Pairing: Yandere!Dick Grayson x Reader (+Batfam) [DC].
Word Count: 3.8k.
TW: Non/Con, Fem!Reader, Omegaverse, Alpha!Dick, Beta!Reader, Kidnapping, Forced Mating, Knotting, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Ideation, Forced Proximity, Fingering, Group Sex, and Nonconsensual Touching. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.
Every morning, you woke up underneath Dick Grayson.
That was to be expected from an alpha, or so you’d been told. They tended to be clingy, physical, never satisfied unless their mate was within their sight or, better yet, in their arms. It was perfectly natural, but knowing that did little to alleviate the hot, damp weight of him on your back, didn’t make the smell of sweat and bodies that dragged you from your sleep any less smothering. His arm was a steel bar across your waist, his legs a pair of writhing snakes that tangled around and immobilized yours. Regardless of how much distance you put between yourself and him in the night, his face always seemed to find the crook of your neck, his mouth never more than an inch or so from your mating mark.
The mating mark you, biologically, weren’t supposed to have. But you guessed what was ‘natural’ mattered more for him than it did for you.
Worst of all, he always woke up after you. It was a shared symptom of his late-night patrols and the domestic, homebound instinct most alphas felt to make their den and maintain it. You were left to lie awake for the better part of an hour, swallowing back the feeling that you ought to find a way to crawl out of your own skin, before he began to stir – groaning as he groggily lifted his head. He squeezed your body against his once before rolling over to drag a hand over his face, wiping away lingering exhaustion. You savored the distance the same way an alcoholic savored fine wine: already desperate for another glass.
You made a valiant effort to get away, shuffling towards the edge of the mattress as you muttered some excuse about showering or brushing your teeth. Of course, Dick was quick to stop you and of course, his chosen method of persuasion was touch-based. He sat up, resting his back against the headboard. An arm lashed out, curling around your midriff and dragging you into his lap. Your knees landed on either side of his waist, your ass slotted against his crotch. You could feel his cock pressing into you, stiff and leaking. Your revulsion must’ve shown on your expression, because Dick laughed and rolled his hips against you.
“Can’t help it,” he muttered, voice still thick with sleep. “You just smell so good in the morning. Guess you wouldn’t know that, though.”
Right. Obviously. Because, of the two singular drawbacks to being a beta, there was only one Dick would ever dare to mention out loud. He loved holding your weak sense of smell over your head, reminding you that there was a whole, invisible world defined by scents and pheromones that was entirely inaccessible to you. It’d never been an issue before you met him. From what you’d heard, pheromones were just another way to tell how a person felt, easily replaced by a keen eye for micro-expressions or a careful ear for tones, and you didn’t find being able to tell the exact notes of a person’s unique musk all that appealing.
Then again, if you did have a better nose, you might’ve been able to tell Dick (or, rather, Nightwing, at the time) was going into a rut the night you met, the night he saved you from an armed robber and so heroically offered to walk you home. You might’ve been more aware of the pheromones you were radiating – scared, helpless, in need of protection – and what they would do to alpha at his most eager to lay claim. You might’ve been able to get away from him before he pinned you down on the floor of your living room, dug his teeth into your throat, and bound you to him permanently. His family had told you, afterward, that splitting up a bonded pair was dangerous. Separation from his mate could make Dick irritable, obsessive, hyper-violent. No part of you liked being stuck with him, but the Waynes had promised that you would like version of him that distance bred less. Moving in with his pack, playing mate – that was the safer option. The more humane option.
It also conveniently ignored the second drawback to being a beta: your unwavering preference for your own company. You weren’t supposed to have a mate. You weren’t supposed to join a pack. That was for alphas and omegas with their primal, hormone-driven brains; the ones too busy sucking and fucking to notice people like you quietly keeping society on-track in the background. You’d been made for long periods of isolation, peaceful nights in empty beds, the muted tranquility of mental silence. Crowds made you anxious. Too many voices in one room left you on the verge of hyperventilating. The thought of gushy, romantic sex (the type with lots of skin-to-skin contact and so, so many fluids) made you want to throw up. These were undebatable facts of your existence and traits which Dick trampled over daily with no small amount of zeal.
He grinned, easy and loose, as he slipped a hand into your panties. Two fingers found your slit, tracing over it as the heel of his palm ground into your clit. Sex, real sex, was thankfully off-limits. His dick (or, more accurately, the knot at its base) would kill you. Literally. His constant, pleading pawing wasn’t much more bearable, though.
“It’s stronger in the morning.” Right. Back to your scent. His fingers slipped inside of you, pushing in to the knuckle. “I mean, I can always pick it up, but right now, I don’t even have to try. ‘s like I’m drowning in it.”
You swallowed back a whimper, forcing your tongue to work the way you needed it to. “That sounds terrible.”
“It’s perfect.” He curled his fingers, interrupting his otherwise lazy pumping, then ground into your clit with that much more force. “You’d drown in me if you had the chance to, right?”
You could hear your own slick noises echoing off the walls of his bedroom. “I’d rather just drown you.”
He laughed, bowing his head and pressing an open-mouthed kiss into your collarbone. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Irritation sparked, hot and fierce. Your hands shot for his neck, but Dick’s grin only widened. Without pulling out of you, he rolled over – throwing you down to the mattress and landing on your back. His arm was trapped underneath you, but he didn’t seem to care, didn’t let it slow down the harsh way he flicked his wrist or the invasive curling of his digits inside of you. You thrashed, then when that failed, clawed at the sheets, as if tearing through silk and cotton would do anything to get him off of you. Not that your resistance lasted long enough to matter. It only took short, pitiful seconds for him to make you cum – dragging a miserable whine out alongside your climax. Immediately, you went limp underneath him, and Dick kissed the nape of your neck, humming as he pulled away. Over your shoulder, you could hear an awful, wet sound, like a tongue running through fingers. You did what you could not to put an image to the noise.
When he was done, Dick rested a hand on your back, rubbing circles in your shoulder blade. “Sorry, baby,” And then, stifling another laugh, “You’re just so cute when you’re all—”
His touch drifted south, skirting over the length of your spin. You shrieked into the mattress, arching your back on reflex. Trying to get away from him. Dick sighed.
“Can’t run from me forever.” As if to prove his point, he gathered you up in his arms, pushing himself to his feet and starting in the direction of the en-suite. “One day, I’m gonna have to make you see that.”
You could only groan in response.
~
Breakfasts at Wayne Manor were always difficult to get through.
Late in the morning, after the brunt of the pack had a chance to sleep off the worst of last night’s patrol, every available member of the family gathered around a single, narrow table to clack utensils against porcelain and scrape chairs across the floor and speak to each other as loudly as they possibly could. The others were allowed to choose seats at random, but somehow, you always seemed to end up near the head of the table, stuck between Dick and the Pack Alpha, Bruce.
You hated it. You hated the proximity, too many bodies crammed into too small of a space. You hated the paranoia, never able to eat in comfort knowing another hungry mouth could steal the food off your plate at any time. Most of all, you hated the volume. So many voices layered on top of one another, you couldn’t be bothered to differentiate between Stephanie’s laugh and Cassandra’s quiet hum, Jason’s sardonic drawl and Tim’s mechanical droning. After a while, it was all just noise.
You felt a headache coming on. This was to be expected at this point in the day and thus, warranted no reaction more apparent than a half-hearted scowl and a pair of eyes narrowed toward your plate.
As always, you ate too quickly and were forced to stay too long. When you tried to get up from your seat, Dick’s hand found its way to your thigh, gently urging you back down. He was smiling, again – the golden boy grin, all clear blue eyes behind dark, disorderly hair. You hated that smile more than you hated every other part of Dick combined. Without it, you never would’ve trusted him. You never would’ve let him into your home. You never would’ve found yourself trapped in his.
You never would’ve let him touch you.
You started to turn to him, to make it clear that you were finished and you needed to leave, but someone cleared their throat to your right. Of course.
How could you have forgotten about Bruce.
You braced yourself before turning to him. Dick squeezed your thigh by way of reassurance. It didn’t help.
Bruce Wayne was the Pack Alpha of secondary sex bio-essentialists’ collective wet-dream. Well over six feet tall with the build to match, he towered over the rest of his family with an air of calm, analytic judgement. Even his gaze felt too heavy, as if a weighted pole had been dropped onto your shoulders whenever he deemed you worthy of a stray glance in your direction. Your loathing for him was no less intense than the loathing you held for Dick, but the tone of it was different. You hated Dick because of what he’d done to you, what he continued to do to you. You hated Bruce because of how easily he could fix it and how consistently he decided not to.
“Don’t forget your medication,” he started, slowly, drawing out each word as he gestured to the small collection of multi-colored pills on the edge of your plate. Supplements, you’d been told, to make up for the general lack of activity in your current life. You tried not to take them when you could get away with it, if only because it was one of your precious few ways to maintain your independence. “You won’t like that happens if you miss a dose.”
An order, albeit not a cruel one. He was talking to you like one of his children. Like a member of his pack.
Your head pounded.
“I—” You paused, swallowing. The juxtaposition was dizzying. He was an older man and you were in his home. You wanted to do what he said and be done with it. He was an alpha and you were nothing. You wanted to do anything but listen to him then run as far as you possibly could. “I don’t want to.”
His cold gaze flickered from you to the rest of his table. In turn, the others went quiet, their attention naturally gravitating to Bruce, who then directed it to you. The noise had been unbearable, but the silence was worse. Six pairs of eyes, all focused unblinkingly on you. You would’ve sat through a thousand family meals if it meant they would all stop looking at you like that.
With shaking hands, you snatched up the pills and choked them down dry. Bruce nodded. Dick beamed.
You wanted a long second for their attention to disperse, then another. It never did. Your vision blurred around the edges as you scrambled out of your seat, muttering excuses. This time, no one stopped you.
You wanted your bedroom – safe and dark and isolated – but the kitchen was closer. Your temples throbbed. Your heart threatened to beat out of your chest. So busy trying to steady your own frantic breathing, you didn’t notice the footsteps until you were leaning over a counter, eyes clenched shut and hands flat against the cool marble. You thought it might be Dick, at first, come to check on his upset mate. You should’ve known he wouldn’t be so attentive, that the world wouldn’t be so kind.
A lean arm wrapped around your midriff, its owner’s chest soon pressed against your back. You saw a flash of gold in your peripheral, felt soft lips on the shell of your ear.
Stephanie. Another alpha. Perfect.
She was surprisingly quiet. There was a slight hum, a breath of a laugh, but nothing else as she nuzzled into your shoulder. Rather than an act of mercy, her silence came off as a show of further sadism. It meant you had to be the catalyst for your own misery.
“What are you doing?”
“Comforting you.” A purr started up deep in her throat. You felt the reverberations against your skin. “You should see the pheromones you’re releasing, right now. I’ve rescued hostages giving off weaker distress signals.”
Another set of footsteps, another body placing itself too close. You glanced to your left and found Tim pulling himself onto the counter, his dark eyes wide. He was an omega, but that did little to endear him to you. Alphas tended to be more aggressive, but there was something about the cloying, saccharine way omegas held themselves that made you uneasy. They went through life expecting to be loved. Your lack of affection was regarded less as an inability and more as stubbornness. Something meant to be resented or, better yet, overcome.
“It really is strong,” he mumbled, edging that much closer to you. “Not that I’m complaining. It’s nice. Calming.”
Stephanie snickered. “Don’t listen to him. He says you smell like the ocean.”
Your nose wrinkled. Every soul born and raised in Gotham knew the coastline’s dead-fish, rotting-trash stench by heart. Tim scowled.
“I did not. It’s more like—” He cut himself off, pausing to think. When he went on, his voice was more distant, as if drawing from a well-loved memory. “Bruce took me to Italy for a case, once. The air was so—so fresh. There was salt, and sunlight, and something sweet, like—”
“Caramel,” Stephanie finished. Her purring was getting louder. Her hands began to wander, slipping under your shirt and pressing flat against your stomach. She was unbearably warm, and you could feel her palms sliding up, up, her breath against your throat as she sought out your—
“Please,” You were so quiet, you could hardly hear yourself above the static in your ears. “Stop.”
Her grin pressed into the curve of your neck. “Why would I do that, sweetheart?”
“I don’t like being touched. It’s not—” Your body was too hot. You were burning alive. “It’s not right.”
She laughed – loud and bold and searing. “Of course it is, honey. This,” She dragged her blunt nails over your chest for emphasis. “is how we show we care. Don’t you want us to care about you?”
No. You didn’t. You wanted something, anything else. You opened your mouth to say as much, to scream, but Tim was fast.
“Let her go, Steph.” Sweet, soft, nearly pleading. Obediently, Stephanie pulled away, and you sucked in a deep breath. Those piercing, beady little eyes of his never fell away from you. It seemed to turn the air hostile, filling your lungs with acid in the place of relief. “She’ll come around, soon.” And then, quietly, almost to himself, “She’ll have to.”
His words rang in your ears for seconds. She’ll have to.
Meaning, they’d make you.
All the warmth left your body at once. It was strangely calming – the rush of cold; the way your heart beat so fast, it might as well have not been beating at all. Without a word, you slipped out from underneath Stephanie, and she let you. Tim whispered something and Stephanie laughed, but the details were lost in translation. It didn’t really matter. They’d said what they needed to.
You couldn’t get to the roof, so you settled for Bruce’s office. It was on the uppermost floor, with a balcony that looked out over the manor’s gardens. His door was unlocked, so you let yourself in. Bruce was at his desk. You passed by him without acknowledgement.
He only got to his feet as you stepped outside. The guardrail was tall enough to press into your stomach as you peered over it. Fifty feet to the ground, more or less. You’d been hoping for more, but it would do the trick.
You leaned forward, bowing your head low and using your arms to better ease your body over the side. Eventually, your center of gravity tipped, your feet kicking off the ground as you teetered on the railing and started to—
A fist curled around the collar of your shirt, jerking you back and throwing you to the ground. You blinked, and then, Bruce was kneeling above you, his hand around your neck and his gaze steely. Your skin crawled underneath his palm.
“I had higher hopes for you,” he muttered. His free hand slipped into his coat pocket, drawing out a thin black box. “We thought you were coming along.”
You hesitated to respond, but there was only one thing you were ever going to say. That you could say, anymore. “Please don’t touch me.”
He scoffed, the noise dry and humorless. The box was placed next to your head, the lid carefully removed. You saw the flash of something long and silver in your peripheral, felt a pinch at the base of your neck. Heat flooded into your veins, thick and primal. You caught the distant scent of something sweet, and then, you were gone.
~
The room stank of sweat, salt, and sugar.
You came into consciousness slowly, only able to take in one foggy detail at a time. You were in an unfamiliar bed, too large to be your own. Dick was above you, kneeling in between your legs, his face flush and his hands planted on either side of your head. In the corner of your eye, you could see Tim and Stephanie on the other side of the too-big mattress – Tim on his back and Stephanie moving above him, bouncing on something you couldn’t see. Behind them, of course, was Bruce. He leaned back in his armchair, expression bored but cold eyes watchful. The Pack Alpha, residing over the rituals of lesser creatures.
Dick’s breath hitched and you realized, rather belatedly, that he was inside of you. Really, actually inside of you. Deep, deep inside of you.
Oh no.
Your hands shot to his shoulders, nails burrowing into muscle. “Dick, Dick, you have to—”
He hushed you, falling that much lower. His lips found the curve of your neck, ghosting over a patch of scarred skin. Your mating mark. “’s alright, baby. You’re so—” He moaned, rolling his hips against yours. “So tight.”
“You need to pull out.” You could feel it – beating against your entrance, a swollen mass at the base of your cunt. It was too thick, too hard, too big. He was going to split you open. He was going to fucking kill you. “I’m not supposed to—”
“But you are, baby. You are.” He pulled away, his pace falling into something blissfully lethargic. A hand slipped between your body and his, two fingers finding your clit. Dread and pleasure pulsed through you in tandem. You didn’t want this. You couldn’t. It wasn’t in your nature. And yet, your hips bucked against him and your cunt ached. Your mind was suddenly in the backseat, watching in horror as your body begged to be taken care of.
“Tried to let the pills do their work, take things slow, but B decided it was time to go all the way.” He grinned, kissing your forehead. You could smell something on him, underneath the sweat and closeness. Sharp mint and chalk in sunlight. Then, below that, something else. A steady, indescribable reek that seemed to whisper ‘love me, love me, love me’ into the back of your skull. Your pussy clenched that much tighter around his cock. “Tim even offered to help. Having another omega’s pheromones to copy should make the first time a little easier.”
Another omega? He made it sound like Tim wasn’t the only—
Understanding dawned on you, cruel and terrible. Of course. The pills. The shot. The pack’s insistence that, one way or another, you’d come around. It was all you could do to blink up at Dick. Your voice was weak, when you finally found it. Cloying and submissive. “I’m a beta.”
“You used to be,” he sighed, the contentment in his voice only rivaled by his sheer, unrelenting joy. One of his hands fell to your hip, steadying you. “I couldn’t stand to watch you suffer like that. Not when we could make it so much easier.”
You opened your mouth to protest, but all that came out was a long, desperate whine. You’d never felt so empty, so cold, so in need of something hot and warm and filling. Dick seemed to sense the change. He groaned as he thrust into you, forcing your cunt to take him to the hilt, then deeper still – bullying his knot into your unwilling body. You stretched to accommodate him. It was painless.
It was natural.
You felt him pulse against the walls of your cunt, locking your bodies together. Something hot and thick flooded into you, filling you up in a way you’d never thought to conceive of. Above you, Dick panted, his hair hanging over his face and his eyes half-lidded. His smile was pulled wide enough to strain.
You took a deep breath and regretted it immediately. It hung thick in the air, inescapable despite your best attempts to block it out.
Sea salt and caramel – so strong and so defined, you could only wonder how you’d never noticed it before.
request reader who acts as a healer for the team, and their ability on paper [and seemingly in practice] is just that they can heal anybody, no matter the damage or cause, except their power actually works by stealing the wound and inflicting it upon themselves. they can take any pain, mental, chronic, sometimes even emotional depending on circumstances and the degree of it. no one knows until they take on something far too bad: losing a limb, breaking their spine, guts spilling out, etc.
content gn! reader x dick grayson, healer! reader, reader gets hurt, self-sacrificial healing, severe injury, fall injury, temporary paralysis/loss of mobility, blood, medical trauma, pain transfer, guilt, panic, near-death fear, angst with comfort
masterlist
word count 8.2k
Dick Grayson knew how to fall. Better than anyone, maybe.
There was an art to it. A language. A thousand tiny choices made in the narrow breath between losing the line and hitting the ground. Turn the shoulder. Tuck the chin. Roll through the impact. Trust the body. Trust the air. Trust the hands that had taught you how to fly before you were old enough to know that gravity was not mercy, only law.
Dick knew falling. He knew the split-second sweetness of empty space. The rush of wind against his face. The world turning around him in ribbons of light and shadow. He knew how to make falling look like flying, because that was what the Graysons did.
They fell beautifully.
Until they didn’t.
That was the first lesson.
The second was that someone always had to catch what was left.
Dick had built a life out of becoming that someone. He caught teammates before they hit concrete. Caught civilians before buildings collapsed. Caught the Titans when they spiralled, caught Bruce when he vanished too far inside the Bat, caught Jason’s anger when nobody else could hold it without bleeding, caught Tim’s exhaustion before it became a body bag, caught Damian’s sharp edges and pretended they did not cut.
He smiled. He joked. He opened his arms and made himself the net. It was easier that way.
People trusted nets. People did not ask if nets were tired.
You did, though.
That was one of the first things that unsettled him about you.
You always asked.
“Shoulder?” you said, appearing beside him before he had even fully made it through the medbay doors.
Dick looked down at the red line slicing through his suit, just under the joint. “Hello to you too.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Is it the shoulder?”
“It is deeply rude that you know that from ten feet away.”
“It’s my entire thing.”
“Your entire thing is being bossy and magical.”
“My entire thing is healing idiots who think flirting counts as a treatment plan.”
He gasped and pressed his uninjured hand to his chest. “You think I’m flirting?”
“I think you’re bleeding on my floor.”
“That’s not a no.”
You gave him a look.
Dick smiled.
It was easy with you.
That was the problem. Most things with you felt easy, even when they weren’t. Even in the aftermath of horror, with sirens in the distance and smoke still clinging to everyone’s suits, you had a way of lowering the temperature in a room. You came in with steady hands, soft eyes, and a voice like warm water over bruised skin.
You were the Titans’ miracle.
Not that you liked being called that. Gar had tried once, dramatically, from a medbay cot after you healed three cracked ribs and a bruised spleen.
“My angel,” he had declared, one hand thrown over his forehead. “My saviour. My divine little first-aid kit.”
You had thrown a roll of gauze at his head.
Vic had laughed for a full minute.
Kory had kissed your cheek in gratitude.
Raven had watched you with that quiet, knowing look of hers.
Dick had watched too. He watched more than he should have.
He watched the way your face tightened for half a second after you healed someone. The way you always turned slightly away before taking a breath. The way you flexed your fingers like you were shaking off static. The way you insisted on cleaning up alone afterwards.
At first, he thought healing took energy. That made sense. Every power had a cost. Every body had limits.
You told them yours was fatigue.
Dick believed you.
Not because he was careless.
Because he wanted to. Because after years of watching good people stay hurt, there was something dangerously addictive about watching wounds vanish under your hands.
When Raven came back from a mission with psychic backlash clawing through her mind, and you pressed your fingers to her temples until her breathing evened out, Dick did not ask why you spent the next hour sitting alone in the dark.
When Gar twisted his knee badly enough that the sound made everyone in the room wince, and you healed him before the panic really hit, Dick did not ask why you limped afterwards.
When Kory took a blast meant for a child, and her skin split gold-bright across her ribs, Dick did not ask why your own hand shook as you helped her sit up.
He noticed. But noticing was not knowing.
That was what he told himself later. Over and over. Like repetition could turn guilt into absolution.
He noticed. He just didn’t know.
Not yet.
The night everything changed began with rain.
Blüdhaven rain was different from Gotham rain. Gotham rain fell like a verdict. Cold, black, heavy with memory. Blüdhaven rain came down silver beneath neon signs, slicking the streets until every alley looked like it had been painted in oil. It turned rooftops treacherous, fire escapes slippery, windows into mirrors.
Dick loved it anyway.
It was his city. Bruised, stubborn, trying. A little ugly in the right light. A little beautiful in the wrong one.
The Titans had come because the call was too big for one vigilante and too strange for local police. A new metahuman trafficking ring had gotten its hands on alien tech and old magic, which was never a combination that suggested anyone involved had made good life choices.
By midnight, the docks were burning. By twelve-thirty, three warehouses had partially collapsed. By one, the sky above Blüdhaven was full of drones shaped like metal wasps, each one armed with sonic emitters strong enough to rupture glass and destabilise inner ears.
“Tell me again why crime can’t be normal,” Gar shouted over comms.
Dick flipped over a drone, brought both escrima sticks down, and sent it sparking into the rain-slick rooftop. “You want normal crime?”
“I want crime that doesn’t make my teeth vibrate.”
“You have teeth right now?” Vic asked.
“I have emotional teeth.”
“That tracks,” you said over comms.
Dick smiled despite himself. Your voice always did that to him. Cut through the noise. Found him.
“You’re supposed to be behind the barricade,” he said, ducking under a burst of sonic fire.
“I am behind the barricade.”
“You’re too calm.”
“I’m very calm behind the barricade.”
Raven’s voice came in, flat as ever. “They are not behind the barricade.”
Dick exhaled sharply. “Of course they’re not.”
“I’m near the barricade,” you corrected.
Kory flew overhead, a streak of orange through the storm. “Friend healer, there are many injured civilians near the west warehouse.”
“I see them.”
Dick’s attention snapped toward the west side of the docks.
Through the rain, he saw you moving below.
Not at the barricade. Not near the barricade. Running straight toward the worst of the damage, because apparently, self-preservation was not included in the miracle package.
“Absolutely not,” Dick said.
“You sound like Bruce.”
“That was cruel and unnecessary.”
“You’ll live.”
“Not if you keep sprinting into active combat zones.”
“Then stop watching me and stop the drones.”
A drone screamed toward you.
Dick moved before thought could catch up. He launched himself from the rooftop, grapple line firing, body arcing low through rain and smoke. The drone’s emitter pulsed once. Pain stabbed through his ears. His vision blurred.
He released the line. Dropped. Twisted.
His boot connected with the drone hard enough to crack the metal shell. It spun away and exploded against the side of a warehouse in a shower of blue sparks.
Dick landed in front of you, one knee down, rain streaming off his hair.
You stared at him.
He looked up with his best smile. “Hi.”
Your eyes narrowed. “That was incredibly dramatic.”
“I’m a performer.”
“That was incredibly stupid.”
“I’m also Batman-adjacent.”
“Unfortunately accurate.”
Behind you, a civilian groaned.
Your expression shifted instantly.
There was the healer.
The softness vanished into focus. You moved past Dick and dropped beside a woman pinned beneath a collapsed beam. Her leg was crushed at an angle that made Dick’s stomach turn. Her breathing came in panicked sobs.
“Hey,” you said gently, all teasing gone. “Look at me. Not the leg. Me.”
The woman grabbed your wrist with shaking fingers. “I can’t—I can’t feel—”
“I know. I’ve got you.”
Dick watched you place both hands over the injury.
He watched your shoulders rise as you inhaled.
Then the woman gasped.
The beam shifted. Dick lifted it enough for Vic to pull her free.
Her leg was whole. Bruised, but whole.
She started crying.
You smiled at her.
Then, very subtly, your left knee buckled.
Dick caught it.
Not much. Just one hand at your elbow, enough to steady you.
You went stiff beneath his touch.
“You okay?” he asked.
You smiled too quickly. “Fine.”
There it was. That word.
Dick hated it when Bruce used it. Hated it when Jason spat it through bloodied teeth. Hated it when Tim said it without looking up from a laptop.
He hated it most from you.
Because you made it sound kind.
Another drone shrieked overhead before he could say anything.
The docks trembled.
Raven’s voice cut through comms. “Nightwing, the central warehouse is rigged. There are people inside.”
“How many?”
“Too many.”
Dick looked up. The central warehouse stood at the edge of the pier, half its roof torn open, old brick walls glowing with intermittent blasts of alien-blue light. Through the broken windows, he saw movement.
Civilians. Hostages.
The structure groaned. Then the upper floor exploded outward.
Kory shouted. Dick ran.
You called his name.
He ignored you.
He heard you following anyway.
Of course he did.
Inside, the warehouse was chaos.
Smoke. Screaming. Sprinklers raining dirty water from cracked pipes. Drones buzzing between support beams like insects. Civilians huddled behind shipping containers while armed traffickers tried to retreat through a back exit.
Nightwing moved through them like a blade wrapped in blue light.
Strike. Dodge. Flip. Disarm. Smile, because fear spread faster when people saw the hero afraid.
“Exit to the south!” he shouted. “Go! Go now!”
Kory blew a hole through a side wall for evacuation. Vic ripped open jammed doors. Raven shielded a group of children from falling debris. Gar, currently a gorilla, blocked a collapsing beam with both massive hands and yelled, “I would like everyone to appreciate my core strength!”
You were everywhere you should not be. Healing a burned firefighter. Pressing a hand to a child’s forehead. Closing the wound across a police officer’s side. Calm, quick, relentless.
Too relentless.
Dick saw your face pale. He saw the way you pressed one hand briefly to your ribs after healing the officer.
Something in him tightened.
Then the floor screamed.
Not cracked.
Screamed.
The alien tech at the centre of the warehouse pulsed, drawing power from the old magical sigils carved beneath the concrete. The combination sent a shockwave through the building.
Every support beam lit blue.
Raven’s shield shattered. Kory slammed into a wall. Gar lost his grip.
The ceiling began to come down.
Dick saw it happen in pieces.
A family trapped near the upper catwalk. A little boy separated from his mother. The metal walkway beneath them twisting loose.
No time for the grapple. No time for a plan.
Just the fall.
Dick launched himself upward, using a stack of containers as steps. His boots hit metal. His body moved on instinct, rainwater and smoke and adrenaline turning the world sharp.
He grabbed the boy first and tossed him toward Kory, trusting her to catch him.
She did. Of course she did.
The mother screamed as the catwalk tilted.
Dick caught her wrist.
For half a second, they hung there over open air.
“Don’t look down,” he told her.
She looked down.
They always looked down.
A support cable snapped. The catwalk dropped. Dick twisted, threw the woman upward with everything he had, and felt Vic’s metal hand close around her coat.
Then the world gave way beneath him.
Falling was supposed to be familiar.
This was not.
The sonic emitters went off all at once.
His inner ear shattered into static. The building spun wrong. His grapple fired but missed the broken beam by inches. His fingers closed on nothing. His shoulder clipped metal hard enough to tear a shout from his throat.
Then he hit a lower catwalk.
Pain cracked across his back.
He bounced. Fell again.
He tried to turn. Tried to tuck.
Couldn’t.
There were too many angles. Too much debris. Too much noise.
The ground rushed up.
For the first time in years, Dick Grayson did not know how to fall.
He hit concrete.
And everything stopped.
At first, there was no pain.
That was how Dick knew it was bad. Pain was information. Pain told you what was damaged and how much time you had before the body started making executive decisions without you.
No pain meant the body had gone quiet. No pain meant the damage had passed language.
He stared up at the broken ceiling. Rain fell through the hole in the roof, silver and soft against his face.
Someone was screaming his name. Maybe several someones.
Dick tried to move.
Nothing happened.
Not his legs. Not his right hand. His chest moved, barely. Breath scraping in shallow and wrong.
Ah. That was bad.
A shadow fell over him.
You.
Your face appeared above his, wet with rain, streaked with soot, eyes wide with a terror that did not belong on you.
“Dick,” you said.
He tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if it worked.
“Hey,” he breathed.
It came out broken.
Your hands hovered over him, trembling.
That scared him more than the fall. You never trembled.
“Don’t move,” you said.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Your face twisted.
Bad joke. Wrong moment. Classic Grayson.
He tried to lift his hand to touch your face.
Nothing.
Your eyes flicked down.
You saw.
He saw you see.
“Talk to me,” you said.
“Can’t feel…”
He stopped.
Your lips parted.
He did not want to finish the sentence.
He had spent his life moving. Flying. Running rooftops. Dancing along edges so narrow most people could not stand on them without shaking. His body was not just a tool. It was memory. Family. Language. A living echo of the Flying Graysons.
He could not feel half of it.
“Dick,” you whispered.
The building groaned around you. Distantly, Kory shouted for you both. Vic cursed. Raven’s power surged dark and bright somewhere behind the smoke.
You cupped Dick’s face. Your hands were warm despite the rain.
“I’m here,” you said.
He believed you. That was the danger.
“Don’t,” he managed.
Your expression shifted.
He was not Bruce. He had not figured it out fully. Not yet. But something old and instinctive in him understood the shape of sacrifice when it leaned too close.
You had looked pale after healing people. You had limped after fixing Gar’s knee. You had hidden your hand after Damian broke his wrist on a mission with the Supersons. You had smiled through it all.
“You’re hurt,” he said.
You shook your head. “You’re dying.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t.”
Your eyes filled. “Dick—”
“Please.”
That word hurt more than the fall. Please was not a word Nightwing used often in the field. Please belonged to civilians, to scared children, to moments too human for masks.
Your face broke. Only for a second.
Then you leaned down and pressed your forehead to his.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered.
His heart lurched.
“No,” he said, or tried to.
Your hands slid beneath his shoulders.
And then the pain came.
Not his.
Yours.
He knew because it came with your scream. It tore through the warehouse, raw and animal and absolute.
Dick’s body snapped back into itself. Sensation flooded his legs. His fingers. His lungs. Pain, yes, but normal pain. Bruises. Strains. Things he knew how to name.
His spine straightened. His ribs expanded. His right hand clenched.
He gasped and rolled onto his side, coughing through smoke.
For one impossible second, relief hit him.
Then he saw you.
You were on the concrete beside him, twisted at the same angle he had been. Your back arched unnaturally. Blood spread beneath you. One of your legs lay still, too still. Your hand curled against the ground, fingers shaking like they were trying to remember how to move.
Your mouth opened. No sound came out.
Dick’s world narrowed.
“No,” he said.
It did not sound like him.
He crawled to you, hands skidding in water and blood.
“No, no, no.”
Your eyes found his.
You looked relieved. Relieved. Like seeing him move was worth what had happened to you.
Something terrible opened inside him.
“Why would you do that?” he choked.
Your lips moved.
He leaned closer.
“Caught you,” you whispered.
Dick broke.
Not loudly. Not at first. The sound that left him was small. Fractured. A child’s sound buried under a man’s voice.
He gathered you into his arms with shaking hands, trying not to jostle your spine, trying not to touch anywhere wrong, trying not to look at the blood, the angle of your body, the proof.
The proof.
He had fallen. You had become the fall.
“Kory!” he screamed.
The name tore through his throat.
Orange light flashed.
Kory landed beside him hard enough to crack concrete. Her eyes went wide when she saw you.
“Oh, beloved healer,” she breathed.
Dick looked up at her, wild. “We need medevac.”
Vic’s voice came through comms, tight with horror. “Already calling it.”
Raven appeared from the smoke, her hood torn, shadows curling violently around her.
She looked at you. Then at Dick.
Her expression went white.
Not pale.
White. Like she had felt something nobody else could.
“They took it,” Raven whispered.
Dick stared at her. “What?”
Raven’s voice shook. “The injury. They took it from you.”
The warehouse seemed to tilt.
No. No, he knew that. He had seen it. He had felt his body become whole as yours broke.
But hearing it made it real in a way his mind had been refusing to allow.
Gar, shifted back into human form, stumbled toward them. “What do you mean took it?”
Raven swallowed. “Their power doesn’t erase wounds.”
Dick looked down at you.
Your eyes were half-closed now.
No.
No.
No.
“It transfers them,” Raven said.
No one spoke. Even the burning warehouse seemed to go quiet.
Dick pressed his fingers to your throat.
Pulse there.
Fast. Weak. Too weak.
“Stay with me,” he said, voice shaking. “Hey. Look at me. Come on, look at me.”
Your eyelids fluttered.
He smiled because he did not know how to do anything else with terror.
“There you are,” he whispered. “Stay with me, okay? I’ve got you.”
Your lips twitched faintly.
“Net,” you breathed.
“What?”
“You’re… always the net.”
Dick’s vision blurred.
“Yeah,” he said, voice breaking. “Yeah, baby. I’m the net. So you don’t get to fall through. You hear me?”
Your eyes closed.
Dick’s smile vanished. “No. No, no. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”
Kory knelt beside him and placed one glowing hand carefully against your shoulder, not healing, not touching the wound, just there.
“Dick,” she said softly.
He shook his head. “They’re not dying.”
“No,” Kory agreed, though her voice trembled. “They are not.”
Dick looked down at you in his arms.
He had caught you.
Too late.
But he had caught you.
And he would not let go.
Titan Tower’s medbay had seen bad nights.
This was worse.
The room was full of people trying not to fall apart loudly.
Kory stood by the window, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her glow dimmed to a low, anxious pulse beneath her skin. Gar sat on the floor with his back against the wall, knees pulled to his chest. Vic kept running diagnostics, jaw clenched, his human eye red. Raven stood in the corner with her hood up, shadows tucked close around her like grief with teeth.
Dick sat beside your bed and held your hand.
He had been told to leave twice.
He had not.
The first time, a nurse tried gentle concern.
The second time, Donna tried command voice.
Neither worked.
Finally, Raven had looked at everyone and said, “Let him stay.”
So he stayed.
You lay still beneath white sheets and too many wires, your body strapped carefully to prevent movement. Spinal stabilizers ran along your back. An oxygen line curved beneath your nose. Your face looked wrong without expression. Too empty. Too quiet.
Dick kept staring at your mouth. Waiting for it to quirk. Waiting for you to make a joke about his bedside manner. Waiting for you to open your eyes and call him dramatic.
His suit was still on. Torn, wet, stained with your blood and his own, though technically the blood was all yours now in the ways that mattered. Someone had thrown a blanket over his shoulders.
Probably Kory. Maybe Donna.
He did not remember.
He remembered your scream. He remembered your body twisting. He remembered Raven saying, It transfers them.
His hand tightened around yours. Your fingers did not move.
“Dick.”
Donna’s voice came from the doorway.
He did not look up.
“How long?” he asked.
She was quiet for a second. “The doctors don’t know.”
He nodded once.
Meaningless.
His gaze stayed on your face.
Donna came closer. “They said the injury may not behave like a normal spinal trauma. Their body processes transferred wounds differently.”
“May,” Dick repeated.
“Yes.”
“May not.”
“Yes.”
He laughed once. It was ugly.
Donna’s hand settled on his shoulder.
That almost undid him.
Dick bowed his head over your hand.
“I should have known,” he said.
Donna did not answer.
He hated her for that. Loved her for it too.
“I noticed things,” he continued, voice low. “After they healed people. I noticed.”
“Dick.”
“I noticed and I let it go.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
Donna squeezed his shoulder. “That is Bruce talking.”
His head snapped up.
She looked at him steadily.
“You are allowed to be hurt without making guilt useful,” she said.
Dick stared at her.
Then he looked back at you.
“Useful is all I’ve got right now.”
Donna’s expression softened.
Behind them, Gar made a broken sound.
“I let them heal me last week,” he said.
Everyone looked at him.
He stared at the floor. “My knee. It was nothing. Like, yeah, it hurt, but it wasn’t—” His voice cracked. “It wasn’t worth that.”
Raven closed her eyes. Kory turned away sharply.
Vic’s metal hand curled into a fist. “They healed my neural interface after Psimon fried half my systems.”
“They helped me after Trigon,” Raven said quietly.
Silence fell.
Not empty.
Crowded.
Every person in the room was remembering.
Every hand you had held. Every wound you had closed. Every time you had smiled afterward and said you were tired.
Only tired.
Dick felt sick.
Not because you had lied.
Because all of them had been relieved enough to believe you.
The door opened again.
Clark Kent stepped in, rain-dark hair mussed, glasses absent, Superman suit visible beneath a jacket he had clearly thrown on in a hurry.
He looked around the room once. Then at you.
His face changed.
“Oh,” he said softly.
That was all.
Just oh.
Dick wanted to stand. Wanted to say something. Wanted to be Nightwing, team leader, eldest brother, person who knew how to make everyone breathe again.
He couldn’t.
Clark came to the other side of your bed.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he said.
Dick nodded.
Clark’s eyes lowered to your still hand in Dick’s grip.
“They healed me yesterday,” Clark said.
Dick’s breath caught.
“Kryptonite burn,” Clark continued quietly. “They looked pale afterwards. Bruce noticed. He told them to rest.”
A horrible laugh escaped Dick. “Of course he did.”
Clark looked at him with infinite gentleness. “Bruce didn’t know either.”
Dick shut his eyes.
He could imagine Bruce finding out. The silence. The rage. The way he would turn terror into protocols and guilt into surveillance. The way he would blame himself first, hardest, longest.
Dick had learned from the best. Unfortunately.
“Can you hear anything?” Dick asked.
Clark’s face tightened.
Heartbeats. That was what Dick meant.
Clark nodded. “Their heart is steady for now.”
For now.
The phrase lodged under Dick’s ribs.
He looked down at you.
“Good,” he said, like the word had weight, like saying it could make it true. “That’s good.”
Clark stayed for a while.
So did everyone else.
One by one, though, they drifted out. Not far. Never far. Titans did not abandon their own. They lingered in hallways, in waiting rooms, in corners with vending machine coffee and red-rimmed eyes.
Eventually, only Dick remained.
He was good at vigils. He hated that too.
Hours passed in monitor beeps and the low hum of machines.
Your hand was warm in his.
That became his whole world.
Warm meant alive. Warm meant here. Warm meant not yet.
Near dawn, your fingers twitched.
Dick nearly came out of his chair.
“Hey,” he said, leaning forward. “Hey, I’m here.”
Your eyelids fluttered.
He forgot how to breathe.
Then your eyes opened. Unfocused at first. Cloudy with pain and medication.
Then they found him.
You smiled. Barely.
It devastated him.
“Hi, pretty bird,” you rasped.
Dick made a sound between a laugh and a sob.
“You’re not allowed to be charming right now,” he said.
Your brow furrowed faintly. “M’dying?”
“No.”
“Then I’m allowed.”
His mouth trembled.
You blinked slowly, gaze shifting around the room. “Tower?”
“Yeah.”
“Everyone okay?”
There it was. First question.
Not, Am I okay? Not, What happened?
Everyone.
Dick had never loved and hated anything more.
He leaned closer.
“No,” he said.
Your eyes came back to him.
“They’re not okay. I’m not okay. You scared the hell out of us.”
Your expression shifted with slow understanding.
Then memory returned.
He watched it happen.
The warehouse. The fall. The choice.
Your eyes filled. “Dick—”
“No.” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard and tried again. “No, don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t make it easier. Please don’t make it easier.”
You went quiet.
He pressed your hand to his forehead.
His shoulders shook once. Only once.
“I watched you become the fall,” he whispered.
Your breath hitched.
“You were—” He stopped, unable to finish. “You were on the ground. Like me. Because of me.”
“Not because of you.”
“You took my injury.”
“Yes.”
The honesty punched the air out of him.
No deflection. No lie. No, I’m fine.
Just yes.
Dick lifted his head. His eyes burned.
“How long?”
Your gaze slid away.
His stomach dropped. “How long have you been doing that?”
You were quiet.
Too quiet.
Dick understood before you answered.
“All of it?” he asked.
Your mouth trembled.
“Most of it,” you whispered.
Dick stood so fast the chair slammed backward.
You flinched.
He froze immediately.
Regret flashed through him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” He pushed both hands through his hair and turned away, pacing once before spinning back to you. “It’s not okay. None of this is okay.”
Your face had gone pale.
He forced himself to lower his voice. “You took Gar’s knee.”
There was something old in them then. Older than your face. Older than your smile.
“I heal faster than most people.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“That sounds like something Bruce would say.”
A weak breath of laughter escaped you.
Dick did not smile.
The laugh died.
“I didn’t want you to know,” you said.
“No kidding.”
“Dick.”
His name in your voice hurt.
He came back to the chair slowly and sat down because standing made him want to run through walls.
You turned your head toward him.
The movement was tiny. It still cost you. He saw the pain ripple over your face.
“Don’t,” he said quickly.
You stilled.
He hated this. He hated all of it. The bed. The machines. Your body trapped under injury. His body whole because yours wasn’t.
“I need to know why,” he said.
“You know why.”
“No.” His voice came out sharper than intended. “No, I really don’t.”
Your eyes searched his face.
He let you see it. All of it. The fear. The anger. The betrayal. The love he had been carrying like a secret too fragile to name.
You looked away first.
“I didn’t want anyone to choose pain,” you said.
Dick stared at you.
“Everyone I work with is the same,” you continued. “The League. The Titans. The Outlaws. All of you. If I told you what healing costs me, you’d refuse unless you were unconscious or dying. Maybe even then.”
“Yes,” Dick said. “Because we’re not monsters.”
“You’re martyrs.”
He went still.
You looked back at him. Softly, exhaustedly furious.
“You are,” you said. “Every single one of you. You’d let yourselves bleed out if it meant I didn’t have to feel it. You’d call that noble. I call it stupid.”
Dick let out a stunned laugh. “You cannot be serious right now.”
“I am extremely serious.”
“You are lying in a medbay because you took a broken spine from me.”
“And I’d do it again.”
The room went silent.
Dick’s face crumpled before he could stop it.
You saw. Of course you saw.
Regret passed over your features.
“Dick—”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, don’t say that.”
“I can’t lie to you anymore.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to almost die for me and then tell me you’d do it again.”
“I love you.”
Dick stopped. Everything stopped.
The monitors kept beeping. Somewhere outside, someone walked down the hall. Rain tapped lightly against the Tower windows.
But inside Dick, every moving part went still.
You looked terrified now.
Not of death.
Of him. Of what he would do with the truth.
Your eyes glistened.
“I love you,” you said again, voice breaking. “And I know that’s not an excuse. I know it doesn’t make lying okay. I know it doesn’t make taking the choice away okay. But it’s the reason.”
Dick could not move. He had imagined hearing those words from you more times than he would ever admit. Usually in softer places. A kitchen at two in the morning. His apartment. A rooftop under a kinder sky. Your hand in his, your smile warm enough to make the world feel less like a thing that constantly needed saving.
Not here. Not with your spine braced. Not with your blood still dried under his fingernails.
“You can’t say that,” he whispered.
Your face went blank.
Dick realised what it sounded like and reached for you immediately.
“No. No, that’s not—” He sat on the edge of the chair, one hand hovering near yours. “That’s not what I mean.”
You looked at his hand.
He waited.
This time, he waited.
After a moment, you moved your fingers weakly toward him.
Permission.
Dick took your hand like it was made of light.
“You can’t say you love me like that,” he said, voice shaking. “Like it means your life is automatically worth less than mine.”
Your eyes filled again. “I don’t think that.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“You do,” he said, gentler now. “Because I know that trick. I invented that trick. I perfected that trick. I have a whole family of emotionally repressed vigilantes who could give a TED Talk on that trick.”
A watery laugh escaped you.
Dick’s thumb moved over your knuckles.
“I know what it looks like when someone calls self-destruction devotion,” he said.
Your smile faded.
He swallowed hard. “I know because I do it all the time.”
You looked at him for a long moment.
Then you whispered, “Yeah.”
He laughed once, and this time it was almost real. “Rude.”
“Accurate.”
“Still rude.”
Your fingers twitched against his palm.
He lowered his head until his forehead rested against your hand.
“I love you too,” he whispered.
Your breath caught.
He held onto you tighter.
“I love you,” he said again, because now that the words were out, he could not bear to let them stand alone. “I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it. And I am so angry at you that I can barely breathe.”
You made a small sound.
He lifted his head.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“I only wanted you alive.”
His face twisted.
“I know,” he said.
That was the worst part. He knew.
There was no cruelty in what you had done. No malice. No carelessness.
Only love. Misdirected. Secretive. Devastating love. The kind that looked too much like his own.
Dick leaned forward and pressed his lips to your knuckles.
Your eyes closed.
He stayed there.
When he spoke again, his voice was softer.
“We have to tell everyone.”
Your eyes opened. Fear flickered.
“They already know some of it,” he continued. “Raven felt it. She told us what happened.”
You looked toward the door.
Dick followed your gaze.
Through the small window, shadows moved in the hallway.
The Titans.
Waiting. Hurting. Loving you.
Your mouth trembled. “They’re going to hate me.”
Dick shook his head immediately. “No.”
“They should.”
“No.”
“I lied to them.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And they’re going to be upset. They’re going to be scared. Gar is probably going to cry on you, so prepare emotionally for dampness.”
Despite everything, your lips twitched.
“Vic is going to pretend he’s fine and then build you seventeen medical devices,” Dick continued. “Raven is going to stare into your soul until you confess every symptom you’ve ever hidden. Kory might actually lift a car.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“She might. For emphasis.”
Your smile faded, but some of the terror went with it.
“And you?” you asked.
Dick breathed in.
“I’m going to stay mad for a while,” he admitted.
You nodded.
“But I’m also going to stay.”
Your face cracked open.
He leaned closer.
“I’m not leaving because this is hard,” he said. “I’m not leaving because you scared me. I’m not leaving because you made a bad choice trying to save me.”
Your eyes searched his.
“I need you to promise me something,” he said.
“Dick…”
“No secret healing. Not with us. Not anymore.”
Your jaw tightened. “Emergency circumstances—”
“We’ll define them.”
“You sound like Batman.”
“I know. I’m devastated too.”
A weak laugh.
His heart nearly buckled under the sound.
“I mean it,” he said. “You have to tell people what they’re agreeing to.”
You looked down. “I know.”
“And you have to let us take care of you afterwards.”
“That’s harder.”
“I know.”
“I’m bad at it.”
“Baby, you are catastrophically bad at it.”
You huffed.
He smiled faintly, then sobered. “But we’re going to practice.”
“We?”
“Yeah.” His thumb brushed your hand. “We.”
Your eyes glistened.
“Okay,” you whispered.
It was not enough.
But it was a beginning.
Dick could work with beginnings.
He was a circus kid. A vigilante. A Robin. A Nightwing. A man who had lost the ground and learned to trust the air anyway.
Beginnings were just another kind of leap.
The Titans entered one at a time. Gar cried first, obviously. He tried very hard not to, which made it worse. He stood beside your bed with his arms crossed, lower lip trembling, eyes too bright.
“I’m mad at you,” he said.
Your face softened. “I know.”
“I’m, like, really mad.”
“I know.”
“And sad. And mad. And also really glad you’re not dead, which is making the mad part complicated.”
“That sounds complicated.”
“It is.” His voice cracked. “You took my knee.”
Your eyes lowered.
Gar wiped his face with his sleeve. “It was just my knee.”
“Gar…”
“No, it was. It hurt, yeah, but I would’ve been fine. It wasn’t worth you hurting.”
You looked at Dick. He said nothing.
This was yours to answer.
You swallowed.
“At the time,” you said carefully, “it felt worth it to me.”
Gar looked stricken.
“I know that doesn’t make it okay,” you added quickly. “I know I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
Gar sniffled. Then he leaned down very carefully and hugged the top of your head.
Dick almost told him to be careful.
He did not.
You closed your eyes.
Gar whispered, “You’re not allowed to die. I already decided.”
“Okay,” you whispered back.
“Cool.”
Then he backed away, crying harder.
Vic came next.
He did not cry. He brought a tablet.
“I’ve got three ideas,” he said, voice too controlled, “for a biofeedback system that can warn before a transfer exceeds safe neurological load.”
“I would’ve let you help,” he said quietly. “Sometimes. Maybe. But I would’ve wanted to know when helping me hurt you.”
Your eyes filled again.
“I know,” you whispered.
Vic nodded once.
Then he set the tablet on your bedside table like an offering.
Raven came after him.
She stood beside your bed, silent and pale, shadows moving slowly around her wrists.
You looked nervous.
Raven looked at you for a long time.
Then she said, “You took more than injuries.”
Your face went still.
Dick’s attention sharpened.
Raven’s eyes did not leave yours. “Emotional pain too. Psychic pain. Fear. Grief.”
You swallowed.
“Sometimes,” you said.
Dick felt like the floor had dropped again.
Of course. Of course there was more.
Raven’s expression tightened. “Mine?”
You closed your eyes. The silence answered.
Raven inhaled sharply.
Dick started to reach for her, but she lifted one hand.
You opened your eyes. “Only when it was too much. Only when I thought—”
“That I couldn’t survive it?” Raven asked.
You flinched.
Raven looked away. For a moment, she was very young. Then she stepped closer and placed two fingers lightly against your hand.
“I understand why,” Raven said. Your tears spilled over. “But do not do it again without asking me.”
“I won’t,” you whispered.
Raven nodded.
Then, after a pause, she added, “You are loved for more than your usefulness.”
You broke then. Quietly. Completely.
Dick stood, but Raven was already there, leaning carefully over you, touching your forehead with hers.
Not a hug. Not exactly.
Something quieter. Something sacred.
Kory came last.
She tried to be gentle.
Kory’s gentleness had always been a force of nature trying to fit through a doorway.
Her eyes shone bright green as she took your hand.
“My beloved friend,” she said, voice trembling, “you have carried pain alone when you had an army.”
You gave a wet laugh. “When you say it like that, it sounds very stupid.”
“It was,” Kory said.
Everyone blinked.
Kory’s chin lifted. “It was brave. It was loving. It was also stupid.”
Gar made a tiny sound. “She said the thing.”
Kory ignored him.
She leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead.
“You will not do this alone again,” she said.
You nodded, crying too hard to speak.
Dick watched them surround you.
Not crowding. Not demanding.
Just there. A net, woven from people who loved you enough to be angry.
For the first time since the warehouse, something inside him loosened.
Not healed. Not yet.
But held.
Recovery was slow. Not as slow as normal spinal trauma, because your body was strange and stubborn and apparently determined to give medical science a migraine.
But not fast either.
Feeling returned in fragments. Left foot. Right toes. Thighs. Hips. Pain followed each return like lightning learning your name.
You hated it.
Dick loved every sign because it meant you were still there, still fighting, still coming back.
He also hated it because every gasp from you felt like punishment.
He spent most days at your bedside.
At first, he tried to make himself useful. He brought food. Adjusted pillows. Read medical updates. Ran interference when too many worried heroes wanted to visit. Smuggled in snacks Alfred absolutely did not approve of but definitely knew about because Alfred knew everything and permitted crimes selectively.
Then you caught him reorganising the medbay supply cabinet at three in the morning.
“Dick.”
He froze with a roll of bandages in each hand.
You stared at him from the bed, unimpressed. “What are you doing?”
“Inventory.”
“This is not your medbay.”
“Organisation helps.”
“You alphabetised antiseptic.”
“Antiseptic deserves respect.”
“You need sleep.”
“So do you.”
“I was asleep until you started stress-cleaning gauze.”
He looked down at the bandages. Then back at you.
“You were in pain.”
Your expression softened.
He hated how easily you saw through him.
“I’m often in pain right now,” you said gently.
His hands tightened.
“Don’t do that,” you said.
“Do what?”
“Make my pain your failure.”
He laughed once, humourless. “Kind of hard not to, considering.”
“Dick.”
He looked away.
You sighed. “Come here.”
He put the bandages down and came to your bedside.
You patted the edge of the mattress.
He gave you a look. “Absolutely not.”
“Sit.”
“I could hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
“I’m not risking your spine because you want cuddles.”
“I do want cuddles.”
His expression flickered.
You smiled faintly. “That one got you.”
“Cruel.”
“Effective.”
He compromised by dragging the chair close enough that his knees touched the bed. You reached for him, and he gave you his hand.
It had become familiar now. His hand in yours. Your pulse under his fingers. Your life, stubborn and warm.
“You’re doing the thing,” you said.
“What thing?”
“The smile.”
Dick blinked. “I’m not smiling.”
“The inside smile. The fake one. The one that says, ‘I’m fine, don’t look too closely, I’m very handsome and emotionally functional.’”
He stared at you. “You think I’m handsome?”
“You heard the rest.”
“I prioritised.”
Your mouth twitched.
Dick’s smile came easier this time. Realer.
Then it faded.
“I don’t know how to stop seeing it,” he admitted.
Your thumb moved weakly against his hand.
“The fall?” you asked.
He nodded.
Your face gentled.
“When I close my eyes,” he said, voice low, “I see you on the floor.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” He leaned forward. “I’m not telling you so you apologise. I’m telling you because we said no more hiding.”
You absorbed that.
Then nodded slowly.
“Okay,” you whispered. “No more hiding.”
His throat tightened.
You looked down at your joined hands.
“I still feel it sometimes,” you said.
Dick went still.
“The fall,” you clarified. “Not the full injury anymore. But echoes. Like my body remembers impact that wasn’t mine.”
Dick could not speak.
You continued, because apparently both of you had chosen emotional destruction as a bonding activity.
“I don’t regret saving you.” He closed his eyes. “But I’m starting to understand that not regretting it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”
His eyes opened.
You looked at him, open and tired and honest. “I’m sorry for that part.”
Dick breathed in carefully.
Then out.
“I don’t regret being alive,” he said.
Your lips parted.
“I need you to know that. I don’t regret it. I don’t wish you hadn’t saved me if the alternative was dying in that warehouse.”
Your eyes filled.
“But I hate that you paid for it alone,” he continued. “I hate that I didn’t get to say yes. I hate that you thought love meant making yourself the place pain goes to disappear.”
You nodded, tears spilling silently.
“I’m learning,” you whispered.
He kissed your hand. “Me too.”
You studied him. “What are you learning?”
Dick huffed softly. “That apparently I have control issues.”
Your brows rose.
“I know. Shocking. Alert the media.”
“Front-page news.”
“And,” he continued, “that being the net all the time is not actually the same as being loved.”
Your expression changed.
He swallowed. “I think I liked being needed because it felt safer than being wanted.”
You went very still.
Dick looked down at your hand.
“If people need you, you have a job. A role. Something to do. Something to offer. You can earn your place over and over.” His mouth twisted. “But being wanted? Just because you’re you? That’s terrifying.”
Your voice was soft. “Yeah.”
He looked up. Your eyes were wet.
“I know,” you said.
And there it was.
The mirror. Two people who had made themselves useful enough to avoid asking if they were loved.
Dick smiled sadly. “We’re a pair, huh?”
“A disastrous one.”
“Hot.”
You laughed. This time, it did not sound broken.
Dick felt the laugh settle into his chest like sunrise.
He leaned closer, giving you time to refuse.
You did not.
His lips touched yours softly. Carefully.
There was nothing dramatic about it. No collapsing warehouse. No blue fire. No scream. Just his hand in yours, your mouth warm beneath his, and the quiet, astonishing fact that you were both still alive.
When he pulled back, your eyes were closed.
“Was that okay?” he asked.
Your eyes opened slowly. “You’re asking after?”
“I panicked.”
“Adorable.”
“I can do better.”
“I know.”
He smiled.
You tugged weakly at his hand. “Again.”
This time, he laughed before kissing you.
The first time you stood again, everyone cried.
Gar denied it. He was lying.
Vic recorded the whole thing and claimed it was for medical documentation. Also lying.
Kory hovered with both hands out like she intended to catch you, the bed, Dick, and possibly the entire Tower if necessary. Raven stood nearby, pretending calm while her shadows formed nervous little curls at her feet.
Dick stood in front of you.
Not behind. Not beside.
In front, hands open.
A net. But not the only one.
“You’ve got this,” he said.
You glared at him. “If I fall, I’m haunting you.”
“Reasonable.”
“As a poltergeist.”
“Mean, but fair.”
“I’ll move all your cereal into different boxes.”
Gar gasped. “That’s evil.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Dick’s grin trembled.
You saw. Your expression softened.
“Hey,” you said quietly. He focused on you. “I’m here.”
He nodded.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “You are.”
You took one step. Your knees shook.
Dick did not grab you. It took everything in him. Every instinct screamed. Every memory of your body broken on concrete rose up sharp and hungry.
But he did not grab you. He let you choose the step. Let you own the balance. Let you move.
You took another.
Then another.
Then your strength failed.
Dick caught you.
So did Kory.
So did Vic.
Raven’s shadows braced your legs.
Gar cheered and cried openly this time.
You ended up laughing against Dick’s chest while everyone crowded in, careful and loud and ridiculous.
The pain had gone somewhere. The fear had too.
Not away. Never fully away.
But spread out. Held by more hands.
That was the secret none of you had known at first.
Pain did not become lighter because one person carried all of it.
It became survivable when everyone carried a piece.
Later, after the others left and you were back in bed, exhausted but smiling, Dick sat beside you and traced idle circles over your palm.
“You caught me,” you said.
He looked up.
“In the warehouse,” you continued. “After.”
His face sobered. “I was too late.”
“No.” You squeezed his hand. “You caught me.”
Dick swallowed hard.
“You caught me too,” he said.
Your smile faded into something tender. “I broke all your rules when I did.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m trying not to romanticise that.”
“Good.”
“But I did catch you.”
His mouth curved despite himself.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “You did.”
You looked at him in the soft medbay light. “Now what?”
Dick leaned back in his chair, still holding your hand. “Now we learn how to do the next part without almost dying.”
“Sounds improbable.”
“We can try.”
“Are there snacks?”
“Definitely.”
“Then I’m in.”
He laughed.
There it was again. That bright thing. That impossible thing.
Joy, growing stubbornly in the aftermath.
Dick Grayson still knew how to fall. He always would. But now, when he looked at you, when he felt your fingers threaded through his, when he remembered the warehouse and the scream and the terrible miracle of being saved, he understood something he had spent his whole life avoiding.
Catching someone did not mean never falling. Being loved did not mean never hitting the ground.
Sometimes love was the hand reaching down afterwards. Sometimes it was the person who stayed through recovery. Sometimes it was telling the truth when the lie would be easier. Sometimes it was a whole team gathered around a bed, furious and crying and refusing to let one person become the only place pain could live.
And sometimes, impossibly, it was you.
Alive. Healing. Learning. Smiling at him like the world was still worth saving.
Dick lifted your hand and kissed your knuckles.
“I love you,” he said.
Your eyes softened. “I love you too, pretty bird.”
His heart stumbled. “Still not over that nickname.”
“You love it.”
“I do.”
You smiled wider.
Outside the Tower windows, Blüdhaven glittered beneath the rain.
Bruce loves playing with your tits, classical tastes for a classical man.
CW: nipple play and he slaps readers boob?, AFAB, possibly OOC so watch out
I still don't know how to write smut
Your husband always had an aura around him that screamed classical. From his music choices to his attire, to the way he carried himself.
That also carried to his sexual preferences. He loved your boobs.
He doesn’t care if you’re a double a cup or a full on F cup, Bruce loves boobs and most importantly loves YOUR boobs.
“Honey slow down it’s not going anywhere!” You chide as you lay back naked, Bruce started off by simply massaging your breasts, before climbing on top of you and kissing down your body…well not exactly down your whole body: lips to jaw to neck to collarbone and then to your boobs, where he’s been enjoying himself for the past 15 minutes.
Bruce wasn’t even being rough or quick about it. His big, calloused hands took over and gripped your waist, while he flicked his tongue against the little bud—the moan Bruce lets out against your nipples roused by his excessive humping of the bed below you both sent a shivering down your body. He noticed this.
He mumbles against your left nipple “These breasts are heavenly…” he declares while pinching the right one with his thumb and forefinger.
“Mm..what’s got you so poetic, Bruce?” You tease back, your hips bucking up to rub the bare, sopping cunt onto his abdomen.
“Just a second, I’m busy..” pulling back with a huff, Bruce admires his work. Hickeys on your neck and breasts; swollen and puffy nipples, if not slightly engorged—and then he looks down and hardly resists wetting his lips at your even more slick pussy.
“A little nipple play and you’re this wet? Perfect.”
Bruce roughly cups both of your breasts as one of his hands let go and deliver a rough smack onto the sensitive mound, not enough to truly hurt, but enough to elicit a moan from you.
Thinking about calling Damian the nicknames he'd given to you.
Damian had been at it for hours—not that it was abnormal for him to train for so long, but, you missed your boyfriend. You’d tried all your usual tactics: calling his name, lingering in the doorway, even offering him water. Every time, the response was the same clipped, focused:
“Just five more minutes, beloved.”
That was thirty minutes ago, and to say you were getting a little impatient would be an understatement.
“Damian.”
“Just a little–”
“Dami.”
“I’m almost–”
Alright, enough was enough.
You pushed off the doorway, arms crossed, and let your voice slip into something airy, casual, and soft.
“Habibi.”
The sound of wood striking the mat cut short. His staff faltered mid-swing, balance wavering for a fraction of a second before he steadied himself. Not fast enough to hide the way his head jerked toward you, eyes wide, pupils dilated slightly.
“…What did you just say?”
You tilted your head, feigning innocence. “What? Did I say it wrong?”
He lowered the staff slowly, brows drawn together, ears betraying him as they pinked. His lips parted slightly, as if he had words ready but couldn’t decide which to use—or whether to say any at all. Finally, he cleared his throat, exhaling sharply, attempting control.
“You shouldn’t—” He paused, gaze darting away, then back, restless. “…You shouldn’t say things like that so casually.”
“Casually?” you echoed, stepping lightly onto the mat. “You say them all the time, hayati.”
He stiffened, then visibly relaxed by a hair’s breadth, shoulders dropping, but his jaw clenched. His green eyes flicked to yours, sharp and searching, as though he were measuring the danger in your smile.
You let the silence stretch, then spoke deliberately, soft and steady: “Beloved.”
The staff slipped from his fingers and hit the mat with a muted thud.
“Beloved,” he repeated, voice low, almost reflexive, as if trying to remind himself that he wasn’t imagining it. His lips twitched, caught between incredulity and restraint.
You smiled and took another step closer. “What?”
His jaw tightened, and his cheeks were faintly flushed. He looked like he wanted to argue, but couldn’t find the words, couldn’t muster the strength to fight it.
You reached out, fingertips brushing his hair. He didn’t pull away—just swallowed hard, pulse quickening under your touch.
“…Say it again,” he murmured, barely above a whisper, eyes downcast, lashes brushing his cheek.
You leaned in, voice soft, lips near his ear: “Hayati.”
His reaction was subtle, but it struck you more powerfully for it. A sharp breath, caught halfway between a laugh and a sigh, escaped him. His forehead brushed against yours briefly, a tiny, almost involuntary gesture of surrender. He didn’t pull back, but you could feel the tension leaving him in micro-movements—an exhale here, a slight loosening of his shoulders there.
He stayed like that for a long moment, forehead resting lightly against yours, chest rising and falling unevenly. You felt him tremble just slightly under your touch, enough to make your chest tighten.
Finally, he peeked up at you from beneath his lashes, green eyes wide, but wary. “I—” His voice caught. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
You smiled softly, brushing your thumb over his cheek. “Shouldn’t have done what, Damian?”
He swallowed, gaze darting to your lips. “…You’re evil,” he muttered, faintly, his own lips twitching.
You stepped closer. “Do you want me to stop?”
His laugh was low, shaky, restrained—but not unkind. “Do you think I’d ever want you to stop?” He let his hands rest on your waist, gripping just enough to anchor himself, not in surrender so much as in habit, a quiet acknowledgment of trust.
“Good,” you whispered, voice dropping slightly. “Because I’m not even close to done yet.”
You let another nickname fall, measured and soft: “Qalbi.”
His chest stiffened, lips parting faintly. A faint, sharp intake of breath, and then he pressed just a little closer, forehead nudging yours once more, eyes closing for a brief moment. “Stop,” he murmured, voice low, caught between plea and protest. “I can’t—”
“You can’t what?” you teased gently, smiling.
He groaned softly, face buried near your shoulder, to hide his embarrassment, succumbing to the effect you had on him. “You,” he huffs in frustration, gripping you tighter, voice muffled, “are lethal.”
You laughed softly, hand running down his back. “Maybe,” you murmured, brushing a kiss along his temple, “come to bed now, habibi.”
He hesitated—just a moment—before giving a faint, reluctant sigh and letting you guide him. Later, when the two of you were laying together, his arms wrapped around your waist and face buried in your hair, he mumbled, “Say it again?” in the softest, sweetest voice, and who were you to deny him?
a/n: its my first time writing for DC and I only got into it fairly recently, so if he seems OOC I apologize :\ honestly this is the most nervous i've ever been to post something
If you have any recs/things I have to read to get a better grasp on any of the characters, feel free to tell me!!
All characters I write for are aged up if they are minors in canon
characters written about in this piece : bruce wayne , dick grayson , jason todd , tim drake , duke thomas , damian wayne
note : dick only has two because his was quite longer 😔😔 sorry guyzz
BRUCE WAYNE.
"hi, honey. you weren't picking up, but this is quite important. i need to go away for a few days, effective tomorrow. call me back, darling, i want to hear your voice before i leave. love you."
"sorry to bother you, darling. i saw a couple watches you might like, but i wasn't sure which one to get you. so, naturally, i bought both — give me a call so we can arrange a date to see each other again, i know you're busy. see you soon. i love you."
"evening, honey. long day today. long day. just wanted to hear your voice or see if we could meet for a bit. dinner, perhaps? [sighs] i'd just love to see you tonight. love you, bye."
DICK GRAYSON.
"hey, i tried calling but you didn't answer — so i hope you're okay, obviously — but i was wondering what you would do if i accidentally used up the rest of your nice shampoo? only hypothetically, though. and also where did you buy it? you know, if that were to happen."
"i know you're at work right now, and i should actually be getting back to working on a case, but i went for a coffee break — you know, and to just let my thoughts process for a bit — and did you know they opened up a new cat café on seventh? let me know if you're free at all this weekend, there was the cutest cat in the window, and i wanna know it's name real bad. speak later... oh! and have a good day, love you. [blows kiss into phone]"
JASON TODD.
"hey, you. hope you're having a good time out in freaking budapest, sounds like it's really cool. i actually forgot you're six hours ahead, so you're probably sleeping. but then i guess you have something nice to wake up to. i mean... assuming you find this nice. anyways. i miss you. hope to hear from you soon, and see you sunday. i mean, if you wanna see me on sunday. i know that's when you get back, but you might be pretty jetlagged... anyway, i'm rambling. sleep well, love you, bye."
"[soft, self-depricating chuckle] i feel like i'm always calling you when you're asleep. just got back from patrol. i guess you could say it was pretty quiet, which is good but it makes it kinda boring. [a few beats of silence] i should go. i— i love.. you. yeah. i hope you know that."
"[a male voice, pitching it up to sound feminine] ooooh, i love you. kiss me, kiss me, i love you. my sugarplum, my pumpkin. [faint shout in background] who took my fucking phone!? [closer voice laughs] oh, fuck—"
TIM DRAKE.
"ohh, shit you're probably driving, aren't you? i– i don't usually call back so soon after a first date, but— wait, i didn't mean it like that, i just meant... [exasperated sigh] nevermind. i just quickly called because you left your sweater, and i was wondering if you wanted it back? let me know whenever you're free, no– no rush. i don't want to force you to be with me again, especially if you didn't have a good time. [slight pause] i mean, i had a good time. i had a really good time! uh– but, anyway. yeah. call me back."
"hey, i'm on my way back from patrol and was just gonna swing by. you might be asleep, you might be... i dunno. i'll knock on the window, see if you answer. see ya! maybe. bye."
"no pressure, hope you're having a good time with your friends, but wanted to let you know i'm on standby whenever you want a lift home. just playing red dead online with duke, but i can leave whenever you want. i'll stay up until two, but i doubt you'd stay out that long. see you later, lovely. stay safe."
DUKE THOMAS.
"sorry i missed you today, your coworker said you just left. wanted to give you a kiss, but i can wait, i can wait. get home safe, give me a call when you can. i'm just walking now to the bodega, gonna get a sub, and i'm super excited. small wins. eat well tonight, i'm excited to hear about what you have for dinner. love you so much. buh-bye."
"real quick warning before you come round, we don't have any spare toothbrushes, because someone got them shot up on his motorbike. [distant shout] hey! it's not my fault— [a door closes] anyways, super excited to see you. we're getting pizzaaaaa."
"just got a haircut, and i'm just gonna stop off at a convenience store to grab some snacks, some drinks, and then i'll be right at yours. i keep seeing posts about, like, when your boyfriend gets a haircut, or your crush, or something, and you lose feelings — so i hope you still love me like this. [chuckles] personally, i think it looks great! i think it'll be fine. [laughs again] see you in, like, ten. bye."
DAMIAN WAYNE.
"i am just calling you so you can save my number. this is damian... [a few seconds of silence, although there's faint voices in the background] i seem very unsocial. bye."
"i know you are at work right now, but i was just reading, and came across a passage that reminded me of you. hold on. [some rustling of paper, the phone settles down on a surface] i will love you forever; whatever happens. till i die and after i die, and when i find my way out of the land of the dead, i'll drift about forever, all my atoms, till i find you again. [a few beats of silence, before the voicemall ends]"
"hello. call me back when you can. timothy thinks he knows more about you than i do, and we must prove him wrong. he says he is... angrybaiting me? i don't know what it means, but it is imperative that i show him i know you better. we are dating, after all. who does he think he is?"
practice (requested! + nsfw)
tim drake x fem!reader
mentions: friends to lovers, oral sex (f!recieving), we pushin the pathetic!tim agenda, reader talks tim thru it, praises, dirty talk, pussy drunk! tim, uh is that all
(was debating between this or dom!tim but where's the fun in that?)
—————————————————————————
“wait— so let me get this straight. you show up at my doorstep”
“yes”
“sending me sos messages”
“ that too”
“to ask on how to eat out girls”
“…. yes?”
you blinked twice, staring at a very flustered tim as he sat on your couch beside you and looking everywhere but your eyes. you didn’t expect your best friend to show up on your doorstep in the middle of the night with an sos for sex education
“look— i know its so sudden” he brought his hands up defensively. “but i-i couldn’t stop thinking about my date tomorrow and im so nervous”
you raised an eyebrow as the corner of your lips tugged. “didn’t know you’d get straight to the point for a first date” you teased, making tim groan and cover his red face with a shake of his head before finally looking up at yours. “can you help me or not?”
“im still shocked you don’t know how to eat pussy, you dated stephanie brown and cassie sandsmark for god’s sake”
“i do! its just… been a while, considering this is my first date in a while”
“are you a virgin t—"
tim exclaimed your name, making him groan and already regretting coming to you. “enough” he sighed as you were quietly chuckling. “hey relax, im just playing with you” you reassured softly with a smile, watching tim sharply exhale to calm himself
“alright then” you turned your body to face him, now taking your poor friend’s situation seriously. “what do you need to know?”
“everything” tim responded, making you blink once. “o…kay but first, tell me what you already know” you said as you saw him nervously trying to remember. “uh…”
“you haven’t got laid in a while, haven’t you”
“… patrols have been hectic”
you let out a sigh, now knowing what you were working with. “tim drake, what have you been doing in your free time…” and before he could actually respond, you immediately hushed up with a finger raised as a silent plead for him to not continue. you dont know if your respect or sympathy for tim increased
you knew just telling him wouldn’t cut it out, especially since men were usually visual learners, which made an idea pop up
“wanna try it out with me?”
your casual words made tim’s eyes immediately widen, the blush coming back but intense as it spread not just on his face, but to the tip of his ears. “don’t joke around like that” he murmured
“im serious” you clarified, shifting a bit closer to him. “i know if i just told you how to eat, you’d probably forget everything when an actual pussy is in front of your face” tim could see the seriousness in your eyes, how you weren’t joking around with him— how you were offering yourself for him
“…are you sure?” barely a whisper came out from his lips. “i don’t want to force you… and wouldn’t this change… you know” he gestured between him and you— more specifically, your friendship that has lasted for years. tim didn’t want you to put yourself in an uncomfortable position for his problem
but you just smiled softly as a reassurance. “im sure, tim. do you want to do it?” you asked, wanting to make sure he had a say in this. the moment he looked down and shyly nodded, you slowly tilted his chin up for his eyes to face yours, slowly leaning your face to his till your lips were inches away from his. you could see how his breath slightly hitched and his eyes went down to your lips
“then what are friends for?” you whispered, closing the distance by placing your lips on his. tim froze, but only for a second before his eyes fluttered shut and his lips moved in sync, moving his hand to hold your jaw and the other sliding to your waist as his sounds were swallowed by your mouth
slowly, tim leaned forward. you spread your thighs, your foot placed on the floor while the other leg was thrown over tim’s shoulder, feeling his hips nest in between your thighs.
“good thing you still know how to kiss a girl” you murmured on his lips before you softly gasped, feeling his lips trail lower to your neck and collarbone. you felt his hand tug on the shirt, his way of asking if he could take it off— in which you gladly did so.
you slightly lifted yourself up, tim watching you take your shirt and bra off with blown eyes and pants leaving his lips. your boobs came to view, nipples already hard from the cold air holding them
tim’s hands decided to help you by taking your panties off and lord, did he miss the sight. your pussy was right there, the clit already throbbing and glistening with arousal— all enough for his mouth to almost drool
his lips trailed from your stomach all the way to your inner thigh, positioning himself and now facing your cunt
“cmon, pretty boy” you smiled, a hand burying itself in tim’s hair. “i know you want a tas— oh fuck”
tim licked a long stripe of your cunt, a loud moan leaving your lips and gripping his hair tighter from how warm his tongue was, while a moan left him from your taste on his tongue— a divine taste
tim looked up at you with blown eyes that were silently asking if what he did was correct. you caught his gaze immediately. “mhm” you looked down with half-lidded eyes. “keep going, but start off slow”
his arm locked around the leg that was thrown over his shoulder while his other hand was placed on your thigh to keep them spread. tim went back for another taste, his tongue going slow— just like you instructed
“uh huh, little higher— thaaaaats it” you sighed, your hand twitching in his hair and slightly nudging his face more to your pussy. a muffled moan was heard from him, both the vibration of his sound and his tongue making you let out a sound
“fuck—fuuuuuuck tim” you moaned, knocking your head back. “you didn't forget shit” your other hand was gripping the mattress of your couch, panting. tim’s eyes didn’t leave yours, watching and observing your expressions to see if he was doing something right— when in fact, he was doing everything right
your taste made him addicted, heavy pants often leaving his busy mouth as his pace started to speed up. “so good” he moaned. “fuck, you taste divine”
and when you felt his tongue brush on a spot just right, it made you immediately cry out. “right there! t-thats’s it— ohhhh fuck—attaboy, mmmm”
muscle memory began to kick in and tim’s tongue focused on the spot that made your hips slightly jerk back, jaw locked in and his entire mouth on your soaking pussy with muffled sounds leaving his busy lips
“more, more, more, mmm”
“can’t stop— shit”
“wanna taste your cum, pleasepleaseplease—“
that made a dazed grin form on your lips. “yeah? want me to soak your chin with my cum?” you cooed, burying his face deep that the tip of his nose was nudging on your clit.
that familiar knot was slowly breaking and breaking, all from each stroke of his tongue. your thighs clamp over his head and your grip in his hair tightened. “tim i— shit, i’m gonna cum” you moaned, feeling your body lock up
“give it to me” he murmured on your cunt. “want—" lick. “—every—" lick. “-drop” lick.
your orgasm came hard, clit pulsing like crazy on his tongue as hot waves of cum came out of you. even there, tim doesn’t stop. his mouth kept sucking and his tongue kept stroking, drinking every last drop like nectar
“oh, oh” he moaned, rolling his eyes to the back of his head as your cum dripped from his chin. “so good, so— mmm, cant get enough” he sobbed
once the buzz faded, you collapsed on the couch, panting as tim lifted his head from your legs. he was panting, eyes half lidded and locked with yours. his chin was soaked from your orgasm, his lips coated before licking them off clean and immediately going to meet your lips
your grip on his hair tightened and you moaned on his mouth, tasting your residue on his tongue. a small hiss left tim from your grip on his hair, not tight enough to hurt but enough to send sensations to his body
slowly, both of you broke the kiss, tim hovering on top of you as he held eye contact. “how— how was it?” tim panted
hands down the best orgasm you’ve ever had in your life, but you were too breathless to say that. once you caught your breath, you gave him a dizzy nod. “like you never forgot”
who would have known that tim drake was an eater, and an amazing one at that
—————————————————————————
masterlist! ⤷ 2k event !
(a/n: five more orders left! inspired by nora's dinah piece 😜 busted when i read it)
Sorry to disturb the regularly scheduled iceflame/icespring/general akotsk programming, but your recent Jason headcanons (immaculate btw top tier Jason characterization!!) made me wonder 👀 ik you said Jason is your boy but would you happen to also have any thoughts on Dick (Grayson)?? 👀👀👀
Bc I’d LOVE to hear them!! (dc was my first fandom and continues to have me on a leash)
STILL DON'T GO HERE, BUT PEOPLE SEEM TO REALLY ENJOY MY JASON HDCS, AND I ALWAYS MAKE TIME FOR MY ICEFLAME PRESIDENT.
18+ for nsfw (got wayyy too carried away 🚬). mdni.
✶ JASON'S VER.
DICK GRAYSON AS YOUR BOYFRIEND HDCS—
Loving Dick Grayson is, on the surface, the easiest thing in the world. And that's the first lie you have to learn to see through.
Because Dick is spectacularly good at making things look easy, and the things that look easiest with him are usually the things that are most likely to break your heart in slow motion if you don't pay attention.
He's the one who seems open and seems warm and seems like he's giving you everything, and the trick of him (the actual heart of him) is learning to tell the difference between what he gives easily and what he gives only when something has been earned.
The first thing you'll notice about Dick is that he's charming, and you should understand this is not an accident or a personality quirk, it's a trained skill.
Dick Grayson learned to read a room before he could read a book, he was raised in a circus that depended on charisma the way a body depends on oxygen, he learned at his father's knee how to walk into a tent and have eight hundred strangers fall in love with him in under thirty seconds, and then he was raised by Bruce Wayne, who taught him an entirely different kind of social engineering.
The result is a man who can, without effort, make you feel like the most important person in any room, and the terrifying thing is that in the moment, he means it, every time.
The way he meets you is going to feel like a movie scene. Dick has a talent for the meet-cute, he's the kind of man who notices you across a crowded bar and crosses the room and introduces himself with a grin that suggests he's been thinking about this for hours.
Within ten minutes you'll be laughing, and within twenty you'll be telling him things you don't normally tell strangers, and within an hour you'll be wondering if you've ever actually been seen before you met him. Because that's the gift he has, the genuine one, not a manipulation but a capacity: he can give you his whole attention, all of it, the lights-on undivided real thing, and the world will narrow to the size of your face.
But here's where it gets complicated: he's doing this honestly, he's not performing, not running some play on you. He genuinely is that interested, genuinely does find you fascinating, but he's also like this with the bartender, and the woman who sells flowers outside the subway, and the teenager working the front desk at the gym, and his cousin's best friend at the wedding three states away.
You will not understand for a while that what feels singular and miraculous is actually his baseline mode of being a person, and the question of whether what's between you is special is going to require a different metric than how brightly he shines when he looks at you, because he shines that brightly at everyone.
The early dating is euphoric. Dick is, hands down, the most fun first three months of your life.
He plans things, real things, not generic dinner-and-a-movie things, but things: a midnight breakfast at a diner he loves in Blüdhaven, a borrowed canoe at four a.m. so you can watch the sun come up on a reservoir, a rooftop he knows about with a view of the river, the back room of a salsa club where he knows the owner and has known the owner since he was fifteen, a bookstore that's open late where he buys you a book he thinks you'll love and inscribes it with something funny and slightly breathtaking.
He texts back immediately, he calls when he says he'll call, he remembers every offhand thing you mention, he shows up on time, he opens doors, he has manners in a way that's real and was beaten into him by both his parents and Alfred and his own native warmth, and the manners are not a performance.
He is, also, physical in a way that disarms you immediately.
Dick was raised by acrobats and lives in a body that doesn't have the boundary between platonic and not-platonic that most people's bodies have; his hand will be on your lower back when he's guiding you through a crowd, his arm will be slung around your shoulders when you're walking down the street, he'll pull you into his lap on the couch with the easy thoughtlessness of a man who's been physically affectionate with everyone he loves since he was a child, and within the first two weeks you'll already feel like you've been touching him for years.
The flirting is playful. Dick teases the way he was taught to tease, lightly, never punching down, with a grin that lets you know he's having a wonderful time.
He calls you gorgeous and beautiful and uses your name like a song, he winks at you across rooms with the kind of dial-up wink most men cannot pull off to save their lives but which on Dick reads as charming because his face was made for it, he flirts like flirting is a love language he speaks fluently in three dialects and is willing to teach you any of them.
And then (and this is the first crack) you'll notice, somewhere around week six, week eight, that you don't actually know him. Not yet. You know an enormous amount about him: the surface biography (orphaned, raised by Bruce, was Robin, became Nightwing, lives in Blüdhaven, used to date Barbara, used to date Kori, used to date a half-dozen women whose names you've heard in passing and who he speaks of with affection that's also slightly unnerving because who manages to break up with that many women and still be friends with all of them—the answer is Dick).
You know his routines, and you know his favourite restaurants, and you know which of his brothers he can tolerate this week. You know that his back hurts when it rains, and you know how he takes his coffee. But you don't know what scares him, or what he thinks about when he can't sleep, and you don't know what he has not told you, because Dick is a master of giving you so much that you don't notice what's being withheld.
This is the central paradox of dating Dick Grayson, and you have to understand it early or you'll spend years confused: he's not lying, he's not hiding from you in any way he could be called out for, he's not a secretive man. He is, in fact, by Bat-family standards, a radically open one, a person who hugs his friends and tears up at movies and tells you he loves you without flinching.
But he has a way of being present with you that doesn't require him to be known, and it can take you a year to even register that you've been giving him your whole inner life and getting back something that feels like the same coin but is actually a different currency altogether.
The flaws (because yeah, golden boy has those) are real and they're specific, and the first one is that he's conflict-avoidant in a way that can drive you genuinely insane.
Dick was raised by Bruce, and Bruce communicates by glaring through plate glass for forty years, and Dick reacted to that by becoming the opposite on the surface (affable, talkative, easy) but underneath he's still a Bat, which means when something is actually wrong, when something is sitting between you that needs to be dealt with, he'll smile, deflect, and he'll change the subject.
He'll give you a hug and a forehead kiss and a we're fine, baby, we're great, and the issue will not get addressed, and three weeks later it will resurface in some roundabout way and you'll realise he's been carrying it around the entire time and just not telling you, because telling you would have been a fight, and Dick Grayson has spent his whole life trying to be the person who never has to fight with the people he loves.
The second flaw is over-extension. Dick says yes to everything, Dick is in a dozen people's emergency contacts, Dick is the one his brothers call at 2 a.m., Dick is the one Babs calls when she needs help, Dick is the one Bruce calls when something has gone wrong with the family in a way Bruce can't fix on his own.
Dick is the police officer (or the consultant, depending on which era we're talking) who can't say no to overtime, Dick is on the Titans roster, Dick is in the JLA rotation, Dick is mentoring three teenagers and checking in on six others, and you'll find, in the second or third month of dating him, that he's exhausted in a way he will not admit to.
The exhaustion has consequences for you. He'll fall asleep mid-sentence on your couch, cancel plans last-minute with apologies that sound rehearsed because he gives them too often. He'll be physically present with you and mentally three calls behind on his to-do list, and when you try to talk to him about it he will look at you with those big blue eyes and tell you he's fine, baby, I promise, I just need a few hours, and you'll have to learn that a few hours in Dick's vocabulary means I'm not going to address this, please stop asking.
The third flaw (and this one's the worst) is what Babs once called, in a fight that he absolutely did not handle gracefully, his martyr complex.
Dick has internalised the idea that he's responsible for the wellbeing of the people he loves, that their pain is his to absorb, that if anything goes wrong it's on him to fix it.
The way this shows up in a relationship is that he'll not let you take care of him, not in any way he could not have explained as just being thoughtful, not in any way you can call out without sounding ridiculous. But the asymmetry is real.
He'll hold you when you cry, but won't cry in front of you; he'll ask you about your day with focused interest, then deflect when you ask about his; he'll let you in to the version of him that needs to be the strong one, and he'll pretend the version of him that needs anything else doesn't exist. And if you're not paying attention you'll fall in love with the strong version and never notice that the other one is starving.
Then there's the family. Dick's family is, depending on the day, either a delight or a structural threat to your relationship. Dick is the eldest son, the golden boy, the one who absorbs all of the Bat-family chaos and metabolises it into functional family dynamics, and being his partner means inheriting an entire tribe of complicated, traumatized, dangerous men (and women), some of whom will adore you and some of whom will decide instantly that you're not good enough for him.
Damian will be politely contemptuous of you for at least a year before grudgingly admitting that you have your uses; Jason will needle you and Dick equally and call you sister-in-law in that lazy drawl before you've even talked about marriage just to watch Dick choke on his beer; Tim will run a background check on you because he runs background checks on everyone Dick dates and is genuinely apologetic about it (maybe); Cass will simply look at you for a long quiet moment and then either nod or not nod, and there's no court of appeal for what Cass decides; Babs will be polite to your face and reserve judgment, and you'll understand within ten minutes of meeting her that she and Dick share a history that is cellular in a way that nothing can quite touch, and you'll have to make peace with this or you'll lose your mind.
Bruce will be Bruce about it, which means he will not openly disapprove and he will not openly approve, he'll simply observe, and you'll leave every dinner at the manor unsure whether you passed or failed. Alfred (bless Alfred) will be the one who actually tells you the truth, in tiny offhand asides delivered while he refills your tea, things like, "Master Dick has not slept well this week, Miss, I trust you will encourage him to take a proper rest", and you'll understand that Alfred is the only person in this entire family who's going to tell you what's actually going on, and you'll love Alfred for the rest of your life (don't we all?).
Now, the Barbara thing. Because we have to address it.
Babs is one of Dick's people in a way that you, no matter how much he loves you, can't fully displace at the level of history, and you have to decide early whether you can live with that or whether it's going to corrode you from the inside.
They've known each other since they were teenagers, they've loved each other in every possible way (romantically, platonically, professionally, with grief, with rage, with the kind of forgiveness that only comes from people who've survived each other), and there's a frequency on which they communicate that no one else can pick up (half-sentences finished by the other one, references to events that don't have names, the particular way she says Grayson that sounds like a whole conversation) and the texture of their friendship is going to take some getting used to, because they are close, they'll always be close, and that's information you have to absorb without resentment.
But (and this is very important) Dick knows what it looks like from the outside, Dick has been in this exact situation with previous partners. Dick has watched relationships die on the Babs hill before, and he's not going to let that happen with you, and the way he'll not let it happen is by being crystalline about where you stand.
The first time the topic comes up (and it'll come up, you'll say something offhand, or he'll catch a flicker on your face when she calls, or someone at a Bat-family thing will make a comment that lands wrong) he will stop, turn to you, take your hands or your face, and he'll say it: "hey. hey, look at me. she's my friend. she's my best friend. she's not—she's not what you are. you are what you are. you. okay?" and the use of the word you twice, the you-are-what-you-are, is going to land in your sternum like a bell, because Dick chooses words for a living and he's chosen these ones on purpose. What he's telling you is not don't worry about her but understand who you are to me, specifically, and let that be enough.
He'll do it more than once, because he understands it has to be reiterated. Because he understands that with him in particular the past is populated, and reassurance with Dick is not a one-time conversation it's a practice.
He'll bring it up unprompted sometimes, when he's noticed something you didn't say, "hey, by the way, you know that thing earlier? Barbara and I are gonna be like that forever, that's not changing, but you also know there's no version of my life where I'm not coming home to you, right? you know that?", and the willingness to say it without being asked is the thing that, over months, defuses it.
He'll not perform a separation from her that isn't real, but he'll absolutely perform, in the most direct and least ambiguous terms possible, his choice of you, and you'll learn, slowly, to trust that the choice is renewed every day on purpose.
And the small things matter: he keeps a photo of you on his nightstand, where her photo used to live (he'll mention this exactly once, casually, watching for your reaction, "used to be a different picture there, now it's you, just so you know," and it'll take you the rest of the night to recover).
He introduces you, every time, by your full name followed by my girl; he holds your hand at family dinners (the small everyday hand-holding, not performance) even when she's at the table.
He asks your opinion on cases when both of you are present, because he wants you to know that you're not in the second tier, that the room you occupy in his life is the room with the lights on; and the cumulative weight of all of these small choices, made consistently over years, is what makes the difference between a partner who eats herself alive over Babs and one who learns, eventually, that being his now is not a lesser thing than being someone's was, and may in fact be the bigger thing.
The Kori thing is different and easier, because Kori lives in a different gravity than the rest of you do, and her relationship with Dick is something he carries with him like an ache rather than a pull. It's the past, it really is, but the past did something to him that you'll feel sometimes. The way he gets quiet when stars come up in conversation, the way he doesn't talk about the time after the Titans first broke up. You don't push it, the same way you don't push the rest of it, because Dick is not a man who responds well to being excavated.
Now, the intimacy. This is where everything that's been laid out so far really matters, because Dick in a relationship looks one way and Dick in bed looks another, and the difference is illuminating about who he actually is.
You'd think (based on the charm, the easy physicality, the way he flirts, the half-dozen famous exes) that Dick would be a suave lover, a smooth one, the kind of man who orchestrates a seduction the way a conductor runs a symphony, and the truth is more interesting than that and a little bit funnier:
Dick is technically extraordinary (this is a man who has the body control of an Olympic gymnast, the cardio of a working acrobat, and the kind of physical literacy that means he can find any nerve cluster in your body within four minutes of meeting it), and yes, he absolutely could run the symphony version, and sometimes does, but his actual default mode in bed is delighted, almost playful, with a generosity that borders on excessive.
Because Dick was raised in a culture where giving someone pleasure is a form of love, and he has internalised this so thoroughly that he genuinely doesn't understand selfish lovers, finds them confusing, considers them a category mistake.
The first time is not fast. Dick is not a man in a hurry, he's waited his whole life to find out what you like and he's not going to rush.
The experience of being undressed by Dick Grayson the first time is a thing that will spoil you for other people, because he treats it like an event. He kisses you like he has all the time in the world (and he does, and he's going to use all of it), and when his hands first move under your shirt the touch is so unhurried and so deliberate that you'll, briefly, forget how to breathe.
He undresses you slowly, watching your face, narrating with his hands rather than his mouth. The first thing you'll notice is that he's quiet in bed at first, not silent but attentive, listening to you, watching, learning, and the second thing you'll notice is that he smiles against your skin, often, like he's having a wonderful time, like there's nowhere else he'd rather be.
The smiling against your skin is going to undo you, because nobody has ever made you feel that welcome in your own body before.
He has specific physical tells in bed that are just him, and you'll come to recognise them like signatures:
He hums. A low, almost-not-audible hum against your skin when he's particularly enjoying something, a sound that's not a moan and not really a growl but something closer to a contented animal noise, and the first time you feel it vibrate against your collarbone you'll understand why his exes never quite got over him;
He has a habit of pausing mid-thrust to grin at you, just stop and grin, like he can't quite believe his luck, and the grin will be at close range and unguarded and if you weren't already in love with him it would do the job;
He taps his fingers. When his hand is resting on your hip or your thigh, his fingertips will tap absently, an irregular little rhythm, the same way they tap on a coffee cup when he's thinking, and you'll realise he doesn't even know he does it;
He has a ticklish spot just below his ribs on the left side that he does not announce and will absolutely deny if asked, but if your mouth happens to land there during the slow exploration phase he will jolt and laugh, surprised out of his cool, and the laugh (that real laugh, the one his handsome face was made for) will derail the next ten minutes;
He kisses foreheads, constantly, mid-fuck, between thrusts, after climax, your forehead, your temple, the crown of your head, like a punctuation mark, and you'll learn that the forehead-kiss is his most reflexive expression of affection and it shows up in bed as often as it shows up anywhere else.
He's a worshipful lover in a way that can take you a few times to get used to.
Dick goes down like it's a hobby, he goes down like he's competing with himself for Olympic gold. He goes down for long stretches and shows no signs of getting bored. The eye contact is intense in a way that will short-circuit you the first time, because he wants to watch your face fall apart, he wants the information, and the entire time his hands will be doing other things, attentive things, his fingers laced with yours or holding your thigh pinned open or pressed flat against your stomach so he can feel you breathe.
Afterwards he will rest his cheek against your hip for a moment with this expression of quiet satisfaction that will make you want to weep, because he's pleased with himself, in the best way, like he just executed a perfect double-twist and stuck the landing without a single wobble.
He's vocal in a particular register. Dick praises, constantly, and the first time you notice the pattern it's a little dizzying because you have not, until this point in your life, been told you are gorgeous, perfect, fucking incredible, baby look at you, that's it, just like that, fuck you feel so good, you have no idea what you do to me by a man who clearly means every single word.
The praise is not generic, it's specific. He tells you about the noise you just made, tells you about the way your back arched just now, he tells you about how you taste, tells you about something you did three minutes ago that he can't stop thinking about. And the cumulative effect is that being in bed with Dick is like being told an extremely flattering story about yourself in real time and discovering, against your will, that you might actually believe it.
He calls you baby (that's the dominant one, the one he uses the most) and beautiful and sweetheart and honey and your name, often, comfortably. The use of your name is not a wall to be brought down because the wall isn't there; the first time he says I love you in bed it will be relatively early (months early) because Dick says it easily, he says it freely, and he means it every time.
You'll have to decide whether the easiness of it is a comfort or a complication, because the words come faster from him than they did from anyone else you've loved and that doesn't necessarily mean less, but it does mean different.
He's ridiculously attentive. He reads you in real time and adjusts, he learns your body in two or three sessions in a way that some people don't manage in years. He remembers what worked, he tries new things and watches your face for your reactions, he asks (verbally! with words! like a regular person!) what you want, and the asking is hot rather than awkward because Dick is genuinely curious, he wants to know, the wanting to know is part of the wanting you.
The cumulative effect of all of this, over months, is that the sex with Dick becomes some of the most pleasurable sex you've ever had in your life, and that fact, in itself, is going to start to bother you in a specific way that takes you a while to identify.
Because here's the thing nobody tells you about being a generous lover's partner: you start to notice, somewhere in month three or four, that the dynamic is asymmetric.
Dick is very, very invested in your pleasure, he derives a great deal of satisfaction from giving it to you, but the bulk of every encounter is structured around making you fall apart, and you'll start to wonder, gently at first, what he actually likes. What he actually wants. What would happen if you took the wheel for an evening and made the night about him, and you will discover, over time, that this is genuinely difficult for him.
Dick has trouble receiving. This is the bedroom version of the wider pattern (the over-extension, the conflict avoidance, the martyr-complex thing) and it shows up in bed as a deflection, a graceful one, almost imperceptible.
You start working your way down his body and he'll roll the two of you so suddenly you're underneath him again and he's grinning at you like yeah, no, my turn; you'll try to slow him down and he'll redirect with a kiss and his hand between your legs; you'll say it, eventually, Dick, hey, let me, and he'll laugh (that easy charming laugh, the deflective one) and say baby, I'm having fun, I'm great, c'mere, and the conversation will end and you'll be on your back again and you will, an hour later, lying next to him while he's drifting off, realise that he's done it again.
The first time you sit with this, properly (the first time you understand what's happening) you'll feel a little sick, because you'll realise that the generosity you'd been mistaking for sexual confidence is partly a deflection, a way of making the encounter about you so it doesn't have to be about him. A way of staying in the role of the giver because the role of the receiver is one he was not, somewhere along the way, taught how to occupy without flinching.
The way you have to crack it is the same way you have to crack every other layer of him, which is patiently, over time, with a kind of attention that mirrors back the attention he's been giving you.
What you do, slowly, is insist, gently, repeatedly, without making it a confrontation: you take his hand and put it on the headboard above his head and you say stay there, you laugh when you say it, you keep it light, but you mean it, and he'll laugh and try to move and you'll say no, stay, and he'll go very still and look at you with something new in his face (a flicker of genuine surprise, almost a kind of unease) and what yo're doing in this moment is showing him that the room is going to hold him whether he's in motion or not.
The first time he actually lets you do what you want with him, the first time he just lies there and lets you take him apart, slowly, with no escape route, you'll see his composure crack in real time and it'll be one of the most extraordinary things you've ever witnessed, because Dick Grayson unguarded is a rare phenomenon and you're getting it because you earned it.
And what you'll discover, when he finally lets himself receive, is that he is extremely responsive. Vocally, physically, emotionally. That the surface charm has been masking a deep, almost unbearable sensitivity, that he gets loud when he's being properly attended to, that he has shake in him when someone is patient with him.
He will say things (broken, half-finished things, baby, please, oh god, fuck, don't stop, please) that you have never heard from him in any other context, because Dick when he's being taken care of is a different person than Dick when he's taking care of you.
The moment you get access to that other Dick is the moment the relationship begins to deepen into something the surface version could never have built on its own.
The other thing about Dick in bed (and this is important) is that he's strong, in a way that doesn't always register because his charm makes him read as soft. The way this surfaces in bed is genuinely startling the first time you encounter it.
Dick can pick you up, easily, without much effort, and rearrange the geography of the bed with the kind of casual physicality that comes from a man who routinely flips off rooftops, and the first time he does it (the first time he just lifts you, hands under your thighs, and walks you to a different position with no apparent strain) you'll have a small private revelation about what the rest of his life is like, and the thing he holds back.
The strength he's being careful with around you, is going to become a quiet erotic undercurrent for the entire relationship.
And then there's the flexibility, which you can't talk about Dick in bed without addressing.
The man can do things with his body that other people genuinely cannot, and it's not a party trick, it's just physical fact. He can hold positions other men would tap out of within minutes, his hips have a kind of fluency that's difficult to describe and impossible to forget.
He can fold you up into shapes you didn't know your body would do and hold you there long enough for the position to stop being an act and start being a place you live, and he's not show-offy about this, he doesn't lead with it, he just uses it, casually, the way other men use their hands.
The first time it really registers what you're working with you'll laugh, mid-act, an involuntary disbelieving laugh, and he'll stop and grin at you and ask what, and you'll say nothing, nothing, keep going, and he'll know exactly what, and his ego will preen for a week about it.
He can kneel between your thighs with his back arched and his hands braced wide on the headboard for as long as he wants to; no shake, no shift, no sign of strain, just steady working focus. He can fold himself almost in half over you while still keeping perfect rhythm, his forehead against yours, his elbows planted on either side of your head, his hips doing something that should not be physically possible from that angle but apparently is when it's him.
He can sit back on his heels with you in his lap and stay there for hours, his hands on your hips guiding you, his thighs not trembling once, his breathing barely changed, and the patient quality of that stillness (the way he can just hold and let you move on him at your pace) is one of the most erotic things you've ever encountered, because he's not enduring it, he's enjoying it, you can see it on his face.
His hips are their own subject, and you'll think about them in spare moments for the rest of your life.
There's a fluency to the way he moves that other people simply don't have, an unbroken liquid quality, the same physical literacy that makes him a working acrobat showing up here as the ability to change rhythms mid-stroke without losing the through-line, to slow down without losing the angle, to grind in a slow circle that finds something specific inside you and stays there until you're making sounds you don't recognise, and the worst part is that he knows.
He has the information, he's clocked the angle that makes your breath catch and he can return to it with surgical precision whenever he wants to, and he does, often, with a small private smile against your shoulder.
He has a habit to pick you up mid-fuck and walking you somewhere else without losing rhythm. This is a real thing he does and the first time he does it you will go slightly insane, because you'd been on the bed and you'd thought you were going to finish on the bed, and instead he's reached under your thighs, lifted you cleanly into his lap with his hands cupping you, stood up, walked you to the wall, and pressed your back against it without ever pulling out.
The casualness of the whole manoeuvre (the way it's genuinely no effort for him) is going to recalibrate your understanding of what sex can be; he does the same thing with the bed-to-counter relocation, with the bed-to-shower transition, with picking you up off the couch when neither of you is going to make it to the bedroom in time, and every single time he does it he treats it as completely unremarkable, which is somehow worse than if he were trying to impress you with it.
The positions he prefers shift over time, too.
His early-relationship favourites are these: he loves having you on top of him with his hands on your hips, because he likes watching you, he likes the angle, he likes being able to reach every part of you at once (your hips, your stomach, up to your breasts, your throat if you tip your head back), and he likes the freedom it gives his mouth. He can sit up and meet you, pull you down against him, kiss you while you move, or lean back and just watch, eyes dark, jaw slack, with the kind of frank wonder that's going to feel like being looked at by a man who has never seen another woman in his life.
He loves having you face-down with his weight on your back, one of his hands flat against the mattress next to your head and the other gathered in your hair, his mouth at your ear narrating playful filth, because the angle is good and the intimacy of his mouth that close to your ear is a thing he's very aware of.
He loves having you on your side with him behind you, slow and deep and unhurried, his arm under your head and his other hand splayed across your stomach holding you against him, because this position is the one where he can stay closest to you for the longest, and Dick prioritises closeness above almost everything else.
He loves (and this is one of his giveaway favourites) having you sit in his lap, facing him, both of you upright, your legs around his waist, your foreheads together, his hands on your back holding you against him.
This is the position he reaches for on slow nights, the one he gets you into when he wants the whole encounter to be one long unbroken kiss, and the slowness of it (the way it forces you to breathe in time with him, the way his eyes are right there, two inches from yours, the way every shift is felt across your whole pressed-together body) is the position where he's most undone, where the surface charm comes off completely and you get the real him.
There's also the mid-sex things he does that will become the texture of the relationship.
He hooks one of your legs over his shoulder and turns his head to kiss the inside of your knee, never breaking rhythm, and the casual grace of the gesture (the fluency of it, the way it costs him nothing) will undo you the first dozen times he does it;
He catches your hand when you reach for him and laces your fingers and pins it to the mattress next to your head and holds it there, palm-to-palm, his thumb stroking the inside of your wrist, an entire conversation happening in two square inches of contact; he stops, sometimes, mid-thrust, and just looks at you, his rhythm gone still, his eyes traveling your face like he's trying to commit something to memory, and when you ask what he just shakes his head and smiles and kisses you and starts moving again, and you'll never get the answer to what, but you'll learn that this is one of his most reflexive expressions of love.
He talks against your skin (not on it, into it) his mouth pressed to your throat, your shoulder, the soft place under your ear, and the praise comes out muffled and warm and slightly slurred. Like he can't quite focus enough to enunciate, and there's something about the vibration of his voice directly against your pulse that hits a frequency words alone can't reach.
He murmurs into the join of your neck and shoulder, a small steady stream (baby, fuck, you feel—fuck—)and the sentences don't always finish, and the not-finishing is the proof that he means them.
He has a habit of brushing your hair back from your face mid-sex. Your hair will fall across your forehead, or into your eyes, or stick to your temple, and his hand will come up automatically and touch it, gentle, almost absent, like he can't bear to have anything between him and your face.
The gesture is so reflexive he doesn't even know he does it; he does the same thing with hair stuck to your temple from sweat (smooths it back with his thumb, presses a kiss to where it was, keeps moving) and the overall effect of being touched this attentively, this casually, while he's taking you apart between your thighs, is going to ruin you for partners who treat sex as a contained event with discrete inputs, because Dick treats it as a continuous field of attention, and once you've experienced that you can't go back.
He sucks on his fingers. Sometimes after he's had them inside you, holding eye contact, deliberate, with a small smile that's the smuggest expression on his entire face, and you'll hate him for the smugness and you'll love him for it. And you will, eventually, give up on which one wins; he does it casually, like it's the most natural follow-through in the world, and the unbothered quality of the move is what makes it work, because if it were performed it would be obnoxious and instead it just reads as a man who's genuinely enjoying himself.
He kisses down your body in a continuous unbroken line. Dick doesn't skip, Dick doesn't jump-cut. He gets from your mouth to where he's going by traveling, lips against your jaw, your throat, your collarbone, your sternum, the soft place between your ribs, your stomach, your hip.
The journey takes as long as it takes, he's in no hurry, and he stops at points along the way to settle in for a minute, sucking a mark into the place where your shoulder meets your neck, scraping his teeth lightly across your hipbone and watching you twitch, and the deliberateness of the trip is more arousing than the destination.
Dick has a thing he does where he'll be inside you, going slow, and he'll stop moving entirely. Just stop, just stay there, deep, holding still, and lean down and kiss you, hungry and unhurried, for a full minute, two minutes, however long, while the rest of him is just present inside you, not moving, not building, just there.
The held stillness combined with the kissing is going to do something to your nervous system that nothing else has ever done, and he knows, and he does it on purpose, and he watches your face afterward with this small satisfied expression that says yeah, that one's mine, I did that.
He gets a flush (high on his cheekbones, down his throat, across his chest) when he's getting close, and the flush is one of the few things about his body he can't control. The first time you notice it (you'd been watching his face) you'll feel the small private thrill of having identified one of his tells, and after that you'll watch for it deliberately, and he won't know you're watching for it, but when it appears you'll know before he does, which is a strange small power that becomes one of your favourite things about him.
He stretches afterwards, in bed, with the unselfconscious physical grace of a cat. Arms over his head, back arched off the mattress, a long luxurious extension of every muscle group, and the first time you watch him do it you'll understand viscerally what kind of body you've gotten access to, and you'll think about the stretch in inappropriate moments for years; sometimes he'll do it half-on top of you, his weight pleasantly pinning you to the mattress while he stretches his arms above his head, and the unconscious comfort of the gesture (the way he'll just use your body as a place to land) is one of the most affectionate things he does.
He puts his ear to your chest, sometimes, after you're both finished. Head tucked under your chin, ear flat against your sternum, and listens to your heartbeat, and he does this often enough that you'll realise it's very much deliberate. He's checking, that something in him is soothed by the sound of your heartbeat; he won't explain why, and you won't ask, but you'll find yourself, on the nights he does it, automatically running your fingers through his hair, holding him there, letting him stay as long as he wants. Because you understand on some pre-verbal level that this is one of the ways he loves you.
He likes (and this is something you'll have to learn over time, because he doesn't volunteer it, it has to be asked for) being underneath you. Not just casually. But in a true sense. With you setting the pace.
He likes pinning your hands above your head and watching you try to move under him; he likes (and this is the one that surprises you both) being held afterwards in a particular way, your arms around his ribs, your face against the back of his neck, your whole body tucked against his, and the first time you do it without thinking.
The first time you fold yourself around him and just stay, he goes still in the way that means I didn't know I needed this and now I will not be able to live without it, and he won't say anything, but in the morning he'll be a little softer with you than usual, a little more clingy, and that'll be his way of telling you.
He also has, and this takes you longer to notice, a thing about hair (yours specifically, but his too) he likes you running your hands through his hair (and his hair is thick and a little wild and slightly too long and he uses some kind of product that smells like cedar, and you will find yourself reaching for it constantly), and he likes pulling yours, gently, at the right moment, with the kind of precision that suggests he has done his homework on what you can take.
He likes when you scrape your nails along his scalp, soft slow drags from temple to nape, and the first time you do it absent-mindedly while watching a movie he goes liquid on the couch beneath you and you'll think you've broken him, and then you'll do it again, on purpose, in bed, and he'll make a noise you've never heard him make before.
He's a kisser in a way that some men are not. Some men kiss as a transition, a means to an end, a thing you do on the way to other things. Dick kisses as a destination, kissing is part of the event, and he'll kiss you for absurd lengths of time without escalating, just kissing, slow deep unhurried kissing, his hand at your jaw, his thumb stroking your cheekbone.
There are nights when the whole evening is essentially just that, hours of just kissing on the couch like teenagers, and you'll realise at some point that he's doing this on purpose, that he's savouring, that he genuinely loves the act of kissing you and considers it not foreplay but its own complete category of intimacy.
The slow nights with Dick are soft in a way that's almost embarrassing. He's not afraid of softness, he leans into it, he enjoys it. He kisses you for forty minutes before anything else happens because he genuinely loves kissing you, he wraps his whole body around yours and moves slowly enough that you can feel every shift. He keeps his eyes on yours, he talks, but quieter than usual, the praise reduced to its essentials, baby, baby, you're so perfect, I love you, fuck I love you, and the I-love-yous on these nights are easier than they have any right to be, because Dick really does love easily, that part isn't a lie, the difficulty is what's underneath the loving, but the loving itself is real.
Dick is a man who feels things deeply and was trained from childhood to perform composure, and there are nights (usually after he's let you take him apart, usually after a stretch where work has been hard and he's been carrying too much) where he'll hide his face in your neck afterwards and you'll feel his breath catch, and you'll feel something wet against your skin.
He will not acknowledge it, and the way to handle it is to do nothing (don't comment, don't question, don't make it a thing) just hold him, run your hand up and down his back, and let him do it, because what is happening is that he's letting himself feel the day, and the only place he's allowed to do that is here, with you, and if you make a fuss about it he won't be able to do it again without feeling like a burden.
Aftercare with Dick is seamless. He's good at it the way he's good at everything socially calibrated, but the early version of his aftercare has a quality of checking that you've to learn to read past (are you good? you good, baby? you need water? you need anything?) and this is partly genuine concern and partly anxiety, partly his own need to confirm that he did the encounter right.
The loving thing to do, eventually, is to take his face in your hands and kiss him gently and say yes, I'm good, I'm great, come here, and pull him down and hold him, and let his version of aftercare give way to your version, and the long quiet hours of just lying tangled up in him, his head on your chest, his hand in yours, are the hours when he is most himself, when the performance is fully off, when he's just a man in a bed with someone who loves him.
He's deeply affectionate post-sex in a way that will spoil you.
Dick doesn't roll over and just fall asleep. No. Dick wants to talk, Dick wants to cuddle (he uses this word, unironically, he's not embarrassed by the word cuddle, he's comfortable with all of his feelings in a way that took him years of work to get to).
Dick will trace shapes on your back for an hour, he'll kiss the top of your head every few minutes like he's checking in. Dick will tell you stories from his childhood at 2 a.m. with your head on his chest and his hand in your hair, and these are the hours when he gives you the real him, the one that exists underneath the glossy charm, and you'll learn that the way to access this Dick is to be still with him. To not rush it, not ask him questions that put him on the spot. To just be a warm body next to his and let him talk, and over months, over years, the stories will accumulate, and you'll know him in a way that few people have ever truly known him, and that knowing will be the thing that makes the relationship real.
His general affection, outside of bed, has its own grammar that you'll learn to read as well.
He's a toucher, constantly, never aggressively, just always. His hand on your knee at dinner, his fingers tangled in yours under the table at family events, his arm around your shoulders on the couch, his hand at the small of your back when he's standing behind you in any line for any reason.
He's a forehead-kisser, as established, and the forehead kiss is his most freely given affection. Dispensed dozens of times a day, when you walk past him in the kitchen, when you hand him coffee, when he leaves for patrol, when he comes back.
He' a nape-of-the-neck-toucher, his palm warm and broad against the back of your neck when he's leaning in to say something close, and there's a soft, possessive quality to the touch that he himself doesn't quite recognise, the kind of soft mine that doesn't need to be said out loud.
He likes holding your hand, full hand, fingers laced, in public, walking down the street, at parties, at dinners, like he wants people to see, and the wanting-people-to-see is its own kind of declaration.
He cooks for you. Badly. But with great enthusiasm, and he'll get better over the years because Dick gets better at everything he applies himself to.
He learns your favourites and makes them on bad days, he leaves you notes on the kitchen counter with hearts on them like he's twelve years old, he sends you texts in the middle of the day that are just thinking about you, beautiful, hope your day's going okay, and the weight of all of these gestures is what builds the relationship into something solid.
Dick understands (in a way many people don't) that love is not a feeling you have once and refer to forever, it's a practice, it's the daily choice, and he's good at the daily choice, which is one of the most quietly extraordinary things about him.
He dances with you in your kitchen. Actually dances. Not the joke kind, real dancing, he was raised by acrobats and learned to dance before he could read.
He can lead, and he'll teach you, and the first time he pulls you up off the couch to dance to something that came on while he was making dinner you will feel like you have walked into a different kind of life
He sings, badly, in the shower, loud, unselfconscious, and the badness of his singing is one of the only things he is genuinely unselfconscious about, the only place where the surface composure cracks without him noticing.
He laughs at your jokes. Not in some polite way, in a full way, head thrown back, with his whole body, and the laugh is so generous it will make you try harder to be funny, just to hear it again, and you'll become, over the course of dating him, slightly funnier than you were before, because he's been treating your humour like a thing worth investing in. And he'll become happier, because you're one of the few who can bring simple, uncomplicated happiness into his life with a few sentences.
He remembers everything. The names of your friends from college, the specific wine you liked at that one restaurant two years ago, the way you take your eggs, the title of the book you'd mentioned wanting to read. And the effect of being remembered like this, of being attended to at this granularity, is destabilising in a way that takes you months to recover from. Because most people in the world are not paying attention at this level, and discovering that one of them is paying it to you will change your understanding of what attention can be.
Now, fights with Dick are their own thing because they're terrible in a specific way. Dick doesn't yell, he doesn't storm out. Dick instead does the worst possible thing, which is get quiet, get gentle, smile at you with sad eyes and say you might be right, baby, let's just—let's just take a beat, okay? and then leave the apartment for three hours and come back composed and ready to not talk about it.
The first time he does this you're going to be furious in a way you don't quite have language for, because he didn't fight back, he didn't engage, he just side-stepped and you're now standing in your living room with all of the original anger and nowhere to put it.
You will learn, over time, that the way to fight with Dick is to refuse the side-step: you have to make him stay in the room, you have to ask him direct questions and not let him deflect with charm.
You have to be willing to call him on the we're fine, baby when you're not, in fact, fine, and you have to do this without yelling, because yelling triggers his shutdown, the version of him that learned at age fourteen that the way to survive Bruce Wayne in a bad mood was to be agreeable and inscrutable.
You have to be steady, and you have to be patient, and let him know that the conversation is going to happen, today, and that you're not going to be charmed out of it.
When he realises you've figured out the trick of him will be a moment of genuine pain on his face. Not anger, not annoyance, grief, almost, because something he's used to manage relationships his whole life has just stopped working, and he's now going to have to actually be in the room with you, and he is, on some level, terrified, and that fear is a thing you have to handle gently, because what is being asked of him is enormous, and what he's going to discover, on the other side of it, is that he can survive being known.
Over time, the relationship with Dick stabilises into something that's both easier and harder than the early days suggested it would be.
Easier because he's genuinely a wonderful person to be around, because he makes you laugh, because he's reliable in the ways that matter. Because he loves you with a steady warmth that doesn't ever waver. The sex remains, against all odds, better than it was at the start.
But harder because the work of dragging him out of his own self-effacement, the work of insisting that he be a whole person with you and not just the version that takes care of you, the work of sitting in conflict with him until the conflict is actually resolved... that work is constant. IT doesn't get easier, you don't fix it once and have it stay fixed. You have to do it every six months, every year, every time something gets stressful and he reverts to his old habits, and you have to decide if you have the energy for that work, because you'll need it for the rest of your life with him.
The big picture, the actual truth of dating Dick Grayson is this: he's the easiest man in the world to fall in love with, but one of the more difficult ones to actually know. The gap between those two facts is the entire territory of the relationship.
Butt if you're willing to do the work, if you're willing to refuse his deflections without breaking him, and you're willing to be the person who insists on his full self instead of accepting the gracious half he hands you, what you get on the other side is a man who is radiantly good.
Who loves you with everything he has, who is kind in a way the world doesn't produce many of anymore, who will show up for you for the rest of his life, who will hold your hand in the hospital and your face when you cry and say your name like a prayer when he comes.
Who, when he finally lets you all the way in, will look at you with the kind of relief that suggests he's been waiting his whole life for someone to refuse to let him hide, and you will understand, then, what the charm was for: it was simply the door. It was never the room.
He's the easiest man you'll ever love and the hardest one to actually reach, but the reaching is the whole point.
