🥀A Safe Place to Land🌹
A Jason Todd x Single Mom!Reader Story
Chapter Twenty Four:
Cracks in the Armor 🌹
Life with Jason is starting to feel almost ordinary—game nights at Wayne Manor, late movies, sleepy kisses—but small things keep tugging at the edges of that calm. A teasing comment from Dick about Jason’s “night shifts.” A sudden phone call that pulls him away mid-date. New bruises that don’t match his stories. Even Sophia’s teacher calls Red Hood “complicated.” You tell yourself not to overthink it, but Gotham doesn’t let secrets rest for long—and the man who swore he’d protect you might be hiding the one truth you’ve already started to guess.
Author’s Note 📝 Chapter 25 is in my drafts and ready to go out tonight or early tomorrow once my headers are done. Get ready babes. ~Prongs
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Your POV: Game Night at the Manor
Friday night at Wayne Manor feels like something out of a different life.
Sophia is curled up on the rug, sticky-fingered and feeding popcorn to Bruce’s very unimpressed dog.
Damian is reading trivia cards with military precision. Tim’s sprawled sideways across a couch that probably costs more than your rent, and Dick keeps “accidentally” changing the movie channel to anything with explosions.
Jason’s beside you on the floor, one arm stretched casually along the couch, pretending he’s not competitive. You can feel the heat of him, the quiet energy he always carries like a storm that’s learned patience.
“Who,” Damian intones, “is Gotham’s most handsome vigilante?”
Sophia sits bolt upright, triumphant. “Red Hood!” she squeals, sugar-drunk and certain.
The room explodes—Tim nearly spills his drink, Dick snorts so hard he has to set down the popcorn bowl.
“Oh man,” Tim laughs. “Even Gotham preschoolers are following the crime beat.”
“Yeah,” Dick says, smirking. “Word is Red Hood’s running an outreach program now. Teaches manners between shootouts.”
Jason rolls his eyes. “Hilarious.”
“Hey,” Dick goes on, stretching the tease, “guy’s got range. Shows up at all hours, never sleeps, grumbles through breakfast…” he trails off, giving a pointed look across the couch. “Sound like anyone we know?”
Tim hums. “Can’t place it. Definitely someone with anger issues and a leather jacket.”
Jason flips them both off without looking away from the TV. “You two done?”
“Relax,” Dick says, raising both palms. “Just saying, you’ve got that nocturnal glow lately.”
You laugh along, because that’s what everyone’s doing—but Jason doesn’t.
It’s just a second—his shoulders go still, his jaw tightens, and then it’s gone.
Sophia giggles, offering him a piece of popcorn, and the tension breaks.
You tell yourself it’s nothing. Just brothers being jerks. Just Gotham jokes.
Still, you file it away along with the late nights and little bruises.
⸻
Two weeks pass, quiet on the surface.
Mornings find their rhythm: cereal in a rainbow bowl, socks that never match, Jason texts good morning before the kettle boils and shows up right as you’re hunting keys, jacket smelling like rain and street metal. He walks you both to daycare and the clinic, coffee traded for chocolate milk, a kiss pressed to your temple on the corner because Sophia’s watching and squealing, “Ew!” like it’s a law of physics.
At night he doesn’t always stay. Sometimes he leaves after dishes and story time, shoulder brushing yours at the door, promising he’ll sleep. Sometimes he does. Other times the texts taper off after eleven—three dots, then nothing—followed by a 2:17 a.m. ‘Sleep easy’ that reads more like ‘I’m still alive.’
You don’t ask where he goes.
You tell yourself that’s growth. You tell yourself you’re choosing peace.
⸻
On Wednesday, Sophia’s daycare smells like paint water and butter crackers. Her class has taped “community helpers” drawings along the hallway—fire trucks with square wheels, stick-figure doctors with giant smiles. You’re buckling her into her little jacket when she says it, matter-of-fact:
“Mommy, teacher said Red Hood’s not a good guy always.” She still smiles at her drawing of the vigilante up on the wall.
Your fingers pause on the zipper. “Did she?”
Sophia nods, curls bobbing. “She said him is….” She works hard on the word. “Com-pli-kaarrr… complicated.”
You force a smile. “That’s a big word.”
“Mm-hmm.” She swings her legs, unbothered. “I drawed him nice though….”
You kiss her forehead, steadying the wobble in your chest. “Finish your crackers, bug.”
All the way home, the word sits behind your ribs like a tack. ‘Complicated.’
⸻
The next morning at work The clinic lobby is too bright. Phones ring, someone laughs too loudly near the copier, and Ren has three pens stuck in her bun like a battle crown. Jordan drops a stack of intake charts on the desk with a look that says if one more insurance portal logs me out, I will throw hands.
On the lobby TV GCN runs on mute. A red banner crawls past a familiar anchor’s mouth. You don’t have to hear it to know the cadence: VIGILANTE INTERCEPTS FALCONE CONVOY—TWO HOSPITALIZED, NO ARRESTS.
You glance away. Then back again.
The footage is grainy, rain-slicked. A black van, tires spitting water. A figure in a red helmet spinning into frame—too fast, too precise—and then it cuts to the convoy aftermath, flashing lights like seizures against the wet. Your stomach hollows. You tell yourself it could be any night. Any man.
Bruce Wayne walks through ten minutes later, dressed like a board of directors still lives under his skin. He smiles—polite as always—but it barely reaches his eyes
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning,” you answer, and you both pretend you haven’t seen the same headline, the same color red.
Ren elbows you after he’s gone—her whisper a sugar packet tearing open. “Gotham’s got more drama than a telenovela. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” you say, and it lands wrong in your own mouth.
Your Couch, Later that Night
The second sign doesn’t feel like danger.
It feels like almost.
A movie hums low in the background. The lights are off except for the soft gold spilling from the hallway, wrapping around the couch where you and Jason are half-watching, half-lost in each other.
His hand cups your jaw, thumb tracing lazy circles, his mouth gentle in a way that feels learned—like a language he’s still getting used to speaking.
You smile against his lips. “You’re really bad at pretending you don’t know what you’re doing.”
His grin is crooked, breath brushing your cheek. “You complaining?”
“Not even a little.”
You kiss again—deeper this time—and everything sharp in the world softens. Your palm slides up his chest, over his shoulder, then under the edge of his shirt, fingers brushing warm skin and the hard line of muscle beneath.
Until you feel it.
A ridge of raised scar tissue—long, vertical, wrong. The kind of wound that doesn’t belong to the living.
Jason flinches before he can stop himself. It’s small, but you feel the whole air shift. The tension isn’t the good kind anymore.
You start to pull your hand back, confusion spilling into your voice. “Jay, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.”
He’s already sitting up, tugging his shirt down, eyes fixed anywhere but on you. “I just—forgot I was supposed to meet someone.”
It’s a lie, and you both know it. But the way he says it—quiet, almost desperate—makes you let it stand.
“Right now?” you ask softly.
“Yeah.” He reaches for his hoodie, movements sharp, distracted. “It’s nothing big. Just—something came up.”
You don’t push. You just watch him pull on the garment, the hood coming up like armor. The warmth between you replaced by a chill that feels too familiar.
“Rain check?” he says, half a smile ghosting across his face.
You nod, trying not to sound hurt. “Sure.”
He hesitates, leans in, and presses a quick kiss to your forehead. “Lock up behind me.”
And then he’s gone—the door clicking shut, his shadow bleeding into the hall.
You sit there, the movie still flickering across the screen, your hand hovering over the place where his heart had been.
He’d flinched. Not like fear. Like memory. And that’s something you relate to far too much.
You tell yourself it’s just Gotham. But deep down, you already know—this isn’t the kind of scar you get from falling off a motorcycle.
⸻
Several hours later, the couch still feels haunted by what almost was. You fell asleep with his leather jacket wrapped around you.
You wake up to the sound of a knock on the door. The clock reads just past midnight.
Jason’s waiting on the other end of the door. His hoodie nearly soaked through.
“Hey,” he says, voice rough with wind and something else. “Forgot my jacket.” You let him in trying not to crowd him.
“Yeah… I noticed,” you say it with a smile, but it doesn’t come out as a joke.
He catches it. Of course he does.
When you finally reach for him, it’s instinct to lift your hand—to touch lightly to a new scrape at his temple, careful in a way you never were allowed to be with anyone else. He doesn’t flinch. He leans.
“Bike thing,” he says softly. The lie is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. “Chain slipped.”
You trace the air near the bruise but don’t press. “You don’t have to tell me,” you whisper. “But please… be careful.”
For a heartbeat, he’s silent. Then he exhales, eyes on yours, and does something you don’t expect: he doesn’t dodge, doesn’t charm, doesn’t deflect.
“I’m trying,” he says.
Two words that hold more than any story.
Your throat tightens. He dips his head to kiss your forehead—warm, steady, lingering just a second longer than habit—and the knot under your breastbone loosens and pulls tight at the same time.
“Want tea?” you manage, because doing is easier than drowning.
“Always,” he says, and the corner of his mouth lifts, grateful.
You make peppermint, the house filling with that clean, sweet steam, a shorthand for stay. You know it’s his favorite for when he gets back from wherever he disappears to.
You both sip in silence on the same couch. Your legs propped up in his lap. You stay like that till the mugs are empty.
Jason breaks the silence with a whisper. “I can’t stay… I just…. Didn’t want to leave things that way.” He sets down the mug but lightly rubs your legs.
You nod understanding as best you can “Just text when you’re in,” you say.
“I will.” He tucks a curl behind your ear, like he can’t help himself. “Sleep easy.”
You follow him out and lock the door, standing there with your palm on the wood, feeling the echo of his steps in the hallway, the echo of the siren still stuck to the night.
⸻
You don’t sleep immediately.
You sit at Sophia’s bedside for a while, because this is the only place your breathing evens out without effort.
She’s sprawled diagonally across the mattress, clutching the stuffed bat she swore she named Brucey. In the night-light glow, her lashes cast little crescents on her cheeks. You brush your knuckles down her forehead, and she sighs, rolling toward your touch.
“Complicated,” you mouth into the quiet.
You know what complicated is. You left it. You survived it. You promised yourself you’d spot it from a mile away next time.
But Jason’s not a labyrinth with a monster at the center. He’s a man who reads silly voices, whose hands shake sometimes when the adrenaline drains, who smells like rain and gun oil and peppermint tea.
He is not simple. He is not safe in the way civilian life manuals would recommend.
He is, however, careful with you and Sophia.
You aren’t sure that’s enough. But, you aren’t sure it isn’t either.
Your phone buzzes on the dresser, face-down.
You don’t have to look to know what it says.
📱JASON TODD [2:13 A.M.]
Made it. Sweet Dreams
You exhale through your nose, and smile without meaning to, and text back:
📱YOU [2:14 A.M.]:
You too Jason.
If you were to step to back the curtain across the room, you know you would see the edge a red helmet on the top of the roof across the street.
You don’t look though. Not tonight.
You crawl into your own bed and listen to the city’s pulse, to your daughter’s gentle sleep-sounds, to the small truth inside your ribs that finally stops pretending.
You already know.
You just can’t say it, not out loud yet.
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