What if the roles were reversed?
You, the ruler.
And him, the knight.
It was his sworn duty to protect you. To kneel before your throne, sword in hand, and bleed for your crown.
And when you died, for the world, for the kingdom, it was his task to hold the throne in your absence. To guard it from grasping hands and hungry hearts. To ensure that your sisters, or the sisters-in-law married to your brothers, did not seize the crown during the fragile limbo of your death.
He became your regent.
A man, entrusted with the power that was made only for women.
It was unnatural. Heresy, they whispered. The crown of queens, held in the hands of a man.
But he stood at the foot of your empty throne, unwavering. His hand resting on the hilt of his sword. His gaze fixed forward.
Then you came back.
Dragged from the void, scarred, breathless, unyielding. Remade once again.
Followed by your subjects celebrating your return, you walked into that hall, crown glinting beneath the torchlight, his knees hit the marble floor. His head bowed.
"My queen."
You met his eyes, steady and familiar. He had ruled in your place. And for the first time, you realized the terrifying truth:
The knight had become a king.
Rafayel:
"Darling daughter, meet Rafayel, our esteemed guest from Lemuria," your father beamed, introducing you to yet another match. Why could he not leave you be?
You smile politely. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Rafayel." You take his hand and press a light kiss upon it.
The man’s lips curl into a knowing smile as he pulls his hand away. "Ah… I see you don’t remember me."
Your father’s brow lifts. "You’ve met before?" An unholy light of assumptions flickers in his eyes.
"We have."
"We have not."
You and Rafayel speak at the same time.
Rafayel turns to your father, sipping his drink with practiced ease. "I happened to meet your daughter in the Sun Theatre, sir."
Your face warms in sudden recognition. Oh no.
But Rafayel.
"You see, I am a devotee of art. But your daughter, sir," He smiles, eyes glinting with mischief. "Your daughter is quite taken by it too. Especially the sopranos."
So that’s where he saw you.
In the sopranos' room. God dammit.
Of all the places, of all the people, this was how you first met your husband.
Zayne:
Your betrothal had been arranged at birth, with none other than your grandmother's dearest friend's son.
You grew up with him, playing in his father's gardens, stealing figs from the orchard, and chasing fireflies.
Now, years later, you step down from the carriage and turn to offer him your hand.
"Will this be alright?" Zayne asks, his eyes lighting up as he peeks eagerly into the apothecary.
You chuckle, opening the door for him. "Why wouldn’t it be? Who would dare object?"
"Your grandmother," he mutters, lifting a small glass vial to his nose and inhaling deeply. "She’d rather I follow your father’s footsteps and get involved in the household."
You lean against the shelf, watching him lost in his world. His brow furrows slightly as he tests the scent of lavender and sage.
"I think healing is your calling," you say softly. "How could I deny you that?"
He hands you a vial of peppermint extract. You lift it to your nose, the crisp scent tingling your senses.
"Besides," you add, "our household has my grandfather, my father, brothers, cousins, and brothers-in-law to manage things. I'm sure you can be spared from such duties."
Zayne hums thoughtfully, placing the peppermint in the basket for your nighttime tea. "They say you're under my spell. That I've bewitched you."
"And?" you tease, raising an eyebrow.
He leans closer, his voice dropping low. "I’m starting to think it might be true."
Sylus:
"Your husband is a dragon." Your sister glared at you like you’d personally spat in her tea.
Across the room, your mother, barely held back by your father—hurled a vase at you. You sidestepped just in time as it shattered against the wall.
"A good-for-nothing, mooching dragon at that!"
"Mother!" you snapped, crouching to gather the shards. "Sylus is perfectly capable of carrying our family name. And he has his own wealth, he just likes using mine." You shrugged, unbothered.
Your said husband was currently lounging in peace at your manor, wisely out of sight until tempers cooled from the whole eloping with a dragon situation. Not that Sylus wouldn't have enjoyed this? He would have loved getting on your siblings' nerves.
"He’s a wild man," your brother scoffed, sipping his tea like he sat on a throne of moral superiority. "You can’t just bring him into the family."
You arched a brow. "I could say the same about your wife. Whose mother, if I recall, is a tyrant."
Your brother choked on his tea. "Do not compare my wife to that beast!"
"Don't you dare call my husband a beast!" you snarled, eyes flashing.
"He is not welcome here. Not him, not his party of goons," your sister replied coolly, delivering the verdict like she had any right to it.
You smiled, sharp as glass. "Trust me, sister, your hospitality made sure of that. But it’s fine. He doesn’t need to be welcome here." You rose, brushing imaginary dust from your sleeves.
"I don’t need a damned family name to keep my husband happy."
Caleb:
"You have to look after him," your grandmother's thin hand trembled as it curled around yours. Her breath was shallow, strained beneath the weight of the sickness that bound her.
"Promise me." Her voice was barely a whisper, cracking under the effort. "Promise me you'll protect Caleb when I'm gone."
You pressed a kiss to her fragile, shaking hand. "No harm shall come to him. I will treasure him. I swear to protect him."
He had left not long ago.
Off to the aerospace academy, chasing his passion. One day, he would be the first man to lead the fleet, changing the history forever.
But he was sweet. Too kind and trusting for the world he was stepping into.
You worried the academy would change him. Make him feel insignificant, unfitting. Break his heart.
Surrounded by second-generation women, daughters raised with power and sharpened tongues, he was bound to face conflict. He was stepping into a space carved for them, and that made him vulnerable.
It troubled you. It troubled your grandmother more. Ever since his departure, she'd barely touched her meals. Her eyes followed shadows, haunted by the worry she could no longer hold in her hands.
"Please." Her fingers curled tighter around yours. "Look after him."
"I will."
You meant it. With the marrow of your bones, you meant it.
Even if it meant, giving up on your dream to follow him as a shadow.
synopsis — a third-year student at basgiath, you've been messing around with xaden riorson for the past eight months, but something's been off lately. if only he'd talk to you about it, instead of sticking you on babysitting duty.
pairing — xaden riorson x gn!reader
part one / three
⋆༺𓆩𓆩✧𓆪𓆪༻⋆
“Are you serious?”
You bite at the finger of your glove to tug it violently off your hand, words muffled by the leather. Syra rears her head next to you, shaking her neck in an attempt to rid the rest of the ice crystals matted to her scales. The early mornings at Basgiath were dark and icy, but Syra still insisted on going for a ride at dawn each day.
You’d been practicing motion-dismounts, so your knees were muddy and the tips of your hair were stuck to your skin with sweat. Syra towered above most dragons, which made the process of dismounting problematic — especially in combat situations — so you’d spent the past three months trying to figure out a better system than clambering down the dragon’s side.
At the moment, the sum total of your efforts had resulted in simply sliding down her foreleg, which left you in a free-fall for around five seconds and a landing particularly rough on your ankles. The first time Liam had seen you do it, he’d doubled over laughing, and you’d had to physically shove him out of the way to prevent Syra from taking a chunk out of his shoulder.
In front of you now, Liam is significantly less amused.
“Straight from Xaden,” he repeats. “He needs someone to run the first year’s combat class.”
He seems exhausted, and is trying not to show it on his face, but he’s still young enough that you can read the emotion in his eyes.
“Xaden can ask me for these favors himself.” You say, tossing the gloves to your side. You wince as you hear them fall wetly into the early-morning mud; you’d have to come back later to retrieve them, but bending to pick them up now would likely detract from the minor fit you'd decided to throw.
“Shoot.” You mutter, stretching out your neck as you stalk away from Liam.
Syra’s voice purrs in your head. No need to take it out on the child.
Your fingers flex lightly as she chastises you, and you wince at the tone that you’d used with Liam. The dew droplets on the grass quiver slightly as you swallow your frustration at Xaden and pivot back to face Liam.
“Sorry, man. Shouldn’t have taken that tone with you.”
Behind him, Syra dips her head approvingly. Steam flares from her nostrils as her wings flare out, evidently annoyed with manually dislodging the ice, and waits as you curl your fingers and melt the rest of the crystals, letting the water cascade down her scales and wipe off any mud clinging to her sides.
A tired grin pulls at Liam’s mouth and he shakes his head. “No worries.”
You note the bags under his eyes and frown. You’d always liked Liam. “You all right?”
“Fine,” he mutters, and you pick your way back towards him, stepping around some of the bigger holes of mud to squeeze his shoulder comfortingly.
“Look, Xaden and I aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come to me, yeah? He might treat you like a little brother, but I’ve got your back too.”
Liam chuckles. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.”
You sling an arm around Liam’s shoulders, dragging him toward the main halls of Basgiath. Darting a look back at Syra, you wave your fingers in a goodbye, and she snorts amusedly before rising into the air with a quick beat of her wings.
Her shadow darkens the ground as she soars over you, and you cast a mournful look back at your nice leather gloves.
⋆༺𓆩𓆩✧𓆪𓆪༻⋆
“All right, firsties!” You clap your hands together, enjoying the satisfying snap that echoed through the huge stone sparring gym. Emetterio had declared it an open-floor sparring day — pairs only, until blood hit the mat. You were just here to make sure no one died.
“Apparently Riorson has better things to do than deal with a bunch of recruits who can’t tell their heads from their asses, so you get me instead.”
The first-years were a few weeks out from Threshing, and already half of them had a limp. You frowned, then opened your mouth to finish your spiel, only to notice a particularly meaty one whispering loudly to a buddy in the back.
You point at him. “You!”
“What?” He scoffs, and you feel a grin spread across your face.
“What a tone to take with a superior, huh?”
The guy grins. “You’re hardly a superior, are you? Running around at Riorson’s beck and call.”
Well, shit. That actually stung a little. You say as much, thumbs hooked in the pockets of your cargo pants.
“But this is not the time to be airing my relationship issues, yeah?” You finish. “Name?”
A small, thin girl near the front with a black braid that gradually tapers into gray speaks up when he stays silent. “Barlowe.”
You smile thankfully at her, tilting your head slightly. Huh, you could have sworn that you know this girl…
“Alright, big guy. C’mere.” You crook a finger at Barlowe, and a smug smirk spreads across his face before he lumbers to the front of the crowd, pushing aside a few of the cadets.
You settle into a loose stance, shrugging off your jacket. “Take your best shot.”
Barlowe laughs, low and gruff. “I’d fucking kill you, are you serious?”
You crack your neck and cut another glance toward the girl with the braid. She had Mira’s nose, you realize suddenly, with the same gentle curve. Wasn’t Mira’s little sister a scribe? What was she doing here?
You’re wrenched from your train of thought when you catch Barlowe’s fist rocketing towards your face out of the corner of your eye, and you catch his wrist easily, using his momentum to pull him forward until he tumbles past you and hits the ground with an oomph. The gym goes quiet long enough for you to hear Syra’s amused laugh in the back of your mind.
“All right. Any other questions?” You ask, the room still silent. Passing by Barlowe, you dig the tip of your boot into his side before stepping over him. “Fantastic. Let’s pair off, yeah?”
You separate the first years into pairs to spar and send them off with clear instructions to try and take it easy. Xaden always ran these things with an iron fist — which was important to weed out the ones who wouldn’t make it much further, but the kids looked exhausted.
You wandered between them, offering light critiques and fixing forms. You kept an eye on Mira’s little sister out of the corner of your eye; she looked too fragile to truly have rider potential, but you knew how hardcore Mira was. You were sure her little sister had inherited some of her will.
When you see her get tossed on her ass by her combat partner, you approach her and offer a hand up. She takes it reluctantly after a second, and you haul her to her feet. Dismissing her partner, you settle into a relaxed stance across from her.
“Let’s try that again, huh? You’re… Violet, right?”
She lunges before you’ve even finished speaking. You pivot, catch her forearm, and redirect her. Tense in your grip, she nods curtly, once.
“Yeah.”
“Alright, alright. You’re smaller than the rest of them, so the same front-on tactics aren’t going to work. You need to be trickier about it.”
“I’m fine like this,” She says, and you smile easily, releasing her. You demonstrate an easier move for her; something that uses her body momentum and not weight, a takedown that your mother had taught you when you were younger.
“Just a little friendly advice,” You offer, and you watch her soften slightly. “Let’s try.”
You get slightly caught up with Mira’s little sister for the rest of the training period, but still make sure to take periodic glances around the room to make sure nobody’s killed anyone, offering minor corrections at a shout across the gym.
When the session’s over, Violet’s notably more confident with the takedown, even managing to take you nearly off your feet when you’d been slightly distracted by another pair. You whistle, impressed.
“Very nice.” You say, and she ducks her head, but you can see the smile tugging at her cheeks.
“Thanks.”
⋆༺𓆩𓆩✧𓆪𓆪༻⋆
Xaden catches you after dinner in the field. You’re sprawled in the grass, propped up against Syra’s side, when Sgaeyl lands in a flurry of motion and Xaden dismounts.
Syra snorts. The prodigal son returns.
You don’t look up immediately, content to let him come to you. You idly flip the page on the history manual you’d smuggled out of the scribe quadrant, humming softly. A shadow curls around your calf and you shake it off.
“What?”
“Are you still mad?” He asks, approaching. Syra growls slightly, a warning, and he eases off. Sgaeyl shoots her a dirty look, but Syra doesn’t budge.
“Just a little,” You say, still flipping through your book.
He groans, head tipping toward the sky, and you try not to let the long column of his throat distract you. “Sorry. I know you had other things to do today. I just couldn't be there.”
You snap the book shut, climbing to your feet. “Why not?”
He arches an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Xaden, I’m not an idiot. I know that something’s going on. Liam’s exhausted, you’re exhausted… you’re making all of the flights past the border, lately. What’s happening?”
His jaw locks. “Just patrols. Routine flights. Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Patrols? Are you kidding me?” You take a step closer, threading your fingers gently through his hair. “I can help. You just need to let me in.”
Xaden catches your wrist, fingers pressing into your pulse point. He looks desperate.
“I… I can’t. Not with this.”
It stings. “Okay.”
His grip tightens as you try to pull away. “No, you’re right. I am exhausted. I’m so fucking tired, and I just…”
You step back into his space, folding him into your arms. He goes easily, breathing out a sound that might have been your name. His shadows lick at your ankles. Syra shifts next to you.
“Just let me in, Xaden. What's happening?”
He pauses, and sucks in a reluctant breath, clearly torn.
"It's a marked thing." He grounds out, finally, and you frown.
Moretti is watching for the connection. So the Batfam gives him one. With Sophia safe at Wayne Manor, Reader steps into the strategy room instead of the sidelines, bringing a piece of her past to the board that no one else could have found. Jason moves into Gotham with a false trail to lay, Barbara controls the pattern, Tim muddies the data, Dick makes noise, and Moretti proves exactly why he is not a man to underestimate.
A/N: Thank you all so much for sticking with me while I find my rhythm again after the hiatus 😅 This chapter was one I really needed to get right because it shifts us from reaction into strategy. We are officially back on the board now: Reader is not bait, Jason is not spiraling, Sophia is safe, and Moretti is finally starting to understand that he is not the only one who knows how to play the long game. 🖤
🥀 A Safe Place to Land Master List 🌹
Reader POV
By the time you return to Wayne Manor, Sophia has apparently declared martial law in the drawing room.
You hear her before Alfred even gets the front door fully open—her little voice carrying through the entry hall with grave, three-year-old authority.
“No, Titus. Tea first.”
Alfred’s mouth twitches.
“I’m afraid the household has undergone something of a regime change in your absence, miss.”
You laugh before you can stop yourself, the sound loosening something in your chest as you step inside. “How bad is it?”
“Master Damian has been assigned snack distribution. Master Titus has been invited to tea. Master Ace has appointed himself personal escort.” Alfred reaches gently for your coat. “All appear to have accepted their responsibilities with admirable composure.”
From somewhere deeper in the house, Damian’s voice rises in immediate contradiction.
“Pennyworth, the dog is not drinking imaginary tea. He is contaminating the service.”
Sophia giggles.
Your heart folds in on itself.
You find them on the rug near the long windows, afternoon light pouring across the floor in warm squares. Sophia is seated in the middle of an elaborate tea party constructed from plastic cups, stuffed animals, and what appears to be one of Damian’s chess pieces seated in a saucer.
Ace is stretched out beside her, patient and watchful, his head resting near her knee. Titus sits on her other side with the dignified misery of a creature who has accepted that love occasionally requires humiliation.
Damian kneels across from her in immaculate posture, holding a tiny pink cup between two fingers like it might be evidence.
Sophia sees you.
“Mommy!”
She launches herself upright so quickly that Ace scrambles to move with her, immediately shadowing her small sprint across the room.
You catch her against you, the impact forcing you back half a step. Her arms wind around your neck, warm and sticky and familiar, and you hold her tighter than you mean to.
Not too tight.
Never enough for her to notice.
“Hi, baby,” you whisper into her curls.
“I had tea,” she tells you immediately. “And crackers. And Damian said Titus can’t eat the blue cup.”
“That is correct,” Damian says from the rug. “It is plastic.”
You look over Sophia’s shoulder. “Thank you for maintaining order.”
He gives you a curt nod, like this is an assignment he has performed to expectation and no more.
“She was adequately entertained,” he says. After a slight pause, quieter, “She did ask when you would return.”
Your throat tightens.
Sophia pulls back from your shoulder, one hand still curled in the collar of your shirt. “You came back.”
“Of course I came back.”
She accepts that immediately. No fear. No desperate grip. Just certainty, simple and clean.
Then she points toward the floor. “You have tea now.”
You allow yourself to be dragged into the middle of the rug.
For the next twenty minutes, you drink invisible tea from a cup far too small for your fingers while Sophia explains the complex social hierarchy of her stuffed animals. Ace shifts every time she shifts. Titus permits a purple napkin to be placed over one paw with monumental patience. Damian corrects her when she tries to serve a wooden block as a pastry, then quietly accepts it when she informs him it is actually cake.
You watch her laugh.
You watch her lean into Ace’s shoulder when she loses her balance, trusting without even thinking about it.
You watch Damian reach out automatically to steady her cup before it spills onto the rug, his movements careful enough that she never notices she needed help.
She misses you.
But she does not need rescuing from missing you.
The distinction hurts and heals in the same breath.
When Alfred appears at the doorway with a plate of real sandwiches, Sophia scrambles up again, instantly distracted.
“Lunch,” Damian announces with palpable relief, removing the tiny cup from his hand.
“You were doing wonderfully,” you tell him.
His expression goes flat. “I have faced armed assassins with less arbitrary rules.”
Sophia beams at him. “More tea later.”
Damian visibly calculates whether fleeing the country is an option.
You laugh softly, and that is when you feel the presence behind you.
Jason stands in the doorway.
He is dressed like himself instead of Red Hood—dark jeans, heavy boots, worn jacket—but the night still sits around him in quiet layers. His eyes go to Sophia first, as if checking the one fact he already knows to be true.
Safe.
Laughing.
Fine.
Then his gaze finds you.
The last time you saw him, he stepped into Gotham carrying the warmth of your hand and a decision neither of you could afford to treat lightly.
Now, instead of hesitating, he crosses the room.
He doesn’t make a performance out of it. Doesn’t pull you into him in front of everyone. His hand simply settles at the small of your back as he bends to press a quiet kiss near your temple.
Private, even here.
Deliberate.
Your breath catches anyway.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
“Hey.”
Sophia spots him before you can say more.
“Jason!” She abandons the sandwiches with shocking speed and barrels toward him.
Jason catches her easily, hauling her up against his side with a grunt that is mostly theater.
“Hey, trouble.”
“I had tea.”
“So I heard.”
“With dogs.”
His gaze flicks toward Titus, who still has the napkin over his paw.
“Looks like they loved it.”
“They did,” Sophia says confidently.
Damian rises to his feet, dignity reclaimed now that the tea service has been abandoned. “Todd. Brown and Drake arrived ten minutes ago. Gordon is in the Cave.”
Jason’s expression shifts.
Not cold. Not distant.
Focused.
His hand stays against your back.
“Time?” you ask.
He looks at you for half a second, checking—not for weakness, not for permission to exclude you.
For readiness.
You nod once.
“Yeah,” he says. “Time.”
⸻
The Cave is colder than the rest of the house.
Not unpleasantly so. Just deliberately. Stone and steel and screens lit in shades of blue, the underground air carrying that faint mineral damp beneath the clean scent of expensive technology.
You have been down here before.
Still, walking in with Jason’s hand brushing yours and Barbara waiting at the main console feels different.
This is not an invitation to witness.
It is an invitation to participate.
Barbara turns slightly as you approach, her wheelchair positioned within a crescent of monitors that paint pale light across her face. Tim sits at a secondary station with two laptops open and a drink beside him that looks like it has enough caffeine to qualify as a controlled substance. Dick leans against the edge of the platform, arms folded, looking far too cheerful for a meeting involving organized crime.
Bruce is not at the center console.
He stands farther back near the stairs, silent, present, letting this belong to them.
To you.
Dick looks up first. “There they are. Gotham’s most emotionally responsible tactical couple.”
Jason stops short. “I can leave.”
“You absolutely cannot,” Barbara says without turning. “Sit down.”
“I’m not sitting.”
“Then brood vertically and try not to interrupt.”
You bite the inside of your cheek.
Jason sees it. Narrows his eyes at you.
You smile sweetly.
That gets the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth before he schools it away.
Barbara brings up a map of Gotham on the central screen.
Red markers blink across the Narrows, the East End, the waterfront, and several commercial blocks downtown. None touch your apartment. None touch Wayne Manor. They are scattered, almost meaningless until Barbara layers a second set of data over them.
Red Hood appearances.
Not all of them Jason’s. You can tell by the look he gives the screen.
“Someone’s adding sightings,” he says.
“Someone’s asking for sightings,” Tim corrects, fingers moving across his keyboard. “There’s a difference. Street-level chatter is being scraped for Hood references. Locations. Timing. Who he disrupts. Who he doesn’t.”
Dick tilts his head toward the map. “Basically, someone’s making a very creepy murder scrapbook.”
“Thank you for the technical summary,” Barbara says dryly.
“You’re welcome.”
Barbara zooms in on a narrow cluster near the waterfront.
“Moretti knows an information request around your name produced a response,” she says, looking at you. “He does not know the nature of that response. He does not know about Sophia. He does not know about you and Jason.”
She glances at Jason.
“But he has begun asking why Red Hood activity has started scraping the edges of his network.”
Jason’s jaw tightens, but his body does not shift away from you.
That matters.
“So we give him a reason,” you say.
Barbara’s mouth curves slightly. “Exactly.”
Tim turns one laptop toward the rest of you. “Moretti’s money is fragmented. Restaurants. Transportation fronts. Nightclubs. Small warehouse holding companies. We introduce enough disruption in one lane, and it becomes the obvious explanation for Hood’s interest.”
“Territory,” Jason says.
“Or trafficking,” Dick offers.
“Weapons,” Barbara says. “Cleaner. Believable. Red Hood intercepts a weapons route tied to one of Moretti’s fronts. Tim seeds transaction inconsistencies. Dick makes visible noise elsewhere to widen the apparent investigation. Jason applies pressure where they can see him do it.”
Jason looks at the board. “And he stops wondering about her.”
Barbara’s eyes remain on the screen. “He starts having better questions to ask.”
Not a promise.
A move.
You step closer to the display, reading the list of businesses as Tim scrolls.
Most of them mean nothing. Names designed to mean nothing. Holding companies named for dead relatives and streets that do not exist. An import office. Two bars. A private lounge.
The name sits there clean and ordinary, white letters against a dark background.
But the memory is neither clean nor ordinary.
A narrow staircase with a red carpet too plush for the neighborhood. A gold-framed mirror near the bathrooms. Nico’s hand at your waist, not affectionate—guiding. Positioning. Men in expensive jackets laughing too softly upstairs while you waited at the bar with a drink you had not asked for.
Jason says your name softly.
You realize you have gone quiet.
“That one,” you say.
Barbara’s attention sharpens. “You know it?”
You nod once.
“Nico used to take me there.” Your voice is steadier than the inside of your chest. “Not often. Only when he had meetings he didn’t want near the usual clubs.”
Tim is already pulling up a deeper file.
“What did he call it?” Barbara asks.
You search the memory, letting it surface without letting it swallow you.
“Neutral ground,” you say finally. “He said nobody did business there unless they wanted everybody else to know they were still playing nice.”
Dick’s expression loses its humor.
Jason does not say anything.
His hand comes to rest against the edge of the console beside yours. Not touching you. Near enough that you can choose to close the distance.
You do.
Your little finger hooks around his.
The contact steadies without interrupting.
Barbara turns back to the map. “A neutral location tied to Moretti’s holding structure gives us exactly what we need. If Hood disrupts a transaction connected to Vesper, it reads like he found a business route. Not a personal one.”
Tim nods. “I can seed transfer data through three adjacent fronts. Enough to imply inventory movement without manufacturing anything that would pull innocent people into it.”
“And I,” Dick says, recovering just enough brightness to be himself again, “can be the extremely handsome distraction with cheekbones.”
Barbara closes her eyes briefly. “That is not an operational designation.”
“It should be.”
Jason ignores both of them, gaze still on you. “What else do you remember?”
The question lands gently.
No you don’t have to.
No attempt to wrap you in cotton and carry you out of the room.
Just trust that you know what you can give.
You look back at the screen.
“Back entrance off the alley,” you say. “No sign on the door. Staff smoked out there during private events. Nico never parked in front. He’d have someone drop us half a block away.”
Tim types it in.
“There was an office upstairs,” you continue. “He got angry once because I started walking up after him. Said the rooms up there weren’t for girlfriends.”
Jason’s fingers shift against yours.
Not tightening.
Just present.
“What night was busiest?” Barbara asks.
“Thursdays,” you say. “Late. After ten.”
Dick glances at the clock on the screen. “Convenient.”
Tonight is Thursday.
The room changes around that fact.
Not panic.
Commitment.
Barbara begins assigning roles before anyone needs to ask.
“Tim, route the financial breadcrumb through Vesper and one shipping subsidiary. Keep it plausible. Nothing too tidy.”
“Already on it.”
“Dick, you make noise on the south side. Nothing connected to Moretti. I want Hood’s supposed investigation to look wider than it is.”
Dick salutes. “One dazzling red herring, coming up.”
“Jason.” Barbara’s voice stills the air. “You hit the transfer connected to Vesper. You take records. You leave witnesses breathing and annoyed.”
Jason’s mouth curves without humor. “My specialty.”
“And you do not improvise because someone says the wrong thing about her.”
There it is.
The red line.
Jason’s gaze lowers for one second, then returns to the screen.
“I won’t.”
Barbara turns to you.
“You stay here tonight. With Sophia. Once the operation begins, movement from you creates noise we don’t need.”
It is practical. Straightforward. Not a cage.
You nod. “Okay.”
Jason glances at you, a question in the look.
You squeeze his finger once before letting go.
“I’m okay with that,” you tell him.
He believes you.
That is another thing that feels new.
⸻
By the time the meeting breaks, Sophia has apparently finished lunch, overthrown Damian’s initial tea-party restrictions, and convinced Alfred that dessert is a legitimate afternoon activity.
You find her in the kitchen with a smear of chocolate at the corner of her mouth and Ace stationed beside her chair in transparent hope.
“Mommy!” she announces when you walk in. “I got cake.”
“I can see that.”
“Damian got cake too.”
Damian sits at the island with a plate in front of him and the expression of someone enduring public slander.
“I was served against my will.”
Alfred sets another plate on the counter before you. “An ordeal, sir.”
Damian glares at him.
You smile, but your gaze drifts toward Jason as he stops in the doorway behind you.
He is already halfway elsewhere.
Not distant. Not withdrawing.
Preparing.
Sophia sees him and holds out her fork with a generous clump of cake balanced precariously on the end.
“Bite?”
Jason looks down at the black shirt he is wearing, then at the chocolate-covered fork.
You can see him calculate the disaster potential.
He takes the bite anyway.
Sophia giggles triumphantly.
Jason swallows and nods gravely. “Good cake.”
“It is,” she says.
For a second, he looks almost wrecked by the simple fact of her being happy.
Then he catches you watching, and the look changes. Settles.
He does not step away from it.
⸻
You find him in one of the smaller rooms off the Cave twenty minutes later.
Not the armory exactly. Not somewhere so dramatic. A preparation room lined with equipment cases and neatly folded black fabric, where Jason stands with his helmet on the table in front of him and checks each piece of his gear in methodical silence.
He hears you come in.
His hands still briefly over a holster.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
You close the door behind you.
Not for secrecy.
For a minute that belongs to the two of you.
“This could take a few hours,” he says.
“I figured.”
“Maybe longer if Moretti’s people decide to play dumb.”
“They will,” you say.
Jason huffs softly. “Probably.”
You step close enough to touch the edge of his jacket, smoothing down a fold that does not need smoothing.
“And if he follows the wrong trail?” you ask.
Jason looks down at your hand, then up at you.
“Then we know he bites.”
The answer should scare you.
It does not.
Not because you do not understand what it means, but because everything about this plan has been spoken aloud. The risk is not hiding in the dark anymore. It has shape. Roles. People carrying parts of it.
You curl your fingers into the edge of his jacket.
“Come back when it’s done,” you say.
Jason’s expression softens just enough to hurt.
“I will.”
He kisses you before the old instinct can tell him not to.
Not near the screens.
Not where anyone could interpret it.
Not for anyone but you.
His palm cups your jaw, warm even through the cold focus already settling into him. The kiss is brief but firm—something chosen, something he takes with him instead of leaves behind.
When he pulls away, his forehead brushes yours.
“Stay with her tonight,” he murmurs.
“I am.”
“And you?”
You understand the question under the question.
You nod. “I’ll be okay.”
His thumb brushes your cheek once.
Then he steps back and lifts the helmet.
The red mask takes his face, but not the moment.
Not from you.
⸻
Jason POV
The Vesper Room looks exactly like the kind of place men build when they want dirt to wear perfume.
Gold lettering. Black awning. No obvious security near the front, because obvious security suggests you have something worth defending.
Jason is not interested in the front.
He lands on the roof of the building opposite the alley and crouches low beneath a rusted sign, helmet optics pulling the narrow service entrance into focus.
Two smokers. One delivery van. One man standing too still to be staff.
Barbara’s voice comes through his comm.
“Tim’s package is in the network. Financial trace reads as weapons inventory routed through Vesper to an East End holding site.”
“Copy.”
“Nightwing makes contact in thirty seconds.”
Jason watches the alley.
Twenty-seven seconds later, a commotion erupts three districts south—police scanner chatter, a warehouse alarm, and Dick’s infuriatingly cheerful voice slipping through the encrypted channel.
“Operation Handsome Distraction is live.”
Barbara sighs. “I regret letting you name things.”
“Too late.”
Jason almost smiles.
Almost.
Then the Vesper service door opens.
A man in a dark suit steps into the alley with a metal case handcuffed to his wrist.
Jason’s focus narrows.
“Target moving,” he says.
Tim’s voice replaces Dick’s. “Case matches manifest dimensions. Whatever’s inside, it’s valuable enough they want it visible.”
“Good.”
Jason steps off the roof.
He hits the alley hard enough to make the man with the case stumble backward before he has time to pull a weapon.
The first guard reaches inside his jacket.
Jason catches his wrist, twists, and puts him into the brick wall hard enough to end the argument without ending him.
The second is slower.
Jason sweeps his legs out from under him and puts a boot to his chest before he can finish swearing.
The man with the case backs into the door, face blanching beneath the expensive suit.
“Red Hood.”
Jason tilts his helmet.
“Glad the branding’s working.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Yeah?” Jason reaches down, snaps the chain at the man’s wrist with a compact cutter, and takes the case. “Get in line.”
The man’s eyes flash. “You have no idea who you’re interfering with.”
Jason feels it then.
The old heat.
The impulse to grab him by the throat and ask him if Moretti knows what happens to men who go digging through the lives of women who have already survived enough.
He thinks of your hand open on the table.
Choose it on purpose.
He lowers the case to his side.
Calmly.
“Tell your employer,” Jason says, voice flattened through the modulator, “that if he’s moving guns through my city, he’s paying me a toll.”
The man stares at him.
He has heard the message.
Good.
Jason fires a smoke pellet into the alley concrete. By the time the haze clears, the case is gone and the witnesses are alive, angry, and carrying exactly the explanation he wants them to carry.
Barbara’s voice returns in his ear.
“Clean.”
“Too clean?” Jason asks.
A beat while she reviews feeds.
“No. You gave him ego and money. Men like Moretti understand both.”
Tim cuts in. “Traffic just started. Two messages out from Vesper security to adjacent channels. They are using the phrase ‘weapons route.’”
Dick whistles. “And the Oscar goes to the emotionally constipated man in the red helmet.”
“Shut up, Dick.”
“Welcome back, little wing.”
Jason moves across the rooftop line, metal case in hand, Gotham opening beneath him.
He should feel better.
He does not.
He feels the trap settle.
Which means it might work.
⸻
Moretti POV
The report reaches Moretti before midnight.
He reads it once.
Then again.
The man standing in front of his desk has a bruised wrist and a carefully controlled expression that tells Moretti humiliation hurts more than injury.
“Red Hood intercepted the transfer from Vesper,” the man says. “He took the case. Said if we’re moving weapons through his city, we owe him a toll.”
Moretti turns one page.
The false transfer record is neat.
Not too neat. That is important.
Multiple subsidiaries. A delayed shipment. A route that could have drawn a vigilante’s attention through nothing more interesting than greed and bad operational discipline.
It makes sense.
Across the desk, the man shifts. “We think he’s been tracking the weapons lane.”
Moretti sets the report down.
“We?”
The man clears his throat. “The operation. Our people.”
Moretti looks at him until he stops trying to sound useful.
Then he reaches for the thin folder lying beneath the report.
Her folder.
The one that had produced a ripple when touched.
He places it beside the Vesper file.
Two pieces of paper.
Two stories.
One very convenient explanation.
Too convenient?
Perhaps.
Or perhaps Red Hood had found a weapons operation, and the woman had never been anything more than incidental noise.
Moretti dislikes coincidence.
He dislikes dismissing it even more.
“Where was she?” he asks.
The man blinks. “Sir?”
“When Red Hood was making himself visible at Vesper,” Moretti says patiently, “where was the woman?”
“I— We weren’t tracking her.”
“No,” Moretti says. “You were not.”
The man pales.
Moretti turns his attention back to the files.
A weapons route was the obvious answer.
A personal attachment was a more interesting one.
He does not need to choose yet.
He moves her folder out from beneath the stack and places it beside the Red Hood report instead.
Not closed.
Not discarded.
Promoted.
The man at his desk shifts again. “Do you want us to follow Hood?”
Moretti’s mouth curves faintly.
“No,” he says. “He wants to be followed.”
He closes the Vesper report with one hand.
“Let him think we did.”
⸻
Reader POV
The Manor is quiet by the time Jason calls.
Not silent. Houses like this are never silent. Pipes settle in old walls. The wind moves through trees outside the windows. Somewhere upstairs, Titus shifts against the floorboards with a heavy sigh, refusing to abandon his post even in sleep.
You are sitting in an armchair beside Sophia’s bed, a book open but unread in your lap.
She fell asleep halfway through the second story, one small hand curled beside her face, completely unaware that several adults and at least two dogs have rebuilt the night around keeping her world ordinary.
Your phone vibrates once.
Jason.
You stand before answering, slipping into the hallway and pulling the bedroom door nearly closed behind you.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” His voice is tired, filtered through the aftermath of the helmet instead of the helmet itself. “She asleep?”
You glance through the narrow gap in the door.
“Out cold. Damian lost the tea-party negotiations, but he survived.”
A quiet laugh breathes through the line.
“Good.”
“How did it go?”
A pause.
“He took the trail.”
Your hand tightens around the phone. “That sounds like it should feel better than your voice says it does.”
Jason is quiet for a second.
“He’s smart,” he says finally.
You understand.
Taking the bait is not the same thing as believing it.
“But we moved first,” you say.
“Yeah.”
“And he doesn’t know what he thinks he knows.”
Another pause.
“No,” Jason says. “He doesn’t.”
You lean against the wall, exhaustion settling over you now that you have permission to feel it.
“When are you coming back?”
“Soon.” His voice lowers. “To the Manor, if that’s okay.”
Your eyes sting unexpectedly.
Not because he asked.
Because he did not assume.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Come here.”
“Okay.”
The call ends.
You return to Sophia’s bedside and settle back into the chair, but you do not reopen the book.
A little while later, you hear the careful sound of footsteps outside the room.
Jason appears in the doorway in clean clothes, hair still damp from what must have been the quickest shower in human history. He looks exhausted. Bruised around the edges. Real.
You lift your hand without speaking.
He crosses the room and takes it.
Not out of fear.
Not because anyone is watching.
Because no one in this room has to pretend distance is the same thing as safety.
Jason lowers himself to the floor beside your chair, his shoulder resting against your knee, your fingers still folded together between you. On the bed, Sophia sleeps on, safe and soft and untouched by the shape of the night.
AN: This is all a girl needs after a long ah work day.
Pairing: Lads boys x fem reader
Genre: fluff and househusbands mentioned
(I do not own these characters)
Rafayel:
Loves tropes. Deeply committed to the bit. The minute you're around, he’s already living in a CEO x secretary AU. POV: He’s the secretary. You are the effortlessly powerful executive, and he thrives in it. He loves seeing you in suits. Let’s just say, he’s more than happy to be spoiled, living his best K-drama fantasy with his iced americano.
Xavier:
You wear the pants in this relationship, and he’s more than okay with that. All he wants is to nap in peace, but you? You cannot stay in one place. Still, he admires your passion and work ethic. He’s more than happy to be your, sweet and loving househusband, minus the cooking. (Let’s leave that to literally anyone else.) Just give him time and attention, and he’ll find every way possible to make your life easier, sneaking in moments of peace between your hectic schedule.
Zayne:
Low-key living the same life, but somehow, you make it look effortless. The paperwork he dreads? You handle it like a boss. Together, you’re a power couple in suits. Rich. Classy. The dream duo for every marketing campaign. He won’t say it outright, but your competence turns him on. Especially when you’re walking around, Bluetooth headset in, commanding the world.
Sylus:
He’s rich and hates the corporate world. But because you are in it? He tolerates your insane work schedule. But do not— I repeat, DO NOT, let your guard down. The moment he detects exhaustion, you’re getting abducted for an unexpected vacation. No warnings, no negotiations. That said, he treasures every single gift you buy him. A dragon hoards its treasures, after all. Luke and Kieran? Congratulations, they now have two rich parents.
Caleb:
Wife. Him. Up. Seriously. A fix-it of dreams. Steal him from that stupid fleet and let him live his cottage core fantasy with you. Sends you work lunches every day with little notes attached, partly to be sweet, mostly to make sure everyone knows you’re taken. Will gladly attend work parties with you just to flex. Shows up with the most extravagant potluck dish, preening like a peacock while everyone marvels at his god tier skills (read more)
In a tournament against the knight to whom he had given a favor, he saw you.
His knight in shining armor, from some backwater village.
You defeated his champion in two effortless moves. He watched in fascination as you dismounted your horse and retrieved the handkerchief he had given to Ser Vance of Gor.
Then, catching him in the act of staring, you turned toward him. Pressing a kiss to the handkerchief, you made his heart shudder.
"Favors are to be won, not trodden on," you reasoned with the guards as they dragged you from the arena for stealing the royal favor.
From winning the tournament, to spending a night in prison, to kneeling before him in an oath. Xavier did not know when you became his dark knight.
Not until he realized you had stolen more than just a favor.
Rafayel:
He heard you first, the clash of swords and daggers, the thud of bodies hitting cold, hard ground.
And then he was blinded. After days of darkness, light flooded in, making him recoil into himself.
It had been weeks since you left for the campaign. Weeks since he had been captured from the shallow shores and thrown into the unlit cells that stank of death and fear.
Fighting the stinging pain in his eyes, he looked up, and there you stood. In all your glory. In your kingdom's armor, holding your sword- eyes wide with battle's fury.
He reached for you, though his tail, torn and raw, stung against the floor. They had not allowed him to shift. Still, with a thousand grievances, he reached toward you.
"Rafayel," you whispered, kneeling beside him and pulling him into your arms. "I am here." You murmured as your sword shattered his chains.
Your words made the bond thrum with joy despite the pain in his body.
"I am sorry it took so long," you said, wiping the gash above his brow. "But I’m here."
And that was when he cried. Shedding pearls his captors would have killed to possess.
Never before had waiting been so painful. But in every lifetime, a union with you was worth the suffering.
Zayne:
He had been an apprentice in Astra's halls when he first saw you, the herald to the God of Time itself. You stood proud at your lord’s side.
How you shone brighter than Astra himself was beyond Zayne. How could a mere herald possess such light?
But you were beloved. Rescuing disciples from Astra's wrath, smoothing over mistakes, appeasing Astra's tantrums. You were the calm in his halls.
Yet, you were also his sword, leading sparring sessions with the students of fate.
Zayne learned the way of the bow from you. Steadying his hands, you taught him the exact points to strike while he spoke to you of anatomy and healing.
He had always been a thorn in Astra’s side, a healer who fought to give life where there was none. Perhaps that was why he had been barred from battle.
Forced to tend to the wounded, far from the battlefield, so that his kindness would not extend to the dying on the other side.
On the eve of battle, you handed him your bow. "This is for your defense, and for the people around you." You fixed the quiver around him, the head of the healing halls.
As the herald leading the assault, your presence was a surprise to many, especially next to Zayne, the one who had angered Astra.
"And this," you said, handing him a satchel, "is for anyone who needs help. Friend or foe. We deny no one aid." You smiled.
And then you walked into the battle of time. Your armor burning bright as any star even as you fell.
Sylus (Angel x Demon au):
You were chaos. The bloodthirsty bane of heaven. He found you in the battles of men, the brothels of night, the tears of mothers.
You prowled the fields with plague and ruin dripping from your fingertips. Your crimson eyes burned with madness as you swept through the carnage with a scimitar. Blood clung to you, from your hair to your eyes, flowing like a river.
A terrible sight to many. Damning to him.
He had been sent to capture you, to deliver justice for the humans who prayed for help. He who had once beheld your unmarred form.
And when he pressed his sword to your throat, you had only laughed. A low, broken sound.
"We meet again," you had grinned, guiding his sword to your chest. Wrapping your hand over his. "This time, I shall have you forever."
You steadied the sword and pulled it into your heart.
Your breath ghosted over his ear as you whispered the prophecy of your shared fate. "Let this be a debt we shall settle for eons."
Your curse settled upon him. Dragging him down. Twisting him into a reflection of you in his soul, in his crimson eyes, and last of all, in his heart.
Unleashing upon him the wrath of unending time. Truly making him yours forever. Stealing him from the heavens, you won.
Caleb:
He hadn't seen you in your gear until the end. Not until you stood before him, pointing your gun at his chest.
"Colonel Caleb, you are under arrest for working with EVER. You will be detained until the trial." Your voice was devoid of emotion.
"Drop your weapons and step back."
You turned him around, folding his hands behind his back. The handcuffs snapped shut with cold finality.
"You have the right to remain silent." Your touch did not linger.
Your uniform was not unlike his. But he had never known. Not until now. There, on your lapel, was the badge of intelligence.
All these years, you had both managed to keep the most dangerous of secrets.
Despite himself, he smiled.
It vanished when your knee struck the back of his legs, forcing him to kneel.
Leaning down, you yanked him back by his hair. "Expect no mercy," you snarled before leaving him kneeling on the cold floor, surrounded by your officers.
Jason can handle being watched. What he can’t handle is the thought of someone turning his love for you into a weapon. But when distance starts to hurt more than it protects, you offer him a different countermove: choose closeness anyway.
A/N: Hi hello, I am alive 😅 I know it has been about five months since I updated this story, and I’m so sorry for disappearing on you all. Life got wildly out of hand for a while, but I finally found my way back to Jason, Reader, and this little Gotham family. Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck around and waited patiently — it genuinely means the world to me. 🖤 Now let’s get back into the danger, yearning, and Jason Todd emotional repression, shall we? 🦇
🥀 a safe place to land master list 🌹
Jason comes home before dawn.
Quietly.
Not because he needs to be — the apartment has learned him by now. The floorboard near the hall groans if he steps too far left. The old lock clicks twice before it settles. Sophia’s door doesn’t squeak anymore because he fixed it, and that small fact hits him harder than it should when he passes it in the dark.
He stops outside your room.
Just for a second.
The city is still clinging to him. Cold air in his jacket. Damp on his boots. The stale metallic taste of rooftops and old blood, even though none of it is his tonight.
Not really.
He lifts a hand toward the doorframe.
Then lets it fall.
It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid.
You’re asleep. No one is watching through the walls. No one is counting how long he stands here, how often he comes back, whether he goes soft when he thinks no one can see.
Still.
Moretti isn’t stupid.
That’s the part Jason can’t shake.
The man isn’t lunging at the obvious target. He isn’t throwing threats into the dark or kicking down doors. He’s watching for motion. Reactions. Pressure points.
Who moves when your name comes up.
Who tightens the perimeter.
Who cares enough to make mistakes.
Jason has made a career out of being the mistake other people don’t survive.
He cannot make you one.
So he steps back from the doorway and goes to the couch instead.
He sits in the dark until the window begins to pale at the edges.
⸻
You find him there before the sun fully comes up.
Of course you do.
You’re wearing one of his shirts, hair loose around your face, bare feet silent against the floor. You pause at the end of the hall, eyes adjusting to the dim room.
For a second, neither of you speaks.
Then you say, softly, “You came home.”
Jason looks up. “Yeah.”
It’s the wrong answer.
Not because it’s untrue.
Because it’s too small.
Normally, he would reach for you. A hand at your hip. Fingers brushing your wrist. Something unconscious and territorial in the gentlest possible way, like he’s still surprised you let him have places to land.
This morning, he doesn’t.
He watches you notice.
That hurts more than the bruises.
You cross the room anyway and sit beside him, not touching. Just close enough that he can feel the warmth of you at his side.
“You okay?” you ask.
“Yeah.”
Another too-small answer.
Your mouth tightens, but you don’t push. Not yet.
That almost makes it worse.
⸻
The morning moves around the distance like water around a stone.
Jason makes coffee.
You make toast.
Neither of you says anything that matters.
He keeps his body angled away from the window without making it obvious. He doesn’t kiss you by the sink. He doesn’t touch your lower back when he passes behind you. He doesn’t lean into the quiet like he normally would.
He does all the right domestic things.
Rinses his mug. Checks the messages from Barbara. Puts the butter back where it belongs. Picks a stray thread off the sleeve of your shirt and realizes halfway through the movement that touching your clothes is still touching your life, so he stops.
Your eyes flick down.
You saw that too.
Damn it.
Jason turns away before you can say his name.
His comm buzzes on the counter.
Barbara.
He answers because avoiding one problem by stepping into another is practically a family tradition.
“What?” he says.
“Good morning to you too,” Barbara replies.
You lean against the counter, arms folded, listening.
Jason doesn’t put it on speaker.
You raise an eyebrow.
He does.
Barbara pauses. “Am I interrupting something emotionally avoidant?”
“No.”
“Yes,” you say at the same time.
Jason shuts his eyes.
Barbara sighs. “Fantastic. My favorite operating environment.”
“What do you have?” Jason asks.
Her tone shifts, clean and precise. “Moretti’s people are testing correlation. Not access. Not location. Pattern.”
Jason’s jaw locks.
You go still beside him.
Barbara continues. “Red Hood movement. Response timing. Geographic clustering after certain names hit certain channels. He’s not looking for her directly.”
“He’s looking for why I care,” Jason says.
“Yes.”
You absorb that without flinching.
Jason hates that you have had to learn how not to flinch.
Barbara’s voice softens by the smallest degree. “Important note: disappearing completely is also correlation.”
Jason looks up.
“What?” he says.
“If you suddenly stop moving near her, stop responding near her, stop showing up in any predictable overlap, that’s also data.” A pause. “Absence is a pattern too.”
The kitchen goes quiet.
Jason feels your eyes on him.
Barbara, because she is merciless and correct, adds, “So whatever you’re doing right now that feels noble and self-sacrificing? Rethink it.”
You press your lips together.
Jason points at you. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was not.”
Barbara says, “She was.”
Jason exhales through his nose. “You done?”
“For now,” Barbara says. “Don’t get loud. Don’t get obvious. And don’t confuse distance with safety.”
The line clicks dead.
Jason sets the phone down.
Slowly.
You wait exactly three seconds.
Then: “You’re acting like proximity is dangerous.”
There it is.
No anger. No accusation.
Just the blade placed cleanly on the table.
Jason looks at the counter. “It is.”
Your face changes, but only a little. A small tightening around the eyes. A controlled inhale.
“That’s what you think?” you ask.
“That’s what I know.”
You nod once, like you’re deciding not to argue with the fear itself. “Okay.”
That throws him more than a fight would have.
“Okay?” he repeats.
“Yes. Proximity can be dangerous.” You step closer, careful and steady. “So can distance. So can silence. So can changing so much he can see the shape of what scared us.”
Jason doesn’t answer.
Because you’re right.
Because Barbara was right.
Because he hates that the two of you are right in the same direction.
You fold your arms tighter, not defensive. Holding yourself together.
“I’m not asking you to be careless,” you say. “I’m asking you not to let him decide what closeness is allowed to look like.”
Jason’s throat works.
“He’s counting,” he says finally.
“I know.”
“Every time I come here. Every time Hood moves in your orbit. Every time I answer too fast or show up too close or—” He cuts himself off, jaw hard. “I don’t know how to touch you without thinking about who might use it.”
There.
He said it.
Not all of it.
Enough.
Your expression softens, but you don’t reach for him yet.
That is worse.
That is better.
“I hate that,” you say quietly.
Jason huffs a humorless laugh. “Yeah. Makes two of us.”
“No.” You shake your head. “I hate that someone made you feel like the answer is to take yourself away.”
The room goes still.
Jason looks at you then.
Really looks.
You don’t step into him. Don’t force his hand. Don’t make closeness into a test he can fail.
Instead, you sit at the small kitchen table and lay your hand open on the surface between you.
Palm up.
An invitation.
Not a demand.
“Then choose it on purpose,” you say.
Jason stares at your hand.
He has taken worse risks.
He has stepped into gunfire with less hesitation.
But this feels sharper somehow. More exposed. A decision made in daylight instead of darkness.
If he takes your hand, it means he is admitting there are things Moretti can see and still not own.
It means refusing to amputate tenderness just because someone might map the wound.
It means trusting that protection doesn’t have to look like absence.
Jason crosses the room.
Slowly.
He sits across from you, jaw tight, eyes lowered.
Then he takes your hand.
Your fingers close around his immediately.
Warm.
Steady.
Real.
Jason exhales, and something in him gives—not breaks. Gives.
“I hate that you’re right,” he mutters.
Your thumb brushes over his knuckles. “I know.”
He looks at your joined hands, then at you.
“I’m still changing the pattern.”
“I know.”
“Routes. Timing. Hood sightings nowhere near here. Maybe Dick runs a few false overlaps. Tim can make the data messy.”
“Good.”
His eyes narrow. “You already thought of that?”
“I spent three days at a beach house with the world’s weirdest crime family,” you say dryly. “Some of it rubbed off.”
Despite himself, Jason laughs.
Not loud.
Enough.
Your smile is small, tired, victorious in a way that makes his chest ache.
“So we make a plan,” you say.
“Yeah,” he answers. “We make a plan.”
But he doesn’t let go of your hand.
Not while he calls Barbara back. Not while she answers with, “That was fast,” like she absolutely knows what just happened. Not while they sketch out the shape of it in clipped, efficient language.
Decoy movement.
False Hood sightings.
Nightwing making noise two districts over.
Tim muddying timestamps.
Barbara smoothing the digital edges.
Your routines staying human. Unremarkable. Yours.
No one says the word bait.
No one needs to.
This isn’t that.
This is camouflage.
This is choosing which parts of love belong to the world and which parts stay behind closed doors.
When the call ends, Jason is still holding your hand.
His thumb has started moving without permission, slow against your skin.
You notice.
You don’t mention it.
Mercy, he thinks.
Or maybe strategy.
Maybe, with you, they are starting to become the same thing.
⸻
Evening comes softer than it should.
The apartment is lit low, curtains drawn not because of fear, but because privacy is allowed to be practical. You make dinner together without ceremony. Jason burns the edge of the garlic bread and looks personally offended by it. You scrape the blackened part into the trash while he insists it was “char.”
“It was ash,” you say.
“It was character.”
“It was evidence.”
That gets you the smallest smile.
The kind he doesn’t mean to give away.
Later, you check your phone and find a message from Alfred.
Miss Sophia has informed Master Damian that Ace requires a bedtime story. Negotiations are ongoing.
You laugh so softly it almost isn’t sound.
Jason glances over. “What?”
You show him.
His face shifts before he can stop it. Soft. Painfully fond.
“She okay?” he asks.
“She’s okay.”
He nods.
That ache moves through both of you, quiet and shared. Missing her is not panic. Missing her is proof.
The night keeps going.
No alarms.
No sudden calls.
No one at the door.
Just the kind of quiet that makes decisions feel louder.
When Jason stands to leave, the old instinct flickers across his face.
Distance.
Calculation.
The urge to make the goodbye clean and untouchable.
You see it.
He sees you see it.
For a second, the board waits.
Then Jason steps toward you instead of away.
Not by the window.
Not in the open frame of the room.
In the hallway, where the light is warm and low and private.
He cups your cheek with one hand.
“On purpose,” he murmurs.
Your breath catches.
Then you nod. “On purpose.”
He kisses you.
Not desperately. Not like goodbye.
Like proof that a thing can be protected without being hidden from the people who matter.
His mouth is warm and careful, his thumb brushing once beneath your cheekbone. You lean into him, fingers curling in the front of his jacket, holding him there for one more second that belongs to neither Moretti nor Gotham nor the cold arithmetic of men who think affection is only useful once it can be counted.
When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against yours.
Someone asked the wrong question. The system held. So the weight redistributes—Sophia back to the Manor, Jason into the city, and you’re choosing foresight over fear.
🥀Return to Master List🌹
You’re at the kitchen table when the evening settles in, papers spread out in careful stacks. Not panic-documents. Not emergency plans. Just the quiet logistics of a life that keeps moving — schedules, notes, things that need doing whether the world is calm or not.
Jason moves through the apartment behind you, unhurried. He opens a drawer, closes it. Rinses a mug. The rhythm is familiar now, weight shared instead of carried alone. Sophia hums softly from the living room floor, absorbed in something brightly colored and deeply important.
Nothing feels precarious.
That’s how you know it’s working.
The phone buzzes on the table beside your elbow — not sharp, not insistent. Just a quiet request for attention, the kind that trusts you’ll answer when you’re ready.
You glance at the screen.
Barbara.
Not urgent. Not coded. Just a quiet ping that says when you have a second.
“Hey,” Barbara says. “Quick update.”
You straighten a little, more reflex than worry. “Okay.”
“They didn’t get anything,” she says immediately, preempting the fear before it can form. “No access. No records opened. Everything sealed stayed sealed.”
You exhale. Not sharp. Just necessary.
“But,” Barbara continues, thoughtful now, “someone pulled an information request on your legal name. Adoption and birth records. Broad sweep. Sloppy in the way that tells me they weren’t sure what they were looking for.”
Jason’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t interrupt.
“So,” you say carefully, “they were checking whether a child existed.”
“Exactly,” Barbara replies. “Not trying to find one. Just seeing if the shape was there.”
The distinction matters. You feel it settle into place.
“And before you ask,” she adds, “this didn’t trip alarms. It wouldn’t have. That’s kind of the point.”
You glance at Jason, then back to the phone. “So how did you catch it?”
There’s a brief pause — not hesitation, just consideration.
“Honestly?” Barbara says. “Turning off your commute overwatch helped. Gave me room to look closer at system noise instead of babysitting a quiet route.”
Jason exhales slowly, something like recalibration passing through him.
“If I’d still been running eyes on your daily movement, I might’ve missed this,” Barbara continues. “This kind of thing only shows up when you’re not watching everything at once. It didn’t belong — that’s what flagged it.”
You sit with that.
Not fear.
Not regret.
Confirmation.
“And before you ask,” Barbara adds, “this didn’t trip alarms. It wouldn’t have. That’s kind of the point.”
You glance at Jason, then back to the phone. “So how did you catch it?”
There’s a brief pause.
“Honestly?” Barbara says. “Turning off your commute overwatch helped. Gave me room to look closer at system noise instead of babysitting a quiet route.”
Jason exhales slowly.
“If I’d still been running eyes on your daily movement, I might’ve missed this,” she continues. “This kind of thing only shows up when you’re not watching everything at once. It didn’t belong — that’s what flagged it.”
You nod once. The shape of it clicks — not danger, but pressure.
“Who?” you ask.
“Falcone-adjacent,” Barbara says. “Low-level. Not Moretti himself — but close enough that I don’t love the curiosity.”
Jason shifts, already mapping distance and response, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“This doesn’t mean escalation,” Barbara continues. “It means recon. Early-stage. We’re ahead of it.”
“Okay,” you say. “Then we split roles.”
Jason looks at you immediately. “Manor?”
“Yes,” you say. “Sophia stays at the manor for a bit. With Alfred. With people around. Normal routines — just layered.”
“And you?” he asks.
“I stay mobile,” you say. “I take leave. I don’t anchor us to one address while this shakes out.”
“That’s clean,” Barbara says.
“And I take the noise outward,” Jason adds.
You nod. “Exactly.”
There’s a beat of silence — not hesitation, just alignment.
“That tracks,” Barbara says. “I’ll adjust coverage.”
The call ends.
The apartment feels quieter for it — not empty, just focused.
Jason sets the phone down, slower than necessary. When he looks at you now, it’s not concern he’s carrying. It’s comprehension.
“So,” he says softly. “Where are you landing tonight?”
You lean back in your chair, rub a hand over your face. “Here. For now.”
His brow furrows — not resistance. Calculation.
“I’m not going to the manor,” you add. “Not right away.”
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
“I can do a few days,” you continue. “Knowing she’s safe. Knowing this is temporary.”
“And Sophia?” he asks, even though you both already know.
“She stays,” you say. “Layers. Dogs. People who don’t panic.”
Jason watches you for a long moment. “You okay being away from her?”
The question lands heavier than anything Barbara said.
You swallow. “I don’t love it. But I can do it.”
“That’s not nothing,” he says quietly.
“Neither is you taking the fight away,” you reply.
A beat passes.
“I’ll go see her,” you add. “I’m not disappearing.”
“I know,” he says immediately.
And you believe him.
Sophia accepts the plan with the enthusiasm only a three-year-old can muster.
“Sleepover?” she asks, eyes bright.
“With Alfred,” you say.
“And dogs,” Jason adds.
That seals it.
Wayne Manor receives her like this was always the arrangement. Alfred greets her at the door, already reaching for her bag. Ace and Titus materialize like living walls the moment she steps inside, bodies angled outward, calm and alert. Damian stands nearby, watchful, already positioned without instruction.
“She will not be disturbed,” he says flatly.
“Of course,” Alfred replies.
You watch it happen — the way the house absorbs weight without centering it. Sophia isn’t being hidden. She’s being held.
Jason crouches in front of her. “I’ll see you soon, kid.”
She nods, already distracted by a tail.
When Jason straightens, the shift is subtle but unmistakable — focus settling in, not anger.
“After I help you both settle, I’m taking the fight outward,” he says.
You meet his gaze. “I know.”
——
Wayne Manor doesn’t announce itself when you pull into the drive.
It never has.
It’s just there — stone and iron and memory, holding its place the way it always does when the world starts to lean too hard in one direction.
Sophia leans forward in her car seat, already smiling.
“The big house,” she says happily. “With the dogs.”
Jason cuts the engine. For a moment, none of you move — not because there’s hesitation, but because this part is familiar enough to feel ceremonial.
The front doors open before you reach for the handle.
Alfred steps out, composed as ever, already taking in the scene like it’s exactly what he expected.
“Welcome back, Miss Sophia,” he says warmly. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Sophia grins, unbuckling with practiced determination. “Hi, Alfie!”
Before either of you can reach for her, Ace appears at the top of the steps — broad chest, ears forward, tail already wagging. Titus follows at his usual pace, massive and calm, eyes sweeping the grounds out of habit rather than concern.
They always come out like this in the evening.
And between them —
Damian.
He’s already there, standing exactly where he tends to when Sophia visits. Not blocking. Not posturing. Just… placed. A hand rests lightly on Ace’s shoulder, fingers absentminded, familiar. Titus angles closer without command, forming a quiet, living boundary.
Sophia spots him immediately.
“Dami” she chirps.
He inclines his head, solemn as ever. “Hello, Sophia.”
She toddles toward him without hesitation, reaching for Ace’s ear like she’s done a dozen times before. Ace allows it with patient dignity. Titus lowers his head so she can pat his cheek, tail flicking once against the stone.
Damian watches the interaction closely, eyes sharp but relaxed. Satisfied.
Only then does he look at you.
Not to ask.
Not to reassure.
Just acknowledgment.
“She will remain here,” he says calmly. “With us.”
Not if you’d like.
Not don’t worry.
A statement of routine.
Ace’s tail thumps once. Titus sits, solid and immovable.
Alfred steps closer, already reaching for Sophia’s overnight bag. “You may rest assured,” he says mildly. “Nothing within these grounds occurs without our knowledge.”
You feel it then — the shift.
Not relief exactly.
Transfer.
The weight you’ve been carrying doesn’t disappear. It just moves — dispersing into stone and staff and teeth and watchful eyes that have done this before.
Jason crouches in front of Sophia, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I’ll see you soon, okay, kid?”
She nods, already half-turned back toward the dogs.
“Okay,” she says easily.
That’s when it hits you.
Not a child being hidden.
A child being held — by a system that already knows her name.
You stand there a moment longer, committing the image to memory: Damian steady and unmoving, Ace and Titus flanking like living architecture, Alfred already ushering Sophia inside like this was simply the next step in the evening.
When you turn back toward the car, Jason’s hand brushes yours — not gripping, not pulling.
Just there.
The manor takes the weight meant for her.
The city waits for him.
And for the first time, the separation doesn’t feel like loss.
It feels like the system doing exactly what it was built to do.
And the weight — the real weight — doesn’t land on one person or one place.
Someone pulled the wrong thread. The system adjusted. Now the board is set — and no one is playing loudly anymore.
📝 OMG this took entirely longer than I ever expected to put out a new chapter. Thank you for all your support and understanding while I dealt with a bunch of mandatory overtime at work. I hope you enjoy the photo art for this chapter. The one of Jason‘s eyes is by me.
🥀Return to Story Master List 🌹
Moretti does not raise his voice.
He doesn’t need to.
The folder on the table is thin. That alone is irritating.
A legal name.
A request.
A sealed wall that did exactly what sealed walls do.
And yet.
He flips the page once more, eyes scanning the timestamp.
The reaction is what interests him.
It was quiet. Fast. Precise. The kind of correction that doesn’t exist unless someone competent is watching.
He closes the folder.
“It was noticed,” he says.
The man across from him nods too quickly. “Yes, sir.”
“If she were alone,” Moretti continues, almost conversational, “that request would have disappeared into bureaucracy.”
He draws a single line down a blank sheet of paper.
“But someone moved.”
The man shifts. “So she’s protected.”
Moretti’s gaze sharpens.
“No,” he says softly. “She is connected.”
A pause.
“Find the connection.”
He doesn’t look up again. The conversation is over.
⸻
You don’t feel the shift immediately.
You feel it later, when the apartment is too quiet and you’re rinsing a mug that doesn’t need rinsing.
Barbara calls before you can talk yourself into checking your phone first.
“He’s adjusting,” she says.
You lean your hip against the counter. “Because he got noticed.”
“Yes.”
No drama in her voice. Just fact.
“What’s he pivoting to?” you ask.
“A pattern,” she replies. “Red Hood interference. Activity clustering near you.”
You absorb that.
“He’s not looking for a child,” Barbara adds. “He’s looking for why someone like Hood would care.”
You nod once. “Then we don’t give him correlation.”
“That’s the plan.”
You glance toward the empty hallway, toward the bedroom that feels too still without a small body curled inside it.
Sophia is safe. That’s not a question.
“Is he pushing?” you ask.
“No,” Barbara says. “He’s watching.”
You consider that.
“Good,” you say quietly.
Barbara lets out a faint breath. Approval without praise.
“I’ll update if the board changes,” she says.
The line goes dead.
You stand there a moment longer, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and the faint echo of your own breath.
The city isn’t pressing against the walls.
It’s circling.
⸻
Jason answers on the first ring.
“He’s pivoting,” you say.
“I figured.”
“Red Hood proximity.”
Silence. Not surprise. Calculation.
“Good,” Jason says finally.
You raise a brow, even though he can’t see you. “Good?”
“If he’s looking at me,” Jason replies evenly, “he’s not looking at you.”
There’s no bravado in it. Just strategy.
“You don’t get loud,” you tell him.
“I won’t.”
A beat stretches between you.
You don’t ask where he is. He doesn’t volunteer.
“I’ll be home,” he says.
“Okay.”
You don’t say you miss him. You don’t say you miss Sophia.
You leave the porch light on.
⸻
Jason stands on a rooftop and watches Gotham breathe.
Barbara’s voice hums in his ear. “He’s mapping you.”
Jason doesn’t look away from the skyline. “Let him.”
“He’s careful.”
“So am I.”
The wind pulls at his jacket. Below, headlights move through intersections like pieces on a board.
Moretti made a move.
Not loud. Not violent.
Just a question.
Jason flexes his fingers once, then stills them.
He will not give Moretti a spectacle.
He will not give him heat.
He will give him nothing but confusion.
“Don’t escalate,” Barbara says quietly.
Jason’s jaw tightens. “I won’t.”
A pause.
“He’s trying to see who moves for her,” Barbara adds.
Jason’s mouth curves slightly.
“Then let him watch.”
He steps off the ledge and disappears into the dark.
Not chasing.
Not retreating.
Repositioning.
⸻
Across the city, Moretti studies a map.
Red markers. Financial ripples. Interference points. A vigilante pattern threading through his edges like a seam.
He doesn’t smile.
He recalculates.
The girl is not the piece.
The piece is the one who moved when she was touched.
He draws another line on the page.
And waits.
⸻
Back in your apartment, you finally sit down.
The tea beside you has gone cold.
You don’t reheat it.
You let the quiet sit with you, not as loneliness, but as choice.
You knew this wouldn’t end cleanly.
You just didn’t expect the next move to be so… quiet.
