Hi! Welcome to my page! Below you can find the masterlists for different fandoms that I write for. Right now I write for DC Universe and the ACOTAR world.
Wayne Manor is quiet when you pull up the drive on Christmas Eve. Too quiet. The windows glow warmly against the snow, but there’s none of the usual chaos spilling out to meet you. No distant shouting, no footsteps pounding down marble hallways, no argument echoing from somewhere upstairs. It sets your teeth on edge immediately.
Alfred greets you at the door as he always does, with a precise bow and the politest hello a personal assistant might ever get. He looks impeccable, of course. He always does. You search his face for some hint of mischief or warning, but he offers neither.
“Good evening,” he says smoothly. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” you reply, already suspicious. “It’s… quiet.”
“Yes,” Alfred agrees, as if that answers everything.
You don’t ask where Bruce’s many adopted children are. Experience has taught you that whatever the explanation is will almost certainly raise your blood pressure. A gala, a mission, a well-meaning but ill-advised plan. You decide to preserve your peace for at least another few minutes.
You don’t need an escort to Bruce’s office, but Alfred insists on walking with you anyway. The two of you move through the manor at an unhurried pace, footsteps echoing softly. He makes easy small talk, asking after your work, commenting on the weather, remarking that Gotham looks rather pretty when it behaves itself for once. Alfred has always been disarmingly good at this, filling the silence without demanding anything from it.
When you reach the office door, Alfred stops. He gives you a knowing look that’s almost, but not quite, a smile.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he says, already turning away.
You knock once. From inside, Bruce’s voice answers, low and distracted. “Come in.”
He’s at his desk when you enter, shoulders slightly hunched over the remains of paperwork that looks like it’s been picked apart rather than finished. His tie is loosened, the knot sitting low against his collar, and his sleeves are rolled neatly to his elbows. He looks tired in the particular way that means he’s been pushing himself too hard and pretending he hasn’t noticed.
He looks up when you step inside, surprise flickering across his face before smoothing into something warmer.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he says.
You lift the folder in your hand and give it a little shake. “I’m just dropping this off.”
You both know it could have waited until after the holiday. You both also know neither of you is going to say that out loud.
Bruce’s mouth curves slightly. “Of course you are.”
You step further into the room, closing the door behind you with a soft click. Bruce looks up fully then, attention sharpening as his gaze tracks you. The air shifts into something familiar, easy, threaded with history.
“You know,” you say lightly, setting the folder down on the edge of his desk instead of handing it to him, “most people take at least one night off around the holidays.”
He leans back in his chair, eyes flicking briefly to the folder and then back to you. “Most people don’t have my workload.”
You tilt your head, studying him. “That’s not what I said.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “No,” he agrees. “You implied I’m doing this to myself.”
You take a step closer. “I implied you’re working yourself into the ground again.”
Bruce exhales through his nose, something like a quiet laugh. “Again,” he repeats. “You make it sound like a habit.”
“You say that like it isn’t.” Your gaze drops to his loosened tie, the rolled sleeves. “You look tired, Bruce.”
He straightens a fraction, defensive on instinct, then relaxes just as quickly. “I’m fine.”
You give him a look that makes it clear you don’t believe him for a second.
“Some people,” he adds dryly, “actually enjoy their jobs.”
You hum, unconvinced. “Funny. I thought you enjoyed pretending you don’t need sleep.”
His eyes meet yours, steady and warm. “And I thought you enjoyed calling me out on it.”
“Maybe I do,” you admit.
The silence that follows is unhurried, charged in that familiar way. Then something soft drifts through it, barely noticeable at first.
There’s music playing faintly from a radio in the corner of the office, soft enough that it blends into the background. You glance toward it.
“I didn’t know you listened to the radio while you worked,” you say.
Bruce follows your gaze and huffs quietly. “Alfred left it on. I didn’t notice.”
You hum in clear disbelief. “You didn’t notice?”
He leans back in his chair, exhales, and finally seems to accept that you’re not leaving any time soon. “All right,” he admits. “Maybe I noticed. I just didn’t care enough to turn it off.”
You take him in properly then. The faint shadows under his eyes. The tightness at the corners of his mouth. “You’re exhausted,” you say.
Bruce gives you a look that suggests he had hoped to get away with it after the first comment. After a moment, he sighs, a quiet sound of surrender. “Sit,” he says, nodding to the chair across from his desk.
You do. He stands, moves to the small bar set into the side of the room, and pours two drinks without asking. He hands one to you before taking his own.
The song on the radio shifts, the opening notes familiar enough that you smile before you even realize why.
“Santa Baby,” you say, delighted. “They’re playing my song.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Your song?”
You take a sip of your drink, eyes never leaving his. “Absolutely. Listen to the lyrics.”
He listens. You can see it happening in real time as the song sinks in. His mouth twitches.
“I see,” he says slowly. “That does sound like you.”
You laugh, lifting your glass slightly as if to punctuate the thought. “Well,” you say, glancing toward the radio, “since she’s already made up her mind about what she wants, I might as well give you my list.”
Bruce watches you, amused, already bracing himself.
“Diamonds,” you begin casually. “Not the subtle kind either. Something unapologetic. Vintage, preferably. I like a little history with my bad decisions.”
“Of course you do,” he murmurs.
“And maybe,” you continue, warming to it, “some ridiculous old piece of jewelry that comes with a dramatic backstory. Lost heiress, scandal, mysterious disappearance. Very festive.”
You take another sip, eyes bright. “Oh, and something fast. Completely impractical. Loud. Red. The kind of thing you absolutely do not need and would definitely regret buying.”
Bruce lets out a quiet breath of laughter. “Naturally.”
You shrug. “It’s Christmas. I shouldn’t be reasonable.”
You pretend to think for a moment, tapping a finger against the glass. “And then something impossible. Just to keep things interesting.”
“Impossible,” he repeats.
“Mm-hm. World peace. A quiet Gotham. Or maybe,” you add lightly, meeting his gaze, “a man who actually takes a night off.”
That earns you a look. He studies you for a second, then shifts his weight, arms folding loosely across his chest.
“You have expensive taste,” Bruce says, tone dry, eyes still warm.
“You could handle it,” you reply easily.
His gaze sharpens, amusement deepening into something warmer, more dangerous. “Is that so?”
You lift your glass in a small toast. “It is Christmas, after all.”
Bruce watches you over the rim of his own glass, the amber catching the light as he takes a slow sip. The music settles into the room, soft and indulgent, filling the spaces neither of you rushes to occupy. He doesn’t argue with you. He rarely does, not when that thoughtful look crosses his face, the one that means he’s already weighing the cost of giving you exactly what you want.
He sets his glass down first.
“And what is it,” he asks calmly, “that you actually want?’
You smile into your drink, pretending to consider it. “I think you know.”
His gaze sharpens. “I want to hear you say it.”
You meet his eyes then, something more serious threading through the playfulness. “Why?”
“Because,” he says, standing, “if you’re asking me for something, I don’t allow guesses.”
The distance between you suddenly feels very deliberate. You swallow, then lift your chin. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” he replies quietly, “here you are.”
You set your glass aside and turn toward him fully. “You,” you say. The word lands heavier than everything else you listed before. “It’s you I want, Bruce.”
The room seems to still around you. The implication hangs there, unspoken but understood. Late nights. Familiar hands. A rhythm that never crossed certain lines. Pleasure without promises. Warmth without daylight.
Bruce’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “You already have me,” he says.
You shake your head. “No. I have pieces. Moments. I want what comes after.” Your voice drops. “I want real.”
He’s in front of you before you quite realize he’s moved. Close enough that you can feel the heat of him, the quiet steadiness of his breath. His voice lowers, intimate, meant only for you.
“You’re dangerous,” he tells you.
You smile, slow and knowing. “You like that.”
His hand settles at your waist, firm and unmistakably intentional. Not a brush. Not an accident. Your breath catches despite yourself. You reach up, fingers smoothing the loosened knot of hit tie, straightening it with care that feels almost reverent.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he murmurs.
“Straighten your tie?” you ask innocently.
“Push me,” he replies.
The tension tightens, coiling low and hot. His thumb presses slightly into your side, just enough to remind you of the strength there. Your fingers linger at his collar, tracing the line of his throat.
“This is me warning you,” Bruce says quietly. “If I start, I won’t be able to stop.”
You tilt your head, closing the last inch between you without quite touching. “Then don’t stop.”
Something shifts in his expression. Resolve, maybe. Or surrender. His hand tightens at your waist as his other comes up to cradle your jaw, guiding your face toward his.
The music swells softly in the background, and the rest of the world narrows to the space between your mouths, the promise of what comes next hanging just out of reach.
The space between your moths closes, deliberate and inevitable. Bruce’s lips meet yours, slow and searing, a kiss that feels like it’s been waiting for years to happen even if you’d been together just last week. His hand at your jaw tilts your head just so, guiding the angle with a quiet authority that makes your pulse quicken. The kiss isn’t rushed. It’s deep, unhurried, his mouth moving against yours like he’s savoring every second, memorizing the shape of you. His breath is warm, steady, a contrast to the way your heart stumbles in your chest.
He pulls back just enough to speak, voice low and rough, lips brushing yours as he murmurs, “If this is a Christmas wish, I plan to fulfill it properly.”
You exhale a soft laugh, barely a sound, before he captures your mouth again. The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding against yours with a slow, deliberate heat that sends warmth curling down your spine. His thumb strokes along your jaw, a small, grounding touch amidst the intensity. You lean into him, hands sliding up his chest, fingers brushing the fabric of his shirt as the world narrows to the rhythm of his mouth on yours.
His hands move with the same measured pace, sliding down to your waist, tugging you closer. Your fingers work at the knot of his tie again, this time loosening it completely. You pull it free, letting it drape over your hand before dropping it to the floor. Bruce’s mouth curves against yours, a faint smirk, but he doesn’t stop you. His own hands find the hem of your shirt, easing it up inch by inch, his knuckles grazing your skin as he peels it away. The fabric falls with a soft rustle, and his gaze drops, taking you in with a look that’s equal parts hunger and reverence.
“You’re trouble,” he says quietly, voice a low rumble as his hands settle on your bare skin.
“Says the man who’s undressing me in his office,” you reply, your own voice husky as you work the buttons of his shirt, revealing the hard planes of his chest bit by bit. You push the fabric off his shoulders, letting it hang loose as your palms skim over his skin, feeling the warmth, the strength beneath.
He shrugs the shirt off the rest of the way, letting it fall, and pulls you close again. His hands slide up your back, deftly unclasping your bra with a flick of his fingers. The straps slip down your arms, and he eases it away, his touch lingering as he traces the curve of your shoulder. There’s no rush, just the quiet intensity of his focus, the way his eyes darken as they meet yours.
“Come here,” he murmurs, stepping back just enough to guide you toward the desk chair. He sits, pulling you with him, your knees bracketing his hips as you straddle him. The firelight from the hearth casts soft, flickering shadows across his face, catching in the sharp lines of his jaw, the warmth in his gaze. Your skirt rides up as you settle against him, and his hands grip your thighs, firm but not bruising, sliding up to your hips.
You lean down, kissing him again, slower this time, tongues tangling lazily as your hands thread through his hair. His grip tightens slightly, guiding you closer, the hard length of him pressing through his trousers against you. A soft gasp escapes you, and he swallows it with another kiss, deeper now, but still so controlled.
“Slow,” he says against your mouth, a quiet command wrapped in velvet. “We’ve got time.”
You nod, breathless, and reach down between you, working at his belt with trembling fingers. The metal clinks as you undo it, and he lifts his hips just enough for you to tug his trousers and briefs down, freeing him. Your breath catches at the sight of him, thick and ready, and his quiet chuckle vibrates against your skin as he watches your reaction.
“Like what you see?” he asks, voice low, teasing.
“Shut up,” you mutter, but there’s a smile in it as you lift yourself slightly, pushing your own underwear aside. His hands help, sliding the fabric down your thighs as much as he can in this position, until you’re bare against him.
You sink down slowly, taking him in inch by inch, the stretch and heat making your breath hitch. His hands grip your hips, steadying you, guiding you down with that same unhurried pace. A low groan rumbles from his chest, and his head tips back slightly, eyes half-lidded as he watches you.
“God, you feel good,” he breathes, voice rough as his thumbs rub small circles into your skin.
You let out a shaky laugh, hands bracing on his shoulders as you start to move, rolling your hips in a slow, deliberate rhythm. The chair creaks faintly beneath you, but the sound is drowned out by the crackle of the fire, the soft music still humming from the radio, and the quiet gasps and murmurs between you. His hands guide your pace, not forcing, just encouraging, letting you set the tempo but keeping you close, grounded.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, one hand sliding up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheek. “Beautiful.”
The word hits harder than it should, soft and sincere, and you lean into his touch, kissing him again as you move. It’s not frantic or desperate—it’s a slow burn, each roll of your hips drawing out the heat between you, building it steadily. His other hand slips between you, fingers finding your clit with a precision that makes you gasp into his mouth, the added sensation sending sparks through you.
“That’s it,” he says quietly, voice a low growl as he watches your face, adjusting his touch to match your reactions. “Just like that.”
You bite your lip, head tipping back as the pleasure coils tighter, your movements growing just a little more urgent. He leans forward, lips brushing the column of your throat, kissing and nipping lightly as he murmurs encouragement against your skin. The firelight dances over you both, warm and intimate, and when you come, it’s with a quiet, shuddering moan, your body tightening around him as he holds you through it, his own breath hitching.
He’s not far behind, his grip on your hips tightening as he thrusts up into you once, twice, before stilling with a low, guttural sound, his release hot inside you. You stay there for a moment, both of you catching your breath, foreheads pressed together, quiet laughter bubbling up between you as the afterglow settles in.
“Merry Christmas,” you whisper, a teasing edge to your voice as you brush a strand of hair from his face.
He huffs a laugh, hands sliding up your back, warm and possessive. “We’re not done yet.”
Before you can reply, he stands, lifting you effortlessly from the chair, your legs wrapping around his waist as he holds you against him. The strength in his arms is effortless, comforting, and you loop your arms around his neck, pressing a lazy kiss to his jaw as he carries you out of the office and toward his bedroom down the hall.
“Still aiming to fill my Christmas list, huh?” you tease softly, voice playful as he pushes the door open with his shoulder.
He glances at you, a smirk tugging at his lips as he sets you down on the edge of the bed. “Only the requests worth granting.”
You laugh, pulling him down with you as you sink into the sheets, the weight of him over you a promise of more to come.
- - -
Morning comes softly in Wayne Manor. Pale winter light filters through tall windows, muted by gauzy curtains, painting the room in silver and gold. The bed is warm in a way that feels earned, not accidental, and when you shift, the sheets whisper rather than rustle.
You wake slowly, wrapped in one of Bruce’s old shirts. It smells like him, clean and familiar, the sleeves long enough to nearly swallow your hands. For a moment you simply lie there, blinking up at the ceiling, letting the quiet settle into your bones.
Bruce is beside you, sitting against the headboard. One knee is bent, the other stretched out beneath the covers. He has a book open in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other, steam curling lazily into the air. He looks relaxed in a way you don’t see often, hair mussed, glasses perched low on his nose.
“You’re awake,” he says gently, closing the book without marking the page.
You smile, sleep-heavy and unguarded. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” he replies, warmth unmistakable in his voice.
He sets the book aside and reaches for a second mug on the nightstand, still warm. “Coffee,” he says, handing it to you before you can even ask.
You push yourself up, leaning into the pillows as you take it. Your fingers brush his, unhurried, comfortable. There’s no awkwardness, no hesitation, no need to pretend last night was anything other than what it was.
“Thank you,” you say, taking a careful sip. It’s perfect. Of course it is.
Bruce watches you over the rim of his own mug, expression soft. “Did you sleep all right?”
“Very,” you admit. “Your bed is dangerous.”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “I’ve been told.”
You’re halfway through your coffee when he reaches to the nightstand again and picks up a small box. It’s simple, unassuming, wrapped neatly without excess ribbon or fanfare. He offers it to you without comment.
You look at it, then at him. “Bruce,” you say slowly, “you didn’t have to.”
“I know,” he replies.
You open it carefully. Inside is slim velvet box. When you slip the lid off, you find a delicate gold chain, fine enough it nearly disappears against your skin, with a small, understated pendant resting at its center. Nothing ostentatious. No massive stone, no obvious branding. Just something elegant and personal, the kind of piece meant to be worn close and often. For a second, you just stare at it, thumb brushing over the cool metal as the meaning settles in.
“You got this for me?” you ask, genuinely surprised.
He nods. “I saw it weeks ago.”
You glance up at him, teasing creeping back into your smile. “You realize this counts as spoiling me, right? Especially considering we were… not exactly serious before last night.”
His lips curve, but he says nothing.
You finish your coffee in companionable silence, the kind that feels like a beginning rather than an end. Eventually, Bruce exhales and looks out toward the window.
“This,” he says quietly, “is the best Christmas indulgence I’ve allowed myself in years.”
You set your mug aside and lean in, kissing him softly. When you pull back, you smile.
“Santa would be very proud,” you tell him.
Bruce laughs then, low and genuine, and pulls you closer as the morning stretches on, unhurried and full of promise.
Ficmas Day 7!
12 Days of Ficmas | navigation | dc masterlist
Pairing: Clark Kent x Reader
Word Count: 3.4k
Warnings: Slight Angst, Fluff
Metropolis around Christmas time is usually as close to a winter wonderland as any city can get. The entire city seems to find itself enraptured in holiday festivity, lights hanging from every storefront and decorated trees tucked into every corner. That’s all still there this year, but something feels off about it all.
As you trudge home in the dark after a late day at work, the city feels cold. Cold in a way that usually only places like Gotham manage. Gray slush mars the sidewalk, smeared thin by countless boots, and the artificial glow of holiday lights feels like a performance rather than a promise. Christmas songs drift faintly from an open storefront as you pass, the warbling notes of a jazzy tune carried on the wind. Instead of comfort, it settles heavy in your chest, an ache you can’t shake.
You feel oddly hollow, like there’s something missing this year that you can’t quite name. Images of Christmases past surface uninvited. Presents piled high beneath a tree in your parents’ living room. A dinner table crowded with familiar faces and overlapping conversations. The warmth of traditions you drifted away from years ago, not all at once, but slowly, until nearly a decade has passed and they belong to another version of you.
Clark is home when you unlock the apartment door. He’s doing usual Clark things, humming softly under his breath as he stands at the stove, flipping pancakes for dinner like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The apartment smells faintly of butter and vanilla. He looks up the moment you enter, face lighting up with that familiar, open smile.
“Hey, love! I missed you. How was your day?”
You answer him, smiling because it’s what you always do, because he deserves that warmth even if you can’t quite feel it right now. The words come out right, sound right, but something in them is thin, stretched. Clark’s eyes linger on you a second longer than usual, sharp in that quiet way of his, but he doesn’t say anything. He never pushes.
You pad down the hallway instead, shedding your coat and shoes along the way, and disappear into your shared bedroom. The door clicks shut behind you with a soft finality. As you change into your pajamas, the weight in your chest settles deeper, heavier, and you press your palms briefly against your rubs as if that might steady it. From the kitchen, you can still hear Clark humming, steady and gentle, and the sound nearly undoes you.
- - -
Clark sits on the living room couch after dinner, his laptop open in front of him. He had intended to work on the piece that needs to be finished for Perry by the end of the week, a straightforward article that would usually take him no time at all. Tonight, though, the words blur together on the screen. He rereads the same sentence three times without absorbing any of it, his fingers hovering uselessly above the keyboard.
His attention keeps drifting down the hallway, to the closed bedroom door. To you.
You’d gone to bed early tonight, which would have been strange enough on its own. Normally, you insist on sitting beside him while he works, feet tucked beneath you on the couch, scrolling through your phone or reading whatever book has captured your attention that week. Tonight, you’d barely looked up when he mentioned needing to get some writing done. You’d only offered a small shrug and murmured something about being tired before shuffling off toward the bedroom.
When paired with the too tight smile and the quiet sadness you’ve been carrying for days now, it’s enough to knot something deep in his chest.
If Clark didn’t know you, he supposes it might be hard to pinpoint what’s wrong. You’re good at keeping your emotions close, smoothing over the sharp edges so the world never sees them. But Clark does know you. He notices the pauses that last a beat too long, the way your laughter no longer quite reaches your eyes, the heaviness that settles over you when you think no one is watching.
This year is the first in a long while that you won’t be heading home to your parents’ house for the holidays, and he knows it’s weighing on you more than you let on. He knows how much you love the chaos of it all. The cousins spilling into every spare room, the aunts and uncles talking over one another, the comfort of being surrounded by people who have known you your whole life. You miss it in the same quiet, aching way he would miss Smallville.
And Clark loves going home to Smallville for the holidays. He loves the way the fields disappear beneath fresh snow, the way the Kent farmhouse glows like a beacon against the long winter nights. He can almost hear Ma humming softly to herself as she bakes, flour dusting the counter and the smell of pecan pie filling the house. The thought of not having that, of facing Christmas without it, makes his chest tighten.
He closes his laptop and sets it aside. The decision forms not as a plan, but as a feeling, warm and certain. He wants you to have that sense of home this year. He wants to give you the kind of Christmas that wraps itself around you and stays, the kind that reminds you that you’re not alone, that you belong. And in that quiet living room, with the hallway dark and the apartment still, Clark realizes that loving you means sharing the parts of himself that feel most like home.
- - -
Clark’s not in bed when you wake the following morning, but the apartment smells like coffee. Rich and familiar, it curls through the room and tugs you awake more effectively than any alarm ever could. You can already picture him, moving through the kitchen with an ease that no man his size should reasonably possess, pulling ingredients from cabinets and the fridge as he starts on his favorite Saturday morning egg breakfast.
It takes more effort than you’d like to admit to convince yourself to leave the warmth of the bed. You tug your sweatshirt on, hands buried deep in the pockets and hood drawn up as if it might shield you from the day. Your feet carry you down the hallway on autopilot, and when you step into the kitchen, Clark is exactly where you expect him to be.
He’s dressed in plaid flannel pajama pants and a soft white T-shirt, his hair still mussed from sleep. There’s a faint, almost anticipatory grin on his face as he turns toward you, coffee mug already in hand. With his hearing, he probably knew you were awake the moment your breathing shifted, the moment your heart began to breathe a little faster as you stirred.
He greets you with a gentle kiss to the cheek and presses the warm mug into your hands. “Morning, love,” he says as you settle onto the counter beside the stove. “Sleep alright?”
You hum in response, lifting the mug for a long sip. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah,” Clark answers.
It’s a perfectly normal response, but something about it makes your brows knit together. His voice pitches just slightly on the word, enough that you catch it immediately. You’ve known Clark far too long to miss it, especially now. It’s the tone he uses when he’s not telling the whole truth.
You choose not to push. Clark comes to you when he’s ready, always has. Instead, you take another slow sip of your coffee and let the quiet settle between you.
For a few long minutes, the kitchen fills with the soft, domestic sounds of breakfast. Eggs sizzling in the pan, bacon crackling, the toaster clicking as bread disappears inside. You’re just about to hop down and grab plates and silverware when Clark turns toward you, spatula still in his hand.
“Ma called this morning,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, his expression a little too sheepish to be casual.
You lift a silent brow in question. Ma calls him nearly every morning, so he continues before you can say anything.
“Well, I mentioned that you weren’t planning on going home for Christmas this year. She said she’d love to have you.”
You freeze, coffee mug hovering halfway to your lips.
The quiet stretches after his words, thick and careful. You set your coffee down on the counter, fingers lingering around the mug longer than necessary.
“I don’t know, Clark,” you say finally, staring at the steam curling up between you. “I don’t want to impose. Your parents have their routines, their traditions. I’d just be… there.” You give a small, self-conscious shrug. “I don’t want to be in the way.”
Clark turns fully toward you, spatula forgotten in his hand. “You wouldn’t be,” he says immediately, as if the idea itself is impossible. Then he softens his tone. “You really wouldn’t.”
You swallow, throat tightening. “I know you say that, but it’s different. That house is… it’s warm in a way I’m not sure I fit into right now.” You hesitate, then add more quietly. “I haven’t exactly been great company lately.”
Clark sets the spatula down and steps closer, his attention narrowing completely to you. “Hey,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to be anything for them. Or for me.” He waits until you look at him. “Ma would be thrilled to have you there. She already asks about you every time we talk. And Pa…” He smiles faintly. “Pa will probably put you to work shoveling snow with me and call it bonding.”
A small huff of laughter escapes you before you can stop it, but the feeling in your chest doesn’t disappear.
“I just feel strange,” you admit. “Showing up to something that means so much to you, when I feel like I’m missing pieces of myself lately.”
Clark’s voice is steady when he answers. “You’re not missing anything,” he says. “You’re just tired. And maybe a little homesick.”
The word lands harder than you expect. You glance away, blinking a few times. “Maybe,” you concede.
He reaches out then, resting his hand lightly against your knee. The touch is warm, grounding. “You know,” he says gently, “no one is ever a guest at my parents’ house. Not really. They have a way of making space for people, whether those people think they deserve it or not.”
You press your lips together, fighting the tightness in your throat. The silence stretches again, but this time it feels less heavy. Finally, you let yourself say the thing you’ve been skirting around all morning.
“I just… kind of miss the snow.”
Clark exhales softly, something like relief passing over his face. His thumb shifts where it rests against your knee, a small, reassuring motion. “I know,” he says. He hesitates for just a moment, as if choosing his words carefully, then continues, voice quieter but no less certain. “And I know this feels like a big thing. Like you’re stepping into something that already exists.”
You glance back at him, caught by the sincerity in his expression.
“But it’s not,” he adds. “It’s just… the start of it.” His smile is gentle, a little shy. “I mean, we live together. I don’t see this as you tagging along for my family’s Christmas. I see it as our first one.”
Your breath catches.
“I plan on spending my life with you,” Clark says simply, as if it’s the most obvious truth in the world. “So this isn’t about whether you belong there. You do. You always will. It’s just the first Christmas of a lot of them.”
The ache in your chest finally gives way, warmth spreading in its place. You swallow, emotions crowding close to the surface, and nod. “Okay,” you say softly, a small smile breaking through at last. “Then I’d really like to go.”
Clark’s answering smile is bright and unmistakably relieved. He squeezes your knee once, gentle and sure, and for the first time in days, the idea of Christmas feels like something to look forward to.
- - -
Despite yourself, you practically bounce with anticipation as Clark pulls his truck into the driveway of the Kent farm. The drive had been long, the miles stretching out beneath a pale winter sky, but Clark had filled most of it with stories. He talked about sledding down the hills behind the barn as a kid, about Ma’s insistence on real trees and homemade ornaments, about how the town square looks when the snow comes down just right and the lights reflect off the ground like scattered stars. By the time the farmhouse comes into view, your nerves have softened into something closer to excitement.
The back seat is piled high with presents. Clark had already bought a few for his parents and, of course, more than a handful for you, but you had spent the past several days combing through Metropolis in search of the perfect gifts for Ma and Pa. The result is far more than you ever intended. When you’d returned to the apartment with your arms full, Clark had only laughed, pulling you into his chest in a tight hug and kissing the top of your head as if this only confirmed everything he already knew about you.
Clark steps out of the truck first, jogging around to your side before you can even unbuckle your seatbelt. By the time you manage to step down onto the snow-dusted driveway, he already has an impressive stack of gifts balanced in his arms, both suitcases somehow hooked along with them.
“Show-off,” you murmur fondly.
He grins and leads you up the porch steps, reminding you to be careful of the second one. “It gets icy right there,” he says. It’s not your first time in Smallville, but you’ve never seen it like this. Snow softens every edge, muffles every sound. The town feels slower, quieter, as if it’s holding its breath.
The front door opens before you can even knock. Martha Kent’s face lights up the moment she sees you, and to your surprise, she doesn’t go for her son first. Instead, she pulls you into a warm, enveloping hug that leaves no room for hesitation.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so glad you’re here,” she says, squeezing you tight before pulling back to look at you properly. Her hands rest at your shoulders, affectionate and familiar. “I’ve been asking Clark for years when he planned to bring you to a holiday. I’m so glad he finally came to his senses.”
You risk a glance at Clark, whose cheeks have gone an impressive shade of red as he fumbles with the presents.
Ma ushers you both inside, the warmth of the farmhouse wrapping around you instantly. Clark disappears down the hall to stash the luggage in his old room and slide the gifts beneath the tree, leaving you to take it all in. The house glows with soft light, smells faintly of cinnamon and pine, and feels impossibly safe.
The rest of the night unfolds in what you can only describe as picture-perfect Christmas preparation.
You and Clark are promptly sent to decorate the tree, Pa announcing with unmistakable pride that he chopped it down himself just that morning. He insists it’s the best one yet, perfectly shaped and sturdy, and Clark nods along dutifully as you carry it into the corner by the window. The branches are thick and fragrant, filling the room with the sharp, clean scent of pine.
Ma hands over a box of lights and another filled with ornaments collected over years and years. Some are simple and well worn, others handmade, each one clearly carrying a story. You pause now and then to admire them, and Clark fills in the gaps, telling you which ones he made as a kid, which ones Ma insists on putting front and center every year.
When it comes time for the lights, Clark takes the box with a dramatic sigh. He lifts the tangled mass as if it might bite him, squinting at it suspiciously. “I swear,” he mutters, turning it over in his hands, “these things multiply when you’re not looking.”
You laugh as he wrestles with the cord, his brow furrowed in exaggerated concentration. He tugs gently, then not so gently, and the lights only seem to knot themselves tighter. “Okay,” he says under his breath, “that’s personal.”
You step closer, reaching out to help, and the moment your fingers brush his, he freezes. Then he glances at you and flashes a quick, conspiratorial smile, pleased when your laughter grows. He leans in slightly, lowering his voice. “I’ve got it under control,” he assures you, even as the cord remains stubbornly tangled.
Eventually, between the two of you, the lights are freed and draped around the tree. Clark lifts you just enough to reach the higher branches, careful and steady, his hands warm at your waist. When the last strand is plugged in, the room fills with a soft glow, the lights reflecting off the ornaments and the snow outside.
You step back together to admire your work, shoulders brushing, the tree standing tall and bright in the corner. Clark looks at it for a moment, then at you, expression soft and content, as if the picture isn’t quite complete without you there beside him.
Once the tree is lit and sparkling, Ma claps her hands together and announces that the last batch of snickerdoodles needs finishing. You barely have time to set the ornament box down before she’s ushering you into the kitchen, apron already in hand and a knowing smile on her face.
The counters are dusted with flour, evidence of hours already spent baking, and the air is thick with the warm scent of cinnamon and sugar. Ma hands you a spoon and a bowl like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and soon enough you find yourself working alongside her and Clark, rolling dough between your palms and lining cookies up carefully on the baking sheets.
Despite Clark’s best efforts, flour seems to gravitate toward him. It dusts his sweater, clings to his sleeves, and somehow finds its way into his hair. You laugh and reach out to brush it away, only to smear it further across his chest. He looks down at himself, then back at you, feigning offense before breaking into a grin.
“Well,” he says, mock-serious, “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in the recipe.”
Ma laughs from across the counter, shaking her head fondly. “You two are doing just fine,” she says. “That’s how you know it’s a good batch.”
The oven timer goes off, and Clark volunteers to take the cookies out. He slides the tray free, but when Ma inspects them, she raises a brow. The edges are just a shade darker than planned. Clark glances at you, sheepish.
“I got distracted before I set the timer,” he admits.
You can’t help but laugh, and soon Ma is laughing too, the sound filling the kitchen and echoing down the hall. The cookies are deemed acceptable anyway, slightly crisp around the edges and perfect in the middle. You steal one while it’s still warm, burning your fingers just a little and grinning through it.
By the time the kitchen is cleaned and the cookies are cooling on the counter, the night has settled fully in. You all drift into the living room, firelight dancing across the walls as snow falls steadily outside the windows. Pa settles into his chair, Ma curls up on the couch, and Clark sits beside you, close enough that your knees brush.
His arm comes around you slowly, tentatively, as if checking whether you’re comfortable. You lean into him without hesitation, resting your head against his shoulder. He exhales, the tension leaving him all at once, and his hand comes to rest warm and steady at your shoulder.
You sit there listening to the quiet rhythm of the evening. The low murmur of conversation, the soft crackle of the fire, the hush of snow blanketing the world beyond the glass. For the first time in longer than you can remember, you’re not bracing yourself for something to end or change. You’re not aching for somewhere else or someone missing.
You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, and the peace settles over you like a gentle promise, warm and certain.
Clark shifts slightly, pulling you closer. He presses a soft kiss to your temple and murmurs, “Merry Christmas.”
You smile, eyes drifting shut, knowing with a quiet certainty that this is not just a holiday. It’s the beginning of a life shared, the first of many Christmases, a tradition being born.
hi, i'm so sorry i haven't posted a ficmas story in a few days! i desperately need to edit before i publish them, but i've been so sick the past few days it's insane.
i'll try to get back on the horse here soon, i promise!
Ficmas Day 6!
12 Days of Ficmas | navigation | dc masterlist
Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader
Word Count: 2.5k
Warnings: Drinking, Angst.
(I'm so sorry about this one. It made me sad to write it.)
Snow falls over Gotham as Jason Todd swings and grapples from rooftop to rooftop at the end of a long night of patrol. It’s that strange hour of morning when the streets are eerily quiet and the sun has yet to rise. When not even the worst of the city’s inhabitants are awake.
Just Jason.
Just him, and the snowflakes that melt against his helmet, that slide down window panes and blur every sliver of warm light trapped inside.
His muscles ache. He’s bruised—more bruised than he’d ever admit being—and he’s so exhausted he feels it everywhere. In the bruises beneath his armor, in his ribs that still haven’t fully healed, in the edge of every breath he forces himself to take. Each landing hits differently tonight, heavier. Lonelier.
He drops to the fire escape he told himself he had no business revisiting.
The window unlocks easily, muscle memory guiding his fingers to the hidden pressure point on the frame. It slides open just as easily, like this familiar point of entry had been waiting for him. For anyone. But the moment the cold air rushes inside, he knows this place doesn’t belong to him anymore.
Inside, the apartment is dark. Cold.
Silent in a way that feels accusatory.
He wasn’t planning on coming back here. He promised himself he wouldn’t. God only knew it had been months since he’d set foot here last. Months since the door had slammed, since the final argument, since he stood on this fire escape telling himself he was doing the right thing by walking away.
But it was late December.
He was alone.
And holidays have a cruel way of dragging ghosts back home.
Jason steps inside and flips the nearest light switch. A warm glow spills over the living room, but the place feels too quiet, too empty. There’s no soft hum of the TV left on low because someone fell asleep on the couch waiting for him. No blanket bunched up where you’d curled up to read. No warmth.
Just absence.
His eyes trail across the room, and every corner hits like a punch. A sweatshirt hangs off the back of the armchair, much too small to be his. A single, slightly chipped mug sits freshly washed beside the sink. There’s a half-written grocery list on the dining table: toothpaste, oranges, pasta, peanut butter. The mundane remains of a life he’d abandoned before it had the chance to become permanent.
Everything about this place reminds him of you.
It reminds him painfully, relentlessly, thoroughly. And draws his attention to the message notification he’d felt hours ago, when he’d been in the middle of patrol. He reaches for his phone, thumb hovering over the screen.
1 New Message
He already knows who it’s from.
He doesn’t open it. He can’t. Because whatever you said—Merry Christmas, hope you’re safe, I miss you—he knows it will splinter him open.
Jason swallows hard, turning his phone face-down on the counter like that alone could silence the ache in his chest. But the apartment is still full of you, full of what he’s scared to want.
A home.
A life that isn’t running.
A reason to stay.
And it terrifies him more than anything he’s faced in the dark.
His gaze catches on the couch, on the blanket still messily folded over the back. A single throw pillow sits dented, the faint impression of where your head used to rest while you waited up for him.
The sight hits harder than any blow he took tonight.
He closes his eyes, and it all comes rushing back.
- - -
It had been Christmas Eve then, too. Snow tapping against the window like impatient fingers, lights from the neighboring building flickering red and green against the walls.
You’d asked him—no, begged him—to stay.
Just one night.
Just one Christmas.
Just you and him, pretending the world wasn’t built to take everything from him.
“I’ll be here,” he had told you. “I promise.”
But promises from men like Jason are made of cracked glass. They look beautiful in the moment, but they cut you open the second you try to hold onto them.
He hadn’t meant to leave. He’d just gotten the call, and his body had moved before his heart could object. By the time he even realized he was gone, hours had passed. You were awake, pacing the apartment. The tree lights still blinked, stubbornly cheerful.
The fight had ignited instantly.
“You keep leaving like I won’t notice you’re gone!” Your voice had been raw. Not angry, not truly. Just… hurt. Devastated in a way that made his chest cave in.
He’d taken a step toward you, but even that small closing of distance felt like a risk he couldn’t afford.
“I don’t know how to stay without ruining you,” he’d said. And it was the most honest thing he’d ever admitted.
You stared at him for too long, like you were trying to memorize his face for when he inevitably disappeared again.
Then you walked away.
Just a few steps. Just toward the bedroom.
But the space between you became a chasm.
When he didn’t go after you—when he stood there frozen, wrapped up in fear and guilt and every jagged piece of himself—you turned in the doorway.
Your voice barely carried.
“Right. That’s what I thought.”
Click.
The door shut.
And silence sealed the rest.
He could’ve knocked. He could’ve apologized. He could’ve stayed. Instead… he left. Because leaving was the only thing he’d ever been sure he knew how to do.
- - -
Jason lets out a slow breath as the memory dissolves into the cold of the apartment.
His chest tightens, like something inside of him is begging for one more chance, one more night, one more miracle he doesn’t believe he deserves.
He turns toward the counter where his phone sits face-down, the message still waiting. He doesn’t touch it. But he can’t look away, either.
Because tonight, for the first time in weeks, he’s realizing something that terrifies him more than losing a fight:
He might have already ruined you. He might have already ruined this. And he came back anyway.
- - -
Your parents’ Gotham townhouse is bright, carefully decorated with the kind of joy only your mother could ever achieve. The dining room glows with soft golden light, reflecting off polished silver and the ornaments hung from the chandelier. The entire family is gathered around the table, laughing and smiling as the last of the dessert is picked at. Your brother steals the final sugar cookie. Your mother playfully swats his hand. Someone brings up childhood Christmases, the ones where magic felt real.
You smile when they look your way. It’s automatic, practiced, a familiar mask that fits a little too tightly around the edges.
Inside, everything feels hollow.
It’s as if the only joy you had left is still trapped in that apartment, wrapped in the sleeves of your favorite sweatshirt. The one he always stole, even though it didn’t fit him, because he said it smelled like home. You can picture it right now, draped over the back of the armchair where you forgot to grab it in the rush of heartbreak.
Your phone sits beside your plate, screen down. You flip it over every few minutes, pretending it’s only to check the time. The truth, however, is written in the ache beneath your ribs.
Delivered.
Still delivered. Still unopened.
A tiny text bubble you’d sent hours ago. The smallest olive branch.
Hope you’re okay. Merry Christmas.
He hasn’t replied. Hasn’t even looked.
You force yourself to join in a laugh. Your throat feels tight, like something sharp is lodged there. You pick up your water glass mostly to have something to hold.
You think about calling him. Just to hear his voice. Just to know he’s still out there. But the thought comes paired with a reminder, relentless and bitter.
You’re tired of being the one who chases. The one who forgives. The one who keeps everything and everyone together while no one holds you upright.
Your mother reaches across the table and squeezes your hand. She doesn’t ask the question you see in her eyes. She simply gives you a sympathetic smile before turning back to the conversation. You’re grateful for the reprieve.
Because if anyone asks how you’re doing, your composure might shatter like the ornaments that fell off the tree that night. Quietly. Messily. With pieces you’ll never quite find all of again.
But it doesn’t. It never does.
You breathe in. You hold it. You try to be present.
- - -
Jason shuts everything off. The trackers and comms he never had the strength to argue with Bruce about. The too-bright living room lights. His phone, which he leaves on the far side of the room like distance alone might protect him from what waits on the screen.
The silence that follows feels too loud. Too honest.
He moves to the cabinet he knows will still be fully stocked, even after weeks away. You always made sure of that. A small kindness he never deserved and still benefited from.
It is stocked. Every bottle exactly where it always was.
Jason pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a short glass. He pours himself two fingers and drinks it down in a single swallow. It burns, but not enough. He pours another before the warmth has even reached his chest.
His hand shakes only a little.
The inside pocket of his leather jacket feels heavier than the armor he stripped off minutes ago. He reaches into it and pulls out the small object he’s been carrying around for days. He hadn’t planned to do it. The idea appeared, sudden and sharp, and he moved before logic or fear could stop him.
He has a habit of doing things like that.
The dainty silver necklace catches the dim kitchen light as he holds it up. It’s familiar in every way. The same one he bought you for your birthday, back when you were still learning each other and cautious hope filled every quiet moment. A simple silver chain with a tiny J pendant. He remembers teasing you about wearing his initial before you even knew if he would stick around.
You wore it every day for a year. Every patrol night. Every grocery run. Every slow morning tangled up in bed. Until the chain snapped at the gym. An accident. A small thing. But you came home devastated, clasping the broken pieces in your hands like a shattered promise.
He remembers the look in your eyes. Not because of the necklace, but because you thought maybe it meant something was breaking between you, too.
Jason had held you. He told you that you didn’t need a necklace to carry his love. He told you he was right there. He told you he always would be.
Promises like that leave marks.
He kept the necklace. He tucked it away somewhere safe, even when he didn’t feel safe enough to love you that way you deserved. And then last week, for no reason he could explain, he took it to get a new chain. A stronger one.
Now it sits in his palm, lighter than it should be. A reminder of everything he broke and everything he still wants.
He pours a third drink but forgets to pick it up. His eyes stay on the necklace, trapped in the gravity of memory and regret.
He wants to go to you. The need pulls tight across his chest like a vise. He wants to show up at your door and fall to his knees and say he’s sorry, that he has been sorry since the moment he let you walk away.
He also knows himself. Knows the damage he drags behind him like a second shadow.
He has no right to ask for you back. He has no right to want you this much. He has no right to hope.
But he does.
And it hurts.
Jason curls his fingers around the necklace until the metal digs into his skin, a small pain to cut through the larger one.
He sits in the dark with the glass untouched beside him, unable to look at anything except the reminder of what he lost. The reminder of what he still loves.
- - -
Late that night, when everyone has gone to bed and the house has settled into that familiar, old silence, you sit alone in your childhood bedroom. The pastel pink walls feel too bright. The frilly curtains too childish. The space itself feels like a version of you that no longer exists.
You stare at your phone for a long time. Your thumb hovers over his contact, your heartbeat a painful reminder that you still care. You try to convince yourself not to do it. You try to be proud and resilient and logical.
Then loneliness wins.
You press the call button before you can talk yourself out of it.
The phone rings. It rings again. It keeps ringing, each tone heavy with dread.
Finally, voicemail kicks in. The automated voice you know tries to greet you.
You hang up before the beep.
Your hand falls to your lap. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, stubborn and hot. You swallow a shaky breath and pinch out a smile that fools no one, last of all yourself.
You told yourself you were done chasing. Yet you still called.
You turn off the lamp and climb beneath the covers, phone tucked beneath your pillow like a wish you can’t quite let go of.
Sleep doesn’t come easily.
- - -
Third glass downed, Jason finally gathers the courage to check his phone. He wants to see what you said. He wants to know if you still care. The whiskey warms his throat and numbs his nerves just enough to make him move.
He crosses the room and flips his phone over.
One new notification waits for him. One he didn’t expect.
1 Missed Call
From you. Two minutes old.
He freezes. His breath catches, sharp and shallow.
He missed it. Truly missed it. He had not ignored your call. Not this time. The realization is somehow both relief and agony.
His thumb hovers over the notification. One tap and the phone will call you back. One tap and he could hear your voice again. One tap and he could ruin everything or save it.
Seconds drag out long enough to feel like hours.
He should call. He wants to call.
But wanting and deserving are different things.
He drops his hand. He opens the messaging app instead.
Your text stares back at him.
Hope you’re okay. Merry Christmas.
He exhales, a quiet sound that’s closer to a break than a breath. He types slowly.
Thanks. You too.
He hits send before he can rewrite it into something braver or more honest.
Jason pours himself another drink. The bottle feels lighter. The room feels colder. He sets the necklace on the counter, the tiny J catching the dim light as if reaching for him.
He turns away before he can change his mind or run to you or hope.
Jason goes to bed alone. The apartment is silent. The necklace gleams and waits.
Ficmas Day 5!
12 Days of Ficmas | navigation | dc masterlist
Pairing: Dick Grayson x Reader
Word Count: 2.5k
Tags: Fluff
On Christmas morning, you wake up giddier than a kid ready to open presents from Santa Claus. You’re not normally a morning person, and typically need at least two cups of coffee in your system before you can function like a real person. Today, though, your eyes snap wide open like you’d barely gone to sleep in the first place. There’s no way of ever really telling what the day might have in store for you when the Wayne family is involved, but there’s no doubt in your mind that it’ll be perfect no matter what.
The reason? The 5’11” man asleep in bed next to you, of course.
Dick looks so peaceful asleep, the lines on his face that you know are caused by stress melted away. He’s all warm skin and gentle breaths, the most at peace you ever see him. Still, you can’t help yourself—too excited to let him keep snoozing like a log while you buzz like a shaken soda bottle.
You reach up and jostle his shoulder, pressing your face obnoxiously close to his cheek. “Dickie,” you whisper.
No answer.
You grin mischievously and swing your leg over his hips, settling your weight onto him like a very determined Christmas elf. You lean close enough that your breath brushes his lips. “Dickie, wake up. It’s Christmas.”
Slowly, his lashes flicker. His eyes half-open with the heavy confusion only found in sleep. There’s a heartbeat of stillness, and then–
Terror.
Dick bolts upright with trained muscle memory, and you go tumbling off the side of the bed like a poorly placed ornament yanked off the three. Your laughter explodes uncontrolled as you land in a heap on the plush rug.
It takes him a few seconds to return to reality, and then his head hangs over the edge of the mattress, hair a hilariously messy halo. “Sweetheart?” He’s scrambling out of bed, kicking off a knot of blankets as if they’re enemies. “What in the world–? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” you manage through giggles. “Happy.”
And it’s true. You’d been dating Dick for four years now, but this was by far the happiest you’d ever been to spend Christmas with him.
Last year, Dick had been away in San Francisco for Titans business during the holiday. You’d still come to celebrate with the others at the Manor, of course, but it hadn’t been the same without him here. You’d smiled and enjoyed the day with everyone, but a part of you had felt hollow in a way you couldn’t shake.
So all year, you’d hoped—prayed, really—that he wouldn’t be called away this time. When he’d finally confirmed he’d be home in Gotham for Christmas, the excitement you’d felt could’ve powered the entire city’s holiday lights.
“Okay,” Dick breathes, finally catching up with your energy. He cups your cheeks, squishing them gently until your mouth puckers. “You’re adorable and terrifying in the morning, you know that?”
“You love it,” you retort, poking his nose.
“I love you,” he corrects, kissing you quickly before nudging you to the bathroom. The two of you had spent the previous night at Wayne Manor in favor of driving in from your apartment in Bludhaven so early in the morning. “Come on. If we don’t get downstairs soon, Damian will start interrogating Alfred about the meaning of joy again.”
You laugh as you throw on cozy lounge clothes (fuzzy socks included) and Dick zips up a Gotham Knights hoodie over an old tank top. His hair is still a mess, but in a way that only makes him even more unfairly stunning.
Together, you tiptoe down the grand staircase and into the kitchen.
It smells like heaven—cinnamon and sugar and warm bread. Alfred stands at the counter, already placing a fresh tray of cinnamon rolls beside a pot of steaming coffee. He greets you both with that soft, fond smile that says more than words ever could.
“Good morning, Master Richard. Miss,” Alfred says with a slight bow. “Merry Christmas.”
Dick swoops in dramatically to steal a hug, making Alfred grunt, though he doesn’t actually protest. You pour the coffee, Dick grabs two plates, and the two of you settle at the island like you’re sharing a secret breakfast date in the middle of a mansion.
He bumps his knee against yours under the counter. You bump back. There are stolen glances, sweet smiles, and sugar-coated bliss on your tongue that has nothing to do with pastries.
Eventually, footsteps start appearing from every hallway.
Surprisingly, Bruce is first, looking almost relaxed in a soft sweater. Jason follows with a gruff greeting that fails to hide the fact that he’s also delighted by cinnamon rolls. Tim shuffles in like a zombie until Alfred sets coffee directly in his hands.
Stephanie pops into the kitchen with enough energy for everyone, already wearing reindeer antlers and humming off-key to the Christmas music playing faintly from the living room. Cassandra follows quietly, barefoot and wrapped in a cozy blanket with little snowflakes stitched along the edges. She heads straight for you, offering a soft hug that warms you from the inside out.
Damian appears last, arms crossed like he’s above festive joy yet somehow still wearing a Santa hat that definitely didn’t put itself there. If Stephanies’s not-so-innocent grin is anything to go by, at least.
The kitchen fills with laughter. Jokes over whose gift-wrapping skills are atrocious. Friendly bickering. The sound of a family that has fought tooth and nail for peace, finally getting a slice of it.
You glance around, heart swelling until you fear it might burst. This is the brightest holiday you’ve ever had at the Manor. The brightest since you’d met Dick Grayson.
And the way he keeps looking at you like you’re his entire world?
Yeah. Your heart could stay right here forever.
After breakfast, the inevitable gravitational pull of colorful wrapping paper beckons everyone toward the living room. It’s a scene straight from a holiday movie: the towering Christmas tree glittering with white and gold lights, stockings hung with meticulous care (and a little bit of Steph’s glitter), and a pile of presents so large you briefly wonder if Bruce bribed Santa.
“Everyone get comfortable,” Alfred instructs, already preparing a large trash bag for discarded ribbon and paper. “And I do mean comfortable, Master Jason,” he adds pointedly when Jason dramatically flops across the couch like he intends to claim it as his throne.
Dick tugs you down next to him on the rug—prime position near the tree—and wraps an arm around your shoulders, chin resting lightly on your hair. You melt into him, the safe warmth of his presence better than any fireplace.
Bruce clears his throat in a way that’s supposed to be subtle but definitely isn’t. “Well. Shall we begin?”
Stephanie is already halfway into her first gift. “Way ahead of you, old man.”
What unfolds next is pure, chaotic joy.
Tim unwraps a brand new, state of the art tablet and immediately begins tapping away like he’s been asked to hack the Pentagon. Damian tries to pretend he’s unimpressed by the custom-made training gauntlets he receives… right up until he discovers his name elegantly engraved on the side. Cassandra pulls a soft bundle of fabric from a box and beams when she unfolds it—a jacket covered in embroidered symbols from all her favorite things. She puts it on immediately and shows it off with a proud twirl.
Jason receives a deluxe coffee maker and stands up like he’s just been handed the keys to a kingdom. “Perfect,” he says, lifting the box in salute. “No one talk to me before I’ve had three cups.”
“You already drank three cups,” Tim mutters.
“Then no one talk to me until after four,” Jason fires back.
Steph hoots when she reveals a giant fuzzy robe that resembles a purple unicorn. She shoves it on over her clothes instantly, hodd and all, and flops dramatically across Damian’s lap. “I’m majestic.”
“Get off,” Damian grumbles, face redder than Rudolph’s nose.
Your gifts are perfect—thoughtful, personal things that make you a little emotional. Cozy clothes, a book you’ve been dying to read, a delicate bracelet Cass picked out herself. Then Dick nudges a small box into your lap, eyes sparkling like he’s barely containing excitement.
Inside is a simple silver ornament—a little acrobat silhouetted mid-flight. On the back, engraved in tiny script: You’re my favorite part of every Christmas.
You throat tightens. You look up at him, and he’s watching you like your reaction is the only gift he needs.
“I love it,” you whisper, leaning in to kiss him. The family pretends not to notice… except Steph, who makes an obnoxious mwah mwah mwah noise until Cass swats her with a cushion.
Bruce unwraps a gift from Dick next. It’s a framed photo of them from years ago, back when Dick still wore green pixie boots and a wide-toothed grin every day. Bruce doesn’t say much, but his eyes soften, and he puts a hand on Dick’s shoulder in a quiet moment that feels almost sacred.
By the end, laughter and torn wrapping paper cover the floor. It’s warm and real and everything the holidays should be.
Alfred claps his hands once in a gentle but effective command. “All right. Dinner will be served in a few hours. I suggest everyone rest, relax, and perhaps allow me a bit of space to prepare?”
Jason groans dramatically like he’s just been sentenced to exile. Tim sleepwalks toward the stairs.. Steph announces she’s going to test the comfort of every bed in the manor, purely for scientific research. Cass steals another cinnamon roll and disappears like a ninja.
Dick stands, grabbing your hand and tugging you up with him. “Time to recharge,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek.
You squeeze his hand back, heart full of overflowing joy.
- - -
Later, after a couple hours of peaceful downtime, you and Dick migrate to the library. The fire crackles gently in the hearth, painting the tall bookshelves in warm flickering gold. You’re snuggled against Dick on the couch, legs tangled beneath a shared blanket, a book open across both your laps. You’ve barely turned a page in the last ten minutes, more interested in the steady rise and fall of his breathing and the way his fingertips lazily trace patterns across your arm.
You sigh against him, pure contentment spilling into the quiet. “This is perfect.”
“Yeah?” His voice is soft, like the moment.
“Yeah,” you say. “Just… everything today.”
He kisses the top of your head, and you can feel the smile pressed into your hair.
After a few minutes, something shifts in the corner of your vision. You glance up – and freeze.
Snowflakes. Big, fluffy ones. Spiraling past the tall windows like tiny acrobats with wings.
“Oh!” you gasp, sitting up straighter. “Dick! It’s snowing!”
He hums, far too calm while you practically vibrate with excitement. “Sure is.”
“A white Christmas!” you squeal, bouncing a little. “We haven’t had one in forever.”
Dick laughs, that warm honeyed sound that always melts you. “Want to step out for a moment?” he asks casually, like he hasn’t planned this down to the heartbeat and prayed the forecast would be right.
You nod enthusiastically, already tossing the blanket aside. He stands, tugging you up with him, and drapes one of the ridiculously soft throw blankets around your shoulders before guiding you toward the library’s balcony doors.
The first breath of winter air kisses your cheeks, crisp and clean. The city below is blanketed in fresh snow, streetlights turning each flake into a tiny star. You step forward, holding your hands out to catch them, laughter bubbling up when a few land on your nose.
“It’s so pretty,” you say, twirling once like you’re auditioning to be in a snow globe. “I could live in this moment.”
You turn back toward Dick with a bright grin. And stop dead.
He’s down on one knee.
A small velvet box sits open in his hand, a ring sparkling inside like it was carved from starlight.
Dick looks up at you with that impossibly soft, earnest expression. The one he only wears when he thinks no one else is watching.
“You are,” he begins, voice steady but tinged with emotion, “the best part of every Christmas. Every day, actually.” He laughs quietly, almost breathless. “You make everything in my life brighter. Happier. Like I finally know what home feels like.”
Your heard pounds, loud enough that you’re half-convinced he can hear it.
“So…” He swallows, smile widening. “Will you marry me? Be my partner for every holiday and every ordinary day in between? Because I can’t imagine a future without you in it.”
Tears prick your eyes instantly. You nod so fast the world blurs.
“Yes,” you breathe, then louder, laughing through happy tears. “Yes! Yes, Dick, of course I’ll marry you!”
He’s up in an instant, arms wrapped around you as he lifts you off the ground and spins you, snow swirling around the two of you like confetti thrown by the universe. Your laugh is swallowed by his kiss, joyful and deep and absolutely perfect.
When you break apart, his forehead rests against yours. His hand trembles just slightly as he slides the ring onto your finger. It fits like it had been waiting for you all along.
“Best Christmas ever,” you whisper.
“Not even close,” he says, eyes shining. “We’re just getting started.”
Dick keeps your hand clasped in his as you head back inside, both of you laughing through happy sniffles. Snowflakes cling to your hair, and he gently brushes them away, eyes never straying too far from the ring now sparkling proudly on your finger.
You return to the dining room just as Alfred announces that dinner is ready. Everyone is gathered around the long table, voices overlapping in excitement and the clatter of silverware. The second Dick clears his throat, the entire room falls suspiciously silent. Almost as if everyone in the family is way too used to dramatic announcements at big meals.
Dick lifts your intertwined hands and beams. “She said yes!”
For a heartbeat, the room is perfectly still. And then–
Chaos. Beautiful, heart-thumping chaos.
Stephanie lets out a squeal so loud it startles Damian’s fork right out of his hand. Cass rushes forward to hug you, blanket still draped around her shoulders like a superhero cape. Tim cheers and gives Dick a back-pat that nearly knocks him off balance. Jason grins around a mouthful of mashed potatoes and raises his glass in salute. Bruce’s eyes soften, pride and love written plainly across his face even as he says only, “Congratulations.” Alfred smiles, that deep, genuine smile that can melt even Gotham winters.
Dick slides into the seat beside yours, arm curled securely around your shoulders. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him glow like this, like the happiness inside him is too big to fit and is pouring out from every inch of his being.
Dinner is full of teasing and toasts, warm food and warmer hearts. Every time you glance at Dick, he’s already looking at you, like he can’t quite believe you’re real.
And maybe that’s what makes this moment perfect: that mix of joy and disbelief that two souls like yours found each other in a city like this.
Snow continues to fall softly outside, blanketing Gotham in white.
Ficmas Day 4!
12 Days of Ficmas | navigation | dc masterlist
Pairing: Clark Kent x Reader
Word Count: 3.3k
Tags: Fluff, Clark and Reader are parents
“Clark, you really don’t have to wear that suit to put presents under the tree. Jon is already asleep.”
Your husband huffs, the long fake white beard bobbing with the motion. The cheap plastic curls bounce against his chin as he plants his hands on his hips like a very offended mall Santa. You can’t help the giggle that slips out, your hand flying up to muffle it.
Clark looks utterly ridiculous, dressed in the most bargain-bin Santa costume you’ve ever seen. The red pants are a bit too short for his impossibly long legs, the top straining against his broad shoulders. He’s standing in his parents’ kitchen, towering over the counter like Santa hit a growth spurt at the North Pole. Utterly ridiculous… but somehow still ridiculously handsome.
“And if Jon wakes up?” Clark counters. “He can’t see his dad putting his new bike under the tree. It’ll ruin the magic of Christmas!”
You sigh, because he has a point. At three years old, Jon is just starting to fully grasp the magic of the holiday season. He’d gone to bed buzzing with excitement and promising that he would be the first Kent child in history to catch Santa Claus red-handed. In his own Mimi and Popop’s house, no less.
Still. You can’t help another breathy laugh as you step closer.
“And will you also take on the burden of eating all those chocolate chip cookies by yourself, Mr. Claus?” you ask, eyebrows raised playfully.
Clark’s hands fall from his hips as he mirrors your step forward, his beard shifting again with the motion. His voice drops slightly in a very un-Santa-like way. “I was actually hoping there’d be someone here to enjoy them with me.”
You shrug with a cheeky grin. “Well, I don’t see Mrs. Claus anywhere. Sorry.”
You try to back away—just one tiny teasing step—but Clark is quicker. His hands come up to find your waist, fingers warm and secure as they catch you before you can retreat even an inch. When you look up at him, it’s his turn to grin, slow and mischievous.
“Uh-uh,” he murmurs, giving your waist a gentle squeeze. “You, my love, took one step too far.”
His eyes trail upward, deliberately, dramatically. You follow the line of his gaze to the sprig of mistletoe hanging right in the doorway. Martha must have put it there. They’re traditional like that. And Clark is more than happy to obey holiday tradition.
One mistletoe kiss becomes two… then three. They’re warm and lingering, a little giggly, infused with the undeniable energy of my superhero husband always looks really good in red. He cups your jaw, thumbs brushing your cheeks. The ridiculous beard tickles your chin and only makes you both laugh harder between kisses.
“Santa better be careful…” you whisper against his lips, “Mommy might not let him go back to the North Pole.”
Clark chuckles, forehead resting against yours, ready to steal just one more–
A tiny sound rustles from the staircase.
Clark freezes. His head turns sharply toward the living room archway, muscles coiled in alert instinct. You follow his gaze, but the only movement comes from the twinkling Christmas tree lights reflecting off tinsel. Not a sound now. Nothing there.
Except…
Was that the faintest patter of small feet retreating up carpeted steps?
Clark relaxes slightly, though his brows remain raised in suspicion. You give his costume a playful tug.
“Probably the heater kicking on,” you whisper.
“Mm.” He’s not convinced, but he lets it go. “We should finish up before Santa gets caught.”
He kisses your forehead—one last soft, secret moment beneath the mistletoe—unaware that a certain determined three-year-old is already wide-eyed under the covers upstairs, absolutely convinced that Mommy was kissing Santa Claus.
- - -
The kitchen of the Kent farmhouse is warm the next morning, full of the buttery smell of pancakes and the sleepy comfort of Christmas morning. After several minutes of Jon gawking open-mouthed at the mountain of gifts beneath the tree, hands fluttering with barely contained excitement, he’d finally be convinced to sit for breakfast before the wrapping paper apocalypse began.
Pa sits at the head of the table, glasses sliding low on his nose as he studies the crossword. He hums to himself, the way he always does when he knows the answer but wants the puzzle to sweat a little. Ma stands at the stove, flipping the final batch of pancakes with the kind of practiced ease only decades of farm breakfasts can teach.
Behind you, Clark moves about the kitchen, preparing coffee with holiday-morning leisure. Black for him, whole milk and just a bit too much sugar for you. He’s long since ditched the Santa suit—which currently lies crumpled in a plastic bag in the laundry room—and instead wears cozy green and red plaid pajama pants and an old white t-shirt that fits unfairly well for a man who claims he doesn’t work out that much.
Across from you, Jon bounces in his chair like every molecule in his tiny body is vibrating from pure anticipation. But beneath the excitement… he’s been off this morning. Sneaking glances at you, furrowing his brows in deep internal crisis. He’d made a startled little squeak earlier when Clark had wrapped an arm around your shoulder in the living room, like he expected jingle bells and a sleigh to crash through the window at any moment.
Clark brings the mugs over and sets one in front of you, leaning down to place a soft, slightly messy kiss on your cheek.
Jon freezes.
Not like a normal kid type of freeze. Like a statue smote by truth type of freeze.
And then, like it bursts out of him with the force of an avalanche, his small hands slap down on the table.
“Daddy, I saw Mommy kissing SANTA CLAUS last night!”
Everything freezes.
Your coffee cup hovers in your hand. Clark’s lips part in silent horror. Martha’s spatula slips from her fingers with a loud clatter. Pa only gives the newspaper a subtle rustle as his eyebrows creep up, but otherwise remains suspiciously calm.
Clash clears his throat. “Buddy… are you sure–?”
“I’m sure!” Jon insists, eyes wide with righteous confidence. “He had the hat! And the beard! I saw it!”
You open your mouth, hands raised gently. “Jon, honey, that wasn’t–”
“Santa asked for my help!” Clark blurts suddenly. It comes out too loud, too fast, and much too guilty. “He, uh… he’s very busy. Lots of houses. So he sent me the suit so I could… help him out.”
Jon narrows his eyes. He’s far too shrewd for a three-year-old, crossing his arms like a tiny, suspicious detective. “Why would Santa ask you?”
You reach across the table to smooth a hand over Jon’s hair as Martha places the plate of pancakes down with a soft smile.
“Because Daddy’s very strong,” you say. “And Santa knows that.”
“And fast!” Clark adds with a nod. “Helps with the deliveries.”
“And Mommy was only kissing your dad,” you assure with a gentle tap of Jon’s nose. “All the magic in the world can’t mix that up.”
Jon looks between the two of you again, still suspicious. He chews on his bottom lip, gears turning hard. Finally, he squints up at Clark.
“So… if you were helping Santa…” he says slowly, “does that mean Santa is your boss?”
Clark blinks. “Uh—”
“If Santa is the boss,” Jon continues, leaning closer like this is top-secret intel, “you have to tell him that Mommy is yours.”
“I’ll make sure he knows,” Clark promises solemnly, “that Mommy is very happily married to me.”
That seems to earn Clark a begrudging nod of acceptance. Crisis: temporarily averted.
Breakfast continues—pancakes devoured, syrup dripped everywhere, Pa pretending not to be entertained as he fills in the crossword clue for “Famous reindeer leader”. R-U-D-O-L-P-H.
Then comes the moment Jon has been vibrating toward since sunrise.
The presents.
Wrapping paper flies in every direction. Ribbons spring across the floor like tiny festive boomerangs. Martha darts around the living room, camera in hand, capturing every wide-eyed gasp and squeal.
You slip away for a moment to grab trash bags from the hall closet, returning just in time to catch Jon climbing up onto the couch beside his dad again. Clark leans an elbow on the back cushion, watching with amused fondness as your son clambers up like a determined snow monkey.
Jon cups his hands around his mouth — as if delivering classified intel — and whispers loudly:
“And next year… Santa can’t kiss Mommy anymore.”
Clark bites his lip to hide the smile threatening to give him away. He nods solemnly, playing along.
“I’ll let him know,” he whispers back. “Mommy’s kisses are only for me.”
Jon narrows his eyes. “Good.”
He jumps off the couch and tears back to the gifts, superhero cape (courtesy of Pa’s surprise present) fluttering behind him like he might take flight any second.
You settle beside Clark, who immediately wraps an arm around you and pulls you into his side like he always does, like he couldn’t imagine you anywhere else. The tree lights twinkle warmly, reflecting off the ornaments Martha had saved from Clark’s childhood: hand-painted stars, lopsided glitter bells, a crooked felt stocking with “C.K.” stitched unevenly across the top.
Martha snaps a photo — Jon mid-leap, bows stuck to his pajamas, you curled into Clark’s side, his lips brushing your hairline.
Clark leans down enough for only you to hear and whispers with a soft grin, “Guess I’d better behave. Santa’s on thin ice.”
You laugh under your breath, nudging him gently.
Jon pauses his mission long enough to peek over his shoulder at the fireplace, eyes narrowed, keeping watch like the most dedicated Christmas security detail.
Just in case Santa tries any funny business again.
Ficmas Day 3!
12 Days of Ficmas | navigation | dc masterlist
Pairing: AgedUp!Damian Wayne x Reader
Word Count: 3.3k
Warnings: Fluff
Gotham is unusually bright at Christmas time. The streets shimmer beneath strings of glittering gold lights strung across storefronts and draped between streetlamps. People move about in cheerful bursts of motion, smiling and laughing in a way that seems more fitting for Metropolis than the city you call home. The air smells like cinnamon and roasted chestnuts, warm scents carried on the cold December breeze. Laughter rings through the square, as if the entire city is pretending it’s not Gotham for a night.
You’ve coaxed Damian out of the manor on what is technically a date. The winter market is held downtown, a bustling display of small wooden booths decorated with ribbons and tinsel. Vendors call out friendly greetings at passersby and sell handmade goods like ornaments, figurines carved from wood, pastries shaped like stars, and paper cups filled with steaming cocoa. A giant Christmas tree towers in the center of it all. It must be at least fifty feet tall, covered in thousands of multicolored lights and glitter-soaked ornaments that sway lightly with the wind. Carolers gather beneath the lowest branches of the tree and sing classic holiday tunes with bright grins on their faces.
You’re completely in your element. Christmas has always been a favorite time of year. You feel a spark under your skin, a familiar excitement that only grows as you take in the sight of the city celebrating something joyful and kind. You want to experience every part of this night and you want to share all of it with the boy beside you.
Damian, however, looks as though he’s been dropped into another universe entirely. His posture is straight and stiff, shoulders tense beneath his long peacoat. He keeps it wrapped tightly around him as if the cheer itself is something he must brace against. His eyes are alert and scanning every passing face, calculating the movement of strangers as though the entire market is one large threat assessment. Even with your arm occasionally brushing his, he holds himself as if he hasn’t yet decided whether he belongs here.
You stop with him near the tree while the carolers continue their song. Their voices harmonize beautifully, rising and falling in a way that should have been comforting. You glance at Damian, expecting to see curiosity or interest, but his eyes are fixed on the towering branches above.
His brows draw together. He tilts his head slightly, like he’s trying to decode some confusing puzzle.
“I fail to see why cutting down perfectly good trees and covering them in glitter is considered festive,” he says quietly.
You laugh before you can help yourself. You reach out, loop your arm through his, and tug him toward the rest of the market. His feet move without resistance. He allows himself to be guided, though he looks as though he’s still contemplating the tree and the inexplicable choices of humans.
After the market, you and Damian find yourselves somewhere that feels like more familiar territory to him: a quiet rooftop only a few blocks away. It sits above a small office building, high enough that the lights of downtown Gotham glitter like stars fallen to the earth, but low enough that the view feels close and warm rather than distant and unreachable.
It’s peaceful here. The noise of the market fades into nothing but a soft hum. Snow drifts lazily through the air and collects on the ledges, on Damian’s dark lashes, and lightly in his hair. The cold bites at exposed skin, but the silence and the view create a little pocket of calm that feels almost magical. You tuck closer into Damian’s side and he responds with an instinctive motion, wrapping his arm more securely around you.
He doesn’t say a word about it. He simply holds you.
You let your head settle against his shoulder and let your breath slow with the quiet around you. The city stretches beneath your feet, a sleeping beast that is, for once, dressed in celebration rather than menace. For a moment, Gotham looks almost soft.
You’ve been with Damian for a little under a year now. In that time, you’ve learned that holidays are complicated for him. They weren’t something celebrated when he was young enough to believe in wonder. The League of Assassins offered training in survival and loyalty. Not joy. Not anticipation. Not anything that resembled what you feel during this season.
His mother and Ra’s Al Ghul believed in discipline and conquest. Lessons of gratitude and generosity weren’t part of the curriculum.
Then he came to Gotham. Alfred, with all his careful kindness, had tried to give Damian a version of Christmas he could enjoy. Bruce had tried too, although he’s not exactly a tender man and family tradition in Wayne Manor often comes with tension, obligations, and a shadow of grief.
You know all of this without Damian having to speak it aloud. You read him the way you have learned to read every shift of his expression, every guarded silence. You never expect vulnerability from him. You treasure every moment it appears.
The two of you remain quiet until you notice a tiny shiver escape Damian’s shoulders. Before he can reposition or pretend he’s unaffected by the cold, you take his hands between yours and breathe warmth over his fingers. You kiss his knuckles once, gentle and without expectation.
It seems to unlock something in him.
His voice comes quietly. “I do not understand why people look forward to this time of year,” he says. He doesn’t look at you, only at the lights below. “There were no celebrations in the League. There was no meaning behind dates. There was only the mission. My mother did not believe in distracting comforts. Coming here did not change much at first. Christmas felt like another strange event that others enjoyed while I stood outside of it. It still does, most of the time.”
You turn to face him, your forehead nearly touching his cheek. “It makes sense that it feels distant,” you say softly.
He glances down at you finally, eyes searching yours with a cautious curiosity that still makes your heart tighten. “What does it mean to you, hayati?” he asks.
Your answer is easy because you’ve always known it. “Christmas is about warmth,” you say. “It’s about connection. It’s a reminder that even when the world feels cold and dark, there are people who care about you. It means hope and love and choosing to celebrate what matters for no reason other than it feels good to do so.”
There are other meanings to Christmas, you know. Religious meanings that originate the holiday and would be the answer Damian might have received from many other people. You know it’s not the one he’s looking for from you.
Damian is silent for a long moment. Snow gathers in his hair again, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He only looks at you like you’re telling him something secret and sacred.
“I have never had that,” he admits.
You squeeze his hand and guide it to rest over your heart. “You have it now.”
His breath slips out, visible in the cold air. The tension in his shoulders softens, just a little. Enough to be a beginning.
He doesn’t smile. But his fingers tighten slightly against your chest, and his eyes warm as he whispers, “Perhaps I would like to understand it. With you.”
The rooftop feels even more magical after that. Snow keeps falling. Gotham keeps glowing. And Damian stays close, as if he has just taken his first step toward believing he’s allowed to enjoy this season too.
- - -
Days later, you and Damian find yourselves in your apartment, the glow of white Chrismtas lights reflecting softly off the windows. Damian stands beside the couch with a look caught somewhere between confusion and alarm. His gaze flicks between you and the coffee table as if he expects a hidden blade or explosive tucked beneath the glitter.
You gesture excitedly at the spread before you. You’d admittedly gone a little overboard at the craft store. Two blank clay ornaments sit like untouched canvases, round and plain and waiting for personality. Beside them, piles of markers, pens, glitter, paint, paint pens, and other supplies are lined up like a colorful little army ready to march into battle against boredom.
You’d given Damian very little information when you invited him over. You only asked him to come and hinted that there was something you wanted the two of you to do together. His curiosity, along with the small soft spot he had for you, did the rest.
“Hayati, what is this?” Damian asks, finally rounding the couch to inspect the craft supplies up close. He looks as if he’s stumbled upon some kind of ritual offering.
“We’re going to decorate ornaments,” you announce, cheerfully sinking to the floor in front of the table. “For each other.”
Damian gives you a look like you’ve just told him you plan to summon a demon. Hesitant, but committed to understanding. Still, he lowers himself to sit beside you with that same quiet grace you never quite get used to. “Can I ask why?”
You shrug as you reach for one of the glitter paint pens. “Because it’s fun. And cute.”
The emerald green pens glint under the apartment lights, his favorite shade, the one he always gravitates toward without meaning to. When you pop the cap and pull your ornament closer, Damian looks stunned. It’s the expression he wears whenever someone presents him with simple happiness and tells him he’s allowed to join in.
But slowly, he shifts his ornament toward himself. He picks up a fine-tipped marker, treating the craft like a mission he hasn’t been briefed on yet.
The two of you work in comfortable silence for a while. Christmas music plays quietly in the background, upbeat songs about sleigh bells and love wrapped in ribbon. Every now and then Damian hums along, barely audible, but enough to make your heart swell.
You sneak glances at him as you work. His brow furrows in deep concentration. His movements are precise, almost surgical. He places each dot of paint with care, draws each line as straight and clean as possible. Your ornament looks nothing like his. Yours is covered in uneven hearts and sparkly lines that wiggle off-track, but it doesn’t matter. Not tonight.
Somewhere along the way, Damian shifts. His lines stop trying so hard to be perfect. He reaches for a brighter color, then another. The precision loosens. A small, almost invisible smile tugs at his mouth. He’s not just creating an ornament anymore. He’s letting himself enjoy it.
You’re nearly finished when Damian speaks quietly, like he doesn’t want to break whatever spell has wrapped around the two of you.
“Where will these go?”
You keep your eyes on the ornament to avoid making the moment too heavy. “Wherever you want them to belong.” Your voice is simple, but the meaning is not.
Damian stills. The weight of your words settles into his chest. You feel the shift in the air before you even look at him. It’s the kind of moment you know he’ll think about long after tonight is over.
You both finish decorating. You clean up the mess together, glitter sticking to your fingers and to Damian’s sleeves. You carry the ornaments to the fire escape so they can dry in the cold night air. They sway lightly in the breeze, side by side.
Afterward, you curl up on the couch, warm blanket around you. Damian insists on staying until you fall asleep. He brushes his fingers through your hair once, a soft goodnight that barely registers before sleep pulls you under.
When you wake the next morning, Damian is gone. The apartment is quiet. You rise slowly and step toward the window.
The fire escape is empty. Both ornaments are gone.
Your heart thumps once, startled and soft.
Wherever you want them to belong.
It seems he made his choice.
- - -
On Christmas morning, a town car waits outside your apartment to take you to Wayne Manor. Weeks ago, during a regular trip over for dinner, Alfred had inquired about your plans for the holiday. When you’d explained that your family lives out of town and you’d been unable to get enough time off from work to make the trip, he had all but insisted that you spend the day at the Manor.
And so you found yourself climbing into the town car, armed with a bag full of gifts for each member of Damian’s family. It was harder than you’d expect, finding gifts for a family of billionaires, but you’d spent the past few weeks carefully selecting something for each of them. Thoughtful things. Personal things. The kinds of gifts that couldn’t be replicated with money alone.
The ride is quiet and smooth, the world outside frosted white. By the time the car crawls up the long, winding drive, snowflakes have begun to twirl lazily onto the manicured lawn. It feels like stepping into a postcard.
Before the driver can even put the car fully in park, the front door opens—and Damian steps outside.
He’s in a rich green sweater today, the color deep and warm against his skin. For someone who doesn’t show emotion readily, his expression when he sees you might as well be a fireworks display. He’s down the steps in a heartbeat, opening the door himself and offering his hand like a gentleman from another era.
“You’re here,” he says quietly. There’s something in his voice—something soft and relieved.
“Of course I am,” you tease, stepping out. He doesn’t let go of your hand. You don’t mind at all.
His gaze drops to the overstuffed gift bag hanging off your shoulder. “I told you, hayati… all of this wasn’t necessary.”
You raise a brow. “Of course it was. You can’t expect me to show up empty-handed when your family has always made me feel welcome.”
Damian frowns like he wants to argue, but ultimately exhales a small sight, resigned but fond.
Inside, the Manor feels unexpectedly warm. There’s distant music—instrumental carols drifting through the grand hall—and the comforting aroma of cinnamon and something buttery and sweet wafting from the kitchen. Aldred, undoubtedly.
Damian leads you into the formal sitting room. It’s grand and marvelously decorated, a room normally reserved for fundraising galas and stately dinners. But today it’s… cozy. Inviting. Lived-in.
Your attention is instantly pulled to the towering Christmas tree in the center of the room. It stretches up toward the ceiling, strung with twinkling lights and shimmering glass ornaments you’re sure cost more than your monthly rent. All perfectly placed. All polished and elegant.
And then—your heart stops.
Among the glass and gold, displayed front and center, are two hand decorated ornaments.
One is a tiny painted cat wearing an unevenly drawn Santa hat, surrounded by messy green and red hearts. The other, a red-breasted robin perched on a snowy branch.
You know exactly who made them.
Damian follows your line of sight, cheeks warming the faintest bit. “Alfred insisted they be put up,” he mutters. “I… didn’t disagree.”
The edges of your smile soften. “They’re perfect.”
Before he can answer, a voice bellows from behind you.
“Well look who finally showed up!” Dick crows, swooping to wrap you in a hug before Damian can stop him. Jason is next, offering a casual salute with a small grin you’re fairly sure he reserves only for you. Tim appears with a mug of coffee that he hands you like an offering from the gods. Even Bruce and Cass give you rare, earnest smiles.
The next hour is a whirlwind.
Gift exchange devolves into exactly the kind of chaos you expected. Dick unwraps a pair of ridiculous reindeer slippers and immediately puts them on, declaring it a new family tradition. Jason insists his joke gift for Tim isn’t a joke at all, which only makes it funnier. Tim discovers you’ve gifted him a high-quality lap desk with built-in organization, and his gratitude borders on emotional.
Bruce gets a handmade set of cufflinks etched with tiny bats. Courtesy of Damian, though he tries very hard not to look proud when Bruce puts them on right away.
And Alfred? You gave him a beautifully bound edition of a book by his favorite mystery author, and he looks at you like you just handed him the moon. He thanks you quietly, but the gentle pat to your shoulder says more.
Brunch follows: waffles, pastries, eggs, more food than any group of this size truly needs. Conversations overlap, jokes fly, and at one point Dick somehow manages to start an indoor snowball fight that spills into the hallway when he opens a window “for ventilation”. It’s loud and uncoordinated. It’s a mess.
It’s perfect.
Eventually, you feel a light touch to your wrist. Damian gives you a look that, without a single word, asks if you’d like a break from the chaos. You nod, and he leads you upstairs.
His room is so Damian it hurts.
It’s clean and organized, but far from impersonal. Dark wood shelves line one wall, filled with classics, language texts, and more than a few art books. Clean sketches and architectural drawings sit in neat stacks. There’s a sword displayed tastefully, a soft rug underfoot, and Titus’s dog bed in the corner, empty only because Titus is currently downstairs begging Alfred for scraps.
It smells faintly of cedar and the soap Damian likes. It feels like him.
You sit together on the edge of his bed, tucked into the quiet.
You reach into your bag, pulling out a carefully wrapped box and nudging it toward him with a smile. “Your turn.”
He unwraps it delicately, because cutting paper haphazardly is “wasteful” in his words, and opens the lid. Inside lies a custom falconry glove, dark green leather stitched with a tiny bat silhouette and, because you couldn’t resist, a small embroidered paw print.
Damian freezes. His thumb grazes the stitching, slow and lingering. “You… had this made?”
You nod, suddenly nervous. “I know how much you enjoy training with Titus and, well, any animal you come across. I wanted to give you something you might use. Something that’s yours. And, maybe introduce you to a new species option.”
His eyes lift to yours, bright with something he’s not used to showing. “It’s… incredible,” he says, voice low.
Then he clears his throat, reaching beneath his pillow (because of course he hides gifts there) and hands you a small velvet box.
Your pulse skips.
Inside sits a necklace. A delicate chain, silver and soft, and at its center… two tiny animals curled up against one another. A cat and a robin—sleeping. Safe. Together.
Your breath catches painfully.
“I designed it,” Damian mutters. “I wanted you to have something that shows…”
He stops, jaw tensing. Emotional vulnerability still isn’t easy for him. But he tries again.
“...that you matter to me. More than I can say.”
The words knock the air from your lungs.
You set the box aside carefully and rise onto your knees beside him. “Damian,” you whisper, reaching to brush your thumb along his cheek. “You already show it. Every day.”
His eyes flutter shut at your touch. When they open again, they’re softer than you’ve ever seen them.
He fastens the necklace around your neck with steady hands. When he finishes, he doesn’t move away. Instead, his forehead rests gently against yours, his breath warm as it mingles with yours.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, quiet and impossibly earnest.
You smile, heart so full it’s aching. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Outside the window, snow continues to fall. Silent, gentle, magical.
And though he’d never admit it aloud, Damian Wayne has never understood Christmas more than he does in this moment.
Ficmas Day 2!
12 Days of Ficmas | navigation | dc masterlist
Pairing: Bruce Wayne x Reader
Word Count: 5.9k
Warnings: Angst, Fluff
Bright light peaks through the large windows of the bedroom when you wake. The sun is actually shining in Gotham for once, brightly enough that you could almost pretend the world outside this bed was warm enough to enjoy.
The space beside you is unsurprisingly empty. Cold already, which means Bruce likely left before sunrise. Again.
Work. Meetings. Patrol. Gotham. A promise that he’d make it up to you.
You push the down duvet off your shoulders and rise, stretching your arms above your head and trying not to let the sting of neglect settle too deeply, when something to the side catches your attention.
Well, two somethings, actually.
On the bedside table sits a steaming mug of coffee. The scent alone tells you it’s made exactly how you like it. It also tells you that either Bruce hadn’t left as early as you thought or that Alfred had been in here, quietly and efficiently, stepping dangerously close to where you slept in nothing but one of Bruce’s old shirts. You’d hedge your bets on the second option.
And there, beside the coffee, rests a small package. It’s wrapped with the kind of precision that only comes from either a professional or someone with Alfred’s particular brand of patience. The paper itself looks expensive, thick enough that it feels wrong to touch it with bare hands. A little card bearing your name sits carefully centered on top.
You reach for the package, flipping the card open first. The message inside is written in Bruce’s handwriting, clean and deliberate, like each letter fought to behave.
I thought this might brighten your morning. I’ll be home more often soon. You mean more to me than any of this could show. -B
You hold the card a moment longer than necessary before setting it aside.
The gift opens easily, the paper sliding away without resistance. You handle it with more care than you should, half afraid of ripping something that probably cost more than half a grocery bill. Alfred will throw it out later without hesitation, but you still treat it delicately, as if roughness would feel ungrateful.
Underneath sits a small black box. The type of box that only ever holds one kind of thing: something breathtakingly expensive, something meant to dazzle, something Bruce probably ordered weeks in advance because it seemed like the proper gesture.
You lift the lid. Inside lies a tennis bracelet, platinum and flawless, each stone cut to catch even the faintest light. The diamonds form a perfect line of cold, glittering brilliance, a piece that would draw attention in any room. It looks like it belongs in a museum display more than on your wrist.
Still, you slip it on. It settles against your skin with the effortless grace of something built for a world much shinier than yours.
You set the empty box on the nightstand, pick up the cooling coffee, and finally swing your legs out of bed. The hardwood feels chilled beneath your feet.
You pull on a pair of sweatpants and tie a silk robe around your waist, the fabric whispering against your skin as you tighten the belt. The robe was another gift from him. Luxurious. Impeccable. Thoughtful in the broad strokes but missing the fine detail you wish he could see.
You take one last look around the bedroom before heading downstairs, where Alfred and Damian are surely already settled in the kitchen, the low hum of morning routine waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs.
But when the door to the kitchen swings open, you’re surprised to note that one pint-sized, judgmental presence is missing. Damian, for once, isn’t stationed by the counter, glaring at your pajamas as though they’re a personal affront. Alfred, however, lingers at the stove, flipping something that smells like a perfect stack of pancakes. The aroma curls through the air, warm and inviting, making the chill from the morning sunlight fade just a little. Alfred doesn’t even turn as you enter, but he greets you nonetheless.
“Good morning,” you reply softly, settling into one of the chairs at the island. The wood is cool beneath your fingertips, and you adjust the silk robe around your waist. “Where’s Damian?”
“Master Damian has already departed for school this morning,” Alfred says, his voice calm and measured, carrying its usual undercurrent of mild reprimand. “I fear you’ve slept in a bit longer than usual.”
“Oh,” you murmur, unsure what else to say. The comment isn’t accusatory, not quite, but it lands anyway.
Silence stretches between you, a rare occurrence. Usually, mornings are filled with small chatter, gossip about the others. How Dick might be doing over in Bludhaven, what Jason might be scheming these days, how many nights Tim has gone without sleep, or what Damian has gotten himself into lately. Today, your mind is too occupied with other things to think of trivial matters.
Alfred notices immediately.
“You seem… quieter than usual,” he observes gently, sliding a plate of pancakes in front of you. His eyes linger on you, patient, as though he can see through the polite smile you offer.
“I’m fine,” you reply, and your voice is just a shade too quick, too tight. You force yourself to dig into the pancakes, biting into the fluffy warmth, hoping the comfort of the food can mask the ache of Bruce’s absence.
Alfred hums softly, not pressing further, his knowing gaze softening. “It is not uncommon for Master Bruce to express his care through… gestures. Gifts, provisions, ensuring your comfort, the ways in which he can control. His heart is always in the right place, but he forgets sometimes that affection need not always be measured by grandeur.”
You pause mid-bite, swallowing slowly. “I… I know,” you murmur, brushing at crumbs on your robe. “I’m just tired, I guess. Nothing more.”
Alfred tilts his head, still calm, still patient, but there’s a flicker of quiet amusement in his expression. “Indeed. Yet even in your tiredness, you notice the absence. That, I think, says more than words ever could.”
You manage a small smile, one that doesn’t quite reach your eyes, and Alfred nods, satisfied that he has acknowledged without demanding. He slides the syrup closer, drizzling it in a deliberate spiral over the pancakes, the sweetness a small comfort.
“Eat,” he instructs gently. “I’ve made them as you like, and it would be unladylike to waste such care on the plate.”
You laugh softly, a quiet, warm sound that seems to fill some of the emptiness you’ve been feeling. “Thank you, Alfred,” you say, and this time, it’s genuine.
Alfred’s eyes crinkle at the corners, the smallest smile tugging at the edges of his composed demeanor. “Always, Miss Y/N. You are never without someone who notices you, even if it is not always the one you wish would.”
You pause, the words settling over you like a soft snowfall, warm but tinged with longing. The bracelet on your wrist catches the morning light, glinting faintly, a reminder of Bruce’s presence even in his absence. You take a slow sip of the coffee, letting the heat fill you, and for the first time this morning, you feel a fraction of peace.
- - -
Later that night, after Damian has returned from school and the two of you have shared a quiet dinner with Alfred, you corral the two of them into helping you decorate for the holidays.
Well, you really corral Damin into it. Alfred, of course, would have done it regardless, his sense of duty and tradition leaving him little choice in the matter. Damian, however, requires more coaxing. And more patience than you sometimes feel capable of summoning.
Alfred disappears into the back rooms to locate the boxes containing trees, garland, tinsel, and ornaments, leaving you alone with Damian. You manage to coerce him into baking cookies with you. Snickerdoodles, of course. Bruce’s favorite, even if he would never admit it aloud.
The process takes longer than it would if you were working alone. Damian insists on following the recipe with rigid precision, muttering about the “inefficiency of arbitrary measurements” and complaining about the exact number of turns required to incorporate each ingredient. You remain cheerful through it all, a careful smile perched on your face as he grumbles, sometimes glaring at the rolling pin as if it personally offended him. When he attempts to measure flour with military precision, you gently remind him that the kitchen is not a battlefield.
By the time the cookies are safely in the oven, Alfred has one tree up, its branches fluffed and evenly spaced, and several boxes of ornaments ready to be hung. It’s around that time that you lose Damian. Or rather, Damian loses all patience and, with a pointed glare and a muttered remark about “holiday frivolity”, vanishes. You’re left with the warm, aromatic hum of the cookies baking in the kitchen, and Alfred already preoccupied with the garland along the bannisters.
So, with Damian gone and Alfred busy, you take to decorating the sitting room tree on your own. Each step is deliberate, almost ritualistic. Many of these ornaments date back to Bruce’s childhood, delicate glass spheres that might be worth more than some cars if sold at auction. The monetary value is one thing, but the sentiment tied to them is far more important, you know. You handle each ornament carefully, pausing to consider where it might best catch the light or complement its neighbors, determined to honor both their beauty and their history.
You’re halfway through when your phone rings. You answer without glancing at the screen, your voice even, casual, as you offer your usual greeting.
“Hi,” comes the familiar, low voice on the other end. Gruff, tired, unmistakably Bruce. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it home for dinner.”
“It’s fine,” you reply softly. “I just finished up some cookies with Damian.”
“You’re… baking?” His tone is a mixture of surprise and amusement.
“Yes. Snickerdoodles. Your favorite,” you tease lightly.
“Save me one, then,” he says. There’s a pause, and then, softer, almost vulnerable: “I… I miss you.”
The words slip out like they weren’t meant to be controlled, and for a moment you’re caught off guard. You don’t answer immediately, unsure how to respond to the raw honesty threaded through them.
“I won’t make it home tonight,” he continues, voice steadying as if to shield you from disappointment. “Caught up with work, and patrol calls.”
You swallow hard, nodding to yourself even though he can’t see you. “Okay,” you say quietly, voice calm even though your chest tightens. “I’ll save a cookie for you.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he mutters. You swear you can almost hear the corner of his lips lifting in a brief, private smile before the line goes dead.
You set the phone down, listening to the quiet click, the faint hum of the oven, the gentle rustle of the robe still tied around your waist, now over a cashmere lounge set. You return to the tree, but your focus is no longer on the careful placement of antique glass ornaments. Your hands move automatically, arranging and adjusting as your mind drifts.
You think of the empty spaces on the couch where he should be, of the warmth of his presence rather than the weight of his gifts. You realize then that you wouldn’t care at all if you woke up and there were no presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Not as long as Bruce was there to share the day, to sit beside you and laugh, to smell the cookies and see the tree and, most importantly, just be with you.
The thought lingers, a quiet, steady ache in your chest, as you hand the next ornament and let the soft glow of the fairy lights wash over the sitting room.
- - -
Bruce’s office is cold. Cold because he keeps the entire top floor of Wayne Enterprises at an unreasonably brisk sixty degrees, a habit meant to help him stay alert during long workdays. But there are other reasons too, ones he doesn’t let himself look at directly. The chill helps him focus, or at least that’s what he tells himself. Today it barely makes a dent.
Because all he can think about is you.
You, at home with Alfred and Damian. You, with flour on your hands, coaxing Damian into baking cookies. You, setting up holiday decorations with the kind of gentle patience that makes the manor feel warmer just by existing inside it.
His pen stills over the contract in front of him. He tries to read the next paragraph, makes it two sentences in, and realizes he hasn’t absorbed a single word. His mind drifts back to the sound of your voice on the phone, light but tight at the edges, the way you tried so hard not to sound disappointed that he wasn’t coming home.
He knows he isn’t showing up, not in the way that matters. The thought sits in his chest like a weight he avoids touching. He’s known it for a while—longer than he wants to acknowledge—but only in the last day or so has he let himself look at it directly. Not fully. Just enough to feel the discomfort of it, the way it tightens something low in his ribs.
He shoes care the only way he knows how, the way he learned through years of fumbling: gifts. Jewelry that sparkles bright enough to hide his absence. Shoes he notices you admire but never ask for. Clothes he thinks will make you smile. The security system he installed in your car last month because it felt like something he could do, something that made sense.
The car had been a gift too. A practical one, he justified. Safe. reliable. Something that would ensure you were protected even when he wasn’t around.
He tries to tell himself that these things count. That they mean something real. That maybe they’re enough.
But emotional presence… that’s different. Harder. It pulls at old fears, ones he doesn’t have the language for. He worries about failing at it, about letting you see the parts of him that are unsteady. He worries he’ll hold you too close or not close enough.
Memories flicker across his thoughts before he can stop it: you laughing at something Alfred said while Jason pretended not to smile in the doorway. The warmth of the manor when you’re in it. The way your hands settle on his shoulders when he walks in exhausted at the end of a long night, grounding him without saying a word.
He misses that. Misses you. Misses the version of himself that only seems to exist when you’re near.
He wants to give you everything he can. The world, if it were possible. He wants you to feel cared for, cherished, safe. He wants to make up for every moment he’s missed, for every night he left you to fall asleep alone.
He wants to give you all of that.
But the one thing he knows you truly want—him, fully present, emotionally reachable—feels like the hardest thing to offer. Not because he doesn’t want to. He does, more than he knows how to comprehend. But because he’s scared of how badly he could fail you if he tries.
He sets the pen down and leans back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his jaw as the city lights outside flicker against the glass.
He thinks of you again, placing ornaments one by one on the tree, waiting for him without expecting him.
The cold feels sharper. The loneliness too.
- - -
The Wayne Foundation’s yearly Holiday Gala, held on Christmas Eve, is the event to end all events in Gotham. The city’s elite drift in like migrating birds, drawn by the promise of a glittering silent auction, the string quartet humming in the corner, hors d’oeuvres served on silver trays, and the whispered business deals that inevitably leave at least one attendee full of regret by sunrise.
This year, for the first time, you’re attending alone. For the first part of the night, at least. You’re not sure about the rest.
You’d spent all afternoon getting ready. The morning had started bright and early, a driver waiting in front of the manor. A driver who, surprisingly, wasn’t Alfred. He’d taken you to the mani-pedi appointment that Bruce had insisted on scheduling, followed by a last-minute fitting with your tailor and a trip to the salon for makeup and a blowout that left your hair glossy under the lights. By the time you arrived back home, you had just enough time to nibble a few crackers, sip some water, and slip into your now-perfect gown before the car returned to ferry you downtown.
Just as you were fastening the clasp of your earrings, your phone bussed with a message from Bruce.
Running late. I’ll try to make it in time. Don’t wait on me.
You stared at the words longer than you meant to, the familiar pinch settling behind your ribs. Running late could mean anything, from a board emergency to something darker and unspoken. You didn’t know which was worse: the fact that he might be dealing with something dangerous… or the possibility that he simply wouldn’t make it at all.
You’d tucked the phone away, gave yourself one last look in the mirror, and left without knowing whether he’d ever appear beside you tonight.
The paparazzi is understandably surprised to see you step out of the car alone. While Bruce Wayne being fashionably late isn’t unusual, it is at least notable that you don’t arrive with one of the kids. You had asked them, having had a sneaking suspicion that the evening might end up like this. Normally one of them took pity… or simply saw it as free food and entertainment.
Tonight, not one of them could be coaxed out.
You hadn’t expected much from Tim or Damian. Jason made a face before you finished asking. But Dick… Dick was your hope. Dick loved events like these, no matter how adamantly he denied it. Yet when you’d asked, he only gave you that sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck, and apologized. He was spending the holiday with Kori in San Francisco.
And so you make the long walk from the curb to the front doors alone, chin high, shoulders back. Cameras flash like tiny lightning bolts. Your name is called from half a dozen angles. Every step feels like a spotlight trained on the one thing you don’t want to admit is bothering you.
You make it inside, but the ballroom doesn’t offer much reprieve. Every greeting comes with a variation of the same question:
“Where’s Bruce?”
“Will he be making his usual grand entrance soon?”
“Is everything all right at home, dear?”
One of the Foundation’s top donors—a woman with diamonds big enough to double as weapons—actually touches your wrist and asks, brows furrowed in forced concern, “Is the marriage healthy?”
You aren’t even married.
You field the questions with a practiced smile, polite and cool enough to discourage follow-ups. But the truth presses against your ribs like a dull ache. You’re tired. Tired of arriving alone. Tired of feeling like a representative instead of a partner. Tired of missing someone who hasn’t technically gone anywhere, yet somehow never seems to be where you need him.
You swirl the wine in your glass and let your eyes drift toward the far end of the room. The tennis bracelet Bruce gave you the other day catches the gold light overhead. You should feel comforted by it, warmed by the gesture, the sparkle, the sheer ridiculous cost.
Instead, it feels heavier than a bracelet should.
You decline dances from well-meaning investors and overeager bachelors who don’t realize what arm you belong on—or pretend not to. You make small talk with friendly faces, let yourself be pulled into occasional conversations about charity projections and holiday travel. You smile, nod, laugh. You perform.
A man you don’t know well, someone with too much cologne and not enough sense, begins to flit. Not aggressively, but persistently. You prepare your polite decline, ready to pivot toward another conversation, when a low voice sounds behind you.
“She’s taken, I’m afraid.”
Your entire body stills.
You turn.
Bruce stands there.
Exhausted. Rumpled in a way no one but you would recognize. Devastatingly handsome in black tie. And watching the stranger with the kind of mild, contained irritation that means he’s two seconds from stepping fully into the persona Gotham believes Bruce Wayne to be.
The man pales. Apologizes. Retreats so quickly he nearly bumps into a waiter.
You let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding.
Bruce’s shoulders drop infinitesimally. “Hi,” he says softly, almost shyly.
“Hi,” you echo, your voice warm despite yourself.
He nods toward the dance floor. “Dance with me?”
It’s not phrased like a command or even a confident request. It’s hesitant, hopeful. An offering.
You set your empty glass aside and take his hand.
The quartet eases into a slower melody as he leads you into the crowd. His palm settles against your back, warm even through your gown. You slide your fingers into his and rest your other hand on his shoulder, letting him draw you close.
The moment feels suspended, somewhere between memory and wish.
“You look beautiful,” he murmurs. The compliment is simple and understated, but genuine enough that it almost hurts.
“Thank you,” you reply. You study his face—the slight shadows under his eyes, the faint tension around his mouth. “Long night?”
“Long week,” he admits. His eyes flick over you again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier.”
You want to tell him it’s fine, to submit to the easy reflex you’ve trained yourself to give. But something fragile flickers across his expression before he schools it away. Unsure what to say if not that placation, you remain silent.
“You seem… far away tonight,” Bruce murmurs after a moment, his voice low enough that only you can hear it.
You let out a breath that isn’t quite a sigh. “Bruce, I’m not the one who’s far away.”
His hand stills where it rests at your waist. He doesn’t flinch, but something tightens in his posture—subtle, restrained, unmistakably pained. “I know I haven’t been around,” he says, the words careful, like he’s afraid they might break if he pushes them too hard.
“It isn’t just tonight,” you reply, keeping your tone soft, not wanting to turn this into a scene. “You’re always gone. Physically, emotionally… I don’t know how to reach you anymore.”
He closes his eyes like the words hit something tender. “I haven’t meant to be. Absent, I mean. Things have been–” He stops, searches for the right word, comes up empty. “Complicated.”
He doesn’t elaborate. He rarely does. You know what he means: boardroom politics, WayneTech headaches, and the unspoken nighttime responsibilities that leave him limping some mornings and exhausted most evenings.
But complications don’t hold you at night. Complications don’t show up to galas. Complications don’t ask how you are, or kiss your shoulder in the mornings, or show you they will want to share your life.
You swallow, your cheek brushing his shoulder as you saw. “I know you try,” you say softly. “The bracelet, the appointments, the dresses, the car–”
His jaw tenses.
“They’re beautiful,” you continue. “Truly. And I appreciate them. But… they’re not what I need.”
His eyes open slowly, meeting yours. In them you see worry—real worry—and a flicker of something like fear.
“What do you need?” he asks, barely above a breath.
You let your thumb skim his shoulder. “You,” you say simply. “Just you. Home.”
For a moment, he forgets to breathe.
His grip tightens. Not possessive, but almost… anchoring. Like he’s afraid the confession might pull you away instead of closer. His throat works around a swallow. The music swells around you, warm and soft, but the space between you feels electric, delicate.
“I’m trying,” he murmurs, voice low and earnest. “I don’t always… I’m not good at…” He exhales sharply, frustrated with himself. “But I don’t want you to feel alone. Not because of me.”
You rest your forehead against his jaw, closing your eyes. “Then don’t leave me to show up alone,” you whisper.
His hand moves to the small of your back, steady and warm. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay.”
And for once—just this once—you let yourself believe him.
Because tonight, he showed up. Because he’s holding you like he means it. Because when the song ends, he doesn’t let you go. He keeps you close, guiding you gently off the dance floor like he’s afraid that if he loosens his hold, you might disappear back into the lonely space he knows he’s pushed you into.
It doesn’t take much convincing on Bruce’s part to get you to leave the gala before most of the crowd has even begun to thin. One soft request from him and you’re nodding, letting him take your hand. He leads you out of the ballroom with a hand resting securely at the small of your back, his touch telling you everything he still struggles to express out loud.
Outside, the night greets you with a quiet hush. Snow drifts lazily from the sky, settling across the sidewalk in delicate white patches. Before the cold even reaches your skin, Bruce is already sliding off his jacket, wrapping it carefully around your shoulders like you’re something precious. You catch the faintest smile on his lips as he makes sure it’s snug.
To your surprise, no black car waits at the curb. No sleek town car running, no driver standing at attention. You blink up at him, confusion fluttering across your features. Bruce only looks faintly sheepish, a rare crack in that perfectly composed Wayne facade.
“I forgot to call the car until just now. Sorry.”
A soft laugh escapes you, the sound almost too quiet for the open street. Somehow, it still feels like it fills the space between you. Snow gathers in Bruce’s dark hair. You reach up instinctively to brush a flake from his temple, but stop midway, the moment too intimate, too fragile, to break.
The two of you stand there for a long beat, silence settling around your feet with the same softness as the snowfall. Bruce’s breath fogs the air. Yours does too. Gotham hums around you, but none of it quite reaches where you and Bruce exist, tucked into this small, suspended moment.
When Bruce finally speaks, his voice is so soft you almost miss it beneath the distant rush of tires on wet pavement.
“I know I overdo it with the gifts.” He pauses, looking down at his hands like he’s bracing himself. “It’s not because I think you need them. It’s because I don’t know how else to… show you that I care.” He swallows hard. “I’m terrified. Of just how much you mean to me. Of how much I love you. Of disappointing you. I thought that if I gave you everything else, it might make up for the parts of me that I can’t always give.”
The confession hangs there, raw and unpolished, more vulnerable than anything he said on the dance floor. It hits you with a softness that aches.
You reach up, cupping his face gently, your thumbs brushing along the sharp line of his cheekbones. His eyes close for a moment like he’s grounding himself in the warmth of your palms.
“Bruce,” you whisper, steady and sure, “you are all I want. You, as you are”
His breath catches. Just slightly, but enough for you to feel the shift in him.
He leans in. You meet him halfway.
The kiss is soft at first, then deepens with a slow, aching sweetness that pulls every ounce of warmth in your body toward him. His hands slide to your waist, holding you like he’s afraid to let go now that he’s finally gathered the courage to reach for you. Your fingers curl in his hair, pulling him closer, the heat between you almost startling against the cold air. He whispers your name once against your lips, low and unguarded, and the sound alone sends a shiver through you.
For a moment, it feels like the world has melted away, leaving only the two of you and the quiet fall of snow.
And then headlights sweep across the sidewalk, breaking the spell and washing the two of you in a pale glow. The town car glides to a stop at the curb, the engine humming quietly beneath the muffled hush of falling snow.
Bruce doesn’t move at first. Neither do you.
Your foreheads rest together for one last lingering second, your breaths mingling in the cold air. His thumb strokes a slow, tender line at your waist, as if memorizing the feel of you before he has to let go. You loosen your hold on his lapels only when he exhales, steady and warm against your cheek.
The driver steps out, opening the back door with a respectful nod, but even that doesn’t fully pull you and Bruce apart. You feel his hand find yours again, lacing your fingers together with a quiet certainty that steals the last bit of chill from the night.
Bruce guides you to the open door, helping you in with a gentle hand at your back. Once you’re settled, he slides in beside you, the door closing softly behind him. The car pulls away from the curb, the snowfall swallowing the city lights as the tinted windows darken the world outside.
Inside the warm, dim cabin, your joined hands rest between you. And for the first time in a long while, you head home together.
- - -
On Christmas morning, you wake up to an empty space beside you in the bed. The spot is cold again, and Bruce is nowhere to be seen, but the faint hint of sweetness drifting through the manor tells you Alfred is already making cinnamon rolls. The scent is warm, comforting, familiar. It should soothe you.
It doesn’t.
You’re not surprised Bruce isn’t there, but it’s harder to hide the disappointment this time. It settles deep, dull, like a bruise you keep pressing without meaning to. You let out a low groan, roll onto your stomach, and yank the covers up over your head. Maybe you won’t bother getting up at all. Damian isn’t like most children; he won’t be shaking boxes or demanding attention at dawn. And you aren’t expecting anyone else this morning. No obligations. No noise. Just the quiet ache in your chest and the too-large bed around you.
You’re not sure how long you lie there like that, face buried in the pillow, curled beneath the warm cocoon of blankets. Time stretches and folds around you, the way it always seems to on mornings like this that you’re alone. Eventually, you hear the soft creak of the bedroom door. You don’t bother turning over.
“Alfred, please not now,” you mumble, voice muffled by cotton and sleep.
“Not Alfred, I’m afraid.”
Bruce’s voice cuts through the fog, sharp in its softness. You sit up far too fast to play off the excitement sparking through you. He notices anyway. He always does. He stands near the doorway with a cup of coffee in his hands, one far too light to be his usual black cup. He’s wearing the blue plaid pajama pants Dick gave him two birthdays ago and a white T-shirt that clings to his chest in a way you’re absolutely not prepared to deal with this early in the morning. There’s a crooked, almost shy smile on his face.
“I brought you something,” he says, stepping closer and extending the cup toward you.
You take it carefully, fingers brushing his, and bring it to your lips for a tentative sip. Perfect, the exact amount of cream and sugar you like. When you lower the cup, he sits beside you in the spot he vacated hours earlier, the mattress dipping under his weight.
You blink at him, still trying to shake off the remnants of disappointment now dissolving into something warmer. “You’re up early,” you say.
“So are you,” he replies, even though you’re not sure it can be considered early any more. His voice softens after a beat. “I wanted to see you when you woke up.”
Your breath catches. He doesn’t make declarations like that—not casually, not unprompted. Before you can think of what to say, he reaches into the nightstand and picks up a small box wrapped in deep green paper.
“I, um… got you something else,” he says, sounding almost self-conscious.
“Bruce,” you start gently, “you’ve given me so much already.”
“This one is different.”
You open the box slowly, careful with the paper as you always are. Inside is a delicate gold locket, simple on the outside but engraved with a small, nearly hidden W-shaped flourish near the clasp. When you open it, you find two photos small enough to fit inside. One of you and Bruce at a charity event two years ago—his arm around your waist, both of you caught mid-laugh—and the other of you with Damian, who is trying very hard not to smile at the camera.
Your throat tightens. “Bruce… this is…”
“I know,” he says quickly, almost nervous. “It’s not flashy. It’s not—” he stops himself, takes a breath. “But… I’ve had it for a while, honestly. It’s something I should have given you a long time ago.”
You close the locket and hold it to your chest. “It’s perfect.”
A quiet settles between you, warm and easy. You sip your coffee again, leaning lightly into his shoulder. After a moment, you murmur, “We should probably get up. Damian’s going to want to open presents.”
Bruce huffs a soft laugh. “Damian’s still in bed.”
You blink. “Still? Is he sick?”
“No,” Bruce says, amusement tugging at his mouth. “He was up late last night reading some impossible text about war strategies. Let him sleep. Enjoy the peace while we have it.”
You smile, relaxing against him as he settles back onto the pillows. His legs tangle with yours beneath the covers, solid and warm. You lean into his chest, the steady rhythm of his breathing grounding you. He presses a slow kiss to your shoulder, then another just under your jaw. When his lips find the curve of your neck, you shiver.
His voice lowers, the words brushing your skin. “I cleared the whole day. No meetings. No excuses. I’m… here.”
You turn toward him, eyes searching his. “Really?”
“Really,” he says, and there’s no hesitation—no guardedness—in the answer. “I’m sorry it took me so long, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Something inside you finally, quietly, unlocks. You cup his cheek, thumb brushing his jaw, and lean in. The kiss you share is slow and lingering and full of everything you’ve been trying to say for months. His hand slides to your waist, pulling you closer. Your fingers tangle in his hair. The warmth between you deepens, sweet and aching.
When you finally part, breathless and smiling, the morning light spills across the two of you like a blessing.
Ficmas Day 1!
12 Days of Ficmas | navigation | dc masterlist
Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader
Word Count: 3.7k
Warnings: Angst, Fluff
It’s early December, and the entirety of Gotham is dusted in a fine layer of early snow. Your apartment, however, is a welcome reprieve from the cold outside. Carefully curated warmth, soft lighting, cinnamon-scented candles, and picture-perfect decorations fill the space, all of which you hung in a desperate attempt to distract yourself with holiday cheer instead of spiraling about a certain someone.
It wasn’t working.
“I’m not doing it again this year,” you tell Barbara over the phone, holding it between your shoulder and ear as your rifle through your closet for something to wear. The hangers clack and scrape in a steady rhythm that does nothing to calm the jitter of nerves under your skin.
Somehow, every sweater you own seems to scream, “I want a certain vigilante to love me back!”
“You say that every year,” Babs points out dryly. “And yet, every New Year’s…”
“I know, I know,” you grumble, tugging a sleeve free and tossing the sweater onto your bed before shaking your head at it. This off-and-on thing with Jason Todd had been going on for almost three years now. Three years of glimmering hope followed by quiet retreat. He’d be in it for a month or so, warm and steady and so close you could almost forget the world was sharp. Then something in him would seize up again. He’d freeze so hard you’d wonder if you were strangers. Sometimes he disappeared for weeks at a time, offering no explanation besides a shrug and a half-apologetic look that always came too late.
“Besides,” Babs continues in a softer tone. “Dick told me he’s not even coming to Decorating Day this year.”
Your hand pauses mid-rummage.
Decorating Day, as it was known in the Wayne household, was held on the second Saturday in December like a yearly ritual no one dared to challenge. Every Wayne child—or child-adjacent person—was cordially invited. Cordially invited meaning guilt-tripped, emotionally manipulated, or outright blackmailed into attending a day of hanging garland, trimming trees, and untangling twenty-five years of outdoor lights that even Alfred hadn’t bothered to store properly.
Every year when he sent out the invitations, Bruce swore the whole event was for Alfred. All of you knew it was really for Bruce. Alfred would have preferred doing the decorating on his own with a quiet house and a pot of tea.
“Are you sure?” you ask, pulling out a light pink turtleneck that seems good enough. You hold it up to your chest, squint at your reflection, and sigh. “Because Tim said the same thing last year, and that was totally wrong.”
“Absolutely sure,” Barbara assures you. “You know Jason likes Dick way more than Tim. He still calls Tim ‘Replacement’ sometimes.”
“That’s his love language,” you mutter. “Oddly affectionate insults.”
Babs laughs. “I hope you’re not bracing for disappointment. If Dick says Jason’s skipping, he’s probably right. You can relax and maybe enjoy the day without waiting for a tall, brooding disaster to walk through the door.”
“I hope you’re right,” you reply. You don’t add what sits heavy in your chest: you want to believe you can survive a holiday without hoping Jason will look at you the way you look at him.
You hang up with Barbara, promising you’ll see each other later. The apartment falls back into quiet. The heating unit hums. Snow taps lightly at the window. You press the phone to your thigh and take a slow breath, trying to settle the nerves you pretend not to have.
You pull on the turtleneck, smooth the hem, and glance at the tiny ceramic Santa figurine sitting on your dresser. You bought it years ago on a whim, mostly as a joke. Now it watches you with a painted smile and cheerful red coat, oblivious to how ridiculous you feel staring back at it.
Even though you know it’s dramatic, you close your eyes and whisper a small, ridiculous plea under your breath. A tiny prayer to a myth you stopped believing in long ago.
“Santa, if he really cares, make sure he tells me before Christmas Day.”
- - -
You knock on the door to Wayne Manor, bundled in your coat and bracing for the type of chaos that can only come from a household full of vigilantes. Every year brings the same images to mind: DIck wrestling with garland, Tim arguing with Damian about ornament placement, Duke trying to keep the peace while Steph instigates near-constant mischief. You expect noise and overlapping conversations, maybe the faint crash of something expensive hitting the floor. Instead, when Alfred opens the door and steps aside to let you in, the scene that greets you can only be described as… alarmingly cozy.
Your eyes sweep the grand entryway as Alfred helps you out of your coat. Bing Crosby plays faintly somewhere deeper in the house, floating over whatever high-end sound system Tim or Bruce recently installed. The lights are warm, not too bright, giving the entire space a rare softness. Damian hangs tinsel in the sitting room with an intensity only a pre-teen raised by the League of Assassins could wield. Duke sits cross-legged on the floor, untangling a monstrous ball of Christmas lights like it’s a puzzle meant to test his patience.
You blink. For once, the manor feels almost normal.
Then the door opposite you, the one that opens straight into the kitchen, swings wide. Out steps Jason Todd.
You stop breathing for a full second.
You want to strangle Dick and Barbara both. Conveniently, neither are anywhere to be seen.
Jason isn’t supposed to be here. He told everyone he was skipping this year. Dick said he’d sent a short, almost curt message that basically read: Not coming. Have fun. You took that as a sign you could relax and enjoy the day without spending the entire time trying not to look at him. Or think about last December. Or the three years of almost-something between you that he refused to acknowledge.
Yet here he is.
He stops short when he sees you, posture tightening like a startled deer. He’s holding something in his hands—a small paper bag, clearly from a bookstore downtown. He shoves it behind him as if he’s hiding stolen goods.
“Hey. You made it.” His voice is gentler than you expected, rough around the edges but not cold. You weren’t even sure he’d planned to greet you at all. It throws you more off balance than it should.
You greet him back, awkwardly, unsure where to look. You want to ask him why he’s here after announcing he wouldn’t be. You want to pretend you’re unaffected. You manage neither and somehow end up staring at a spot near his shoulder.
Before the moment can spiral further, Dick bounds into the hall. You catch his eye and immediately send him a sharp glare. He just raises his eyebrows in innocent confusion. You know he isn’t innocent. Barbara must have told him you were coming. Barbara must have known Jason changed his mind. And now Barbara is conveniently spending the day with her father, out of reach, letting you deal with the fallout.
You swear you can hear her smug laughter echoing from miles away.
The day unfolds in a hazy blend of familiar traditions and small surprises. Soon everyone is decorating. Jason ends up holding the ladder for you while you place the star on top of the massive tree in the family sitting room. His hands stay braced on the ladder, steady and sure, and even though he doesn’t say much, you can feel him looking up at you with a quiet attention that makes you aware of every breath you take.
When you climb down, Jason steps back like he didn’t just watch you with something warm flickering through his eyes.
As you all distribute ornaments and string lights across the room, Jason seems to orbit around you. Not close enough to be obvious, but never far enough for you to forget he’s there. He stands close when he helps untangle a strand of lights from your fingers. Close when you both reach for the same ornament. Close when you shift an ornament slightly to the left, and he nods like the adjustment matters.
Dick notices. He keeps giving Jason big-brother side-eye, the sort that practically screams, Are we really doing this again this year?
You pretend not to see it. Jason does not pretend. He pointedly ignores Dick until Damian mutters something about “seasonal foolishness” under his breath.
Steph floats up beside you while you adjust a snowflake ornament. She nudges your shoulder lightly and murmurs, “He’s staring at you like you hung the moon. Again.”
You nearly drop the ornament. “He’s not staring.”
Steph gives you a look that says you’re adorable and delusional. “Honey, he hasn’t looked anywhere else since you walked in.”
You start to deny it, but then Dick cracks a joke about Bruce hiding the really old ornaments and everyone bursts into laughter. Everyone except Jason, who you catch watching you laugh from the corner of your eye. Something soft warms across his face, something he rarely lets anyone see. Something he shouldn’t be showing you if he doesn’t plan to follow through for once.
Your heart jumps. You look away, focusing on the lights instead.
You try not to let it mean anything.
You tell yourself you won’t do this again.
But Jason Todd looks at you like that, in a room glowing with Christmas lights, and hope curls painfully in your chest.
- - -
Bruce holds a holiday party at the manor every year. It’s one of the very few times the home is opened to anyone outside the family. Not a gala, not a press event, just a small friends-and-allies gathering that somehow still fills the house with warmth and movement. Enough people for you to mingle throughout the night, enough familiar chaos to disguise emotions you don’t want to examine too closely. Soft laughter rises from various corners of the room, the lights are dim and golden, and the fire crackles in the main sitting room where most guests drift in and out.
You spot the Kent family near the large windows overlooking the snow lawn and find yourself drawn toward them. Clark has always been your favorite of Bruce’s nighttime colleagues, endlessly kind even on his worst day, and you’ve always had a soft spot for Jonathan. Anyone who willingly spends as much time as that boy does with Damian has a patience level close to heroic. Jonathan beams when he sees you, tugging you gently into their conversation about school, winter training drills, and the surprisingly fierce rivalry he and Damian have developed over chess.
You’re laughing at something Clark says when you feel a familiar presence behind you. Jason. He hovers at the edge of the group, almost but not quite part of the circle, close enough that you can sense him even before you turn your head. He isn’t talking to the Kents, not really. He’s gravitating toward you. Again.
You excuse yourself after a few minutes and head toward the kitchen in search of Alfred, who is preparing a plate of desserts with the effortless precision of a man who has catered more events than anyone alive. You offer to help arrange the gingerbread and truffles, and Alfred hums in approval as he hands you a small cloth to polish the edges of the silver tray.
You’re not alone in the kitchen for long. Jason appears once more as if pulled by some invisible thread. He leans his back against the counter beside you, arms folded, eyes drifting to the doorway where guests laugh and talk without realizing they are missing the most interesting tension of the night.
Alfred pretends not to notice the way Jason hovers. You try to pretend the same.
Later, while Alfred is busy elsewhere, Jason steals one of the gingerbread cookies clearly labeled for tomorrow’s lunch spread. He holds it between his fingers with a conspiratorial glint in his eyes before snapping it cleanly in half. He hands you the bigger piece without a word. You take it, brushing his knuckles by accident, and the moment lingers longer than it should.
He stands next to you during conversations like some sort of silent guard dog. You’re chatting with Kaldur and Arthur in the corner of the room when you feel him settle at your side again, his shoulder just close enough to feel warm. When Kaldur compliments your dress with an easy smile, Jason’s jaw tightens in a way you’ve only ever seen when he’s about to punch someone. His eyes flick between you and Kaldur, and then he abruptly excuses himself.
The confusing part is what happens next.
Kaldur excuses himself a few minutes later, drawn into a conversation with M’gann and Conner. You sip your drink and try to steady your thoughts. Jason was jealous. Or annoyed. Or something. It shouldn’t matter. But your pulse betrays you.
Five minutes pass, and then you feel someone approaching. Jason returns with a cup of spiked eggnog in hand. Your favorite. Not many people know that about you; you only ever have one each year, and you always nurse it slowly. You hardly remember mentioning it to him at all, but he remembered.
He offers it with a hesitant look, like he’s hoping this gesture won’t scare you off.
You take it carefully, fingers grazing his just once. “Thank you,” you say, but the words feel too small for what the gesture does to you.
Jason shrugs like it’s nothing, but there’s a faint pink along his ears that gives him away.
You’re about to say something when Damian strides past behind you. He spares neither of you a glance as he mutters under his breath, “Todd, your transparent pining is ruining the mood.”
You choke on your eggnog. Jason wheels around, bristling. “Keep talking and I’ll toss you into the snow.”
Damian lifts a hand in unimpressed acknowledgment and continues on his path, as if he has done nothing more than comment on the weather.
You laugh, light but shaky, because the alternative is freaking out. Jason flashes you a soft glare, something like embarrassment tugging at the corner of his mouth.
And you are panicking inside.
This is how it starts every year: little moments, warm glances, gestures that feel too deliberate to be meaningless. Jason draws close, as if he wants something he can’t say, and for a few weeks the world feels gentler. Then he vanishes into himself again, pulling away so abruptly you’re left wondering if you imagined the whole thing.
Feeling like you’re drowning in your own distress, you slip outside the second Jason becomes distracted by a conversation with someone else. You need a moment—not for drama, not for theatrics, but simply to breathe. You feel ridiculous for letting his small gestures get to you, but they always do, in a way that hits bone-deep before you can stop it.
The patio is quiet when you push open the door. Snow falls in slow, gentle flakes, not enough to blanket the ground, but enough that a few land in your hair and melt against your skin. The cold feels good. Steady. Honest. Through the window beside you, the lights from the party glow warm and golden, reflecting faintly in the dark glass.
You close your eyes and inhale, trying to steady the pounding in your chest. You can’t let this happen again. Not this year. Not after everything your heart has already weathered. You’re not sure it can handle one more lonely January, one more round of the disappearing Todd and all the ache that comes with hoping he might choose you for real.
The door clicks open a moment later.
You don’t have to turn to know exactly who stands behind you.
“You okay?” Jason’s voice drifts into the cold air, low and soft and dangerous in ways you desperately wish it weren’t. One sentence from him and your carefully constructed walls feel like wet paper.
“Yeah,” you say, but your voice betrays you. It cracks around the edges. “Just needed air.”
He steps toward you, slow and cautious, like he’s afraid to scare you off. Snowflakes cling to his dark hair. His breath clouds in the cold. For a moment you think he’ll keep his distance, but then he reaches out, fingers brushing a loose strand of your hair back behind your ear. His touch trails, gentle, down to your jaw.
Something in you stutters. Panic, longing, something too big and too vulnerable all at once. You step back before his hand can settle fully.
Jason’s expression falters.
Gently, with more nerves than you’d like to admit and more fear than you can hide, you force the words out before you can lose your courage.
“Jason,” you start, barely above a whisper. “I care about you. You know that… right?”
His brows pull together, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I always have,” you continue, breath puffing out in the cold air. “And every year, around this time, you get close. You do these little things that make me think–” Your throat tightens. “That make me hope.”
Jason’s jaw shifts like he wants to say something, but you rush on before he can.
“But then it goes nowhere. You disappear. And I can’t…” You swallow, the words coming out thin. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t let myself fall again just because Christmas makes you sentimental.”
His eyes flicker with something—confusion, maybe panic—but you make yourself keep going.
“I need to know if any of this actually means something to you,” you say softly. “Or if I’m imagining it. If I’m reading into things that aren’t really there.”
Your voice shakes on the last word. But you say it anyway.
Jason goes still. Completely still. Snow gathers in his hair, melting slowly against the heat of his skin. He looks at you like you just cracked open the plate armor he lives behind.
But he doesn’t say anything.
The silence stretches. Too long. Too telling.
You nod, even though the movement hurts. “Yeah,” you murmur, stepping back. “That’s… pretty much what I thought.”
Jason’s hand twitches forward instinctively, as if he’s going to grab your arm, beg you not to go. But he stops himself at the last second, fingers curling in the cold air.
He doesn’t touch you.
He doesn’t speak.
And for the first time all night, the snow feels unbearably cold.
You step aside and move to go past him, but Jason reaches out before you can slip away. His hand closes around your wrist, gentle yet firm, as if he’s afraid you might vanish if he doesn’t act fast enough.
Your name leaves his mouth in a voice you barely recognize. It cracks at the edges, raw with something he’s never let you hear from him. Emotion. Vulnerability. Fear.
He steps closer. The movement is hesitant, but his resolve is unmistakable.
“Please,” he murmurs, looking at you in a way that makes your heartbeat thrum in your throat. “Just… wait. Let me talk.”
You stand perfectly still, because you’re not sure you can breathe, let alone walk away.
Jason swallows once. Hard.
“You’re right,” he begins, eyes darting between yours. “I’ve been a coward about this. About you.” He lets out a slow breath that fogs in the cold. “I told myself that staying quiet was the smart move. That keeping distance would protect you. Protect me. Protect something I didn’t know how to handle.”
You feel your pulse pick up, a trembling hope rising despite every warning in your body.
“But it never works,” he continues. “I always end up back here. Wanting you. Missing you. Coming up with ways to be close without admitting why.” His voice softens. “I care. More than I ever meant to. More than I know how to deal with most days.”
Snow drifts down around the two of you, softening the edges of the world. Jason takes a small step closer. You can see every fleck of color in his eyes.
“I want you,” he says quietly. “For real. Not for a month. Not because it’s December. Not because I get stupid and nostalgic around the holidays. I want you all the time.” His jaw tightens, like the words cost him something to say. “I want to do this for real. Together.”
Your breath catches.
Jason continues before you can speak.
“And I love you.” The words tumble out as if they have been trapped behind his teeth for years. “I have for longer than I should admit. I was afraid of saying it because I thought I would lose you the second I did.” He shakes his head once. “But I’m more afraid of losing you because I stayed silent.”
His free hand rises, slow and careful, giving you every chance to pull back. He brushes snow from your hair, fingertips cold and raw. He lingers, barely touching you, but there’s enough contact for you to feel that he’s shaking.
“I’m not asking you to forgive all the times I messed this up,” he says in a near whisper. “I’m just telling you the truth. And letting you decide.”
He’s close enough now that your breath mixes with his in the cold night air. His eyes are steady, waiting, open in a way you’ve never seen before.
Something in you breaks open.
You move before he can think, before you can talk yourself out of it. You surge forward and press your lips to his. The kiss is soft at first, a question and an answer all wrapped together, then it deepens into something warmer and steadier than you expected. It feels like every year of almosts and not-quites finally landing in the place they were always meant to go.
Jason’s hands rise to cradle your jaw, holding you like you're something precious, something rare. You feel the steadiness in him, the certainty he never lets the world see.
When you finally pull away, your foreheads rest together, and the string lights from inside spill across both of you.
Jason’s voice drops to something barely audible.
“I’m not going anywhere this time,” he whispers. “Not ever.”
Merry Christmas to all those that celebrate! And to those that don't, Happy Holidays! This year, I've decided to write twelve one-shots leading up to Christmas. Each one will be based off of a different Christmas song! Hope you enjoy! :)
Sharkabb's DC 12 Days of Ficmas!
Santa Tell Me - Jason Todd x Reader
All I Want For Christmas Is You - Bruce Wayne x Reader
What Christmas Means to Me - Damian Wayne x Reader
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Clark Kent x Reader
Underneath the Tree - Dick Grayson x Reader
Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call - Jason Todd x Reader
Your morning is going horribly, a fact which is only made worse by the realization that you've forgotten what today is: your anniversary with Dick.
Across town, Dick's morning is going perfectly. That is, until he comes to the same realization you have.
Your alarm goes off late.
Or, more accurately, you’d hit snooze one too many times in a sleep-fueled haze, and by the time you finally roll out of bed you’re a full twenty minutes behind schedule. Dick is nowhere to be seen, which is not as much a surprise as it is the very obvious reason you’d been able to snooze the alarms in the first place. If he’d been home, the first chirp of your alarm would have woken him instantly. He would have been leaning over you a moment later, brushing your hair back with one hand while whispering your name and kissing your cheek, turning your morning into something warm instead of frantic.
He must have gone out for an early patrol. Or, knowing him, was still finishing a very late one.
You stumble toward the bathroom, already mentally rearranging your morning routine. Of course you’d planned to wash your hair today. Of course it would be on the worst possible morning. You turn on the shower and scrub yourself clean in record time, rushing so hard you nearly slip twice. You towel off and drag a brush through damp hair that is destined to dry into a frizzy, half-curly disaster.
You’re brushing your teeth when you finally notice the sticky note on the mirror.
It’s written on a blue square sticky note you recognize from Dick’s desk drawer, with a purple glitter gel pen that only he would use with absolute seriousness.
Have the best day. Love you. Back by dinner. -D
A small thing. A tiny, ridiculous thing. Yet the sight of it makes you smile in a way that tugs softly at your heart. Classic Dick. Soft. Sweet. Thoughtful in the exact ways that sneak up on you when you’re least prepared.
And then, of course, because the universe enjoys balance, you choke on toothpaste and spit it all over your shirt.
Your white shirt.
The next ten minutes unravel in a flustered blur of muttered curses, frantic outfit changes, and damp hair sticking uncomfortably to your neck. By the time you get outside, still adjusting your bag on your shoulder, the heel of your shoe catches in a sewer grate and snaps clean off. You have to hobble all the way back upstairs, swap shoes, and try again.
You reach the subway platform just in time to watch your train doors slide shut. The train pulls away with demonic levels of timing.
When you finally get to work, slightly sweaty and deeply annoyed, it’s only to notice that a new meeting has been added to your schedule. For ten in the morning. You are expected to lead it. You didn’t prepare for it.
You want to scream into your desk.
- - -
Dick Grayson’s morning starts perfectly.
Which is suspicious in its own way, because nothing about his schedule has been perfect lately. He’s been working so much that days blur, meals blur, even sleep blurs. Time slips through his fingers like water. But somehow, today feels good from the moment he blinks awake in the dark.
He’d stirred around three in the morning or an early patrol, but even that hadn’t felt painful. He moved slowly so he wouldn’t disturb you, propping himself up on his elbow to make sure you were still curled beneath the blankets, soft breaths tickling the pillow. You didn’t even shift when he slid out of bed. For someone known for their stealth and flexibility, he is absurdly proud of that.
He dressed quietly, kissed your forehead, and left you a note written with the brightest pen he could find. Beneath it, he placed your favorite hair tie and the small travel-sized pack of tissues you always forget to take but inevitably need. He refilled the Brita pitcher. He moved your keys and wallet to the hook he installed last month so you wouldn’t have to look for them in the morning. He even fixed the squeaky hinge on the bathroom cabinet before leaving, just because it had been bothering you.
It was, in his mind, the peak of Responsible Boyfriend™ behavior. The kind of morning that deserves a gold star and maybe a slow clap.
Patrol goes just as smoothly. No muggings, no trafficking rings, not even a wannabe gang on the streets. Just Dick swinging above Blüdhaven as the sun begins to rise, feeling stable and in control for the first time in weeks.
He lands on a rooftop near the river and inhales the crisp morning air. Breakfast burrito, he thinks. He’s going to bring breakfast to your work. He’s going to shower, clean up the apartment a little, and maybe even squeeze in a nap so he’s awake and energized when he sees you tonight.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
He fires his grapple again and swings around a corner. This particular arc brings him close to a row of vendors setting up for the day. Normally he doesn’t pay much attention to them while moving at speed, but today his eyes are drawn instantly to bright patches of color.
Flowers. A whole stall of them. Bouquets in buckets of fresh water. Fresh, full, vibrant.
And right above them, written in big chalk letters on a little blackboard:
“Anniversary Special – 20% Off!”
Dick stops mid-swing.
He doesn’t mean to. But his entire body executes a reflexive abort maneuver, twisting in the air so he can land on the edge of a fire escape. He clings to the railing, staring at the sign.
The sign stares back.
He blinks once. Twice. Then pulls out his phone. The screen lights up with the date.
The date.
For a moment, Dick feels as though his brain disconnects from his body. His stomach drops so fast he swears the wind is knocked out of him. His heart does something complicated and unpleasant in his chest.
“No,” he whispers faintly.
He checks the date again.
Still the same.
It hits him all at once. He forgot. Completely. Entirely. One hundred percent forgot. The anniversary. Today.
His entire soul exits his body through his fingertips. He can only see it floating away like a cartoon ghost, shaking its head in bitter disappointment.
“No, no, no,” he mutters, dragging a hand down his face. “How, Dick? How did you forget something like this? You left her a nice note. You refilled the stupid Brita. But you didn’t remember the one thing that matters today?”
He slumps against the railing, already picturing you disappointed, hurt, maybe a little confused. The guilt creeps in first, but panic follows fast behind.
He pushes off the railing, grapples upward, and mutters to himself as he launches into the air.
“Okay. Okay. Fixable. Very fixable. Dick Grayson does not mess up anniversaries. Dick Grayson fixes things. Dick Grayson–”
He breaks off mid-swing.
“–needs a plan.”
- - -
By the time lunch arrives, you are practically vibrating with the need to escape the office before something else goes wrong. And on a day like today, there is only one place capable of soothing your soul: the bakery next door.
You’ve been going there since the week you started this job. The coffee is unmatched. The pastries are heavenly. The place smells like butter and sugar and the warm kind of nostalgia that only comes from spending too much time in the same cafe.
The bell above the door jungles as you step inside. Marjorie, the barista who has unofficially adopted half the stressed office workers on the block, spots you instantly. Her eyes brighten as she sets down a wipe cloth.
“Well, good afternoon,” she sing-songs, throwing you a grin that feels strangely knowing. “What kind of special thing do you have planned tonight?”
You blink. “For what?”
Her eyebrows lift. “Your anniversary, of course. You and Dick? Or did you put a fake date on social media? I know people who do that. Say it’s good for privacy, but you never know, sometimes they forget their own–”
Her words fade into nothing.
Your brain flatlines.
Your anniversary.
Today.
Your heart plummets. You stand frozen in the middle of the bakery with your mouth slightly open while a quiet, growing horror creeps up your spine.
You somehow manage to thank Marjorie, though the sound resembles a squeak. You pay for a muffin you don’t remember ordering. You leave the bakery with the dazed expression of someone who has seen the void and waved politely at it.
The next hour is a mental tailspin of catastrophizing.
How did I forget our anniversary? How does anyone forget their own anniversary? Dick definitely didn’t forget. He probably planned something beautiful and thoughtful and perfect because he’s insane like that. He’s going to come home with roses. Or he rented out a rooftop restaurant. Oh my God, what if he booked a string quartet? He would absolutely book a string quartet. And I’m going to walk in tonight empty handed like a monster.
You briefly consider texting him, but it’s already well into the day. If you text him now, it will be painfully obvious that the realization only hit you at lunch.
You drop your head onto your desk and groan quietly into your sleeve.
- - -
Dick sprints across Blüdhaven like the city is on fire.
Technically, it’s not, but his brain certainly feels like it is. Every rooftop, every streetlight, every shadowed alley he passes through is accompanied by a looping montage of your relationship: your first date, the first movie night, the first time you fell asleep on his chest, the morning he realized he loved you. The memories flash in rapid, increasingly stressful succession as he tries to remember every gift you’ve ever mentioned wanting, even in passing.
He lands outside of the nicest bakeries downtown, the kind that sells pastries that cost more than his entire childhood wardrobe. He rushes inside, hair windblown, mask still on, and asks breathlessly if they have any cakes, cookies, muffins, or even a single lonely cupcake.
Sold out.
Completely, utterly, absolutely. Sold. Out.
Dick thanks the cashier with the robotic politeness of a person hanging onto sanity by a threat, then bolts outside and scales a fire escape to gain height. Three swings later he drops in front of a tiny boutique you’d pointed out last week, the one with the cute pair of boots you showed him on your phone.
Closed.
Early.
He stares through the locked glass door in pure betrayal, as if the boots themselves are responsible. He bangs his forehead softly against the glass, muttering, “Come on, just this once. Help me out.”
The boots, unsurprisingly, do not respond.
He tries the next solution he can think of: Alfred.
Dick pulls out his phone, hits the contact labeled “Alfred Pennyworth <3,” and lifts the phone to his ear. It rings. Then rings again. And again.
Then goes to voicemail.
The silence that follows is so profound it could be dramatic soundtrack music.
Dick lowers the phone slowly, feeling genuine heartbreak. Alfred has never missed a call from him. Not once. Even during emergencies. Even during naps.
This feels like betrayal. No—worse. It feels like Alfred has somehow sensed what Dick forgot today and has chosen to let him flounder as punishment. A moral lesson, Old English style.
“Okay,” Dick mutters. “That’s fine. I can do this without help.”
He attempts to book a dinner reservation next. He calls ten restaurants in a row, voice getting increasingly strained. Everything is full. Some hosts are kind. Some are indifferent. One sounds two seconds away from blocking his number.
At last, he gives up on dinner and goes for the basics.
Flowers.
He returns to the street vendor from earlier and buys the biggest bouquet they offer. It’s so large he has to hold it with both arms like an awkward, flowery toddler. Roses, lilies, carnations, tiny white sprays of something he can’t name—he takes it all. As he pays, a few petals fall to the ground. A few more fall as he turns. By the time he’s walking away, the bouquet is shedding like a nervous cat.
Next, he stops at a deli because it’s the closest thing open and he’s running out of time. They have chocolate-covered strawberries. The box looks wet. Not condensation. Juice. The kind of juice that says, “We have maybe one day left in us, buddy.”
He buys them anyway.
Finally, he ducks into a corner store to grab a card. He finds a cheesy one, pastel colors and a glittery heart, the kind he knows will make you snort-laugh. He pays, steps outside, and leans against a lamppost to write something meaningful.
It starts well.
Then the ink smudges. Everywhere. All over the card. All over his thumb. Somehow on his jaw. He stares at the card, defeat settling over him like a blanket.
He shoves everything awkwardly under one arm and heads home.
By the time he reaches the apartment, he’s sweating under his suit, his hair is sticking up in wild angles, and his bouquet is dripping petals behind him like some tragic breadcrumb trail. He looks like he got into a fight with a florist—and the florist won.
He opens the door to the apartment, sets the things on the kitchen counter, takes a deep breath, and whispers to himself:
“Play it cool. Play it cool. Do not let her know.”
- - -
You leave work early, bolting the moment your supervisor gives her distracted nod of approval. Years of reliability finally pay off as you sprint into the afternoon like you’re escaping a hostage situation. You dart into the first store you see, then the second, then the third. Everything good is sold out or astronomically expensive. You drift through aisles with increasing panic, trying to find anything that says “I love you deeply” rather than “I forgot the date of our relationship milestone.”
At the third store, you cave and grab overpriced artisanal chocolates. The cashier rings them up with the solemnity of someone watching a bad decision unfold. As you attempt to reach for wrapping paper, you trip over a stray basket and nearly eat linoleum. You take this as a sign from the universe and abandon the paper entirely.
You call seven restaurants while power walking down the street, phone pressed to your ear, weaving around pedestrians like a stressed goblin. Everywhere is booked. Even the quiet places. Even the weird places. You beg the hostess at the last restaurant on your list. She does not budge. She sounds almost bored with your desperation.
By the time you make it home, you’re sweating and panting and clutching a sad collection of objects that only generously could be described as a “gift”. You have two fancy candles that smell vaguely romantic, a handwritten card you’d scribbled on the train, the overpriced chocolates, and a stuffed animal that was supposed to be cute but now feels more like evidence of a breakdown.
You stare down at it all while unlocking the front door, trying to convince yourself that this can still be salvaged. You take a slow, steadying breath as you climb the last step, grip the doorknob, and whisper, “Okay. I can fix this. Dick Grayson will never know I forgot.”
You open the door to the apartment, keys still half-dangling from your fingers, and pause on the threshold.
Standing in the middle of the living room is your boyfriend. Your very disheveled, still-in-his-Nightwing-suit boyfriend. And he is surrounded by what can only be described as romantic chaos.
A couple of mismatched candles flicker on the counter. One is the pine-scented candle Barbara gave him last Christmas, the one that smells like a forest and a hardware store had a baby. The other is the warm vanilla one you and Dick found at the farmer’s market, the scent that always made him say, “This smells like home.” They do not blend. Together, they create an aroma that is aggressively festive in a way you’re certain nobody intended.
Your eyes trail further in.
A large bouquet sits stuffed into one of your crystal vases, but it’s a sad sight. SOme of the flowers look beautiful. Some look exhausted. Some are already drooping over the edge of the vase like they need medical attention. A few petals litter the counter and floor, forming a pastel crime scene.
Beside the bouquet is a box of chocolate-covered strawberries. The lid is open, revealing glossy berries that seem a little too glossy, as if they’re trying very hard to look fresh despite evidence to the contrary. Juice pools at the bottom of the container in a way you’d politely describe as “concerning.”
And next to that sits a card. A glittery, cheesy card you instantly recognize as something Dick would pick. The writing inside looks smudged, like he tried to write the note on a rollercoaster.
You freeze in the doorway.
Across from you, Dick freezes too.
For a moment, the apartment is completely still. The candles flicker. A wilted flower petal drifts off the bouquet and lands on the counter with a soft little pat. Neither of you moves.
His eyes sweep over you, taking everything in—the stuffed animal you’re holding in one hand, the new pair of candles you bought on your lunch break, the chocolates in a small gift bag, the homemade card you’d agonized over during your frantic pre-work scramble.
Recognition dawns on his face so clearly it almost sparkles.
And then it dawns on you.
You know exactly what happened.
He knows exactly what happened.
Your shoulders sag at the same moment his do. You point to the bouquet with a stiff, accusatory jab.
He points right back at the stuffed animal clutched to your chest.
There’s a long, silent beat where both of you just stare.
Then, simultaneously:
“You forgot too, didn’t you?”
Relief crashes into the room like a tidal wave, so loud and overwhelming that you both burst into laughter. Real laughter. Deep, belly laughter that leaves you almost doubled over in the doorway while Dick braces himself against the counter, trying not to knock over the mismatched candles.
The tension evaporates instantly. The panic, the guilt, the frantic scrambling—it all dissolves into something warm and familiar. Something that feels far more “you two” than any perfectly planned anniversary ever could.
Dick presses a hand to his forehead, laughing so hard he has to gasp for air. “Oh my god,” he manages. “I thought Alfred was avoiding my calls on purpose.”
You wheeze at that, stepping inside fully and kicking the door shut behind you. “I bought that stuffed animal in a panic. I thought you were going to have, like, fireworks or something.”
He gestures vaguely at the chaotic display behind him. “Do these strawberries look like fireworks?”
“No,” you say, wiping tears of laughter from your eyes. “They look like a health code violation.”
Dick laughs harder. The candles flicker again, and the apartment smells like a lumberjack baking cookies in your kitchen.
You drop your things on the table and finally walk toward him.
Dick’s arms wrap around you and you melt into him instantly, like your body has been waiting for this exact shape—this exact warmth—all day. One of his hands comes up to cup the back of your head, his thumb brushing soothingly along your hairline, and the other runs slow, grounding strokes down your back. The tension drains out of you in seconds. It’s absurd that the panic from earlier had felt so catastrophic, because right now, held against his chest, everything feels embarrassingly simple.
When you finally separate, you set your hands on his cheeks and give him a quick kiss. “Go shower,” you say softly. “I’ll order takeout. Something good.”
He nods, brushes his nose against yours with a sheepish little smile, and heads toward the bathroom. His bouquet sheds another petal on the floor. The box of collapsing strawberries is still leaking onto the countertop. The cheesy glittery card sits half-open, smudged ink and all. You should feel overwhelmed by the mess, but instead you just… smile. Because all of it, every ridiculous piece of it, is so very you and him.
By the time Dick returns, hair damp, dressed in his favorite pair of gray sweatpants and a worn Gotham U sweatshirt, the food is ten minutes from being delivered. He spots the delivery confirmation on your phone and lets out a relieved “Oh thank god,” like dinner was one more thing he was afraid he might’ve forgotten.
The panic has melted away completely by the time you both collapse onto the couch, surrounded by the collection of mismatched, last-minute gifts: the drooping bouquet, the faintly questionable strawberries, the stuffed animal you found at the drugstore, the candles he’d haphazardly lit. The whole place smells like pine, vanilla, and mild desperation. It’s perfect.
You curl your legs over his lip as you scroll through movies. Dick leans into you, tucking his face into the side of your neck like he has every right to live there. “You know…” he murmurs, voice warm and low, “I don’t need a perfect anniversary. Just this. Just you.”
Your heart flips. Not in a dramatic way—more like a soft, familiar tug as you realize, for the thousandth time, that you really love this man.
You turn your head, press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and laugh against his lips. “Next year… maybe we both set reminders?”
He grins, bright and boyish. “I’ll set ten.”
“Please do,” you tease. “Preferably spaced out, with alarms you can’t snooze.”
He nudges your shoulder. “You’re assuming I’d ever snooze something for you.”
“You snoozed your dentist appointment last month.”
“That was different. He flosses aggressively.”
You snort. He kisses your cheek.
The doorbell rings, and both of you jump to your feet like you’ve been caught doing something illegal. Dinner arrives: steaming Thai food that fills the apartment with the smell of lime, basil, and coconut milk. You set everything out on the coffee table and eat cross-legged on the couch, trading bites and stealing pieces off each other’s plates. Dick gives you the last spring roll without hesitation, which you privately note as the most romantic gesture of the evening.
Dessert is… an experience. The artisanal chocolates you bought are actually delicious. The strawberries? Less so. You both eat them anyway, making increasingly dramatic faces until you dissolve into laughter that leaves Dick clutching his stomach.
After that, you curl together under the couch’s throw blankets, his chest pressed along your back, his chin resting on top of your head. The movie you end up choosing is one you’ve watched together at least a dozen times, which makes it even better. Background noise. Comfort. Home.
Eventually, you read your cards to each other. Yours is sweet and dramatic in the way you knew would make him blush. His is chaotic, the ink smudged, some lines rewritten, but unmistakably genuine. When you finish, he presses a long kiss to your forehead and holds you even closer.
Somewhere near midnight, as the credits roll and the candles burn low, you find yourself thinking that it might be good you both forgot today. Not because you wanted the stress, or the running around, or the wilted flowers.
But because this—this messy, ridiculous, heartfelt recovery effort—feels more like the two of you than any perfect anniversary ever could.
You fall asleep like that, tangled up in blankets, in each other, in the warm certainty that the date didn’t matter at all.
What mattered was that, in the end, you still ended up here. Together. Celebrating in the ways that have always fit you best. Messy, chaotic, imperfect, and overflowing with love.
After finding himself injured and separated from the others after a mission, Damian seeks out somewhere to heal. He ends up at your apartment.
(A/N): I'm back!!! After a very long break and period of feeling insanely burnt out, I'm writing again! This is my first Damian work, so please be gentle. <3
It’s late—later than you usually stay awake. Late enough that it could probably be considered morning. The sun still hasn’t risen, and Gotham remains wrapped in that strange hush the city only gets in the hours when even criminals grow tired. You’re stretched out on the couch, half-buried under a throw blanket, trying to finish the last movie in the marathon you’d foolishly started too close to midnight.
The final scenes play quietly, the volume lowered so much that subtitles are your only lifeline. Even then, your vision is hazy with exhaustion, words blurring and drifting out of order. Your eyes slip closed for a moment, heavy and grateful for the brief darkness.
That’s when you hear it—a soft knock.
It doesn’t immediately register. At first you assume it’s part of the film, some muffled sound effect or distant background noise. But then it comes again, faint and deliberate. Your brain catches up a second later. You jolt upright, the blanket sliding to the floor in a messy heap.
No one should be knocking on your door at this hour. You have very few friends who drop by unannounced, especially at three in the morning, and all of them should be very much occupied at this moment.
You stand up slowly, orienting yourself, the quiet of your apartment suddenly feeling too sharp, too exposed. The floorboards groan under your bare feet as you make your way toward the door. Halfway there, instinct pushes you into the kitchen. You reach for the knife block on the counter and pull out the largest, heaviest blade you own. It’s nothing compared to the weapons the vigilantes carry, but it’s something.
Knife in hand, you edge toward the entrance. Your pulse thuds in your throat as you rise on your toes to peer through the peephole.
The hallway beyond is warped by the curved glass, but the figure leaning heavily against your door is unmistakable. The grey, black, and deep red of his suit are impossible to misidentify.
You drop the knife without a thought and throw the door open.
Damian Wayne nearly pitches forward with it.
He’s braced against the frame, barely upright. Blood streaks the armor at his ribs and shoulder. His forehead shines with sweat, dark hair plastered to his temples. His skin is unnervingly pale, a sickly shade you’ve never once seen on him. He still grips a Batarang in one hand, knuckles locked so tight around the metal that his fingers have gone white. Every breath he takes rattles, catching against something painful in his chest.
He lifts his head at the sound of the door. It takes effort. His gaze meets yours pupils blown so wide the green of his irises is nearly lost. But there’s a flicker—recognition, then relief so immediate it punches the air from your lungs.
Your name slips from his lips. A single breath, soft and unsteady. You almost question whether you imagined it.
And then his eyes roll back.
His knees buckle, and he collapses forward into you, his full weight knocking the air from your chest as you struggle to catch him before he hits the floor.
You stumble back a couple of steps, just barely managing to get your arms hooked under his armpits. It takes nearly all of your effort to drag him inside, and you feel vaguely guilty for the way his legs scrape limply across the hardwood, boots skidding with every step. Still, you keep him upright long enough to kick the door shut behind you.
Getting him to the couch proves even harder. His body is unresponsive, a full dead weight, and every few seconds his boots catch on the rug or thump against the edge of your furniture. You mutter apologies he can’t hear while you wrestle him into something that resembles a comfortable position. By the time you manage it, his eyes have begun to flutter open again.
You hover over him, breath shaky, eyes scanning frantically over every injury you can see. There are bruises blooming along his ribs and arms, dark and mottled. His suit is torn in several places, fabric shredded or punctured. A deep gash cuts across his ribs, bleeding steadily, though not quite as heavily as the stab wound high on his shoulder.
You hesitate, hands suspended above him. You need to tend to the wounds, but the suit still covers most of his torso. There’s no easy way around it. You’re going to have to cut it off. You rise quickly and head for the kitchen, digging through drawers and cabinets for the first aid kit and the sharpest pair of scissors you own. A knife would be faster, but your hands are already trembling. You’re not willing to risk slipping and hurting him more.
When you return, your supplies clutched awkwardly to your chest, you freeze.
His eyes are open now. Barely, but open. And something is wrong.
His entire body shivers in small, uncontrolled tremors. Sweat beads more heavily across his brow, dropping along his cheekbones. His breathing has changed too, shallow and uneven. As you come closer, you catch the unfocused, distant look in his eyes.
A toxin. Something potent enough to slip past his tolerance. Your stomach twists.
You pray it isn’t fear toxin.
You crouch beside him with the scissors, trying to work quickly but gently. You’ve just taken hold of the collar of his suit when his gloved hands reach up and press weakly against yours, pushing with little resistance. The motion is more reflex than intent, but it still stops you.
“Damian, stop.” You try to sound firm, steady, in control of the situation. The words come out softer than you meant, swallowed by worry. “Let me help.”
His breath stutters. His hands drop.
Whatever strength he had left drains all at once, his arms falling limply to his sides as his back sinks deeper against the armrest. The sudden surrender is alarming. Damian never yields—not like this.
You force yourself to stay calm. Later, you can be afraid. Later, you can fall apart.
You lift the collar again and slide the scissors into the fabric. This time he doesn’t fight you. You cut slowly, carefully, peeling away torn strops of the suit. With every section you remove, more bruises emerge, patterns of purple and blue spreading across his muscled chest and sides. Your hands shake openly now.
At least he’s not in any state to call you out for it.
Once the suit is pulled back enough, you reach into the first aid kit and begin working. You clean away the blood first, using sterile wipes and saline, trying not to focus on how much crimson stains your hands and the couch beneath him. Damian barely reacts. A quiet hiss here or there, but nothing more. You hadn’t expected much, but the lack of response still tightens something deep in your chest.
You move to the stab wound on his shoulder. The gash is ugly, deep enough that stitching it is unavoidable. You thread the needle with clumsy fingers and start closing the wound, each pull careful and precise. His jaw tenses but he doesn’t flinch. He might not even fully feel it through the haze of whatever toxin is in his system.
When you press gauze to the wound to slow the bleeding, his hand shoots up without warning.
You freeze.
His gloved fingers wrap around your wrist. Not tight, not painful, just firm enough to hold. He doesn’t push you away. He doesn’t pull you closer. He simply… holds on. Like your touch is the only steady thing in his spinning world.
“Okay,” you whisper, barely above a breath. “I’m right here.”
He doesn’t answer, but his grip loosens slightly, enough for you to ease your hand back to work while he continues to anchor himself.
You finish the stitches, tape down fresh gauze, then move to the cut along his ribs. You clean it carefully, avoiding the tender edges. He barely reacts to that either.
When you’re done, you stand quickly and rush back into the kitchen. You soak a cloth under cold water, wring it out, and quickly return to him. His eyes are closed again, breaths sharp and uneven, skin shining with fever.
You kneel beside him and place the cool cloth against his forehead. His body relaxes under the touch, the smallest shift, barely noticeable.
You smooth the cloth over his brow, brushing damp hair away from his face, trying your best to bring his temperature down before the fever can climb any higher.
Damian fades in and out of consciousness, slipping through your fingers every time you think you’ve managed to anchor him. The hours drag, and you’re stretching thin from exhaustion and worry, but you refuse to move from your spot on the floor in front of the couch. Your knees ache, your back threatens mutiny, and your eyes burn from trying not to blink too long, but none of that matters. Not while he’s like this. Not while his skin radiates heat and his breath stutters in irregular stops and starts.
You swap the cloth on his forehead each time it warms, dipping it into the bowl you’ve placed beside you, wringing it out with shaking hands. You smooth it across his brow, then drag gentle fingers down the side of his face, tracing the hard line of his jaw, brushing the stubble almost never lets grow long enough for you to feel. You murmur soft things—nonsense, really, comforting patterns of sound you know he’d mock you for if he were fully conscious. Words that only spill because he’s slipping and you’re scared and pretending you aren’t.
He doesn’t always respond. Sometimes his eyes flicker. Sometimes he shifts, reaching instinctively for a weapon that isn’t there. Some sometimes—like now—the toxin spikes without warning.
A shudder runs through him, sharp enough that you catch his shoulders to keep him from rolling off the couch. His breath comes in jagged bursts, inhaling too fast, letting it out too slow. His eyelids squeeze against the dim light, even though the room is nearly dark, and for a moment he looks entirely unmoored, as if he’s half dreaming and half drowning.
“What– what’s wrong?” you murmur, leaning closer, hand resting lightly on his chest. His pulse beneath your fingers is erratic. “Dami… talk to me.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, his lips part and a string of words drifts out. Soft, fragmented, almost melodic, but not English. Arabic, you realize, though it’s broken, pained, far from the precise, clipped cadence of the Damian Wayne you know. You swallow, unsure whether to be comforted or terrified.
“What was that, Damian?” you ask, kneeling beside him, keeping your hand steady against the tremor in his body.
His jaw moves, slow and uncertain. He tries again, and this time a word you recognize slips out, clipped and soft, almost a breath.
“Hab… habibti,” he murmurs. He mutters some more in Arabic, voice fractured and uneven. And then, “I… I’m… sorry… I–” His words falter, cut off, replaced by murmurs you can’t fully make out, half-whispered, half-groaned.
You blink. “Habibti?” you echo gently. “Dami, do you mean me?”
His fever-bright eyes flicker with recognition, something raw and unguarded crossing his features. He swallows thickly, lips parting. “Yes, you,” he admits, voice fragile but definite. “Always… you.”
A shiver runs through him and he collapses slightly further into the cushions, eyelids fluttering shut for a heartbeat before snapping open again. His expression twists, a mixture of guilt, fear, and something softer—something he barely allows himself to feel. “I… I shouldn’t… I… I couldn’t… forgive,” he murmurs, words jumbled and broken, half in Arabic, half in English. He’s somewhere else know, living through something you can’t ever dream of experiencing.
You place a hand against his chest, firm but gentle, trying to ground him. “It’s okay, Damian. You’re here now. You’re safe. I’m not leaving.”
His body jerks once, then again. He flinches sharply, recoiling as though someone just struck him. Not a pain like from the wounds, but something deeper. His fingers curl, digging into his palms as if bracing for a blow that will never come.
“Shh,” you whisper, hand moving to cradle the side of his face, your thumb brushing the sweat-matted hair from his forehead. “I’ve got you. You don’t have to fight it right now. You’re here. None of that’s happening anymore. It’s gone.”
He trembles beneath your touch, shoulders tightening. A faint moan escapes him. “I… shouldn’t… shouldn’t be here. I–” His words trail off, fading into incoherent murmurs, half Arabic, half English. Something about a name you don’t recognize, someone from another life, someone he hasn’t spoken to in years.
“Shh, Dami. Listen to me.” You press your palm to his sternum, feeling the uneven rise and fall of his chest, matching your breathing to his, trying to pull him back. “You’re not there. You’re here. You’re safe. You’re not alone.”
A small, strangled sound escapes him, and his hands loosen slightly, letting you hold him. His jaw slackens, eyelids heavy. The tension that’s coiled every muscle in his body melts just enough that he no longer seems ready to bolt or strike out. For a fleeting moment, he looks like the Damian of old photographs and rare childhood memories. Not a soldier, not a vigilante, not a tactical genius, but a young man, still figuring out how to breathe in a world that demands so much from him.
“Don’t… go,” he whispers, voice barely audible, rasping as though the words are nearly foreign on his lips.
“I’m not going,” you answer softly, brushing your fingers through his hair. “Not anywhere. I’m right here.”
His breathing begins to slow, even slightly, and he leans, almost imperceptibly, into your hand. His forehead tilts toward your palm, trusting and fragile. You keep your fingers moving through his hair, softly, grounding him as best you can.
His lips part once, murmuring again, Arabic lacing through what little English he can manage. You don’t understand the words, but the tone tells you enough—fear, guilt, longing. You whisper quiet reassurances, repeating your mantra: “You’re safe. You’re here. I’m not leaving.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, the flinches stop. His body softens against your hand, then the armrest, then the couch itself. He closes his eyes, finally surrendering to sleep, though every so often his fingers twitch, almost as if he’s bracing for impact that never comes.
You stay on the floor beside him, hand tangled in his hair, murmuring until you feel certain he is breathing evenly. His chest rises and falls with a rhythm that no longer threatens to stop. His fevered body relaxes against your palm, and for the first time all night, you allow yourself to breathe.
You don’t move. You can’t. Not yet. Not while he looks so small, so human, so unguarded for the first time in years. And as he drifts deeper into sleep, his murmurs fading into nothing, you let the exhaustion finally settle into your bones, grounding yourself in the quiet, fragile peace of this moment.
---
Damian wakes to sunlight bleeding through his eyelids. The brightness is thin at first, a pale suggestion of morning, but even that feels offensive against the pounding behind his temples. His entire body aches in a way it hasn’t in years, every injury overlapping until the pain becomes one heavy, indistinct pressure. There is the deep, throbbing burn of a stab wound, the sharp pinch of a rib injury, and the unmistakable soreness of someone who spent the night sleeping somewhere unforgiving.
For a moment, he assumes he is in the manor’s medical bay. But the air is wrong. It doesn’t smell sterile or metallic. Instead, there is the faint, warm scent of vanilla, and under that, cinnamon. Something softer lingers beneath both, almost floral. The combination is unfamiliar yet comforting in a way he refuses to name.
His eyes blink open. The ceiling is wrong too. Low, painted a shade of off-white the manor would never allow. His head turns, an involuntary motion, and the rest of the room comes into focus. A small bookshelf stuffed to the point of collapse. A mismatched pair of blankets draped over a chair. A mug on the coffee table with a faded chip on the rim.
He knows this place. He has spent more evenings here than he will ever admit aloud.
And there, slumped against the couch on the ground beside him, head resting on the cushion, is you.
Your breathing is soft, even, threaded with exhaustion. At some point during the night, your hand found his. Or his found yours. He cannot tell. His fingers twitch, startled by the intimacy, and yours stir as well.
Your eyelids flutter. Then you blink fully awake, disoriented for only a moment before your gaze lands on him.
He pulls his hand back too quickly. An instinctive recoil. A mistake.
You notice. Of course you do. Your expression shifts, not offended, but concerned in a way that tightens something in his chest.
You sit straighter, scanning him as if taking inventory. He recognizes the look. It reminds him of the way Alfred used to check on him after missions when he was young. Clinical, yes, but threaded through with a fear you tried—and failed—to hide.
Damian pushes himself upright, ignoring the way the effort sends heat rushing through his wounds. He tries for composure, for the usual sharp precision he carries like armor, but he knows he doesn’t manage it. His muscles tremble under his own weight, and his breath stutters once on the exhale.
He clears his throat. “I’m sorry if I imposed.”
Your eyebrows rise, almost incredulous. “Imposed?” You shake your head, slow and tired. “Damian, you nearly died on my doorstep. You didn’t impose. You… showed up. And I’m glad you did.”
He looks away. Of course you would say that. You always say things that disarm him without meaning to.
He lifts a hand to his temple, pressing lightly. Fragments of the night come back in stuttering flashes. Scarecrow. A toxin bomb. His father splitting off from him during the fight. Grayson’s distracted yell in the coms. Pain blooming in his shoulder. A rooftop. The city tilting. And then… your door.
“You are fortunate I did not bleed out on the way here,” he mutters. It is meant to be dry. It sounds closer to defeated.
“You’re lucky you made it to the door at all,” you reply. “If you’d collapsed even a block away…” You stop yourself. He hears the fear anyway.
He shifts again, uncomfortable with the emotion thickening the air. “Grayson and my father will be concerned. I was supposed to report back.”
“I already spoke with Bruce,” you say casually.
He stills. “You spoke with my father?”
“Several hours ago. He wanted an update.”
“You… have his phone number?”
“Of course I have Bruce’s number,” you say, like it’s obvious. “He gave it to me months ago.”
He tries not to show his surprise. He fails again.
You don’t push the topic. You simply rise long enough to grab the cup of water you must have left for him, then hold it within his reach. He takes it, testing his grip before raising it to his lips.
“You lost consciousness a few times,” you tell him, settling beside the couch again. “The toxin kept spiking.”
He stiffens. The memories are blurry, but the sensation remains. The choking fog, the heat behind his eyes, the way reality kept slipping sideways into old nightmares.
He braces himself as you continue.
“You were disoriented,” you say carefully. “And you talked a little. Mostly in Arabic.”
His jaw tenses. He looks away sharply. “I see.”
You hesitate. He can feel it, like the shift in air before a storm.
“You said some things,” you add quietly. “Stuff you probably don’t remember.”
“I would prefer not to hear the details.” His tone is clipped but brittle at the edges. “Whatever I said… it was nonsense.”
“It wasn’t nonsense.” Your voice is soft. Too soft. He hates how much that affects him. “You were scared. In pain. And the toxin brought up old memories. That’s not nonsense.”
He keeps staring at the window, the sunlight turning the edges of the glass gold. He is silent a long time. When he speaks again, his voice is lower.
“Did I say anything… inappropriate?”
The question is controlled, but the tension behind it is unmistakable. He is not asking about the nightmares. He is asking about the vulnerability. The parts of himself he never lets anyone see.
You hesitate. Because the truth is complicated. He wasn’t vulgar or crude. He wasn’t deliriously confessional. But he had been open in a way Damian Wayne never is. He had said your name like it steadied him. He had called you habibti. He had asked you not to leave.
You pick the gentlest truth you can.
“You asked me not to go.”
He goes very still.
His breath stops. A second passes. Then another, heavier. His throat moves in a small swallow, the kind that betrays far more emotion than he would ever otherwise admit.
Finally, quietly, almost too soft to hear:
“I remember.”
You watch him. He doesn’t look at you. He doesn’t explain. But something in his expression shifts, the faintest echo of last night’s vulnerability passing like a shadow behind his eyes.
He does not remember the words. Not fully. But the feeling stayed.
And that is what scares him the most.
---
Even though he’s barely able to move, Damian insists on going home before breakfast. His pride won’t let him rest any longer than absolutely necessary, even if he’s still pale and unsteady when he sits up. You don’t argue. You only text Alfred behind his back, asking to him to send a car before Damian can overexert himself.
He doesn’t notice. Or maybe he does and lets it slide.
When the car pulls up, Damian manages to stand. He’s stiff, moving like each shift of muscle has to be negotiated with pain, but he refuses your arm when you offer it. His balance wavers once, twice, before he gets himself under control.
He walks toward the door, silent and focused. Then he stops.
His hand lifts to the frame, fingers curling loosely against the wood. He glances back at you, and the look in his eyes is softer than anything he’s ever let you see. Not vulnerable exactly, but real. Unshielded.
You meet his gaze, steady and quiet. “If you ever end up like that again,” you say, “you come here. Do you understand? You come to me.”
Something shifts across his face—an expression you’ve never seen on him before. It’s not gratitude, and it’s not guilt. It’s something deeper, caught somewhere between acceptance and longing. Something he isn’t ready to name, though it rises there all the same.
He nods once, formal and precise, the way he always does when he’s trying not to feel too much. But his eyes linger on you a little longer than he means them to, held there by something he can’t pull away from yet.
The moment stretches. Then he pushes off the doorframe and steps into the hall.
You watch him go, hear his measured footsteps fade until the door downstairs clicks shut. Only then do you let yourself breathe out, slow and shaky.
Neither of you mention what happened last night. You don’t talk about the way he said your name, or the way his hand searched blindly for yours. You don’t bring up the fear in his eyes, or the warmth in his voice when he whispered to you, or the way he held on like letting go would hurt more than the poison in his veins.
You don’t talk about the word he used—the one you still feel echoing somewhere under your ribs.
But even in the silence that follows, you know something changed.
And so does he.
You don’t know what it means yet. You’re not sure he does either.
Warnings: descriptions of injury (not graphic), longing, slight angst
After pulling a coworker he secretly admires from danger, Clark Kent faces an even greater challenge: making sure she's okay without revealing he's the one who saved her.
inspired by this request from @britttzy267
(A/N: my apologies to the requester... i know you said during the talking phase, but this in my brain would so happen to clark with the girl he happens to have a massive crush on)
Clark Kent had been working late. It had been a particularly bad week in the city, the kind that meant Superman had been particularly active and the newsroom was left humming long past its usual hours. A string of burglaries had kept reporters scrambling, and just yesterday some intergalactic predator had torn through Metropolis before disappearing into the shadows. Guy Gardner had taken the lead on following up on the superhero side of it, which meant Clark could finally focus on his day job. The whole ‘Superman’ of it all, combined with hours of chasing leads and sources, had left him behind on his article. He now sat hunched at his desk, shoulders tight, staring at the half-formed sentences glowing on his computer screen.
The bullpen was empty. Everyone else had gone home, their desks dark and abandoned. Only Clark’s lamp threw a halo of light across the scattered papers and the coffee cooling by his elbow. He typed steadily, line after line, stubbornly pushing through the haze of exhaustion. He was just about to give in and call it a night, promising himself he’d finish in the morning, when he heard it.
A crash. Loud enough that even without Kryptonian hearing he would have caught it.
Clark didn’t hesitate. The laptop snapped shut beneath his hand, the chair rolling back on its casters as he stood. By the time he hit the rooftop, his tie was already cast aside, shirt abandoned with the rest of his disguise. A moment later, he was in the sky, cape unfurling in the night wind like a banner.
The sounds guided him: screams rising sharp with terror, the clash of metal, the frantic thunder of footsteps. They drew him downtown, toward smoke boiling up into the air and the awful sight of chaos.
The streets were choked with rubble and smoke for three blocks. Glass glittered across the pavement, cars sat twisted and smoldering, and civilians stumbled in every direction, desperate to flee. At the heart of the devastation stood the source: a massive figure, towering and grotesque. His skin was like fractured stone, gray and ridges as if carved from the earth itself, his eyes glowing an unnatural, furious red.
Clark scanned the scene, searching instinctively for any sign of a second threat. He found none—until his gaze snagged on something that made his chest seize.
Her.
The sharp-minded reporter who sat across from him day after day, her laughter spilling so easily into the cracks of long afternoons. The woman whose smile could light up the dimmest corner of the bullpen and made his heart clench each time, though it was so rarely meant for him. She had a way of noticing people, of drawing them in, making them feel less invisible. Too kind, too bright, too good. And for months now, he’d been carrying the simple, impossible urge to ask her out, the words hovering at the edge of his tongue every time she smiled his way.
She was standing frozen in the street, a paper bag of takeout clutched in her hand, wide eyes locked on the destruction unraveling around her. She didn’t belong here, not in this kind of danger. And if Clark had anything to do with it, she wouldn’t remain here for long.
He was already moving toward her when the creature turned. Those red eyes narrowed, and a searing pair of orange beams cut through the night, tearing into the building above her. The impact sent brick and glass and twisted metal raining toward the street.
Clark pushed forward, but he was too far. Too slow.
The shockwave hurled her backward, her head striking the pavement with a crack that echoed sickeningly in his ears even over the roar of collapsing stone. A jagged piece of rubble grazed her arm, another clipped her temple, and only sheer chance kept the rest of the shrapnel from finding her.
He landed beside her in a blur, crouching low, hands skimming over her frame in search of the words. Her eyes were unfocused, her breaths shallow, her skin pale. His stomach turned at the sight, but relief allowed quickly when he found no injuries beyond scrapes, bruises, and that terrible blow to her head.
He gathered her into his arms, lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all. She trembled faintly against him, a fragile warmth cradled to his chest. He held her carefully, one arm securing her waist, the other hooked beneath her knees, and forced himself not to linger too long on the press of her against him, on the way her lashes fluttered with disorientation as he lifted into the sky.
He set down several blocks away, far from the chaos, far enough that the air was clearer and the streets nearly empty.
Clark wanted nothing more than to take her directly to the hospital. To push open the doors, demand she be treated, sit by her side until he knew she was safe. The instinct to protect her, to guard her, roared through every nerve in his body. But the sounds of battle still called from downtown, and the monstrous figure still stood amid terrified civilians. He had no choice.
It nearly broke him, but he made the call.
He lowered her gently to the pavement, easing her against the brick wall of a quiet building. His hands lingered on her shoulders, steadying her, unwilling to let go until he was sure she could sit on her own. Her face told him everything he feared: pain flickering beneath glassy confusion, disorientation clouding her every breath.
“Ma’am,” he said, pitching his voice into that low, steady timbre the world knew as Superman’s. “Are you alright?”
Her eyes found him slowly, blinking as if she hadn’t realized she had been moved at all. “Oh.” The word slipped out on a gasp. “Superman, what–”
“You need medical attention,” Clark cut in, gentle but firm. “You took a hit to the head. Do you understand?”
Her mouth opened, then closed again. From the distance came another scream, sharp and desperate, and Clark flinched. He had already lingered too long, but leaving her like this was agony.
“I was hit in the head?” she repeated, voice small, as if testing the words for truth. Her eyes—those eyes that never failed to undo him—searched his face, unfocused yet still pulling at something deep in his chest.
“Yes.” His nod was quick, decisive. “You need to go to the hospital, okay? Right now.”
“Oh,” she whispered again, the sound more breath than voice. “Yes. Okay.”
It wasn’t enough. Her gaze still carried that far-off haze, her expression still turned by confusion, and every instinct in him screamed to stay. But she was out of immediate danger, and others were not. The clash of stone and steel in the distance reminded him of the choice he had to make.
So, with one last look—long, reluctant, heavy with everything he couldn’t say—he steadied her once more. His final words were quiet but unyielding: another plea for her to seek medical help without delay.
And then, with his heart dragging like an anchor, Superman turned away and launched back into the sky.
-
Clark Kent was early to work the next morning. He hadn’t slept a minute. After the threat had finally been subdued and handed over to authorities, after the dust downtown had settled and the cries had faded into silence, he had gone back to his apartment. He had gone through the motions of showering, changing, even putting together something that could pass as dinner, but the moment his head touched the pillow, his mind betrayed him.
All he could see was her.
Her, crumpled on the sidewalk. Her, pale and trembling, streaked with blood and dust.
He had been slow. Late and too slow. The plain, brutal truth was that she had been lucky. So damn lucky.
He’d thought about calling her a dozen times, or maybe sending some cautious text. Just to check. Just to make sure she was alright. To confirm she had gone to the hospital like he’d told her to. But Clark Kent had no way of knowing she’d even been downtown when the blast hit. Not without revealing the part of himself no one in that newsroom could know. She didn’t know he was Superman, and she couldn’t.
So he’d stayed awake through the long stretch of the night, staring up at the ceiling until dawn painted it gold. The image of her on the pavement lingered in every shadow. Breakfast was an afterthought, tasteless as ash in his mouth. By the time the city began to stir, Clark was already walking through the glass doors of the Planet, the first to arrive.
He sat at his desk, staring blankly at the glow of his laptop screen. He wasn’t writing, wasn’t even pretending to type. His mind spun in circles. Maybe Perry would come in and announce she had called out for the rest of the week. That she was at home, under strict orders from a doctor. That she was recovering. Surely, that would be enough to untie the knot of worry that had wrapped tight around his chest.
But when Perry strolled in, twenty minutes before nine, there was no announcement. Only the pointed look he shot Clark, the one that said in no uncertain terms, I know that article isn’t finished, Kent. Then he disappeared into his office without another word.
Still, Clark didn’t write. Jimmy arrived next, cheerful and unbothered, then Cat, then Steve, then Lois with her coffee in hand. Clark sat, waiting, pretending to focus on the blinking cursor while his nerves built higher. When he finally decided it was late enough to justify pulling out his phone, drafting some clumsy text to check in, the elevator chimed.
The doors slid open.
And there she was.
His heart nearly stopped.
She looked beautiful, of course. She always did. Today she wore a long-sleeved blue button-down tucked neatly into black trousers, her hair falling just so across her shoulders. Beautiful—but off.
Her complexion was several shades paler than usual, her movements careful and sluggish. She squinted against the harsh fluorescent lighting, winced when the noise of the bullpen rose above the usual hum of chatter. Even from his desk, Clark could see the unfocused sheen in her eyes, the way her posture slanted ever so slightly, as though her body were bracing itself against the room.
Guilt cut into him, sharp and sudden. He should have carried her to the emergency room. Even after the fight was done, after the city was safe again, he should have sought her out and made sure she had been seen by a doctor.
Because she clearly hadn’t gone.
If she had, she wouldn’t be here. A doctor would have told her in no uncertain terms to stay home. Instead, she was walking into the office, pale and hurting, bandages conspicuously absent from the cuts still visible on what he could see of her arms.
She needed to go home. No—she needed a doctor. Now. The thought pressed against his chest like a weight. Better late than never.
But it wasn’t as if he could just walk over and tell her. What was he supposed to say? ‘Hey, remember when Superman saved you last night and told you to go to the hospital? That was me. You didn’t listen, so let’s go now.’
That would never work.
He considered, briefly, claiming that he’d interviewed Superman after the attack. Maybe Superman could have mentioned her in passing, noted her injury. But that unraveled almost as quickly as it came. How would Superman know Clark Kent worked with her? How would he have known her name, her face?
It wouldn’t hold.
So Clark sat there, jaw tight, watching her fight to keep herself upright under the fluorescent lights. If he couldn’t reveal the truth, he’d have to find another way. Some gentler, quieter way to convince her to leave.
-
Clark’s first attempt at talking some sense into her went… less smoothly than he’d hoped.
Not long after setting her things down at her desk and getting ready for the day, she rose and headed into the break room for her first cup of coffee. Clark waited a heartbeat or two before standing, following at a measured pace, making sure his footsteps sounded casual and unhurried. When he stepped inside, she was already in front of the machine, one hand pressed against her temple as she pressed the button to brew a cup.
“Good morning,” he said, pitching his voice low so as not to startle her—or worsen the ache that was clearly carving into her skull.
She jumped anyway, whirling around with a hand pressed to her chest. Relief softened her face when she realized it was him. That shy smile bloomed on her lips, the same one that always managed to steal his breath. “Morning, Clark.”
In an effort to keep himself looking busy, he drifted toward the water cooler, filling one of the small plastic cups. “Are you alright?” he asked gently. “You look… tired.”
Her brow quirked upward. “Are you saying I look bad today?”
“No,” Clark blurted, panic lurching through him. His hand jerked, tightening around the flimsy cup, and water spilled over the rim and down his trousers in a humiliating splash. “Darn it,” he muttered, fumbling. He abandoned the cup altogether, tossing it in the trash and turning back to her with what dignity he could scrape together. “I just meant you look a little–” he gestured vaguely at his own face “–pale.”
She blew across the rim of her steaming coffee, studying him over the edge of the cup. “Pale, huh?” Her lips curved faintly. “Well, thanks for pointing that out. Next time I’ll bring blush.”
Heat crept up Clark’s neck. “That’s not what I–” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Never mind. I just… hope you’re feeling okay.”
“I’m fine,” she said, already turning away, her voice breezy but brittle in a way that made his stomach knot. She left the break room with her coffee, shoulders stiff, while Clark stood rooted in place, damp trousers clinging to his legs.
So much for subtle.
-
Later that morning, Clark found his gaze wandering toward her desk more often than he liked to admit. She sat hunched over her spiral-bound notebook, her brow furrowed as her fingers traced across the page. Her head rested in one hand, elbow propped against the desk, and her eyes narrowed as if she were struggling to decipher her own words.
Clark wasn’t surprised. He’d seen her notes before. They were a frantic storm of half-finished thoughts, scribbled in looping cursive with more ink scratched out than left standing. Normally, she’d read over them with ease, translating her own shorthand into the kind of sharp copy Perry loved. But this morning, she seemed to be losing her place, blinking hard, lips pressing into a thin line every time she squinted at the page.
The sight of her wincing beneath the office lights was enough to push him to his feet. He crossed the bullpen and returned with a glass of water, setting it carefully on the corner of her desk.
She glanced up, surprised. “Oh.” Her smile was small, weary. “Thanks, Clark.”
He nodded, trying to keep his expression mild, nonchalant. “You haven’t touched the water cooler all morning.”
Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, suspicious, before she reached for the glass. “You keep track of everyone’s hydration, or just mine?”
“Just yours,” he admitted before he could stop himself. She raised her brows, and he hurried to cover, cheeks warming. “I mean—I was already up. It was no trouble.”
Before she could press, he leaned across her desk, reaching for the lamp perched beside her notes. He turned the switch down, lowering the harsh fluorescent glare.
“Clark,” she said, half an exhale, half a protest.
“You’re squinting,” he explained quickly, straightening. “I thought the light might be too bright.”
She shook her head, amused but exasperated, and dropped her gaze back to her notebook.
“What are you working on?” he asked after a moment, peering at the mess of her handwriting. “Want me to proofread?”
“No,” she said instantly, fingers curling over the spiral binding as if she could shield the pages from his sight. “I’ve got it.”
He hesitated. “Are you sure? I don’t mind. Perry’s been breathing down everyone’s neck this week, and—”
“I said I’ve got it, Clark.” Her voice was still soft, but it carried a finality that made his chest ache.
He nodded slowly, retreating half a step. “Right. Of course.”
For a long second he stood there, hands twitching at his sides, torn between speaking and silence. Then, more quietly, he asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Her pen stilled on the paper. She didn’t look at him when she said, “I’m fine.”
Clark had heard enough lies in his life to know when one was being told. He lingered another beat, searching her face for some crack in her composure, some opening where he might gently wedge the truth free. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes, and in the end, he could only nod and force himself back to his desk, the weight of helplessness pressing heavy in his chest.
-
The afternoon wore on without incident, the steady hum of the bullpen broken only by ringing phones and the clatter of keyboards. Clark had tried—really tried—to keep his focus on his work. Deadlines didn’t pause for worry, and Perry was less forgiving than any threat to Metropolis he’d ever fought. Still, every time he glanced up, he found his eyes drawn across the room.
She hadn’t improved. If anything, the pallor in her face had worsened, her movements growing slower, more deliberate, as though she were trying to mask just how unsteady she felt. She rubbed her temples often, squinting at her notes, sipping the water he’d brought earlier but never finishing it. Every time she shifted in her seat, he caught the faintest flinch.
Clark forced himself to keep typing. He told himself she was an adult, capable of making her own decisions. He told himself he had no right to interfere beyond what he already had. But the knot of guilt in his chest only pulled tighter with every passing hour.
It was almost a relief when the newsroom stirred. The door to Perry’s office flew open, and their editor barked, “Turn on Channel Five!”
Instantly, the bullpen came alive. Chairs scraped back. Reporters abandoned their desks and rushed toward the mounted televisions scattered throughout the room. The usual crackle of newsroom chatter rose into something closer to a storm as anchors’ voices echoed over the screens, announcing breaking news about a brewing political scandal.
She rose with the rest, pushing back her chair. Clark watched her stand too quickly, watched the blood drain from her face, her hand snatching at the desk for balance.
Then, before she could take a step, her knees buckled.
Clark moved before he thought. One moment he was at his desk, the next he was at her side, catching her just before she could hit the floor. His arm wrapped around her waist, the other steadying her shoulder. He pulled her close, supporting her as though she weighed nothing at all.
“Easy,” he murmured, his voice dropping instinctively into that low, steady cadence he’d used the night before. The voice meant to reassure in chaos. “I’ve got you.”
Her head tipped toward him, eyes dazed and glassy. She blinked, confusion flickering across her face as though she were hearing something she couldn’t quite place. Something familiar.
He said her name softly, carefully, the way he had in the smoke and dust of downtown when he’d pulled her from the rubble. Her lips parted, and for a moment he thought she might say something—that she might recognize him. But the thought vanished in the next blink, her expression collapsing into weary embarrassment.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, though her grip on his arm tightened.
“No,” Clark said gently, firmly, the word weighted with quiet authority. “You’re not fine. You nearly collapsed.”
Around them, the newsroom carried on, most too distracted by the screens to notice. A few coworkers shot them glances, brows raised, but no one lingered long enough to question it. Clark shifted his hold, helping her ease back into her chair before crouching down beside her.
“You need to go home,” he told her, soft but unwavering. “You can’t work like this.”
Her jaw tightened, that familiar streak of stubbornness flashing in her eyes. “I’ll be alright. I just stood too fast. I—”
“No.” His voice was firmer now, though never unkind. “You need rest. And you need to see a doctor.”
She opened her mouth to argue again, then closed it, her shoulders sagging. The fight drained out of her in one long breath.
Clark stood, offering his hand. “Come on. Let me walk you down. I’ll call you a cab.”
She hesitated, pride warring with exhaustion. Finally, she slipped her hand into his, letting him pull her gently to her feet. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” he said quietly.
She swayed against him as they crossed the bullpen, leaning on his arm more than she probably realized. Clark matched her pace, careful and steady, ignoring the curious looks from their colleagues. He kept his touch firm but unobtrusive, guiding her to the elevator, then through the lobby and out onto the street.
The late afternoon sun was glaring off the glass towers, heat radiating from the pavement. Taxis rushed past in streaks of yellow. Clark raised a hand, flagging one down with ease. The cab pulled to the curb, and he opened the door, steadying her as she slid inside.
“Promise me you’ll see a doctor,” he said softly, leaning down so she could hear him over the city noise. “Please.”
She managed a faint smile, though it was thin and tired. “You worry too much, Clark.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he replied, and meant it.
Her smile lingered a moment longer before she sank back against the seat, eyes fluttering closed as if even holding them open was too much effort. Clark shut the door carefully, tapping the roof twice to signal the driver.
He stood on the curb, watching as the cab pulled away and merged into traffic, shrinking into the distance until it was swallowed by the city. Only then did he let out the breath he’d been holding.
The guilt came first, sharp and unrelenting. He should have carried her to the hospital last night, fight or no fight. He should have done more than leave her on the edge of safety with nothing but a warning. And today—he should have forced the issue sooner, instead of tiptoeing around her stubborn insistence. He had saved countless strangers in countless disasters, had shielded entire cities from ruin. But when it came to her, when it came to the simple act of making sure she was cared for, he’d faltered.
And then the longing settled in, heavier still. The memory of her leaning into him, trusting him, her hand gripping his arm as though she knew—on some instinctive level—that he would never let her fall. Every protective impulse in him surged at the thought, matched only by the ache of knowing she wasn’t his to protect. Not like that.
He wanted to tell her everything. Wanted to close the distance between Clark Kent and Superman, to let her see him fully and completely, without lies, without the fragile barrier of a secret identity. But the truth held consequences he couldn’t risk laying at her feet. So he stayed in the shadows of his own life, watching, worrying, waiting.
Clark turned back toward the Daily Planet, squaring his shoulders. The newsroom would expect him to pick up where he left off, to type out copy and chase leads as though nothing in the world had shifted. He would do it, because he always did.
But as he pushed open the glass doors and stepped inside, one thought lingered at the edges of his mind, echoing with quiet, bitter truth.
He could save the world a thousand times over, but when it came to her, he had never felt more powerless.
