WHERE :: your best friend hooked up with your boyfriend. so you hooked up with her ex.
SERVES : tatiana ( mdni! ), bsf goes low, reader takes it to hell, dick’s a willing and aware participant, he wants to get revenge too, riding, pussy eating, he’s a tits man, a you man, exhibition kink ( sorta ), heavy making out, humping, petty reader and we love to see it !! bsf cheated on dick with reader’s bf in this case, lipstick marking, hair tugging, fingering, making out hardcore, face riding, slightly buzzed but they’re lucid enough to give consent.
You thought your world would crash when your boyfriend sent a drunk picture of some girl in a denim skirt straddling his bare hips. Especially when you saw the butterfly tattoo on the girl's thigh that looked exactly like the one Vanessa got when you were both sixteen. You'd paid for the bitch's tattoo.
But nothing crashed.
You felt nothing. Killing two birds with one stone, your grandmother would call it. Was that what it was supposed to feel like? Maybe you should cry a little.
You tried. Didn't work. Hell, why should it? He cheated on you, that wasn't your problem, he couldn't keep it in his pants. It was more of a sign that he was a manwhore with no care for hygiene.
Usually in the movies, there'd be a crying ex girlfriend with the shining knight coming to wipe the tears and fuck the girl until she forgot about her dirtbag ex. You had no knight by you, so maybe that wasn’t your narrative.
You hadn’t rung up the girls from work for a vent session, hadn’t broken open the wine or the Ben and Jerry’s. Just carried on with the Friday tradition of unwinding with a couple of snacks while watching cheesy rom-coms about giggling, blushing girls and charismatic men with raging red flags.
“Run, girl,” You muttered when the male lead said some bullshit about ‘you don’t have to worry about her’.
About twenty missed calls from Carter sat on your phone. Fifty texts from Vanessa. You'd declined every single one, swiped on every text message. You were just watching Kill Bill now and munching on a bag of chips when your phone buzzed again. Your groan was muffled by the potato, fumbling for your phone. "Bitch, I'm not gonna— huh." You tilted your head to get a better look at the message.
Hey, it's Dick. Can we meet up to talk?
How the fuck did Vanessa cheat on this man?
You’d known Dick ever since he and Vanessa were in the early stages of dating around two years ago, and you hated to admit it, but he was one objectively sexy man. Who was sat there with a cappuccino in a local Blüdhaven coffee shop, looking the most tortured you’d ever seen him, over a girl who cheated, nonetheless.
You sipped your latte. “You look like shit, Dick.” Your voice was softer than intended. Maybe a portion of you felt bad. “What’re you thinking?”
He scrubbed his face. “I’m sorry, I— I didn’t mean to drag you out here to sit in silence, I’m just… confused. How could she— did I do something?”
You sat forward in your seat, raising an eyebrow, sighing. “Really?” You clicked your tongue noncommittally. “You’re gonna blame yourself for this? Dick, you got her expensive jewellery to ask her to be your girlfriend, you were pretty fucking perfect.” He’d done the research. Seen what colour jewellery she wore, if she preferred gold or silver, her birthstone, what cut, how long, and got it custom made. If he did anything wrong, you’d be surprised. “It’s her fault.”
He looked sceptical. He even let out a disbelieving scoff, like you were talking bullshit. “You don’t seem heartbroken. Like, at all.”
You shrugged, stirring your latte with a wooden stick. “If she can take him, she can have him. Carter couldn’t do anything without his mother’s approval anyway.”
His nose wrinkled. “Yikes. That sounds rough.”
"Why'd you offer to buy me coffee anyway?" His text had come out of nowhere, but he probably had his reasons. One or two at least.
His sigh was of defeat as he rubbed a sugar packet between his fingers, rubbing the back of his neck with another hand. “I just— you got caught up in my ex-girlfriend’s shit, and it felt unfair.”
You gestured to him. “You got caught up in my ex best friend and my ex-boyfriend’s shit, so arguably, I should be paying for this.”
“But I already paid.”
“So let’s go out for a drink sometime.” You shrugged. “I wanted to get wasted and forget about this anyway, might as well take you with me.”
His grin was blinding, the kind of thing Vanessa used to giggle about when she first met him. “A little too soon to go out for drinks, huh?”
“It’s a proposition.” You laughed, shrugging. “Drinks on me. Let’s go tomorrow.”
Dick had been used to fancy hotel bars, at least whenever Bruce had thrown parties with bars included. The ones where the bartenders wore suits and ties with top shelf liqueurs.
He felt a sort of thrill when you dragged him into a bar on the corner of 6th, one with dim, flickering warm lights that clashed with blue and purple ones. The bartender wore plaid, spoke in a thick Boston accent, had an unkempt five-o’clock shadow. The bar top was wooden and chipped, and on the makeshift dance floor were plenty of drunk people grinding on each other.
“Oh, this is amazing,” He couldn’t help but smile widely, turning to you. “There are places like this in Gotham?”
“Yes, Mr Trust Fund— Scott!” You flagged down the bartender. “Can we get a round of shot roulette?”
“Sure, sweetheart.” Scott flashed you a smile, wiping down a glass before heading to set up the shot roulette.
Dick turned to you, leaning on the bar slightly, tracing the wood grain with his finger. “So, you come here often?”
You perched yourself on a barstool, prompting him to do the same. Something that sounded like 50 Cent was playing on the speakers in the corners, bass thrumming in the back of your mind. “Oh, all the time. Best place in Gotham.” The shots were slid in front of you, and you both grabbed the glass and chucked it back, both of you humming. “Huh.”
“Kind of… fruity.” He mused, staring at the shot glass, putting it down. He glanced at you through his stupidly long and pretty lashes, clearing his throat. “How did you find out that… never mind.”
You chased the alcohol down with water. “I got a photo of a girl fucking Carter.” You scoffed lightly. “I saw a tattoo on her upper thigh that I’d paid for when we were in college.”
He ran a hand through his hair, huffing. “Fuck, shit, I’m so sorry— she just came clean to me. Maybe after you found out.”
“It’s not your fault.” You said lightly, waving your hand. “It’s theirs. They couldn’t keep it in their pants, Vanessa had a great, hot guy and she lost him, so…”
He couldn’t help his soft smile. “You’re gorgeous too, you know. Carter doesn’t know what he lost.” His eyes flicked down, to your lips, then to a barely working lightbulb like a moth would. But you caught it.
Your teeth snagged your bottom lip.
Vanessa made a huge mistake.
Dick’s hand was firmly on your jaw, leaned over the centre console of his Bentley so his lips could slot easily against yours. Your hand was carding into the floppy strands of his hair, swallowing each other’s heavy breaths. His cologne was deliciously clouding your senses, the hand not on your jaw reaching behind you to grab at your ass, squeezing, teasing your bottom lip with his warm tongue. His mouth separated from yours to burn down your neck, laving your pulse, pressure on your jaw gone in favour of tugging your shirt down over one shoulder to palm your tits over your bra.
“Your apartment is,” You paused to moan quietly, tugging his hair as a keep going, “literally right there. We can — fuck — get comfy.”
He nodded into your neck, brushing your skin with his lips one more time before looking you in the eye. “Good idea.”
You couldn’t remember how you actually got into his apartment, but you did remember stripping him of his clothes and pushing him down onto his bed, unclasping your bra. He hummed, biting his lip. “I have an idea.”
“I’m all ears.” You breathed, your breathing stuttering as you ground your panties-covered pussy over his boxers-covered cock.
His hand slid over the back of your neck, encouraging you closer. “Let’s send them a photo,” He murmured, pecking your lips, his nose rubbing against yours. “You know. Revenge.”
Your hand was already scrambling for your phone, switching to selfie mode just as he smashed his lips to yours, your thumb hitting the circular button and taking the photo. “Good?”
“Yeah, fuck, that’s hot,” He nodded, tugging you so he could kiss you, middle finger reaching down to rub at your entrance over your panties. “You’re soaked, shit, sweetheart,” He reached up and tugged, sliding down the lace covering your pussy with his pointer until they slipped off, lazily chucking your panties into the corner of his room. “C’mere.” He grabbed your hips and pulled you till your pussy was right above his mouth.
Wait what— fuck.
His mouth wrapped around your clit as two fingers pushed into your cunt, practically sucking his fingers in, dear God. Your head fell back, mouth dropping open as a surprised moan left you, hand shooting to grip his hair. He groaned, deep in his throat, other hand pressing on the small of your back to encourage you to grind your clit on his tongue that was circling and pressing on your clit.
“O—Oh, Dick—”
“Yeah, that’s right, give it to me, baby.” He moaned, yanking his fingers out, and just before you could protest at the loss of anything filling your aching pussy, he thrusted his tongue into you, flicking at your clit with his thumb, his nose bumping occasionally against you. The taste of you on his tongue made him want to sing your praises, but it came out muffled, the vibrations making your hips twitch and eyes roll back.
Repeated cries of “yes” punctuated by your broken moans fuelled his ego and his already painfully hard dick. With your walls fluttering around his tongue fucking into you, he’d say you were fairly close.
A lot of things were going through your head. Like how this was a stellar pussy eating. How Carter refused to let any part of his face touch your vagina. How Dick was so willing and drinking your arousal up like it was the gods’ nectar.
You were coming on his tongue soon enough, pulling at his hair to make him moan and lap at your cunt faster, slicking his lips and chin.
A minute later, he was still kitten licking you clean, and as much as the stimulation made you stroke his hair and whisper praise, you needed to get a move on. So you pulled yourself away from his mouth, pulling down his boxers while he whined and pawed at your hips to try and bring you back.
“M’ not done— fuuuuck,” His head dropped back into the pillows, giving way for the weight, as you sank down onto his waiting cock. Your warm walls wrapping around him, making his head spin before he snapped into reality. His hands took hold of your hips again, helping you move on him, thumbs kneading your skin as you dragged up and down his dick.
He hadn’t felt like this before. Your lips were on his neck, leaving kiss prints on his skin, from his chest to his jaw and around his lips. Raising your phone and clicking a photo of his fucked-out grin as you rode him, thumb hovering over send to Vanessa.
“You ok with this?” Your voice was uncharacteristically soft, circumstantially breathy, your nails raking down his abs and making him shiver.
He grabbed the phone, pressed send himself, propping himself up so he could take one of your tits into his mouth, sucking to stifle his shamelessly loud moans. Wasn’t working. “Mhm— ride my fucking dick, gorgeous,” He gasped between switching to your other tit, laving over your skin with his tongue. “Just like that, so perfect, honey.”
His mouth running away with him told you he was close, his thumb reaching to rub circles on your clit propelled you that much further, but you refused to come twice before he had even once, so you pulled his head away from your tits, bit his earlobe and sucked a mark behind his ear.
He shuddered and groaned your name, hot come spilling into you — morning after pill, here we come — and the twitch of his cock sent you straight after him, his mouth slamming sloppy into yours, gripping the back of his neck while his tongue slid over your lower lip and his lips following straight after.
You milked him for all he had, until you were both panting and he was staring up at you through his lashes like he wanted to fuck you on all fours. “Wanna go again?”
“We’ve got time.”
carter -> you
carter : c'mon, baby, let's talk about it
you know i love you
she didn't mean anything i swear
i can't live without you sweets
you : she's busy.
carter : doing what???? who is this ???
you : fucking me. it's dick, btw ;)
carter : vanessa's ex? you piece of shit
give the phone back to her
[ blocked ]
vanessa -> dick
vanessa : you're really gonna throw years away for that bitch ?you're mine
i want you back let's talk about this
i miss you so bad
we can go to couples counselling, work on our problems together
you weren't really fulfilling my needs, i had to look out for myself
dick : for a guy who wasn't 'fulfilling your needs' nessie he sure was fulfilling mine
vanessa : youre such a bitch
to think you were my best friend
fucking my EX ??? could you go any lower ??
dick : *you're
vanessa : UGH
you were lounged back against the pillows in dick’s oversized t-shirt, legs stretched out, completely absorbed in your book. fingers flipped through the pages with the occasional rustle while your boyfriend was out.
dick slipped in after patrol, still in his nightwing suit. he crawled onto the bed and settled between your legs, resting his head on your chest with a soft sigh. this was practically routine now. dick was obsessed with your tits—needed them after every patrol like they were what he came home for (which… they are.)
“baby… can i…?” he asked, voice low and warm and so sweet, that easy charm threaded with pure need. when you made a small noise that indicated permission, dick tugged the shirt up gently and latched onto one nipple.
his mouth was hot, his motions eager—lips sealing tight around the stiff peak as he sucked with slow, rhythmic pulls that made your breast ache oh so sweetly and sent heated jolts straight to your cunt. his tongue swirled and flicked relentlessly around the sensitive bud that had pebbled immediately under his tongue, then flattened to nurse harder, drawing your nipple deep into his mouth with wet, obscene slurps. cheeks hollowing, he moaned softly against your flesh, the vibrations buzzing through your tit while saliva dripped down the curve of your breast.
he ground his hips against your thigh like a desperate puppy, his thick cock rock-hard and straining through the thin suit fabric. the leaking head left a growing wet spot as he humped slow and insistent, rubbing his throbbing cock along your legs in needy strokes. the friction the suit provided was delicious—but nowhere near what it would feel like to thrust into those pretty tits.
“mm… baby,” he mumbled around your tit, switching sides effortlessly, latching onto the other nipple and sucking deeper, tongue lapping messily at the slick, spit-covered skin. “missed this. fuck… you’re so soft and warm.”
you slid one hand into his dark hair, holding him close but kept your eyes on the book. he couldn’t help but wonder what was so good about words that made you so distracted. “wait a sec, dick. i’m in the middle of this chapter.”
he groaned, the sound buzzing through your breast as he sucked harder, pulling your nipple taut between his lips before soothing it with hungry laps, spit trailing down your tits as he sucked like he couldn’t get enough—which is true. his hips rocked faster, cock sliding hot and slick with pre-cum against your thigh, dragging the swollen head in filthy up down motions. “c’mon… just look at me? i’m being good here.” his tone stayed playful, that signature wit light even in the plea. “feels good, right? tell me. please.”
you turned another page, fingers stroking his hair absently. he groaned, hips twitching. “you’re doing fine, baby. give me a minute.”
“okay… fine. i can wait,” he breathed, still nursing with greedy pulls that left your nipples swollen and glistening with his saliva, grinding harder now so his aching cock dragged along your leg with slick, filthy friction. “but god, these beauties… been thinking about them all night. don’t ignore me too long.”
after a few more minutes of his devoted sucking and puppy-like humping, you sighed, slotted your bookmark in and closed the book with a snap, setting it aside. you tugged his hair gently so he met your eyes, a teasing smile on your lips.
“aww, look at my needy dick,” you murmured, guiding his mouth back down while you laid back fully so you weren’t resting your back against the headboard anymore. which meant he could grind better now. “begging so sweetly while humping my leg like a puppy. can’t get enough, huh?”
dick pulled off with a wet pop, lips shiny and swollen, biting his lower lip up at you with that bright, boyish spark. “guilty. you bring out the best in me… or the neediest.” he chuckled softly. “you gonna tease me or finally give me all your attention?”
you laughed, arching your back to press your glistening tits closer. “go on then. keep going. make it good and i’ll take care of that aching cock next. you’ve earned it.”
he groaned happily and latched on again with fresh hunger, sucking deeper and sloppier while his hips kept grinding, cock pulsing hot and heavy against your cunt now that he’s got you under him properly. you held him close with both hands in his hair, finally giving him the full attention he craved.
summary: falling in love with each other was easy—a little too easy. after a series of dates and getting to know the other better, it was only a matter of time, right? no longer able to hold it in, dick finds himself desperate and decides that tonight will not end until he gets to walk home with a kiss, from you.
notes: 4.1k words…. fluff!! with a side of nasty kissing, dick is absolutely fed up and DESPERATE, reader has never had a boyfriend before so dick is the very first guy you’ve ever been with. so many feelings and love and yearning you guys are so obsessed with each other its genuinely DISGUSTING. but dick is like way worse because at least half of this is him yearning for you,,,, also a lot of making out...dick literally eats ur face. all the dialogue is later in gomenasorry. written with black reader in mind >0<
Dick Grayson was on a mission. Tonight’s date, he decided, was going to be extra special than usual. Why, you ask? Because tonight, he was going to secure his kiss from you—poor, unsuspecting, you.
Tonight marked the 8th date you guys have gone on ever since your first meeting at a late-night convenience store around the corner of his apartment, where the once peaceful environment was interrupted by a measly burglar waving his gun around with arrogance and the demand of money.
It was the one night when Dick wasn’t in costume and was nursing a severely bruised body from a villain he had encountered two days earlier. The situation irritated him even more than he already was—Bruce was still chewing his ass out over a case that he was working on; he still needed to go to work with his bruised body because he can’t exactly let them know what violent activities he’s up to at night and his injuries—now this.
So it’s an understatement when saying the burglar was dealt with easily and quickly, as Dick was able to disarm him before the man could even take another step towards another innocent customer—someone Dick learned later was you.
The anticlimactic moment ended with the man scrambling out of the store with much less confidence than before, the store clerk shakily thanking Dick with the promise of free items of his choice tonight and the next time he comes in. Accepting the gratitude, Dick was ready to go home with the multitude of free items in his grocery bag--until he spotted you.
Standing near the entrance, dressed in sweatpants about twice your actual size with a hoodie you were equally drowned in, Dick found you absolutely radiant. He wasn’t someone who believed in love at first sight beforehand, but now? Certainly, this is what it means.
It took him a few seconds of silence and staring at you with an open mouth, like a goldfish for him to realize that you were speaking to him, and just like the store clerk. you were thanking him profusely for saving you from the gun that was previously pointed to you. Dick can't remember what happened after that. But he does remember walking out of the store a happy man, your phone number having found its way into his phone.
Back in the present, Dick knew that maybe 8 dates was a little too much to come to this decision; after all, for him it was only on date number 2 that he knew he wanted you, badly. But he knew he had to be patient, especially after you revealed that you’ve never been in a relationship—or on a date at all. It was for this reason that he decided to take things slow and wait for a sign that you wanted him too.
By now, he’s reached his limit.
Every other date you’ve had prior to this had been more casual: going out for coffee, the arcade, movie nights at his place (more often yours because he absolutely adores your cat, mocha), grocery shopping together, and going for a stroll in Melville Park to walk Haley, his adorable pitbull you fell in love with.
Tonight, Dick took you to a nice restaurant with tables reserved on its rooftop. He knew you weren’t someone who frequented fancy restaurants too often, so he found a solid one just in between fancy and casual.
Dinner was going well, and you were absolutely perfect. He’d told you beforehand to come wearing a blue outfit, and the dress you wore had surpassed his expectations so much that he considered dropping down on one knee right then and there before ever asking you to be his girlfriend, if it wasnt apparent just how much it affected him seeing that colour on you with his lovesick gaze the entire night.
The dress you’re wearing is dark blue silk, the kind of colour that shifts like midnight water under the lighting of the restaurant's stringed lights. It drapes across your frame in a way that seems deliberate, highlighting your curves, and Dick feels his mouth dry at how it complements your brown skin—like the colour was meant to be worn by you, and you alone.
The glow of your upper body lets him know of the shea butter you’d rubbed on yourself, your legs that slip through the slit sharing the same glow.
The matching gold jewelry you wear and the updo you’ve done with your curls make him fight demons he never even knew he had, wanting to jump over the table to show you how much he loves you.
It truly doesn’t help how much he’s reminded of his Nightwing costume every time he looks at you.
He finds himself murmuring more compliments than usual because he can’t contain how much it moves him. The blue that once belonged only to his suit now belongs to you too, and he adores it—adores you—in a way he can’t keep from showing.
Dick finds himself craving dessert earlier than usual.
But he knows he has to act accordingly; he can’t afford to scare you away. So he does what he’s best at and eyes you with a disgustingly lovesick, yearning look as if he’s some schoolboy with his very first crush for the entire night as you guys chat over dinner.
He pays even closer attention to you than ever (if that’s even possible), maintaining intense eye contact with every word delivered in the air, squeezing your manicured hand (that has the nails he paid for) while you excitedly share the plot of the most recent book you read last weekend, and feeding you some of the food he’s ordered (you protested against stealing his food, but he insisted, claiming, “It’s my duty to feed you.” how do you even respond to that?).
Overall, dinner was perfect. He thinks this is the best date you guys have been on so far, as after dinner he surprises you with tickets to the movie he remembers you wanted to see when it came out.
What a coincidence that today happens to be its release date, and the happy squeal it pulled from you once he revealed the surprise made the rest of his year, he thinks. It’s something he could listen to on repeat for hours and never get sick of.
As the night got darker and you got tired, Dick knew it was time to take you home. As much as he’d love for this night to continue, he doesn’t want to keep you up later than you’re used to.
It brings you both to his car, pulling up into the neighbourhood of your apartment complex, the car filled with a comfortable silence as you gaze out to the passing buildings. His jacket covers your previously bare shoulders during the car ride after he’d noticed the goosebumps rising on your skin (he wouldn’t quit sulking at the fact that you didn’t tell him anything about you being cold and forced you inside his jacket desite your protests).
Parked in front of your building, you unbuckled your seatbelt and grabbed your purse, ready to thank him for tonight once again and wish him a goodnight—before you were surprised with him unbuckling himself and turning off the engine. He paused his actions when he spotted your questioning stare.
“What? You thought I was gonna let you walk up there alone? Absolutely not,” Dick huffed, quickly circling around the car to open your door and making space for you as you stepped out. “What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t walk you to your door? I need to make sure you make it inside safely, you know.”
Normally you would’ve been your own ride home (he’s never liked it but agreed if it made you happy), but Dick insisted that he’s the one who drives you home this time.
Dick walks you into your building, already knowing his way around from past visits, and unlocks the lobby’s door with his own copy of your keys, then leads you further into the elevators with a hand on your back that’s still covered by his jacket.
It’s almost pathetic how during the entire elevator ride, the two of you are stealing glances at each other—oblivious of the other person’s nervous shifting. Dick knows that it’s tonight that he gets that kiss from you.
At last, when having reached your door, it’s as though the once simmering tension has announced its presence, and settles in the air between the two of you. As you turn to face him with your back to your door, he gives you a soft smile that lets butterflies rise in your stomach, the warm orange lighting that complements his tanned skin doing nothing to help.
If anything, it makes whatever you’re feeling worse, and you don’t know if you can keep acting oblivious to your true feelings.
“I had a really great time,” his voice snaps you out of your thoughts, your full attention back on him, “And I really loved our conversations tonight. I'd love to do something like this again, with you.” His tone at the end has a hopeful implication. He hopes he doesn’t come off as too desperate, but part of him can’t get himself to care.
He thinks now would be the perfect time for that kiss, but he doesn’t want to pressure you. Dick knows it would kill him to ruin what you guys have, and this might be the most nervous he’s ever been in his entire life.
“Yeah?” You ask with a hint of shyness, holding your hands behind your back. “Thank you, Dick. I had a really great time with you tonight, too. The movie made me really happy and...I’m glad you remembered that small detail.”
Dick feels his heart practically melting at the sound of your voice. Your obvious nervousness only boosts his confidence in what he plans on doing, and he can’t get over how much he loves your voice. You’re so adorable. He thinks to himself.
His next smile is a lot more dorky, cheeks warm with his dimples coming out to reveal themselves. It’s your favourite feature on him, right after his blue, blue eyes, you think. You both feel like high schoolers again with a pathetic crush. “Nothing you tell me is ever small.”
He’s taken aback by how fond he let that come out of his mouth, but he decides it’s worth it when your eyes avert down to your feet—flustered. It’s his favourite look on you.
But he knows just like this isn’t enough. This thought leads him to slowly reach for your arms behind your back, gently uncrossing them while his hands trail down to hold your own. He searches your eyes for any discomfort before intertwining them, when having found none, his calloused palms swallow your smaller, softer ones. The contrast does nothing but make his heart beat faster.
It’s when you look up at him with wide, glimmering dark eyes filled with hope and a drop of insecurity that it clicks—you are the woman he wishes to share his life with.
You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t have a crush on him. It was impossible not to, with his easygoing grin that you’ve observed goes toe to toe with the sun itself. With each action done with careful consideration of you, with each compliment given, with each laugh he’s pulled out of you, with each dinner cooked together, with each night spent on his fire escape with shoulders touching– each day learning about what makes you, you.
It was too easy falling in love with Dick Grayson.
And that scared you.
Similarly to Dick, it was around the third date that you knew you wanted something blooming between you.
Love. What a strange concept for a girl who’s never fallen in love.
You find that the only reason why you hadn’t initiated anything further with him is because you’re unsure if this is how the process goes. Along with the slight insecurity of slipping up if you did, with Dick having more experience than you did. Soon those worries disappeared, because Dick had done nothing but soothe them.
Every moment where you felt as though you needed to initiate anything physical beyond what you were used to, he noticed, and every anxious thought was blown away with a simple reassuring smile.
He never said more than a quiet, “It’s okay,” because to him it was always about your comfort before anything.
He’s never made you feel forced to do anything, content to lead you through each encounter until you found the moment you were ready.
You realize as soon as he holds your hands in his—he’s the one for you.
Dick chuckles softly at the look in your eye and squeezes your hands gently. His blue eyes, nearly swallowed up by his dilated pupils, are fixed on yours, studying your reaction with an intensity that makes you want to squirm. He can feel how warm your skin is and his heart feels like it could pop out of his chest.
With a deep breath, Dick takes another step closer, now only inches apart. He lifts a hand to lift your chin ever-so-slightly, making you tilt your head up to meet his gaze. Dark eyes meet blue.
You swallow thickly as your eyes remain locked on each other, feeling his other hand move down to your waist. His expression is so vulnerable and raw as he looks down at you, and you think you might throw up from nerves alone. Your eyes water as these thoughts circle through your mind.
It doesn’t take detective skills to read you like a book. He can tell what you’re thinking. He knows the reason you’re unsure as you begin shaking in his arms. His thumb traces slow circles against your jaw, coaxing you to relax. He hopes you can’t hear how fast his heart is beating, how he’s memorizing the sound of your soft breaths.
The two of you are the only ones in the hallway at the risk of being seen by neighbours, but neither of you can find it in you to care.
"You okay?" He murmurs softly, searching your face with those impossibly blue eyes. There's no teasing now–just genuine care and something achingly tender beneath it all. "I can... we can stop if—"
(But the way he lingers shows he really doesn’t want to stop.)
"No!" you interject louder than intended to, freezing when you realized ust how loud that came out. A surprised laugh bubbles out of him at your sudden outburst, the sound warm and so fond. That adorable reaction just makes him squeeze you a tiny bit closer.
"N—no, I... this is okay. I'm okay." You finish softly, heart aching for more. You’re incredibly greedy when it comes to his touch, and you don’t feel a drop of shame for it.
"Good," he murmurs, leaning in until his forehead brushes yours—so close you can feel his breath against your lips. His free hand lifts to cradle your cheek now, thumb sweeping beneath your eye to catch that traitorous wetness before it falls.
"Because I really wanna kiss you right now," he admits in a whisper, grinning that stupid lopsided grin that makes your stomach flip. "But only if you really want me to."
Your heart almost stutters to a stop, and your gaze is consumed by nothing but want. Your pupils were almost as blown as his, and the way the wind blows, tussling at his wavy hair, drives you crazy. You melt against him as your foreheads touch, letting out a shaky breath.
It’s as you lose yourself in the pool of his impossibly blue eyes that you realize death doesn't scare you if it's by drowning in his eyes.
You lean into his warm palm, memorizing the sweet scent of his cologne. You give your answer in a hushed tone, as though sharing a secret that's to remain between the two of you alone. "I really wanna kiss you, too."
It sends a shiver down his spine. Holy smokes, he thinks to himself. You look like a dream.
The world seems to melt away as he gazes down at you with an intensity that is both gentle and smoldering. Dick can feel your breath on his lips, and it drives him insane.
"Damn," he mutters roughly, his voice suddenly raw with emotion, "you're going to be the death of me."
It's the only time he'll use the Lord's name in vain.
Just like that, he can't hold back any longer. The dam breaks, and he closes the last meager distance between the two of you, capturing your mouth in a deep, starved kiss.
A cut off gasp is swallowed by his lips, your eyes tightly shutting closed as your lips lock with his— and you feel alive. This is your very first kiss, and it's one you will never forget.
Dick’s arms circle your waist completely, pulling you flush against his body as his one hand slides up your spine until his fingers thread into your hair, tilting your head back as he kisses you with everything he has.
If it weren't for his arms holding you up, your knees would have buckled. He can feel how your body shakes with nerves and anticipation against his lips, and he can’t resist brushing his tongue over your bottom lip, groaning at the rewarding whimper he gets.
The smack of your lips is nasty; after each smack comes the sound of a deep groan which then triggers a breathy whine. Your blood is rushing to your head, and you think you might die. You’re suddenly immensely grateful for living on a nearly empty floor.
DIck groans low in his throat when he feels your grip tighten on his dress shirt, like you’re terrified he might pull away. As if he would ever want to. His tongue teases along your bottom lip again—asking without words.
His other hand drops from your chin to squeeze your hip possessively, fingers digging in just enough to make you gasp against his mouth.
"Sweetheart," he murmurs between feverish kisses, voice wrecked already, "c'mon, open up for me."
That tone—half praise and half demand—sends a bolt of heat straight through you. Holy shit. You’re embarrassed at the mewl that escapes you at the pet name. Please call me that again, please, please—
It's almost instantaneous that you open your mouth, giving his tongue access. The pleased chuckle that escapes him makes your entire body flare up in warmth. It felt good, getting his approval.
Dick takes full advantage of your obedience, the kiss turning downright filthy as he explores your mouth, his tongue coaxing against yours in the most distracting way. He groans again, a hungry, guttural sound that reverberates through his chest. He has to have more of you.
"Dick—" you whine against his lips as the smacking of lips circles around the small, dark quiet hallway. You find out just how easy it is to forget your surroundings when Dick Grayson is all-consuming in your mind, and on your lips.
The sound of his name on your lips grows his greed, wanting to own every gasp and whine and whimper you make. When your tongue brushes against his, something ignites in him, some feral, possessive feeling that makes his skin burn. You're so cute; he feels like a starved animal.
He pulls away with a wet sound, breathing heavily against your lips and resting his forehead against yours. He can feel your heart racing. He presses one last desperate peck to your lips.
"God," he mumbles raggedly, "you're doing things to me, sweetheart."
"I d-didn't do anything," you pant quietly, catching your breath as a string of drool remains between the two of you—your eyes half-lidded.
Dick stares at your face, taking in your flushed cheeks, the way you pant, and that adorable little strand of drool—God, he is so obsessed with you it isn't even funny.
His hands roam your body, one still gripping your hip and the other sliding up to cup your cheek, his calloused thumb tracing your kiss-swollen bottom lip, wiping away the wetness. You resist the urge to take his thumb in your mouth where it sits against your lip.
"Baby, look at you," he murmurs, gaze darkening as he looks down at you. "I could eat you alive right now." His comment makes you squawk. "Please don't," you sigh weakly, a protesting frown on your lips.
"I won't," he murmurs between nips and pecks along your jaw, "not unless you ask very nicely." He punctuates it with a slow drag of his teeth against your pulse point before pulling away just enough to see the reaction on your face.
His fingers tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear as his expression softens into something warmer—something more like home. "But I should probably get going before I actually do something reckless."
Oh. Yeah.
"You should..." You realize sadly that as much as you wanted to stay out longer with him, you couldn't risk getting in trouble with your roommate. "I wish you didn't have to," you murmur sadly, looking down at your heels.
His face falls for a second, reading the disappointment in your tone instantly. Dick pulls you back into a tight hug, pressing his lips to the top of your head before sighing dramatically.
"Ugh, don't look at me like that," he whines, squeezing you lightly as he rests his chin on your head. "You're gonna make me stay. And then I'll have to explain to your roommate why I'm camped out on your doorstep like some lovesick stray."
You couldn’t resist the giggle at his comment, equally wrapping your arms around him. You’re overwhelmed and also not whelmed (heh, yj ref) enough by his scent. “I would've let you stay the night like usual, but she just came back from vacation. Sorry, Dick.”
He only sulks above you, letting out one last dramatic sigh. He’s as dramatic as ever. “It’d be easier if I could just bring you back to mine,” Dick huffs enviously. “If only life were so easy.”
“You talk like I won’t just see you soon, silly. I promised Haley treats.”
“So you only like me for my dog?”
“Crap, you caught me...” you grin, unbothered
He lets out an undignified squawk, your laughther following up with the dramatics.
“To be fair, she’s super adorable. I can’t resist her eyes; she’s just a baby!”
“I’ll have you know, I was the one who trained her. Her cuteness is a direct reflection of me.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “Fine, fine. Maybe I like you a little too.
Dick beams instantly, smug as ever. “I knew it.”
He pulls back just enough to cup your face again—and this time, there's no joking in those stupidly blue eyes. Just something painfully sincere.
"But I’ll see you soon? Like… really soon?" His thumb traces the apple of your cheek hopefully.
You nod eagerly, returning his hopeful smile with a tender one of your own. “Yeah...I’d like that.” You confess quietly, holding his hand against your cheek.
His smile brightens immediately, boyish and so unfairly charming. You hate him. "Good," he murmurs, pressing one last lingering kiss to your forehead before finally—reluctantly—stepping back.
Dick walks backwards to the elevator like an idiot, unable to tear his eyes away from you. "And hey," he adds with a grin that promises trouble, fingers tapping against his chest where his heart is still racing. "You did this to me."
You can’t resist a laugh at his antics, pulling out your keys from your purse as he gets closer to the elevator. You grin like a lovesick teenager—you both do. “I sure did, Golden Boy. Call me when you get home?”
“Always,” he promises, taking a moment to admire your glowing figure under the warm lighting. He stuffs his hands in his pockets to keep himself from walking back over and hauling you into his arms again.
It’s when you unlock your door and give him one last smile that he dramatically blows you a kiss, his heart warming even further when you playfully catch it.
Dick’s grin softens one last time, pausing as the elevator doors open. “Goodnight, baby.” He tells you. You parrot after him. “Goodnight, Dickie.” Only you know how much that nickname makes his heart flutter.
And then—just like that—you disappear into your apartment.
(you only realize minutes later thanks to your roommate that you completely forgot to hand back his jacket. when mentioning this to dick he only laughs and tells you to keep it as a souvenir.)
dont forgot to like & reblog! thank you for reading. <3
Dick Grayson was six years old when he first started wondering about his soulmate.
At the time, his greatest concern was whether pirates were cooler than cowboys. A debate he took very seriously.
His mother, however, seemed far more interested in the scrape stretched across his knee.
"Stop picking at it."
"I'm not."
"Dick."
Mary Grayson sighed and gently caught his hand before he could peel away the corner of the bandage.
The injury wasn't actually his. That was the whole reason she was tending to it in the first place.
Somewhere out there, another child had tripped and fallen.
The scrape on their knee had appeared on his moments later, bright and stinging against skin that had never touched the ground.
Dick considered this one of the most fascinating things in the world.
A person he'd never met.
Someone who somehow belonged to him. Connected to him by something no one else could see.
"Maybe they were climbing a mountain."
His mother's lips twitched. "A mountain?"
"Or a castle."
"A castle is much more likely."
"I think so too." Dick nodded solemnly. A castle explained the scrape much better than simply falling over.
Castles had stone staircases and secret passageways. Castles had dragons and villains and daring escapes.
His soulmate was probably off on an adventure.
His mother finished securing the bandage before pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
"Your soulmate must be having quite the day."
The thought filled him with excitement.
For the rest of the afternoon, Dick imagined another child racing through hidden corridors, ducking beneath traps and escaping dragons by the skin of their teeth.
The possibility that they had simply tripped over their own feet never even crossed his mind.
←↓→↑
When he was seven, he spent two days complaining about a toothache.
The pain settled deep in his jaw, throbbing every time he tried to smile.
By the third day, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived.
His father explained that soulmate resonance sometimes worked that way.
That his soulmate had probably gone to the dentist.
Dick immediately sat upright. "What if they were scared?"
"I'm sure they were brave."
"What if nobody held their hand?"
John looked up from the costume he was repairing. "Dick."
"What?"
"They're not stranded on a deserted island."
"You don't know that."
His mother laughed so hard from the other side of the trailer that she nearly dropped her equipment.
Dick didn't see what was so funny.
His soulmate was out there somewhere.
They might be scared of dentists. Or hated needles.
The thoughts lingered with him long after the conversation ended.
Sometimes, late at night, Dick would stare at the ceiling and wonder if they ever thought about him too.
Whether they looked at the strange injuries that appeared on their skin and imagined a boy they'd never met.
He didn't know it then, but that question would follow him for years.
↑→↓←
Dick had developed a habit of asking questions nobody could answer.
What was their favourite colour?
Did they like animals?
Could they do cartwheels?
Did they live nearby?
Did they know about him?
Did they ever wonder the same things?
His parents always answered as though the questions mattered. With interest. As though his curiosity wasn't silly.
As though wondering about the person connected to him was the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe that was where it started.
Not the soulmate bond itself, the encouragement. The way nobody ever told him to stop asking. The quiet certainty with which his parents treated his soulmate's existence.
They never spoke about them as a possibility. They spoke about them as a certainty.
That somewhere in the world, there was a person who was completely his.
→←↓↑
At night, after the performances ended and the circus grounds settled into a comfortable hush, Mary often read to him before bed.
Dick's favourite stories weren't fairy tales.
They were stories about connected souls.
The old book lived beside the couch in their trailer, its spine cracked and softened with age. The pages had been turned so many times that the corners curled.
Inside were dosens of accounts collected from all over the world.
Stories about soulmates separated by oceans, soulmates born years apart, soulmates who searched for decades, or who stumbled into one another entirely by accident.
Dick never grew tired of hearing them.
He already knew most of the endings by heart. But that wasn't the point. The point was that every story promised the same thing.
No matter how long it took, how far apart they started, or how impossible it seemed, the soulmates always found each other.
Every single time.
The certainty of it settled somewhere deep inside him. A truth as unquestionable as gravity. As natural as the rising sun.
His soulmate was out there. And one day, they would be his.
By the time Mary finished reading, Dick would already be staring out the trailer window.
Wondering how they would meet. What they looked like. If they laughed loudly or quietly.
If they liked the circus.
Wondering if they were looking at the same stars scattered across the night sky. If they ever touched the marks that appeared on their skin and thought about him.
The thoughts comforted him.
No matter how large the world felt, where he went or how many cities the circus travelled through, there was always someone in it who belonged to him.
Someone he hadn't met yet.
A person he was already learning how to love.
↑→↓←
When he was eight, before the fall, he started keeping things.
Not intentionally at first.
A postcard from a city the circus had passed through. A photograph he liked. A joke that made him laugh. A story he thought someone else would enjoy.
Small things.
The kind of things most children forgot about by the following week.
Dick didn't.
Because whenever he found something special, he caught himself thinking the same thing.
I should tell my soulmate about this someday.
The thought came so naturally he never stopped to question it.
Why would he?
His soulmate was part of his future. Everyone said so.
Some days, he imagined finally meeting them and emptying years of collected memories into their hands.
Showing them every postcard.
Telling them every story.
Introducing them to every place he'd loved.
As though all the little pieces of his life were simply waiting for the right person to share them with.
As though he'd been saving a seat beside him all along.
Years later, after Gotham, after Robin, after everything that came afterward, Dick would still remember those moments.
The scrape on his knee.
The toothache.
The bedtime stories.
His parent's laughter.
The quiet certainty in their voices whenever they spoke about soulmates.
People often assumed his faith in destiny came from the bond itself.
They were wrong.
The bond only connected him to another person.
His parents were the ones who taught him to care. To wonder and to wait.
They were the ones who taught him that somewhere in the world there was a person meant for him.
Someone important who was worth searching for. Someone worth believing in.
Long before he knew anything about them at all.
He loved the idea of them first. Everything else came later.
Before he ever even had a reason to.
Most people loved talking about destiny.
Adults spoke about soulmates with the same certainty they reserved for death and taxes. Teachers smiled when the topic came up in class. Grandparents reminisced over holiday dinners. Entire television networks built reality shows around reunions.
It was impossible to escape.
Not that anyone seemed interested in trying.
Soulmates were proof that the universe cared. Proof that nobody was truly alone. That somewhere out there existed a person created specifically for you.
People loved that idea.
You hated it. Not the concept itself, just yours.
When you were younger, you'd thought soulmate injuries sounded romantic.
A sore wrist because they spent too long writing or a tiny burn from touching a hot pan.
The sort of stories people laughed about.
"My soulmate tripped over again."
"Mine wears his rings on too tight."
"I love when she bites her lip when she’s nervous."
Everyone always sounded so fond when they talked about it. As though every ache was a love letter. Like pain somehow became sweeter when it belonged to someone else.
Bonds manifested differently depending on the pair.
Some people shared emotions, some met each other in dreams. A small percentage could hear each other's thoughts during moments of intense stress. The most common bond, however, was physical resonance.
If your soulmate got hurt, so did you.
Not the injury itself, the consequences. A broken bone wouldn't suddenly appear in your arm, but the pain would. The ache, tenderness, and limitations.
If they twisted an ankle, you'd spend the next few weeks limping around on a perfectly healthy leg.
If they got a migraine, you got one too.
Most people only experienced minor inconveniences.
Nothing life-altering. Nothing that interfered with daily life. At least, not often.
You were not most people.
You stopped finding it romantic at twelve.
Because scraped knees and accidental burns were one thing. Waking up unable to feel your left arm was another.
The pain hit without warning. One second you were asleep, the next you were on your bedroom floor screaming.
Your parents rushed you to the hospital.
The doctors found nothing wrong.
No fracture. No dislocation. No nerve damage. Physically, your arm was perfectly healthy.
Unfortunately, your soulmate's wasn't. Apparently they'd shattered theirs.
Badly.
The pain lingered for nearly two months.
Everyone acted excited.
Your soulmate survived.
Isn't that wonderful?
You received congratulations.
Congratulations.
As though being unable to lift a backpack was somehow a milestone worth celebrating.
The years that followed only got worse.
Your soulmate got shot.
They got stabbed.
Sometimes they manage both within the same week.
You developed a concerning familiarity with painkillers. The nurses at your local urgent care knew you by name. One doctor suggested keeping a journal to track symptoms.
You filled three notebooks.
Looking back through them felt less like medical records and more like a crime scene timeline.
Gunshot wounds. Broken knuckles. Dislocated shoulder. Concussion. Concussion. Another concussion.
You had spent years trying to imagine what kind of person accumulated this many injuries.
At first you'd pictured an athlete.
Then a firefighter.
Maybe a soldier.
Eventually, you'd settled on a simpler explanation.
Your soulmate was an idiot.
At the time, it felt like the only reasonable explanation.
Years later, you would discover that the truth was significantly worse.
But for now, all you knew was that somewhere out there existed a complete stranger whose self-preservation instincts had apparently been beaten to death in an alley.
And for reasons you would never understand, the universe had decided that person belonged to you.
←↓→↑
The first time you missed a school excursion because your soulmate had managed to break something important, everyone treated it like an unfortunate coincidence.
The second time, they called it bad luck.
By the third, people had started joking that your soulmate had a personal grudge against your social life.
You laughed along because it was easier than admitting how much it bothered you.
Most people, hell, everyone romanticised soulmates.
Talked about fate and destiny and finding the missing piece of yourself.
Most soul pairs experienced a handful of major injuries throughout their lives.
Yours seemed determined to collect them.
You remembered when your soulmate somehow got stabbed before your final exams. The pain had hit so suddenly you nearly collapsed in the middle of class.
Your friends had thought you were having some kind of medical emergency.
In hindsight, they weren't entirely wrong.
You sat the exam anyway.
You failed it.
The examiner wasn't interested in hearing that somebody else's knife wound had ruined your concentration.
Life kept moving regardless.
Teachers didn't extend deadlines because your soulmate had been hospitalised.
Employers didn't care that you were limping because someone you'd never met had twisted their ankle chasing God-knows-what.
The world expected you to adapt,
So you did.
You learned how to function through headaches. How to smile through pain. How to swallow frustration before it became bitterness.
You learned exactly how many over-the-counter painkillers you could safely take.
You learned how to fake being fine.
But most importantly, you learned how to stop hoping.
Because every time you wondered if maybe things would get easier, your soulmate proved you wrong.
At first you'd worried about them.
What kind of life were they living? Were they sick? Were they trapped in dangerous circumstances? Did they need help?
That concern lasted until the fourth broken bone.
Then the sixth.
Then the first gunshot wound.
The shot had been a turning point. Because normal people did not get shot. Normal people definitely didn't get shot more than once.
You remembered lying awake in bed afterward, staring at the ceiling while pain radiated through your shoulder.
What the hell is wrong with this person?
The question never really went away.
As the years passed the injuries kept coming. Sometimes there would be weeks of peace.
Then suddenly your soulmate would decide to throw themselves off a building.
Or through a window.
Or into traffic.
At least that's what it felt like.
You didn't know who they were. Didn't know their name. Didn't know where they lived. But you knew they had absolutely no regard for their own safety. No fucking regard for your safety either.
And eventually, concern became irritation. Irritation became anger. Anger became resentment.
Not because of the pain. Not even because of the injuries. Because of what they stole from you.
Your freedom. Choices. The ability to plan a normal life. Every decision came with a silent question.
What if my soulmate gets hurt that day?
You missed birthdays. Missed opportunities. Cancelled plans. Skipped events.
Not because you wanted to.
Because experience had taught you that sooner or later another injury would arrive.
Meanwhile your soulmate remained a stranger. A ghost. A burden you carried without ever being asked if you wanted to.
It always did.
It made you angry.
Not the broken bones. Not the scars. Not even the countless nights spent curled around pain that didn't belong to you.
The fact that someone you'd never met had become one of the most important influences on your life.
Without your permission, your consent, and without ever even saying sorry.
Somewhere out there, your soulmate was choosing to live their life this way.
And every time they did, you paid the price.
You wondered if they ever thought about you. If they ever felt guilty.
If they even cared.
Or if, wherever they were, they simply got back up after every injury and ran headfirst into the next disaster.
Unaware that somewhere across the country, someone was beginning to hate them.
Dick found the post three weeks later.
If anyone asked, it had been an accident. A coincidence.
The sort of thing that happened when someone spent too much time scrolling through soulmate forums at two in the morning.
Nobody asked. That was probably for the best. Dick knew himself well enough to recognise a lie when he told one.
There had never been anything accidental about the way he searched for traces of his soulmate.
The post appeared halfway down a discussion thread titled:
What's the worst injury you've ever shared with your soulmate?
Most of the replies were harmless.
Broken wrists.
Appendectomies.
A woman whose soulmate had somehow fractured their nose trying to impress someone with a skateboard.
Dick smiled despite himself.
Then he kept scrolling.
The smile disappeared.
←↑→↓
I've had more concussions than some professional athletes.
At this point, I'm convinced my soulmate has a death wish.
If I ever meet them, my first question is going to be what the hell is wrong with them.
The post went into concerning details about their injuries dating from over ten years.
Dick stared at the screen.
Read the post again.
Then a third time.
The amusement slowly drained from his face.
Because the timeline matched. Not approximately. Not close enough to be concerning. Exactly.
The gun wounds, the stabbings, concussions, fractures. The endless collection of injuries that had become so commonplace to him he rarely thought about them anymore.
His stomach twisted.
For a long moment, he simply sat there. Laptop balanced on his knees. Apartment fading into the background.
The words blurred.
Not because he couldn't read them. Because he couldn't stop.
Every sentence felt heavier than the last. Not the complaints.
Those made sense.
God, they made sense.
What hurt was everything beneath them.
The frustration. The years of accumulated resentment packed into a handful of sentences.
Not anger born from a single bad day. The kind that settled in after years of disappointment.
His chest tightened.
He scrolled further.
The account wasn't anonymous. There was a username. Years of history.
Dick clicked on it before he could talk himself out of it.
The oldest post was five years old.
The next mentioned another concussion.
A missed birthday.
A cancelled trip.
A broken rib.
An emergency room visit.
Each entry felt like another weight settling onto his shoulders.
Dick had spent years accepting pain as part of his life.
Bruises, bones and cuts all healed.
It had never occurred to him that somebody else had been dragged through it alongside him.
A stranger.
Someone who had never agreed to any of it.
Someone who had spent years waking up with injuries they couldn't explain.
Dick closed the laptop.
Immediately opened it again.
His jaw tightened. He rubbed a hand over his face.
For twenty years, he'd wondered about his soulmate. Wondered who they were. What they were like. Whether they ever thought about him the way he’d always thought about them.
A quiet curiosity that surfaced in the spaces between missions and late-night patrols.
He'd imagined meeting them someday.
Not because soulmates guaranteed a happy ending. Life had taught him better than that.
But because they'd always been there.
Every broken bone. Every near miss. Every moment he'd walked away from something that should have killed him.
They'd felt it too.
Somewhere.
Somehow.
The idea of them had become a constant. A second shadow stretching alongside his own.
And now, for the first time, he was seeing things from the other side.
The reality of it. The cost.
His throat felt tight.
tBecausehey weren't waiting for him.
They weren't searching.
If anything, they sounded exhausted by the idea of him.
And for the first time, Dick found himself wondering whether meeting him would be the last thing they wanted.
The thought hurt far more than it should have.
Dick had managed to stay away from the profile for three days.
He told himself it was respect.
Privacy.
Common decency.
They had spent years dealing with consequences they never asked for, the least he could do was leave them alone.
Three days lasted longer than he expected.
Not nearly as long as he'd hoped.
On the fourth night, he opened the page again.
Just for a minute.
Just to look.
That was the excuse, anyway.
One minute became an hour. Then two. Then the rest of the night.
He read everything.
Posts. Comments. Replies buried in forgotten threads.
Tiny fragments of a life scattered across years of internet history.
Favorite movies, music recommendations, complaints about work.
A rant about a terrible landlord. An argument over whether pineapple belonged on pizza.
Meaningless details.
Except they weren't meaningless. Not to him.
Every new discovery felt strangely precious. Like hearing a voice through a wall after years of silence.
For the first time, his soulmate wasn't an abstract possibility.
They were becoming real.
And Dick found himself wanting more.
What did their laugh sound like? What expression did they make when they were annoyed? Did they drink coffee in the morning? Did they still sleep curled up on the same side of the bed they'd mentioned three years ago?
The questions multiplied faster than he could answer them.
By sunrise, he knew more about them than he'd ever thought possible.
By sunrise, he also knew that it wasn't enough.
↑→↓←
The more Dick learned, the more impossible it became to ignore the distance between you.
You were real.
A real person living somewhere beyond his reach.
A real person carrying scars that belonged to both of them.
And once he knew that, how was he supposed to walk away? How was he supposed to forget? Keep waiting?
Dick spent years helping strangers.
Pulling people out of collapsing buildings. Talking frightened kids off ledges. Running toward people who needed help. Doing nothing had never been one of his strengths.
The realisation should have worried him.
Instead, it felt reasonable. Natural.
Almost inevitable.
By the end of the week, he found himself revisiting old comments. Looking closer.
A mention of weather. A complaint about public transit. A local restaurant.
Tiny details.
Nothing significant on their own, but what became patterns when placed together.
The detective in him noticed before the rest of him did.
A city narrowed to a suburb. A suburb narrowed to three possibilities. Three possibilities narrowed to one.
Dick stared at the screen. His pulse quickened.
A line had been crossed somewhere.
He wasn't entirely sure when.
Only that he should probably stop.
Instead, he opened another tab. Then another.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Long enough for hesitation to appear. Not long enough for it to matter.
Because you were out there, and you were hurting.
The first search took less than ten seconds.
The second took even less.
And when the first genuine piece of information appeared on his screen, Dick felt his heartbeat stumble.
For the first time in twenty years, his soulmate wasn't a dream.
You were becoming a person.
And Dick Grayson had never been very good at letting go of the people he loved.
The next morning began the same way most mornings did.
Pain.
You woke before your alarm, blinking groggily at the ceiling while a dull ache settled somewhere between your shoulder blades. Not terrible. Not even particularly surprising. Just another reminder that your soulmate was still out there making questionable decisions.
At least nothing felt broken.
That was practically a victory.
You lay there for another minute before forcing yourself upright. The soreness protested immediately, but years of experience had taught you how to judge the difference between annoying and hospital-worthy.
This fell firmly into the first category. Which meant work.
Lucky you.
By the time you arrived at the coffee shop, Gotham was already awake.
Rush hour traffic crawled through the streets outside. The sidewalks overflowed with exhausted office workers, students, tourists and people who looked like they hadn’t slept in three days.
Which, in this city, narrowed nothing down.
The familiar smell of coffee beans wrapped around you the moment you stepped behind the counter.
Honestly, it was one of the few things you genuinely liked about your job.
The customers were a different story.
By eleven o’clock, you’d already been yelled at twice.
Once because a man believed waiting three minutes for coffee constituted a personal attack.
The second because somebody thought you controlled the weather.
“Rough morning?”
You glanced up, the question knocking you out of your haze.
Your coworker was already grinning.
You sighed. “When isn’t it?”
“Fair.”
The lunch rush arrived shortly after.
Orders piled up. Names blurred together. Your feet hurt. Someone dropped their drink. Another person complained because their coffee was too hot.
You resisted the urge to suggest that coffee was generally known for that.
Then the bell above the door chimed.
Normally, you wouldn't have looked up.
Lunch was a bloody nightmare. There were six drinks waiting to be made, three customers already staring holes into the back of your head, and somebody was arguing over oat milk. You had better things to do.
Yet somehow your eyes lifted anyway.
The man who stepped through the door looked like trouble. Not due to anything he was doing, but because nobody should have looked like that.
For a second, your brain simply failed to process him properly.
Dark hair. Blue eyes. Tall enough to stand out without seeming imposing. Broad shoulders hidden beneath an ordinary jacket that somehow wasn't ordinary anymore because he was wearing it.
The details registered one at a time.
Like your mind was struggling to decide where to look first.
It wasn't just that he was handsome. Handsome was too simple a word. Too ordinary.
Handsome was the guy on a billboard, the actor in a movie, the model in a magazine. This felt different. More annoying.
Like somebody had reached into your head, extracted every preference you'd ever had, and assembled a person around them.
You immediately disliked him for it.
Unfortunately, that didn't make him any less attractive.
His smile appeared as he spoke to the customer in front of him. It transformed his entire face. Softened it.
Made him look approachable in a way beautiful people rarely managed.
The kind of smile that made strangers smile back. The kind that suggested he remembered names. Held doors open. Helped old ladies carry groceries.
He looked like someone that got people into trouble because they assumed nobody that nice-looking could possibly be dangerous.
You tore your eyes away.
Absolutely not.
You were not doing this today.
He was just a customer. A stupidly attractive customer. Nothing more.
Several minutes later, he stepped up to the register.
Up close was a mistake. You realised that immediately.
Most attractive people benefited from distance.
A few feet between you and them gave reality time to point out imperfections.
The lighting changed. The angles shifted. Something human emerged.
Not him.
If anything, proximity made things worse.
His eyes were brighter than you'd thought. Not just blue, more like a deep ocean colour that caught light. The kind that made direct eye contact feel strangely unfair.
There was a faint scar near his eyebrow. Another disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.
Tiny imperfections that should have made him look less attractive.
Instead they only made him look real.
"Hi." His voice wrapped around the single syllable with effortless warmth.
He sounded so fucking pleased to be talking to you.
"What can I get for you?"
For a moment, he simply looked at you. Like he'd forgotten whatever he'd originally intended to say.
Then he smiled.
And suddenly it felt difficult to remember how to breathe.
"I'll take a large flat white."
Of course.
Of course the voice matched the face.
Why wouldn't it?
You entered the order before your brain could embarrass you.
The register beeped.
He handed over his card.
His fingers brushed yours for half a second.
It was nothing, really. Barely contact at all. Yet something strange tightened beneath your ribs.
Gone before you could identify it.
You frowned. Weird.
"Name?"
"Dick."
You blinked.
He looked entirely too pleased by your reaction.
"You serious?"
His eyes crinkled at the corners as his grin widened. The bastard somehow became even prettier. "I get that a lot."
A laugh escaped before you could stop it.
Hd let out a deep shaky breath, like he'd been hoping for it. Waiting for it.
As though making you laugh had accomplished something important. Like a strangers happiness mattered.
The look vanished so quickly you almost missed it.
For a brief, inexplicable moment, it felt less like meeting a stranger.
And more like being recognised.
The city belonged to him at night.
Not officially. Gotham belonged to no one. It clawed at anyone foolish enough to try and claim it.
But Dick knew its rhythms better than most.
He knew which rooftops held the best sightlines. Which alleyways concealed drug deals. Which fire escapes groaned beneath a person's weight. Which apartment windows stayed lit long after midnight because the people inside couldn't slep.
And he knew yours.
Perched on a neighboring rooftop, Dick lowered his binoculars slightly.
Your bedroom light had turned on twenty-three minutes before your alarm.
Again.
His jaw tightened.
The bond was never subtle.
He rubbed the back of his neck, the strain from yesterday's patrol still lingered. A bruised shoulder. A pulled muscle. Nothing serious.
Yet the thought of you waking up sore because of him left an uncomfortable weight in his chest.
You sat on the edge of your bed for several moments before standing. Slow and careful. Judging whether the pain was worth worrying about.
Dick recognised the routine.
You'd done it countless times.
The first time he'd seen it, he'd nearly broken a criminal's jaw.
It was then that he'd truly realised what years of sharing injuries with a vigilante must have been like.
You'd learned to evaluate pain before breakfast.
His fingers tightened around the binoculars.
You deserved answers.
You deserved him.
The thought arrived as naturally as breathing.
Dangerous. Wrong. Impossible to stop.
Dick watched you leave for work.
Then he followed.
He knew how surveillance worked. Knew exactly how easy it was to make someone feel watched.
So he stayed distant. A block behind, sometimes two.
Just another face in Gotham's endless crowd.
The irony wasn't lost on him.
Nightwing could disappear from sight whenever he wanted. Dick Grayson found excuses to linger near coffee shops.
By eleven, he was seated across the street with a newspaper he hadn't read once.
His attention remained fixed elsewhere.
On the way you tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear when concentrating. On the tiny crease that appeared between your eyebrows whenever customers irritated you. On the exhausted smile you gave coworkers despite clearly wanting to go home.
His chest ached.
He hated seeing you tired.
Hated seeing people take advantage of your kindness.
Hated that he couldn't simply walk inside and tell everyone to be careful with you.
Because you were important.
Because you mattered.
Because.. No.
Dick shut the thought down before it could finish.
This wasn't about ownership.
It couldn't be.
The soulmate bond wasn't ownership. It was connection.
Destiny.
A promise written into both of them before either had been born.
At least that was what he told himself whenever the possessive thoughts became harder to ignore.
By lunchtime, the crowd had thickened.
Good.
That made entering easier. Less noticeable.
The bell above the café door chimed as he stepped inside.
Immediately, he saw you.
The sight struck him with embarrassing force.
Every single time.
He'd spent months watching.
Months learning your routines.
Listening to your laugh from across rooms.
And somehow the impact never lessened.
You stood behind the register looking exhausted. A little annoyed. Ethereal.
Dick looked away before anyone could notice he'd been staring.
The line moved forward.
One customer. Two. Three. His pulse accelerated.
Ridiculous.
He'd fought assassins without flinching. Faced alien invasions. Stood against enemies capable of leveling cities. Yet somehow speaking to you felt more intimidating than any of them.
Because this mattered. Because you mattered.
The customer ahead of him finally left. And then it was his turn.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Your eyes lifted to meet his. Everything else disappeared. The noise. The conversations. The espresso machines. All of the buzzing was gone, just for a second.
Just long enough for Dick to feel the strange, impossible certainty he'd been carrying since the first moment he'd seen you.
There you are.
His soulmate.
His.
"Hi." The word came out softer than intended.
Your gaze remained fixed on him. Trying very hard not to stare.
Dick nearly smiled.
You had no idea.
No idea how many nights he'd spent imagining this conversation.
How many times he'd rehearsed introducing himself.
How often he'd wondered whether the bond would feel different when you finally met.
Instead, you asked professionally, "What can I get for you?"
For one disastrous second, Dick forgot the answer. Forgot he'd ordered the same thing repeatedly for weeks specifically because it was easy to remember. How human conversation worked.
You looked even better up close.
God, your eyes. Your voice. The tiny signs of exhaustion. The familiar shape of someone he'd spent months studying from a distance. Real.
You were finally real.
"I'll take a large flat white."
Smooth.
Very smooth.
Dick internally cringed.
You entered the order.
The register beeped.
He handed over his card.
Your fingers brushed his. The contact lasted less than a heartbeat. Lightning shot through him anyway.
The first touch.
The first real touch.
Dick forced himself not to react. Years of training saved him. Barely.
Then you asked the question he'd secretly been waiting for.
"Name?"
His mouth twitched. "Dick."
The blink you gave him was immediate.
Perfect.
Dick couldn't help smiling.
For the first time all day, genuine amusement broke through the tension knotting his chest.
"You serious?"
A laugh threatened to escape him.
God, he loved your voice already. Far too much.
"I get that a lot."
Then you laughed.
His breath caught.
Don't.
Don't do this.
Don't build a future out of a single laugh.
Yet he couldn't stop.
For a brief moment, your eyes met his again. Confusion flickered there. Recognition without understanding. A pull neither of you could explain.
And for the first time since entering the café, Dick wondered if you felt it too.
If you could physically feel that he was someone who looked at you and saw the center of his world.
You frowned slightly.
Dick’s smile was warm. Harmless.
The same smile that convinced criminals he was merciful and civilians he was safe.
"Thanks," he said.
Then he stepped aside to wait for his coffee.
And for the first time in months, waiting didn't feel difficult. Because now you knew he existed.
Dick returned three days later.
Then again the day after that.
Soon, the visits became a part of his routine so deeply ingrained that he no longer questioned it.
Patrol.
Sleep.
Reports.
Coffee.
You.
The order never changed.
He learned your schedule without meaning to. Or maybe he had meant to. Dick wasn't entirely sure where the line had disappeared.
At some point, knowing things about you had stopped feeling like gathering information and started feeling lke breathing.
He knew which coworker made you laugh.
Which customer always left you irritated.
Which days exhaustion sat heavier on your shoulders.
He knew the difference between your real smiles and the fake ones. The difference between a smile that reached your eyes and one offered out of politeness. The difference mattered.
Everything about you mattered.
Sometimes guilt still surfaced. Usually late at night. During the quiet moments after patrol, when Gotham finally stopped screaming for a few hours and left him alone with his thoughts.
That was when he remembered the forum posts.
The complaints.
The frustration.
The resentment.
Years of it.
You didn't want a soulmate. Not one who left you waking up sore after fights. Or one whose life seemed determined to get itself stabbed, shot, electrocuted, and thrown off rooftops.
The thought should have hurt.
Instead, Dick found himself staring at the ceiling and feeling strangely calm.
Because you didn't hate him.
You hated the idea of him.
The unknown. The stranger connected to your life.
You hated the inconvenience.
The pain. Uncertainty.
But him?
You didn't know him yet.
How could you hate someone you didn't know?
You didn't know about the nights he spent bleeding through cracked armor because civilians needed help. About the disasters he'd prevented. The people he'd saved. The promises he'd kept.
You didn't know how many times he'd nearly told you the truth.
How many times he'd stood outside your apartment building and wondered if tonight should be the night. How often he thought about you. How he worried.
You didn't know.
But you would.
Eventually.
Dick believed that with absolute certainty.
Because every day gave him something. A conversation. A smile. A joke.
Tiny, worthless things.
Things nobody else would notice.
By the second week, you knew his order.
By the third, you smiled when he walked through the door.
The first time it happened, the entire day felt brighter.
Ridiculously embarrassing of him, he knew that.
Yet the memory replayed in his head for hours.
The way your face lit up with recognition. How you'd greeted him before he even reached the counter.
Like you were happy to see him.
Like he'd become part of your day too.
A crack in the wall.
A tiny one. But cracks spread. Eventually walls collapse.
Dick was patient enough to wait. To let things unfold naturally.
Most of the time.
You still didn't know the truth.
Didn't know that he could identify your footsteps.
Could find your apartment window from almost anywhere in the neighborhood.
Didn't know he'd memorised the route you walked home.
The backup routes too.
The places where the streetlights didn't work. The alleys he disliked.
The intersections with the highest crime rates.
Important information. Necessary information.
Someone had to know those things. Someone had to keep you safe.
The city certainly wasn't going to.
Dick smiled to himself as he watched you lock the café doors one evening.
The sun had already disappeared. Streetlights painted gold across the pavement.
You looked tired. A little cold.
Still breathtaking.
Always so fucking ethereal.
His chest tightened with pure unfiltered need.
The overwhelming, consuming need to make sure nothing bad ever touched you again. To stand between you and every ugly thing Gotham could throw your way. To erase every danger before it reached you. To make the world safe enough that you'd never have to worry.
Hell, even the need to just push you down and capture your mouth in a kiss so intimate that you’d never want to let go.
The feeling had become stronger lately. Harder to ignore.
Before, you had been a concept. A hopeful possibility.
Now you were you.
You had a face. A laugh. A favorite drink. A life.
And every day made the thought of losing you more unbearable.
You disappeared around the corner.
Dick waited.
Five seconds. Ten. Then he rose from his seat. Following. Never too close. Never enough to be noticed. Just enough.
To intervene if something happened.
Making sure you got home safely.
Just enough to reassure the restless part of himself that always seemed to whisper what if?
What if someone followed you first?
What if someone hurt you?
What if someone took you away?
The thoughts were irrational. Dick knew they were.
Most people walked home every day without incident. But most people weren't you.
His jaw tightened.
That was the difference.
People talked about soulmates as though finding them was the end of the story. Like destiny did all the work.
As if fate guaranteed a happy ending.
Dick knew better.
Finding you wasn't the difficult part. Keeping you safe was. Protecting you was. Making sure the universe didn't decide to take back the greatest thing it had ever given him was.
His gaze remained fixed on your retreating figure. Unwavering.
The possessiveness no longer startled him.
That battle had ended weeks ago.
Every justification had been exhausted. Every argument dismantled.
The truth remained.
You were woven through his life. Through his thoughts. Through every future he could imagine.
His soulmate.
His person.
The one thing in this city he couldn't lose.
And somewhere along the way, the distinction between wanting you and needing you had quietly disappeared.
Dick watched you disappear into your apartment building. Only then did the tension leave his shoulders.
Safe.
The word settled warmly inside his chest.
Safe for another night.
His eyes lingered on the illuminated window that he knew belonged to you.
Terrifyingly devoted.
The universe had tied your lives together years ago.
And Dick had no plans on fighting fate.
And if the day ever came when something, or someone, tried to take you away from him, Gotham would learn exactly how dangerous Nightwing could be when the only thing he loved was threatened.
The first time you noticed something was wrong, it didn't feel important. Just strange.
"Wait."
Your friend blinked across the table. "What?"
"You got offered a job in Blüdhaven?"
"Yeah?"
You frowned. "When?"
"A few months ago."
A few months ago.
That couldn't be right.
You'd applied for that same position. Gone through three interviews. Spent weeks waiting for a response.
And then nothing.
No rejection.
No acceptance.
Nothing.
"I never heard back."
"Really?" they said. "That's weird."
It was weird. You'd checked your emails obsessively at the time.
Nothing.
Not even spam.
Eventually you'd assumed they'd gone with another candidate.
The conversation moved on.
You didn't.
↓→←↑
Then another thing happened. And another.
"..You never told me your landlord sold the building."
Dick looked up from where he was cooking. "What?"
"The building."
You leaned against the counter. "The landlord was apparently trying to sell it last year."
Something flashed across his face.
"Huh."
"He said he couldn't find a buyer."
Dick hummed. "Guess it wasn't the right time."
You frowned.
That wasn't what the landlord had said. The exact words had been: "Every buyer that showed interest pulled out at the last minute."
←→↓↑
Then there was your ex.
Not an ex, technically. Just someone you'd gone on a few dates with before Dick.
Someone who suddenly moved overseas without warning.
You only found out because you bumped into one of their friends.
"Yeah, he was furious."
"What?"
"They withdrew the visa investigation thing eventually, but by then he'd already accepted another position."
You blinked. "The what?"
The friend frowned. "You didn't know?"
No.
No, you definitely hadn't known.
↓←→↑
The pieces don't fit together immediately.
Not until one late night, sitting on Dick's couch.
When his phone lit up.
You hadn’t even meant to look, the flash just caught your attention. The “image of the day” was a photograph.
Your photograph.
Not a recent one. Not one you’d sent him.
A candid picture.
Taken months before you met.
You were standing outside of your apartment.
"..Dick."
His entire body goes still at your tone.
Like prey hearing a gun click.
Slowly, he looks up.
You hold out the phone.
The photograph staring back at both of you.
Your pulse begins to hammer. "When did you take this?"
Nothing.
For a second, Dick just looks at you.
Then at the photo.
Then back.
“…Before we met."
Your stomach drops. "What?"
"I took it before we met." His voice is calm. Too gentle. The same voice he uses when you're upset.
Like he was expecting to tell you that everything was okay.
"I found you before the café."
The room suddenly feels too small. "How long?"
"A while."
"Dick."
"A few months."
The answer hits like a truck.
Months.
Your laugh comes out strained. Unsteady. "You're joking."
"No." He doesn't look ashamed.
If he looked guilty, maybe this would make sense. Instead, he looks concerned.
Concerned about you.
Like you're the one having a difficult time.
"Dick, that's stalking."
His jaw tightens immediately. Hurt.
Like you've accused him of something unfair.
"I was making sure you were safe."
"No." You stand. "Dick-"
Your heart is racing now. Too fast. "What the fuck do you mean you were watching me?"
And for the first time since you've known him, Dick looks frustrated.
Not because he got caught. Because you're not understanding.
"You lived alone."
"Dick-"
"You walked home after dark."
"Listen to me!"
"There were three muggings within four blocks of your apartment." His voice rises. Emotion breaking through.
"And I knew what Gotham was like."
You freeze. He sounds desperate. Terrified.
"I couldn't just leave you there." His eyes are shining now. Raw.
Honest.
The truth finally spilling out.
"You think I wanted to scare you?" His voice cracks.
"I spent twenty years looking for you."
You take a step backward.
Dick notices immediately. The devastation that crosses his face is instantaneous.
He actually believes that he's innocent. That every line he crossed was reasonable.
Because every choice was made for the same reason.
Love.
And suddenly all those little coincidences don't feel like coincidences anymore.
The failed job.
The vanished opportunities.
The relationships that somehow never worked out.
The people who drifted away.
The life that kept shrinking until Dick occupied most of it.
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame. For a second, neither of uni moved.
You stood frozen in the hallway outside Dick's apartment, one hand still wrapped around the doorknob, your pulse pounding so hard it made your ears ring. The argument replayed itself in fragments. Accusations, denials, half-finished explanations. None of it felt real.
Behind the door, you heard Dick's footsteps. Part of you expected the handle to turn. Expected him to come after you. To stop you before you left. To grab your wrist, block the doorway, force the conversation to continue.
Instead, the footsteps stopped. You could picture him standing there on the other side of the door. Not chasing you. Not arguing. Just... standing there. Devastated.
If he'd gotten angry, maybe this would have been easier. If he'd yelled, if he'd lied, if he'd given you a reason to hate him, maybe the hollow ache opening inside your chest wouldn't have felt so unbearable.
Instead, he'd looked heartbroken. Like he was the victim. Like you were the one tearing something precious apart.
The walk home passed in a blur. You barely remembered unlocking your apartment. The second the door shut behind you, instinct took over. Deadbolt. Chain. The secondary lock.
You checked the windows twice. Then a third time.
Only when every entrance was secured did you allow yourself to breathe.
Your phone vibrated. The screen lit up. Dick.
You stared at the name. The call rang until it stopped. A second call appeared almost immediately. Then a third. The messages started after that.
Can we talk? Please answer. I just want to know you're okay.
For a dangerous second, your thumb hovered over the screen. Then you blocked him.
The number disappeared. You blocked his social media. His email. His Spotify. Every account you could think of. Anything connected to him. Anything that could give him a way back in.
When you finally finished, the apartment felt unnaturally quiet. You'd wanted silence.
Hadn't you?
So why did it feel like something was missing? Why did the absence feel so loud? Sleep never came. Every time you closed your eyes, another memory surfaced.
The internship opportunity that had vanished after months of promising interviews. The friendship that had somehow dissolved without explanation. The coworkers who'd grown distant. The photograph.
At four in the morning, you found yourself sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, staring into the darkness. The city lights beyond your apartment window painted faint reflections across the floor.
You couldn't stop thinking. Every memory felt poisoned now. Every coincidence felt deliberate. How much of your life had actually been yours?
How many choices had been choices at all?
You didn't notice yourself drifting into a shallow sleep until your alarm exploded beside your head. You jolted awake.
Immediately regretted it. Pain tore through your leg so violently that for a split second you genuinely thought something had exploded. A scream ripped from your throat. White-hot agony shot from your shin to your hip.
The room tilted. Your knee gave out. You hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs. The impact barely registered. All you could feel was the pain. It burned. Throbbed. Pulsed with every heartbeat.
You curled instinctively around your leg, gasping for air through clenched teeth. "What the fuck!" The words dissolved into another strangled cry.
Minutes passed. Or maybe longer.
Time became difficult to measure when every movement felt like driving a knife through bone.
Eventually you managed to drag yourself onto the couch. Sweat clung to your skin. Your stomach churned. The pain wasn't normal. It wasn't a cramp. Wasn't a pulled muscle. It felt broken. A fresh fracture.
Then a bitter laugh escaped your throat. Of fucking course.
You’d barely survived the worst night of your life and apparently your soulmate had decided now was the perfect time to break something. Again.
The bitter laugh that escaped you sounded almost hysterical. The empty apartment offered no response. Not that you expected one.
Your soulmate had never apologised before.
Several hours later, three sharp knocks echoed through the apartment. You froze.
The sound cut through the silence like a gunshot.
Another knock followed.
Then a familiar voice. Every muscle in your body locked. You remained motionless.
Maybe he'd leave.
Another knock sounded, softer this time. Almost hesitant. "…Please open the door." The concern in his voice made your stomach twist.
You hated that it still affected you. Hated that some part of you still wanted to believe him.
Then came the sentence that made your blood turn to ice. "You shouldn't be standing."
Everything stopped. Your breathing. Your thoughts. Your heartbeat. Slowly, very slowly, you turned toward the door. The apartment suddenly felt too small. Too quiet.
"Dick?" A pause.
Then: "I brought groceries." His voice sounded tired. Careful. Like he was approaching a wounded animal. "I also got pain medication."
You stared at the door. A sick feeling began unfurling in your stomach.
"Can you let me in?" No. No, no, no. Maybe coincidence. Maybe a lucky guess. Maybe-
"You need to stay off that leg." The world seemed to tilt. Your pulse thundered.
How? You hadn't told anyone. You hadn't gone to the hospital. You hadn't even texted anyone. There was no way he could know. Unless-
The thought hit so hard it felt physical. You forced yourself upright and limped toward the door. Each step sent another wave of pain through your leg.
By the time you reached it, your hands were shaking. You opened the door only a few inches.
Dick stood on the other side. One arm loaded with grocery bags. Takeout containers balanced in the other hand. A bottle of painkillers tucked beneath his elbow.
The second the door opened, his gaze dropped.Straight to your injured leg.
"There it is." The words slipped out before he could stop them. His expression tightened immediately. "You really shouldn't be putting weight on-"
"How do you know?"
Silence.The question landed between them like a blade. Dick froze.
You felt your heartbeat climbing higher and higher. "How do you know my leg is injured?"
For the first time since you'd met him, Dick looked caught off guard. Not angry. Not defensive. Caught.
Something that looked dangerously close to guilt crossed his face. And suddenly you understood enough to make your blood run cold.
The fracture hadn't happened to your soulmate. It had happened because of them.
Dick's expression changed immediately. Not much, most people probably wouldn't have noticed, but you'd spent months learning the subtle shifts in his face. The slight tightening around his eyes. The way his shoulders stiffened.
"Angel-"
You took another step backward on instinct. Pain shot through your injured leg. A sharp hiss escaped you before you could swallow it.
Dick flinched. The reaction was instantaneous. His hand jerked forward as though he meant to catch you before he stopped himself. The concern that flashed across his face was so immediate, so visceral, that it made your stomach turn.
For a horrible second, you couldn't stop thinking about it. The way he'd known. The way he'd looked directly at your leg. The medication tucked under his arm. The certainty in his voice when he'd told you not to stand.
Maybe he really had felt it. Maybe every pulse of pain that had left you curled up on the floor this morning had reached him too.
"You knew." The accusation hung between you.
Dick's jaw tightened. You stared at him. Stared at the man standing in your doorway carrying groceries and painkillers like some devoted boyfriend stopping by to take care of you after a bad day.
"You knew you were my soulmate." For a second, one stupid, desperate second, you hoped he'd deny it.
Maybe there was another explanation. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe this entire nightmare had gotten out of control.
Dick looked down. "...Yeah."
Every injury. Every unexplained ache. Every ruined plan because somebody you had never met couldn't stop getting themselves hurt.
You remembered sitting in emergency rooms as a teenager, trying to explain symptoms doctors couldn't understand. Missing school because you'd woken up unable to walk on an ankle you'd never injured. The migraines. The broken fingers. The bruises.
The soulmate bond had shaped your life whether you'd wanted it to or not. And all this time, it had been him.
Not a stranger. Not some faceless person halfway across the world. Dick. Your Dick.
The man who knew how you took your coffee. The man who remembered insignificant details about conversations you'd forgotten having.
The man you'd trusted enough to love.
Your hand found the wall beside you before you even realised you were reaching for support.
Dick took a step forward automatically.
You recoiled.
The look that crossed his face was immediate and devastating.
He stopped moving at once. "Angel..."
"How long?" Your voice sounded strange. Thin. Distant. "How long have you known?"
For the first time since arriving, Dick looked genuinely uncomfortable. Ashamed.
His gaze dropped briefly to the floor. "Eight months."
"Eight months?"
"Angel, I know how bad that sounds-"
"You knew for eight months." Every word came out sharper than the last. "You knew and you didn't tell me."
"I wanted to." The answer came immediately. Too quickly. Like he'd rehearsed this argument a hundred times. "I did. God, I wanted to tell you from the beginning."
"Then why didn't you?"
Dick looked away. That was answer enough.
Because he'd been watching. Learning. Getting closer. Fitting himself into your life before you knew what he was.
"You let me hate them."
Something flickered across his face. A strange sadness. Not guilt exactly. Something closer to regret. "I never wanted that."
"You let me spend years hating my soulmate." His expression tightened. "I know."
"You let me blame them for everything."
"I know." The quiet sincerity of the response only made you angrier. He wasn't denying it. Wasn't making excuses. He understood exactly what he'd done. And somehow, he still thought he'd been right.
The apartment fell silent.
Dick stood near the door surrounded by grocery bags and takeout containers. The sight would have been almost domestic under different circumstances. Ordinary.
Something in his expression softened. "You don't have to do this anymore."
You frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Dick hesitated. For the first time since arriving, he seemed unsure of how to explain himself. "..You've spent your entire life paying for things that weren't your fault."
The words were quiet. Measured. His gaze dropped briefly to your injured leg before returning to your face. "I know every hospital visit."
A chill crawled down your spine.
His voice grew softer. "I know every surgery. Every cast. Every time you had to cancel plans because I did something reckless." The guilt in his expression looked genuine. "I know what it cost you."
"Dick."
"I do." His voice cracked slightly. The sound startled you.
"I know exactly what I've put you through."
For a moment neither of you spoke. Then Dick slowly set the groceries on the floor. "You shouldn't have had to deal with any of it alone."
Something about the direction of the conversation suddenly felt wrong. Dangerous. "Dick..." "I mean it." His eyes never left yours.
"You shouldn't have had to worry about medical bills because I got shot. You shouldn't have had to miss work because I decided jumping off rooftops sounded like a good idea. You shouldn't have had to build your life around my mistakes."
A humorless laugh escaped him. "You definitely shouldn't have had to spend years wondering who was responsible." The guilt in his voice was so real it almost hurt to listen to.
And somehow that made what came next even worse. "But you don't have to do that anymore."
The knot in your stomach tightened. "What does that mean?"
Dick looked genuinely confused by the question. As though the answer was obvious. "As long as I'm here, you're not dealing with any of it alone."
"You don't need to worry about rent." The words landed heavily.
You stared at him, dumbfounded. "What?"
"I'll take care of it." "No."
"You don't have to keep working two jobs." "No."
"You don't have to stress about groceries or bills or whether you can afford physical therapy."
"Dick!"
His voice remained calm. Patient. Like he was trying to explain something simple. Something reasonable. "I can handle all of that."
"You can't just decide that." "Why not?" The question came out so naturally that it stopped you cold.
Dick frowned slightly, confused. "As far as I'm concerned, taking care of you is my responsibility."
Your heart dropped. The conviction in his voice was absolute. Not possessive in the way you'd expected. Like he wasn't describing what he wanted. He was describing reality.
"You don't owe me anything," he continued quietly. "You don't have to love me back. You don't even have to forgive me. But I'm not going to stand there and keep watching you suffer because of things I've done."
His gaze held yours. Steady. Intense. Terrifyingly sincere. "You've carried this alone for long enough."
The apartment suddenly felt too small. Too warm. Too difficult to breathe in. Because you finally understood. Dick wasn't asking for a relationship. He wasn't asking for forgiveness. He wasn't even asking for another chance.
He was asking you to hand him control.
The first escape attempt had been almost gentle. A mistake, in hindsight. You’d underestimated him. Underestimated his understanding of you.
By the time you reached the outer perimeter, your leg had already started to fail in ways that didn’t make sense at first. Pain bloomed without warning, sharp, targeted, precise, as if your body had been waiting for permission to collapse.
It was him. Dick Grayson had already noticed you leaving. Already made his choice.
He carried you back without comment when he found you kneeling in the rain like you’d simply run out of endurance. Like your body had just… stopped cooperating. Like he couldn’t even feel his own pain shooting through him.
For three days after that, he barely spoke. Not anger. Not even punishment. Adjustment. Because he was learning how far he could push the bond, and how far he could push himself.
The second attempt cost you more. Not because he was harsher, because he was faster. You barely remember leaving the room. You remember waking up in a different one. Reinforced, seamless, wrong in ways your instincts couldn’t map.
Dick sat beside the bed like he’d never moved. Like time had folded around him. “You dislocated your shoulder,” he said calmly, as though that explained everything.
You tried to sit up. Your body refused. His hand rested on your wrist before you could test it further. “You pushed too hard,” he added. “I had to stabilise it.” “I didn’t-”
“Yes,” he interrupted, still calm. “You did.” But what he didn’t say, what you only began to understand later, was that he had done the same thing to himself at the exact moment you tried to leave.
The third time you tried, there was no hallway. Just motion that died halfway through becoming action. Your body locking down in controlled, precise waves of agony. Like a switch had been thrown. And somewhere behind you, his voice. “I told you not to do that again.”
When you woke, your ankle was wrapped. Your phone was gone. The doors had changed again.
That was when you understood the rule. You could try. He would let you try. Not because he expected you to succeed, but because every attempt gave him data. Every spike of your pain told him what the bond could tolerate. And every time you pushed too far, he matched you. By breaking himself just enough that the connection snapped you both back into place.
Now, in what he liked to call the living room, too controlled to feel like a home, you listened to him in the kitchen. Normal sounds. Water running. A cup set down carefully. Like nothing was wrong.
You swallowed. Your voice weak from disuse. “..I want to leave.”
“You don’t want that,” he mumbled, not looking up from the pan.
“I do.”
“No,” he said gently. “You want the version of it that doesn’t hurt.” He walked patiently over to you. His hand lifted, hovered near your shoulder, then settled. Warm. Certain.
“.. I won’t let it get that far.”
Your throat tightened. “You’re hurting me.”
This time, he didn’t deny it immediately.
He just looked at you for a long moment. Then, “No,” he said quietly. “I’m stopping you from breaking past the point where there’s no coming back.”
“You don’t get to leave anymore,” he said at last. “Not like that.” Not a threat. A conclusion.
“And you won’t try again,” he added, softer.
“Because I won’t let either of us survive what happens when you do.”
Then he turned back toward the kitchen. As if the decision had already been made. As if your life together had always been structured this way.
And in a sense, it had.
10K+ Words, 61K+ Characters, 1K+ sentences, 36 min average reading time, 58 min average speaking time.
his laughter is soft but broken, hands spanning up to grip your hips like handles. the kind of cooing that makes your stomach both twist and flutter. his heavy hips plunge into yours while you jerk away and gasp like you can’t help it. but he doesn’t let you get far at all. he’ll let you move just to drag you back by your ankle, both of you knowing you don’t really want him to stop. he pulls you back towards him with a low chuckle, fingers delicate as they descend between your legs.
condescending in his care, dick pouts when you whine and will remind you how much you’d beg for it. his words and his chuckles echo in the corners of your mind as he ruins you for the nth time.
“but you were so adamant on needing me before, hmm?” “you can give me another.” “take what you begged for.” “right there? god, you’re so precious.” “such a needy thing.”
you don’t know what to do with the feelings he’s creating.
he makes the same sounds as you just to amplify yours. mouth gaping at the same time as you to mimic and mock. he repeats the movements, the same defeating thrusts over and over until you’re a sobbing mess. his fingers rubbing tightly on the sensitive nub, not stopping even when you grasp at him and drag your nails down desperately. dick moans loud and proud, the sound like symphony to your ears. he fucks you deeper then, drilling like a man on a mission.
then he’ll kiss the tears on your cheeks, getting more worked up by the salty taste when a low groan slips his lips. but he’ll smile proud when you shatter, just to do it all over again.
summary: dick grayson can't seem to make you swoon, no matter how hard he tries, until he finally does!
tags: 18+ mdni, kissing, smallest argument with comfort, fluff, not proofread!
2843 words
based off this request -- thank you for sending it in! once again, I cannot write anything short. i'm working on it!!
read part two here!
check out the moodboard here!
You hated Dick Grayson.
He was disgustingly charming, holding a brightness in his eyes that paralleled the beauty of the galaxy. He knew how to wield that power. He was gorgeous, devastatingly so. His face was a perfect canvas of symmetrical visage.
You knew it, and he knew it.
You could see it in the way that other women in the office treated him – the fluttery lashes, the lip bites, the attempts at small, lingering touches – and how he smirked right back, giving them a false sense of hope. You refused to be a part of his roster, refused to be another person that was hypnotized by his charm. Your resistance didn’t deter his efforts, much to your dismay. Yet, despite your annoyance towards his presence, you knew he was anything but malicious. You knew he was harmless in his actions, simply just having fun.
Bruce Wayne was unpredictable in his office appearances. Oftentimes, you were left there alone to pick up the slack alongside Lucius Fox. You had no prior business experience that had prepared you for this role, so you were surprised when you were offered the position.
Today, in particular, was a harder day for you. Being Bruce’s assistant was challenging, despite all the perks that came with the job. December was the hardest month at the company – meetings, preparations for the new year, securing deals, galas – it was a constant weight on your shoulders that you weren’t able to leave at the office.
Neither Lucius, nor Bruce were in office today. Neither had been all week, leaving you to take on the brunt of the work in their absence. Dick, for the most part, was the one filling in for what you couldn’t do.
You hated how easy he made it seem. He came in, handled the meetings, handled whatever paperwork or phone call required of him, and did his work as if it was the easiest thing in your world.
You, on the other hand, were drowning. Your head was already under the water and you were losing air quickly. No matter how much you tried to claw to the surface, to break even on the amount of work you had to get done, several more tasks were added to your to-do list. Each task took you longer than you would like to admit, simply because you were afraid of ruining things. You had to teach yourself how to complete the tasks to the same standard of Bruce, Lucius, or Dick, as none of this was originally in your job description. Dealing with Dick wasn’t in your job description either.
“There’s my favourite girl! How are we doing today, beautiful?” Dick’s voice cut through the quiet space as he planted himself on your desk. He flashed a bright, charming smile down at you as he lounged comfortably on your desk. His arms crossed over his chest, the fabric of his shirt stretching against the bulging of his muscles. He could sense the tension radiating off your body, all he wanted was to see that pretty smile that you always tried to hide from him.
You were too engrossed in reading the file by one of Wayne’s Enterprise’s partners to acknowledge Dick. One monitor had the file pulled up, while you used the other to research terms and proper practices. Your brow was furrowed as you attempted to make sense of the words in the file.
His finger came up and gently twisted a strand of your hair around his finger, “nearing quitting time, sweetheart, you gonna let me take you out for dinner?” he rumbled smoothly, his head ducking in an attempt to enter your line of vision. His finger carefully untwisted your hair and gently smoothed the strand back against your head.
“Busy,” you mumbled back, letting out a puff of breath as you squinted at your notes, attempting to make sense of the numbers that were being listed in the file. His touch began to overwhelm you, invading your mind and derailing your train of thought.
“Come on,” he whined softly, his thumb coming up to your forehead in an attempt to smooth out the tense skin between your brows. “Gotta make sure you’re eating, yeah? I know a good spot over on-”
“Can you stop-” you snapped at him, slapping his hand away. Your eyes were fire, red with anger. He had never seen this side of you before, never seen you even raise your voice, despite how much he knew he toyed with you. “I’m busy. I don’t want to get dinner with you. I don’t want to do anything with you. Go ask one of your other playthings,”
He said there quietly for a moment, stunned by your sudden outburst. “Sweetheart, I-”
“I’m not your ‘sweetheart’, Dick. I have had a horrible week because I’ve been too busy trying to pick up your shit, and I have a lot to get done still. So, please, leave me alone. I’m sure you have 14 other girls on your list that you can take to dinner right now,” you seethed out again, cutting off his attempt at a response. The office went dead quiet, though you couldn’t bring yourself to be embarrassed. There was too much to get done, too much on your mind, you didn’t need his shallow flirting to make things worse. You didn’t need empty promises, you didn’t need to be a game for Dick to win.
He sat there quietly again, still stunned by your words. A glob of spit pooled in his mouth, practically choking him as he forgot how to work his motor functions for a moment. He made you mad. He was trying to make you smile, but he did the opposite?
“Right, yeah…” he murmured softly, standing up quietly from your desk. You turned back immediately to the file, immersing yourself back into the work at hand. He lingered behind you, his gaze roving over your form one last time. He didn’t want to leave you like this. He knew that you were under an immense amount of pressure this week. He had done everything he could to alleviate the workload on your shoulders. He did paperwork, responded to emails, took calls before you could get to them – yet your workload never ceased to decrease.
“You have a meeting in 20 minutes, Richard, I emailed you the notes,” you snapped out quietly, not turning to look at him. Your clipped tone paired with the formality halted him in his tracks. Richard? You hadn’t called him that since your first week as Bruce’s secretary.
He remained in a slight daze as he walked into Bruce’s office and planted himself in the chair. Was it something he said? He thought he was making progress in charming you, making you see that he was serious about his feelings for you, and he was planning to say it explicitly for you if you had agreed to dinner with him. But then again, you had said you had a hard week. It was a hard week. For everyone. The company. Gotham’s crime rate had skyrocketed and required all hands on deck. Everyone was being stretched thin.
Dick, however, was used to this chaos. He thrived in the bustle of stepping in for Bruce at the company when needed, and patrolling into the early hours of the night. His entire life was a masquerade, a show.
He knew you did not share that same lifestyle – obviously. He had watched you on numerous occasions, scaled the rooftops on your journey home to ensure you made it home safe. Sometimes, patrol had conveniently situated him across from your apartment window, allowing him to keep an eye on the neighbourhood and over you at the same time. You were quiet, a steady calm in the tornado of his life. His heart, once impenetrable, was consumed by you.
God, he felt like an asshole now. He could make it up to you? right?
The sharp ring of the phone interrupted his thoughts. He leaned back in his seat, taking a breath, before a smile plastered on his face. “Michael Holt! Pleasure to hear from you-”
────୨ৎ────
You successfully avoided Dick for the rest of the work day. Whatever correspondence that was needed between the two of you was done over email. You managed to slip out of the building without being cornered by anyone. Your breath had been caught in your chest all day. There was no amount of air that was able to fill your lungs enough to give you the satisfaction of a proper breath. You felt like you were in a daze until you got home.
You dreaded stepping into the office building the next morning. You knew people were going to be whispering about your encounter with Dick. Perhaps about the lack of professionalism that you displayed. You didn’t care.
There were a few of your coworkers in the office, the early birds getting a head start on their workday. Each give you a small nod of greeting as you passed by. The room was quiet, the low energy of all the staff affecting the atmosphere on the floor.
You had expected to be met with a mountainous pile of paperwork on your desk, like everyday of the past week. To your surprise, there was a singular note.
Come into the office.
R.G.
Stepping into Bruce’s office was nerve-wracking. You didn’t want to face Dick. The way his face had fallen after your outburst caused a crack to split down your chest – seeping with guilt and tar.
The office was empty, cold with the lack of Dick’s presence. The only sign of life was a small basket placed on top of the coffee table that was situated in the lounge area of Bruce’s office. The brown, woven basket’s lid was closed, sealing off the contents from your view. Another note with Dick’s elegant scrawl was placed on top. The note began with your name, and you tried not to acknowledge his usual pet name for you missing from the note.
I know you’ve had a hard week. We would be lost here without you. I got you a little something as a token of my (our?) no, MY appreciation. Please accept it. And accept my apology for angering you, I thought I was doing the opposite. Don’t worry about your to-do list, I took care of it already. Take a half day today – think of it as an early weekend! Yay! Enjoy.
R.G.
You sat down on the chair, reading over the words quietly. Your fingers quietly lifted the lid of the basket. The crack in your chest deepened as you gazed at the contents of the basket.
At the very back was a fluffy blue pyjama set, soft and warm under the tips of your fingers. Stuffed beside it was a small box of calming tea, surrounded by some of your favourite snacks – how did he know?. There were facemasks, cozy socks, a candle, a card to some ridiculously expensive spa, and… a small, homemade coupon book?
He did all of this for you? All the hard work you had put into keeping him out of your heart had crumbled by this gesture. Your heart was singing at the effort put into this basket.
You opened the coupon and immediately rolled your eyes at the contents. Though, you had to fight to keep the smile of amusement from breaking onto your face. You hated how he made you feel, how the thoughts of him always seemed to infiltrate your mind.
Of course, Dick would make a homemade coupon book.
“Good for: one free kiss”
“Good for: one dinner date”
“Good for: one free slap”
“Good for: one free kiss!!”
“Good for: pass off your to-do list onto Dick”
"Good for: ONE FREE KISS!!!!!!”
You rolled your eyes again and moved to flip to the next coupon when the door swung open. Dick’s large frame stopped in the doorway. His eyes roved over you in momentary shock. Your heart lurched as you stood up quickly.
“You’re here early. You usually aren’t here until 9,” he breathed out, shutting the door quietly and stepping closer. He left distance so as to not startle you, afraid you would bolt out of the office once given the chance.
“Had a lot that needed to be done… um.. Thank you for taking care of it,” you responded back, your flickering between the basket and him. He smiled softly and stopped beside you. His delicate walk never failed to amaze you – the way he moved with grace, always sure of his body’s movements, and with perfect motor symmetry.
“Happy to, Swe-” he coughed, cutting himself off. His fingers fidgeted as if he didn’t know what to do with them – something you had never seen from him before.
“I was just leaving. Was hoping to be out of your way when you got here so that you could focus. Use the spa giftcard today,” his tone was gentle, a quiet murmur in the dimly lit office. The rain had cast a prominent gloom in the already present darkness of Gotham.
“Thank you for the basket,” you whispered in return, your eyes flickering up to meet him.
“Of course,” he murmured, the knuckle of his finger gently brushing the underside of your jaw. “You’re wearing the same outfit as yesterday?”
You looked down at your clothes, your hands smoothing over the top. Embarrassment flooded your cheeks in the form of heat. “Yeah…”
“I love this outfit on you,” he added softly, nudging your chin back up to face him. You pressed your lips together in response.
“Dick, I’m…”
“I know, don’t worry. It’s okay,” he whispered back, the tiniest hint of a smile breaking through his lips. “There’s… there are no other girls, by the way. You said yesterday that I have other girls. I see why you think I would, but I don't. I only want one.”
“Can I use one of these coupons right now?” you asked softly, your fingers sliding the cardstock material back and forth. He nodded slightly, leaning closer. His nose gently nudged against yours. The warmth of his hands slowly slid up the back of your waist, hooking into the fabric of your top.
The quiet rip of the paper echoed softly in the space between you as you gave him a soft smile.
“Close your eyes,” you whispered, slipping the coupon into his pocket. You waited until he shut his eyes before a small smile spread onto your lips. You took a moment to admire the beauty of his features. Strong features, angular jaw. The definition of perfect. Beautiful.
The crack of your hand meeting his cheek left him silently stunned. His eyes flew open in shock as he blinked down at you. “I deserved that… but what the fuck?”
Your laugh immediately filled the space, pulling the coupon out of his pocket to show which one you had chosen to cash in – “Good for: One free slap”.
A pout formed on his plump lips, his eyes filling with betrayal. “There were FOUR free kiss coupons for you to choose from!” he whined, pulling you in by the waist again. “FOUR!”
You continued to laugh, your hand coming up to gently soothe the skin of his cheek. You were both aware that the slap did not hurt him. His cheek had barely reddened in colour.
“One of them even has extra emphasis on the fact that it’s a free-”
You cut him off by pressing your lips softly to his. Your hands gently pulled him close by the black hairs on the nape of his neck, silencing his whining. His mouth was warm and sugary with the taste of sweetened coffee. He let out a soft breath of relief into your mouth, immediately relaxing into the kiss. His strong arms wrapped around you completely, pulling you into the hard planes of his body.
“Fuck, you’re so… fuck,” he mumbled into your mouth, his lips turning ravenous against yours as a sudden desperation filled the room. He pulled you closer, his lips devouring yours in a way that left you dizzy. You let out another soft giggle into his mouth, gently biting down on the pillowly skin of his bottom lip.
He ripped himself back, forcing his forehead against yours. His breathing was ragged, his lips wet with spit. He looked utterly destroyed, disheveled, with half-lidded eyes. His hands cupped over your cheeks, holding you close to his face.
“Again, please. Please let me kiss you again, I-” he breathed out softly, his nose nudging against yours again. Every fibre of his being was pleading, you could sense it in his breaths, in his grip on your voice, and the lower frequencies of his voice. “You’re so beautiful, taste so good, can I, please?”
“Yes, but first…” you smiled softly, leaning back fractionally. The sound of paper ripping filled his ears again before you held up another coupon in the space between the two of you.
“Good for: one dinner date”
an: I don't know if this is exactly what the request asked for??? but I had fun writing it anyways. THANK YOU FOR SENDING IT IN!!! I would make this into a universe if I have enough ideas, or if you do. thoughts are being thunk
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.
