• {content} dick only respond to you calling him baby
The apartment was quiet for a Sunday afternoon, save for the rhythmic humming of the washing machine and the faint scent of fresh linen.
You were currently knee-deep in folding the endless mountain of laundry on the bed. You grabbed the next item from the basket, held it up, and instantly stopped, staring at it in absolute disbelief.
It was a pair of Dick’s favorite boxers—or at least, what used to be boxers. At this point, the fabric was so worn down it was almost translucent, and there were two distinct, gaping holes near the seam. They were hanging on by a single thread and sheer willpower.
"Dick, are you serious?" you called out toward the living room, where your boyfriend was currently stretched across the rug doing his afternoon mobility routine. "Dick, come look at these!"
No answer. Not even a rustle of his sweatpants.
"Dick?" you said, a little louder, peeking your head around the bedroom door.
He was flowing smoothly from a deep hamstring stretch into a cobra pose, looking entirely serene and completely oblivious to your existence.
You blinked. You knew for a fact he wasn't deaf—the man had peak-human Bat-family hearing and could spot a footstep on a roof three blocks away. You opened your mouth to yell his name again, but then the realization hit you.
You had called him 'Dick.'
In the three years you’d been together, you almost never called him by his actual name. He was "babe," "baby," "honey," or, on particularly chaotic mornings, "sweetheart." Calling him Dick was practically a foreign language to his subconscious.
A mischievous grin spread across your face. You leaned against the doorframe, crossing your arms.
"Richard?"
Silence. He shifted into a shoulder bridge.
"Grayson?"
He sighed softly, deepening the stretch, completely locked into his own world.
"Officer Grayson?"
Nothing.
You took a slow breath, held up the shredded boxers like evidence in a court trial, and dropped your voice to its usual fond, affectionate tone.
"Hey, baby?"
Dick’s head snapped up instantly. His bright blue eyes locked onto yours, a warm, easy smile instantly spreading across his face.
"Yeah, sweetcheeks? What's up?" he asked, popping off the floor with effortless agility and strolling toward the bedroom. He leaned into your space, instantly tilting his chin down for a kiss.
You held up the holy pair of boxers right between your faces like a shield, staring at him with an amused, disbelieving look. "Are you serious right now?"
Dick paused mid-lean, blinking at the ruined fabric, then up at you like a confused puppy. "What?"
"First of all, these are going in the trash. Second of all, I just called your name four times."
"No, you didn't," he said smoothly, sliding his arms around your waist anyway. "I would've heard you."
"I said Dick."
He flinched subtly, screwing up his nose as if the word tasted weird. "See? Hearing it now, it doesn't even sound like a real word. Who is he? Sounds like a stranger. I don't know him."
"It is literally your legal name!" You laughed, reaching up to tap his cheek.
Dick gently caught your wrist, tugging you a little closer until your chest was resting against his.
"My name," he corrected softly, his voice dropping into that low, warm register he saved just for you, "is baby. Or babe. I also accept 'hey handsome' if you're feeling fancy."
"You're ridiculous," you murmured, though you couldn't stop the smile tugging at your lips.
"I'm a man conditioned by love," he declared heroically, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of your nose. "If you start calling me Dick, I'm going to assume I'm in trouble, or that Bruce is standing right behind me. Neither of those options are good for my heart."
"So if I need to save you from a falling building, I just have to yell 'Look out, babe!'?"
"Precisely," Dick grinned, kissing your cheek before eyeing the ruined boxers in your hand. "And for the record, those are vintage. They're aerated. It's tactical."
"They're going in the trash, baby."
"Fair enough," he sighed dramatically, wrapping his arms around you tighter.
after a long night on patrol, your boobs are dick grayson's favorite pillows ❤︎ fluff
Dick barely lets you settle onto the bed before collapsing on top of you and burying his face between your breasts.
"Dick."
He answers with a muffled hum, turning his head until his cheek settles comfortably against the curve of one. His arms wind around your waist, one leg thrown over both of yours.
"You're crushing me."
"No." His hair is still damp from the shower, cold against the skin above your neckline. "I'm holding you. There's a difference."
You look down at him. Only his eyes and the top of his head remain visible, the rest of his face thoroughly cushioned against you. Three new bruises darken the arm slung across your waist, and he keeps shifting weight off one shoulder every time he adjusts. None of that, apparently, warrants any real medical attention when cuddling you is an option instead.
"Do you plan on moving?"
"Eventually."
"When?"
"You ask a lot of questions for a pillow."
You give the back of his head a gentle flick, and Dick responds with an exaggerated groan, lifting his head just enough to show you the deeply offended look on his face.
"Ow. I'm injured," he reminds you.
"You barely felt that," you say, trying not to laugh.
He drops his head and presses his face against your chest again with a wounded little huff, and your fingers slip into his hair anyway. Dick falls quiet the moment your nails begin scratching lightly against his scalp, the tension in his shoulders slowly easing.
After a moment, he shifts, dragging his cheek from one breast to the other as though carefully comparing them before wedging his face comfortably between both.
"There," he murmurs. "Best pillows I've ever had."
"You're unbelievable."
"Soft. Warm. Supportive."
You tug lightly at his hair. "You sound like you're reviewing a mattress."
"Five stars."
You tell him you're going to throw him off the bed. That only makes Dick hook his leg more firmly over yours and turn his face deeper into your boobs, ensuring that removing him would now require considerably more effort than you're willing to make.
Gradually, his breathing begins to deepen, each exhale warm against your skin.
"You okay, baby?" you ask softly.
He nods against you.
"And your shoulder?"
"A little sore."
You offer to get him something for it—an ice pack, painkillers—but Dick only gives a small shake of his head and pulls himself closer.
"M'comfortable," he says, eyes slipping closed. "Seriously, these are so much better than the pillows at the manor."
You raise an eyebrow. "Alfred buys absurdly expensive pillows."
Dick turns his head, pressing his ear to your chest. "So? None of them have a heartbeat."
Your fingers slow. For a moment, neither of you speaks.
"I like hearing yours," he says eventually. There's no teasing in his voice now. Only exhaustion and quiet sincerity. "It's nice. After patrol."
You've always suspected this is part of why he reaches for you on nights like these, but hearing him finally admit it softens you more than you expect.
You run your thumb along his cheekbone. "You could have just said so."
"And where's the fun in that?"
He presses a drowsy kiss against your skin, barely more than a brush of his lips, then nestles into you again. Your hand slides to his back, tracing slow circles there. As he drifts off, his hold on you loosens, his palm resting warm against your bare stomach while his cheek grows heavier against your chest.
"Dick?"
Nothing.
A careful nudge to his side earns only a quiet sound as he burrows deeper into the softness beneath him without opening his eyes. With a sigh, you reach around the entire acrobat sprawled across you and pull the blanket over both of you.
He's annoying, clingy, and completely ridiculous. By morning, your back will ache and at least one of your limbs will be numb. Still, your arms close around him, ready to hold him there all night.
꣑ৎ COMFORT BICEP PROTOCOL ╱ #sendbicep w/ the BAT-BOYS via text ꩜ smau .ᐟ ⠀⠀ ────⠀⠀⠀ est. relationship. suggestive.
‧˚꒰ৎ୭ 🗒️: do not ask me how long this took. something as simple as a #sendbicep smau should not be this complicated. i put so much effort in finding suitable pictures !!! send help.
IN WHICH… dick grayson (not jealous) makes the fundamental mistake of introducing you to his family - specifically, his brothers.
desc; dick grayson x fem!reader, dick grayson is down BAD, ft. platonic!jason todd, platonic!tim drake, fluff, dick grayson yearning so hard he is crashing out . based on this request.
richard grayson is not a jealous man.
tall, attractive, a total babe. he knows what he is, what he wants, what he has. dick grayson lacks for very little. dick grayson doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body. that’s what he tells himself, at least. what could he possibly have to be jealous about?
dick once told you he doesn’t get jealous because he knows you’re his. it doesn’t matter if every single person in the room looks at you with wide eyes and hanging jaws. he knows you don’t want them - he sees it in the way you lean back, eyes searching for him in the crowd. dick knows you’re his, knows that he’s the one to take you home, lie next to you, kiss you. besides, he could kick everybody’s ass. he considers it a mercy that his attention is redirected to other crimes.
speaking of mercies, he thinks, as his eyes drift to your sleeping form. you’re slumped against the window in the passenger seat, breath misting the glass ever so slightly. it’s warm outside, but the ac is blasting, courtesy of your boyfriend. dick finds it hard to concentrate on the road sometimes, when he’s with you. it’s absurd - bruce wayne’s eldest, batman’s first robin, nightwing himself… melts at the sight of you. his eyes flit to you, and he stifles a laugh. you’re so deep in sleep, you haven’t even realised that your mouth is hanging wide open. if he didn’t know you, he’d think you were dead, honestly - corpselike, and so still, even with the gentle swerves of the car. smiling gently, he pushes your head back till it rests on the seat, breathing deeply, eyes back on the road. it’s bad. he’s down bad. anyone can see it, but dick knows it. he can’t imagine life without you, not anymore. life before you doesn’t exist in his mind - you’ve always been there, right? a you-shaped hole in all his memories, a space created only to be filled by you. the thought of either of you separating never crosses his mind, and he won’t let it, either.
oh, dick grayson is not a jealous man. he can’t allow himself to be.
it’s almost dark when you finally reach gotham, the final embers of the sun fading into near blue. the car pulls into the driveway, and you wake to your boyfriend’s gentle voice in your ear.
“hey, sleepyhead,” he whispers, smiling tenderly at you. as you open your eyes, you think you might melt on the spot. his dark hair is tousled, unstyled. you like it like this, without the gel, fluffy and soft. absentmindedly, you reach a hand to ruffle through it. dick’s eyes flutter shut for a moment.
“hi,” you mumble back. rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you turn to look at him. a grin makes its way across your face as you stare at your boyfriend. if it were anyone else, you’re pretty sure it would have passed the threshold of ‘creepy’ and into downright unsettling. but it isn’t anyone else, it’s him, always him, and you can’t compel yourself to tear your eyes away.
˙⋆✮
with the exception of a few brothers, you’d pretty much met the entire wayne brood. bruce, naturally, was the first. the others, you met over time, either on patrol in bludhaven or when one of dick’s siblings happened to show up at his door (much to his chagrin, especially when it was to interrupt a date night). naturally, considering you’d become acquainted with half the family, you weren’t really nervous. after all, you’d knocked the harder ones out of the park - bruce actually enjoyed your company, as far as you could tell, and even damian toned his usual bite down. not dramatically, but just imperceptibly enough. or maybe you’d just become used to him.
dick, on the other hand, was a bundle of nerves. not outwardly, of course - he had a persona to keep up, an aura of lax. but internally? dick was a mess.
the only people you hadn’t met were jason, and tim. he knew you’d get along with his family, hell, you practically managed to tame damian, but jason? tim? tim and jason together? oh, dick wasn’t worried about conflict. he knew you’d all get along. that was the problem.
but he doesn’t get jealous…right?
˙⋆✮
richard grayson curses the day he was born. he thinks that life has been some big, huge, cruel joke played specifically on him.
it’s been an hour and a half. the longest hour and a half of dick’s life, the most agonising, torturous, slow hour and a half possibly in existence. an hour and a half of sitting at the table, across from his girlfriend - not by his own choice, either - fidgeting with the food on his plate. an hour and a half of gritting his teeth. an hour and a half of watching two of his brothers flirt shamelessly with you.
you have no fault in this, dick knows that. he doesn’t blame you. part of him doesn’t blame his brothers, either. there’s something about you that draws people in, physically. he can’t blame tim for the way he hangs on to your every word, eyes not leaving your animated face for a second. he can’t blame jason for leaning in closer every time you laugh. he knows the effect you have - hell, it’s half of what drew him to you in the first place. he can’t blame them for that.
what he can blame them for is the way they do it. you’re oblivious. how could you know their game? how would you see the quick smirks jason sends his way when you laugh at one of his jokes? you couldn’t know how tim looks at dick pointedly every time you nod earnestly at something he shares. dick isn’t jealous. he’s being protective. sure, he wants to be near you, but he just wants to spend time with his girlfriend - you know, the one he brought to meet his family.
asshole, dick thinks, as jason ‘accidentally’ clamps his hand on yours.
“sorry,” he smiles sheepishly. “miscalculated,” and his hand brushes over yours, settling on the butter dish. you wave it off.
dick doesn’t. he catches jason’s eye, the latter practically gloating. he tries not to rise to it. he knows they don’t mean any actual harm, family exists to piss each other off but it’s nothing personal. still, dick can’t stand it. he isn’t jealous - he just can’t stand that he’s not next to you. he wants to hold your hand at dinner and put the food on your plate himself. he wants to be close enough to smell your perfume, close enough to smell it on his shirt the next day, on his skin, in his nose. he wants to sit next to you and for you to turn to him and ask if everything’s alright like you always do.
and that’s another thing. you haven’t spoken a single word to dick in forty-five minutes. forty. five. minutes. tim’s been keeping your attention, dick doesn’t know how, he’s never seen tim talk this freely before, but he is. and in the spaces that tim takes to breathe, jason butts in, complimenting you. your hair, your nails, your clothes.
dick is aghast. aghast. mortified. practically on the verge of threatening his own life. he thinks he might actually explode if he has to sit opposite you any longer. fine, tim’s talking to you, but would it kill you to look at your boyfriend? just say hello? just a hi? you okay? i miss you baby?
peeling his eyes away, he looks around the table for any sign of solidarity. it doesn’t help that half of the family is away. actually, the only others are bruce and barbara. the latter does her best not to make eye contact, practically red in the face. he looks at bruce. surely bruce has something to say, but as dick turns his gaze, even bruce looks away. his face is stern, but anyone who knows the man well could read that expression. and dick knows him well.
bruce is laughing at him. in his own sick, stern, nonchalant way…bruce wayne is laughing at him.
unable to bear it any longer, dick slumps onto the table in front of him, the plate of food half-picked and pushed away. he lets out a dramatic groan, ears reddening only slightly when he realises he’s cut through the conversation dancing over the table.
you clear your throat softly. “you okay, baby?”
oh, those three words. three magic words, and dick shoots straight up with a grin, eyes meeting yours. you look so concerned, he can’t even be mad - the past hour or however long floods from his mind. he can practically see rose petals and jazz music surrounding you in his vision. he fixes his lips to respond, but before he forms a sentence, he hears another voice speak.
“ah, he’s fine. so, tell me more about this…”
the rose petals wither. the jazz comes to a screeching halt. dick grayson’s eyes narrow and he can’t even swivel his head to look at the agitating source of the noise (jason). you’re still looking at him, though around you the conversation lingers on, eyes pleading with your boyfriend, a silent, are you sure, in your gaze. dick nods, and you smile, turning back to tim. dick doesn’t know what to do. barbara is basically in silent stitches, bruce is…occupied, and everyone else is gone. so dick does the only thing he can.
he pouts.
˙⋆✮
patrol in gotham is different to bludhaven. not that either is easy, but you know your city. bludhaven is as familiar to you as the back of your hand - every alley, every building, even the street lamps start to commit to memory after a while.
gotham is different. it’s darker, gloomier. gotham has something thicker in the air, something more foreboding. it’s as if the city is sentient, as if the life thrums with something neither good nor bad. gotham is alive, and you don’t know how to feel about it.
patrol tonight is quiet. you hadn’t intended to join, especially considering it was your first time in the city, but you saw dick pouting at dinner, and could you really trust your boyfriend to pout around the crime filled streets? not that he couldn’t handle himself.
you suppress a laugh as you cast your eyes to the right of you. crouched on the rooftop, dick’s hair flutters softly in the breeze. it’s dark here, save for the orange glow of the undercity, and the soft light illuminates his face. he looks…godly, you think. handsome.
you bite your lip, adjusting your suit slightly. dick hasn’t spoken to you, but you know he isn’t angry. actually, you know exactly why he’s sulking right now. dick never admits to being jealous, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. you saw his eyes practically shoot into the back of his head at dinner. you saw his mouth drop in shock when you laughed at tim’s joke, or asked jason to pass you the jug of water. you know dick’s jealous - you can see it in his form, how he grips the edge of the roof harder, his fingertips turning white. how he grits his teeth, or how he avoids looking anywhere but down. dick is seething with jealousy, and, twisted as you are, you’re enjoying it. it’s not your fault that your hot, sexy, loving boyfriend looks ten times better when he’s pouting adorably in the corner.
still, you’re not a sadist, so you shuffle closer. “babe…” you start, speaking softly.
dick’s shoulders tense, but he doesn’t turn away from the frankly empty streets below. “yeah? you need anything?”
you tilt your head to the side. okay. so maybe he was a little pissed. not like that would stop you, or him, for that matter. you’d had fights before, like any normal couple, but you both always ended up crawling back to each other. in fact, nine times out of ten you couldn’t even make it to the end of the argument. you were a sap, and honestly? dick was too.
“just miss my boyfriend,” you sigh. “he won’t talk to me.”
no sooner have the words left your mouth, before dick turns to you. his jaw is dropped, beneath the mask his eyes are wide. you’re pretty sure you can hear the breath leaving his lungs.
“are you serious?” he whispers. you bite your lip in an effort not to laugh.
“we’ve been out for hours, and you won’t even talk to me,” you feign innocence. you won’t smile, not just yet. the comm in your ear crackles slightly. not much activity now, given the night has started to quiet down, so you know you can take the liberty of teasing him.
he laughs, bitterly. “i’m talking to you now, right? i’m talking to you. see, actually, when i talk to you, i actually talk. you on the other hand…” he trails off when he sees your quirked brow. he sighs. “just forget it, babe. we’re good.”
on any other occasion, you would have pushed it more, teased him for a few more minutes. but your poor, sweet boyfriend looks so dejected that your heart actually skips a beat. you feel a swell in your chest, and before you know it, you’re wrapping your arms around his back, nuzzling into his neck.
“awww,” you mumble, pressing kisses on the back of his head. to your relief, dick doesn’t pull away. he leans into you. you’re pretty sure you can feel his heart stutter for a second.
you continue. “i’m sorry, baby. didn’t mean to ignore you. i just wanted to make a good impression on your brothers.”
dick snorts. “you made a good impression, believe me.” he turns around, falling into your embrace (and away from the edge of the roof). something clatters in the process, probably a rock, and in the distant inner city, a siren blares.
he mumbles against your shoulder. “i hated not being around you.”
you blink, half-shocked, running your hand between his shoulder blades. you feel him flex under your touch and you press your lips together, trying to take him seriously despite his preening. “you were…dick, baby, you were right in front of me?”
you hear him groan, but before he can answer, your comm sputters to life. a muted, gravelly voice rings in your ear, and dick’s, too.
“loverboy’s got his panties in a twist.”
jason.
dick groans again, guttural, tortured, right into your neck. the sharpness of his distress takes you by surprise, and you can feel his voice in your throat, feel his genuine displeasure as he rips his comm out and throws it halfway across the roof. it lands with a small clink, and you roll your eyes.
“you know you have to get that later, right?”
he looks up at you, and you melt. the words die in your throat at the sight of richard damn grayson, on his knees, face turned up towards you, swollen bitten lips, watery eyes. for a moment, the world stops, or you feel like you’ve lost your breath. you don’t know if you want it back, not if it means you could stare at this for a while longer.
“are you crying?”
“no,” he practically whines. “not exactly,” he whispers after a pause, and your heart skips another beat. before you can help yourself, your lips fall on his.
dick kisses you, and it’s unlike anything you’ve felt before. he’s never kissed you like this - desperately, deeply. he’s something more than hungry, or starved. his hands wrap themselves around you, in your hair, your neck, against your jaw, the small of your back. he’s warm. he smells like heaven, he kisses like you’re the only thing in the world. your comm starts crackling again. without breaking from dick, you rip it from your ear, tossing it away until you hear soft clatters on the concrete.
dick pulls away for a second, and you stutter at the harsh cold that appears in his wake. you go to kiss him again, but he pulls back for a second, placing a finger on your lips. that asshole. he’s smirking.
“you know you have to get that later…right?” he mimics you, and you sigh, shaking your head.
“i’m not…shut up,” the words die on your lips the minute he finds yours again, your mouths melding together again.
gotham is quiet tonight. dark night fades into deep blue, soft pinks painting the far horizon. a siren blares in the distance, the sound of boots hitting the concrete somewhere. from far behind the two of you, the comms crackle, static electricity begging to hum back to life.
🍷 UNREQUITED ☆⋆ bat-boys x best friend! reader smau
short and (not so) sweet texts featuring. . .bruce, dick, jason and damian.
about. . .when you tell him that you’d like to spend time with another guy at a gala/event, not knowing that he’s in love with you.
look out for. . .angst, clueless!reader, definitely ooc cause it’s been a while, please tell me you can see the warm leave from their side. no tim or duke cause i don’t write for them<3
BRUCE WAYNE⋆⋆⋆
DICK GRAYSON ✰
JASON TODD☆⋆
DAMIAN WAYNE⏾⋆.
ᯓ★'s P.S. my gosh i hate this dashjkdahskdj its been wayway too long and this is so mischaracterised damn
don't forget to comment and reblog if you enjoyed!
← ゛masterlist ⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆
taglist꩜ .ᐟ ALL WORKS @hepprine, @apollos-notes, @cenna-luna, @solasyra, @vanillakirstein, @arabellas-barbarella-swimsuit12, @lovehadlovelost, @buckybarnesismyhusband, @freakkay09, @vianawaits, @shazzark, @winchesterslullaby, @bat2nsignia, @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger, @arfemiz, @cemeterystardust, @mystiquevoid @saaucie
ALL DC WORKS @indigoscribe, @t1mbits, @coastalcowgirlie, @uxavity, @jaydennicole, @shadowviolets, @athenxt, @soggywhore, @rayaofstarlight, @madi-iii, @kekeanna266, @skin2bone111, @fanficboysarebae, @willow-vixen, @fairyspcll, @mathpotstew, @thesunshoe, @just-vibingfr @starrydustedwinter @actualunicornn @iloveyou3000morgan @kryptidfiles @arkhamm-knight @karinablues
JASON TODD WORKS @avengingangel14, @cherrylicious03, @the-ultimate-quokka, @drdeathifying, @queenofviolenceandnerds, @rainystrangerwasteland, @caterppillar, @profoundgreenturtle, @celestills, @only-dot-nicky, @sirenoftheeast,
. 𓂃 ࣪ ˖ ♡ 𖥻 hot neighbor dick grayson x loser!reader. 18+, NSFW. smut. fem!reader is freaky and nerdy. reader is a one pump chump. dom!dick grayson.
──── everybody knew DICK GRAYSON loved women with every bit of his soul. because, honestly, who didn’t? women were clearly crafted by some divine being to make this miserable world worth living in. perfect in every shape, size, and color. but the nerdy, introverted ones? the ones who couldn’t even hold his gaze for more than a second? yeah, that was his favorite flavor. that was his weakness, the quiet ones.
and you, the neighbor down the hall, were basically handcrafted in a lab to mess with his self-control.
you, with your weird ass t-shirts with anime characters and ironic quotes he didn’t get, you and your fucking late-night D&D marathons that could probably be heard two floors up. you, with those crooked glasses that looked like they came straight from a thrift store bargain bin and made you look like a major virgin. and the annoying way you fidgeted in the elevator, tapping, adjusting, twisting the edge of your sleeves, like staying still was some kind of foreign concept.
and it just kept getting better.
sometimes, he’d catch himself wondering what your deal was. you always looked so exhausted in the hallway, hair messy, hoodie half-zipped and eyes glassy and red. he’d almost pegged you for a nurse or something, you know, someone who worked the graveyard shift. but no. turns out, you were a fucking streamer and you spend your nights playing love and deepspace, talking to a chat full of usernames like “@/zayne’s girlfriend” for a living.
that was when dick realized he was in deep trouble. he had just come back from his morning jog and stepped into the hallway, only to see you in your natural state, clutching a nintendo switch while waiting for the elevator. the moment your framed eyes landed on his biceps, visible beneath the compression shirt, you bolted straight for the stairs. not even a hello or good morning—just gone.
fucking weirdo.
too bad he was eating that shit up.
because he’d met women who could make a whole room stop just by walking in. he’d dated women who looked like living art, confident and dominant in the right way, the kind of people who didn’t even seem real. you, on the other hand, had this nervous, awkward energy that shouldn’t have been sexy, and yet somehow was. every time you ducked your head or mumbled something too quiet to hear, avoiding eye contact like it might burn, he had to bite back the urge to corner you just to see how flustered and sweaty you’d get.
and sweet jesus, you get flustered around him too much for his sanity. probably because it looks like you haven’t seen a cock your entire life, — and he means a real one and not that plastic shit you were definitely hiding in your wardrobe — and from the way you tripped over your words and avoided him like the plague, dick was pretty sure the only men who ever talked to you were family members or the freaks at your local game shop.
by the time he had you lying down in your own bed, because you’d actually mustered enough courage to ask for his help when your bathroom sink started leaking like crazy, your glasses were all fogged up, and your lips were still red from the bites he had given you just minutes ago.
your legs were trembling, mouth open and pupils blown wide. so fucking adorable, you looked like a baby deer caught in headlights, and somehow it was even more pathetic than the shelf in your bedroom being stacked with an embarrassing long hentai collection. dick slid his jacket off, unbuttoned his shirt slowly, revealing muscles you knew were there but never fully understood until they were right in front of you, cut from stone.
and his cock?
jesus christ.
you blinked when he dropped his pants and boxers. it wasn’t fair. long, thick, heavy, curved just enough to ruin you. it slapped against his stomach, angry and red, and you whimpered.
he noticed, of course.
“aww,” he cooed, climbing over you. “first time seeing one, baby?”
you whined at his mockery, lip wobbling hard, and so fucking soaked you were probably ruining your panties, creaming them just at the sight of a naked man infront of you. his big hands gripped your thighs and spread you open, and you yelped.
“dick—”
he pressed the thick head of his cock against your clothed pussy lips, pushing juuust a little to make the damped fabric cling around him while running his leaking tip up and down, smearing pre-cum everywhere.
“so, tell me again about that boss fight you had in dark souls,” dick said with a mean grin and blue eyes half lidded, using his free hand to push your glasses back onto your nose. his cock bumped against your swollen clit and you almost came in the spot.
your eyes fluttered closed as you tried to explain, your teeth chattering. “i-i… i kept dying… at the bed of chaos… so many times… in one save…”
you opened your mouth again, trying to explain how hard that game was, but dick was already trailing kisses down your throat, hot and open-mouthed.
“go ahead,” he whispered, teeth grazing your warm and sweaty skin until his pretty lips were sucking a bruise into your collarbone. you gasped loud as he pulled your shirt up and over your head, tossing it aside like trash. dick's mouth was on you immediately, hand palming your tits through your bra with rough impatience. he yanked the fabric down and groaned, taking your nipple between his teeth just hard enough to make you cry out.
“and then… oh, f-fuck—”
“then what, hm?” you felt two fingers pushing your soaked panties aside while he licked over the sting, leaving your poor cunt bare to the cold air in the room, and before you could even start feeling self-conscious about not having shaved in weeks, you felt his warm cock dragging against your soaked folds again, spreading your slick even more. the motherfucker was teasing you, rubbing himself without giving you the push you wanted.
when dick finally pressed inside your pussy, it was slow, the thick head forcing you open inch by inch until you felt him stretch every nerve raw. you gasped loud, clenching around him hard, the wet squelch between you obscene. it was so loud and dirty it made your cheeks burn.
“fuck—you’re so tight. gripping me like a fucking vice.” he bottomed out, hips flush to yours, and stayed there, letting you feel every thick inch of him.
“it’s… been— awhile…”
“y-yeah? been too busy playing D&D with your ugly f-friends?” he whispered, teeth grazing your earlobe while driving in deeper, your single bed slamming against the wall with the harder thrust. your nails dug into his back and you went limp in his strong arms. you couldn’t even talk at this point, your body was already twitching around him, your voice lost somewhere between please and fuck and more. and he was still pretty much composed, looking down at you with that mean glare.
tears pricked your eyes, the mix of pain and pleasure overwhelming as he started to move harder, faster, pounding into you like it was his fucking job. every thrust knocked a moan out of you, high-pitched and broken.
“that's it. such a good girl,” he moaned, thumb brushing your clit in slow, lazy circles. you tried to wiggle away from the overwhelming feeling between your thighs but dick caught your legs and dragged you back onto him.
back onto his cock.
“uh-uh, i barely got started.”
“too much— dick, p-please.”
dick laughed like your voice and cockdrunk state did something to him. his hands slid up your hips, gripping your ass, pulling you even closer and then kissed your cheek like you weren’t falling apart on his dick. the amazing feeling of your warm cunt throbbing around him, milking him, made that asshole smile came back into his handsome face.
you're already fucking close, and it's been like five minutes.
what an ego booster, uh?
he gave you another deep thurst, burring himself to the lit. your toes curled and your voice broke as you came hard without warning, your orgasm ripped through your poor body like lightning, muscles clenching around him until he cursed, hips stuttering.
“did you just came?” dick looked down at his own cock now covered in your juices, totally soaked from your cum, and then at your mortified expression under him. “so cute, didn’t know girls could be one-pump chumps.”
I didn't find any rules, but I was wondering if your alright with doing Jason x Drunk (or Sick) Female Reader? (Sorry, if I violated any rules.)
No rules violated at all, this is a sweet request! I'm going to do all of them, sick AND drunk as separate scenarios per character so you get variety. Fair warning this is going to be a long one given the roster and the word count!
Under the Weather (And Other Disasters)
navigation , dc navigation
PAIRINGS: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Wally West, Clark Kent, Hal Jordan, Roy Harper
requests are open
DICK GRAYSON
Sick
Dick finds out you're sick because you don't text him back for four hours, which for you is essentially a distress signal.
He shows up at your door with three bags. Grocery bags, plural, because Dick Grayson does not do anything by half measures and the concept of just checking in doesn't exist in his vocabulary.
"I'm fine," you say, through the door, because you look terrible and you know you look terrible.
"You haven't texted me back since noon," he says.
"I was sleeping."
"Open the door."
You open the door.
Dick looks at you — blanket around your shoulders, hair doing something creative, the specific grey pallor of someone who has been horizontal for eight hours — and his face does the thing. The Dick Grayson thing, where every feeling he has goes directly to his expression with no filter whatsoever.
"Oh, sweetheart," he says.
"Don't," you say, because if he's too nice about it, you're going to feel pathetic, and you're already feeling pathetic.
He comes in anyway. He puts the bags down in the kitchen and starts unpacking them with the focused energy of someone who has assigned himself a task and will complete it. Soup — two kinds, because apparently he couldn't decide. Crackers. Ginger ale. The specific brand of cold medicine that you'd mentioned once, months ago, in passing, and he had retained.
"Sit," he says, pointing at the couch.
"I was already sitting."
"Sit better."
You sit better. He brings a blanket from the bedroom — the good one, the heavy one — and settles it over you without being asked, and then he goes back to the kitchen, and you hear the sound of a pot going on the stove.
"You don't have to cook," you call.
"The canned soup is backup," he calls back. "I'm making the real kind."
"Dick — "
"I learned from Alfred. It's good. Just sit there."
You sit there.
The apartment smells like soup twenty minutes later, and Dick brings you a bowl with crackers on the side arranged in a way that's almost too neat, like he assembled them carefully, which he definitely did.
"You arranged the crackers," you say.
"Presentation aids recovery," he says, sitting next to you. "I read that somewhere."
"You made that up."
"I absolutely made that up." He tucks the blanket more firmly around you. "How bad is it?"
"Medium. Not terrible. Just annoying."
"Fever?"
"Low. It broke this morning."
"Good." He settles back, close enough that you can lean on him if you want, not so close that he's crowding you. Dick is good at reading the exact amount of space people need. "I'm going to stay."
"You don't have to — "
"I know." He picks up the remote. "What do you want to watch?"
You lean on him.
He puts on something comfortable, something you've both seen before, something that doesn't require attention. His hand finds your hair and stays there, not doing anything, just present.
You fall asleep before the first episode ends.
Dick stays through three more.
Drunk
The call comes at one-fifteen AM, and Dick answers before the second ring because Dick always answers before the second ring.
"Hi," you say, and from one syllable he can tell.
"Where are you?" he says, already sitting up.
"I'm — " a pause, some background noise, what sounds like a very enthusiastic cover band — "I'm at Rosie's. On Fourth. We were doing Steph's birthday, and then everyone left, but the music is really good, Dick, the music is so good — '
"Are you safe?"
"I'm at the bar. Marco, the bartender, is very nice. I told him about you."
"What did you tell him about me?"
"That you're really pretty, and also you do acrobatics, and he didn't believe me about the acrobatics."
"Okay," Dick says, finding his keys. "Stay at the bar. Stay with Marco. I'm coming."
"You don't have to — "
"Stay with Marco," he says. "I'll be fifteen minutes."
He's eleven.
He finds you exactly where you said — at the bar, on a stool, in an animated conversation with Marco, who is indeed very nice and also looks deeply relieved to see a responsible adult arrive.
You see Dick, and your face does the thing that makes his chest hurt in the best way, the involuntary thing, the oh good, you're here thing.
"You came," you say.
"I always come," he says, like it's simple. Because it is.
He gets you water. He sits next to you while you finish it. He thanks Marco genuinely and tips well because Dick Grayson always tips well, and also Marco watched you for forty minutes, so he's earned it.
In the car, you're warm and loose, and you keep looking at him with an expression he can't entirely read.
"You came in like eleven minutes," you say.
"Traffic was light."
"You were worried."
"A little."
"I was fine."
"I know you were. I just — " He glances at you. "I like knowing you're fine from the same room. It's more efficient."
You're quiet for a moment.
"Dick," you say.
"Yeah?"
"I told Marco you were pretty and I meant it."
He stops at a red light. He looks at you. Your eyes are very sincere in the way that only happens when all the filters are off.
"Get some sleep," he says.
"I'm just saying — "
"I know what you're saying." The light changes. He's smiling and trying not to. "Water when we get home. Then sleep."
"You're so responsible."
"One of us has to be."
"I love that about you."
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I know."
He gets you home. He gets you water. He sits on the edge of the bed until your breathing evens out, and then he stays a little longer just because.
JASON TODD
Sick
Jason's version of taking care of someone sick is practical to the point of being almost aggressive about it.
He shows up, he assesses the situation, and he addresses the situation. There is no fussing. There is no cooing. There is just Jason moving through your apartment like he has a list and he's working through it.
"When did you last eat?" he says, from your kitchen.
"This morning."
"What did you eat?"
"Some crackers."
"That's not eating." Cabinet opening. Closing. "You have nothing in here."
"I've been sick. I haven't shopped."
"I can see that." He reappears. Looks at you on the couch in your nest of blankets with the clinical eye of someone doing an assessment. "Fever?"
"Had one yesterday. It's mostly gone."
"Mostly."
"Ninety-nine point two. It's basically nothing."
"It's a fever." He's already getting his keys back out. "I'm going to the store. Don't move."
"I wasn't planning on moving."
"Good." He stops at the door. Something shifts in his expression — just briefly, the practical exterior going slightly soft at the edges. "You should've called me yesterday."
"You were on a thing."
"I'm always on a thing. Call me anyway."
He leaves before you can respond.
He comes back forty minutes later with actual groceries — real ones, not just soup and crackers — and spends an hour in your kitchen making something that smells better than anything has a right to when you're congested.
You eat it on the couch with Jason on the other end, not touching, because Jason Todd's version of consideration is not forcing physical contact on someone who is unwell. But he's there. Solid and present and real.
"This is really good," you say.
"Alfred's recipe." He says it like it's nothing. It isn't nothing.
"You called Alfred?"
"I texted him." A pause. "He sent three follow-up questions about your symptoms and told me to make sure you're drinking enough water."
"Alfred is texting you about my symptoms."
"Alfred texts me about everything. Drink your water."
You drink your water.
Later, when you fall asleep on the couch, Jason doesn't move you to the bedroom because moving you would wake you up, and you need the sleep. He turns the TV volume down to almost nothing and stays.
You wake up at three AM with a blanket over you that wasn't there before.
Jason is in the armchair. Asleep. Still there.
Drunk
Here is what Jason is not: a patient man.
Here is what Jason is, at one AM, when you call him, laughing so hard you can barely form sentences: completely gone for you, which makes the patience a non-issue.
"Say that again," he says. "Slower."
"I'm at — " more laughing — "okay, so you know the bar on Seventh that you said was a front — "
"Please tell me you're not at the bar I said was a front."
"It's actually really nice inside? Like they have a really good cocktail menu — "
"I'm coming to get you," he says.
"Jason, I'm fine — "
"You're at a bar I told you is run by Maroni's people, on a Friday night, alone, drunk." A pause. "I'm coming to get you."
"I'm not alone, I came with — oh, huh." A pause on your end this time. "They left."
"They left."
"Like, a while ago, I think. I was talking to the bartender about — actually, what were we talking about — "
"I'm coming to get you," he says again, for the third time, which, with Jason, means it stopped being a discussion after the first time. "Do not leave that bar."
"Should I be worried that it's a front? Like, do I need to — "
"You're fine. They're not going to do anything to a civilian in their own establishment." He's already in the car. "Just sit there and don't talk to anyone else."
"The bartender is very nice — "
"Anyone else."
He gets there in eight minutes, which requires some choices about traffic laws, but Jason has made worse choices for worse reasons, and this is not a hard call.
You're at the bar, like he said. You see him come in and you get the look — the one you get when you've had enough that all the careful middleground disappears and what's left is just the actual thing, which is that you are very happy to see him.
"Hi," you say.
"Hi," he says. Up close, you look fine — flushed, bright-eyed, the specific kind of present that means you're drunk but not dangerously so. The tension in his shoulders drops about forty percent.
"I found a front," you say.
"You found a front."
"Their dirty martinis are actually really good."
"I'll pass that feedback along to Maroni."
"Don't do that."
"I wasn't going to do that." He puts cash on the bar — enough, he doesn't look at how much — and puts his hand on your back. "Come on."
"Are you mad?"
"No."
"You look a little mad."
"I look concerned. They're different."
"You came really fast," you say, letting him steer you toward the door.
"Yeah."
"You didn't have to — "
"Yes," he says, "I did." And the way he says it closes the subject completely — not harsh, just certain, the particular certainty of someone who has decided some things aren't up for debate. "Watch the step."
You watch the step.
Outside, the air is cold, and you lean into him slightly without thinking about it, and his arm goes around your shoulders automatically, without comment, the way it does when it's just a thing that happens now.
"Jason," you say.
"Yeah."
"I'm glad you came."
"I know," he says. "I know you are."
TIM DRAKE
Sick
Tim Drake's first response to you being sick is to research it.
This is not as impersonal as it sounds. Tim researches things because he loves them, because he wants to understand them completely, because information is how he shows care. By the time he arrives at your apartment, he has read four articles, cross-referenced two of them, and has a working theory about whether it's viral or bacterial based on your symptom description over text.
"It's almost certainly viral," he says, at the door. "The combination of the sore throat and the fatigue without significant fever points away from strep — did you have someone swab you?"
"I didn't go to the doctor, Tim."
"Why not?"
"Because it's a cold."
"You don't know that it's — okay, it's probably a cold." He comes in, carrying a tote bag. "I brought things."
The things are: cold medicine, the correct kind, cross-referenced with your other medications for interactions. Tea. Honey. A novel you'd mentioned wanting to read, because Tim Drake bought you a book for when you were sick, because that's the kind of person he is. And, slightly sheepishly, a printed list of what to eat and when.
"You printed a list," you say.
"It's easier than trying to remember when you're not feeling well." He holds it up. "It's color-coded."
"Of course it is."
"Red is the medicine timing. Green is food and fluids. Blue is — "
"Tim."
"Yeah?"
"Sit down."
He sits down. He's still holding the list. He puts it on the coffee table because he can't quite bring himself to put it away.
You look at him — at his careful hands and his tired eyes and the way he'd clearly come straight here from wherever he was because he's still in his work clothes — and you feel, through the fog of the cold, a very clear and specific thing.
"Thank you for coming," you say.
"Of course I came." He says it like of course is the only possible response, like the alternative didn't occur to him. "How's your head?"
"Pressure-y."
"That's the congestion. There's a thing you can do — " he stops himself. "Do you want me to tell you, or do you want me to just sit here?"
"Just sit here," you say.
"Okay." He sits back. He's quiet for a moment. "Can I put on something in the background? I have a playlist that's good for — I have a playlist."
"Put it on."
He puts it on. Soft, instrumental, unobtrusive. He sits with you while you drift in and out, and when you wake up, he's working quietly on his laptop, but he's moved to be closer to your end of the couch, which he definitely didn't start that way.
"The list is still on the table," you say, sleepily.
"In case you need it."
"Okay, Tim."
"The red section is important, the timing matters for — "
"Tim."
"Yeah?"
"I'll follow the list."
He exhales. "Thank you."
Drunk
The thing about Tim Drake is that he can function on three hours of sleep and a concerning amount of coffee, which means he is awake and operational when you call him at midnight, which is lucky.
"Tim," you say.
"Yeah, I'm here."
"I did a thing."
"What kind of thing?"
"I went to Tam's birthday, and there were shots involved, and I missed the last train, and also I think I'm in New Jersey."
A pause.
"You're in New Jersey," he says.
"I think so. The signs look like New Jersey."
"What signs?"
"The — the road signs. They have a different energy."
"Okay." He’s already finding his keys with one hand, phone with the other, the Tim Drake multi-task. "Are you somewhere safe right now?"
"I'm at a diner. It's very fluorescent."
"Stay in the diner." He's out the door. "What diner? Can you see a name?"
"It says —" a pause, some shuffling — "Patty's. With two T's."
"I'm finding it. Give me two minutes."
"Tim, you don't have to drive to New Jersey — "
"I'm already in the car." Typing sounds — he's running the search one-handed, which he shouldn't be, but Tim's sense of self-preservation is famously flexible. "Got it. I'm twenty-five minutes out. Stay in Patty's."
"You're driving to New Jersey at midnight," you say.
"Yep."
"For me."
"That's generally why people drive places, yeah."
You're quiet for a moment. The fluorescent lights of Patty's Diner with two T's hum pleasantly.
"You're really nice," you say.
"Don't tell anyone."
"I'm going to tell everyone."
"Order something," he says. "Eat something. Water if they have it."
"They have pie."
"Get pie too."
He stays on the phone with you for most of the drive, which he'll say is so he knows you're okay, and which is also just Tim not quite being ready to hang up. You talk about nothing — the diner decor, a case he's working on, something funny that happened at Tam's party before the shots became a factor.
He arrives at twenty-three minutes, not twenty-five, which you clock.
"You sped," you say, when he walks in.
"I made good time," he says, which is not a denial.
He sits across from you in the booth and looks at you — bright-eyed, slightly pink, mostly fine — and something in him settles.
"Hi," you say.
"Hi." He steals a piece of your pie. "How's New Jersey?"
"Fluorescent," you say. "You didn't have to come all this way."
"You missed your train."
"I could have gotten an Uber — "
"At midnight. To Gotham. Alone." He gives you the Tim look, the one that means he's run the scenarios and found them wanting. "No."
"Tim — "
"Eat your pie," he says. "We'll get back together."
You eat your pie.
He watches you with the particular quality of someone who is going to remember this specific diner, this specific booth, this fluorescent New Jersey midnight, for a very long time.
DAMIAN WAYNE
Sick
Damian Wayne's approach to you being sick is to deny it is happening for approximately one day, and then, when it becomes undeniable, to address it with the efficiency of a field medic and the emotional openness of a closed door.
"You should not have gone out on Thursday," he says, standing in the doorway of your bedroom.
"I didn't know I was getting sick on Thursday."
"The weather dropped twelve degrees. You were wearing insufficient layers."
"I was fine on Thursday — "
"You're not fine now." He comes in. He looks at your bedside table — empty water glass, cold medicine, tissues — and his expression does the thing where it goes very neutral, which means he's feeling something he doesn't intend to show you. "You haven't been hydrating."
"The glass is empty because I drank it."
"When."
"This morning."
"It's afternoon." He takes the glass. He comes back with it full, and with a plate that has crackers and some cut apple on it, arranged with the precise neatness of someone who can't help making things correct even when they're trying to appear casual.
"You cut fruit," you say.
"You need to eat."
"Damian, you cut fruit for me."
"It's not — I was in the kitchen. It required minimal effort." He sets it down. He does not make eye contact. "Eat."
You eat. He sits in the chair by the window, not on the bed, maintaining a careful distance that is very Damian — present but not hovering, there but not making it a thing.
"I looked up your symptoms," he says, after a while.
"What did you find?"
"Most likely rhinovirus. Common cold. The standard progression is seven to ten days with supportive care. You're on day two." A pause. "I've confirmed the medication you're taking is appropriate for the presentation."
"You confirmed my cold medicine."
"I confirmed it's the correct choice given your specific — " he stops. "It's the right one. Yes."
You look at him.
He is looking at the window.
"Thank you," you say. "For the apple."
"It's basic nutritional support."
"Damian."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
A pause. Something in his jaw does a thing.
"Rest," he says. "I'll be here."
He stays in the chair.
At some point, you fall asleep, and when you wake up, he's reading, and the water glass has been refilled, and there's a second blanket on the bed that wasn't there before.
You don't mention the blanket.
He doesn't mention that he put it there.
Some things don't need to be said.
Drunk
Damian finds out you're drunk not because you call him but because he calls you, which you answer with the particular delayed reaction of someone whose phone surprised them.
"Hi," you say, with the careful enunciation of someone managing their enunciation.
Damian can tell in one syllable. He has an extremely accurate internal calibration for you specifically.
"Where are you?" he says.
"I'm at — I'm out. With some people from work. It's a work thing. A birthday."
"Are you drinking?"
"It's a birthday, Damian."
"That's a yes."
"It's a yes," you agree.
He makes a sound. Not quite a sigh. The Damian version of a sigh, which is more of a controlled exhale that communicates extensive feelings through the medium of breath.
"When are you leaving?" he says.
"Soon? We were going to get food, but I think the plan changed. It's fine, I'll get a car — "
"Don't get a car."
"Damian — "
"The car services in this area are inconsistent at this hour, and you are not currently in a position to evaluate the adequacy of the driver." He says this like it's purely logistical. "I'm coming."
"You really don't — "
"Text me the address."
He hangs up.
You text him the address.
He arrives in fourteen minutes in civilian clothes, which is notable because Damian Wayne in civilian clothes without preparation is rare, which means he left quickly, which means — well. You don't say what it means. You file it.
He walks in, finds you at the table with the remnants of your work colleagues who are in various states, looks at you once, and comes to stand next to you with the particular quality of someone planting a flag.
"Hi," you say.
"Hi," he says.
"You didn't have to — "
"I was available," he says, which is a Damian sentence for something else entirely. "Are you ready to go?"
"I think so." You look at the table. "Should I say goodbye — "
"You've said goodbye. Come on."
Outside, the air is cool, and you walk beside him, and he is very slightly closer than he needs to be, which is his version of making sure you're steady without making it a production.
"How was your evening?" you say.
"Uneventful." A pause. "Until you called."
"You called me."
"You answered like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you do," he says, which is not an explanation and is somehow a complete one.
You walk half a block in silence.
"Damian," you say.
"Yes."
"Thanks for coming."
He doesn't say of course or it was nothing. He says: "Yes," again, which, from Damian Wayne, is the whole thing. The entire thing.
BRUCE WAYNE
Sick
Bruce Wayne's first instinct in any situation is to solve it.
Sickness presents a problem in that it cannot be solved in the way Bruce prefers to solve things, which is immediately and through direct application of will. You cannot willpower a rhinovirus. You cannot strategize a fever into submission. These are facts Bruce is aware of and finds mildly unreasonable.
What he can do is resource the situation comprehensively, which he does.
Alfred is involved. Alfred is always involved when Bruce reaches the edges of his practical capability, which is more often than Bruce admits.
"She needs rest, Master Bruce," Alfred says, on the phone, with the patience of someone who has had this conversation in various forms for twenty years. "Not a specialist. Rest."
"Her temperature was — "
"Within the range of a common cold. Which is not a crisis." A pause. "Go and sit with her. Bring the soup I've sent. Do not attempt to fix it."
"I'm not — "
"You are. You always do. Go and sit with her."
Bruce goes and sits with you.
He's not natural at it — at just sitting, at being present without an agenda. You know this about him. So when he comes in and puts the soup down and takes the chair near your bed, you don't comment on the slight stiffness of it, the quality of a person practicing a skill they haven't fully acquired.
"Alfred sent soup," he says.
"I figured." You look at him. "You called Alfred."
"I wanted to make sure I had the right — I wanted to make sure."
He is Bruce Wayne. He has faced things in the dark that would break most people. He is sitting in a bedroom chair next to you because you have a cold, and he called Alfred to make sure he handled it correctly.
You love him an embarrassing amount.
"I'm okay," you say.
"I know."
"It's just a cold."
"Alfred said." He looks at your hands, folded on the blanket. "Does anything help. Specifically."
"Sitting here is good," you say.
"That's — that's it?"
"That's it."
He sits back. He's quiet for a moment, working out what to do with his hands, with the lack of a problem to solve.
"I can read to you," he says, finally.
"...You want to read to me?"
"Alfred used to — when the boys were sick — " He stops. Restarts. "If you want. Or not. I can simply sit here."
"Read to me," you say.
He reads to you.
His voice is low and even and more careful than it needs to be, like he's giving the words appropriate weight. You fall asleep before the end of the chapter.
He marks the page.
He stays.
Drunk
The charity event has an open bar and an extremely boring speaker series, and your friends have abandoned you for a more interesting table, which is how you end up, over the course of four hours, more than adequately champagned.
Bruce finds you at the end of the night at a table near the back, having what appears to be a heartfelt conversation with the centerpiece.
He stops.
He takes in the champagne flutes. The centerpiece conversation. The way you look up at him with an expression that is extremely genuine in a way that champagne tends to produce.
"Hi," you say. "Your charity event is very long."
"It is," he agrees, sitting down next to you.
"The second speaker talked for forty minutes."
"I know."
"About tax incentives."
"I'm aware."
"Bruce. Forty minutes."
"I know." His mouth does the thing, the almost-smile, the one that most people don't see because he keeps it very controlled. "How much champagne?"
"A reasonable amount."
He looks at the flutes.
"A contextually reasonable amount," you revise.
"How are you feeling?"
"Honestly? Pretty good." You look at him. "You're very handsome, you know that? Like it's a lot. You walk into a room, and it's a lot for people."
"You've mentioned."
"I'm mentioning again." You rest your chin on your hand. "Why are you so handsome. That seems like an unfair amount to give one person."
"I'll take it up with the relevant parties," he says.
"You should." A pause. "I had a good time tonight, actually. The centerpiece has a lot going on. Very layered."
"I'm glad you two connected."
"Don't make fun of me."
"I'm not making fun of you." He takes your hand, his thumb over your knuckles, easy and certain. "I'd never make fun of you."
He gets the car, and he walks you out with a hand at your back that keeps you steady without drawing attention to the steadying, which is a very Bruce skill. In the car, you're warm and comfortable, and you lean against him in a way that you'll be slightly embarrassed about tomorrow and he'll never mention.
"Bruce," you say, against his shoulder.
"Yes."
"The second speaker really did go very long."
"He did."
"Next time, can we leave at the second speaker?"
"Yes," he says, immediately.
"You can just say yes. You're Bruce Wayne. You can leave wherever you want."
"Next time we leave at the second speaker," he says again, and his arm settles around you, and the Gotham night goes past the window, and he says nothing else because nothing else needs saying.
CLARK KENT
Sick
Clark's approach to you being sick is to be quietly, comprehensively wonderful about it in a way that makes it almost hard to be sick.
He shows up with groceries and the particular warmth of someone who runs hot even by human standards, which in winter is something close to a superpower. He sits next to you, and you're immediately warmer.
"You should be resting," he says.
"I am resting. I'm sitting here."
"You were trying to answer emails when I came in."
"I was managing my inbox — "
"You were not resting." He takes the laptop gently, closes it, and puts it on the coffee table with the patient firmness of Clark Kent, who is patient enough to handle anything. "Rest."
You rest.
He makes soup from scratch. You watch him do it from the couch, and there's something both domestic and slightly surreal about watching Superman dice vegetables in your kitchen, though you don't say this because Clark doesn't love the Superman observations in the apartment.
"You don't have to make soup from scratch," you say.
"I know."
"There's canned — "
"I know." He stirs something. "My mom used to make this when I was sick. She'd be horrified by the canned version."
"You didn't get sick," you say. "You're — "
"I know. But she made it anyway. Just in case." He glances at you. "And because she liked taking care of me. She said the soup was for her as much as me."
You're quiet for a moment.
"That's really sweet," you say.
"She's a really sweet person." A pause. "She'd like you, you know. She's asked about you."
"Martha Kent has asked about me."
"She asks about everyone I mention more than once." He says it like it's ordinary. Martha Kent asking after you is extremely not ordinary, and you are going to think about it later. "How's your head?"
"Better than this morning."
"Good." He brings you a bowl and sits close, warm and solid, and you eat, and he talks about small things — Smallville, the paper, something Perry did this week — and his voice is even and comfortable, and you feel better in a way that isn't just the soup.
"Clark," you say.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for coming."
He looks at you with that Clark expression, the open one, the one that exists before the Superman one, just a man from Kansas who means every single thing he says.
"Always," he says, simply.
Drunk
Clark can hear your heartbeat from across Metropolis.
This is relevant because he knows, from the sound of it, before you call, that something is off about your evening.
When you call, he picks up immediately.
"Hi," you say. "So funny story."
"Tell me."
"Lois had a work thing which became a going away thing for Marcus from Sports which became a whole night thing, and I lost track of — I lost track of a thing."
"The thing being?"
"How many I'd had." A pause. "I'm fine! I'm with Lois. But she's getting a car, and I said I'd call you because you're closer to where we are and — "
"Where are you?"
You tell him. He's there in a way that isn't flying, because he's Clark Kent right now, not Superman, which means he took a cab at a speed that the cab driver will probably think about later.
You and Lois are outside the bar when he arrives. Lois looks fully sober and deeply entertained, which is a Lois Lane combination you've encountered before.
"Kent," she says.
"Lois," he says.
"She's fine," Lois says. "Slightly finer than expected, honestly. She held up pretty well."
"That's high praise from you," you say.
"It is," Lois agrees. She squeezes your arm. "Car's here. Text me." She gives Clark a look that contains several complete sentences, and then she gets in her car.
You look at Clark.
Clark looks at you.
"Hi," you say.
"Hi." He does the assessment — the Clark version, which involves senses most people don't have — and his shoulders relax incrementally. "You doing okay?"
"Really good, actually. It was a fun night." You look at him. "You didn't have to come all this way."
"I was close," he says, which isn't entirely true but is kind.
"Clark."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
He smiles. The Clark smile, the real one, not the Superman one or the mild-mannered Clark Kent one, just the one underneath. "Come on. Let's get you home."
He keeps a hand at your elbow on the uneven sidewalk, and you lean into him slightly, and he's warm, always warm, like standing next to something quietly extraordinary, which you are.
He gets you home.
He makes sure you have water.
He stays until you're asleep, which you know because you wake up once in the night and the apartment has that particular quality of someone recently present, and there's an extra blanket, and your water glass has been refilled.
Clark Kent, you think, falling back asleep.
Genuinely.
WALLY WEST
Sick
The thing about Wally being the fastest man alive is that the moment you text him, I think I'm getting sick, he is at your door before you've put your phone down.
This is both wonderful and slightly startling.
"Wally — "
"I got things," he says, holding up approximately seven bags. "I wasn't sure what kind of sick, so I got options."
The options include: four different cold medicines, two different flu medicines, ginger ale, Sprite, orange juice, chicken soup, vegetable soup, tomato soup, three kinds of crackers, two different types of tea, cough drops in multiple flavors, a thermometer, a heating pad, and — for reasons you don't fully understand — a puzzle.
"The puzzle is if you're bored," he says. "But not too sick to do a puzzle. There's a range of sick where puzzles are good, and I didn't know where on the range you were."
"That's — Wally, this is a lot — "
"I also wasn't sure if you had everything you needed because you don't always tell me when you need things, and I'd rather have too much than — " He stops. Looks at you. Really looks at you. "Hi. You look rough."
"Thank you, Wally."
"Not in a bad way — in a you're sick and I'm worried way." He puts the bags down and comes to you and puts his hand on your forehead with the automatic ease of someone who does this without thinking. "You're warm."
"Mild fever."
"Yeah." He steers you back to the couch with the gentle irresistibility of someone who is technically strong enough to bench press a small building. "Sit. I'm making tea. Which kind do you want?"
"Surprise me."
He brings you the right one.
You don't know how he knew. You don't ask.
Wally with a sick person is Wally at approximately sixty percent of his usual speed, which he maintains through visible effort — you can see him calibrating, choosing to stay, choosing not to vibrate out of his skin at the forced stillness. For you, he does this.
"You can put something on," you say. "You don't have to just sit — "
"I'm fine sitting."
"Wally, I've never seen you sit still for more than — "
"I can sit still," he says, in the tone of someone who is currently proving this through sheer determination. "I'm sitting. Look. Sitting."
"You're vibrating slightly."
"That's just my resting state."
You put your head on his shoulder.
He goes completely still.
"Is this okay?" you say.
"Yeah," he says, and his voice is different, softer. "This is really okay."
He stays still.
For you, Wally West stays perfectly, completely still.
Drunk
You text him instead of calling because typing feels manageable and talking feels like a lot.
hey, so hypothetically if someone was maybe a little bit out at a bar and maybe needed a way home
The response is instantaneous.
WHERE
Wally, I'm fine
WHERE
You send the location.
He is there in a time that is not physically possible for someone who took normal transportation, and you choose not to examine this.
He finds you at the bar, not in bad shape, honestly, just past the point where Gotham at night seems like a good navigation challenge.
"Hi," you say.
"Hi." He does the scan — up down, quick assessment, Wally's version of making sure. Then he grins, the full Wally grin, the one that takes up his whole face. "How was your night?"
"Really good, actually. Jimmy's birthday was — Jimmy is great. Jimmy gave a speech."
"Was it a good speech?"
"It made me cry a little."
"Yeah?" He's already steering you, easy and warm, toward the door. "What did he say?"
You tell him about the speech. You tell him about the whole night, actually, in the way you do when the filters are down, and everything just comes out — the funny parts and the sweet parts and the part where someone spilled a whole drink, and the recovery was impressive.
Wally listens to all of it with genuine attention, asking questions, laughing at the right parts, because Wally West is more present in a conversation than almost anyone you've ever met.
Outside, he keeps pace with you, which for him is a deliberate choice, a constant gentle choosing.
"Wally," you say.
"Yeah?"
"You came really fast."
"I was close," he says.
"You're always close when I need you."
He's quiet for half a step. Then: "Yeah," he says, in a different voice than before. "I try to be."
The city goes past, and you walk beside the fastest man alive, who is choosing to walk, and that's the whole thing, that's the entirety of it — the choosing, the staying, the deliberate pace.
ROY HARPER
Sick
Roy's approach to you being sick is first to check it's not serious, second to make dark jokes about it, and third — when the jokes land flat because you're too tired for jokes — to drop everything and be exactly what you need.
"Is it bad?" he says, on the phone.
"No. I'm just gross and tired."
"Gross and tired is manageable." A pause. "You eaten?"
"Not much."
"I'm coming over."
"Roy, you don't have to — "
"I know I don't have to." He says it like don't have to is an irrelevant category. "I'm coming. Do you need anything specific, or should I just grab stuff?"
"Just grab stuff," you say, because you don't have the energy to be specific.
Roy grabbing stuff is an experience. He arrives with the specific grocery selection of someone who knows you well — the soup you actually like, not the generic kind. The specific crackers. A Gatorade in the flavor you always go for, even though you never explicitly told him that.
"You know my Gatorade flavor," you say.
"I pay attention." He puts things away with the efficiency of someone who's spent time in places where efficiency was survival-level necessary. "I also got the good tissues. The ones with the lotion, not the ones that make your nose raw."
"Roy."
"Yeah?"
"You got the good tissues."
"Your nose gets raw. It's a thing." He comes to sit near you, not too close. Roy's version of consideration is not crowding, not suffocating, just available. "You want the soup now or later?"
"Now, I think."
He heats it up. He brings it with the crackers and sits back with the easy looseness of someone who knows how to wait, who has learned the hard way that sometimes you just have to be in a room with someone and that's enough.
"You look terrible," he says.
"Thank you."
"Like a sad burrito."
"I'm in a blanket."
"A sad burrito blanket." He glances at you sideways, and there's something in it, underneath the jokes. "You need anything else?"
"This is good," you say. "Being here is good."
He nods, something settling in him. "Okay."
He stays. He watches something with you, doesn't pick it, lets you pick, and makes no comment about what you pick. At some point, he ends up closer than he started, and neither of you marks the exact moment it happened.
"Roy," you say, half-asleep.
"Yeah."
"Thanks."
"Any time," he says. And he means it the way Roy means things, which is practically and completely.
Drunk
Roy finds out you're drunk because he's at the same bar.
Different part of it — he'd been meeting someone about something, the vague category of thing Roy's life is full of that you don't always ask about — and he spots you across the room in the way he spots things, which is automatically and with full tactical detail.
He clocks the group you're with. He sets the glasses on the table. He clocks you laughing at something with your head back and your eyes bright, and he stays where he is for a minute just watching because there's a version of you that only comes out when you're relaxed and unguarded, and he's not going to pretend he doesn't like seeing it.
Then someone in your group who you clearly don't know well enough puts a hand somewhere they shouldn't.
Roy is there in about four steps.
He doesn't make a production of it. He just appears at your shoulder and says 'hey' and the hand disappears, and the someone finds somewhere else to be with the efficiency of a person who has correctly read Roy Harper and made a smart decision.
You look at him.
"Hi," you say, surprised.
"Hi." He looks at you. "You good?"
"Yeah. Yeah, thanks." You look at where the someone was. "You didn't have to — "
"I was here already." He says it like it's nothing. "You having fun?"
"I was." You look at him more carefully. "Were you following me?"
"I was at the bar first, actually. You can check the timestamps."
"I'm not checking timestamps."
"Then you'll have to take my word for it." He nods toward the bar. "You want water?"
"I'm fine — "
"Not a commentary on your state. Just water." He raises an eyebrow. "I'm getting water. You want some?"
"...Sure."
He gets water. He comes back. He leans against the wall next to you in the specific Roy way, comfortable in his own skin in any situation, and hands you the glass.
"Thank you," you say. "For the — for earlier."
"Forget it."
"Roy — "
"Genuinely, forget it. Drink your water." He looks at the room. "You need a ride later?"
"I was going to get a car."
"I'll take you."
"You were here for something — "
"I'm done." He glances at you sideways. "I'll take you home. Not a big deal."
It is, you both know, at least a medium deal.
But Roy doesn't make it one, and you don't make it one, and that's the thing about Roy — he takes care of things without making you feel taken care of, which is a skill that's rarer than it sounds.
"Okay," you say.
"Okay," he says.
He stays in your orbit for the rest of the night, not attached, not hovering, just — there. The way Roy is there. Solidly, quietly, practically.
He takes you home.
He makes sure the door is locked.
He says text me when you're up and means it.
You text him in the morning.
He responds in under a minute.
HAL JORDAN
Sick
Hal Jordan's primary response to most situations is confidence, which works extremely well in space and somewhat less well in a domestic context involving someone else's illness.
He arrives at your apartment with the bearing of a man who has this handled.
He does not fully have this handled.
"I got soup," he says, holding up the can.
"That's a can of beans," you say.
He looks at the can.
"I grabbed the wrong one," he says.
"Hal."
"I'll go back out — "
"It's fine, I have soup, I just — why did you bring a can of beans to someone who is sick?"
"The store was laid out badly." He puts the beans down with dignity. "I also got — " he checks the bag — "this is medicine. This part I did correctly."
"That's a good sign."
"Thank you." He comes and looks at you with the Hal Jordan look, the one that has crossed sectors of the universe and come back slightly changed by it, but still, underneath, just Hal. "You look rough."
"You're the second person to say that to me today."
"I'm saying it with love."
"Sure."
He gets the actual soup — you have some, he just hadn't known to look — and he heats it up with the determination of someone completing a mission objective, and he brings it to you and sits down.
"I'm not good at this," he says, which is the most Hal sentence possible. The acknowledgement without apology.
"You're doing okay."
"I grabbed beans instead of soup."
"You caught it immediately and course-corrected. That's fine crisis management."
He laughs, surprised. "Crisis management for getting soup."
"Everything's a mission." You look at him. "How'd yours go? You were out yesterday."
"Routine. Distant sector." He says it in the way he says things; he's minimizing, which you've learned to read. "Nothing interesting."
"You're minimizing."
"A little." He settles back. "Nothing I couldn't handle."
"That's not the same thing."
"No," he agrees. "It's not." He looks at you. "How long have you been sick?"
"Two days."
"Why didn't you call me yesterday?"
"You were in a distant sector doing nothing interesting."
He makes a face. "You could've called."
"I know." You look at him. "I didn't want to be the thing you worried about on top of everything else."
Hal is quiet for a moment.
"You're never the thing on top of everything else," he says. "You're the thing I come back for. There's a difference."
The soup is warm, and Hal Jordan is sitting on your couch, battered by whatever the distant sector was that he's minimizing, and he's here, which means he chose here when he could have gone anywhere.
"Hal," you say.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for coming."
"I brought beans by mistake."
"I don't care about the beans."
He looks at you.
"I know," he says quietly. "Me either."
Drunk
There's a Green Lantern Corps event, which sounds official, and is, mostly, but there is also an open bar, and Hal Jordan at an open bar at an event where he is technically off-duty is a known quantity.
The known quantity is: he matches you drink for drink, and you both end up significantly more relaxed than the event intended.
He finds this extremely funny.
"We're the worst people here," he says, at some point, leaning against a pillar.
"We're not the worst — "
"We're comfortably in the bottom ten percent." He looks around the room at various serious cosmic entities and human officials. "Everyone here is very earnest."
"They're doing important work."
"They are. We are also doing important work." He gestures at his drink. "Morale maintenance."
"Is that what this is?"
"I'm a senior officer. I know what I'm doing."
"Hal, you just knocked over a decorative — "
"That was the pillar's fault." He looks at you, the Hal look, the one that has too much warmth in it for someone who spends so much time being the most confident person in any room. "You're having fun."
"I am," you say, surprised to realize it's true.
"Good." He takes your hand, casual, easy, like it's just a thing he's doing and not a decision. “The events are usually boring. I'm glad this one's not.”
'It's the morale maintenance," you say.
"See? Senior officer. I know things."
Later, navigating out, both of you slightly more careful about the steps than usual, the kind of careful that confirms something — he keeps your hand.
"Hal," you say, outside in the air.
"Yeah?"
"You're not exactly sober either."
"I'm aware of that, yes."
"So who's navigating?"
He considers this. "We navigate together," he says, with the confidence of a man who has crossed the galaxy and can handle one city. "It'll be fine."
"That's very on-brand for you."
"It usually works out."
"Usually," you say.
"Ninety percent of the time," he says. "Good odds."
You navigate together.
It works out.
It usually does, with Hal, which is either statistical evidence or optimism or just the particular shape of the two of you — probably all three.
Imagine “borrowing” the left glove of your man’s super suit for a bit while he’s napping and stitching a small band of embroidery thread around the ring finger. The thread is colored only slightly darker than the original color of the fabric. It was so inconspicuous that no one who wasn’t looking for it would notice. In fact, it takes your vigilante fiancé about a week to find it himself.
He has to do a little double take, momentarily forgetting what he was doing in favor of inspecting his hand. It’s not an accidental loose thread or anything, it’s an intentional alteration to his uniform, meant to be there. And it’s very clearly supposed to be a wedding ring, so he knows exactly how it got there. He just doesn’t know when. Oh, hopefully he hasn’t been oblivious to your handiwork for long. The thought of you thinking he knew about it and just didn’t care was agonizing. He cares, baby! He cares so much you wouldn’t believe.
It makes him giddy. You’ve marked him. What an adorable thing to do.
He was planning to get the ring tattooed onto his finger already, so he wouldn’t lose the real one out in his dangerous life of fighting crime. But even that would be under his gloves, invisible to anyone on the streets of the city. This, however, announced it loud and clear: sorry, but this vigilante is taken.
When he makes it back from the mission that night, he finds you lounging in your shared bedroom. You’re too engrossed in whatever you’re doing on your laptop to notice him creeping in yet, so he gets a moment to just admire you. To his delight, he recognizes the fabric that clings to your body as one of his shirts.
You finally realize he’s there, lookin’ like the cat who got the cream,
“Hey Babe, was it a good night?”
“You want to marry me~” he croons.
“We are literally engaged,” you shake your head in fake-exasperation.
“I found your little gift,” he gives you the clue to why he’s got hearts in his eyes.
“Oh,” your smile gets bigger, “that.. I take it you like it?”
He takes your head in his hands, thumbs gently brushing the tops of your cheeks, “it’s perfect,”
He presses a cute little kiss onto your nose. He laughs as you open your eyes and whine about having expected a real kiss. Well, he’ll just have to give you one of those too, then… or maybe a few…
