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Summary : You are not the only person hunting Anti-Vigilante Task Force. Luckily, your “competition” is Benjamin Poindexter.
Pairing : DDBA! Benjamin Poindexter x vigilante! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Reader is ex-SHIELD, sexual themes, Freak4Freak, violence, death, blood, injury/gunshot wound, emotional trauma/grief, slight mention of cannabis use, brief mention of having suicidal thoughts, codependency, biting/blood play, Dex has you in a headlock as one point. Mention of surgery. Dex finds out he likes pain and learns sympathy in the same story lol. Fluff, angst. Set between DDBA season 1 and season 2. (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 9.9k
Requested by : Anon
Notes : Most of the fic is inspired by the song Kitty Sucker by Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes. Credit to this post by @truestaim for inspiring the more intimate scenes <3 Enjoy!
You didn’t meet Dex in a bar, or on a dating app, or on a night out, like any modern person would.
You met him at work.
Well, “work.”
Your work just happened to be ridding the streets from legally protected by emotionally corrupt Anti-Vigilante Task Force agents.
They weren’t exactly hard to track and they weren’t subtle when they swept through a place. They always used black gear, textbook formations, masks on, and a false sense of “order.” You’d been tracking them for weeks, picking them off where you could, dismantling routes, breaking patterns. Not out of heroism, really. You just didn’t like being hunted.
And they were definitely hunting you.
You were an “Asset Gone Rogue.” At least, that’s what you were in their files.
In truth, you were a former SHIELD operative. When the organisation collapsed, you were offered a government contract. You refused. After all, you were done working for people, for agendas. People are corrupt. Agendas were worse. The only person you trusted was yourself.
Because you refused, because apparently, if you weren’t loyal to them you were a threat, the CIA and FBI had labeled you as a high-risk individual, and you knew they monitored the hell out of you.
You didn’t mind, and you had nothing to be scared about. You had been on your best behaviour. You had been living a normal life since 2014. At least, as normal as it could be. Aliens still invaded, people still disappeared, the president turned into a rage monster, and you could be taken hostage by your own void of a mind any time. But hey. Privileges, right? At least you were still alive, and nobody was out to get you.
Until Fisk became mayor.
That’s when your profile got reactivated. Fisk saw many unaccounted for “assets” as a threat. So they slapped the label “vigilante” on you and processed your arrest warrant.
The first night they tried to get you, they shot up your favourite bar. Two bartenders got caught in the crossfire.
They were your friends.
Layla gave you staff discounts and went to concerts with you. Darren had a roommate who works in a dispensary. He’d get them for cheap and you would all get high on a rooftop, chatting shit about life and how absurd the existence of your consciousness was. You’d told them that one day, when they had saved enough money to open up their own bar, they’d need a bouncer. Private security was important, and you promised to volunteer.
Layla would laugh and ask, “You? C’mon. You’re not stopping nobody from coming in.”
Darren would say, “My cousin’s like 6’5. He can do the job.”
You’d laugh, because they didn’t really know your past. They didn’t know your skills and what you had done to survive. They didn’t know the blood on your hands.
You’d take a drag out of the blunt. “Trust me, man. I’m scary as fuck.”
They’d laugh and say, “If you say so.”
But now they were six feet underground because they were caught in the crossfire meant for you.
And no, you had never intended to go back to the life of being judge, jury, and executioner. But your friends were fucking dead. So if they want a vigilante, they’ll get a vigilante.
Your only advice to them: be careful what you wish for.
Because if there’s one thing you’re good at doing with your hands, it’s killing for sport.
—
What you didn’t expect when you started to hunt them… was competition.
On the first night, you found the warehouse already ruined. Knives where there shouldn’t have been knives. Pencils where they shouldn’t be pencils. And glass where they shouldn’t be glass, all stuck in lethal ways on the bodies of Task Force.
You crouched beside one, studying the entry wound left by what looked like a stapler.
You smiled a little. “‘M not the only one, huh?”
—
The second time you tracked AVTF agents, you found them alive.
It must be my lucky day, you thought to yourself, sliding your brass knuckles on.
Before long, you were seeing red, clashing metal against bone. You had knocked out the breath out of their lungs. The dull, sickening rhythm of a fight that had already been decided, you knew the pendulum was swinging in your favour.
One agent swung wide after you disarmed him. He was sloppy.
You stepped in.
Your knuckles cracked across his cheek with a sharp snap, his head whipping to the side before his body followed. He dropped hard, and he didn't move after that.
Another came at you from behind.
You didn’t turn.
You just shifted your weight and drove your elbow back into his ribs. You felt a crack; then pivoted and planted your fist straight into his jaw.
He folded.
You exhaled, rolling your shoulders like this was nothing more than a warm-up. Blood slicked your knuckles, dripping in lines down your fingers. You flexed once, admiring the work.
The man with the broken ribs, unfortunately, was still alive. He reached for a gun, only to be stopped by a throwing knife sent the direction of his neck. In response, he let out a blood-curdling scream.
You, however, was the one to take the knife off him, taking the pressure off the wound and letting him abruptly bleed out. You took the knife and sheathed it in one of your pockets.
Shiny, you thought. It’s mine now.
“Messy,” you heard a voice say from the darkness.
You tilted your head. Then, slowly, you turned.
The man you saw stood at the mouth of the alley like he’d always been there.
He was tall and lean, but the suit caught your attention first.
It was dark blue with silver accents. Sleek, almost seamless against his frame. Not tactical in the bulky, obvious way AVTF agents wore theirs. This was built for movement, not protection. A mask covered his face, but he was not concealing his identity. It was made evident when he took off his mask, presumably so you could get a better look at him. His hair was sandy blond or light brown, you couldn’t tell in the lighting. He had a scar on his cheek, but you kinda liked it. It suited him.
What unsettled you, however, was how his eyes tracked you.
Your lips curled into a smile before you could stop it.
“Oh?” you said, almost amused. “You got notes?”
His eyes dropped to your hands. To the brass knuckles, slick with fresh blood, catching what little light filtered into the alley.
“You were in my line of fire,” he said bluntly.
You let out a huff of laughter, glancing around at the bodies scattered across the pavement before looking back at him. “I’m pretty sure I was in the middle of my kill.”
To emphasize it, you stepped back, stomping hard onto the wrist of the last agent trying to crawl away.
You felt bone crunch under your heel.
You didn’t even look down when you finished it, dropping a quick, brutal strike with your knuckles that silenced him.
You lifted your hand slightly, tilting it so he could see the blood coating the metal clearer. “You see something unfinished?”
His eyes followed the movement again, but ended up at your face. “They were mine.”
Before you could stop yourself, you stepped toward him. Close enough to test, not close enough to threaten.
“Well.” Your head tilted. “You should’ve come down here and gotten your hands dirty with me.”
“I don’t need to be close,” he replied.
“Mm.” You hummed, unconvinced, dragging your gaze back up to meet his. “Shame. You’re missing out.”
“And you probably compensate for your terrible aim with proximity,” he said, stepping forward. You could see the depth of his eyes now, the exact shade of it. And they were beautifully hazel, like universes were swimming in them.
“It’s more fun,” you shrugged. “I like it when I feel it.”
You saw the smallest shift at the corner of his mouth. A smile.
“Oh,” you said with a cynical grin. “There it is. You do have a personality.”
The tension didn’t ease, but it changed. It was less of a standoff, more like respect being built in real time.
“Got a name?” you asked casually, like you weren’t standing in the middle of a massacre flirting with a stranger.
A fraction of a second passed before he answered. “Dex.”
It fit him.
You nodded once, like you approved. “Dex,” you repeated, tasting it.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “You?”
You clicked your tongue, shaking your head. “Tsk. Tsk.” You stepped a little closer. “I’m not that easy.”
Dex managed a real laugh. “I didn’t think you were.”
That sounded less like a dismissal, more like interest. It was the first time in a long time that Dex was interested in something he didn’t understand.
—
You kept running into each other.
Three days later, he had already finished circling the perimeter of a Task Force safe house you planned on infiltrating when you got there.
Two agents dropped before you even stepped into the scene, and you knew who it was immediately, and his methods were bound to flush them out of hiding.
You barely had time to crack your knuckles before an agent rushed at you, thinking you were responsible.
You handled him up close. It was quick and brutal. Four more came up to you and you handled them, too. Dex handled the rest.
When it was over, you glanced at the bodies, then at him. “You stalking me?”
“You’re predictable,” he replied.
You smirked. “And yet, here I am. Still alive.”
“…For now,” he said. There was something almost playful in it.
A week later, you found yourself dockside on a shipping yard, falling into place with him. At this point, you’ve started actively looking for each other before fighting.
This time, you moved without speaking, like you’d done this a hundred times before.
You drew them in. Dex picked them off.
At one point, you ducked just as a knife flew past your ear and dropped the man behind you.
You didn’t even look.
“Gotta be careful,” he called.
“Relax,” you shot back. “I trust you.”
Dex looked down, unsure of what to do with that information. “You shouldn’t,” he finally said.
You grinned. “Too late.”
By the time it happened again, it was a pattern.
You’d show up. He’d already be there. Or vice versa.
You caught his eye across the street once, both of you watching the same target.
You tilted your head as you fell into step behind him. “You gonna share?”
“Depends,” he shrugged.
“On?”
“Whether you slow me down.”
You stepped closer, just enough to blur the line. “Or speed you up.”
That got you a sweet smile. “We’ll see.”
And somewhere between the blood, the banter, and the way neither of you ever missed when it mattered—
“The enemy of my enemy…,” you trailed off once while glancing at him, as another body hit the ground.
Dex eyes locked on to yours.
“…is useful,” he finished. Whether or not he meant it, is a different question altogether.
After that meeting, you finally gave him your name.
—
Dex was already there on the rooftop of the insurance building when you arrived.
He was perched at the edge like he belonged to the skyline more than the ground, body angled forward, rifle steady. The city moved below him in noise and chaos, but up here, around him, there was only control.
“You’re late,” he said, not even turning.
He learned your footsteps, you realised. How flattering.
You landed behind him, boots scraping against gravel, rolling your shoulder like you hadn’t just sprinted across half the block. “Just got back from a hot date.”
That got a pause. Was he… jealous?
“Really?”
You gave him a deadpan look he couldn’t see. “Yeah. With candlelight and classical music. Maybe a little murder after dessert.”
His head tilted just slightly.
You breathed out, waving it off as you stepped closer. “Of course not. I don’t have time for dates.” You huffed, almost amused. “My laundry, though? That needed folding.”
As if relieved, you saw his shoulder relax, just a little.
“Target’s moving,” he said.
You leaned beside him, peering over the ledge. Three agents in a tight formation. It was predictable.
“Mm,” you hummed. “You taking the shot, or do you want me to make it interesting?”
“I’ve got it.”
You stayed anyway, close enough to feel the intensity rolling off him. The way everything in him narrowed down to a single point. It was… fascinating. A different kind of violence than yours.
His finger almost tightened on the trigger when you saw a light flickering across the street. On the opposite rooftop.
Your stomach dropped. This was a trap.
“Dex—”
The shot was fired through the air, and it was not his.
Your body moved before your brain caught up, instinct overriding logic. You lunged forward, slamming into him hard enough to knock his aim off just as the bullet tore through the space where his head had been, and into your shoulder.
It felt like impact, like it slammed straight through you, stole the air from your lungs, hollowed you out from the inside.
Your breath hitched as your body folded into his, vision staggering at the edges.
“Shit!” Dex caught you before you dropped, one arm locking around you like a reflex. He looked to the opposite rooftop, and that coward of an agent had gone. They probably saw that they got you and took it as a win, leaving to safety and decided to take him down another day.
Or maybe he was waiting for a cleaner shot.
“What did you do?” He demanded, almost a sneer.
You tried to laugh, but it came out thin and uneven. “You’re welcome?”
Blood was already soaking through your side, warm and slick, sticking fabric to skin. You could feel it spreading with every heartbeat.
Another shot rang out.
Oh, so that bastard was still there.
Dex knew he had to go now.
His grip tightened on you as he shifted, adjusted, fired, like the world had narrowed down to a single correction.
A body dropped across the street.
“You’re hit,” he said, attention turning back to you.
You huffed weakly. “Wow. Observant.”
Your knees buckled. This time, they didn’t recover. He held you up anyway.
“Why?” he asked.
You blinked, trying to focus on him through the blur creeping into your vision. “What?”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
You let your head tip slightly, a crooked, strained smile pulling at your lips. “Wow. No ‘thank you’? I’m hurt.”
“You are hurt.”
“Yeah,” you breathed, looking at your wound and thinking oh well. “At least I’ll get a cool scar from it.” Your hand reached up, fingers tracing the healed cut on his cheek gently, impossibly intimately, “like yours.”
His teeth tightened and his grip shifted, almost like he was anchoring you in place. Almost as if he was scared to lose you.
What a foreign feeling, indeed.
“Stay with me,” he said.
You let out a small, shaky laugh. “That bad, huh?”
“Stay. With me.” You’ve never heard him sound so… serious.
Your fingers curled weakly into his jacket. “…Alright.”
For once, you didn’t fight him. You didn’t joke or deflect.
Your head dipped slightly forward, brushing closer to him as your strength started to slip in uneven waves. “You owe me,” you murmured.
“What?” He asked, as if he couldn’t believe where your priorities lay right now.
You managed the ghost of a grin. “Saving your life. Obviously.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” he managed, exasperated.
You exhaled, breath catching halfway. “Yeah… well. I did.”
He adjusted you again, more carefully this time, like he was suddenly aware of every inch of you he was holding.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he said.
You tilted your head just enough to look at him, closer than you had ever been before.
His eyes weren’t steady anymore.
“C-Careful,” you managed, voice fraying at the edges. “You’re s-starting to sound like you care.”
Dex tried not to look at you, not to panic. But then, he simply said, “I do.”
Your breath hitched, not from the pain this time.
“…Huh,” you whispered.
And for once, as you lost consciousness, head lolling back, you had nothing to say back.
—
You came back to the land of the living slowly.
You didn’t just wake up all at once. It started with fragments. From the faint hum of electricity, to the clean sheets beneath you. You weren’t at a hospital— there were no sirens, no shouting, no chaos, just… peace and quiet.
Your eyes open, just a little. You saw the ceiling first. It was clean. No cracks, no stains.
And it was definitely not your ceiling.
You shifted slightly, and pain flared sharp enough to drag a groan out of you. Your hand instinctively moved to your shoulder, fingers brushing over a clean, tight bandage, wrapped meticulously well.
Your eyes drifted, taking in the room. It was aggressively minimal. It had a bed, an armchair, and a tv. The kitchen, on the other side of the studio apartment, was spotless. Everything was placed with intention, like nothing existed here unless it served a purpose.
“You decorate like a serial killer,” you muttered, voice rough from disuse.
“You’re awake,” Dex said. He was standing by the window, half-turned toward you, like he’d been watching the city and listening for you at the same time.
You let your head fall back against the pillow. “Was hoping I died. This is disappointing.”
You could tell he was rolling his eyes, but he managed a chuckle. “Tragic.”
You could feel his attention on you as you turned your head slightly, meeting his eyeline. “…How long?”
“Eleven hours and forty-three minutes.”
“Mm.” You swallowed, throat dry. “You carry me all the way here?”
“Yes.”
A faint smirk tugged at your lips. “Didn’t know you cared that much.”
Dex shook his head, but he gave no indication of confirming or denying your theory.
You pushed yourself up to your elbows, wincing as your body protested. You tapped the space on his bed. “Come here.”
He didn’t move. “Why?” he asked.
You tilted your head, studying him. “I just got shot for you. The least you can do is sit.”
He stopped in his tracks, as if thinking what to make of that request. But in the end, he sat on the edge of the bed, not too close, not too far.
You watched him for a second. “You’re weird,” you said.
“Mmhm,” he managed a laugh.
“At least you’re self-aware.”
You let silence befall you again, but this time it stretched softer.
You leaned back slightly, exhaling through the lingering ache. “You ever get tired of it?”
“Of what?”
“All of it.” You gestured vaguely. “Of this.”
“No,” he said, and it was resolute.
You studied him, like you didn’t quite believe that. “I do,” you admitted quietly.
That earned his attention.
Your gaze drifted to the ceiling again, voice losing its edge. “When I left, I thought that was it. No more orders, no more handlers, no more… being pointed at things and told to make them disappear.”
Your teeth tightened slightly.
“I tried to be normal,” you continued. “Did the whole thing. I had a job, got friends, made a routine.” You managed a faint humorless smile. “Turns out I’m not built for normal.”
Dex didn’t interrupt. In fact, it surprised him just how much he liked listening to you.
“They came after me anyway,” you said. “Didn’t matter that I walked away. To them, I don’t get to just… stop being what they made me.”
“And that is…?” Dex looked at you now.
“A killer,” you replied, sighing, “that’s all I’m good for.”
“Well,” Dex started, and for the first time, you could actually detect the sympathy in his tone, “that makes the two of us.”
You watched him from where you were half-propped against his pillows, arm slung carefully across your middle, bandage still tight around your shoulder. The pain had dulled from unbearable to manageable. It was annoying, but distant. What wasn’t distant was him. The way he sat there, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped, eyes not quite meeting yours.
That was new.
“I knew who you were,” Dex finally admitted, breaking the silence. It was as if this secret had been eating him alive. “Even before you told me your name.”
“That so?” you replied lightly, like it didn’t matter. Like your name hadn’t gotten people killed before.
He nodded once, finally looking at you. “Your MO was familiar."
Your lips curved faintly. “Flattered.”
“I knew I read something about brass knuckles,” he continued. “Used by a close range combat specialist.”
You just watched him, eyes sharper now.
“I was a fed,” he added. “I read your files a few years ago.”
That made you smile properly.
“Yeah?” you said, amused. “How much did you remember?”
“You were on the FBI watchlist,” he said. “It said that you were ex-SHIELD with an impressively high body count. High adaptability. High lethality.” He paused. “It said that you were high risk and… that you were volatile.”
You let out a laugh, shaking your head slightly against the pillow. There was no bitterness in it. No anger, just acceptance. Like he’d told you your eye color.
Dex studied your face, like he was expecting more of a visceral reaction.
“You’re not bothered?” he asked.
“Should I be?” you shot back lightly. “You already kept me alive. Bit late to get scared of me now.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
You smiled at that.
The lights dimmed around you both as the sun set outside, the tension unwinding. You adjusted slightly, wincing as your shoulder protested, and he noticed immediately. His hand twitched as if he almost reached for you before stopping himself.
Your voice dipped, teasing again. “So you knew all along, and you still chose to work with me.”
Dex nodded as if it was never a question.
You raised an eyebrow. “That seems irresponsible for a federal agent.”
“I’m not a federal agent anymore,” he reminded, “and you are not as one dimensional as the files say you are.
“Mm,” you hummed. “So what am I, then?”
He paused again.
You watched him carefully this time, vulnerability threading through every word.
“Am I a problem?” you asked. “A liability? ‘Enemy of my enemy’ and all that?”
His jaw tightened slightly. “No.”
You tilted your head. “No?”
“No,” he repeated, firmer now.
You let that sit between you for a second before pushing just a little further. “So what am I to you, Dex?”
He was thinking about it, you could tell. You saw it in the way his shoulders stiffened. The way his eyes now locked onto yours like he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to.
“A friend?” you offered. “Is that what this is?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time.
Then he shook his head.“‘Friend’ feels too tame.”
Your eyebrows lifted, interest sparking. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said.
You shifted slightly, leaning just a fraction closer despite the pull in your shoulder. “So what, then?”
For once, he didn’t look like he was calculating. For once, he just… felt present. “You’re…” he started, then stopped, like even he didn’t have a good word for it.
Your lips twitched. “C’mon. You made it this far.”
“You’re the only one I can’t reduce to a target,” He let out a faint exhale, “and the only variable I don’t want to correct.”
Ah. Okay.
Your expression didn’t change much, but it felt like the lens behind your eyes had shifted.
“I think…” you let a smile pull on your lips, “I like that answer better than ‘friend.’”
—
You didn’t go back to “normal” after that. It wasn’t an option anymore.
But you found something else, and it started the first night you cleared yourself to move properly again.
Dex watched the way you stretched, testing your muscles, the way you flexed your fingers like you were reacquainting yourself.
That’s when you caught him staring.
“What?” you asked, a hint of a smirk pulling at your mouth.
“You’re still hurt,” he said.
You scoffed. “I got shot three days ago. Do I look like I have a healing factor?”
“You’re arrogant. One day, it’s going to kill you,” he pointed out, as if your death was something he was dreading.
“You like that about me.” You grinned. The arrogance, you mean.
He paused, thinking. “I like you.”
“Jesus, Dex,” you laughed under your breath. “You’re not supposed to admit that.”
“I don’t see the point in lying to you.”
So now, working together became less of an accident. You stopped pretending you ran into each other. Now, you wouldn’t go into a fight without knowing the other had your six.
—
And afterwards… After the bodies were dropped and blood was spilled, you didn’t walk your separate ways. Instead, you kept each other company.
Which was new.
You’d sit on rooftops, legs dangling over the edge, boots tapping idly against concrete slick with drying blood.
The city stretched out below you.
You leaned back on your hands, breathing steadying after the fight. “You ever think about how weird this is?”
“Not really,” Dex said.
“You should. It’s weird.”
You were met with another bout of comfortable silence. Then, he said, “You talk more after fights.”
You smiled, glancing sideways at him. “Adrenaline. Makes me charming.”
“You’re already… that,” he said, like the word didn’t come naturally.
You blinked. “Is that a compliment?”
“It’s an observation.”
“Mmhm.”
Dex shifted closer. His hand moved, stopping just shy of yours.
You turned your head to realise how close he truly was.
Your eyes dropped to his mouth. He did the same.
Was he… leaning in?
Before you could meet him halfway, the church bells rang.
You flinched back on instinct, breath breaking as the moment broke clean in half. You dragged a hand through your hair, shaking your head slightly. “Timing’s shit.”
Dex didn’t look away. “…Yeah.”
—
Sometimes, you would sit on bridges.
You leaned against the railing, staring down into the dark. Dex stood beside you as you nudged his shoulders with yours.
“You ever think about it?” you asked once, more fragile than usual.
About jumping, you meant, and he knew that. About ending it all.
“Yes,” he said. It surprised him how easily he was admitting this to you.
You glanced back at him. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
You nodded, turning back to the water. “Me too,” you sighed, wishing the void beneath you were a giant pile of comfortable pillows. “But not anymore.”
“I—“ he managed to choke up, looking at you. “Me, too.”
The words didn’t feel separate. They felt… tethered. Like a promise neither of you meant to make.
The wind rushed up from the dark below, cold enough to sting. Your fingers curled tighter around the railing as you turned your head.
He was already right there.
You realised a terrifying truth: If you jumped, he would.
And worse, if he did, you wouldn’t hesitate to follow.
You took a deep breath and leaned in anyway.
Dex did the same, like he understood exactly what this meant. Like he knew what you were giving him.
Your breaths mixed, you lips barely a breath apart—
—and a violent blast of car horns tore through it.
You jumped back like the world had yanked you apart.
Reality crashed in as you turned away, swallowing hard, grip tightening on the railing like it was the only thing holding you in place now.
Dex sighed, knowing that it was not the time, it was not the place. “Right…”
You tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear. “Yeah.”
—
Most nights, though, you’d take him to sit on a bench by the river, tucked away just enough that no one bothered you.
It had a plaque on it, one that you bought. One that said— in memory of beloved friends: Layla Gras and Darren Walsh.
You blew half your savings account paying for the goddamn bench.
So after most nights of fighting Task Force, you’d make your way there and sit with your legs stretched out. Dex would follow, and you’d lean into him without thinking.
You’d talk about nothing and everything. You’d talk about small things like the weather, but you’d also talk about deep shit. Real shit. Your days with SHIELD, and whatever he would offer from his past. You’d talk like this was a confessional booth, like you’ve sworn under oath in court— that’s how freely you divulge information about yourselves to each other. That’s how safe you felt around him. Ironic, considering his… professional reputation.
Today, you were sat there after ambushing more Task Force agents than you were expecting. You had gotten bruised, so you were pressing your fingers against your side with a small wince. “I’m getting sloppy.”
“You still won,” he said immediately, “shoulda seen those guys.”
You scoffed. “That’s a very you way of measuring success.”
“It’s the only way that matters.”
“Mm,” you hummed, unconvinced, but you didn’t argue. Your hand drifted down absently, brushing against your belt.
You froze for a second before pulling it free.
It was the knife you took from him on the first night you met.
You turned it in your hand. It was still in perfect condition, and of course it was. You’d taken care of it, maybe more than you needed to.
Your thumb traced the handle.
“Do you want it back?” you asked, holding it out slightly toward him. “
Dex didn’t even look at it. “Keep it,” he said.
You blinked once, then let out a chuckle, lowering the knife back into your lap.
“Wow,” you said lightly. “How very sentimental.”
“It’s practical.”
“Is it?” you tilted your head. “Because I’m pretty sure you just gave me your weapon as a keepsake.”
“It’s not a keepsake,” he replied, but there was a slight delay. “You should use it.”
You laughed under your breath, shaking your head. “God, you’re unbelievable.”
You flipped the knife once in your hand before catching it again it was almost as if you were imitating him. “You know,” you added, voice quieting, “most guys give flowers.”
“I don’t think you’d like flowers.”
You turned to him, an eyebrow raised. “Excuse you. I love flowers.”
He finally looked at you properly, eyes scanning your face.
“No,” he said after a second. “You’d forget to change the water.”
Your mouth dropped open slightly. “That is—” you pointed at him with the knife, offended but amused, “—so disrespectful of you to assume.”
“You forgot to eat yesterday.”
“That is different.”
“It’s not.”
“It is,” you insisted, though you were already smiling. “One is basic survival. The other is… decorative responsibility.”
“That’s worse.”
You scoffed, staying silent for a long time.
This peace… was nice.
You looked out at the water, closing your eyes for a good five seconds before you opened them again. Then, you added, “I’d keep them alive if they mattered.”
Dex didn’t respond right away.
Your eyes dropped back to the knife, fingers tightening around it. “This matters,” you admitted shyly.
You didn’t look at him when you said it.
Instead, you carefully slid the knife back into your belt, adjusting it into place like it had always belonged there.
When your hand pulled away, you placed it on the bench.
Your fingers stayed there for a second… before you hooked your pointer finger around his.
You did it so casually, like it didn't mean anything. But it meant everything.
You leaned back slightly against the bench, shoulder bumping his just enough to close the space between you.
He leaned into your touch.
You smiled to yourself, eyes drifting out over the water as you let your thumb brush absently against his pinky
Dex’s vision shifted to you, then to the small plaque fixed into the bench beneath you.
He leaned forward slightly, just enough to read it properly.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew there must be a reason you brought him here like… what? Seven or eight times now?
He just never thought to ask because he didn’t know when the right time to ask would be. But it might as well be now.
His fingers adjusted, holding on slightly firmer. “Tell me about Layla and Darren.”
—
An hour later, the city had rolled further into early morning than night.
You stood from the bench after you laid your heart bare, rolling your shoulders once like you were checking in with your body before moving again. You were sick of being a walking sob story, however good it felt just to talk. You needed to move.
Dex stood a second after you did. “I’ll walk you home,” he said.
It came out a little stiff. Not forced, but unfamiliar.
You glanced at him, a smile pulling at your lips. “Oh?” you teased lightly. “Is that what we’re doing now?”
He frowned slightly. “What?”
“You know,” you shrugged, stepping past him, hands sliding into your pockets as you started down the sidewalk, “chivalry. Social norms. Walking a girl home.”
“I’m making sure you get back safely.”
You glanced over your shoulder at him. “Dex, I jump off rooftops for fun.”
“And you could still get hurt.” he replied evenly, falling into step beside you.
You didn’t argue.
The walk wasn’t long, but it stretched in that comfortable silence you’d both gotten used to. You walked shoulder to shoulder, naturally in sync.
By the time you reached your building, you slowed to a stop just outside the entrance. You turned to face him, head tilting slightly. “You wanna come upstairs?”
Dex didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”
“Wow,” you said, pushing the door open. “No internal conflict? No hesitation? I’m almost offended.”
“I trust you,” he said simply, following you inside.
Upstairs, your place was dark when you stepped in. You flicked the light on, yellow lights warming the otherwise dim apartment.
Dex’s eyes moved immediately, taking everything in.
It wasn’t what he expected.
It was… neat and intentional. Not sterile like his, but not cluttered either. There were actual decorations, like a plant by the window and books stacked alphabetically on your desk.
“Don’t look so surprised,” you said, kicking your shoes off and placing your keys onto the counter.
“I’m not,” he replied.
“You are,” you shot back, glancing at him. “You thought I lived in a cave or something.”
“I thought it would be less… personal.”
You hummed, walking further in. “Yeah, well. I tried the whole ‘normal life’ thing, remember?”
His eyes lingered a second longer, until it shifted to the second door, which was left slightly ajar.
You noticed.
“Ah,” you said, already moving toward it. “That one’s less aesthetically pleasing.”
You pushed the door open fully.
The spare bedroom, the shape of a square, was stripped down to nothing but function. All there was in there was a foam mat covering most of the floor, worn in places. A duffel bag was placed in the corner. There were a few taped-up sections of the wall where impact marks had clearly been… frequent.
You stepped inside first, gesturing lazily. “This,” you said, “is where I train.”
He walked further in, like he was mapping it out in real time. “You spend a lot of time in here,” he said.
You leaned against the doorframe, arms loosely crossed. “Keeps me sharp.”
He nodded once, like that confirmed something he already suspected. Then he turned to you. “Train me.”
“Are you serious?” you asked, pushing off the frame.
“Yeah.” He didn’t waver. “I’ve seen you work. I know you’re a hand-to-hang combat specialist. And you’re not particularly strong.”
“Ouch,” you said immediately, a hand pressing dramatically to your chest.
“What I mean is,” Dex continued, stepping closer. “I’ve seen you fight. You go against people twice your size. You’re not relying on brute strength, but you’re agile.”
You tilted your head slightly.
“I want to know how you do it,” he finished. “Teach me.”
Huh. You weren’t expecting this.
“Careful what you wish for,” you murmured, reaching up to shrug off your jacket. It slid from your shoulders, landing on the floor as you stepped onto the mat, rolling your wrists once like you were waking your body up again.
“C’mon, Dex,” you said, a hint of a challenge threading through your voice. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
—
Dex learned fast. That was the first thing you noticed.
The second was that he was not really trying to hurt you.
And that pissed you off.
His momentum slowed just slightly before impact. Then, he held back a counter that could’ve floored you but didn’t follow through. His grip was way too controlled.
You circled him lightly on the mat, breath steady despite the growing ache in your ribs.
“Again,” you said.
He moved.
You slipped under his strike, pivoted, redirected your palm and caught his wrist, your weight shifting just enough for him to hit the mat hard.
You stepped back, barely winded.
Dex stared up at the ceiling for a second before sitting up.
You could see it in his posture: restraint.
You narrowed your eyes.
“Godammit, Dex,” you tsked, pacing a circle around him. “You’re really committing to the whole ‘gentleman’ thing tonight, huh?”
“I’m not—”
“You are,” you interrupted, stopping in front of him. “You’re pulling your punches.”
“I’m adjusting,” he corrected, standing again.
“For what?” you challenged, tilting your head. “My feelings?”
His teeth tightened, his chin pointing to your bruised side. “For your condition.”
You scoffed, stepping closer. “My condition can handle you.”
A familiar flicker shot through his eyes.
“Or is it not that?” you added, voice lowering. “You worried you might actually hurt me, or…” You stepped in, close enough that you could feel his breath on your nose “…that you might not want to?”
Dex’s gaze locked onto yours, a darker want threading through it now.
“I’m not holding back,” he insisted.
“Liar.”
You moved before he could respond. This time, he didn’t hesitate.
He came at you faster, harder, and for a second, it almost looked like he meant it.
Good, you thought. The last thing you wanted was to be infantilised by the only man you might still have respect for.
You ducked, redirected, used his momentum, your body turning with his.
That was when he realised that calling you agile was the understatement of the century.
You weren’t overpowering him. You were using him. Every ounce of force he gave you became yours.
You twisted, hooked his leg, and sent him crashing down again.
This time, you followed him down.
Your knee pinned his arm before he could recover, your other leg sliding over his hips as you stabilized your position.
And suddenly, you were straddling his crotch.
Dex didn’t even try to move.
His chest rose under yours. His hands hovered blankly for a split second like he didn’t know where to put them… before settling against the mat.
Your hands pressed lightly against his shoulders, holding him there. You could feel the tension coiled on his muscles, beneath your palms.
And oh…
Oh.
You felt it.
Your lips parted slightly.
His pants were definitely more tight than they had been before, evident by how much it was actually pressing into your core.
“Wow…” you sighed, amused.
You shifted your hips, grinding into him ever so slightly, just enough to make the point undeniable.
His breath hitched, and his face, from his nose to his ears were getting red. You leaned down just slightly, close enough that your chest hovered over his.
“Fuck, Dex,” you whispered, teasing through it. “Does this get you off?”
His jaw clenched, and his eyes darted frantically.
He was embarrassed. How adorable.
When his hands finally moved, he grabbed your waist. It was firm, but not rough.
“Get off,” he said, but there was no real heat behind it.
You didn’t so much as flinch.
Instead, you smiled. “Make me.”
After a while, he moved.
Finally.
Dex didn’t shove you off gently this time. He fought, and you were pleased, even if lacking a hint of resistance. He did pivot, a torque of his shoulder, his grip locking at your wrist as he forced space between you.
You let him for half a second. Just long enough for him to think he’d reset the balance.
Then you twisted with him.
Your weight dropped, your hips shifting as you used his own pull to roll back in, forcing him to adjust, forcing him to react. The mat hit your knee, breath loud in both your ears now.
“Come on,” you taunted. “That all you got?”
That got something out of him.
The next movement was cleaner. He caught you off-guard, turned you, and in one controlled motion drove you into the wall.
His hand snaked around your upper chest, up to the throat line. He had caught you in a headlock, precise and controlled. His body pressed in, flush behind yours, close enough that you could feel the heat of him through the space he didn’t give you.
There was no room to turn properly. No easy escape angle. There was just his forearm locked under your, his other hand braced against the wall beside your head, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.
You let out a quiet laugh, breath slightly uneven.
“Took you long enough,” you said.
Dex didn’t loosen his grip. He leaned in and whispered closely, lips touching the shell of your ear. “Is this what you wanted, pretty girl?”
You would be lying if you said you didn’t like it.
But you also liked winning.
So, without warning, you sank your teeth into his bicep, hard enough to draw blood, to taste the tang of iron on your delicate tongue.
Dex, and you swore you weren't expecting this, moaned. It was throaty and low and utterly angelic to your ears.
It wasn’t long until he released you, more because he was surprised by his own bodily reaction than pain.
You stumbled forward out of the hold, spinning on your heel to face him again, licking your lips like nothing had happened.
Oh. That was interesting.
You looked at his arm again, watching the thin bead of blood you drew still sliding slowly down his skin.
“You okay?” you asked. It came off as gentler than you meant it to be, but there was still a hint of mischief between your eyes.
Dex didn’t answer immediately.
He was staring at you like his internal system had just stopped compiling. Like the world had introduced a variable he hadn’t accounted for and now everything else was lagging behind trying to catch up. It was like his brain had stalled somewhere between what just happened and why did I like that so much.
You lifted his arm slightly. “C’mere,” you pawed at his wrist, bringing the scar closer to your lips.
The bite was tiny, and there was only a little chance that it would leave a mark long-term. You would feel sorry if only he wasn’t so turned on.
And then you did something so absurdly gentle in contrast to everything you were. You leaned in… and kitten-licked the blood from his skin.
“F-fuck,” he said in a gasp, looking down your tongue to your eyes.
Oh, your eyes were locked on to his. He could barely keep it together.
The way you did it was teasing. Infuriatingly intimate in a way that didn’t match the violence still lingering in your skin. It’s as if you enjoyed drinking in his blood.
As you lapped up the scar at the source, he went very still.
Then his breath caught, his hardware short-circuiting.
A low, husky sound slipped out again before he could stop it.
Not pain, or anger. But pleasure.
He exhaled through his nose, like he was trying to regain command of himself and failing in real time.
“W-what the hell are you doing?” he managed.
You wiped your thumb slowly over his wrist like nothing about this was unusual. Like you weren’t currently reprogramming his entire sense of restraint.
“M’ showing you how sorry I am,” you said mildly. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”
He couldn’t look away and how beautiful you looked, how innocently you were acting through all this. You were a freak, he decided. If that was what it took, he would go band for band.
“That’s not what this looks like.”
You hummed, almost amused. “No?”
Dex didn’t answer.
He couldn’t, because he was still watching your mouth like it had become the only relevant object in the room.
Then you tilted your head slightly.
“Tell me to stop,” you said, dead serious. “And I’ll stop.”
Dex didn’t move for a second.
Not because he didn’t want to, but rather because he was trying very, very hard not to.
His eyes stayed on your mouth, on the faint trace of blood still there, and finally gave up pretending that you were anything short of an infuriatingly all-consuming obsession.
When his restrained snapped, it didn’t snap clean.
It frayed. Then tore.
His hand came up fast and grabbed your chin, firm enough to stop your whatever teasing remark you were going to say mid-breath. It was fucking rough, and you could feel it in your cheeks.
He didn’t hear you complaining, though.
“Dex—”
That was all you got out before he kissed you, hard. This time, nothing could possibly interrupt you.
There was no easing in. It was clear that this was the result of pent up emotions he’d been holding back for months finally finding somewhere to go.
His other hand hit the wall beside your head as he pressed you back into it, trapping you. But it was not like you wanted to be anywhere else.
You met him halfway.
Your hands found the collar of his shirt immediately, fingers curling in like you were pulling him closer just to make a point out of it.
His breath broke against your mouth for half a second, like even he couldn’t keep pace with how quickly this had escalated.
And then he kissed you again, like he was testing if you were real or just another thing his mind had invented under pressure.
You reminded him that you were tangible every time.
Running your tongue through his, gasping into his mouth.
He had been dreaming about this for months. He had fantasised up multiple scenarios in his head, how it would lead to this and how he would do it. Not once did he think he would finally get a taste of your lips and have it taste like himself.
His grip shifted, one hand still braced against the wall, the other sliding to your waist, pulling you in like he was done pretending there was supposed to be space between you at all.
When he finally pulled back, it was only enough to breathe.
His forehead hovered close to yours, his voice rough around the edges in a way you’d never heard from him before. “Don’t you fucking dare stop.”
You looked up at him through half-lidded eyes and smiled through your lashes. A faint trace of red still lingered at the edge of your teeth as you bit his lower lip. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“F-fuck, baby,” he cursed through gritted teeth, lips finding you jawline, you neck, nipping and biting until he settled at your collarbone, where you made the most nice.
His fingers caught the edge of your top, hesitating for half a second, until you helped him undress yourself and him all the same. Clothes were just simply in the way, in his line of fire.
His hands were everywhere he could justify them being, at your waist, your back, your face, running down your breast all the way down between your legs. He was learning you in real time and refusing to stop long enough to overthink it.
And you weren’t any better.
Your hand trained the lines of his body, from his neck to his torso, but ended up trailing down his back.
It wasn’t the first time you’d seen him shirtless, or the first time you saw the scar. It was the first time you felt it, though, all rough edges and raised skin.
The first time you noticed it, you knew it was too precise to be anything but surgical, too severe to be anything but catastrophic. He had told you about it on his own free will; told you how his T8 and T9 vertebrae were shattered by Wilson Fisk, and how what put him back together wasn’t exactly medicine so much as an experiment.
He said it like it didn’t matter.
You knew better. Bodies don’t forget that kind of thing, even when they’re forced to heal. And right now, baring his soul to you, he let you trace it with the pad of your fingers ever so gently.
Dex broke from your mouth just long enough to breathe, but even that didn’t create distance.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
You blinked up at him. “Like what?”
His grip tightened slightly at your waist. “Like you planned this.”
You smiled.
“Did you?” He demanded. He didn’t wanna stop it, he just needed to know.
“C’mon,” you laughed, tipping your head back. “A girl invited you up to her place. You thought we were gonna bake cookies or somethin’?”
That got a reaction out of him, almost like a laugh, but it died halfway into another kiss before it could become anything stable.
This was going to be fun.
—
Dex woke up in your bed the next morning.
He was lying on his stomach across, one arm tucked under a pillow, the other loosely curled like he’d fallen asleep mid-thought and never bothered finishing it.
He noticed the soreness of his back in soft waves. There were scratches there, shallow and scattered. Dex exhaled slowly through his nose.
Right.
That had happened.
Then he felt you.
You were sitting next to him, cross-legged on the bed, close enough that your knee brushed his side when you shifted, casual enough that it didn’t feel like distance even existed as an option.
Dex turned his head and stopped when he realised you didn’t have any clothes on either. And everything he did to you last night was on full display. The sunlight streaming through the windows even shone on you like you were a piece of art in a museum.
Beautiful, he thought.
Gentle evidence of love bites bloomed across your skin, marks he remembered leaving. It was… very intimate in hindsight.
You were looking down at him already, like you’d been watching him wake up for a while.
“Morning, sunshine,” you greeted.
Dex made an unassuming sound and pushed himself up on his forearms.
He looked at you for half a second before reaching for you.
He kissed you. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to wake up and find you beside him and decide, without question, that this was what mornings were now.
You kissed him back, your hand sliding into his hair with an ease that felt like trust.
When he pulled back, it was only a little.
“Morning,” he said, raspy.
“Ah.” You smiled faintly. “He speaks.”
Dex let out a breath again, more awake now, more aware of every point of contact between you and him.
He shifted fully upright this time, sitting back against the bed.
You just reached down to your bedside table drawer and showed him a small tub of aloe vera. You traced the scars on his back your nails left last night as if they were maps of constellations.
You had nothing to be sorry about. He asked for it when he was chasing his high in you, feral and affectionate all the same as you were gasping for air and saying his name like a prayer.
He had said he wanted his spinal scar to have company. He wanted the marks to feel good for a change.
Eventually, though, his eyes drifted down to his arm.
Last night, it started with one bite mark. This morning, he counted five. Three on his bicep, two on his forearm.
Again, he was the one who wanted it.
You had been trapped between the mattress and his body, putting you in a similar headlock from behind as he pulled the most lewd noises out of your pretty little mouth. “Gonna bite your way out now, pretty girl?” He whispered then, while you drew another bead of blood. “Huh? You know you like it. You know I— hmph fuck! Take it. Take it, take it…”
And the rest were mostly incoherent mumbles and muffled sinful mewls from both of you.
If your neighbour didn’t hate you before for all they thudding, they would now for all the fucking.
Still, the small tub of aloe was a curious thing.
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Don’t tell me you feel bad now.”
You shrugged. “I just want a clean slate for next time.”
Dex’s heart skipped half a beat.
“Next time?” he repeated, like he was wondering whether the phrase was hallucinated.
You leaned forward slightly, tugging him by the shoulder so he turned his back toward you.
“Yeah,” you said simply. “Turn.”
Dex didn’t argue as you scooted closer behind him, dipping your fingers in the herbal ointment. His hands rested loosely on his thighs the whole time, not resisting as the coolness hit his skin. You laid it on the scratch marks first, then on his surgical scar. Not to erase it. Just to make it hurt a little less. To acknowledge that it was part of him, even if it didn’t define him.
When you were done, you gently guided him to face you again. “I knew you were kinky.”
Dex couldn’t help but laugh.
“But I have a feeling,” you set the tub down, “that I was just barely scratching the surface.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Dex said honestly. “I’ve never done that before.”
You chuckled, biting your lower lip. “You are adorable, Poindexter.”
You let your hand come up, tracing along his jaw before settling against his cheek. Your thumb traced the scar there.
He swallowed, but not out of discomfort.
Slowly, you leaned in.
The first kiss you pressed to the scar was featherlight, but you didn’t stop there.
Then you pressed another kiss, just beside it this time. It was warm, like he was worth being careful with.
His hand twitched at his side. He didn’t move it. But somewhere in the back of his mind, there was a quiet, insistent thought that convinced him, I don’t deserve this.
But he wanted it anyway.
Your lips brushed his cheek again, closer to the corner of his mouth this time, and his eyes shut briefly, like taking affection in was easier if he didn’t have to see it happening.
When you finally pulled back, it wasn’t far.
“I think it suits you,” you murmured.
He didn’t trust himself to answer that.
Your attention drifted down, fingers slipping from his face to his arm. You picked up his wrist gently, turning it just enough to see the marks you’d left behind.
This time, when you dipped your fingers into the aloe, your touch was careful. He watched you smooth it over the faint crescents of your bite.
Then, his eyes shifted to you, your bare skin, and the marks he’d left behind.
His brow furrowed slightly before he could stop it. “You’re okay, right?”
He asked it without thinking. It caught him off-guard. He wasn’t even aware he was capable of this kind of sympathy.
You glanced up, meeting his eyes.
“More than okay,” you told him. “I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”
He searched your face for a second, like he was trying to confirm it.
He lifted his hand.
His fingers brushed your skin, starting at your collarbone, tracing one of the marks he’d left. His touch was lighter than it had ever been, like he was afraid of pressing too hard, of leaving something worse behind.
You didn’t flinch, so he kept going.
Down to your shoulder, pausing at the bullet wound he’d stitched himself. His thumb hovered there for a second before grazing over it.
He thought about that night, about how much blood you lost and how utterly lifeless you looked in his arms. He thought he was going to lose you, and he was terrified.
You didn’t see this, of course. You had the privilege of being out cold.
You didn’t see him break down, panicking for almost twelve hours straight, feeling like he wanted to claw his eyes out because he thought he was going to lose you. You didn’t see how nauseous he got when your heart beat skipped, or how shaky his hand had been when he stitched you up. You didn’t see him broken, tears streaming down as he folded his own body onto the kitchen floor, when he didn’t know if you would ever wake up again.
So, if you wanted to, he would let you pretend this was just fun. You could pretend there were no strings attached. That last night, you two were just fucking like animals without the certainty of labels.
But it will never be just sex to him.
So when moved his hands on to the bruises on your body, to the cuts that the task force left for you, the only thing he could feel was blood-curdling rage.
But when he glanced at your face, he was down to earth again. Just like that.
His hand settled at your waist after that, his thumb rubbing soft circles on your hip.
Your fingers found his again, idly tracing the lines of his hand.
“Don’t die on me.” He whispered, as if he was almost scared to say it, as if reliving the memory again and again, with no end in sight. It might be an abrupt thing to say in the moment. It might feel out of place. But right now, after being so close to you, he just needed to know. “Please.”
You didn’t answer right away. When you did, it was barely more than a whisper. “I won’t.”
Your thumb brushed lightly over his knuckles.
“You don’t either,” you insisted, looking into his eyes. Then you added, “I mean it.”
His fingers shifted under yours, turning just enough to lace with your hand properly this time.
It was almost impossible to reconcile this version of him— the lovesick man in front of you who would melt like putty in your arms —with the one stamped wanted, armed and dangerous. And yet… you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You leaned forward slightly, resting your forehead against his. As your breaths fell into sync, he wasn’t even sure where you ended and he began.
After all, who knew the enemy of his enemy would turn out to be the only person who truly understood him?
THE NIGHT WITCH —female!reader x benjamin ‘dex’ poindexter.
SYNOPSIS: trauma nurse by day, healer by night. you run a word of mouth clinic in the rougher burrows of nyc where anyone can seek out your services. and you somehow end up with a stray.
WARNINGS: mentions and depictions of violence, injuries, and murder, obsessive behavior, unhealthy behavior and boundaries, swearing, hints of mental health disorders, stalking, and well… it’s bullseye. dead dove do not eat?
RATING: 18+ due to dark content, violence, and mature nature of the story. no smut though, sorry!
LENGTH: 8.6K
he'd never been particularly good at self preservation, always led around by the whims of his emotions and the deeper swirls of his mind. this fact somehow became drastically worse after he had his first encounter with you. it happened because he'd caught a stray bullet to the side of his abdomen in a fight with the avtf— and okay, yes, sought them out on purpose, he's doing a good deed after all. but he didn't intend to take a bullet.
that's how he winds up being hauled unceremoniously to some dingy little building in the northeastern sector of the city. the place is all faded brick and half boarded windows, if he didn't know the red bastard better he'd think he was taking him somewhere to off him and finally be washed of him. though, once they enter the doorway, he takes in the appearance of the place. it looks almost like some apothecary of some sort, and he sees a beautiful woman standing behind a counter, you glance up at the sound of their entrance.
you take one look at them and your lips pull into a line, "really? you couldn't even call ahead?" you're already moving from your spot, making your way towards them. then you're tucking yourself into dex's other side, taking half his weight, "come on before you ruin my damn floors. i just had them cleaned, i'm sending you the bill."
from his left, murdock chuckles. "i wouldn't expect anything less."
dex is a bit delirious from blood loss, and lets their conversation pass him by. he is able to note that the woman helping him has to be an angel, your beauty ethereal in the awful fluorescent lighting. you lead him through a curtain, and into a back room that looks like a crudely formed emergency room.
"gotta get him on the bed," you mutter, nodding at the hospital bed in the center of the room. this seems to be a familiar process for his… enemy? friend? he isn't quite sure what terms him and the lawyer are on. he's trying to make amends, by taking out the task-force, and fisk— well he hasn't managed that second one yet but— surely he'll notice soon that dex is being good now.
the pair of you situate him on the bed, and then murdock takes a step back, arms crossed. "bullet to the side during a standoff with the avtf."
dex blinks slowly, half-lidded as the angel's figure swims in his vision. you hover over him frowning, "alright i have to get these clothes off you. can you help me or do i need to cut them open?"
"i can get 'em off," his voice is slurred and he's vaguely aware he feels almost embarrassed, something he hasn't felt since he was a child. he awkwardly begins to raise his arms and try to tug the sticky red stained fabric over his head. he grunts, feeling the pain sear through his side, then it gets caught over his head and he starts to yank harder and—
"stop that!" you hiss, your hands coming up to gently tug the shirt off the rest of the way. "you'll make things worse jerking your body like that." your eyes narrow as you reach down and touch the tips of your fingers to the flesh just outside the wound. then you glance back at murdock again, "is he one of your hero friends? you guys really need to be more careful."
you turn your attention back to the wound, blood still seeping out in rivulets. dex's head turns to look at murdock, so slowly, almost like he's stuck in molasses. he watches as the devil's lips form a grimace. "no, not exactly."
dex's eyes trail back to you, and you huff "okay, this should be pretty easy but i'm going to have to remove the bullet first and it won't feel good." you glance up at him, and he feels himself getting lost in your eyes. "hello? you still with us?"
he blinks again, "yeah. go ahead."
you nod and turn away, heading over to the countertop, opening a series of drawers to pull out whatever equipment you need. he's able to note that you've slipped on vinyl gloves, a surgical mask, and have a group of instruments laid out on a metal tray now. you double check your materials then carry the tray over to the bed, laying it against a mobile side table.
"grab him something to bite down on," you say without even looking at murdock. you're probing at the flesh again, eyes seemingly seeing straight through the puddle of blood that's flooding the wound. a moment later there's a rolled up hand towel being placed in his hands.
you hum, then look up again. "bite down, i'll be quick."
he does as he's told, taking the plush fabric between his teeth and applying pressure. then you're using some sort of metal instrument to keep the skin spread apart, his molars gnash down hard at the searing stretch of his skin. you spray some sort of clear liquid to dispel the blood a bit, then delve into the wound with some sort of clamps. he feels you probe around, and you find where the bullet is and grip it. you gently begin to pull and frowns when it doesn't give.
"shit," you mutter. "i'm going to have to cut it out."
dex doesn't say a word, towel still between his teeth.
you look up at him, eyes apologetic. "we don't have the luxury of time for me to give you sedation. this is going to suck, but it'll be better when i'm done." he hardly has time to prepare himself before he feels something sharp slicing around where the bullet is wedged inside him. his hands shoot out gripping the edges of the bed, knuckles turning white from the sheer force.
it doesn't last long. you go back in with the clamps and pull out the offending piece of metal and set it on your tray. "alright, hard part's done." your tools are resting on the tray now as well. he doesn't have the faintest idea of what comes next, perhaps you'll stitch him shut now?
what he doesn't expect is for you to place your palms directly over the wound, blood beginning to coat the bottoms of your gloved hands, swelling between the cracks of your fingers and making a mess. you close your eyes, your eyebrows knitting together in concentration, and then— your hands begin to glow a soft gold, and a feeling of warmth floods the area you're working on. he can feel the way the damage inside begins to repair itself, the way his skin begins to knit back together.
eventually you pull your hands away, and shed your bloodied gloves, tossing them in the trash. then you calmly stand and wash your hands off in the sink, before drying them and putting on a new set of gloves. on your way back you grab something to clean his skin with. it appears to just be a damp rag. you carefully wipe the area off, and dex cannot help but stare at the spot a gaping hole had been mere moments before. it's a soft pink now, like a freshly healed scar.
"should be good as new," you say before dropping the rag down with the instruments. "don't make a habit of doing it again yeah? i already see someone else enough as it is."
murdock's lips twitch up behind you.
"i'll try," dex can't help but grin. "thanks, doc."
you wave him off, nodding. "alright, get out so i can clean up." you then stand up and start clearing out everything you used. "and i really am sending you a damn bill, matt." you realize your slip up, and look between them. "shit—"
murdock waves her off, "it's fine, he found out who i am ages ago." his voice is dry, filled with barely hidden disdain.
dex can't help but keep watching you. "and what's your name? should know the name of the woman who saved my life."
he ignores the pointed look from the devil across the room.
"well on the streets they call me the night witch," you snort. "still don't know who came up with that."
"and what do your friends call you?"
you look at him, tilting your head, a small amused smile playing on your lips. "just y/n."
dex holds onto it, letting it sit in his chest. he rolls it around in his head a few times. "pretty," he says. "like you."
"alright," murdock's voice cuts through the air hard. "time to get you back to whatever hole you've been hiding in." then he's hauling dex off the hospital bed, and shoving him back towards the curtain. "thanks y/n, send the bill to the office."
dex feels his eye twitch at the sudden departure, but he has to remind himself he's still trying to atone in murdock's eyes. he lets the man lead him out onto the street, where they stop and look at each other. "thanks," he says. "for not leaving me for dead."
"yeah. well, foggy would still want me to—," he presses his lips together. "quit making a mess with fisk. got it? you're making this really difficult."
"i'm just trying to help—"
"don't." then, he turns, and he leaves. and dex stands there for a moment beneath the moonlight, he has no idea where the hell he is. he glances around, takes in the building they'd been in, committing it to memory. then he looks at the nearest street signs, and begins walking.
an idea already forming in his head, on how to be able to see the pretty doctor again.
── ・⸝⸝ ⟢ ⸝⸝・ ──
you make time on one of your days off to stop into the office, cleaning invoice in hand. the office is busy, bustling with life as it always is, even after the tragedy of foggy's passing over two years ago. matt had long since gained a new partner in none other than kirsten mcduffie, who you quite liked. she was able to keep up with him and put him in his place when need be.
"hey!" the woman herself calls out from where she's standing beside an intern, you watch as she murmurs something to the college student and they scurry off. she notices the paper in your hand, "you don't need legal help do you?"
that makes you laugh, "god no. but, i do need matt's money, he owes me for… a favor i did." kirsten still is unaware of matt's other half, so you have to phrase things carefully. "is he in the office?"
kirsten raises her eyebrows and nods, "yeah, he's over in the office."
you glance over her shoulder, and see the man himself sitting at his desk in the clear glass room, his hands skimming across the ridges of his case files. "perfect, thanks kirsten." you squeeze her arm and brush past her. you know damn well matt heard you the moment you got here, but he can't exactly show that in front of all his coworkers.
he glances up when you open the door and slip in, shutting it behind you. "cleaning bill?"
you hum, dropping into the chair across from him. "yep, you owe me two fifty."
matt sighs, "leave it on my desk and i'll get it paid."
being here in front of him now, you shift in your seat. you'd been curious about the mystery man he dragged into your place bleeding everywhere. neither of them had ever mentioned his name or what exactly he does. matt notices your antsiness immediately and calls you on it.
"you want to ask me something," he says. "what is it?"
"the man from the other night… who is he?"
matt goes still, in that way that shows he feels like keeping the information private is much safer for your wellbeing. you hate when he does that. "just an acquaintance."
"yeah, okay." you roll your eyes on instinct, even though he can't see you. "he's not a hero yet he got shot when fighting the avtf, and you brought him to me. i think i deserve to know who i'm treating don't i?"
he knows you've got him there. while you don't exactly care who you're treating, whether they're hero, criminal, vigilante— you like to at least know who the person is.
"benjamin poindexter."
that takes a moment to register. "what? you had me save the life of foggy's murderer? matt what the hell—"
you watch as he leans back in his chair, it's obvious he's warring with himself internally as he rakes a hand through his hair. "it's complicated."
"well, uncomplicate it."
he gives you a look, "you're pretty insufferable. have i ever told you that?"
you shrug, "yeah, doesn't really mean much to me though."
matt reaches down to pull his glasses up just enough for him to gently massage the bridge of his nose, before setting them back in place. "vanessa fisk got him out of the facility he'd been in and forced him to do the hit. he… has shown signs of remorse, and it's why he's been trying to dismantle the avtf and kill the fisks."
"so… you're friends? because he feels remorse for killing foggy?"
"no, we're not friends." his voice is flat. "but i don't want him to die and if he can… do good, that's better than having to be against him."
you furrow your eyebrows, "and you think he's capable of doing good?"
"he's trying to model it. in his own very misguided way, but… yeah. maybe."
silence stretches between the two of you as the words settle. "huh." then you look at him, fully. "just give me a call ahead of time when you intend to bring in someone bleeding out yeah? there's a backdoor for a reason."
matt nods, "okay, i'll pull my phone out as we're being pursued and they're bleeding out."
you push to your feet and glare at him, "i want you to know, i am giving you the dirtiest look i can."
"yeah. i can tell," his lips quirk up. "go sleep, i know it's your day off. you need to let yourself rest too you know."
"yeah yeah, whatever."
you toss a hand in the air as a wave goodbye, knowing he can sense it with that odd sonar vision of his. he's right though, you really do need to get some sleep. between your twelve hour shifts and treating people at night with your powers, you're burnt. as you leave the office building you hum to yourself, entirely unaware that across the street, a pair of hazel eyes are tracking your every move.
── ・⸝⸝ ⟢ ⸝⸝・ ──
a few weeks after you'd visited matt's office you're sitting downstairs at the front desk, usually you sit down here until around midnight. after that you retire upstairs to your apartment, though the place isn't the nicest, it was inherited from your old crotchety grandmother and it helped to not worry about rent during your time in college. now it also doubles as your 'night witch' clinic, the front appearing to be some sort of apothecary that's never actually open.
it's a quarter to midnight when the front door opens, your eyes lift from the book you'd been reading to see none other than benjamin poindexter standing in your doorway clutching his left bicep. you can see the blood seeping between his fingers from here and you're immediately dropping the book face down on the desk as you spring to your feet. this has to be at least the seventh time you've seen him since matt brought him in.
"do not get blood on my floors, they were just cleaned again."
he grins, and it's got this certain manic edge to it that makes your hair stand on end. "i'll do my best, sweetheart."
you huff, and part the curtain. "go sit down on the chair beside the counter," you tell him. he obeys without complaint and steps into the back, going right to the indicated spot. at least he has that going for him, despite the whole psychopathic murderer thing. "what happened?"
"got into a fight." that's all he offers you, and you roll your eyes before you reign yourself in.
it's like a switch as you slip into what foggy used to refer to as your 'super serious doctor mode.' he always loved it because you'd reprimand matt like he was a child. you swallow the lump in your throat and get to washing your hands and pulling on your gloves. when you turn to face bullseye, he's already watching you with this intense stare, as if you're the only thing in the room. "i need you to take the jacket off, and then push the sleeve up so i can get a proper look."
once again, he does as told without a single word. when his bicep is on display for you, you take it gently in your hands and tilt it to get a good look at the wound. it's not a bullet wound. no, this is definitely some sort of stab wound. "this is pretty deep," you say. "what hit you?"
"sword."
you pause, your hands stilling against the muscle of his bicep. "excuse me?"
he shrugs his unharmed shoulder, "some thug with a sword was cornering a shopkeeper in an alleyway."
"alright…" you nod as if that makes complete sense. but you're reminded this is new york and once upon a time an alien wormhole opened up in the sky and destroyed half the city. stranger things have happened. "and the sword wielder, what did you do with him?"
"dispatched."
you feel your heart begin to race. "you killed him."
"…yes." he looks up at you then, furrowing his eyebrows like he's genuinely confused. "i did the right thing, he was going to kill the shopkeeper."
"that isn't—," you inhale through your nose trying to steady yourself. "you can't just kill someone for attempting to kill someone else. you should've restrained him and called the police."
he frowns, "he'd just do it again though."
your eyes flicker to the ceiling for just a moment as if you're begging the higher powers for strength. "i suppose you're not entirely wrong but… murder isn't a solution. it should always be a last resort."
bullseye goes quiet after that, and you decide to finish looking his arm over. normally something this deep would need staples, but you're not normal so you place your palms over the wound, the blood a trickle compared to the bullet wound he had weeks ago. your hands begin to glow hazy and warm again as they work to knit the muscle and skin back together.
when you finish you take in your handiwork and nod. "wash off in the sink," you tell him as you discard the gloves and move to wash your hands first. when you finish he appears at your side to do as you ordered, and you take a few steps back and try to recollect yourself.
you hear the water shut off and the sound of him pulling paper towels from the dispenser. when he tosses them in the trash you turn back to him, "you're good to go, bullseye. please do try to wait at least a week before you injure yourself again."
"dex," he says to you.
"huh?" you tilt your head, slightly confused.
"that's the name i was given on the streets," he says, mirroring your previous statement from when you'd met. "my friends call me dex."
you purse your lips, "i wouldn't say we're friends."
"you're friends with the lawyer."
"well yeah matt and i have known each other forever and—," you cut yourself off and look off into the distance, pointedly away from the hazel eyes boring into you.
he seems to realize then, "you were close to the other one too."
you sharply turn to look at him, jaw clenching as you wrap your arms protectively around yourself. "his name was foggy nelson, not 'the other one'."
bullseye absorbs this. "he… seemed good."
your nose begins to burn and you grit your teeth trying to will away the tears beginning to brim your eyes. "yes, he was good. very good, the best of us actually." your voice is tight as you speak, and you watch as several different things flicker across his face.
"i'm sorry," his voice is odd as he says it, almost flat. like he doesn't know the proper tone for an apology. "i'm trying to make things right."
you reach up and scrub at your face tiredly, an exhausted wet laugh bubbling up from your throat. "yeah i know, matt told me. you're on some misguided crusade to destroy the avtf and kill the fisks." when you drop your hand back down you look directly into his eyes, "none of that is going to bring him back, bullseye. if you want to truly atone? do some good, real good, not whatever the hell it is that you've been doing."
his eyebrows pinch and his nose wrinkles as he looks to be deep in thought. "how? i don't know how to do that. what i'm doing is good, it's helping—"
"you're asking me how to be good? that's not something you can just study and learn." you tell him, "it needs to come from inside of you, you need to want it."
"okay."
"okay?"
he nods slowly, "i'll try that."
you pause for a second. "…alright."
the moment draws out, stretching for what feels like an eternity. then you shake your head, "okay get out of here i need some sleep. try to stop getting hurt." he leaves after that without much resistance, and he thanks you, just as he did last time.
when you're alone, you lean against the front desk, letting your head drop to the surface. "dammit, it's happening again foggy. i'm so sorry that it's him," you frown. "but i know you believed in frank so maybe… maybe there's hope for him too."
── ・⸝⸝ ⟢ ⸝⸝・ ──
working at one of the most demanding emergency rooms in new york city certainly was not for the faint of heart. your days were often grueling and disheartening, but you always managed to make it through them. it's just a regular tuesday when it happens, you're standing at the nurses station, eyes skimming over a chart when you begin to hear muffled sounds from just outside the heavy metal doors, in the lobby.
something in your gut shifts, and you feel all the hair on your body stand on end. this isn't the typical noise of a patient getting rowdy or a drug seeker wandering in off the streets. your stance shifts instinctively and you carefully set the clipboard on the desk, your hand inching beneath the hem of your scrubs. you were no ninja like matt, but he'd certainly made sure you knew how to defend yourself should you ever need to, and well— frank had rounded out the course, leading to the weapon you always keep firmly strapped to your waist now.
the doors blow open, and smoke billows through like a hurricane. you narrow your eyes trying to make out the shapes of whoever is inside the smoke. you're crouching down now, hidden behind the desk, and you've drawn your pistol and racked it.
adrenaline begins to course through your body and you really wish you had time to contact matt or even frank but you know that right now? there's none. right now you've got to stand between your patients and whoever is attacking the hospital. you suck in a breath, and rise slightly from your crouch, making out multiple figures in tactical gear. why the hell are men like that coming into your damn emergency room?
your finger hovers over the trigger, you've lined up your shot on the one closest to you.
bang.
the sound rings in your ears and you wince, but you can't let that stop you. he drops to the ground, red blooming in the center of his chest.
"you never aim at something you aren't willing to destroy, princess." frank's voice rings in your head. "and none of that shooting to injure bullshit. some crazy motherfuckers can walk that off, like me. shoot to kill."
your hands are shaking as you tighten your grip on your pistol and drop back down. from what you can tell there's at least seven men left. and you'd just taken out the eighth. you glance behind you to see multiple other nurses and the current doctor on the floor, crouched beneath the countertops and desks in the station. internally you do a head count, you know you're missing at least two.
cursing internally you slowly move from your position and begin to wind around the nurses station. the men are looking around trying to find you but the smoke is thick. they must've used an explosion as a distraction so they could get in here without much resistance. as you get into position and aim at another of the men, you feel the barrel of a gun press to the back of your head.
you go very, very still, a cold sense of dread washing over you. shit, you didn't realize there was one on this side of the room. "drop your weapon," the man demands, pressing the muzzle harder. you slowly raise one hand, and use the other to carefully set the pistol down. fuck, what the hell are you supposed to do now— "shame to waste a pretty face like yours," the moment the words leave his mouth your stomach sinks. you hear the sound of him drawing the trigger back, but right before it can click, there's the sound of something slicing through the air overhead.
then the man is careening backwards, falling straight onto the tile floor. your eyes widen and you snatch your handgun, turning to see a sleek black throwing knife sticking out of the center of his forehead. then there's the sound of more knives sailing through the air and gunfire spraying in arcs across the walls and ceiling, then the sounds of more bodies dropping.
you get to your feet quickly and lean down to the man who'd been about to shoot you, shove your pistol back in your holster and pick up his rifle. you test the weight of it in your hands, give it a quick glance over, before you begin to sweep the room.
standing across the hallway from you, a man in a black and purple tactical suit stares back at you. he has a hooded mask that covers his face except for his eyes. recognition flickers in you, you've seen those eyes before but you're not quite sure where. you raise the rifle, aiming it at his chest, "who the hell are you?" you demand, shifting your feet into a firmer stance.
he tilts his head, and something in his eyes looks faintly amused. then he reaches up, and you realize he's got some sort of grappling hook, and he disappears into an open ceiling tile. you blink, staring at where he'd just been. with a shaky breath you begin to stalk through the department, and thankfully everyone seems unharmed, only bodies left of the attackers. the sounds of sirens begin to fill the air, then the police arrive and begin taking control of the scene.
you're forced to give a statement, especially considering you shot one of the men. they take you down to the station and you have to wait in an uncomfortable chair for your turn to be questioned. you can't get the amused look of your savior out of your head, the eyes were so familiar. two hours later they call you back, the questions go on for a while but in the end they thankfully let you go, everything deemed self defense.
by the time you make it back home you're trudging through the doorway like a zombie. you rub your eyes and yawn, before letting yourself drop into the seat at the front desk. that's when you notice the bundle of flowers in the center, along with your favorite takeout. you stare for a moment, before slowly reaching your hand out to touch the container— it's still warm. as you inspect it, noting that it's your regular order— you see a napkin peeking out from beneath it.
a singular bullseye is drawn in the center.
your mind flashes back to the masked man who'd taken out the assailants— and you put the puzzle pieces together and think to yourself — you've had the owner of those eyes in your treatment room twice.
a sudden realization crashes into you— you've somehow acquired a morally questionable… vigilante? mercenary? escaped convict? you aren't even sure what exactly he is. but you do know him taking this… interest in you probably isn't… good.
── ・⸝⸝ ⟢ ⸝⸝・ ──
matt had already checked on you after everything that happened, he'd called the night of, visited you the next day, and taken you out for brunch with karen. he was usually sensible, so he didn't berate you for holding your own, though he did inquire a bit about the person who'd saved you— but you could tell he was doing his best to keep you from connecting the dots about his visitor from several weeks ago.
what he doesn't know is that you've seen bullseye multiple times now.
you don't bring this up though because you'd rather not sit and listen to matt reprimand you about your choice to help less than savory folks. in your eyes, it was your duty to help whoever you could regardless of their status as criminal or not. that is a conversation the two of you seem to have over and over, and well you're just not in the mood.
now unlike matt who uses a phone to arrange meetings like a normal person— frank castle shows up at your job after you finish your shift, by sitting in the passenger seat of the car you definitely locked earlier that morning. you noticed him immediately, he wasn't exactly trying to hide. though he is dressed down in civilian clothing with a baseball cap tipped over his face a bit.
"and to what do i owe the pleasure, mr. castle?"
he rolls his eyes, "don't bullshit, i'm seeing how you're holdin' up after that shit tuesday."
you hum, settling into your seat, digging into your bag for your car keys. you slot them into the ignition and let your engine rumble to life. "i'm fine, frank."
"mhm," he says it in that tone of his that you hate. it's mocking, almost like he's calling you a liar without any real words. "sure, we can go with that."
"whatever," you mutter. then you turn and look at him, "am i taking your broke ass to eat or what?"
he chuffs a laugh at that, "i could use something decent, been eatin' fuckin' cold ravioli all week."
frank is technically still a wanted vigilante, and he doesn't quite care to change that fact. so he lives off of whatever shit he can steal, which is usually canned food, because he refuses to just come over and let you cook for him like a normal person. sometimes though, he'll take you up on your offer to go get food, usually you only go to diners towards the north side of the city where people look the other way and don't ask too many questions.
the drive there is quiet, frank filling it every so often with passing comments about different things he gets up to when he isn't on a bender taking out criminals left and right. apparently he's adopted a cat with one eye, he said it wouldn't shut the fuck up at his window, and now they share his canned ravioli. you do tell him that a cat needs y'know… cat food. to which he states the cat is a prick and won't eat it, he's gotten it multiple kinds. you don't ask how he acquired multiple kinds of cat food.
you park several blocks away from the diner and do a scan to make sure nothing valuable is visible. as you round the car and step onto the sidewalk beside frank you shove your hands into the pockets of your coat. the two of you walk down the familiar streets, he listens to you as you ramble about how you're trying to perfect a new cinnamon roll recipe. he's always liked that you could give a fuck less that he's the punisher, you still talk about the softer things in life with him. something he lacks, and while he won't ever admit it, he tends to absorb those things from you, karen, and even matt.
you're about four blocks from the car when he nudges your side subtly. "you notice that you've got a ghost trailing you?"
you have to consciously make an effort not to stop walking. "excuse me?"
frank doesn't turn or look around, he keeps his eyes straight ahead. "he's been following us since we got out of the car, think he may have been after us since the hospital." he glances at you sideways, "who exactly was it that took out those assholes on tuesday?"
you swallow. "i uh, i think it was bullseye."
"and you're aware he's following you around?"
"well no— but i guess there's been… a few signs?"
frank exhales like you're exhausting him. "what the hell does that mean?"
you laugh nervously, drawing your shoulders in a bit. "when i got home after being questioned at the station my favorite takeout was on the desk, still hot. with some flowers and uhm—," you chance a look at frank who's looking at you like you're a fucking idiot. "a little napkin with a bullseye on it."
"you've got to be fucking kidding me," he mutters, reaching up to scrub a hand over his face. "you somehow acquired a fucking psychotic escaped prisoner, like a stray cat."
"i… guess?"
"and this doesn't ring any warning bells?"
"well—"
he cuts you off, "does red know?"
you go silent, pursing your lips and purposely look away.
"he doesn't." frank's voice is flat, and you refuse to look at him. "you know that son of a bitch is the one who killed ol' foggy right?"
that makes you stop walking. you turn and look fully at frank, your face contorting slightly. "yeah, i know he fucking killed him. it's been weighing on me nonstop that i've saved his life multiple times now—," you rake a hand through your hair and close your eyes a bit trying to center yourself. "but you know as well as i do that foggy wouldn't want me to leave someone to die, not even someone like him."
frank is silent, he scrutinizes your face. "you're sympathizing with him."
you crack your eyes open just a bit, glaring. "i'm not sympathizing, i just think in his own misguided and fucked up way he's trying to atone. he didn't want to kill foggy—"
"he could've walked away."
"do you know the fisks?" you laugh, incredulous. "vanessa would've put him in the dirt the moment he disobeyed." then you sigh, and you look at frank, really look at him, and loosen your defensive walls. "he's lost, frank. you know what that's like."
frank's eyes do something, and you know even if he won't say it out loud, that yeah. he knows exactly what that's like. "if he tries any shit, you tell me."
your lips soften into a smile and you pat frank's shoulder. "what a lucky girl i am, the big bad punisher and the evil daredevil as my very own bodyguards."
"yeah yeah, don't go braggin' about that shit."
you laugh, and then you turn back down the sidewalk and resume your walk to the diner. frank falls back into step with you, and you feel a bit lighter, having talked to someone about it. and out of the corner of your eye, you catch a flash of purple and black on a rooftop across the street. you aren't quite sure if you're terrified, flattered, or a strange mix of both. but that's a problem for later, for now you need a nice greasy burger and some fries.
── ・⸝⸝ ⟢ ⸝⸝・ ──
over the next few weeks you continue to receive little gifts on the front desk of the shop. they range from a pretty antique teacup you'd looked at a few days prior, to your favorite snacks, and at one point even a pretty golden bracelet with little amethysts encrusted in it that you'd tried on at market but decided you couldn't justify the price of. you've noticed that he likes to leave little notes with them too, short and simple—usually never relating to the gifts themselves.
and now you'd even catch glimpses of purple and black on rooftops or around street corners— sometimes you would swear you saw him in civilian clothes but he'd always blend into the crowd before you could look twice. despite all of that he'd yet to show himself in the clinic again, ever since you'd told him to stop getting hurt.
you aren't quite sure what to do with the situation. it feels as if you're being courted in some bizarre way, but who knows, maybe that's not how it is and he's just… being kind? you aren't sure.
it's your night off when the front door opens, and you glance up and he's standing in the doorway. immediately your eyes do a sweep, and you notice he's leaning heavily against the doorway, one of his hands clutching his stomach. your eyes widen when you see the blood dripping to the floor, and your gaze quickly snaps back to his face where you can see bruises beginning to form and a trickle of blood at the corner of his lips.
"oh my god—," you're on your feet immediately and crossing the small distance. "what the hell happened?" you slide beneath the side he's not bearing weight on, and begin to help him towards the back room.
he coughs, then winces. "fisk."
your eyes widen a bit. "he did this to you?"
the curtain swishes as you walk through it, and you carefully guide him to the hospital bed. that's when you realize his left leg looks wrong.
"caught me when i was trying to take him out," he coughs again and a spray of blood permeates the air. "can you fix me up, doc?" even bleeding out and injured his eyes are bright and he's got that smirk on his lips.
you sigh in exasperation, "this isn't a joke, bullseye."
"dex."
"i'm not—"
"you like the gifts right? i think you can call me dex."
you pinch the bridge of your nose. "fine, dex. we need to get you out of these clothes, but judging by your injuries… i'm going to need to cut them open."
he nods, gesturing at himself. "whatever you need, you're the doctor."
"i'm a nurse. get it right," you do a quick inventory in your head before rushing to the counter to wash your hands and slip on gloves. you grab your medical shears you keep for instances like this and briskly walk back over to him. "fuck," you realize these are not strong enough for whatever the hell he's wearing. you frantically look around the room, and then come to the realization that you don't have anything strong enough.
"okay… i don't have anything that can cut these open—"
he shifts slightly, reaching into his pocket, and pulls out one of the same blades he'd used to take down the hospital assailants. "here."
you stare at it for a moment, before your brain catches up and you take it from his hands and quickly drag it down the center of his armored shirt. the fabric peels apart seamlessly, and you gasp at the gaping wound just below his ribcage. "what did he do to you?"
"threw a piece of rebar at me."
you feel sick for a moment. then you pull yourself together and hover your hands over the spot. it takes longer than most wounds do, it's deep, and you can tell he has some internal damage from it. you begin to feel a faint throbbing in your head as you continue to work. eventually the wound closes, and you breathe a sigh of relief.
now you focus on his left leg, cutting that side of his pants open to get a better look. it's mangled and twisted in such a way you can't quite comprehend how the hell he could walk at all. this takes a significant amount of energy from you as well, but you force yourself to push through despite the ache in your head growing sharper.
by the time it's set back into place you exhale shakily. "where else?"
he looks at you with his eyebrows pinched. "are you okay?"
you ignore him. "let me see your face." your lips are beginning to feel dried out, you run your tongue over them trying to regain any hint of moisture. you bring your hands to his jawline on either side, tilting his head around. then you let your energy seep into him, fading the bruises that had begun to form.
your stomach begins to clench, and you can feel sweat starting to collect along your hairline. "you have some internal damage from that hit i think," you tell him, your voice slightly hoarse. "i'm going to work on that now."
he watches you with close attention as you place both palms over his abdomen again, willing your energy to penetrate deeper into his system. you don't spare him a look, focused only on your current work. the ache is now a sharp stabbing like an icepick, and you feel your skin growing clammy. but you can feel the bleed inside starting to repair as you work, so you can't stop yet.
you blink slowly, your vision starting to swim. sweat drips down your temple now, collecting along your cheekbone, accentuating the flush of your cheeks. black spots begin to dot your vision but you shake your head trying to clear them.
"hey," dex says, looking concerned. "i think you need to stop."
"not yet," your voice comes out in a whisper as you pour the rest of your energy into him. "there. it's done—," the world begins to spin, and you're blinking trying to regain your sight, but then you feel yourself sway to the side, weightless, and everything goes black.
── ・⸝⸝ ⟢ ⸝⸝・ ──
dex had absolutely no idea what the hell to do. you'd been healing him and he started noticing the warning signs that something was wrong. he tried to get you to stop but you're so damn stubborn and now here you are, a sweaty pale mess passed out in his arms.
freshly healed, he shifts and manages to lay you down on the bed where he'd been right before you began falling. he'd managed to catch you in the nick of time. now he stares down at you trying to figure out what he's supposed to do. he can't exactly call you an ambulance because he's pretty sure this side hustle of yours isn't exactly legal.
then he realizes he can call the lawyer or the marine. he weighs the options on which one he should get a hold of, and he decides that while the punisher wields guns, he's probably less likely to kill him than the lawyer. so he finds your cellphone out front on the counter, entering the passcode he's seen you use before, and finds the contact he needs.
the phone call is quick and frank hangs up within thirty seconds. it doesn't take long for him to arrive looking thoroughly pissed off. "what the hell happened to her?" he demands, coming up beside the bed to get a good look at you. "did she overextend?"
dex stares at the other man and nods his head once. "i had a chest wound and my leg was broken. she mentioned something about internal bleeding too."
frank looks at him like he's an idiot. "and you didn't notice her starting to get to her limit?"
"she refused to stop."
the other man scoffs, and it comes out as a bitter laugh. "of course she did." then he shakes his head. "she's going to be fine, but she's going to be down for a few days. look, i can't be here the entire time so i'll need to call red—"
"i can take care of her."
"you?" frank asks. "you expect me to leave her vulnerable with a psychopathic criminal who's on the run?"
"you just described yourself and yet she'd trust you to help."
frank stares at him flatly. "i see why red fuckin' hates you." then he sighs. "fine. i'm only doing this because of your weird… routine the two of you have developed. she hasn't complained to me about it and if you really wanted to hurt her you would have by now."
dex frowns. "i would never hurt her."
"yeah, you better keep your word or i'll make whatever that fat bald prick did to you look like you went to sunday school." then he glances off to the side of the room where another door is. "stairs are behind that door, her place is upstairs. sometimes she's out of it for two days, if she goes longer than that find me or red. got it?"
"got it."
frank pauses. "she'll need to rehydrate and get in some protein. and for the love of god do not let her out of the damn house until she's stable. that means her ass ain't going into work."
"i'll call in sick for her."
"…i'm not even going to ask." frank says, seemingly to himself. "you got it from here?"
dex nods. "yeah."
frank mutters something under his breath, then looks back down at you and lightly presses his hand to your hair before he walks back towards the front. the door clicks shut, leaving just the two of you again.
he finds himself a bit nervous at the prospect of being left alone with you, of taking care of you. maybe this will give him the opportunity to show you that he can, and maybe he won't have to get injured to come see you anymore. he did his best to listen… because you'd asked him to stop getting hurt. you're too good for the world. he wants to preserve that.
a few moments pass before he tucks your phone into his only working pocket. then he slides his arms beneath your shoulders and knees, lifting you gently into his arms. he wasn't about to admit to frank that he already knew the layout of your space, but he's glad he does, it makes it easier to get you situated upstairs.
he watches you for a moment in your bed, before he leaves to grab himself new clothes and enough supplies to stay here for a few days. on his way back he even stops at the corner store to stock up on your favorite snacks and candies. he'd still make you hydrate and eat right, but… you deserve a treat.
when he returns you're exactly where he left you, so he settles into the armchair you have near your bedroom window, tilting his head back and letting his eyes fall shut.
── ・⸝⸝ ⟢ ⸝⸝・ ──
you wake up in the familiar softness of your bed, sunlight spilling over your skin. for a moment you lay there, feeling drained, before your eyes slowly open. that's when everything comes flooding back to you. the last thing you remember is healing dex and passing out downstairs, so how are you in bed?
"oh, you're awake."
immediately your eyes snap towards the window where dex sits in the armchair, he's wearing plain clothing, and you hate that the white t-shirt and gray sweatpants he has on look good. "what? did you—," you then realize that you're not in the clothes you'd been in, you're in soft pajamas.
he notices you clock this and his eyes widen a bit. "that wasn't me."
you stare at him.
so he continues, "the blonde woman, she came by the next morning and got you into those. she also braided your hair, to keep the tangles to a minimum she said."
oh, he must mean karen. you feel yourself relax a bit.
"why are you here?" you don't mean for it to come off as rude as it does.
if he's offended he definitely doesn't show it. "your friend frank said he couldn't. so he asked me to, he gave me details on what to do, that you need to rehydrate and eat protein… no work. don't worry i already took care of that," you vaguely wonder what the hell that means. "he said to keep you here until you're actually better."
fucking frank.
and what a hypocritical son of a bitch, warning you about dex and then leaving you with him? you're going to punch him in his throat later.
"are you hungry?"
you look back at dex, he looks almost sheepish sitting there in your armchair, it looks tiny in comparison to him. "uhm, sure."
he nods. "be right back."
you watch as he retreats and you can't help but admire the way his back ripples, and you curse internally. what is up with you and checking him out? he's a maniac— but you have to admit, you find him almost… endearing in a weird way.
time doesn't seem to exist as you drift back to sleep, not fully, but that soft awareness where the background noise lulls you just enough for your mind to dim. eventually you hear footsteps and the door open again, dex comes back with a tray in hand and carefully sets it beside you on the bed.
you stare at it. "you made me steak and potatoes, how did you even have the time—"
"i started it earlier, had a feeling you'd wake up this afternoon." he shrugs a shoulder. "water's on the nightstand."
the day passes by lazily, and you can't help but wonder what led you to this point. to be taken care of by a man that for all intents and purposes should still be behind bars at rikers. yet here he is, taking care of you, having taken some sort of vested interest in you for months now.
by the second day you've gotten a bit more comfortable, and on the third— you're willingly conversing with him as if he's just another person in your circle. you're sure if matt were aware of this, he'd have an aneurysm. karen most likely kept this bit of information to herself, knowing you needed to be fully recovered before dealing with the wrath of matthew murdock.
you're lying in bed, sitting against your headboard, a book in your hands. dex is in the armchair, he's also reading something you can't quite make out. eventually he sets it down on the small end table beside him and looks over at you. "can i ask you something?"
you hum, eyes trailing over to him as you set your book face down on your lap. "what?"
dex shifts awkwardly. "when you're better and not… forced to deal with me taking care of you," he furrows his eyebrows. "can i take you on a real date?"
a real date.
the words settle and sit there for a moment in the silent evening light. you suppose you should've anticipated this. he'd had this look ever since matt brought him into your damn clinic, and he'd gotten hurt on purpose to see you over and over. after you requested he stop getting injured, he did— but he began to… pursue you, in his own weird, mildly extremely concerning way.
you aren't sure what's crazier, him asking you on a date or…
"yeah, okay. why not?"
the fact that you're agreeing to one.
AUTHORS NOTE: hi guys, not sure exactly what this is but it was fun and silly, hope you enjoy !!! [ahem, im currently working on a long-fic. but... struggling bc it was meant to be an oc fic,, but I do want to share it with you guys... hm.] [p.s it's wolverines!daughter x dex ... hehe. he thinks she's a cute sweet waitress who needs protection. she is not. <33]
summary: due to your reputation as a renowned criminal psychiatrist, you're assigned to a difficult patient at riker's island. during a session, he makes an offer that tempts the boundaries of your professional curiosity.
a/n: I can't say enough how blown away I am that y'all loved the offer so much. it was just meant to be a slutty lil one off for kinktober, a way for me to play around with an idea that had been lingering in the back of my head for awhile, and a chance for me to try my hand at writing for dex. your excitement made me so excited, and i've been having so much fun with this. thank you thank you thank you again. 🖤
if you'd like to be notified for updates, feel free to join the taglist here!
»— anything marked with an astrik contains explicit content. minors dni.
»— all work is my own. please do not repost anywhere else without my consent.
It’s a running joke among the Bats that the more time you spend around Bruce, the more like him you’re going to look. Dick and Jason are carbon copies of Bruce when they reach a certain age and it becomes a sort of inevitablity to expect that sooner or later, they will all start to look like Bruce. Tim didn’t believe in the power of the Bruce Wayne looks until one morning he just caught sight of himself in a reflection on Bruce’s highschool graduation photograph and they look so similiar that it’s spooky? Steph arrives and she’s not Bruce’s kid or adopted or anything but after a while, Tim and Dick just notice that Steph is starting to remind them of Bruce even though she’s blonde and a girl and Bruce is neither of those things. Cass with her hair short, could be mistaken for his bio daughter but it isn’t until after some mission, when’s she’s stood there with her cowl pushed back that the other Bats clock it and another victim to the Wayne looks is marked. Duke is adamant that no way in hell is he going to start looking like Bruce, it isn’t going to happen and then he’s at some newsstand and he sees a picture of himself at some galas with Bruce and holy fuck, that man must be a reverse vampire because how, how did he somehow mix his genes into Duke and why is Duke serving that smouldering Wayne expression like he was born to it? What the hell?
Damian, of course, is Bruce’s bio baby but I always think that he’s the spit of Talia though he’s constantly saying he’s Bruce’s living image. He will make fun of the other Bats, mainly Tim, for being ugly or literal swamp creatures in comparison to his dad. But eventually Alfred makes a passing comment that Damian that he’s starting to look more and more like his siblings as he ages. Physically impossible but Damian notices there’s something in his face that just hints at Dick’s mouth, Tim’s nose, Jason’s eyes, Cass’s jawline and Duke’s smile. He gravely comes to the conclusion that the Wayne curse has been broken and now it has been reversed.
And it isn’t even Bruce’s own kids Jon and Kon visiting the Manor for long periods of time will inevitably return looking like little reproductions of Bruce Wayne which always has Lois pretending to be scandalised and asking Clark how long the charade is going to go on and why can’t he just admit that he had an affair with his long time situationship.
(seriously. she is microchipped. he WILL find you)
Jason Todd x Vet! Reader
synopsis: crime alley is overrun with stray dogs. wayne enterprises sponsors a community dog rehabilitation program but need a face locals trust. or, jason todd adopts a dog and gotham gets their smallest, laziest, vigilante; while also flirting with the vet
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series masterlist
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chapter 1 : when a developer wants to destroy crime alley for profits, wayne enterprises steps up to fix the issue. the problem? the only person crime alley locals trust is the red hood. he did not think that saving people involved so many photo ops, or such an annoying vet
chapter 2: when the approval process takes too long, you take matters into your own hands. jason makes a friend
chapter 3 : the bark knight hood rises. and also has separation anxiety. and also naps. and also wants belly rubs. and also has bows on her booties
chapter 4: the red hood shows up again. dog todd is your favourite patient. you deserve a raise but, unfortunately, own the clinic and can't afford your own rates.
chapter 5 : gotham's littlest hero saves the day. don't tell anyone she only did it for snacks
⤷ "glitter pens and hot chocolate." master list ! ☕
jason todd x fem!reader ✚ platonic! damian wayne x reader ✚ platonic! jason todd x damian wayne 🍵
summary ⊹₊ ⋆ Damian has a family. He finds one more with you two. And in a way, Jason accepts the one he has. 🖍️
suni's ᯓ★ navigation ⭑.ᐟ 𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖🎐
⤷ authors note .ᐟ.ᐟ started as a one shot... anyways live laugh Damian and Jason. To be clear, these chapters will not be posted in chronological order as most can be read as one shots, however here, they will be listed in order. Once completed, I will add scene numbers.
scene ✗ : coming soon ! you smell like home and you feel like my mother
scene ✗ : Just us two…" "Oh, that would be wonderful!" "…Three?"
scene ✗ : glitter pens mean we are family
scene ✗ : 'parent'-teacher meeting part 1/2.
scene ✗ : 'parent'-teacher meeting part 2/2.
scene ✗ : coming soon ! damian is not doing split custody
scene ✗ : coming soon ! happy birthday
ᵈⁱᵛⁱᵈᵉʳ ᵇʸ ᶜᵘʳˢᵉᵈ⁻ᶜᵃʳᵐⁱⁿᵉ
authors note! I hope you enjoy and if you want to be put on a tag list for ALL my works comment and I will add you! ദ്ദി˶ｰ̀֊ｰ́ ) my asks are always open just to talk or ask questions please please please let me know what you think it gives me so much motivation to write and you will be getting a new work sooner if you do ; (◞‸◟)
This is a two-shot! You are currently at part 2/2. See part one here:
Part 1
Summary:
There was a point where you liked Dick Grayson as a kid, but you knew he never reciprocated those feelings, so you forced yourself to move on. When Dick finds out years later, he can't help but feel conflicted. Struggling with his own feelings, he wonders if he is too late to figure out his own. Do you still love him, or does he need to win you back?
Word Count: 18.9k (sorry?)
Warnings/Tags: Some angst, happy ending though, Jason lowkey ragebaits Dick, Dick gets DESPERATE bro is YEARNING, Damian is so done this entire fic, obligatory gala scene, probably not reliable medical info guys idk how to do stitches lol, Reader wears a formal dress for it, way too much banter between everybody,
A/N: Sorry this took so long, I have a little proposal at the end for those who read to the end of this fic! For that reason, I will leave this note quick, enjoy :D!
-
Sometimes life is full of coincidences. Sometimes those coincidences feel like they're spoken into reality. You suppose that's what "jinxing yourself" is.
You're starting to think you jinxed yourself.
While you had discussed your friendship with Dick briefly with Steph, Cass, and Tim, you did so with the idea that you wouldn't have to talk to him anytime soon.
Of course, he showed up at the Manor mere hours after your conversation with Steph and Cass.
You had gone another round with Steph, attempting to work on your footing when you heard the echo of footsteps across the cave. You turned to see who entered, only to see the face of—
"Dick?" Your eyes widen, turning to face him completely. He offers a small wave with an oddly strained smile. As a result, Steph takes the chance to knock you down, a firm punch sent straight toward your chest. You yelp out in surprise, stumbling backwards, sending her a sharp look.
She smirks, "Don't lose focus."
Dick walks over to you slowly, Tim following behind him. You try to catch Tim's eyes, but he obstinately avoids your questioning gaze. "I…" he looks you up and down, noting the workout clothes, "wasn't aware you were back."
You chuckle at his dispirited tone, "No need to sound too excited."
Dick's eyebrows raise exaggeratedly at your response, "No- What? Of course, I'm excited to see you—"
Your chuckles turn into laughter, "I was joking. It's not your fault you didn't know." You shrugged, tugging at a loose piece of gauze wrapped around your knuckles.
Dick eyes your hands before looking behind you to Steph and Cass, both blatantly listening to your conversation. "And you're training? Since when did you do that?" He smiles, eyebrows furrowing.
"Couple months ago." You raise your hand in a so-so motion.
Dick whips his head back to you, "Couple months—" He turns back to Tim, who has decidedly not made eye contact with a single person in this room upon entry. Dick slowly turns back to you, looking down at your lightly scuffed hand, "I would've taught you if you asked." He frowns.
You smile sheepishly, "I wanted to get to know Steph and Cass better." Dick looks back towards the girls, who smile smugly back at him.
"Oh," he nods slowly, "yeah, okay." He looks down at your hands. "Are they doing a good job? Because I can always—"
You roll your eyes, "Yeah, they're doing great." You smile at them.
He nods slowly, "Great."
You purse your lips, turning towards Steph and Cass. They smirk at you, and you pretend to ignore their expressions. "So… When'd you get back? I thought you were in Blüdhaven?"
Dick nods, "Yeah, I was, but there was some crossover on a case Tim was looking at in Gotham, so I figured it was easier if I just showed up." He points his thumb back to Tim.
You nod, "Ah, great." You attempt to grin at him. Why does this feel so awkward? "You couldn't say anything?" You lean around Dick, addressing Tim directly.
"Okay, I didn't know he'd be coming here. He kinda just burst into my room—"
"We should catch up!" Dick cut him off, moving in front of you to block your view of Tim.
You blink, "Oh," you smile, "yeah, we should. You free anytime soon?"
"Right now." He slings an arm around your shoulder casually, causing you to falter, letting out a surprised huff under the unexpected weight.
Meanwhile, Tim catches the eye of Steph and Cass. Cass shakes her head, while Steph smiles, walking over to him. "You know what I know, right?" She whispers.
"If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, then yes, yes I do." He whispers back, watching as Dick drags you away.
"Y'know it's funny, we were just talking about him." Steph raises an eyebrow dubiously. "So you knew and still brought him down here?"
"I was not about to say no. You're just lucky you weren't the one he confronted."
"Was he upset that he didn't know she was here?"
"He burst into my room. I think he was a little upset."
Steph crosses her arms as she looks at you. As if sensing their gaze, you turn around, narrowing your eyes at the three of them before refocusing your attention on Dick.
"How'd he figure out she was here?" Steph offers a small wave, with two thumbs up.
"He overheard you guys."
Steph slowly turns to Tim. Cass doesn't even flinch at the statement, still staring at your retreating figure as Dick guides you around the cave.
She throws her punching mitts on the ground, "Damn, I knew something was up."
Tim looked toward the now-grounded mitts, "And… you said nothing to her?"
"Lowkey thought I was losing it." She kicks the mitts lightly.
"Sure, you still aren't?" He retorts, causing her to look at him in offense.
"Why are you insulting me? You're the one who let him down here." She points an accusing finger at him.
"He let himself down here. I just followed to make sure he didn't do anything stupid." They frown at each other in a silent staring contest.
"You wanted to know what'd happen." Steph sighs.
"I wanted to know what'd happen." Tim admits, nodding.
The three look to where Dick has dragged you over to, talking animatedly as you nod along. "Well, it looks like he's having fun catching up."
"Let him have his moment." Tim shrugs.
"—and so I've been Nightwing for a while now." Dick walks by your side as the two of you walk through the cave.
You hum, "I remember you being attached to Robin. I'm surprised that you gave it up." You walk over to Jason's costume on display. Dick winces as you approach it.
"I wasn't happy at first, that's for sure." Dick looks towards the costume.
"You miss it at all?" You gesture to the costume.
"Eh," he shrugs, "There's a couple of things I miss, but I like being Nightwing."
"Like what?" You ask, turning towards him.
"Well, you for one." He meets your gaze.
You bark out a surprised laugh; it was so unapologetically him. "Aw, how sentimental."
Dick snorts, a grin on his face, "Oh come on, don't tell me you didn't enjoy working with me."
"It was probably one of the more interesting experiences in high school." You admit, nodding in agreement.
Dick blinks, taken aback, "I thought that was meeting me?"
"Nah, that was just funny." You chuckle, placing your hand on his arm, he looks down at your hand. "Most interesting was being kidnapped by Batman."
"Kidnapped? If I remember correctly, you willingly got in." He didn't move an inch.
"Yeah, but how exactly do you say no to," you take your hands off his arm, putting your fingers up like his ears, dropping your voice, "'Get in.'"
Dick laughs loudly, "Okay, yeah, that's fair." He rubs his thumb along the spot where your hand was.
Your eyes crinkle in fondness. You forgot how easy it was to be with him. "It's really good to see you."
He seemingly deflates at the comment, "Yeah." He looks down at the costume, then back to where Tim, Cass, and Steph were across the cave, before turning toward you, "Why didn't you try to contact me?"
You blink, okay, straight into it.
You scratch your neck, "I figured I would've seen you sooner or later. I didn't want to distract you."
He scoffs lightly, but there's something hidden underneath it, "I'm pretty sure a quick greeting wouldn't be that big of a distraction."
You frown, "I…" You really didn't have a good excuse, and you knew that. What could you tell him? Heyyy, so I actually had a really big crush on you back in high school, but I grew out of it… Wanna get Bat Burger? Yeah, that'd go great.
He furrows his eyebrows, his gaze deadset on you, "Is… Is there another reason?" He asks softly.
You blink up at him, looking into his expectant eyes. He was frowning, but it almost looked like a pout. His arms were still crossed, and his body language was still stiff. "I—"
"Richard, I wasn't aware of your return." Damian cut you off, causing you to jump in surprise, flinching into the glass. Dick grabs your shoulder to stabilize you.
"What— Damian? When did you get here?" Dick frowns, not taking his hand off your shoulder.
Damian narrows his eyes at the hand on your shoulder. You subtly shift to the side, causing Dick to let go. "Evidently, your observational skills have been compromised since the last time you were here."
"You could just say I was distracted." Dick sighs.
"'Distraction,'" Damian spits the word venomously, "would not aptly describe your current state." He looks between the two of you.
Dick frowns, glancing between you and Damian, "Do I want to know what would describe it?" Dick responds. You shake your head from his left, and Dick's lips twitch in amusement at your exasperation.
Damian glares at the two of you, "I wasn't aware of your prior affections with one another."
You both blink at the kid slowly, (noting that Steph laughs sharply in the background at the comment).
"I believe you've severely misunderstood the situation." You wave your hands casually.
Damian raises an eyebrow, looking at Dick's spaced-out expression. You nudge him, making him refocus. "Tt," Damian scoffs before crossing his arms.
You stand awkwardly behind Dick, watching as he attempts to explain himself to Damian. Turning to the side, you see Steph, Cass, and Tim all looking towards you with varying degrees of mischief on their face.
You aren't entirely sure what Dick and Damian are talking about, but the harsh whispers give you an idea. "I'm gonna go with Steph," you mutter, turning around, thinking that the two arguing wouldn't hear you.
Both of their attention snaps to you, "Go where?" Damian demands.
You blink, "Uhh... Bat Burger?" You hadn't planned on Bat Burger, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
Dick shoves Damian aside, covering him with his larger form, "I'll go with you!" Dick grins, rushing to your side. You furrow your eyebrows, mouth open as you watch Damian fume at the action. Is this their normal?
Damian squawks out something unintelligible, "I will join you as well!"
"Oh," you turn toward Steph, who is struggling to hold in laughter. "Great."
Tim raises his hand, "Can we join too?" He gestures between himself and Cass.
"Tim—" Dick looks towards him, eyes wide in disbelief.
"Of course! The more the merrier." The grin on Steph's face is positively devious.
"Didn't realize you were staging a reunion." Damian huffs, walking up to your unoccupied side.
"Me neither." You slowly walk over to Steph with Dick and Damian at your sides. "Alright, guess we'll head out." You sigh, looking towards Tim, who smiles innocently at you.
It's silent for a moment. "Can I drive?" Damian asks.
The five of you turn toward Damian, exasperated.
—
You sit squished in a booth between Steph and Cass. Across from you are Tim, Dick, and Damian, with Dick directly in front of you. You silently munch on your Jokerized Fries, the only sounds being Dick loudly sipping his straw and the soft chatter of the restaurant.
You look down at your meal before glancing up to Dick, who has not stopped eyeing you this whole time. "So… You guys come here often?"
Damian frowns, his eye twitching at the question, "Rarely, this cash-grab of a company's mediocre food isn't worth our time."
Tim slowly turns to him, looking past Dick squished in between them, "You know you could just tell them they forgot your toy instead of insulting their entire business." The whole table stares down at Damian's Bat-Mite meal, no toy present.
Damian glares at him, "I refuse to beg an underpaid employee for something so trivial as a figure meant to entertain toddlers."
Tim blinks at him, unimpressed, "A 'no' would've sufficed, but okay." You snort.
"Y'know, with how many of us there are here, we should've just invited everybody else." Steph takes a bite out of her burger. "Made it a whole thing."
"Yeah, cause it wouldn't be weird for like ten people to storm a Batburger. They would definitely not be overwhelmed." Tim took a fry from your plate.
"Seriously? You already finished your own." You place your arm in front of your french fry holder, blocking him from it, glaring.
Tim shrugs, "I know, right? Crazy. Anyway, as it is, they taste better from somebody else's plate."
Steph nods solemnly, "He's right…" She nudges your side. "Could Cass and I have one?"
You sigh, shoving the box in their direction.
"I sense bias." Tim shakes his head at you, narrowing his eyes.
You glance at him out of the corner of your eyes, "They didn't buy any."
"You're nicer to them than you were to me!"
"Yeah, 'cause they asked."
Dick chuckles, grabbing your attention. You turn to face him, "Oh, so you're laughing."
Dick, still laughing, waves his hand towards you, "No…" He clears his throat, "Nope." He gives you his best poker face.
You raise an eyebrow, "Got it…" You shake your head, disappointedly. "You're on his side." You put your hand on your chest as if wounded.
"Okay, wow, I never said that." Dick meets your stare, pointing a finger at you, his elbow resting on the table.
"You haven't disproved it." You look down at your fries, picking up a limp one before eating it.
Dick scoffs, an amused smile on his face, before shoving his own fries to you. You look down at his peace offering before looking up to him. Damian and Tim lean back in the booth seat, sharing a knowing glance with each other from behind Dick's head.
"What?" Dick frowns at your befuddled expression.
"Why're you giving me your fries?"
"I thought you liked them?"
"Clearly not as much as Tim."
Both of you turn toward Tim, "Do not involve me in this." He laughs, turning away from you both.
"Consider it a peace offering?"
"So you admit you were on his side." You sigh, trying to fight a smile on your face.
Dick looks so disheartened by your rejection that you almost give in.
"Just accept the fries, for our sake." Damian is covering his eyes with his hands, almost as if he doesn't want to be associated with you guys anymore.
Dick nudges his fries closer to you, a small smile on his face. You snort, "Alright, truce." You slide the fries over to you, and his eyes light up slightly at the action. Damian gives him a troubled glance before looking at you.
Even after spending a couple of months around him, you still struggle to read Damian. This is one of those moments. By the way he's looking between the two of you, you wonder if he knows something you don't.
You began eating your fries again once the conversation settled into normalcy (or whatever is closest to it). However, you quickly ran into an issue. You had finished your meal, but still had the fries that Dick had left you. The issue was that you were full. You look at the daunting fry container.
You look up slightly to see Dick watching you. You slowly pick up one fry and eat it. Dick smiles at you, kicking you slightly from under the table. Narrowing your eyes, you smirk as you kick him under the table. Peace offering your ass.
"Are you playing footsies under the table?" Damian asks, face scrunched scornfully, looking down at the table.
"I would like it on the record that he started it for no good reason." You take another fry, offering the container to Cass and Steph, who eagerly take some.
"Not even gonna take a little bit of the blame? You are just as guilty as I am!" Dick holds his hands up, outraged.
"It was self-defense!" You cross your arms, stepping on his foot for emphasis.
Steph coughs awkwardly, "Not to interrupt your quarrel, but we are being a tiny bit disruptive."
"It's Gotham, no one cares." Tim rolls his eyes.
"It's called being considerate."
"There's nobody here."
"Oh, so we're just ignoring all the workers now?"
Damian mutters something in Arabic, standing up and walking out of the restaurant, momentarily distracting you from your argument with Dick.
"Should we go with him?" You point your thumb at Damian's retreating form.
"He'll find a way home." Tim shrugs.
You frown, "That… sounds wildly irresponsible."
"I'll rephrase: he doesn't want us to follow him home." Dick takes a fry from your container.
"…Didn't you give that to me?"
"Yeah," he chews on the fry unapologetically.
You glance down at the container, then back up to him.
"Oh, don't give me that. I gave it to you. It's fair that I can take a few."
"Kinda defeats the purpose of 'giving.'"
"Think of it as a tax."
You scoff, looking at the nearly empty container of fries. Between the entire table, they had managed to demolish it. You slide the rest of the fries over to Cass.
Dick looks offended, "Why were you mad about me taking one fry when you give it to Cass five seconds later?"
"It's not about the fries, Dick."
On your side, you hear Steph gasps a quiet "Ooooh!"
Tim schools his expression to avoid laughing. You notice Cass smiles under the guise of eating fries. Steph is openly enjoying this display.
Why did you agree to do this? Maybe you should've left with Damian.
Thankfully, Cass proposed that the (now) five of you leave after that comment. Thank goodness for her timing, because Dick suddenly looked like he had a lot more to say after you're "Not about the fries!" comment.
You all return to the cave, and most of them immediately go to get ready for patrol. You frown, turning to your left, where Dick is. "You gonna go on patrol?"
"Yeah," he sounds hesitant, not making eye contact with you.
Sensing his hesitation, you raise an eyebrow, "I sense a 'but.'"
He looks toward you, "Well… Are you planning on staying?"
You blink, "Why… would I do that?" You frown, bemused.
"Well, if you've been here for months," okay, maybe he is still a little upset about you not telling him, "I figured you'd have room here. Bruce certainly has the room."
"Oh," you nod at his logical conclusion, "Well, I don't." You shrug, unbothered.
The tension leaves his shoulders, and he smiles, "Do you want to stay the night? It's pretty late out."
"I wouldn't want to intrude. Plus, it's late, I don't wanna make Alfred have to set up a guest room at the last minute." You politely decline.
"You can just stay in mine." Dick offers, gauging your reaction.
You raise an eyebrow, "Geez, at least take me to dinner first."
Now, Dick would make comments like this all the time when you were teenagers. Over time, you learned how to tune them out, knowing that it was just who Dick Grayson was. Sure, the first couple of times he caught you off guard, but you learned to roll your eyes and laugh it off.
Never in your life have you done the same to him.
It was a throwaway comment, something he'd say in jest. You had said it without much care. However, upon seeing his mouth part in surprise, even coughing to hide his reaction, you couldn't help but stare.
What the hell happened in the years you hadn't seen him? Last you checked, this was not a certified "Dick Grayson Reaction."
You are caught so off guard by his reaction that you momentarily forget he hasn't actually responded.
"I— Well, you don't have to take it. It was just a suggestion. I probably won't be staying here tonight anyway—"
You furrow your eyebrows, "Dick, I was kidding." You cut him off.
He smacks his lips, "Right." He rubs his hands together.
You chuckle, "Sorry, I can't stay, perhaps another time though? I don't wanna drive too late. Just let me know whenever you're around, we can plan something—"
"I'll be around." Dick cuts you off, nodding.
"Oh," you part your mouth in surprise, "Okay… Well, just text me whenever then. Have fun on patrol, punch a bad guy for me." You place your hand on his shoulder before moving to exit the cave.
Dick barely moves as he watches you walk out. Right as you're about to exit his view, you wave, causing him to wave back. He watches as you vanish.
"That was hard to watch." Tim appears.
Dick slowly turns to him, "Where did you come from?"
"Stop trying to change the subject." Tim glares at him, putting a hand on his hip. "What was that?"
Dick blinks innocently, "What was what?"
"Don't play dumb. What was the 'Oh, you can stay in my room!'" Tim mocks him, holding his hand up to his face bashfully.
"I did not sound like that." Dick furrows his eyebrows, shaking his head.
"Might as well have! I thought you were cool just being friends!" Tim crosses his arms.
"I am!" Dick walks over to the computer, taking off his jacket.
Tim raises his eyebrows, unconvinced. "Could've fooled me."
"It's none of your business anyway. Like— Why did you invite yourself to Bat Burger?" Dick crosses his arm over his body, stretching it.
"'Cause I wanted burgers?"
"That's not the reason, and you know it." Dick points an accusing finger at him mid-stretch.
"Am I not allowed to like burgers?"
Dick scoffs, grabbing his jacket before heading to change into his suit. "I know what you're thinking."
"Yeah, can you blame me?"
Dick didn't respond.
—
The drive back was relatively silent. You meant to put music on, but you completely forgot because all you could think of was the day that occurred. First, you stumble onto Dick after not seeing him for years. That is, of course, after you conveniently forget to mention that you've been regularly visiting Wayne Manor for months.
Then, you end up at a Bat Burger at 10pm with half of the eponymous vigilantes. After that, you come back to the Manor and Dick Grayson— the same Dick Grayson you had loved— offers for you to stay in his room. When you make a joke about the comment, he actually gets flustered. Flustered!
Upon arriving in Central Gotham near Coventry, you sigh, getting out of your car.
What a night.
You wonder how they do it sometimes, you feel exhausted, and all you did today was go to work and train. Not even patrol. Upon entering your apartment, you have to use all your willpower to stay standing. Rushing through your night routine, you eventually plop onto bed, letting sleep take you into its grasp.
The next day started out normally.
You had woken up at a reasonable time and gotten ready relatively fast. You had even decided to walk to that one bakery a couple of blocks down that you liked. You were early enough that all the pastries were fresh. You walked out with a chocolate croissant. It was going great.
Then you heard shouting and gunshots.
Of course, living in Gotham, you weren't surprised. However, that didn't mean you were stupid. Usually, when a person senses danger, it's common sense to walk away from it. However, it seemed that the crime started to follow you.
At this point, you were speedwalking— almost running away. The yelling had gotten much closer, and you were not about to get shot today. Just as you thought that maybe it's time to start running, you get tackled to the ground.
What has been going on recently?
You and the criminal, covered in a balaclava, both stared at each other in shock. You turned your gaze to whatever— whoever was chasing them.
"Oh," Red Hood jumps down next to you, addressing you by full name. Is this just going to be a thing between you both now? He stomps his boot onto the guy's throat, causing him to cough loudly, trapping the guy to the ground.
You click your tongue, "It's— uh," well, you can't exactly call him by his full name, "you."
Red Hood holds his hands out in a grand gesture, "Oh yes, me." You don't think you are imagining the smugness in his tone. You watch as he tilts his head down slightly.
You look down at the guy on the ground, who is quickly turning pale, "Hey, uh, I know this may be a big ask, but could you maybe not kill this guy right in front of me?" Your eyes flicker between Red Hood and the criminal.
The sound is distorted, but you think Jason snorts behind his mask. He kicks the man's head, and he stops moving.
You couldn't stop your look of horror if you tried.
"I was aware that it may have been a bit much to ask, but seriously?!" You cover your mouth.
Jason grabs the body, "Relax, he ain't dead. Just unconscious." He slings him over his shoulder.
"Oh, okay…" You nod, watching as he shifts the body on his shoulder. "I thought you're mainly in Crime Alley."
"I am," he answers. Well, somebody isn't very talkative.
"So, why're you here?"
"Because I have free will? What? Do you think I'm locked in Crime Alley?"
You nod, "Absolutely, still aren't sure if I'm imagining you or not."
Now he definitely laughs. You look down at your scattered items, picking up your now smushed croissant.
He's about to walk off when, "Hey, could you buy me a new one?"
Red Hood slowly turns toward you, "You serious?"
You nod, "I know you're rich. You probably got that crime lord money." You do the "money" gesture with your hand.
He remains silent.
"Is that a yes…?" You smile hopefully.
He sighs, walking back over to you, body slung over his shoulder. "Make it quick."
You grin.
-
If you thought yesterday was crazy, then somehow today is even crazier.
You are sitting in that bakery with Red Hood, who is leaning back lazily in a wooden chair that looks tiny in comparison to him. On his left is another chair with the criminal tied up. You take a bite of your croissant slowly, enjoying the scene.
Like you said, quite the morning.
"Y'know, I kinda feel bad that I'm the only one eating." You cross your legs.
Red Hood doesn't move. "You forced me here, and are using my money for this."
"I can't force you. I think you'd win that battle, but it'd be close." You take a bite of your croissant as Red Hood snorts.
"Yeah, real close."
"I'll have you know I've been training." You glare at him defensively.
"Oooh," he holds his hands up, "did your 'not-bestie' train you? You gonna beat me in a backflip competition?"
"Name the time and date." You smile.
Jason shakes his head, crossing his arms.
"No, seriously though, I wasn't joking. Please get something. I feel bad now."
Jason sighs, looking down at your croissant. "What would you recommend?"
You grin, "Any of their croissants are good. Oh, their danishes are pretty good if you like those too."
You two stare at each other for a moment before he gets up and goes to the counter. You have to hold back a snort at how people blatantly let him cut in line. Perhaps you should try dragging him around places, quick service. He eventually orders an almond danish before walking back over to you.
"What's so funny?" He asks, sitting down across from you.
"Nothing. This whole situation is just funny to me." You grin, covering your mouth.
Jason huffs, "You're telling me you don't often invite vigilantes to bakeries?"
"Not typically, no." You smirk, watching as he fidgets with the packaging of the danish. "You… Going to eat it?"
You have a feeling he's glaring at you from under the mask, "Yes, I'm going to unmask myself in front of this entire bakery. Great idea."
"Oh come on— I know you wear a mask under the mask!"
He sits up straighter in his seat. Ha, it seems that you stumped him with that comment.
"Which— I feel obligated to add— I think is silly." You wipe your hands on the napkin on the table.
"I didn't ask for your opinion."
"Consider it charity, I like giving it away."
Jason laughs, causing you to laugh as well. Fidgeting with the now-empty wrapper, you cautiously speak again, "Y'know you should come by the cave more often."
Jason remains silent for a moment, "I'll pass."
You sigh, "Well, I can't force you." You lean back lazily in your seat, "Consider it a mercy."
"I feel so honored." Jason deadpans.
"They wouldn't mind." You shrug, watching as Jason tilts his head slightly at your comment.
"Mhm, I'm sure." He mutters.
Tapping a finger on the desk, you sigh. "Alright, well, the offer is always there. Don't worry, I'll defend you from the big, scary bat."
Jason clasps his hands together, "Oh, my savior."
Laughing, you notice something shift on your right. "Hey, I think your guy is waking up." Both of you face the criminal.
Jason stands up, grabbing the guy by the scruff of the neck, the ropes around him falling off loosely. You wince at the action. It looks very uncomfortable. "What'd he do anyway?"
"He was trying to recruit kids for his drug trade. Thought he would get far," he punches the man, knocking him out cold again, "he didn't."
"Oh," you scrunch your nose up in disgust, "yikes. Give him a good punch for me." You take the trash from the table.
Jason looks over to you, huffing before walking out.
"Thanks for the food!" You call out to his retreating form, watching as he grapples away, not bothering to respond.
—
Dick paces in his room at the Manor. He had spent the past hour rearranging everything so that it looked perfect.
"This is highly unnecessary." Damian leans on his doorframe.
"…Cleaning rooms?" Dick tilts a photo frame on a dresser slightly.
Damian sighs, unimpressed. "Are you expecting a guest?" He walks over to the dresser, eyeing the photo suspiciously.
Dick hesitates before answering, "No…" He tilts the photo down so Damian can't see it. Damian turns toward him, glaring.
"You aren't even living here anymore."
"It's still my room, I can rearrange whenever I want." Dick crosses his arms, looking down at Damian.
Damian raises an eyebrow, looking back towards the downturned frame. "Right," He narrows his eyes towards Dick.
Dick sighs, "You look like you want to say something."
"Correct."
"Care to share?"
"Not particularly."
Dick rubs his temples, "I know what you're thinking—"
"Do you?" Damian crosses his arms.
Dick hesitates slightly, "Yes…"
Damian scoffs, "So then you know that I find this courting act pathetic."
Dick raises his hand slightly, "Hey now, I thought you said that you didn't want to share—"
"I assumed you were above this." Damian snatches the photo frame the moment Dick lets his guard down. "Pining after ex-lovers."
"We never dated." Dick huffs. Did his entire family think he dated you? He attempts to snatch the photo back from Damian.
Damian looks up from the photo to Dick, "Truly?" He looks down at the photo, "It's worse than I feared then."
"Could you get out?" Dick finally retrieves the frame from Damian, who let him take the item back.
"Is that why you're renovating your room?" Damian looks towards the neatly made bed, giving it a look of disgust. "Is this some seduction scheme?"
"What? No!" Dick frantically shakes his head. "How did you conclude that?"
Damian stares at Dick for a moment before turning away, "Well, it's for her, right?"
"Not like that."
"Answer the question."
Dick pauses before putting the photo frame back up, "She doesn't have a room here." He rubs his thumb against the frame. "I thought that maybe she could use mine to stay the night— you know, if she ever needs it." He looks down at Damian.
"And there's no ulterior motives?" Damian raises a dubious eyebrow.
"No! Why are you still on about that?"
"What else is there to think? You're offering her your bed."
"Damian." Dick sighs, covering his eyes, rubbing his temples.
"You know I'm right, even the others have noticed."
Dick instantly removes his hands from his face, "What'd they say?"
Damian gives him an unimpressed blink. "She liked you. Now she doesn't." At Dick's wounded look, he sighs, "I'll rephrase. She no longer harbors romantic affections for you."
Dick groans, "Did she tell everybody but me?"
"No, I just figured it out."
"You just met her."
"And yet, I was still able to conclude where her affections lie."
Dick clenches his fists, walking over to the bed, "Do you think I messed up?"
"By not knowing? She cannot blame you for your ignorance."
"That… doesn't really make me feel better."
"I wouldn't assume it does. It's too late anyway, she's moved on."
Dick frowns, "With somebody?"
Damian pauses, "Not to my knowledge."
"So there could be somebody?"
Damian sighs, "The possibility is there."
Dick leans back onto his bed, ruining the perfect sheets. "Would she even tell me?"
Damian is silent for a moment, "Unlikely."
Dick lets out a wounded chuckle, "Why didn't any of you guys tell me? At least with her, I can maybe understand, but not a single one of you thought to contact me?"
Damian slowly walks over to the edge of the bed, looking down at Dick, lazily sprawled on the sheets. "I was under the impression that you two had previously… dated. I believe everybody else believed that, too. It wasn't any of our business."
Dick scoffs, "Like that's ever stopped you guys." Damian remains silent at his comment, so Dick continues. "Has she really met everybody while I was gone?"
Damian frowns thoughtfully, "To my knowledge, she hasn't met everybody. From my understanding, she hasn't met Todd."
Dick hums, "Should I confront her?"
"If I knew you'd be languishing in your room, I would have refrained from confronting you about this." Damian takes a few steps back, ready to exit.
"I never... liked her like that." Even to him, the comment sounded weak, as if he was struggling to believe his own words.
Damian pauses, looking down at Dick's pathetic form, "I believe this has dragged on long enough."
"Damian," Dick calls out as he hears Damian's footsteps soften as he moves farther.
"Damian," Dick props his head up, looking at his door wide open.
Dick stares at his open door, frowning. He looks at that photo left on the dresser. Why does it matter so much anyway? It's not like you like him anymore. He walks over to that photo.
It's a photo of when you were first in the cave with him. He was sitting on the medical bed, bandages covering his body, as you grin at the camera. He had argued at the time that too much had happened for him to look happy in any photo. To be fair, he wasn't wrong. He looks exhausted, but there's a fondness in his eyes as he glances out of the corner of his eye. You had taken it on his phone at the time and told him he could delete it after. He could never bring himself to delete it. While he was not thrilled at the prospect of having a photo of him injured lying around, you had seemed so excited, and he couldn't bring himself to dampen that joy.
Did you like him then? He runs his finger over your face.
Who is he kidding? You ran into a fire to pull him out. You had risked your life for him.
He looks into your eyes in the photo, the light glinting off the glass, his hands clenching around the frame.
—
"No way. That's how you found out his identity?" Steph cackles as she spins in the chair, her Spoiler suit on. She isn't wearing the mask, so you observe your reaction with a grin on your face.
"Yep." You smirk, "'Costume party,' he told me." You do air quotes.
She snorted, "He couldn't come up with anything better?"
You shrug, laughing, "Apparently not."
"That was foolish of him." Damian crosses his arms next to Steph.
"It's funny. I mean, come on— Imagine getting caught in the library of your high school." She grabs Damian's arm to stabilize herself as she cracks up again.
Damian glares down at her arm, not nearly as amused by the story as she is, but he doesn't push her arm away.
"Did I miss something?" Duke walks over to you three, suited up, causing you to jump back in your chair. Still, after all these months, every single person here manages to sneak up on you. You'd think you'd have improved your situational awareness by now.
"We were just recounting the story of how I met Dick." You shrug, tapping your finger on the armrest of your chair casually.
"Oh?" Duke raises an eyebrow.
You gape at him, "Did he tell none of you?"
Duke shrugs while Steph grins. Damian, however, is the one who speaks up, "Considering the mortification he must've felt, I imagine he'd be hesitant to narrate said anecdote."
You snort, "Fair enough. So, basically, he was changing in the textbook storage room at the library." At Duke's widened eyes, you hold your hand up to stop him from speaking, "Wait, it gets better. So I had been going in there for some textbook, and I opened the door to see none other than Dick Grayson changing into Robin's costume. So now I'm standing there like 'Uh, you good?' As he tries to convince me that it was for a costume party. Keep in mind, it was around one in the afternoon in the middle of the week."
Duke crosses his arms, his eyes lighting up in amusement, a smirk crosses his face, "I can see why he didn't tell us."
You snicker, "Right?! I mean, it was already bad, but he kept digging himself deeper and deeper. So now I have to smuggle him out, right? And—"
A loud motorcycle roars, echoing throughout the cave. You and Steph share a frown. You turn towards Duke, who looks puzzled at the newcomer. Meanwhile, Damian is already reaching for his katana.
"Could be Dick? I know he was out earlier today. I don't know if he has returned yet." Duke shrugs.
"Doing what?" Steph stands up, grabbing her mask before covering her face. She attempts to subtly cover you, after all, you don't exactly have a secret identity. Still, you frown indignantly at the action.
"I dunno.'" Duke shrugs, narrowing his eyes as the biker parks off in the distance. Damian looks towards Duke at that comment, when suddenly the figure becomes so blaringly obvious. How could you forget?
"Jason Todd?" You frown, standing up.
Duke sighs in relief as Steph and Damian snap their attention to you.
Jason walks over to the four of you, taking off his helmet, addressing you by full name. Behind you, Steph is covering her mouth in surprise before slowly turning to Damian, nudging him. They both share a look.
"I didn't realize you'd take me up on the offer so soon." You raise an eyebrow, putting one hand on your hip.
"That's not why I'm here." He rolls his eyes.
"Well—"
"Wait," Steph cuts you off, causing both you and Jason to turn to her, "since when did you two meet?"
You raise an eyebrow, "Uhh, few weeks back? Actually, he bought me a croissant yesterday."
Damian turns towards Jason, "You what?"
"Y'know the French pastry?" Jason raises an eyebrow at Damian. "Typically flakey, probably has an unhealthy amount of butter in it—"
"I know what a croissant is, Todd."
Jason raises his hands in mock surrender, "Just making sure." He looks down at Damian, unimpressed.
"Let's go back a bit." Steph steps in between them, "Why did he buy you a croissant?"
"I was hungry, and he kinda destroyed the one I bought." You shrug, pointing your thumb at Jason.
"Technically, I didn't. It was that guy that you ran into."
"Well, you were the one chasing him."
"Perhaps you should watch where you're running next time."
"My bad, next time I'll check both ways before walking on the sidewalk. Never know when you're gonna get tackled by a drug dealer."
"Exactly."
Steph and Damian both watch in varying degrees of awe as you two go back and forth. Steph looks almost amused, yet wary of your back and forth. Damian, however, is quiet. Duke looks unsurprised, attempting to hide the growing amusement in his eyes.
"So… You've been hanging out for a while?" Steph asks hesitantly.
"She forced me to 'hang out' with her." Jason gestures his thumb to you. You glare at him indignantly.
"I wanted compensation for my croissant." You defend yourself, pushing his hand down. Jason moves away from you, glaring. "What're you even here for anyway?"
"You said I could come over? What happened to that whole 'I'm gonna defend you from the Bat.'" Jason crosses his arms.
You hold your hand up, "You had already said that's 'not why I'm here.' Oh, and who says I wouldn't defend you?!" You say, knowing full well that Bruce would wipe the floor with you.
"You're not doing a very good job of it."
"He isn't here? Are you fighting invisible bats?" You gesture wildly around the cave at nothing.
"There are actually bats in here." Jason points up at the ceiling, the five of you looking up to the bats resting on the ceiling, barely visible, but there.
"Are you fighting rabies?" You place your hands on your hips.
Jason scoffs, letting the argument die down. "I dropped something a couple weeks back. Figured I'd grab it."
"You know, not answering the rabies question doesn't make me feel better."
"Wasn't supposed to." Jason rolls his eyes.
You hum, "Anyway, you said you dropped something a couple weeks back?" Jason nods silently, and you smirk roguishly. "That's crazy, cause a few weeks ago somebody actually dropped something after I told them it was a risk."
"Crazy. Who would ever do such a thing?" Jason deadpans, avoiding your eyes.
You grin even wider, gesturing for Jason to follow. "You're lucky I was nice enough to keep it. Figured it looked important. You know—"
Damian, Steph, and Duke stare in varying degrees of alarm as you take Jason away to find whatever he was looking for.
"So… They've met." Steph eventually breaks the silence. Damian grunts quietly in response. She turns to Duke, "And you've been awfully quiet."
Duke, avoiding eye contact, stares unyieldingly at your retreating figure.
"You knew, didn't you?" She crosses her arms, nudging him with her elbow.
"I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I just stumbled on them in one of the old storage rooms together." He scratches his neck.
Steph stares blankly at him, mouth agape. Damian stares up at him, lips pursed. "And you told nobody?!" She whisper-yells, shaking Duke's shoulders.
"I'm sorry, my first thought wasn't 'Let me tell everybody in a 10-mile radius what I just stumbled onto!'"
"It should've been!" Steph frowns. "I am not gonna be the one to tell him."
"Nor will I," Damian speaks up.
They both turn towards Duke, "Woah, I sure as hell aren't saying anything."
Steph holds a finger up, "Nuh-uh! You kept this a secret! You gotta tell him."
"How is that fair?! I didn't even know I was supposed to tell anybody!" Duke grabs Steph's shoulders.
"'Tis the burden we have in situations like this." Steph sighs dramatically, patting his hand reassuringly.
"I am not gonna tell him. Since you were so upset at not knowing, you can go and spread the news." Duke shakes his head frantically.
"I already said I'm not gonna do it!" She furrows her eyebrows, turning to Damian for help, who shakes his head in response.
"Well then," Duke crosses his arms, "it appears we've reached a stalemate." Duke sighs, staring resolutely at her.
The three of them turn to you and Jason's distant figures.
It'll be fine
–
Jason didn't linger in the cave after you retrieved the item he was looking for. You didn't expect him to. Truthfully, you're surprised he even showed up, having nearly forgotten the incident a few weeks back. When he left, you tried to ignore the looks that Steph and Damian gave you.
It was strange, you hadn't talked with Damian much in the past, but suddenly the boy was very interested in your love life. You weren't naive enough to assume it was just genuine curiosity.
"And have you considered dating anybody as of late?" He sits on a chair in front of the Batcomputer, hands clasped on his lap.
"Uh…" You frown, "No..?"
Damian hums, tapping his fingers on his lap methodically. "Anybody?" He emphasizes.
You lean against the desk, "You sound like you want me to say a specific answer."
Damian's stare pierces your soul, almost as if he's trying to assess you. "So you do have an answer in mind."
"I don't actually." You shake your head, frowning.
Damian raises an eyebrow at you skeptically, "Think about it."
"I don't think I'm enjoying this conversation." You cross your arms, sighing.
"The quicker you disclose your true intentions, the quicker this will end."
You stare blankly at Damian, "Damian, I have no idea what answer you want."
"Playing yourself the fool is beneath you."
"Then I am a fool," you shrug carelessly, ready to walk away. "Just ask bluntly."
Damian remains silent for a moment, "Are you and Todd courting?"
You stare at Damian, who doesn't break his inscrutable expression. You can't stop the laughter that erupts at your next question, "Why– Why would you ask that?"
"You requested that I ask bluntly. I am merely following your instructions. I had presumed that the name-calling was a flirtatious advancement, not to mention the childish bickering."
"Okay, first off–" you hold your finger up, walking over to Damian, thank goodness everybody left already, "I call him by his name."
"You don't call anybody else by their full name." Damian frowns, eyebrows furrowed.
"He started it!"
Damian blinks at you, unimpressed. "You are not helping your case."
"Why are you acting like this is my fault? Why don't you confront him?"
Damian makes a point to look around the now-empty cave exaggeratedly, "He is not here." He deadpans.
"Oh, so I'm just the convenient option. I feel so loved." You place your hand on your chest mockingly.
"You have yet to answer the question."
"I am not dating Jason. I don't know how one interaction between us convinced you of that, but it's not true." You look away from Damian.
He narrows his eyes, "There was mention of your previous outings with him. He apparently 'bought you a croissant.' A euphemism for more unseemly activities, I imagine."
You attempt to mask your horror at his words, but fail miserably. "If I knew it'd cause me this much trouble, I would've just skipped the damn croissant." You mutter, rubbing your temples.
"So you admit he 'bought you a croissant.'" He sits up straighter in his chair.
"He bought me like an actual croissant, yes! He even clarified that we were talking about the pastry. I never denied that!" You gesture wildly.
"Tt," Damian glares at you, his gaze scrutinizing your entire being. "What was the context for that outing?"
"I…" You begin before pausing, "Wait, why would I tell that to you?"
Damian raises an eyebrow, "Got something to hide?"
You glare at him indignantly, "I know what you're doing." You shake your head at him disapprovingly.
"Really? You are dancing around the question." He taps his fingers slowly, shaking his head at you, disapprovingly.
You groan, "It was an accident, I had accidentally ran into the criminal he was after. Both of us went down, and my croissant was smushed. I, jokingly," you emphasized, making sure Damian understood, "I jokingly told him— Jason, not the criminal— that he should replace my croissant."
"So you asked him out." Damian holds his clasped hands up to his face, concentrated.
You whip around to face him, "I just said it was a joke. I didn't think he'd actually stop what he was doing to sit with me in a bakery!"
Damian looks slightly taken aback, "You sat in a bakery with him?"
You rub your eyes with your hands, "Wait, okay, yes, but it was perfectly fine. It wasn't like that. We just bought a couple of pastries before he had to go."
Damian looks repulsed by your words, standing up. "I have things to attend to."
"Damian, believe me. We aren't dating or courting or whatever you wanna call it!" You attempt to stop him.
Damian remains silent as you look down at him, pleading. He nods once before exiting, not a word extra.
Well, that is not very reassuring.
–
The night had been going smoothly– well, as smoothly as a night in Gotham could go.
Dick, true to his word, decided to stay in Gotham. The night was still young, so perhaps he was judging prematurely, but it was nothing too crazy. There was some drug deal on a roof earlier, and that was about the most intense thing that happened all night. It's been quiet.
Dick decided that he was going to try and stick around Central Gotham that night, for he knew you had gone home earlier. Dick was going to ask if you wanted to hang out alone, and not with half of his family tagging along. When he began searching for you, he eventually ran into Damian, who gave him a conflicted expression. Before Dick got a chance to ask what that meant, Damian shrugged, telling him he had no idea where you were.
Eventually, he found out that you had left the manor earlier that day. Which was fine. It's not like he could control where you went, but he'd been hoping to catch you alone.
So maybe he'd been patrolling around your apartment, and maybe he'd circled around the block a few times, hoping to catch you alone. He wasn't sure when you left, but he hadn't seen your car around, so he figured you were still out.
That night, Babs decided to help out on comms, "Nightwing, there's an armed robbery two blocks over from your current location."
Dick frowns, leaving for five minutes couldn't hurt.
–
You sigh as you exit your car, grabbing your personal items before getting ready for the quick walk to your apartment. There was no parking, so you had parked a couple of streets over. The walk wasn't anything you hadn't done before, so you weren't too worried.
Damian's unexpected interrogation had you stressing for the rest of the day. What if he went around telling people that something was going on between you and Jason? Not like there was, but you know Damian is stubborn. If he believes that you are dating Jason, then it'll take more than a quick conversation to convince him.
Just as you were about to turn onto your street, you hear the sound of a gun's safety being clicked off. Slowly, you turn around to face the criminal. It was a man with long, greasy hair. He had a worn leather jacket on, the gun held lazily in his hand. "Everything on you, now."
Your mouth parts in surprise, well, shit. While Cass and Steph were teaching you how to fight, that did not mean you were confident enough to take out somebody with a gun pointed at your head.
"Okay," you answer slowly, grabbing your phone out of your pocket. He watches as you move slowly to fish the device out of his pocket.
"Hurry up. I don't have all day." He glares at you.
"I'm sorry that robbing me is inconvenient for you." You mutter to yourself, thinking that he won't hear.
"What was that?" He points the gun under your chin, and you feel your heart race at the action.
"I'll hurry up! I'll hurry up!" You hold your hands up in surrender, offering your phone in one of them, watching as he moves closer to take your phone.
Just as he's about to grab your phone, a figure descends from the sky, kneeing the robber in the head, sending him sprawling to the ground. The sheer force of the action causes you to flinch back in surprise. Instinctively, you move away from the attacker before you see who it is.
"Oh," you exhale in relief, "you know we keep meeting." You adjust your clothes, brushing off imaginary dust as if you were unbothered by the attack.
"Were you about to give this asshole your phone?" Red Hood gives a "light" kick to the now unconscious criminal.
"Not all of us are trained as well as you are. He had me at gunpoint." You scoff.
Red Hood turns towards you, "Thought you said that you've 'been training.'" He does air quotes. "If I remember correctly, I remember you challenging me." He crosses his arms, tilting his head slightly.
You purse your lips, "I was bullshitting and you knew that."
He chuckles, moving over to you. "Are you hurt?" The amusement from his voice is gone, replaced by something that almost sounds like concern.
You smile at him, "Physically no, but my pride is a little wounded."
"Mm, next time I'll let you get a hit in." He responds dryly.
You grin even wider, "Aw, so thoughtful." You start to walk past him.
"Where're you heading anyway?" He asks, following behind you.
"Home."
"Alone? This late?" He walks up to your right.
"It's nearby, I'll be okay."
"You were almost robbed."
"Keyword: 'almost.'"
Red Hood attempts to rub his temples, but the helmet he has on prevents that. The action is a little funny. "I ain't letting you walk home alone this late."
You blink in surprise, watching as he matches your stride, "Do you not have any important stuff to do? Fight crime? Tackle drug dealers? Crush croissants?"
Red Hood shrugs, the action stiff, "Some of the others can handle it. I think they'll be alright." You smile at him, noting your apartment as it comes into view.
The rest of the walk is pretty short and quiet. You're about to head into your apartment when you notice the right shoulder of his jacket is stained red. "Are you injured?"
"Not from that guy." Red Hood scoffs, crossing his arms, attempting to cover the wound.
"That's not what I asked." You frowned, looking at the maroon stain on his jacket. "Nope, you're coming with me."
Jason says your name softly, the first time he's ever just said just your name. His voice is quiet, and it startles you for a moment, "I'll be fine."
You both stare at each other for a moment, "You know you don't look very tough when your shoulder is bleeding out in front of me, right? Kinda ruins your whole persona."
Jason's posture straightens, and you think he's going to insist, so you cut him off before he gets the chance. "Nope," you grab his (good) arm, pulling him to your apartment. "I may not be as good as Dr. Thompkins or Alfred, but I refuse to let you go out without some sort of first aid."
Jason doesn't say anything as you drag him into your apartment. Turning on the lights, you look towards him, standing at the entrance awkwardly. "I'll go grab the first aid kit. You can head to the couch."
You put all your stuff down, head to the bathroom, wash your hands, and grab the first aid kit and a clean cloth.
When you walk out of the bathroom, Jason is sitting in the living room, helmet off, blatantly staring at the picture frames you have up. "I'm no doctor, but have you at least tried to stop the bleeding?" You dampen the cloth at the sink before walking over to him.
"Bleeding should be stopped by now." Jason responds. He sounds exhausted, and his hand is pressed on his blood-stained jacket where the wound should be.
You nod, "Okay, I'll try and clean the wound, but you're gonna have to take off that jacket." You sit next to him as he slowly removes the jacket. The wound is open, but it's not actively dripping blood. "Sorry if this hurts," you slowly take the cloth and attempt to clean any dirt around it. Jason doesn't react, only wincing on occasion, to which you offer an apology. You work in silence.
Eventually, once it's clean, you look at the first aid kit, searching for the suture. Typically, it isn't something you'd find in a first aid kit, but Alfred and Bruce had insisted you take one of the ones they keep in the cave "just in case."
"Gonna be honest… I have no idea how to do stitches." You grab the thread, frowning.
Jason chuckles quietly, wincing slightly, "I can do it. You've already helped out enough." You frown, but move the first aid kit next to him. "Do you want pain meds or something? I should have some Tylenol lying around."
Jason nods, "That'd be nice."
You stand up, walking over to your medicine cabinet, grabbing a bottle of Tylenol, some water, and bringing it to him. Jason nods in thanks, and you wait anxiously next to him. It doesn't exactly feel great just sitting around while he's stitching his own wound.
"So you've talked with him?" Jason starts the conversation.
You blink, "Sorry?"
"Your 'not-bestie.'" Jason carefully cuts part of the thread.
"Oh," you blink, "a little? He came back yesterday."
Jason snorts, "I'm aware, he's out on patrol tonight around the area."
"Huh," you nod, "he did say he'd be in the area for a bit."
Jason hums, "How'd he react to you being here? You didn't tell him, right?"
You smack your lips, "Yeah,"
He chuckles, looking up from his wound to you, "That bad?"
"Maybe a bit passive-aggressive." You shrug, thinking back to Dick's unreadable expression when he saw you training with Steph and Cass.
Jason nods, "I can imagine." He grabs the pill from the table, using the water to down it. "You know he's been circling around your block for most of the night."
Your mouth parts in surprise, "Really? He knows if he wants to talk to me, he can just call or show up… right?"
Jason shrugs, wincing slightly as the action agitates the wound, "Who knows what he's thinking, I–"
You both turn to the glass door for the balcony, three loud knocks echoing across the room. You couldn't hide your startled expression if you wanted to. Jason snorts, "Speak of the Devil,"
You turn towards Jason, who is focused on his wound. Thinking he's got it handled, you turn your focus back to Dick, and he offers a small wave. Walking over, you unlock the door. "Uh… Hello?"
"Hi! I happened to be in the area–" you hear Jason snort in the background, "–and I thought I could drop by." He smiles at you before looking towards Jason behind you on your couch. His smile strains a bit, "I didn't realize you'd have company over."
"I didn't realize I'd be having company. " You chuckle, walking over to the couch next to Jason. Dick follows next to you.
Dick raises an eyebrow at Jason stitching his wound, "What happened?"
"I got injured." Jason deadpans, pointing a finger to the wound.
"I can see that." Dick frowns, watching as Jason finishes up the last stitch. You grab some Vaseline before placing it next to Jason.
You and Dick watch for a moment as Jason dresses the wound before he turns to you. "Did you two just meet?" Dick asks, turning to you.
You shake your head, feeling your stomach oddly turn in familiarity. For some reason, the conversation feels oddly reminiscent of your conversation with Damian earlier. "Few weeks ago."
"Oh." Dick nods slowly, looking at you. You raise an eyebrow at him, and he turns away. "I… wasn't aware."
You snort, "I didn't know I needed to tell you everybody I met."
Dick opens his mouth, "I– You know I didn't mean it like that. I was just surprised." He fidgets behind you, making himself look smaller.
You frown, "I've been around for months? It'd be surprising if I hadn't met everybody yet."
Dick nods, agreeing, "Right, I just thought I heard that… you two hadn't met…. " he pauses, "yet." His last word was almost silent.
You snort, "Who said that?" You turn to Dick, before snapping your fingers, "Wait, let me guess, Damian?"
Dick looks over to you, eyebrows furrowed, "...Yeah, actually."
You sigh, "Of course he would."
Your words seem to catch Dick's attention, "Did… something happen?" He asks hesitantly, occasionally throwing Jason odd glances. Jason seems wholly unbothered by the whole situation, a bit too unbothered.
"With Damian?" You clarify. At Dick's nod, you turn away, "Ask him. He's the one who decided to interview me about my life." You take the scissors and bandage scraps scattered around the first aid kit and put them away before throwing the scraps in the trash.
Dick is silent for a moment, "What?" You can't decipher what his tone was. Horrified? Outraged? His tone shocks you for a moment, "When was that?" He furrows his eyebrows, crossing his arms as he follows you around your apartment as you put the first aid kit away.
"Today." You shrug, closing the cabinet before walking past Dick back out to the living room.
Dick scoffs, "No wonder." He mutters to himself before turning to follow you.
He follows you over to Jason, watching as you offer to refill his water. Jason thanks you with a smirk once you return. Dick's breath hitches, his fists clenching as he watches you sit next to Jason.
"So, how was that danish you got the other day?"
What.
The question was innocent, but it caused a million different questions to run through his mind. You're asking him about a danish? You two have hung out previously. Do you both hang out frequently? Clearly, you trust him enough to be in your apartment, and you aren't afraid to joke with him. Your question is casual enough to suggest you don't think it's a big deal.
Jason pretends to think, "It was alright."
You hunch over in dejection, "Oh, come on, seriously?"
Jason shrugged, a smirk growing on his face as he sat up straighter, "You overhyped it a bit."
You furrow your eyebrows, "Okay, fine," you huffed, "but it was still good enough, right?" You lean closer to him expectantly. At your action, Dick distantly notes that his jaw hurts from clenching his teeth.
Jason snorts, and he doesn't move away. "It was 'good enough.'" His tone is teasing, and your frown immediately turns into a triumphant smile.
Dick clenches his fist, walking over to you both, "Hey, Little Wing, I think Oracle needs our help."
Frowning, you stand up, "Oh, you two should get going then. I wouldn't wanna keep you from going out."
Jason raises an eyebrow at Dick, who grins at him. His expression is uneasy, stiff as Dick walks over to your side.
"It's a shame you can't stay any longer, but you two are always welcome." You smile, grabbing Jason's bloodied jacket. "I can wash this and return it–"
"Thanks," Dick offers you a soft smile, "but we wouldn't wanna keep the crime waiting." He winks at you, and you snort. His eyes drift down to Jason's jacket, clasped between your hands. Jason walks over to your other side, taking the offered jacket.
"Thanks," he nods at you, as he walks over to the balcony Dick entered from. He puts the helmet on before turning to Dick, "Well?"
Dick turns to you once again, "See you around." He walks away from you and over to the balcony. He doesn't break eye contact as he walks over to the ledge. You follow behind them, keeping a bit of distance, watching as Dick hops gracefully onto the ledge of the balcony. The action is so extra, so him, that you can't help the laughter that emerges from your chest. At your laughter, he brightens up.
"You're so extra." You roll your eyes.
"It's part of the charm." He smirks, almost bowing slightly, before flipping off the balcony and onto the building next to your apartment.
You lean against the ledge, watching as Jason and Dick grow smaller the farther they get. Just as you think they'll vanish, Dick turns around and waves. You snort, mirroring the action before he vanishes into the night.
–
Dick rolls onto a roof to cushion his jump, and he props his foot up on a ledge of it, getting a wide view of the street below. Jason follows closely behind him. "What was that?" Jason asks, walking up to Dick's side, looking down at the street.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Dick smiles, still keeping his eyes on the street below, his leg bouncing up and down.
"Nightwing." Jason attempts to catch Dick's attention, moving slightly to try to cover his view of the street.
"We couldn't stay there all night." Dick turns to the opposite direction of Jason, balancing on the ledge casually.
Jason rolls his eyes, knowing that Dick can't see the action, "Obviously, but–"
"Great, glad we agree." Dick smiles before hopping down the building's exterior stairs, maneuvering through them with ease.
"Dick." Jason chases him, with far less grace, but just as efficiently. Below them, there are two groups pitted against each other. Dick doesn't hesitate before diving in. Rushing in, he grabs the shoulders of one of the members, using them to propel himself upward, before dragging him up with him and slamming him onto his buddy.
Jason quickly joins in, shooting the gun out of one of the men's hands before punching him to the ground. The two guys next to him attempt to make a run for it, but Jason trips one of them. Kicking him in the jaw, Jason knocks him out before turning to the last guy.
Just as he's about to attack, Dick jumps down from above, immobilizing the man.
"So we're just gonna pretend that nothing happened." Jason twirls his gun before holstering them.
"Nothing did happen." Dick flourishes his escrima sticks before placing them behind his back.
"Convincing." Jason snorts. Dick climbs back up the roof they were on earlier, expertly scaling the fire escape stairs. "So you have nothing to say?"
"What is there to say? You were injured, she patched you up." Dick sits down on the ledge, propping a knee up, letting one leg hang over the ledge.
Jason props his knee up next to Dick, looking down at him. "And you're cool with that?" He rolls his shoulder.
Dick doesn't look up at him, "Yes."
Jason places his hands on his hips, "Sure doesn't feel like it."
Dick scoffs, "What do you want me to say?" He faces Jason, tense. "That I'm upset that you two were hanging out?" He places an arm lazily on top of his propped-up leg.
Jason tilts his head slightly, crossing his arms.
"Well, I'm not."
Jason grunts, turning away from Dick. Dick elbows Jason's leg, causing him to tilt his head at the action. "What was that for?"
"You don't believe me."
Jason snorts, "Okay, you are not upset." He states, holding his hands up in surrender.
Dick groans, "Now you're mocking me."
"It's too easy not to." Jason smirks, sitting down next to Dick. The two of them look down at the city in silence. "Y'know she told me you two aren't besties."
Dick looks over at Jason, affronted. "She did not."
Jason nods solemnly, "Yep. Think her words were: 'We've never referred to each other as besties.'"
Dick purses his lips, his nails digging into his palms. "No, I guess we didn't."
Jason takes off his helmet, relying on the domino underneath, resting the equipment next to him. "Do you love her?" He asks, the two of them watching the blinding lights of the city below.
Dick opens his mouth, but then closes it. He absentmindedly taps his finger on his knee, not taking his eyes off the city below. "I… think so."
Jason snorts, "You don't know?"
Dick scoffs, "I…" he lets his propped-up leg hang over the edge, placing his hands flat on the ledge, "It's complicated."
Jason hums, "Well, you'd better figure it out fast."
Dick slowly turns to Jason, "What does that mean?" He asks calmly.
"She's not just going to wait for you to come to a decision. If you don't take the opportunity…" Jason trails off, ignoring Dick's pointed stare.
"Are you saying you will?" Dick stiffens as he watches Jason absentmindedly tap his helmet with his index finger.
"I'm saying somebody might if you don't do anything."
Dick stands up, looking down at Jason, who languidly turns to face him, a smirk on his face. "Are you saying that somebody is you?"
Jason shrugs, wincing slightly at the sting of pain in his shoulder, "Not necessarily. Just in general."
"She wouldn't." Dick jumps away from the ledge, back onto the rooftop, facing away from Jason.
Jason turns around to face him, "How could you even know? She didn't even tell you she was back."
Dick turns around, his chest feels like it was pierced by a blade at Jason's words, "Oh, did she tell you that too?"
Jason shrugs, "She told me a lot of things."
"I'm sure she did." Dick glares down at Jason, his disinterest only fueling his frustration.
"Why are you upset? You aren't even sure if you like her." Jason leans over, his elbows resting on his knees, looking up at Dick.
Dick clenches his teeth, trying to find the words to say, but Jason cuts him off before he gets to say anything.
"She's moved on, Dick. You lost your opportunity."
Dick huffs, pointing a finger at Jason's chest, "You do not get to comment about us. You don't know what our relationship was like. If she 'moved on' I want to hear it from her, not from a telephoned message from you."
Jason tilts his head, "But I'm not the first one to say it, am I?" Dick narrows his eyes at Jason, his breath hitching as his words. "Fine, prove me wrong then." Jason stands up, and Dick matches his stare, looking up at his brother.
"I will." Dick resolves.
–
"Come on, it's like a rite of passage, you gotta do it." Tim shakes his head at you, seated in front of the Batcomputer.
"It's a charity gala. Why on Earth do I need to go? It's not like Bruce has adopted me or something. I'm just a random person in the eyes of the public." You wave your hand dismissively.
"Okay, but like you're involved with us often enough, so you gotta do it. Bat rules." Tim shrugs, as if saying "What can you do about it?"
"That's not a thing." You cross your arms, narrowing your eyes suspiciously at Tim.
"It is." Tim nods, reassuringly.
"No, it's not. You aren't gonna convince me." You spin around in your chair, away from him. To your surprise, you see two people walk over.
"It…" you checked the time on your phone, "hasn't even been 24 hours. You two coming in pairs now? No longer sold separately?" You laugh at your own joke, sitting up straighter in the seat as you watch Dick and Jason approach.
"Didn't realize there was a cooldown for when we could approach you." Dick grins at you, walking over to rest his arm on the headrest, looking down at you.
You roll your eyes, but a smile grows on your face, "Well, now you know."
Dick chuckles, his eyes lingering on you for a moment before turning to Tim, "What were you two talking about anyway?"
"Oh my–" You look at Dick, ready to justify yourself, but somebody cuts you off.
"–It's her turn to go to a gala." Tim gestures to you. "She's been here too long without going to one." Tim cuts in helpfully. You, Dick, and Jason turn towards him.
"...He's kind of right," Jason adds.
You turn to him, betrayed, "After everything last night? You will betray me like this?" Tim's eyes widen at your comment towards Jason.
Jason rolls his eyes, "All I did was agree." Tim stares blatantly at Dick, who obstinately refuses to look at him.
"Betrayal." You hiss at Jason. "Come on, Dick, you're on my side, right?" You look at Dick hopefully.
He blinks down at you, still leaning on the headrest of your chair. "Uh…" He looks up to meet Tim and Jason's expectant stare before returning his gaze to you.
Wait…
"How about you go with me? That way you aren't alone the whole time." Dick proposes, offering a small smile to you.
Your eyes widen at Dick, and you open your mouth, sputtering. He was supposed to be on your side, not encouraging you to go. Jason crosses his arms in the back, and Tim purses his lips thoughtfully.
"But I'm not equipped for that kind of scene. I don't even know how to handle myself at such an event." You look up at Dick.
"Then I'll teach you." Dick shrugs, "Just come with me, it'll be like old times."
"What kind of old times are you talking about? I don't remember you ever making me attend one of the Wayne events." You furrow your eyebrows, covering your mouth with your hand in concentration, trying to remember an occurrence.
Dick snorts, "I don't think I ever did. I meant that it'd be us. Just us." He grins, resting his arms over the chair's headrest, before propping his head on top of it.
Tim and Jason share a quick glance, "Are you sure?" You ask cautiously. "I think I remember you complaining about them as a kid."
Dick tilts his head, still resting it on the headrest, "Well, now we'll be able to bond over mutual hatred. It'll be great!"
You sigh, turning your attention to Tim, "See what you've done?"
Tim smiles, "No regrets."
Rolling your eyes, you turn to Dick, "Alright, I guess I'll meet you at the Manor tomorrow."
Dick shakes his head, "I can pick you up. Think you can be ready by 6:30?"
"In the morning?!" You hold a hand against your chest before raising it to your lips in a thoughtful manner. "I dunno, that's a bit early."
Dick exhales, amused, before flicking your head lightly. "Mm, yeah sure, better make sure your alarm is set."
Rolling your eyes, you rub the spot he flicked, "Of course, of course."
—
The next day comes quicker than you thought it would, so now you're staring at your closet. While you've never been to a charity event, you know that they're definitely formal.
After eliminating all the dresses deemed "too casual" or "not good enough for a Wayne event," you are left with one option.
You are left with a dark blue dress that fits your figure nicely. You'd used this dress in the past for some previous work events, but you figured it'd work well for a charity event. You select a pair of heels that suits the dress nicely before doing your makeup for the night. You didn't want to do too much, so you settled for something cute, yet classy.
Once you finish up, you anxiously await Dick's message. The longer he takes, the more anxious you feel. Will they be able to tell that you don't fit in? What if you fuck up and do something stupid?
Thankfully, Dick doesn't take long, knocking on your door on time. "Coming!" You head over to the door and open it.
"Hey," you shuffle the clutch in your hand to your non-dominant one.
Dick blinks, his eyes darting down your figure, "Hey,"
You smile at him, walking out of your apartment, before closing the door. All of this happens while Dick just stares at you.
"Is… something wrong..?" You shift uncomfortably, smoothing the dress down your body.
"You're beautiful," Dick responds softly. You wonder if you even heard the words correctly.
You raise an eyebrow, "Was I not supposed to be?"
Frantically, Dick shakes his head, "No! I just meant that you look gorgeous. You didn't have to do all of this for one of Bruce's charity events."
You frown, "Well, what if I wanted an excuse to dress up?"
Dick straightens up, mouth pursing, "Then I'd ask Bruce to host as many events as he wanted just so you could." He gives you a small smile.
You both stare at each other before you burst out laughing. "Oh my God, Jason was wrong."
Dick tenses up, "What was he wrong about?"
"You are funny." You pat his chest reassuringly. The action causes Dick to look down at your hand.
"Did he tell you I wasn't?" Dick frowns, grabbing your hand and slowly removing it from his chest.
"Hey, I'll have you know I tried defending you." You smirk at him, your hand still in his grasp.
"Oh," he smirks, "what an honor."
You chuckle, "Quite the honor indeed." You look up from your clasped hand to his face.
To your surprise, Dick is already looking down at your eyes, "I… got something for you." He reveals his other hand, presenting you with a dark blue cornflower corsage.
You slowly blink at the bundle of flowers as he smiles gently. He looks down at your hand, silently asking permission. "I… I didn't get you anything." You feel a pit form in your stomach. He offers to help you around the gala, and you didn't even think to get anything? Great, now you feel horrible.
His smile grows, "Hey— No, it's alright. I got something for myself so we could match. The container is in the car. I wanted to do it."
Oh geez, he knew you wouldn't even think to get him something, so he bought himself a boutonnière.
"Hey, none of that." He slides the corsage onto your wrist with care. His hands are soft as they brush against your arm, his touch is light. "Lighten up, I thought it'd make you happy. I can see the guilt on your face."
Scoffing, you look down at your wrist. The flowers are a lighter shade of blue than your dress. "How did you know I'd be wearing blue?"
He grins, "I didn't."
The two of you walk to the car, and you take note of the boutonnière in the passenger seat. You grab it, and just as he is about to start the car, you open it. "You're gonna have to face me for this." You open the container, carefully handling the flower.
"Oh," he inhales, holding his breath unknowingly, "you don't have to…"
You look up to him, "You didn't have to buy us matching flowers, but you did anyway. At least let me pin it onto you."
He looks like he's about to argue, but he sighs, "Alright," he sighs.
Grinning, you carefully grab the flower before gesturing for him to move closer. Stiffly, Dick leans over the center console of the car. You gently grab the lapel of his suit jacket, pinning the flower to him. He remains still the entire time. When you finish, you smooth out any wrinkles, patting the fabric to signal you're done.
Dick lets out a deep breath when you're done, adjusting his collar. "Thanks," he speaks softly before turning towards you, smiling, "you ready?" His voice is a lot brighter.
"As I'll ever be." You grin, prepared for the night.
—
"Thank you for coming!" Bruce puts his arm around you, squeezing you tightly as you exhale what little air is left in your lungs.
"I think you're constricting her…" Dick frowns, crossing his arms as Bruce pats your shoulder.
"Ah, my bad!" Bruce makes a show of acting surprised before using his hand to guide you back to Dick. "She's all yours." Bruce winks before taking a glass of champagne and downing it.
The two of you watch as he walks away, loudly laughing at a joke some guest says.
"That is so weird…" You watch as Bruce walks away. Dick snorts at your side.
"You'll get used to it. Come on, let me show you around."
"Dick, I've been here before."
"But it's been so long since it's been just us. Humor me." He grabs your hand, walking backwards as he pulls you slowly to try and get you to follow him.
You sigh, "You act like you've been deprived or something." You chuckle at the thought.
Dick clutched his hand to his chest, "Have I not? I haven't seen you in ages, let me have this."
You laugh, and his eyes light up at the action, a grin breaking out onto his face. "Alright, I suppose."
Dick grins, grabbing your arm before dragging you away. You can't help the laughter that escapes you. He grins as the two of you run up a set of stairs, passing by a few guests. You had to admit, catching up with Dick was really fun. Being with him made you forget the worries you had before the event.
"You didn't actually swing on the chandeliers, right?" You lean against the railing of the balcony.
Dick smiles in response.
"Of course you did," you sigh. "I don't even know why I asked."
"You make it sound like a bad thing." Dick grins, moving to your left, leaning on the railing next to you.
Smirking, you tilt your head toward him, "It's certainly a you thing."
"The best kind of things." Dick adjusts his suit, brushing off imaginary dust, matching your smirk.
You snort, "Definitely unique. I wouldn't expect it from anybody else."
Dick holds his hands out grandly, "You could say I'm one of a kind."
Rolling your eyes, you're about to make a retort, but you hear the string quartet in the background swell. You turn your attention to the music, watching as the musicians cue each other in for the next piece.
Dick looks at you, then toward the quartet, then back to you. "Come on," he pushes himself off the railing. You raise an eyebrow at him. He grins, "Let's dance,"
You look over to the couples slow dancing on the tiled marble before turning to face Dick, disbelieving. "Seriously?" You cross your arms, suspiciously, "You want to dance?"
Dick smirks, "Well," he looks back towards the crowd of people slowly moving to the piece the quartet plays. "It's your choice, sweetheart. However, I'd appreciate it if you'd do me the honor?" He holds his hand out for you to grab.
You can't help the laugh that escapes your mouth at his words. "Well, I suppose, sweetheart." You smirk, emphasizing the pet name.
Dick somehow brightens even more at your words before pulling you to the dance floor. The music crescendos as the two of you step in coordination along the dance floor. Dick expertly maneuvers you around the crowded dance floor, his eyes on you the entire time. You can't help but smile at him. He mirrors your action softly as the two of you move in sync.
Eventually, the music quiets down to a soft piano, "I wasn't aware you'd be this good. You're making me feel like an amateur."
You smile at him, your hand brushing his chest, "I didn't spend the last couple of months sitting around waiting for you to come back. Steph and Cass have been very thorough in teaching me."
Dick lets out a chuckle, his smile falling slightly, "No… I suppose you didn't." His words were quieter than the soft chords of the strings, but you heard him clearer than ever. They carried a certain weight.
Your mouth parts, feeling compelled to speak, but you aren't sure what to say. Dick smiles at you, reassuringly. "I… I didn't mean not to tell you. It's just…" you look toward his hopeful eyes, "complicated."
He seems to deflate at your words. Perhaps he expected something else. "I know." He responds, matching your whisper. "I know what you meant by it…"
You shake your head, "No… I don't think you do."
Dick purses his lips, as if holding back something. "Right… I don't,"
The two of you move, unspeaking, the music's slower tempo leading your steps. It slowly starts to fade out, and Dick's eyes flicker down to your lips. You stare at his eyes, almost glassy in their state, as the music dissipates, the sound of whispered chattering growing. You inhale, momentarily forgetting to breathe, his hand resting on your chest. Your throat feels dry, your heart unwillingly picks up in pace, your breath shudders as you exhale, and your eyes helplessly flicker over Dick.
Dick leans closer as if sensing your growing apprehension, his hands rub your back gently. His touch is a feather upon your skin, only causing you to hold back a shiver. Frozen in your spot, you barely even notice if you're moving at this point. He leans closer, and now you can see the rise and fall of his chest, the soft sound of his exhale. Meeting your eyes, he blinks at you, swallowing as he gazes at your features.
The music stops, and so do you.
"Thanks, Dick." You pull away from him. His hold takes a bit of effort to squirm out of. By the time you're out of his grasp, all that's left is your hand resting on his.
He stares at you, unblinking, eyes heavy with something. "Of course," he whispers. He slowly retracts his hand, and you lower your own.
You take a deep breath, the tension is thick, it hangs in the air, clinging onto every spoken word. The two of you stare at each other for a brief moment. You barely even notice the bodies meandering around the two of you. All you can focus on is his weighted, almost pleading gaze. What does he need to plead for?
Exhaling, you grab his forearm, "Come on, let's go back out to the balcony. I'm suffocating here. It's so crowded. How does Bruce even know this many people?" You ramble as you drag Dick along. He doesn't give input, he doesn't say anything, but gives you that same thoughtful expression.
You aren't even sure who you're trying to distract. Smiling, you glance at Dick, attempting to shove down the memory of his touch, his gaze, everything about him. You couldn't be angry about it. You know Dick. Even after years apart, you know him. You can't get mad that things have fallen back into the way they used to be. After all, that's why you never said anything, right? To keep things as they were.
You sure as hell aren't letting all that restraint go to waste now. Not when you finally moved on.
"I gotta respect the fact that you attended these 'cause I probably would've started swinging on chandeliers too if I had to deal with that many people with no one to depend upon. Well, I guess there's Bruce, but I don't feel like that's much better." You drag him out to the balcony, leaning against it, the frigid night breeze cooling you.
Dick snorts, but he smiles, "Don't let him hear you say that." You withhold a grin as you watch the tension leave his shoulders.
You smirk, "Yeah, just like you didn't tell him I knew you were Robin."
Dick furrows his eyebrows, standing up straighter, "Hey— I thought you said I was off the hook for that. I never even told him!" He throws his hands up.
You trace your fingers against the smooth metal of the railing, "Mhm,"
Dick frowns, taken aback, "Did you just 'Mhm' me?" He narrows his eyes at you, leaning next to you.
You turn toward him, smirking.
"Don't—"
"Mhm,"
Dick sighs, exasperated. "You are impossible."
"I know, truly nobody could compare." You joke, smirking at Dick. You toss him a smug glance from the corner of your eye.
"Of course, of course. How could I presume such a thing?" Dick smirks back at you.
You click your tongue, "Common mistake. Don't worry, one day you might be able to reach my level."
Dick barks out a surprised laugh, "Wow, okay. I see how it is."
You are about to make a retort, but a middle-aged lady comes over to you two. Her hair is up in an elegant updo, and her dress appears to fit her perfectly, likely tailored. The emerald green fabric catches the warm lights of the Manor radiantly. You don't recognize her, but judging by the way Dick moves slightly closer to you, he does.
"Richard! I haven't seen you at one of these in a minute." She greets him, she's holding a glass of champagne in her hand.
Dick offers her a small, polite smile. "Mrs. Carrington," he nods, "I hope you're doing well."
She waves her free hand at him casually, "Oh, please, call me Meredith. I've known you since you were little." She laughs, and Dick awkwardly joins in. She looks you up and down, and you feel proud that you don't shrink under her judgment. "Who's this? New girl?"
Both you and Dick stiffen, "Oh… Uh—" He starts, but is quickly cut off.
"The other one you introduced me to… Barbara was it? She was quite nice. You two made a good pair." She sips on her champagne. "Didn't hear that you two broke up."
Dick shifts, trying to assess your reaction, but you don't offer it to him. "Yeah," he smacks his lips, "earlier this year."
She hums, "Hmm, shame." You fight the sting of pain threatening to pierce your chest at that moment. You will not fall into that rabbit hole. You told yourself. "Who's the new girl, though?"
"Just a fri—" You fight the rising heat. Embarrassment? Anger? You start talking, but you are never able to finish your statement.
Dick slings his arms around your shoulder, pulling you closer. You stumble on your feet, surprised by the unexpected pull. You look at him, startled, but he doesn't look at you. Instead, he offers your name to Meredith.
"Aw, she's gorgeous!" Meredith fawns over you, and despite your bewilderment at the situation, you instinctively shift closer to Dick. He rubs a hand on your shoulder,
"Isn't she?" You subtly elbow him at his words. What is he doing? Just tell the woman that you aren't dating. It is not this difficult.
"How long have you two been going out for?" She asks, clearly not wanting to leave.
"A couple months. She actually just recently graduated from university." He grins proudly.
"Ah!" Meredith turns to actually face you for the first time. "Smart girl, huh?"
Dick grins, "The smartest." He looks towards you, a soft smile on his face. You mirror the action to him passive-aggressively. You'd actually argue maybe Babs or something, but clearly Dick has decided he's going to do all the talking for this conversation.
"Aw, how'd you two meet?" She asks, her cheeks are flushed, but more importantly, her words are loud. You can see a few people turn their attention to the three of you.
"Haaaa… Funny story," Dick looks down for you, as if prompting you to speak it. You meet his gaze. He made his grave; he will lie in it. You smile at him innocently, and after a long moment of you two staring at each other, he realizes that you aren't going to be helpful.
"She stumbled into me by chance. Complete chance accident." He turns toward you, and you smirk at him, "She had— uh— been having a bad day." Real descriptive. "I caught her alone in one of the storage rooms of a library, and I couldn't let a beautiful lady like herself mope alone. I offered to take her out." Dick rubs your shoulder again, and you raise an eyebrow at him. Why did you have to sound so miserable? Why couldn't it have been him?
"Actually, honey, I'm pretty sure it was you who was moping. You gave me such convincing puppy dog eyes that I just couldn't say no." You interrupt, causing Dick and Meredith to turn to you. "Isn't that right?" You turn towards Dick, smiling.
Dick laughs loudly, but doesn't hesitate, "Oh, you got me. She knows me too well." He rubs the back of his neck, grabbing your hand and clasping it into his own.
Meredith looks amused at the two of you, laughing. "Aw, true love." She gushes.
"The truest." You nod, smiling. Dick glances at you from the corner of his eye, and you make a point not to meet his glance.
"Well," she nods at the two of you, "I best be on my way. It was a pleasure as always, Richard," she smiles at Dick before turning to you and addressing you. You nod back at her with a polite smile as she walks away.
The moment she is gone, you slowly turn towards Dick. You make sure nobody is looking before glaring at him, "What the hell do you think you're—"
"Richard." Damian appears out of thin air.
Dick immediately turns to his younger brother. Meanwhile, you're still staring at him. "Dick." You spit his name out.
"Damian!" Dick grins, ignoring your piercing glare. "I didn't think any of you guys were gonna show up at the gala?"
"I came to address the allegations that have been circling." Damian adjusts his tie.
"Did you?" Dick's grin looks a lot more strained now.
Damian raises an eyebrow at him before turning to him. You cross your arms, "Don't look at me. He's the one who lied to that poor woman."
Dick chuckles softly, his eyes shifting between you and Damian nervously "I wouldn't describe her as 'poor.'"
You and Damian both glare at him, "How'd you even hear about it this fast?" You turn to Damian.
"He danced with you and publicly revealed your 'relationship' to the public." Damian eyes you, unimpressed.
"Okay, to be fair, there were dozens of people dancing, and we only talked to one person." Dick holds his hands up thoughtfully.
Damian scoffs, "One person might as well be the entire planet. Do you know what kind of people are here?" He crosses his arms.
You stare at the ground for a moment as Damian and Dick go back and forth. At a certain point, you aren't even sure what they're arguing about. They are both so distracted by themselves that they don't even notice you walk out of the balcony.
It's easy to slip away from the party, for nobody seems to take note of you as you make your way through the Manor. Eventually, you find your way to the grandfather clock, making your way down to the cave.
Upon entering, you notice that the cave is surprisingly empty, a rare occurrence on nights like these. You find a chair to sit down on, throwing the heels off your aching feet, sighing.
The soft hum of the computer isn't enough to distract you from your thoughts, nor are the quiet squeaks of the bats. Dick had been acting odd recently, but you assumed that was just a result of not seeing each other for years.
Perhaps he figured it out.
Did he figure out you liked him back then? Is this his way of humiliating you? It didn't seem like something he'd do, but perhaps he has changed. What else could've been the purpose of that stunt he pulled?
You sigh again as you lean back in the chair. God, he couldn't leave you be, could he? You were so convinced you were over him after spending years apart. All it took was one grin thrown at you and a spin on the dance floor, and suddenly, you're back in high school, attempting to hide your feelings for Robin, your Robin. He must know. Why else would he be trying so hard to spend every moment with you? Hell, he even offered to be your "date" to this event, bought matching flowers.
Damian was right, you were— are an absolute fool.
Your name echoes across the cave, and you instantly recognize his voice. Dick comes running over, concern evident in his tone, "You had me worried. One second I'm there with Damian, and the next you've vanished." He approaches you with his jacket draped over his arm.
You look up from the ground, up to his troubled eyes. He says your name softly before approaching you, "Was it too much? That's fine. I'll tell Damian off later for that. He shouldn't have confronted us then, especially after the stunt he pulled against you earlier. He and I will talk about privacy." He chuckles, attempting to fill the silence. "We don't have to go back if you don't want to, we can just stay here," he says as he sits in the chair next to you, raising his hand to place it on your lap, "together—"
"Am I a joke to you?" Your voice is quieter than you expected. Nonetheless, the words echo around the cave.
Dick pauses, taking his hand back, "What..?" He hesitates, unsure whether or not to place his hand on you. "What… A joke?" He repeats the words, as if not understanding the concept.
You look up to him, "Yes, Dick, do you think this is funny?"
His lips part, his eyes clouded with that concern, and it makes you feel sick to your stomach. Do you hate it? Love it? "I… don't—" He sputters.
"Don't play dumb with me. I know you know what I'm talking about." You sit up straighter, and he leans back away from you. He slowly stands up.
"I…" He says your name, "I really don't know."
"Oh, so you don't know that I used to like you? I find that hard to believe." Your chest shudders, and you look down, unwilling to meet his gaze.
Dick inhales sharply, and that's all the answer you needed. "You did know." You state. It's not a question, and he knows that.
His voice is pleading once again. He whispers your name, "I didn't know until recently."
"'Cause that makes it so much better. You find out that I liked you and decide that you can't live with me not being head over heels for you—"
Dick's head snaps up, "—Don't put words in my mouth." He cuts you off. "I have never once thought that or said anything like that."
"Really? So you didn't have an ulterior motive for taking me out for this tonight?" You glare at him, struggling to meet his eyes.
Dick inhales deeply, and you scoff, turning away. "God, this is why I didn't contact you."
Dick furrows his eyebrows, "What's that supposed to mean?"
You stand up, "Dick, I didn't just like you. I loved you. I cherished any moment we had together. I longed for you to say something, anything."
Dick looked at you as if you slapped him, "I didn't know."
You nod slowly, smiling humorlessly, "I know, and I don't fault you for that, but years after pining uselessly made me realize I have to move on." You stare at him, absently noting that his clothes are disheveled. The once perfectly ironed suit looks like it went through a tornado. "I spent years away, and I used that time to move on, or at least…" You trail off, shaking your head, looking at Dick.
Clearing your throat, you sit back down, "I couldn't contact you when I got back. I couldn't contact you because I'd be proving that I had made no progress. I didn't 'get over you.'" You do air quotes. "All I'd be proving was that getting over you was impossible. If years apart couldn't do it, what could?"
Dick's lip trembled, but his eyes were unreadable. "You avoided me for years to try and get over some— some crush?"
You huff, "I didn't 'avoid you for years—'"
"No," Dick cuts you off, "Don't sugarcoat it. You were avoiding me."
"I was trying to get over you."
"So you decided to— what— ditch me?"
You shake your head, "You weren't short of company." You almost regret your words at the shaky inhale from Dick. You open your mouth, then close it. "I… didn't mean it like that." You mutter softly.
Dick scoffs, running a hand through his hair, loosening the gelled strands. "How did you mean it then?"
You look to Dick, "I— Look, does it matter? We can just move on. Pretend this didn't happen."
Dick stills, "Pretend?" The word drops in his stomach.
"Dick, I knew you'd never like me." You smile painfully, your lips trembling, you look up at him from your chair, "I'm okay with it. I learned to make peace with it."
Dick looks down at you, fist clenched, his eyes darting over you in disbelief. "You're serious?" You nod. "You want to pretend that this conversation never happened? You want to pretend that I didn't wait by your apartment just to catch a glimpse of you? You want to pretend that I didn't make up some excuse to take you out here tonight? You want to pretend that the dance we shared meant nothing?"
You hold back any tearful emotions that threaten to arise. "Dick, it doesn't mean nothing." You take a deep breath, calming your breathing. "It's just… It's not like that. It's never been like that. Believe me, I wanted it to be."
"'Not like that?'" His eyes are wide, as if he can't believe your words. "I almost kissed you, and it's 'not like that'?" He doesn't bother to mask the hurt.
You shake your head, "I thought the same thing, the same thing, Dick. I thought that having a moment like that would be the start of something new, but it wasn't. I thought that maybe after the day I finally got introduced to your life, your real life, that things would change."
Dick remains silent for a moment, you think that maybe he'll let this conversation go, but he decides to ask one question: "What if they can change now?"
His words make you freeze, but your hands tremble. "Are you serious?" Your voice audibly wavers.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
You can't help the appalled scoff that escapes you, "You can't just decide to love me back, Dick. That isn't how it works. You can't just decide to love me after not loving me for years. Genuinely, did you hear the idea of me loving you and idealize what we could've been? Do you actually 'love me back' or are you only saying this because you're confused?
"No! It's not like that." Dick's voice is smaller.
You laugh, your eyes beginning to water against your will, but you refuse to let the tears fall. "Forgive me, but I don't believe you."
Dick stares down at you, seated in the chair next to the computer. He places the jacket onto the desk before turning back to you, "How can I prove it?"
You blink, looking up to face him, "What?"
"That I've loved you."
"Dick," you sigh, you're so tired, "don't—"
"Do you need me to tell you?" He walks closer to you. "Show you?" He persists.
"Dick…" You whisper shakily, turning away from Dick in your swivel chair. Dick grabs the armrest, preventing you from turning away. Your breath hitches, looking him up and down as he looms over you, his eyes desperate. At your assessment, he kneels at your feet, grabbing your hand and gently caressing it.
Horrified, you look down at him from your seated position, "What are you doing?" You ask, anger momentarily forgotten.
"Telling you." He nods resolutely, the words quiet, but strong. "Back then," he starts breathlessly, "Back then, I couldn't figure you out. You matched me in a way that no one had before, I remember—" he chuckles, the action rushed, "I remember thinking that something was different about our friendship. I wasn't sure what it was…" He relaxes once he realizes he has your attention. "I just remember attempting to find a way to get you to react. I wanted something from you, I just wasn't sure what."
You blink down at him, and he looks up at you. "It was stupid. I remember saying such stupid shit to get you to react. I didn't know what type of reaction I wanted. I just kept trying for something." He pauses. "I didn't realize it immediately at the time, but I remember now, the first time it had happened." He looks down at the ground, thoughtfully. "That day you met Bruce, before I went down the subway." Your breath hitched. "I remember you were right there in front of me. I could see how you tensed expectantly, your breath shuddering. I remember looking into your eyes, and for a moment, I couldn't think. I didn't even remember that there was a bomb down in that subway. All I could focus on was you."
Dick looks up from the ground, meeting your eyes. "I didn't know it at the time, but that was what I was looking for. The way you looked at me that day before I went down there."
You frown, closing your eyes and shaking your head. "Dick, you don't—"
"I didn't know at the time, I hadn't figured out what it was that I wanted. However, after that day, something had changed. I couldn't help but look at you differently. I noticed things I previously threw aside. I would catch myself observing you, and I didn't stop. I don't think I could've. It had just become something that I did, a habit."
He exhales deeply. "When you were gone for college, I felt like something was different."
You scoff, the action coming out softer than you intended, "You can just say you missed me."
Dick swallows, blinking up at you, "I missed you." He whispers without hesitation. You have to look away from his eyes to escape the honesty of his words.
"I missed you so much. I thought about you every day. It wasn't like how it was when we were in school together. No." He laughs quietly, "I couldn't stop thinking about you. I thought that I had just wanted you to return, but then it started to hurt. Absence makes the heart grow fonder or something…" He runs his free hand through his hair, his shoulders tense, "When I heard you had returned…" He trails off.
Sighing, you slowly grab his hand, prompting him to continue. "I… I almost wondered if I had hallucinated your voice. I couldn't— wouldn't believe you'd have returned and not tell me."
You wince at the jab, intentional or not. "I'm sorry…"
He offers you a small, melancholic smile, "I realized something when you returned. You had fallen out of love. You'd fallen out of love before I ever got the chance to tell you I had fallen in love." He huffs, shaking his head.
You mirror his action, "Dick…"
"Please," he slowly stands up, pulling you up from the chair. "I will prove it. Show you I'm not confused." You stare at him, looking at his eyes. You let him pull you closer as he brings his hand up to gently hold your chin. Your lips part in surprise. Holding your breath, you meet his eyes. "Please. Let me show you I mean this."
You are unsure how long the two of you stand there in each other's hold. Slowly, you place your hands over his shoulders, causing his tense shoulders to relax under your touch. Your eyes flicker down to his lips, but he doesn't ever divert his attention from your eyes.
"I waited for a long time." You whisper, the words barely audible.
"I know." His voice breaks slightly.
"I didn't think you'd ever reciprocate." You break eye contact with him, looking down at his chest.
He holds you tighter, "I know." He mutters softly. "I'm sorry."
You shift your downcast gaze to him, meeting his eyes. Slowly leaning forward, you close your eyes as you softly kiss his lips. You didn't draw it out, and Dick remained frozen even after you pulled back. You can't help the small smile on your face when you pull back, his pupils dilated. "I'm tired of waiting." You whisper to him.
Dick continues to stare into your eyes, dazed. You reach your hand up, hesitant to touch his face. At your hesitation, Dick grabs your hand, guiding it to his face. "I'm sorry you had to." He whispers back to you, leaning into your hand.
You hum, amused. The two of you stand there in silence for a moment, "Don't—"
"Oh my— in the cave, really?" Tim interrupts you both, causing you to flinch. Dick immediately turns to him, noting that Damian is standing next to him. "You could go literally anywhere in the manor, and you decide to do this here?"
"How long have you both been standing there?" You ask, subtly shifting away from Dick.
Tim raises an eyebrow, looking between you two. "Not too long."
Damian stares at the two of you, frowning, "I was under the impression that you and Todd had been in cohorts."
You raise your hands in surrender. Well, that moment was ruined. At Damian's words, Dick immediately whips around to you. "Don't listen to him, he misunderstood what I told him." You shake your head at Dick.
Damian narrows his eyes, "He 'bought her a croissant.'" He points at you as if it's your fault.
"Why did you say it like that?" Tim blinks wearily at Damian's odd inflection.
Damian scoffs, turning to Tim on his left, "Don't you understand the implications of such an act?"
Tim blinks down at him, "She was… hungry?"
Damian gives Tim an exasperated look before walking over to you and Dick. "Just because you're dating Richard does not mean I will forget the past." He narrows his eyes at you before turning around and walking off. Tim watches him storm off before sighing and following behind him.
You slowly turn to Dick, "He's exaggerating. Wild imagination."
Dick snorts, "I'm sure."
You grimace at the memory, "He thinks that something was going on between Jason and me."
Dick's smile falls slightly. "Was there?" He almost looks afraid of the answer.
You roll your eyes, "No. After everything we talked about, you still doubt me?" You grab his hand, pulling him towards the exit. You hear him exhale in relief, and you tilt your head. "Wait, that was an actual worry?"
Dick smiles awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with you.
"Oh my goodness, that's why you were being so weird at my apartment. You were jealous."
Dick rolls his eyes as you slowly pull him. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
You toss him a smug, knowing glance. "Mhm," You hum, walking on his side. "Wait— where are my heels?" You turn around, momentarily forgetting you took them off in anger earlier.
Dick holds them up casually, you raise an eyebrow, "When'd you grab them?" You thank him before offering him your clutch to hold as you put the heels on.
"You were distracted." He shrugs, watching as you put them on.
You roll your eyes affectionately, "Distracted." You huff, "I'm never distracted." You take your clutch back before looking into Dick's eyes, watching you with just pure adoration. Wait a minute… You recognize that look.
"Dick,"
He tilts his head, "Yeah?"
"Were you distracted that night at the subway?" You slowly turn to him.
He huffs, amused, "I did say all I could focus on was you. Why?"
You feel your smile fall as you part your mouth in horror. "Are you saying I distracted you from the bomb, thus causing you to get caught in the explosion?"
Dick purses his lips before clicking his tongue, his eyes darting around the cave, guiltily. "…It's been a long day."
"Are you saying that I caused you to almost die?!" You furrow your eyebrows in horror.
"Let's go back out there, we've been down here long enough—"
"Dick—"
"Sweetheart?"
"No— No, you can't do that."
"Actually, I think I can, boyfriend rules." He shrugs, smirking unapologetically, planting a quick kiss on your cheek. He grabs your hand before you even get a chance to retort, guiding you up the staircase back to the Manor. You don't bother to fight the small smile growing on your face, Dick's blinding grin mirroring your own.
Perhaps you can get used to this.
A/N: Heyyy, it's me. For those who stuck around to support the first part I love you so much. Every single comment fueled me to get this MONSTER of a fic done. I did NOT think I'd be posting an, essentially, 30k word fic on TUMBLR but here we are I guess.
Okay, now to business. I was ASTOUNDED by the amount of people who loved Jason's scene in the previous chapter. I hope that I did him justice in this one. While this is the end of the story for the Reader and Dick, I will throw the idea of writing an alternate ending out there.
Basically the entire first chapter would be the same, EXCEPT, the reader would get with Jason instead and everything in this chapter would be different cause it'd be reader and Jason's story, not reader and Dick's. The reader would ACTUALLY move on, rather than lie to herself for 18k words. So yeah, I'm gonna want some feedback for that because I do want to try and make it at least somewhat standalone (as in you don't need the context of chapter 1 but it still applies to the story). I know it will be LONG, so it will take me weeks to write. So let me know if you wanna see that!
Thanks for all the support on the last chapter though! I love each like, comment, and reblog I receive. I will update this post/my blog if I decide to write that, but y'all would have to be patient with me. Thanks for all the support :D
Quick update: Yeah okay you all can get the Jason ending oh my 😭😭 Thanks for the support. I know some of you were wanting her to get with him DON’T WORRY I THOUGHT THE SAMEEE THING THATS WHY I PROPOSED THE IDEA. If you want to be on the taglist let me know. I will be taking this taglist and using it for that fic (when it comes out) so if you don’t wanna be tagged for that anymore just lmk I won’t be upset!
a compilation of some of my favorite dick grayson fics 𑁤
↪︎ jason todd ver! ↪︎tim drake vers!
⋆.𐙚 ̊ frat party fiasco - beer pong turns into strip pong, and things get way out of hand when you end up in the upstairs bathroom with the president, dick grayson. this scandal is far from over, and honestly…the bathroom may never recover. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @vanillanite
↪︎ more fratboy!dick grayson
𑁤 kappa party - feeling left out at a college costume party, you meet a guy dressed as Nightwing. His costume is so authentic you felt drawn by him, not knowing he’s Dick Grayson himself. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @rskdoll
𑁤 possessive - possessive frat boy dick grayson getting increasingly more deranged about how he lays his claim on you as the semester wears on. / @uc1wa
𑁤 I got your number - dick grayson always had a chronic case of golden boy-ism for which there was no cure. everyone ever literally loved him, his floor a graveyard of bras left behind by various hookups - until he met you that is. and to his complete and utter dismay, his condition has evolved into something far worse - far more embarrassing. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @juicykvnture
𑁤 lowk a male manipulator - fratboy!dick, a man of many… talents. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @killakalx
⋆.𐙚 ̊ crave - the locals in the village had long told that the count and his family who were living in the dark castle on the hill are vampires. so you only had yourself to blame for not heeding their warning. / @cherryite
↪︎ more vampire!dick grayson
𑁤 the teeth you know - the war between the humans and the vampires has lasted for a year now. when you fled gotham, you thought that would be the last time you'd see the vampire king and the love of your life, dick grayson. You were wrong. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @sanguineterrain
𑁤 tear me open - your vampire boyfriend is feeling a bit… peckish. It’s not his fault his girlfriend is lying there looking delicious! 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @juicykvnture
𑁤 bite me (pretty please) - your best friend dick grayson is a vampire & being the stubborn individual he is he refuses to feed from you... well until now! / @nocturnellee
ghostface!dick grayson
𑁤 scream for me - the mask was his secret. but you were always his obsession. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @iydiamartinx
𑁤 just like the movies ft. wally west - when the adrenaline after fighting crime gets too much, you offer yourself up to your boyfriends for some stress relief 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @froggibus
⋆.𐙚 ̊ cherry red - you weren’t sure when dick had become part of your getting ready routine — but somehow, you couldn’t imagine it without him anymore. / @fromrory
⋆.𐙚 ̊ bite me! - having dated you for two years and known you since childhood, Dick was already used to you being somewhat obsessed with biting him. / @snorinqfawn
⋆.𐙚 ̊ scary? my god you’re divine - the vessel of enchantress is now part of the team, the league thought it was better like that, better having her on their side than against them and someone has to teach her how to control the witch. they all know who you are, or what you are, but robin is the only one who doesn't see you as a monster, he sees through you in that persistent way of his and you can't ignore him even though you want to. / @njghtiee
⋆.𐙚 ̊ bsf!dick grayson - bsf!dick grayson and his wonderful obsession with you. / @slvthrs
↪︎ bonus! more bsf!dick grayson 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @killakalx
↪︎ bonus! lowk similar dynamic 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @killakalx
⋆.𐙚 ̊ coming back to - in which, dick grayson can't stand the idea of being your ex any longer. dick grayson x ex-gf!reader 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @pluvoia
⋆.𐙚 ̊ n’ for dessert, I’ll suck ur teeth! - making out with dick grayson is like a partynextdoor song — slow, intoxicating, soaked in rhythm and heat. / @navyhaze
⋆.𐙚 ̊ ignorance is bliss - you know your boyfriend, dick is mad, purposely ignoring him isn't always the best idea... especially when your boyfriend loves to take his frustration out sexually... and you knew you were in for a long night when you came home after ignoring him all day... 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @murdock-slvt
⋆.𐙚 ̊ optimization needed - when dick grayson finds out he's not eating you out in the way he thinks you deserve, he wants to change that. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @cloudscars
↪︎ pt2! dick grayson is a munch 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @cloudscars
⋆.𐙚 ̊ sweetheart - maybe sometimes sweetheart does depend on dick too much 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @blondekisses
⋆.𐙚 ̊ nintendhoe ft.wally west - when dick & wally have a little… competition 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @juicykvnture
⋆.𐙚 ̊ help out a good friend - dick grayson is your good friend (not best, but good friend), and what kind of good friend would he be if he let you be so sexually frustrated because of your loser boyfriend? 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @murdock-slvt
⋆.𐙚 ̊ camboy!dick grayson - whose notorious for being a walking sex appeal; his pretty face fanned with long, girly lashes, paired with his toned body that would make even greek gods feel ashamed. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @navyhaze
↪︎ bonus! more camboy!dick grayson • pt2! 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @juicykvnture
↪︎ double whammy! more camboy!dick grayson 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @celestigasm
⋆.𐙚 ̊ risky temptations - you knew you should have left more space when tailing nightwing. while he might have been in his civies, that didn’t make him any less aware, which is why you’re not tied up 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @softhandz
⋆.𐙚 ̊ jealous roommate - you are Dick’s roommate and have been asked to go on a date with a guy. What you didn’t expect was for him to show up at the restaurant unannounced. / @kizubow
↪︎ bonus! more jealous!dick grayson / @noodlie-reads
⋆.𐙚 ̊ one of the girls - when you and your girlfriend go to a strip club things get heated 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @loonatears
⋆.𐙚 I could stare at your back all day - aka when you and your ex had a messy breakup… / @cheymidnights
↪︎ part 2!
⋆.𐙚 accidents happen - technically, you couldn't be blamed for thinking dick wouldn't get just a tad angry at you for touching his escrima sticks, right? I mean, you'd just been curious, you waved them around a little and now - 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @flashroid
⋆.𐙚 I need a minute - hockey just became your favourite sport after #10 Dick Grayson would not stop flirting with you the whole time. / @pookalicious-hq
⋆.𐙚 congratulations on your new improvements - You knew Dick Grayson when you were kids, back when he was Robin and you were the journalist’s daughter sneaking after stories you weren’t supposed to. He was awkward, gangly, more earnest than smooth, and you had a crush anyway. Then you left Gotham, and life moved on. Years later, you’re back in the city with a press badge of your own, chasing leads and running headfirst into trouble. Except this time, it’s not Robin who finds you, It’s Nightwing. Taller. Broader. Unfairly charming. / @cursedheartsclub
⋆.𐙚 round whatever - Dick Grayson is a chronic head tilter. It's especially bad when you're underneath him, naked and sweaty from the way he's worked you up and over the edge so many times. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @compersion
⋆.𐙚 summer roommate - you’d never met him before he moved in. your friend mentioned her brother needed a place to crash, swore he was chill, quiet, harmless. harmless was a lie. / @celestigasm
⋆.𐙚 ̊ academic rivals series! - you and dick grayson started as rivals, the kind everyone whispered about in class. top students, top of your year, neck and neck in every assignment. you couldn’t stand him: the perfect smile, the natural ease, the way he never seemed to struggle. and he found your sharp retorts and stubbornness endlessly entertaining. when a teacher paired you together for a major research project, it was war. he teased, you rolled your eyes. he smiled through everything, you matched him with pure determination. but somewhere between late-night notes and quiet library corners, things began to shift. / @njghtiee
⋆.𐙚 ̊ deprivation - in which, dick grayson has got a new-found ego; so of course, you decide to fuck it out of him. 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @pluvoia
⋆.𐙚 ̊ worth the risk - Being the Police Chief’s daughter means every cop in the precinct treats you like you’re made of glass—except Officer Dick Grayson. He’s smart, charming, infuriatingly handsome…and completely off-limits. / @angiegotham
⋆.𐙚 ̊ when fan fiction comes to life - dick finds your dirty little fanfic and brings it to life 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @celestigasm
⋆.𐙚 ̊ already? - “i’m close.” “already?” — ft. dick grayson, aka 'nightwing' 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @kkai-zen
⋆.𐙚 ̊ chemicals hit like a drug - aka dick takes matters into his own hands 𝓃𝓈𝒻𝓌 / @mostly-imagines
⋆.𐙚 ̊ date crasher - dick grayson swears he’s not in love with you. he just happens to find an unreasonable amount of joy in ruining your dates. purely for entertainment, of course. / @kthologue
⋆.𐙚 ̊ lightning strikes twice - The data indicating the average person experiences 3.4 attacks annually is misleading. You- who seem to find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time several times a month- represents a significant deviation from the norm and should not be counted in the dataset. Or; in which Nightwing accidentally develops feelings for the anxious woman whose rescue has become part of his regular nightly routine by this point. / @silverlullabies
as you can tell a lotttt of this is just pure smut but I mean, god forbid a girl creates a list while she’s ovulating :3 fanfics aside nightwing is such an amazing character I love him so much ༯
Tim: So let me get this straight, Uncle Clark is taking Damian for the weekend to stay at the Kent farm, Jason is doing a mission with Dick covering in Bludhaven, Duke is going to a concert. Steph and Cass are in Shanghai doing a mission for the Justice League, Alfred is doing Shakespeare in the Park. And I’m going to Aspen with Bernard for the weekend.
Damian: What’s your point?
Tim: Bruce is going to be alone. All weekend.
Damian: Oh, right, Father needs to nuture a child otherwise he gets distressed.
Duke: And starts snatching orphans off the street.
Steph: Making them wear costumes etc.
Dick: Oh, that’s taken care of.
Cass: How?
Jason: We give him a bag of dried rice about the same weight as a human baby.
Dick: It usually does the trick.
Cass: I’m going to need more information.
Steph: Show your work.
Dick, like its obvious: Bruce can hold the bag of rice when he starts feeling anxious about being alone.
Damian: They do something similiar to pandas in captivity when their young need to be removed for observation.
Jason: Yeah, it’s not like he thinks it’s actually one of us but it will keep him from going Robin searching or whining at the door.
Bruce, that very night: *sat leafing through casefiles with Rice!Bat Baby laid against his chest*
Thinking of best friends to lovers with dick Grayson where you’re so touchy with each other the lines kind of blur and you both try convince yourself this is what friends do when they care about each other (it isn’t)
Friends Don't
summary: You've always been close. Closer than best friends should be. Every touch, every playful shove, every late-night collapse into the same bed gets excused as “just what friends do.” But when casual affection turns into lingering hands and heat you two can’t ignore, the line between friendship and something more starts to blur. It’s a story about denial, desire, and the moment pretending stops working.
word count: 14k
c/w: mdni, best friends to lovers, piv, slow burn, blurred boundaries, poetic horniness haha, 18+, friendly grinding, denial
You tell yourself it’s practical.
You tell yourself it’s about trust and warmth and the way adrenaline leaves both of you hollowed out after patrol. You tell yourself it’s about how the couch sucks. You tell yourself a lot of things with your cheek pressed to his pillow and his breath curling the hair at the nape of your neck.
“C’mere,” he says, already scooting back, lifting the blanket like it’s an order you can’t disobey. He doesn’t look at you when he says it, he looks at the ceiling like there’s something fascinating up there, like he isn’t inviting you into the place where he sleeps and dreams. “Easier this way.”
Easier. Right.
You slide under the covers, and the mattress dips with his weight, and suddenly there’s the long, familiar line of him at your back, chest warm, arm slung heavy across your waist. His forearm is an anchor; you can feel the wiry strength even when he’s loose with exhaustion. He doesn’t pull you closer. He doesn’t need to. Your body does the math on its own, inching until the puzzle fits: your hips nesting into the cradle of his, your calves tangling with his shin. He exhales like he’s been holding his breath since the rooftop, his mouth grazing your neck. Just a brush. Friendly. Normal.
“Night,” he murmurs.
And for a few minutes there is nothing but the slow settle of two people pretending they don’t feel the other’s heartbeat where their bodies touch.
He’s careful about how he breathes. This is something you learn in the first week of sharing a bed. You don’t say it, but you mark the pattern: the smooth rise and fall, the way it stutters once when you shift, the way each inhale thereafter tightens into something too controlled. His fingers flex against your stomach like he’s scolding them. One, two, three, muscle memory from the trapeze, a count that lives in him even when he’s horizontal.
You stay very still. Your body, unfortunately, is a traitor. The ache that blooms low and steady makes your thighs want to rub together, makes your back want to arch. You stare at the darkness until the darkness stares back.
“Comfy?” he asks, so softly you could pretend you dreamed it.
“Mhm.”
You feel him smile into your skin. “Your toes are like little icicles.”
You elbow him lightly; the movement rocks you all along him. You can’t help it. Neither can he. His breath stalls for a bare, treacherous second.
“You okay?” you say before you can stop yourself.
“Yeah,” he says quickly, and then, lighter, he adds, “Yeah. Just…thinking about how Alfred’s going to roast me for leaving wet boots in the hall again.”
“Mm.” You imagine Alfred’s unimpressed eyebrows lifting one millimeter. It’s an image so absurdly domestic it steadies you, just long enough to drift toward sleep.
Somewhere around the place where dreams pool, his hand slips under the hem of your shirt. Not sneaky, not dirty, just a palm gone wandering in sleep, splayed warm over your belly. His thumb brushes back and forth once, twice. The skin there is thin; you can feel every tremor from his pulse. Your own trips over itself, bangs sloppy against your ribs.
You don’t move his hand. You tell yourself it would wake him. You tell yourself it’s fine.
You sleep badly and wake full, that kind of full that makes you want to fold yourself around something. The thing in question turns out to be Dick’s forearm. You don’t examine that too closely.
He’s already watching you when you roll over. You can feel it in the prickle between your shoulder blades. When you twist to face him, he doesn’t pretend to have been asleep; he just tips his head into the pillow and gives you the soft smile he saves for mornings. There’s stubble on his jaw. Almost invisible, but you know what it feels like from a hundred cheek kisses that were supposedly jokes.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
“Coffee?”
“Coffee.”
“Good,” he says, and then he stretches with a lazy, feline arch that drags his shirt up his stomach, reveals the cut of muscle and an old scar near his ribs you could trace in your sleep. He catches you looking and winks like you’re the one who started it. “Look at us. Functional adults.. Co-habitating and actually getting rest.”
“Speak for yourself.” You duck away from the impulse to reach across and smooth his hair. “I drooled on your pillow.”
“Not quite, sweetheart.” He’s up and on his feet in one sinuous move. “You drooled on me.”
“Maybe you’re just irresistible,” you say, not thinking. It lands between you like a dropped grappling hook.
He pauses, just a hiccup in his stride, then gathers it up with an easy shrug, eyes looking you up and down. “You’re the one who wakes up looking like that.”
“Shut up.”
“Coffee,” he singsongs, and disappears.
You stare at the crumpled dent his body left on the mattress and pretend your bones aren’t vibrating.
-
It’s harder to lie to yourself when there’s sweat buzzing on your lip and chalk grinding into your palms and the mat catching your breath with every fall. The cave smells like metal, damp earth, and the faint rubber of grapnels. He moves across it like he was born here, which, fine. He practically was. But there’s something lazy in his footwork today, something indulgent. He feeds you openings and takes them back at the last second like he likes watching you reach.
“Again?” he says, and pushes damp hair off his forehead with the back of his wrist. His shirt is plastered to him, thin black cotton, darker where sweat has soaked through. You hate that you know he’s not trying to show off; this is just what gravity does when it meets a Grayson.
“Again.”
You circle. He mirrors. Your lungs burn. The rhythm is its own language: tap, slip, pivot, feint. You sweep; he hops. He jabs; you parry. It’s choreography edged with teeth, and you love it, and you love him, and you’re not letting that thought finish.
Then he does what you were waiting for; he overcommits on a reach. You catch his wrist, drop under, twist. For half a heartbeat you have him off-balance, really off-balance, Dick Grayson, the human gyroscope, blinking as the ground tries to introduce itself to his spine.
He laughs, delighted. “Nice.”
You don’t give him time to fix it. You pin his arm, knee in between his, shoulder driving into his chest. He rolls with it, letting you, and then he’s not letting you at all. One sharp shift of his weight and your wrists thud against the mat above your head. He’s braced over you, thighs framing your hips, and the heat of him bleeds down through you like a spill.
It happens all at once: the slap of his palm on your wrist, the wet slide of breath from his mouth as he grins down at you, the switchblade flick of his eyes to your lips. There’s always been a smile in him that gets brighter when he’s proud of you; this isn’t that smile. This one is still and stunned and a little wrecked around the edges.
“Gotcha,” he says softly, like you’re something he’s caught by accident.
“Let me up,” you lie.
“You sure?”
You could buck your hips and throw him. You’ve done it a hundred times. Today your body forgets how. Your back registers the mat; your wrists register the span of his hands; your ribs register the drag of his shirt when he breathes. Your mouth goes dry enough to make a sound like sand.
He adjusts his stance. That adjustment brings the hard line of his thigh against the cradle of your hips. The friction is not theoretical. You feel him; there’s no universe in which you don’t. He feels you feel him. The knowledge flickers over his face, there and gone and then there again like a neon sign fighting to light.
His grin falters. His pupils go wide. He looks at your mouth. He doesn’t kiss you. Damn him.
He lets your wrists go. Slowly. His fingers flatten against your forearms, slide down the length of them like he’s cataloging tendons, counting freckles. He doesn’t need to touch you to get off a mat. He doesn’t need to use your body like a handrail. He does anyway, because you are both liars with greedy fingertips.
When he’s on his feet, he extends a hand to pull you up. You don’t take it. You put your palm against his knee and rise on your own and hope he can’t read your face the way he reads your footwork.
“Again?” you say, like there isn’t a ringing in your bones.
“Yeah,” he says, hoarse. Then he coughs and claps, bright and coach-like. “Yeah. One more round. You almost had me.”
You almost did. You almost had him by the hips and the soft cotton of his shirt and the mouth. You almost had him by the throat and the whole life he keeps locked up behind jokes. You almost had yourself.
You go again. You sweat. You slip. He laughs when you feint high and tag his rib low and says, “Good,” like it means more than that. When you finally throw in the towel, he catches the end of it and uses it to pull you into his side for a second. Just a second. Long enough to memorize how it feels to fit there.
“Come on.” His voice gentles around the syllables. “You need water.”
He doesn’t say, I need distance. He doesn’t say, I need your mouth. Neither do you.
-
The lie holds because it’s woven out of a thousand small threads. It holds because you both keep feeding it.
He wipes sauce from your lip with his thumb and grins at you like he caught you in a crime. “Messy,” he teases. The pad of his thumb drags slow over your mouth. You feel it everywhere. You lick your lip when he drops his hand, tasting basil and him, and his eyes go something you pretend is just amused.
“Who knew Nightwing was so polite,” you say. “Napkin me.”
“Nightwing is extremely polite,” he says solemnly, and tucks a dishtowel into the collar of your hoodie like a bib. He leans in as he does it. You tilt your chin up into the space he’s offering, a bad habit disguised as surrender. He smells like clean cotton and sweat and the faintest bite of metal polish from the cave. His nose almost bumps yours. He doesn’t pull back. He tugs your hoodie strings instead, short little tugs that shorten the distance, that put his breath where you can taste it.
“Cute,” he says.
“Manipulative,” you say. Your voice doesn’t cooperate with the crisp sarcasm you aim for. It comes out softer.
He glances at your mouth again. Quick. Reflexive. You look away first, because if you don’t you might forget the part where you’re friends.
Later, on the couch, he stretches to grab the remote and absolutely has to put his thigh across yours to get it. He makes a pleased sound when he lands back where he was, and you feel it travel up his leg into yours like a current. He scrolls, bored, while his thigh stays where it is. Heat pools everywhere you’re touching, too much fabric and not enough. You shift a little. He shifts a little. Neither of you acknowledges any of it.
“I vote dumb heist movie,” he says.
“You always vote dumb heist movie.”
“Because they’re the best. The part where the plan fails because of hubris?”
“That’s every movie. It's not my fault you don't have the attention span for something more... artistic.”
He tips his head onto your shoulder in theatrical despair. “You’re so mean to me.”
“You love it.”
He does, actually. He loves when you fight him for the last fry, when you shove his shoulder, when you knife your foot between his as you turn a corner and make him stumble, laughing. He loves the way you cut your eyes at him before you smile. He loves the mark your body leaves on his sheets, the hair you leave in his sink, the glove you left in his backseat that he refuses to return because he likes the way it looks next to his own.
You pick at a loose thread on the couch cushion and force yourself to watch the movie, not the angle of his wrist draped over your knee. You do not think about how easily that hand could skim higher. You do not think about how it would feel to take his fingers into your mouth and suck the salt of the popcorn off while he watched, stunned and silent.
He takes a call from Babs. You listen to his voice soften and sharpen by turns, and the little secret part of you that keeps records notes how his knee keeps pressing into you even while he’s talking about encrypted drives. When he hangs up, he flicks the back of your ear and says, “Stop eavesdropping.”
“You’re in my ear,” you protest.
“Great place to be.” He leans in and murmurs into that same ear, “Want dumplings?” It’s deeply unfair how good he is at deploying his voice.
You say yes because your body has started saying yes to him all on its own. The lie needs fuel. Food is fuel.
-
You cook together sometimes. Sometimes he plays sous-chef. Sometimes he plays menace.
The menace nights are the worst.
“Careful,” he says, when you’re chopping scallions. He comes up behind you and fits his hands on your hips like a demonstration. It’s not a demonstration. You feel him slot along your back, all the casual dominance of a person who knows exactly where you live in your body. “Knife skills are mediocre.”
“You’re mediocre.”
“Harsh. And we both know you don't think that's true. In fact, I'd say I'm above average.” He laughs into your hair and then…stops. He goes quiet at the end, like he remembered something he wasn’t supposed to say. You imagine him counting again. His pelvis is a warm, solid thing against your ass. You could rock back just a little and—
You don’t. He does though. It’s subtle, almost subconscious, like a steadying step on a wire. The movement swallows both of your breaths. The counter’s edge bites the front of your thighs. The knife clatters safely away from your fingers. Somewhere a streetlight hums. For a moment it feels like if the city looked into your window, the city would blush.
“Relax,” he says, voice low now, a lovers caress on the nape of your neck. He reaches past you for the knife. His chest brushes your shoulder blade. “I’ve got it.”
He slides the blade through green rings. You stare at his forearm and think obscene things about the way his tendons move under skin.
He catches you thinking them. You know he does. He puts the dull side of the knife under your chin, gentle as a lover, and tips your face up. You acquiesce because you’re treacherous. His mouth curves. He kisses the corner of your smile like a joke. It doesn’t feel like a joke. Your knees do something unsafe.
“Messy girl,” he says, though there’s no sauce this time. He wipes an imaginary smear with his thumb, real slow. The pad of it drags. You swallow and he tracks the movement like a cat watching a bird.
The lie yanks like a leash. You turn away, grab a clean pan, tell yourself you’re imagining it, all of it. You aren’t, but the pan is loud enough to make you feel normal again.
-
You start keeping score in private. Not of hits on a mat. Not of citizens saved. You keep score of all the ways Dick touches you like you belong to him and calls it nothing.
The shoulder rubs after patrol are the worst and the best. He waits until you’re half melted into the chair, until your bruises have bloomed fully, until the cave is quiet except for the murmur of distant computers and the low hum of the elevator’s heart. He comes up behind you and sets his thumbs at the base of your skull.
“You’re making that face,” he says.
“What face.”
“The one that makes me want to press here.” He presses. The world narrows to a point. Your mouth falls open into a groan. “There it is.”
“You’re,” You lose track of your insult when his thumbs drag heat down either side of your spine, catch and release on muscle. You make a sound you’ve never made anywhere but here. It embarrasses you. It makes him sit down because his legs forgot their jobs. You’re very glad he’s behind you; you don’t think you could live through seeing his face when he hears you come apart like this from his hands.
He kneads your shoulders. He’s precise. He’s careful. He’s also a little greedy. His thumbs drift. Just a little. Your body stiffens like a bowstring. He pauses long enough to be a gentleman, then chooses not to be one. He traces the ridge of your trapezius. He squeezes once at the very top of your chest, just below your clavicle, where the line of your sports bra is a suggestion and not a barrier. The sound you make could be a gasp. It could be a warning. It could be the beginning of his name.
“Cold?” he says, which would be funnier if your skin weren’t hot enough to brand him.
“Just…tired,” you say, and want to bite your tongue right off. He hums low, like he’s filed that answer in a new drawer.
He keeps touching you. You keep letting him.
If this were a test, you would fail it. If it were a trap, you would spring it. You eat your food and lick sauce off your thumb and his eyes go soft and then hard and then soft again. On the couch, you tuck your feet under his leg and he rubs his heel up your calf absentmindedly and not-at-all-absentmindedly. On rooftops, you pass off grapnels hand to hand with a brush of fingers that lasts a fraction too long. In daylight grocery lines, he rests his chin on your shoulder while you wait and talks nonsense into your ear and you pretend your spine doesn’t tingle.
The lie grows fat off the feast.
You try starving it. You go on a date with a decent human who has a clean laugh and opinions about urban planning. Dick asks how it went, and you say, “Good,” with enough brightness to sell beachfront property in a hurricane. He nods, middlingly impressed. You tell yourself you like that he doesn’t go feral at the idea. You tell yourself that means you’re still friends. His hands are at the sink, covered in suds, and he scrubs one plate like it wronged a Grayson; the muscles in his forearms jump a little harder than necessary. The lie pretends not to notice.
It fails when you fall asleep again.
Not at his place, this time. Yours. You both stagger in at an hour that has forgotten its own name, jackets dropped where they fall, boots toe-kicked into the corner. You shower with the bathroom door cracked because your body is too tired to fight steam, and he shouts over the water that he’s ordering fries, do you want fries, the answer is yes because you love salt and you love him and fries are the Venn diagram center. You dry your face badly and crawl into bed with your hair wet. You don’t mean for him to follow. He does.
No pretense tonight. No “easier.” He just stands by the bed and looks at you like he is puzzling out a code on a bomb. Then he sets a knee on the mattress, careful, like you’re breakable. The care should make you cry. It makes you greedy.
“Stay,” you hear yourself say.
His hand flattens over your hip. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t ask where to put his body. He knows. He curls into your back, curves around you until you’re the center of a shape only the two of you make. His hand slips under your shirt again, practiced now, the heat of his palm spreading low. You try not to press into it, and you obviously fail, because he makes a sound that could be a thank you or a curse spoken into your shoulder. He buries his face there. His breathing steadies. It’s pretending to be sleep. You close your eyes, and because you’re weak, you arch just enough to feel the hard press of him fit perfectly into the place between your thighs where you ache for him.
In the morning, you both pretend you don’t remember how his hand crept higher around three a.m., how his thumb stroked the underside of your breast like he was soothing himself through the worst dream of his life. You pretend you don’t remember that you woke on a desperate edge with his name half in your mouth. He brings you coffee that is mostly milk and tells you you’ve got pillow-crease tattoos on your cheek, and you tell him to shut up, and he says, “Rude,” in a voice too pleased to be wounded.
-
You lie to yourself, and he lies to himself, and the day comes when the lie surprises both of you with its own appetite.
He’s at your door after a shift at the gym, hair damp at the temples, t-shirt clinging to him like a second thought. He tosses you your hoodie and says, “Movie?” with his whole face bright, and you say yes because you are bad at saying no to him and always have been.
He piles into your couch with the casual entitlement of a cat. He hooks a foot under your leg to drag you closer; you let him. He leans back, throws an arm along the back cushion, and you are drawn under it like gravity. He doesn’t have to tug your hoodie strings this time. You go, mouth to his shoulder, breathing him in. He makes a contented sound you’ve heard from him after particularly graceful landings.
Halfway through the opening credits he reaches forward, slow, and tucks a lock of hair behind your ear. When his knuckles brush your cheek, you go very still. He does too. The room is a hush the city can’t break.
You can say no at any point. You could get up, you could say bathroom, you could cough, you could throw a pillow. You do none of those things. You sit there and look at him look at you. Your heart has climbed into your mouth, and you wonder if he thinks that makes it easier to kiss. You wonder if he knows you’d let him break you if he smiled and asked pretty.
He doesn’t kiss you. He drifts. The pads of his fingers trace down from your ear to your jaw, then to the seam of your mouth. He rubs his knuckle very gently against your bottom lip as if testing a bruise. You exhale, and your breath warms his hand, and his pupils go night-wide.
“What are we doing?” you ask, finally. It’s barely a sound.
“Being friendly,” he says. It is a joke. It sounds like a prayer.
“Friendly,” you repeat, because if you don’t you’ll say his name like confession. You try to move away to puncture the moment, but you don’t get far before he catches you by the string of your hoodie and brings you back.
“Stay,” he says, exactly the way you said it that night. It takes you apart like a quiet.
You stay. You let him tilt you until you’re half sprawled across him, your knee across his thigh, his palm firm at the low part of your back. You swear you’re just finding a comfortable position; he swears he’s just anchoring you. The lie is a third thing on the sofa, watching the movie with bright, greedy eyes.
He laughs at a line you don’t hear. You feel the laugh in your body; his chest moves under your cheek and the rumble of it is embarrassing and insolent and so alive. You want to put your mouth there. You want to hear him laugh into your mouth. You don’t do any of those things. You slip your hand under the hem of his shirt and put your palm on the warm skin of his stomach.
He stops breathing.
Your fingers are indecisive at first and then not; they splay, they trace the cut of his obliques, they find the edge of an old scar and map it like the place you’re from. He doesn’t say your name. He doesn’t say anything. His hand tightens at your back until the pressure turns into something that says mine without a single syllable attached.
The movie keeps pretending to be interesting. You keep pretending to watch. He keeps pretending he doesn’t want to drag you into his lap and beg.
“Want tea?” you ask, throat dust-dry.
“Mm,” he says. You’re not sure he heard you.
You go to the kitchen because you are a coward. He follows because he is too. He leans in the doorway and watches you like you are a problem he adores. When you turn, he reaches out and hooks a finger in your waistband to pull you half a step closer. It is nothing you deserve and everything you shouldn't want. Your mouth does something reckless.
“Don’t tug unless you mean it,” you say, lightly, like you aren’t vibrating.
There’s a half-second where you can see it, the road where he does, the road where he pins you to the counter and tells you very gently to open your mouth. You can feel the surface of that road under your bare feet.
He lets the elastic go. It snaps against your hip, a whisper of a sting. “Tea,” he says, cheeks pink. “Two sugars.”
“A child’s taste,” you say, because you have to say something that isn’t come here, please. He grins, grateful for the easy path. The kettle sings. You pour. He steals the first mug out of your hand and takes a greedy sip and burns his tongue and looks outraged at the laws of thermodynamics. You laugh, and he points his wounded expression at you like a weapon. You tuck your face against his shoulder to hide how charmed you are. He wraps an arm around you and sways like music is playing. The lie sighs in relief at the reprieve.
When you sit back down, he stretches across you again to grab the remote; his thigh presses and stays, the heat of him steady, throbbing. He doesn’t move it. You don’t ask him to. Somewhere around the midpoint of the movie you get so tired you fold. Your body slumps. He draws you into his lap with the same motion he uses to catch a trapeze bar, smooth, practiced, confident. It is not the first time you’ve sat here. It is the first time you notice the sound he makes when you settle fully: a low, dark breath, bitten off like he’s worried it will get him in trouble. You shift to get comfortable; you feel him, already thick behind the zipper of his sweats. He shifts with you, ostensibly to make room. The lie applauds.
If you wanted, you could ride this line forever. You could harvest every slow, illicit pleasure from the border and never cross it. You could be the person who knows all his favorite mugs and where he keeps his heating pad and the exact weight of his body when he falls asleep on your shoulder. You could never know how his mouth tastes after he’s been laughing. You could be safe and sweet and starving.
You tilt your head back to look up at him. He’s looking down at you like you are suspended above the earth. He looks scared. He looks brave. He looks like he’s going to ruin you, and you would thank him.
“Your heart,” he says, surprised. “It’s—”
“Loud?” you say. “Yeah. Yours too.”
He wets his lips. You watch it. His hand, heavy at your hip, squeezes once. It feels like a question. You could answer it. You don’t.
“Friends,” he says.
“Friends,” you echo.
His mouth curves. He tucks you under his chin and kisses your hair, a sweet, nothing kiss that makes your eyes sting. The movie finishes. The credits roll. Neither of you move.
Later, you will tell yourself the reason you got into bed with him again is that it was late. You will tell yourself the sparring matched your breathing. You will tell yourself the shoulder rub made your muscles slack and needy. You will tell yourself that the reason you slid back against him and pushed until you felt him fit perfectly along you was that you were cold.
You will say “just tired” and he will say “just friendly” and the lie will purr.
He jerks off in the shower the next morning with his teeth sunk into a smile that wants to say your name. You rub yourself through your underwear and bite back a sound because the walls are thin. You both rinse your hands and make eggs. You bump hips and call him ridiculous and he bows at the waist like a clown and steals the spatula from your hand with a flourish, and when his thumb ends up in your mouth again you suck the sauce off without thinking and his breath stops hard enough to hurt him.
You pull back first, because you have made a religion of it. He turns to the sink because he has made a ritual of it. From the doorway, the morning looks ordinary.
“Training?” he asks over his shoulder.
“Training,” you say, and you don’t mean the mats.
“Good,” he says, and you both pretend the word doesn’t hit you somewhere it shouldn’t.
You leave together, shoulder to shoulder, steps timed without trying. The city is bright and uncaring. The cave is waiting. The mat is waiting. The line is waiting.
You are, too.
-
The limo is too full, too bright inside, too loud with chatter about endowments and silent auction lots. It smells like velvet and champagne and something expensive you can’t name. You climb in last, the door already closing behind you, and there’s nowhere to sit, just a sliver of leather that would have you half in Tim’s lap and half in thin air.
“Here,” Dick says, easy like water. He’s already spreading his knees to make room and patting his thigh like it’s no big deal, like he hasn’t been looking at you all evening like you’re a star chart he’s memorizing. “It’s cramped.”
You hesitate for a polite second, the kind people perform in public to pretend they have dignity, and then you settle, careful, the satin of your gown whispering as it pools across his lap. The door thunks, sealing you both in with the city’s lights dragging across the tinted glass like spilled gold.
He catches your waist to steady you. Practical. Necessary. You’d fall otherwise. His hands are warm, even through the fabric, even through your own pulse thudding a staccato, you feel the heat of him seep in. His tux is fitted, and you can feel the give of muscle under it, the taut coil of him like a spring set to a lower tension tonight because he’s supposed to be charming, not terrifying. The car lurches into motion. The sway rocks you forward; his hands tighten, pulling you back. You settle deeper, just to test gravity. It obliges.
Barbara is saying something razor-quick and clever across the car; Bruce is pretending not to enjoy it. Tim’s phone lights up and goes dark. Laughter hums. The city hums. The tires find a seam in the road that sends a slight rise through the chassis, a wave that travels through metal and leather to you. The wave picks you up and sets you down exactly against the length of him. Hard, undeniably so.
You go very still. A helpless, treacherous inhale breaks the line of your composure.
His breath hits your ear on the exhale. You feel rather than hear the way it catches. “You okay?” The question is so low you could pretend it’s the engine.
You tip a smile over your shoulder, eyes on his bow tie so you don’t have to look at his mouth. “Mm. Just…crowded.”
“Yeah.” His voice rakes through the word like it has edges. “Just cramped.”
He doesn’t move his hands. Which would be fine if the car didn’t keep moving.
Bumps become math problems. Every acceleration is an equation with no safe answer: if the limo turns left at x speed, your body will slide y degrees, which means the apex of your thighs will.... You adjust, you swear it’s only to get your balance, and the slow drag of satin against wool makes you think wild, undignified thoughts. His palm flexes on your thigh once, like he’s tamping down a reflex. He’s steadier than you, or he’s at least better at the lie.
“Did you see the lot list?” Barbara asks, still across the car. “Tim’s going to waste his allowance on vintage ROM chips he insists are important.”
“They are important, you just lack vision,” Tim says mildly, without looking up. “And it’s not an allowance.”
Bruce doesn’t sigh. He weaponizes a single eyebrow.
Dick leans forward to join the conversation because he’s a good son and an even better brother; when he does, you ride his body up and then down again. The collar of his tux nudges your shoulder blade and the clean, faint bite of cologne sneaks under your skin. He’s laughing, you think. You feel the vibration of it more than you hear the sound. It rolls through your spine and out along your nerves. You tilt a hair’s breadth closer to his mouth to feel it again. You are not an honest person.
Tim’s screen goes dark; the limo glides to a stoplight. Red floods the cabin, washes the world in a color that makes the inside of your cheeks feel fevered.
“Comfortable?” Dick murmurs, and you deserve the teasing in it.
“Perfectly,” you whisper back, your lips barely moving. “Like a seat custom-ordered.”
He huffs, almost chokes on a laugh, and you feel him fight it down. “Don’t,” he says, and you don’t know whether he means don’t tease or don’t move or don’t look down and see what you’re doing to me.
You don’t look, but you can feel it. Satin, wool, the firm heat under that; no imagination required. The hot length of his stiffened cock rests firmly beneath your ass. If you shift just so, you'd feel it where your cunt has begun to weep. Your body is a traitor with excellent memory, a catalog of how his chest feels at your back, how his hand feels heavy on your stomach in sleep, how his voice feels inside your ear when he says your name like it’s an answer. All the little domestic sins gather in you like sparks.
The light turns. The driver takes the turn soft; you should be grateful. You aren’t. You think about street-level physics, how one wrong bump could make you moan in a car full of some of the sharpest people you know. You press your mouth into a neutral line and focus instead on the tiny details that keep you human: the catch in his tuxedo’s topstitching under your palm; the single-stitched edge of his cuff grazing the inside of your knee; the slightly crooked bow because he tied it himself and you watched, biting your smile; the way a vein at his temple ticks twice and then steadies when you breathe like you mean it.
“Are you going to get any of those little crab cakes?” Barbara asks you, breaking your concentration and saving your life.
You find a voice. “Even if I have to lunge from three tables over to beat Jason to them like it's an Olympic sport.”
“Go for gold,” she decrees, eyes glinting.
Dick’s thumbs rub a slow circle on your thighs, absent-minded in a way that is nothing of the sort. He’s steadying you, sure. You’re sitting on him in a moving vehicle. Friends steady friends. His pulse is a drum under your fingers where they rest on his sleeve anyway, the beat giving him away.
The car rolls to a stop at the gala’s portico. Outside, flashbulbs strobe behind velvet ropes. The door opens to chill air and everything shuffles: bodies, hemlines, conversation. You start to stand and he’s there, hands cutting your waist a whisper lower than polite, lowering you off his lap like you might trip. You don’t. He still catches your elbow. He brushes your gown into place like chivalry is a full-contact sport.
“Ready?” he asks, and the question has nothing to do with cameras.
You swallow. You nod.
Inside is marble and orchestra and champagne that tastes like biting bubbles. You take one because it gives your hands a job. Dick takes two so he can press one into your palm and have a reason to touch your wrist. He is the same brand of dishonest you are. It should make you feel better. It makes you feel seen.
You walk the circuit together like you’ve always done, foundation board, donors, the older couple who adore his smile, the middle-aged man who tries to sell you both on a tech charity you’ll research later because your instincts don’t like the tinny ring in his pitch. Dick listens the way a trapeze artist looks: intent, kinetic even when he’s standing still. He laughs at the right places, offers a few sincere words about the community programs, doesn’t drop your hand when you thread your fingers through his under the tablecloth to squeeze once at a subtle cue only the two of you can feel. His thumb slides along your knuckle in return, careful, covert. Friends do that. Friends calibrate.
The orchestra shifts into something slow. People flood the dance floor with relief. He turns to you, tilts his head toward the swell of sound. “Two minutes,” he begs. “Then I’ll let you hide near the potted palm with Bruce.”
“Bruce is the one hiding,” you say, but you set your empty flute on a tray and step into his space.
His palm finds the small of your back like there’s a magnet there. You go weightless for a second, some muscle memory from him, some from trust. His other hand takes yours, his fingers swallowing yours, and you sway into time like you were made for it. Which, fine, you were. You’ve learned Dick’s body the way you learn a route through the city you love: turns, shortcuts, where the light hits best.
He keeps you close under the pretense of crowded floor etiquette, but you can feel the choice in it: the way his palm settles low; the way his forearm brushes the side of your chest as he steers you into a turn; the way he angles his body so your hips slot just so when you step in. If you wanted plausible deniability, you should have stayed home.
“You clean up nice,” he says, conversational, as if he isn’t talking directly into the press of your cheek against his jaw.
“So do you. They should let you wear this when we stake out rooftops. Distract the perps.”
“Right, I’ll fight crime with lapels.”
“Deadly lapels.”
His laugh fans against your temple. You breathe it, greedy. His breath catches on the inhale. “You okay?” you ask softly, throwing his line back at him to see what he does with it.
“Yeah,” he says, like a promise he means to keep. “Just thinking about how we don’t get enough nights like this.”
“Champagne and very bad shrimp?”
“Lights,” he says. “Music and…you not bleeding.”
“High bar.”
“I know what I like,” he says simply, and when he spins you and draws you back in, you feel the words settle somewhere low and bright. "And that's you. Mostly."
It would be easy, so disastrously easy, to tilt your head, angle your mouth, and catch him mid-laugh. You could blame bubbles. You could blame the room. You could blame the bruise of almosts you’ve both been collecting. You don’t. He doesn’t. The song ends. The orchestra surges into something faster. You clap with everyone else and step back. He lets you. He always lets you.
“Air?” you ask, and he reads everything you didn’t say.
“Yeah.”
You slip out onto a balcony that bites your skin with a January mouth. Gotham breathes below you, steam from vents, the flash of river like a blade. He shrugs out of his jacket and wraps it around your shoulders before you can protest. It’s warm. It smells like him. It makes your throat feel small.
“You’ll freeze,” you say.
He shrugs, and in the half-dark he is all lines and bright eyes. “Occupational hazard.”
“Of being decent?” you ask, too soft.
“Of being with you,” he says, and then immediately makes it lighter, eyes widening in exaggerated innocence. “Because you attract wind.”
“Right. The wind adores me.”
“Wind and I have the same taste,” he says, and then the door opens and the spell breaks and you are talking about municipal art grants with a woman who has opinions on color theory instead of the way his knuckles looked where they held your waist.
You do the rest. You smile, you circulate, you rescue Tim from a man who wants to show him seventeen photos of a car restoration, you watch Dick accept compliments on a program he trained twice as hard for as anyone knows. He looks at you across a lobby and does that thing, two raised brows, a very small tilt of his head, that means you okay? and you do the tiny shrug that means yes and also no and also come get me when you can.
He does.
“You good?” he asks when you’re finally in the elevator down to the lobby, just the two of you and a chandelier that’s seen a century of bad decisions.
You look up at him. “Always.”
He tucks a stray hair behind your ear, the pad of his finger catching briefly on your earring. “Liar.”
“Hypocrite.”
“Touché,” he says, and the elevator opens and the city swallows your faces whole.
The ride back is quieter. Fewer people. You could sit anywhere. You sit beside him. He doesn’t pull you into his lap this time. He drapes his arm across the back of the seat and lets his fingers curl into the top of your shoulder, absent, proprietary. You lean, you can’t not, and the weight of his hand settles you like a hand on a skittish horse. You watch streetlights smear. You pretend your chest isn’t aching like muscle.
When the car drops you, he walks you to your door. There is a universe in which he kisses your cheek and says night like a promise. There is a universe where he kisses your mouth. You unlock the door instead and say goodnight like an apology you don’t mean. He nods like a person who deserves more than this and keeps taking exactly what you give. He reaches like he’s going to muss your hair. He doesn’t. He puts his hand on the doorframe, leans in a fraction toward your face, and then says, “Text me when you’re in,” in the voice he uses at the end of rooftops when the air goes wrong. You say you will. He looks at your mouth because he’s a hazard. You step inside because you are too.
You text. He replies with a thumbs-up and then a photo of your earring you didn’t realize you’d dropped in the limo. It sits in his palm like a small moon. He says I’ll bring this by tomorrow. You say thief. He says any excuse to see you. You stare at the read receipt until you hate yourself a little and then you take a shower that is too hot and you don’t think about the way you sat on his lap, pussy soaked, and you don’t think about the way your body still feels like it’s swaying.
You sleep badly when you're alone now. When you dream, you’re on a wire, the city below you black and shining.
-
After patrol, the world shrinks back down to sweat and Velcro and the metallic reek of adrenaline’s aftertaste. The city got mean near dawn; your knuckles are scabbed where the glove split; the seam of your suit rubbed raw on the inside of your knee. Dick’s door clicks behind you like you outran something for one more night. He tosses his domino on the entry table and watches it rock to a stop like a coin; you peel yours off and set it beside his, both masks facing up, blank-eyed and domestic.
You breathe. He breathes. The big things you don’t say crowd the hallway, but they’re quieter in the half-light of his apartment. Here, the lie is easier to feed. It likes the smell of laundry and lemon dish soap and him.
“Stand still,” he says, gentler now. He is always gentler when you’re scraped. “You’ve got a rip.”
He steps behind you. The zipper’s tab is cool where it kisses your nape. His knuckles skim the knobs of your spine as he eases it down. Goosebumps flare across your back in a wave you can’t stop. You can feel his eyes catch on them, that old, careful attention he gives you when you’re in pain, when you’re in danger, when you’re in a new dress. It is all the same attention with different music playing.
“Cold?” he asks, and his voice has midnight in it even though the clock near the sink says 5:12am.
You tell the lie you’ve both chosen. “Just the a/c.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, dubious, fond. The zipper surrenders more fabric and the air finds more of your skin. You breathe through it like a stretch. He helps you slide one arm free, then the other. He’s methodical; he doesn’t look in the mirror over the credenza to see your face. You’re grateful and furious.
“Sit,” he says.
“I can—”
“Sit,” he repeats, and there’s no room in it for anything but trust.
You sit on the counter’s edge. He retrieves the first aid kit because he could do it in his sleep, has done it in yours. He sets out saline, gauze, tape. He doesn’t hum. Tonight’s not a humming night.
When he cleans the graze on your knee, he looks at it like it offended him, like a jealous person looks at an ex. “This'll sting,” he warns, and it does, and you exhale through your teeth. He goes softer immediately, the pads of his fingers barely touching your skin. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“Still,” he says, and runs gentleness over the sting until the sting blinks and lets go.
He moves on to your knuckles. “Can you make a fist?” You do. He nods; a pleased sound curls out of him, warm and rough. “Good. You’ll live.”
“Dang,” you say. “And here I was hoping to haunt your apartment, knock over your protein powder.”
“Joke’s on you,” he says. “I'd just bring Damian over. He'd exorcise you with a look before breakfast.”
“True.”
He wraps your hand like it’s a gift he’s saving for later. When he’s done, he touches a clean square of gauze to your cheek, a nothing touch, an excuse to cradle your face, thumb landing near your mouth. He looks at the corner of your lip like there’s sauce there. There isn’t. You could be noble. You could be so good. You aren’t. You turn into his palm, just a degree, and your mouth nearly brushes the pad of his thumb. His breath does that hitch again. He leans a fraction before he stops himself, a muscle in his shoulder jerking like he yanked hard on his own leash.
“Hey,” he says softly, the word scraping delicate. “You should shower.”
“Always telling me what to do.”
“Can't help that I'm good at it,” he counters, but his eyes won’t leave your mouth.
“You first,” you say, because if you step into steam right now you’ll drown.
He tilts his head. He could argue. He doesn’t. “Okay.”
He doesn’t go far. The bathroom is within earshot; you hear the pipes cough before the water evens out into a steady rush. You stare at the empty doorway and feel your own pulse in your fingers, at your throat, in the sore meat of your knuckles. The apartment smells like damp gear and his shampoo and the orange he ate on the way home. You peel the rest of your suit down to your waist and sit bent forward, elbows on thighs, and breathe until your skin fits again.
When he comes back, his hair is damp and his t-shirt is a size too big, clinging where it’s caught. He has a towel looped around his neck like a boxer. He stops when he sees you half undressed on his counter, the line of his throat going tight. He doesn’t look away. He doesn’t leer. He looks like someone stood him on a wire and told him to walk without a net.
“Your turn,” he says finally. His voice is careful, steadying both of you.
You slide off the counter and the hem of your suit drags at your thighs and the moment drags with it. You move past him and he steps out of your way. He doesn’t touch you. He touches your elbow. It is nothing. It is everything.
The shower is hot enough to steam the mirror. You brace your hands on tile and let the water pound the back of your neck. Your body is an instrument you’ve tuned with him for months; it starts humming as soon as you’re alone. You see flashes when you close your eyes: the red-light wash of the limo; the line of his mouth during the dance; his thumbs circling your thighs; his hand lowering you off his lap; the easy, filthy warmth of him under you and the way you didn’t move away. Your own knuckles, wrapped by him, look like someone else’s hands. You press your forehead to the wall and breathe until the rhythm is less dangerous.
When you come out, your skin is scrubbed pink and your hair is a wet rope down your spine. He’s exactly where you left him, perched on the far arm of the couch with a glass of water in his hand like a stage direction. He looks up and his eyes eat you and then apologize for it.
“I stole you a hoodie,” he says, offering it like a gift and a truce. It’s the gray one with the softened cuffs, the one that smells like nights you don’t talk about. You pull it on and it halves your heart rate.
“Thanks,” you say, small.
“Come here,” he says, smaller.
You do. You tuck yourself against his side, your legs up, your cheek against the cotton of his shirt. He sets the glass down and slides his hand under the hem of the hoodie to the bare skin above your hip like he forgot there was another option. His palm is very warm. The place where he’s touching you goes soft and wild at once.
“You good?” he asks into your hair.
“Yeah,” you lie.
“Yeah,” he lies back.
The city is waking. It paints the edges of his furniture in thin, cold light. You hear a bus brake somewhere, the low murmur of news from a neighbor’s TV. You feel safe in a way that almost makes you angry.
“Do you ever...” You stop. He waits. It kills you that he waits so well. “Do you ever think we’re…bad at being normal?”
“Yes,” he says instantly, a smile in it. “But we’re excellent at our version.”
“And what is that?”
He drags his thumb along your waist. “Crowded couches,” he says. “Bad boundaries. You stealing my socks. Me stealing your good pen. Me pretending to like your playlist. Me pretending I don’t like how you take all the covers.”
“You love my playlist,” you say, affronted.
“I love how you sing the words wrong and then start talking to try and distract me from what you did.”
“I don’t,” you begin, and then catch the shape of the conversation before it turns into something you can’t manage. You nudge his ribs with your elbow. “Don’t make me fight you when I’m clean.”
“Perish the thought.” He squeezes your hip once. The once turns into twice. Your body shivers in response. “Hey. You’re... You shivered.”
“It's your fault for keeping the a/c so high,” you say automatically, and he breathes a laugh like a long-suffering saint.
“Right,” he says. He doesn’t move his hand. He doesn’t press his mouth against your temple. He doesn’t do a lot of things. Then he tips his head and kisses the crown of your hair because he is who he is. It is not harmless. It is not dangerous. It is oxygen.
You could sleep like this. You have. You will. It’s not the right time for something else, your muscles are spent, your skin is buzzing, your conscience is a thin, trembling thing, so you fold into the warmest version of the lie and you rest there until your breath syncs with his, until your arm goes pins-and-needles under your head, until the window brightens another shade.
At some point you wake to find his hand has moved in his sleep, his fingers splayed lower on your stomach, the heel of his palm curving protective and a little possessive over the place where your body is soft. You could move it. You don’t. He makes a sound against your hair that is nothing like a word and everything like a home.
“Hey,” he says eventually, not opening his eyes. “Hungry?”
“You know it.”
“Pancakes?” He says it like a ritual and a joke.
“Always,” you answer, and he lets you go with the reluctance of a person leaving heat for cold.
He makes them by rote, clean and focused, flipping with a flick perfected on high wires and rooftops. You lean against the counter in his hoodie with bare legs and a bandage on your knee, and he leans an elbow next to you while the second batch bubbles, and he listens while you tell him about the man on the fire escape and the dog that wouldn’t stop barking. He tilts his head as you talk, watching your mouth, and when you stop, he doesn’t fill the silence with a joke. He just looks like he’s memorizing you again, and then he leans in, real slow, and wipes a dot of flour off your cheek with his thumb.
“Messy,” he says softly, as if he hasn’t used this exact excuse before.
“Manipulative,” you reply like you always do, but your voice is not a weapon anymore. It’s a wish.
He smiles in a way that doesn’t solve anything and solves everything. “Eat first,” he says gently, and slides a plate toward you, and it is the kindest thing anyone has ever said to you.
You eat. He eats. There are a thousand opportunities in the small minutes: the way he watches your mouth when you lick syrup off your fork, the way your knee slots between his when you turn to grab the maple bottle, the way he catches your wrist without looking when the plate starts to slide. None of them end you. All of them tilt the world a degree.
After, the sink runs and the sun yawns higher and you both exist in the exquisite torment of almost. He stands at the window with a mug, hair drying into messy curls, and you stand beside him with your shoulder brushing his and your pulse settling into something less frantic. You will spar tomorrow. You will lie again. You will sit in his lap in a car again like gravity is a decision. You will unzip and be unzipped; you will claim you are cold; you will be “just tired.” The line will thin to a wire. The wire will hum.
“Hey,” he says without turning his head.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for…being here.” The sincerity is naked enough to make you look away.
“Always,” you say. It’s not dramatic when you say it. It’s a weather report.
He takes your empty mug; his fingers slide over yours and stay a heartbeat too long. “Good,” he says softly, something satisfied and terrified braided together inside the word. “Good.”
You stand there, shoulder to shoulder, watching the city pretend at daylight, and you both pretend you aren’t already deciding where the next excuse will be made: a couch, a rooftop, the cradle of his bed. You both pretend you don’t know how inevitable this is, the slow, practiced choreography of two people inching toward a cliff with their eyes open.
Later, when you’re ankle-deep in rubber flooring and chalk again, he will take you down clean and pin your wrists above your head and your thigh will open under his palm like a ceremony. That is for later. For now, there is the quiet, the sugar crust of pancakes on your tongue, his hoodie around your shoulders, his shoulder against yours.
For now, there is the way his hand drifts, lazy yet reverent, to the small of your back and stays there, and how neither of you says a word about it, and how the silence between you is not empty at all. It’s full of everything you’ve decided not to do yet, heavy and sweet as the moment before a fall that you’ve rehearsed so well, you almost believe you can stop it.
Almost.
-
It’s a casual night in with the kind of ease that makes you brave enough to be stupid.
Pizza boxes on the coffee table, your socked feet under his thigh, a dumb movie you’ve both seen enough times to recite. He’s sprawled into your space like a cat who’s decided you’re furniture. Every time you reach for a slice, his knee knocks yours, and every time you complain about his terrible topping ratio, he steals your crust and grins at you like it’s a victory worth framing.
It starts as nothing. It always does.
“You going to hide behind that couch cushion all night?” he teases, reaching to yank it out of your arms.
“Depends,” you say, hugging it tighter. “You going to keep forcing me to watch a heist movie with three separate flashback montages?”
“It's called Cinema.” He lunges for the cushion; you twist, laughing, and it’s ridiculous that the sound alone could hook something low in him. "A peon like you wouldn't understand." He leans, you lean, the couch tips closer to mutiny.
“Richard John Grayson.”
“Give,” he says, delighted, and you clutch tighter, and suddenly you’re both twelve and also very much not twelve. His fingers skate around your wrists, warm and sure, and you should surrender the cushion, you should let him win this one, because what’s at stake isn’t fabric, isn’t teasing, isn’t even pride.
You don’t let go.
He’s giggling by then, actually giggling, helpless and bright, and it rattles your chest in a way you’ll be thinking about tomorrow. The pillow goes flying. Your hands are empty. His are not. His are everywhere you are, your wrists, your ribs, your knee as he nudges it with his to unseat your balance.
“You fight dirty,” you accuse, breath skittering.
“Mm,” he says, catching your wrists and pressing them to the couch above your head, eyes glittering with joy and something razor-bright beneath it, “says the girl who weaponized a couch cushion.”
“Maybe you should be nicer to me,” you say, trying for dry, landing on breathless.
“Maybe you should stop looking at me like that.”
“How?”
“Like you want to lose,” he says, and it’s a joke until it isn’t, his smile catching on the last word.
You buck to throw him off. He laughs, the triumphant bark of an acrobat landing a blind catch, and you use the burst of smugness against him, roll, shove, drag him down. He oofs. He lets you think you’ve got him, because he’s a menace, and then he flips you cleanly, like gravity is optional and you’re not.
"Still think I want to lose, Grayson?"
Your wrists hit pillow, then couch, then his hands. His hips slot between your thighs with practiced inevitability. He’s looking at your mouth, then your eyes, then your mouth again, and you’re laughing because you don’t know what else to do with your lungs.
“I love when you play tough, sweetheart,” he says, a little rough, a little too honest as he grins down at you, “when we both know how soft you really are.”
Your laugh drops right through the floor. Air thins. Light goes honey-thick. The movie keeps playing, someone’s sneaking through a vault; the score ticks like a clock, but the room’s center of gravity is here, under his hands, in your ribs, right where your pulse has decided to be embarrassingly loud.
“You’re a dick,” you manage, because it’s easier than yes.
“Uh-huh.” He tucks your wrists higher into one palm and, with criminal finesse, slides his other hand under your knee and hooks it up his hip. You open without thinking, a reflex trained by sparring, by a hundred couch collisions, by trust you didn’t mean to grow this tall. Your breath slips. His does, too.
“Careful,” you say, and you don’t know if you mean him or you or the thing you’ve both been pretending is a ledge and not the lip of a fall.
“Not tonight,” he says, so gentle you could cry.
He lowers, not pouncing, but folding down like a promise, like a curtain drop on everything you’ve not-said. His hips settle flush. It’s not training; your body knows the difference, knows it so immediately you almost laugh again, wild with relief and fear.
“Dick,” you say, warning and want braided into a single syllable.
He’s hard against you. There’s no pretending left in this exact geometry. It’s basic physics, proof written in heat and pressure. Your knee hooked high on his hip, his palm warm under the soft of your thigh, the maddening, perfect grind that happens when he breathes; you feel your own lie crumple like paper in rain as your cunt begins to ache.
He watches your face. You watch his. Both of you go very still. That stillness holds a yes so old it feels like your name.
You break first.
You tip your chin and kiss him.
There’s no test-peck in it, no polite “let’s see.” It’s teeth on a tightrope you’ve been walking on for months. It’s your hand in his hair, no finesse, just need, dragging him down. It’s the crackle of a fuse meeting spark. His mouth hits yours like he’s been falling for years and finally met ground. He gasps, gorgeous and helpless, and then he’s in it, gone, chasing the shape of you, moving his mouth when you move, answering when you open, swallowing the noise you didn’t know you make when relief stings.
It’s clumsy in the way all honest first kisses are. You both overshoot. Your teeth knock. Your nose bumps his cheek. He laughs, breath mixing with yours, and corrects the angle with a hand at your jaw, thumb at your hinge, and then, oh, then he kisses you like he knows a hundred languages and every one of them means I’m here.
You try to play coy. You’ve been trying to play coy for months. “Dick, no,” you murmur, dragging him closer by the hair, your mouth slanting, greedy, your body arching into him like it’s been waiting in a shadow for this exact light. “We can’t ruin our friendship,” you whine, and his name in your throat sounds nothing like no.
He smiles against your mouth, wrecked and fond. He’s shaking a little; adrenaline, restraint, you. “Your mouth may be lying,” he says, kissing the corner of it, then the bow of your top lip, then the soft center again, voice gone low and rough, “but your body is honest, baby. Tell me what you really want. If you want to stop, we stop.” He lifts his head enough to look at you when he says it, eyes blue and clear and steady even while he’s breathing like a man just pulled from a deep dive. “But if you want me… then take me.”
You don’t even pretend to think. You hook your free leg around his waist and tug, bold and shameless. “Stay,” you say, and it’s please and finally and yes all at once.
He kisses you like gratitude.
Clothes become problems to solve. He releases your wrists, not because he wants to, you think, but because he wants to see what you’ll do with the freedom. You show him. You tug at his t-shirt, palms sneaking underneath, spreading over the heat of his back. He goes very, very still, like a man letting a new kind of electricity build.
“Skin,” you say, quiet order, and he obeys it beautifully, whipping the shirt off in a thoughtless arc. He’s all lines and old stories, faded marks, a healed seam that your thumb finds like it’s written there for you. You clock it, reverent, and he watches your face as you trace it, something hungry and relieved flickering through his eyes at the care.
“You’re...” You break off, because there’s no non-ridiculous way to tell him he’s beautiful when he’s this close and this undone and smiling at you like you hung the moon crooked just to watch him fix it.
“So are you,” he says fiercely, and it lands like a palm to your sternum, startling you open. He tugs at your shirt and pauses. “Can I?”
You nod. He waits. You swallow. “Yes.”
It comes off slow. Not a tease, an inventory. He peels it over your head and breathes like the world just got brighter. His hands are warm where they frame your ribs, thumbs wide, gentle pressure that says mine without taking. “God,” he says, almost to himself. “I’m in so much trouble.”
“Me too,” you say, and the smile you manage is wobbly and real, and it kills him a little, and he kisses you for that, too.
The movie is a distant pulse now, explosions masquerading as a heartbeat. The couch is a rooftop with no wind. He brackets you with his arms and you sit up into him, chest to chest, mouth to mouth, thighs caging his hips as if you’ve always known how. His hand slides into your hair and you feel the strength check itself, feel him recalibrate to hold you like a thing that can break and has chosen not to. He kisses your jaw, your throat, the soft place below your ear, slow and shaking, as if he’s asking a thousand questions with his mouth, and you answer yes to every one.
“Tell me if you want to slow down,” he says, lips moving over your skin.
“Faster,” you say, and he laughs into your neck, dizzy and so stupidly in love with you.
When he pushes you back into the cushions, you go willingly, dragging him with you. It stops being play somewhere between the third kiss and the fifth; it stops being pretend when he groans, low, helpless, at the way you roll your hips up to meet him. You catch it like a prize and tuck it behind your tongue to listen to later. You feel him shudder, the hot, involuntary press of him through denim, and your body, honest as it is treacherous, answers in kind, arching, chasing, heat sparking against heat.
“Bedroom,” he manages, sounding like a man making a tactical decision in a firefight.
“Carry me then, punk,” you counter, and he tosses his head back and laughs like you’ve saved him from something.
He scoops you and stands, and you gasp because you weren’t ready to be that handled and that safe at once. He adjusts his grip once: one forearm under your knees, one palm flat to your back, your body tucked against his chest like a secret. “I’ve got you,” he says, a reflex that finally, blessedly, isn’t a lie.
“I know,” you say, because you do, because you always have, and your arms loop around his neck while your legs lock on his hips like you were designed for the job.
The hallway is dark except for streetlight slicing through blinds. You see your bodies in those stripes; his shoulders, your legs cinched around his hips, his jaw set high with the effort not to sprint. He nudges his bedroom door with a knee, and it swings, and you think the ridiculous thought that you’ve seen this room a hundred times but never like this, never with heat coiling tight under your skin and the smell of him crowding out gravity.
He sets you down on the edge of the bed like you’re both made of glass and gunpowder. You make fists in his belt loops and drag him forward because you are also made of floodwater and want. He leans, catches himself on his palms to keep from crushing you, and then seems to think better of that, because a heartbeat later he does the far more honest thing and lowers his weight onto you like a blanket you’ve been cold without. The sound you make is a swallowed cry. He answers it with your name.
“Look at me,” he says, soft command.
You do. His eyes are so blue they’re almost ridiculous. There’s a question in them so simple it aches: Are you here?
“Yes,” you say aloud, just in case.
“Good,” he says, like a prayer, like a curse, like both.
The tug-of-war happens right on schedule. Your brain does a panic sprint while your body builds a cathedral of yes. His mouth is on your collarbone, and you’re thinking about the first time he argued with you for fun, and the way he keeps spare gloves in his trunk in case you forget yours, and how he knows the exact shape of your laugh when you’re trying not to show your teeth. You think, We can’t ruin this. You think, It’s already different. You think, It’s already done.
“Dick,” you say, and your voice has the frayed edge of someone trying to put the brakes on a train they already jumped. “We can’t...”
“We already did,” he says, lifting his head, mouth red, smile devastated and devastating. He presses his forehead to yours. “We did the second you sat on my lap in that stupid car and didn’t move away. Maybe before that. Maybe the first night you fell asleep on my chest and drooled on my hoodie and I wanted to keep the stain.” His breath shakes. “If you want me to stop, I will. I mean it.” His thumb traces your cheekbone, the gentlest line. “But if you’re stopping because you’re scared, then let me be scared with you.”
“Romantic,” you mutter, which is not what you meant to say. What you meant was I am terrified because I have loved you so long I forgot I was doing it.
He grins, slow and brilliant. “Stick with me. I can get worse.”
“You’re impossible,” you breathe.
“I’m yours,” he says, and for once it sounds easy.
The part of you that was ready to fight relaxes a degree you didn’t know you had. You tuck your face into his neck and inhale the clean salt of his skin, the faint bite of the lotion he uses on his hands, the heat rising off him like a weather system. “Okay,” you whisper into him. “Stay.”
He does.
What follows is messy and perfect. Years collapse into minutes; minutes stretch out like a wire you balance across with no net. Clothes come off too fast and not fast enough. He fumbles a button that pops and skitters under the bed like it’s embarrassed to watch. You both laugh, a sharp burst of relief that burns down to something hungrier.
Every inch of you revealed, he kisses like it’s an exam he’s been studying for, cataloging each new patch of skin with a reverence that only makes you ache harder. You slide trembling fingers under the waistband of his jeans, pausing there, not coy now, not pretending, just gathering the nerve to cross the last line. He takes your hand and presses his mouth to your knuckles, soft, steady, as if to say I’ve got you.
Your throat is dry but your voice isn’t. “Take these off,” you whine, yanking at the denim.
He grins, all heat and mischief. “Finally admitting you want in my pants. Took you long enough.”
“Shut up,” you snap, cheeks burning despite the bravado. Your fingers don’t stop pulling.
He slides down to your jaw, kisses a slow trail between your words. “Say it,” he murmurs, breath hot. “Tell me what you want, baby. Use your words.”
“You,” you answer, blunt and raw, tugging him lower until his hips press into yours. “Inside me. Now.”
Something breaks in him, a low, raw sound that isn’t laughter and isn’t quite a curse. His forehead presses against yours. “Christ,” he breathes. “You’re so hot baby.”
“Did you just figure that out?" You tease, the whisper sharp with want.
His hand cups your face, thumb stroking your cheek like he’s holding you steady. His eyes search yours, burning. “Hey. Look at me. You with me?”
“Yes.” It rushes out of you, desperate and true. “Yes. I need you.” You stammer, caught on the words, embarrassed.
He nudges your nose with his, grinning through the hunger like it’s breaking him apart. “Don’t hide from me now,” he murmurs, thumb brushing across your lip. “Say it. Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
“Dick,” you whine, tugging his hair to bring him closer, lips brushing his. “Fuck me. Please.”
His smile wrecks itself into something darker, needier. “That’s my girl. God, I’ve been dying to hear you say that.”
He sheds the last of his clothes with the efficiency of a man who’s been waiting years. You shiver when he finally presses against you, hot and hard, the blunt weight of him making your stomach twist with want. He hovers, teasing, just nudging against your entrance, smirking down at you as you squirm.
“Patience,” he rasps, though his own hips twitch forward like he can’t take it. “I want to feel all of this. I want to burn every second into my memory.”
You hook your legs higher around his waist, dragging him closer with reckless force. “Then don’t waste time remembering. You can have me as many times as you want,” you whisper against his mouth. “So please, just fuck me.”
The groan that rips out of him is all answer, no hesitation. He slides into you slowly, steadily, inch by inch until he’s seated deep, until your body clenches around him like it’s been waiting, until you can’t breathe for the stretch and the relief of being filled.
“Oh, fuck,” he groans against your throat, teeth grazing your skin. “You feel...God, you feel so good.”
“Move,” you gasp, clutching at his back, nails digging crescents into muscle. “Please, Dick, move.”
He does, shallow at first, careful, testing; then, when your moans break free and you meet his hips with your own, he thrusts harder, deeper, the rhythm finding you both like a song you’ve been humming under your breath for years.
The world narrows to sensation: the burn and slick of him inside your tight cunt, the weight of his chest pressing you into the mattress, the press of his nose to your cheek when he laughs breathlessly into your open mouth. Your calf drags a streak up the back of his thigh; his hand fists in your hair as if he can’t keep himself from anchoring there. You say his name over and over, your voice cracking with it, and he answers with yours, gasping it like devotion.
“Tell me again,” he rasps, hips snapping into yours. “Tell me what you want.”
“You,” you moan, tugging him closer, clutching at him like he’s air. “Harder. God, don’t ever stop, baby.”
“Never,” he vows, driving into you with desperate precision, the headboard rattling in time with your breathless cries. “Not stopping, baby. Not when you’re like this. Not when you’re finally mine.”
And then, even with his body shaking from the strain of holding back, he tips your chin, gentle as a vow. He pulls almost all the way out, only leaving in the blunt, fat head of his tip. With shallow rolls of his hips, his eyes lock on yours, blue and wrecked, the question shining clear in them. Are you sure?
“Yes,” you gasp, nails dragging down the sculpted lines of his back, trying to rock your hips up to take him deeper into the cradle of your hips, but he tips his hips back farther, making you chase him. You feel so empty, so aching to be filled again, and he's so cruel to not let you have it. “Dick, please. I’ve never been more sure.”
The groan that rips from his chest is low, ruined, and then he finally gives in, sliding into you fully again, slow at first, until your breath hitches, until your body opens around him like you were made to fit. The stretch has you clutching at him, heels locking at the small of his back to drag him deeper, closer, until there’s no air left between you.
His forehead knocks against yours, sweat-slick, his mouth hovering over yours as he grinds in deep. The sound he makes borders on a sob. “God, fuck, I love you,” he blurts, voice breaking against your lips like he can’t hold it back any longer.
The words steal your breath more than the thrust. For a second you forget how to move, how to do anything but stare at him, wide-eyed, as the confession trembles between you. His face twists like he regrets it, like it slipped, like it’s too much, until you catch his jaw, drag him into a kiss that tastes of salt and fire.
“I love you too,” you choke out against his mouth, raw and unguarded, the words shaking from you like they’ve been locked up too long. “I...God, Dick, I love you.”
The relief that breaks across his face is brighter than pain, sharper than pleasure. He thrusts harder, messier, burying his groan in your neck. “Say it again,” he pleads, rhythm stuttering as if the words themselves undo him more than your body ever could.
“I love you,” you moan, legs tightening around his waist, dragging him in deeper, clutching him like you’ll never let him go. “I love you, I love you.”
Your name leaves his throat like prayer and curse, gasping it with every push, every frantic kiss. He looks wrecked, undone, and so completely yours.
The pleasure coils fast, unbearable; you clutch him tighter, arching up to meet him stroke for stroke, and when it snaps, when you cry out against his mouth, he follows instantly, shuddering with you, your confessions still tumbling between gasps and kisses.
It’s not clean, not polite, not quiet. It’s broken laughter tangled with moans, your bodies clinging so tight you can’t tell which heart is racing faster. It’s I love you punched into every kiss, every thrust, every ragged breath; no excuses left, no walls standing.
The city keeps breathing outside, uncaring. But in here, the only truth that matters is this: his body shuddering into yours, your nails raking down his spine, the sound of your names and your love ricocheting through the dark like something you’ll never be able to take back; something you’ll never want to.
-
You don’t register time passing so much as you register the return of weight: your arm heavy over his bare chest, your naked thigh thrown across his, his breath slowing from frantic to steady. The room smells like sex and citrus. The movie is long finished, the TV in the living room a low blue glow throwing a pale border around the bedroom door.
He’s on his back. You’re half on him, half off, cheek pressed to the warm rise of his chest. Your skin feels reorganized along new fault lines. He strokes your hair in slow, distracted passes, like he’s reassuring his fingers that you won’t vanish now that the words are out.
“Hey,” he says finally, voice rough but glowing with relief. “You okay?”
You’d meant to play it cool, but honesty is all you have left. “Yeah,” you breathe, then add, quieter, “I’m good.” Your voice cracks on the word. “Are you?”
He tips his chin to look at you. The smile that takes his mouth is stunned and private, like he’s just confirmed he didn’t imagine any of it. “I just told you I love you,” he says, still a little dazed. “And you said it back. So yeah. I’m…better than okay.”
The confession still hovers between you like a live wire, but instead of fear, it feels like a light left on.
You laugh softly, shaky. “We’re idiots.”
“The absolute worst,” he agrees, brushing his lips against your temple. “Took us this long to say it out loud.”
“We should’ve done this months ago.”
“Years,” he corrects instantly, then grimaces, half-guilty. “Too much?”
You nudge his ribs with your nose, smiling into his skin. “Not even close.”
“Good.” His hand curls at the base of your skull. He kisses your hair, then your temple, then, unable to stop himself, the bridge of your nose where it leads to your mouth. The pleased little sound he makes when you tilt up and meet him there is enough to make your chest ache. The kiss is slower now, exploratory, your teeth barely grazing his bottom lip before his tongue brushes yours. You tangle your hand in his hair because you can and because he likes it, and he hums like a man who’s just been handed everything he ever wanted.
“Are we going to be weird about this?” you whisper, still close enough to feel his smile.
“Probably,” he admits, breath warming your mouth. “But only a little. And only together.” His tone shifts softer, more serious. “We’ll figure it out. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” you echo, relieved that you both picked the same word.
He yawns, the kind of ridiculous, whole-face yawn that turns into a laugh halfway through. It’s absurd. It’s home. “You’re staying,” he says at last, not an order, not a question, just a fact.
“Again with the telling me what to do,” you murmur, already curling closer.
“Keep talking and next time, I’ll make you beg for me to tell you what to do.” He shoots back with a grin, voice dropping low. You laugh, breath catching on the heat curling low, because even here, wrapped in blankets and afterglow, he still knows how to make you shake with a single promise.
He tugs the blanket higher over your shoulders. You decide to be cruel and tuck your cold feet between his calves. He yelps, then clamps his legs around yours like a trap, fake-outraged. “Unbelievable.”
“Love me,” you say, no disguise this time, not a joke, just the truth.
“Obviously,” he answers without hesitation, so easy you have to bite your lip to keep from crying again.
“Dick?”
“Yeah?”
“If I drool on you, you can't complain.”
He chuckles, warm and low. “Never have, never will.”
His fingers keep tracing lazy lines over your shoulder, down your arm, across your side. You follow the rhythm down into sleep. You dream, finally, of nothing dangerous: no wire strung over a city, just music around you, the patient weight of his palm at your spine, keeping you without ever holding you back.
When you wake to the pale blue of morning, he’s already awake, watching you with the softest, stupidest smile. You open your mouth to say something clever, but he beats you to it, whispering, “Hi,” like you’re a secret he gets to keep.
“Hi,” you whisper back, and because it’s too late to pretend, you lift your hand to his cheek. Because it’s too late to be scared alone, you let him catch your wrist and kiss your palm like a vow.
You both lie there suspended in the quiet. Then he clears his throat, trying for casual and failing adorably. “So. Pancakes?”
“Always,” you answer, watching his face light up for the hundredth time and somehow also the first. He grins, steals another kiss because he can, and when he finally rolls out of bed you let your eyes linger, greedy, sated, and his.
You think of the imaginary line you both tiptoed for so long. You think of how simple it was, in the end, to just step over it. You think of the words you’ll use later to make this feel ordinary and also precious. And you think, we’ll be fine, because you’re lucky and greedy and not wrong.
From the kitchen comes the sound of cabinets, the low hum of the stovetop, his tuneless whistle. You sink back into the warm dent he left and smile at the ceiling like an accomplice.
saw “best friend brother dick greyson” and then smutty prompt list so how about that with “you have no idea how long i've thought about having you like this.” And/or “you want this, don't you? want me all over you? inside you?” if you’re up for it! can’t wait <3
Off-Limits
dick grayson x reader
c/w: best friends brother!dick, hallway sex, explicit sexual content, 18+, mdni, sneaking around, lots of smut, unprotected sex, fingering
description: A forbidden, fevered night at Wayne Manor turns dangerous when years of buried tension with your best friend’s older brother, Dick Grayson, finally snap in the hallway...while Damian sleeps just down the hall.
a/n: first time really writing Damian, so i apologize in advance. also this got wayyyy longer than i meant
-
Gotham sounds different when trouble wakes up.
There’s the usual static: sirens flaring across low clouds, the river sighing in its sleep, the muted thud of rooftop footsteps that tell you the city has guardians even when you can’t see them. But tonight the noise is sharper; gunfire that rattles the bones of the Narrows, a helicopter cutting a sawtooth path along Crime Alley, the kind of hum that says every shadow has an opinion about whether you live to see morning.
Your phone lights up when you’re still deciding whether to sleep in your shoes.
Damian: You will not be staying in that apartment tonight. I’m sending a car.
You smile at the lack of hello. I’m fine, you type, and backspace the lie because somehow, with him, it feels too obvious.
Damian: Do not argue with me.
You: I never do.
Damian: I am outside. Bring whatever you need for a few days.
When you open your door, he’s leaning on the banister like an accusation in leather and Kevlar, helmet clipped to his side, eyes softening by one degree when they land on you. You’ve known Damian long enough to read what he won’t say out loud: I trust you. You’re mine to worry about. Don’t make me worry more.
“Come on,” he says. “Drake rigged the Manor’s perimeter to sing lullabies if so much as a leaf sneezes. It is the safest place in the city tonight.”
You laugh in spite of yourself. “Be honest. You just don’t want me getting a Pulitzer before you get to say you were my source.”
“I am many things,” he says as you slip past him, “but not petty.”
“Liar.”
He huffs a quiet nuisance that stands in for a smile and takes your bag, carrying it like it weighs nothing.
You’ve been to Wayne Manor before. Holidays when Alfred insisted, after-shift breakfasts when patrol ran long and everyone needed a table big enough to hold exhaustion. But the manor at night, arriving with a go-bag and a heart that’s been beating a fraction too fast all evening, feels like crossing a threshold.
“Guest room across from mine,” Damian says as you move through a museum of history that tries and fails to look like a home for ordinary people. “Kitchen’s stocked. You are not allowed to skip meals just because you’re proving a point to the city.”
“What point?”
“That you and trouble are in a committed relationship.”
“You jealous?”
“Perpetually.” He’s teasing, which means he’s worried. You bump him with your shoulder on the stairs and promise to text if you so much as think about wandering, even though you don’t mean it. You’ve never been good at staying where you’re told.
Halfway to the guest wing, a figure appears at the landing, warm light from a half-shaded sconce turning him into lines you could trace with your thumb.
Dick Grayson. Bare feet. Grey sweats slung indecently low, an old Blüdhaven PD t-shirt worn thin enough that the sleeves might as well be memory. He looks like the soft kind of danger; friendly smile, careful eyes, a history that glows gold at the edges and hides its blade in the seams.
“Hey,” he says, the word sliding down your spine like a quiet hand. “What brought you in?”
“City did,” you say.
His mouth tilts. “She does that.”
It’s not the first time you’ve had this kind of exchange with him. You’ve known Dick as long as you’ve known Damian; longer, maybe, in the ways that matter. From the first time Damian smuggled you into the manor for some project or sparring session or ill-advised scheme, Dick had been there in glimpses. A hand ruffling his brother’s hair, a quick smile shot across the dining table, a voice carrying through the hall in the middle of an argument that was never meant for you.
He’s always been attractive. You’d have to be a liar to not admit it. That kind of ease doesn’t grow on trees: the lopsided charm, the quiet confidence, the way he carries himself like he knows exactly who he is. But attractive is one thing. Unreachable is another. He was Damian’s brother first, and that was supposed to be the line you never even approached.
Supposed to.
Damian clears his throat with the theatrical judgment of a younger brother who sees entirely too much. “Grayson, try not to flirt with her while I’m in the house.”
“You wound me.” Dick’s eyes return to you, something brief and private there before he covers it with warmth. “You okay?”
“I am now,” you say, and it feels too honest. You’re tired, and the exhausted kind of brave, and you love people who know when to be serious and when to make it a joke. And Dick… Dick is built like a joke that could save your life.
You tilt your head slightly, studying him. “Thought you had your own place in Blüdhaven. What are you doing here tonight?”
He shrugs, casual, though his eyes flick toward Damian before coming back to you. “Sometimes it’s easier to be here. Gotham’s loud. Family’s louder.” His smile softens. “Besides, someone has to keep an eye on Damian when he drags his friends into the lion’s den.”
Damian bristles at that but doesn’t respond, his silence sharp as a blade sheathed just short of your ribs.
Dick steps aside to let you pass, voice low as his shoulder brushes yours. “Well, if you can’t sleep, the kitchen’s great at 2 a.m. Alfred hides the good snacks behind the boring tea.”
You nod, and Damian shoots him a look like I will skin you, and the house exhales around the three of you like it’s been holding its breath.
You tell yourself that the twist in your stomach is just adrenaline. You tell yourself that wanting what you absolutely shouldn’t want is a sport you don’t play anymore.
You tell yourself that you’re not going to walk toward the part of the house where Dick Grayson is still a silhouette against a low lamp, leaning on the banister like the punchline you couldn’t survive.
You’re a liar tonight. And you’re not even sorry about it.
-
The manor is a cathedral at two in the morning. Every sound is magnified: the whisper of your bare feet on a runner rug, the old wood groaning like it remembers too much history, your breath when it hitches for no good reason.
You tell yourself you’re going to the kitchen for a glass of water. You take the hallway that passes the guest room where Dick keeps a spare change of clothes and a pair of running shoes. There’s a sliver of light under the door, a quiet moving shape, and then the door opens like it was always going to.
“You couldn’t sleep either,” he says. Not a question.
You should say yeah, it happens, and goodnight, and I’ll go now. Instead, you choke on hello in a way that makes his mouth soften like he’s watching you stumble into honesty you weren’t planning on.
He’s close enough that his scent hits you; soap that smells like rain, something warm and clean that makes the floor tilt. Up close, his eyes are darker; up close, you notice the faint scar at his hairline and the way his smile lingers like a hand that wants to touch but doesn’t. Up close, you are trouble with a face.
You exhale, tipping your head toward the ceiling. “Damian practically dragged me here. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. And now, I'm mourning the loss of my mattress.”
That earns you a crooked grin. “Sounds like him.”
“I told him I’d be fine in my apartment. He acted like I suggested walking into an active crime scene.”
“He worries,” Dick says simply. There’s no mocking in it, no condescension, just an older brother’s certainty, tempered by the exhaustion of someone who’s been on both sides of worry.
“I know he does. But sometimes it feels like…” You hesitate, then gesture vaguely at the hall, the locked windows, the weight of the manor itself. “Like I’m just another mission file he’s babysitting.”
That makes Dick’s smile deepen, the quiet kind that feels like being let in on a secret. “Trust me. Damian doesn’t babysit just anyone. You matter to him.”
The words hang between you, soft and heavy. They make something in your chest tighten, the same way it always has when Dick looks at you like this; when he sees more than you say out loud.
It’s not the first time. Again, you find yourself reminded of just how long this man has been in your orbit. He wasn’t always around, but when he was, he had a way of filling the room.
You remember dinners where he’d slide the mashed potatoes onto your plate before you could ask, teasing Damian about table manners until Alfred swatted him with a dish towel. Sparring matches in the cave where you’d sit cross-legged on the railing, pretending to scroll your phone, but really watching the way his body moved, fluid, sharp, efficient, while Damian grumbled about being shown up. Even stupid little moments: Dick leaning on the doorframe mid-conversation, hair sticking up after patrol, grinning at something Tim muttered under his breath.
You shouldn’t have noticed. But you did. The breadth of his shoulders when he shrugged out of a jacket. The way his laughter warmed a room even when he wasn’t trying. The subtle gentleness, like when he rested a steadying hand on Damian’s shoulder after a bad night, grounding him without words. It was all small, ordinary stuff, except it wasn’t. Not to you.
And every time, you reminded yourself: off-limits. Untouchable. Best friend’s brother.
Supposed to be.
“Guess I’ll just have to survive the Wayne hospitality,” you say now, tugging a smile onto your mouth like it’ll keep you steady.
“You’ll manage,” Dick says, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, head tipping closer in a way that makes your pulse catch. His voice drops, teasing. “I can show you where Alfred stashes the dangerous contraband.”
You huff. “Tea bags don’t count as contraband, Grayson.”
His grin sharpens, private. “Depends on the tea.”
The hallway stills after that. The city hums outside, old wood groans under your feet, and the silence stretches, taut, expectant. In the low light, with his smile curving like he’s finally stopped holding something back, the air between you shifts. Not by accident. Not by chance. But like inevitability finally giving in.
Your weight tips slightly on your heels as you shift your weight, the wall at your shoulder like it’s been waiting for this moment. You should keep walking, slip out from under the intensity of his gaze, keep walking until the kitchen swallows you whole.
But you don’t.
His eyes drag down your face, pausing at your mouth, then back up, as if cataloguing the parts of you he’s not supposed to touch. His grin fades, replaced with something steadier, heavier.
“Careful,” he says quietly, the word a warning that doesn’t sound like one at all.
You force a scoff, though your pulse betrays you. “Careful of what? Your smuggled stash of Earl Grey?”
That gets the faintest laugh from him, low, sharp, and over too quickly. Then he shifts forward, pushing off the door frame and closing the half-step of air between you, his palm planting itself flat on the wall beside your head. His body doesn’t touch yours, but it might as well. The warmth radiates, seeping into your skin, undoing you inch by inch.
You breathe out, slow, like you can trick your body into calm. It doesn’t work.
“Careful,” he repeats, softer now, eyes catching yours and holding them fast, “or I’ll think you’re not as untouchable as you pretend.”
The wall is cool against your shoulder; his arm cages you in. It’s not forceful, he’s still giving you space to slip away if you want to, but it feels inevitable, like gravity, like years of glances and almosts and rules bending until they finally snap.
Your hand twitches at your side, aching to close the distance. Instead you whisper, “Maybe I’m not.”
That’s all it takes.
The corner of his mouth lifts, not the easy grin you’ve seen a hundred times, but something smaller, sharper. He leans in, just enough that his breath brushes your cheek, and murmurs like a secret he’s been holding back for too long.
“I knew it.”
The wall catches you fully then, back pressed to it, his body pressing in, his palm sliding down to your hip, and suddenly every excuse you’ve ever given yourself burns away, leaving only this—him, you, the night, and a hunger neither of you can pretend isn’t there anymore.
You lift your chin. You open your mouth to be good. What comes out is a sound you didn’t know you could make; soft and broken and so honest it hurts.
His eyes darken, searching, like he’s memorizing every crack in your resolve. He doesn’t move closer. He waits, the way he always has.
Because that’s what makes him different from Damian, from anyone else: Dick doesn’t demand. He lets you choose. He’s let you choose since the beginning; whether it was at family dinners when he offered you the last roll, in the cave when he’d catch you watching and deliberately look away, or in a hundred other moments where he could have pressed but never did. Always giving you the out. Always holding the line.
And you’re the one who finally crosses it.
Your hand rises, hesitant at first, then steadier, curling into the fabric of his shirt. The cotton is soft, worn, the heat of him bleeding through as you tug him down.
The kiss is clumsy in its honesty. Not careful. Not practiced. Just years of restraint snapping all at once.
He makes a sound against your mouth, half groan, half laugh, the kind of noise that feels like it’s been caught in his chest for years. His palm finds your hip, grounding you, and the other slides up into your hair like he’s been waiting for the excuse.
The wall holds you both, but it’s the history that keeps you there: the way you’ve watched him tease Damian into smiling after a bad patrol, the quiet steadiness in his hand when he steered you away from an argument once, the warmth of his laughter echoing in rooms you were never supposed to want him in. All of it crashing forward into this moment, into this kiss.
He pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead dropping to yours. His voice is wrecked silk, low enough to live only between you, “You have no idea how long I’ve thought about having you like this.”
The world narrows to the heat of his breath against your cheek, the wall, the way your knees forget they know how to hold you up.
“I,” The word stumbles. You swallow. “Dick?”
“Tell me no and I walk away,” he says, voice low enough that you feel it under your skin. “Tell me to stop and I stop. But don’t lie to me.”
You should be good. You should think about Damian asleep at the end of the hall, about trust, about how the part of your heart that belongs to him isn’t the same part that lights up when Dick looks at you like this.
But you don’t tell him no. You can’t.
His hand slides fully onto your hip, strong fingers curling like they’ve been waiting years to learn the shape of you. He presses in, chest to chest, and the line of his body against yours leaves no space for doubt. Heat blooms where he touches you, where he doesn’t, seeping through every layer of restraint you’ve tried to build.
Your hands move before you think, catching in the hem of his t-shirt, clinging to the thin cotton as if it’s the only thing tethering you. That’s all the invitation he needs.
His mouth claims yours again, but this time it's rough, hungry, and feverish. The kiss tastes like everything you’ve tried not to want, and it knocks the air from your lungs. He kisses you like he’s starving, like years of patience have burned away in a single spark, and you’re the only thing left to feed the fire.
You gasp into him, and he takes it, swallowing the sound like it belongs to him. His free hand skims down your side, then slides under your shirt, the brush of his calloused palm against your bare skin making your back arch off the wall.
The thought of Damian down the hall slams through you once more, sharp and reckless. You bite back a noise, fingers twisting in his shirt, but Dick just presses harder, mouth trailing heat along your jaw, his voice breaking into a whisper, “Quiet. Or he’ll hear.”
The danger makes it worse. Makes it better. Every kiss is harder, hungrier, the press of his body pinning you to the paneling as if he could fuse you there. You kiss him back with the same desperation, nails dragging across his shoulders, and for a moment, nothing exists but the fever of him and the forbidden fire you’ve both finally set alight.
His mouth drags along your jaw, teeth scraping just enough to make your knees tremble. “God,” he breathes, and it sounds like prayer and confession all at once. “You have no idea how many times I’ve told myself to be good. To be your friend’s good brother. To be the kind of man that never...” He breaks off, voice unsteady against your skin. “But then you look at me like this.”
His forehead rests briefly against yours, ragged breath mingling with your own. His thumb strokes your hip, circling lower, teasing. “You want this, don’t you? Want me all over you? Inside you?”
The desperate sound that breaks from your throat doesn’t feel like it belongs to you until your chest vibrates with it. His groan answers, deep and guttural, like you’ve just undone years of self-restraint in one breath.
The hand on your hip slides down, slow and deliberate, until his thumb presses into the tender crease where your thigh meets the heat of you through thin cotton. It’s obscene and tender at once—his restraint holding on by a thread even as his fingers curl under the waistband of your shorts.
“Dick,” you whisper, your head tipping back against the wall with a muted thud. The manor groans with you, old wood threatening to give you away. Panic flashes sharp and bright through the haze of heat. “Damian—”
“Is asleep,” he cuts in, voice a dark rasp at your ear, words brushing like velvet along your skin. His palm presses lower, fingertips slipping beneath fabric, hot against bare flesh. “And he’d kill me if he weren’t.”
The danger coils through you, tightening every nerve. You clutch at his shirt, dragging him closer, your mouth finding his again, feverish and frantic, as his hand finally claims what both of you have been starving for.
When he deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding against yours with a hunger that steals every thought, his hand finally, finally slips beneath the hem of your shorts. The rough drag of his palm over bare skin makes you shudder, and then he cups you through nothing at all; hot, bare contact that rips a gasp straight out of you. Too loud. Far too loud.
Your hand flies up, clapping over your own mouth.
He laughs against you, quiet and wrecked, the sound frayed with disbelief. His eyes are molten when he catches your wrist, tugging your hand away. “No,” he whispers, pressing his mouth back to yours, swallowing the noise himself like it belongs to him. “I know,” he says against your lips, kissing you harder, his words breaking between every brush of your mouths. “I know. I know.”
His fingers move with devastating care, stroking slow and deliberate through your slick, teasing circles that make your hips jerk against him. The wall digs into your shoulders, the cool wood a stark contrast to the fever burning everywhere he touches.
You try to keep quiet, you do, but the breathless little sounds keep escaping into his mouth. Each one makes him kiss you deeper, hungrier, until you’re both devouring each other, until you can’t tell where the kiss ends and the touch begins.
“Quiet,” he murmurs suddenly, his lips grazing the shell of your ear as his fingers press more firmly, sliding through you with agonizing precision. “You have to be quiet, baby. Or he’ll hear.”
The warning only makes it worse; your pulse racing, your body arching up into his hand like it’s the only thing you’ve ever needed. He bites down gently on your lower lip to smother your whimper, and when he feels the way you shiver beneath him, he groans like you’ve ruined him.
Pinned between the wall and his body, his hand working you open and his mouth claiming every sound you dare to make, you realize this was never going to end with you being good.
His mouth moves down your jaw, your throat, marking you in places only the shadows will see. The wall is cool and unyielding at your back, but his hand, his hand is fire, slipping lower with a patience that makes you want to scream.
Two fingers stroke through your slick folds, lazy, practiced, like he’s learning you while already knowing too much. Your hips twitch helplessly, chasing him, and he groans at the feel of you.
“Tell me what you need,” he says, voice husky, eyes locked on yours; hungry, careful, reverent all at once. “Tell me and I’ll give you all of it.”
You can’t think. You can barely breathe. Words scatter like ash in your mouth until only one remains. “You,” you gasp, clutching at his shirt. “I need you.”
He kisses you like thank you, like you’ve just given him permission to fall apart too. And then he presses, slow but sure, slipping two fingers inside you in one steady push.
Your cry is muffled against his mouth, swallowed by the fever of his kiss. He shudders against you, breaking on the sound, and his forehead drops to yours. “God,” he groans, his lips brushing yours. “You’re so warm. So perfect around me.”
His thumb circles your clit, deliberate, coaxing, while his fingers curl deep, finding the spot that makes your knees threaten to give. The wall takes your weight, but it’s him who holds you up, one strong arm braced beside your head, his body pressed close enough to feel every stutter of your breath.
“C'mon, be quiet,” he whispers again, though his voice is breaking too, almost as ragged as yours. “You have to be quiet for me. Don't know if I can stop even if he does wake up.”
You nod, desperate, nails digging into his shoulders. But the way his hand moves, slow thrusts matched with tight, merciless circles, makes it impossible. The moans slip free anyway, caught by his mouth, devoured like secrets he’ll never give back.
“Not yet,” he murmurs, his thumb pressing harder, curling his fingers just so, relentless. “I want you to come apart on my hand first. Right here. Before I give you anything else.”
His mouth crushes against yours as his fingers work you open, curling deep, stroking that spot that makes your whole body jolt against the wall. His thumb never relents, tight circles dragging you closer and closer to the edge until every nerve feels lit.
You try to hold back, teeth sinking into his lower lip to choke down the sounds spilling out of you, but he won’t let you. He drags his mouth down to your throat, nipping hard enough to make you gasp, and groans at the noise.
“That’s it,” he whispers, the words a growl and a plea all at once. “Give it to me. Right here, sweetheart. Let me feel you fall apart.”
Your hips rock helplessly against his hand, chasing every stroke, every press, your nails scoring his shoulders through the thin cotton of his shirt. His pace sharpens, relentless now, and you can’t hold it back; heat curls tight in your belly, then snaps.
The orgasm rips through you, breathless and muffled against his mouth as he swallows the sound like he was starving for it. Your whole body shudders, thighs trembling, and he holds you through it, whispering broken praise against your lips.
“God, yes, so beautiful. That’s it. That’s it.”
You’re still shaking when his fingers slip free, wet and glistening as he hooks them under the waistband of your shorts. He yanks them down in one rough motion, the fabric catching and dangling off one ankle, forgotten.
Before you can even catch your breath, he’s shoving his own sweats down, baring himself, thick and flushed and straining.
He presses the hard length of him against your slick heat, sliding through the mess he’s already made of you, and the contact makes you whimper.
“Not enough,” he mutters against your mouth, ragged, frantic, his hips grinding against yours. “I need...fuck, I need to be inside you.”
Then he’s hitching one of your thighs up around his hip, pressing you harder into the wall, lining himself up. Every second of it feels wild and reckless, fevered and wrong in all the ways that make your pulse trip.
His sweats join your shorts on the floor, pushed down enough that he can press his bare heat along your slick and grind until the friction makes you gasp into his throat. You’re wet enough that the slide is easy and filthy, your hips chasing in little desperate arcs without your permission.
“Fuck,” he swears softly, forehead thudding against yours. “You feel...god, you feel like trouble.”
“Be nice,” you whisper, teeth catching his lower lip. “Or I’ll make you beg.”
He laughs, broken and bright. “I will beg. I will do anything you ask. Just,” He reaches between you, guides himself to your entrance, rubs in slow, obscene circles that make your eyes roll back. “Just let me in.”
You nod because you can’t say anything else. He watches you as he pushes, the stretch a burn you welcome like summer after a long winter. He groans like a man walking into a church for the first time in years and recognizing his own footsteps in the echo.
“Okay?” he asks, mouth at your temple, breath uneven. He’s thick, filling you in a way that makes your chest go tight, that makes your fingers scrabble at his shoulders for purchase.
“More,” you say, and he swears again and gives it to you.
He sets a rhythm made for secrecy; hips rolling deep, a hand clamped over your mouth when you forget yourself, his lips finding your pulse to feel exactly how close he’s driving you. He’s careful even while he’s wrecked, every thrust a question he answers himself when you can’t, every adjustment learned like he’s cataloged the language of your body for a decade.
You’re going to come embarrassingly fast; you can feel the heat gathering low, the kind that crawls up your spine and takes your breath with it. You try to pull back from the edge because you want this to last, because you want the night to stretch forever, because you want a hundred more secrets like this one before the world looks you both in the eye and asks you to pay.
“Don’t run from it,” he whispers, voice wrecked silk. “I’ve got you.”
“But Damian,” you breathe, because the fear is a thread running through the fabric of want and it makes everything sharper.
Dick stills instantly, the next thrust caught halfway. His hand tightens at your hip, his forehead pressing hard against yours, eyes dark and dangerous.
“Don’t,” he says, low and ragged. Not a plea. A command. His voice is rough with something that makes your whole body shiver. “Don’t say his name. Not when I’m inside you.”
Heat lances through you at the words, shame and want tangling until you’re dizzy. You open your mouth to explain, to apologize, but he doesn’t give you the chance.
His hips slam forward, burying himself deeper, dragging a choked cry out of you that he smothers with his mouth. He kisses you hard, punishing, his hand curling at the back of your neck to hold you still while he devours every sound.
“You’re mine right now,” he mutters against your lips, thrusts sharper now, the rhythm less careful and more claiming. “Say my name. Only mine.”
“Dick,” it comes out broken, a sob and a moan all at once, and he groans like the sound undoes him, like it’s all he’s wanted to hear.
“That’s it,” he says, voice shattering as he drives into you again. “Again.”
“Dick,” you gasp, louder this time, nails clawing into his shoulders, your body arching against the wall to take everything he’s giving you.
He rewards you with his thumb finding your clit again, rubbing ruthless circles that make you bite down on his jaw to keep from screaming. He grunts at the sting but doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow, fucking you harder like he wants to pound every forbidden thought out of your head until there’s only him.
“Good girl,” he groans, forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping down his temple. “Say it when you cum. Say it so I know you’re mine.”
You gasp, and then you can’t speak at all because his hand is between you, thumb tight and clever on your clit, and the edge you were delaying stops being a cliff and becomes inevitable gravity. Your body bows against the wall, every nerve strung taut, your nails dragging down his back like you could anchor yourself in him.
“Let go,” he rasps, his rhythm breaking, thrusts uneven and frantic like he’s barely holding on himself. His mouth is at your temple, hot and shaking. “Let go for me. Please, please.”
It’s the please that unravels you.
Your orgasm hits hard, tearing through you in waves that leave you clenching around him, crying out against his mouth. His hand clamps over yours, pinning it to the wall as if to hold you in place while he takes every broken sound.
“Dick,” his name rips from your throat, raw and shameless, and his answering groan sounds like it’s been locked in his chest for years.
“That’s it,” he gasps, hips driving deep, chasing you through your release. “Going to think about how pretty you sound saying it for the rest of my life.”
“Dick,” you sob, the word catching on your breath as another wave shudders through you, tightening every muscle around him.
He breaks with you, hips snapping forward one last time before he buries himself deep, grinding into you as he spills inside. His forehead crashes to your shoulder, his body shuddering, his voice a hoarse litany of curses and your name against your skin.
The wall takes your weight as you both collapse against it, trembling, breath tangling together in desperate gasps. His hand stays at your clit until the aftershocks fade, until you’re sagging boneless against him, wrung out and dazed.
Finally, he pulls back just enough to kiss you, slow and ruined, tasting the way you said his name when you fell apart for him.
“You’re mine,” he whispers against your swollen lips, still inside you, still shaking. “Don’t ever forget that.” And with Damian asleep just doors away, with the manor holding its breath around you, you know you never will.
After, there’s only breath. The house sighs. Your heartbeat loudens and then slows, pressed against his chest like a bird that finally let itself be caught.
He sets you down when your legs remember they belong to you and fixes your shorts with hands that are too gentle for what they were doing one minute ago. He pulls his sweats up, eyes warm and ruined, and cradles the back of your head like he’s memorizing the weight of it in his palm.
“Damian’s going to kill me,” he says softly, a grin pulling sideways, helpless.
“He’s going to kill me,” you whisper back, and then you both start laughing, quiet, bent-over, ridiculous, because nothing is funny and it’s all you have.
“Go,” he says, thumb skating along your cheekbone, something like regret tucked into the corners of his mouth. “Before the manor decides to squeak another floorboard in your honor.”
You nod, kiss him once quick and greedy, and slip back toward your room with legs that do not trust you. You close your door, back against it, mouth aching with the shape of his. You look up at the ceiling and whisper a thank-you to the city for making everything complicated enough to feel real.
You sleep like someone who made a mistake worth making.
-
Morning smears itself across the kitchen in pale light and the smell of coffee. Alfred is nowhere, which means he’s everywhere. Tim is hunched over a laptop like he’s trying to crawl inside it. Jason is opening the fridge with a glare. Damian is at the counter with a pot of tea and a look that you’ve come to call interrogation light, not his full beam, but enough to peel skin.
Dick is at the stove in a t-shirt that reminds you of the night like a fingerprint. He’s making pancakes, because of course he is, flipping them one-handed while he steals glances at you that no one should be able to see.
“How'd you sleep?” Tim asks without looking up.
“Like a baby,” you lie, and listen to Jason snort.
“Babies don’t sleep,” Jason says, pointing at you with a jar of jam. “Babies scream and eat and ruin your shirts. You slept like a cat. That’s the good stuff.”
Damian’s eyes flick to your throat. You remember too late that someone had a mouth on your shoulder, that the collar of your borrowed sweatshirt is looser than your excuses. You tug it up casually. So casual. The casual of a criminal who left their wallet at the scene.
“Just hot,” you say lightly, and Dick chokes on air like he’s swallowed a decision.
Tim finally glances up, clocking the heat under the words, his gaze flicking between you and Dick and then to Damian with an expression you’d call weather report incoming. Jason watches the whole thing like free theater.
Dick slides a plate in front of you, his knuckles brushing yours, electricity lancing up your arm so obvious you have to bite the inside of your cheek. “Extra blueberries,” he says, eyes all innocence, and if he doesn’t stop being nice you’re going to climb him in front of his entire family.
“Thanks,” you say, and it sounds like for last night.
Damian sets his cup down a fraction too hard. “What did you do last night?” he asks you, casual like a trap with flowers on it.
“Panic,” you answer honestly. “Write. Try not to imagine you dead in a ditch.”
He exhales like that is not the answer he prepared to be angry at. “Hn,” he says, which in Damian means I appreciate your concern and you are stupid.
Jason catches your eye over the fridge door and waggles his eyebrows like a cartoon; you look away before you laugh into your pancakes and give the game away.
It’s a minefield. It’s breakfast. It’s fine. It’s everything. And when Dick’s knee bumps yours under the table and stays, when his pinky finds yours and hooks like a promise you’re both insane enough to sign, you realize you are already addicted to the most dangerous thing in the house.
-
It becomes a ritual before either of you admits it out loud.
In the garage, the air smells like rubber and oil and rain about to start. You’re supposed to be waiting for Damian to check a comm line; instead, Dick corners you behind the armored SUV, mouth hot and urgent. You laugh into him, fingers in his hair, the overhead lights making halos on the concrete. “We’re going to get caught,” you whisper, and he murmurs against your lips, “Worth it.”
In the library, the grandfather clock ticks loud enough to count your heartbeats. Damian plays chess in the next room with Jason, and you and Dick share the wingback chair like a sin. His hand is under your shirt, gentle, reverent, thumb stroking the underside of your breast until you have to bite his shoulder to keep from making a sound. He mouths at your throat, his other hand covering your mouth with a grin when you gasp too loud. “Quiet, trouble,” he teases into your skin, and your nails dig into his wrist because you hate that you love the nickname on his voice.
On the roof, the city breathes you in. Wind catches the edges of your borrowed sweater. Dick stands behind you, arms around your waist, chin on your shoulder, both of you watching the river glitter with the kind of evening that turns good men weak. “I can be good,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself. You tilt your head back so your mouth brushes his cheek. “I don’t want you to be.”
In the kitchen at midnight, the world smells like sugar and something burning. You drop a strawberry; he catches it in his mouth with a showman’s grin, and then he’s got you on the counter, laughing into your throat when the oven timer goes off and you both scramble like kids to shut it up, breathless and bright.
On the phone, three rooms away, whispers threading through old wood like contraband. “What are you wearing?” he says once, and you snort. “Your sweatshirt.” Silence, then a sound that makes you squeeze your thighs together. “Which one?” “The one that smells like you.” “You can keep it,” he says, voice rough, and you wish you were in his bed or on his wall or in the damn hallway where it all started because this house is full of rooms and none of them are big enough for what you want.
Every brush of hands becomes a secret. Every look becomes a crime scene where desire is the weapon and you are both gleeful suspects.
You try to be careful. You fail so beautifully it hurts.
-
It’s inevitable. Damian is built like a lie detector.
He finds you in the training room, where the mats smell like soap and effort and the kind of focus that makes your brain quiet. You’re stretching, hair piled on your head, bruises fading on your shins from a story that ran too fast two weeks ago. He watches you, arms crossed, like he’s deciding whether to interrogate you kindly or launch a pre-emptive strike.
“You’re hiding something from me,” he says without preamble.
You exhale. “I’m… complicated.”
“You always are,” he says, but there’s fondness buried under the gravel. He steps closer, eyes cataloging, too thorough to miss the faint mark peeking from beneath your sweatshirt collar. His jaw tightens. “Who hurt you?”
You tug the collar up. “No one.”
“Do not lie to me.”
You don’t. You can’t. Not to him. “It’s not that. I promise.”
Damian’s gaze flicks to your face, then away, then back, like he’s triangulating a threat. “Is someone...” He stops, like the words taste bad. “Is someone treating you with disrespect?”
“Never,” you say softly, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks for a reason that has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with a man who covers your mouth with his palm when you forget the house has ears. “It’s… not like that.”
He studies you with the kind of patience he rarely uses on people who aren’t you. Finally, he nods once, sharp. “If anyone hurts you, I will end them.”
“I know.”
“That includes my brothers.”
You stop breathing for a second. Damian sees it. A crack opens in his composure, and something dark edges his voice. “Is there something you’d like to confess?”
You shake your head. “There’s something I’d like to tell you when it’s not going to make you hate me.”
He stares. The silence is a blade balanced on a breath. Then he looks away, jaw tight. “I do not hate you, my beloved nuisance,” he says, and it hurts more than if he’d shouted.
“Damian.”
“Training is at five,” he says, and leaves you with your heartbeat trying to crawl up your throat.
You text Dick under the table at dinner.
You: He knows something.
Dick: Of course he does.
You: He asked if someone was hurting me. I almost told him everything just to make that look go away.
Dick: He’s protecting you. It’s what he does. It’s what I’m supposed to do too, and I’m failing.
You: You’re not failing.
Dick: Fine. Then I’m falling.
You press your lips together to hide the smile that sentence puts on your face, even as guilt claws softly at your chest. You are two people balanced on the edge of a blade, and the hand trying to keep you from bleeding is the one you’ve lied to the most.
-
It happens in the worst possible room.
The library is many things: quiet, safe, full of witnesses with spines and dust. It is also, apparently, a place where you decide to break every good plan you had.
You and Dick aren’t being careful; you’re being cocky. That’s different, and the house knows it. He has you pressed back against a bookcase with a first edition bracing your hip and one of his hands in your underwear, slow and mean in that way he figured out makes you forget your name.
“Dick,” you whisper, clutching his shoulders, the laugh stuck in your throat turning into a breathy sound you’d deny in court. “Someone’s going to come in.”
“That sounds like a husband-and-wife problem,” he says, eyes wicked, thumb circling your clit in a way that makes a warning pop in your mouth and turn into a moan that would be criminal if the law knew how hands work.
Footsteps. Two sets. East Hallway. Then, you hear the swing of the library door.
You shove Dick backward with a strength borne of pure panic and trip into the narrow gap between two bookcases. He follows you without thinking; you both end up squeezed in behind a row of biographies while Jason and Damian argue about whether a particular sword should be displayed at a particular angle or whether Damian’s need to be right is a public safety hazard.
“You’re insufferable,” Damian says, very close to your hiding place.
“You make it too easy,” Jason mutters. “Also, is it just me or does the library smell like someone fucked in here?”
Dick kisses you to stop the catastrophic noise you were about to let out because of the end of that sentence. It’s instinct; it’s also stupid. Your hands fly to his face, then his shirt, then the shelf because you’re going to fall into a collection of legal histories if you don’t hold onto something, and the clang of a dropped book is so loud that you actually feel your soul leave your body and hover near the chandelier like this is it, this is where I die, crushed under a volume on maritime law.
The footsteps pause.
“What was that?” Damian says.
“Old house,” Jason says, casual with exactly the right amount of performance. “Ghosts. Maybe bats. Who can say.”
“No one says bats in this house,” Damian replies.
You can’t breathe. Dick is shaking with silent laughter, forehead pressed to your neck, and you want to smother him with a folio and also kiss him until the sun refuses to rise out of respect for the level of commitment.
They leave. You stay pinned to the shelf until your heart remembers the difference between alive and dead. When you finally look at him, Dick has that look—half apology, half that was hot and you know it.
“You’re going to get us killed one of these days,” you whisper.
He kisses your cheek, your jaw, the pulse under your ear. “You keep saying that,” he murmurs, mouth curling, “and you keep coming back for more.”
He’s right, which is why you slap his chest and kiss him again, because you’ve never been wrong so loudly and enjoyed it so much.
-
It was always going to be the hallway. Full circle, cruel symmetry, the house remembering where this started and insisting on an encore.
It’s late. You’re still high on adrenaline from a patrol gone sideways, no suit for you yet because Damian refuses to let you jump right in, just a ride-along that became too real when a tip turned into a warehouse full of men with the kind of guns you hate to describe in print. You’re fine. Everyone’s fine. Damian nearly throttled a man for breathing too loud near you, then pretended it was because the man looked at his shoes wrong.
You should be in bed. You’re not. Instead you’re pressed up against the same paneling as the night everything began, Dick’s mouth on yours like he’s trying to unspool the coil of terror still wound in your belly. He tastes like rain and sirens. He tastes like safety. He tastes like a mistake you’d make again with both hands.
“Say it,” he whispers into your mouth, like you’re a switch he can flip with a word.
“I've wanted you for so long, Dick,” you breathe.
He groans, laughs, a little broken. “You know I am head over heels for you?”
“Yes,” you say, and the word breaks you open.
You’re so focused on him you don’t hear the footsteps until it’s too late. The house doesn’t even try to save you with a creak as warning.
“What the hell,” Damian says, voice flat with disbelief.
You freeze. Dick does the brave thing: he steps back, palms up, like surrender.
Damian looks like a painting of betrayal, features carved fine and furious, eyes so bright it hurts to look at them. He flicks a glance at your mouth, at your collar, at Dick’s hand still in the shape of your hip. He makes the kind of sound that belongs to animals who know how to carry grief in their teeth.
“Of all the people in Gotham,” he says, each word precise as a blade, “it had to be him? My own brother?”
“Dami—” you start, and he holds up a hand that silences you more effectively than a shout.
“Do not.” His breath comes fast enough that he notices it and gets angrier. “Do not lie to me. Do not tell me ‘it just happened.’ Do not insult me with the fiction of accidents.”
Dick steps forward like he’s allowed. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Damian hisses, and if he were anyone else he would punch a wall. Because he’s Damian, he just stands there and lets the fury collect behind his eyes like a storm that will not grant the world thunder. “You, of all people.”
“You want me to lie and tell you I don’t care?” Dick’s voice is steady in a way that makes your chest ache. He isn’t hiding behind jokes now; he isn’t trying to charm his way around a blade. “I care. I should have told you. I should have asked you for the space to be dumb and happy at the same time. I didn’t. That’s on me.”
“And you,” Damian says, turning to you, and the worst part is the you, the way it carries every night he made sure you got home, every text that said are you alive, every stupid argument that ended in laughter. “Were you going to tell me before or after I walked you down an aisle and found out your wedding was a family reunion?”
“Damian.”
He closes his eyes, just for a second, like he can shut you both out. When he opens them, the calm is back, the mask fitted tight enough to leave marks. “Get out of my hallway,” he says, and walks away not like he’s retreating but like he’s choosing not to burn the house down on principle.
You stand there for a long time after the quiet eats the last of his footsteps.
Dick reaches for you. You step into him. It’s pathetic and human and necessary. He holds you like a person who knows how to be held and how to hold.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into your hair. “I should have done it differently.”
“I should have told him,” you whisper, voice water-thin. “I shouldn’t have made him find out like that.”
“We’ll fix it,” he says, like he believes in a future where everything that hurts now heals later.
“Will we?”
He exhales, long and careful. “We have to try.”
You nod against his chest, and the manor settles, and somewhere outside the city refuses to sleep because she knows you won’t either.
-
The next day is a study in avoidance.
Damian is a ghost made of steel. He moves around you like you’re a piece of furniture that offended him by existing, and it turns you into a small thing you do not recognize. You consider leaving. You consider doubling down, knocking on his door and letting him break you open with words because at least it would be clean.
You do neither, because Dick beats you to resolve.
You find out later how it went; for now, you only know that he goes to Damian’s door and does not knock like a brother who has the right. He waits in the hall like a soldier waiting for judgment. When Damian opens it, the air changes; charge, pressure, a weather event contained by drywall.
“I'm not here to defend myself, Little D,” Dick says softly. “I’m here to ask you to listen.”
“Say your piece,” Damian replies in a voice that keeps kingdoms in line.
“I love you,” Dick says first, because he’s smart enough to put the right weight on the scale. “And I… I’m falling in love with her. I didn’t plan it, but I didn’t stop it either. That’s on me. If you tell me this destroys us, I will end it. I will end it and live with it. But I need you to know that it isn’t a joke to me. It isn’t a conquest. It’s the first thing that’s felt easy and impossible at the same time, and I can’t pretend it doesn’t matter.”
“You are asking me to sign off on my own discomfort,” Damian says. “To bless a betrayal.”
“I’m asking you to trust me,” Dick says. “To trust that I will not hurt her. To trust that I will not let this make me less your brother. To trust that if you tell me ‘not now,’ I will wait.”
“You would wait,” Damian says, not a question, and you can hear the faintest thread of surprise he didn’t iron out fast enough.
“For you? For her? Yeah.” He laughs, small and helpless. “You know me. I’d wait a lifetime and then climb through a window like a teenager if I had to.”
There’s a sound that might be a laugh if you’re generous and a cough if you’re not. When Damian speaks again, the edge is still there, but it’s cooling. “You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“You made me feel like a fool in my own house.”
“I know,” Dick says again, and lets the truth sit between them like a debt he will spend years repaying.
You don’t hear the rest. You only know that later, Damian finds you in the garden where the roses are trying to decide whether they forgive the weather. He stands in front of you like a judge. You straighten like a defendant who came to court without a lawyer.
“I will not pretend to be happy,” he says. Your hands twitch at your sides. He sees it. He doesn’t soften. “But I am not ten years old.” A pointed pause, like he’s clearing canon and expectation from the room. “I am not a child. I can survive discomfort.”
“Damian, I—”
“I am not finished,” he says, and something in you smiles because there he is. “We will be setting rules.”
“Rules,” you repeat, dizzy with the fact that this might be happening.
“You will not lie to me. You will not treat me like a fool. You will not…” He waves a hand, searching for a phrasing that won’t make him bleed. “Be indecorous in hallways I frequent.”
You nod so fast you might get whiplash. “No indecorousness. Hallways are temples. I worship silence.”
“Do not make me regret this,” he says, and the words are permission even if they’re dressed like a threat.
“I won’t,” you say, and it’s the most honest thing you’ve said to him in days.
He watches you for a long moment, then looks away. “He is… tedious when he is unhappy.”
“Dick?”
“All of you,” he says, and it is so perfectly Damian that you laugh before you can stop it.
He levels a finger at you. “If he hurts you—”
“You will end him,” you finish softly. “I know.”
He nods, satisfied with the ritual. He turns to go, then hesitates, like there’s something sharp in his throat he’s deciding whether to pull out. “You are my... best friend,” he says finally, the words landing heavy. “I would appreciate it if you remained that way.”
You blink because your eyes burn and that’s not useful. “Always,” you say.
He inclines his head, a prince in a garden doing his best with a world that insists on being personal. He leaves you with the roses, with the house, with a future that looks like a bridge suspended over a river and only one way to find out if it holds.
Dick finds you there with your palms against cool stone and your name ringing like a bell you didn’t know you had.
“How bad was it?” you ask, turning. He’s careful, moving like he knows he’s not the hero in this scene.
“Not good,” he admits, then smiles slow. “But not impossible.”
You step into him. His hand finds your waist the way it always does, as if your body came with a map only he can read. You rest your forehead against his chest and exhale something you’ve been carrying since the moment you said yes in a hallway you should have avoided.
“We have rules,” you say.
He huffs a laugh against your hair. “Terrifying.”
“No indecorousness in hallways.”
“Tempting me with poetry.”
“No lying.”
He sobers, hands sliding up to cradle your jaw so you have to look at him. “No lying,” he echoes, and there’s a softness in his face that wasn’t there yesterday. “I can do that one, at least.”
You lean in and kiss him like a promise, slow and careful, the kind of kiss people write oaths under. When you part, the world is still here. The roses breathe. The manor does not collapse. The city hums with a future you’re allowed to want.
Later, in the privacy of a room that passes the indecorousness test on a technicality, you curl up with him and let the slow warmth of safety make you honest in other ways. He touches you like thanks; you touch him like relief. It’s not the frantic hallway, not the library, not a secret you have to shove behind your teeth. It’s a language you learn together, easy and impossible at once.
“Tell me again,” he murmurs, mouth at your throat, lines of his body familiar and new. “Tell me what you want.”
You smile against his hair and use the words that started all your trouble, because sometimes trouble is just another word for the life you want, “I want you all over me,” you whisper, guiding his hand, guiding his mouth, guiding the night to where it belongs. “Inside me.”
“Good,” he says softly, wrecked and reverent in equal measure. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
In the morning, Damian will roll his eyes twice and pretend he didn’t smuggle your favorite pastry into the kitchen under the guise of hating you less. Tim will mutter finally into his coffee and offer you a spreadsheet labeled Acceptable PDA Zones. Jason will tell you to stop blushing before the sun overheats and publicly declare himself as having been Team Bad Decisions (what he now refers to your relationship with Dick as).
You will sit at the table with a hand on Dick’s thigh and a secret that isn’t a secret anymore, and when you catch Damian’s eye, he will look away and you will understand that in this house, love is a hazard best managed with honesty and doors that lock.
Outside, Gotham will wake and misbehave like she always does. Inside, you will learn the art of wanting without hiding, of laughter after confession, of being allowed to stay.
And on certain nights, passing that hallway with his fingers laced in yours, you will both look at the wall where everything began and smile the kind of smile that says we paid for it, we kept it, we’re keeping it still.
summary. the locals in the village had long told that the count and his family who were living in the dark castle on the hill are vampires. so you only had yourself to blame for not heeding their warning.
⭑.ᐟ content. dick grayson x reader, fem!reader, vampire!dick grayson, fantasy/medieval setting, miscommunication, reincarnation, destined to meet (word count. 3.1k)
⭑.ᐟ warnings. blood/injury, dick is probably ooc but hes like a hundred year old vampire here so, reader is clueless, making out? with blood???
⭑.ᐟ author's note. IT BEGINS!!! i hope you all like!! i love halloween so this should be sooooo fun!!
You’ve never seen the count before. No one has—not really.
As far as you’re concerned, he’s more myth than man, a name passed down through generations to keep curious children from wandering too close to the gates of Wayne Manor. The stories used to keep you up at night—crying to your mother at the faint sway of a shadow or the sudden scrape of a branch against your windowpane. They were elaborate whispers, stitched together from rumors and warnings: tales whispered between neighbors as the sun sank below the horizon, murmured around supper tables, or crooned by the elders when the fire burned low.
Gotham has always been a quiet village—tucked deep in the valley, cloaked in a thick blanket of fog, the kind of place where secrets cling to the land like moss on stone. Perhaps it was that such seclusion allowed such rumors to take root, festering in the minds of villagers who had little else to entertain themselves with. And really, what else could they do but wonder?
You didn’t blame them for fabricating such stories. A poor village crouched beneath a sprawling manor, ruled by the reclusive Count with his mysterious brood of adopted children. They say the family feasts only at night, that the manor’s candles never go out, that if you listen closely enough, you can hear music drifting from the windows long after midnight.
You always found it silly—the stories and rumors. If the count were truly undead, surely he wouldn’t still order jewelry and wine from the local merchants. Someone had to deliver the goods up that cursed path, after all. The only townsperson brave enough to go even a foot past the gates.
You.
You remember the first time you saw the manor—tall, dark bricked towers reaching high up into the clouds, scraggly branched trees barren of leaves surrounding the grounds. The air felt heavier there, thick with uncertainty. Even your father had gone quiet on that trip, his jaw tight as he unloaded the crates. At home, he would rant about the count and his family, about men who hid behind money, about the arrogance of those who never showed their face yet who still had everything. But that day, standing at the foot of the iron gates, he said nothing at all.
And when you looked up—just once—you swore you saw a figure in the window peeking out from behind the curtains. Mother said it had just been your imagination when you told her of the person you’d seen—a beautiful young man with hair the color of raven’s feathers and eyes as piercing blue as stained glass. Eventually, you told yourself it was a trick of the light, or maybe one of the Count’s wards came to glimpse the outside world. But something about the posture—the quiet stillness of it—felt older.
Lonelier.
Years passed. You learned to mind your work, to keep your eyes low and your deliveries quick. The manor was no more than another stop on your route—its iron gates groaning open at your approach, your cart creaking as it rolled over gravel. You’d leave the boxes at the door, knock once, and never wait long enough to see if someone answered.
That was until the night of the storm.
The night sky had broken open, tears of heavy rain poured from the starless inky darkness above. Thunder rolled through the valley and the roads turned to mush, mud coating the bottom of your skirts. Your lantern fought against the damp air, the flame flickering as you approached your final stop of the night. The air smelled of iron and wet wood as you approached the tall, spiked gates of the manor. You push against them with your shoulder, the hinges crying out like a wounded animal as you slip past and up the mossy, cobbled pathway. The manor looms ahead, its windows burning faintly gold in the pitch darkness the storm has curated. As you approach the steps, you think you see a shadow move past the window’s, as if someone had been watching your ascent.
As you raise your fist to knock, the great doors swing open with a sickening creak—as if they hadn’t been touched in centuries. You freeze, your mud slick boots glued to the stone beneath them. The manor’s entryway is dimly lit, your lantern doing little to provide more clarity amongst the flickering light from the sconces. The air is somehow colder inside—old and heavy with the scent of dust. The hall swallows the pounding sound of the storm, leaving you in a void of noise. Empty, only the echo of your own ragged breathing to keep you company.
You clear your throat. “Uh, delivery from the village. I’m terribly sorry for my tardiness—”
“Don’t apologize,” comes a voice from the shadows.
It’s low and clear, though gentle enough to startle you. A figure steps into view from the darkness—slow and soundless, as if he’s materialized out of thin air. The air is sucked from your lungs, recognition curling deep in your gut.
At first, you almost think he’s the Count himself—but no, no he’s far too young. Or at least he looks it. His shirt was loose at the collar, the dark blue fabric laid against his skin, sleeves rolled past his elbows. Dark hair, blacker than the shadows surrounding him, falls over his brow and curls at the nape of his neck in soft waves. His eyes—the same piercing blue are oddly luminous in the half light of the waving candles—catch yours with an intensity that makes your pulse quicken.
“You shouldn’t have come so late,” he says, his voice low but not unkind.
“The storm—I got delayed. I had to finish my route.”
He steps closer. The candlelight catches on his features, revealing a face both beautiful and solemn, like the marble angels in the churchyard. His gaze drifts to the dripping hem of your cloak and dirtied skirt.
“You’re soaked.”
Your hand twitches. For a moment, neither of you speaks. His eyes flicker to the crates behind you before settling on you once more, “you’re the one who brings the deliveries.”
“Yes,” you breathe, “every month.”
“I know.”
Something in his tone makes your stomach twist. Not threatening, exactly—just an unsettling sense of knowing, as though he’s watched every one of your visits from behind those curtained windows. A crack of thunder shatters the silence. The lantern sputters and dies and the hall plunges into darkness.
You yelp, instinctively stepping back—only to feel a gloved hand close gently around your wrist. There’s no warmth in his grasp, only a deep chill, as if his body was carved of freezing stone.
“Easy,” he whispers near your ear—far closer than you realized.
“Thank you—?” you murmur, tilting your head towards his voice.
“Dick,” he answers, just as the candle light mysteriously flares back to life, revived by a force unseen by you. You mutter your own name in return and his eyes glint in the fire light.
“Ah, so that's what it is in—” the Count’s eldest ward mumbles to himself, but the clash of thunder outside drowns out the rest. His presence presses in on you, the weight of his stare, the damp air thick as it surrounds you both. It sends a shiver down your spine.
“I should be heading back now, my lord,” you mutter, voice thin, “I won’t disturb you further.”
“You’re far from disturbing me,” Dick says, his unnaturally pearly white teeth peeking out between beautifully soft lips, “and I cannot possibly allow you to travel all the way home in this storm. You’ll stay at the manor tonight.”
Your breath quickens and you shake your head, the steady dripping of your soaked clothes echoing through the barren halls, “My lord, I—”
“Please,” he says, a flicker of amusement lighting his eyes, “you may use my name.”
You start again, hesitating. “Dick, I really shouldn’t intrude on you and your family. While it’s very kind of you—”
“You are not intruding. My family will likely be oblivious to your presence,” his smile deepens, sharp and lovely, and your stomach turns, “I insist.”
He releases your arm with a fluid swiftness and turns down the dark corridor. The stories whispered in your ear since childhood flood your mind. Of immortal beings that dwell on the hill. Of a Count and his brood who wake only when the sun has bid farewell to the world. Of how each generation looks eerily the same as the last.
And yet—you follow.
And unbeknownst to you, the door shuts silently as you glide through the manor’s thick, wooden doors.
Adrenaline floods your veins, your skin hot despite the chill that clings to your soaked garments. You clutch your lantern tighter, its trembling light your only anchor as you trail the man with luminous blue eyes through the darkened halls. A sinking feeling collects in your weary bones. A realization you have fully disregarded all warnings and now, you’re walking straight into the belly of the beast.
You shudder and raise your lantern, gaze lingering on the walls. The soot colored stone is lined with portraits, their painted eyes following your every step, surely ancient. A larger piece catches your attention—a family, a middle aged man, strikingly handsome but somber and a litter of children with familiar faces. Your heart stutters when your gaze finds that unmistakable shade of blue belonging to the man walking ahead.
You swallow hard, willing yourself not to think about the implications before you spiral. But before you can form an excuse—any reason to leave this foolish trap you’ve found yourself—you see something that rips the words from your throat.
In brushstrokes and cracked varnish, you find your own face. Your figure is rendered in delicate detail. A woman in a midnight blue gown, seated in a velvet chair. Hair coiled in elegant curls. And beside you—hand resting on your shoulder, that same gleam in his painted eyes—is him.
“Who’s that?” you murmur.
Dick halts in your peripheral. He doesn’t move and neither do you—both of you suddenly statues carved of the same marble. He doesn’t turn and his shoulders tense.
“An ancestor of mine,” he says at last, distantly, “and his wife.”
A chill crawls down your spine as you stare at the painting. The resemblance is grotesque in its perfection. Dick doesn’t give you long to process what this could mean before he starts back down the hallway with measured steps.
“Come, the parlor is just down here. You can warm up by the fire.”
Lush and sophisticated, the parlor is draped in black velvet and furniture awash with the warm glow of blazing coals. The air is warmer here, the flames providing much needed comfort as you enter the room. Before you, the grand maw of ancient stone yawns open, embers and wisps of fire spitting sparks and crackling bouncing off the walls. You sink to the ground, knees digging into the polished stone beneath as you shrug off your water logged cloak.
From the corner of your vision, a tanned boy with spiky dark hair—maybe around twelve—leers at you from the archway. His green eyes catch the firelight, glowing against the harsh shadows he lurks in. Your ‘host’ catches the uninvited visitor as well, immediately striding over and ushering the younger boy back into the darkness.
“Damian, out. You mustn't scare…” whatever else he says is drowned out by the pounding of blood against your ears. Dick steps forward without a word after shooing the boy away, scooping the heavy fabric from your arms. He hangs it by the fire with quiet care, while you remain hunched before the hearth—cowering like a scared rabbit.
Prey.
That's what you feel like.
Watched for years, only spared until it was the right time to strike. You’re certain you will die here tonight as the warmth of the flames crawl across your damp skin and the weight of his eyes lands heavy on your back. Will you also become a memory? A tale of the foolish merchant’s daughter lured to her end by a man so beautiful she barely resisted. A story told to village children to warn them of the dangers of Count Wayne’s looming manor on the hill.
Your skin prickles.
He’s watching again.
Your eyes slide sideways through the fall of your damp hair. Dick stands by the mantle, firelight cutting across his face, gilding his cheekbones and the dark waves of his hair. You’ve fallen right into the spider’s web—his web—and every instinct in you screams that there's no way out.
Your breaths shudder out of your lungs as you jolt back from the fire and to your feet. You stumble, heart pounding so hard it rattles your ribs. In your panic, your foot slips on the slick stone, and you go down hard. Pain explodes across your face, white hot and disorientating.
“My lady—”
His voice is closer than it should be, and before you can comprehend, he’s there, faster than your eyes can track. His hands catch your shoulders just as the world spins. Pain splits across your nose and hot liquid runs down your lip. Bringing a hand up, you realize the metallic taste on your tongue is blood. You’re much too busy staring at the blood on your hand to realize Dick has tightened his grip.
“I frightened you.”
His frown is taut, pained, and his hands tremble where they hold you. But his eyes—his eyes are no longer blue. They’re black, pupils blown wide, devouring what little light remains there. And those eyes are focused on the heavy stream of blood that pours from your throbbing nose, like a moth to a flame.
“I don’t know your intentions,” you choke out. “I do not know your nature. Or your character. I—I do not know you, Dick. Of course I am frightened.”
His jaw sets and one hand moves from your shoulder to brush a stray locke of hair gently from your face.
“You used to,” he mutters, “once.”
You should run, scream, anything—but you don't. There’s only a strange, aching familiarity that creeps up your spine. His body shakes before you, a deep scent of metallic blood lingering between you two. When he grimaces, his canines catch the light—sharp, dagger like.
“Let me show you. Let me help you remember,” he grits out, his eyes dilated so heavily you can see your own in the darkness of them. As if under a spell, you nod as your heart attempts to escape your chest.
His fingers trace along your jaw, leaving trails of gooseflesh in their wake. His touch is cold but you can feel the tremor beneath it. When his thumb catches a stray bead of blood at the corner of your mouth, he stills. His throat works, and when your gaze meets his, you find hunger there.
Then he bows his head.
His lips brush your neck like a wordless confession. Your breath stutters in answer. God, why are you doing this? Your hands rise of their own accord, clutching at his chest, the fabric of his shirt fisting in your fingers. But something sharp presses against your jugular, holding you there. The predator has caught his prey.
And he strikes.
A gasp breaks from you as pain blooms—brief and sudden, gone before you can even cry out. His mouth is hot compared to his hands, and the pull of your blood feels like a tide being sucked from shore. The world narrows to the sound of his breath, the beat of your heart, the taste of blood on your tongue.
Then come the memories.
They rush through you in flashes—gaudy candlelit halls, music and perfume thick in the air, Dick’s hand clasping yours as he pulls you away from the crowd, laughter spilling between you like sweet wine. His eyes are the same shade they are now, just as intense. The faces blur and touches fade until there’s nothing left but that gaze burned behind your eyelids—the same one that found you in the doorway tonight.
When the visions fade, you’re back in his arms with your knees biting into the cool ground. Dick’s lips still move softly against your neck, his breath unsteady, as though he’s regaining control. You realize he’s not feeding anymore. He’s cleaning the wound—apologizing. Your hands gently cup the nape of his neck, shuddering from the aftermath.
“I’ve waited lifetimes for you,” he says, a shuttered sigh trembling from him. “Had it not been for this storm, I would have waited a thousand more.”
Still dazed, you pull back just enough to see his face. His mouth is stained crimson, blood—your blood—trickling down his chin.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” you mutter. And you mean it. For every lifetime the stories of the undead Count who turned his wards into monsters drove you away. For every moment he stood at the window of his manor, praying for a glimpse of you. To keep an immortal waiting must be a sin—or at the very least, unbearably cruel. Dick hums, pressing your forehead to his own, his eyes lingering on your mouth.
“Waiting was no burden,” he breathes out, “not for you.”
The kiss that follows is dizzying, your fingers digging into his cold skin. It’s messy with the slick of your blood—on his lips and your own—metalic but sweet against your tongue. Whatever this spell you’re under, you no longer care for it to be broken. Whatever binds you to him cannot be severed—not by life, nor by death; not by fear, nor by the stories meant to keep you apart. Roaming hands, the sharp nip of fangs at your lower lip, a devotion you’ve only ever dreamed of. Eternities pass before you part—barely—noses brushing, a thin thread of red saliva between you.
“Never part from me,” he whispers, “I beg of you. Another lifetime spent without you would drive me mad.”
“We shall never be parted then,” you answer, voice soft as the crackling fire, “not again. I swear it.”
Dick smiles, tips of his fangs catching the light.
“Eternity, then.”
“Eternity.”
The merchant’s daughter was never seen again by the townspeople. Her name faded into obscurity, her memory woven into the stories told to keep children from straying up the hill toward Wayne Manor.
Yet some swear that when the darkness of night falls, you can still catch sight of her in the windows—twirling about in the arms of the Count’s ward. Two shadows bound by something older than death itself, dancing as the centuries pass them by.
Summary: You knew Dick Grayson when you were kids, back when he was Robin and you were the journalist’s daughter sneaking after stories you weren’t supposed to. He was awkward, gangly, more earnest than smooth, and you had a crush anyway. Then you left Gotham, and life moved on. Years later, you’re back in the city with a press badge of your own, chasing leads and running headfirst into trouble. Except this time, it’s not Robin who finds you, It’s Nightwing. Taller. Broader. Unfairly charming.
word count: 16k
notes – not proofread. first time writing for dick !!!!
— reblogs comments & likes are appreciated
The first thing you learn about Gotham at night is that it never shuts up. The city hums, rattles, and groans. A low, constant sound, like the world grinding its teeth. You’d grown up listening to it through your bedroom window, lullabied by sirens and laughter that never sounded quite right, but it feels different when you’re actually in it, sneakers scuffing against wet pavement as you trail after your dad.
You shouldn’t be here. You know it.
Your dad said he was going to meet a source and you’d been told, ordered, not to follow. But curiosity eats at you the way the Gotham chill eats at skin, and when you saw him grab his notebook and duck out the door, you slipped out ten minutes later, coat too thin and pulse thrumming with the thrill of doing something forbidden.
You’re close enough to keep his hat in sight, not close enough to hear the scribbles of his pen. He cuts down a side street, one you recognize from whispered family arguments: Crime Alley. A place name said like a warning, a curse, a story that ends badly every time.
You think you’ll just watch. Stay hidden. Go home before he ever notices.
And then a car door slams. Men step out, shadows too broad, voices too low. The scrape of a gun being drawn is so distinct it punches the air out of your lungs. You’re frozen before you can even think to run.
“Hey,” one of them snaps, “who’s the guy with the notebook?”
Your dad. They move faster than you thought men that big could, and your father stumbles back against a wall, palms up, words coming out too fast for you to catch. You can’t look away. You don’t even notice that you’ve crept closer, feet dragging you toward him like gravity.
Then a hand grabs you from behind. A sharp yank, and you’re pulled into the gap between two crumbling brick buildings. You suck in a breath to scream, but a gloved hand clamps over your mouth.
“Don’t,” a voice hisses. Young. Annoyed. And weirdly… theatrical?
You blink up at the figure in the dim light. Red tunic, green gloves, a cape that swishes against your legs. A mask. The only thing you can really see are his eyes, impossibly blue, narrowed like you’ve just ruined his entire night.
Robin. Holy crap. Robin has his hand over your mouth.
When he finally lets go, you gasp, “What the hell?”
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he cuts in, voice cracking with the force of it. “Following a bunch of mobsters into Crime Alley? Real smart.”
Your heart is still jackhammering, but indignation flares hotter than fear. “I wasn’t! I was just—”
“You were just about to blow his cover,” he snaps, jerking his head toward the street. Your dad’s voice drifts faintly over the noise; he’s still talking, still buying time. “Do you have any idea what happens if they see you? You’d be leverage. A liability. Deadweight.”
“Wow.” You cross your arms, trying to hide the way your hands are still shaking. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I didn’t know Batman’s sidekick was such a charmer.”
His shoulders stiffen. “You’re lucky I even noticed you before they did.”
You tilt your chin up, eyeing him fully now. He’s shorter than you thought he’d be. Still taller than you, but not by much. Younger, too. His jaw hasn’t settled into itself yet, his voice has that awkward in-between crack, and his boots squeak when he shifts his weight. He’s a kid. A crime-fighting, cape-wearing kid.
“You’re… smaller than I expected,” you blurt before you can stop yourself.
His head whips toward you, affronted. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” You bite back a grin, heat bubbling up despite the danger. “It’s just, everyone always makes you sound… I don’t know. Taller. Broodier.”
He glares. “I’m not here to live up to your expectations.”
You can’t help it. You laugh, a nervous little sound muffled against your sleeve. “Okay, sorry, don’t get your tights in a twist boy wonder.”
His scowl only deepens, and then a crackle from his comm has him turning his head. A man’s voice, Batman, you realize with a shiver, low and commanding. Robin mutters something back, sharp and clipped, before his gaze settles on you again.
“Go home,” he says, more tired than angry this time. “This isn’t a game.”
“But my dad…” You hesitate. Your dad is still out there, talking fast, and you can’t tell if he’s winning or losing.
“Your dad’s fine,” Robin adds quickly, softer now. “Batman’s got him. But if you stay, you’ll make it worse.”
You study him for a beat, and beneath the impatience, you catch it: the edge of worry. Not just about the mission. About you. Something inside you twists.
“Fine,” you mutter. “But only because you’re bossy.”
He doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He just takes your wrist and tugs you down a different alley, cape brushing your arm as he half-drags you back toward the safer streets. He doesn’t let go until the noise has faded and the streetlamps burn steady again.
When you reach the corner near your house, he finally stops. Folds his arms. “You’re gonna stay put this time?”
“Yes, mom,” you shoot back, rolling your eyes. For the first time, he cracks a smile. Just a twitch of his mouth, quick and bright, before he shakes his head like he can’t believe you.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters. “You’re lucky you’re not grounded for life.”
And then he’s gone, a flash of cape against the skyline.
You stand there on your street corner, heart pounding for reasons that have nothing to do with mobsters, and think, So Robin is shorter than expected. Bossier. Maybe even kind of annoying.
But also…he might just be the most interesting person you’ve ever met.
-
The second time you see him, it’s by accident. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. You weren’t looking for him. You swear you weren’t. You were only out walking because your apartment felt suffocating and Gotham, for all its broken glass and shadows, still felt like it might offer air. But when you cut down Burnside Avenue, past the flickering neon of the diner, he drops from the fire escape two feet in front of you. The cape swishes. The boots hit concrete.
“Seriously?” he mutters. “What are you doing out here again?”
You nearly jump out of your sneakers. “Oh my god! Do you always sneak up on people like that?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of my thing.” He’s glaring, but it doesn’t land right. His mouth is tight, sure, but his voice sounds more like a boy caught between annoyance and…something else. Worry, maybe. “You don’t learn, do you? Crime Alley ring any bells?”
You cross your arms. “I wasn’t in Crime Alley. I was, like, three blocks over.”
“That’s not the point.” He sighs, the sound way too old for his age. “Gotham’s not safe for late-night strolls.”
You almost tell him it’s not safe in daylight either, but then you catch it; the way his shoulders hunch, like the weight of protecting a whole city has been shoved into bones that haven’t even finished growing. And suddenly you don’t feel like arguing. Instead, you shrug, pretending casual. “You always hang around diners waiting for girls to wander by?”
His mask tilts toward you, eyes narrowing. Then, to your surprise, he huffs a laugh. It’s short, almost embarrassed. “You think I was waiting for you?”
“Well, were you?”
“No.” Too fast. “I mean…no.”
But later, when you climb the fire escape to your roof and find him sitting there, swinging his legs like he owns the place, you realize you don’t actually believe him.
-
The roof of your building isn’t glamorous. Tar paper bubbled from rain, rust stains streaking down the side of the water tank, the occasional pigeon that refuses to be intimidated by you. But when you push the heavy door open and step out, the air feels different. Gotham’s hum is still there, sirens, horns, the buzz of neon, but up here it doesn’t press as hard against your ribs.
And more often than not lately, he’s already there. Robin sits cross-legged on the ledge, or sprawled on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes, cape fanned around him like he doesn’t care how ridiculous it looks. Sometimes he drops down a few seconds after you arrive, startling you with the scrape of boots on metal. Either way, it starts to feel like a routine: your door creaking, his head lifting, both of you pretending not to be waiting for each other.
“Busy night?” you ask one evening, sliding down to sit a safe distance away.
“Busier than yours,” he deadpans. “You know, most people spend their nights doing homework. Watching TV. Not scaling fire escapes.”
“Homework doesn’t come with a view.” You tilt your head at the skyline. Gotham glitters in a way that almost tricks you into thinking it’s beautiful.
He snorts, but when you glance sideways, you catch the corner of his mouth twitching like he’s trying not to smile. That’s how it always goes. You jab at him, he pretends he’s above it, and somewhere in between, you both soften.
-
Over time, the conversations stretch longer. You tell him about your dad, how he’s never home, how he burns through notebooks and cups of stale coffee like they’re oxygen. How you’re not sure if you admire him or resent him, and how sometimes it feels like Gotham chews your family as much as it does everyone else.
Robin doesn’t laugh, doesn’t brush it off. He just sits there, chin in his gloved hand, listening like every word is weighty. When you finish, he nods once, sharp and certain, like he’s filing it away as important.
And then, in quieter moments, he lets pieces of himself slip through. Not many, always measured, always cautious, but enough. How Batman trains him until his bones ache. How his armor never feels like it fits, how the bruises bloom in places no one ever sees. How sometimes he doesn’t know if he’s saving Gotham or if Gotham is slowly eating him alive.
His voice is always lower when he says those things, almost lost to the hum of the city. Like he’s afraid of being overheard by shadows.
You never tell him, but that’s when the crush starts. Not the giggling, diary-scrawled kind your friends whisper about. This is quieter. He isn’t even cute, not really. His ears stick out, his voice still cracks if he laughs too hard, his nose looks like it’s been broken once already. But he carries himself like every problem in Gotham belongs to him, and when he looks at you, you feel like you matter in a way the city never lets you.
-
Some nights you talk about nothing at all. Pizza debates that spiral into full-blown arguments.
“New Trioni’s is better than Angelo’s. Don’t argue with me, I’m right.”
“You’re so wrong,” he shoots back, mock-offended. “Trioni’s slices flop over like wet paper. Angelo’s can hold its shape when you fold it.”
“Who folds their pizza?” you demand, eyes wide.
“Real Gothamites,” he says with all the gravitas of someone who’s fourteen and just learning what the word “gravitas” means.
The bickering lasts twenty minutes, ending with you scribbling “TRIONI’S > ANGELO’S” on the back of your notebook and holding it up in his face until he swats at you.
Other nights, you complain about teachers. Yours, who you swear has made it their personal mission to fail you, and his, who he can’t talk about too much but still slips through in hints. “It’s like… training disguised as lessons. Fail and you do push-ups until your arms give out.”
You tell him that’s got to be child abuse. He rolls his eyes. “It’s Gotham.”
-
It happens on a night when Gotham feels especially sharp. The air smells like rain on copper pipes, and somewhere far off a siren wails, long and low. You’d promised yourself you wouldn’t sneak out again, but promises don’t hold much weight in this city. You’d only been a few blocks from home when the shouting started. Two guys fighting over a busted radio, the kind of thing you should’ve ignored. You’d frozen, pulse climbing, when one of them noticed you watching.
It doesn’t take long. Heavy footsteps. A hand grabbing too close to your arm. And then he’s there. Robin drops from the fire escape like a shadow snapping into place. A blur of red, green, and anger. His boot catches the guy’s chest, sends him sprawling. The other one bolts.
“You again,” he grits out as he drags you behind him, voice cracking just enough to remind you he’s not much older than you.
You mean to thank him, but the words catch when you see him stumble. Just a hitch, a fraction of a limp as he turns. His arm is tight against his side, hand flexing like he’s trying not to use it.
“Are you hurt?” you blurt.
“I’m fine.” He tries for firm, but it’s more defensive than convincing.
“You’re bleeding,” you insist, catching the dark smear seeping through his tunic.
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Your voice sharpens, louder than you mean it to. “And you’re not going back out there until you let me look.”
He stares at you, eyes unreadable behind the mask, like he’s calculating the odds of you actually tackling him if he refuses. Finally, with a long, theatrical sigh, he mutters, “Fine. Five minutes.”
-
Your apartment is embarrassingly small. Peeling wallpaper. A couch with stuffing trying to claw its way out of the seams. The bathroom’s worse, barely enough room for the sink, the tub, and both of you crammed inside.
“Sit,” you order, tugging at his wrist until he perches awkwardly on the closed toilet lid, cape spilling over the floor like dark water.
“This is unnecessary,” he says, though his voice wobbles when you press a towel against his ribs.
“Unnecessary is bleeding out in a back alley,” you snap, trying to hold your hands steady. The towel comes away red. Too red. “God, do you even know how to take care of yourself?”
His eyes flick up at you then, sharp, defensive, but there’s something softer underneath. Something that makes your stomach twist.
“You sound like him,” he mutters.
“Batman?”
He doesn’t answer, but the silence is enough. You grab the first aid kit from under the sink, bandages, alcohol wipes, the kind of things your dad keeps for paper cuts and clumsy accidents, not vigilantes. Still, you make it work.
“Hold still,” you warn, tearing open an alcohol pad.
“I am still.”
“You’re fidgeting.”
“You’re bossy.”
“Better bossy than dead.”
That finally earns you the tiniest smile, quick and crooked, gone almost before you register it.
You’re close now, too close. Kneeling in front of him, hands braced against his side as you patch what you can. The smell of leather and sweat clings to his tunic, the faintest hint of smoke in his hair. His breathing evens under your touch, like he’s not used to anyone bothering to fix him up.
When you look up, his eyes are already on you. The mask gleams under the bathroom’s weak light, distorting him into something untouchable. And suddenly it feels wrong. Wrong to be this close to someone whose face you can’t really see.
“You ever get tired of it?” you ask quietly. “The mask?”
His shoulders tense. He looks away, down at the cracked tiles. For a second you think he won’t answer. Then his hands lift, hesitant and slow.
The domino comes off.
You freeze. It’s not some hardened soldier under there. Not a myth. Just a boy. Hair damp and stubborn where sweat’s plastered it to his forehead. Eyes too big, too tired, too human. A face you recognize from posters years ago—the acrobat from Haly’s Circus.
“…you’re Dick Grayson,” you breathe, the name spilling out before you can stop it.
His chin tips up, defensive. “You gonna tell anyone?”
“Of course not.” The words fall out fast, desperate to close the space between you. “I’d never.”
He studies you, eyes searching your face like he’s bracing for betrayal. Whatever he sees must be enough, because his shoulders ease, his breath lets out slow. “I shouldn’t have told you,” he mutters. “Batman would kill me if he knew.”
You nudge his knee with yours, a tiny grin tugging at your lips despite the tight knot in your chest. “Guess it’s a good thing Batman doesn’t know everything.”
For the first time, he laughs. Really laughs. It’s uneven, boyish, and it shoots straight through you, leaving you dizzy. And in that cramped little bathroom, with the hum of the city seeping through the cracked window and the smell of antiseptic sharp in the air, you realize this isn’t just Robin anymore. It isn’t just Dick Grayson either. It’s both.
And it feels like a secret only you get to keep.
-
The day you find out you’re leaving, it doesn’t feel real. Your dad doesn’t sit you down or soften it, he just mutters over cold coffee and half-packed files, “It’s not safe anymore. We’re going. End of discussion.”
That’s all you get. No details, no vote. By nightfall, cardboard boxes are stacked in the living room, your whole life folded and taped shut. Gotham shrinks to the size of a trunk and a suitcase. You don’t cry. Not right away. But when the apartment gets quiet, when your dad slams another box closed and the walls echo hollow, you slip out the window and climb.
The roof is empty at first. No cape on the ledge, no boy dangling his boots. Just the hum of the city below, as if it doesn’t care you’re about to vanish. You wrap your arms around yourself and stare out at the skyline, hoping, willing, he’ll show.
And then, like he always does, he drops into place beside you. “You weren’t gonna say goodbye?” he asks, voice soft under the gravel.
Your throat goes tight. “I didn’t know how.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just sits there, mask half-lit by the flicker of a neon sign, waiting.
So you talk. About how your dad’s stories finally drew the wrong kind of attention. About how Gotham feels like it’s about to spit your family out after chewing through you all so thoroughly there will be nothing left, and this time there’s no choice but to run. About how much you hate leaving; not the apartment, not even the city, but this. These nights. This secret. Him.
He listens like he always does, quiet and intent, the kind of quiet that means he’s holding every word.
Finally, you look at him and whisper, “I don’t want to forget this.”
Something flickers in his expression, too quick to name. He shifts, pulling the domino mask off and turning it in his hands until the edges press little crescents into his palms.
“Then don’t,” he says simply. “Don’t forget me.”
Your heart lodges in your throat. You want to tell him you won’t, that you couldn’t if you tried. You want to tell him that the crush you’ve been burying is bigger than you can hold, that you’re leaving with a piece of yourself you didn’t know you’d given away. But you’re fourteen, and the words are too big, too heavy.
So instead you nod, fiercely, until the tears blur the skyline. “I won’t.”
For a moment, you swear he leans like he might say something else. Might ask you to stay, might admit he doesn’t want to forget either. But then your dad’s voice calls up from the street, sharp and impatient, and the moment shatters.
You stand. He stays seated, mask still in his hands, like he can’t quite put it back on. You want to hug him, to make the promise tangible, but you’re not sure if that’s allowed, so you just hold his gaze for one more beat and whisper, “Goodbye, Dick.”
“Goodbye,” he echoes, voice raw around the edges.
You don’t look back as you climb down the fire escape, suitcase handle cutting into your palm. The car door slams, your dad starts the engine, and Gotham begins to slide past the windows like a dream smearing at the edges.
But when you finally let yourself glance back, there he is, perched on the rooftop, cape trailing behind him, mask dangling loose in his hands.
A boy too small for the weight he carries, silhouetted against a city that will never stop asking more. Watching you leave like it’s the last thing he’ll ever let himself do.
And then the car turns the corner, and he’s gone.
-
You’d always told yourself you weren’t keeping tabs, not really. But the truth is you couldn’t help it. Gotham’s headlines are hard to ignore. Batman never vanished; he’s a permanent fixture in the background of every crisis, every scandal, every blurred photograph of a cape against a floodlight.
Robin was there too, at least for a while. But not your Robin. This one was smaller, sharper, someone else’s kid in colors that weren’t his. The news never explained the swap. Gotham doesn’t explain anything.
As for Dick Grayson? You never let yourself look too hard. Some nights in Metropolis, you’d type his name into a search bar, just to hover over the letters. Circus boy, ward of Bruce Wayne, rumored dropout. Then you’d slam the laptop closed before the results could load. It felt like breaking some unspoken promise, like trespassing on a secret that had only ever been yours.
So you let him fade into the background of your memory. Or tried to. Life went on. You grew up. Metropolis U gave you a degree you’re still not sure you earned. You dated a little, kissed boys who didn’t make your chest ache the way rooftop laughter once did. You told yourself you were moving forward, not circling back. And yet, here you are. Returning to Gotham with a job at the paper, retracing your father’s path like a shadow.
Your dad isn’t with you this time. He’s staying behind, insisting he’s too old for Gotham’s grind. So it’s just you and your boxes, your byline, and the faint echo of footsteps on tar paper that you never really forgot.
You pause on the corner outside your new apartment, suitcase wheels caught on a crack in the sidewalk. Gotham breathes heavy around you; neon flicker, taxi horn, the muffled thump of bass from a club down the street.
You wonder, not for the first time, if you’ll see him. And just as quickly, you remind yourself: probably not. Gotham eats people. It chews them up, spits them out, and even the ones who survive don’t always stick around.
Still, when you climb the steps and let yourself into the dim little apartment, you can’t help glancing out the window at the rooflines beyond. Half of you expects to see a flash of cape, the silhouette of a boy you once knew.
But the skyline is empty.
-
By now, Gotham has settled into your bones again. It’s been months since you unpacked your last box, months since you stopped flinching at the way the city exhales smoke and sirens instead of air. The novelty wore off fast. Gotham is like that; she lets you think she’s offering something new, then reminds you it was always just grit and rot under the paint.
Your nights taste like coffee grounds and exhaustion, your mornings like stale bagels eaten while jogging across crosswalks. The newsroom smells of burnt ink and anxiety, and it clings to you even when you leave.
So when your editor sent you chasing whispers across the river, you didn’t think twice. Blüdhaven, he’d said, a smuggling ring near the docks. Gotham’s smaller, meaner cousin, the kind of place your dad used to warn you about but still sent you to buy fireworks from when you were twelve.
You’d told yourself you could handle it. Gotham-born, seasoned on backstreets and rooftops, no stranger to shadows. You’ve always been too curious for your own good.
Turns out curiosity doesn’t count for much when the alley closes in on you.
-
Blüdhaven smells worse than Gotham. Like saltwater left too long in a rusty bucket, sharp and sour all at once. The alley is narrow, brick pressing close on either side, graffiti bleeding into one another under the yellow smear of a streetlamp. You’d only meant to skirt the block, maybe snap a photo of the cargo crates stacked like crooked teeth along the waterline. Instead, you’ve got three men cutting you off, their boots heavy, their breath reeking of stale beer.
The wall is cold against your back.
“Where you think you’re going, sweetheart?” one asks, voice slick. He’s taller than you, bulkier too, the kind of man who’s never been told no in a way that stuck.
Your pulse kicks hard. Your mind tries to measure exits, two steps left, maybe a sprint to the chain-link, but they’re already tightening the circle. The sound of their shoes on wet concrete echoes too loud, too final.
Your hand clamps around your notebook, knuckles white. For one mad second you consider swinging it like a weapon. And then the air splits.
He comes from above. A shadow drops out of the night, suit a streak of ink, boots hitting the first man’s chest with a crack that rattles the brick. The impact sends him sprawling, air rushing out of his lungs in a howl. The second man barely has time to register movement before a blur of blue arcs through the dim. The escrima stick connects with his jaw, a clean, efficient crack that folds him sideways.
The third curses, steel flashing as he pulls a knife, but it’s useless. The stranger moves faster, duck, twist, wrist locked and wrenched. The blade clatters uselessly to the ground. A sharp elbow, a spin, and the man collapses onto the damp concrete, groaning. It takes less than a minute. You don’t breathe until it’s over. Then theres silence.
The three men groan in a heap, nursing their bruises, and you’re left standing in the mouth of the alley with your notebook pressed to your chest like a shield.
He straightens. Under the weak streetlight, he looks unreal. Black and blue armor clings to broad shoulders, the stylized bird spreading across his chest in sharp, gleaming lines. He spins one escrima stick in his hand like it weighs nothing, the move so casual it’s showy. The mask gleams, eyes whited out, hiding everything but the shape of his mouth, the curve of his jaw.
And then he turns to you.
“Still can’t stay out of trouble, huh?” The voice hits first. Familiar enough to send a jolt through you. It’s smoother now, deeper, no trace of the cracks it used to have, but you know it. You know it like you know your own pulse.
Your knees nearly give. “I-what?”
He steps closer, head cocked, smirk curling at his mouth like he’s been waiting years to use it. Except there’s nothing boyish about him anymore. His shoulders fill the armor like it was built for him, lines sleek and lethal. His movements hum with confidence, a looseness earned from years of knowing exactly what he can do and knowing everyone else is a step behind.
The mask hides half his face, but what it doesn’t hide is worse. The jawline is sharper, cut like someone sculpted it with glass. His mouth is curved in a smile that’s both infuriating and magnetic. His body radiates energy, command, like he could take on the whole block if you dared him.
Your brain scrambles. This isn’t the boy you knew. This isn’t the awkward kid who smudged ink into your margins and laughed too hard at your jokes. For a second you’re convinced you’ve conjured him out of memory. That your exhaustion and the shadows stitched together a hallucination just to taunt you.
And then, like he knows you need proof, he lifts his hands and peels the mask away.
The world tilts.
“…Dick?” It’s his eyes that betray him. Blue. Bright. The exact shade you’d memorized years ago under the moonlight on your roof. But steadier now. Sharper. Older.
“Hi.” His grin spreads slow, deliberate, every inch of it self-satisfied. “Miss me?”
You forget how to breathe. Because this…this is really not the boy you left. Not your awkward crush with too-big ears and a voice that squeaked mid-laugh. Not the kid who leaned stiffly when you first bumped his shoulder.
This is a man. He’s taller, towering over you in a way that makes the brick wall at your back feel unnecessary. Every inch of him looks carved, built, honed. His arms ripple with muscle that wasn’t there before, his chest fills the blue emblem like it was made to draw the eye. His hair is longer, darker, his mouth sharper, the grin edged with confidence you don’t know how to stand against.
He looks like someone who walked out of a fantasy you never would’ve dared to put on paper.
You blink once. Twice. Three times. Your brain refuses to reconcile the two images; the scowling boy with smudged gloves and this unfairly gorgeous man standing in front of you. “What… what happened to you?” The words fly out, strangled, mortifying. Heat floods your face before you can stop it.
His eyebrow arches. He tucks the mask into his belt, casual. “Puberty?”
It should be funny. And it is funny. The corner of your mouth twitches in betrayal, a laugh half-born and dying in your throat. But your chest is twisting, hard, because you can still see him underneath it all. Still see the boy who leaned too far forward on ledges, who let his laugh crack when he forgot to control it. The boy who told you secrets in the dark and asked you not to forget.
And now here he is, all swagger and charm and jawlines that should be illegal. Handsome in a way that would be arrogance if he couldn’t back it up with every move he just made. Your pulse is hammering, and the spiral is real. What do you do with a crush that was built on personality, on earnestness and laughter and responsibility, when it comes packaged now in a body like this? When it’s sharpened into something magnetic, commanding, impossible to look away from?
You stare at him, dazed, like you’re trying to catch up to reality. “You… you were not this good-looking when we were kids.”
His grin only widens, cocky and warm all at once. “So you were paying attention.”
You want the ground to open up and swallow you whole. Because Gotham didn’t just chew Dick Grayson up and spit him back out. It reforged him into something you are absolutely not ready for.
For a few stunned seconds after he speaks, you stand there and do nothing but hear your heart in your ears. The alley is wet and ringing; distant gulls, a siren far-off, the tinny drip-drip of a faulty gutter. One of the guys on the ground groans, rolls over, thinks better of it, and stays facedown. The streetlamp above you flickers like it’s chewing glass.
“Okay,” you manage finally, voice rasped thin. “Okay.”
“Yeah,” he says, softer now. He tips his head, searches your face like he’s tracing the years there. Then, practical as a tide, he tucks the mask back over his eyes. The Nightwing look clicks into place with a finality that makes your stomach dip. “Walk with me,” he adds. “This block’s loud for all the wrong reasons.”
He offers a hand. Warm leather. Callused palm. The glove creaks when you take it, and you try very hard not to catalog the new details; how much larger his hand feels than it used to, how steady it is, the easy strength under the restraint. He doesn’t tug so much as guide, falling into step beside you like your bodies remember the distance they’ve always kept.
You exit the alley into air that smells like engine oil and salt-stung wood. The docks breathe: winches clicking, a forklift grumbling, water slapping pilings in a thawed rhythm. Nightwing angles you toward the brighter avenue, keeping himself between you and the shadows without making a show of it. His presence folds around you the way his cape used to on rooftops; same instinct, different body.
“You’re really here,” you say, because it’s the only sentence that keeps starting in your brain.
“So are you,” he answers. “Thought I was hallucinating when I saw you in that alley. Journalism, huh?”
“It runs in the family,” you say, apologetic and defiant all at once.
He hums. “I noticed.”
“You noticed?”
“Hard to miss,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Bylines. Two pieces on the housing ordinance, a profile on the Jackson Street food pantry, a fire that shouldn’t have spread as fast as it did. Your ledes are cleaner. Fewer adverbs.”
You blink at him. “You… read them?”
He shrugs one shoulder. The motion makes the blue stripe arc over muscle in a way that should be illegal. “I keep an eye on Gotham. And people who used to live on rooftops with me.”
It takes a few steps to realize your face is doing the warm thing again. You look away, huff out a laugh like you can steam the heat into the Blüdhaven night. “Still a critic.”
“Still right,” he says, and there’s the grin; quick, bright, and edged with something fond. “You got sharper.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he says, tilting his chin, “you’re not the kid who followed trouble because it glittered. You followed it in there because you had a plan. You clocked their shoes before their faces. You kept your notebook hand free. You put your back to a wall.”
You glance up at him. “You saw all that in, what, thirty seconds?”
“Ten,” he says, entirely too pleased with himself. “Give or take.”
The walk bleeds you out toward the waterfront road. Nightwing crosses you behind a stack of palettes with the same unthinking choreography he used to have on rooftops. One hand light against your elbow, a check for traffic, the quick tilt of his head as his comm crackles something at him you can’t hear. He answers it without breaking stride, then flicks the channel off and comes back to you like you’re the station he meant to tune to all along.
“Your dad?” he asks after a beat.
“Back in Metropolis,” you say. “He says he’s retired. I give it six months.”
His mouth pulls wry. “Retirement never sticks.”
“Does it for you?” The question flies out before you can leash it. You mean it to be casual; it lands heavier, threaded with too many years, too many unsent searches of his name at one a.m.
He doesn’t flinch. “Didn’t for me,” he says. “I needed… different air. A city I could learn without being measured against a cape that walks like thunder.”
“Blüdhaven,” you say. “Gotham left out in the rain.”
He huffs a laugh. “Something like that.” Then he glances at you from under the curve of the mask, gravity sliding back in. “It grows on you if you let it. Like mold. Or a stray.”
“Romantic,” you deadpan.
“Hey, I never promised romance,” he lies very badly, because even his walk is a little romantic now, loose-hipped and careful in the dark, shoulder brushing yours when the sidewalk narrows, the night clicking into place around him like it’s learned the shape of his stride.
You pass a shuttered bait shop with a neon marlin blinking. A stray cat watches you from a garbage can lid, eyes pearls in the lamplight. Your shoes squeak; his steps don’t make sound at all. Every few yards he scans the roofs with that lifted chin. You remember the gesture, how it used to be smaller on a smaller body, and you picture the mental map overlaid on what your eyes see: viable fire escapes, plausible ambushes, routes-out stitched in blue light.
“How long were you on that roof?” you ask. “Before you dropped in.”
He contemplates the question like it has a proper answer. “Long enough to count three sets of footsteps and a knife. Not long enough to forgive you later if you’d been stubborn enough to run.”
“I wasn’t going to run,” you start, then hedge, “for long.”
He barks a laugh. It slides into something softer before it’s done. “You’re… different,” he says, the word careful, as if he’s testing the edges to make sure it won’t cut.
“Older,” you offer.
“That, yeah.” The corner of his mouth tugs. “But it’s not just that. You walk like you own your space now, not like you’re renting it. You look people in the eye longer. You… speak headline and copy without thinking.” He flicks his gaze over you, deliberate enough that you feel seen rather than scanned. “You still don’t fold your pizza, I bet.”
“I will die on that hill,” you say gravely.
“You will die incorrect,” he returns, equally grave, and a piece of rooftop-laughter that you thought you’d boxed up somewhere years ago shakes itself awake and trots between you like it never left.
“Okay, Mr. Puberty,” you say, putting a hand to your chest as if to ward off the unfairness. “Since we’re making observations, what exactly are you eating to look like you could bench-press a yacht?”
“Protein bars and spite,” he says, deadpan. “Mostly spite.”
You trip on a cracked tile and he catches you without thinking, a warm bracket at your elbow and the lightest pressure of his other hand at your hip to steady you. It lasts half a blink, then he’s gone again, space restored, the afterimage of touch ringing in your nerves like a bell. The alley stench loosens for a second, and you catch the smell of him beneath leather and city: clean soap, ozone, summer heat trapped in fabric that moves like skin.
“Thanks,” you say belatedly, and hope he can’t see the flush doing somersaults up your throat.
“Occupational hazard,” he says lightly. “Saving journalists who don’t fold their pizza.”
“I saved the notebook,” you argue, brandishing it. “That counts as self-preservation.”
His eyes crinkle. “God, I missed that.”
You were not prepared for those words. They land like a warm hand on your sternum, like the exact right weight after too many years of empty space. You swallow once, twice. The docks open into a long, bleak avenue where the streetlights flock in nervous clusters. He steers you toward the brighter end.
“I kept tabs,” you admit, voice tucking itself small. “Not… really. Not like a creep. Just… Batman was always there, and then there was a Robin who wasn’t my Robin, and I didn’t…” You shake your head, chase off the tangle. “Sometimes I typed your name and closed the laptop before the results could load. It felt wrong, like prying at something that was mine because you gave it to me.”
He walks a few slow steps without answering. The night stretches, thin and elastic. When he finally speaks, it’s soft, the timbre reaching you beneath the noise. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he says. “Go looking, I mean. Part of me… needed to earn being found.”
You glance up. His expression is harder to read with the mask back on, but the mouth, older now, yes, and built for trouble, goes gentle in the corners. He kicks at a pebble; it skitters into the gutter. “The leaving was messy,” he says. “I had to be more than a shadow to a shadow.”
“And now you’re a bird,” you say. “Blue suits you.”
“Figures you’d appreciate the re-branding,” he says lightly, then, “yours does too, though.”
“What?”
“The re-brand. It suits you,” he says, and there’s a smile in his voice now that didn’t exist when he was fourteen. “You grew up into your name. Your bylines. Your whole… thing. It looks good on you.”
You stare at him, cheeks doing that heat thing again. “My… thing.”
“Your spine,” he clarifies, and the tease bumps to the side to let the truth through. “You always had one. It just… fits you better now.”
The ridiculous urge to cry chooses that exact moment to crest, so you let out a little choking laugh instead and look at a billboard for a discount mattress warehouse like it’s fascinating art. “You’ve gotten complimentary in your old age,” you mutter.
“It’s the protein bars,” he says, solemn, and you trip into laughter that tastes like your rooftop nights, cold air, the city in your lungs, the right person at your shoulder. A night bus sways past; he slow-blinks away the wind grit. You fall quiet for a block, footsteps scuffing in sync. Somewhere inland, someone’s playing a radio too loud. It spills a chorus that means nothing and everything past the brick and rebar.
“You’re staying?” he asks eventually. “Gotham, I mean. Not a six-month and run?”
“I’m staying,” you say, and feel the words set in your body like a foundation finally poured. “When I told my dad, he said it’s my turn to decide what Gotham is to me.”
He nods, thoughtful. “Blüdhaven’s an extension of the same storm. We share weather fronts.” His mouth twists, fond and rueful. “I’ll be around.”
“You always are,” you say before you can help it.
He glances sidelong, and the grin that takes his face then is uncomplicatedly pleased. It should be arrogant; somehow it just looks like sunlight found a gap in the boards. You wonder how many people get to see that one and decide maybe you don’t want to know.
A woman behind a plexiglass window sells cigarettes and bus passes. The night wind lifts the edges of the taped notices, makes them whisper. You stop under the awning, the two of you edged into the white noise of the fluorescents, and the city swivels into a gentler key.
“I can call you a car,” he says. “Or,” He hesitates, then crooks two fingers. From somewhere you don’t see, a motorcycle growls to life, a sleek, low thing that rolls obediently out of the gloom to settle at the curb like a well-trained animal. He pats the seat with absent affection. “I can take you back.”
You stare. “Did you name it? Like the Nightcycle or something equally as lame?”
“I absolutely did not,” he lies, horrendously, then swings a leg over and steadies the bike with a boot. Up close, he’s too much again; too many lines and angles that weren’t there the last time you catalogued him, too much easy strength, too much blue. “Helmet,” he says, offering one out. It’s heavier than you expect; when you take it, your fingers brush, leather over skin, static jumping.
You hesitate. “Are you going to drive like a responsible citizen?”
He gives you a look that is eighty percent angel, twenty percent criminal. “Define responsible.”
“Alive when we get there.”
“Deal.”
You settle onto the bike behind him with the kind of care that admits you are about to do a reckless thing on purpose. Your knees fit against his hips like there’s only one way to sit; your hands find the line of his jacket and pause, hovering. He reaches back without looking, takes your wrists, and draws your arms around his waist until your palms meet. The gesture is matter-of-fact and wildly intimate. You can feel him laughing, silent and low, at your ear.
“Still bossy,” you say, because your voice needs somewhere to put the tremor.
“I remember you like being told what to do,” he says, and then, so quick and soft you almost miss it, “Sometimes.”
It shouldn’t hit the way it does. It shouldn’t make heat pool low in your stomach, shouldn’t make your pulse trip against your throat, shouldn’t leave you wondering if the helmet’s padding is enough to hide the color climbing up your cheeks. But it does.
You laugh, helpless, a little breathless, because if you don’t laugh, you might actually whimper. The sound crackles in your throat and goes thin in the rush of the night air. You can feel the vibration of the engine through your thighs, the leather of his jacket under your hands, the solid line of his body in front of you, and now, layered over all of that, his words, humming through your nerves in a way that feels dangerously good.
He glances back once, eyes catching yours over his shoulder, mask bright in the streetlight. The look is quick, but it’s enough. He knows what he said. He knows how it landed. And then the bike glides into the street, smooth and certain, as if nothing in the world has shifted, even though everything inside you just did.
The city rushes at you, neon and shadow blurring into ribbons. You clutch harder without meaning to, breath hitching, and he adjusts his posture just enough to shield you from the first hard push of wind. The shift presses your chest closer to his back, your knees locking tighter against his hips.
Your chin bumps the back of his shoulder. There’s damp salt there, leather warmed by body heat, and the sound of him breathing, steady, rhythmic, the same cadence you used to fall asleep to on rooftops when he kept watch.
The bike thrums beneath you, vibration rolling up through your thighs, settling into your stomach, buzzing in places you don’t want to admit are suddenly very awake. Every curve of the road asks you to lean with him, to trust the drop of his weight and the strength in his shoulders, and every time you do, you feel him there under your hands; solid, certain, unshakable.
He doesn’t go fast. He goes sure. The kind of riding that says I know this grid with my eyes shut and my hands tied, and I am choosing to bring you home. But the steadiness only makes it worse; it gives you time to notice everything.
The way his body heat seeps into you through layers of leather. The flex of muscle when he shifts gears, the ripple of his stomach under your forearm as he leans into a turn. The casual way his hand adjusts the throttle, so close you imagine what it would feel like if he used that grip on you.
At a light, he puts a boot down, head turning just enough that you catch the angle of his jaw beneath the mask. He checks on you without a word. You don’t know if he can see the flush burning under your helmet, but you feel seen all the same, and it does nothing to calm the pounding in your chest.
When the light changes, he rolls forward, and you press into him again, tighter this time, because the vibration and the closeness are unraveling you inch by inch. Small things, all of them, his steadiness, his quiet, the way his body seems to know yours is there and adjusts like it belongs pressed against him.
They add up to something you don’t let yourself name yet, but you feel it everywhere.
The bike growls to a halt a block from your building. The engine cuts, and in the sudden hush the night feels sharp, like the air itself is watching. The silence rings in your ears after miles of vibration. He doesn’t move right away. He reaches back instead, gloved fingers brushing over yours where they’re still hooked around his waist. A silent reminder: you can let go now.
You don’t. Not immediately. Your fingers unclasp a second too late, reluctant to surrender the heat of him, the solid line of his body. He feels it, he has to, and yet he doesn’t call you out, just slides his hands free of the handlebars with a kind of deliberate patience.
He swings one leg over and plants his boots on the ground, bracing the bike steady with practiced ease. Then, before you can fumble an exit, he turns and holds a hand out. “Careful,” he says. His voice is rougher than you remember, steady but edged with something lower, something weightier. “It’s a little taller than you think.”
You could protest. Tell him you’ve managed steps taller than this since kindergarten. But the way he’s standing there, broad and sure, palm open, the easy invitation of it, undoes you in a way stairs never could.
You take it. His hand is warm through the leather, steady as you swing your leg back over the bike. You slide down too close, body brushing his chest for the briefest moment. The contact snaps across you like static. You feel the give of his armor under your shoulder, the heat rolling off him in a wave, the faint tang of leather and sweat that clings to him.
It should be over in an instant. Just a hand-off. But his grip lingers, a fraction longer than necessary, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly around yours. Enough that you notice. Enough that your breath catches, shallow and sharp, before you tug back.
You’re on your own two feet now, the pavement gritty beneath your shoes, but your body is still buzzing from the bike, from him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears, your palms hot where his gloves touched.
“Still trouble,” he says at last, because he can’t help himself.
“Still bossy,” you volley back, because you can’t either. But this time, it doesn’t feel like banter tossed across a rooftop. It feels like a line pulled taut between you, humming with something you’ve both pretended not to hear for years.
He studies you for another long, unapologetic moment. His voice, when it comes, slips a layer down. “You grew up, you know.”
You swallow. “So did you.”
“Yeah,” he says, and it sounds like he’s acknowledging an ocean and a bridge and a lot of half-built scaffolding. His mouth curves, not the cocky smirk he used in the alley, but something older, carved from relief and surprise and the joy of recognizing someone in a crowd. “Feels like we should…” He gestures, uselessly, as if the city might supply the word.
“Pizza,” you say, because the universe clearly wants callbacks. “So I can prove you’re wrong.”
“You won’t,” he says immediately, but his eyes go bright, pleased, like you just handed him the right answer to a test he wanted you to enjoy taking.
He reaches into a belt pouch, produces a small black rectangle you’d charitably call a phone if phones weren’t usually made by people not afraid of the apocalypse. He toggles it awake, thumbs something in. When he looks up, he’s all business again, but the softened corners remain. “Same roofline,” he says. “Different skyline. You call, I land.”
“Is that your way of giving me your number?” you ask, amused and a little breathless.
“It’s my way of saying I read your ledes and I don’t want to do that from far away anymore,” he says, and that’s it. That’s the line that carves through every defense like they were drawn in chalk.
“Okay,” you say, because a bigger word would crack your throat right now. “Nightwing?”
“Mmm?”
“Thanks for the rescue.”
He dips his head once, like you just pinned a medal on him he didn’t expect to care about. “Anytime, Trouble.”
He fits the mask better on his face, swings onto the bike, and then he’s gone, blurring back into the dark with a roar that falls away quick, swallowed by Blüdhaven’s wet lungs. You stand there in the sodium light, hair mussed by a wind you’ll be thinking about for hours, hands stupidly empty of leather and heat, and you try to file this under something. Reunion. Whiplash. Beginning again.
The city exhales. Somewhere a gull laughs like it knows something. You look down at your notebook; rain freckles have started to drink through the top page. On instinct, you flip to a clean sheet, jot three words at the top: Familiar. Stranger. Home.
-
You fall into a new rhythm without meaning to. It starts with accidents, running into him on rooftops, in alleys, when your investigations overlap his patrols. But it stops feeling accidental when he begins showing up at your office at the end of your shift, leaning against the wall like he belongs there. When he texts pizza? before you’ve even decided if you’re hungry. When you start leaving your fire escape window cracked, because somehow you know he’ll be there.
It isn’t dating. Not really. But it also isn’t not.
He has made it clear, in every way except saying it out loud over the past few months, that he wants to be in your life. And you? You haven’t decided if you’re brave enough to admit that you want him in yours just as badly.
-
The first time he picks you up after work in his civilian clothes, it knocks you sideways. You’re shuffling out of the newsroom with ink on your fingers, hair pulled back in a half-hearted bun, when you see him leaning against a lamppost. No mask. No armor. Just Dick Grayson in jeans, forearms bare, sunglasses tucked into the collar of his shirt.
He waves like it’s the most normal thing in the world, like he hasn’t just shattered the delicate line you’d kept between “him at night” and “him in the day.”
“What are you doing here?” you demand, adjusting the strap of your bag.
“Picking you up.” He shrugs, casual, like the ground didn’t just shift. “What, you’d rather take the bus?”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking the bus.”
“Sure,” he says, grin tugging at his mouth. “But where’s the fun in that?”
It’s disorienting, walking beside him in broad daylight. You keep expecting people to notice, to point, to whisper Nightwing…but no one looks twice. They just see Dick Grayson, easy in his own skin, fitting himself into your day like he’s been there all along.
And when he slings a leg over the motorcycle and offers you the helmet with that cocky tilt of his head, you don’t argue. Not really.
-
The rhythm builds. Some nights it’s him dropping by your apartment, sprawled on your couch in a t-shirt while you rant about deadlines. Some nights it’s you stitching him up again, fingers brushing skin that’s too warm, too scarred, your pulse thundering at the contact.
“You’re staring,” he says once, voice sly, eyes glinting.
“I’m working,” you snap, fumbling with the gauze.
“You’re staring,” he repeats, softer this time.
You don’t deny it. You can’t. Because sometimes it hits you out of nowhere, the sheer physicality of him. The breadth of his shoulders when he leans against your counter. The casual way he tosses his escrima sticks onto your table, muscles flexing as if they’re part of the furniture. The way his laugh curls low in his chest now, rich enough to make your skin prickle.
You’d had a crush on him once, built on personality and laughter and the relief of being seen. But now that crush is packaged in arms and jawlines and a body that moves like it knows exactly how much power it has…and you don’t know what to do with that.
You catch yourself looking more often than you should. He catches you every time. And the worst part is, he doesn’t seem to mind.
-
Pizza becomes your running joke. Trioni’s booth, sticky varnish under your elbows, slices steaming on paper plates. He folds his, smirking at you the whole time, waiting for your inevitable groan of horror.
“You’re not going to win me over,” you say, waving your floppy slice at him.
“You’ll cave eventually,” he counters, leaning back in the booth, grin sharp and pleased. “I can be very persuasive when I need to be.”
“Not this time.”
He doesn’t break eye contact as he takes a slow bite of his folded slice, chewing like he’s proving a point. It’s ridiculous. It’s infuriating. It’s so goddamn attractive you want to scream.
“Stop looking at me like that,” you mutter.
“Like what?”
“Like you know something I don’t.”
He smirks. “Maybe I do.”
You throw a napkin at him. He laughs, catches it easily, and the sound rings through you like a struck bell.
-
He hadn’t planned to follow you. He hadn’t. His patrol had taken him toward the Narrows, toward the docks, a dozen other places that needed him more than one crowded strip of nightlife where you were laughing too loud in a dress that glittered like you’d stolen the stars.
But the second he spotted you, he stopped. You were walking in the middle of your pack of friends, arm hooked through one of theirs, head thrown back in a laugh that made your hair slip down your shoulders. Your dress caught every scrap of neon, sequins winking like Morse code, and for a second it was all he could see. Sparkling. Distracting. You, right there, alive and incandescent. He told himself to keep moving. To stick to patrol.
He didn’t. He slipped into the shadows above instead, tracking you from rooftop to rooftop, his body humming with an uneasy mix of irritation and awe. You shouldn’t be out here this late, drunk and stumbling. Gotham eats people like that alive. And yet seeing you bright and unguarded, cheeks flushed, smile wide, it does something to him. Like he’s watching a life he doesn’t belong to but can’t look away from.
Then he hears it.
“Wait, wait, wait,” one of your friends slurs, catching your arm as you teeter on the curb. “You had a crush on Robin? Little Robin? Short shorts and all?” The words hit like a sucker punch. His boots still on the ledge, heart lurching up into his throat.
You groan, dramatic. “Don’t say it like that.”
Laughter erupts, loud and merciless. “I mean, Batman was literally right there,” another says. “Broody, mysterious, tall. And you went for the kid in green?”
“Listen,” you argue, slurring but determined, your hands slicing through the air as you stumble forward with them. “It wasn’t even because he was, like… hot.”
Dick goes still. Breath locked. Not hot. Not Batman. Not Superman. But… him. His fingers curl tight around the edge of the roof until the stone bites through the gloves. The city noise fades under the thunder of his pulse.
Your friends don’t let up. “You were in Metropolis for years! What about Superman? Have you seen him? Gorgeous. Dimples. Arms. Literal sunshine.”
“That’s not the point!” you insist, cutting them off with a shout, your heels clicking unevenly against the pavement. “Robin, he was… earnest, okay? Thoughtful. Responsible. He listened. He…” Your voice softens. Fragile and fierce at the same time. “He made me feel like I mattered.”
The words gut him. Because he remembers. He remembers every night on rooftops, every time you sat beside him with your knees pressed together, every secret you whispered into the dark because you trusted him to hold it. He remembers the way you looked at him like he was more than Batman’s shadow. Like he was enough.
He’s gripping the ledge so hard he thinks it might crack under his hand.
Your friends are howling again, teasing, “God, you really do have a type. What’s next, Green Lantern?” But he’s not listening anymore. He’s locked on you, on the way your laughter shakes loose and dizzy into the night, on the memory of the boy he used to be, the boy who never believed anyone would pick him.
And here you are, years later, admitting you had. He doesn’t care that you’re drunk. Doesn’t care that you might not remember this tomorrow. Because he will. He’ll remember the conviction in your voice, the way you doubled down, the way you said he made you feel like you mattered.
Up on the ledge, hidden in shadow, Dick feels it burn through him. A match struck in the dark. And he knows he’s not letting you run from this. Next time his eyes linger, next time his hand presses at the small of your back, next time his voice drops lower than it should, you won’t get to brush it off as banter. You won’t get to hide behind excuses. Because you said it. You chose him. You always had. And he thinks you still might. And God help him, he’s not about to let you pretend otherwise.
-
The problem with Dick Grayson isn’t that he doesn’t know how to look at you. It’s that he does. He knows exactly how long to let his eyes linger before you catch him. He knows how to tilt his head so it looks like he’s teasing when it feels like something else. He knows when to let his gaze soften, how to press just enough warmth into it to make you think about things you shouldn’t, not when you’re supposed to be friends.
And this morning, as you’re face-planted into the couch cushions in a tiny, sparkly black dress, head throbbing, stomach rolling, the last thing you need is for Dick Grayson to be looking at you.
Unfortunately, he is.
“Rough night?” His voice is bright, smug, like sunshine filtered through something wicked.
You groan into the cushions. “Go away.”
“No can do.” You hear his boots cross the floor, the quiet shift of weight as he crouches beside the couch. “I figured you’d need a little… moral support. Or maybe electrolytes.”
“I need you to shut up,” you mutter.
He laughs low, warm, and irritatingly fond. “You look like roadkill.”
You lift your head just enough to glare at him. He’s crouched at your side, forearms resting on his knees, hair damp from a shower, dressed down in a t-shirt that clings a little too well. His eyes take you in shamelessly; your hair a mess, mascara smudged, sparkly dress creased from sleep.
“You’re not cute. Don’t look at me,” you mumble, shoving your face back into the couch.
“Too late.” He leans his chin into his palm. “It’s seared into my brain now. You, draped over a sofa like a tragic starlet.”
“Kill me.”
“Nah.” His grin sharpens. “Not when you give me material like this.” You don’t remember how he got in your apartment. You don’t remember much, actually, past stumbling in the door last night and half-collapsing onto the couch. But you do remember the way your friends had teased you on the walk home. Robin. Batman. Superman. And your stubborn, drunken insistence that it had always been Robin.
Heat flushes through you even now, a full-body cringe. God, what if you’d said too much? What if someone had recorded it? What if—
“You snore,” Dick says, breaking into your spiral.
Your head snaps up. “I do not.”
“Like a chainsaw.” He smirks, infuriatingly pleased. “It’s cute, though. Endearing.”
You throw a pillow at him. He catches it one-handed, effortless, then tosses it back onto your stomach, knocking the breath out of you. “Jerk,” you wheeze.
“Roadkill,” he volleys back like he is affirming his earlier statement. The banter is easy, familiar, but there’s an edge to it today. You feel it in the way his eyes keep tracking over you, softer than they should be. In the way he hasn’t moved from his crouch, too close, knees brushing the couch.
You shift, meaning to sit up, but your limbs betray you. Instead you flop sideways, head landing on the pillow, legs still dangling over the armrest, knees bent awkwardly on the floor. Your dress rides higher, glitter catching in the sunlight slanting through the blinds. His gaze flickers, quick and sharp, before snapping back to your face.
“You’re staring,” you accuse.
“You’re imagining,” he shoots back. But his voice is a shade too low, and it twists something in your stomach.
You try to change the subject. “So what, you just decided to drop by and harass me while I’m defenseless?”
“Defenseless, huh?” He leans in, close enough that you smell his soap and the faint tang of leather clinging to him. “Funny. Last night, you didn’t sound very defenseless.”
Your heart stutters. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His smile turns slow, wicked. “Oh, nothing. Just that you’ve got… interesting taste.”
It hits you like a bucket of ice water. Oh. Oh, no. He heard. He had to have heard.
“Shut up,” you say quickly, too quickly, your cheeks blazing.
“Robin, huh?” he presses, voice feather-light but edged with something deeper. “Not Batman. Not Superman. Me.”
You bury your face in your hands. “I’m never drinking again.”
His laughter curls low in his chest. He nudges your knee with his hand, playful. “Relax. I’m flattered.”
“That makes one of us,” you groan, wishing the couch would swallow you.
But when you peek at him through your fingers, his eyes aren’t just amused. They’re intense, sharp, gleaming with the memory of your drunken confession. He’s not going to let you forget it.
The comedy of errors continues when you try to sit up. Your foot catches on the armrest, your heel slips, and you pitch forward, straight into his chest. He catches you easily, an arm banding around your waist, the other braced on the couch. Suddenly you’re nose-to-nose, his grin right there, his heartbeat loud against your palm where it’s landed on his chest.
“Careful,” he murmurs.
“I hate you,” you whisper, breathless.
“Liar,” he says softly, “You have a crush on me.” And it feels like a strike.
For a second, neither of you moves. The air between you hums, heavy, loaded. His eyes flick down to your mouth before darting back up. You feel it, every millimeter, like a live wire under your skin.
“Had,” you whisper. His eyes followed the shape of your lips as they formed around the word.
“Have.” He says again, voice more firm this time. Your gaze traces his lips this time.
Your head tilts closer, like instinct, like your body is done pretending it doesn’t want him. His arm is still locked firm around your waist, holding you steady, keeping you pressed against the heat of his chest. Your palm flattens against him, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the give of muscle under cotton, the impossible warmth of him seeping straight through your skin.
He doesn’t pull away. Just looks at you, steady, unblinking, eyes so blue they feel like they could cut you open if you let them. His breath brushes your mouth, warm, uneven. You can taste coffee and something darker on it, and your lips part without permission, every nerve in your body straining toward the last millimeter of space.
The air thickens, heavy as syrup. His fingers at your waist flex, just once, enough to draw you an inch closer. His chest rises against yours, and you feel the faintest shiver where his nose grazes your cheek, his forehead brushing yours, testing the contact without closing it.
You don’t think. Your hand slides higher on his chest, tracing over the solid line of his collarbone, up the curve of his shoulder, fingers brushing the back of his neck. His hair is still damp from his shower, soft and warm under your touch. He exhales raggedly, his whole body tightening like he’s holding back a wave.
Because the problem with you isn’t that you don’t want Dick Grayson. It’s that you do.
“You’re not fooling me,” he says, voice low, rougher now that your lips are so close you can taste the warmth of his breath. “Not with that look on your face. Not with your hand all over me.”
Your fingers twitch against his chest, traitorous, pressing into solid muscle as though proving his point. Heat curls low in your stomach, sharp and insistent, and you hate that he can read it so easily.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” you manage, though your voice shakes.
His eyes darken, his thumb tracing slow circles into your hip where his hand grips you. “Say it again. Say you don’t still want me. Say it while you’re this close.”
You can’t. The words lodge in your throat, choking on the truth you’ve been dodging for weeks. His smirk softens, just barely, eyes narrowing in satisfaction as he leans in until your noses brush, your pulse stuttering wildly under his stare.
“Had,” you whisper again, desperate, as if repeating it might make it true.
“Finish the sentence if you mean it, sweetheart.” The words vibrate out of him, certain and unshakable. His gaze dips to your mouth again, slower this time, deliberate, and the sound you make is soft, caught halfway between a breath and a plea, and it has his jaw flexing tight like he’s fighting himself.
“Dick…” His name leaves your mouth broken, trembling, and he shudders like you’ve just lit a match against his skin.
His forehead tips to yours, contact so small but devastating, heat bleeding from him into you. “You can lie all you want, Trouble,” he murmurs, his breath ghosting across your lips, “but you don’t let someone this close unless you want it.”
Your head tilts, your lips part, your palm sliding up to his collarbone in a silent answer. For one perfect, electric second, the whole world narrows to the inch of air left between your mouths, heat, and his heartbeat under your hand.
Your lips brush his, so faint it’s almost not contact, just the ghost of it, but the shock of it rattles you down to your toes. His breath shudders out, shaky and hot, and when you lean in that last fraction, his mouth finally meets yours. It isn’t clean. It isn’t careful. His teeth catch your bottom lip, tugging just enough to make your stomach flip and a whimper catch in your throat. The sound seems to break something in him, because suddenly his arm around your waist tightens, dragging you fully into his lap.
You straddle him before you realize you’ve moved, dress riding high on your thighs, his heat pressed solid between your legs. His hands slide down, big and certain, cupping your ass through sequined fabric, pulling you flush against the thick line of him. The spark between you roars into fire.
He kisses you like he’s been waiting years for it, messy, hungry, devouring. Your palms splay across his chest, clutching at the muscle under his shirt, your fingers curling into the warm skin at the nape of his neck. His tongue slides against yours, slow at first, then harder, deeper, until you’re gasping into his mouth, moving against him without meaning to.
His hands squeeze, firm and sure, guiding you into him, hips arching up to meet yours. The friction makes your head spin, your pulse pounding everywhere at once. He tastes like wine and want, and the low sound he makes into your mouth vibrates all the way down your spine.
For a breathless stretch of moments, there’s no Gotham, no rain, no history. Just this. Just you and Dick, tangled up, finally giving in, kissing each other like you’ll never get enough.
Your lips part beneath his, and he takes the invitation greedily, kissing you deeper, tongue stroking against yours with a hunger that has your head spinning. It’s clumsy in places, teeth clicking, mouths chasing, but that only makes it worse, better. It feels alive, electric, like every ounce of restraint you’ve both held onto has finally gone up in flames.
You rock into him, desperate for more friction, and he groans low in his throat, the sound vibrating into your mouth. His hands tighten on your ass, dragging you down against him, grinding you into the thick, unmistakable weight straining against his sweats. The pressure makes your breath hitch, your body clenching around the ache building low in your belly.
You clutch at him harder, fingers fisting into his t-shirt until the fabric rides up, exposing hot skin. You smooth your palms over his stomach, the ridges of muscle flexing under your touch, and he shudders, biting your lip again as though to punish you for it. You moan into him, nails digging lightly into his sides, and he hisses through his teeth, kissing you harder, like he can pour every ounce of his want straight into your mouth.
The kiss tips sideways, and suddenly you’re gasping, laughing into him when his stubble grazes your jaw. He doesn’t let up. His lips trail fire down the line of your throat, teeth scraping lightly over the delicate skin there before sucking hard enough to make your toes curl. You arch into him, dress shifting higher, sequins scratching his hips where your thighs cage him in.
“Dick,” His name rips out of you, broken and desperate, and his mouth is back on yours before you can say more, swallowing the sound like it belongs to him.
Your hips roll against him, helpless, chasing the friction, and he meets you halfway, thrusting up into you in short, sharp motions that make you whimper into his mouth. His tongue tangles with yours again, messy and wet, and your vision sparks at the edges. His hands are everywhere, palming your ass, sliding up your spine, threading into your hair to tug your head back so he can kiss you deeper, rougher.
You’re dizzy with him, his taste, his weight, the sheer size of him under you. Every breath you drag in is filled with him, every nerve alight with the demand to get closer, closer, until there’s nothing left between you at all.
When you finally break for air, your foreheads slam together, both of you panting like you’ve run miles. His lips are swollen, glistening, his pupils blown wide, his chest heaving under your palms. He looks wild. Starved. Perfect. And then he’s pulling you back down, kissing you again, hungrier than before, open-mouthed, filthy, like he’s making up for every year he didn’t.
Your body can’t stop moving against him, chasing every drag of friction. The sequined dress has ridden high on your thighs, hem bunched at your waist as you straddle him. His hands are greedy now, sliding over bare skin, thumbs digging into the soft bare curve of your ass like he’s waited his whole life to touch you here. He drags you down harder, grinding you over him, and the blunt thickness straining his sweats makes you gasp into his mouth.
He’s huge. You knew he was, the outline impossible not to notice whenever he sprawled careless in those pants, but feeling it pressed solid against you, hot and heavy even through layers, makes your stomach twist and your core clench with want. You rock down on him harder, helpless, and the sound he makes is low, guttural, and almost pained. It shoots straight between your legs.
“Fuck,” he groans against your lips, kissing you harder, tongue driving deep like he’s trying to drown himself in you. His hips surge up in answer, rutting against you, the thick head of him catching just right against the soaked center of your panties. Your cry muffles into his mouth, nails scraping down his chest until you find skin, dragging up his shirt until it’s bunched under his arms.
His abs are hot and hard under your palms, slick with sweat, muscles flexing as he thrusts up into you. You break from his mouth to gasp down his throat, and he’s on you instantly, lips latching to your jaw, your neck, sucking and biting bruises into your skin like he wants to mark every inch he can reach.
“Say it,” he rasps against your throat, his teeth grazing your pulse. His hands knead your ass, grinding you down over him, the thick bulge in his sweats perfectly aligned with your clit. “Say you still want me.”
You can’t speak, not with the way he’s rolling his hips, relentless, the pressure building sharp and unbearable. You whimper his name instead, broken and needy, and he groans like the sound undoes him.
“Fuck—yeah, you do,” he breathes, pulling you down harder, guiding you to rock over him faster. The sequins of your dress scratch at his bare stomach, your panties soaked through, clinging to your folds as you grind over the obscene bulk of him. Each pass drags his thickness right against your clit, each grind shooting sparks down your spine until you’re gasping against his mouth, trembling in his lap. “She’s honest with me, even if your mouth won’t be,” he pants.
He kisses you senseless again, filthy and wet, tongues clashing, teeth tugging, his hips never stopping. You roll against him desperately, chasing it, chasing him, your thighs trembling where they cage him in. His cock strains against the thin cotton, massive, the outline pressed hot and unyielding against your swollen pussy, and all you can think is how good it would feel inside you.
His hand slides up your spine, into your hair, yanking your head back just enough to bite at your throat again, his breath ragged. “Thatta girl. Keep grinding, Trouble. Wanna feel you cum all over me.”
The words hit harder than anything. You moan brokenly, hips stuttering against him, the rhythm sloppy but desperate, pleasure winding sharp and tight in your belly. His hands hold you steady, dragging you over him in rough, perfect circles until you’re shuddering, mouth open against his, every nerve screaming as you teeter on the edge.
And he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t let you run. He keeps you pressed to him, grinding against the thick, straining length of his cock until you’re shaking apart in his lap, soaking through your panties, every pulse of your orgasm spilling hot and messy against him.
He kisses you through it, swallowing your cries, biting your lip until you can barely breathe. When you finally slump forward, wrecked and trembling, his hands are still on you, still firm, still wanting. And he’s still hard, throbbing against you, sweatpants damp with your release, the sheer size of him twitching under you like a promise.
His mouth breaks from yours only to press wet, biting kisses down your jaw, your throat, your collarbone, muttering against your skin like he can’t stop himself. “Feel how wet you are,” he growls, his voice rough and ruined. One hand slips lower, his long fingers sliding under the edge of your ruined panties. You whimper as his knuckles brush your slick folds, every inch of you drenched and swollen. His groan vibrates against your neck when he feels just how soaked you are.
“Fuck, Trouble…” His middle finger drags up through your wetness, slow, obscene, parting you until he finds your clit. You jolt hard against him, crying out, and he swallows the sound in another bruising kiss. His finger circles you once, twice, then dips lower, pressing inside with a stretch that makes your whole body seize. He’s so much bigger than your own hand, so much deeper, curling at the knuckle just right until your thighs clamp tight around him.
“Look at you,” he rasps, pumping in and out, his thumb pressing cruel circles to your clit. “Soaked for me. Always were, weren’t you?”
You can’t answer. You can only grind helplessly into his hand, your hips jerking against him, your mouth open and gasping against his. He slips a second finger in beside the first, the stretch sharp, delicious, filling you in a way that makes you sob into his mouth. His thumb works you mercilessly, dragging another wave of pleasure out of your trembling body.
Then he pulls his fingers out, sudden, leaving you clenching around nothing. You whine at the loss, but before you can protest, he shoves his slick fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean. His eyes lock on yours as he groans low in his throat, tasting you, devouring you.
“You’re so sweet, baby,” he murmurs, voice dark and reverent. “Could live on this.”
Your whole body shudders. You surge forward, kissing him hard, tasting yourself on his tongue, swallowing his groan as his hands drag at your hips again. But it’s not enough. The thick weight straining his sweats is pressed solid against your soaked panties, and you need more—you need him.
“Dick,” you gasp against his mouth, clawing at the waistband of his sweats. “Out. Now.”
His laugh is harsh, breathless, wrecked. “Now who’s bossy.” But he obeys, shoving his sweats down just enough for his cock to spring free, thick and heavy and already slick at the tip.
Your breath catches. Even soft he’d been obscene; hard, he’s devastating. Long, flushed dark, veins ridging the shaft, the broad head flushed and dripping precum. Your cunt clenches just looking at him, your thighs shaking with the need to feel it.
“Fuck,” he mutters, wrapping a hand around the base, stroking once, slow, groaning through gritted teeth. “Been dying to feel you on me.”
You grind down against him, soaking panties dragging over the thick length of him, smearing wetness across his cock. The slide makes you both groan, your clit catching against his head with every pass.
He curses again, gripping your hips so hard you know he’ll leave bruises, guiding you to rock on him. His cock drags along your soaked center, fat and hot, the head bumping your clit with every grind. You can feel the pressure of him catching against your entrance, the blunt head pushing at your soaked panties, teasing what you both want.
“You feel that?” he groans, eyes wild, forehead pressed to yours as his cock slides thick and heavy under you. “So wet you’re gonna ruin me. Gonna let me in, Trouble? Let me split you open on this cock?”
Your moan is answer enough. You grind harder, desperate, the head of him pushing your panties aside just enough to catch against your opening, stretching you slightly before slipping away again. He groans raggedly, pumping his cock once against your soaked fabric, precum smearing across the sequined dress bunched at your waist.
“Gonna make you feel so good,” he pants, kissing you hard, messy, teeth clashing. “Gonna bury this cock so deep you won’t be able to say my name without cumming.” His hands slide down, fingers curling under the edge of your panties, tugging at the damp fabric. “These coming off, or can I rip ‘em?”
“Rip,” you gasp, dizzy, desperate. And he does. The lace tears with a sharp sound, shredded by his long fingers like it’s nothing, the ruined fabric dragged aside as he growls into your mouth. The sudden cool air against your bare cunt makes you shiver, but then his cock is there, thick and hot and real, dragging through your soaked folds, smearing your slick up his length.
“Fuck,” His voice breaks, guttural. “You’re dripping. Been dreaming about this for so long sweetheart, about feeling you like this.” Your hips jerk forward, chasing it, and the broad head of him catches at your entrance. He holds you still with hands locked bruisingly tight on your ass, forcing you to feel it, just the heavy pressure of him nudging in, stretching you wide, parting you slow.
The stretch steals your breath. He’s so big your body fights to take him, and the sting makes you gasp into his mouth. But underneath is heat, thick, overwhelming heat, like your whole body’s been waiting for this exact moment.
“Christ,” he groans, forehead slamming to yours, sweat dripping down his temple. “So tight. Gonna ruin me.”
You claw at his shoulders, nails biting through cotton, panting. “More…please, Dick.”
He whines softly, and then he thrusts, hard. The thick length of him drives into you, slow enough to split you open, deep enough to make you cry out. Your walls seize around him, clenching helplessly, trying to adjust as inch after inch slides into your body. The stretch burns, pleasure laced sharp through pain, but he’s groaning against your mouth, kissing you through it, muttering ragged curses into your skin.
“Taking me…fuck, you’re taking all of me so well,” he grits out, his hips jerking up, forcing the last thick inch inside. His cock bottoms out deep, the blunt head pressed right against your cervix, so deep it makes your vision blur. You sob against his mouth, your body clutching him, trembling. The fullness is as unbearable as it is addictive; like he’s rewired you from the inside out.
“Look at you,” he pants, dragging back an inch only to slam forward again, grinding deep. “My pretty girl. So good for me.”
You moan brokenly, your hips rocking without thought, meeting him. The friction is devastating; bare, raw, his cock dragging against every swollen inch of you. Slick gushes down his shaft, wetting the base of him, smearing against his stomach where your dress is bunched. His rhythm builds fast, messy. Years of wanting crashing into each thrust, hips snapping up into you hard enough to jolt the couch under you. You cling to him, legs trembling around his waist, your cunt gripping him so tight he groans with every stroke.
“Oh baby,” he whines, mouth crushed to your jaw, teeth scraping. “You’re so fucking wet, gonna make me cum so deep inside you.”
You can only gasp, moan, sob against him, every thrust lighting you up. His hands cup your ass, dragging you down onto his cock harder, grinding you into him until your clit rubs against the base, sparks exploding in your belly. You’re close again; too close, the pressure building sharp and fast. You roll your hips against him, desperate, and he feels it, feels the way your walls flutter and clench around him.
“Gonna cum?” he rasps, voice breaking, his cock driving into you relentlessly. “Gonna soak me like a good girl? Let me have it, c’mon.” Your body shatters. Pleasure rips through you, hot and unbearable, your cunt clamping down on him as you scream his name into his mouth. Slick gushes around him, soaking him, dripping down your thighs, and he curses, rutting into you harder, chasing his own end.
His rhythm falls apart, hips slamming up into you in ragged, desperate thrusts, his cock throbbing inside you with every grind. His forehead presses to yours, sweat dripping, breath coming in short, broken gasps. “God, you feel so good,” he groans, the words spilling without thought, low and raw against your mouth. “So tight around me, so wet for me. Fuck, sweetheart, you’re perfect. Perfect.”
Each word is a strike, praise so filthy and reverent your whole body shivers around him. You moan into his mouth, clutching at his shoulders, rolling against him, your cunt clenching tighter every time he speaks. He thrusts deep, almost to the hilt, then stops, shaking with restraint, his cock swelling thick inside you. His voice cracks when he mutters, “I can’t…I’m gonna cum. Please. Please, let me…inside you, I want to.”
The sound of him begging makes your breath catch, your walls fluttering around him. You feel him shaking under you, his control frayed to nothing, but still he doesn’t let go, doesn’t cross the line until you give him the word. His mouth crashes to yours, messy and frantic, his tongue tangling with yours as he whispers against your lips, “Say yes. Tell me I can. Please, Trouble, I need it. Need to fill you up.”
The plea wrecks you. Heat coils sharp in your stomach, the pressure unbearable. You tighten around him, nails raking down his back, and gasp, “Yes, yes, Dick, cum inside me, please!” The sound he makes is broken, guttural, like you’ve torn the air from his lungs. His hips jerk up violently, his whole body locking under you as he buries himself deep, cock swelling as his release rips through him.
“Fuck, oh, fuck, thank you,” he gasps, his voice sick with praise, chanting it against your mouth as he spills inside you. Thick heat floods your cunt in heavy pulses, and the sensation drags your orgasm out all over again; you clench down hard, milking him, crying into his kiss as he moans your name like prayer.
He holds you down on him, grinding up into you, desperate to push every drop deeper. “So good…so good for me, fuck, you’re perfect. Taking all of it, all of me.”
You collapse against his chest, trembling, both of you panting hard, still joined, his cock still twitching inside you as his release drips hot between your thighs. His forehead presses to yours, his voice wrecked, almost breaking.
His forehead presses to yours, both of you still trembling, breaths dragging in uneven gasps. His voice is wrecked, almost breaking.
“Years,” he whispers, softer now but still aching, still desperate. “Wasted years not feeling you like this.”
Your chest tightens, words lost somewhere in your throat. So you kiss him instead, messy, deep, your lips swollen and clumsy. He kisses you back with equal fervor, but slower now, as if he wants to savor, to commit the taste of you to memory. His cock is still sheathed deep inside you, twitching faintly as he softens, but neither of you makes a move to part.
You shift against him, and his hands instantly tighten on your hips, keeping you down, keeping him buried inside. His laugh is low, roughened by exhaustion and bliss. “Don’t even think about it. Not letting you go yet.”
You groan against his chest. “You’re heavy.”
“Good,” he mutters, dropping his lips to the damp slope of your shoulder. “Means you’ll stay put.” He breathes you in, deep, reverent. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you?”
You pull back just enough to search his face. His eyes are glassy, unguarded in a way you’ve never seen. “How long?” you ask quietly, brushing his long dark hair out of his face.
He swallows, thumb brushing slow along your cheek, still cupping your face as if you’re fragile. “Since fourteen,” he admits, voice soft, bare. “Since the first night you sat on that roof and talked to me like I wasn’t just Robin. Like I was… a person.” His jaw flexes, like saying it out loud costs him something. “I never stopped, even when you left. Even when you came back and seemed distracted by my face.”
Your breath catches. The weight of it hits you hard, heavy and bright all at once, knocking your chest open. You don’t have to think. You know, suddenly, fiercely, that you’re falling in love with him. Not just the boy who once unmasked for you, not just the man currently buried inside you, but all of him.
“Dick…” you whisper, cupping his jaw, thumb brushing over the rough stubble there. “You’re ridiculous.”
His lips twitch, a crooked grin breaking the tension. “What, because I’ve been in love with you since I was a scrawny circus kid?”
“Because,” you correct softly, rolling your eyes even as your chest aches, “I liked you when you were gangly and angry at the world, and awkward with your kindness. That’s what got me.” Your thumb brushes the edge of his jaw. “Not… all this.”
His smile gentles, the teasing melting into something shy, almost boyish. “Doesn’t hurt, though, right? The face.”
You huff a laugh, shaking your head, but it comes out tender instead of sharp. “No. It doesn’t hurt.”
“Good because you,” he says, kissing your forehead, your nose, the corner of your mouth in quick, playful succession, “are stuck with me now. So remember that when I get on your nerves.”
You sigh, pretending exasperation, but you can’t stop smiling. “Guess I am.”
-
You stay like that for a while, tangled and warm, the storm outside softening into a steady patter. His thumb strokes along your cheekbone, lazy, reverent, like he can’t quite believe you’re real. Eventually, though, the ache in your thighs reminds you both of reality. You shift, wincing slightly, and he feels it immediately.
“Hey,” he murmurs, kissing your temple, “don’t move. I’ve got you.”
You make a soft noise of protest when he finally pulls out, the stretch easing but leaving you empty in a way that makes your chest squeeze. Heat spills between your thighs, sticky and messy, but he’s already tucking you back against the cushions, murmuring, “Stay,” before disappearing down the hall.
When he comes back, he’s barefoot, carrying a damp towel and a glass of water, his hair even messier from running a hand through it. “Lift,” he says gently, and when you blink at him, dazed, he smiles. “C’mon. Let me take care of you.”
You do, cheeks warming as he crouches between your knees, wiping you clean with careful, unhurried motions. His hands are steady, reverent, as though the act itself is holy. He kisses the inside of your thigh when he’s done, soft and fleeting, before standing to hand you the water.
You take a sip, your throat dry, then glance at him over the rim of the glass. “You always this bossy after sex?”
“Back to bossy again?” His brows lift in mock offense as he sinks back onto the couch beside you. “But, please. I’m efficient. There’s a big difference.”
You laugh, weak but real, tucking yourself into his side. “You were efficient at fourteen too. Efficiently broody. Efficiently avoiding eye contact.”
He groans, dropping his head back against the cushions. “God. Don’t remind me.” Then, softer, with a smile that curves like memory, he adds, “And somehow you still liked me.” His face warms with a smile as he says it, looking more boyish than you’ve seen him look, like the thought of you having felt something for him all these years makes him giddy.
“I didn’t like you because of the brooding,” you tease, tilting up to meet his gaze. “I liked you because you couldn’t hide how good you were. Not from me.”
His eyes soften, his hand smoothing gently over your hip. “You’ve always seen too much.”
“And you’ve always pretended it bothered you,” you shoot back, but your smile is quiet, your chest aching.
He presses his lips to your hair, lingering there. “Never bothered me,” he admits into the crown of your head. “It scared me. That’s different.”
His lips linger in your hair, warm and steady, until your eyes slip closed. The storm outside has softened to a drizzle, a steady hush against the glass, and the room feels like it’s holding its breath with you. You set the glass of water aside, curling instinctively into him. His arm comes around your shoulders without hesitation, hand smoothing slow circles over your arm. It’s grounding, the weight of him, the heat of his body still seeping into yours.
“You should sleep,” he murmurs against your temple.
“So should you,” you mumble back, your voice heavy with exhaustion.
“Not tired,” he lies, and you can feel the smile pressed into your hair.
“You’re full of it,” you whisper, but the fight is already gone from you. Your head sinks against his chest, ear over his heartbeat. It’s steady, strong, the sound you didn’t know you’d missed all these years until now.
He shifts, adjusting you both, and before you realize it, you’re stretched across the couch together, tangled under the throw blanket. His hand stays at your hip, fingers curled there like an anchor, as if he’s afraid you’ll slip away in the night.
You reach up, tracing lazy circles over his chest. “Dick?”
“Mmm?”
“I think,” you murmur, words already blurring at the edges of sleep, “I might be falling in love with you.”
He stills, then exhales slow, his lips brushing your hair. “Good,” he whispers. “Because I’ve been in love with you for half my life.”
Your throat tightens, but your body relaxes, the truth settling into you like warmth. You smile against him, soft and certain. Outside, Gotham exhales under the rain. Inside, you let yourself drift, safe in the arms of the boy you once knew, the man you’re choosing now.
-
The city looks different from up here. It always does, under his arm.
You’re sitting on the ledge of a Blüdhaven rooftop, legs dangling over the streetlights, the night air cool against your bare skin. Dick’s beside you, mask pushed up into his hair, the blue symbol catching the glow of the skyline. His hands are warm where they rest on your hips, steadying you like you might slip, even though you both know you never would with him here. Both his thighs bracket yours.
“Déjà vu,” you murmur, glancing at him over your shoulder.
His grin tilts sideways, boyish and wicked all at once. “Except this time I get to kiss you instead of lecture you.”
“Mm,” you hum, leaning back into his chest. “Not sure which one you’re worse at.”
He gasps, mock wounded, then dips his head to mouth at your neck. “Harsh. And here I was thinking I’ve improved since the green tights days.”
“You have,” you say, fighting a smile. “Marginally.”
“Marginally?” He nips lightly at your skin, enough to make you squirm. “You wound me.”
“You’ll live,” you tease, twisting in his hold until you’re facing him. His hands slide automatically to your waist, thumbs stroking slow against the fabric of your jacket, and his eyes soften in a way that makes your stomach flip.
“You know what hasn’t changed?” he says quietly.
“What?”
“You.” His smile curves, tender under the tease. “You still sneak out when you shouldn’t. Still get yourself into trouble. Still make me chase after you.”
You snort. “Admit it. You like it.”
“Like it?” He laughs low, kissing you once, quick and sure. “I live for it.”
The kiss deepens, sweet and unhurried, the city buzzing around you, forgotten. When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against yours, his voice soft enough for only you to hear. “Feels like we’ve been waiting years for this,” he murmurs.
“Maybe we have.” You smile, brushing your thumb along his jaw. “Worth it, though.”
He grins, eyes bright as the city lights. “Definitely worth it.”
And when he kisses you again, laughing into your mouth, the rooftop doesn’t feel like a hiding place anymore. It feels like home.
people don't talk enough about how fucking funny it is that bruce can sub in his kids as batman when he's too busy. like can you imagine it from the league's perspective? imagine you have this really mysterious, geniusly scary guy that you know next to nothing about, never cracks a smile and yet always comes out on top, and one day he shows up to a league meeting and there's just something... off. about him.
you can't pin it down because he's literally acting exactly the same as usual and there's no reason to think there's anything wrong, but maybe he shifted in his seat one to many times, or he looked just a tad bit too bored during green lantern's case review, but something's just... odd. so you quietly ask superman after the meeting if anything's up with the bat bcs you know those two are closer and also clark can hear heartbeats so if something's wrong surely he'll pick it up? and without hesitation he leans over to you and mumbles 'yeah batman was busy, that's his 17 yr old son. he's a crime lord and kills people sometimes though so we're not allowed to let him into the weapons department.' and then walks away like it's normal.
like the whiplash the league must go through every time they realise that no, this is not their fearless dark and brooding leader, this is in fact one of his dipshit kids being forced to sub in bcs the real batman broke an ankle, is incredible.
wonder woman: so that's my proposed plan, what are your thoughts batman?
batman: hn. i think that- *voice raising two octaves* oh shit hold on my phones buzzing
the league:
batman, answering the phone and immediately dropping the Bat Posture™: what do you mean- aw come on little wing that's not fair! but- no, NO DON'T YOU DARE TELL ALFRED I'LL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU- IM SORRY OK I'LL BUY YOU MORE- *catches sight of the league watching him, baffled* *stiffens* ok listen i promise to replace them but i gotta go, please show me mercy iloveyoubye *hangs up*
the league:
batman:
batman: *coughs awkwardly*
superman: *sighs*
batman, to superman: ...red hood found out i ate his chocolate pretzels-
superman, shaking his head: just... just stop.
the flash: so this isn't batman either, is it?
wonder woman: if this one's also a criminal im losing my mind.
superman, tiredly: no no, this one isn't a criminal. this one's actually a cop.
batman: *sinks down in his seat* b's gonna kill me
green lantern, mystified: where does he keep GETTING you all from!?
'batman' dick, who made a pact with jason to Always Fuck With Bruce Whenever The Opportunity Arises: batman is a whore.
they think they've finally sussed out all 2 of batman's kids and then one day during a meeting 'batman' ends up on a 30 minute rant about different hacking methods this tech villain could be using that results in him half way through a sentence breaking off to say '-oh uncle clark could you pass me that pen- thanks, anyway so-' and then five minutes after that when the league have all been exchanging incredulous looks he finally freezes and is like. SHIT.
wonder woman: you're different from the other two, aren't you?
batman: maybe i am maybe i'm not, you can't prove it.
wonder woman:
green lantern: so like, are you new or have you just managed to avoid sub duty up until now?
superman, coughing: actually, this is this ones ninth occasion of replacing batman. you've just never realised before.
the league:
batman: yeah actually the other two are kinda mad i lasted longer than them...
the flash: how the fuck does he keep getting kids with the exact same build as him!??!?
'batman' tim, spent 20 minutes padding the suit out so he would look the part, still mad that bruce keeps palming WE work off on him: oh he forces us to take steroids for it.
the league, concerned:
superman, pinching the bridge of his nose: now come on red robin-
batman, fully tearing up and looking distraught: PLEASE uncle clark, it HURTS, you can't keep COVERING FOR HIM!
superman, frantically to the league: this one lies.
bonus
the league, squinting at batman:
the league: ...
superman: *head in his hands, too disappointed to do anything*
the league: *silently exchanging looks, wondering if anybody's brave enough to say anything*
duke as batman, fully aware this is fucking stupid but jason and tim fell on the floor laughing when dick came up with the idea and frankly, he wanted to see if anybody would have to guts to call him out: so, are we all ready to start the meeting?
