“Don’t you understand?” You snap. “I haven’t been whole! Not since the day you died. You leaving won’t change that. Our reality—it isn’t ideal, and it’s terrifying that every time I open that door, I fear I won’t ever see you again, but I’ve lived more now than I have in these past two years.”
“You are still hurting.” His narrowed gaze assesses the trembling of your body, the dullness in your eyes. “Tell me it is enough. Having me here—a fracture of who I used to be.”
Your lips part, and your heart tremors with a painful ache. “I don’t care.” Your voice breaks. “As long as I have you, the pain is nothing compared to not having you at all.”
“But I do.” He pleads. “I refuse to be your chain. The reason your life is reduced to this. You told me that I deserved to be something more. Have you not considered that I want the same for you?”
“What do you want me to do, Damian?” Your voice croaks, exhausted. “What do you propose we do?”
“I want you—” His expression tightens. “—to rescind your wish.”
“No.” Stumbling in your step as you try and fail to rise from the tiles, he’s in front of you in seconds.
You push weakly at his grip that steadies you, anger churning something bitter in your gut that he’s so willing to throw away his promise—the only one you have left for him to keep.
He calls your name, pleading—urgent. "I think this is the end."
"No." You shake your head adamantly, tears soaking your cheeks. "Please."
"I love you." He murmurs. "I love you, and I do not expect your forgiveness."
"What about always?" You break. "Please, I can't lose you again. I can't—I imagined this life with you, Damian. I can't have you again, and lose you—please. Don't go."
His composure shatters the second those words leave you, regret sweeping his entire expression. "I have failed you."
You don't want to hear this. You want him to stay, and for this stupid wish to last—and for the universe to answer your desperate cries to not take him away.
"I love you." Grabbing a fistful of his shirt, you clench tightly as if it could prevent the striking of the clock taking him away. "I can't love anybody else, it's only ever been you."
"I love you." He whispers in devotion, voice raw. "I have only ever seen you. It was always you."
Was. As if he's already seen the inevitability of his going.
"Damian." Your voice is scattered, torn between misplaced rage and desperation—but none of it holds true. "You promised me—that you'd never break your promises. Why?"
Why did he go out on that mission? Why did he not heed your words on waiting for back-up, for someone to be by his side? Why did he leave you alone in this damned apartment, waiting for his return only to open the door to Dick's blank expression battered, where he had to watch you fall in on yourself.
"You should've listened to me." Your fists dig into his chest. "You should've stayed home, with me. Instead of that stupid mission—and leaving me alone. You idiot."
"I know." He murmurs, letting you take it out on him. Even now, he was accommodating you—taking in all your anger even when you didn't want to leave it at this.
You're picking a fight, because you didn't want this to end. Whenever you got in an argument with Damian, he'd refuse to leave it till it was solved. Somewhere in your logic twisted by grief, you wondered if even his determination for your forgiveness would outweigh the cruelty of your wish.
"Fight, damnit—Damian, fight." You cry out, tears forming a puddle onto his shirt. "Don't leave it at this."
"Beloved." He whispers, gazing at you with so much love, it leaves you hollow.
"I wrote letters." He whispers, memorising you with intent. "As many as I could."
You faintly register his words, somewhere beneath the numbness your body is undergoing to process the heavy, sinking chain dragging at your heart.
"I know it's not enough, it never will be." He mutters. "But I wrote them to keep you company. To scream at me, to hate me—everything. What I never got to say, nothing is amiss."
A low, mocking huff leaves his lips not long after his words. "You can burn them if it reminds you of my failures, or if you wish to be part of the memory of me when it only serves you pain. But—"
He swallows, fingers tightening around you. "If you wish to hear my voice, to have me by your side—I am there. In those letters, you'll have me, always. My last thoughts, my wishes—they're all of you. They've always been about you."
“No, this can’t end.” Your voice breaks. “Please.”
“It will end eventually.” His voice lowers, attempting to soothe the cutting truth of his words. “It is my only mercy that I can face you this time, before I go.”
”Why does it have to end?” You mutter into the dark. “Isn’t this enough?”
“It is more than I’ll ever deserve.” He confesses, pressing his lips softly to the crown of your head.
Your words are lost on your tongue, a horrible taste of grief rendering you immobile as you collapse fully into his touch. He holds you, that same pressure over your temple, fingers brushing over the nape of your neck.
“Tell me.” Your body succumbs before your mind, eyes closing shut. “Everything. From the start. I want to hear it all. Please.”
His fingers linger over your temple, before brushing back loose strands of hair to tuck behind your ear. You feel it then, finally, the low thump right where his heart should be. Then, he starts, and you hear the story of how the two of you met from his eyes. You let yourself fall into step with his memory, the last you’ll ever hear of it. In the knowing of a goodbye, you focus on the slight tremor in his voice, the tight grip of his hand—and how his faint heart was finally beating now that you’ve given it back.
You find the stack of letters in the morning, kept neatly in your drawer—all addressed to different names. Father. Mother. Brown. Drake. Grayson. Todd. Duke. Cassandra. The list went on. Your own stack is separated, in a thick bundle that must’ve began from the first time you caught him writing.
The world was impossibly cruel yet fair, his letters remaining despite the impossibility, the scent of him still coating the paper. He is gone, and the existence of him remains.
Life is heightened back to its usual roar, the faint chaos of the streets beyond the walls of your apartment playing as if nothing had ever changed. The quiet greets you like an old friend, and there is no shuffling of the sheets when you wake, no toast at the counter.
Your fingers grip at the first letter, trembling as you open the first. You hear his voice immediately—and nothing prepares you for it, as if he sealed himself within the pages. You feel the warmth of his touch, the low candor of his voice, reading it to you.
"To my beloved.”
likes, reblogs, and comments are highly appreciated! <333
sirius curious about remus. about what made him him. curious about his taste in music, the way his mind works, his late night thoughts and how they make him feel. he wants to know every single thing about him, and he just hopes that one day remus will realize just how much its worth getting to know him, so that he can show sirius everything, everything sirius wants to know.
could I ask for a completely civilian reader x Jason T who gets injured trying to protect Jason?
Thank you!!!
Stupid Brave
navigation , dc navigation
requests are open
dividers by @cafekitsune
Here is what you know about Jason Todd.
You know he's Red Hood. You know what that means in terms of the specific arithmetic of his life — the danger, the enemies, the nights he comes home wrong and won't say how. You know the safe house has four locks, and you know why. You know the particular sound he makes when something hurts that he's not going to mention, and you know the difference between the nightmares and the regular not-sleeping, and you know that he takes his coffee black except when he's had a very bad week, and then it's two sugars, and he won't acknowledge the two sugars.
You know him.
What you don't know — what you have no framework for, no training for, no version of yourself that has ever needed to know — is what to do when you're in the wrong place, and someone points a gun at the back of his head.
It turns out your body knows before you do.
It's not supposed to be a thing.
That's what makes it — that's the part that Jason will turn over later, in the specific way he processes failures, looking for every point where it went wrong. It's not supposed to be a thing. You're picking him up. That's it. He'd texted — can you come get me, 4th and Morrison, don't ask — which is a Jason text, which you've received variations of before, which means something went sideways with transport and he needs a quiet exit, and your car is the quiet exit.
You'd parked on Morrison.
You'd waited.
He'd come out of the alley in the civilian clothes he keeps for exactly this purpose — the ones that make him look like a large man who has been somewhere, which is true, rather than Red Hood, which is what he's been — and you'd seen him and gotten out of the car because it was a nice night and you'd been sitting for twenty minutes and your legs wanted the air.
That's the variable.
You getting out of the car is the variable.
Because if you'd stayed in the car you'd have seen it but not been close enough, and the man who comes out of the shadows behind Jason with the gun already raised would have had his moment and then Jason's training would have kicked in and Jason would have handled it, probably, would have turned at the last second or dropped or done something that you don't have the vocabulary for but that he does.
But you're out of the car.
And you're closer than the car.
And Jason is looking at you and not behind him.
And your body moves.
Later, you won't be able to reconstruct the decision.
Because it isn't one. A decision implies a moment of choosing, a pros and cons, a moment where you weigh the variables and select an outcome. What happens is not that.
What happens is: you see it, and then you're moving, and then you're between Jason and the gun, and then there's a sound, and then there's a pain in your side that is so immediate and total that it whites out everything else for a second.
Then the ground.
Then Jason's voice, which is a sound you've never heard from him before, which is outside the entire vocabulary of Jason Todd sounds you've catalogued over the time you've known him.
Then his hands.
He catches you before the ground does, which is something which he will be grateful for later, but cannot access right now because right now he is — he is not okay, Jason Todd is not okay, the armor is off, the mask is off, and there's blood on his hand,s and it's yours.
The man with the gun is not a concern anymore.
He'd been a concern for approximately four seconds after the shot, and then he was not, because Jason had dealt with him with the focused efficiency of someone who has a much more immediate priority and needs this particular variable removed.
He's on the ground with you now.
His hands on your side, the wound, applying pressure with the practiced certainty of someone who has done field medicine in worse conditions and is currently finding that knowing what to do and being able to do it clearly are two different things when it's you.
"Hey," he says. His voice is doing something he can't control. "Hey, look at me."
You look at him.
Your face is doing the thing faces do when the body is processing something large — very present and very far away simultaneously.
"Hi," you say.
"Don't hi me," he says, which doesn't make sense, which is what comes out. "I need you to stay with me. Can you do that?"
"I'm here," you say. "I'm —" you make a sound that you're trying to make smaller than it is. "That really hurts."
"I know. I know it does." His hands are steady. His hands are always steady. "I've got you. I've got pressure on it. You're going to be okay."
"Is the guy — "
"Don't worry about the guy."
"Jason — "
"He's handled. Don't worry about the guy." He looks at your face, doing the assessment, the field assessment, cataloguing everything he can see. "I'm going to call — I need to call this in. I'm going to keep pressure, okay? I need you to hold this." He takes your hand and puts it over his. "Press. Like this. Don't let up."
You press.
He makes the call one-handed, fast, the terse, efficient language of someone reporting a situation, coordinates, injury type, and then he hangs up, and his other hand comes back to yours, and he's looking at you with an expression you haven't seen on him.
Not one you have a name for.
"Four minutes," he says. "They're four minutes out."
"Okay," you say.
"Talk to me," he says.
"About what?"
"Anything. Talk to me about anything."
You look at him.
His jaw is doing the thing. The thing where he's holding something back through sheer structural force of will, where the thing that wants to come out is too large and too immediate, and he's keeping it contained because right now, contained is what's needed.
"You didn't hear him," you say.
"No," Jason says. "I didn't."
"He was behind you."
"I know."
"I saw him and I just — I didn't think, I just — "
"I know," Jason says, and his voice cracks slightly on it, just at the edge, just enough. "I know you did. We're going to — we can talk about that later. Right now, I need you to keep talking."
"My car's in a tow zone probably," you say.
Something happens on his face. Not quite a laugh. The shape of one, without any of the air in it. “Yeah, it probably is.”
"You're going to have to deal with that."
"I'll deal with it."
"The fine's going to be — "
"I'll deal with it," he says again, firmer, the firmness of someone who needs you to understand that every single thing that is not you right now is completely irrelevant. "I'll deal with everything. Just keep talking."
"Okay," you say.
You keep talking.
You tell him about your day, which is a strange thing to tell someone while you're bleeding on the street, but he asked for anything, and your day is what you have. The meeting that went long. The lunch that was good. The drive over, the radio station you'd had on, the song that had been playing when he texted.
He listens to all of it.
His hands don't move.
Four minutes is four minutes, and then there are people and noise and Jason's hands are replaced by other hands, and someone is talking to you, and Jason is still there, right there, not moving, and the last thing you see before they load you is his face —
Still doing the thing you don't have a name for.
Still doing it.
The hospital is the hospital.
Jason knows hospitals. He has a complicated relationship with hospitals that involves a significant amount of personal history and a general preference for avoiding them, but he knows how they work, and right now, how they work is: he sits in a chair, and he waits.
Roy arrives twenty minutes in.
He sits in the chair next to Jason without asking if Jason wants company, which is the correct call, and he looks at Jason's hands, which still have blood on them, and he doesn't say anything about that either.
"She moved," Jason says.
"I know," Roy says.
"She's a civilian. She has no training. She doesn't — she's never — " He stops. "She just moved. Like it was obvious. Like there was no other option."
"She could have — if it had been six inches to the left, she could have — " Jason stops again. His hands are on his knees, and they're not steady now, not anymore. The field is over, and the steadiness has gone with it. "She could have died."
"She didn't," Roy says.
"This time."
"This time is the one that happened." Roy looks at him steadily. "She's in there, and she's going to be okay, and that's what's true right now."
"She did it for me," Jason says, and the words are bare, just the bones of them. "She threw herself in front of — for me. She got shot for me."
Roy doesn't say anything.
"I don't — " Jason looks at his hands. "I've had people get hurt because of me. Because of what I am, because of proximity, because I exist, and existing makes the people near me targets. I know that. I've always known that." He exhales. "This is different. She chose it. She saw it, and she chose."
"Yeah," Roy says. "She did."
"That's — " He can't finish it.
Roy puts a hand on his shoulder.
They sit.
She's out of surgery in two hours.
The doctor says through and through, clean exit, no organ involvement, she's going to be sore for a while, but she's going to be fine, and Jason stands there receiving this information and nods and says thank you in a voice that is mostly functional.
Then he sits back down.
Roy brings him coffee from the machine down the hall. It's bad coffee. Jason drinks it.
'You can go see her,' Roy says, eventually.
"In a minute."
"Jay — "
"In a minute," he says again.
He needs the minute because he knows what's going to happen when he walks into that room — he knows his own face, knows what it's going to do when he sees her, and he needs a minute to find the version of himself that can walk in there and be present rather than the version that's been sitting in this chair for two hours with blood on his hands.
He takes the minute.
Then he goes.
You're awake.
That's the first thing. You're awake, and you turn your head when he comes through the door, and your face does — your face does the thing, the specific thing, the one that's just for him, and something in Jason's chest that has been locked for two hours releases without permission.
He comes and sits in the chair by the bed.
He looks at you.
You look at him.
"Hi," you say, for the second time tonight, and this time he doesn't tell you not to hi him, he just exhales.
"Hi," he says.
"I'm okay," you say.
"I know. They told me."
"You look terrible," you say.
"You're the one who got shot."
"And you look worse than me," you say, which isn't true and is also exactly true, and something in his jaw does the thing.
"You scared me," he says.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Don't — " he stops. "Don't apologize. I'm not — " He looks at your hands, folded on the blanket, and he reaches over and puts his over them. "You shouldn't have done that."
"He was going to shoot you," you say.
"I know."
"In the back of the head, Jason. He had it — "
"I know," he says, quieter. "I know what he had. I know what would have happened. I know." His hand tightens over yours. "And I know why you did it. I'm just — I need a minute to be terrified before I can get to grateful."
"Okay," you say.
"You're a civilian," he says. "You have no — you didn't — there was no reason that should have been your instinct — "
"You're the person I love," you say, simply. "That was my reason."
Jason looks at you.
The thing on his face — the one you didn't have a name for on the street — is still there, and you can see it clearly now, in the hospital light, without the field and the blood and the four minutes.
It's something that looks like grief and looks like gratitude and looks like a man who has been certain for a long time that he is someone things happen to and not someone things are chosen for, looking at evidence to the contrary and not knowing what to do with it.
"That can't be enough of a reason," he says.
"It was," you say.
"You could have — "
"I know what I could have. I know the math, Jason, I'm not — I knew what I was doing." You look at him steadily. "I'd do it again."
"Don't," he says. "Don't say that."
"It's true."
"I know it's true. That's why I'm asking you not to say it." His hand over yours, both of his now, the way he holds things he's afraid of losing. "I need you to not be — I need you to be alive. That's the only thing I need. Whatever I am, whatever this costs, the one non-negotiable is you being alive."
"Okay," you say.
"Okay," he repeats, like he's checking that the word means what he needs it to mean.
"But Jason," you say.
"Yeah."
"Same goes," you say. "You being alive. That's the thing. That's why I moved." You hold his gaze. "So we're even on the non-negotiable."
He looks at you for a long time.
"We're not even," he says. "You got shot."
"Minor," you say.
"Through and through is not — "
"The doctor said clean exit. That's basically a graze."
"It is categorically not a graze — "
"Jason."
"What?"
"Come here," you say.
He looks at the chair. At the bed. At you, shifting slightly to make room, which makes you wince, which makes him immediately say don't move, stop moving, and stand up.
"Carefully," you say.
"I'm not — "
"Carefully," you say again, and he carefully sits on the edge of the bed and carefully doesn't jostle you, and you put your head against his shoulder, and he puts his arm around you with the specific gentleness of someone handling something precious.
"You scared me," he says again, into your hair.
"I know," you say. "I'm sorry about that part."
"Just that part?"
"Just that part," you confirm.
He exhales.
You sit in the hospital room, and he holds you carefully, and somewhere down the hall, Roy is being told he can't have more than one person in the room and is arguing about this with the specific Roy Harper energy that means he's going to win eventually.
"The car's in a tow zone," you say, after a while.
"I know."
"You said you'd deal with it."
"I'll deal with it tomorrow."
"The fine is going to be — "
“I'll deal with it,” he says, for the third time, which this time means something slightly different, which is: I will deal with every fine, and every logistics problem, and everything that is not you being okay, because you being okay is the only variable that matters, and everything else is administrative.
You understand this.
You lean a little more into his shoulder.
He holds on.
He doesn't leave the hospital.
Roy brings him food at some point, bad vending machine food, which Jason eats without comment. A nurse tells him visiting hours are technically over, and he looks at her with a look, and she decides the policy has some flexibility.
You sleep.
He watches you sleep the way he watches things that matter to him — precisely, completely, as if he looks away, something might change.
You don't.
You're there when you wake up, and he's still in the chair, and the sun is coming through the hospital blinds, and his hands are on his knees, and he's watching you with that expression.
"You stayed," you say.
"Obviously," he says.
"You should have slept — "
"I'm fine."
"Jason — "
"I'm fine," he says, and it's the rare version, the one that's actually true. "I'm fine. You're here. I'm fine."
You look at him.
He looks at you.
"Okay," you say.
"Okay," he says.
Outside, Gotham is doing what Gotham does.
In here, you're here, and he's here, and the thing that almost happened didn't happen, and that's the whole of it, that's the entire thing.
dick grayson x reader fluff, non sexual showering, language, suggestive
The steam from the shower wafted around you, creating a fog that you couldn’t see through. With closed eyes and your head tipped back, you let the hot water cascade down your tired body, making you let out a soothing sigh.
“Hi,” you heard Dick say. He peeked his head through the shower curtain next and looked at your blurred figure.
“Hi?” You replied, opening one eye to look at the shit eating grin on his face.
“Can I join you?” He asked with a smile he reserved for when he was trying to seduce you.
“Sure,” you replied and backed away a bit, making room for him.
He pulled the shower curtain back, revealing his already naked body like he wouldn’t have cared if you said no or maybe he just knew you too well and had known you wouldn’t turn him down.
His sweet grin turned into a full blown yelp the second he stepped under the shower. He jumped back and almost hit his head on the wall, making you let out a laugh.
“What the fuck!” He bellowed.
“What?”
“You practicing for going to hell or something?” He questioned. “The water is fucking boiling.”
“Don’t be dramatic its fine,” you rolled your eyes.
“Turn it down,” he said, firmly.
“No, you can leave,” you offered.
“I’m already wet I don’t want to leave please turn it down just a bit angel, you’re literally red right now,” he coaxed.
“Fine,” you huffed and turned the shower knob to the right to make the water a bit cooler.
“Thank you,” Dick said and stepped under the spray of the water –still wincing, and put his hands on your waist.
“Good?” You checked.
“Manageable,” he grumbled, grabbing your shampoo from the shelf. “This isn’t healthy.”
“Your face isn’t healthy,” you replied, sticking your tongue out at him.
“Is that why you keep sitting on it?” he smirked, earning a smack to his chest in response.
He squeezed some of the shampoo on your palm and leaned his head down, gesturing for you to rub it in his hair.
“Your hair is getting long,” you murmured, rubbing your fingers through his scalp.
“Do you want me to cut it?” he said softly, too busy moaning at the way your hands moved through his hair.
“No I like it like this,” you replied, gripping the inky black hair in your palms.
“Freak,” he chuckled standing to his full height.
“I didn’t even say anything!” You protested, closing your eyes shut when Dick began rubbing the shampoo in your hair.
You felt him kiss your forehead, each of your closed eyelids, your nose then finally your lips before he rested his head on your shoulder, letting out a soft hum.
You grabbed your lavender scented body wash –that he loved an unhealthy amount, and began rubbing it on his back while he hummed in response and planted kisses on your shoulder and collarbone and wherever his lips could reach.
“I love when you don’t have work,” he mumbled. “Quit your job.”
“So you can be stuck to me like a koala all the time?”
“Mhmm,” he let out, planting one last kiss on your jaw before straightening.
“Tempting,” you smiled.
“I can offer you many services,” he almost whispered, planting kiss after kiss on the side of your throat, your collarbones and your jaw.
“Is this why you crashed my shower,” you mused, gripping his hair.
“Maybe,” he smirked, tracing his fingers down your spine.
“Dick,” you whispered, your hand finding the tap behind him in an attempt to turn the water a bit warmer without him noticing.
“Tell me what you want,” he said in a husky voice laced with need, continuing his attack on your neck.
“FUCK!” he screamed and jumped back again, glaring at you.
“Get back here!” You protested when you saw him get out of the shower and grab his towel to wrap around his waist.
“You’re a demon!” He yelled.
“Dick come on! I’m sorry,” you giggled turning the shower off and wrapped a towel around your torso, following him towards the sink.
“Just for that, you’re not getting anything for a week,” he huffed.
“Like you can go that long without touching me,” you challenged.
“Don’t test me,” he narrowed his eyes and turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” You asked.
“To get dressed?” He offered like it was the most natural thing.
“Do you not moisturise after you shower?”
“Uh no?”
“You heathen! Come back here,” you ordered and like the obedient boyfriend he was, he made his way back to you.
“Is this necessary,” he asked when he saw you pump some pink body lotion on your palm.
“Yes! Hot water dries your skin,” you replied, rubbing it over his hard chest and abs.
“You just wanna feel me up,” he smirked and looked down at you.
“I wouldn’t need an excuse for that,” you replied, rubbing the lotion on his biceps. “You’re so large, I use all that for both of my legs.”
“Are you complaining?”
“No but-”
“That’s what I thought,” he smiled again and took the body lotion from you, grabbing the edge of the towel to unwrap it from your body.
“My turn.”
HES SO!!! hes so!!! SO!!!!
likes comments and reblogs are appreciated, hope you enjoy <3
Heartbreak isn’t loud — it’s quiet, creeping, and cruel. You thought letting Dick Grayson go would break you. You never imagined it might kill you.
▸ PAIRING: Dick Grayson x F!Reader
▸ WARNINGS: so many reader insecurities (it's that kind of angst), hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, probably non-canon compliant things bc im new to this world, reader gets extremely hurt, hospital scenes
▸ WORD COUNT: 7.2K
▸ A/N: this is actually the first dick fic i ever wrote but didn't post until now! i seem to have a thing for exploring insecurities in relationships when im writing a new character (see clark and bucky). i love him so much, he is sooo loverboy. tom taylor's is also such fine shit jfc. i hope you enjoy <3 if you do, all likes/comments/reblogs are appreciated :)
The movies always describe heartbreak as devastation. A tragedy. A travesty. They talk about the feeling of their hearts being ripped out of their chest, beating bloody until they cease completely. They speak of the way their hearts stop suddenly, abruptly; a flare of panic only momentary before everything stills.
What they don’t tell you is that that’s not at all how heartbreak works. Heartbreak is oftentimes dramatized for the sake of entertainment. An exaggeration of the moment a heart splinters into a million pieces, parts that are impossible to glue back together into a whole.
Real heartbreak occurs quietly. It chips at you slowly; small cracks at first until you can no longer ignore the gaping wound in your chest. The missing center behind your ribcage. By the time you realize what has happened, the hole is too big to fill. The chasm impossible to bridge. They don’t tell you that it sneaks up on you, the curl of a cold-blooded snake around your neck that restricts your ability to breathe, to function. It hisses in your ear, a gentle whisper that only gets louder when the puncture isn’t tended to.
Before you know it, the serpent has bared its teeth and sunk its poison into you.
You didn’t think you would experience heartbreak with Dick Grayson. The man is loyal, loving. He anticipates your needs before you can even determine what’s missing. Raised to be observant and thoughtful, Dick is a fierce protector of those he cares about. You happen to be lucky enough to be one of them.
You’ve seen how he is with his family, his friends, the people that he chooses to protect with his body, mind, and soul. There is not a thing he wouldn’t do to keep those he cherishes safe, even if it means sacrificing himself.
Because of all this, Dick has to juggle one too many priorities. Not only are they things he already planned on doing, but he also has to account for the emergencies that crop up from time to time. Given that this is Blüdhaven, time to time means all the time.
You’re used to it. Coming in second, that is.
Your relationship with Dick is relatively new. Your dates aren’t life or death. So when he has to up and leave in the middle of dinner, it’s something you’ve grown accustomed to. The moment his phone vibrates on the table, you set your expectations.
The first vibration, he ignores.
The second one, his eyes flick down to his device before he refocuses on you.
Third time’s the charm. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly after you finish recounting your day. “Let me just check and make sure it isn’t anything urgent.”
But you already know the answer to that. It’s always urgent. It’s the city. You can’t blame him for it. Corruption is the norm in Blüdhaven; it bleeds through every crack and corner. From the police commissioner to the mayor, to the elites. Dick is ambitious, he thinks he can rid the city completely of its decrepit moral compass.
The flicker of guilt that passes through his baby blues is the first sign. Then comes the sour curl of his lips when he realizes that he can’t disregard the threat alert from Oracle. Then comes the sympathetic look when he finally turns back to you.
It’s that look that you can’t stand. That’s the one that always gets to you. Because you don’t want him to pity you.
So you plaster a smile onto your lips and nod. “Go. The city needs you.”
Apologies automatically fall from his lips as he places a chaste kiss on your forehead, presses his credit card into your hands, and takes off. His dinner sits cold on the pristine white tablecloth.
And you wonder if there will ever come a time when Blüdhaven will no longer need Nightwing. Or Dick Grayson.
Maybe then you’ll have a chance at coming first.
In his defense — and perhaps it comes from months of making excuses first for him as a friend and then as a lover, he does try. He tries to make time for you, slipping you into the little gaps he has in between investigations, philanthropic work, and patrols. It’s how you met him in the first place.
Your job at the community center allowed you some governmental access which you used to help him take down a few bad apples in the mayor’s office. Small-time fry. But then he started doing more work for the people, building affordable housing and programming to help the city’s children, and you started seeing more of this elusive Dick Grayson.
At first, you had been starstruck. The man is renowned all throughout the city — a savior to the good, a menace to the bad. The more time you spend with him, the more you learn about the Dick that he doesn’t show to the outside world.
It’s the man who is weary down to the bone, cutting off one evil head only for two more to grow. It’s the man who bears the city’s burdens on his shoulders, carrying the weight of a million expectations with the limited resources that he has. It’s the man who slinks back into your arms after a long day and curls himself around you like it’s the only place he is meant to be.
Falling in love with Dick had been all too easy. It’s like taking a nosedive off a cliff, knowing you’ll land in a wide-open ocean with a life jacket.
When you find out that he also spends his nights as the masked hero Nightwing, he had been wary of how you would react. It’s ridiculous to think that you would feel anything other than pride when you see him in full gear for the first time.
For some reason, Dick feels… further once you learn this fact. He already felt unattainable before —untouchable — as this generous, intelligent billionaire, heir to the famous Wayne family. Now that you know he is also a crime-fighting superhero, you feel those buried feelings of insecurity rise to the surface. The creeping voices clawing into your skin to question how you could ever be an adequate partner for him.
How could you — someone so normal, so average — compare to the living legend Dick Grayson?
Of course, once the Nightwing gates are open, you also see the people he surrounds himself with. Martians. Kryptonians. Shapeshifters. Trained assassins. And Barbara Gordon — how do you even begin to describe Barbara Gordon?
Between Kori and Barbara, you were convinced that Dick had a thing for redheads. Dick reassured you that he really didn’t have a particular preference. No, no preference in terms of hair, but you can clearly see the pattern — all of his exes are skillful. Powerful. Hot.
Gorgeous in a way that takes your breath away. Not only that, they’re fierce and bold and intelligent. They are out there saving the world day in and day out, whether it’s through ultraviolet energy projections or hacking into the most secure servers on the planet.
That monster inside of you peeks around the corner with its talons out, ready to pierce through your fragile heart once more. You hate yourself for even thinking this way. It’s part of his job, these are his friends. You should feel lucky that you were even introduced to them.
But that feeling has taken root and consumed your heart. Insufficient. Inadequate. Incapable. Who are you compared to all this greatness?
It’s why you keep your head down, why you keep your mouth shut even as the fissures begin to appear in your heart. You disregard them, brush them off as a temporary blip in your confidence. You tell yourself that you’re lucky Dick’s even giving you the time of day. You can’t be another burden for him to bear. You should be making his life easier.
So when he apologizes, you wave off his concern and tell him to go out there and save the world, Boy Wonder, because that’s what he does. The world comes first. You come second. It’s how it’s always been. It’s how it should be.
The deeper you try to bury these feelings, these insecurities, the greater the cuts you slice inside your heart. You’re carving it out slowly, an excruciating process as you try to preserve what’s left of your emotions.
Dick makes it up to you each time with flowers, with butterfly kisses, with the gentle touch of his hand. He promises you that next time will be better. He keeps his word. A few dates over the course of a few weeks, uninterrupted time, undivided attention. You’re on cloud nine by the time he drops you off at the doorstep, lingering for a fraction longer, enough time for you to invite him in to stay.
He does. Every time.
There are nights he returns to your side in uniform. His suit ripped, blood coating his skin crimson. These are times you’re reminded that he’s mortal. Human. You’re reminded that you could so easily lose him in all the work that he does.
Nothing makes you feel more powerless than knowing that all you can do is help him tend to the aftermath. Your hands shake when you dab the antiseptic, when you wipe off all the red, when you wrap up the gauze around his body.
You’re different from Barbara who guides him, who serves as his eyes and ears, and maps him a solution and exit each time. You’re different from Kori who fights alongside him with powers that he doesn’t have. You’re different from Bruce, Jason, Tim, and Damian, who know him in such intimate ways, moving in sync as he works through the city.
You are someone watching from the sidelines. A character that could be so easily removed from his story, and nobody would blink twice.
The thought pains you, but you suck it up and deal with it anyway. It’s easy to let these thoughts go when Dick murmurs saccharine sweet phrases into your neck. It’s easy to forget your place when he marks constellations across your body when he feels like having your company.
You didn’t think it could get worse. You can only help. Right?
But you’re proven wrong the one time you’re all gathered at the Wayne Mansion. It’s a family dinner. The mood is light, the drinks are flowing, the food is delicious. Laughter ripples through the table and, for once, you aren’t overthinking your place at the table.
That is, until an alarm sounds and everyone is immediately on high alert. They all seem to know what to do, whipping into action quickly while you sit there frozen.
Dick gears up and then stiffens when he remembers you still at the dinner table, watching them all in awe and surprise. He looks at Alfred who is also preparing to help with the potential invasion of the mansion, then looks at you. “Stay here, okay? I’ll come get you when it’s safe.”
You open your mouth, ready to offer your assistance, but stop when you look around the room. How can you possibly even think about helping these heroes? They are the heroes of the story. You are the damsel in distress.
“Okay,” is all you manage to say.
True to his word, Dick returns a few hours later. You’re right where he left you. He looks relieved to see you untouched, immediately coming up to you to inspect you. “Are you okay?”
Even when the worst is happening, his concern is on you. You’re adding more weight to his already hefty load.
“I’m okay,” you reassure him. “Is everyone else okay?”
He softens and nods. “Yeah, they’re okay. Let’s get you home, yeah?”
Dick’s kisses should’ve chased away those worries as they always have, but the feeling persists. It’s an itch you can’t scratch. An invisible scar you can’t heal. The feeling festers and grows, sprawling into this ugly hopelessness inside of you.
It doesn’t disappear when Dick picks you up from work the next day, chattering on about the programs he is hoping to stand up with the help of the new mayor.
It doesn’t disappear when the two of you run into Barbara outside of his apartment, telling him that there’s work to be done with Blockbuster.
It doesn’t disappear when Dick shoots you an apologetic look, asking for a rain check on your movie night — even when he’s already carrying the bags of popcorn and treats.
The more you think about it, the more you consider where you stand with Dick. He’s already so busy with everything else. The last thing you want to be is another item on his checklist, another to-do to cross off. He already has enough on his plate, you don’t want to make it harder for him by adding another thing for him to complete.
So you do what you thought was best.
“I don’t think this is working out, Dick.”
Dick’s gaze falters, a shudder in his confidence. “What— why would you say that?”
“You’re very busy. You have a lot of things going on. I don’t think a relationship is a good idea right now.” Not for you, you add in your mind. This is for Dick, you remind yourself. This is to help him, the only way you know how.
He’s quiet, lips pinched together as he frowns. The two of you were supposed to get lunch together, but you thought it best to sever it clean before the two of you sit down for what would likely be an awkward meal. So here you two are, standing in front of a restaurant. People mill about, barely paying you any mind. Some pause to look at Dick in admiration, but he is only looking at you.
“Is this what you want?” His voice is lower when he asks this.
No. But, of course, you don’t say that.
“Yes. I think this is what’s best.”
A part of you wants him to resist, wants him to fight for you. That selfish part of you begs him to beg you to stay, to tell you that he wants this as much as you do. That he cares about you as much as you do him.
But the responsible voice inside of you wants him to agree and walk away.
Luckily – or not, he agrees with the latter. So the two of you hug and part ways. You walk away with shoulders held high and the tears streaming down your face. You don’t let him see it. You never want him to see it.
And that’s the day you walked away from Dick Grayson.
It may be dramatic to say that there is your life before Dick and a life after him. You never thought you would ever consider romance to be the end-all-be-all of your life — and it isn’t. But Dick Grayson is something special, isn’t he? He isn’t just any romance.
He is the romance.
The type that sticks to you, a permanent fixture like he’s been tattooed and engraved into an everlasting mark on your skin. He clings to you like a persistent memory. No matter how many drinks you swallow, how many things you do to keep busy, you can’t seem to shake the thought of him when you’re alone.
The nights are the worst. The world inside your head is too quiet, even in a city like this one. Even when there are sirens blaring from every corner of your apartment and neon lights glare into your bedroom, you’re left to pick apart the decision you’ve made, constantly turning it over in your mind to determine whether it was the right one.
There are nights when you find yourself reaching for your phone, your thumb hovering over his contact. It would be easy to call him, to ask for him back. You miss him, incredibly so. It would be so simple to send him a text saying as such.
I miss you. What are you doing tonight?
Thinking of you, are you thinking of me?
I made a mistake. Will you have me again?
You try not to think about him, but the ask is akin to asking you not to breathe. Thinking about Dick comes naturally to you. It’s in the places you frequent, the ghost of him is the only constant lurking in the shadows. It’s the voice inside your head, calming you down when the city gets too much. It’s the absence that you feel the most — the sudden quiet when you don’t have him talking to you about his day, about his family, his friends, his ambition. The silence when he isn’t peppering you with follow-up questions about your week, sincerity and genuine curiosity entwined into his every syllable.
And just as you’re swirling into this black hole, your phone lights up with an email reminder. A date the two of you were supposed to have. Movie tickets booked weeks ago because you had been so excited to see it, Dick had purchased the tickets immediately. With everything that has happened, you completely forgot to cancel it.
However, instead of wallowing, you decide to go for it anyway. You’ve been cooped up in your home for too long, burying yourself under this mountain of self-despair. Quality time with your friends helped, but it didn’t cease the voices at night when you’re alone.
The movie is good, it could’ve been better if you didn’t have this empty seat next to you. The theater is full and yet there is this one gap that sticks out like a sore thumb on opening night. Your mind is half on the movie and half imagining what it would be like to be here with Dick.
He would get popcorn ahead of time, with extra butter, just the way he knows you like it. He would get sweet tea, not cola, because he knows how you don’t like to pair bubbly drinks with airy snacks. He would let you hold onto the bucket and take it as an opportunity to reach closer to you whenever he grabs a handful, even sliding an arm around you to tuck you into his side. When the popcorn is gone, he would hold your hand, squeezing whenever he thinks you need the extra support.
It’s an almost miserable experience. It’s pathetic how far gone you are for him that you can’t even enjoy time by yourself anymore.
But as they say, heartbreak is supposed to get easier with time. Eventually, you won’t remember what his touch felt like, the warmth of his body next to yours. You won’t think about him every time you pass by the basketball court he used to frequent to keep the neighborhood kids company. You won’t cry when you realize how many people you’ve gotten to know and lost in the process. You won’t think about him and you’ll remember that you can be perfectly content on your own again.
You try not to fall under the weight of your worries as you step out of the theater. Everyone else filters out in pairs or groups, and you’re left standing there alone in the golden light that casts a glow across the rain-streaked sidewalk. You’re waiting for a cab. A cab that you will soon learn won’t find you.
Not when you feel the breath down your neck.
“Aren’t you a pretty little bird?”
The unknown voice has you jumping, but not too far when a firm grip wraps around your bicep. Your eyes flash to betray your fear as you take in the masked assailant. He looks familiar, like a photograph hung somewhere in the back of your subconscious. Maybe one of Dick’s files that he tends to strew across your coffee table.
“You’re Grayson’s girl. I’ve seen you around with him. Blockbuster’s going to want to see you.”
“I’m not— we’re not—” together, you want to say, but you don’t get a chance to finish your words when the man zaps you out cold.
By the time you wake, there is a dull throbbing on your side where you’ve been electrocuted. The room smells of wastewater but looks relatively clean. You must be near the sewage plant. There is no one in the room and your eyes quickly dart around. What would Dick do in this moment?
Your hands are tied up with a rope behind your back, feet against the legs of the chair. You systematically go through your surroundings. A shelf with all sorts of items. Books, random paraphernalia, and a glass bottle at the top. An idea pops up in your head, the films you watch finally coming in helpful; it might not be one that Dick approves, but he’s not here to scold you right now.
Based on the distance and the weight of the chair, you scooch your way towards it. You use your shoulder to bump the shelf, rattling it with the little force you have. You can hear the bottle stumble a bit, but it’s not quite there yet.
Another hard push with your limited movement has it finally dropping on its side, rolling down the shelf until it lands, split in pieces, on the ground next to you. Now, you have to carefully drop yourself onto the floor, making sure you’re not getting the shards on your skin. There is no graceful way to do this, so you just tip yourself over. With your face pressed against the cold cement floor, your hands wriggle around behind you to grasp a piece of the glass, slicing the tip of your finger in the process, but at least you have this.
Slowly, you use the jagged edge to cut through the rope. It’s an arduous process. The entire time, you’re praying that maybe — on the very off-chance — Dick is still keeping track of you. That he’ll notice your disappearance. Maybe he’ll come to your rescue. It’s a naive thought, but it’s the hope that you cling to.
When your wrists are finally free, you get to work on your ankles. Another slice on your leg in your hurry to break free before your captors return. You don’t know where you are or how you plan to escape, but that tiny window looks promising.
You’re halfway up the wall, standing on your chair, struggling to unlock the window when the front door swings open. You whip around and see the imposing figure duck into the room. Fuck. It’s Blockbuster. He is the man who’s been out for Dick’s blood for as long as you can remember.
And now he has you, trapped in this room. His broad frame takes up nearly half the width of the space. You fiddle with the lock faster, praying for some miracle that you can escape in time.
But the man doesn’t even give you a chance — his thick arms wrap around your torso before he lifts you up and throws you back onto the ground. If you didn’t know any better, you swear you hear bones cracking. The pain that shoots through you is fast, blistering, blinding. It’s hot-white and has your vision spotting.
“Where do you think you’re going, pretty bird?” Blockbuster rumbles in vile amusement. “You’re not leaving this room. You’re not leaving this space until I get some answers.”
“Answers about what?” You spit out, the liquid coming out in a smattering of red on the grey floor.
“Grayson. I want to know his weaknesses, his vulnerable points. I want to know everything there is to know about him to destroy him.”
The wide smile that stretches across his face has your stomach churning in disgust. He crouches on the floor, leans towards you, close enough that his platinum hair brushes against your face.
“Or maybe you’re it. Maybe you’re his only weakness. Maybe I already have the pretty bird in my hands to take him down.”
“He’s not going to let you get away with this, or anything. He’s going to destroy you before you even come close to him.”
Blockbuster laughs, the sound booming. “This bird’s got claws. I can see why Grayson likes you. Don’t worry, pretty. I’ll break each one before you leave today. I’ll make sure you can’t sing for him anymore. I’ll make you squawk.”
The threat settles in deep in your gut and your heart plummets six feet under.
Then it begins. The beating, the brutalizing. You’re on the ground, against the wall, and flying through the air. Your face, your ribs, your hair, your legs, your arms. It goes on and on for what feels like hours. The only light you see is the one that hangs overhead, but even that begins to fade as your eyes struggle to stay open. Your chest heaves with heavy breaths, strained wheezes slipping past your lips in your desperate attempt to stay alive. The glass bits you were so adamant on avoiding before are now affixed to your skin like glitter.
Your vision goes between white and red and pitch black. When you start to lose consciousness, he jolts you awake again. The only sounds ringing in your ear are his questions, now a jumbled blur of words, and a cacophony of foul laughter.
You’ve never been religious but in those final moments, you pray. You pray for a savior. You pray that you’ll survive this. You pray that Dick doesn’t have to see you in your final moments.
Despite all that has happened, you like to hope that Dick still cares — and when Dick cares, you know he would live with this weight for the rest of his life. The last thing you want to leave him with is another burden to carry.
Your ears start ringing from the abuse you’ve undergone. At some point, the pain no longer flares, it ebbs and flows as your body grows numb. Not a single part of you untouched. You don’t think the man even has questions anymore; he only takes ill gratification in the fact that he has destroyed something of Dick’s.
You swear you hear a different voice, a different sound. No longer your screams or his laughter. A curse, a thud, a yell. Your brain can’t fully comprehend it, not when your senses can no longer be trusted. Not when they barely work. In the spread of red, you see glimpses of blue and black.
You hear your name. You hear it before you feel a gentle touch, a brush that’s barely there on your head.
Then it all goes black.
“We need you to let her go. Sir, we are trying to help.”
“You don’t know what she’s gone through—”
“We will work to diagnose all her injuries. For now, we need you to let us do our jobs.”
“I’m surprised she’s still breathing. The damage she’s taken…”
“Let’s just get through this and let the family know.”
“Sir, this is family only—”
“I am her family,” Dick’s voice snaps back. You’ve never heard him raise his voice like that before.
Then you hear someone else, more stern, still warm. Bruce. “If you’ll allow my son to stay with her, she doesn’t have family in the area. I’ll handle the paperwork, if you’ll lead me.”
“Sweet girl, I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m not leaving.”
“Dick, you need to eat at least. You can’t help her like this.”
“I’m the reason she’s here to begin with. I’m not leaving her.”
“How’s she doing?” The deep baritone, you think it’s Bruce.
Dick’s voice frays at the edges, like he’s barely keeping it together as he inhales. You can feel his eyes on you. “Better. Doctors think she’ll be fine but she doesn’t have the energy yet to be fully conscious.”
“She’s a strong one. She’ll be fine, Dick.”
A pause. You wonder how Dick looks, if he’s been eating— “I don’t think I can ever forgive myself if she isn’t.”
“I should’ve been there with her, you know. We bought those tickets weeks ago. I thought she refunded them when she broke up with me. Didn’t think she’d go alone to such a late showing.”
A sigh. More high-pitched. Maybe Barbara. She’s been worried sick about him based on how many times she has come to visit. Her voice is more familiar than others. “You can’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known that would happen.”
“It’s Blüdhaven, of course, something like this would happen. I should’ve expected this, that’s my entire job.”
“Babs sent me here to deliver this. Can you please just eat first? Everyone’s worried about you.”
There’s the rustling of a plastic bag. You hope that Tim picked up Dick’s favorite Thai spot downtown, the one with the pad see ew he likes. Hopefully, that’ll cheer him up. “Thanks, but I’m good for now.”
“Dick, you’re not doing anyone any favors by punishing yourself. What would she say if she saw you like this, huh?”
“Well, she can’t really say anything now, can she? Because of me.”
“Stop blaming yourself. It’s Blockbuster’s fault. She wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“Should’ve been me in this bed.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. God, I’ll do anything — I’ll give up anything. Just please wake up. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t do this without you. I need you to wake up, pretty girl. Need to see those eyes again. Need you looking at me again.”
“I swear I’ll do better. I’ll work harder. Please. Don’t take her away from me.”
When your eyes finally flutter open, you feel as if it’s been years since you’ve seen the light. The bright fluorescent lamps above blind you as you groan and turn away. Crust nearly keeps your eyes shut but you reach up to brush them away, only to wince at the searing pain by your side.
“Hey, pretty girl, easy. Don’t move too fast. You’re hurt.”
Dick. You slowly turn to the side to find him there. Then you briefly analyze your surroundings.
White. All white. Hospital. The only splashes of color are in the flower arrangements sitting at the end of your bed. Large and wild. Alive.
You’re alive.
Christ, you’re alive.
But Dick — he looks disheveled, the most you’ve ever seen him at least. There’s certainly more than a day’s worth of stubble peppering his jaw, his blue eyes shadowed by the circles surrounding them. His hair is a mussed-up mess, like he’s been running his hand through it nonstop for days.
He’s fast to approach, gentle to touch. You swear you see the slight tremble in his fingertips as he brushes your hair away from your face. His eyes search yours, drinking you in like he is memorizing every inch of you. Old habits die hard, you suppose. He’s probably cataloging your injuries as if the doctor hasn’t done that already.
“Hey, Dick,” you smile weakly, the stretch painful. Your throat feels dry, your voice comes out grainy. There’s a stiffness around your neck, which you soon realize is a brace. It hurts to breathe, let alone speak. “What day is it?”
Dick scrambles to grab the glass of water at your bedside table. He eases the rim between your lips, letting the cool liquid slowly pour between your chapped lips. “Easy, not too much. Not too fast,” he whispers, then adds, “Been four days.”
“Hmm, that’s a while, huh? Hope my boss doesn’t fire me for missing work that long. God knows we’re understaffed.”
Your attempt to laugh falls short when you feel the piercing twinge in your stomach, and it comes out as a raspy cough instead.
Dick’s eyes widen and you shake your head to reassure him. You don’t like the way his forehead creases in concern, how dim his usually bright eyes are. Dick forces a smile at your poor endeavor at humor. “No, I’m sure you’ll be fine, sweetheart. Called in for you.”
“Good. What a waste of PTO though.”
“Sweet girl,” Dick breathes out, closer this time as he leans forward and presses his lips against your temple. You barely feel it, still slightly numb under the bandage wrapped around your head. His breath is shaky when he exhales. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I should’ve been there.”
You roll your eyes, but it only makes your head ache. “Don’t be silly. Why would you have been there? It wasn’t as if we had plans.”
“We were supposed to go together. We—” Dick chokes on his words as he sits on the chair next to your bed, bringing your hand up to his face and flattens the back of it against his cheek. “I’m sorry. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am that I wasn’t there.”
“You were, Dick. You came for me. I knew you would.”
“I wasn’t fast enough.”
“You were as fast as you could be.”
“I didn’t get him. I wanted to, but you were there and you were hurt and I needed to get you to the hospital first. He escaped and—”
“You’ll get him next time.”
“I let you get hurt.”
“You didn’t do anything except save me.”
Dick’s lips quiver as he inhales again, as he looks at you.
“I love you.”
Then you hear another sharp gasp. Yours.
“I love you. I should’ve told you that a long time ago, pretty girl. I love you so much. I shouldn’t have let you walk away. I should’ve fought harder for you. I just— I thought you deserved better than me. Someone who could treasure you properly. Hopefully, someone who loves you as much as I do, even if I don’t think it’s possible.”
Your throat is tight. Whether it’s the tears or from the injuries you’ve sustained, you’re not entirely sure. Your question is only answered when you taste the saltiness on your tongue, your fingers reaching up to touch the wet mess rolling down your face.
“But I can’t let you go. People think I’m selfless, but god — I’m so fucking selfish when it comes to you. Never want you to leave my side again. I want you close so I can protect you, keep you safe, love you proper. I want you to know how much you mean to me. I want to remind you of it every day. I took it for granted before, but never again. I love you. I’ll do it right this time, if you’ll let me. If you’ll still have me.”
“Dick…”
“God, look at me babbling away when you should be resting,” Dick huffs, disgruntled with himself. “I’m sorry. I’ll get the doctor. I should’ve done that first.”
“Stay.”
“I have to—”
You reach for his fingers again, intertwining them. It’s been a while since you’ve had his big hands up close. These hands always remind you that you’re safe, that you’re his. Gentle, a contradiction against the harsh touch of Blüdhaven. “Just for a little while.”
Dick glances between the door and your joint hands in conflict. He caves in to you, because — of course, he does. He’s never been one to deny you when you want to touch him. It’s his weakness. If Clark had his Kryptonite, he had you.
“For a little bit,” he murmurs reluctantly, “but I want them to check on you right after this, okay? I have to make sure you’re good.”
For a while, the two of you let the silence seep in. It wraps around you like a blanket, warm and steady. The worries of the past few days — even the past few weeks — seem to melt away as you let your eyes slide close once more, your head pressing back into the pillow. Dick’s fingers twitch in your hand and you give him a squeeze to assure him you’re okay.
“I was scared,” you admit quietly. You can’t meet his eyes. Not for this. “I wasn’t scared of Blockbuster. I was scared of what would happen if you found me a minute too late. If I didn’t make it.”
“Wh— why would you be scared of that?”
“Because I know you’d blame yourself. You already have, even though you saved me. I didn’t want to be another weight to carry. Another burden on your shoulders.”
There is a fracture in Dick’s voice when he says your name. Like a prayer. Like a desperate plea. “You could never be a burden. I— I don’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t make it in time. I don’t even want to think about that.”
“Might make things easier for you,” you try to tease, but the joke lands bitter on your tongue. “One less thing to worry about. I guess I already was when I ended things.”
Dick is quiet for a moment, you can’t even hear him breathe. So you turn to look at him again, curious eyes finding his slumped shoulders. “Don’t even joke about that. That’s not something I’m entertaining. I’m never not worrying about you,” he mutters, “kept tabs on you even after you broke up with me. I wanted to make sure you always had someone looking out for you, even if it’s someone you didn’t care about anymore.”
You frown then. “Why would you think I don’t care about you?”
His head tilts in question then, brows furrowing. “Isn’t— I mean, isn’t that why you ended things? Because you weren’t interested in me anymore. I wasn’t a great boyfriend, I know that. I should’ve done more. That’s on me. I just thought, you… didn’t care about me anymore. Maybe you found someone else.”
“Dick, oh my— no, not at all. I just—” your teeth sink into your bottom lip, the truth hanging on the tip of your tongue but you refuse to let it slip.
He looks at you with such earnest eyes, ones that urge you to continue.
How can you say no to him? How could you think for one second you could let him go?
“I thought it would be easier for you, if we broke up,” you admit quietly and are immediately answered by the deepening of his frown, “you have so much going on. Between Nightwing, Blüdhaven and Gotham, and all the community outreach you were doing, it just didn’t seem like you had time for a relationship. It’s not as if I was helping you in any way, I can’t really do that. Not like the others. So I did what I thought was best.”
The look on Dick’s face now, you don’t think you ever want to see again. He looks absolutely crestfallen. His lips slightly parted, eyes carrying the sort of melancholy that comes after a loss. “You— fuck, you thought that breaking up would be easier for me? How can you— what would even make you think that? I know I’ve been busy and I haven’t been the best boyfriend, but god, you— you never made things harder. Ever. If anything, I feel so much lighter with you around. I feel as if I could breathe again. When this city chokes out the last of me, I know I’ll at least have you. And god, I wasn’t perfect, I was a terrible boyfriend, but you put up with me. I don’t know why you did for as long as you did, but— I didn’t know that’s how you felt with me. I wish you’d told me.”
A laugh of disbelief escapes him, rising from his chest with acid on his tongue.
“You were always so patient. I thought— I thought that’s all you wanted from me. A few dates here and there. I didn’t want to ask more of you, didn’t want to scare you off. I can be intense, overwhelming. I know I can certainly be, and I didn’t want you to think I was being too demanding.”
“Dick, you’re… unbelievable. Do you know how much I admire you? Everything that you do? Sometimes, I don’t know what you see in me. When you have all these incredible people around you, when you’re doing all these incredible things. I didn’t think I’d be… enough.”
Dick stands then, cupping your face in his hands. His eyes are wild, alive now. It’s as if he’s been electrified in the last few moments of your conversation. “You are more than enough. You’re everything. Every day I see how hard you work, how much of your heart you put into this city and its people, and it reminds me of why I want to protect this city. It’s because of you. I want you safe, I want you happy here — with me. God, I fucking love you, you know that. I’m going to remind you of it every day. If you’ll let me have you again, I promise you — you’ll never have a doubt in your mind ever again when it comes to where you stand with me. You’ll see what I see in you.”
You crack another small smile, cheeks aching. You’re probably ripping open a couple of stitches, but it’s worth it when Dick breathes a sigh of relief. “Love you too, Dick.”
The smile he offers you is magnificent. The kind that you memorize, print, and tuck away for safekeeping on a rainy day. He presses another kiss to your forehead, then your hand. Firm this time. More confident. He hesitates before he leans to brush his lips against yours.
And it feels like homecoming.
“I’m going to put a tracker on you from now on. I’ll drop you off at work and pick you up. I’ll install new security measures in your office and our apartment—”
“Our?”
He freezes then flushes, pink tinging his neck. “If you want. I mean, I think you’ll be safer there. I know we haven’t been together long but I’ll feel better if you’re with me. We can spend more time together, I don’t have to let you go at the end of the day. If you’re not comfortable, I’ll set up a separate room for you first — not to say I won’t be crashing in there every night, but—”
“Dick,” you reprimand teasingly. “I’ll think about it. That’s a big move.”
“Right, yeah. Of course. You don’t have to. I’ll implement new security cameras and sensors at your place. I’ll booby trap some of the windows so no one can break in. We’ll upgrade your—”
“Dick,” you say again, softer this time. “Your offer isn’t a bad thing. I just… I have to think about it. I love you, I do. It’s just been a lot.”
He nods solemnly and you can practically hear the gears turning in his head. Always working. Always looking for a solution.
“It’s not a no, baby.”
The pet name has him perking up, his eyes illuminating for the first time in a while since you’ve seen him. Crystal blue staring right back at you.
“And Dick—”
“Yeah?”
“Probably time to get the doctor. I might’ve split open a few stitches.”
“Oh, shit yeah.” He jumps to his feet, ready to run out when you call for him again. He pops his head back in, gaze curious, happy, concerned.
Your lips tug into a smile. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, pretty girl.”
dick is flying to (taglist): @catclaw1 @lunexiax @esunarint @lunaryoongie @alli0-0 @avgdestitute @parker-barnes-af @onecojg @lynnidc @winnichu173 @c3liaaaaa @my-drvidess @fruitypebsworld @smorgasbrods @ruptureedspleen @take-it-on-the-run @a-very-fictional-girl @eiaf4uwn @vivianna2392 @w1nchesterfiles @ae1szn @its-pomegranite @athenxt
“I could fix him”; “I could make him worse!” Why??????? Why all this DIY???? I just wanna stand over his shoulder and see what he can possibly fuck up next
I think people forget that Stratt amnesticized Grace with the goal that Ilyukina and Yao would be there to help him, y’know NOT DIE, and then THEY DIED before he woke up.
So like she gets the recordings and realizes Yao and Ilyukina are dead before he wakes up so he’s got no pilot, no engineer, and no memories.
And then you also have to remember that the EXISTENCE of these recordings and the fact they were accompanied by the Taumoeba means that an amnesticized Grace somehow managed to save earth without a pilot or engineer and shoddy memory that only vaguely gives him enough to work with as he works.
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
areudirty
snowghoul
prguitarman
andulkaphoto
